PS5 news: Sony's been keeping this PlayStation 5 technology secret

Earlier this year, PS5 lead symptom architect Mark Cerny gave a presentation highlighting the incredible technology contained in the console. Much has been made of the PS5's advanced solid state drive, said to eliminate loading times and revolutionise level design by no longer needing "corridors" used to disguise partial loading. 

However, one thing not touched on very much was the cooling system the PS5 will use. Cerny said the PS5 will run on "constant power" all the time. Rather than force the cooling system to run at varying different levels, the console will constantly remain at the right temperature. 

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Cerny did not elaborate on how this cooling system would work, only saying the following:

"We then tackled the engineering challenge of a cost-effective and high-performance cooling system, designed for that specific power level. As for the details of the cooling solution, we're saving them for our teardown. i think you'll be quite happy with what the engineering team came up with."

However, Dutch news outlet LetsGoDigital has spotted a PS5 patent filed last November, detailing a wealth of information on how the PS5 development kit has been cooling the incredible machine. Given the extreme power of the machine, a high-performance cooling system is of course necessary for the console to run, and Sony has gone in-depth in the following document.

There's several moving parts to this advanced-sounding cooling system, detailed in depth in the patent documentation. That distinctive v-shape we've seen in the development kit seems to be used as a heat sink, which multiple cooling fans use to funnel air from one side of the "v" to the other. The now-cool air passes over and through the power supply unit before leaving the console through the open vents.

It's worth nothing this isn't the consumer version of the console, just the development kits. However, we've seen plenty of information (such as icons in leaked photos of the PS5 UI) suggesting the final console might follow a similar design, which still incorporates the V.

The PS5 development team has rumoured to be struggling with the cooling system, which is why the details weren't divulged in the presentation. Could the cooling system be the key detail that influences the console's final design? If Cerny and team are being held back from a sleeker design because of logistics, we may see a final PS5 console design cleaving closer to the dev kits than some gamers will like.

The PS5 and its rival, the Xbox Series X, are both due to launch during the Holiday 2020 period. Marketing is beginning to ramp up, with the PS5 games stream waiting to be rescheduled and the first PS5 game, Scarlet Nexus, officially launching its pre-order page.

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