[ChuckNorris89]

Yeah, as a hardware engineer this feels like porn to me but I also feel the whole thing is overengineered and expensive to design and build(for consumer electronics) versus Microsoft who drew a box in AutoCad and called it a day saving tons in R&D, tooling, materials and manufacturing which is how most hardware projects are ran nowadays in this industry since at that kind of scale the small things add up quickly, eroding your already razor-thin margins but maybe Sony has enough money to bankroll this project.

You can also notice the difference in cooling design. Sony has 2 heatsinks, a large and complex heatsink on the top with many heatpipes for cooling the APU and a small heatsink on the back for cooling just the VRMs stuck to the backplate with its own heatpipe(holy cow!) while XBOX is just a large copper plate with aluminum fins saving Microsoft tons in materials and build cost but they had better done their math right to make sure that it will be enough.

Sony had balls to go this route, I'll give them that. Respect.

I suspect Sony didn't penny pinch since they plan to make most of their money back from sales of games and services(ala Apple) while Microsoft probably wants to make more from the hardware itself(ala Android devices).

I have no dog in this fight, but my favorite part is the PS5 consumer friendly expandable storage via M.2 PciE drives(Yeeey!) vs the XboX overpriced and proprietary SSD cartridges(Booo!).

[chrisfosterelli]

> Microsoft probably wants to make more from the hardware itself(ala Android devices).

This is pretty much the opposite of their stated strategy, which is to make money off services like Game Pass by ensuring that the consoles are accessible and all of their first-party games work across multiple generations / levels of consoles [0].

The PS5 was reportedly "considerably" more expensive before xbox announced their price [1], and Sony has been clear that game prices will go up for next gen and they're not focusing on cross-generation compatibility, so I do believe you're right that Sony at least expects to get it back on the games.

[0]: https://www.businessinsider.com/xbox-vs-playstation-microsof... [1]: https://bgr.com/2020/09/11/ps5-price-and-release-date-vs-xbo...

[Red_Leaves_Flyy]

Microsoft shot themselves in the foot by announcing pricing first if true. Not that I'm complaining. $300/500 and monthly options to boot is very consumer friendly. The hype over the proprietary memory card is overblown. I'm sure either Microsoft will release a compatible adapter that takes any m2 drive and or a Chinese factory will make them and sell them on Amazon.

[vbernat]

Sony had user-replaceable hard disk since PS3. Microsoft never proposed this. I don't think it will change with this generation.

[anon73044]

Even the PS2's optional hard drive bay!

[stas2k]

PS2 was soft-locked to Sony supplied drives.

Nowadays that bay is very useful for booting games off any HDD. SATA is also supported by using a IDE->SATA board.

[byte1918]

PS5 drives must also be pre-approved by Sony, supposedly due to strict hardware requirements, like 5.5GB/s[1] sustained bandwidth. I personally think it's silly, sure, bigger numbers mean better performance but I would be surprised if most games wouldn't work perfectly fine with a nowadays average SSD.

[1] https://www.pushsquare.com/guides/which-ssd-drives-will-be-c...

[kingbirdy]

FWIW you could put in a new HDD in an original Xbox, and put a 2.5" HDD in the 360 hard drive enclosure, but neither were officially supported.

[mTrebuchet]

With the original Xbox, they used hard drive locking that made it difficult to swap out to a new one. Its been a very long time since I've done it, but I seem to remember having a hard drive powered by a normal ATX PC, then swapping the data cable over from the PC to the Xbox while it was still on to achieve a HDD upgrade (with other steps in the middle that i've all but forgot).

[kingbirdy]

It was a hassle for the 360 as well, you had to plug the drive into a PC first and run a homebrew tool to "bless" the drive so that it would work with the console

[nsriv]

The proprietary memory card is going to be necessary for storing/accessing new titles designed to make use of their Velocity Architecture, any old external will do for games Xbox One or back-compatible games.

[kumarharsh]

That's not entirely correct. You can use any regular old SSD: https://www.gamespot.com/articles/xbox-games-on-an-external-...

