A week after Microsoft (somewhat forcefully) revealed the prices of the upcoming Xbox series S and X ($300/£250 for the S and $500/£450 for the more powerful X), Sony announced the PlayStation 5 for $500/£450/€500 and the digital version (same game console but without the Blu-ray drive) for $400/360 pounds/400 euros.

The PS5 will be available in North America, Japan, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, and South Korea on November 12, with the rest of the world a week later on November 19.

We presented some opinions on the PlayStation 5 hardware when it was announced earlier this year, and while it was by no means underwhelming, the proprietary SSD balances the scales when compared to the new Xbox consoles and PCs that do not have an SSD Epic boss Tim Sweeney also spoke highly of the PS5's storage, calling it "god-level" during an Unreal Engine 5 presentation in May.

While PlayStation 5 pre-orders have not yet begun (Update: Sony says pre-orders will begin "as early as" September 17), you can put your name down for one of the "limited quantity" systems available for pre-order on playstation.com.