Playstation 5 Console Discussion

[Dcubed]

Finally had a chance to read the official blogpost.  Seems like the console specs match the leak perfectly.  Very disappointing.

A mere 45% extra GPU performance, no CPU upgrade, and no additional RAM for around 180% of the price of a 4 year old console? (Actually +194% of the Digital Edition’s original UK RRP). How is that worth the money!?

Starting to wonder why they even bothered.  You’re far better off just buying/upgrading a PC at these silly prices.

Edited September 10, 2024 by Dcubed

[Ashley]

1 hour ago, Dcubed said:

Even accounting for 20% VAT, the EU price is still €40 more expensive than the US price for no good reason.  No, we’re just getting fleeced (or rather, even more fleeced than the US are; because let’s face it, everyone’s getting ripped off here).

Totally agreed.  You might as well pay the same price for the PS5 Pro as you would for a high-end PC GPU and get better performance for your money if you’re paying this much for the console.

To put things into perspective, the PS5 Pro is actually more expensive than the bloody NeoGeo AVS’ original RRP ($649.99); a literal arcade machine in your home.  Making it the most expensive console of all time by a mile.

But you know what’s even worse? The Japanese price.  You think we’ve got it bad!? Holy shit! 

Doing a quick conversion at today’s JPY to USD exchange rate? The PS5 Pro is retailing there for a ridiculous $843.46!!! There is just no justifiable reason for this utter flogging of the Japanese audience.  This thing is gonna sell negative hardware numbers there!!

I wonder how much of that is down to the weak yen (in the sense of "I wonder what the price would have been had it not been for the weak yen"). 

Although it did remind me when the Pixel Tablet launched it was £100 more in the UK than the USA even when you factored in tax. Put me off getting one. 

1 hour ago, Julius said:

Ah yes, but you forget, the Switch 2 won't have Naughty Dog remastering the remake of a game which had already previously been remastered!  

 

1 hour ago, Hero-of-Time said:

Indeed. We'll just get another version of Donkey Kong Country Returns.

And MK8DX2

[Hero-of-Time]

9 minutes ago, Ashley said:

And MK8DX2

 

[Ashley]

Just seen an image comparison between the Pro and OG and immediately thought of this: 

 

[Eddage]

Whilst this is defo extremely expensive everyone saying you might as well get a PC is seriously exaggerating things. 

A decent GPU will cost nearly as much as this console and it’s not like you can just plug a GPU into a monitor 😂 Once you factor in a case, motherboard, CPU, RAM, PSU, storage, etc then you’re not far off spending double for similar performance. One thing that people also forget is you get a very high quality controller as well which you’d have to add to your PC build price.

Yes, you may already have a PC, so could just get a new GPU, but then you have to consider if you’re going to bottlenecked by your current CPU, etc.

Linus Tech Tips did a good video about this for the current PS5. Had to buy second hand components and then the results more or less just matched the PS5 performance...

 

Edited September 10, 2024 by Eddage

[Dcubed]

28 minutes ago, Eddage said:

Yes, you may already have a PC, so could just get a new GPU, but then you have to consider if you’re going to bottlenecked by your current CPU, etc.

Considering that the PS5 Pro's CPU is exactly the same as the base model? It's basically nothing more than a mild GPU upgrade that's gonna get bottlenecked by its old CPU anyway! So it's a similar situation either way.

At least if you have a PC you can just upgrade it.  If you already own a base model PS5? You have to shell out for the entire thing all over again at near enough double the price (and then you have to spend even more to get a functioning disc drive that plays your existing physical games!).

And if you're really in the market for a high-end balls to the wall graphical showpiece experience? I doubt you'll be all that impressed with what the PS5 Pro is offering, as it's basically a Radeon RX 6800 (Or the broad equivilent of the RTX 3700 in NVidia money; though likely with an inferior AI upscaling solution compared to what DLSS offers).  It's just not that big an upgrade over the base PS5, and that same £700 could buy you a far more impressive PC GPU if you're really looking to chase the graphics dragon, so I really have to question just who this console is supposed to be targetting here?

Edited September 10, 2024 by Dcubed

[Eddage]

40 minutes ago, Dcubed said:

At least if you have a PC you can just upgrade it.

