By Wes Davis, a weekend editor who covers the latest in tech and entertainment. He has written news, reviews, and more as a tech journalist since 2020.
06.11.2023 - 23:29 / theverge.com / Wes Davis / Of Its
By Wes Davis, a weekend editor who covers the latest in tech and entertainment. He has written news, reviews, and more as a tech journalist since 2020.
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The new PlayStation 5 hasn’t come out yet — it doesn’t even have a specific release date — but a few YouTubers have gotten their hands on it, including Dave Lee from the Dave2D channel. Lee posted his teardown of the console yesterday, and if you’ve been curious about how that detachable disc drive works, this is the best look you’ll get at it without buying the $499.99 PS5 yourself later this month.
After Lee pries off the PS5’s plastic side cover, you can see the drive sitting there with three screws staring back at you. I thought they were pentalobe screws at first, but a later zoomed-in shot shows they’re just standard crosshead screws. Philips head, if you like. Okay, no surprises there. Good.
But then it just pops right out. The screws were a red herring! Such sleek modularity!
When Lee pulls the drive aside, it reveals a port framed within an oblong hexagon where the drive’s connecter settles. This is what I loved about so much of the design of machines like the PowerMac G5. You see the part, you grab it, and you take it out — there’s no hard, angular plastic connector to stab your sweaty fingers as you wriggle it free. Very tasteful.
The drive aside, the new PS5 is a nice-looking system if you’re into the pointy Dracula collar look of the first one. And when Lee puts it next to the original, the size disparity is more drastic than past comparisons have made it seem, even if they’re really not that differently sized; it’s still larger than the Xbox Series X, after all. Lee says it feels significantly lighter, too — great for when you take your PS5 out for its afternoon walk (or over to your friend’s house).
Here’s the full video, if you’d like to check out the rest of the teardown.
And for some different energy, there’s always Linus Tech Tips.
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By Wes Davis, a weekend editor who covers the latest in tech and entertainment. He has written news, reviews, and more as a tech journalist since 2020.
PlayStation has a lot of live-service games in development. Part of buying Bungie was even to utilise its expertise, which led to the less-than-favourable internal evaluation of The Last of Us' standalone Factions game. But it's not the only upcoming Sony multiplayer release to be pushed back, as half of its 12 titles have now been delayed.
Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) has halved the number of live service games it plans to release in the coming years, it’s confirmed.
There was a time when Valve could do no wrong, releasing hit game after hit game. While better known these days as the developer behind Steam, Gabe Newell and his crew got their start with the iconic Half-Life. Now, an update has been sighted, and the timing is quite suspicious.
PlayStation finally confirmed the rumors about a new PS5 model were true last month, unveiling a newer, slimmer model of its latest console. That model will be available to buy later this week, almost exactly three years after the launch of the original console, with a disc version and a digital version to choose from. It seems some retailers are preparing for a similar onslaught to the one that made PS5s very hard to find in 2020 as at least one listing for the console is already ready to go.
Critical Role kicked off a new actual-play series in May titled Candela Obscura. Now its Darrington Press publishing imprint is ready with a tabletop role-playing game based on the same themes and mechanics. Starting Nov. 14, fans will be able to find Candela Obscura Core Rulebook for sale at their local game shop and online. But while the game may be embraced by fans of the program seeking episodic adventures set in the same fictional world, this initial release lacks either the depth or the novelty for much wider appeal.
Esports and gaming organisation 100 Thieves has announced another round of layoffs.
Comparisons between the OG PS5 and the PS5 Slim are out, and some say the sleeker new design is «not that much smaller» than its chunkier sibling.
By Wes Davis, a weekend editor who covers the latest in tech and entertainment. He has written news, reviews, and more as a tech journalist since 2020.
Serious question here: With all of the games that came out in October (seriously, it felt like we had at least a dozen major games releases), was it actually possible for anyone to have played all of them? That’s a question that can easily apply to the whole year, as well — could anyone actually play all (or even most) of the amazing games that came out this year? I mean, the obvious answer is no, unless they’re paid to, but that’s my point. With so many games that came out this year, even a gamer that is excited for and would like to play all of them will have to prioritize certain titles over others, as a form of triage. The reason that’s important is because I fear that some great or even good games haven’t received the fair shake that they should have this year.
With solid state drives being more popular than ever, the wholesale prices of the chips they use (NAND flash) have been slowly rising since the middle of summer. However, it looks like Samsung wants to ramp things up considerably, by adding up to 20% to the price tags, per quarter, over the first half of 2024.
By Jay Peters, a news editor who writes about technology, video games, and virtual worlds. He’s submitted several accepted emoji proposals to the Unicode Consortium.