If all the recent chatter we’ve seen online turns out to be true, today could finally be the day when Sony either sends out invitations to its PS5 event or even announces some preliminary details about the PlayStation 5. At this point, it’s completely unclear which route the company will take in light of the coronavirus outbreak that’s still wreaking havoc. Big conferences are being canceled left and right and Sony in particular has been quick to bail on events even before they’re canceled. With that in mind, it seems like the company may decide to skip the big PlayStation meeting it was undoubtedly planning. Instead, Sony could follow Microsoft’s lead and make its PS5 announcements in bits and pieces. Microsoft’s upcoming new Xbox Series X design was shown off first, for example, and then the company announced some specs and key Xbox Series X features just last week. Sony could easily skip its big press conference that was rumored to take place at some point in March and just start making PS5 announcements instead.
Whichever road Sony decides to take, it should certainly get its act together soon. The company has dominated the current-generation video game console wars, with PS4 sales having surpassed 110 million units and Xbox One sales believed to be stuck at around half that. Where the PS5 and Xbox Series X are concerned, however, Microsoft is definitely dominating the conversation right now. The PS5 had much more hype toward the end of 2019, but 2020 has been all about the Xbox Series X, which shouldn’t really come as much of a surprise since Sony hasn’t made any meaningful announcements about its next-gen gaming console. When it finally does, we fully expect Sony to finally show off the PlayStation 5’s unique new design. And if it packs a feature that’s anything like the PS5 mockup we’re about to show you, it could be a total game-changer — pun intended.
Graphic designer Abdelrahman Shaapan recently tried his hand at dreaming up a PS5 console, and we shared it with our readers last week. Now, however, the design has popped up in a new video on YouTube that better highlights the concept console’s most unique feature.
Before we get to this crazy PlayStation 5 design, however, let’s recap what we know so far about the PlayStation 5’s actual design. Before new video game consoles launch, the companies that make them provide developer kits to key partners so they can get started on building games that take advantage of the next-gen hardware. Those dev boxes typically don’t look anything like the actual console that launches later, but it seems like things will be a bit different this time around with the PlayStation 5. Here’s another look at the PS5 dev kit that has leaked many times now:
Now, that is anything but a boring box. It seems almost impossible that Sony would go through the trouble of designing this unique console with its “V” shape just to release a PS5 that looks nothing like it. In fact, Sony even went through the trouble of patenting the design so it’s protected. Is Sony really going to patent something that’s just a dev kit, and take the time to custom-build boards, a cooling system, and other components so they fit inside the unique shape? No way. The finished PS5 design will undoubtedly be more polished and it’ll have a bunch of differences compared to the PlayStation 5 dev kit shown above, but we’d bet big money that it ends up looking roughly the same.
That said, it would be incredible if Sony managed to work in the killer PS5 feature on display in this new video of Shaapan’s PlayStation 5 design.
There is precious little question that the PS5 concept Shaapan designed is a bit bland overall. In fact, it sort of looks like an oversized kitchen scale. But there is one element of the console’s design that we absolutely love: the hidden OLED display that takes up almost the entire bottom area of the front of this PlayStation 5. With a big screen like that on the console itself, the possibilities are practically endless.
This PS5 mockup uses the display to show things like loading animations, player avatars, controller battery life, and logos for the games you’re playing. The concept could be taken so much further though, and we would love to see something like this in real life. On top of all that, it would also be a brilliant move by Sony for another reason: gamers would want their PS5 consoles to be front and center right next to or even in front of their TVs. No more tucking the PlayStation away in a media cabinet, since you would always want to see what’s on the display. If there’s a better way to get every PS5 owner to advertise the console to anyone and everyone who enters their homes, we don’t know what it is.
Check out the full video of this cool PS5 console design right here:
