A year after the first whispers of a Sony PS5 dev kit being in developer hands leaked out, and six months after that interesting dev kit design surfaced via a patent, the PlayStation 5 has now entered its launch year, and the hype is already reaching fever pitch for the Xbox Series X rival.
Right now, it seems like each week dynamite new PS5 games are getting announced or leaked, and each week new details come to light revealing just how Sony plans to beat Microsoft's Xbox Series X with its PlayStation 5 powerhouse.
We're also hearing directly from Sony itself, too, who got in the PS5 reveal mood at CES 2020 the other week by unveiling the PlayStation 5's official logo.
We're also seeing a lot of that, reportedly, real PlayStation 5 dev kit actually in people's hands. And, while it remains unconfirmed if that, lets be honest, fugly console is the PS5 dev kit, we think it fair to say that gamers are currently biting their own arms off for Sony to announce the official, sold-in-shops, console's design.
That announcement will likely not happen until at least until Sony's PlayStation Experience event in February 2020, but that hasn't stopped PlayStation gamers from conceptualising how the console could look now. The most recent depiction of which comes courtesy of gamer Dan Kuhl, who built his PS5 console in PS4 early-access create-'em-up Dreams.
My PS5 concept inspired by the leaked dev kit. Had to make another small tweak no one but me will ever notice. I love Dreams.Anyone have any requests for sculpts or suggestions for this sculpt? #MadeInDreams #PS4share #DreamsPS4 #PS5 #conceptart pic.twitter.com/j24QFZuKry10 January 2020
Speaking to IGN, Kuhl stated that his design was based off the supposed dev kit, but that he "just tried to make it look like a more consumer-friendly realistic(ish) console."
And, looking at the console, that is quite evident. The distinctive V-shaped design is still there, as too the official PS5 logo, blue LED lighting and roughly rectangular design, however gone are the ridiculously large top vents (the vents are now located on the rear), and the lines and ports have been cleaned up and flattened somewhat, too.
In terms of ports, on the rear the PS5 console here has a brace of HDMI ports, a digital optical in, network port, PlayStation accessory port as well as what looks like a USB Type-C connector, while round the front a further array of 4 more USB ports, as well as a centrally-mounted disc drive slot.
Here at T3 we think it fair to say that so far this is the most realistic-looking PS5 concept since Joseph Dumary's way back in 2018. Do we think this is what the real PlayStation 5 will look like? Absolutely not. However, that is taking nothing away from the work of Kuhl who, through the game Dreams alone, has managed to bring forth a depiction of the console many gamers are currently desperate to get their hands on.
Indeed, when you conside that Kuhl is not a professional designer and yet has still managed to create something of this quality is testament to his own creativity and the power of the Dreams toolset. Dreams, which as aforementioned is currently in early-access form, is a creator game where its users can "create, play and share your own games and experiences". It's official trailer can be viewed below:
If anything, though, the one thing this new PS5 concept design does raise is just how Sony is going to counter the Xbox Series X console design. That console has taken a quite radical departure from the horizontally-orientated, rectangular box shape that has dominated Microsoft's Xbox, Xbox 360 and Xbox One consoles to date, with a marked tower design.
Will Sony follow suit? Or should we expect something plain crazy like that dev kit design? Or will the Japanese console maker play it safe and iterate of the PS4 Pro, but maybe with a few more ports, lights and maybe a screen? Right now nothing is certain, however if we were to make a guess here at T3 we'd lean more towards a safe design than anything out of left field as Sony is entering the next-gen in a position of total market dominance.
After all, Sony has sold twice as many PS4 consoles than Microsoft has sold Xbox One consoles, so to us at least it makes more sense that Microsoft would shake things up design-wise than Sony. Hopefully we will get our first official look at the PlayStation 5's design next month at Sony's PlayStation Experience event, which naturally T3 will be reporting on live, so be sure to check back in for all the news.
