A console with no games: The legacy of the PS5

The PlayStation 5 is turning 4 years old soon, meaning it’s almost old enough to get its own iPad and consume AI-generated YouTube slop. To me, though, it’s still a baby. It still feels like the days of it being a theoretical next-gen console aren’t that far behind us — after all, Sony took their sweet time moving on from the PlayStation 4, which isn’t surprising considering it was the only truly successful console of its generation, sans the launch controversies of the Xbox One or the frankly embarrassing sales figures of the Wii U. PS4 games are still being made, and the issues that plagued its successor on launch are still fresh in our minds; still, the PS5 is growing up, what with the announcement of a Pro revision and all the buzz around Astro Bot, a brand-new exclusive title. With all this in mind, it’s a good time to look back at the history, evaluate the present and speculate on the future of the PlayStation 5, which is definitely a console that exists.

Over the last four years, the PS5 sold 61.7 million units, a number that appears impressive but is in fact lower than any other PlayStation console aside from the Vita. It’s not like this problem is unique to Sony’s consoles either, as the Xbox Series S and X have sold a total of 28.3 million units, meaning that the 9th generation of consoles (minus the Switch, which exists in an inter-generational limbo) has had lower sales than the 8th, 7th, 6th and 5th generations. This trend of declining sales is somewhat obscured by the runaway success of the Wii and Switch: The latter, which is the only unquestionably successful console of the last ten years, goes against everything that Sony and Microsoft have been doing in the 9th generation but compensates for its famously horrific performance and visuals with unique selling points and exclusive games. So, if Nintendo’s consoles are still doing alright, where exactly did the PS5 go wrong? As it turns out, it all comes back to a difficult childhood. 

November 2020 was, to be blunt, a terrible time to be a brand-new console. A worldwide semiconductor shortage was significantly increasing manufacturing costs while a global pandemic simultaneously increased demand and reduced availability. The PS5’s pre-order cycle was swamped with scalpers and bots, with batches going up on PlayStation’s website and being out of stock in just a few seconds, making it impossible to get the console for its supposed retail value of $499.99. I signed up for newsletters, set alarms and notifications, optimized my spam-clicking and still I had to wait until December to get my PS5 when my dad randomly found it on a store shelf … for well over a thousand dollars. Being impossible to access wasn’t the PS5’s only problem either. While there was hype upon its long-awaited announcement and gaming outlets received it well, the console was dragged all over social media: It was huge, bulky, oddly shaped and, worst of all, white. And the more we learned, the readier we were to hate it. From lackluster backward compatibility and nonexistent launch titles to a dual-version model that confused consumers, the PS5’s controversies were inescapable. Most infamously, it was the first console to have most of its AAA games retail at $69.99 — a price hike that has unfortunately been adopted by the rest of the games industry.

Some of the issues were eventually fixed: The PS5 Slim came onto the scene with a whimper, and way nicer-looking black versions of the console and controller were released a few years ago. The PS5 Pro, however, is the first major revision in the console’s history. While the new models are nice and the supply issues were corrected (after three years), the console I got at launch is still uncomfortably bulky and still kinda looks like a PearPhone-type knockoff. Plus, its form factor makes it much harder to carry around comfortably than the PS4, which is a big problem for fighting game players. Some games still struggle with version parity: My most played PS5 game is actually the PS4 version of Guilty Gear Strive due to its lower input lag. The console’s UI (and its UX in general) lacks the customizability or charm of its predecessor, replacing themes with a minimalist and dreadfully boring UI coupled with menus reminiscent of Windows 8, in a move similar to the shift from the Wii’s iconic menus to the Switch’s drab and soulless “sleekness.” 

All these issues pale in comparison to the PlayStation 5’s most memed-upon aspect: Like its grandfather, it has no games. There are 21 PS5-only games; if we remove unreleased games, tech demos, PlayStation VR titles and remakes, this number is brought down to six. These are the brand-new Astro Bot, Spider-Man 2 (which will likely come to PC), Quantum Error (which is coming to PC and reviewed terribly), Destruction All-Stars (which was reviewed terribly), Silent Hill: The Short Message and Rise of the Rōnin. These six games comprise all the experiences that the PS5, and only the PS5, has to offer. 

Exclusive games are quite controversial: From the perspective of consumers and the artists who work on video games, increased access to games is great! Not to mention ports to other devices create more publicity and often come with new features or easier access to modding. However, from the perspective of a console owner, exclusive games add value to and justify that oh-so-expensive purchase — without them, what’s the point of buying a console in the first place?

