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

i cannot state strongly enough how much the new controller looks like it’s wearing a little black dress and it’s freaking me out

phew i’m glad i now say that twice itt

next generation baby

i agree that the new controller is wearing a dress and the analog sticks are its honkers

the internet agrees
https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2020-04-09-of-course-people-are-drawing-the-ps5-controller-as-an-anime-girl

the controller is also wearing pauldrons

Sources tell Bloomberg that this year, Sony will be producing a lower number of PlayStation 5 consoles. The cause, reportedly, isn’t due to the novel coronavirus covid-19 pandemic, but rather, the hardware’s high price at launch.

The console’s technical specs are expected to be reflected in the pricing, Bloomberg added, and there has been speculation that the PS5 will be priced between $499 and $549. Certain components are scarce and expensive, which could cut into the company’s profits on each machine.

Kotaku reached out to Sony but did not receive a reply prior to publication.

Production might be impacted by the pandemic. Sony employees are working from home, and Sony might ditch in-person press events for the console. Earlier this year, the company held a virtual briefing to announce the console’s specs.

The PS5’s assembly is expected to begin in June. While Sony has revealed the console’s controller, only a small handful of insiders have apparently seen what the actual console looks like, for fear of leaks.

Sony was quoted as telling its partners that it will make 5 to 6 million PS5s during the financial year ending on March 31, 2021. In comparison, Sony sold 7.5 million PS3s during that console’s first two quarters. The goal is still for a simultaneous worldwide launch, but the pandemic is impacting game production across the industry, which could impact the debut titles.

At launch, the PlayStation 3 was hard to get, so expect the PlayStation 5 to be even more so.

is anyone here thinking of trying to be an early adopter?

I am going to buy this console. i missed out on the ps4/xbox one generation

when is there a game worth playing for it is the question

i haven't been an early adopter since i somehow managed to convince my dad to buy me a psx right when it came out (crazy knowing that it was like $600+ with memory card + a game, even back then!)

i know it's a bad idea, but honestly if there's some sort of must have launch title (super mario 64 or BOTW-esque) i can see myself doing it

xp

ulysses otm

has playstation ever had a must-have launch title? like one that's a top-ten recommendation for the console, even at the end of the lifecycle?

i don't see a reason to early adopt if you have a 4

the launch titles will be the last of us 2 with better loading times and ghost of tsushima with better loading times

and knack 3

I was kinda tempted to early adopt on both this gen... but who knows. There probably won't be a great system exclusive for at least a year or two anyway

yeah i don't really see anything in the pipe or rumored pipe i care about that isn't going to get a ps4 version, would have to be some left field surprise

plus - with these supply constraints I'm betting they'll rush out the first hardware revision even sooner than usual

and if these launch at $500... hmm.. i dunno

what's the point? wait a couple years and see if sony actually continues to deliver decent exclusives. current gen console quality has never been an indicator of next gen console quality. i've come to expect the inverse lately.

i mean, wow?
https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/blog/a-first-look-at-unreal-engine-5

Knack 3 will be phenomenal

wow!

i got bored after 10 minutes but it does look nice

UE4 demo for comparison

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dD9CPqSKjTU

I don't have a PS4 but I guess it took a bit for PS4 games to get as good as the demo?

never believe the demo is a good rule of thumb, but that UE4 looks worse than god of war honestly.

never believe the demo is a good rule of thumb, but that UE4 looks worse than god of war honestly.

