V
June 11, 2020 12:46 PM   Subscribe

PS5: The Future of Gaming Show [YouTube] [Twitch.tv] The PS5 reveal event starts today, June 11th, at 1 PM PDT / 9 PM BST / 10 PM CEST. The digital games showcase itself will run "for a bit more than an hour" and give viewers a "first look" at some PS5 games that will be playable when the console releases this holiday season, according to the official PlayStation blog. The event will be "best" streamed with headphones due to some "cool audio work in the show," but Sony did not specify further. [via: Gamespot]
posted by Fizz (88 comments total) 10 users marked this as a favorite
 
I'm predicting a price point of $699. But we'll see, I know that console makers traditionally take a bit of a loss on hardware and recoup that cost via software. Even if it prices at $599, it's going to hurt wallets.

I might go Microsoft this holiday season and then pick up a PS5 a year or two later. It'll let all the kinks get worked out and there will be more games to play. Besides, the PS4 is going out strong with games like: FF7R, Last of Us II, Ghosts of Tsushima, Cyberpunk 2077. So it's not like we're lacking for games to play on this last gen.

Either way, excited to see what this new console can do and what types of games we can expect.
posted by Fizz at 12:53 PM on June 11, 2020 [1 favorite]


The only reason I'm going to watch this is the dire hope a Horizon Zero Dawn sequel will be a launch title and maybe they'll show a little bit of it.
posted by seanmpuckett at 12:54 PM on June 11, 2020 [7 favorites]


seanmpuckett, the music composer for Horizon Zero Dawn tweeted out the following:
“Excited! Wonder what they will be showing today.....:)”
It's all but certain that we'll see a sequel announced.
posted by Fizz at 12:57 PM on June 11, 2020


Given the whole lockdown thing I'm considering getting a console this holiday season after having NOT had one since the Intellivision. Is there anywhere, on the entire internet, that can be trusted to host a decent conversation over which console to get and why, without endless fanboi flame wars?
posted by aramaic at 12:59 PM on June 11, 2020 [1 favorite]


aramaic: ". Is there anywhere, on the entire internet, that can be trusted to host a decent conversation over which console to get and why, without endless fanboi flame wars?"

Right here?
posted by signal at 1:08 PM on June 11, 2020 [2 favorites]


don't listen to signal, he's a filthy Intellivision stan
posted by cortex at 1:09 PM on June 11, 2020 [37 favorites]


PS Vita forever!
posted by asperity at 1:19 PM on June 11, 2020 [5 favorites]


Eh, I just got the VR rig for the 4, so I'll do my usual of letting the price go down and the storage go up before I jump.
posted by Halloween Jack at 1:20 PM on June 11, 2020


Slightly underwhelmed by most of the games so far. They /look/ amazing, but it seems like it’s the same old gameplay as ever. Maybe that’s fine?

The Ember Games thing with the cute little black blobs as your sidekick(s) looks like a winner though.
posted by pharm at 1:31 PM on June 11, 2020


I am apparently very onboard with the dino teens of GOODBYE VOLCANO HIGH
posted by cortex at 1:33 PM on June 11, 2020 [3 favorites]


I think I remember seeing a tech demo of this ages ago, but I'm not sure if that was the same project or just something similar: Cyberpunk/post-human cat-with-a-backpack game Stray
posted by figurant at 1:41 PM on June 11, 2020 [3 favorites]


cortex: "don't listen to signal, he's a filthy Intellivision stan"

Spoken like an Atari 2600 newb. C64 for life, dude.
posted by signal at 1:44 PM on June 11, 2020 [18 favorites]


They /look/ amazing, but it seems like it’s the same old gameplay as ever. Maybe that’s fine?

I mean it's almost always going to be easier to iterate something to new tech, maybe lose a couple of shackles on what you'd like to have done before, than it is to do something more fundamentally creative and uncertain.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 1:45 PM on June 11, 2020 [2 favorites]


> Is there anywhere, on the entire internet, that can be trusted to host a decent conversation over which console to get and why, without endless fanboi flame wars?

I've had an X-Box and a Playstation and liked them both. I lean towards Playstation for the exclusives (Horizon, Last of Us, Bloodborne, Spider-Man, etc.). I also didn't care for X-Box's emphasis on always online/kinect stuff from the early days of the current gen, but they seem to have backed off that. So now I'd just look at which exclusives appeal to you, and which console your friends have (if you want to play online co-op at all).
posted by lovecrafty at 1:46 PM on June 11, 2020 [4 favorites]


I mean it's almost always going to be easier to iterate something to new tech, maybe lose a couple of shackles on what you'd like to have done before, than it is to do something more fundamentally creative and uncertain.

Oh sure. I’m just old & grumpy :)
posted by pharm at 1:47 PM on June 11, 2020 [1 favorite]


Are there going to be any xbox true exclusives or are they all going to be xbox/windows this time?
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 1:48 PM on June 11, 2020


I gotta say I like the covid format of just a bunch of teasers instead of the usual parade of akward devs and suits urging the audience to clap
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 1:52 PM on June 11, 2020 [8 favorites]


ohhhhhh shit Demon's Souls remake
posted by FatherDagon at 1:55 PM on June 11, 2020 [2 favorites]


Demon Souls remake tho.
posted by pharm at 1:56 PM on June 11, 2020


Liking slash actively disliking the absurd bodyhorror of Bugsnax, and surprised at how suddenly stoked I am for the idea of a remade Demons' Souls.
posted by cortex at 1:56 PM on June 11, 2020 [1 favorite]


Stray, Demon Souls and HFW look like winners.

Other than that ... a whole lot of ... particles.
posted by seanmpuckett at 2:11 PM on June 11, 2020 [2 favorites]


unnnngggghh gimme a date for horizon
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 2:15 PM on June 11, 2020 [3 favorites]


No I'm good with it not being a launch title. It will be better.
posted by seanmpuckett at 2:17 PM on June 11, 2020 [1 favorite]


That game with the fruit though looks hilarious and fun as hell.

But also, Demon's Souls.
posted by Fizz at 2:17 PM on June 11, 2020 [1 favorite]


Hardware wise, it looks like if Alienware redesigned the old school Surfboard modem. The games look fun and all the various accoutrement (headphones, remote, etc) are nice... if they come standard, but *yawn* if not.
posted by Godspeed.You!Black.Emperor.Penguin at 2:19 PM on June 11, 2020


> Are there going to be any xbox true exclusives or are they all going to be xbox/windows this time?

Oh yeah, I seem to remember reading that. But I figure if you already have a gaming PC, you probably aren't super invested in which console is better. And if you don't have a gaming PC, xbox/windows exclusives might as well just be xbox exclusive.
posted by lovecrafty at 2:21 PM on June 11, 2020


I don't need Horizon to be a launch title I just wanna know. I expect that one's gonna be a "keep the schedule clear" kinda game.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 2:21 PM on June 11, 2020 [1 favorite]


The new Spider-Man Miles Morales game looks fucking amazing!!!
posted by Fizz at 2:22 PM on June 11, 2020 [5 favorites]


Stray looks a lot like HK-Project, going back to mid-2017.

HFW has my money, for sure.
posted by hanov3r at 2:23 PM on June 11, 2020 [4 favorites]


I like that there were two very different games where you play as someone stuck in a time loop that resets when they die. The Bethesda version looks like a lot of fun and I hope it comes out for PC so I can play it (because FPS on console is just...why would you do that)
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 2:31 PM on June 11, 2020 [3 favorites]


I think I might still hold off on the PS5 for a little bit, maybe end of 2021. By then the games library will have filled out a bit more and hopefully we'll get it in black.
posted by Fizz at 2:31 PM on June 11, 2020 [1 favorite]


So this is interesting. This is the Phantom Entertainment console (2004), which was shown at E3, a console that was advertised for Internet gaming.
posted by Fizz at 2:38 PM on June 11, 2020 [1 favorite]


Definitely some interesting stuff there (Ghostwire, Returnal, Deathloop, Horizon, Stray, Pragmata, new Spider-Man...) but man Sony must be hurting for content because some of that B-tier stuff looked rough.
posted by Soi-hah at 2:42 PM on June 11, 2020 [1 favorite]


Oh my gosh, the Phantom. I just went looking to see if there was a post back in the mid-aughts about it but it never made it to MeFi proper (which, fair, that was more slashdot territory in a lot of ways) but there's the occasional reference after the fact in a comment here and there. (There's also folks accidentally referring to the alleged console's maker, Infinium, via the slightly mangled "ad infinium".)

I am definitely on board with a no-drive console; I have kept life cycles of discs of old consoles and then just...gotten rid of them after almost never pulling them out, multiple times now over my life, and my entire PC library is downloaded and has been for years. Obviously there's folks for whom physical media will be useful-to-necessary because of lousy internet access, but I'm ready to not bother.
posted by cortex at 2:44 PM on June 11, 2020


If you're considering a console, I can say that Gamepass on Xbox is the best gaming value I've ever seen. It's full of games that would cost you a bundle. My partner is playing Red Dead Redemption 2 and I'm playing Plague Tale off it right now. They've leaned really hard into it. Today No Man's Sky dropped on there.
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 2:47 PM on June 11, 2020 [3 favorites]


$699? In this economy? Ars Technica looked at launch console prices adjusted for inflation, and $500-550 seems a good bet. If they wanted to be smart, maybe they’d have the Digital Edition at $469 and the standard one at $549.
posted by adrianhon at 2:52 PM on June 11, 2020 [1 favorite]


What I'm wondering is: how quickly will prices of PS4s fall?
posted by acb at 2:56 PM on June 11, 2020


@adrianhon, I've been living in Canada for about 20 years now, our prices always jump up about $100 more than the USD when it comes to consoles and most AAA games are $79 CDN versus the $59 that is priced in USD.
posted by Fizz at 3:00 PM on June 11, 2020


Ah yes, in that case we’re in agreement. I expect the prices will be the same in £ and USD given our weak economy here in the UK and 20% VAT...
posted by adrianhon at 3:07 PM on June 11, 2020


What I'm wondering is: how quickly will prices of PS4s fall?

Not for awhile. Considering how many strong AAA games are still coming out this year, I suspect they'll not drop until late next year.
posted by Fizz at 3:11 PM on June 11, 2020


I like that there were two very different games where you play as someone stuck in a time loop that resets when they die

Can I recommend, if you haven't yet played it, Outer Wilds?
posted by hanov3r at 3:17 PM on June 11, 2020 [4 favorites]


If you're considering a console, I can say that Gamepass on Xbox is the best gaming value I've ever seen

Yeah, and if you have a PC, Xbox all the way as you can use Gamepass on their as well.
posted by sideshow at 3:20 PM on June 11, 2020


Playstation definitely has better exclusives (including Horizon Zero Dawn and The Last of Us) but I would decently and without fanboi fervor argue in favor of Xbox over Playstation.

As OnTheLastCastle points out, Gamepass is very good. Xbox has also rolled out three things over the past few years, with little to no fanfare:
  • Backwards compatibility for an increasingly-large collection of previous-gen titles. You can play a huge number of Xbox and Xbox 360 titles on the Xbox One.
  • Xbox One X Enhanced versions of existing games, including Fallout 3 and Skyrim, bringing 4k graphics to popular older titles.
  • Play Anywhere program brings PC/Xbox cross-play to some titles, and "Get the other platform's version for free" for others.
All these things are free (aside from the initial cost of buying the game), and have mostly flown under the radar.
  • I already owned Fallout 3 and Skyrim and was delighted to get a 4k graphics enhancement for free.
  • I was able to pick up Witcher 2 (Xbox 360) for cheap and play it on my Xbox One. It also has a free graphics enhancement which looks a m a z i n g.
  • Having bought Sea of Thieves and Cities: Skylines for PC, I was pretty stoked to get it free for Xbox.
  • Speaking of Sea of Thieves, my friends play on PC and I play on Xbox and we can play together, so that's pretty rad.
In my estimation, aside from better exclusives, the only other thing PS4 has over Xbox is the game download times. Why does it only take my boyfriend 15 minutes to download a game to his PS4, while it takes 4 hours for me to download the same game to my Xbox? This is as mysterious as it is infuriating.
posted by ErikaB at 3:22 PM on June 11, 2020 [1 favorite]


(Sorry to talk shit about Playstation on an article about the PS5, I only brought it up because someone asked and yes, this is about the only place you can get reasonable discussion on Playstation vs Xbox.)
posted by ErikaB at 3:25 PM on June 11, 2020


I'll be excited to get a new PS4. I usually buy consoles one generation behind, partly to get a deal on the box, partly because of the array of available games. (I bought a Dreambox the week it was discontinued and proceeded to play the living hell out of it for the next two years. Time well spent, you betcha!)
posted by SPrintF at 3:30 PM on June 11, 2020 [2 favorites]


I'm not a huge console fanboy, but I have my Switch and my friend gifted me a PS4 (very very kind and I'm not gonna look a gift 'sole in the CD slot) but...

I feel like there's just the point of diminishing returns honestly and besides "slightly higher res/sharper textures without aliasing, nicer volumetric fog, shinier shit" I'm not sure what I should be excited about?

I heard something about the audio being 3D, which ok, I guess if you have nice surround sound system or 3D headset, but again, is it really worth 200 dollars more?

I feel like at this point in time, the best in terms of "revolution" we're gonna get is VR (which I'm very skeptical of, even though that's what my friend works in) or controls (which Nintendo is on the ball with, but even then, there's not much you can do to reinvent that wheel, IMO).

I admit I've never been an Early Adopter, but It reaaaaally feels like there's not much point in this? And I know things will get better over time. But if you really wanted to impress me graphically, get better facial modeling and animation in real time. That's the one area that still seems lacking - it's better than it used to be, that uncanny valley, thing... But it's still... lacking.

Honest question: Gameplay-wise (not graphics, fidelity, scope), what is here that can't be done with the current systems?

So anyways - I guess my thinking is - at least with Nintendo, being a bit behind leaves itself some room to grow so it really feels like it can be an improvement.

I can easily imagine the next Ninty console being an upgrade over the Switch but with the XBox and PS, I have a hard time feeling any passion or joy or excitement and it just seems "more of the same". I suppose if you're a kid who just grew up with PS4 and this is your second console it's mindblowing.

Am I just old? Or do I have a valid critique of the limits of this sort of thing? I feel like my point is valid. Sorry to make it sound like I'm shitting, I'm honestly not, I'm just trying to figure out why I should be jazzed about this besides "more (slightly prettier) shit on the screen"
posted by symbioid at 3:30 PM on June 11, 2020 [3 favorites]


Symboid: Beyond better graphics and AI, the big change in this generation is that all storage is moving from spinning hard drives to very-fast SSDs.

The most obvious effect is that games will be much faster to load and resume – probably 10-20x faster, which is important given console games are competing against Netflix and phone apps that can start instantly. Faster SSDs also means game assets can be loaded and created very differently - much wider, open worlds without artificial constraints of windy corridors to move between areas.

I make games for a living so I have an excuse to have All The Consoles. My current thought is to get the PS5 and the Xbox Series X shortly after launch, with one of them being digital-only. I still need a disc drive to watch film screeners that are sadly still sent in physical form, and even more sadly, often as DVDs.
posted by adrianhon at 3:43 PM on June 11, 2020 [4 favorites]


Anyone know if PS4 games be replayed on a PS5? Or would games have to be repurchased?
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 4:12 PM on June 11, 2020 [1 favorite]


Anyone know if PS4 games be replayed on a PS5? Or would games have to be repurchased?

The number of games that will be backwards compatible isn't 100% of them, but they've said the majority would be and I'd expect that to get closer to 100% for titles released more recently.
posted by juv3nal at 4:19 PM on June 11, 2020


GIVE ME BACKPACK CAT
posted by poffin boffin at 4:34 PM on June 11, 2020 [9 favorites]


Very excited about the Miles Morales game even though I won’t get to play it for another 5 years probably
posted by bettafish at 5:02 PM on June 11, 2020


ugh the internal storage of less than 1tb is a joke though. i have 2tb in my ps4 and it's not even close to enough. games are now 250gb on release and it's fucking nonsense.
posted by poffin boffin at 5:08 PM on June 11, 2020 [6 favorites]


imagine paying $600 for a console and only being able to play 3 games at a time
posted by poffin boffin at 5:08 PM on June 11, 2020 [1 favorite]


Given the whole lockdown thing I'm considering getting a console this holiday season after having NOT had one since the Intellivision. Is there anywhere, on the entire internet, that can be trusted to host a decent conversation over which console to get and why, without endless fanboi flame wars?

The PS5 and the XBox X are going to be fairly similar and games running on both consoles aren't going to take advantage of either console's exclusive benefits. It will come down to exclusives; are there games or genres that you favor and as someone said; if you want to play online with friends, what brand do they own? I have consoles from multiple manufacturers and very little brand loyalty on anything and I'd say that the Sony has had more quality exclusives than Xbox. Microsoft went on a shopping spree around ten years ago and bought up studios to gain more proprietary titles but judging by sales numbers it didn't pay off as well at they hoped.

And the Nintendo Switch sells well because it's portable and arguably the best best game developer (Nintendo itself) doesn't make games for other consoles.

Unfortunately, I can't give you just a final score for each machine. it's going to come down to you figuring out what kinds of games appeal most to you. It might even be best for you to just pick up a PS3 or Xbox 360 at this point and a bunch of games (which are very cheap and can be found at many yard/tag/garage/boot sales) and just see what you want to play before you purchase a newer machine.
posted by dances with hamsters at 5:36 PM on June 11, 2020


We've already decided to get a PS5 because we got a new 4k TV this year.

Annapurna Interactive makes interesting games so I'm curious about the backpack cat game. I see that there's another interminable Sackboy game (I just don't care for the game play mechanics). The one demolition derby game seems like it's trying to grab some of that sweet sweet battle royale money.

I'm really curious about Horizon: Forbidden West. I just finished Zero Dawn so my timing might be good?
posted by fiercekitten at 5:37 PM on June 11, 2020


Symboid, If you check out the PS5 Unreal Engine 5 Tech Demo you can get a general idea of what's going to be possible with the new generation. And, layman's opinion here, it seems like one of the big benefits that's coming is that the developers will be able to spend a lot less time optimizing the game with (hopefully) more time thus dedicated to gameplay. Or, maybe the bosses back in Montreal will just pocket the difference, I dunno.

My personal calculus is very similar to ErikaB - I'm 90% sure I'm getting the Xbox this year (I'm also a Gamepass subscriber) and then the PS5 at some later point once the critical mass of awesome exclusives gets too great to ignore. Horizon Zero Dawn is one of my favorite games and I'm suuuuuper hyped for a sequel, but I noticed there wasn't even a date attached to that trailer. Which probably means 2022? 23? I can maybe hold out that long.
posted by ssmith at 5:43 PM on June 11, 2020 [3 favorites]


Is this something I would have to somehow, someday, maybe, by some unimaginable chain of circumstances have enough time to really sit down and play an actual videogame for more than three minutes at a time to understand?

god, I miss RPGs
posted by Naberius at 5:44 PM on June 11, 2020 [2 favorites]


ugh the internal storage of less than 1tb is a joke though.

That's because these things will have bleeding edge SSDs and an IO stack to go with it.

For the first time in a long time, a console is going to perform better than a tricked-out PC. A $1200 video card might push more pixels, but the bandwidth just isn't there to get the data from the SSD to the RAM to the GPU fast enough to do was the PS5 is capable of.

I think the game that's really pushing the envelope here is the new Ratchet and Crank. It's not about how the fur looks better, or the water is more reflective, or there are more NPCs running around. It's about how instantaneous that dimension hopping is. There's a reason Portal is a game where the art design is "stark grey room" - there's just not enough buffer to handle everything on screen AND everything you could potentially portal to and see.

So yeah, games will boot faster and no more elevators or very slow doors to mask loading the next set of assets. It's also the above-mentioned UE5 demo where the PC flies across an extremely high-fidelity world very, very quickly.

The only down-side is that this is only going to be really apparent on first-party games. Anything that is multi-platform is going to have to aim for the lowest common denominator. And that's going to be a PC with a HDD.
posted by thecjm at 6:05 PM on June 11, 2020 [3 favorites]


ugh the internal storage of less than 1tb is a joke though

The stuff I've read says that they're expecting PS5 and XBX games to be smaller than current-gen.

I'm sure I'll fuck this up somewhere, but what they say is that because PS4 and XB1 use spinning-metal hard drives they end up with many, many copies of the same file.

Something like: if you're trying to get x gigabytes of data loaded before the player enters the next room/city district/whatever, you need to make sure that the data for that area is stored as one contiguous chunk so the hard drive can just go sluuuuuuuuuuurp and down it goes -- if it has to go looking around for the data it's going to take waaaay too long.

So they end up with the shape file and texture file for a fire hydrant stored in this data for this city block... and in the next city block... and in the block next to that... and in every other city block.

But with any ssd, seek time is zero (yes I know there are other limits you hit) so you only need to have one copy of that fire hydrant instead of duplicating it hundreds of times. Iterated across many files, this apparently is gonna save a bunch of space. *shrug* we'll see.

Anything that is multi-platform is going to have to aim for the lowest common denominator. And that's going to be a PC with a HDD.

I wouldn't be at all shocked to start seeing games that are console ports listing an ssd as minimum hardware.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 6:45 PM on June 11, 2020 [4 favorites]


The thing that amazed me most about this presentation was just how fast furry artists started drawing pictures of the girl Lombax putting her hammer to inappropriate uses. Like I am not even sure the whole presentation was over before people were posting them.

I don't think I'll be getting a PS5 around launch, my PS4's mostly been a media machine this year and I don't see anything that feels like a system-seller to me, much less the three system-sellers I tend to require myself to desire before I get a console nowadays.
posted by egypturnash at 7:06 PM on June 11, 2020


Stray!!!!
posted by Jacqueline at 7:39 PM on June 11, 2020 [1 favorite]


Oh god apparently lombaxes are very sexually dimorphic according to existing R&C canon, and... that girl lombax has all the male traits. Retconning/alternate universe biology are distinctly possible but so is “Sony has a launch title with a trans woman prominently featured in it”.

Relevant R&C wiki screen grab, along with naked pictures of a cartoon trans lady (NSFW)
posted by egypturnash at 7:52 PM on June 11, 2020 [1 favorite]


The Demon Souls remake is probably enough to get me to consider buying this whenever that's released, which is a shame because I feel almost the same way about the sequel to Breath of the Wild, but with the switch.
posted by codacorolla at 8:58 PM on June 11, 2020


Oh god apparently lombaxes are very sexually dimorphic according to existing R&C canon, and... that girl lombax has all the male traits. Retconning/alternate universe biology are distinctly possible but so is “Sony has a launch title with a trans woman prominently featured in it”.

Given that one of her designers retweeted a X months on HRT meme and the rigging artist is straight up THIS IS FOR YOU, FURRIES (and also I am trans) I am fairly convinced any other explanation will be going against the intention.
posted by solarion at 2:33 AM on June 12, 2020 [1 favorite]


Stray looks a lot like HK-Project, going back to mid-2017.

HK-Project with Simon Stålenhag's robot hoboes.
posted by acb at 3:20 AM on June 12, 2020


I loved how much of the Demon's Souls announcement thing was a tribute to the original game's intro.

I expect that the remake's release date is going to set a hard limit on how long I'm willing to hold out on buying a PS5 for.
posted by A Thousand Baited Hooks at 4:49 AM on June 12, 2020


For the first time in a long time, a console is going to perform better than a tricked-out PC. A $1200 video card might push more pixels, but the bandwidth just isn't there to get the data from the SSD to the RAM to the GPU fast enough to do was the PS5 is capable of.

Does the PS5 use some sort of proprietary super fast bandwidth technology that isn't available on PCs?
posted by Fleebnork at 6:25 AM on June 12, 2020


This morning it came out that Spider-Man: Miles Morales is just a remastered version of the existing PS4 Spider-Man with some new Miles missions. I didn't expect to see Spider-Man 2 already, but I was hoping for something closer to Infamous: First Light or Uncharted: Lost Legacy with this one; more of a 6-8 hour smaller adventure using mostly existing assets instead of just a few new missions buried in a game I've also played and earned the platinum trophy.
posted by Servo5678 at 7:01 AM on June 12, 2020


Digging into the stray.game website ... these folks have been working on the game for over five years in a true labour of love. Watching some of the early animation trials just makes me want it even more.
posted by seanmpuckett at 7:13 AM on June 12, 2020


Late to the thread, but: there was nothing in the initial launch wave of the PS4 that I wanted, either, for all of the reasons listed here. I didn't bother getting a PS4 until Bloodborne came out several months after the console launch. They tend to release safe games that are similar to the last-generation's stuff when the new consoles first come out. Partially because the developers just didn't have enough time to max out the new console's abilities, and partially because "safe, familiar" titles SELL.

I'll likely wait several months after launch to get the PS5. There's also the "lemon" possibility at launch. The Xbox 360 was plagued with the Red Ring of Death at launch, and it still had those issues years later. But the launch X360s were the worst for it.

I guess I'm just not an early adopter. I can wait six months to see what wrinkles are baked into the new systems before buying.

I will say this: Between Xbox One and PS4? There are maybe one or two titles that are Xbox exclusive that I would want to play. MAYBE. PS4 completely blew Xbox out of the water this current (old?) generation, and all my money is on PS5 in the next coming years. It's not a matter of speed, pixels, performance or controllers... PS4 just had the vast majority of better games, period.

And don't get me started on the Switch. I had one and gave it away after three months. And I have enough arm/wrist/shoulder issues from using M&K for work... so PC gaming is mostly not even being considered by me.
posted by SoberHighland at 7:17 AM on June 12, 2020


Though in re the Demon's Souls remake ... the original game had some flaws. I wonder if they'll be going for the true remake or will try and polish some of the nonsense out. And if Miyazaki is involved at all even as a consultant.
posted by seanmpuckett at 7:21 AM on June 12, 2020


Also: I don't care about pixels or "ray-tracing" that much. Give me 60fps. As a MINIMUM. A steady, locked 60fps for every game.

You cannot sell the benefit of 60+ fps with screenshots or social media posts, or really even in TV or video ads. But 30fps... anything UNDER 60fps needs to be a thing of the past. Nothing gives a better gaming experience than a steady 60fps or better. It's a part of gaming that is hard to sell or convince non-gamers to care about, but it just makes the overall experience of gaming much, much better.

I got a PS4 Pro late last year after a long time putting it off. People ask "what's so much better about it?" and the answer is there's no one, or two or five things that makes it "better," ...rather it's a dozen small, snappier, smoother things that improves the overall experience. It simply feels better to play on a Pro versus a standard model. Less stuttering, less stutter when accessing a menu, fewer short pauses with input and animations. It's a distinction that's hard to sell or explain, but it's a real difference. The difference isn't always immediately felt. But when spending time gaming, you feel it, you experience it.

More of THAT feeling is what I want from the PS5.
posted by SoberHighland at 7:36 AM on June 12, 2020


Does the PS5 use some sort of proprietary super fast bandwidth technology that isn't available on PCs?

This caught my eye as well - in terms of GPU, CPU, and RAM, a modern 490 gaming board with a Threadripper, overclocked RAM and say, a Vega card knocks this out of the water. A lot of the throughput speed is apparently from the custom drive, which ought to improve things like load times, but isn't that much faster than a normal nvme. Load times are still the most annoying holdover of the previous generation for me (other than teeeeensy menu fonts), so if that can improve significantly I'd count it as a win.

I will probably eventually buy this console, but for me the advantage of consoles has never been about juice, I just don't want games on my production rig.
posted by aspersioncast at 7:40 AM on June 12, 2020 [1 favorite]


Does the PS5 use some sort of proprietary super fast bandwidth technology that isn't available on PCs?

Short answer: Yes.

Medium answer: Sort of. The connection is PCIe4 4x, and you can get PCIe4 4x ssds right now if your motherboard supports them. Sony's secret sauce here is, supposedly, that they've really streamlined all the steps in between raw data transfer from the ssd into The Machine in the abstract and the data appearing to the game in a way that's useful to it. There's a custom controller, a custom hardware decompressor,

Long answer: I don't understand half of what he's saying but Cerny talks about this stuff a lot in his GDC talk. The tl;dr seemed to be that the storage system for the ps5 does 5.5GB/sec, but if you wanted to use a normal nvme ssd you'd need it to saturate PCIe4 at 7GB/s to make up for inefficiencies in the rest of the pipeline between the raw nand and the game.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 7:40 AM on June 12, 2020 [4 favorites]


A lot of Souls fans here. I'm really hoping they port DS3's weapon arts into Demon's Souls with the remake. PvP is pretty much my entire reason for souls these days and DS3 is the clear winner on that front.

Any of you active DS3 players on PS4?
posted by bfranklin at 7:47 AM on June 12, 2020


I enjoyed the hell out of DS3 and even had a few good times with PVP. But it seemed to boil down to almost every invader having the same or similar gear and tactics. I'd like to see some kind of PVP matching system where heavy armor vs heavy armor could match, or something so that the "optimized" PVP builds weren't so ubiquitous. But that would make things less miserable for players, and DS games always maximize misery for everyone involved! ;)

I never finished the game, but I got really far. Had to take a break for reasons, and when I returned I was completely lost and then I just got tired of the DISCIPLINE those games require. I guess I never got gud, but I had fun while I played it.
posted by SoberHighland at 8:00 AM on June 12, 2020


OK, watched the whole video and all I wanna know is: can I set it on its side?
posted by SoberHighland at 8:10 AM on June 12, 2020 [2 favorites]


You can! That was my first question too and there’s at least one photo floating around of it on its side on a stand. No word on if it comes with the stand or not.
posted by skycrashesdown at 8:18 AM on June 12, 2020 [1 favorite]


Oops, forgot the actual link!
posted by skycrashesdown at 8:19 AM on June 12, 2020


This caught my eye as well - in terms of GPU, CPU, and RAM, a modern 490 gaming board with a Threadripper, overclocked RAM and say, a Vega card knocks this out of the water. A lot of the throughput speed is apparently from the custom drive, which ought to improve things like load times, but isn't that much faster than a normal nvme. Load times are still the most annoying holdover of the previous generation for me (other than teeeeensy menu fonts), so if that can improve significantly I'd count it as a win

That's about what I would expect. Sometimes consoles are hardware competitive shortly after launch, but it sounds like fans are claiming this fast SSD is the second coming when it's mostly just going to cut down on load times.
posted by Fleebnork at 8:29 AM on June 12, 2020


Yep, you’ll definitely be able to get comparable SSDs on PCs, but what’s interesting with this new console generation is that developers can assume all players have an SSD of a particular spec, which may lead to neat new game designs - whereas PC devs will have to cater for spinning hard drives and SSDs of different speeds.

Anyway, assuming the PS5 can run late-gen PS4 games like The Last of Us 2 and Ghosts of Tshushima - and run them faster and better - that is a decent reason for upgrading, even without good exclusives. I have a day one PS4 and I do not enjoy the load times, creaky graphics, or noisy fan.
posted by adrianhon at 10:23 AM on June 12, 2020


So now apparently Spider-Man: Miles Morales is a stand-alone game. I feel like they probably should have gotten their messaging straight before all this?
posted by skycrashesdown at 10:33 AM on June 12, 2020 [2 favorites]


That's about what I would expect. Sometimes consoles are hardware competitive shortly after launch, but it sounds like fans are claiming this fast SSD is the second coming when it's mostly just going to cut down on load times.

Please watch the Cerny dev talk if you're curious about this. It's a lot more than faster SSD => faster load times. The entire console is set up to cut down on any bottlenecks and overhead that exist in traditional PC architecture.
posted by thecjm at 10:35 AM on June 12, 2020


So now apparently Spider-Man: Miles Morales is a stand-alone game. I feel like they probably should have gotten their messaging straight before all this?

It's going to be like Uncharted Lost Legacy. Shorter game reusing assets instead of a true sequel.
posted by thecjm at 10:36 AM on June 12, 2020


Dishonoured: Death of the Outsider was one of those, too BUT still an excellent, excellent novella to cap the previous two novels. I could listen to Rosario Dawson tell me stories probably forever.
posted by seanmpuckett at 11:27 AM on June 12, 2020




I'm most excited that we're about ready to get the first crop of games designed after Breath of the Wild came out.
posted by straight at 3:04 PM on June 12, 2020 [1 favorite]


don't listen to signal, he's a filthy Intellivision stan

You can tell them by their permanent thumb and finger indents.
posted by srboisvert at 5:38 AM on June 13, 2020


« Older Harry Potter and the Author Who Failed Us   |   The Colonel and the Housekeeper Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments