PS5 Price
We’ve already done a bit of predicting and speculating when it comes to the PS5 price, having done some very very loose and basic calculations, while also trying to factor in economies of scale at the size that Sony has for its hardware.
Back in October of last year, I predicted the PS5 price to be around $399, with Sony desperately trying to roll the PS4’s momentum from this generation into the next.
I’ve had a change of heart since then. Given the global economy took a bit of a hammering the past few months, we’d expect prices to be bumped up a tiny little bit. Not to mention, the additional graphical horsepower of the PS5, all of the tech inside the DualSense, and the other improvements we’ve yet to learn about are going to cost some serious money.
Therefore, I’d be tempted to adjust my PS5 price prediction to around $449 in an attempt to keep the cost appealing, while also recouping manufacturing costs.
Whatever it ends up being, just know that we’ll likely find out how many pennies we’re going to have to save for the PS5 come the end of Thursday.
PS5 Release Date
Finally, the one bit of information we’ll all be salivating over the thought of from the moment the PS5 event begins on Thursday – the release date.
Prior to all this COVID-19 malarkey going on, I’d have predicted a mid-November 2020 release date, and been pretty confident about it. Maybe even the end of November if I was to give a couple weeks’ leeway.
Now that we’re in the middle of, and enduring the COVID-19 outbreak, I still think we’ll see a mid-November 2020 release date.
What’s worth pointing out, is the likelihood of stock shortages. Due to everything that’s happened so far this year, we wouldn’t be surprised to see the PS5 flying off shelves and struggling to keep up with the demand for a few months.
Whether or not Sony opts to push the PS5 release date to later in the year — or even the beginning of 2021 — due to this remains to be seen, but only time will tell.
Launch Lineup
We’re not going to beat around the bush for this one. Sony will want to have a good selection of first and third-party software available for day-one adopters to pick up. With all eyes on Sony this coming Thursday, it seems like the prime time to show some off.
We’ve come up with a list of 15 major titles below that we could see being announced and confirmed as part of the PS5 launch lineup below:
- Call of Duty: Black Ops 5
- Madden 21
- Assassin’s Creed Valhalla
- Fortnite
- Godfall
- Warframe
- Outriders
- Ratchet & Clank 2
- Horizon Zero Dawn 2
- Cyberpunk 2077
- Ghost of Tsushima
- The Last of Us Part II Remastered
- Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege
- Warframe
- FIFA 21
As is always the case, you can expect a handful of smaller indie titles to make up the rest of the lineup, available to download digitally on the PlayStation Store.
SSD Tech Showcase
One of the big technical leaps that players will see going from their Xbox One or PS4 moving to the PS5 is the introduction of the Solid State Drive (SSD).
An SSD for those unaware is essentially a hard drive with no moving parts. It makes it much less likely to break, and it can read and write data at much, much higher speeds than a traditional hard drive.
It can even give players a greater degree of control over game installations and how they interact with their storage device.
In other words, you’ll be able to choose whether to install the single and multiplayer parts of a game, or just one. Developers can make open worlds bigger and better than ever, or reuse assets in a more effective manner on an SSD so they can significantly shrink the install sizes of their games.
Sony’s system architect for the PS5, Mark Cerny will no doubt appear on the stage at some point to give us the technical spiel and then show off what it can do in practical terms for the user. It might not sound exciting, but it’s about to make your gaming experience a whole lot smoother.
Colors
A nice and easy one. With the release of the DualSense information earlier this year, a rather bleak reality hit many players. Their controllers, and possibly even their PS5 consoles would come in white, as opposed to black – Sony’s default hardware color ever since the PS2.
Just because the DualSense is largely white, though, doesn’t mean the console will remain the same. We’d expect at least to see a black and white console and DualSense colors confirmed, with possibly more controller colors announced for a limited-time around the launch. Red and blue anyone?
PSVR 2?
Virtual Reality is an emerging and exciting platform for video games. It’s still by no means popular enough to be considered mainstream, but as HMD manufacturers continue to tweak and improve the technology, so should its popularity.
The original PSVR for the PS4 has been a big success for Sony. It offers VR at an entry-level price and has a fantastic library of games to make it worth the initial investment. So it should come as no surprise that Sony will likely release a PSVR 2 for the PS5.
But we’re predicting that it won’t be at this event. The PS5 itself is the hot topic, and while its heftier graphical grunt will enhance VR experiences, there’re more important things to talk about right now.
We may get word on the PS5’s VR capabilities (likely in comparison to the current PS4 and PSVR combo), but as for seeing the headset or any of the experiences for Sony’s next VR hardware, don’t go holding your breath.
DualSense Rundown
We’ve already received a few details about the DualSense thanks to the PlayStation Blog, but that doesn’t mean we know everything about it.
We know it’s going to adopt the same ergonomic shape as the DualShock 4. The DualSense will have haptic feedback and adaptive triggers, and it was also revealed it’d come in a white color, with two lightbar streaks running down either side of the center section of the front of the controller.
It’ll even upgrade the DualShock 4’s ‘Share’ button. Now a ‘Create’ button, players will have new and exciting ways to share their gameplay experiences. And finally, we know it’ll have a built-in microphone array, ensuring you can have conversations with your friends whether you’ve got a headset or not.
But what exactly will that ‘Create’ button do? How long will the DualSense’s battery last? Exactly how will those adaptive triggers and haptic feedback be utilized in a variety of experiences?
With the DualSense being the primary way you’ll interact with the PS5, you can bet your bottom dollar that Sony will spend a good chunk of time talking over the new controller, and we’ll have (almost) all of the details by the time the show closes.
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