 It is finally time. After the game previews and teases and then hardware reveals and then software reveals and teardowns, it's time to review it, the PlayStation 5. And yeah, it's big. But it's also a big deal. Every big console refresh has improvements in graphics, and we're going to talk about all of that. But you can get incredible graphics on a PC. The point of a console isn't just to be a PC that's attached to your TV. It should give you a unified experience, something that runs from the games to the hardware to the interface. It should all feel like one cohesive thing, and it should have an incredible controller. That's what Sony is aiming for here, to make the best console. And it needs to live up to the PlayStation name. 26 years ago, the first PlayStation took the best trends in gaming and put them in a box under your TV. Let's see if the PlayStation 5 can do the same. Okay, first things first. Hi, hello, I'm Vjern. I'm the video director here at The Verge. I review a lot of drones and I play some games. A bit. Okay, more than a bit. And I love consoles because they give me that unified, simple, but technically excellent gaming experience. That's what I'm bringing to the PlayStation 5 review. And what Sony has brought this year is a console that is, well, let's address the elephant in the room. It's big. Standing 15.4 inches tall and 10.24 inches deep, the PS5 looks absolutely massive. Next to a big TV, it seems smaller, but I'm still shocked every single time I glance over at it. Despite that, I do really like this design. Sony needed to make it big to fit all the components it wanted in there. And if it's going to be huge, I guess they figured they'd make it interesting. Is this design polarizing? Yeah, but like any design, once you get used to seeing it, you get used to seeing it and appreciating it just a little. The PS5 can sit vertically and horizontally, but the stand that lets you do both feels a little cheap and figuring out how to use it takes a minute. There's a hidden screw and a weird rotating bits and I'm just glad you only had to mess with it once, but I still wish this wasn't part of the setup at all. Another thing you won't know until you actually unbox the PS5 is that the black plastic finish that's on the console has a very shiny finish to it, but it's the kind of you'll want to keep your hands away from. It's a real fingerprint and dust magnet. Seriously, you'll notice in the sound of the b-roll throughout the video, I apologize. Again, you likely won't have a reason to move it once you set it up, but I think it's worth pointing out. In terms of ports, it's exactly what you'd expect with the addition of two extra USB ports in the back. There's one USB-C port and one USB-A port that you can use to charge your brand new DualSense controller. And of course, HDMI, which you plug into your TV so you can play games. Right, games. Enough about the hardware, let's talk about the gaming experience. Okay, the games, they look sick. The graphics are really good, but that ought to be a given on a new console generation. We'll get into it more in a minute, but I just needed to mention it right at the top. But just as much as the graphics, what impresses me on the PS5 compared to the 4 is how quickly games load. Loading this ancient game called GTA5 from an SSD on a PS5 took about 58 seconds, and it took 2 minutes 45 seconds on the PS4 Pro. Loading Spider-Man Miles Morales only took 18 seconds. Yep, 18. And it took minute 30 on the PS4 Pro. Also, it's worth pointing out that the console is really quiet. Finally. I know, every brand new console is going to sound just fine at first, but we'll have to see how it holds up after a few months of use. Since I already mentioned some of the PS4 titles, good news is that most games will be compatible. Sony says 99% of titles will be available, and that sounds about right. But not every PS4 game will be optimized for the PS5, so you won't really notice an uptick in loading times or graphical performance. And as far as new titles, there will be plenty at launch, from Assassin's Creed, 2K, and the one I'm extremely excited about, Demon's Souls. Here we go again. Anyhow, during my first two weeks with the PS5, I played Spider-Man Miles Morales and Astro's Playroom, both great examples of showing off new tech in the PS5. Let's start with Astro, because I think it's the more interesting of the two. And it does a great job of demoing this thing, the DualSense controller. This right here is one of the best controllers I've ever used. At least the best Sony controller I've ever used. It's bigger and more ergonomic than the DualShock 4, but I will say I think I have to hold my thumbs a little bit lower to get a right grip on it. It's different. But what makes this a truly next-gen console controller are the haptics and adaptive triggers. So, haptics. They feel great, and developers have ridiculous amounts of control over them. My first eureka moment was when I realized that the controller's haptics match with Astro Bot's pace. You take a step with your left foot, your left side of the controller vibrates. You take a step with your right foot, and your right side of the controller vibrates. It's very subtle and non-intrusive. My second eureka moment was when I realized that the haptics adjust slightly depending on the surface you walk on. It's sort of hard to describe in video, but it works. Actually, you can even hear the difference in the motors. Glass feels more glassy and sandy. Beaches feel more sandy. And there are many other subtle examples. The wind blows from the left side, you feel the left side rumble, or so far my favorite, raindrops landing on your umbrella, the controller vibrates ever so slightly. It's a really nice new addition that you might not notice all the time, but when you do, it'll undoubtedly put a smile on your face. However, once I started playing Spider-Man Miles Morales, the haptics started to feel less... deliberate. When there's a cutscene involving some general marvelous mayhem, as every Marvel game does, the rumble just feels less intentional. Every now and then, you do get that, oh, that's clever moment, but those are few and far in between. I really do hope other developers take advantage of the haptics because they really are that good. And the same goes for the adaptive triggers, which are also really good. When the triggers are not adapting, or rather when they're in their normal state, they feel like regular old triggers. But when the adaptive triggers kick in, so to speak, you sort of feel a little friction. I don't know how else to describe it other than there's some real resistance there. Classic example is when using a bow and arrow. The triggers increase resistance, and once you're ready to shoot, you just release the trigger. My only wish was that the resistance was even stronger at the very end of my draw. But my favorite moment was when I grabbed onto this launcher thingy, and both of the triggers just kind of started vibrating like crazy. It's those little things that make this gaming experience feel very new. Oh, last thing, the battery on the dual sense is rated exactly the same as the DualShock 4, which is 4-8 hours, which is also a very broad range. And that sounds about right based on the 2 weeks that I had with it. You can charge it with a USB-C or magnetically if you buy this dock. Okay, sorry, I made you wait long enough, but let's talk graphics, specifically ray tracing. To get into this, I wanted to talk to our senior editor and my mortal enemy, Tom Warren, who also has a PlayStation 5. Hey, buddy, how's it going? Hey, not too bad. Are you enjoying the PS5? So I wanted to call you and talk graphics and specifically ray tracing. So what's ray tracing? Yeah, so ray tracing is like, it's basically the beyond, it's the golden thing that you want in games right now. Essentially, it's better light, shadows and reflections, just more accurate ones. So they've been using it in cinema for years now. And it's basically the holy grail of next gen gaming. We're hoping to see a bunch like better reflections in puddles and windows and just shadows. Can you show us some of the examples? I think you have a few. Yeah, sure. So if I switch over, we are in Spider-Man now. This is the visual quality mode, which means ray tracing is enabled at 30 frames per second. And what you'll notice is you get these crazy reflections of Spider-Man off of this building here. And these reflections are pretty much all the way along all of the streets and all the blocks as you're swinging around. You also get, if you look at some of the puddles here, you can see the people's like reflections they're crossing and the sort of light that's coming off the headlights. All that sort of stuff is ray tracing. Now obviously you give up 60 frames for this, but look, look as I'm running along, you see the reflections. Now if I switch over to the performance mode, this will give us 60 frames a second. And what I can do is show you how it sort of compares. So if I jump back down, we look at some of the, so we go back to that window that we started off with. The reflections have basically disappeared. I can't even see Spider-Man now. And as I walk down the street, the reflections on some of the sort of puddles here look pretty good and the headlights don't look too bad, but I feel like the realism just goes a slight bit. You do get 60 frames, but obviously you miss out on like when you're shooting down the street, you miss out on all the window reflections and stuff. So yeah, that's basically a sort of small example of ray tracing on the PS4. Okay. So that's the $500 police station console. You have also a custom PC. What do you get with that? This is Watch Dogs running on the 3090 here. And for this, this is obviously a $3,000 PC. So the comparison is pretty, it's pretty big. Look at the reflections I get off Piccadilly Circus here. I run around, you can see this underground sign just slowly fades away into the sort of sidewalk there. It's pretty crazy. Like looking at all this stuff, this is obviously the top level of what's possible right now. I don't think we're going to see quite this good on next gen consoles, but if we can get any close to this, I think that'd