I can't tell if this is a put-down or not (honestly!). Because I just (barely) started God of War a couple of weeks ago, and not only thought it looked great, but thought that PS5 Unreal 5 demo was maybe technically better quality, down to the little programmer details, but not to my maybe weak eyes radically better, good as it looked.

i got bored after 10 minutes but it does look nice

Um, isn't the video 9 minutes long? No wonder you got bored.

the demo should be reasonably representative for what constrained area/camera games like god of war or whatever will look like, open world games have more technical hurdles obviously

Looks fantastic

https://kotaku.com/playstation-5-game-showcase-happening-next-thursday-1843754372

https://blog.playstation.com/2020/06/08/updated-time-this-thursday-see-the-future-of-gaming-on-ps5/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

will be watching.

give us a fuckin price sony

Not buying until gta6 comes out

well duh

(been my rule for the past two ps machines)

I have a PS4 Slim and I've been very happy with it, so much so that I'm not sure what a PS5 would give me that I don't already have or want in a machine. Besides exclusives, I guess, but that stuff is totally under wraps, given that hyped heavy hitters Last of Us 2, Cyberpunk 2077 and Ghost of Tsushima are coming out for PS4.

there is no point in buying a new console until there are games worth playing on it, idk why people even humor the thought of buying near launch

clout

fanboys + people who didnt have the previous box

I have Gamespot gift cards and GS is near death and my PS4 optical drive is dead. First time I’ll be buying a new system ASAP.

GTA though? Man, that’s been downhill from 4 on.

It would be be Spider-Man 2 for me. But I don't know, something about the general anxiety of this year might lead to just get this and maybe the MS one too

So just caught the Demon's Souls remake, what else have I missed/

HZD sequel so you better play the first one sooner than later!

Eh, I've got a couple of years before I even consider PS5.

FUGLY

better have good cooling because that's going in a drawer

that is seriously rank

looks like a router

We didn't get a price, right?

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn%3AANd9GcSRLTTP_t9wdIH4DSZkdDTRhcsTe32JKmHqg7pVKQ1gMu4CCOYr&usqp=CAU

Oh I didn’t realise Naughty Dog was owned by Sony.. okay

Well, as you say it’s only big sequels that we won’t get from them which is like.. fine tbh no?

And there will be plenty of other stuff from other devs i.e. Death Stranding 2 off the top of my head

gotta wonder how sustainable the current AAA model is, each studio making one game per console gen. working 6+ plus years on a game seems like such a big gamble - what if you start making a game in a current hot genre and 7 years later no one cares for that kind of game.

xxpost That's what I said, lack of first party titles. There will always be third party stuff coming along, but as far as specifics go, for example, this means something like "Wolverine," announced by Insomniac back in Sept. 2021, won't be out until at least fall of 2025. Again, most of their in-house studios have been surprisingly quiet. There's a suspicion that Sony wanted to pivot to more live-service stuff, but the possible change of heart (as seen by them apparently pulling the plug on their Last of Us multiplayer) has maybe imposed a reset.

The average lifespan of a system is 7 years, right? A relatively quiet year 4 and 5 seems curious, at least as far as first party goes. Esp. taken in tandem with rumors of Microsoft's big pivot away from exclusives.

Wasn't Death Stranding published by Sony? I think its sequel counts as an existing exclusive in-house franchise title, too.

It's getting to the point that I've seen some people already discussing what potential games could anchor a PS6 (!).

Regardless, I don't think Death Stranding 2 was due anytime before Nov. 2025. I saw someone put together this grab-bag of tea-leaf reading and news:

Bend:

• ⁠Bend was pitching Days Gone 2, and several other projects, but Sony haven't accepted. • ⁠Bend pitched Uncharted 1 Remake, which they started, but deemed too much work, so they pitched Last of Us 1 Remake. • ⁠They were working from 2019-2021 on those pitches and Remakes, when ND took over Part 1, because they also were short of work. • ⁠Bend new IP pitch was accepted in 2021, and allegedly, they are still working on it, and their target is 2026.

