The PS5 is so Big Because it Runs Hot

The PS5 was revealed not too long ago, and a lot of people commented on its rather unique style, looking like something between a router and an anime villain. But people also noticed that the bad boy was huge, taking up considerably more shelf space than the PlayStations that preceded it. This kind of counters the understanding that the better a technology gets, the smaller the technology becomes.

But as it turns out, there’s a very good reason for the PS5’s rather bulky size: according to PlayStation's vice president of UX design Matt MacLaurin over on LinkedIn (and spotted by VG247), it has everything to do with heat.

"Thermals. This gen is little supercomputers. While the 7nm process delivers amazing heat performance for the power, the power is very extreme."

This makes sense to anyone who has a PS4: keep it around long enough, and you’ll notice that it starts to get very loud very fast… so loud, in fact, that certain games, like Hitman and Nioh 2, make the console sound like it’s seconds away from blowing up. I doubt the bigger size will help with Thermal Paste issues that likely plague the PS4, but any kind of advantage in the fight against a loud console is gold to me.