You can also notice the difference in cooling design. Sony has 2 heatsinks, a large and complex heatsink on the top with many heatpipes for cooling the APU and a small heatsink on the back for cooling just the VRMs stuck to the backplate with its own heatpipe(holy cow!) while XBOX is just a large copper plate with aluminum fins saving Microsoft tons in materials and build cost but they had better done their math right to make sure that it will be enough.
Sony had balls to go this route, I'll give them that. Respect.
I suspect Sony didn't penny pinch since they plan to make most of their money back from sales of games and services(ala Apple) while Microsoft probably wants to make more from the hardware itself(ala Android devices).
I have no dog in this fight, but my favorite part is the PS5 consumer friendly expandable storage via M.2 PciE drives(Yeeey!) vs the XboX overpriced and proprietary SSD cartridges(Booo!).
This is pretty much the opposite of their stated strategy, which is to make money off services like Game Pass by ensuring that the consoles are accessible and all of their first-party games work across multiple generations / levels of consoles [0].
The PS5 was reportedly "considerably" more expensive before xbox announced their price [1], and Sony has been clear that game prices will go up for next gen and they're not focusing on cross-generation compatibility, so I do believe you're right that Sony at least expects to get it back on the games.
[0]: https://www.businessinsider.com/xbox-vs-playstation-microsof... [1]: https://bgr.com/2020/09/11/ps5-price-and-release-date-vs-xbo...
Nowadays that bay is very useful for booting games off any HDD. SATA is also supported by using a IDE->SATA board.
[1] https://www.pushsquare.com/guides/which-ssd-drives-will-be-c...
It would be far faster to move a game from external HDD back to the Velocity SSD before playing than to download the entire game again from the internet.
Feels like a money grab tbh.
They did: "A USB 3.1 drive can also carry Xbox Series games as storage, which can be transferred to Series X or S's internal SSD or Storage Expansion Card to then be played."
https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/xbox-series-ssd-expansion...
Maybe Sony expected MS to aim higher again, and this time it was MS who undercut.
I’m sure their internal strategy is to make money on the hardware, software and services. Basically everything. As Apple has shown, it’s not necessarily the worst plan.
I actually like the simplicity of their design. The white one has a bit of Dieter Rams in it. The black tower is just that.
Form must follow function and the console itself has few simple functions: to house and properly cool the computer inside, and to make it easily accessible for repair and upgrades. It's hardly surprising it has few simple lines.
OTOH, the PS5 has a lot of lines to disguise a huge heat exchanger. It's not obvious how to even power it on.
The ps5 is designed to be eye catching which I think is a mistake because most people probably don't want a game console to be the centre of attention in the room.
I’ve also heard some speculation that the curvy shape is specifically designed to keep people from impeding cooling by stacking things on top of it.
On the other hand I agree that looks won’t be the deciding factor for any potential buyer - casual or not.
Not really a planet, but a stage in life called marriage.
There are certain part of the world where Playstation has to be disguised as a new super fast WiFi Router called Plash Speed ( PS ).
I recall a very funny PS3 barbeque meme floating around, back in the day. To say nothing of them using the Spider-Man font
It'll be hard to hate a box you'll never even notice.
I can imagine this being snuck into workplaces and when the PHB asks what it is the reply is it’s a router or NAS box.
Thought the exact same thing. I am a huge fan of the Xbox designs. The white one specifically reminds me of an upright Dieter Rams designed Braun turntable [1].
...and as I finish typing the section above I find this [2]. Looks like someone else already had the idea.
[1] https://musicologistblog.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/braun-p... [2] https://au.phaidon.com/agenda/design/articles/2020/september...
... yeah I don't even have last generation consoles but I'm considering this new generation.
I think the power and eject buttons are the two lines on the bottom when its standing up
From purely aesthetics I do think the new Xbox is the better looking and more modern looking machine, although the gigantic PS5 heatsink is going to help a lot with noise.
This is a pattern, the PS3 and PS4 both had end-user accessible bays which contain a 2.5" HDD. Any drive can be formatted even from blank using the console's safe mode.
> the XboX overpriced and proprietary SSD cartridges
This is also a pattern. The original Xbox and Xbox One had internal hard drives that were not end-user serviceable. The Xbox 360 used 2.5" HDDs in cases. The original 360 drives had a special port on the cases, for whatever reason. The 360 S/E drives used regular SATA connections, it's plainly obvious looking at one that the connector is just the edge of a 2.5" HDD.
I only hope Microsoft has tested their cooling solution better than the 360 era. I don't want another RRoD situation.
Looks at the Surface hinges
Microsoft spends a lot more time on engineering their hardware than that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiQ2nAQG7Mk
That's all well and good but I fear it won't fit inside a lot of media centers. The PS5 is big but it fits inside the envelope of an A/V Receiver.
I thought Apple seems to do the opposite: they constantly raise iPhone prices while cutting features that increase manufacturing cost (eg. replacing the headphone jack with an empty hole large enough to fit a lightning→3.5mm dongle), and I’ve heard Apple fans argue here, I think more than once, that Apple is able to offer less profiteering (more privacy friendly) software because they make so much on hardware.
Also, the blower fan is interesting. Though, like you said, there is a lot of stuff in there to push air through, plus dust filters (yay!), so it probably made sense to go with static pressure over pure volume of airflow.
Early indications are not great[0]. Granted, the most noticeably hot part of a system should be the exhaust.
[0]: https://www.pcmag.com/news/multiple-reports-suggest-xbox-ser...
In that sense, maybe the PS5 will have an advantage here by being large, because there's more surface area to work with so it won't feel like a little furnace, even if both consoles end up having no thermal problems (in terms of the chips overheating, etc)
Claims that the console is toasty even while idle are suspicious, though. It really shouldn't be drawing that much power while idle, so I hope that's not true at launch. So much hardware has this problem though... my macbook's USB C dock is almost a fire hazard with how warm it gets even when it's not in use.
When I saw how nice everything looked my first thought was that they’re going to release an updated “slim” console in, like, a year after launch that cuts a lot more corners. They get lots of hype to encourage sales up front by packing a ton of value in the launch model. That encourages more people to buy into the ecosystem and then they launch a future one that designed with higher margins in mind.
And both company are not making much if anything from Hardware. The profits are all in games. That is part of the reason why Games is getting more expensive with every gen.
We need some real innovation to help driving Game development cost down, especially with respect to Graphics.
"Microsoft has no taste": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KdlJlHAAbQ
as true now as it was in the early 90's.
Which is incredibly ironic given how long it took Sony to adopt standard storage devices in the past. I think they were literally the last camera manufacturer to support CF and SD cards.
But more importantly the big goal of building in the SSD is so that games can be designed with no load times, which beats any loading time number you can hit.
You sure about that number? That would be close to 2X faster SSD than Apple uses in new MBPs and they are already insanely fast compared to most SSDs. Would love a source if you have it.
2) it doesn’t matter anyway, the SSDs actual read speed is 5.5GB/sec (aka 44Gbps) raw performance. About the only mass market consumer targeted drive I know of (could be others of course) that’s faster is the one I mentioned in a sibling comment (Sabrent M2 Gen4 tops out at 5GB/sec for example) Further, without having heard officially myself, I believe this confirms its PCIe 4.0 bus internally (which wouldn’t be surprising given other specs I know), as if memory serves PCIe 3.0 can’t get that high.
Oh how the turntables.
Ignoring the fact that the 360 isn’t the original Xbox... which is what I literally said.
This is a custom screw that 99.9% of users will never see (guessing at that number of course) but they put it in anyway. That must have been a lot of work.
This is the kind of industrial design that needs to happen more.
Turns out there's a tool for that!
https://toolguyd.com/pb-swiss-tools-coin-driver-theres-a-scr...
In Japan the standard variety of "coin drivers" are the local equivalent of $4.99 so they can compete with the humble $5 coin.
Jokes aside, it's very impressive.
I mostly agree with you, but Dell has an 8K monitor (albeit fugly in comparison) for around $3500 including stand (if memory serves).
Simple is always better, and in this case, something that PC case manufacturers have been doing for some time now are screws that never fully detach even after being unscrewed. It does the exact same job without having all these extra steps and complicated UX.
Completely. It's cute and all. But the better engineering design is to make a console that can stand without a... stand. No parts to lose, no assembly/disassembly process. Just turn the device on its side. Now where have I seen that lately?
Edit: When he pulls up on that one side of the white cover and then the whole thing pops off, I thought, "Sony would be good at designing serviceable androids."
Japanese thought process of a machinery is it is made of machined metal and infinite numbers of 3mm screws. Look at a Casio watch. There should be four Phillips screws on the backplate. Two extra on sides and four more, if it's rubber exterior ones. A Rolex, has zero. Just like that. First choice of fasteners to join any two arbitrary parts is a pair of 3mm screws. If a joint has to articulate, there should be a pin on one side, hole on the other, and a 3mm screw to seal off the end. If it has to slide, tapped hole on a bar and a half threaded screw.
It's cultural thing. I'm from Japan so an "eerie" lack of screws still confuse me sometime when disassembling non-Japanese things.
I wish MS would also poke fun at Sony's "We believe that PS5 games should take advantage of the new capabilities and features we're bringing to the platform" statement attempting to justify why PS4 controllers won't work with PS5 games, meanwhile most launch titles are cross-gen or might come to PC.
Why not use a captive screw so it can't fall out, and design a console with a flat bottom so no rotation/moving parts are needed?
My sense is that it’s all just a way to help make the price tag feel like you’re getting something premium.