Sony PS5 price, availability, and pre-order problems, Quest 2, more tech news!

Your Tech News Digest via the DGiT Daily Tech Newsletter for Thursday, September 17, 2020.

1. PlayStation 5: Finally everything!

Here is the next generation Sony PlayStation 5 with pricing and availability! Finally!

• Last night, Sony announced that the PlayStation 5 costs $ 499.99 (disc-based) and $ 399.99 (Digital Edition, no other difference than the lack of a disc drive and a sleeker chassis).
• It will be released on Thursday, November 12, 2020 in the US, Japan, Canada, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand and South Korea.
• It will be out in the rest of the world on Thursday November 19, 2020, which means many of the common first-release countries like the UK, Germany, France and India will have to wait a week. Prices are £ 449 / € 499 and / £ 359 / € 399.
• China has been confirmed as a release country, but Sony has excluded it from a release plan for the time being. 2021?

The good news:

• This pricing is competitive. While the lower spec Xbox Series S undercuts the PS5 Digital Edition by $ 100, it comes with lower specs.
• At the top, the X Series and the PS5 with an optical drive each cost $ 500.
• It’s a bit strange that the optical drive is worth $ 100, but I humbly suggest that it is totally worth it.
• Just downloading games will save you $ 100. But for those who rent games, buy games, trade with friends, swap, resell, and have discs, it’s super worth it.
• And confusingly, for reasons I can’t explain, discs that are mailed or picked up at the store are often cheaper than digital editions.

Problems with pre-order:

• Pre-orders started today, but with Sony working with what they call “select retailers” there is some chaos in figuring out how to get one.
• Some pre-orders started at midnight. Those who wake up early but during normal person hours to get one find it sold out everywhere.
• The website crashed for people like Best Buy, Amazon had limited availability. There are already many stories in which people missed something or were lucky.
• There’s also a touch more demand as there is evidence that there may be a shortage of consoles available, which Sony denied.
• The Consensus: Sony just didn’t handle this well, which led to something like this:

Also: PlayStation 5’s list of launch games is taking shape, including the 10 biggest announcements from yesterday’s showcase. However, some games will be priced at $ 69.99 as it crosses that $ 60 mark (polygon). The new DualSense 5 also costs $ 69.99.

2. Oculus Quest 2 is cheaper and better – what is it?

Facebook Connect was yesterday too, and the new Oculus Quest 2 looks like the next VR headset most people will get if a Facebook account isn’t a problem for you.

What’s new:

• The Oculus Quest 2 has much, much better specs.
• What you will see is a switch from OLED displays to fast refresh LCDs with a resolution of 1832 × 1920 versus the old 1,440 × 1,600. 50% more pixels will be beautiful.
• There’s support for 90Hz refresh rates which promises a lot more smoothness, but that faster rate comes after launch.
• It’s a touch lighter, with a 10% weight loss and better, overhauled controllers.
• At $ 299, it’s $ 100 less than the original and seems almost so cheap that it will be a loss maker. Facebook wants to clearly expand the ecosystem. It comes out on October 13th, hitting the next generation of consoles with it.
• Last but not least, there is now a Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2 chipset that promises better gaming capabilities and performance, and 6GB of RAM helps with that.
• Other new features: Oculus Move for VR Fitness, which allows your Oculus headset to track fitness metrics in games. There are new Oculus business tools for virtual desktops and meetings in the Infinite Office experience.
• And of course new games, including Star Wars: Tales from the Galaxy’s Edge and a VR Battle Royale in Population: One.

Reviews already:

• Quest 2 is already in the hands of a few reviewers!
• The Verge and Wired and others have detailed reviews, most of which say some similar things: This is the new default, and it’s very purchasable.
• On the other hand, a Facebook account, the link cable, and a better strap are required. While the battery life isn’t amazing, you can also buy a battery to keep it on.
• And that $ 300 price tag is for the 64GB version. For gamers who want to store a lot of games, the 256GB version costs a steeper $ 400 and the link cable costs $ 79.
• All in all, it’s still a better place to start jumping into VR, and the upgrade will likely be almost worth it for existing Quest owners, but The Verge notes that it’s not a must-have yet, but got the review done with : “… The Quest 2 is the first headset that I can recommend to a wide audience.”

bonus: ‘Aria’: Facebook is working with Ray-Ban (The Verge) on smart glasses.

3. The new Sony Xperia 5 II was presented: a more compact 6.1-inch power pack with Snapdragon 865 SoC, 8 GB RAM, 120 Hz OLED display with an aspect ratio of 21: 9 from Sony as well as a headphone jack and pro Camera setup and 4,000 mAh battery. There is also real-time eye autofocus on this camera, but not 5G for the US. Disadvantage? Launch in December (Android Authority).

4. The OnePlus Nord could soon come to the US: Price under 400 USD for 5G, called N10 5G, slower Snapdragon 690 on board? (Android Authority).

5. You are now ready to purchase a version of the Bose Quiet Comfort 35 II (Android Authority) gaming headset.

6. There’s a new GoPro: the GoPro Hero 9, which is being filmed in 5,000 and for less than $ 500 with a reusable case and no plastic wrap. Looks great – here’s a review. Note, however, that you will likely still need a second battery (The Verge).

7. Report: The Samsung Galaxy S30 Ultra does not receive any improvement in battery capacity (Android Authority).

8. Surface Pro X with better Microsoft SQ2 chip and Platinum color option is on the way (Windows Central).

9. Nvidia RTX 3080 review: 4K size at $ 699 – and good news for cheaper GPUs (Ars Technica).

10. Mozilla wants your help to fix horrible YouTube recommendations (The Verge).

11. China launches space mining bot: testing, not mining for now (IEEE).

12. Traffic in New Jersey stops for the UFO sighting, which was actually the Goodyear airship (Jalopnik).

13. “If you could wake up in a video game world for a day, which one would it be and why?” (r / askreddit).

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