Ladies and gentlemen, it happened, I am now the proud owner of a PlayStation 5! I confess I was only a couple of weeks away from giving in and buying one from a scalper, but luckily enough I managed to get one through Amazon at the start of June. Now that I have one I want to talk about five things about the PlayStation 5 without having to passive aggressively keep bringing up how hard it is to get one. Well, I’ve dropped the ‘passive’.
The Launch Fiasco
Blame Covid all you like but I am firmly of the opinion that Sony royally fucked up on this front. If you spend years building hype but know you can’t fulfil demand then DELAY YOUR LAUNCH. Buying a games console should not be a struggle and create a situation in which scalpers thrive.
The majority of games, predominantly PS5 and Series X/S exclusives, which were delayed to 2021 have now been pushed further back to 2022, so not only are the consoles hard to get but their games are still dots on the horizon as well.
To any scalpers reading this (who am I kidding, they can’t read), I’d say I hope you step on Lego, but realistically I’d prefer it to be lava.
Launch Line-Up
This article isn’t all negativity and I want to take a moment to echo the views raised by Mikey’s video last year. Genuinely an outstanding launch line-up for a new console, and arguably the best of all time.
The Appearance
The PlayStation 5 is absolutely gigantic and, in my opinion, the best looking console ever made. I’m a big fan of the original Xbox One with its futuristic look which could simultaneously be confused for a VCR, and the triple layered PlayStation 4 Pro, but the gold star has to go to the PS5 for looks. I prefer the digital to the disc based version for the symmetry of it, but I’ll always prefer having game discs so had to go for the stockier PS5.
I’m still not sold on the appearance of the DualSense controller but I do like how well it sits in my meaty digits and has a lot more weight behind it than the DualShocks of previous eras. I’m not convinced a controller needs a built-in microphone but I said the same about speakers and a lightbar for the PS4 so I guess Sony felt like they had to do something new.
I’ll be purchasing a black controller as soon as they go on sale on 18th of June.
Game Pricing
£70 for a game is obscene. I understand that games cost more to make now compared to a decade or two ago, and that the price increase has been put off for years, but the sudden jump from £50 to £70 is drastic. From what I have seen, no game holds this price for long and sooner than later will drop to £50 or below. Unlike previous years where a £50 game would drop to £30 – £40 around a month post-launch, now you are still paying £50+ for a game that is minimum a month old. For me, it begs the question of why prospective players should fork out the extra money when Sony properties don’t hold their value?
By comparison, if a Nintendo game releases for £50 you’d be lucky to find it even £5 cheaper a year down the line, and as Sony can’t mirror this with their games I’m unconvinced the price hike has been the right move for them to make. I will likely do a full breakdown of the pros and cons of the price increase in a future article so make your views on the subject known in the comments, or get your popcorn ready to watch me argue with myself.
I will only be buying games at launch that I know I will enjoy such as God of War and Horizon Forbidden West and will play the waiting game with everything else. There are only three games ever (Quantum Break, Doom Eternal and Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla) which I have paid £60 or more for the bigger editions of them before launch and every one of them did not live up to my expectations. I don’t relish the idea of an entire generation of games being able to add more examples to this.
If £70 games are the future then at the very least demos should be available for them. Doesn’t seem like too much to ask..
The Future
‘Time heals all wounds’ as the old saying goes, but here I’d amend it to ‘Time heals all console shortages’. With every passing month more PS5’s are released into the wild that is game retailers, and less opportunity is given to the bastard despicable scum prick scalpers to make a cheeky profit off the back of someone else’s misfortune. Like I said at the beginning, I wasn’t far off caving and paying a scalper for a console, so naturally I’m as happy about not having to do that as I am for getting the console.
At time of writing it has just been announced that God of War: Ragnarok (yes I know that’s not its final title) has been pushed back to 2022, and also that it will be joining Horizon Forbidden West as a PS4 game, not a PS5 exclusive. Even though we are only in June I feel like anyone who discusses games is already talking about how 2022 is going to be a big year for releases, but you never know, E3 is right around the corner!
Gush over, and thanks for reading my pontification about my new console. Do you agree with my views? Let me know in the comments below, and I’ll be back next week so will speak to you again then!
