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When he took the stand off, I was quite impressed it used a screw. Then they had a place for the screw in the stand, even more impressed. Then a dummy cover for

When he took the stand off, I was quite impressed it used a screw. Then they had a place for the screw in the stand, even more impressed. Then a dummy cover for the screw hole, wow. The whole stand assembly rotates to hide the screw storage compartment. And arms to mount that stand to the console to lay it flat? Stunning the amount of engineering they've put in for a simple stand.

danudey 6y ago
This was my first thought as well. "Oh, it's screwed on? People are gonna lose that screw in a heartbeat." And then one wow after another. This is the kind of industrial design that needs to happen more.
ChuckNorris89 6y ago
Yeah, as a hardware engineer this feels like porn to me but I also feel the whole thing is overengineered and expensive to design and build(for consumer electronics) versus Microsoft who drew a box in AutoCad and called it a day saving tons in R&D, tooling, materials and manufacturing which is how most hardware projects are ran nowadays in this industry since at that kind of scale the small things add up quickly, eroding your already razor-thin margins but maybe Sony has enough money to bankroll this project. You can also notice the difference in cooling design. Sony has 2 heatsinks, a large and complex heatsink on the top with many heatpipes for cooling the APU and a small heatsink on the back for cooling just the VRMs stuck to the backplate with its own heatpipe(holy cow!) while XBOX is just a large copper plate with aluminum fins saving Microsoft tons in materials and build cost but they had better done their math right to make sure that it will be enough. Sony had balls to go this route, I'll give them that. Respect. I suspect Sony didn't penny pinch since they plan to make most of their money back from sales of games and services(ala Apple) while Microsoft probably wants to make more from the hardware itself(ala Android devices). I have no dog in this fight, but my favorite part is the PS5 consumer friendly expandable storage via M.2 PciE drives(Yeeey!) vs the XboX overpriced and proprietary SSD cartridges(Booo!).
- kristianc 6y ago
  Probably speaks to the different strategies at play. The Xbox is being treated almost as a piece of commodity hardware to run GamePass on, PS5 the device is much more the star of the show. No strong opinion on either approach but does explain a lot of the design decisions.
  - Lammy 6y ago
    Presumably Sony made an informed decision based on positive reaction to the PS4 Pro? They probably want it to be beefy for a next-gen PSVR too.
- ch0I9daAiO 6y ago
  Not 100% on this, but I think the Xbox one is actually a vapor chamber not not solid copper.
- blinky1456 6y ago
  I guess Sony makes a lot of other hardware products already, maybe that experience gives them an edge over Microsoft.
  - leokennis 6y ago
    I think purely from an industrial design point of view, Microsoft’s entire Surface line (laptop, tablet, headphones etc.) are all very intricately designed.
- jayd16 6y ago
  >Microsoft who drew a box in AutoCad and called it a day saving tons in ... That's all well and good but I fear it won't fit inside a lot of media centers. The PS5 is big but it fits inside the envelope of an A/V Receiver.
  - kevingadd 6y ago
    Seems like it should be fine if you lay it on its side?
makkesk8 6y ago
And still less than apple's $1000 stand, I don't know how they do it! Jokes aside, it's very impressive.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- Polylactic_acid 6y ago
  If you look at the monitor + stand its actually cheaper than competing pro monitors. I have no idea why they didn't just make the monitor more expensive and the stand cheaper and include vesa holes to avoid the years of jokes that followed that stand.
  - jsjohnst 6y ago
    > its actually cheaper than competing pro monitors I mostly agree with you, but Dell has an 8K monitor (albeit fugly in comparison) for around $3500 including stand (if memory serves).
    - Polylactic_acid 6y ago
      Was that dell monitor calibrated and rated for professional usage? I don't use this stuff but apparently most of the cost is making sure the screen perfectly replicates colors and not just being high resolution.
      - ancientworldnow 6y ago
        I use professional monitors in color critical environments and we've tested the apple monitor and it absolutely is not appropriate for professional usage despite their claims to the contrary. We're using Sony, Flan fees Scientific, and Dolby and the Apple isn't even close.
        aikinai 6y ago
        Posted above as well, but this incredibly detailed review agrees with you. https://youtu.be/rtd7UzLJHrU https://youtu.be/rtd7UzLJHrU
ehsankia 6y ago
