The PlayStation 5 is about to have its big debut — these are the 4 most important details we expect to learn about Sony's next-gen game console (SNE)

PlayStation 5 gamepad (DualSense) Sony

The PlayStation 5, Sony’s next-generation game console, will finally be revealed in a presentation on June 11 that Sony is touting as “a look at the future of gaming on PS5.”
As of early June, the console remains shrouded in mystery: We’ve only seen the PS5 gamepad, a logo for the console, and a tech demo of its graphical prowess.
The list of what we have yet to see is far longer: What the console looks like, what games it will play, how much it will cost, and how it will work.
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The PlayStation 5 is almost here.

Sony’s next-generation PlayStation game console is scheduled to arrive this holiday season, but with just a few months to go, we still know very little about the PlayStation 5.

But there’s good news: We’re about to learn a lot more! The Japanese electronics giant is holding a big reveal event on Thursday, June 11, and we expect to learn a ton of details.

Here’s everything we still don’t know about the PlayStation 5:

1. How much does it cost?
AP Photo / Nam Y. Huh

With all this fancy new technology and graphics prowess, it stands to reason that the PlayStation 5 isn’t intended as a budget console.

In fact, it sounds like the PlayStation 5 could be a more expensive console at launch than usual: Consumers could be looking at a price in the $500 to $550 range, according to a Bloomberg report.

That unusually high price — $100 more than the launch price of the PlayStation 4 — is reportedly due to the console’s “ambitious specs,” which are driving Sony’s decision to price the console higher than in its previous generation.

Sony, however, has yet to say anything officially about the console’s price tag.

“I believe that we will be able to release it at an SRP [suggested retail price] that will be appealing to gamers in light of its advanced feature set,” the console’s lead architect, Mark Cerny, told Wired.

When pushed on what that meant, Cerny demurred. “That’s about all I can say about it,” he said.

2. What does the console itself look like?
Sony

In December 2019, in a surprise reveal at the annual video game industry awards show, Microsoft debuted its next-generation game console: The Xbox Series X.

Xbox leader Phil Spencer was on hand to talk through a bit of Microsoft’s plan with its next-gen console, and the company has been persistent in messaging in the months since.

Over half a year later, and we’ve still yet to see what Sony’s PlayStation 5 console looks like. We’ve seen its logo, and its new gamepad, and we’ve even seen a tech demo of what games could potentially look like, but we’ve still yet to see what the console itself looks like.

It’s a seemingly trivial matter — after all, we’re talking about a box that you rarely interact with — but it’s a critically important aspect of marketing and messaging that consumers latch onto. The PlayStation 4 looks cool, and that certainly didn’t hurt Sony in selling over 100 million PlayStation 4 consoles.

Most of all, since the Xbox Series X is the only next-gen console anyone has seen thus far, images of it represent “next-gen” consoles in media coverage.

3. What games are coming to the PlayStation 5 from Sony’s legendary first-party development studios?
“God of War”/Sony

When it comes to the so-called “console wars,” one massive advantage Sony has over Microsoft — that it has always had over Microsoft — is its vast library of excellent first-party game franchises created by Sony’s legendary first-party game creation studios around the world.

From “God of War” to “Gran Turismo” to “The Last of Us” and “Uncharted,” Sony’s stable of first-party, exclusive game franchises is second to only Nintendo.

Moreover, some major sequels are expected to be in the works: a second “Marvel’s Spider-Man” game, and a sequel to 2017’s “Horizon Zero Dawn.” Whether any of those major sequels are expected for the launch of the PlayStation 5 this holiday season remains to be seen — we’ve yet to hear about any first-party games coming to Sony’s next-gen console.

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