be pretty impressive. I'm a little bummed you have to like pick between ray tracing or 60 FPS on the PS5. It'll depend on the game, obviously, but I'll think I'll go with ray tracing. Either way, it's a bit disappointing. Yeah. That's all. Hey, Boon, did you see the, uh, the arsenal game at the weekend? Man United game? I think Albion Ming Yang was in ray tracing there, wasn't he? Hello? Anyway, there's a very clear reason why Spider-Man Miles Morales takes place during winter in New York City. There's lots of ice, the streets are constantly wet and everything is super reflective. Perfect ray tracing environment. I spent a stupid amount of time just swinging around New York, pausing, taking photos of reflective buildings, cars, shiny suits, whatever. But there are two photos I want you to focus on. These two photos stood out to me the most. This is a photo of Genki, your best friend, computer genius, in front of Christmas lights, not during a cut scene, but during one of the early missions in the game. And the second photo is a closeup of his glasses. Although it's slightly pixelated, you can clearly identify that those are the exact same lights. I know this is a very specific example and you will probably not seeing during regular gameplay, but hundreds of this tiny little improvements do result in very lively and vibrant renders. Also quick PSA, don't sleep on Astro. It's the most Nintendo like game Sony has ever made and it's filled with Easter eggs, fun mechanisms and showcases each aspect of the PS5 tech brilliantly. The last piece of this console puzzle is the user interface and Sony rebuilt it from the ground up while retaining some of the core elements from the cross media bar that was introduced two generations ago. Fonts are the same, the setting menu looks very similar, the basic principle is the same, but a lot more organized and a whole lot faster. There's one long strip of smaller app icons near the top of the screen, which instantly load as you cycle through them. Apps like the PS Store, Library, the new Explore tab, they're all part of the home screen. You never exit out of it, you never feel like you're opening up a separate app to go and use it. The only apps that do act app-like are the games themselves, of course, and the streaming apps, which now live in a separate tab called Media. During gameplay, you can access these so-called cards by pressing the PS button once. Cards give you access to retry some of the missions, find challenges or side missions. It's basically like a fast travel feature that's built into the system instead of into the game. There are cards that show you walkthrough clips, which you can put into picture-in-picture mode, you can see related news or you can see friends who are online if you have one of those. And a bunch more interactive cards around trophies, medias, and so forth. And there are many other smaller changes which modernize this console. Spoiler alert filters, customizable control center, ability to save 4K clips, there's even a Do Not Disturb mode, and an easier way of transferring save data from your previous system. I do wish the PS5 had something similar to Xbox's quick resume feature, which lets you jump freely between games with very little loading time. It's pretty good if the game supported. Also, there are bugs. Both me and Tom had our units crash a few times or just not boot up. It happened to us during the initial setup on day one, and it happened to me twice since when the console went into rest mode. Afterwards, I was greeted with a repairing console rebuilding database error message. Our games editor Andrew Webster didn't have those issues, but he did lose his save data for Spider-Man. I know this is early software, but early production units tend to ship with some inconsistencies. It's nothing too alarming, but it's something to keep an eye out for. All in all, the whole interface is a lot easier to get around due to both processing power and the redesign. In my time with the PS5, I can't say I took full advantage of all the features, like the cards or the walkthrough heads. There just wasn't a lot of opportunity to do so. But I do think it's something people will genuinely find useful. PS5 Well, there you have it, the PlayStation 5. And that all sounds great, right? It's bigger, better, bolder, faster, bigger, and comes with this super good controller. What's not to love? And honestly, not much. At all. If you're a console gamer, you'll love everything that's new with the PlayStation 5. Almost every next-gen console is very promising in launch, though. I'll be curious to see what the mid-cycle looks like, and whether the PS5 can be a platform that stands the test of time. And that test seems more unpredictable now than ever before. What will the games look like by the end of this cycle? What will the mid-cycle upgrades look like? Will we need consoles at all, or is streaming going to take off? I don't know. But once these next-gen consoles get released, they become the now-generation consoles. And right now, I'm very excited for what's to come. So, that's it for this video, and subscribe. Bye!