This is the same conversation we had throughout the entire rumorwave about this project: Who is going to buy this and which developers will actually anything worthwhile with the new hardware? Because all signs points to an expensive console (at least $600) with the only upgrades being a slight graphical bump and higher resolution. There are no new gameplay features.
I think people would be much more happy with a smaller, more power efficient version of the PS5 instead.
Not even higher resolution. I mean, potentially on paper but consoles have been UHD capable(-ish) since the PS4 Pro and higher resolution’s are neither viable nor necessary. So it’ll just upscale a few titles a little less or run some games with a little higher fps…
There’s also questions around the game industry as a whole. I think the recent layoffs at major companies aren’t just another cycle, but systemic. The market no longer bears production of giant games with crazy graphics that cost $70 and have a bunch of DLC and gambling mechanics attached.
Games won’t go away, but they’ll play fine on something like the Steam Deck, Switch 2, or modest gaming PC. What would high end console hardware bring to the table anymore?
Graphics are no longer a major selling point in most cases. Most people would be fine with a good game that works and isn’t saddle with microtransactions, even if it means it will look somewhat worse.
I wouldn’t say graphics have zero bearing for sales but the scales have definitely tipped towards gameplay over the last several years. Minecraft added rtx graphics and the mass majority of people, even with rtx capable cards, just yawned.
Digital game sales, outside of sports titles, are pushed by streaming engagement and riding coat tails of previous games. Look at the recent history and it’s pretty obvious.
There’s barely a point to get a normal PS5 yet. I can think of only one game I’m interested in that’s not also on the PS4.
4K gaming, same with Ps5Pro. But the Pro definitely makes much less sense.
Plus Sony’s sales are going down and with this console they can generate some buzz and sell even more consoles.
4k gaming is nice and all, but I’d never get a new console and a new TV just for that. At that point, I might as well quit buying consoles for good and go for a PC - Sony started releasing more games on steam anyways.
The PS5 itself barely has a reason to exist since most games are STILL cross-gen. If I hadn’t skipped the PS4 generation my PS5 would have been a huge waste of money
I almost skipped the PS4 generation but got a PS4 Pro. As a result I had a huge catalogue of PS4 games to play and all at a decent price as they had been out for a while.
I was so impressed with the PS4 I purchased the PS5. Honestly the best thing about the PS5 is Astros Playground. Outside of that I’m just playing a remastered or patched PS4 game. The PS5 has been bitterly disappointing.
Ps5 has been absolutely shit. Even their own flagship games have been cross gen.
If you bought a pro ps5 you would have a shit catalogue to play still.
I mean, spider-man 2 and FF7 Rebirth haven’t been bad. No ps4 versions either.
2 games to be fair, I know there are exclusives but they are few and far between.
Yea I feel the lag of PS4 has definetly dragged on way too long. They say devs make more money when theybsell on the larger install base but they also prevent the install base of ps5 from growing by selling to the ps4 base as well. You want the new game woth all the new graphics? Get the new console.
Instead game features must cater to the lowest hardware denominator.
Yeah they could have locked God of War Ragnarok to ps5. Pushed it to be a showpiece for what the console is capable of. Same with Forbidden West. They could have even put ps5 only exclusive additions to games like GTAV did with first person view.
Really disappointing console, probably the last I will buy.
That’s particularly bad for Xbox and their policies.
Microsoft was dumb to make a console with last gen power (series S) then firce all series X games to release for the S. They stifled their gaming power this gen by doing that.
What does the game selection have to do with the console itself though? Whether the selection of games is good or bad, the hardware is still hands down better. For quite a long time, the games available for PS4/XBOne were cross platform. This time around we had COVID and supply shortages to contend with, along with consolidation in game studios, which is why they’ve stuck around longer.
What does the game selection have to do with the console itself though?
Like everything? It is what all that hardware is for, if it isnt giving me anything new then what is the point? The hardware improvements are marginal and not all that special in terms of a unique selling point.
And the conditions only explain the situation not excuse it, this generation is boring and did not progress the industry much. I think it is across all consoles, there was nothing special other than minor graphical improvements.
The industry also shat out remakes and remasters instead of new content.
I disagree heavily.
I actually think that technologically speaking, the PS5 is unimpressive. But compared to the PS4 pro, calling it a “waste” is lunacy. The only reason you think this is clearly because you didn’t have a PS4 lol.
