PS5 Hardware Was “Very Quiet” at Recent Hands-on Event

The PS5 comes out in a little over a month in select markets and there is still a lot we don’t know about it. We haven’t seen the UI, how the DualSense controller’s create button works, or how the PlayStation Store will look on the new console. Microsoft has been quite a bit more forthcoming with the Xbox Series X by sending functioning units to various games media outlets, but it looks like Sony is finally ready to start trickling out some more details to the public.

Sony recently held a PS5 hands-on event for select members of the Japanese games press and Twitter user Nibel was kind enough to translate some of their impressions. One thing that came up multiple times was the PS5 hardware’s low fan noise. 4gamer.net said that the PS5 could be “hardly heard” during gameplay, while Dengeki Online‘s writer said that it “was shocking to me this time was how quiet the fan was. There must have been many people who were curious about this. It was so quiet!”

It is great to hear that Sony has invested a little extra in the PS5’s cooling system, because the PS4 was criticized for its fan noise right out of the gate in 2013. Some launch titles, such as Guerilla’s Killzone Shadow Fall, caused the PS4’s fans to ramp up considerably. The PS4 Pro, which launched in 2016, was also known for being a very loud device, and spawned tons of memes in the process. Hopefully the PS5 will stay quiet for years to come and avoid the same fate.

The PS5 will launch on November 12 in the US, Canada, Mexico, Japan, and other markets, and on November 19 in the rest of the world. Launch day pre-orders are sold out everywhere at the time of this writing, and it remains to be seen if retailers make additional launch stock available before its release.