PS5: Pre-order, release date, price, games and everything else you need to know about Sony's new PlayStation

The PlayStation 5 is now just days away from release, and excitement about the new console continues to build.

Questions are building, too, however, as people search for a way to actually get hold of the console as well as wondering how it might perform when they do.

Below are all the details you need: from when it will be available to what’s available when it is.

When’s the release date?

It depends where you are.

In the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Mexico, South Korea, the console comes out on 12 November.

Everywhere else will have to wait a week longer. It will be released everywhere on 19 November.

(That’s a little later than the Xbox Series X, which arrives everywhere on 10 November.)

Pre-orders are open since 17 September.

What’s the price?

The full version of the PS5 is £450, €500, $500, or AU$750.

The “Digital Edition” – the same, but without the disc drive – is £360, €400, $400, AU$599.

Can I pre-order now?

You can try, but chances sadly aren’t good. The opening of pre-orders was something of a mess – Sony even apologised for how they went – and since then it has been very difficult to get one of the consoles.

Sometimes, opportunities to pre-order one will pop up, and you can find our guide on how to find those opportunities here. But they are rare, with seemingly most of the inventory planned for the day of release having been allocated.

There will, presumably, be a lot more coming after release date. The above tips should still be helpful, however, since the supply is likely to still be constrained until the release date and conceivably through the rest of the year.

What does it look like?

A router or a coffee machine, according to the many people who have mocked it. But really it’s white and black, with a very curved shape, and blue highlights.

It’s very tall – the biggest games console of modern times. It stands up nearly 40cm high, and goes 26cm deep and 10.4cm wide, though you can take off the stand and lay it on its side.

What’s inside?

Sony has been very up-front about the specs in the new console, especially when compared with with its relative coyness about everything else. During an event in March that was focused primarily on developers, it gave away a host of information on what will be found in the console.

That includes a AMD Zen 2-based CPU that will have 8 cores at 3.5 GHz, a 10.28 TFLOP GPU and 16GB of memory. The spec it has seemed most proud of, however, is the internal storage: a custom 825GB SSD that Sony says is far faster than previous generations, and will allow for entirely new kinds of experiences.

For the most part, Sony has preferred to concentrate on what the specs do, rather than being all that explicit in listing the numbers. Faster processing will allow the console to give over devoted processing power to its 3D audio engine, allowing for more developed sounds, for instance; and the speedier storage should drastically shorten or even entirely do away with loading screens.

Sony also gave us a chance to have a look at how that all works when it did a tear down.

There are two versions of the PS5, one without a disc drive. You can find a rundown of the difference here.

Controllers and accessories

We probably know more about the things you'll use with the new PlayStation than we do about the console itself. Sony has been fairly forthcoming about the accessories that will accompany the release.

It said earlier this year that the new version of the DualSense controller would have haptic feedback for more precise vibrations that match events in games; adaptive triggers that can seemingly push back to match things happening on screen, such as the action of pulling back a bow to shoot an arrow; and a built-in microphone array so that people can chat without a headset.

But it will make a headset if you need one: the Pulse 3D Wireless Headset, to be precise. That has microphones in too, but its most futuristic feature is that it is built for the 3D audio that is set to come with the new console, and Sony promises that it will "put you at the centre of incredibly immersive soundscapes where it feels as if the sound comes from every direction”.

In addition, Sony will be selling cameras, charging stations for the controllers, and media remotes. All of them have the same design as the console itself: white and smooth-looking.

Will there be other PlayStations?

Most probably. The experiment with bumps in performance every couple of years that don’t quite signify a whole new generation – such as the PS4 Pro and the Xbox One X – seems to have gone well, and so there’s no reason to think this will be the last of the PS5 line-up.

The white look has also drawn criticism from some people who would like their console to be a little less noticeable. That has brought speculation – or perhaps just hope – that Sony could launch the PS5 in different colours, such as black.