Roughly a year ago, Sony released a second wave of Playstation 5’s to the
Australian and Japanese markets. A few key changes amongst this “updated” console
would be the screw that holds the stand and a very interesting change in weight. Now,
some people would see this weight change as an opportunity to transport the console
easier or believe that Sony has developed a new piece of tech that somehow eliminates
a few pounds. This is not the case, however.
Youtuber, Austin Evans, published a video to the website conducting a tear-
down of the new Australian version of the Playstation 5 and the original American
launch console. According to Evans, after weighing both consoles the Australian
console weighed close to 300 grams less than the American launch. To get to the
bottom of this mystery, Evans and help fully stripped down both consoles to see the
internal hardware.
After fully removing all the components from the console’s shell, each part was
weighed individually and compared between the two market consoles. All of the
hardware seemed to be identical until the removal and weighing of the heat sync. The
American console’s heat sync had a substantially larger amount of metal to aid in
prevention of overheating while the Australian version did not.
With this discovery, Evans decided to measure the temperature of the two
consoles as they were operating. The American console resulted in running about three
to five degrees cooler than its Australian counterpart showing that Sony reduced the
amount of metal in the heat sync to save money knowingly that the chances of
overheating had increased.
Although this console has only been released to the Japanese and Australian
markets. It is easy to assume that if the console does well, a testing phase in the United
States will be sure to follow. To avoid buying this console, stay away from purchasing
over foreign marketplaces and take a good look at the serial number on the console.
The Australian consoles begin with the number 11 whereas the original launch starts
with the number ten.
See this video for more information: