I think Richard was perfectly fair in his summary and assessments, though I will say that I don't personally think the PS5 design is as conservative as Richard made out.
Just how conservative is the PS5's design?
The use of liquid metal is a first for a mass-manufactured product, the only other product I know of that uses something similar are the new Asus laptops, but obviously they're not manufactured to the same quantity or volume.
There's other little things like the depth of the fan that Richard touches on, larger than any in a console yet, the dual sided intake, the dust catchers which as far as I know, are also another first for a gaming console, the non proprietary SSD expansion slot that is factored into the cooling arrangement, and also caters to every physical size of NVMe SSD etc.
The PS5's design profile and shape.
I also don't think Sony stuck to this design profile or shape only to keep costs down as suggested (on top of needing major cooling), but also to have physical dimensions that despite being really large, still fit into a wider number of entertainment units, which the PS5 will versus the Xbox Series X just by virtue of its lower height whilst horizontal. As an example, going by the dimensions, the PS5 will fit into my entertainment system horizontally, the Series X will not.
Sony being less forthright with information.
On a final point, whilst Sony has definitely been more guarded or slower to release certain information comparative to Microsoft, I think it's still wise to remember that what Microsoft has shown or allowed has still been very restricted or controlled.
Yes they allowed DF and another YouTube influencer to engage in a pseudo teardown, but the unit they put together was not a retail unit. It was a demo showcase unit, that didn't have screws, cables etc, and could be clicked together with magnets to look more palatable and sexy. Obviously the real thing will be a bit more complex in its construction, and take longer to disassemble.
Likewise, yes Microsoft sent prototypes to tonnes of influencers and outlets, but they still had/have very strict NDA rules around what can or cannot be said, or could or could not be played and so on. Hence we don't actually have exact noise and heat figures yet. The whole 'console runs silent but really hot stuff' that came out, was essentially against the NDA.
Ultimately, I'm sure we'll get full hardware tests in a few weeks the way we've had for every console from Sony and Microsoft the last decade or so (including comprehensive tests on heat, noise, loading times and so on), and I'm also confident we'll get multiplatform comparisons, reviews of games etc eventually too. It's just a waiting game.
www.youtube.com