…and that same £700 could buy you a far more impressive PC GPU

Well this is pretty crucial though isn’t it… IF you already have a PC you can get a better graphics card for the £700. That’s a pretty big if!!

If you don’t already have a PC, or aren’t particularly comfortable with building and upgrading your own then that’s a huge blocker. Yes you can buy a pre built but they’ll never be the best value and then you still have to worry about upgrading in the future.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to justify the price, I’m just saying that everyone going on about how you might as well just switch to PC gaming is blowing things out of proportion as that’s just not an option for a lot of people.

Will I buy a Pro…? Before the price announcement I was definitely gonna get one, now I’m not so sure. Let’s see how much overtime I can get in the next couple of months 😂

One thing I will say though is that taking Forbidden West off PlayStation Plus is fucking stupid when it’s one of the games being updated for the Pro. They’re already releasing an extremely expensive console, then expecting people to pay full price (?) for one of the showcase games. I reckon if that, and a couple of the other games, were available on PS Plus then it might sway more people to pick up the Pro if they can immediately access these updated versions. 

[Julius]

Digital Foundry's reaction to the PS5 Pro reveal: 

It's an hour longer than Cerny's actual presentation was  guess I know what I'm watching on my lunch today!

Elsewhere, VGC are reporting that Ampere are expecting the PS5 Pro to sell at the same level as the PS4 Pro, projecting 13 million units sold by the end of 2029. 

Quote

Research firm Ampere Analysis expects PS5 Pro sales to reach a similar level to those of PS4 Pro, despite the newly announced console's relatively high price point.

Sony used a technical presentation on Tuesday to finally unveil the long-anticipated PS5 Pro, which will launch in November priced at $699.99 / £699.99 / €799.99 / ¥119,980.

"The price point of the PS5 Pro will inevitably cause a lot of commentary," said Piers Harding-Rolls, research director for games at Ampere Analysis. "The price point differential between the PS5 and PS5 Pro is between 40-50%, which is significantly more than the differential between the PS4 and PS4 Pro at launch.

"In the US, the PS4 Pro launched at $399 and the slim PS4 was $299 at the time, a 33% differential. Additionally, the slim PS4 had a retail price of $299 having dropped from the original PS4 launch price of $399."

Nevertheless, Ampere expects Sony to sell around 1.3 million PS5 Pros during the console's 2024 launch window, compared to 1.7 million PS4 Pros sold at launch in 2016.

"We expect the price point to soften demand with some consumers, but for PlayStation enthusiasts the pricing is less of a consideration," Harding-Rolls suggested.

Lifetime PS4 Pro sales reached 14.5 million units, accounting for around 12% of total PS4 sales, according to Ampere's data. The firm is forecasting a similar dynamic for the PS5 Pro, with sell-through of around 13 million units by 2029.

The quiet confidence GTA VI instills, I imagine. 

Edited September 11, 2024 by Julius

[Jimbob]

I saw that price, and was literally WTF'ng.  I get it, things are more expensive.  But this console generation alone is one that a standard PS5 is selling for more than it was at launch.  A DualSense is now £5-£10 more expensive, and still has the same fiddly parts.  PS+ is more expensive, games are now £70.

And here we are with a PS5 Pro with 45% more power with an asking price of (depending where you look) up to 50% higher than a PS5 itself.  And that's before you add in the stand (why is it not included as it was prior) and a disk drive (add another £80-£100).

If this is the future of gaming, jeez.  People laughed at me for being a Nintendo-only gamer when i was younger, and i think i might be going that way again.

[Nicktendo]

You could probably build a PC of a similar power level for around £1200-1500 (especially if you go with a 6800XT. Nvidia cards would put you in the higher bracket) if you choose your parts carefully. While that is considerably more than a PS5 pro, the value you can get out of such a product is considerably more when factoring in productivity / entertainment applications. Yes, you might need to buy a monitor, but consoles don't come with a TV and there's nothing stopping you connecting a new PC to a TV as a pure gaming device. Xbox Series controllers are not that expensive if you shop around. 

If a game is struggling to perform on a PS5 or PS5 Pro, you're basically out of luck waiting for a patch, if one comes at all. At least on PC you have options to downgrade the graphics or pull back on the resolution if 60fps is what you're after. Far more flexibility to tune your experience to your own tastes. 

