PS5 review: Sony's new PlayStation is a big and mostly beautiful next-generation console

(Sony)

From the moment you take it out of the box, there’s no mistaking it: the PlayStation 5 is big. It makes no effort to hide its huge size, clad as it is in bright white plastic and a design that makes it seem even larger than its already prodigious dimensions would suggest.

But pull it out of that box, make way for it somewhere near your TV, and plug it in, and there’s something else you can’t miss. The PS5 delivers on its size and its unmissable looks, with an experience that is equally hulking in its ambition and performance.

That’s a blessing, because the bulk of the thing simply cannot be overstated, and still remains a surprise in-person even if you’ve seen the numbers and photos. It might seem churlish to spend the beginning of a review of the PlayStation 5 by talking about what it looks like when it’s turned off, but that’s because you’re literally going to have to make space in your life for this console to fit in it.

Likewise, you probably know whether or not you like the look of the new console, but the striking nature of the design is exaggerated in real-life. The unusual bat-ears that come out of the top seem larger than they do in photos, the colour even more shiningly white, the angles even more sloping, and intense, coloured LEDs light up the console itself from inside; it’s bound to make you feel something, whether that’s disgust, yearning, or both.

Thankfully, there’s nothing else controversial about the PS5. Once you’re past the actual look of the thing, it does exactly what you want from a next-generation console: vastly boosts performance, fixes some outstanding issues, and throws in some fun if gimmicky new extras, all while still including (almost) everything that made the last one great.

The PS5 is certainly a more exciting console than the Xbox Series X, in just about every way, most of which are good. But it’s a close race – and one that is likely to change in the months to come – and you can read our comparison of the two here.

The increased performance in the PS5 is clear from the off, launching up a new game like Spider-Man: Miles Morales. The game starts near-instantly, with no loading screens, and its New York is both richly textured and astonishingly vast.

Comparing that game with the first Spider-Man title shows just how much the hype that Sony generated around its super-fast storage was well-founded. The graphics are, as you’d expect, astonishingly great and almost close to photorealistic, but it’s the speed at which they load that really hits you when you first play, with vast scenes spanning the entire of Manhattan arriving without you having to wait at all.

Just like with the look of the thing, it’s hard to fully appreciate the difference this makes until you actually use the console. I hadn’t realised how much a loading screen could break up a gaming session – as you give into the lure of your phone, or some other distraction – until they disappeared.

Even as it does all of that, the PS5 stays entirely quiet. It may be garish, but it’s quiet too.

(We have had limited time with the new console, which means this review is still somewhat in progress and is liable to change over the days and weeks we spend with the PS5. Check back later for any updates and additions.)

Just as it has with the external design, though not in such a controversial manner, Sony has made more of an effort to change the menus around than its rivals Xbox did. But the changes to the software are not especially radical, just offering a soft touch-up rather than an entire refurbishment – which is not a major problem, given there was nothing particularly wrong with the old ones anyway.

What those menus don’t have is quite so many features as the Xbox’s. Microsoft has made much of its “Quick Resume” feature, for instance, which allows you to jump between games and have them load instantly; the PlayStation doesn’t really have anything comparable, and if you swap between different titles they start afresh. How valuable that will prove will of course depend on how often you’re changing between different games.

The PS5 doesn’t manage backwards compatibility in quite such a smart way, either, which is perhaps not surprising given Microsoft made it such a focus, down to allowing you to use old controllers and play games even from the original Xbox. While many PS4 games can be downloaded as normal from the store, some can’t, and even when you do download one your saved games will be lost. Again, this is only as much of a downside as you feel it to be; you may well have no interest in playing old games at all.

If the PlayStation 4 had a major drawback, it was surely its controller: while the Xbox one seemed sculpted around the players hand, Sony felt like it required its players to reshape themselves around it. That has been fixed with a total re-design in the form of the new DualSense controller, with plenty more added on as well.

The controller has grown in seemingly every direction, with the grips at the bottom particularly extended so they nestle snugly into your palms. It has also been etched with a tiny markings that make it much easier to grab.

Not content with building the most comfortable PlayStation controller ever, Sony threw in a host of exciting features, too. It now features a microphone so that it can hear you, haptic feedback so that it can tap you incredibly precisely, and geared triggers that can be made harder or easier to push.

All of these are made the most of in Astro’s Playroom, the free game that comes with the PlayStation 5 and helps to show off its features. It’s more than just a demo, and functions as a fun way of demonstrating just how powerful the controller is, as well as the console, as well as how integral the DualSense is to the truly next-gen feel of the PS5.

But what makes them most exciting is that they don’t simply feel like gimmicks – unlike, say, the touch pad and lights on the PS4’s controller – and it is thrilling to think of the ways they could improve the experience of games. Sony has already suggested that the triggers could be used to make you feel you’re really pulling back a bow and arrow, or are finding it harder to push as your players tire in a sports game, and there are surely yet more exciting innovations besides, just waiting to be dreamt up.

The same is surely true of the console generally. If the looks can charitably be described as futuristic, then the performance inside the box can definitively be said to be future-facing: the console is great now, and that just makes it all the more exciting to see how it might improve.

The PS5 is already big. It’s going to get even bigger.