Rumours about a slimmer PlayStation 5 have been making the rounds for more than a year, but truly caught fire when Insider-Gaming founder Tom Henderson reported that a PS5 with a detachable disc drive is coming this year. This has apparently lead to Microsoft doing some digging of its own.
One of the new published documents from the trial between Activision Blizzard King/Microsoft and FTC, which is expected to get a verdict tomorrow, has Microsoft stating it "expects" Sony to release what's called a PlayStation 5 Slim this year:
"PlayStation likewise sells a less expensive Digital Edition for $399.99, and is
expected to release a PlayStation 5 Slim later this year at the same reduced price point."
It's impossible to say if this is a reference to Henderson's report, the other rumours or what Microsoft has learned itself, but it's interesting nonetheless. Especially when a PS5 Pro is also mentioned further down when trying to convince the judge that consumers don't care about performance:
"PlayStation, meanwhile, currently offers two different versions of the PlayStation 5—one with a Blu-Ray player for physical media (Standard) and one without (Digital)—and is anticipated to release further differentiated Pro and Slim models in the near future. These models are differentiated from Xbox offers."
The PS5 with a detachable disc drive is apparently still set to launch in September, so we won't have to wait long for an official unveiling and to see if Microsoft's price expectation is spot on or not.