True to form, Sony today published, out of nowhere and with absolutely no forewarning whatsoever, the long-awaited teardown of the next-gen PS5.
In a seven-minute video, Sony Interactive Entertainment’s VP of the Mechanical Design Department, Yasuhiro Ootori, introduces the innards of the PS5 with a piece by piece strip-down of its constituent parts.
As an accompanying PlayStation Blog post confirms , Sony’s design focus is very much on efficiency, free of excess or unnecessary components.
It’s hard not to marvel at how the PS5 marries the complexity of its next-gen hardware and elaborate cooling system with a clear cut, exceedingly neat internal structure.
The real feat is, however, in the details. The PS5 oozes small, yet immensely impressive quality of life and performance features.
For example, a screw holds the stand in place when the console is oriented vertically. When not in use, the screw is stored in a purposefully designed slot in the stand itself. The screw slot also houses a small removable cap that covers and plugs the screw hole at the bottom of the PS5.
Additionally, rotating the stand covers the slot to ensure the screw does not escape, while also prepping the stand to support the console horizontally via two clips that attach to the side of the PS5.
The PS5 also includes a pair of dust catchers. The collected dust is easily vacuumed out of two holes accessed by removing the upper exterior panel.
This one will come as welcome news to PS4 owners: Sony has encased the Ultra HD Blu-ray disc drive unit in two layers of insulation as well as a sheet metal case to dampen drive noise and vibration.
With Sony’s heavy focus on cooling, the PS5’s system-on-a-chip uses liquid metal as a Thermal Interface Material. It facilitates heat transfer to the console’s heat sink. Sony says the chunky heat sink can replicate a vapor chamber’s performance, such as the one found in the Xbox Series X.
To wrap up the nifty little details found in the PS5, owners will have no trouble fitting in a third-party SSD thanks to a bay that sits under the upper white outer panels.
If today’s teardown serves as any measure of what to expect from Sony’s ‘no pixel left untouched’ user interface revamp, then we are in for a treat. Much like this one, the PS5 UI reveal will likely come out of the blue.