The PS5 is a monster in both stature and heft. If you have still not held a PlayStation 5 yourself, you’ll have to take our word on it. It’s heavy. Really heavy. It makes sense, considering what it contains inside its massive shell. But Sony is working to make its flagship console lighter wherever it can.
For the second year in a row, an updated PS5 model is hitting shelves, along with a significant weight reduction. It still doesn’t justify the price hikes Sony is forcing on us in the near future.
In this corner, we have the middleweight champion
Back when the original PS5 was released in 2020, a disc drive model weighed 4.5kg and a digital edition weighed 3.9kg. For comparison, a day-one PlayStation 4 weighed 2.8kg, before any Slim editions were released. A year on, Sony released a lighter PlayStation 5 that dropped the weight by 0.3kg in both models. And Sony is doing it again.
Over the weekend new PS5 models started showing up on Japanese retail sites, noting the new weight and a release date of 15 September. Unsurprisingly, the release of the new PS5 is on the same date on which Japan will receive their price hikes for the console. The new PS5s (dubbed CFI-1202A and B for Disc and Digital editions) carry a weight of 3.9kg and 3.4kg respectively. There seem to be no other changes besides the weight reduction. You’d think maybe the shell would become slightly smaller, but no.
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We’re not sure what’s changed internally to drop the weight — because Sony hasn’t told anyone. But if you buy a brand-new PS5 just to find out, let us know, won’t you? We’re sure as heck not doing that ourselves. Last year, Australia was the first to receive the updated console, which may be the case once again.
Source: Ars Technica