Rumor mill: Sony has been teasing the public with its lack of information on the upcoming PlayStation 5. Other than the specs, and a few morsels disclosed by third-parties working with dev kits, we know nothing about what it looks like, how much it will cost, or precisely when it will launch. So its fan base is salivating at rumors and leaks, even if they are likely a hoax.
A listing for a 2TB PlayStation5 was allegedly spotted by someone on the Hot UK Deals forum Tuesday morning. A screenshot of the product page (below) from Amazon's UK storefront appears to be a placeholder mockup with no pictures and limited information.
It lists it with the heading "2020 Dummy ASIN Sony PS5 1 2TB." It also has the price down at £599.99, which is about $765 US. While the page could potentially be a legitimate placeholder, the listing does not hold up to the information that we already know about the PlayStation 5.
As we reported in March, when Sony released the PS5 specs, the standard console will have an 825GB SSD. It is not even your run of the mill drive, either. Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney said the PS5's storage system "outclasses" anything available on PC. It is so different that developers had to rewrite parts of Unreal Engine 5 to accommodate the new super-fast storage solution.
Ed Boon, the creator of the Mortal Kombat series, said, "This [is a] new way of handling memory and loading ... I was riveted watching the PlayStation 5 and Unreal Engine 5 demo going 'that can't be real, come on, that can't be real,'" referring to Epic's spectacular tech demo running on a PS5 dev kit.
While Sony acknowledged users would be able to swap in a standard NVMe drive, lead PS5 architect Mark Cerny said the company would first have to implement a certification program to ensure users purchased compatible drives. At no time has Sony or Cerny mentioned that the PlayStation 5 would have an option for a higher capacity drive than the 825GB initially announced.
That said, it would be wise to take this news with an entire shaker of salt. If it is not an outright hoax, Amazon UK has likely gotten its placeholder completely wrong. A 2TB PS5 option at launch does not seem very likely at all. Even with past PlayStation releases, higher capacity options only became available well after the initial launch.
Perhaps we will learn more at Sony's "The Future of Gaming" presentation on Thursday, but all information we have on that appears to point to a games-only showcase rather than a discussion or reveal of the hardware. We shall see.
Image credit: PS5 Render by Ahmed Karaman