Starting with North America, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Singapore and South Korea from today with other countries to follow suit next week, Sony Interactive Entertainment has commenced their launch of the PlayStation 5 next-generation gaming console.
Highly sought after with pre-orders across the world selling out within hours if not minutes upon opening a few months back, this goes up against the recently launched Xbox Series X|S by offering a console which: (for the first time in PlayStation history) provides out-of-the-box compatibility with PlayStation 4 games, disc-drive and digital-only variants for different price points and specs which should keep it on-par with whatever developers throw at it for hopefully the next half-decade if not longer.
With the slogan “Play Has No Limits”, Sony Interactive Entertainment claims that the PlayStation 5 “represents a significant leap to deliver a truly new generation of transformative play experiences that will redefine expectations for what games can be”, and accomplishes that through “breathtaking immersion, lighting speed and stunning gaming”.
The standard PlayStation 5 unit comes in with a recommended retail price of $749.95 AUD (or local equivalent), and comes equipped with an Ultra HD Blu-ray Disc Drive. For those looking to save a little bit of money, the digital-only version is available for $599.95 AUD, but loses the Blu-ray disc drive and locks you to the PlayStation Store for all game purchases.
On offer from Sony Interactive Entertainment Worldwide Studios are five launch games split between PlayStation 5 exclusives and PlayStation 4 / PlayStation 5 cross-platform games. These include:
- Astro’s Playroom (Japan Studio) – Free, Pre-installed on every PlayStation 5
- Demon’s Souls (Bluepoint Games / Japan Studio) – $124.95 AUD (RRP)
- Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales (Insomniac Games) – $94.95 AUD(RRP)
- Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales Ultimate Edition (Insomniac Games) – $124.95 AUD (RRP)
- Sackboy A Big Adventure (Sumo Digital / XDEV) – $109.95 AUD(RRP)
This is complemented by a library of third-party exclusive and multiplatform releases.
