For $700 they could at least throw in a 4k Blu-ray player.
Then again, I ponied up extra for the disc version of the original ps5 for that exact reason, only to find out the media player software is a giant piece of garbage that was clearly given no effort. So I can't say I'm too surprised.
I'm glad some companies are going full media and the younger Gen is buying physical media. It's creating a counter culture that smart companies are using to their advantage.
Thing is, that’s not how it works on PlayStation. On PS5 you can download and play games without ever connecting to wifi. The whole glorified installer is mostly an Xbox thing ever since the XB1. I’d know since I own both and usually get discs to play my games.
This in my opinion is one of the valid use cases of a blockchain/NFTs: they provide provable ownership of digital goods. This means that if implemented, in the future we could actually own games music movies ebooks etc. The only remaining step would be a decentralized torrent-like system that allows the users to download the licensed content that they own via their nft.
Newer games rarely have the entire game on the disc. Usually there's mandatory patches that must be downloaded to play it. I've seen games where there's only a few hundred MB on the disc while the whole game is maybe 15 or 20 GB.
This means you don't really own the game, since if Sony (or Microsoft or whoever) take down the downloads for the game, you won't actually be able to play it any more.
Essentially your choice is between a physical license key (the disc) plus a download of the game, or a digital license key plus a download of the game.
And now, the physical licence path is even less accessible.
The thing with the physical licence key is it's transferrable even if the actual data is stored elsewhere. It's a thin veneer, I mean, Sony could gate access to this data to the first account/machine that activated it. So even this advantage is taken away.
IDK. Between the price tag and lack of the disc drive IDK how many people are gonna buy this thing. It's probably just for people who HAVE to have the highest graphics, to keep them from getting a gaming PC until the PS6 is ready for them.
I'm not sure. If that is their strategy they're dancing on a razor. I mean, the market is pretty slim. Basically, you can get a pretty sweet gaming PC for the price they're offering. And if you project the amount of games you'll get and estimate the price differential with prices of the same games on a PC you might be able to uprate the specs a few times. I would say that a PS5 with a reasonable amount of games is probably worth a similar amount to a $1k PC.
What the EU actually needs to do is to spearhead and help find everyone a way to actually “own” digital things. I think I’d be fine with not having a disk drive if I could buy my game, not be reliant on servers to download it in the future, trade my games with friends, and choose to sell it when I felt like it.
We need to find a way to get back (most of) the benefits of physical media without actually having to go back to it.
"If a game needs a server and the official servers shut down, the protocols have to be released to the public". I think it would be a good starting point.
One big reason people still play on consoles to this day is because they own a physical copy of their games and can play on their consoles even offline.
Its becoming a trend where game companies are now making single player games require a internet connection just to play. I saw some games on Steam where single player games come with anti-cheat, like wtf.
People who buy consoles do it for the "press a button to game".
Not necessarily because they don't understand pc's, but because they don't want the faff.
true and if you really want that console experience install smth like bazzite,holoiso,nobara home cinema edition (non immutable),etc and dualboot windows for app compatibility you can use playnite on windows to make it look like a ps5
At $700 you could build a pretty decent PC that would last a lot longer (3060 12gb, Ryzen 5 5600, 16gb of DDR4), and build a steam library that you'll have 20 years from now. I've had the same monitor, keyboard and mouse for an easy 10; controllers don't last that long. They're reaching a point where there's less and less of an actual argument for owning one.
How do you know that Steam will be around in 20 years?
Use GOG instead, since the DRM-free game installers will outlive Steam :)
How do you know Windows will keep compatibility in 20 years? Valve money partially goes into Proton/WINE development and an evolution of that will absolutely be around in 20 years, just WINE was around 20 years ago already. CD Project doesn't put any GOG/Cyberpunk money into breaking the Windows monopoly. (Also plenty of titles on Steam come without DRM because DRM is optional.)
How many people actually download and store those installers though? I think GOG is awesome too but practically if you exclusively shop there you have the same problem unless you have a massive NAS on hand
It comes pretty close to feature parity in terms of ownership. My kids can play my steam library on their own computers, I can play it on any machine I own, I don't have to pay them any kind of rental fee, and they maintain my software for me.
Only thing I can't do is what...sell my games to someone else? I don't do that anyways.