[stirlo]

Not sure why they didn't enable storage tiering for regular external HDDs.

It would be far faster to move a game from external HDD back to the Velocity SSD before playing than to download the entire game again from the internet.

Feels like a money grab tbh.

[chrisfosterelli]

> Not sure why they didn't enable storage tiering for regular external HDDs.

They did: "A USB 3.1 drive can also carry Xbox Series games as storage, which can be transferred to Series X or S's internal SSD or Storage Expansion Card to then be played."

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/xbox-series-ssd-expansion...

[cheschire]

During the last gen consoles, Sony folks have said on camera how they were quietly cheering when MS announced a price point way above what the PS4 was targeted at.

Maybe Sony expected MS to aim higher again, and this time it was MS who undercut.

[freeone3000]

It's also got a 1TB internal drive, with the memory card being *optional.

[egsmi]

> This is pretty much the opposite of their stated strategy, which is to make money off services

I’m sure their internal strategy is to make money on the hardware, software and services. Basically everything. As Apple has shown, it’s not necessarily the worst plan.

[jjoonathan]

Yes, and also say that you're not making money on any part that people complain about being expensive. Salesmanship!

[emodendroket]

If that were really their strategy then they've got a strange way of pursuing it.

[rbanffy]

> Microsoft who drew a box in AutoCad and called it a day

I actually like the simplicity of their design. The white one has a bit of Dieter Rams in it. The black tower is just that.

Form must follow function and the console itself has few simple functions: to house and properly cool the computer inside, and to make it easily accessible for repair and upgrades. It's hardly surprising it has few simple lines.

OTOH, the PS5 has a lot of lines to disguise a huge heat exchanger. It's not obvious how to even power it on.

[Polylactic_acid]

The Xbox design looks classy but uninspiring. I like that. You can sit it under your tv and it will blend in with the style of most rooms.

The ps5 is designed to be eye catching which I think is a mistake because most people probably don't want a game console to be the centre of attention in the room.

[emodendroket]

I'm sorry, what planet are you guys on where gamers don't want attention-grabbing hardware? Not on the one with the rest of us where all "gaming" branded stuff has garish lighting I guess.

[kungito]

In a world where console owners do not call themselves gamers but are regular people who like to play a game from time to time

[naravara]

I think those people will end up buying the cheaper, but much higher margin PlayStation 5 Slim a year later.

I’ve also heard some speculation that the curvy shape is specifically designed to keep people from impeding cooling by stacking things on top of it.

[gambiting]

The time difference between regular and slim consoles being released has been pretty much spot on 3 years for all consoles, on all generations going back 20 years. If Sony releases a slim PS5 "a year later" that would be unprecedented.

[emodendroket]

I very much doubt that those are the people who are going to be buying PS5s this holiday season.

[orestarod]

They are, if they have a job. Not being sarcastic, it's just that 500 euros/ dollars is an ok amount for a piece of entertainment that will last a few years, so they will buy it now even if they are not playing all day long.

[gambiting]

Your average "gamer" according to the industry's own statistics is a 25-29 male, owns one of the consoles, and buys exactly 3 games a year - Fifa, CoD, and one other action game. Maybe 4 if it's a good year. It's definitely not your stereotypical "gamer" type buying RGB everything - so yeah, I would guarantee that this kind of average gamer does not care about their "gear" being attention grabbing.

[emodendroket]

Again, I don't think this is the person going out of their way to get scarce launch units.

[thirdsun]

I’m not sure how scarcity during launch is relevant to this particular discussion. The design of the console, which was the original issue discussed here, will be the same whenever the console becomes widely available.

On the other hand I agree that looks won’t be the deciding factor for any potential buyer - casual or not.

[ksec]

>what planet are you guys on

Not really a planet, but a stage in life called marriage.

There are certain part of the world where Playstation has to be disguised as a new super fast WiFi Router called Plash Speed ( PS ).

[tomc1985]

It only got really bad once computer building went to YouTube

[sings]

I agree that this feels like a critical misstep. Casual gamers will not want an over the top design in their living room. Maybe they are intentionally ignoring that market with this generation, but I was thinking of upgrading my PS3 and am having second thoughts because this thing is, well, a bit silly looking. It looks like a movie prop for a sci-fi film.

