We had our first glimpse at a potential design of the feverishly-anticipated Sony PlayStation 5 earlier this week when illustrations filed with a patent from the Japanese gaming company were unearthed and published online.
Based on the design filed in this patent, the entire PS5 console will be shaped like a "V" – the Roman numeral for five – with fans lining all sides of the system in a bid to keep it cool. Given that the PS4 is infamous for its noisy fans and overheating, this seems like a brilliant, if somewhat quirky, design tweak. Especially when you consider just how powerful the PlayStation will be – even compared to its forthcoming Xbox rival.
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If you were looking at the patent illustrations struggling to imagine exactly what the console would look like in the flesh, Dutch blog LetsGoDigital has come to the rescue. The technology publication has created a series of high-resolution renders of the console design so you need wonder no more.
For our money, it looks pretty slick and futuristic... if a bit like a multi-storey carpark. Or a pair of high-tech binoculars.
The fans are illuminated with cool blue lights, there is a series of touch-sensitive buttons on the front of the device to handle power, eject disc, and some of the Blu-Ray playback controls. Of course, it's very possible this isn't the final design of the PS5. Some have speculated that this is more likely to be a dev kit, something that appears to have been backed-up by at least one person in the know.
Codemasters senior artist Matthew Stott took to Twitter earlier this week to confirm the patented design was definitely a PlayStation 5. According to Stott, the latest developer kit does indeed resemble the renders included below.
"It’s a dev kit, we have some in the office,” he tweeted. It's a very unusual move for a developer to speak out around these kind of stories – after all, companies have to signed NDA agreements the length of Tolstoy's War and Peace to get early access to this hardware. That probably explains why the tweet was hastily deleted hours later.
It's worth noting that with previous console generations, it's not been uncommon for the hardware design to differ drastically between the consumer and developer models. Or it could just be a patent application that remained on the drawing board.
Another potential red flag is that the name on the patent is that of Sony engineer Yasuhiro Ootori, but it's spelled incorrectly, which is either an unfortunate typo, or a whiff of something not being quite right.
Sony is widely-tipped to launch its next console early next year. As such, it's likely the design is already locked down. As for the insides, more and more details have started to surface online about exactly what the PS5 will be capable of.
We already know that PS5 is going to be a beast of a machine that will give Microsoft's next console - codenamed "Project Scarlett" - a run for its money. Sony has officially confirmed the hardware and features that we can look forward to, including 8K resolutions, ray tracing support, and 3D audio for ultimate immersion. It will boast a speedy SSD to nip long loading times in the bud, but all of those welcome and much-needed improvements won't be cheap; the PS5 is expected to come along with a hefty price tag that will make your toes curl.
You can keep up to date with all of the latest on the upcoming console's specs, price, and release date over on T3's dedicated PS5 leaks and rumours on page. Stay tuned.
