Everything we know about Sony's PlayStation 5 so far
The next generation of gaming consoles is here at last with the arrival of Sony’s PlayStation 5. After 7 years, a follow-up to the PlayStation 4 has landed in the UK, and it’s an absolute powerhouse device – if you can get your hands on one, that is.
With brilliant 4K graphics, staggeringly fast loading times, smoother framerate, and an ever-growing list of top games to play, the PS5 has become the ultimate entertainment machine.
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Though, if you follow gaming news, you’ll know it’s become almost impossible to buy one online, and those who managed to get one around Christmas time were extremely lucky.
Releasing at the same time as Microsoft’s next-gen consoles, the Xbox Series X and Series S, Sony had a battle on their hands to get their PS5 into homes across the country and stop gamers from jumping ship.
If you’ve been thinking about picking one up, check out out full buying guide of the PlayStation 5 below.
PlayStation 5 review
Digital Spy has been lucky enough to have received a PlayStation 5 console for review, and have written our thoughts out.
We have also managed to play most of the next-gen games to release on the PS5, and you can check out our reviews for some of those below.
Spider-Man Miles Morales review
PlayStation 5 specs
As you can see from the specs above, the PS5 is much more powerful than the older PS4.
As far as the hardware goes, the PS5 has eight Zen 2 cores clocking around double the speed of the old PS4 at 3.5Ghz. The custom AMD RDNA 2 GPU is also a solid upgrade over last gen’s custom GCN GPU.
This might all look like letter spaghetti, but it all forms to give the new console the ability to display 4K graphics at 60FPS, all with the shiny new ray-tracing feature.
Ray-tracing is a new technique to game developers and allows them to realistically render light and sound inside the game, enhancing immersions and making your levels look even more realistic.
We also have a new SSD installed, which is responsible for the PS5’s lightning-quick load-times. Forget minute-long loading screens and waiting for an eternity for the game to boot up.
You can now flick between games in seconds, loading up saves and bouncing through menus almost instantaneously. This also means games will be bigger and more complex, as there’s more storage capacity and power to draw from in order to make your games more expansive.
Compared to Microsoft’s Xbox Series X, the PlayStation 5 has marginally lower specs overall, though we think, having played both consoles, that you’ll never even notice the difference.
It might all seem a bit confusing when looking at the inner-workings of the PS5, but rest assured that your games will look incredibly good, will load fast, and will be bigger than ever before – dreamy.
What games can you play on PlayStation 5?
Speaking of all this hardware and technical wizardry is all fine and good, but what we're all concerned with are the games themselves.
The PS5 launched with four exclusive games in the UK back in November 2020: Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Sackboy: A Big Adventure, Demon's Souls, and the pre-installed Astro's Playroom. The first two can also be played on PS4.
It was a bit of a lacklustre start to life, but all of these games are top-notch.
Demon's Souls is a remake of the original PS3 exclusive from FromSoftware, upgrading the graphics, frame rate and overall tone of the game for a new generation.
Miles Morales is a sequel to the smash-hit PS4 game, where you take on the role of Peter Parker’s young protege, Miles Morales. New York City is dappled in snow, and you must fight to keep the streets clean from bad guys, as regular Spidey takes a well-earned vacation.
Since then, we have had a few cross-brand titles that are available on other consoles, like Assassin's Creed Valhalla, Watch Dogs: Legion, and Cyberpunk 2077 (though this is currently off the PlayStation Store while CD Projekt Red looks to fix the myriad problems for that game).
As far as Sony exclusives go, the rest of 2021 is looking a bit dry. Returnal is hitting consoles in April, and Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, is coming June 11 . We also have Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade arriving the day before on June 10.
Deathloop is coming to both PC and PS5 on May 21 which should be an interesting game to play, and Outriders lands on all platforms on April 1.
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The ongoing coronavirus pandemic has certainly made it tough for developers to push games out in time, so many titles like Far Cry 6 and Ghostwire: Tokyo have been pushed back to later in the year.
There’s also a few games in the distant future to look forward to. SIE Santa Monica Studios announced it will be releasing God of War: Ragnarok at some point, and we will be getting Horizon Forbidden West as a sequel to Zero Dawn too.
PlayStation 5 stock and best deals
We spend a lot of our time scouring the internet to find top deals and offers, but even we have been stumped finding consistent stock of the PlayStation 5 online.
Most retailers have had units at some point over the last few months, but the console has kept it’s gold dust-esque qualities and been tough to find.
These are the top digital stores who have been selling consoles but, as you can see, most are completely out of stock.
Amazon: Out of Stock
Laptops Direct: Out of Stock
Currys: Out of Stock
John Lewis: Out of Stock
Game: Out of Stock
Argos: Out of Stock
You can head over to your stock-watch article here to keep an eye on when new offers and stock drops throughout the year.
What is the PS5 DualSense controller like?
There are two new pieces of tech to come to the new DualSense controller. The first is a new haptic feedback system that replaces the "rumble" vibrations of the controller.
The haptic motion of the controller will give you better feedback on what is happening in-game – whether it's a grenade going off nearby, an engine revving beneath your feet, or the thud of a punch in a fighting game.
These sensations will even stretch to walking through grass, or fighting through mud and give you a real sense of what you’re doing on screen through your fingertips.
Not many games have managed to utilise this tech very well so far, but we expect developers to get more creative as we go deeper into the PS5 lifecycle.
The second update is to the triggers, and Sony has followed Microsoft's lead with adaptive trigger technology. This means the triggers have better resistance and feedback to what you're doing in-game.
Whether you're slowly accelerating in a car, or drawing a bow and arrow, you will feel the triggers resist to what you are doing realistically and it'll compliment the haptic feedback to let you know – through your fingertips – exactly what you are doing.
This will mean individual guns will fire differently in your hands – a shotgun will feel more like a pressure-trigger than a full-on assault rifle – or you will feel actual resistance if you need to use the trigger to push open a door.
There's all sorts of accessories and additional extras you can get with the PS5, ranging from external hard drives, headsets, and the shiny new controller, so check out our top accessories article here.
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