Remember that wacky Sony PlayStation 5 (PS5) design render that surfaced back in August? You know, the one where the thing looks more like a portable car battery charger than a next-generation gaming console? It turns out it's accurate. Seriously.
Someone, somewhere, in possession of the unit confirmed to Gizmodo that the sketch – brought to life by Let'sGoDigital – is indicative of a device that Sony sent to developers this summer so they could start creating content optimised for the PS5.
It's apparently codenamed Prospero, after the main character in Shakespeare's The Tempest.
Here's what's interesting: There are two other notable figures in the play: Gonzalo and Ariel – which just to happen to be codenames for AMD processors set to be used in both the Microsoft Xbox Two (dubbed Xbox Scarlett) and Sony PlayStation 5.
Gizmodo also received actual images of the hardware. Upon closer inspection, it found the words "PROTOTYPE 1 NOT FOR SALE" emblazoned on the front, alongside several system status indicators that likely won't be present on the final model.
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However, this isn't confirmation that the consumer model of the PlayStation 5 will look like this. Far from it, in fact. Sony is no stranger to throwing a curveball to the media and fans alike by bundling its developer hardware in an utterly obscure shell.
Sony is no fool. It knows developers will leak the device. Heck, it probably wants them to. After all, it's this discussion that fuels anticipation. So it introduces wacky design to win headlines, before launching something a lot more subtle and refined.
We're essentially looking at the bait-and-switch of the PR world.
All we know for sure is that the PS5 is powered by a custom-made AMD Navi processor. It also supports ray-tracing rendering and 8K Ultra HD out of the box, and consume less power than a PlayStation 4 when it's left to rest in standby mode.
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