PS5 reveal: Sony unveils curvaceous new console, accessories and games– but not price

Sony has revealed the Playstation 5's curvy, monochrome new look to the world, along with a raft of games and accessories.

The gaming giant unveiled its new console to millions of viewers in a live stream on Thursday night, promising to herald the "future of gaming".

The PS5 has a smooth black-and-white design dominated by two distinctive "wings", with one version shipping without any disc drive – a milestone for an industry that is slowly abandoning physical media in favour of digital downloads.

It will launch with a new Spider-Man game featuring Miles Morales, the black protagonist established by Marvel Comics as a role model for young people of colour after the election of Barack Obama.

Sony's event had been pushed back last week amid Black Lives Matter protests across the US, saying it was not the moment for "celebration" and pledging to "stand back and allow more important voices to be heard.”

Other prominent games included a sequel to 2017's Horizon: Zero Dawn, a new Resident Evil, two entirely titles with looping timelines in the style of Groundhog Day, and a remake of the Japanese cult classic Demons' Souls.

The launch came just before Microsoft reveals the first first-party games for its competing Xbox Series X. The two companies are racing to get their competing consoles to market, with their decisions likely to influence gaming culture and habits for years to come.

Neither company has yet offered any specific launch date or price, though both are expected to launch in the holiday season.

What does it look like?

If you ask some gamers, a little weird. The PS5's innards are housed in a curved black casing sandwiched between two white panels resembling wings, an upturned collar or perhaps pointed, Lord of the Rings style Elven ears.

Perhaps this is a good thing: its stark black-and-white scheme is certainly distinctive, and the wings will apparently help get rid of the heat produced by the console running.

Still, the first pictures inspired ribbing on social media, with Twitter users likening it to "a modern campus library", "the [Nintendo] Wii cosplaying as Batman", "a reverse Oreo", a "router with a popped collar", London's Strata skyscraper and a building designed by the late British architect Zaha Hadid.

What specs will the PlayStation 5 have?

Under the hood, the Playstation 5 will be powered by a 3.5GHz eight core AMD Zen 2 central processor, a 2.23GHz graphics processing unit based on AMD's RDNA architecture, 16GB of RAM and a newly-designed 825GB solid state hard drive.

Solid state drives, consisting of memory  chips similar to those inside a US stick, are faster than the standard hard disc drives used by the PS4, and Sony has claimed the new storage system will load game content almost twice as quickly.

Here's the full list of specs:

In a milestone moment, Sony also said that one version of the PS5 would ship with no Blu-Ray drive, meaning it would rely entirely on digital downloads and internal storage to play games.

Industry observers have long predicted that disc drives might soon disappear from home consoles alongside the rise of cloud gaming, in which games run remotely in server farms and streamed to users' devices.

But Google's Stadia service, the most high-profile and ambitious attempt at cloud gaming so far, is struggling badly. You'll still be able to buy a PS5 that takes discs.

How much will the PlayStation 5 cost?

We still don't know. Sony's announcement did not include a price, although Bloomberg has previously reported that the console is likely to charge at least $470 (£376)

Such a price tag would make the console Sony’s most expensive PlayStation device, and could see the console sold for a higher price than Microsoft’s rival Xbox Series X.

Jim Ryan, the chief executive of Sony Interactive Entertainment, told gamesindustry.biz in May that Sony hopes to provide “the best possible value proposition that we can.”

“I don't necessarily mean lowest price,” Ryan said, “value is a combination of many things.”

When will the PlayStation 5 be released?

Sony has not announced the release date for its new console beyond confirming that the device will be released in the last three months of 2020, likely ahead of the Christmas season.

Where can I pre-order the PlayStation 5?  No pre-orders are available for the PlayStation 5, but Game and Currys are allowing people to register their interest through their websites to receive updates on the console as Sony prepares to release it.

Stock Informer, a website which allows people to track when products become available, says it expects pre-orders for the PlayStation 5 to become available in July or August.

What games will be on Playstation 5?

Most of Sony's announcement was devoted to new games, which the company claimed could only have been possible with the PS5's new power.

The newly-announced Spider-Man: Miles Morales was a tentpole title, alongside a remake of Demons' Souls, the highly regarded predecessor to the Dark Souls series and its spiritual sequels.

We saw the latest installments of Gran Turismo, Resident Evil, Hitman, NBA and Horizon: Zero Dawn, the latter featuring a far-future San Francisco with its skypscrapers and iconic Golden Gate Bridge overtaken by jungle.

Looping timelines, in the style of Groundhog Day, also appear to be very in, darling. Two titles – the dark space exploration game Returnal and the seemingly blaxsploitation-inspired assassination sim Deathloop – used the trope, which has previously been restricted to indie games such as 2017's The Sexy Brutale.

All players will get free access to Grand Theft Auto Online for the first three months.

Will the PlayStation 5 be backwards compatible?

Sony has confirmed that the new PlayStation 5 console will be able to play many PlayStation 4 games. Sony executive Mark Cerny said earlier this year that "the overwhelming" majority of PlayStation 4 games will work on the new console.

Supposedly, performance improvements with its new device which it says will allow even older games to run faster, reducing load times.

So far, no information has been provided on whether the PlayStation 5 will be able to run PlayStation 3 or older games.

Can I lay it on its side?

Yes. Look:

Although the PS5's unusual shape led many games to worry that it could only be stood on its end, Sony has confirmed that you can lay it flat if you are one of the many people who store their games consoles horizontally under your TV.