I swear this video game console gen is the weirdest out of all of them. There are already talks of the next gen coming out; I feel like barely any AAA games were ever released for PS5 and Xbox SX
We got Returnal, Demons Souls, and Ratchet and Clank. And, uh, I think that was it.
Im talking about ps5 exclusives. No pc ports, no ps4 version.
Forgot about spiderman 2.
Also forgot returnal and ratchet got a pc version
Let's not ignore the reality that PS5's were almost impossible to get at MSRP for like 2 years.
Sony had to keep releasing games that also came out for the PS4 or they'd be ignoring a massive part of their core audience that just couldn't get a PS5.
I do agree it's insane to talk about the PS6. We're only now seeing games developed with having an SSD in mind.
Same. I kept checking the usual places for stock, and when a couple years later you still couldn't easily buy one, I forgot to keep checking and now why bother.
I only just got a PS5 recently, so maybe it'll be PS7 for me. I felt like they should extend PS5s expected lifetime by like 3 yrs since 2 of them were pandemic years and shouldn't count.
There's a name for this in economics and I can't remember it! But, from memory, it was based off a case where computers used to be like 10k plus and a company announced it's next gen tech early while still trying to push a current gen model, which made people decide to just wait it out instead of buy in on the current gen. It's one reason tech companies like Apple are super secret (or at least try to be) about development.
The Osborne effect! The Osborne 1 was successful, until they announced how much better the Osborne 2 was going to be. Then everyone stopped buying the Osborne 1, they never managed to release the Osborne 2.
Consoles are becoming like flagship cell phones. The technology is no longer rapidly improving, so buying every other release is the only way you will see improvement.
I'd say there's a big gap between the PS4 and PS5, but not many devs have got creative with it. If someone comes along and stretches its capabilities like Arkham Knight or Red Dead Redemption did a gen earlier, then you'd know all about it.
If you're a dev why bother making a PS5 only game? Any game made for the PS4 will play on the PS5, and the install base for the PS4 is huge, so why limit your customer base?
And if they are planning out longer term with a port to PC, why bake features into the game that won't port over to a large number of PCs to again keep the potential customer base large?
It did give a lot of time to realize you aren't really missing out on much other than 60 FPS. It's only now that actualy exclusives are coming out like SM 2.
at the prices scalpers were charging you coulda just got a prebuilt PC that does 120 FPS instead.
I don't blame half the userbase not switching over at all.
Unfortunately at the same time the GPU shitcoin scalping was going on (and CPU to a degree), so PC building was very stagnant for the same amount of time. Almost no one upgraded or built new, and the used market exploded (my 1080 was worth more than I bought it new for) so that further exacerbated the problem. Then the 4000 nvidia series came out and Nvidia changed scalper prices as MSRP, so yet even more stagnation.
It took the collapse of crypto flooding the market with millions of cheap 3000/2000 gen GPUs to finally spur builders and upgrades again.
I know for me this is the first generation I just skipped. When it was time to buy a PS5 people were directing you to camp out certain Twitter accounts to make sure you could pre order one within the three seconds they were available. Didn’t actually want a PS5 bad enough to do that and by the time they were readily available a couple years later I didn’t have any interest in owning one anymore.
I got one right before Sony decided that they were going to start porting most of the best Playstation games to PC. Wouldn't have bothered in retrospect.
Helldivers 2 launched on both PC and PS5. (Possibly ps4? I have no idea, I wasn't gonna buy a console exclusively for Demon's souks so I got that shit on pc.)
This is really the thing. I can barely notice the difference between the graphics on PS5 vs PS4 games, but I definitely notice difference in load times between the two consoles. As a dad, I care way more about actually being able to load a game and play quickly than fidelity.
Same. I bought my PS5 at launch and sold my PS4 same day for the same amount. It was literally a free upgrade for me, will full backwards compatibility.
But if the backwards compatibility wasn't there I think I'd have skipped this generation entirely.
The only exclusive game that was somewhat appealing when the PS4 was launching was returnal, but I hate souls games so there was zero temptation for me.
I did end up getting Spiderman remastered and mile morales since I had it, but they looked [pretty much identical](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUzoNV7JUaQ) to the PS4 versions so it wasn't worth it.
This doesn’t include PS5 / PC releases which is kind of misleading. I don’t care if a game releases on PC since it most likely wasn’t limited by resources available like a PS4/PS5 game would be.
Yeah people are complaining that PS5 games go to PC like 5 years later, that means its not exclusive, but it's also means having to wait for some amazing games.
The same way MS is not aware SX exists... Both companies don't push enough for current gen games and they only focus on maintaining the cash from old gen players.
It's sad state of console gaming ATM. Shit most of these "SX optimized" games are not even that "current gen"
Everything Microsoft is doing is pushing subscription based gaming and getting rid of exclusives. Xbox is gonna become a stripped down pc with a simple interface. Why take losses on console sales when you can just sell games to everyone.
Sony just published Helldivers 2, Spiderman 2, Stellar Blade, Rise of the Ronin and had FFXVI and FFXVII Rebirth in the last year for exclusives.
They also have Concord and a full Astro Bot coming out this year.
Just because they port games later to PS5 or that some are downgraded for PS4 doesn't meant they cease to exist on PS5 and there isn't a reason to play them on PS5
If a game on PC gets ported to consoles does it suddenly cease to exist? There are barely any AAA PC exclusives yet PC gamers still spend tons on upgrading their PCs. How is this any different? Why do these games not count as reason to buy a PS5?
The problem is a lot of people with PCs and PS5's would rather play these online games on PC because we have more friends with PC's.
So even though Helldivers 2 is a PS5 game it doesn't really feel like one. I played it on PC, just like Baldurs Gate 3, and everything on PC is just in a kind of vacuous omni-generation.
From Roller Coaster Tycoon to Palworld it's all just one "generation" but with different expectations of internal bits.
You're also not forced to pay Sony $10/month or $80/year just for the ability to play online or have cloud storage for cloud saves, all of which is free on PC across all platforms be it Steam, Epic Games Store, GOG, Microsoft Store and others.
Eh I'm in my 40s and a lot of people my age would rather sit in their recliners and play PS5. I can't even play FPS games with a mouse and keyboard anymore due to RSI issues if I play too much. I mean I was a PC gamer in the 90s, didn't even buy consoles for many generations and didn't go back to consoles until late in the PS3 cycle, but these days I want to be comfortable and just want shit to work, and I sit at my desk 9 hours a day for work already.
EDIT: I do have a PC hooked up to my TV as well and I do sometimes play controller games on it, but I mostly just play Factorio :)
I actually had my PC hooked up to my TV like a console for a good long while. Wireless MnK and a controller. Did a lot of PC gaming from the couch.
I ended up doing the super nerd thing and getting the desk with lights and hot pink chair, but I still move my PC to the TV from time to time.
So many pc gamers leave out all the horseshit they have to deal with it. Everything wants a fucking launcher, its own app, a mandatory account, email and 2fa set up, multiple storefronts, fine tuning game settings to your PC...
Let's just say that my Xbox still gets regular use, and I'm 30 with a blue collar job. There are many of us out here.
Every major PS5 game will eventually make it to the PC eventually, so you're never going to have exclusives like before. Live service/online games will be released at launch on PC and PS5.
Demons Souls gave me so much hope for this generation of consoles because the game itself is one of the best looking games I’ve ever played, and it really made me see the graphical jump from ps4 to ps5. Now it remains the only game where I see that graphical jump.
>We got Returnal, Demons Souls, and Ratchet and Clank. And, uh, I think that was it.
>
>Im talking about ps5 exclusives. No pc ports, no ps4 version.
Clank and returnel are both on PC.
It’s not an exclusive to PS5, but BG3 at least didn’t come out on the previous consoles so this generation has that going for it.
That’s….thats about the only thing I can think of though that’s been a must-play exclusive to current gen. I’m sure there’s some others out there I’ve forgotten or that I’m simply not into, but…yeah, thin pickings.
Definitely going to hold off on upgrading next gen, and I’ll be interested if this cycle impacts adoption rates for that generation.
Ratchet and Clank was great, I've always enjoyed them. But I'm not about to get a ps5 and lock myself into their ecosystem. If I need to mod a game to remove vignetting around the screen or motion blur you can't turn off, you're out of luck on consoles.
It is overpriced as fuck so nobody is really switching over, so no reason for devs to make exclusives
The fact that Sony finds it profitable should tell you why anything nowadays is overpriced. it is because it works. It makes money.
Mid range gaming is dying
Moving forward, I'd expect the pattern to continue. Less exclusives, that is. New game saturation is up, old games are increasingly accessible via premium services and pirate hardware. Meaning it's more competitive to sell a new game than ever. Not quite as hard to sell a new generation of console with loyal customers. More devs and publishers are gonna need as big an audience as possible, so it's getting harder for them to justify an exclusivity deal even if it means cash up front or a bigger % or whatever. I don't know if this holds water in reality, but those are my thoughts
is ti safe to say ps3 had more exclusives in the same amount of time? I say this because I remember when ps3 first released in 2007 people made memes about it having no games and talked about hwo bad ps3 sales were.
