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06th Oct 2020

The first hands-on reviews for the PlayStation 5 console have arrived

Rory Cashin

Important reading if you were hoping to get a PlayStation 5 from Santy this year…

While the rest of us will have to wait until November 19 to get our hands on the new Sony console (or December 25, if it Santy delivering it to you), some journalists and professional gamers in Japan were singled out for some early access to the PlayStation 5.

Respected games outlets 4Gamer and Famitsu were able to check out the console itself, the controller, and two of the launch titles, and all of the feedback was been universally positive.

Firstly, it is confirmed to be Sony’s biggest console yet (so make sure you’ve got a nice space for it), and while the machine is said to be quite robust and “chunky” in its proportions, the reviewers did state that to the eye, it appeared a lot slimmer and smaller than it actually was.

The second big take away is just how quiet it is. As anyone who has owned a previous-gen console can tell you, if the action on-screen gets a bit hectic, it sounds like a fan-belt inside the console is about to fly off and go bouncing around the room. Not so with the PS5, with reports stating the new cooling system is “near silent”, which is great news if you want to get immersed in the sound of the game and not distracted by what sounds like a low-grade vacuum hoover.

The new controller got some special mention, including the fact that it includes “haptic feedback”, as opposed to the current rumble technology. Basically that means that the physical feedback via the controller will closer match the type of interaction on screen, from applying force, movement, and vibration through the controller to the player. It is one of those things that will make a lot more sense once you actually get your hands on it and play with it yourself.

And finally, it is apparently super fast. with reporters saying that “the speed from game over to restart was unbelievable”. The same is said to be of the initial starting of a game, so once the game itself is installed in your PS5, loading screens could essentially become a thing of the past.

So there you have it: big, quiet, and fast.

One of the games the lucky few got to test out was Godfall, which is due for release alongside the launch of the console, and you can check out the brand new intro to that game right here:

READ NEXT: A full list of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X games available at launch

Topics:

PlayStation 5