PS5 Slim: Sony’s thinner, lighter and costlier PlayStation to launch in November

After many rumors surrounding the release of the fabled PS5 Slim, Sony has confirmed its existence, and is coming as early as this November.

While there is much to be excited about, including some design tweaks and increased storage, Sony has done what Apple decided to do years ago. To make things unnecessarily expensive. We’ll get into it, but let’s first find out the details:

The new PS5, which Sony is not terming “Slim”, is slimmer and lighter and comes with 1TB of storage. This should not be confused with the Slim variant of PS4, which also lacked in features apart from being just slim.

Sony has confirmed that this will be the new design for PS5 models from now onwards. It has been said that the previous design will be phased out after all available models have been sold.

In a post on the PlayStation Blog, Sid Shuman, Senior Director, SIE Content Communications, said Sony created this new PS5 “to address the evolving needs of players”.

The new PS5 has been reduced in volume by more than 30 percent, and weight by 18 percent and 24 percent compared to the previous models.

There will be no changes when it comes to the console’s performance.

The most significant change coming to the gaming console is the option to add a detachable Ultra HD Blu-Ray disk drive. This is where Sony seems to have picked from Apple’s cheat sheet.

Earlier, PlayStation sold in a disk and digital variants only. With the new model, gamers can upgrade their digital PS5 variant to a disk one by adding the disk drive to it. It is, of course, sold separately.

Sony said that those who purchase the new digital-only console can purchase the attachable disc drive for $80 (approx Rs 6,500).

Not only that, Sony is selling the vertical stand separately too. The console will come with a horizontal stand. The original models came with the vertical stand in the box.

The original PS5 digital console retails for $399, but its slimmer model will now see a $50 price increase for a total of $450 (approx Rs 37,500).

The standard disk variant of the PS5 will sell for $499.99 (approx Rs 41,600).

The slim PS5 will first launch in the US in November and then start rolling out to other countries in the following months.