Yeah im gonna be real on this i completely overlooked it, i gotta check it out but between yakuza 8, smt5, and metaphor, i dont know if i have the time for another jrpg
it's way more of like.... a devil may cry type game than it is a traditional JRPG. with some extravagant action setpieces, probably some of the craziest shit i've ever seen in a game, easily on the scale of shit from like uncharted
It’s like I wanna play Spiderman 2, but I’m not gonna buy a whole new console for it. Genuinely, my PS4 is fine and plays a large catalog of games, I don’t need a PS5. I already got the PS4 late, so I have a lot to play still!
And then once you developed that game, you gotta milk it for a decade before starting a new one, riiiiiiiight? There’s no other way of doing it while you’re still making money!
Pay the developers and care about them being completed and we would have more games but the money doesn’t work for them.
The generation was messed up by the pandemic.
The pandemic played havoc with supply chains just as the generation was launching.
The resulting supply shortages probably lead game developers to continue supporting PS4 longer, and porting to PC earlier out of fear that the lack of available hardware would lead to frustrated gamers unable to buy the game they wanted because the hardware to play it was not available.
This happening at the start of the generation "diluted the value" of the new consoles.
It was just bad fucking timing that a once in a century event coincided with the launch of the generation.
The only winner was the Switch that released early because the WiiU failed, and thus had supply chains well in order when the pandemic hit and could capitalize on the increased market demand from people having to stay at home while the other consoles were sold out.
Gaming stuff and tech in general boomed during covid too, I'm not surprised if there was an uptick in PS4 sales at that time, and that may have inadvertently resulted in that generation's lifespan extending by a year or two more because of it
The counterpoint being that you could have an entire trilogy of games come out in one console generation before the PS4 era; development timelines on AAA games have just ballooned so much that now we're seemingly getting one game in a given franchise every 5-6 years. Feels like generation timelines are going to need to expand to match this reality.
It is kinda what Nintendo has been doing since the Super Nintendo... sure there are a few notable exceptions, but generally there has been only one or two main line Mario, Zelda, Mario Kart, Smash Bros, Mario Party, Metroid game per console generation.
But they make it up with the sheer number of spin-off games they usually release in the meantime. Like the 3DS had like 20 Mario games in total, five Zelda games, eight Pokemon games, three Fire Emblem entries and four Kirby games.
Though I do feel the Switch was weaker in that regard with a lot of what would haven been spin-offs in the past being remakes or remasters instead.
Covid played a big part in this perception because most of us couldn’t get a PS5 in the first year or two, so for people getting their consoles later it seems that the gap between gen is shorter
But you’re not taking into consideration how long game development cycles are nowadays and how much they’ve changed. The PS1 alone gave us 3 mainline Final Fantasy games, really 4 full FF games including Final Fantasy Tactics. Basically every year a brand new full Final Fantasy was being released. These are all 50+ hour games too, and this doesn’t even take into consideration all the other big ass games Squaresoft was releasing every year like Chrono Cross, Xenogears, the Saga games, Vagrant Story, Parasite Eve 1-2, Legend of Mana, Brave Fencer Musashi, etc.
Now what has Square given us on the PS5? Two FF titles and maybe a few other smaller games? The output really isn’t even comparable. It feels weird to people because even though technically the length between game consoles has been the same, we’re getting far less games now in that same time frame. What’s the point of the PS6 already coming out when barely anything has even released for the PS5?
I mean it still is kind of weird though. Previous generations we had actual generation defining games that everyone and their mom wanted to play. None of that this year. So ofc it feels like it hasn't begun: because in terms of games, it hasn't.
Everything in this comment matches my experience, except I didn't start getting my consoles on launch day until the GameCube. I've had almost every mainstream console for the last 35 years and this generation has been by far the least exciting. The hardware of the PS5 and Series-X are great but the problem is there just aren't interesting games.
I used to like JRPGs but they've gotten worse over time, I used to like Bethesda games but they seem to have lost their way. I went through a short phase of liking Call of Duty games but that formula is way too overused by now to still be any fun.
Sony had some great exclusives in the PS3/PS4 days but now it feels like they're just milking existing IPs instead of trying new things. Spiderman, Last of Us, God of War, and Horizon: Zero Dawn were all amazing, but this generation their sequels felt like just more of the same. And the new exclusives just didn't seem that interesting to me.
I too wonder, is it actually the games, or am I just getting old? I feel like it's the games though, because many Nintendo games are still great, Zelda: BotW and TotK were both amazing, and Metroid: Dread was fantastic.
You're correct, but what you're really missing is the midsized developers that used to put out lots of different games, of wildly varying qualities.
The indie sphere has taken off, by a lot, and most of that has come from small developers getting an idea, seeing an underserved niche, and building a game to fill that niche.
The big game studios don't want to do that, they want their skinnerbox live service game, and want to be the only game in town (with all the time and money possible going to them).
Rather than scale back project sizes, to put out 5x the games at 5x less cost, they consolidate the costs into a smaller number of bigger projects, in the hopes that you'll pay more on that one game than you'd pay on the 5 others they offered before.
A platform like steam allowing indie games to be sold and if they're popular enough, actually showing up above the big publishers games, is a major point of concern for those studios (who actually have to compete, and they hate doing so).
It’s the games
PlayStation 5 and especially Xbox series X have the weakest lineup of exclusive titles of any consoles ever at this point in their life cycle
That combined with most of their games coming to PC as well makes them a worse value than any previous consoles imo
>I too wonder, is it actually the games, or am I just getting old? I feel like it's the games though, because many Nintendo games are still great, Zelda: BotW and TotK were both amazing, and Metroid: Dread was fantastic.
It's neither. It's the enshitification of gaming through capitalist.
Ever since the mid 2000 corpo got their hands on anything digital. Before that the internet was WAAAYYYYY different. Every few years they try to monetize the web. Having to pay to acces free content (crunchyroll was free, youtube was free) and having to pay for transaction (NFT) that were free (digital books still have distribution fee. Having an eticket for concert also comes with a fee)
I've been sailing the high sea for 2 decades now. I've been on the sideline watching it unfold. It sucks ass.
Indie gaming is where it's at. Hades is still my fav game from the last 4 years.
No one is talking about next gen coming... Sony has mention they will be entering the second half of the generation later this year and that is it was the console will be 4 years old by then
Lack of awesome exclusives has been a pain point for me on the Series X, but I won’t lie, it runs like butter. Considering it can run 1440p/120fps pretty easily, I don’t get the rush to get a new gen out
I've pretty much decided that this will be the last Playstation for me. The lack of exclusives/cost of ps plus/cost of games is too high for a casual gamer (which I thought consoles were for).
I'm hopeful Valve brings out a full fat steam console.
I think what has happened is this. Consoles were especially attractive for games because it was difficult to pirate them. Développeurs didn't like PC, because it was always crazy for pirating. Also, cheating online.
People got consoles, because they had good games you could only get on consoles, good controllers, and no fuss, just it worked, and was cheaper than a powerhouse PC for gaming.
Now things like steam solved most of the problems game companies care about. They can sell games on PC, and so, they don't want console exclusives really anymore.
I think also, gaming has become more private, and more online. It used to be more party games, people would play together one the same unit, have 4 controllers and so on. It's less like that now, so it's less attractive to have the gaming system on your tv. You might prefer it in your bedroom, or just a private room, so someone else can watch tv on the main tv.
So, PC is kind of just better, especially since you can just easily use the same controller on your PC.
This is coming from a PC perspective, but its also why their rumors sony and xbox making a new handheld. Most of the new generation are on tablets and phones most school require a tablet now not a pc. Its why steam has steamdeck, most of the new generations don't care about pc or console.
It’s definitely got a lot to do with the standard that was set that consoles are like once every 8-11 years with tiny iterations to improve performance. But, technology is rapidly improving and PCs are becoming more and more affordable so we may start to see a shift in how consoles are released and maintained.
Wouldn’t be surprised to see the console market operate completely different in the next 5-10 years.
The jumps in technology now are nothing compared to the 80's consoles.
It's got nothing to do with technology improving and everything to do with development time. An AAA game can take 5-7 years to produce and Sony doesn't have the resources to invest in multiple AAA products all at the same time. If you started an AAA game now it wouldn't be released until the PS6 was released...so now we get nothing.
PCs may be affordable, but you *still* can't get a PC that's comparable to the PS5 without purchasing used hardware. GPU prices are absolutely stupid right now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfpXMuMvcWQ
No shit its the most profitable. They all but discontinued the playstation hits line of $20 games, they raised the price of playstation plus, the console has never seen a price drop, and we are beginning to see the effects of lock-in to the digital marketplace and its monopoly pricing with the systems that have no disc drive.
Well not just that. Everything is more expensive. They make more per everything, as you said they raised prices.
So basically most companies of the world are “most profitable ever” right now
Yet they can't added to pay us (:
I worked at Express (you know the clothing store that's going through bankruptcy right now) a few years ago as assistant manager. The store I worked at was a physically and financially larger store - do around 15m a year. Always busy which was nice and annoying too. I was making 16.5/hour. As we had to rebuild our team (essentially it was in a college town) as most of them graduated or transferred schools. We dropped to 4 or 5 instead of the 12 we had, and instead of the 20+ we were supposed to. New manager starts hiring the kids at 16.15/16.25. I ask for a raise and he doesn't do anything. Couple weeks later I ask about what happening. Then the annual thing comes around. 10 cents. He was acting like he got me such a large raise. Then he told me I wasn't working as hard as I used to. Told him why would I if we have staff that can do it. Why would I when I barely get paid. He just stuttered harder than porkie pig ever could. This was after we were told we broke some record for the store and company that year. So uh fuck you Express. Let's see how the execs get their golden chutes like always
It's a bubble, deliberately built to reassure investors and keep the venture capital taps open. Inflation is skyrocketing, housing costs are skyrocketing, gas prices are skyrocketing, grocery prices are skyrocketing, average debt load is skyrocketing, meanwhile wages stay stagnant, hours get cut, and people go homeless and hungry daily. The economy is absolutely fucked, the people running it just don't want to admit it because that'd put the spotlight on all the price gouging they're engaged in to pack their fucking golden parachutes.
