Topic: PlayStation 5 --OT--

Being at home I have noticed some weird stuff with my Sony equipment. I can see myself binning the idea of PS5 here's how it's gone in LockDown.

My 5 Controllers so far - 1 broke and was binned. 1 pad is golden, 1 is good but has a broken right trigger and track pad is dodgy, 2 have massive sway and various issues, both are unusable in Dreams which needs super small motion. So I have 1 good controller out of 5 I have bought. This has set off alarm bells, no way will all this tech in the dual sense work as intended.

My pro sounds like a dryer when it's pushed playing Dreams. I rarely noticed this outside of Gow and the spiderman cutscenes but in Dreams jeez it's bad.

The headphones which came with the psvr were broke out of the box. Totally forgot about that. Went to set up my psvr and the screen in the headset keeps coming on and off. This was a minor gripe as you just have to reset everything - so annoying when your playing it with your family.

Games have gone missing from my library, bombing busters a cheap bomberman Clone has disappeared. I wanted to play it with my daughter and can't download it.

The online infrastructure is still lacklustre compared to comparable services in PC. On the epic games store I get free games and online gaming is free (outside of my virgin subscription).

Sony have moved away from supporting indie games and are more focused than ever on the big 3rd party online multiplayer stuff. The launch of the PS4 was great because of the support, its now nowhere to be seen.

To summarise the direction Sony has decided to navigate is different than the Sony when PS4 launched, Sonys tech is unreliable, the amazing and successful first party games have camouflaged the lack of variety from up and coming Indie outlets, the online infrastructure although improved is expensive compared to competitors alternatives and they are now immitating the xbox controller rather than innovating. With a paltry 885gb ssd we will have to upgrade and with all ps4 games coming to PC I cant warrant sticking with the platform.

@themcnoisy My OG PS4 controller is still working fine. So they're definitely not all busted.

This has little to do with online infrastructure. You have to realise that those free games on Epic Games aren't going to last forever. It's a simple market takeover. They use their Fortnite lootbox money to buy up exclusives and hand out free games, and slowly they're growing bigger and bigger until everyone moves over from Steam to Epic. Not this year, but eventually. The competition goes out of business and they'll get to set their own rules.

It's no different to what companies like Amazon, Uber, and any of those Delivery companies are doing. They get investments from very large companies and have an endless supply of resources. They crush the competition with incredibly cheap prices (often at the expense of others) and once they've created a monopoly, they'll slowly raise everything back up, and make all that money back. Look at Uber, last year they reported a loss of $5 billion, in just one quarter alone. That's not sustainable. The same is true for Epic's model. It's not sustainable in the long run, and they won't be like this in the long run. So you really can't expect Sony (or Microsoft of Nintendo) to start handing out games for free; the whole industry is going to collapse if you think that's going to be the future.

@themcnoisy there are 7 ds4 controllers in my house right now ranging from launch window to just a couple months old. All work fine so perhaps it's something else.

@Octane @redd214 but does the tracking work?

@themcnoisy can't recall ever having issues off the top of my head.

@themcnoisy You mean the gyro? It works fine.

I have 4 PS4 pads and pre-ordered my PS4 and they all still work.

@themcnoisy I have around 6 or 7 DS4's and all but 1 works properly - mostly problems with the thumbsticks after the click, hold and push to run. The general build quality is, in my opinion, the 'worst' of any controller in recent years - certainly in the wireless era in any case. Whether that will be the same for the DS5, I really can't say. Of course I really do hope Sony have improved here - especially with all the 'extra' technology going in that will no doubt make it more expensive in the long run.

In fairness, I had a 'few' Xbox controllers with issues too in the early years - although in general they did seem to last longer overall but in fairness, I haven't used a 'regular' Xbox controller for 5yrs as I have been using an Elite which only makes the DS4's look and feel more flimsy too.

