Where to buy the slim of the PS4?
The Presence of an Internet Connection in PlayStation’s Digital Edition and Implications for Digital Game Production and Disc Drive Unpairment
The current generation of consoles is getting a new redesign, the first of which was announced in October by Sony. The revised PS5 has a unique disc drive, two front-facing power ports, and expanded internal storage of 1Tb. The new PS5 Digital Edition costs $450 more than the prior PS5 Digital Edition but the standard PS5 with disc drive also runs the same price.
As for the removable disc drive, I’ll hand it to Sony for making it easy to detach or attach the drive without any tools. (It’s even easier than adding an M.2 SSD to the PS5 — which is thankfully still possible.) I also asked, “Why?” Sure, someone with buyer’s remorse over their Digital Edition PS5 can simply get a disc drive and add it on themselves, but they’ll end up paying more in the process since the Digital Edition now costs $449.99 and the drive add-on runs $79.99.
And setting up the disc drive requires an internet connection, as was first reported last month — even if the disc drive came attached to your console. Setting up your console with no internet? It is not likely that most people would be in that situation, but you won’t be able to play anything until you connect to Sony’s server. You’re even given a warning that factory resetting your console requires an internet connection to properly unpair the disc drive, which raises the question of what happens if you sell or buy a secondhand drive that wasn’t unpaired. I have contacted Sony with several questions and will update this post if I hear back. I don’t see how this glorified DRM benefits anyone, and it may lead to some messiness when it comes to preservation many years down the road.
The new standard PlayStation 5 for late 2023 once again costs $499.99 and includes a disc drive that’s now removable. The PS5 will be included in a bundle with a free digital game and is being offered at various retailers. You can get the console with Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 (at Best Buy, Walmart, and Target) or Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III (at Amazon, Best Buy, GameStop, Walmart, Target, or direct from PlayStation).
