PS.. is it 5? I think we're on 5 now. PS5

yeah the boxes are already sold at a pretty low margin (negative in some cases? xbox was for a while) so they can't drop the price willy nilly like they can with games which are basically free to produce

err free to produce copies once the game exists i mean, of course

the only way you usually get “deals” on a console is in a bundle where the other crap is discounted

you're lucky in 2022 just to be able to buy the console by itself without gift cards/PSN memberships/headphones/old sports games/what-have-you packed in

Couple of articles recently came out comparing sales of the PS5 to sales of the PS4 over the same launch-to-16-month timespan, and PS5 is lagging by about 1.8 million sales. I assume that's largely due to scarcity, combined with people (like me) still getting a lot of satisfaction from the last gen.

the latter happens every generation though so thats not a factor. its just scarcity + generally console sales have trended down a bit over time due to various factors (smartphones, way more competition for entertainment time from streaming)

I paid $50 more on MSRP on mine, second hand, last week. Still feel a bit dirty but I'm also sort of obsessive and know that I would have spent more than $50 in mental energy and stress from constantly searching and refreshing webpages for stock. I haven't yet learnt how to compartmentalise the part of my brain that decides it wants a thing.

oh well! I'm having fun now and that's all that matters

https://www.theverge.com/2022/3/29/23001164/sony-playstation-plus-subscriptions-price-release-date

Sony is announcing new versions of its PlayStation Plus subscriptions today, its long-rumored answer to Xbox Game Pass. PlayStation Plus is now a combination of Sony’s two current subscription services, PlayStation Plus and PlayStation Now. Two new PlayStation Plus subscription options will include access to multiplayer gaming alongside a catalog of select PlayStation games to install or stream.

These new tiers will start to become available in June in Asia, followed by North America, Europe, and the rest of the world. As part of the launch, PlayStation Now will no longer be available as a standalone service.

...

At launch, Sony plans to include games like Death Stranding, God of War, Marvel’s Spider-Man, Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Mortal Kombat 11, and Returnal. Sony isn’t making its upcoming exclusive PlayStation games available on launch day through this subscription service though, making it less of an Xbox Game Pass competitor.

PlayStation Plus Essential — includes multiplayer access, two monthly downloadable games, discounts, and cloud storage for game saves. Priced at $9.99 per month or $59.99 a year.

PlayStation Plus Extra — includes everything in Plus Essential and access to a catalog of up to 400 PS4 or PS5 games. Priced at $14.99 per month or $99.99 a year.

PlayStation Plus Premium — includes all benefits from Essential and Extra, with an extra 340 games that include PS3 titles that can be streamed and some original PlayStation, PS2, and PSP games. Time-limited game trials also available. Priced at $17.99 per month or $119.99 a year.

need lists of these games imo

Seems like it was priced so that if you were already a Plus and Now subscriber, that's $120 a year which now = the top tier. Considering existing Plus is roughly $40-45 year on discount, there's going to have been a steep sale on codes to make me join the higher tiers.
And yes, we definitely need a list of games.

Kinda was hoping that there would be a cheaper-than-current-plans option for just online multiplayer, oh well.

yeah the only reason i have it right now is so my 10-yo can play minecraft w his friends

I'm beginning to think my PS5 is defective. It was fine for the first several days, but lately it's become prone to starting up to a white static screen with lots of digital noise, or sometimes a game or the home screen stutters to black or the same white static. There's a chance it's just the HDMI cord, or something wrong/uncooperative with the settings, but to be on the safe side I'll likely just send it off to Sony to be repaired/replaced.

why don’t you try a different cable?

yeah, that was my first line of defense. I tried it with a better HDMI cable and it seemed to work, or at least the problem didn't manifest itself, but there's no way to know if it's working *now* or working permanently. I'll give it a few days.

did it not come with a hdmi cable? mine came with one, albeit short

It did come with one, but it was too short. So I at first just swapped out my PS4 for the PS5, using the same cable, and when that didn't work well I swapped the PS cable with the Switch cable, which also didn't consistently work that well. I bought a "premium" higher capacity HDMI cable for something like $8, one that would reach, so now it's just a matter of seeing if the problem persists. I also changed the resolution from automatic to 1080p (which a few places recommended), and maybe one of the other settings, too. If nothing goes wrong with the new cable I'll change the settings back and see if anything happens then. The PS5 definitely boots in safe mode, so that's a good thing. I assume if it's not the cable it's some sort of handshake headache with the TV, though who knows.