Imo, that was way over-engineered and actually will be useless. Without seeing this video, it's almost impossible for users to figure all those steps out. Simple is always better, and in this case, something that PC case manufacturers have been doing for some time now are screws that never fully detach even after being unscrewed. It does the exact same job without having all these extra steps and complicated UX.
- agloeregrets 6y ago
  Yup. Microsoft subtweeted them about about how to put the XSX on it’s side by showing it being just knocked over. Lol
  - mikewhy 6y ago
    Loving the shade MS is throwing Sony's way around things like how to play a game released last gen (you put the disc in your console), or how to put the console in a different orientation (you lay the thing on its side).
    - anigbrowl 6y ago
      That's just payback for the shade Sony threw at them on the last gen where they showed how to share games by just giving someone else your copy, whereas on Xbox you had to do some sort of library setup and checkout procedure before your disc would work in your friend's unit.
      - mikewhy 6y ago
        Oh absolutely. I enjoyed that too. I wish MS would also poke fun at Sony's "We believe that PS5 games should take advantage of the new capabilities and features we're bringing to the platform" statement attempting to justify why PS4 controllers won't work with PS5 games, meanwhile most launch titles are cross-gen or might come to PC.
- x3haloed 6y ago
  > that was way over-engineered and actually will be useless. Completely. It's cute and all. But the better engineering design is to make a console that can stand without a... stand. No parts to lose, no assembly/disassembly process. Just turn the device on its side. Now where have I seen that lately? Edit: When he pulls up on that one side of the white cover and then the whole thing pops off, I thought, "Sony would be good at designing serviceable androids."
jonplackett 6y ago
Anyone else think it looks waaaaay better when he takes the white bits off?
pkamb 6y ago
I was impressed by the toy-looking screwdriver he used to removed that screw — the design and placement of which looks like is meant to be turned with a coin such as an American quarter. Turns out there's a tool for that! https://toolguyd.com/pb-swiss-tools-coin-driver-theres-a-screwdriver-for-everything/ https://toolguyd.com/pb-swiss-tools-coin-driver-theres-a-scr...
- rangibaby 6y ago
  $20!! In Japan the standard variety of "coin drivers" are the local equivalent of $4.99 so they can compete with the humble $5 coin.
  - numpad0 6y ago
    btw I think one of the reasons why they exist is Japanese coins are thicker than most coin slots. Can be annoying if something is foreign made and I can’t find a penny that fits in desk drawer.
mikewhy 6y ago
I'm in the "this thing seems way over engineered" camp. The stand rotates not to hide the screw hole (it's a neat feature, but the screw seems to clip into something to stay put), rather it rotates just to fit the odd shape of the console. Why not use a captive screw so it can't fall out, and design a console with a flat bottom so no rotation/moving parts are needed?
Fej 6y ago
The PS4 has one of my favorite little touches like this. Accessing the 2.5" bay on the original PS4 is done by sliding off the cover of one of the four quadrants. The HDD caddy is held down by one screw. Not sure about the Slim and Pro, but on the original, it's a Philips head screw, but not just any Philips head - it's wider than necessary so that they could etch their trademark four symbols on it. This is a custom screw that 99.9% of users will never see (guessing at that number of course) but they put it in anyway. That must have been a lot of work.
- rangibaby 6y ago
  That's an improvement on the original fat PS3 that I well after its prime (2014 or so?). The screws on the original HDD caddy were in so tight that even with the correct driver and OK technique I managed to strip them. In the end I threw the caddy out and made some shims out of cardboard to stop my replacement SSD bouncing around too much, it worked great for a few years until it succumbed to the YLOD. My original fatty PS2 still works great!
Waterluvian 6y ago
I noticed that immediately too and in my opinion reflected so poorly on the over engineering. I remember the PS3 having a lot of silly little nuances that don’t make the games any better. Like the buttons that weren’t real buttons. The PS3 slim cut costs and eliminated all these things. My sense is that it’s all just a way to help make the price tag feel like you’re getting something premium.
- anigbrowl 6y ago
  You are. I'ms till using a ps3 daily a decade later and by now I feel a weird affection for it. Over engineering is good.
jaxx75 6y ago
I had a similar feeling when I saw the PS2 had a logo on the front that could be rotated if it was in vertical orientation. Really nice thought put into these details.

danudey 6y ago

This was my first thought as well. "Oh, it's screwed on? People are gonna lose that screw in a heartbeat." And then one wow after another. This is the kind of industrial design that needs to happen more.

ChuckNorris89 6y ago

Yeah, as a hardware engineer this feels like porn to me but I also feel the whole thing is overengineered and expensive to design and build(for consumer electronics) versus Microsoft who drew a box in AutoCad and called it a day saving tons in R&D, tooling, materials and manufacturing which is how most hardware projects are ran nowadays in this industry since at that kind of scale the small things add up quickly, eroding your already razor-thin margins but maybe Sony has enough money to bankroll this project. You can also notice the difference in cooling design. Sony has 2 heatsinks, a large and complex heatsink on the top with many heatpipes for cooling the APU and a small heatsink on the back for cooling just the VRMs stuck to the backplate with its own heatpipe(holy cow!) while XBOX is just a large copper plate with aluminum fins saving Microsoft tons in materials and build cost but they had better done their math right to make sure that it will be enough. Sony had balls to go this route, I'll give them that. Respect. I suspect Sony didn't penny pinch since they plan to make most of their money back from sales of games and services(ala Apple) while Microsoft probably wants to make more from the hardware itself(ala Android devices). I have no dog in this fight, but my favorite part is the PS5 consumer friendly expandable storage via M.2 PciE drives(Yeeey!) vs the XboX overpriced and proprietary SSD cartridges(Booo!).

kristianc 6y ago
Probably speaks to the different strategies at play. The Xbox is being treated almost as a piece of commodity hardware to run GamePass on, PS5 the device is much more the star of the show. No strong opinion on either approach but does explain a lot of the design decisions.
- Lammy 6y ago
  Presumably Sony made an informed decision based on positive reaction to the PS4 Pro? They probably want it to be beefy for a next-gen PSVR too.
ch0I9daAiO 6y ago
Not 100% on this, but I think the Xbox one is actually a vapor chamber not not solid copper.
blinky1456 6y ago
I guess Sony makes a lot of other hardware products already, maybe that experience gives them an edge over Microsoft.
- leokennis 6y ago
  I think purely from an industrial design point of view, Microsoft’s entire Surface line (laptop, tablet, headphones etc.) are all very intricately designed.
jayd16 6y ago
>Microsoft who drew a box in AutoCad and called it a day saving tons in ... That's all well and good but I fear it won't fit inside a lot of media centers. The PS5 is big but it fits inside the envelope of an A/V Receiver.
- kevingadd 6y ago
  Seems like it should be fine if you lay it on its side?

makkesk8 6y ago

And still less than apple's $1000 stand, I don't know how they do it! Jokes aside, it's very impressive.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
Polylactic_acid 6y ago
If you look at the monitor + stand its actually cheaper than competing pro monitors. I have no idea why they didn't just make the monitor more expensive and the stand cheaper and include vesa holes to avoid the years of jokes that followed that stand.
- jsjohnst 6y ago
  > its actually cheaper than competing pro monitors I mostly agree with you, but Dell has an 8K monitor (albeit fugly in comparison) for around $3500 including stand (if memory serves).
  - Polylactic_acid 6y ago
    Was that dell monitor calibrated and rated for professional usage? I don't use this stuff but apparently most of the cost is making sure the screen perfectly replicates colors and not just being high resolution.
    - ancientworldnow 6y ago
      I use professional monitors in color critical environments and we've tested the apple monitor and it absolutely is not appropriate for professional usage despite their claims to the contrary. We're using Sony, Flan fees Scientific, and Dolby and the Apple isn't even close.
      - aikinai 6y ago
        Posted above as well, but this incredibly detailed review agrees with you. https://youtu.be/rtd7UzLJHrU https://youtu.be/rtd7UzLJHrU

ehsankia 6y ago

Imo, that was way over-engineered and actually will be useless. Without seeing this video, it's almost impossible for users to figure all those steps out. Simple is always better, and in this case, something that PC case manufacturers have been doing for some time now are screws that never fully detach even after being unscrewed. It does the exact same job without having all these extra steps and complicated UX.