Agreed. My PS4 consistently sounded like a jet engine while playing games with moderate level of graphics and moderate load times. The PS5 has instant load times, 4k resolution, and much better graphics. I don’t regret buying it one but other than the fact that I don’t find myself playing games much at all these days due to burnout.
Seems like company decision makers continue to be out of touch with what people want. People seem much more excited about products like the steam deck which play most of your whole library on Linux at very reasonable quality.
I think the console exclusivity game is nearing the end, there’s going to have to be some actual innovation for people to come out of their pockets.
Most people don’t seem to care about the Steam Deck running Linux (I do), but they’ve been wanting a good handheld gaming experience, and nobody is offering it. Nintendo is stuck with decade+ old hardware, the PS Portal doesn’t work w/o network, and the Windows handhelds kind of suck.
Steam Deck works well with minimal effort, and people love it.
I don’t know about the rest of the world but my country is in a recession. There are no jobs and no houses. Rent is huge.
The number of people who can buy expensive toys is going down. People want good value for money, and good value for money is winning the market.
Yeah, besides the PSSR feature, I’m struggling to see the point in upgrading to this if you already have a PS5. It feels like Sony and Microsoft are just going with plans they made at the start of the generation when they assumed they would need a mid-gen refresh. But with the massive shortages it doesn’t really feel like we’re at the kind of midpoint that calls for a console refresh.
If Microsoft is working on an enhanced model it’s a new development, their console development plans leaked during the Activision purchase thing, it had their next gen plans and the digital only Series X but no enhanced model.
Yes, if they want to grow hardware sales, they should aim for cheaper hardware. Given how most games are still cross-gen, they could have sold a PS5s or smg with a PS4 pro level of performance, but PS5 design, Dualsense features, etc.
I also feel they missed the mark on the Portal, it’s a niche gimmicky tool, instead of a powerful competitor in the growing handheld market.
PS5 Pro is a stupid idea, maybe in 2 years it would make sense, but still doubtful. Due to the slower development of tech and covid supply chain issues, the real start of the generation got “delayed” a few years, which should be taken into account.
The same thing but more FPS. What’s not to understand?
Here’s the thing though, when you’re CPU-limited (and a lot of the games that struggle on current gen are) the upgrade won’t do much.
You should expect better resolution, ray tracing and possibly better image quality if devs implement PSSSR and it’s better than whatever upscale solution they’d use instead. Maybe if a game is pretty close to hittong its frame target it’ll give you a smoother performance but don’t expect much last that
The question is who would want one?
If you’re a big graphics nerd, who really needs the highest quality everything, you probably have a PC. If you’re an average consumer , the PS5 is fine. A PS5 Pro seems unnecessary.
PS5 does stuff PC still doesn’t.
It’s not enough for me to buy games there first, but mostly because of Steam Deck. Even though PC supports pcie4 as well, the fact that it’s a standardized hardware feature with built in hardware decompression means games can rely on proper loading bandwidth.
Like what?
I said it in that post.
There is no comp on PC for the loading capability the PS5 has. You can’t stream in a world from SSD on PC like you can on PS5.
Do you mean its ability to stream data directly from the SSD to the GPU without the CPU being involved? Because PCs can do the same thing these days.
Even if we were in a world where PCIE 4.0 SSDs faster than PS5’s internal SSD (and 5.0s that are twice as fast that are launching this year) didn’t exist, what is the PS5 doing with all that speed that couldn’t be done on PC?
If you want to say the PS5 and Xbox Series consoles punch above their price bracket, that’s very true, specially at launch; but no console has been more capable than a contemporary PC since the Xbox 360 (or arguably the PS3)
Nothing yet.
It’s not the hardware that’s the problem. (Though again, the built in hardware decompression matters too.) It’s the PC libraries for loading being dogshit. Loading speeds on PS5 with everything identical blow doors off of PC.
And again, I already answered the question in the post you’re replying to. You can stream the much higher quality game from disk in real time.
“with everything identical”? Yeah if you had a low end PC it wouldn’t be very good.
It’s not enough for me to buy games there first, but mostly because of Steam Deck. Even though PC supports pcie4 as well, the fact that it’s a standardized hardware feature with built in hardware decompression means games can rely on proper loading bandwidth.
holy ignorance
Didn’t digital foundry report that pc was slightly faster at loading h:fw?