In general, I don't think either had controllers built to last as well as the DS3/360 era controllers. Whether that was to keep the weight/cost down or some other reason, I don't know but they don't feel as substantial. The Cynic in me would say it was because they know you need a Controller and if it doesn't last, its another revenue stream. It does bug me though that some say 'I've had mine for years with no issue' as if that makes a difference to all those that have had to replace theirs and for all I know, their controller(s) hasn't endured the same number of hours of gaming either....

As far as 'Online' goes, Sony do feel 'behind' the competition but again in fairness to them, they have closed the gap up on MS this generation. The gap last gen was much wider BUT last gen, Sony's online was free and not a 'premium' service. Its always going to be difficult to compete with PC though because of the competition on PC alone with the likes of Steam, Windows, BattleNet etc all fighting for your custom.

As for games, I don't know if Sony have really dropped out of supporting Indie games or whether they are now having a lot more AAA games to promote than they did in the early years. For the first year or two, MS seemed to have more of the big blockbuster titles and that may also of been because of the 3rd Party partnerships too with CoD, Fifa etc. Sony therefore had more time and space to promote more of their indies. My biggest concern though is the lack of support they have shown to their games in general with numerous games having been 'turned off' from going online and even some games removed completely - most notably Driveclub. To a certain degree, I can understand the last generation games being turned off but when you can still play games like Halo CE, Star Wars Battlefront (the original 2 games) etc from the OG Xbox era, it doesn't feel me with confidence that Sony will be supportive with their PS4 online games. How long before games like Killzone SF, Uncharted 4, Last of Us etc all get turned off from going online? I know that licencing issues can affect games - whether its licencing expired, changing hands (like Marvel's Characters) etc which will prevent 'new' sales but in the past, they couldn't take the cartridge, disc etc away but now with Digital, they can and certainly block any 'online' functionality.

I still believe you can't hold things that happened in the past against the company in the future. If so, Sony would likely have died after the PS3 launch for example but they came back over the course of that generation and turned things around. The PS4 was a 'monster' and certainly blew the XB1 out of the water. You can't blame the XB1 either on the 'current' team at MS and they have done well to steady a sinking ship and invest heavily on the future too. The Series X, the focus switching firmly back to gaming and all the consumer friendly options MS seem to be offering is testament to the fact that they will be much more competitive in the next gen.

As a football fan, you must know that if the Owners and Manager are right, the club can be much more competitive within their budget and whilst they may make 'mistakes', they can turn things around afterwards too. I know as an Evertonian, you would like your club to get back to the successes of the 80's and I as a Liverpool fan, didn't abandon the club with Hicks/Gillet era and FSG have turned things around there too.

I know if you are gaming on PC, you don't need a Series X but if you want to play the PS5 exclusives, you have no choice. Its difficult to assess the PS5, the durability of its controllers, the support for old and indie games, its online infrastructure etc BEFORE it even launches and a lot of those things can 'change' over its life cycle too. Hardware can get revisions, Online can get more investment and updates to its infrastructure etc so its only something that can really be assessed towards the end of a generation.

I still intend to get both the Series X and PS5 and won't hold mistakes of the past against them - just hope that they continue to compete and drive the industry forward, learn from mistakes and invest in the future of this hobby I love so much.

@Octane Taking advantage of unsustainable loss leaders doesn’t cause a problem. As long as we continue to buy games on steam and PS we won’t end up with a monopoly situation.

@themcnoisy
A LOT to question (in your statement) but I m 100p% sure your completely wrong about indies.
Shu

Edit
'they are now immitating the xbox controller rather than innovating.'
And other takes make me wonder if your serious?

@Octane I have more time to answer your response now, what you have explained as a pseudo monopoly is exactly what Playstation has.

Obviously Nintendo, Xbox and PC gaming is there for competition - But they have changed. Nintendo is underpowered for what I want and the games although good are immature, lack solid stories and use reworked characters.