[tomc1985]

Did any of the PS3 models look any better?

I recall a very funny PS3 barbeque meme floating around, back in the day. To say nothing of them using the Spider-Man font

[PascLeRasc]

I feel like with how easy it is to remove the side panels there will be aftermarket toned-down black ones made.

[rbanffy]

Also, you'll hate the PS5 in two years, when the curvy design is outmoded.

It'll be hard to hate a box you'll never even notice.

[mr_toad]

> never even notice.

I can imagine this being snuck into workplaces and when the PHB asks what it is the reply is it’s a router or NAS box.

[whywhywhywhy]

PS4 was perfect in that regard IMHO. It was an interesting enough shape to by cool when you actually looked at it, but anonymous enough that you didn't even notice it when not looking at it.

[neighbour]

>The white one has a bit of Dieter Rams in it.

Thought the exact same thing. I am a huge fan of the Xbox designs. The white one specifically reminds me of an upright Dieter Rams designed Braun turntable [1].

...and as I finish typing the section above I find this [2]. Looks like someone else already had the idea.

[1] https://musicologistblog.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/braun-p... [2] https://au.phaidon.com/agenda/design/articles/2020/september...

[neogodless]

To this day I am not fond of the "touch" power control on the PS3! I hope the power control is more intuitive, fast and simple now!

... yeah I don't even have last generation consoles but I'm considering this new generation.

[ihuman]

> It's not obvious how to even power it on.

I think the power and eject buttons are the two lines on the bottom when its standing up

https://www.playstation.com/en-us/ps5/

[whywhywhywhy]

This generations designs are really weird to me, the PS5 does not feel like part of the same design lineage as PS2 and 4 (I always considered 3 the weird outlier and the ugly one). Honestly looks more like a descendant of the XB360 language. Feels such a strange departure when the PS4 had such a beautiful and striking design from aesthetics, brand and functionality.

From purely aesthetics I do think the new Xbox is the better looking and more modern looking machine, although the gigantic PS5 heatsink is going to help a lot with noise.

[tomc1985]

Indeed, I want a game console that nicely sits on a shelf with lots of other A/V components without standing out

[kristianc]

Probably speaks to the different strategies at play. The Xbox is being treated almost as a piece of commodity hardware to run GamePass on, PS5 the device is much more the star of the show. No strong opinion on either approach but does explain a lot of the design decisions.

[Lammy]

Presumably Sony made an informed decision based on positive reaction to the PS4 Pro? They probably want it to be beefy for a next-gen PSVR too.

[Fej]

> my favorite part is the PS5 consumer friendly expandable storage

This is a pattern, the PS3 and PS4 both had end-user accessible bays which contain a 2.5" HDD. Any drive can be formatted even from blank using the console's safe mode.

> the XboX overpriced and proprietary SSD cartridges

This is also a pattern. The original Xbox and Xbox One had internal hard drives that were not end-user serviceable. The Xbox 360 used 2.5" HDDs in cases. The original 360 drives had a special port on the cases, for whatever reason. The 360 S/E drives used regular SATA connections, it's plainly obvious looking at one that the connector is just the edge of a 2.5" HDD.

[Bluecobra]

Same with the PS2 as well, all you needed was the network adapter and you can pop in a standard 3.5” IDE hard drive. You can even get a 3rd party boot disc to copy/load games off the hard drive to improve load times.

[jsjohnst]

And run Linux too...

[iceman2654]

Sony is an electronics engineering company, and it really shows. The quality, forethought and care put into creating this product is part of their tradition. Microsoft, while doing wonderful things to make software more accessible is not an engineering company, and that shows too.

I only hope Microsoft has tested their cooling solution better than the 360 era. I don't want another RRoD situation.

