Sony Announces PS5 Pricing: $499 For Regular Console, $399 For Digital Edition

At Sony’s PlayStation 5 Showcase this afternoon, the final (and much awaited) pieces of the puzzle with regards to the console’s launch have dropped: pricing and a release date.

Sony’s next-generation console will launch on Thursday, November 12^th. The full version of the console, which includes a Blu-ray disc drive, will launch at $499. Meanwhile the “Digital Edition” of the console, which foregoes optical storage entirely, will release for a surprising $399, a full $100 cheaper despite only giving up a disc drive.

This will put Sony’s launch 2 days after Microsoft’s own Xbox Series X/S launch, which is taking place on Tuesday, November 10^th. The $499 price tag for the two companies’ respective flagship consoles will put them in direct competition, while the PS5 Digital Edition/Xbox Series S divide should prove far more interesting – if not a bit frustrating for consumers trying to make the best choice. The discless PS5 is every bit as powerful as its disc-capable sibling – making it a spoiler of sorts at $399 – whereas the Xbox Series S gets a significantly weaker GPU than the Xbox Series X. However at $299 the slimmed down console is cheaper still, and still gets to run next-gen games.

Next-Gen Console Specs
	PlayStation 5	PlayStation 5 Digital Edition	Xbox Series S	Xbox Series X
CPU	8 Core AMD Zen 2 @ 3.5 GHz w/SMT		8 Core AMD Zen 2 @ 3.6 GHz @ 3.4 GHz w/SMT	8 Core AMD Zen 2 @ 3.8 GHz @ 3.6 GHz /wSMT
GPU	36 CU AMD RDNA2 @ 2.23GHz		20 CU AMD RDNA2 @ 1.565 GHz	52 CU AMD RDNA2 @ 1.825 GHz
GPU Throughput (FP32)	10.28 TFLOPS		4 TFLOPS	12.15 TFLOPS
Memory	16GB GDDR6 @ 14Gbps		10GB GDDR6 @ 14Gbps	16GB GDDR6 @ 14Gbps
Memory Throughput	16GB@448GB/sec (256-bit)		8GB@224GB/sec (128-bit) 2GB@56GB/sec (32-bit)	10GB@560GB/sec (320-bit) 6GB@336GB/sec (192-bit)
Storage	825GB PCIe4 x4 SSD		512GB PCIe 4 x2 SSD	1TB PCIe 4 x2 SSD
Storage Throughput	5.5GB/sec		2.4GB/sec
Storage Expansion	NVMe Slot PCIe4 x4		Xbox Storage Expansion Card (1TB)
Disc Drive	4K UHD Blu-Ray	No	No	4K UHD Blu-Ray
Manufacturing Process	TSMC 7nm	TSMC 7nm	TSMC 7nm	TSMC 7nm
Launch Date	2020/11/12		2020/11/10
Launch Price	$499	$399	$299	$499

Or if you’re in the mood for a PC (a platform we’re particularly partial towards), over the next couple of months we will be seeing new hardware launches there as well, including NVIDIA’s $500 GeForce RTX 3070, and AMD’s new RDNA2-based Radeon RX 6000 video cards. So there is no shortage of gaming hardware to be had this fall – at least if you have the cash.