That PS5 start-up sequence video is officially a fake

We're less than a year away from the PS5's release date and, with Sony keeping fairly tight-lipped regarding further details for now, the rumor mill is working overtime. But, some rumors are more believable than others, and this isn't one of them.

An unlisted video was posted to YouTube, which claims to show the PS5's start-up sequence. The video was spotted by a user who posted it to Reddit then proceeded to send it far and wide to publications directly and on social media. We were not convinced it was the real deal for a number of reasons and, it turns out, we were right. 

Check out the original video below:

Connecting the dots

So what does the video actually show? Seemingly recorded on a mobile phone, the footage shows two monitors with a black, slightly PlayStation-like box beside them. On one of the screens, the PS5 logo appears with a nice wavey, blue background and a calming boot-up sound, followed by the Sony logo.

After the PlayStaion's usual photo sensitivity warning, a QR code (which is unreadable) appears along a plus sign and PlayStation symbol sign. The Google Play and Apple Store logos sit in the corner, but there's a large part of the screen blocked by a black bar.

If the video got you excited, we understand. It's a lovely sequence, but it's a fake. We were already sure of this for a number of reasons.

To start, the unlisted video 'leak' that is supposed to be an accident has been up on YouTube for two days at time of publishing. If this was an actual leak, and someone messed up, that video would be down in a heartbeat. There's no way they wouldn't have noticed it was still up by now. Our guess is that whoever made the sequence, and the video, is waiting until it picks up more momentum. 

We also noted that the YouTube poster in no way mentions working at Sony, or a Sony-affiliated company.Instead, they seem to make a lot of videos and renders. 

It's also odd that the Reddit poster is pushing so hard to get it in front of so many people's eyes, in our experience that's not something that happens often with legitimate leaks - because no individual benefits from that. 

However, if you made your own video then you would want as many people to see it as possible and maybe, just maybe, think it's the real deal. But everything feels staged about this leak, from the description, to the random sock puppets accounts commenting things like: "Can't wait till this dude realizes the video is public"

That brings us on to the video itself. The PlayStation 5 that's supposedly sitting on the desk is nothing like the dev kits we've seen and someone on YouTube pointed out it looks like a Blu-Ray player. In addition, the start-up sequence seemed to take too long to boot up considering the PS5 is meant to essentially do away with loading screens. None of this video added up and that's for a very simple reason: it's a fake.

The YouTuber who originally posted the leaked video has since released a video called "How to win the interwebs - make a PS5 video". In this new video, the creator of the fake sequence goes through how they actually made it - and props to them, it took a fair amount of work, even if it didn't fool everyone.

You can watch the VFX breakdown below:

But this does go to show that not every PS5 rumor is a winner and, here at TechRadar, we aim to use our expert knowledge to help you sort the wheat from the chaff and avoid any unlikely PlayStation 5 rumors.

• PS5 vs Xbox Series X: what we know so far