ND:

• ⁠ND made the decision to cut the multiplayer from Part II, to release it before the PS5 arrives in 2020. It was all hands on deck situation, just to release the game. • ⁠The Lost Legacy core team was moved to create a new IP, and they started preproduction. • ⁠The Last of Us Part II team started to work on Factions, but they had to delay it, after Bungie's assessment of the project wasn't good. • ⁠In the meantime The Last of Us team worked on Part 1's remake, and Part 2's remaster. • ⁠Early 2023 the gaas TLOU game was cancelled. • ⁠Now it's full production on the new IP, since early 2023, which by ND standards should target mid-2026, while Neil Druckmann started preproduction on The Last of Us Part III

SP:

• ⁠They took 6 years to create Ghost of Tsushima, and 1 more year to create the Iki Island DLC. • ⁠In 2021 they started working on the sequel, with a 6 year turnaround, expected in 2027.

SM:

• ⁠God of War was released in 2018 by Barlog. • ⁠Ragnarök was started immediately, and headed by Eric Williamson, they were targeting Late 2021, but Chris Judge's injury halted production, and the game was released in Late 2022, while they were also working on Valhalla DLC, and released it in 2023. • ⁠Cory Barlog started pre-production on his new IP, which switched to full production around Late 2023, and expected to be completed in 3-4 years, around 2026-2027.

Guerilla:

• ⁠Horizon 2017, Horizon 2 2022, Horizon 3 2027 (and also a Horizon MH clone in 2025-2026)

Insomniac:

• ⁠This completely leaked, 2025 Venom, 2026 Wolverine, 2028 Spider-man 3

Kojima:

• ⁠Death Stranding 2 is expected around 2025 November.

To clear up:

2024: -

2025: Death Stranding 2; Venom

2026: Naughty Dog New IP, Bend New IP, Wolverine

2027: Cory's/SMS New IP, Ghost of Tsushima 2, Horizon 3

2028: Spider-man 3”

Seems like the PS5’s life cycle will end on a huge high

I hope they can put the good writers on Spider-Man 3, 2 was a complete mess

Weighting first-party (or arguably, second-party) titles higher than other games is kind of a weird regression and side effect of the market becoming vertically consolidated. They always existed, but exclusives were the thing for years.

imo Sony slapping a GREATEST HITS label on anything that sold a lot that they felt was worthy of marketing at a discount was probably their key move

Tea leaf readers think that PS5 sales have doubled up on XB, so Sony probably isn't feeling the urgency to shipping big first-party titles right now: https://kotaku.com/ps5-outselling-xbox-50-million-data-sony-microsoft-1851243811

and Microsoft (meaning "the myriad of studios we were somehow allowed to buy") will be releasing a number of titles on PS5, according to the scuttlebutt

It's a discussion I've seen re: Xbox lately: if Xbox indeed stops offering exclusives, then why should someone buy an Xbox? The same goes for Sony, and would go for Nintendo, too (and even more so, as keeping a tight grip on title exclusivity is more or less the sole reason Nintendo exists).

I think first party exclusives allows Sony to keep quality levels pretty high. Those aforementioned in-house studios, they make some pretty good stuff! I think the issue is that as games get bigger and more expensive and more ambitious, they take longer and longer to produce. If your company *is* built largely on a foundation of exclusives, and those exclusives take years to come to fruition, that's got to be a real financial strain.

For example, I heard a podcast note that the first six GTA titles arrived in the span of about 10 years. GTA V took five. But GTA6, assuming it comes out next year, will have been about a 12 year wait. Granted, a guaranteed blockbuster like GTA6 will lift all (non-Nintendo) ships, but I think Sony would prefer a more regular stream of revenue in between huge tentpoles. That's probably why they are so focused on games as a service or subscriptions, they want the steady income that the specific titles maybe aren't bringing in.

Someone in the industry can correct me, but:

Hardware is a volatile, supply chain-limited market and nobody wants to develop anything particularly custom these days. The PS3 was the last console that had really proprietary things going on, and Sony took a huge loss until they made it easier to develop for. And some of the games that were written direct to the proprietary nature of the console (looking at you, Metal Gear Solid 4) have never been released on other platforms

It was a lot easier to negotiate exclusives when hardware was so different because companies could weigh a sweetheart deal versus the effort of porting a game to a different platform. There are still headaches, but it's almost purely a contract play now.