agloeregrets 6y ago
Yup. Microsoft subtweeted them about about how to put the XSX on it’s side by showing it being just knocked over. Lol
- mikewhy 6y ago
  Loving the shade MS is throwing Sony's way around things like how to play a game released last gen (you put the disc in your console), or how to put the console in a different orientation (you lay the thing on its side).
  - anigbrowl 6y ago
    That's just payback for the shade Sony threw at them on the last gen where they showed how to share games by just giving someone else your copy, whereas on Xbox you had to do some sort of library setup and checkout procedure before your disc would work in your friend's unit.
    - mikewhy 6y ago
      Oh absolutely. I enjoyed that too. I wish MS would also poke fun at Sony's "We believe that PS5 games should take advantage of the new capabilities and features we're bringing to the platform" statement attempting to justify why PS4 controllers won't work with PS5 games, meanwhile most launch titles are cross-gen or might come to PC.
x3haloed 6y ago
> that was way over-engineered and actually will be useless. Completely. It's cute and all. But the better engineering design is to make a console that can stand without a... stand. No parts to lose, no assembly/disassembly process. Just turn the device on its side. Now where have I seen that lately? Edit: When he pulls up on that one side of the white cover and then the whole thing pops off, I thought, "Sony would be good at designing serviceable androids."

jonplackett 6y ago

Anyone else think it looks waaaaay better when he takes the white bits off?

pkamb 6y ago

I was impressed by the toy-looking screwdriver he used to removed that screw — the design and placement of which looks like is meant to be turned with a coin such as an American quarter. Turns out there's a tool for that! https://toolguyd.com/pb-swiss-tools-coin-driver-theres-a-screwdriver-for-everything/ https://toolguyd.com/pb-swiss-tools-coin-driver-theres-a-scr...

rangibaby 6y ago
$20!! In Japan the standard variety of "coin drivers" are the local equivalent of $4.99 so they can compete with the humble $5 coin.
- numpad0 6y ago
  btw I think one of the reasons why they exist is Japanese coins are thicker than most coin slots. Can be annoying if something is foreign made and I can’t find a penny that fits in desk drawer.

mikewhy 6y ago

I'm in the "this thing seems way over engineered" camp. The stand rotates not to hide the screw hole (it's a neat feature, but the screw seems to clip into something to stay put), rather it rotates just to fit the odd shape of the console. Why not use a captive screw so it can't fall out, and design a console with a flat bottom so no rotation/moving parts are needed?

Fej 6y ago

The PS4 has one of my favorite little touches like this. Accessing the 2.5" bay on the original PS4 is done by sliding off the cover of one of the four quadrants. The HDD caddy is held down by one screw. Not sure about the Slim and Pro, but on the original, it's a Philips head screw, but not just any Philips head - it's wider than necessary so that they could etch their trademark four symbols on it. This is a custom screw that 99.9% of users will never see (guessing at that number of course) but they put it in anyway. That must have been a lot of work.

rangibaby 6y ago
That's an improvement on the original fat PS3 that I well after its prime (2014 or so?). The screws on the original HDD caddy were in so tight that even with the correct driver and OK technique I managed to strip them. In the end I threw the caddy out and made some shims out of cardboard to stop my replacement SSD bouncing around too much, it worked great for a few years until it succumbed to the YLOD. My original fatty PS2 still works great!

Waterluvian 6y ago

I noticed that immediately too and in my opinion reflected so poorly on the over engineering. I remember the PS3 having a lot of silly little nuances that don’t make the games any better. Like the buttons that weren’t real buttons. The PS3 slim cut costs and eliminated all these things. My sense is that it’s all just a way to help make the price tag feel like you’re getting something premium.

anigbrowl 6y ago
You are. I'ms till using a ps3 daily a decade later and by now I feel a weird affection for it. Over engineering is good.

jaxx75 6y ago

I had a similar feeling when I saw the PS2 had a logo on the front that could be rotated if it was in vertical orientation. Really nice thought put into these details.