Xbox is starting to look more alluring with its £10 per month game service and work with backwards compatibility. However the majority of its own games feature microtransactions and are again relying on the shooter crowd. These games are again immature in a different way, focused on the casual crowd.

So that leaves PC and it has the best backwards compatibility, most of the older systems have games available. Playstation games are showing up, Microsofts are already there and you have a plethora of indies. The only issue is buying a good PC can cost a ton of money.

We currently have 2 x ps4, 2 x xbox1, 1 x switch, 1 x PC and 3 x laptops (which never leave the house) add in all the accessories and all of the subscriptions and it dwarfs the cost of a Master PC setup with dummy terminals. Being in LockDown has made me take stock of the cost.

@BAMozzy agreed on most points. I would add you can judge Sony on what it is doing now, with your point on Driveclub they could easily keep it on. It's just poor. Dropping PS Plus to 2 games. Worse deal. Dropping out of E3. Bad for gamers. Saying most of the top 100 games will be back compatible? Weak we need them all to work. Then showcasing that horrendous looking Dual sense thing. One thing it has done is made me question why I'm gaming on PS. It doesn't reward me with free stuff like the old Microsoft reward scheme, as you say it costs me a lot to keep up to date with its additional gear and controllers yada yada yada. PC gaming of which I have been doing over the last 2 weeks has its own issues but its actually way cheaper when you can look over a ton of online stores rather than being stuck with the rubbish ps store which crashes my ps4 pro.

And also more importantly Vita 64gb proprietary memory cards cost over £100. Sony will pull the same trick with the pretty much essential additional SSDs.

@JJ2 I am serious. I have gamed all my life and its my main hobby. This is of course a personal take on the situation but if I wasn't so frustrated I would happily take on a PS5. But I am frustrated and it's not the same company. The front leader who can do what it wants, the pad garnering so much praise when I initially thought it was a joke design.

@themcnoisy
Well it's your right, your opinion.
Just talking about the controllers its VERY obvious which company is trying to innovate and surprise and which company is playing safe just copying some feature. (Or focusing on the same thing as current gen with more flops just for the sake of it) It's the same thing about the consoles. I have no time to go on and on in opposing views so Im sorry but I'll just roll my eyes a bit here and move on haha.

I know we are all getting depressed by what's going on (I am anyway) so that maybe why. Anyway 🤷‍♂️

@themcnoisy
I agree with you regarding xbox and Nintendo games being immature, they're just not for me. As you say, they're not bad games but I'm not the target audience. Played through the first Halo in co-op with a friend and played a few Mario party games with friends over the years. Quite good fun sitting down with friends but never felt tempted at all to buy in.

I like the choice to play games with an interesting story and characters with a personality. Games like Uncharted 4, the new God of War or even Spiderman. Yes, Spiderman having a more mature story than the competition is a strange reality indeed.

I haven't had as many issues as you with the tech being dodgy but the original controllers at launch did break too easily, hard to dispute that point.

@themcnoisy
Just one more thing.
'And also more importantly Vita 64gb proprietary memory cards cost over £100. Sony will pull the same trick with the pretty much essential additional SSDs."
You are obviously misinformed. Its xbox who s doing this , not playstation

@JJ2 If I go PC that platform has a ton of innovation. Grab a rift, loads of different controller options, loads of online places to buy games as retail is almost dead with limited choice in store, loads of free games like abondan ware and out of licence games. Steam, GoG, CD5, GMG, Xbox etc.

@LieutenantFatman This is the one thing stopping me going all in on PC. Astrobot, Spiderman, HZD, Persona 5, Death Stranding, Dreams... Even the order 1886 and Infamous second Son. My favourite games of this gen. Nothing on any platform can compare to those top 6.

@themcnoisy
Oh yea. That's great. Good for you.
That should be in the PC thread I guess?

@themcnoisy
Yes, that's fair, haven't played Death Stranding yet but I agree the other five are excellent.
PC would definitely be my go to after Playstation as well.

As a PS4, Switch and PC owner, I’m in a pretty good position to judge the worth of each platform. My Switch is touched the least, as I mostly bought it for a few big exclusives. Animal Crossing means the amount of time I spend on it has increased tenfold however. My laptop is crazy powerful because I need it for uni which means I run a lot of games on it too. It has the best support of anything I own, with multiple stores and cheaper prices. I literally don’t care about the Epic hate, I get free games and spend no money in their store. People forget that Steam was a horrific, buggy, laggy mess with plenty controversy in its time. The PS4 is there for me to play on the TV and for the big Sony exclusives. When I move out (lockdown put that to bed), I’ll need to assess if I end up just sticking to PC or if I go for a PS5 myself. If more and more Sony exclusives go to PC then I’ll probably just not bother getting a PS5. I’ll never need to get a XSeX because I subscribe to Game Pass PC. I still give money to Microsoft but it’s a great service and really puts Sony to shame. I see no point in being loyal to any brand, I go with the company I want that offers the best service and I shop around. I just don’t have the disposable income to get everything.

@JJ2 Just one more thing.
'And also more importantly Vita 64gb proprietary memory cards cost over £100. Sony will pull the same trick with the pretty much essential additional SSDs."
You are obviously misinformed. Its xbox who s doing this , not playstation

I think you are somewhat misinformed. Obviously MS will have a way to expand its external SSD Storage capacity as well as retain the 1TB internal but that may still be the better and cheaper solution than Sony's option. Yes they may have 3rd Party solutions (and we don't yet know whether 3rd Party options other than Seagate will offer options on Xbox) but you may find that the only option to 'expand' SSD storage crucial for next generation gaming is no different from the option we saw with the PS4 for years - to replace the internal SSD with a suitable alternative, reinstall the OS etc - not 'expandable' but 'replaceable' storage. With that 'bandwidth/speed' too, it could much more expensive per TB to get more storage. To get 2TB's of SSD storage on the PS5, it may mean you have to buy a 2TB internal SSD, and swap the supplied one out costing a LOT more than just buying a 1TB plug in to get 2TB of SSD storage on Series X.

Unless you can categorically supply evidence that the way MS have gone about their SSD Storage and Expansion cards are in anyway worse for customers as far as costs and expandable solution than what Sony are going to do with PS5, I really don't think you can make that comment or criticise. Maybe when we do see what Sony will do, the costs and versatility of each, then we can actually draw up a conclusion but until then, the only thing we know is that Sony have said that they will allow 3rd party replacement SSD's to increase the Storage BUT only those that match up to their Specifications - which right now are NOT available anywhere either. For all you know, You could only get a maximum of 2TB's of SSD storage on PS5 and cannot expand it beyond that capacity externally. On Series X, there is no limit. It could be limited to 2TB's at any one time but you can swap Expansion packs to access the content on different expansion packs but saves having to move (from an external HDD connected via USB) or uninstall/reinstall games. In any case, we don't yet know which option is best for consumers from a cost perspective so you cannot make that statement! Chances are, MS's may well be the cheaper due to the speed and type of connection to the system but again we don't know for definite so you cannot say that Sony are not doing the same or that their method is more consumer friendly...

@themcnoisy You have to do what's right for you and maybe the PS5 won't be the right option for you - at least not at launch. I am sure you will keep an open mind and reassess the situation at different times - maybe when a few big exclusive games have launched, the prices dropped and some questions - like durability, online infrastructure etc are more widely known, it may well be the right option for you then.

I plan on buying a PS5 at launch or as close to launch as i can get. I figure it will be $499 or $599. I'm passing on the next Xbox because i don't trust Microsoft. I bought three Xbox 360's and every one of them died in about 4 months due to the red ring of death. After the 3 dead Xbox's i bought a PS3 and it still works to this day.