Replace the 3060 with an equally-priced AMD card and you'll actually get something decent for your money. Nvidia is horrible at these "lower" price points.
I mean, if you like horrible driver stability; sure. There's a reason NVidia has like 75% of the market share, and it's simply because they have a better product. Drivers are more stable, everyone develops for CUDA processing, lots of games only support DLSS for frame-gen, all of the GPU accelerated AI stuff is all NVidia centered, etc.
I’ve had the same monitor, keyboard and mouse for an easy 10;
I guess it depends on frequency of use, but I've never had a mouse last ten years. I wear through the switch on the mouse button in less than that, starts to act unreliably.
Unfortunately, physical media for gaming died when always-online DRM was normalized. It doesn't matter if you have a game on a disc when you have to phone home every time to use it. The corporation may still block your access.
One more step in ensuring no one owns anything. Lease or rent are your options.
Reminder that you can put in whatever you want in a PC. And that you can get a decent gaming machine for 1k (700+PS plus).
CD Drive? No problem. DVD? Of course. Another SSD? Get some random 50$ thing and throw it in there. Floppy? Harvest some old PC and voila.
The real point is that you can upgrade it incrementally, you don't have to throw it away, and upgrading will allow you to play all your old games from generation to generation without having to rebuy them for the latest Gen.
Within limits though. E.g. If your mainboard only supports old CPUs that is a huge limiting factor and we saw MS messing with older CPUs just not being supported at all by Win 11.
Now i made the switch to Linux myself too and i am very happy, but for people who want to start somewhere, maybe starting with their own linux gaming PC is a bit much for the start.
Having a pull out cup holder seems insane to me, my personal rule is no drinks near my pc at all.
That said, I have a drawer in place of my cd drive that holds all my small peripherals (thumb drives, usb to sd card adapter, stuff like that) and it's great.
They are charging an absurd amount of money for a game console
They are selling a game console that has practically no first party games for it.
If they had plenty of the latter, they could weather this. But there are still games releasing for the PS4, and they have had 1, maybe 2 PS5 releases that would qualify as first party this year (that don't bubble down to PC).
Jesus christ, Nintendo is gonna win it all aren't they?
I understand if you don't have the CD they can remove your access to it arbritarily like when they lose the license but
Nobody ever complains about Steam and they have a similar policy of no physical media going back decades. I have hundreds of gamed accumulated on Steam and no game of mine has ever been removed.
I bought the cheaper Xbox last year to play Overcooked with my girlfriend and it has no physical media. I just download and play games no problem. I actually find it more convenient not to have any physical games.
So I guess the question is- what is the reason for the strong rejection of the digital version? It is the natural evolution of these things.
It's all good until they pull the content you thought you bought. I also prefer the convenience of downloaded games, but if it's a game I really like, I buy the physical version.
Valve has the reputation to back it up. Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo's reputations make all digital game libraries a guessing game for when they give up and shut it down.
All good points in the comments, but something I haven't seen a anyone talk about yet:
WHY is a DISK DRIVE $80??? All it does is read a disk. Any encryption on the disk would be decrypted on the console. External disk drives are like $20. If you specially brand them maybe you could go up to $40.
But $80? That's like a Gameboy Advance. That's a miyoo mini plus. That's an entire console in itself.
You're right! My point no longer stands. Removing the disk drive would then save about $100 from the console, which makes sense to remove if you're cutting costs and most players play digital anyways.
Blu-Ray never really took off as a mass-market format so the drives are relatively obscure and expensive without the benefits of manufacturing at scale.
799€ here, 920€ with a disc drive. That is stupidly insane for a console. We're almost breaking the 1000€ barrier for an "upgrade", not even the new generation.
I'd bet my money Sony is just testing the grounds to see if they can set PS6 price in a few years over the 1k barrier.
they weren't completely wrong now. on thier own financials, its mentioned that only 30% of game sales are physical. physical buyers are now the minority.
I'm one of those people. I just can't be arsed to get up off the couch and put a game in. After work and kids I'm beat and just want to pick something and start playing.
$700 is actually probably a fair price for a PS5. You can't really build an equivalent PC for less than that. $900 to $1,200 would probably be close to how much manufacturing the PS5 Pro costs.