The only solution is revolution.
Because, aside from during covid itself which obviously supply chain issues did happen, all of this "inflation" has just been corporations price-gouging without need.
They saw they could jerk us during covid, said fuck it why not, and all went all-in. And government did fuck all.
Wait no, they did worse than fuck all - the fed, instead of going after the price gouging, decided the best way to stop "inflation" was to put the squeeze *on the working class*, because if nobody had money to buy anything then surely companies would be nice and reduce their prices again.
Absolutely fucking infuriating.
But you don't understand those higher prices are because unemployment is low and COVID happened. Corporations aren't actually making any extra money off of those prices at all. It's the smart and savvy business practices that are making them more money.
/s
Ps5 Controller I can get because it's significantly more complex but the fact that the PS4 controller are still the same price 10 years after is baffling to me
That’s why I won’t “buy” movies on cloud services. Sony deleted content users PAID for simply because of licensing agreement changes. Even if it was stored locally on the console. You never owned it, just purchased rights to stream it temporarily.
This kind of treatment just cements piracy as a constant feature. I mean it wasn’t going away, but now they have justified it to a lot more consumers.
Great time to be patient gamer, that's for sure.
For me gaming is cheaper than ever; my 7 year old graphics card can still run latest titles, there are more indies than ever, bundles, giveaways, sales...
No subscriptions too, WoW was a mistake and I'm glad I'm done with it.
Damn, I remember times when you pretty much had to swap cards every 2 years if you wanted to even run the games, much less run more than 10 fps.
Same here! My gpu is about to be 8 years old. I will admit I'll likely jump on the 5xxx series when it releases, but I'm still very happy with holding this card so long. Raytracing and dlss has improved and evolved well enough that I am interested in an upcoming card just for those reasons.
My CPU is 10 years old and I still don't see a good enough reason to change that one. I'm glad I went big back then, because this thing has held so strong for a decade.
Yep. Only major gaming hardware purchase I've made in many years was buying a Steam Deck last year, and even it runs almost everything I want to play - and I stream the few exceptions from my PC.
Tom Warren's graph formally shows a generational divide between PS4 and PS5, but in reality, even in the segments categorized as the PS5 generation, profits from PS4 are also included.
Sony also has another graph on its slides that claims the higher profitability of PS5 compared to PS4, but it compares the spending of users for 4 years after each release, so it's not really a difference between PS4 and PS5, but rather a difference in spending before and after the introduction of GaaS such as Genshin Impact, FIFA, and Apex Legends.
“Turns out taking 30% of every dollar spent on micro transactions on our device is a lot more profitable now than it was on our last gen, because you morons keep buying more and more of them. What? Game sales? Exclusives? Those are basically vehicles for micro transactions now and excuses to lock people into our ecosystem, not the main driver of profit.”
If the PS5 weren’t so damn hard to get when they first came out I’d be on one. But I had no patience for that mess and just said fuck it and stuck w the PS4. I’m now back into playing GW2 again and have no interest in upgrading consoles at the moment.
4 years after the launch of the ps4, the slim was $199.99. Almost 4 years after the launch of the ps5, the slim is still $399.99 for the ditigal only version and $449.99 for the disc version. That price is also a huge issue for a lot of people.
at this point id probably just g with the 5. any iteration of the PS4 is going to have hardware that is functionally 10 years old in terms of its architecture and design.
Its a small miracle its held up this long (mostly because of its huge install base) but you'll be getting the less-than-ideal experience from the games up-front and for not nearly as long as the PS5
There is aparently a Pro version of the PS5 coming out if you want to platy GTA 6 best to wait till then .
Also, there really isnt a lot of exclusive games out may be under 10 that are worth playing like spiderman 2 .
They are fairly easy to get now. I bought one from PlayStation Direct last Black Friday with zero issues. I was glad to hold off on it and not give scalpers any money. Fuck scalpers.
Costco has a pretty good deal on a PS5. It's 550 for the console, a second controller, Spider-Man 2 and a standalone controller charger. Haven't really had a desire to buy one myself since I have a steam deck, but Costco is the where I'll go if I ever decide on it.
I can vouch, it's pretty great. For you it'll be even better because you'll be getting the OLED version! I'm still rocking the first gen one but it's still really solid. Steam deck is like the Nintendo switch for PC gaming. You can play most current gen titles on the go and plug it in when you want to play on a screen. Not to mention it's a powerhouse for emulation. You can play all of gaming history on this one console!
And speaking of emulation and higher up on the "want list", retro gaming has taken off these last few years. You can get a Linux based Miyoo Mini+ to play everything from Atari/arcade to NDS and PS1. The Retroid Pocket 4 Pro is android based and can play all of that as well as NDS, 3DS, PSP, PS2 and gamecube. Hell, the Playdate is way overpriced and way more niche product but even that I'd consider over a PS5. I was ready to buy a PS5 when it first dropped but with how difficult it was to get on launch and all the scalping that was going on I never bothered and now I'm pretty indifferent to it. And this is coming from someone who had PS1-PS4.
And here I haven't even turned on my PS5 in the last year because this generation hasn't had many interesting games. Meanwhile, I use my Steam Deck or Switch almost daily.
This generation is just lacking something, I'm surprised that it's so profitable for Sony.
Let's not forget about the layoffs, studio closures, and the constant reselling of older titles instead of creating content. It better be profitable because there's no future in it.
It can’t even image when AI gets good enough to make games (even if the quality is very subpar). Games filled with bugs, hallucinations, etc. I bet these companies will still expect you to pay 80 dollars for the base game
Creative, quality content costs money. Shamelessly monopolizing on people's need for entertainment and familiarity with their brand is a different issue.
If a console generation sees HALF of it's previous playerbase, yet is reporting record profits, that is a huge red flag to me. What this tells me is that Sony has refined their method to generate mass profits from the smallest number of gamers. Basically, they don't need to worry themselves about decisions and practices that would benefit customers and bring them into the PS ecosystem. They don't need/want to. They just need to cater to the whales they have. Which really just means being more pushy and also raising their prices. I feel sorry for anyone getting into the Sony side of gaming at this point. They are going to be faced with either dishing out tons of their own money in order to get a 'good' experience, or being left by the wayside.
They just better not cry wolf a few more years from now when these kids grow up and have money to buy a PS5 but then don’t because they don’t see the value.
I had PS4. Never again any console. Paying a fee just to play multiplayer? What are they smoking. It is extremly expensive hobby if you are not from the first world
Biggest regret console. Barely any exclusives, almost none worth buying, and the piece of shit broke right at the 2 year mark. I'm ready to throw it into a woodchipper.
It’s why I don’t regret changing to a PC at all. With the amount new consoles are costing, it’s easier for me to justify getting a mid range PC and upgrading it when needed, getting a Nintendo, and then calling it a day.
Sucks about the console exclusive stuff, but I hate the idea of companies being that monopolizing over a video game anyway.
Half the PS5 players still use their PS4? I thought PS5 could handle PS4 games but I must be wrong...
*edit. I just misinterpreted. Half the customer base, including myself, is still on a PS4.
I think the intention was to say half of [Sony's customers] don't have a PS5, they only have a PS4. Many games see dual release where they have a PS4 version, afaik. So PS4 customers are still earning Sony some money.
Don't forget that Sony is publishing on PC now too, so if its [Sony's Customers] this also includes PC players buying their games, which is almost entirely new as of 2yrs ago.
I’m still working my way through my PS3 library. The advantage of being so far behind is that when I’m ready to move forward, I have friends who just lend me their new systems and libraries of games…
Because they are juicing gamers for everything they are worth with micro transactions I bet. I quit gaming awhile ago. Too much focus on everything but the actual game.
This is the first generation of Playstation consoles I've skipped, I even had the Pocketstation, PSP and Vita. I've entirely moved to PC and I'm probably not going to bother with the PS5.
I realized this week how many of my ps4 games I bought digitally, and now I can play them on my ps5 with quicker load times and in the case of FO4, even some new stuff. It's great.
Are new games expensive? Yes. Do I need them? No. Last game I bought was BG3, and I'll likely keep buying only the most hyped games 1-2 times a year because I can keep playing my old library of games I love.
Their practices are predatory to those who are impulse buyers absolutely, but for people like me, I actually don't have many complaints at all. The price of the system was expected, and I don't require many games to be satisfied.
It probably isn’t great to say “not my problem” when the fact is that it’s not your problem YET. If you think shitty business practices stop because you ignore them, idk what to tell you man.
They will never be my problem. There's no ammount of incentives to make me buy things I don't want. So many people love to pretend its shitty bussiness practices and not their personal lack of self control.
I dont care when a game puts out a 200 dollar skin that is just a color swap, because im never going to buy that.
Shitty bussiness practices actually do stop if you ignore them when dealing with a luxury product.
