I agree with everything you said, but I want to add/elaborate on one point. Consoles should have as their primary goal accessibility, not power. They should give as many people as possible access to as many games as possible. It should no be "premium". It should not be a "luxury". It should be for everybody.
Gaming in and of itself is a luxury. Do you think you would be thinking this way if you were in a harsher environment? Cheap gaming is available now on pre-existing screens like cell phones or PC's. Consoles are the most pure gaming enthusiast platform.
@@nyykyn Actually the “accessibility” of consoles has always been their plug and play simplicity, not price. Like decades ago when I got my original NES as a child, I had it hooked to the TV and playing in like 5 minutes while my mom was still reading the manual. Speaking of my mom, she did have to save for every console I got after that during childhood (and I didn’t get everything that came out). Computer games were not only not as accessible because the “home computer” was not even a thing and if you had one, it was the ONE family computer in some common area of the home and probably had split uses among different family members. (Back then we did not even have a computer in my house, the first computer I even touched was at computer camp at like 12). Today we have Steam and its sorta cracked the “what use to be” of consoles. Most people not only have some sort of computer in there home growing up, the affordability of a basic one that “could” play at the very least some basic games and any ported old title has dropped and really the difference between console and PC these days is PREFERENCE not price. One of those preferences being the ease of plug and play. Once consoles got into having “alt versions” in the same generation, yea that meant you were on the road to “basic” and “pro” devices. So not shocked where we are now and the industry will either adapt again based on purchase habits or consoles will die out.
Consoles should also be easier to develop for, not necessarily due to power but to architecture. And developers should relearn to optimize their games instead of just leaving everything to raw power.
Having a big Octopath 2 picture in the background kind of speaks to the point how little I care about console specs. I want good games, not state of the art tech flexing from big companies.
Right? The tech can be nice, but once the novelty of the fidelity wears off all that ultimately matters is: Is the game fun? Is it engaging? And high fidelity graphics ≠ automatically fun.
this is probably an unpopular thing to say when it comes to ''new and upgraded consoles but im gonna say it anyway. if you have a PS4 or already own the OG PS5 you don't need this.😑😑 idc what it can do this is just straight up ridiculous price gouging by sony , and its not just them either.
Nah, it's pretty reasonable. I'm perfectly happy with my PS5. I certainly don't need a pro. It already is a powerhouse in itself. I don't need more. Pretty sure many others feel that too.
I do think the real issue is devs maybe not knowing how to really use the hardware to its full ability. Just like how ZBotW and the new Zelda game have a huge variation in framerate, even though BotW has so much more going on. A skilled dev can get a lot of of good hardware. A less skilled dev just wants more power to make it easier. And it's rather have unique graphic styles which might need less graphic power, then that standard call of duty look which skin pores and sweat mechanics :)
They’re testing the waters to figure out if they can greatly jack up the prices on next gen (ps6). Also a test case to prove if crummy digital defaults will stand up on their own. Providing digital as the default has caused me to begin boycotting Sony. I’m out if digital is given first class priority over physical. I’ll go play my backlog, retro games or start a new hobby.
8 years to create derivative slop that nobody wants to play. These long production cycles make creating risky, innovative experiences untenable for publishers and investors. The best games you’ll ever play have 3-4 year development cycles.
@@dillamadukes21 I think you're right. At those price increases for development, but the amount of user base purchasing not scaling in proportion, you're almost only going to see *Spiderman 4", "Last Of Us 6 Re-Re-Remastered," and "Concord 1 - Same But Better Somehow"
As someone who has been gaming since they had the motor skills to operate a controller, and someone who loves all platforms, it has been so disappointing to see such a vocal group of people talk about resolutions and polygon count as it those are the only determining factor of a game's quality. The PS5 Pro kinda feels design to pull one over on those people, but also to test the waters of just how much they can get away fleecing the consumer. Not including the disc drive sucks, for sure, but not including the stand is actually crazy, since you really can't set the console up properly in either configuration without it. I feel like they really saw Apple not including chargers with their phones and figured they could pull something like that, too
I have to disagree with you a little bit here. I see this as Sony trying to be a good steward of the brand. They said it at the beginning of the announcement. 75% of all players on playstation are trying to achieve 60 FPS. Developers have gotten lazy, no matter how much more powerful the hardware comes out. The vast majority of developers decide not to go for 60 FPS and gamers are getting tired of it. Starfield comes out and they focus on making it look bigger and more grandiose but 60 FPS isn't there and a lot of times that extra dev time spent on microtransactions and in game shops. The less time was spent on the actual game, squashing bugs and getting the game running at max speed. These things are getting more and more unforgivable when you have a known architecture on a dedicated console. I think Sony's taking a hit for trying to give players what they want. But ultimately it won't fix the problem because the problem is with the developers making the games.
One thing i appreciate about Nintendo and Square Enix is that they fund and release a bunch of AA projects, not just AAA. For Nintendo, you've got smaller projects coming out like Clubhouse Games, WarioWare and Mario Party alongside their higher budget projects like Zelda or Mario or Splatoon. Similarly for Square Enix, especially since 2018 or so, I've appreciated how many high quality smaller scale RPGs we've been receiving: Octopath Traveler, Live a Live, Triangle Strategy, NEO The World Ends With You, Bravely Default II, Star Ocean the Second Story R, etcetera. It's not JUST been big budget projects like Dragon Quest XI S, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth and Kingdom Hearts III. So something I hope we'll see more in coming years from AAA publishers generally and Sony specifically is more AA or smaller budget projects. They are great stopgaps between big releases, and are often really fun in their own right 🙂
That’s the good point. If big game companies scare to take risks, why so dead set on big budget games? All they have to do is to launch many mid to low budget games. Sure a lot of them may not hit, but when it does it becomes gold. Then you can take that gold and built a bigger game on top of it. People will love it when they see the game they like got improved. But they hate it when they see game get no innovation.
@@ajbXYZcool Just like Failing to Fail: The Spiderweb Software Way in GDC. You can find it at 7:10 in that TH-cam talk. "Nobody know anything". Not even big game companies know how to hit every times with their releases. Sometime, we may have to make experiment to find a way to make a successful game.
@@ajbXYZcool I think it’s not much different than making huge budget game and flop. Perhaps sometime, instead of going too safe, they should experiment more with smaller games.
@@fishyfinthing8854 Oh no I agree with you. More mid-budget games please. These dumb companies just can't see further than their balance sheets. They need BEEG PROFITS so they go big-budget for the largest returns, but they hate risk, so they choose the most boring things to inflate. So they keep self-defeating themselves.
The most important thing in video games is that they're fun. Graphics don't make it fun. The gameplay does that. That's why I primarily play indie titles. They put fun first.
Video game graphics were really hitting the plateau for the last... 8 years? Human perception has its limits, and increasing fidelity worth less and less with every passing year while absurdly increasing the development time.
@@BacklogBattle The success of Nintendo Switch should've sent a clear signal to Sony and Microsoft how people are choosing "Good enough graphics but portable" over "More raw power". But they assumed that it's Nintendo being magical and quirky as usual.
@@MiraihiMicrosoft is actually rumored to be making a handheld, and with the low power of the Xbox S they already have the games ready to play with it.
@@makasete30 I see, that's cool. We haven't seen any real attempt to translate the relative high percentage of power of the current generation into the handheld since PS Vita, let's see how it goes for Microsoft.
I honestly have not noticed that much of a difference since the PS2. MGS2 and FFX were pretty much the apex of having great graphics while also still looking like a video game. Once you cross the threshold into fully realistic, games start to lose their charm.
I only got a PS5 for Rebirth and future JRPGs. I don't care about consoles I care about the games. 30 fps 60 fps I don't care. I can't even tell the difference between graphics anymore, I just want good games
I honestly don't even care about consoles anymore. I "jumped ship" to the PC years ago. You can buy a cheap PC and play games in a very acceptable resolution (like 1080p) and a fair frame rate (60 fps). The beauty of the PC is that you can make it as expensive as you want. Need more computing power? Upgrade you CPU. Need more memory? Buy a few extra memory sticks. Need better graphics? Buy a more capable graphic card. But the real beauty is that you do not have to do it all, or even "at all". If you are happy with what you have, why should you bother upgrading? And I do not even talk about the amount of native games. There are tons of them. And if they are not enough, then just use a emulator and play games from other platforms. I would not even go back to a console if I would get one for free (well - they are nice gadgets, so I would not say no to getting one, but you catch my meaning). Do not get the impression that I hate consoles. I absolutely do not hate them at all. If people have fun with them, all the better. I only say that personally I feel no need for them at all anymore. That's all there is to it...
@@jclosed2516 Agreed, it's about being happy with the hardware that you have. No need to upgrade if you're happy with your current setup. I have a 6 year old laptop and a PS5 and I can play everything I want, except for some Nintendo exclusives. I played Baldurs Gate 3 on the laptop and it ran better than I expected. Sure, the cutscenes could have been smoother, and there's noticable pop-in, but it was acceptable to me. I'll upgrade when it breaks, and then I'll be good to go for another 6-8 years. If you like more frequent hardware updates, a desktop pc is definitely the way to go. Games are cheaper for pc too.
nintendo figured this out decades ago and has slayed for decades, so why do these other companies continue this bullshit? not all companies are made the same - some are better at businessing than others - some are better at gaming than others
let's go back to the past a bit: the playstation 2 was the least powerful console and it sold due to ONE gimmick: you could play DVDs with it. this was back when DVD readers were hundreds still.
To be fair, console is a tough place to compete. You need a business strategy that like no one else and interesting enough for gamers to choose you. That’s why copy other won’t work because that’s mean you always one step behind in term of market share.
Nintendo is already established in the niche of lightweight handheld consoles with high quality first party games exclusive to the system. It's kinda hard to intrude in that niche, so Sony tries to be something different. Whether that's a good or a bad idea, only the future can tell.
Alex, this is a tough subject to comment. I guess, in the end, it depends on the gaming machine. Most console will probably last 5 to 6 years before their respective hardware manufacture launch the next gen hardware. With PC, the hardware evolution goes faster than console machine because every 2 or 3 years the new and more powerful hardware component is out. And yes, the price of the new tech is getting more expensive. I guess it is up to the game players preference in choosing their gaming machine. Power and performance is important only to a certain degree. In the end, it is the quality of the software that decide whether a gaming machine is worth your money.
We've had severely diminishing returns as far as graphical fidelity goes since the the PS360 generation. I think chasing after that elusive photo-realism was always a bad idea, but it's only gotten worse as the costs have gone up and it's become more difficult to distinguish what we're even gaining from it.
Probably an unpopular take around here, but I will say being able to play 60 fps at a decent enough resolution is important for me in 2024. Before anyone tells me about how games were 30 fps before and I probably didn’t mind them. And yes, some of my favorite games will always for ever be locked to 30 due to the engine and can’t be modded. Now days after playing a lot of 60 fps, it’s very hard to play new games at 30 fps and never quite get used to it. FF7 Rebirth is a prime example since 60 fps is so blurry. That being said, it’s more on the devs rather than having us buy more expensive hardware. I know digital foundry said ff7 rebirth could have had a much better looking performance mode if they spent more time on the upscaling. I don’t need super realistic pores on the face, shadows in the rock crevices, and things like that that takes years to develop to enjoy a game.
Thank for for talking to us despite being so unwell. You're a trooper. I agree with you 100%. You can go on a road trip in a Honda Civic and have as much fun as in a Cadillac. Nintendo has had the clear advantage over its competitors because they have a larger audience (all ages) and they make more affordable consoles, albeit less advanced technologically. Sony and Microsoft are taking far too long and spending way too much money to develop their games. They are setting themselves, and their game developers, up to fail.
I'm a fan of more power and better graphics as long as it is utilized well. Astro Bot is an example of a game that uses the PS5's abilities very well and it is a visual treat, despite being a game with a more simplistic art style. Sony definitely needs to worry more about getting good PS5 exclusives than it does making a more expensive console with slightly higher performance. Also, the fact that it has no disc drive is a continuation of the concerning trend in console gaming that physical media is heading to the grave. I've still enjoyed my PS5 immensely these past 4 years and I suspect I will for at least another few years, but it's still a legitimate issue that so few exclusives have come out on the system.
Games like Astro Bot make me so happy to own a PS5. Since I play mostly JRPGs, most games I play on the PS5 are also released on the PS4 and Switch, so the PS5 level of hardware is not needed at all. But I really like having my PS5 for those few AAA experiences that I do play. I don't have a Switch, but I've been hearing more and more lately that games released on the Switch are having performance problems while I have no problems at all on the PS5, which makes the PS5 worth it for me. It also helps that I'm a one person household, so I don't have to share my tv with anyone.
I think this quote from Gunpei Yokoi (credited inventor of the GameBoy; read in A Handheld History 88-95) says it all: « Do these playworlds really need to be that photorealistic, I wonder? I actually consider it more of a minus if the graphics are too realistic […] I think the world of a game feels larger when you can use your own imagination. » Something to reflect on!
Gamers come in all shapes in sizes. To some of us, we'd rather have a 30 fps lock on a fun game. For others, it's an absolute necessity that the game be in 4K with a minimum of 60 fps. They still need to be fun, but they also need to look good. I see a lot of people upset at the pricing, and I get that. On the other hand, no one is forcing anyone to buy it. I don't get upset when a publisher releases a $250 collector's edition of a game. Would I like to have it? Sure. But I really care more about the game. So I spend the $60-70 on the game. I can't justify the extra $180 for something that isn't going to make or break my gaming experience. Honestly, Sony is free to charge whatever they want for the enhanced console. They are under no obligation to cater to a specific audience. It is us, the consumers, who get to decide if the upgrade is worth the $700-1000. For most of us, the answer is no. But I have a feeling the Pro is going to sell, even at that price point.
The issue with me is the entire point of a console has been lost, except for Nintendo. Consoles are suppose to do what other hardware PC or otherwise cannot do. We're at a point that the XB One, X, Series S/X, PS4, Pro, PS5, Pro are all PC boxes. They're all HDMI, all have the same basic controller layout, all sound the same, all basically look the same, and all basically use the same hardware. This Switch was really innovative when it released and even 8 years later, the Switch still has features no other hardware has. That's a console. When you think about consoles of the past and the Switch, they always brought something new and fresh to the table. They just don't do that anymore.
Heck, switch plus steamdeck or legion GO, get a dock, hook to TV…all the PC and Nintendo games you could want, option to play things with keyboard and mouse while docked in desktop mode. Add an external controller when you are in the mood.
You don't even need a Switch, cause dumping roms is easier than ever on their end. Deadass a Steam OLED (or any other PC handheld) & a PC are all you need. Consoles are convenient sure, but that convenience is fading.
Hardware does and doesn't matter at the same time. I own a PS5 because I do want to play a AAA game occasionally and be amazed by the graphics of these games. But for the most part I play JRPGs and these games just don't have the budget to create something that needs PS5 levels of hardware. I'm just as happy playing a 2D indie pixel game as when I play a AAA game. It's like you said, it's about the games and as console hardware grows older, the limits of the hardware will be pushed and we'll sink back to crappy performance. Though it will be harder and harder to reach those limits since it costs so much time and resources to create a game that will reach those limits. Some AAA games have been in development for a decade or so. That's just not sustainable for the majority of games. I'm going to skip the PS5 pro, just as I skipped the PS4 pro because the base console does everything I want. Just like my laptop, it's 6 years old now but it does everything I want. If it breaks, I'll buy something which is more up to snuff for the current hardware level. The only thing I feel I'm missing out on is some Switch exclusive games like Zelda, Pokemon, Xenoblade, Fire Emblem and the like. But I have such a large backlog of games already, I just don't have the time to add another console into the mix.
I think power does matter, but PS5 still looks amazing, certain games in particular are mind-blowing like Demon's Souls Remake and Horizon Forbidden West. Even the PS4 barely shows its age on most games. I have a really good gaming PC (RTX 3090) and there is marginal difference between that and the original PS5. The Switch needs an upgrade for sure, it's one of the few consoles that are difficult to enjoy without emulation since low fps and stuttering is an issue, even in first-party games. Overall, I think we're approaching an age in gaming where graphical power won't be a major selling point anymore. I think we'll see consoles and game devs pushing AI features which will require new AI cores i.e. hardware upgrades/new consoles
This is why I stopped playing on PC and never really looked forward on next-gen consoles. What I look at now is the library of games where I think I can enjoy most of the games I want. I used to game on PC and build my own rigs, but what many PC gamers overlook is the main advantage of consoles: you can just turn them on, play for 15-45 minutes, and relax on the bed or couch without worrying about optimizations, compatibility issues, game-breaking updates, or background apps interfering. Most of the time on PC, I found myself more focused on nitpicking game performance-obsessing over FPS and squeezing out maximum detail from my rig-than actually enjoying the games. I ended up spending more time and money on hardware than on the games I wanted to play. I got a switch as portable and PS4 as my home console and just kept getting games, playing with them, and didn't care about nitpicking hardware performance anymore.
My only problem with "Pro" models is that they might use it as a base for performance to then give PS5 the worst version. Call it developers not being good with optimization, more raw power = less hurdles with the hardware. And it is just that though, more raw power thanks to the GPU and software (PSSR). Only aims at a niche sector that wanted more power out the PS5 which is understandable as well. Just knowing PC's, Steam Deck and Nintendo Switch already exist in the market, you know alternatives that cover every single need a PS user may need is strange. People never asked for a more powerful PS5, just make every game more suited for the hardware and don't over do it to the point it affects the experience: 1080p 30fps as minimun in terms of performance and resolution. Sony read the wrong market here. PCs are still miles ahead when it comes to new technologies, always been on the cutting-edge and console never had any reason to follow that path.
That is exactly the problem with a large portion of the gaming public, at least the most vocal part of it, that has long been trained to equate gaming with frame & pixel counts. That is especially true with a an extremely vocal majority of PC gamers which will jump at any opportunity to quote humongous numbers like teraflops and huge power requirements with exuberant glee & pride. Personally, as an older gamer and software engineer myself, born out of a generation when developers took pride in delivering optimized code, I’m far more fascinated by devices with low power consumption and games that squeeze everything out of them and deliver on gameplay 1st, than any kind of boring discussion on bloated and lazy hardware or software.
Just came across your channel today. As someone also new to youtube creation your channel gave me some added inspiration and really enjoyed your take here. Thanks pal, great energy, keep these coming
While they have their issues too, one reason there's such affection for Nintendo is encompassed in your closing thought: it's the games, stupid! It's just unfortunate no single platform checks all the boxes, where one is strong and deficient another is respectively deficient and strong.
@@Zy.Blurish Not to be pedantic, but by "platform" I mean console. I'm in the process of making Steam my primary library, so I both agree with the sentiment and am taking actions to that effect, but I'm an 80s kid, and that means video gaming begins and ends criss-cross applesauce a few feet in front of a television. /shrug
I sold my PC when my daughter was born 2 years ago. Our tiny apartment didn't have space for me to have a dedicated desktop PC. I've never had a PlayStation nor Xbox, and my Switch doesn't have access to a ton of different AAA games, so I bought a used PS5 with two controllers and a headset for $300. I love it! I couldn't buy a PC with this level of performance even if I wanted to. And I wanted to buy a PS5 over a PS4 so it was more future-proof. I mostly play ports of "retro" arcade and PS1//2 era games, so I don't need tons of power for most of what I play, but I occasionally want to play a modern AAA game. A PS5 Pro is a small luxury item at this point simply due to price. If someone is in a similar position to me, where they want a console and they want higher frame rate and fidelity, but they have more disposable income then a PS5 Pro is awesome. I understand the argument that (some) consoles are about accessibility but they don't have to be; some consoles are about luxury. The Neo Geo home console comes to mind. Video games are inherently tied to technology. They're a digital multi-media and art form. They can and often do benefit from technological advancements, but they can also suffer from commercial pressure tied to those advancements. I consider console games on the NES inferior to their arcade versions almost entirely because of the lacking power of the NES. The tech can allow for better implementation of the same game design, and sometimes the lacking tech disallows a particular design.
Same for me. I mostly play JRPGs and they are often released on the Switch and PS4 as well, so the PS5 hardware is not really needed. But I do enjoy a AAA experience once in a while, which makes the PS5 worth it for me. Plus I skipped the PS4 pro, so the PS5 enables me to play some games on my backlog with better performance than my base PS4. Though I still use my PS4 since I have a lot of physical games and I'm too lazy to get up and swap disks, so I solve that by having both the PS4 and PS5 hooked up and just use the tv remote to swap between them. That way I can swap between two physical games without getting up from the couch and having to disturb my blanket fort.
I figured I'd throw out my (probably unpopular) opinion as far as "power", and in particular graphics - I've honestly rarely cared. I don't mean that to sound dismissive or anything - and I get there are lots of people it seems to be important to, but I honestly can't even fathom being as obsessive as a lot of people are with respect to framerate, resolution, ray tracing, whatever graphics aspect. I've met so many people who say they won't play anything from more than one generation back and that's so sad and odd to me. I love delving into the history of things. Some of the games I'm most excited to try are some of the oldest ones on my to-play list: Wizardry, Ultima, Might and Magic, etc. I'm really enthusiastic to try those. I love to play Nethack and Caves of Qud. It's been a deeply fascinating and humbling experience to see what some new games are capable of that don't need to put every bit of available power towards graphics, but can use it on wildly deep simulations instead - things like Ultima Ratio Regum for example that procedurally generate entire convincing cultures down to unique faiths with different denominations - different textile patterns and materials, I could go on and on, but there's an astounding level of depth (and interaction - looking at things like Dwarf Fortress, etc) that can be plumbed when extreme cutting edge graphics aren't the sole focus. I realize some of those games are too deep for most - but I think there could be a variety of different levels of complexity to appeal to all kinds of people. The other thing I always find myself thinking of, is how much more an interesting art style means to me than peak cutting edge graphics. Octopath Traveller 2, Dead Cells, Wind Waker HD, Viewtiful Joe, basically everything arc system works puts out with their 3d anime style, a hundred more examples that aren't coming to mind at the moment, cause there are definitely other great styles beyond HD pixel and cel shaded, but you take my meaning. I feel like all these games will look better ten years down the line than anything going for hard realism with peak fidelity, because by necessity those games will just look like worse versions of the next "latest thing". I'm kinda tired of realistic graphics as a default. I know lots of indie stuff uses pixels and I think that's great, but why not other interesting art styles too. There have to be more ways to innovate. Or just coming up with new ways to do existing themes, colour schemes, stylistic choices, etc. that set games apart. Dead Cells with its cool pixely light bloom stuff going on appeals to me way more than the best looking realistic triple A titles, it just looks cool. I get kinda bored of bland gritty reality over and over. Even a lot of fantasy stuff goes for a very realistic art style if it's big budget, and ends up feeling not super fantastical imo. Now is it good that 3d graphics don't look like N64 anymore? yeah of course, it's a fun style to revisit for retro style nostalgia games, but on the whole it's not the most terribly attractive look ever. But I can't tell the difference between most resolutions anymore. I notice no difference between 30 and 60 FPS even, let alone anything higher. I don't need insane specs, I need something that looks good.
Hey, Alex - a lot of topics here! A bit surprised that you argue there's not much reason to own PS5 because most of us have gaming PCs. I don't have a gaming PC, just a cheap laptop. I spend $500 on PS5 instead of $1500+ on a decent gaming PC, and spend that $1000+ I saved on games. I believe there are hundreds of millions of people who enjoy games worldwide who can't afford or choose not to pay for and tinker with a gaming PC, and for us PS5 is amazing. I have a great catalog of games to play on the console, and am not at all bothered that only a few of them are exclusive. As for PS5 Pro, I have no reason to buy it, and it's too expensive especially in markets other than the US (I think at this pricing, with disc drive a separate purchase, it will sell not much better than PSVR2). However, part of that failure is that gamers are getting cheap: the price of PS5 + disc drive is about the same -- adjusted for inflation -- as the PS3 was at launch. So for what you pay, you get pretty good value. But the market reality is that gamers are demanding that prices come down, down, down but they also demand that technical quality of games goes up, up, up. Which brings us to your later point about AAA games. I feel strongly that if the games industry doesn't correct to make most games AA (and indie) quality in the next few years, the industry itself will implode. AAA games will just not make their dev money back when 100s of millions of dollars are going into development ... unless it's a GTA game, which people will just buy for whatever reason. We experienced gamers need to get the point across both to the corporations and to younger gamers who demand hyper-realistic 8k 120fps graphics that what matters is gameplay, story, world-building, community-building and fun. None of that comes with more expensive and elaborate tech -- the tech will kill companies and cost game devs their jobs by the thousands. One $100mil game that doesn't connect with an audience, and that company is done. Let's bring game dev budgets down where they were in PS1/PS2 era -- those eras were full of amazing and varied gaming experiences. You can get perfectly nice graphics for that kind of game budget with the help of modern technology, you can release more games because they only take a couple of years to make, and game devs can get more creative and risk-taking like they were 20+ years ago. That's a win, win, win for everyone involved. Isn't it worth sacrificing cutting-edge graphics?
What's the point of all the power when you have an all digital library that can be taken away from you for no reason at all? I play games to have fun, not for how technically advanced the games or hardware are. If gaming is heading to an all digital future, I'll have to find a new hobby or work on my massive backlog.
I'm amazed more people don't think like this. You can never, ever buy a digital anything, it's just a rental until they shut down the store, go out of business, someone hacks your account, or your account just disappears for absolutely no reason at all.
I don’t think it’s about power not mattering it’s more so the pro consoles aren’t needed but this is to be expected with last gen the people that bought the pros is why it’s happening again . All I want is good games so the pro news doesn’t mean anything to me but forcing Sony to shows us those games
I bought a ps5 a few years ago and felt that it was finally a device that could play ps4 games properly. It also had an operating system and UI that felt nice to use. tl;dr sorry for the rambling post lol. Love your channel and that was a great video. Very interesting. I'm struggling here because I am a real graphics and performance snob. I got a terrible diagnois a couple of months ago so I bought an rtx 4090 and I've been wishing that i'd just wasted all the money and bought one at launch. I find that games are more fun when I can max out the ray tracing and resolution. I'm currently finishing off Witcher 3 next gen with every maxxed out and mods to take things even higher. It really is more fun this way, just riding through Toussant and looking at the scenery is a joyful experience (it was also joyful back on a gtx960 for the original release) I barely even notice any DLSS Framegen artefacts and DLSS upscaling almost required the digital foundry zoom in to notice problem when actually gaming. I think that the best feature of the ps4 pro will prove to be PSSR Machine learning upscaling which (hopefully) should be at the native XESS or DLSS area - this alone will clear up all of the terrible image quality problems with current PS5 games (jedi survior) The question of the PS5 Pro's value is also really complicated because for the hardware inside that really is about the price of what it would cost. Sony are likely making a small profit so it isn't subsidised. Silcon just hasn't been falling in price the way that it was even 10 years ago, the best way to get more performance is through design changes or jsut spending more money. But even if the ps5 pro isn't overpriced in silicon terms - is it overpriced for a game console? Thats a differnt question, probably subjective and impossible to definitively answer. Power doesn't matter but also power is what allows expansive visions to be created for games. More power also allows smaller and less well funded teams to create games using generic game engines that don't suffer from comparison to theri AAA contemporaries. Generic game engines are much less efficient than bespoke and customised one's but they are necessary for allowing indy and mid-tier studios to compete.
This generation has felt very weak and barely capable of making 4k gaming smooth. I look at ff16, it was oddly blurry in performance mode, I don’t need 4k but let’s clean up image clarity.
I think a major issue is that games on this generation of gaming for ps5 and xbox series s and x is that they are still releasing on previous generations with 4 and xbox one. It barely feels like developers have pushed the boundaries of what current gen consoles can do when most games are still releasing on older consoles. Like the only game I can think of that really use instant loading is spider man 2 with its fast travel loading you in anywhere instantly. I'd honestly prefer if graphics in games scaled back, if it leads to a quicker turn around on releasing games. Because games look good in general these days, I'd argue it's hard to find bad looking games. I'm just worried for the industry with how expensive some games are. Because if it fails to succeed that could be the end of studios that have so much talent. Funnily enough I actually remember talking to you about this in your discord before this gen of consoles came out and we talked about if power matters
In my opinion, and keeping it about the video games, we are reaching to a point where power means absolutely nothing but Sony and mostly of the time Microsoft utilizes these new “power upgrades” to create games with a cinematic experience or games that straight up don’t work. I’ve always been that kid that was a Nintendo hater , Nintendo is for 5 year olds; the more older I got (I’m 27) the more I realized it’s mostly never about the mature themes, amazing set pieces, and dare I say, a convoluted or complex story, Nintendo reminds me that games are supposed to be fun and I’ve been playing more indie games and retro games on my PC as well which has that same feeling. Not to say most of Sonys or Microsoft’s library are filled with bad games but they do a decent job showcasing the power of unreal engine 5/ console capabilities, but they lack the fun factor or actually playing the game (I call it the uncharted treatment☠️)
Man, you just read my mind and make a video about it haha couldnt agree more. And to add a little bit more: the constante pursuit of advance tech is costing countless jobs.
I do think a lot of the backlash the PS5 Pro is getting is justified. However, despite the price and backlash, I'm still excited for the PS5 Pro and plan on upgrading to it. Here are my personal reasons: 1. The improvements shown in the presentation were pretty noticeable for me, and I want to be able to experience upcoming console games running the smoothest and looking the best they possibly can. I know I could get even better performance from a high-end gaming PC, but I personally do not enjoy gaming on a PC (Steam Deck is the exception). 2. The PS5 Pro has 2TB internal storage. I've been wanting to upgrade my PS5's storage for a little while now and 1TB SSDs are $150+. At that price, I'm already at half the cost of upgrading to a PS5 Pro. Might as well do that so that I not only have more storage, but also the option of adding even more and having better performance for future games. 3. The PS5 Pro has wifi 7 whereas base PS5 has wifi 6. As someone who plays games handheld quite a lot and am frequently away from home for work, the faster upload speeds should hopefully improve the stability of my PlayStation Portal when I am gaming away from home. 4. When the PS6 inevitably comes out, upgrading to it from a PS5 Pro rather than a base PS5 will be more affordable (although I'd be spending that money now rather than later). When that day comes, everyone will be selling their PS5s, so id probably only be able to get $300 max for my base PS5, whereas PS5 Pro I'd probably be able to get $500. That'd make upgrading to the PS6 way easier. I think a big issue is that Sony decided to focus on older games rather than new/upcoming games to show it off. But this being a technical presentation as opposed to a state of play, I wasnt expecting new game reveals. I expect that there will be a state of play in the near future, and they will probably show PS5 Pro comparisons with them.
Consoles are abount convenience not performance. If you (the gamer) wants / needs the performance there is only 1 option: PC. Sure it will cost you about $2KUSD - $3KUSD, BUT if after 3 years you are not happy with the performance anymore, you can upgrade. Also: Game preservation only really happens on the PC and often times threw pirated software.
100% agree. Somewhere along the lines of the strive for graphic realism, developers forgot the most important thing about a game - is it fun? If you want amazing graphics, then have a look out the window.
I am a consumer and I will upgrade my PS5 to PS5 Pro (with disk drive). Totally understand the criticism but on a very personal level I do not care, I always want to have the best technology possible and I am in the comfortable position not having to care about 500 Euros (I live in Germany), 800 Euros or 1200 Euros for a console. For all gamers that do care I hope this leads to a price drop for regular PS5 systems on the other hand, so that at least those gamers who still don´t own a system have a better entry point. Live and let live.
I've personally thought about this a lot recently when deciding which console I was going to buy next. It was between the PS5 and a Steamdeck. I went with the Steamdeck knowing that most of the JRPGs released on the PS5 will likely come to Steam as well. At least here's hoping haha.
I don't get why games need to look realistic. Sure, some games will benefit to get you more in it, but most are way better with a stylised look, especially if the story and gameplay are great. The industry is killing itself by focusing too much on graphics. For me it makes games harder to play even as interactive elements blend too much with the environment and there is too much going on. Maybe I'm getting old 😂
I'm right there with you! I find that games like the upcoming Life is Strange Double Exposure has the right amount of stylization and realism while not crossing the uncanny valley. Stylized games with great art direction that are well animated usually look great. That is Nintendo's bread and butter. I find these games much more immersive than a super detailed character that run/walks like it has a tree trunk up its bum.
It's easy for people who play games as a hobby to say that they don't care about graphics. And I do agree. However companies seem to focus alot on (and mostly to their detriment, with exceptions) the casual gamer or someone who rates a quality game solely on how realistic and pretty a game looks. Their goal is to pull more non gamers in and they feel as if this is the only way to do it.
And in the meanwhile Nintendo is making games about an Italian plumber that step over mushrooms that visually looks fantastic and runs into a tablet. I really feel that a lot of people forgot so many lessons that the times thought us so many times. In 99 Pokemon is launched worldwide, the game looks not very good, the sprites are questionable, hell you even need AAA batteries to run this thing, and ppl love it anyways. Pokemon Red and Blue constitutes in my opinion the most brutal proof in the history of how little the technology really matters. But at the same time, this is what ppl is asking at the end, I heart this last years so many people around me IRL talking about ray-tracing and 4K like if that would be a thing that matters, while in my eyes it has always been just marketing bullshit. Sony is just selling what a specific market wants to buy.
If most people knew what ray tracing actually was and what it did. They wouldn't be asking for it. It kills the frame rate on anything but pretty much the highest end gaming pcs.
Diminishing returns basically. Also to be honest, the majority of people won't even notice a single leaf in the background looks sharper when they pause the game. We have enough graphics.
I almost exclusively play JRPGs. These games rarely ever incorporate these technologies, and im perfectly okay with that. I honestly prefer a nice art style over realism. Ill take Ys VIII and P5R over something like The Last of Us any day.
Nintendo's issue with the Wii U is that they thought the Wii brand will help them sold that consoles with the console having very little innovation compare to the Wii. Fortunately when the Wii U launch not many got the memo, those who saw it thought it was just another version of the Wii and those who got it wasn't impress as it was not as innovative as the Wii. Even worst the Wii U ran on outdate technology and their were more games having trouble working around its specs than Nintendo themselves. Had the Wii U got a much better brand or had Nintendo just wait a few years and just launch the Switch in 2014 without making what the Wii U is then I think Nintendo wouldn't suffer during that era. Some people even thought that maybe the Wii U Game Pad was the console as well and some wish it was when it was not.
i mean, it does matter to some extent, for example the switch destroyed sales wise but missed out on a lot of games because it lacked in hardware power. However, the first party library was solid, and the japanese third party support was very strong.
The only thing i only care about is high framerate 60fps. I could careless about a sign in TLOU2 or the crowd in Rachet and Clank looking a little bit clearer. There's no reason to upgrade to ps5 pro when you already own a ps5. I would even argue that it's worth to upgrade from ps4 to ps5 because it runs games so much better. All the ps5 pro offers is higher resolution which is stupid for 700$.
When I got my PS5, I celebrated by playing… Disgaea 1 remake. Then LoCS 1 and 2. And then Death Stranding. And the PS5 games I’ve played are not grabbing my attention. PS4-level graphics are totally adequate for my expectations. I want story, awesome music, memorable characters, smooth gameplay, fast load times. Ideally, I could play my PS2 discs in my PS5, but eh. VR never landed. We could wait 10 years for the next generation and I wouldn’t feel deprived.
There has not been many ps5 games I am interested in but it is better for playing ps4 games than ps4 pro. Interface is also very sluggish in ps4 and ps4 pro compared to ps5.
The only modern systems I own are The Switch OLED, Xbox Series X. I was gonna get PS5 but Asus ROG Ally was the one I bought instead since more of Sony games are coming to the Steam anyway and I wanted a PC Handheld. My Switch OLED has still been my most played console compared to Xbox Series X, not that XSX is bad. Just the Switch is my preferred console just because it's portable and I could freely play it anywhere.
I never got any Pro versions of consoles. I got Wii U because I wanted Xenoblade Chronicles X. I got PS5 in anticipation of getting Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth. I got Switch beacause I wanted to play Xenoblade Chronicles 3. Realistic graphics are not a factor for me. I love pixelart games, and I grew up with them too. But how the gameplay is, is what matters to me. If I enjoy the mechanics and strategies and whatever is the deciding factor.
The graphic power use to be a selling point for games, now it feel like a lot of game made it the selling point. The only game I bought for that reason was Crisis, and it was years ahead of other games and still had some value as a game without that.
Nontendo has had the right idea since the DS and Wii. That is when they saw where all of this was heading and stopped focusing on hardware power and really started doubling down on making unique products with features that can't be quickly replicated by other platforms. The success of the Switch should have made it clear to Sony and Microsoft that gamers want innovative games with great gameplay, but they've painted themselves into a corner by focusing on the casual consumer that is only interested in these all flash, no substance, movie production style junk.
Yessss! Great video man! That's EXACVTLY the reason why I still play on a PS4 and don't have a PS5 and why Nintendo is successful with the Switch (which I also own). Btw.: I'm currently playing *Chained Echoes* and I'm LOVING it. Which is a 2D-game with no elaborated effects and it's a decent gameplay and it fun like heck. Why do I need a PS5 Pro with it's AAAA-titles (UbiSoft) when I can have this?
I honestly thought my friend was joking when he said that now the PS5 pro is gonna cost $700 and then I watch the video and all I said was that's it but there's nothing here! There's still no new games out for it aside from one original game that isn't just a port or a remaster of an already existing game that works perfectly fine on ps 4, Now you have to buy a separate disk drive even though the original you could and there's not even a flipping stand...... Honestly Sony is becoming more and more money-grubbing than EA at this point. Like what happened back when we just had video games that were fun but instead we have all this extra nonsense that are making things even more worse than justifiable to even play a video game on a console anymore. Now to quote a friend Nintendo fans are gonna be mocking playstation owners and PC owners are gonna be even more annoying but THIS, This is really inexcusable and it makes me glad that I still hold on to my PS4 even after the release of the PS5 because I never found anything on it that made me want to play it even when they slowly decided to make them be more profitable. Now with this Pro version I have even less of a reason to want to get it.
@@KenjiEspresso Yeah but most of those are just remakes and remasters. Only 2 of those games you mentioned are actual new releases but that's a given seeing as it is still a small list and one of them is an EA game which only die hard people would still be into EA. That's still not enough to justify a PlayStation 5 pro.
It is all about the games!!! The console may render trillions of polygons, ray tracing and could cure cancer while you play, but that matters NONE if there aren't any games for it (or shallow games for that matter).
I agree fully. I do have a PS5. I don't regret it at all. But a big reason for that is I personally never owned a PS4. My roommates had one and I paid for his PS+ and used it often snce he worked 2-10 and his off days were midweek. Plenty of tine to play. But he moved and I grabbed the PS5. Playing a bubch of PS4 games on it along with the Final Fantasy games had been a godsend.
Sony's been holding off in game announcements, so they're expected to announce a ton of stuff so we'll see. This is according to them, not defending them. I'm thinking of getting a PS5 Pro because I got the money and Monster Hunter Wilds and Dynasty Warriors Origins are coming up. If I do, it's the last playstation I buy and I'll start beefing up my PC and finally tackling my backlog.
just my 2 cents. With the ps5, a lot of games "flopped" simply because they came out only to the PS5, like FF7 rm2 for example, even though people love it, not a lot of people have a ps5. The meme 'One game.. idk why i bought a ps5 with no games to try" is absolutely true... its all ports and remasters of ps4 games lol. And secondly. The insane budget and cost of making these video games could stand to be cut down, starting with BAD FAITH localizers and BAD FAITH companies like sour baby.
It’s not hard to find a franchise in which the best games were made on powerfully inferior consoles. Case in point: Halo Combat Evolved vs Halo infinite. Power is not the limiting factor anymore and it hasn’t been for a long time. And even when it was, it forced devs to be creative which led to unique ideas and techniques that made games fun. A near total lack of restriction is not good for creativity. The modern triple a gaming landscape is a testament to that, (not to mention the big budget Hollywood movie industry). It doesn’t mean that developers can’t take meaningful advantage of power, but the total obsession with graphical fidelity is pushing the needle in a direction that is leading to Less Games, and unfortunately, more Big sprawling beautiful mediocre games.
What I think is the game has to run well for it to be enjoyable. That may not have been the case back in PS1 ... GOD it wasn't the case ... but we know how good a game can feel now. I can tolerate 30 FPS but only in some kinds of game. Power is, unfortunately, important... but so is optimization. What we have to juggle, and make the call on for ourselves, as gamers is - Is a game's bad performance due to terrible optimization of system performance? I think the Base PS5 straddles a line. There ARE some games that are just poorly optimized but many are just chugging due to high graphics demand. PS5 Pro is definitely going to be a "Do you want improvement or are you happy sticking with what we've got?" My Nephew would love my old PS5 so i'm going for it... normally I would NOT (Especially with Switch 2 on the way).
There is a point to power if u love action-oriented games. Higher fps counts help significantly when it comes to dodging and i-frames especially for older gamers like myself. I noticed this in Monster Hunter Rise as an example. Switch @ 30fps vs PS5 60fps. It becomes a whole lot easier to dodge
It depends. You don’t need too much power to run a game like Rise at 60fps. You certainly don’t need a top of the line PC to do that. But if your marketing starts with that every game gets dramatically better, I’d argue that that’s easily disproven even a year after that console’s release. As I said, ambition will always outgrow and outpace technology
Having a powerful system is neat, but it should'nt be the only focus of a gaming console or you get the very justified negative reaction to the ps5 pro. The fact that Nintendo can get so much out of their older hardware gives Sony no excuse to not be able to do the same on much stronger hardware. Because all that power is worthless if your not making the most out of it, their obession on realisim and having games push the console to it's limit is what's making them so expensive and time consuming. And then you have a game like Astrobot come along that shows what the Ps5 can do without needing to go as big as possible. Rumors have said the Nintendo switch 2 is going to be at least ps4 level at minimum and near the xbox series s at best. And as a nintendo fan I'm not only happy with that, I'm excited to see what Nintendo can do with that level of power, because they already know substance matters more than style for games. My hope is that it's release will finally slap sense into Sony and we can get really great games from them again too.
PS5 Pro will be underpowered within the next 2 to 3 years tops. I would recommend people just save up for a proper Gaming PC instead since it has an insane amount of games compared to a PS5 and that's not even counting crazy amount emulators and the fantastic modding community. If you don't believe me then please look into it for yourselves 🙏
That’s not really the point of the rant. The point is that no matter what platform you have - including PC - your hardware becomes outdated in a year or two, which means power means nothing.
All this talk about Frame Rates is going over my head. I have a Switch, PS4, PC, and N2DS. I have been gaming since PS1 / GameBoy and I just have no idea or even care about 30 vs 60 fps. I also don't care much about ray tracing though, from what I've learned about it, it can be pretty cool. Graphics should NOT be the main selling point for your video game.
Remember when we used to get full trilogies and spin offs in the same generation? we didn't know how good we had it back then, even the games we get now offer less than before, sport games have less features than their ps2 era counterparts, where is this mythical promise of devs no longer being shackled by hardware when games have barely gotten any new mechanics, no environmental destruction or the "thousand enemies on screen", maybe giving more power, unlimited power to the devs isn't such a good idea, innovations flourishes when trying to overcome struggles.
The two consoles I play on in 2024 is PS2 and xbox 360. For modern games which is mostly indie and more original smaller games these days I play on PC. The only AAA game since Witcher 3, and not available on PC that interested me was Ghost of Tsushima. Which I now own on PC. Power means nothing though. My PC is more powerfull than the PS5 pro and probably more powerfull than the PS6 will be in reality, despite Sony's wild empty promises when the time comes. But I mostly play games a potato can run in 2024. What matters is the games. And 8th gen to some extent but especially 9th gen is lacking severely.
Power is everything. I have a series x and a ps4. I got the series x to future proof so i can play games far into the future. The thing is that hardware does limit things. Like how cool the characters and areas look, how big they are. How fast the next area can load. Load times are almost nonexistent. Also the time between me star5ing my console and playing the game is very small now. Back in they day they use to have very small confined areas and then they would have to lead you through a narrow path to get to the next area. They dont have to do that anymore. You can just have a massive open world.
They still lead you through narrow areas in God of War ragnarok in order to load in the next area. One of the points he’s making is that no matter how powerful the machine gets, devs will push it to the limit, and that will limit what they can do with the fps. We will continue to see games at 30fps because devs will want to use techniques like ray tracing and what not. It’s all sacrifice. Maybe someday 60fps will be standardized. Frankly, to your point of the series x, the original Halo trilogy is leagues better than halo Infinite. It’s not even comparable, the og games are classics for a reason. Infinite has the luxury of tremendous power, open regions, better frame rate and more graphical fidelity, and yet the game doesn’t even compare to the original that came out over 20 years ago.
@williampaschall halo infinite is better than all of the other games combined, in my opinion. Great graphics, big open world. It's almost a completely different type of game. You can choose what weopen you want to use. Oh, and the new God of War game is also on ps4. Which basicly proves my point. They make games look good because in the end, that's why people get the new console. Otherwise, they might as well not even upgrade.
I would buy a PS "All-in-one" over a PS5Pro anyday. I just want to be able to play all my games at a stable frame rate without any crashing (looking at you, emulation) and start them up with just one button. Preferably by having the choice of digital and physical. I don't care if I can see a slightly more realistic shadow or reflection in a pond. I'd pre-order the sh*t out of the new PS if it's backwards compatible with all generations and maybe have some AI upscaling with it.
then it will run at 30 on the ps5 pro Gta was always a heavy game that relies more on the CPU then on the GPU and the CPU in the Ps5 pro is the same the 10% extra power won't help
The problem in future consoles of Sony and Xbox is that they focus on graphics but not the idea of making it more accessible and fun unlike nintendo. Regardless of graphics they should be reminded that it's all about art direction not graphics also on overall gameplay and make people enjoy.
Some of my all time favorite games are not what I would call "high fidelity", and "high fidelity" doesn't make games great. I never bothered to buy a PS5, both because Sony censors their games and because there are very few amazing jrpg games on it. My switch library is over 200 games though..... At least Nintendo knows what's up.
Fun fact, with the exception of the super Nintendo and the PlayStation 4, the weakest console always won the generation. I consider switch part of the current generation 9th gen rather than 8th Gen, Wii U part of the 7th, and Dreamcast part of 5th gen.
Wrong. The Super Nintendo is weaker than the Mega Drive and the Mega Drive is weaker than the Neo Geo of that same generation. The Super Nintendo outsold both the stronger systems. As for the 8th gen, the power was difficult, the order of power from weak to strong goes: Xbox One < PS4 < PS4 Pro < Xbox One X So the One X was stronger than the PS4 Pro despite the PS4 being stronger than the Xbox One. So technically the weaker system did win.
I’ve been gaming since the OG Nintendo days. Graphics and power are cool, but it’s useless if your games are terrible cash grabs. Just make a polished fun game.
This feels weird to write, but thank you for this rant! I was waiting out on the PS5 Pro for me and my father, but no way I'm spending 950€ (I am *not* getting a digital only console) for higher performance that I don't give a damn about. Going from Switch to regular PS5, or whatever the next Nintendo console is gonna be, the improvements are going to be enough. Is this Pro console just so big companies can release more unoptimised messes and make excuses that the basic PS5 hardware is simply not powerful enough? I don't know. I really really hope that this console doesn't sell well, but I'm afraid the internet is a bubble...I guess we'll see
PS5 doesn't have a great outlook for exclusives honestly. I play my Switch and Xbox more. Most if not all PlayStation exclusives will come to PC. Even though you'll be forced to get a PSN account to play them they will be there. PS5 was a big disappointment for me as a lot of what made PlayStation unique is not present. Closing Japan Studio and moving the headquarters to the USA were big red flags. Now it is remasters and remakes for the foreseeable future. Also the PS5 is very large and a strange shape, it may be someone else's cup of tea but it wasn't for me. The Xbox with GamePass just works for me. As someone who rented a lot of games during the GameCube, PS2 and Xbox era it has brought back my ability to try a lot of games and only buy the ones I want. All on a machine that doesn't have driver issues and updates and part compatibility etc that my PC does. I love my PC but it is not a replacement for a console. Anyone saying otherwise has never tried to use one with only a controller hooked up to a TV. EDIT: The guy from Digital Foundry plays Elden Ring on series X because of VRR. If you have a VRR capable TV Elden Ring plays best on the Series X. A small note because on a non VRR TV what you say is correct, the PS4 version on PS5 has the highest consistent framerate. But if you are VRR capable Series X is the best version of the game on console.
With respect, how did none of you not see this coming from a mile away? This stuff was getting ridiculously out of hand with the X Box 360 and PS3 with closures of companies that had been around since the beginning like Midway and an increased dominance of western studios. They brought with them an increased emphasis on false notions that game length = value and that big budget production values = quality. With the exception of some arcade and console centric companies, the west has never been any good at making compelling gameplay. The games may be ambitious in size and scope but the experience is hollow, empty, and lifeless. A mile wide and an inch deep. No Man's Sky is practically the poster boy for everything wrong with that design philosophy.
I don't know if it matters but I Finally (just last year) bought a PS5 so that I could have it to Play Tekken 8, but that's the only game I have on it. Next I'm gonna buy Monster Hunter Wilds when it comes out on my Ps5. Til then, I'm just gonna keep playing stuff on my Switch.
Of course power means nothing. Sony knows that as well as Nintendo. That's why great 1stvand 3rd party exclusives games, graphically challenging or not have come from them for decades.🎉
Next gen needs to be on devs end, they need to start developing games faster for less. AI is not a magical wand that makes a spider-man 2 over night but, they're gonna have to start using another tool
Companies are trying to catch lightning in a bottle, just like bands on a second album trying to recreate the magic from the first, its rare and has to just happen. But there will always be the cash grabbing shovel ware with no soul, that's honestly why we need games like Concord, to be the village idiot forcing other developers to make a correction in course.
"It is the games that are important, not graphics". Which is exactly why so many players are playing retro and indie. I myself haven't bought a ps5 yet, and playing backlog games on ps4. I just don't see any reason to buy ps5, and Sony doesn't give me any reaaon to.
The PS5 Pro is an overpriced novelty item and it's not worth it. I am so content with my original PS5 model and it does exactly what I needed to do. As long as the visuals of the games are clear and sharp on my 4K OLED, that's all that really matters to me. Most people have been spoiled when it comes to higher frame rates these days, I grew up with lower frame rates and I'm used to those.
All they seem to churn out, is soulless tech demos on overpriced platforms that still don't hit the numbers. Nintendo ran away with the bag this generation.
I agree with everything you said, but I want to add/elaborate on one point. Consoles should have as their primary goal accessibility, not power. They should give as many people as possible access to as many games as possible. It should no be "premium". It should not be a "luxury". It should be for everybody.
Gaming in and of itself is a luxury. Do you think you would be thinking this way if you were in a harsher environment? Cheap gaming is available now on pre-existing screens like cell phones or PC's. Consoles are the most pure gaming enthusiast platform.
@@nyykyn Actually the “accessibility” of consoles has always been their plug and play simplicity, not price. Like decades ago when I got my original NES as a child, I had it hooked to the TV and playing in like 5 minutes while my mom was still reading the manual. Speaking of my mom, she did have to save for every console I got after that during childhood (and I didn’t get everything that came out). Computer games were not only not as accessible because the “home computer” was not even a thing and if you had one, it was the ONE family computer in some common area of the home and probably had split uses among different family members. (Back then we did not even have a computer in my house, the first computer I even touched was at computer camp at like 12). Today we have Steam and its sorta cracked the “what use to be” of consoles. Most people not only have some sort of computer in there home growing up, the affordability of a basic one that “could” play at the very least some basic games and any ported old title has dropped and really the difference between console and PC these days is PREFERENCE not price. One of those preferences being the ease of plug and play. Once consoles got into having “alt versions” in the same generation, yea that meant you were on the road to “basic” and “pro” devices. So not shocked where we are now and the industry will either adapt again based on purchase habits or consoles will die out.
Consoles should also be easier to develop for, not necessarily due to power but to architecture.
And developers should relearn to optimize their games instead of just leaving everything to raw power.
Having a big Octopath 2 picture in the background kind of speaks to the point how little I care about console specs. I want good games, not state of the art tech flexing from big companies.
Right? The tech can be nice, but once the novelty of the fidelity wears off all that ultimately matters is: Is the game fun? Is it engaging?
And high fidelity graphics ≠ automatically fun.
this is probably an unpopular thing to say when it comes to ''new and upgraded consoles but im gonna say it anyway. if you have a PS4 or already own the OG PS5 you don't need this.😑😑 idc what it can do this is just straight up ridiculous price gouging by sony , and its not just them either.
Nah, it's pretty reasonable. I'm perfectly happy with my PS5. I certainly don't need a pro. It already is a powerhouse in itself. I don't need more. Pretty sure many others feel that too.
I do think the real issue is devs maybe not knowing how to really use the hardware to its full ability. Just like how ZBotW and the new Zelda game have a huge variation in framerate, even though BotW has so much more going on.
A skilled dev can get a lot of of good hardware. A less skilled dev just wants more power to make it easier. And it's rather have unique graphic styles which might need less graphic power, then that standard call of duty look which skin pores and sweat mechanics :)
It’s cheap.
If you have a ps4 you need to upgrade though to the PS5
They’re testing the waters to figure out if they can greatly jack up the prices on next gen (ps6). Also a test case to prove if crummy digital defaults will stand up on their own.
Providing digital as the default has caused me to begin boycotting Sony. I’m out if digital is given first class priority over physical. I’ll go play my backlog, retro games or start a new hobby.
If Concord took 8 years, and Astro took 3-4....maybe more power and dev time isn't the thing we need.
And with 8k on the horizon, it’s only going to get even longer
8 years to create derivative slop that nobody wants to play. These long production cycles make creating risky, innovative experiences untenable for publishers and investors. The best games you’ll ever play have 3-4 year development cycles.
Just goes to show, you can have all the time in the world, but if that time isn't spent wisely, it won't amount to anything.
@@dillamadukes21 agreed
@@dillamadukes21 I think you're right. At those price increases for development, but the amount of user base purchasing not scaling in proportion, you're almost only going to see *Spiderman 4", "Last Of Us 6 Re-Re-Remastered," and "Concord 1 - Same But Better Somehow"
As someone who has been gaming since they had the motor skills to operate a controller, and someone who loves all platforms, it has been so disappointing to see such a vocal group of people talk about resolutions and polygon count as it those are the only determining factor of a game's quality. The PS5 Pro kinda feels design to pull one over on those people, but also to test the waters of just how much they can get away fleecing the consumer. Not including the disc drive sucks, for sure, but not including the stand is actually crazy, since you really can't set the console up properly in either configuration without it. I feel like they really saw Apple not including chargers with their phones and figured they could pull something like that, too
I have to disagree with you a little bit here. I see this as Sony trying to be a good steward of the brand. They said it at the beginning of the announcement. 75% of all players on playstation are trying to achieve 60 FPS. Developers have gotten lazy, no matter how much more powerful the hardware comes out. The vast majority of developers decide not to go for 60 FPS and gamers are getting tired of it. Starfield comes out and they focus on making it look bigger and more grandiose but 60 FPS isn't there and a lot of times that extra dev time spent on microtransactions and in game shops. The less time was spent on the actual game, squashing bugs and getting the game running at max speed.
These things are getting more and more unforgivable when you have a known architecture on a dedicated console. I think Sony's taking a hit for trying to give players what they want. But ultimately it won't fix the problem because the problem is with the developers making the games.
One thing i appreciate about Nintendo and Square Enix is that they fund and release a bunch of AA projects, not just AAA.
For Nintendo, you've got smaller projects coming out like Clubhouse Games, WarioWare and Mario Party alongside their higher budget projects like Zelda or Mario or Splatoon.
Similarly for Square Enix, especially since 2018 or so, I've appreciated how many high quality smaller scale RPGs we've been receiving: Octopath Traveler, Live a Live, Triangle Strategy, NEO The World Ends With You, Bravely Default II, Star Ocean the Second Story R, etcetera. It's not JUST been big budget projects like Dragon Quest XI S, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth and Kingdom Hearts III.
So something I hope we'll see more in coming years from AAA publishers generally and Sony specifically is more AA or smaller budget projects. They are great stopgaps between big releases, and are often really fun in their own right 🙂
That’s the good point. If big game companies scare to take risks, why so dead set on big budget games?
All they have to do is to launch many mid to low budget games. Sure a lot of them may not hit, but when it does it becomes gold. Then you can take that gold and built a bigger game on top of it. People will love it when they see the game they like got improved. But they hate it when they see game get no innovation.
@@fishyfinthing8854 But the problem there is the profit margins are too small! How can they make gazillions of dollars off of the game otherwise?
@@ajbXYZcool Just like Failing to Fail: The Spiderweb Software Way in GDC.
You can find it at 7:10 in that TH-cam talk. "Nobody know anything". Not even big game companies know how to hit every times with their releases.
Sometime, we may have to make experiment to find a way to make a successful game.
@@ajbXYZcool I think it’s not much different than making huge budget game and flop. Perhaps sometime, instead of going too safe, they should experiment more with smaller games.
@@fishyfinthing8854 Oh no I agree with you. More mid-budget games please.
These dumb companies just can't see further than their balance sheets. They need BEEG PROFITS so they go big-budget for the largest returns, but they hate risk, so they choose the most boring things to inflate. So they keep self-defeating themselves.
The most important thing in video games is that they're fun. Graphics don't make it fun. The gameplay does that. That's why I primarily play indie titles. They put fun first.
Video game graphics were really hitting the plateau for the last... 8 years? Human perception has its limits, and increasing fidelity worth less and less with every passing year while absurdly increasing the development time.
Bingo. And yet somehow the entire industry is getting ready for 8k…
@@BacklogBattle The success of Nintendo Switch should've sent a clear signal to Sony and Microsoft how people are choosing "Good enough graphics but portable" over "More raw power". But they assumed that it's Nintendo being magical and quirky as usual.
@@MiraihiMicrosoft is actually rumored to be making a handheld, and with the low power of the Xbox S they already have the games ready to play with it.
@@makasete30 I see, that's cool. We haven't seen any real attempt to translate the relative high percentage of power of the current generation into the handheld since PS Vita, let's see how it goes for Microsoft.
I honestly have not noticed that much of a difference since the PS2. MGS2 and FFX were pretty much the apex of having great graphics while also still looking like a video game. Once you cross the threshold into fully realistic, games start to lose their charm.
I only got a PS5 for Rebirth and future JRPGs. I don't care about consoles I care about the games. 30 fps 60 fps I don't care. I can't even tell the difference between graphics anymore, I just want good games
I purchased a PS5 for FF16, Diablo 4, and Baldurs Gate. No regrets.
30fps only works for me if the game looks ridiculously beautiful. I won't tolerate 30fps games with subpar visuals.
I honestly don't even care about consoles anymore. I "jumped ship" to the PC years ago. You can buy a cheap PC and play games in a very acceptable resolution (like 1080p) and a fair frame rate (60 fps). The beauty of the PC is that you can make it as expensive as you want. Need more computing power? Upgrade you CPU. Need more memory? Buy a few extra memory sticks. Need better graphics? Buy a more capable graphic card. But the real beauty is that you do not have to do it all, or even "at all". If you are happy with what you have, why should you bother upgrading?
And I do not even talk about the amount of native games. There are tons of them. And if they are not enough, then just use a emulator and play games from other platforms. I would not even go back to a console if I would get one for free (well - they are nice gadgets, so I would not say no to getting one, but you catch my meaning).
Do not get the impression that I hate consoles. I absolutely do not hate them at all. If people have fun with them, all the better. I only say that personally I feel no need for them at all anymore. That's all there is to it...
@@jclosed2516 Agreed, it's about being happy with the hardware that you have. No need to upgrade if you're happy with your current setup. I have a 6 year old laptop and a PS5 and I can play everything I want, except for some Nintendo exclusives. I played Baldurs Gate 3 on the laptop and it ran better than I expected. Sure, the cutscenes could have been smoother, and there's noticable pop-in, but it was acceptable to me. I'll upgrade when it breaks, and then I'll be good to go for another 6-8 years. If you like more frequent hardware updates, a desktop pc is definitely the way to go. Games are cheaper for pc too.
nintendo figured this out decades ago and has slayed for decades, so why do these other companies continue this bullshit? not all companies are made the same - some are better at businessing than others - some are better at gaming than others
let's go back to the past a bit: the playstation 2 was the least powerful console and it sold due to ONE gimmick: you could play DVDs with it. this was back when DVD readers were hundreds still.
To be fair, console is a tough place to compete. You need a business strategy that like no one else and interesting enough for gamers to choose you.
That’s why copy other won’t work because that’s mean you always one step behind in term of market share.
Nintendo is already established in the niche of lightweight handheld consoles with high quality first party games exclusive to the system. It's kinda hard to intrude in that niche, so Sony tries to be something different. Whether that's a good or a bad idea, only the future can tell.
Alex, this is a tough subject to comment. I guess, in the end, it depends on the gaming machine. Most console will probably last 5 to 6 years before their respective hardware manufacture launch the next gen hardware. With PC, the hardware evolution goes faster than console machine because every 2 or 3 years the new and more powerful hardware component is out. And yes, the price of the new tech is getting more expensive. I guess it is up to the game players preference in choosing their gaming machine. Power and performance is important only to a certain degree. In the end, it is the quality of the software that decide whether a gaming machine is worth your money.
It is the games but there’s a reason Elden Ring for example hasn’t been released on the Switch.
We've had severely diminishing returns as far as graphical fidelity goes since the the PS360 generation.
I think chasing after that elusive photo-realism was always a bad idea, but it's only gotten worse as the costs have gone up and it's become more difficult to distinguish what we're even gaining from it.
Probably an unpopular take around here, but I will say being able to play 60 fps at a decent enough resolution is important for me in 2024. Before anyone tells me about how games were 30 fps before and I probably didn’t mind them. And yes, some of my favorite games will always for ever be locked to 30 due to the engine and can’t be modded.
Now days after playing a lot of 60 fps, it’s very hard to play new games at 30 fps and never quite get used to it. FF7 Rebirth is a prime example since 60 fps is so blurry.
That being said, it’s more on the devs rather than having us buy more expensive hardware. I know digital foundry said ff7 rebirth could have had a much better looking performance mode if they spent more time on the upscaling. I don’t need super realistic pores on the face, shadows in the rock crevices, and things like that that takes years to develop to enjoy a game.
Thank for for talking to us despite being so unwell. You're a trooper. I agree with you 100%. You can go on a road trip in a Honda Civic and have as much fun as in a Cadillac. Nintendo has had the clear advantage over its competitors because they have a larger audience (all ages) and they make more affordable consoles, albeit less advanced technologically. Sony and Microsoft are taking far too long and spending way too much money to develop their games. They are setting themselves, and their game developers, up to fail.
I'm a fan of more power and better graphics as long as it is utilized well. Astro Bot is an example of a game that uses the PS5's abilities very well and it is a visual treat, despite being a game with a more simplistic art style. Sony definitely needs to worry more about getting good PS5 exclusives than it does making a more expensive console with slightly higher performance. Also, the fact that it has no disc drive is a continuation of the concerning trend in console gaming that physical media is heading to the grave.
I've still enjoyed my PS5 immensely these past 4 years and I suspect I will for at least another few years, but it's still a legitimate issue that so few exclusives have come out on the system.
Games like Astro Bot make me so happy to own a PS5. Since I play mostly JRPGs, most games I play on the PS5 are also released on the PS4 and Switch, so the PS5 level of hardware is not needed at all. But I really like having my PS5 for those few AAA experiences that I do play. I don't have a Switch, but I've been hearing more and more lately that games released on the Switch are having performance problems while I have no problems at all on the PS5, which makes the PS5 worth it for me. It also helps that I'm a one person household, so I don't have to share my tv with anyone.
I think this quote from Gunpei Yokoi (credited inventor of the GameBoy; read in A Handheld History 88-95) says it all: « Do these playworlds really need to be that photorealistic, I wonder? I actually consider it more of a minus if the graphics are too realistic […] I think the world of a game feels larger when you can use your own imagination. »
Something to reflect on!
Gamers come in all shapes in sizes.
To some of us, we'd rather have a 30 fps lock on a fun game. For others, it's an absolute necessity that the game be in 4K with a minimum of 60 fps. They still need to be fun, but they also need to look good.
I see a lot of people upset at the pricing, and I get that. On the other hand, no one is forcing anyone to buy it.
I don't get upset when a publisher releases a $250 collector's edition of a game. Would I like to have it? Sure. But I really care more about the game. So I spend the $60-70 on the game. I can't justify the extra $180 for something that isn't going to make or break my gaming experience.
Honestly, Sony is free to charge whatever they want for the enhanced console. They are under no obligation to cater to a specific audience. It is us, the consumers, who get to decide if the upgrade is worth the $700-1000.
For most of us, the answer is no. But I have a feeling the Pro is going to sell, even at that price point.
The issue with me is the entire point of a console has been lost, except for Nintendo. Consoles are suppose to do what other hardware PC or otherwise cannot do. We're at a point that the XB One, X, Series S/X, PS4, Pro, PS5, Pro are all PC boxes. They're all HDMI, all have the same basic controller layout, all sound the same, all basically look the same, and all basically use the same hardware. This Switch was really innovative when it released and even 8 years later, the Switch still has features no other hardware has. That's a console. When you think about consoles of the past and the Switch, they always brought something new and fresh to the table. They just don't do that anymore.
switch + pc is all you need
Totally. PC for home gaming, switch for on the move.
Get steam deck instead
Heck, switch plus steamdeck or legion GO, get a dock, hook to TV…all the PC and Nintendo games you could want, option to play things with keyboard and mouse while docked in desktop mode. Add an external controller when you are in the mood.
You don't even need a Switch, cause dumping roms is easier than ever on their end.
Deadass a Steam OLED (or any other PC handheld) & a PC are all you need.
Consoles are convenient sure, but that convenience is fading.
@SussyBaka_irl grey box switch, steam deck (lcd or oled), pc. If you know, you know. I'm just saying. happy gaming.
Hardware does and doesn't matter at the same time. I own a PS5 because I do want to play a AAA game occasionally and be amazed by the graphics of these games. But for the most part I play JRPGs and these games just don't have the budget to create something that needs PS5 levels of hardware. I'm just as happy playing a 2D indie pixel game as when I play a AAA game. It's like you said, it's about the games and as console hardware grows older, the limits of the hardware will be pushed and we'll sink back to crappy performance. Though it will be harder and harder to reach those limits since it costs so much time and resources to create a game that will reach those limits. Some AAA games have been in development for a decade or so. That's just not sustainable for the majority of games.
I'm going to skip the PS5 pro, just as I skipped the PS4 pro because the base console does everything I want. Just like my laptop, it's 6 years old now but it does everything I want. If it breaks, I'll buy something which is more up to snuff for the current hardware level. The only thing I feel I'm missing out on is some Switch exclusive games like Zelda, Pokemon, Xenoblade, Fire Emblem and the like. But I have such a large backlog of games already, I just don't have the time to add another console into the mix.
I think power does matter, but PS5 still looks amazing, certain games in particular are mind-blowing like Demon's Souls Remake and Horizon Forbidden West. Even the PS4 barely shows its age on most games. I have a really good gaming PC (RTX 3090) and there is marginal difference between that and the original PS5. The Switch needs an upgrade for sure, it's one of the few consoles that are difficult to enjoy without emulation since low fps and stuttering is an issue, even in first-party games. Overall, I think we're approaching an age in gaming where graphical power won't be a major selling point anymore. I think we'll see consoles and game devs pushing AI features which will require new AI cores i.e. hardware upgrades/new consoles
This is why I stopped playing on PC and never really looked forward on next-gen consoles. What I look at now is the library of games where I think I can enjoy most of the games I want.
I used to game on PC and build my own rigs, but what many PC gamers overlook is the main advantage of consoles: you can just turn them on, play for 15-45 minutes, and relax on the bed or couch without worrying about optimizations, compatibility issues, game-breaking updates, or background apps interfering. Most of the time on PC, I found myself more focused on nitpicking game performance-obsessing over FPS and squeezing out maximum detail from my rig-than actually enjoying the games. I ended up spending more time and money on hardware than on the games I wanted to play.
I got a switch as portable and PS4 as my home console and just kept getting games, playing with them, and didn't care about nitpicking hardware performance anymore.
My only problem with "Pro" models is that they might use it as a base for performance to then give PS5 the worst version. Call it developers not being good with optimization, more raw power = less hurdles with the hardware.
And it is just that though, more raw power thanks to the GPU and software (PSSR). Only aims at a niche sector that wanted more power out the PS5 which is understandable as well.
Just knowing PC's, Steam Deck and Nintendo Switch already exist in the market, you know alternatives that cover every single need a PS user may need is strange.
People never asked for a more powerful PS5, just make every game more suited for the hardware and don't over do it to the point it affects the experience: 1080p 30fps as minimun in terms of performance and resolution.
Sony read the wrong market here. PCs are still miles ahead when it comes to new technologies, always been on the cutting-edge and console never had any reason to follow that path.
That is exactly the problem with a large portion of the gaming public, at least the most vocal part of it, that has long been trained to equate gaming with frame & pixel counts.
That is especially true with a an extremely vocal majority of PC gamers which will jump at any opportunity to quote humongous numbers like teraflops and huge power requirements with exuberant glee & pride.
Personally, as an older gamer and software engineer myself, born out of a generation when developers took pride in delivering optimized code, I’m far more fascinated by devices with low power consumption and games that squeeze everything out of them and deliver on gameplay 1st, than any kind of boring discussion on bloated and lazy hardware or software.
Just came across your channel today. As someone also new to youtube creation your channel gave me some added inspiration and really enjoyed your take here. Thanks pal, great energy, keep these coming
While they have their issues too, one reason there's such affection for Nintendo is encompassed in your closing thought: it's the games, stupid! It's just unfortunate no single platform checks all the boxes, where one is strong and deficient another is respectively deficient and strong.
honestly i think the pc actually checks all the boxes especially with the steam deck or rog ally
@@Zy.Blurish Not to be pedantic, but by "platform" I mean console. I'm in the process of making Steam my primary library, so I both agree with the sentiment and am taking actions to that effect, but I'm an 80s kid, and that means video gaming begins and ends criss-cross applesauce a few feet in front of a television. /shrug
I sold my PC when my daughter was born 2 years ago. Our tiny apartment didn't have space for me to have a dedicated desktop PC. I've never had a PlayStation nor Xbox, and my Switch doesn't have access to a ton of different AAA games, so I bought a used PS5 with two controllers and a headset for $300. I love it! I couldn't buy a PC with this level of performance even if I wanted to. And I wanted to buy a PS5 over a PS4 so it was more future-proof. I mostly play ports of "retro" arcade and PS1//2 era games, so I don't need tons of power for most of what I play, but I occasionally want to play a modern AAA game.
A PS5 Pro is a small luxury item at this point simply due to price. If someone is in a similar position to me, where they want a console and they want higher frame rate and fidelity, but they have more disposable income then a PS5 Pro is awesome. I understand the argument that (some) consoles are about accessibility but they don't have to be; some consoles are about luxury. The Neo Geo home console comes to mind.
Video games are inherently tied to technology. They're a digital multi-media and art form. They can and often do benefit from technological advancements, but they can also suffer from commercial pressure tied to those advancements. I consider console games on the NES inferior to their arcade versions almost entirely because of the lacking power of the NES. The tech can allow for better implementation of the same game design, and sometimes the lacking tech disallows a particular design.
Same for me. I mostly play JRPGs and they are often released on the Switch and PS4 as well, so the PS5 hardware is not really needed. But I do enjoy a AAA experience once in a while, which makes the PS5 worth it for me. Plus I skipped the PS4 pro, so the PS5 enables me to play some games on my backlog with better performance than my base PS4. Though I still use my PS4 since I have a lot of physical games and I'm too lazy to get up and swap disks, so I solve that by having both the PS4 and PS5 hooked up and just use the tv remote to swap between them. That way I can swap between two physical games without getting up from the couch and having to disturb my blanket fort.
I figured I'd throw out my (probably unpopular) opinion as far as "power", and in particular graphics - I've honestly rarely cared.
I don't mean that to sound dismissive or anything - and I get there are lots of people it seems to be important to, but I honestly can't even fathom being as obsessive as a lot of people are with respect to framerate, resolution, ray tracing, whatever graphics aspect. I've met so many people who say they won't play anything from more than one generation back and that's so sad and odd to me. I love delving into the history of things. Some of the games I'm most excited to try are some of the oldest ones on my to-play list: Wizardry, Ultima, Might and Magic, etc. I'm really enthusiastic to try those. I love to play Nethack and Caves of Qud.
It's been a deeply fascinating and humbling experience to see what some new games are capable of that don't need to put every bit of available power towards graphics, but can use it on wildly deep simulations instead - things like Ultima Ratio Regum for example that procedurally generate entire convincing cultures down to unique faiths with different denominations - different textile patterns and materials, I could go on and on, but there's an astounding level of depth (and interaction - looking at things like Dwarf Fortress, etc) that can be plumbed when extreme cutting edge graphics aren't the sole focus. I realize some of those games are too deep for most - but I think there could be a variety of different levels of complexity to appeal to all kinds of people.
The other thing I always find myself thinking of, is how much more an interesting art style means to me than peak cutting edge graphics. Octopath Traveller 2, Dead Cells, Wind Waker HD, Viewtiful Joe, basically everything arc system works puts out with their 3d anime style, a hundred more examples that aren't coming to mind at the moment, cause there are definitely other great styles beyond HD pixel and cel shaded, but you take my meaning. I feel like all these games will look better ten years down the line than anything going for hard realism with peak fidelity, because by necessity those games will just look like worse versions of the next "latest thing". I'm kinda tired of realistic graphics as a default. I know lots of indie stuff uses pixels and I think that's great, but why not other interesting art styles too. There have to be more ways to innovate. Or just coming up with new ways to do existing themes, colour schemes, stylistic choices, etc. that set games apart. Dead Cells with its cool pixely light bloom stuff going on appeals to me way more than the best looking realistic triple A titles, it just looks cool. I get kinda bored of bland gritty reality over and over. Even a lot of fantasy stuff goes for a very realistic art style if it's big budget, and ends up feeling not super fantastical imo.
Now is it good that 3d graphics don't look like N64 anymore? yeah of course, it's a fun style to revisit for retro style nostalgia games, but on the whole it's not the most terribly attractive look ever. But I can't tell the difference between most resolutions anymore. I notice no difference between 30 and 60 FPS even, let alone anything higher. I don't need insane specs, I need something that looks good.
This is why you’re favorite video game channel on TH-cam. I could not agree more.
Hey, Alex - a lot of topics here! A bit surprised that you argue there's not much reason to own PS5 because most of us have gaming PCs. I don't have a gaming PC, just a cheap laptop. I spend $500 on PS5 instead of $1500+ on a decent gaming PC, and spend that $1000+ I saved on games. I believe there are hundreds of millions of people who enjoy games worldwide who can't afford or choose not to pay for and tinker with a gaming PC, and for us PS5 is amazing. I have a great catalog of games to play on the console, and am not at all bothered that only a few of them are exclusive.
As for PS5 Pro, I have no reason to buy it, and it's too expensive especially in markets other than the US (I think at this pricing, with disc drive a separate purchase, it will sell not much better than PSVR2). However, part of that failure is that gamers are getting cheap: the price of PS5 + disc drive is about the same -- adjusted for inflation -- as the PS3 was at launch. So for what you pay, you get pretty good value. But the market reality is that gamers are demanding that prices come down, down, down but they also demand that technical quality of games goes up, up, up.
Which brings us to your later point about AAA games. I feel strongly that if the games industry doesn't correct to make most games AA (and indie) quality in the next few years, the industry itself will implode. AAA games will just not make their dev money back when 100s of millions of dollars are going into development ... unless it's a GTA game, which people will just buy for whatever reason. We experienced gamers need to get the point across both to the corporations and to younger gamers who demand hyper-realistic 8k 120fps graphics that what matters is gameplay, story, world-building, community-building and fun. None of that comes with more expensive and elaborate tech -- the tech will kill companies and cost game devs their jobs by the thousands. One $100mil game that doesn't connect with an audience, and that company is done. Let's bring game dev budgets down where they were in PS1/PS2 era -- those eras were full of amazing and varied gaming experiences. You can get perfectly nice graphics for that kind of game budget with the help of modern technology, you can release more games because they only take a couple of years to make, and game devs can get more creative and risk-taking like they were 20+ years ago. That's a win, win, win for everyone involved. Isn't it worth sacrificing cutting-edge graphics?
What's the point of all the power when you have an all digital library that can be taken away from you for no reason at all? I play games to have fun, not for how technically advanced the games or hardware are. If gaming is heading to an all digital future, I'll have to find a new hobby or work on my massive backlog.
I'm amazed more people don't think like this. You can never, ever buy a digital anything, it's just a rental until they shut down the store, go out of business, someone hacks your account, or your account just disappears for absolutely no reason at all.
I don’t think it’s about power not mattering it’s more so the pro consoles aren’t needed but this is to be expected with last gen the people that bought the pros is why it’s happening again . All I want is good games so the pro news doesn’t mean anything to me but forcing Sony to shows us those games
HAVING POWER IS ONE THING KNOWING HOW TO USE IT IS ANOTHER
I bought a ps5 a few years ago and felt that it was finally a device that could play ps4 games properly. It also had an operating system and UI that felt nice to use.
tl;dr sorry for the rambling post lol. Love your channel and that was a great video. Very interesting.
I'm struggling here because I am a real graphics and performance snob. I got a terrible diagnois a couple of months ago so I bought an rtx 4090 and I've been wishing that i'd just wasted all the money and bought one at launch. I find that games are more fun when I can max out the ray tracing and resolution. I'm currently finishing off Witcher 3 next gen with every maxxed out and mods to take things even higher. It really is more fun this way, just riding through Toussant and looking at the scenery is a joyful experience (it was also joyful back on a gtx960 for the original release)
I barely even notice any DLSS Framegen artefacts and DLSS upscaling almost required the digital foundry zoom in to notice problem when actually gaming.
I think that the best feature of the ps4 pro will prove to be PSSR Machine learning upscaling which (hopefully) should be at the native XESS or DLSS area - this alone will clear up all of the terrible image quality problems with current PS5 games (jedi survior)
The question of the PS5 Pro's value is also really complicated because for the hardware inside that really is about the price of what it would cost. Sony are likely making a small profit so it isn't subsidised. Silcon just hasn't been falling in price the way that it was even 10 years ago, the best way to get more performance is through design changes or jsut spending more money.
But even if the ps5 pro isn't overpriced in silicon terms - is it overpriced for a game console? Thats a differnt question, probably subjective and impossible to definitively answer.
Power doesn't matter but also power is what allows expansive visions to be created for games. More power also allows smaller and less well funded teams to create games using generic game engines that don't suffer from comparison to theri AAA contemporaries. Generic game engines are much less efficient than bespoke and customised one's but they are necessary for allowing indy and mid-tier studios to compete.
I spent 14 minutes rambling! You’re allowed to ramble here!
This generation has felt very weak and barely capable of making 4k gaming smooth. I look at ff16, it was oddly blurry in performance mode, I don’t need 4k but let’s clean up image clarity.
I think a major issue is that games on this generation of gaming for ps5 and xbox series s and x is that they are still releasing on previous generations with 4 and xbox one. It barely feels like developers have pushed the boundaries of what current gen consoles can do when most games are still releasing on older consoles. Like the only game I can think of that really use instant loading is spider man 2 with its fast travel loading you in anywhere instantly.
I'd honestly prefer if graphics in games scaled back, if it leads to a quicker turn around on releasing games. Because games look good in general these days, I'd argue it's hard to find bad looking games.
I'm just worried for the industry with how expensive some games are. Because if it fails to succeed that could be the end of studios that have so much talent.
Funnily enough I actually remember talking to you about this in your discord before this gen of consoles came out and we talked about if power matters
There's already more power in these consoles than developers know what to to do with
In my opinion, and keeping it about the video games, we are reaching to a point where power means absolutely nothing but Sony and mostly of the time Microsoft utilizes these new “power upgrades” to create games with a cinematic experience or games that straight up don’t work. I’ve always been that kid that was a Nintendo hater , Nintendo is for 5 year olds; the more older I got (I’m 27) the more I realized it’s mostly never about the mature themes, amazing set pieces, and dare I say, a convoluted or complex story, Nintendo reminds me that games are supposed to be fun and I’ve been playing more indie games and retro games on my PC as well which has that same feeling. Not to say most of Sonys or Microsoft’s library are filled with bad games but they do a decent job showcasing the power of unreal engine 5/ console capabilities, but they lack the fun factor or actually playing the game (I call it the uncharted treatment☠️)
Man, you just read my mind and make a video about it haha couldnt agree more. And to add a little bit more: the constante pursuit of advance tech is costing countless jobs.
I do think a lot of the backlash the PS5 Pro is getting is justified. However, despite the price and backlash, I'm still excited for the PS5 Pro and plan on upgrading to it.
Here are my personal reasons:
1. The improvements shown in the presentation were pretty noticeable for me, and I want to be able to experience upcoming console games running the smoothest and looking the best they possibly can. I know I could get even better performance from a high-end gaming PC, but I personally do not enjoy gaming on a PC (Steam Deck is the exception).
2. The PS5 Pro has 2TB internal storage. I've been wanting to upgrade my PS5's storage for a little while now and 1TB SSDs are $150+. At that price, I'm already at half the cost of upgrading to a PS5 Pro. Might as well do that so that I not only have more storage, but also the option of adding even more and having better performance for future games.
3. The PS5 Pro has wifi 7 whereas base PS5 has wifi 6. As someone who plays games handheld quite a lot and am frequently away from home for work, the faster upload speeds should hopefully improve the stability of my PlayStation Portal when I am gaming away from home.
4. When the PS6 inevitably comes out, upgrading to it from a PS5 Pro rather than a base PS5 will be more affordable (although I'd be spending that money now rather than later). When that day comes, everyone will be selling their PS5s, so id probably only be able to get $300 max for my base PS5, whereas PS5 Pro I'd probably be able to get $500. That'd make upgrading to the PS6 way easier.
I think a big issue is that Sony decided to focus on older games rather than new/upcoming games to show it off. But this being a technical presentation as opposed to a state of play, I wasnt expecting new game reveals. I expect that there will be a state of play in the near future, and they will probably show PS5 Pro comparisons with them.
Then your a giant sucker congrats
Consoles are abount convenience not performance. If you (the gamer) wants / needs the performance there is only 1 option: PC.
Sure it will cost you about $2KUSD - $3KUSD, BUT if after 3 years you are not happy with the performance anymore, you can upgrade.
Also: Game preservation only really happens on the PC and often times threw pirated software.
Give me versatility, let me play my PS1 to PS3 games on it and have again the theme feature that was lost on the PS4 and il buy the darn thing.
100% agree. Somewhere along the lines of the strive for graphic realism, developers forgot the most important thing about a game - is it fun? If you want amazing graphics, then have a look out the window.
I am a consumer and I will upgrade my PS5 to PS5 Pro (with disk drive). Totally understand the criticism but on a very personal level I do not care, I always want to have the best technology possible and I am in the comfortable position not having to care about 500 Euros (I live in Germany), 800 Euros or 1200 Euros for a console. For all gamers that do care I hope this leads to a price drop for regular PS5 systems on the other hand, so that at least those gamers who still don´t own a system have a better entry point. Live and let live.
Awesome video thank you for sharing this.
I've personally thought about this a lot recently when deciding which console I was going to buy next. It was between the PS5 and a Steamdeck. I went with the Steamdeck knowing that most of the JRPGs released on the PS5 will likely come to Steam as well. At least here's hoping haha.
I don't get why games need to look realistic. Sure, some games will benefit to get you more in it, but most are way better with a stylised look, especially if the story and gameplay are great. The industry is killing itself by focusing too much on graphics. For me it makes games harder to play even as interactive elements blend too much with the environment and there is too much going on. Maybe I'm getting old 😂
I'm right there with you! I find that games like the upcoming Life is Strange Double Exposure has the right amount of stylization and realism while not crossing the uncanny valley. Stylized games with great art direction that are well animated usually look great. That is Nintendo's bread and butter. I find these games much more immersive than a super detailed character that run/walks like it has a tree trunk up its bum.
@@Drstrange3000 haha, that tree trunk had me laughing hard. It's so true that most characters walk/run awkward 😀
@@DieterPrivate 😅
It's easy for people who play games as a hobby to say that they don't care about graphics. And I do agree. However companies seem to focus alot on (and mostly to their detriment, with exceptions) the casual gamer or someone who rates a quality game solely on how realistic and pretty a game looks. Their goal is to pull more non gamers in and they feel as if this is the only way to do it.
And in the meanwhile Nintendo is making games about an Italian plumber that step over mushrooms that visually looks fantastic and runs into a tablet. I really feel that a lot of people forgot so many lessons that the times thought us so many times. In 99 Pokemon is launched worldwide, the game looks not very good, the sprites are questionable, hell you even need AAA batteries to run this thing, and ppl love it anyways. Pokemon Red and Blue constitutes in my opinion the most brutal proof in the history of how little the technology really matters. But at the same time, this is what ppl is asking at the end, I heart this last years so many people around me IRL talking about ray-tracing and 4K like if that would be a thing that matters, while in my eyes it has always been just marketing bullshit. Sony is just selling what a specific market wants to buy.
If most people knew what ray tracing actually was and what it did. They wouldn't be asking for it. It kills the frame rate on anything but pretty much the highest end gaming pcs.
I feel the same way with Xbox. I was questioning why I even had it. Traded it at GameStop for $350 and put that towards the PS5 Pro.
Diminishing returns basically. Also to be honest, the majority of people won't even notice a single leaf in the background looks sharper when they pause the game. We have enough graphics.
I almost exclusively play JRPGs. These games rarely ever incorporate these technologies, and im perfectly okay with that. I honestly prefer a nice art style over realism. Ill take Ys VIII and P5R over something like The Last of Us any day.
Nintendo's issue with the Wii U is that they thought the Wii brand will help them sold that consoles with the console having very little innovation compare to the Wii. Fortunately when the Wii U launch not many got the memo, those who saw it thought it was just another version of the Wii and those who got it wasn't impress as it was not as innovative as the Wii. Even worst the Wii U ran on outdate technology and their were more games having trouble working around its specs than Nintendo themselves. Had the Wii U got a much better brand or had Nintendo just wait a few years and just launch the Switch in 2014 without making what the Wii U is then I think Nintendo wouldn't suffer during that era. Some people even thought that maybe the Wii U Game Pad was the console as well and some wish it was when it was not.
i mean, it does matter to some extent, for example the switch destroyed sales wise but missed out on a lot of games because it lacked in hardware power. However, the first party library was solid, and the japanese third party support was very strong.
The only thing i only care about is high framerate 60fps. I could careless about a sign in TLOU2 or the crowd in Rachet and Clank looking a little bit clearer. There's no reason to upgrade to ps5 pro when you already own a ps5. I would even argue that it's worth to upgrade from ps4 to ps5 because it runs games so much better. All the ps5 pro offers is higher resolution which is stupid for 700$.
When I got my PS5, I celebrated by playing… Disgaea 1 remake. Then LoCS 1 and 2. And then Death Stranding. And the PS5 games I’ve played are not grabbing my attention. PS4-level graphics are totally adequate for my expectations. I want story, awesome music, memorable characters, smooth gameplay, fast load times. Ideally, I could play my PS2 discs in my PS5, but eh. VR never landed. We could wait 10 years for the next generation and I wouldn’t feel deprived.
@@corinnacohn7389 I think 1080p is the sweet spot for resolutions if we're not talking about huge screens.
There has not been many ps5 games I am interested in but it is better for playing ps4 games than ps4 pro. Interface is also very sluggish in ps4 and ps4 pro compared to ps5.
The only modern systems I own are The Switch OLED, Xbox Series X. I was gonna get PS5 but Asus ROG Ally was the one I bought instead since more of Sony games are coming to the Steam anyway and I wanted a PC Handheld.
My Switch OLED has still been my most played console compared to Xbox Series X, not that XSX is bad. Just the Switch is my preferred console just because it's portable and I could freely play it anywhere.
I never got any Pro versions of consoles. I got Wii U because I wanted Xenoblade Chronicles X. I got PS5 in anticipation of getting Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth. I got Switch beacause I wanted to play Xenoblade Chronicles 3. Realistic graphics are not a factor for me. I love pixelart games, and I grew up with them too. But how the gameplay is, is what matters to me. If I enjoy the mechanics and strategies and whatever is the deciding factor.
FFVIIR betrayed gamers and forced them to upgrade to PS5 with Intergrade and Rebirth.
@@jean-philippebouchard9506 it betrayed Square Enix too, don’t forget that
Iwata was right and is forever vindicated.
The graphic power use to be a selling point for games, now it feel like a lot of game made it the selling point. The only game I bought for that reason was Crisis, and it was years ahead of other games and still had some value as a game without that.
Nontendo has had the right idea since the DS and Wii. That is when they saw where all of this was heading and stopped focusing on hardware power and really started doubling down on making unique products with features that can't be quickly replicated by other platforms.
The success of the Switch should have made it clear to Sony and Microsoft that gamers want innovative games with great gameplay, but they've painted themselves into a corner by focusing on the casual consumer that is only interested in these all flash, no substance, movie production style junk.
Yessss! Great video man!
That's EXACVTLY the reason why I still play on a PS4 and don't have a PS5 and why Nintendo is successful with the Switch (which I also own).
Btw.: I'm currently playing *Chained Echoes* and I'm LOVING it. Which is a 2D-game with no elaborated effects and it's a decent gameplay and it fun like heck.
Why do I need a PS5 Pro with it's AAAA-titles (UbiSoft) when I can have this?
I honestly thought my friend was joking when he said that now the PS5 pro is gonna cost $700 and then I watch the video and all I said was that's it but there's nothing here! There's still no new games out for it aside from one original game that isn't just a port or a remaster of an already existing game that works perfectly fine on ps 4, Now you have to buy a separate disk drive even though the original you could and there's not even a flipping stand...... Honestly Sony is becoming more and more money-grubbing than EA at this point. Like what happened back when we just had video games that were fun but instead we have all this extra nonsense that are making things even more worse than justifiable to even play a video game on a console anymore. Now to quote a friend Nintendo fans are gonna be mocking playstation owners and PC owners are gonna be even more annoying but THIS, This is really inexcusable and it makes me glad that I still hold on to my PS4 even after the release of the PS5 because I never found anything on it that made me want to play it even when they slowly decided to make them be more profitable. Now with this Pro version I have even less of a reason to want to get it.
Death Stranding 2, Silent Hill 2, Sonic X Generations, New EA FC, Monster Hunter Wilds, Until Dawn Rebuilt. Lots of Games coming.
@@KenjiEspresso Yeah but most of those are just remakes and remasters. Only 2 of those games you mentioned are actual new releases but that's a given seeing as it is still a small list and one of them is an EA game which only die hard people would still be into EA. That's still not enough to justify a PlayStation 5 pro.