But PSN subsidizes these costs, which is why these systems can be this "affordable".
I doubt it costs that much. You're looking at it from buying PC components perspective. But they are mass producing identical boards with components that are 4+ years old by now, except the GPU. The cost of production is probably around the same as it was for non-Pro when it was released.
900 to 1200’s an insane guess. This many years out R&D’s sure to have chilled out and companies that buy parts by the millions get them at much lower prices than individuals, plus partner companies that kit out their facilities to manufacture those parts recoup their investments in those facilities over time as well. I’m sure Sony’s still taking a few bucks hit on the sale of a console but it’s nowhere near close to double.
Sony has exactly one must play game you can’t play on a computer and I still own a ps4 for that one game, and believe me when emulation gets slightly better I will have a new Linux computer shaped suspiciously like a ps4
For me it's literally just EA Sports College Football 25. I'll be playing it for years (my brothers and dad have a family tradition of playing a college football dynasty mode together every year) so that makes a console worth it for me...probably not the PS5 Pro though.
What do you mean? If it does not have a drive, you can't give a disc to anyone.
I realized that that's terrible when I compared prices of Assassin's creed games a few years ago.
I got AC Origins and AC Odyssee for 15 dollars (for both) on ebay. In the PS store, it was still 59.99 dollars for one (120 dollars for both). And technically, I can still sell both physical games for 10 dollars.........
Like it or not the majority of game purchases are digital these days. It's a sad development for sure. I buy all my console games as physical discs myself.
Why can't you just plug in a random-ass USB 4KBR-disc drive?
Or sell one that we can use to bring in games from PS1, 2, 3, 4 and 5? And state that the drive will be able to be used going forward, into the next gen and beyond.
They've got a rich gaming history at this point and they don't care because they'd rather sell you an $80 digital copy that they can take away at any time and you can't trade it in or really own it. And it's the same with PC games as well, courtesy of Valve and then everyone else.
If the future is digital, we need laws that allow us to transfer ownership of digital content. It would have to be secure, obviously. Not just "steal somebody's console and trade all their games in".
On the idea of random drives: Many of them might not be able to read the encryption on Playstation discs. I could be wrong, but I think the way they operate involves more than just software encryption. Sony is best off making their own. Hence why pirates burn special copies.
On reading prior generations: I think they'd be capable of reading those if they wanted, but running old Playstation games is more a matter of correct CPU architecture. Most of us have played old games on the new consoles, but often there's a bit of manual porting/emulation logic going on to get it working - so the package delivered from PSN isn't exactly would come from an old PS2 disc.
IIRC the Xbox 360 used to do a thing where you'd put your old OG Xbox disc in, and it would download any extra code it needed to run. Most of these older games would be under a few MB of actual code.
Pretty sure the PS5 is powerful enough to run PS1 and PS2 emulated, and probably have a good crack at running PS3 games as well, although a lot of the good PS3 games got a remaster for the PS4 gen anyway.
I think the only thing stopping really us doing it now is the PS5 drive can't actually read CDs. Plus I think they want to test each game before release and sell us them on PSPlus tiers.
Yeah, looking at the prices, it's about right for what it is.
Suppose the upshot of using a generic component is you could also attach it to a PC.
Looks like the long term goal of them is to stop selling discs altogether. I couldn't even get BG3 on a disc when it came out, and I think Alan Wake 2 was the same (only physical copy I can see is the deluxe version with both AW1&2 on it).
I see the mythical digital savings never made it to us, to the surprise of absolutely fucking nobody. I wouldn't mind if they actually put games on a discounted price after a year or so, but you can still see several year old games at the full original retail price.
I haven't built a new computer in awhile, but 4tb ssd would have costed more than the console when it launched would it have not? Unless you are saying they should have shipped with a hybrid SSD/HDD setup. Not sure if read/write speeds would hold up to the frame rates needed for their games now.
I'm not going to defend the Pro exactly, but out of curiosity what is your usecase for needing so much storage on a console? Multiple users? Bad Internet? I feel like I have a max of 1-3 active games at a time, and can just delete and download/install them as needed. Works just fine for me so I feel like something else must be going on.
I agree with the sentiment, but the games don't play off the disc. The discs contain the game data that is installed to the SSD. You're using the same amount of storage whether you buy games physically or digitally. I buy mine physically because I like actually owning the game I paid $70 for.
You’re using the same amount of storage whether you buy games physically or digitally.
The difference being that you can load the content back onto the SSD at will, and regardless of server statuses... A lot of people have bandwidth caps or live in places with shit internet speeds.
Edit: I should clarify that I know some publishers only use the disc as a license of sorts with only a few MB of data... I'm wholly against this concept. Think publishers that don't ship a working game on the disc should be barred from selling physical copies at all as it's just landfill.
Seriously though. Just buy a shelf and spend all of your money on anime figurines if you want to collect something that can still contribute micro plastics to the oceans.
Same as the PS4 Pro: it's significantly more powerful, has more storage, can actually do RT well, etc.
The price seems crazy to me though.
E: it's occured to me that the PS5 Pro pricing is likely a (comparatively small) release that they can test the waters for a $700 PS6.
If they release the PS6 for $700, it could backfire and compromise that entire generation, giving MS a foothold (we saw how MS ran away with the 360 when Sony botched the PS3 launch, and subsequently how MS lost all that momentum when they botched the XBone launch, and Sony ran away with the PS4).
If they test the waters with a PS5 Pro it doesn't matter all that much if they have to capitulate and drop the price.
Don't show Sony that the market is willing to pay $700. The PS5 Pro being accepted at $700 will guarantee a base PS6 at about the same.
Pro revisions are the time to go crazy with outrageous prices since they're not needed to be able to play any of the games. But if they try that crap with a base model, it's PC Master Race time for me.
I see lots of people in this thread saying to go to the PC or the Steam Deck, but are we ignoring that both systems do not have a disc drive too?
I mean, aside from the disgusting price of the PS5 Pro not having a disc drive is the biggest offender (and the reason why I am not even considering buying it, despite being a Sony user since the 1st unit).
seems like not that long ago i would've thought that the idea of a PC without any disc drive was insane. i had to help a neighbor kid the other week when forced bitlocker bricked his gaming PC, sure enough it didn't have any disc drive!
I was very confused by all this (also I don't use consoles unless you want to consider the Deck as one) until it dawned on me that what people are apparently now calling "disk drives" are apparently "optical disk drives/readers".
Aren't games dematerialised on consoles nowadays? Or is it strictly a PC thing?
Personally I think it's only worth it if you have the standard ps4, if you have a PS4 Pro you're not really getting all that much from the ps5. Graphics are a slight upgrade, still not actual 4K and the ram is nice but performance wise it's somewhat similar, usually your biggest reason to jump from one generation to the next is exclusives and game availability, but the PS5 has been absolutely atrocious at trying to obtain games that work only for the Ps5, every big name developer out there is still making releases that work for both consoles due to the fact that there's still so many people that are running the PS4. This is a very different outcome then when the PS2 and the PS3 was released where yes they still offered it for both consoles but two or three years after launch they had more or less left the console in the dust, and here we are almost 5 years later and they're still making games for both platforms
I’m genuinely curious to how those things are going to sell. My knee jerk reaction is ‘oh hell no’ but there’s a lotta console players out there that want the power but just don’t want to get into PC gaming. Of course there seems to be a lot of people still playing on last gen consoles too so I have no idea where that’s going.
Most people that I’ve spoken to don’t mention the price. They usually talk about how they just don’t know how to get games in the first place and start talking about settings and updates that they always hear about.
That being said, I still don’t know like I said lol. I’m just curious and want to see how it goes.
I can say that for myself it's not really just the price. I don't have space to put a computer. With a console I can hook it to the TV and tuck it up under it. When I wanna play I can grab just the controller and sit on the couch. I like simplicity. With a pc I need a mouse, keyboard, desk, a chair, speakers, and a monitor. I know it can be hooked up to a tv however the tower still stands as an issue. The smaller compact towers that can be tucked have limited capabilities that rest below consoles.
On top of all that PCs are regularly getting releases years after a games release. PC gaming is only superior if the things going to be entirely utilized by the person and for some reason a lot of PC gamers think the average person will be doing so when that's simply not the case.