I’ve had to swap out almost all of my hdmi cables in the last couple years as I bought 4k junk, and then had to get yet another when I added a 4k hdr 120Hz device, so…. cable seems likely

Played a bunch of Spider-man today, and so far, so good. No issues, so hopefully it was just the cable.

I'm playing the remastered version for PS5, and so far the graphics and gameplay are only subtly better, but that says more about how good the game looked and played on PS4. The biggest difference is the load times, which are minimal, compared to several seconds on the PS4. Which again wasn't really that bad, but it just makes the game that much zippier.

I finished the Miles Morales one. Ended up flipping to the performance mode almost instantly. It's definitely a first generation PS5 game in that it's just a little bit better than the PS4. It's Spider-Man, you gotta go fast!

Yeah, the new "premium" HDMI cable seems to have done the trick. It's definitely a relief that the most likely problem was also the easiest and cheapest to solve, because if it was an issue with the PS5 or TV it might have been a lot harder to figure out, let alone fix.

Not too many must-have PS5 exclusives yet, but I noticed that Ratchet & Clank and Demon's Souls are both down to $40 already, so that's good. I wonder if they'll drop any lower around Black Friday?

The global economic environment is a challenge that many of you around the world are no doubt experiencing. We’re seeing high global inflation rates, as well as adverse currency trends, impacting consumers and creating pressure on many industries. Based on these challenging economic conditions, SIE has made the difficult decision to increase the recommended retail price (RRP) of PlayStation 5 in select markets across Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA), Asia-Pacific (APAC), Latin America (LATAM), as well as Canada. There will be no price increase in the United States.

While this price increase is a necessity given the current global economic environment and its impact on SIE’s business, our top priority continues to be improving the PS5 supply situation so that as many players as possible can experience everything that PS5 offers and what’s still to come.

Thank you for your continued support.

has a company ever increased the price of a system post launch? feels unique.

I’m not sure about prices outside of the US, but here’s an interesting bit from a while back about the Switch:

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2022/08/will-the-nintendo-switch-ever-see-a-price-drop/

I don't remember any kind of price increase for a console before, but considering inflation and supply chain issues, we are in pretty unique times, at least in the time since gaming consoles are a thing. I wouldn't be surprised if other companies do the same thing.

Anyway, I'm glad that I managed to get a ps5 in June

Reading comments, a lot of people think this is related mostly to currency devaluation, esp. relative to the dollar, which is why the US didn't see a price hike (yet).

love the way Sony keep giving me excuses to not buy their console
where is PS5 slim at

i'll buy one in jan 2026 to align with when i bought my ps4

by then it might even have games

Honestly, I'd be happy if developers just spent the next two years optimizing all the PS4 games I haven't played yet for PS5. Then when they're done they can get to work on some sweet exclusives. Like a remade Bloodborne or a fourth version of The Last of Us.

Just finished "Spider-man Remastered," and given it's not easily purchased but shows off the faster loading screens and subtly improved graphics of the PS5 it really should have come packaged with the system, imo.

Just began the PS5 optimized version of "Control," which I'd been holding off on starting due to tales of performance issues on last gen systems. So far plays really well on the PS5, which affirms my suspicion that the PS5 (so far) really operates as more of a PS4 Pro 2. Which is fine with me, since I never got the Pro, but I look forward to more games designed specifically for the PS5 that can do stuff that only the PS5 can do, and not just more or less the PS4 with slightly faster load times and ray tracing.

but does it have Spider-man in it?

"Control"? Not yet, but I have high hopes!

It's pretty creepy, so I wouldn't be shocked if at some point it had spiders, man.

"Control" on the PS5 is actually pretty neat, and per one of my previous posts seems like the sort of thing that would have struggled on slower systems. Just all the physics and particles and explosive desk parts flying around, it all seems like the perfect game for a faster processor (or PC, lol, but that's always the case).

A friend managed to grab a PS5 as they went on sale on the official site at 4.30pm UK time. By the time I got round to it, standalone disc consoles were sold out. P frustrating

"State of Play" today, iirc. I expect "God of War" footage but there are a bunch of other exciting things that could further be teased.

What a weird presentation.

I got my Ps5 today but I'm tearing my hair out trying to get my saved game data from my PS4 to my PS5.

I've looked up all the different methods, connected the two consoles via ethernet cable etc.

It says to follow instructions and when prompted, hold down the standby button on the PS4 for one second until it beeps, but nothing happens - there is no beep. The PS4 is supposed to reset but nothing happens and the prompt times out.

The other option is to do it via USB. I have the extended storage I used on my PS4 and it seems to have all my games show up fine. But when I go into settings and try to copy saved data from the USB drive it says it's not connected.

I'm baffled. My friend who got her PS5 today said it all got sorted out during initial set up and she can access her saved games fine. I'm sure I did everything correctly in set up, so I'm not sure why I'm having this problem.

Anyone here know about these things?

unfortunately no. I transferred everything on my ps4 to an external drive then connected it to the ps5 and that did the trick.

i don't think you can put both game installs and related save data on the same external drive. i guess your saved data is only on your ps4's internal drive, that's why connecting the USB drive doesn't transfer it

if you have another usb drive lying around, use that to backup your ps4 saves then plug it into the ps5. i believe that for save backups, any FAT32 or exFAT formatted drive will do, even if you have other files in there

alternatively, if you have a ps+ sub, perhaps you could work around this by uploading all of your saves to their servers, then downloading back to your ps5.
i can't guarantee this would work because for me everything went smoothly when transferring via ethernet cable

Huh. I followed the same PS setup instructions and transferred over ethernet cable, and it went pretty smoothly. To transfer the save data for at least some games did involve a few extra steps, following the instructions to do it with a USB drive, but ultimately went pretty smoothly, too. Maybe follow a youtube video? I think I ended up doing that, and the visual information helped a lot.

The sneaky thing is that the PS5 can play PS4 games off an external drive, but PS5 games have to be on the system itself (I think), which confuses the save communication.

I managed to somehow fudge it for Elden Ring at least. It took a lot of effing and jeffing. I tried several methods. Most of the PS4 games are now loading saved data just fine and the few PS5 upgrade games I have don't really matter about saved data so much

It is a bit frustrating about the whole PS5 games not being savable on the external drive. I've only got a handful of games on the console and already it's pretty full up.

I was surprised to find it's a little bit noisy too. Nothing deafening, but definitely a noticeable whirr or hum, as it's horizontal on a TV stand shelf.

I wasn't too keen on the haptic feedback at first either but I guess I'm getting used to it. The little Astro game you get free with it is supposed to demonstrate it a bit. However I felt very aware of that I was holding a thing with gyros and wheels inside and rather than making it more immersive, it took me out of it a bit. Still, getting used to it as I say.

Looking forward to playing something new on this thing that really demonstrates its potential. Elden Ring looks seriously fantastic on here compared to the PS4

you definitely have to cycle in ps5 games or just be willing to play things as PS4.

Have you played the Demons Souls remake?

That one and the newest Ratchet and Clank are apparently the best showcases for what the PS5 can do, which makes me excited for more PS5 exclusives. Also, excited for seasonal sale prices to finally convince me to buy them.

the subscription service is frankly greatly diseensentivizing me buying new games which i like

there's enough i want to play on the PS+ list to keep my going for months without needing to buy anything at the moment, and not likely to be much coming out that i feel compelled to play full price for at the moment

I picked up Returnal and Demon Souls second hand. Still waiting on DS to be delivered but wow, Returnal is really something!