[kumarharsh]

"Microsoft is not an engineering company"

Looks at the Surface hinges

[easton]

> versus Microsoft who drew a box in AutoCad and called it a day

Microsoft spends a lot more time on engineering their hardware than that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiQ2nAQG7Mk

[jayd16]

>Microsoft who drew a box in AutoCad and called it a day saving tons in ...

That's all well and good but I fear it won't fit inside a lot of media centers. The PS5 is big but it fits inside the envelope of an A/V Receiver.

[ranieuwe]

How to cool it in a media center though? This thing should not sit in any enclosed space given the fans shown.

[mastazi]

I guess it depends on the media center? Many have no back panel so they are not an enclosed space. In terms of airflow you can think of them as small server racks.

[kevingadd]

Seems like it should be fine if you lay it on its side?

[98codes]

It's not wider than my AV receiver is tall, I imagine that it'll be fine.

[jayd16]

Yeah? Looks like we do have numbers now and its just under 6" so I guess it'll be ok. I thought it was closer to 7" which would start to get pretty tight.

[boogies]

> they plan to make most of their money back from sales of games and services(ala Apple)

I thought Apple seems to do the opposite: they constantly raise iPhone prices while cutting features that increase manufacturing cost (eg. replacing the headphone jack with an empty hole large enough to fit a lightning→3.5mm dongle), and I’ve heard Apple fans argue here, I think more than once, that Apple is able to offer less profiteering (more privacy friendly) software because they make so much on hardware.

[monadic2]

I don't see why Apple can't go for both high software AND hardware margins. These don't seem like contradictory goals.

[boogies]

I agree. That’s why I think they do “penny pinch” on hardware (in certain areas) and don’t need to “make […] money back” on software, but take what they can get there anyway.

[lumost]

If your going to make money on the backend via services then there is no point in cheaping out on hardware. You make money by having more customers, in a competitive marketplace this means that you need to be the best, a distant #2 won't make you anything once you start needing to offer incentives to both keep customers on your platform - and keep developers onboard.

[emodendroket]

The pitch is presumably that it's the cheapest way to play. In fact MS looks to be pretty interested in chasing that same streaming dream as Google Stadia and others are.

[nchase]

I wonder if it is more expensive to manufacture – I know Sony had a pretty amazing-looking automated manufacturing pipeline for the PS4: https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Companies/PlayStation-s-sec...

[PascLeRasc]

There's a spot to store removed screws in the base! I don't even play games but I want a PS5 based off of this teardown. It's so heartwarming to see a manufacturer encouraging modifying hardware these days. I'm sure there's guides incoming on how to add Noctua fans and liquid metal paste to the heatsink.

[pkulak]

Yeah, the part that really did it for me was when he snapped off the top plate and there was an empty M.2 slot just sitting there.

Also, the blower fan is interesting. Though, like you said, there is a lot of stuff in there to push air through, plus dust filters (yay!), so it probably made sense to go with static pressure over pure volume of airflow.

[ch0I9daAiO]

Not 100% on this, but I think the Xbox one is actually a vapor chamber not not solid copper.

[bhj]

> XBOX is just a large copper bottom with aluminum fins saving Microsoft tons in materials and build cost but they had better done their math right to make sure that it will be enough.

Early indications are not great[0]. Granted, the most noticeably hot part of a system should be the exhaust.

[0]: https://www.pcmag.com/news/multiple-reports-suggest-xbox-ser...

[kevingadd]

Yeah, ultimately the complaints there just demonstrate a failure to understand why a game console would be hot. If it's using 200W it's going to dump 200W worth of heat one way or another. No cooling solution will fix that if the device is just producing more heat than can possibly be dissipated in a pleasing way.

In that sense, maybe the PS5 will have an advantage here by being large, because there's more surface area to work with so it won't feel like a little furnace, even if both consoles end up having no thermal problems (in terms of the chips overheating, etc)

Claims that the console is toasty even while idle are suspicious, though. It really shouldn't be drawing that much power while idle, so I hope that's not true at launch. So much hardware has this problem though... my macbook's USB C dock is almost a fire hazard with how warm it gets even when it's not in use.