That's not necessarily true. I want my gaming to just work, and that's not the case in Windows. It's becoming less the case with console gaming, but I can still be confident that when I buy a game for my PlayStation it'll actually boot, I won't need to use third-party software for controller support, and I won't need to tinker with drivers.
That said, I already have a PS5. The TV I game on is still 1080p, so I don't understand what $700 would get me over my current hardware.
They talked about doing it this way at launch, which they should have. The drive is available as a peripheral, at the cost difference (actually cheaper) of the digital vs disc console. It simplifies manufacturing and distribution, which helps get more consoles on shelves. Now when it doesn't matter as much, they implement it. Go figure.
As far as killing off physical media, yes it pushes further that way, but honestly the game industry has been not favorable to retail stores for some time. This is the least of the offenses.
I don't disagree. In fact I agree fully.
But when the industry promotes early access games (digital only) and digital day 1 with physical to follow 3 or 6 months later, it is pushing consumers to digital. So its irrelevant if they do or do not have an optical drive on the console.
Yup, not even slightly surprising, I do believe we have saw the last disk in a game console bit of a pity they are doing it in a refresh but you could tell from the bolted on disk drive that the only reason they added one at all is they would have lost alot of people who don’t have internet. The modern world will soon be completely inaccessible without internet.
You can get a gaming laptop for that stick bazzite on it or use steam big picture on launch you've got a platform that does +60fps 4k HDR with 40 years worth of games.
Consoles are getting very close to being irrelevant unless you like sports titles.
It won't do 4k 60fps HDR, but it can play 40 years worth of games, and also do office and productivity work while being portable to take it outside of your home.
I think they've lost touch with their user base, but I also think they know that there's some people that are just going to buy the console because they don't have a better option available.
Like don't get me wrong yes it's now the same price as a low end gaming computer and it doesn't have upgrade capability, and doesn't have a physical media drive, but you can put it right where your TV is, so no seperate setup so it takes up less space (PC games on a tv instead of a monitor looks weird and can be a pain to fix). Plus it's easier to use/more user friendly and everything is in one place.
I personally will not be upgrading past my current, as I find this generation to be super lack luster and not cost effective, but I can see why some might, I disagree with it but I see it.
They got off to a great start with the PS5, but as their lead grew over their only real direct competitor, they became a good example of the problems with monopolies all over again.
This is straight up back to PS3 launch all over again, as if they learned nothing.
Right on the tail end of a horribly mismanaged PSVR 2 launch.
We still barely have any current gen only games, and a $700 price point is insane for such a small library to actually make use of it.
Uhhh. Maybe I'm a little TOO far from the console crowd but I'm going to say this anyways.
Who tf cares? I'm a PC gamer and I've been without a disk drive since 2009.
I will happily admit it is definitely a different situation. For one, this would essentially give Sony a monopoly on games. Which would mean that they would never lower prices and gamers have no one to go to other than them. You know what I'm talking about, all the same shit that Nintendo has been doing for years.
I guess that I'm just curious how many people dislike this.
Oh yeah, no doubt. One of the whole benefits of PC gaming is being able to snag games from other retailers. Honestly disk drive consoles have the advantage of being able to snag games from other users.
Another big problem imo is also that you effectively lose ownership of your games. Inevitably, servers would be shut down and you wouldn't be able to download the games that you own. And that's if things go well. Some games could always just go away earlier as we've seen on other platforms. However, if you own the disk, then that's that, you can play the game forever.
On steam, the same problem could technically happen, but I trust Steam significantly more. It's very much in their best interest to keep growing their library of games and not stop supporting them. I still have games from 10+ years ago on it and I expect to keep them 10+ years from now.
It was pretty much a given that this would happen, since there were already options with and without disc drives.
And obviously sooner or later gaming will probably move to an entirely online service like streaming.
It's just a matter of time until the internet and worldwide coverage is ready for it. I always imagined that in a distant future we'd basically only buy a controller, that connects to an app that'll let you stream. And every game will be in a subscription service like a Netflix.
Completely different strategy: the PS4 generation has produced a lot of games, sony could have stopped trying to compete with the high end PC market and gone in the Nintendo direction. Gives us new ways to access their library, give developers new tools to play with, release a 2nd mid-gen refresh and release a ps4 slim that is equivalent to the ps4 pro, encourage games for new ps4-slim and ps4 pro+. What do you think?