A decade ago, people bought PS3s and Xbox 360s just to play with their friends. Today, with crossplay being the norm, console purchases have less to do with external factors and more with whether or not the consoles themselves offer anything to the player. This comes in the form of exclusive games, exclusive features or simply being the best way to experience a specific game. As mentioned earlier, the PS5 does not get many points in the first category — but what about the others? Unique features can come in many forms, from the PS2’s ability to play DVDs to the Switch’s portability; the PS5, meanwhile, boasts the ability to play Blu-ray (something that I, for one, haven’t needed for about a decade), and the ability to use certain non-game apps, like Spotify, YouTube and Netflix, something that most smart TVs can already do these days. There are also social, news and game help features that pale in comparison to what the Internet has to offer, and the ability to play incredibly laggy versions of your games via Remote Play

As for whether the PS5 is the best way to experience certain games, it’s a bit of a toss-up. The console performs well, but not as well as an Xbox Series X, and lacks the increased versatility and higher performance potential of a good gaming PC. Not that it’s a bad way to game — I’ve played Celeste, both NieR games, Tetris Effect and more of my absolute favorite games of all time on my PS5 — but it’s not really the best. For truly hardcore gamers, a PC is the undisputed best option and will likely remain as such forever; for everybody else, the performance of the PS5 is worse than its main competitor and not that much better than its previous generation counterpart, all while being significantly more expensive and much harder to fit nicely into a living room.

However, there are quite a few significant positives for the PS5. Its theoretical games do, in fact, run well and look gorgeous. Its SSD card is perhaps its biggest upgrade compared to the PS4’s hard drive (but has limited storage capacity in an era where AAA games seem intent on taking hundreds of gigabytes). The DualSense is a beautiful and comfortable controller, and PS Plus offers loads of free and discounted games. The aforementioned Astro Bot is a gem and a great celebration of PlayStation’s history — I completed it in preparation for this article and don’t regret it one bit. Although I mainly play on my PC and laptop these days, I do get use out of my PS5 and have a lot of fond memories attached to it. Its main issue is that, while it is a great console once you have it, there’s no incentive to actually buy one. 

You may be wondering if the PS5 Pro, the console that Sony has been cooking up for the last four years, is going to fix any of these problems. The short answer is “no,” and the long answer is “noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.” 

Its main selling point is improved visuals and performance, with better ray tracing and a better GPU, but the PS5 already has good enough performance for 99% of people, and for those it doesn’t satisfy, the Pro still won’t be able to compete with a gaming PC. There’s also AI upscaling, which the infamous Grand Theft Auto remasters have shown isn’t necessarily a good thing. All this comes at an increased cost of $699.99 and doesn’t include a disc drive, meaning you can’t play physical games on the PS5 Pro without shelling out another $79.99 — not to mention possible supply issues, pricey DualSense controllers and increased game prices. If the PS5 had any of those, you’d be looking at an investment of more than a thousand dollars just to play them with slightly better visuals!

The PlayStation 5 is truly emblematic of all the trappings of the modern video game console. It has no exclusives, no unique features and an unprecedented level of diminishing returns. What was once the gold standard — HD and 60 fps — is now the worst acceptable way to play games as manufacturers and publicists alike push for 4K (or even 8K) graphics, 120 or 200 or 300 fps, improvements that simply don’t do as much as advertised: The difference between HD and 4K, or 60 and 120 fps, is minuscule to the human eyes and brain but comes with a steep performance cost that consumers end up paying for.

There’s also the fact that both Microsoft and Sony have been focusing more on non-console ventures as of late. Xbox Game Pass and the porting of many previously PS-exclusive games to PC show that manufacturers want to move away from limiting games to the consoles they manufacture, which is great news for consumers but leaves the consoles themselves in a limbo, lacking the exclusive games, features or performance to make them worth buying. Unless Microsoft and Sony plan to innovate in some special way soon, the market trends show their iconic consoles limbering idly towards a slow, painful and wildly expensive death. 

It’s a shame, really. I like my PS5 and use it a lot, but it’s not as versatile as a PC or nearly as compelling as a Switch or even a PS4. As for the wider public, I’d say that the PlayStation 5’s most enduring legacy will be the memory of its rocky launch, putting it in the same category as the PS3 and Xbox One. Sadly, pertaining to its impact, the only thing the PS5 can truly lay claim to is increasing game prices from $60 to $70.

Thanks, Sony. 

Daily Arts Writer Ariel Litwak can be reached at arilit@umich.edu.

The post A console with no games: The legacy of the PS5 appeared first on The Michigan Daily.


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