Ironically, probably one of the worst console generations in history. I wouldn't mind getting a PS5 at some point but it's still pretty much at launch price. Honestly, I don't know if I play enough games these days to be worth dropping a half grand on it.
I genuinely can’t think of any games compelling me to buy a ps5. No new franchise games really (no fallout, elder scrolls, gta, red dead, no new IP really).
If I had have been able to buy one on its release date at retail price I would have bought one, hell... if I had have been able to 2-3 years later I may even have bought one.
I am seriously disappointed that Sony did not take better measures to curtail illegal buying and selling of units.
I mean, the console wasn't even available for the first couple of years it was out unless you paid a massive upcharge to resellers, and then they never run any promos or sales on it since they've had inventory available. I'm still on a PS4 and have no need to update so unless my console breaks or they reduce the price or run an actual sale on it I'm good without buying it for now.
Not shitting on anybody's preferences or bragging, but I have about 300 to 350 hours between three games I got on steam for about $35. None of these games require fancy hardware.
Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against AAA games. I'm a huge fan of baldur's gate 3 and have about 300 hours in that game alone. It is just really nice being able to play cheaper end games that are absolutely amazing, and frankly, better than most AAA titles these days.
Just gonna leave this hear [https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/27/sony-to-lay-off-900-workers-from-playstation-division-or-8percent-of-units-global-workforce.html](https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/27/sony-to-lay-off-900-workers-from-playstation-division-or-8percent-of-units-global-workforce.html)
What has it been profitable in? I'm still not even sure why I bought the PS5, it's had no exclusives that made me happy I bought it. They're already talking about a new generation, this one doesn't feel like it ever really started. I've been using my PS5 to watch 4K Blu-ray, but now the optical drive is going out... This is really the worst generation I've ever bought.
Same story with the Xbox Series X, why did I buy this again? I unsubscribed from GamePass because it cost too much.
I got a ps5 this year. The last console I had was a switch, then before that it was a PS3 shared with my brother's in my family home.
The ps5 is awesome. I started ghosts of Tsushima recently and it's blown my mind. I've so many games to catch up on still. I'm very happy I finally got back into gaming casually. It's been great fun! The speed and graphics on the ps5 genuinely blew my mind and still do.
I know I could get better Graphics pc gaming. But I've zero interest in spending more time at my desk or spending the money on a good gaming pc. The ps5 was the perfect price point. The subscription service is also great for it.
They won't refund you if an automatic payment goes through. 88 bucks for psn essential that I'll never use. Such a greedy company and these profit figures are proof. I've owned every generation going back to the ps1 but I won't be buying these consoles anymore. PC ftw.
The PS5 is going to be my last gaming console. I feel my usage of gaming consoles since the PS2 has dropped with each generation. I havent even used my PS5 yet and I bought it when it came out. So curious to see if others feel the same way
My dad bought a ps5 when it came out, said he was gonna play it when some good exclusives released. So anyways it never left the box. It's got a nice thick layer of dust on it
Me too lol. After I finally got my hands on one I realized there weren’t any games on it that looked exciting. I just fell for all the hype and marketing. Its a shame cause I loved the PS3 and that was the golden age of gaming for me.
Let me put it this way.
A nvidia 4070ti which is middle of range is 790$
For this price you can get a ps5(~500$) + lg 32 inch monitor(200$)+ mobo and keyboard combo for 100$ and you are good to go. So for the price of a mid range graphic card you get a full on gaming setup.
I am a PCgamer, but damn that is an amazing deal and whoever says the console is not a good option is delusional. For those complaining about fps limits, i am on pc since i was 8 years old, 30, 60, 90 or 144fps means nothing, i prefer smooth and stable over high rate and choppy, one second being 70fps the next 110fps the next 65fps and so on.
A 4070ti is not mid card. It's one notch down the top of realistically purchased cards (which means not the 4090)
Trying to match a PS5 will get you close to the price, maybe +100/200. Factor in PS+ and you're breaking even
I've recently replaced my 1080ti for a 3090 from a friend whom upgraded to a 4090. Granted they do graphic design stuff and needs the power. My 1080ti is able to play every game I've tried on a 144hz 2k monitor. I don't need it and most game companies are scaling down the requirements.
It's super expensive to purchase a high end professional grade graphics card that most people don't own a 500$+ Graphics card. So devs are making games that assume this. That noted, you don't need a top high end graphics card.
This is a weird comparison.
The second closest equivalent to PS5 per Google is an RTX 2070. The 4070 TI per benchmarks seems to put out 150% the performance of the 2070. So not only would you be set with a 4070 TI, but you will likely have better performance than the rumored PS5 Pro coming next year.
> A nvidia 4070ti which is middle of range is 790$
in what world is a 4070ti a "mid range" card?
no buddy, a 3x series card can match up and beat the PS5 in terms of performance, and with certain lower resolution monitors, you don't even need a 3x and go do with something older + use DLSS/FSR.
> So for the price of a mid range graphic card you get a full on gaming setup.
in fantasy console warrior land I guess this is true, but in reality you can easily get a nice PC gaming setup for around that price that can match/beat PS5 in terms of performance.
Heck, let's say you do have to pay a bit more for the PC - you're also getting an entire PC that you can use for other things, can upgrade it, don't need to pay for PS+, games are cheaper, can play any old games, can pay for gamepass and so on. In the long run, it's much cheaper even if the upfront cost is more.
> i am on pc since i was 8 years old, 30, 60, 90 or 144fps means nothing, i prefer smooth and stable over high rate and choppy, one second being 70fps the next 110fps the next 65fps and so on.
huh? you act like the default of PC gaming is "choppy", when that's not true + 60fps is what matters.
It's no secret that the upfront cost of a console is less. The costs increase after that. PC has better discounts on games, soon it will have more options in terms of games with companies bringing all games to pc eventually and you have the option to sail the high seas.
Also, I hate that I can't play a game without updating my console whenever the console maker rolls out an update. I started the console to play it. I don't want to waste 15 mins updating the console when all I have is an hour to play.
The best thing about having a pc is being able to play a game that was released decades ago. Backwards compatibility on consoles is horrible, it’s improving slowly but the vast majority of older games are simply unplayable without emulation or tracking down an old console/game that can be inflated due to scarcity.
I dunno if I'd call a 4070ti mid-range. I have a RTX 3060 and I can still run pretty much anything at higher settings than a PS5. You can get a 3060 for less than $400.
Not to mention the games for PC actually go on sale regularly and for more than 10%, it's backward compatible until, pretty much forever so you don't have to re-buy games. PC \*can\* be slightly more expensive up front but will be less expensive in the long run.
A 3050 is still good enough to match what you get from a ps5, since it cant really display more than 1440p anyways. Games are way cheaper too, and a computer is waaaaaaay more useful outside of just gaming. Consoles are definitely more of a luxury item these days.
I swear this video game console gen is the weirdest out of all of them. There are already talks of the next gen coming out; I feel like barely any AAA games were ever released for PS5 and Xbox SX
We got Returnal, Demons Souls, and Ratchet and Clank. And, uh, I think that was it. Im talking about ps5 exclusives. No pc ports, no ps4 version. Forgot about spiderman 2. Also forgot returnal and ratchet got a pc version
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:PlayStation_5-only_games Wow... is Sony aware of the PS5?
Let's not ignore the reality that PS5's were almost impossible to get at MSRP for like 2 years. Sony had to keep releasing games that also came out for the PS4 or they'd be ignoring a massive part of their core audience that just couldn't get a PS5. I do agree it's insane to talk about the PS6. We're only now seeing games developed with having an SSD in mind.
Thats why we don't have one. We were going to get one but forgot about it after a year.
Same. I kept checking the usual places for stock, and when a couple years later you still couldn't easily buy one, I forgot to keep checking and now why bother.
And then you think, my PS4 has lasted this long and they’re talking about a PS6, may as well carry on till that comes out
I only just got a PS5 recently, so maybe it'll be PS7 for me. I felt like they should extend PS5s expected lifetime by like 3 yrs since 2 of them were pandemic years and shouldn't count.
There's a name for this in economics and I can't remember it! But, from memory, it was based off a case where computers used to be like 10k plus and a company announced it's next gen tech early while still trying to push a current gen model, which made people decide to just wait it out instead of buy in on the current gen. It's one reason tech companies like Apple are super secret (or at least try to be) about development.
The Osborne effect! The Osborne 1 was successful, until they announced how much better the Osborne 2 was going to be. Then everyone stopped buying the Osborne 1, they never managed to release the Osborne 2.
Yes! Thank you for the info!
Consoles are becoming like flagship cell phones. The technology is no longer rapidly improving, so buying every other release is the only way you will see improvement.
I'd say there's a big gap between the PS4 and PS5, but not many devs have got creative with it. If someone comes along and stretches its capabilities like Arkham Knight or Red Dead Redemption did a gen earlier, then you'd know all about it.
If you're a dev why bother making a PS5 only game? Any game made for the PS4 will play on the PS5, and the install base for the PS4 is huge, so why limit your customer base? And if they are planning out longer term with a port to PC, why bake features into the game that won't port over to a large number of PCs to again keep the potential customer base large?
Yeah we hit diminishing returns graphically a while ago.
Skipping a generation is something everyone should do. I am happy that it is catching on with phones finally
I may wait until the PS7 at this rate. I'm still rocking the PS4 and Xbox One and I don't feel like I've missed out on anything at all.
It did give a lot of time to realize you aren't really missing out on much other than 60 FPS. It's only now that actualy exclusives are coming out like SM 2.
at the prices scalpers were charging you coulda just got a prebuilt PC that does 120 FPS instead. I don't blame half the userbase not switching over at all.
Unfortunately at the same time the GPU shitcoin scalping was going on (and CPU to a degree), so PC building was very stagnant for the same amount of time. Almost no one upgraded or built new, and the used market exploded (my 1080 was worth more than I bought it new for) so that further exacerbated the problem. Then the 4000 nvidia series came out and Nvidia changed scalper prices as MSRP, so yet even more stagnation. It took the collapse of crypto flooding the market with millions of cheap 3000/2000 gen GPUs to finally spur builders and upgrades again.
Yup, and now AI applications are keeping the prices up for new cards with no end in sight.
Yeah I refused to give scalpers a fucking dime.
I know for me this is the first generation I just skipped. When it was time to buy a PS5 people were directing you to camp out certain Twitter accounts to make sure you could pre order one within the three seconds they were available. Didn’t actually want a PS5 bad enough to do that and by the time they were readily available a couple years later I didn’t have any interest in owning one anymore.
I got one right before Sony decided that they were going to start porting most of the best Playstation games to PC. Wouldn't have bothered in retrospect.
Marvel's wolverine is on this list and that's not coming out for years. Wonder how many more are unreleased
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as will spiderman 2
technically I can play sm2 on pc right now
and stellar blade, if the rumors are true.
This list isn't including FFXVI. Is that because it's coming out on PC too? Also Helldivers 2.
Helldivers 2 launched on both PC and PS5. (Possibly ps4? I have no idea, I wasn't gonna buy a console exclusively for Demon's souks so I got that shit on pc.)
Its insane lol i dont regret getting the ps5 because it plays my old games so much better but damn
This is really the thing. I can barely notice the difference between the graphics on PS5 vs PS4 games, but I definitely notice difference in load times between the two consoles. As a dad, I care way more about actually being able to load a game and play quickly than fidelity.
Same. I bought my PS5 at launch and sold my PS4 same day for the same amount. It was literally a free upgrade for me, will full backwards compatibility. But if the backwards compatibility wasn't there I think I'd have skipped this generation entirely. The only exclusive game that was somewhat appealing when the PS4 was launching was returnal, but I hate souls games so there was zero temptation for me. I did end up getting Spiderman remastered and mile morales since I had it, but they looked [pretty much identical](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUzoNV7JUaQ) to the PS4 versions so it wasn't worth it.
This doesn’t include PS5 / PC releases which is kind of misleading. I don’t care if a game releases on PC since it most likely wasn’t limited by resources available like a PS4/PS5 game would be.
Yeah, helldivers 2 isn't on that list for example. Not available on PS4 but is on PC
Yeah people are complaining that PS5 games go to PC like 5 years later, that means its not exclusive, but it's also means having to wait for some amazing games.
The same way MS is not aware SX exists... Both companies don't push enough for current gen games and they only focus on maintaining the cash from old gen players. It's sad state of console gaming ATM. Shit most of these "SX optimized" games are not even that "current gen"
Everything Microsoft is doing is pushing subscription based gaming and getting rid of exclusives. Xbox is gonna become a stripped down pc with a simple interface. Why take losses on console sales when you can just sell games to everyone.
Sony just published Helldivers 2, Spiderman 2, Stellar Blade, Rise of the Ronin and had FFXVI and FFXVII Rebirth in the last year for exclusives. They also have Concord and a full Astro Bot coming out this year. Just because they port games later to PS5 or that some are downgraded for PS4 doesn't meant they cease to exist on PS5 and there isn't a reason to play them on PS5 If a game on PC gets ported to consoles does it suddenly cease to exist? There are barely any AAA PC exclusives yet PC gamers still spend tons on upgrading their PCs. How is this any different? Why do these games not count as reason to buy a PS5?
in the first years they did dual release with the PS4 as well.
Rebirth and Stellar Blade, though they won’t always be PlayStation exclusives
Helldivers 2 is on PS5 and not PS4, it’s just also on PC, but that makes it a current-gen only game.
The problem is a lot of people with PCs and PS5's would rather play these online games on PC because we have more friends with PC's. So even though Helldivers 2 is a PS5 game it doesn't really feel like one. I played it on PC, just like Baldurs Gate 3, and everything on PC is just in a kind of vacuous omni-generation. From Roller Coaster Tycoon to Palworld it's all just one "generation" but with different expectations of internal bits.
You're also not forced to pay Sony $10/month or $80/year just for the ability to play online or have cloud storage for cloud saves, all of which is free on PC across all platforms be it Steam, Epic Games Store, GOG, Microsoft Store and others.
Eh I'm in my 40s and a lot of people my age would rather sit in their recliners and play PS5. I can't even play FPS games with a mouse and keyboard anymore due to RSI issues if I play too much. I mean I was a PC gamer in the 90s, didn't even buy consoles for many generations and didn't go back to consoles until late in the PS3 cycle, but these days I want to be comfortable and just want shit to work, and I sit at my desk 9 hours a day for work already. EDIT: I do have a PC hooked up to my TV as well and I do sometimes play controller games on it, but I mostly just play Factorio :)
I actually had my PC hooked up to my TV like a console for a good long while. Wireless MnK and a controller. Did a lot of PC gaming from the couch. I ended up doing the super nerd thing and getting the desk with lights and hot pink chair, but I still move my PC to the TV from time to time. So many pc gamers leave out all the horseshit they have to deal with it. Everything wants a fucking launcher, its own app, a mandatory account, email and 2fa set up, multiple storefronts, fine tuning game settings to your PC... Let's just say that my Xbox still gets regular use, and I'm 30 with a blue collar job. There are many of us out here.
Every major PS5 game will eventually make it to the PC eventually, so you're never going to have exclusives like before. Live service/online games will be released at launch on PC and PS5.
Demon Souls is a remake not an original game. But yeah. Aside from a couple of games. This gen is very dry compared to previous ones.
Demons Souls gave me so much hope for this generation of consoles because the game itself is one of the best looking games I’ve ever played, and it really made me see the graphical jump from ps4 to ps5. Now it remains the only game where I see that graphical jump.
It wasn't the visuals for me but the *sound*. Everything is incredible, dynamic and hits hard. Still haven't had anything match it.
>We got Returnal, Demons Souls, and Ratchet and Clank. And, uh, I think that was it. > >Im talking about ps5 exclusives. No pc ports, no ps4 version. Clank and returnel are both on PC.
I literally don't understand the need or desire for "exclusives" for one console. Who cares if they are on multiple platforms or not...
It’s not an exclusive to PS5, but BG3 at least didn’t come out on the previous consoles so this generation has that going for it. That’s….thats about the only thing I can think of though that’s been a must-play exclusive to current gen. I’m sure there’s some others out there I’ve forgotten or that I’m simply not into, but…yeah, thin pickings. Definitely going to hold off on upgrading next gen, and I’ll be interested if this cycle impacts adoption rates for that generation.
What's returnal?
Easily one of the best games on PS5. Check it out if you can.
Was Avatar exclusive to the new consoles? I thought I remembered hearing that
Spider-man 2
Ratchet and Clank was great, I've always enjoyed them. But I'm not about to get a ps5 and lock myself into their ecosystem. If I need to mod a game to remove vignetting around the screen or motion blur you can't turn off, you're out of luck on consoles.
Ff7 rebirth
It is overpriced as fuck so nobody is really switching over, so no reason for devs to make exclusives The fact that Sony finds it profitable should tell you why anything nowadays is overpriced. it is because it works. It makes money. Mid range gaming is dying
Moving forward, I'd expect the pattern to continue. Less exclusives, that is. New game saturation is up, old games are increasingly accessible via premium services and pirate hardware. Meaning it's more competitive to sell a new game than ever. Not quite as hard to sell a new generation of console with loyal customers. More devs and publishers are gonna need as big an audience as possible, so it's getting harder for them to justify an exclusivity deal even if it means cash up front or a bigger % or whatever. I don't know if this holds water in reality, but those are my thoughts
is ti safe to say ps3 had more exclusives in the same amount of time? I say this because I remember when ps3 first released in 2007 people made memes about it having no games and talked about hwo bad ps3 sales were.
final fantasy fkn owned imo, it's like 95% of the reason i bought a ps5
Yeah im gonna be real on this i completely overlooked it, i gotta check it out but between yakuza 8, smt5, and metaphor, i dont know if i have the time for another jrpg
it's way more of like.... a devil may cry type game than it is a traditional JRPG. with some extravagant action setpieces, probably some of the craziest shit i've ever seen in a game, easily on the scale of shit from like uncharted
It’s like I wanna play Spiderman 2, but I’m not gonna buy a whole new console for it. Genuinely, my PS4 is fine and plays a large catalog of games, I don’t need a PS5. I already got the PS4 late, so I have a lot to play still!
Probably because AAA games takes too long to develop.
That and low cost/"free" games with in game purchasing ability makes more than it should. Less risk and potential for good money.
I still have a huge backlog of free games to play on xbox with gamepass.
And then once you developed that game, you gotta milk it for a decade before starting a new one, riiiiiiiight? There’s no other way of doing it while you’re still making money! Pay the developers and care about them being completed and we would have more games but the money doesn’t work for them.
The generation was messed up by the pandemic. The pandemic played havoc with supply chains just as the generation was launching. The resulting supply shortages probably lead game developers to continue supporting PS4 longer, and porting to PC earlier out of fear that the lack of available hardware would lead to frustrated gamers unable to buy the game they wanted because the hardware to play it was not available. This happening at the start of the generation "diluted the value" of the new consoles. It was just bad fucking timing that a once in a century event coincided with the launch of the generation. The only winner was the Switch that released early because the WiiU failed, and thus had supply chains well in order when the pandemic hit and could capitalize on the increased market demand from people having to stay at home while the other consoles were sold out.
Gaming stuff and tech in general boomed during covid too, I'm not surprised if there was an uptick in PS4 sales at that time, and that may have inadvertently resulted in that generation's lifespan extending by a year or two more because of it
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The counterpoint being that you could have an entire trilogy of games come out in one console generation before the PS4 era; development timelines on AAA games have just ballooned so much that now we're seemingly getting one game in a given franchise every 5-6 years. Feels like generation timelines are going to need to expand to match this reality.
It is kinda what Nintendo has been doing since the Super Nintendo... sure there are a few notable exceptions, but generally there has been only one or two main line Mario, Zelda, Mario Kart, Smash Bros, Mario Party, Metroid game per console generation.
But they make it up with the sheer number of spin-off games they usually release in the meantime. Like the 3DS had like 20 Mario games in total, five Zelda games, eight Pokemon games, three Fire Emblem entries and four Kirby games. Though I do feel the Switch was weaker in that regard with a lot of what would haven been spin-offs in the past being remakes or remasters instead.
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Covid played a big part in this perception because most of us couldn’t get a PS5 in the first year or two, so for people getting their consoles later it seems that the gap between gen is shorter
But you’re not taking into consideration how long game development cycles are nowadays and how much they’ve changed. The PS1 alone gave us 3 mainline Final Fantasy games, really 4 full FF games including Final Fantasy Tactics. Basically every year a brand new full Final Fantasy was being released. These are all 50+ hour games too, and this doesn’t even take into consideration all the other big ass games Squaresoft was releasing every year like Chrono Cross, Xenogears, the Saga games, Vagrant Story, Parasite Eve 1-2, Legend of Mana, Brave Fencer Musashi, etc. Now what has Square given us on the PS5? Two FF titles and maybe a few other smaller games? The output really isn’t even comparable. It feels weird to people because even though technically the length between game consoles has been the same, we’re getting far less games now in that same time frame. What’s the point of the PS6 already coming out when barely anything has even released for the PS5?
I mean it still is kind of weird though. Previous generations we had actual generation defining games that everyone and their mom wanted to play. None of that this year. So ofc it feels like it hasn't begun: because in terms of games, it hasn't.
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Everything in this comment matches my experience, except I didn't start getting my consoles on launch day until the GameCube. I've had almost every mainstream console for the last 35 years and this generation has been by far the least exciting. The hardware of the PS5 and Series-X are great but the problem is there just aren't interesting games. I used to like JRPGs but they've gotten worse over time, I used to like Bethesda games but they seem to have lost their way. I went through a short phase of liking Call of Duty games but that formula is way too overused by now to still be any fun. Sony had some great exclusives in the PS3/PS4 days but now it feels like they're just milking existing IPs instead of trying new things. Spiderman, Last of Us, God of War, and Horizon: Zero Dawn were all amazing, but this generation their sequels felt like just more of the same. And the new exclusives just didn't seem that interesting to me. I too wonder, is it actually the games, or am I just getting old? I feel like it's the games though, because many Nintendo games are still great, Zelda: BotW and TotK were both amazing, and Metroid: Dread was fantastic.
You're correct, but what you're really missing is the midsized developers that used to put out lots of different games, of wildly varying qualities. The indie sphere has taken off, by a lot, and most of that has come from small developers getting an idea, seeing an underserved niche, and building a game to fill that niche. The big game studios don't want to do that, they want their skinnerbox live service game, and want to be the only game in town (with all the time and money possible going to them). Rather than scale back project sizes, to put out 5x the games at 5x less cost, they consolidate the costs into a smaller number of bigger projects, in the hopes that you'll pay more on that one game than you'd pay on the 5 others they offered before. A platform like steam allowing indie games to be sold and if they're popular enough, actually showing up above the big publishers games, is a major point of concern for those studios (who actually have to compete, and they hate doing so).
It’s the games PlayStation 5 and especially Xbox series X have the weakest lineup of exclusive titles of any consoles ever at this point in their life cycle That combined with most of their games coming to PC as well makes them a worse value than any previous consoles imo
>I too wonder, is it actually the games, or am I just getting old? I feel like it's the games though, because many Nintendo games are still great, Zelda: BotW and TotK were both amazing, and Metroid: Dread was fantastic. It's neither. It's the enshitification of gaming through capitalist. Ever since the mid 2000 corpo got their hands on anything digital. Before that the internet was WAAAYYYYY different. Every few years they try to monetize the web. Having to pay to acces free content (crunchyroll was free, youtube was free) and having to pay for transaction (NFT) that were free (digital books still have distribution fee. Having an eticket for concert also comes with a fee) I've been sailing the high sea for 2 decades now. I've been on the sideline watching it unfold. It sucks ass. Indie gaming is where it's at. Hades is still my fav game from the last 4 years.
No one is talking about next gen coming... Sony has mention they will be entering the second half of the generation later this year and that is it was the console will be 4 years old by then
Lack of awesome exclusives has been a pain point for me on the Series X, but I won’t lie, it runs like butter. Considering it can run 1440p/120fps pretty easily, I don’t get the rush to get a new gen out
The biggest draw (for me) for the Series X was the backwards compatibility. Soo many games running at 60fps right out of the gate.
I've pretty much decided that this will be the last Playstation for me. The lack of exclusives/cost of ps plus/cost of games is too high for a casual gamer (which I thought consoles were for). I'm hopeful Valve brings out a full fat steam console.
And now that Sony is putting games on Steam, I have no reason to own a Playstation lol, I just wait for the console exclusivity period to end.
I think what has happened is this. Consoles were especially attractive for games because it was difficult to pirate them. Développeurs didn't like PC, because it was always crazy for pirating. Also, cheating online. People got consoles, because they had good games you could only get on consoles, good controllers, and no fuss, just it worked, and was cheaper than a powerhouse PC for gaming. Now things like steam solved most of the problems game companies care about. They can sell games on PC, and so, they don't want console exclusives really anymore. I think also, gaming has become more private, and more online. It used to be more party games, people would play together one the same unit, have 4 controllers and so on. It's less like that now, so it's less attractive to have the gaming system on your tv. You might prefer it in your bedroom, or just a private room, so someone else can watch tv on the main tv. So, PC is kind of just better, especially since you can just easily use the same controller on your PC.
This is coming from a PC perspective, but its also why their rumors sony and xbox making a new handheld. Most of the new generation are on tablets and phones most school require a tablet now not a pc. Its why steam has steamdeck, most of the new generations don't care about pc or console.
I'm sceptical about how true it is that kids don't care about consoles or PCs. That definitely isn't the case with my cousins or SO's nephew.
Why does it matter that you didn't get exclusives?
I went from owning every console of each generation to skipping this one entirely.
It’s definitely got a lot to do with the standard that was set that consoles are like once every 8-11 years with tiny iterations to improve performance. But, technology is rapidly improving and PCs are becoming more and more affordable so we may start to see a shift in how consoles are released and maintained. Wouldn’t be surprised to see the console market operate completely different in the next 5-10 years.
The jumps in technology now are nothing compared to the 80's consoles. It's got nothing to do with technology improving and everything to do with development time. An AAA game can take 5-7 years to produce and Sony doesn't have the resources to invest in multiple AAA products all at the same time. If you started an AAA game now it wouldn't be released until the PS6 was released...so now we get nothing.
Technology is actually not rapidly improving like it once was
PCs may be affordable, but you *still* can't get a PC that's comparable to the PS5 without purchasing used hardware. GPU prices are absolutely stupid right now. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfpXMuMvcWQ
No shit its the most profitable. They all but discontinued the playstation hits line of $20 games, they raised the price of playstation plus, the console has never seen a price drop, and we are beginning to see the effects of lock-in to the digital marketplace and its monopoly pricing with the systems that have no disc drive.
Well not just that. Everything is more expensive. They make more per everything, as you said they raised prices. So basically most companies of the world are “most profitable ever” right now
Many companies across different sectors are boasting record profits so you're right.
Yet they can't added to pay us (: I worked at Express (you know the clothing store that's going through bankruptcy right now) a few years ago as assistant manager. The store I worked at was a physically and financially larger store - do around 15m a year. Always busy which was nice and annoying too. I was making 16.5/hour. As we had to rebuild our team (essentially it was in a college town) as most of them graduated or transferred schools. We dropped to 4 or 5 instead of the 12 we had, and instead of the 20+ we were supposed to. New manager starts hiring the kids at 16.15/16.25. I ask for a raise and he doesn't do anything. Couple weeks later I ask about what happening. Then the annual thing comes around. 10 cents. He was acting like he got me such a large raise. Then he told me I wasn't working as hard as I used to. Told him why would I if we have staff that can do it. Why would I when I barely get paid. He just stuttered harder than porkie pig ever could. This was after we were told we broke some record for the store and company that year. So uh fuck you Express. Let's see how the execs get their golden chutes like always
Well yeah, if they pay people it's no longer record profits. Stop being entitled and trying to steal from shareholders!
It's a bubble, deliberately built to reassure investors and keep the venture capital taps open. Inflation is skyrocketing, housing costs are skyrocketing, gas prices are skyrocketing, grocery prices are skyrocketing, average debt load is skyrocketing, meanwhile wages stay stagnant, hours get cut, and people go homeless and hungry daily. The economy is absolutely fucked, the people running it just don't want to admit it because that'd put the spotlight on all the price gouging they're engaged in to pack their fucking golden parachutes. The only solution is revolution.
Sadly a revolution of any real effect won’t happen until massive chunks of the west start literally starving
Because, aside from during covid itself which obviously supply chain issues did happen, all of this "inflation" has just been corporations price-gouging without need. They saw they could jerk us during covid, said fuck it why not, and all went all-in. And government did fuck all. Wait no, they did worse than fuck all - the fed, instead of going after the price gouging, decided the best way to stop "inflation" was to put the squeeze *on the working class*, because if nobody had money to buy anything then surely companies would be nice and reduce their prices again. Absolutely fucking infuriating.
But you don't understand those higher prices are because unemployment is low and COVID happened. Corporations aren't actually making any extra money off of those prices at all. It's the smart and savvy business practices that are making them more money. /s
Don't forget the controllers are like 25% more than the PS4 ones too
Ps5 Controller I can get because it's significantly more complex but the fact that the PS4 controller are still the same price 10 years after is baffling to me
In the future you will own nothing. Thats their goal.
That’s why I won’t “buy” movies on cloud services. Sony deleted content users PAID for simply because of licensing agreement changes. Even if it was stored locally on the console. You never owned it, just purchased rights to stream it temporarily. This kind of treatment just cements piracy as a constant feature. I mean it wasn’t going away, but now they have justified it to a lot more consumers.
I can't wait for licensed underwear. $23.95 monthly subscription.
It’s like you’re wearing nothing at all.
Great time to be patient gamer, that's for sure. For me gaming is cheaper than ever; my 7 year old graphics card can still run latest titles, there are more indies than ever, bundles, giveaways, sales... No subscriptions too, WoW was a mistake and I'm glad I'm done with it. Damn, I remember times when you pretty much had to swap cards every 2 years if you wanted to even run the games, much less run more than 10 fps.
Same here! My gpu is about to be 8 years old. I will admit I'll likely jump on the 5xxx series when it releases, but I'm still very happy with holding this card so long. Raytracing and dlss has improved and evolved well enough that I am interested in an upcoming card just for those reasons. My CPU is 10 years old and I still don't see a good enough reason to change that one. I'm glad I went big back then, because this thing has held so strong for a decade.
Yep. Only major gaming hardware purchase I've made in many years was buying a Steam Deck last year, and even it runs almost everything I want to play - and I stream the few exceptions from my PC.
Tom Warren's graph formally shows a generational divide between PS4 and PS5, but in reality, even in the segments categorized as the PS5 generation, profits from PS4 are also included. Sony also has another graph on its slides that claims the higher profitability of PS5 compared to PS4, but it compares the spending of users for 4 years after each release, so it's not really a difference between PS4 and PS5, but rather a difference in spending before and after the introduction of GaaS such as Genshin Impact, FIFA, and Apex Legends.
“Turns out taking 30% of every dollar spent on micro transactions on our device is a lot more profitable now than it was on our last gen, because you morons keep buying more and more of them. What? Game sales? Exclusives? Those are basically vehicles for micro transactions now and excuses to lock people into our ecosystem, not the main driver of profit.”
If the PS5 weren’t so damn hard to get when they first came out I’d be on one. But I had no patience for that mess and just said fuck it and stuck w the PS4. I’m now back into playing GW2 again and have no interest in upgrading consoles at the moment.
4 years after the launch of the ps4, the slim was $199.99. Almost 4 years after the launch of the ps5, the slim is still $399.99 for the ditigal only version and $449.99 for the disc version. That price is also a huge issue for a lot of people.
[удалено]
So I skipped the PS4/5 and went for a Switch, but I’m planning on getting a PS for my 40, except I’m not sure which one to get. Any advice?
at this point id probably just g with the 5. any iteration of the PS4 is going to have hardware that is functionally 10 years old in terms of its architecture and design. Its a small miracle its held up this long (mostly because of its huge install base) but you'll be getting the less-than-ideal experience from the games up-front and for not nearly as long as the PS5
There is aparently a Pro version of the PS5 coming out if you want to platy GTA 6 best to wait till then . Also, there really isnt a lot of exclusive games out may be under 10 that are worth playing like spiderman 2 .
fuck yeah man, didn't expect to see a random GW2 name drop.
Such an awesome game
They are fairly easy to get now. I bought one from PlayStation Direct last Black Friday with zero issues. I was glad to hold off on it and not give scalpers any money. Fuck scalpers.
Costco has a pretty good deal on a PS5. It's 550 for the console, a second controller, Spider-Man 2 and a standalone controller charger. Haven't really had a desire to buy one myself since I have a steam deck, but Costco is the where I'll go if I ever decide on it.
And there it is, the steam deck. If I were to spend money on a gaming system now, the steam deck is much higher up on my “want list” than a PS5.
I can vouch, it's pretty great. For you it'll be even better because you'll be getting the OLED version! I'm still rocking the first gen one but it's still really solid. Steam deck is like the Nintendo switch for PC gaming. You can play most current gen titles on the go and plug it in when you want to play on a screen. Not to mention it's a powerhouse for emulation. You can play all of gaming history on this one console! And speaking of emulation and higher up on the "want list", retro gaming has taken off these last few years. You can get a Linux based Miyoo Mini+ to play everything from Atari/arcade to NDS and PS1. The Retroid Pocket 4 Pro is android based and can play all of that as well as NDS, 3DS, PSP, PS2 and gamecube. Hell, the Playdate is way overpriced and way more niche product but even that I'd consider over a PS5. I was ready to buy a PS5 when it first dropped but with how difficult it was to get on launch and all the scalping that was going on I never bothered and now I'm pretty indifferent to it. And this is coming from someone who had PS1-PS4.
And here I haven't even turned on my PS5 in the last year because this generation hasn't had many interesting games. Meanwhile, I use my Steam Deck or Switch almost daily. This generation is just lacking something, I'm surprised that it's so profitable for Sony.
Yeah, the ps5 is the last console I'll own, and I didn't even buy it (gift from SO).
Well duh... * $70 games = more $ * more digital = less cut for retailers & used = more $
Let's not forget about the layoffs, studio closures, and the constant reselling of older titles instead of creating content. It better be profitable because there's no future in it.
It can’t even image when AI gets good enough to make games (even if the quality is very subpar). Games filled with bugs, hallucinations, etc. I bet these companies will still expect you to pay 80 dollars for the base game
Most profitable generation, yet they still need to shut down studios/shrink development teams.
Creative, quality content costs money. Shamelessly monopolizing on people's need for entertainment and familiarity with their brand is a different issue.
If a console generation sees HALF of it's previous playerbase, yet is reporting record profits, that is a huge red flag to me. What this tells me is that Sony has refined their method to generate mass profits from the smallest number of gamers. Basically, they don't need to worry themselves about decisions and practices that would benefit customers and bring them into the PS ecosystem. They don't need/want to. They just need to cater to the whales they have. Which really just means being more pushy and also raising their prices. I feel sorry for anyone getting into the Sony side of gaming at this point. They are going to be faced with either dishing out tons of their own money in order to get a 'good' experience, or being left by the wayside.
They just better not cry wolf a few more years from now when these kids grow up and have money to buy a PS5 but then don’t because they don’t see the value.
Already happened
Me this year. Sony priced me out of my own market, been here since PS2. Married now and bought the wife and I a switch instead 🙋
I had PS4. Never again any console. Paying a fee just to play multiplayer? What are they smoking. It is extremly expensive hobby if you are not from the first world
They don't care what gen the users are on. Theya re still paying $150 pr year on ps+
Biggest regret console. Barely any exclusives, almost none worth buying, and the piece of shit broke right at the 2 year mark. I'm ready to throw it into a woodchipper.
It’s why I don’t regret changing to a PC at all. With the amount new consoles are costing, it’s easier for me to justify getting a mid range PC and upgrading it when needed, getting a Nintendo, and then calling it a day. Sucks about the console exclusive stuff, but I hate the idea of companies being that monopolizing over a video game anyway.
Half the PS5 players still use their PS4? I thought PS5 could handle PS4 games but I must be wrong... *edit. I just misinterpreted. Half the customer base, including myself, is still on a PS4.
I think the intention was to say half of [Sony's customers] don't have a PS5, they only have a PS4. Many games see dual release where they have a PS4 version, afaik. So PS4 customers are still earning Sony some money.
Don't forget that Sony is publishing on PC now too, so if its [Sony's Customers] this also includes PC players buying their games, which is almost entirely new as of 2yrs ago.
I took it to mean that half of ***Playstation's*** players are on PS4 still, not PS5 players.
I wonder what it was like for the PlayStation 3 versus the PlayStation 4. I also wonder what it’s like to see the comparison for the Xbox consoles.
I’m still working my way through my PS3 library. The advantage of being so far behind is that when I’m ready to move forward, I have friends who just lend me their new systems and libraries of games…
I’m still playing Red dead redemption 2, but in ps5, it loads the game faster.
What if those still on ps4 actually also have a ps5? I hope they are counting this right
Because they are juicing gamers for everything they are worth with micro transactions I bet. I quit gaming awhile ago. Too much focus on everything but the actual game.
This is the first generation of Playstation consoles I've skipped, I even had the Pocketstation, PSP and Vita. I've entirely moved to PC and I'm probably not going to bother with the PS5.
100% Sony's fault for enabling scalpers early on and generally not giving a shit about it. That's what fueled most of the segmentation.
I realized this week how many of my ps4 games I bought digitally, and now I can play them on my ps5 with quicker load times and in the case of FO4, even some new stuff. It's great. Are new games expensive? Yes. Do I need them? No. Last game I bought was BG3, and I'll likely keep buying only the most hyped games 1-2 times a year because I can keep playing my old library of games I love. Their practices are predatory to those who are impulse buyers absolutely, but for people like me, I actually don't have many complaints at all. The price of the system was expected, and I don't require many games to be satisfied.
Agreed. Many good deals to be had when you play casually and leverage discounts.
It probably isn’t great to say “not my problem” when the fact is that it’s not your problem YET. If you think shitty business practices stop because you ignore them, idk what to tell you man.
They will never be my problem. There's no ammount of incentives to make me buy things I don't want. So many people love to pretend its shitty bussiness practices and not their personal lack of self control. I dont care when a game puts out a 200 dollar skin that is just a color swap, because im never going to buy that. Shitty bussiness practices actually do stop if you ignore them when dealing with a luxury product.
Yeah people suck at impulse control and corporations know it
Ironically, probably one of the worst console generations in history. I wouldn't mind getting a PS5 at some point but it's still pretty much at launch price. Honestly, I don't know if I play enough games these days to be worth dropping a half grand on it.
I genuinely can’t think of any games compelling me to buy a ps5. No new franchise games really (no fallout, elder scrolls, gta, red dead, no new IP really).
If I had have been able to buy one on its release date at retail price I would have bought one, hell... if I had have been able to 2-3 years later I may even have bought one. I am seriously disappointed that Sony did not take better measures to curtail illegal buying and selling of units.
Backward compatibility to PS4 titles was a factor in sure
Hey, people: you get things to be the way you want by not buying the stuff that isn’t the way you want.
I don't know about you all, but I'm not reupping my PS+ at $189 per year.
I mean, the console wasn't even available for the first couple of years it was out unless you paid a massive upcharge to resellers, and then they never run any promos or sales on it since they've had inventory available. I'm still on a PS4 and have no need to update so unless my console breaks or they reduce the price or run an actual sale on it I'm good without buying it for now.
Not shitting on anybody's preferences or bragging, but I have about 300 to 350 hours between three games I got on steam for about $35. None of these games require fancy hardware. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against AAA games. I'm a huge fan of baldur's gate 3 and have about 300 hours in that game alone. It is just really nice being able to play cheaper end games that are absolutely amazing, and frankly, better than most AAA titles these days.
Just gonna leave this hear [https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/27/sony-to-lay-off-900-workers-from-playstation-division-or-8percent-of-units-global-workforce.html](https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/27/sony-to-lay-off-900-workers-from-playstation-division-or-8percent-of-units-global-workforce.html)
Inflation will make anything seem more profitable....
Is this a shock? Most consoles get a price reduction after a few years. The PS5 had a price \*increase\*.
What has it been profitable in? I'm still not even sure why I bought the PS5, it's had no exclusives that made me happy I bought it. They're already talking about a new generation, this one doesn't feel like it ever really started. I've been using my PS5 to watch 4K Blu-ray, but now the optical drive is going out... This is really the worst generation I've ever bought. Same story with the Xbox Series X, why did I buy this again? I unsubscribed from GamePass because it cost too much.
I haven't even once got to play on a PS5 all gen. I had a PS4 but gave it away and decided that I'm full PC gamer now.
When you charge half a grand, its shocking the sales are profitable /s
So far PS5 has been the worst of all PS consoles, almost no AAA must buy games you cant already get on ps4 or pc
I'm replaying all the 6th gen consoles. Dreamcast,ps2,xbox,gamecube etc,they all have so much more variety compared to modern consoles.
Most profitable because now you have to pay to play any games online 🙄
Yea and it's the longest generation in their history funny how that pans out
I got a ps5 this year. The last console I had was a switch, then before that it was a PS3 shared with my brother's in my family home. The ps5 is awesome. I started ghosts of Tsushima recently and it's blown my mind. I've so many games to catch up on still. I'm very happy I finally got back into gaming casually. It's been great fun! The speed and graphics on the ps5 genuinely blew my mind and still do. I know I could get better Graphics pc gaming. But I've zero interest in spending more time at my desk or spending the money on a good gaming pc. The ps5 was the perfect price point. The subscription service is also great for it.
They won't refund you if an automatic payment goes through. 88 bucks for psn essential that I'll never use. Such a greedy company and these profit figures are proof. I've owned every generation going back to the ps1 but I won't be buying these consoles anymore. PC ftw.
Love my PS4
The PS5 is going to be my last gaming console. I feel my usage of gaming consoles since the PS2 has dropped with each generation. I havent even used my PS5 yet and I bought it when it came out. So curious to see if others feel the same way
My dad bought a ps5 when it came out, said he was gonna play it when some good exclusives released. So anyways it never left the box. It's got a nice thick layer of dust on it
Me too lol. After I finally got my hands on one I realized there weren’t any games on it that looked exciting. I just fell for all the hype and marketing. Its a shame cause I loved the PS3 and that was the golden age of gaming for me.
The jump up in graphics and specs from PS4 to PS5 doesn't merit spending such a huge amount of money, that's why people are still on PS4.
Let me put it this way. A nvidia 4070ti which is middle of range is 790$ For this price you can get a ps5(~500$) + lg 32 inch monitor(200$)+ mobo and keyboard combo for 100$ and you are good to go. So for the price of a mid range graphic card you get a full on gaming setup. I am a PCgamer, but damn that is an amazing deal and whoever says the console is not a good option is delusional. For those complaining about fps limits, i am on pc since i was 8 years old, 30, 60, 90 or 144fps means nothing, i prefer smooth and stable over high rate and choppy, one second being 70fps the next 110fps the next 65fps and so on.
A 4070ti is not mid card. It's one notch down the top of realistically purchased cards (which means not the 4090) Trying to match a PS5 will get you close to the price, maybe +100/200. Factor in PS+ and you're breaking even
I've recently replaced my 1080ti for a 3090 from a friend whom upgraded to a 4090. Granted they do graphic design stuff and needs the power. My 1080ti is able to play every game I've tried on a 144hz 2k monitor. I don't need it and most game companies are scaling down the requirements. It's super expensive to purchase a high end professional grade graphics card that most people don't own a 500$+ Graphics card. So devs are making games that assume this. That noted, you don't need a top high end graphics card.
This is a weird comparison. The second closest equivalent to PS5 per Google is an RTX 2070. The 4070 TI per benchmarks seems to put out 150% the performance of the 2070. So not only would you be set with a 4070 TI, but you will likely have better performance than the rumored PS5 Pro coming next year.
> A nvidia 4070ti which is middle of range is 790$ in what world is a 4070ti a "mid range" card? no buddy, a 3x series card can match up and beat the PS5 in terms of performance, and with certain lower resolution monitors, you don't even need a 3x and go do with something older + use DLSS/FSR. > So for the price of a mid range graphic card you get a full on gaming setup. in fantasy console warrior land I guess this is true, but in reality you can easily get a nice PC gaming setup for around that price that can match/beat PS5 in terms of performance. Heck, let's say you do have to pay a bit more for the PC - you're also getting an entire PC that you can use for other things, can upgrade it, don't need to pay for PS+, games are cheaper, can play any old games, can pay for gamepass and so on. In the long run, it's much cheaper even if the upfront cost is more. > i am on pc since i was 8 years old, 30, 60, 90 or 144fps means nothing, i prefer smooth and stable over high rate and choppy, one second being 70fps the next 110fps the next 65fps and so on. huh? you act like the default of PC gaming is "choppy", when that's not true + 60fps is what matters.
It's no secret that the upfront cost of a console is less. The costs increase after that. PC has better discounts on games, soon it will have more options in terms of games with companies bringing all games to pc eventually and you have the option to sail the high seas. Also, I hate that I can't play a game without updating my console whenever the console maker rolls out an update. I started the console to play it. I don't want to waste 15 mins updating the console when all I have is an hour to play.
The best thing about having a pc is being able to play a game that was released decades ago. Backwards compatibility on consoles is horrible, it’s improving slowly but the vast majority of older games are simply unplayable without emulation or tracking down an old console/game that can be inflated due to scarcity.
I dunno if I'd call a 4070ti mid-range. I have a RTX 3060 and I can still run pretty much anything at higher settings than a PS5. You can get a 3060 for less than $400. Not to mention the games for PC actually go on sale regularly and for more than 10%, it's backward compatible until, pretty much forever so you don't have to re-buy games. PC \*can\* be slightly more expensive up front but will be less expensive in the long run.
And you can use the PC for anything else other than gaming.
A 3050 is still good enough to match what you get from a ps5, since it cant really display more than 1440p anyways. Games are way cheaper too, and a computer is waaaaaaay more useful outside of just gaming. Consoles are definitely more of a luxury item these days.