It is all about the games!!!
The console may render trillions of polygons, ray tracing and could cure cancer while you play,
but that matters NONE if there aren't any games for it (or shallow games for that matter).
I agree fully. I do have a PS5. I don't regret it at all. But a big reason for that is I personally never owned a PS4. My roommates had one and I paid for his PS+ and used it often snce he worked 2-10 and his off days were midweek. Plenty of tine to play. But he moved and I grabbed the PS5. Playing a bubch of PS4 games on it along with the Final Fantasy games had been a godsend.
Sony's been holding off in game announcements, so they're expected to announce a ton of stuff so we'll see. This is according to them, not defending them.
I'm thinking of getting a PS5 Pro because I got the money and Monster Hunter Wilds and Dynasty Warriors Origins are coming up. If I do, it's the last playstation I buy and I'll start beefing up my PC and finally tackling my backlog.
just my 2 cents. With the ps5, a lot of games "flopped" simply because they came out only to the PS5, like FF7 rm2 for example, even though people love it, not a lot of people have a ps5. The meme 'One game.. idk why i bought a ps5 with no games to try" is absolutely true... its all ports and remasters of ps4 games lol. And secondly. The insane budget and cost of making these video games could stand to be cut down, starting with BAD FAITH localizers and BAD FAITH companies like sour baby.
It’s not hard to find a franchise in which the best games were made on powerfully inferior consoles.
Case in point: Halo Combat Evolved vs Halo infinite.
Power is not the limiting factor anymore and it hasn’t been for a long time. And even when it was, it forced devs to be creative which led to unique ideas and techniques that made games fun. A near total lack of restriction is not good for creativity. The modern triple a gaming landscape is a testament to that, (not to mention the big budget Hollywood movie industry).
It doesn’t mean that developers can’t take meaningful advantage of power, but the total obsession with graphical fidelity is pushing the needle in a direction that is leading to Less Games, and unfortunately, more Big sprawling beautiful mediocre games.
What I think is the game has to run well for it to be enjoyable.
That may not have been the case back in PS1 ... GOD it wasn't the case ... but we know how good a game can feel now.
I can tolerate 30 FPS but only in some kinds of game.
Power is, unfortunately, important... but so is optimization.
What we have to juggle, and make the call on for ourselves, as gamers is - Is a game's bad performance due to terrible optimization of system performance?
I think the Base PS5 straddles a line. There ARE some games that are just poorly optimized but many are just chugging due to high graphics demand.
PS5 Pro is definitely going to be a "Do you want improvement or are you happy sticking with what we've got?"
My Nephew would love my old PS5 so i'm going for it... normally I would NOT (Especially with Switch 2 on the way).
There is a point to power if u love action-oriented games. Higher fps counts help significantly when it comes to dodging and i-frames especially for older gamers like myself. I noticed this in Monster Hunter Rise as an example. Switch @ 30fps vs PS5 60fps. It becomes a whole lot easier to dodge
It depends. You don’t need too much power to run a game like Rise at 60fps. You certainly don’t need a top of the line PC to do that. But if your marketing starts with that every game gets dramatically better, I’d argue that that’s easily disproven even a year after that console’s release. As I said, ambition will always outgrow and outpace technology
Having a powerful system is neat, but it should'nt be the only focus of a gaming console or you get the very justified negative reaction to the ps5 pro. The fact that Nintendo can get so much out of their older hardware gives Sony no excuse to not be able to do the same on much stronger hardware. Because all that power is worthless if your not making the most out of it, their obession on realisim and having games push the console to it's limit is what's making them so expensive and time consuming. And then you have a game like Astrobot come along that shows what the Ps5 can do without needing to go as big as possible.
Rumors have said the Nintendo switch 2 is going to be at least ps4 level at minimum and near the xbox series s at best. And as a nintendo fan I'm not only happy with that, I'm excited to see what Nintendo can do with that level of power, because they already know substance matters more than style for games. My hope is that it's release will finally slap sense into Sony and we can get really great games from them again too.
PS5 Pro will be underpowered within the next 2 to 3 years tops. I would recommend people just save up for a proper Gaming PC instead since it has an insane amount of games compared to a PS5 and that's not even counting crazy amount emulators and the fantastic modding community. If you don't believe me then please look into it for yourselves 🙏
That’s not really the point of the rant. The point is that no matter what platform you have - including PC - your hardware becomes outdated in a year or two, which means power means nothing.
I still like physicals to buy, keep, sell, borrow and lend. Once Sony ditches that, I’ll,stick to PC and Nintendo.
All this talk about Frame Rates is going over my head. I have a Switch, PS4, PC, and N2DS. I have been gaming since PS1 / GameBoy and I just have no idea or even care about 30 vs 60 fps.
I also don't care much about ray tracing though, from what I've learned about it, it can be pretty cool.
Graphics should NOT be the main selling point for your video game.
Remember when we used to get full trilogies and spin offs in the same generation? we didn't know how good we had it back then, even the games we get now offer less than before, sport games have less features than their ps2 era counterparts, where is this mythical promise of devs no longer being shackled by hardware when games have barely gotten any new mechanics, no environmental destruction or the "thousand enemies on screen", maybe giving more power, unlimited power to the devs isn't such a good idea, innovations flourishes when trying to overcome struggles.
The two consoles I play on in 2024 is PS2 and xbox 360. For modern games which is mostly indie and more original smaller games these days I play on PC. The only AAA game since Witcher 3, and not available on PC that interested me was Ghost of Tsushima. Which I now own on PC. Power means nothing though. My PC is more powerfull than the PS5 pro and probably more powerfull than the PS6 will be in reality, despite Sony's wild empty promises when the time comes. But I mostly play games a potato can run in 2024. What matters is the games. And 8th gen to some extent but especially 9th gen is lacking severely.
Power is everything. I have a series x and a ps4. I got the series x to future proof so i can play games far into the future.
The thing is that hardware does limit things. Like how cool the characters and areas look, how big they are. How fast the next area can load.
Load times are almost nonexistent. Also the time between me star5ing my console and playing the game is very small now.
Back in they day they use to have very small confined areas and then they would have to lead you through a narrow path to get to the next area. They dont have to do that anymore. You can just have a massive open world.
They still lead you through narrow areas in God of War ragnarok in order to load in the next area. One of the points he’s making is that no matter how powerful the machine gets, devs will push it to the limit, and that will limit what they can do with the fps. We will continue to see games at 30fps because devs will want to use techniques like ray tracing and what not. It’s all sacrifice. Maybe someday 60fps will be standardized. Frankly, to your point of the series x, the original Halo trilogy is leagues better than halo Infinite. It’s not even comparable, the og games are classics for a reason. Infinite has the luxury of tremendous power, open regions, better frame rate and more graphical fidelity, and yet the game doesn’t even compare to the original that came out over 20 years ago.
@williampaschall halo infinite is better than all of the other games combined, in my opinion.
Great graphics, big open world. It's almost a completely different type of game. You can choose what weopen you want to use.
Oh, and the new God of War game is also on ps4. Which basicly proves my point.
They make games look good because in the end, that's why people get the new console. Otherwise, they might as well not even upgrade.
100% agree with everything you said, excellent video! You should do a rant once in a while 😮
I would buy a PS "All-in-one" over a PS5Pro anyday.
I just want to be able to play all my games at a stable frame rate without any crashing (looking at you, emulation) and start them up with just one button. Preferably by having the choice of digital and physical.
I don't care if I can see a slightly more realistic shadow or reflection in a pond. I'd pre-order the sh*t out of the new PS if it's backwards compatible with all generations and maybe have some AI upscaling with it.
Til we find out GTA 6 runs at 30 on base PS5 😂
then it will run at 30 on the ps5 pro Gta was always a heavy game that relies more on the CPU then on the GPU and the CPU in the Ps5 pro is the same the 10% extra power won't help
The problem in future consoles of Sony and Xbox is that they focus on graphics but not the idea of making it more accessible and fun unlike nintendo. Regardless of graphics they should be reminded that it's all about art direction not graphics also on overall gameplay and make people enjoy.
Some of my all time favorite games are not what I would call "high fidelity", and "high fidelity" doesn't make games great. I never bothered to buy a PS5, both because Sony censors their games and because there are very few amazing jrpg games on it. My switch library is over 200 games though..... At least Nintendo knows what's up.
Yeah, games. Where are the new games I want to play?
Fun fact, with the exception of the super Nintendo and the PlayStation 4, the weakest console always won the generation. I consider switch part of the current generation 9th gen rather than 8th Gen, Wii U part of the 7th, and Dreamcast part of 5th gen.
Wrong. The Super Nintendo is weaker than the Mega Drive and the Mega Drive is weaker than the Neo Geo of that same generation.
The Super Nintendo outsold both the stronger systems.
As for the 8th gen, the power was difficult, the order of power from weak to strong goes:
Xbox One < PS4 < PS4 Pro < Xbox One X
So the One X was stronger than the PS4 Pro despite the PS4 being stronger than the Xbox One. So technically the weaker system did win.
I’ve been gaming since the OG Nintendo days. Graphics and power are cool, but it’s useless if your games are terrible cash grabs. Just make a polished fun game.
This feels weird to write, but thank you for this rant! I was waiting out on the PS5 Pro for me and my father, but no way I'm spending 950€ (I am *not* getting a digital only console) for higher performance that I don't give a damn about. Going from Switch to regular PS5, or whatever the next Nintendo console is gonna be, the improvements are going to be enough. Is this Pro console just so big companies can release more unoptimised messes and make excuses that the basic PS5 hardware is simply not powerful enough? I don't know. I really really hope that this console doesn't sell well, but I'm afraid the internet is a bubble...I guess we'll see
PS5 doesn't have a great outlook for exclusives honestly. I play my Switch and Xbox more. Most if not all PlayStation exclusives will come to PC. Even though you'll be forced to get a PSN account to play them they will be there. PS5 was a big disappointment for me as a lot of what made PlayStation unique is not present. Closing Japan Studio and moving the headquarters to the USA were big red flags. Now it is remasters and remakes for the foreseeable future. Also the PS5 is very large and a strange shape, it may be someone else's cup of tea but it wasn't for me. The Xbox with GamePass just works for me. As someone who rented a lot of games during the GameCube, PS2 and Xbox era it has brought back my ability to try a lot of games and only buy the ones I want. All on a machine that doesn't have driver issues and updates and part compatibility etc that my PC does. I love my PC but it is not a replacement for a console. Anyone saying otherwise has never tried to use one with only a controller hooked up to a TV.
EDIT: The guy from Digital Foundry plays Elden Ring on series X because of VRR. If you have a VRR capable TV Elden Ring plays best on the Series X. A small note because on a non VRR TV what you say is correct, the PS4 version on PS5 has the highest consistent framerate. But if you are VRR capable Series X is the best version of the game on console.
With respect, how did none of you not see this coming from a mile away? This stuff was getting ridiculously out of hand with the X Box 360 and PS3 with closures of companies that had been around since the beginning like Midway and an increased dominance of western studios. They brought with them an increased emphasis on false notions that game length = value and that big budget production values = quality. With the exception of some arcade and console centric companies, the west has never been any good at making compelling gameplay. The games may be ambitious in size and scope but the experience is hollow, empty, and lifeless. A mile wide and an inch deep. No Man's Sky is practically the poster boy for everything wrong with that design philosophy.
I don't know if it matters but I Finally (just last year) bought a PS5 so that I could have it to Play Tekken 8, but that's the only game I have on it. Next I'm gonna buy Monster Hunter Wilds when it comes out on my Ps5. Til then, I'm just gonna keep playing stuff on my Switch.
Of course power means nothing. Sony knows that as well as Nintendo. That's why great 1stvand 3rd party exclusives games, graphically challenging or not have come from them for decades.🎉
Next gen needs to be on devs end, they need to start developing games faster for less. AI is not a magical wand that makes a spider-man 2 over night but, they're gonna have to start using another tool
Would love to hear the story about your three PS4 purchases 😅
My wife and I had our own base PS4s when we started dating, then someone gifted me a Pro!
Companies are trying to catch lightning in a bottle, just like bands on a second album trying to recreate the magic from the first, its rare and has to just happen. But there will always be the cash grabbing shovel ware with no soul, that's honestly why we need games like Concord, to be the village idiot forcing other developers to make a correction in course.
I been warning people about Playstation. Nice rant video daddy
"It is the games that are important, not graphics". Which is exactly why so many players are playing retro and indie. I myself haven't bought a ps5 yet, and playing backlog games on ps4. I just don't see any reason to buy ps5, and Sony doesn't give me any reaaon to.
I do feel the PS5 overall has been unnecessary, times exclusives like ff7 rebirth are the only reason I have one honestly
The PS5 Pro is an overpriced novelty item and it's not worth it. I am so content with my original PS5 model and it does exactly what I needed to do. As long as the visuals of the games are clear and sharp on my 4K OLED, that's all that really matters to me. Most people have been spoiled when it comes to higher frame rates these days, I grew up with lower frame rates and I'm used to those.
All they seem to churn out, is soulless tech demos on overpriced platforms that still don't hit the numbers. Nintendo ran away with the bag this generation.