Then you have to factor in PS Plus. That's going to set you back X amount a year for the 4-5 years of the console's life, so you can stick that onto the overall price of buying in to the Sony ecosystem. Online is completely free on PC. 

Finally, you're going to be paying more for games on a console. While discounts can definitely be had on PSN and other manufacturers' stores, they're almost never as deep as on Steam or Epic. That's without factoring in key resellers, where brand new games can often be had for ~£40 on launch, not the £60-70 you'll be paying on PlayStation. 

Really, over the lifespan of a console, a PC is a more front-loaded investment, but I would argue it works out cheaper in the long run up against a PS5 Pro. Also, when a console is done, you have to pay full price to go to the next step and your old box can be sold off at a low price, or sit around gathering dust. A PC can be incrementally updated as it starts to struggle with the newest releases, and there are no worries about back compat. While a new GPU can be pricey, you will never be laying out anywhere near your original investment to see significant gains from newer parts. 

A PC will always struggle to compete against a smartly-designed, solid, and well-priced console. There is a lot to be said about a manufacturer having a unified vision when it comes to parts / performance. But I think this is only true when they're working at the lower end of the price spectrum. It makes sense to be involved in an ecosystem which has a relatively low barrier to entry in terms of price. £300, £400, maybe £500 - it is undeniably good value in the long run if you're going to get software that makes the most of the machine. Nintendo have done a great job with Switch in understanding this philosophy. They make software for the hardware they have. 

The problem with both MS and Sony is that they (to some extent) but especially 3rd party devs are increasingly becoming restricted by their own hardware, and wanting to do more than they can work with, which is why the PS5 Pro has been greenlit a £700. It just doesn't make sense logically or financially stacked up against a PC. 

Astro Bot has clearly proved that the PS5 is an incredibly capable machine. It looks amazing, it runs at a buttery smooth 60fps, it is throwing physicals calculations around like Einstein on steroids. Hardware is only as good as the people working on it, and unfortunately, a lot of developers in 2024 are not doing that. A hugely powerful and expensive PC is a way of brute forcing a developer's vision into reality, and the PS5 Pro seems like it is trying to emulate that approach, but I predict that it will be categorically unsuccessful at doing that at £700. 

[drahkon]

Chiming in for a sec:

One of Housemarque's best. Started playing it 7 years ago and now it's done!

You can go back to trash talking Sony and the PS5 Pro now.

[Will]

On the PC side of things its not about it being directly comparable in one go as @Nicktendo has said. It’s that the price and overall lifetime cost is pushing things into a bracket where a PC becomes a viable alternative. If I want cutting edge PlayStation gaming I’m paying 300(?) quid for the original PS5 then 600 a few years later for the Pro, paying a lot more for games and then having to start again when the next generation rolls around. If I go to PC I’m paying a bit more per upgrade but they probably last me longer and don’t lock me out at any point.

It will certainly be a far bigger consideration for me in the future than it ever has been in the past.

[Julius]

Just watching DF's reactions to this, and it's left me wondering: with the PS5 Pro releasing only one SKU which requires the disc drive as an additional purchase to be able to play physical games, is this the earliest hint of the route the PS6 might be taking at launch – just the one SKU which is a digital console, with an optional, separately sold £100+ disc drive? 

Following on from that, it seems too early to me for PS6 to be the final push into an absolutely all-digital future, but with how quickly and aggressively PlayStation have transitioned throughout the course of this generation, going from the Digital Edition PS5 being the cheaper alternative to the digital version of the console being the only SKU for the PS5 Pro – will the PS6 be the last PlayStation to be able to play physical discs, I wonder? 

[Hero-of-Time]

I wouldn't be surprised if the PS6 is digital only, especially if its another 4 years away.

More and more publishers are only releasing digital only or having small physical print runs. Sadly, the digital game sales numbers don't lie. Physical games are a dying thing.

While the cost of digital AAA games on day 1 are stupidly high, they seem to drop quicker now on digital stores than they do on physical. Discounts are usually a lot deeper as well. 

