Plenty of sources have said so far that Sony will unveil the PlayStation 5 in February, and an announcement is likely on the way, assuming the Japanese giant plans to follow its PS4 launch playbook. Back in 2013, it all started with a PlayStation Meeting in mid-February after invitations were sent to the press in late January. A huge leak a few days ago revealed plenty of details about the PS5, filling in the many gaps from Sony’s PS5 revelations so far. But one key detail about the next PlayStation was left out of that leak, a feature that might play a massive role in keeping the console’s price down. Today, a brand new leak sheds more light on the matter, and it also gives us our first look ever at the PS5 user interface that developers have been working with.
The PS5 console design may still be a secret, but Sony’s intricate dev kit design was leaked months ago. Multiple sources have said the design below is the real deal, although that doesn’t mean the final PS5 design will look like the dev kit.
However, until a few days ago, we didn’t have images of the UI of the new console. Thankfully, that changed thanks to an anonymous tipster who posted the following photo on 4chan (via Reddit):
We’re looking at a user interface that appears similar to the PS4’s UI, and that’s expected considering that we’re looking at a dev kit. But what’s really interesting is the detail in the top-left corner, which reveals this particular kit comes with 1TB of storage.
That’s a huge detail that might be more relevant for the PS5 than the UI leak itself. Sony keeps insisting on the fact that the PS5 will feature a speedy SSD rather than a spinning drive, which will significantly increase the speed of the console, and eliminate load times. But the company never told us how much storage we’re going to get, or what type of storage for that matter.
The purpose of the dev kit is to help PlayStation developers get acquainted with the new console and eliminate as many bugs and issues before the final PS5 version ships. That means the dev kit must pack near-final components, including a brand new solid-state drive.
While the UI could always be changed down the road with a refreshed look to celebrate the new PlayStation, the hardware might not see that many changes. The 1TB SSD in the console might not be the one that ships in the consumer version, and that’s a fair point to make. But it’s likely the SSD in those dev kits is very close to the final product. After all, Sony must make sure the SSD performs as well as it should. And the best way to test it out is to provide developers the actual SSD that’s been crafted for the PS5.
With all that in mind, it makes sense to assume that Sony is making a 1TB version of the PS5. In fact, 1TB should be the minimum storage tier for the next console. Storage needs have increased significantly in the past few years for all industries, gaming included. A console as powerful as the PS5 will likely motivate developers to push the limits of what’s possible in games even further, and games could consume more storage than ever. After all, Sony confirmed that PS5 games will come on 100GB Blu-ray disks, so the base PS5 storage must be decent enough to accommodate plenty of games.
Then again, Sony did reveal that PS5 games will have modular install options that will allow players to selectively download and install only the content they want to play. This could help with storage issues down the road, but many users will likely still want to install full games so the console should have at least 1TB of built-in storage.
