2023-07-04 20:35:00
Image: Sony
The court hearing on Microsoft’s ongoing acquisition of Activision Blizzard continues to unearth interesting information. This time it’s about a potential PlayStation 5 Slim, which should possibly come onto the market later this year. Even the price is mentioned – by Microsoft.
Microsoft estimates the date and price of the PlayStation 5 Slim
While the takeover, worth around 69 billion euros, has now been approved by the responsible antitrust authorities in large parts of the world, the legal dispute with the company is still ongoing in the USA Federal Trade Commission. And the negotiation also provides insights into internal matters that would otherwise probably not see the light of day. This time it’s about the not yet confirmed PlayStation 5 Slim.
The new and more compact PlayStation 5 is coming, Microsoft wants to know. And that already in the course of this year, i.e. presumably with a presentation in summer and a market launch in autumn 2023.
The date was previously speculated, but the information about the price is new. Microsoft ranks the PlayStation 5 Slim at the price level of the PlayStation 5 Digital Edition, i.e. around 400 US dollars or around 450 euros, whereas the PlayStation 5 with drive currently costs 550 euros in Europe. That initially sounds like a price reduction and seems correspondingly strange after Sony raised the price of both PlayStation consoles almost a year ago; Microsoft followed a few weeks ago.
Driveless, more compact, more efficient?
In the past there was again talk of a new edition of the PlayStation 5 with an external Blu-ray drive, which should be available separately. This concept is therefore considered likely at a price of around 450 euros. Apart from that, the PlayStation 5 Slim should not surprisingly become more compact and there is also talk of lower power consumption with the same performance. However, Sony has already improved the efficiency of the game console with a revision of both PlayStation 5 models in August 2022. At that time, the production of the AMD APU changed from TSMC N7 to N6, which, depending on the game and resolution, could reduce the power consumption by up to 30 watts from around 220 watts.
However, there is not much leeway in production anymore, especially since 4 nm would be difficult to imagine with the price remaining the same. The PlayStation 4 Slim switched from 28 nm to 16 nm in autumn 2016, which drastically reduced the power consumption when gaming from around 140 watts to around 90 watts.
In addition to the PlayStation 5 Slim, there are also rumors of a PlayStation 5 Pro, which is not expected until the end of 2024.
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