I don't think Xbox is going to stop having exclusives. It's just a complete mess that Microsoft was allowed to grab so many game companies.

Look Josh all those side missions where you have to, like, collect the shopkeeper's 8 lost dildoes all over the city - they take time to craft and hone

What I took away from that March '25 date was: Spider-Man 2.5/Venom/Miles 2 will be out in April '25

Yeah who knows? You'd think if that were true they'd at least be hinting at it, given that that's just a hair over a year away.

In the meantime, so much other intriguing stuff. I don't play online, but if I did, Helldivers 2 looks like a hilarious blast (literally). And Remedy confirmed/announced that they are ramping up Control 2 and remakes of Max Payne, so maybe they are on track for 2025, too. (Btw, it is insane to even type "2025," it looks like a typo.) And leaks reportedly confirmed Sea of Thieves, Hi-Fi Rush and Pentiment are on their way to PS5. Maybe there won't be any major Sony stuff, but there is plenty of goodness out there.

BREAKING: PlayStation is laying off around 900 people across the world, the latest cut in a brutal 2024 for the video game industry

— Jason Schreier (@jasonschreier) February 27, 2024

Lotta leaks about a proposed/planned PS5 Pro, which seems pretty silly. Apparently the specs look good, but so what? They still seem to be releasing games with an eye on PS4, and the PS5 exclusives are not only few and far between, but rarely even hit the benchmarks originally promised, like consistent 60fps or ray tracing. Me, personally, I don't care about ray tracing, and I can rarely tell the difference between frame rates, or at least it's not any more significantly more noticeable than the graphics differences between PS4 and PS5 games. The only incentive I can even conceive of to warrant an upgrade would be exclusives (plural) - games >>>> performance - and that seems highly unlikely in the short term (at least). So who is a Pro for, exactly, especially considering that Sony has been porting its exclusives over the PC?

a pro is for the hardcore fans who want the latest flashy console. the sort of people who have a subscription to Digital Foundry.
the ps4 pro seems to have sold roughly 20 million from a quick google, so the market is there.

I'm sure there is a market, just as there is for VR and that handheld thing Sony released. But both of those novelties answer the question "why," as they offer an exclusive function. But a PS5 Pro, I'm not sure it answers a "why" just yet, not least because the PS5 proper imo didn't quite justify itself, either (much as I like its slight tweaks over its predecessor).

there's not much of a market for the Sony VR by the sounds of it, there are reports that they've ceased production as the supply chain is choked with unsold stock. also they recently closed two studios who were working on VR games. next stop Vitaville!

Yeah, lol, sounds like no one really gives a shit. But in this case I meant a literal market. If someone wants VR, you need a VR set. If someone wants portable, you need a portable device. But from my perspective I'm not seeing what someone would want out of a PS5 Pro, given the PS5 itself ultimately didn't seem to fill a need. I suppose we'll see, or maybe not. I personally can barely discern stuff like ray tracing even when it's pointed out, and even the nerds at Digital Foundry could barely tell the difference between the upgrade PS4 version of Last of Us 2 and the native PS5 version. Maybe we'll have to wait for the PS6 edition Last of Us 2 Remastered-Remaster 2.

This is what pretty much every console upgrade will be from now on, imo, even the PS6. Most games do not require the advanced specs of even the base PS5. It's like an iPhone upgrade at this point.

I think that's probably right. A lot of current chatter is wondering whether the PS6 specs will enable 60fps for GTAVI (for those that care), but given the PS5 underdelivered on those sorts of promises I can't imagine full faith in similar promises going forward. (Hell, given Rockstars's track record, GTAVI will probably be locked at 30fps, lol.)

