The success of this thing baffles me. I’ve been maining consoles my entire life and I feel like I have no reason to own any of the home consoles this gen.
I bought it in the fall of 2022, when the shortages were just starting to end, expecting it would get more games. I wanted to get one before they did a mid-gen refresh that removed stuff like backwards compatibility, the disc drive, etc.
It’s been really disappointing so far. I still think I’ve put more time into PS4 games than PS5 games. Astro’s Playroom was fantastic, but unfortunately it is still probably the best game for the console.
Sadly, there are probably only 5 PS5 exclusives that got no PS4 release… I’ve got one too, I like it, but I think other than Astros Playroom, Spiderman, god of war, final Fantasy 16 and 7-2, there isn’t a single exclusive title.
I also have a gaming PC (and I stream to every screen in the house) and a Steam Deck, so from that perspective it’s even fewer exclusive games.
I do really prefer physical games, but even that is going away. Some games just don’t release physically, or even if they have a physical version it’s basically just a different kind of DRM. I recently bought Gran Turismo 7 physically and was incredibly disappointed that it had to install 128GB to the PS5 to even open, then it took a while downloading ever more updates and data once I opened it.
I traditionally loved Naughty Dog and Insomniac franchises, but Naughty Dog has only re-released games on the PS5 so far. Insomniac… Rift Apart is decent. I don’t really like Marvel or superhero stuff though. I tried Spiderman and it’s… Fine., but it really makes me wish I was just playing Sunset Overdrive instead. I’m in the process of playing through the older God of War games for the first time- so far they aren’t bad but they seem overrated considering how hyped they were back in the day.
There’s no killer Hideo Kojima game yet. Gran Turismo is a micro transaction, always online, multiplayer-focused shell of what used to be a great series. There isn’t any equivalent to creative games like Shadow of the Colossus, Ico, Katamari Damacy, etc. Stray was really good- my PC kind of struggled with it so I might pick up the PS5 version if I ever see a physical copy on sale.
I don’t know that it’s just PlayStation either. Looking at my Steam library by release date, the last big AAA games I have are Yakuza 6 (2021, still haven’t played it yet), Control (2020- although I think that’s because I have the complete edition. The base game was from 2019), and Horizon Zero Dawn (similarly listed as 2020, but the base game would have been 2017). It seems like more and more studios are closing, more games being released are just “meh”.
Did you play Sir Whoopass on Steam/GoG?
I need it so I can player the newer games betterer
Ignoring current gen stuff, it completely changed the experience of last gen games for me, too.
I like games at a difficulty level that’s fair, but punishing. If I make the same mistake 20 times in a row, I want it to get me killed 20 times. There are plenty of games that do this reasonably well, but on PS4, those deaths might take 5 minutes to load back into. On PS5, it doesn’t. There were several games where I wasn’t willing to spend an hour to play 10 minutes because they were on a particularly challenging encounter, but were great experiences with the better loads on PS5.
The triggers are also amazing, especially in combination with the high fidelity vibration. They add a lot of feedback in games that utilize them well, in a way that allows for much tighter precision of controls with a smoother learning curve.
Thats how I felt about the prior generation. I went from a 360 to a series X
i already felt like Microsoft was doing little to make their consoles an interesting option (if you didn’t have a PC already), and most of their exclusives became cross platform.
I think their next console will basically just either be a streaming device or just a fancy gaming PC with Windows.
I think you underestimate how many people don’t want to deal with the overhead of a PC vs a console. Like for you and me, it’s straight forward and simple to use a PC but I have friends who truly struggle with technology and its just easier for them to not have to deal with anything beyond their boxed in OS on their console.
Oh I know that there are a lot of people that don’t want to get started on having to deal with picking parts, let alone putting them together themselves.
But a lot of stores also started selling pre-built gaming PCs recently, at least where I live. So it’s become significantly easier to obtain a gaming PC these days.
Other than that I feel Xbox hasn’t had as many exclusives as PlayStation lately (if we’re not counting PC ports). So then a decision between either console seems like quite an easy one for many.
Its more than just the hardware, many don’t want to put any time into the software either. I’ve tried to get one friend to use the gaming PC he already has and he just flat out refuses. He finds it “breaks too often and has too many issues” which idk I’ve never had that level of issues but I’ve also been using them my entire life lol.
There’s still a lot more effort just to start a game.
Steam Big Picture mode is pretty much fine, but on SteamOS (or Linux generally) that means compromising on multiplayer games, and on Windows you’re still at the mercy of Windows update breaking the “boot to controller menu” experience.
Solid device but the games library is not there and we are at the end of the cycle. Seems like a new normal, games kinda maxed out now anyway.
Are people still buying COD every other year?
I picked up all exclusives, before they went cross platform anyway. For me it was worth the buy.
I don’t think we’ll see a PS6 anytime soon though. Visual progress is probably gonna stall a bit now, best they can do is aim for solid 4K 120FPS, which would require better hardware. But I don’t think that’ll happen anytime soon.
Other than VR there haven’t really been big developments in gaming for a long time. And most of the player base ain’t ready for stuff higher than 4K. So I think it’ll flatten out for a little longer.
How is this the end of the cycle? Is it because there are rumored mid-cycle upgrades like the PS4 Pro and Xbox One X coming soon, or have console cycles really shortened from 7/8 years to 4?
i think i might have misspoke… they will release mid cycle upgrades this fall?
But is anyone going to upgrade? Where is value prop?
I think market is saturated at this point. covid demand is over.
i guess let’s see what happens
I think I agree with you. I was honestly extremely tempted to buy a PS5 for the single player sequels Sony’s put out recently (Horizon FW, God of War R, and SM 2) but it’s become clear they’re all coming to PC so fuck it I can be patient.
Here’s hoping Sony wises up and greenlights a PS5 (with a lil PC side release) remaster of Bloodborne
I subscribe to Gameranx and every year the do a before you buy on it. So must be hot. I played the original but not really an FPS fan. Well unless I can kill nazi’s or even better nazi zombies.
I am upset some Senran Kagura games have not been fixed for PS5 :(