Game Dev Confirms Cool PlayStation 5 Devkit Alien Space Ship Design Leak Is Real
Remember that funky-looking sketch we reported on yesterday, which appears to be a concept image of a PlayStation 5 console? Well, it appears as though it was the real deal. Well, sort of. Some people surmised the sketch was a pre-release devkit, and following the media exposure it gained, a game developer confirmed the theory on Twitter.
Drawn images of the mysterious console appear in a patent application Sony recently filed. The patent application lists it as a Class 14.02 category device, a category that includes "data processing equipment and peripheral equipment." Game consoles typically slot into the same category, so it seemed pretty obvious that the sketches were depicting a PS5.
Matthew Stott, a game developer who has been working in the games industry since 1992 (he currently works as a senior artist at Codemasters), posted on Twitter what many people suspected—it is indeed a devkit, and apparently he and his fellow co-workers have a few their office. He also surmises that the devkit could end up being the final design.
His Twitter post gained traction online, and he has since blocked his tweets from being publicly viewable. This lends credence to his claim—it's entirely possible (and plausible) that Sony reached out and asked him to remove his post, though we can't say that for sure.
The sketches show a console that looks like a spaceship. One of the standout features of the design is a grooved "V" shaped cutout in the top of the box. This could be in reference to the Roman numeral V, which of course means 5, as in "PS5."
It's important to note, however, that devkits can and often do vary from the final design, sometime drastically. That said, the patent images show at least five USB ports on the front of the console, plus two more on the rear. They also show an optical drive slot, above which sits either a string of LEDs or small buttons. A larger power button is positioned above the front USB ports.
While we don't know what the final design will look like, we do know Sony is building the PS5 around a custom Zen 2 CPU and Navi GPU, with ray tracing support. It will also have a solid state drive (SSD) for fast storage chores.
The PS5 is expected to debut by the end of next year.