There is still the occasional game where playing the PS4 version on PS5 reportedly works *better* than the native PS5 version; that's supposedly the case with Elden Ring, right? Other than that the biggest difference I see between PS4 and PS5 games is loading times and, I dunno, the amount of foliage or whatever. For that matter, some of the best looking games on the PS5 are essentially from the PS4 era, like TLOU2 (four years old) or Horizon Forbidden West (two years old). I'm not sure how much the latest Spidermans or God of War improve on their PS4 predecessors, either, not least because there was nothing wrong with the PS4 versions.

Anyway, I'd prefer Sony spends its money on games rather than systems. I'd hate for them to set in motion some sort of fait accompli, where an underselling system convinces them to shift focus from consoles to PCs.

Games definitely don't have to be visually state of the art or whatever but I find it pleasant to play newer games on newer hardware and I think that's one of the motivating factors for a reasonable subset of game developers and players

Given that they don't sell PCs, I don't see that happening. The Playstation division is profitable, but it exists largely to help sell their home entertainment hardware. I think they'd offload or dissolve the Playstation unit before they'd shift to PC game development as their primary focus.

I dunno, it all seems kind of precarious right now. Isn't Xbox/Microsoft kind of a shambles? And there have been so many game industry layoffs. The focus (and failure?) of games as a live service smells of cash flow desperation. Or maybe just greed, who knows.

every industry that creates entertainment is in shambles! the movie studios are going nuts cutting back their schedules and wondering why they aren’t making a ton of money. probably because people can’t attend movies that aren’t released or not even filmed!

video games had some weird times with the pandemic both driving more gaming and diminishing the supply chain and no one’s figured out a balance

There are enough games. I don't understand the problem. Everybody has a huge backlog of unplayed amazing games. Everybody could just stop releasing games for like 2 years, give everyone a chance to catch up, work on really good stuff. Same for movies and books. Enough! I'm looking at the Forgotten Novels thread and it's like, there's no way to enjoy everything that already exists anyway. Don't stop forever, just stop for like... a little bit. Breathe. It's fine!

Most people just play Fortnite anyway

Yes!

I'd be fine with everybody putting a pause on releasing anything.

Well, GRR Martin should definitely finish up GoT before he croaks at least.

Though if he dedicates himself to developing the lore for all future From Soft games I'd be cool with that.

"developing"

If gta 6 is locked at 30 fps I will cry

lol that’d be good for us but everything is a huge engine of market-facing stock, unfortunately. I guess Sony could go all-in on library and indie game stuff for a year but they’d still have to be pumping money into things behind the scenes or we get nothing in the next few years. these things don’t immaculately spring from the forehead of PS5

also I am heading calstars’ copy is locked at 24fps for the cinema

That’s what I mean, just keep workin away at idk Gran Turismo 18 or whatever and give us a couple of years to 100% Disco Elysium

I like this line of thinking Tracer, long as I get Persona 6 in the next couple of years

Well, we've already discussed Sony announcing a long wait for new first party releases, I wonder if this means they are hoping their completion coincides with the release of the Pro.

but yeah, too many games, lol. I'm trying to stay disciplined with the stuff on my wishlist. The new Prince of Persia, Lords of the Fallen, Lies of P, Last of Us Part 1 Remake, et al. ... $20 or bust!

thank you for supporting the games economy

https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/002/182/171/eb0.jpg

I think the only (non-Nintendo) game - new, used, physical or digital - I have ever paid full price for was "Elden Ring". It's a good question, though: if all games were $50-$70 and *stayed* $50-$70, how many games would I ever actually buy? A lot fewer, that's for sure. It'd honestly probably be an incentive to pay for PS+ or whatever.

aren't you buying three or four for every one you play, though?

For sure, that's the collector in me. But those three or four are usually $12 or less, new or used, which helps justify impulse purchases (if waiting for prices to fall that low can be considered impulsive, though many new or used PS4 games seem to be hovering around that price point anyway).

Money is finite, gaming is forever

I endorse your fiscal decisions Josh

(tips hat)

Maybe because reading one news article becomes a self-perpetuating algorithmic cycle of repetition, but I keep getting served stories about the PS5 Pro built around the premise: why?