[naravara]

> suspect Sony didn't penny pinch since they plan to make most of their money back from sales of games and services(ala Apple) while Microsoft probably wants to make more from the hardware itself(ala Android devices).

When I saw how nice everything looked my first thought was that they’re going to release an updated “slim” console in, like, a year after launch that cuts a lot more corners. They get lots of hype to encourage sales up front by packing a ton of value in the launch model. That encourages more people to buy into the ecosystem and then they launch a future one that designed with higher margins in mind.

[ksec]

Sony has always done that with their first version of their console. As they expect to die shrink to 5 or 3nm down the road for much better thermals. Along with other redesign that makes manufacturing less expensive.

And both company are not making much if anything from Hardware. The profits are all in games. That is part of the reason why Games is getting more expensive with every gen.

We need some real innovation to help driving Game development cost down, especially with respect to Graphics.

[blinky1456]

I guess Sony makes a lot of other hardware products already, maybe that experience gives them an edge over Microsoft.

[leokennis]

I think purely from an industrial design point of view, Microsoft’s entire Surface line (laptop, tablet, headphones etc.) are all very intricately designed.

[deanCommie]

> Microsoft who drew a box in AutoCad and called it a day

"Microsoft has no taste": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KdlJlHAAbQ

as true now as it was in the early 90's.

[whywhywhywhy]

Think anyone who has touched the current generation of Surface devices know this statement just isn't true anymore, for their hardware teams at least.

[tw04]

> XboX overpriced and proprietary SSD cartridges(Booo!).

Which is incredibly ironic given how long it took Sony to adopt standard storage devices in the past. I think they were literally the last camera manufacturer to support CF and SD cards.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_Stick

[berti]

That may be so for the camera division but not for PlayStation. My PS3 takes a standard 2.5” drive. Not sure about PS4.

[dont__panic]

First thing I did after buying a PS4 Pro late-cycle was replace the internal HDD with a (bog-standard, massive, cheap) SSD. Considering how fast my games tend to load, I honestly wonder how the PS5 benchmarks compared to my SSDified PS4 Pro.

[Dylan16807]

A benchmark is going to be an order of magnitude faster, because it's not using SATA.

But more importantly the big goal of building in the SSD is so that games can be designed with no load times, which beats any loading time number you can hit.

[Aissen]

Even if you have the max of SATA3's 6Gbps, the on-board SSD of the PS5 with hardware compression should load at 44Gbps.

[Aissen]

Correction : the 44 Gbps (5.5 GB/s) is the raw bandwidth, without compression. Compressed data bandwidth is higher, but variable.

[jsjohnst]

> the on-board SSD of the PS5 with hardware compression should load at 44Gbps

You sure about that number? That would be close to 2X faster SSD than Apple uses in new MBPs and they are already insanely fast compared to most SSDs. Would love a source if you have it.

[fomine3]

https://blog.playstation.com/2020/03/18/unveiling-new-detail...

[tw04]

You answered your own question. The PS is doing hardware compression which will effectively increase your bandwidth by your compression ratio. 2:1 isn’t that hard to believe.

[tw04]

The PS3 was well after the ship had sailed. That’s the whole point, it took them 3 generations to stop. The PS1 and 2 both required custom memory cards as well when the original Xbox was using a standard SATA drive.

Oh how the turntables.

[gambiting]

You might be misremembering reality - yes, the original xbox shipped with a normal drive, but the X360 had a proprietary drive in a custom enclosure, but actually the most popular model didn't come with any drive at all - just a proprietary memory card. Then the Xbox One has a regular sata drive, but I wouldn't call it "user replaceable" - it's very hard to access and requires a complete disassembly of the console, while on PS3 and PS4 all you needed to do was remove one screw and the drive would come out. The same seems to be true on PS5 again.

[tw04]

What are you talking about? The xbox360 was an off the shelf 2.5” drive with custom firmware in an enclosure that took 30 seconds to open.

https://youtu.be/XIrW4pzVNmk

Ignoring the fact that the 360 isn’t the original Xbox... which is what I literally said.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_(console)

[gambiting]

I did address the original Xbox though, did you miss my first two sentences?