[Ike]

1 hour ago, Julius said:

Just watching DF's reactions to this, and it's left me wondering: with the PS5 Pro releasing only one SKU which requires the disc drive as an additional purchase to be able to play physical games, is this the earliest hint of the route the PS6 might be taking at launch – just the one SKU which is a digital console, with an optional, separately sold £100+ disc drive? 

Following on from that, it seems too early to me for PS6 to be the final push into an absolutely all-digital future, but with how quickly and aggressively PlayStation have transitioned throughout the course of this generation, going from the Digital Edition PS5 being the cheaper alternative to the digital version of the console being the only SKU for the PS5 Pro – will the PS6 be the last PlayStation to be able to play physical discs, I wonder? 

Probably hoping people won't stretch to buy the drive and become conditioned to being all digital. Curious to what the attachment rate is for the Slim model.

[killthenet]

The real question is, how much will the PS6 cost at launch? They took the PS4 Pro off the market before the PS5 came out and I expect they'll do the same here so they will be able to offer the PS6 at a cheaper price it they can but does this £700 RRP set a new precedent? Could they charge even more for the next console?

[drahkon]

Been thinking about what to play while waiting for The Plucky Squire and I decided to install Dicey Dungeons again.

Trying to get the most difficult character out of the way: The Witch.
Some of the episodes are tooouuuugh.
Also doesn't help that sometimes I seem to be incapable of doing simple math. 4+3 does not equal 8, drahkon. IT DOES NOT!

[Hero-of-Time]

17 minutes ago, drahkon said:

Been thinking about what to play while waiting for The Plucky Squire and I decided to install Dicey Dungeons again.

Trying to get the most difficult character out of the way: The Witch.
Some of the episodes are tooouuuugh.
Also doesn't help that sometimes I seem to be incapable of doing simple math. 4+3 does not equal 8, drahkon. IT DOES NOT!

You've platinumed Returnal, Resogun and Nex Machina...time for Matterfall. 😛

[drahkon]

1 minute ago, Hero-of-Time said:

You've platinumed Returnal, Resogun and Nex Machina...time for Matterfall. 😛

I really disliked Matterfall. I will most likely never go back to it.

[drahkon]

Oh and by the way: I don't have Returnal's Platinum

[Eddage]

1 hour ago, killthenet said:

The real question is, how much will the PS6 cost at launch? They took the PS4 Pro off the market before the PS5 came out and I expect they'll do the same here so they will be able to offer the PS6 at a cheaper price it they can but does this £700 RRP set a new precedent? Could they charge even more for the next console?

I think The Digital Foundry reaction touched on this nicely... Usually consoles are sold at a loss and the money is made on software sales, the Pro doesn't look like it's doing this though and they're looking to make a profit purely on the console itself. I guess that kind of makes sense when you consider that it's likely going to be people upgrading from the original PS5 so it's not really going to drive any new software sales like a new generation would, price still sucks though.

I would like to think that for the PS6 it'll be the more traditional approach of selling at a loss so in theory could be cheaper, I don't think they'd be able to get away with it for a brand new generation when there's eventually going to PS6 only games. God knows what the market is going to look like in another 4 years or so though. 🤷‍♂️

[killthenet]

I hadn't considered that @Eddage, it doesn't make sense selling at a loss if they know its going to be a low volume product so they might as well charge a bit more out of the gate. Even though they will have more reason to sell the PS6 at a loss at launch I still think it's likely to be very expensive out of the gate, with the leap in technology that there will have to be going into the next generation I think the manufacturing cost is going to be hard to keep down so they will probably have to sell it at a significant loss to even get close to the PS5 launch price

[Hero-of-Time]

8 hours ago, drahkon said:

Oh and by the way: I don't have Returnal's Platinum

I don't even know who you are anymore, man. 

Thought you loved Returnal?

[drahkon]

3 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

I don't even know who you are anymore, man. 

Thought you loved Returnal?

Absolutely, but there was some serious RNG involved with a few collectibles (and maybe even a few glitches) which I did not want to bother with.

[Hero-of-Time]

2 minutes ago, drahkon said:

Absolutely, but there was some serious RNG involved with a few collectibles (and maybe even a few glitches) which I did not want to bother with.

Yeah, the RNG is pretty bonkers. I think they made it a little easier with various patches.