No, The PlayStation 5 Is Not Going To Look Like This

I absolutely hate the time period before any new gaming gadget is released as it’s the time when the internet rumor mill is at its strongest and damn near everyone is chomping at the bit for information on stuff they won’t be able to buy for months. These people get so obsessed with information that others will make up pretty much everything and anything they can about whatever is coming to take advantage of this thirst for information people have.

This comes in the form of various “leaks” that are just people making crap up, some occasional posts with some merit, and, for some goddamned reason, people having an obsession with not only naming consoles before they have actual names (oddly doing this even though the systems will have perfectly usable code names; think “Xbox Two” when the Xbox Series X was called Project Scarlett, or the “Xbox 720” for the Xbox One; note the stupidity of the names) but also touting random renders as what the actual console will look like.

One of these has famously been making the rounds the past few months, being touted left and right as what the PlayStation 5 will look like. This one, oddly, was at least a render of an actual device — namely, apparently, the first development kits sent out. Yep, it’s (apparently) actual Sony hardware, but only a dev kit – certainly not at all what the system will look like when released.

The image in question, with renders very similar to these devices being pushed on YouTube and elsewhere for many months prior to this photo being circulated.

How do I know this? It’s obvious, if you pay attention to anything, for a few key reasons:

1: Release hardware almost never looks like the first generation of developer kits. Sure, in many cases the dev kits and the final hardware will be similar, especially later kits made after the release of the product, but rarely in a pre-launch system will the two resemble each other in any real capacity.

2: Sony has a design standard with the PlayStation series, and much like the PlayStation 4 followed design elements like the PlayStation 3 (namely the 2nd version, commonly called “Slim”) the PlayStation 5 will follow the aesthetic style of the PlayStation 4. Hilariously, following some rumored “design leaks” which show a much-more-like the PS4 design for the PS5, many have been making their own renderings of this modest design, as opposed to the style being presented previously.

3: The design shown above is, for all intents and purposes, terrible for a consume product in 2020. It seriously looks more like something that would have been designed back in the late 90’s when translucent plastics were all the rage and everything had to be “bubbly” in tech — not at all fitting with the sleek design which is the current trend in all things electronic. Were it even a possibility that Sony was going with that design for the actual finished product, they would likely be laughed out of every trade show imaginable. That being said, the fanboys would of course love it, but they love everything by default, so their opinions don’t matter for shit now do they?

There really isn’t much more to be said. I’m honestly surprised these topics keep on going like they do every few years, and that all this pointless speculation happens. Again, it isn’t like you’re going to be able to use this stuff until November 2020, so why care? Why debate? Why guess? Why feed stupid rumors? Just wait, enjoy what you have, and when the new crap comes out buy it, watch it break, then buy it again like everyone always does.

More to come, as always.