The Play Station 5: is it coming and do you care?

The Xbox 1 is now the most powerful console on the planet. Sony is now in the position of needing to play catch up. But do they really need to do so?

I have a 4K non HDR TV. When I read that 4K games were 200 Gig, I'm thinking it isn't enough of a boost to care. I'll stick with my Gen 8 OG systems.

Now the rumor is that at E3 this Summer Sony will announce a coming PS5.

Should I care? If you are a console gamer, do you? Why or why not?

 

1. More than likely there will be a PlayStation 5 (or 5th generation PlayStation) because it's creator, Ken Kutaragi left behind plans for PlayStations 4, 5 & 6 when he left Sony.

See: https://www.engadget.com/2007/05/01/kutaragi-already-planned-playstation-4-5-6-and-cold-fusion/

2. I care because I grew up right along with the development of video games so I've seen them go from simple little 2-D sprites to complex 3-D world's and am eager to see what new developments have been made.

That said, the last console I actually bought was the PlayStation 3, as for a long time I was a PC gamer. Now, I just don't have much time to REALLY enjoy games , like I did when I was a kid, with no responsibilities.

 

Too soon. I've only had my PS4 for just over a year. What they need is a console that can play ALL previous Playstation games. That would be the big selling point.

 

Fight for your time. I, a husband, was, while making an even financial contribution to my family, was primary raising the kids. At one point, they were old enough to entertain themselves with friends. I managed to win some games during that time. I insisted upon time to get some fun time in. Happily, it gets easier. Just watched Gotham by Gaslight with a bud, should see Avengers Infinity War with Nephew in the next few weeks, playing Assassin's Creed Syndicate on XB1 onlive free this month. But also cooked and packaged lunches for the work week. Aint easy, but fit it all in.

There is a service that allows past games to be played. I'm a loon. I still have a PS2, PS3 and PS4 hooked up. Having more fun than I deserve. But I am wondering, will I feel moved to buy a PS5? Maybe but the 4 on a 65" Samsung 4K seems fine to me. What can they add in a 5 that will make me want to grab one?

 

Good question.

 

They only need to appeal to the fanboys who will buy it early just because they've added 1. Then they pick up further sales from people who want to play the exclusive games and the remasters (because obviously, it won't be backwards-compatible).

 

I wonder if the PS Now option takes care of that need. And in theory, it will be BC with the 4. Not the 3. Supposedly this is the last generation in that the PS4 and XB1 are more like PCs. You make them more powerful but the architecture pretty much stays the same. We'll see.

 

PS4 doesn't play PS1-3 games?

 

My PS3 will play PS1 games whereas my brother's won't. My Playstation 4 only plays PS4 games.

 

Well that sucks! Your brother has a PS3 too or a PS4? If a PS3, then different manufacturing submodels?

 

I picked up a PS3 long, long after it was new. Made sure to get a "fat" model with hardware backwards compatibility, so that it could upgrade and replace my PS2. No regrets! Online is free and games don't need too much downloading to get up and running. I definitely don't care about how powerful a console is, just about what kind of fun I can have with it. I have a computer that can run modern games if I really want it to. I have a small PC hooked up to the TV, too, which serves as a nice way to watch YouTube and to run emulators. I've had plenty of fun getting into Warsong for Sega Genesis that way. Even found a Russian translation to play

Also, considering Nintendo's success with the Switch, I think that's a further argument against console hardware power as a major factor. The Switch is decidedly less powerful than PS4 and XBox One, yet it's kicking arse. Why? Same reasons PS4 has been owning Xbox - it's popular (so your friends will probably also have it and you can play with them) and it has great games available that may not be available elsewhere. It's my understanding that PS4 has a number of exclusives that keep it ahead.

 

That is a huge weak spot for Microsoft: they don't have nearly enough exclusives. Those "exclusives" they do have, they're allowing to play on PC (I love their play anywhere: on my old Xbox 1 OG or any of my PCs) so in a way it is not considered an exclusive.

 

Not sure what you mean about the OG. I have never known that one to offer any kind of "play anywhere" feature. Can't pop one of those discs into a PC and have it work and it doesn't, to my knowledge, network with a Windows PC. I know that they offer this kind feature on the One, though. Very modern stuff. OG was more a classic console experience, even if its innards were very PC-like.

 

Only certain games. I bought Forza Horizon 3 and Gears of War 4 digitally for $60 each. For the single purchase, I can download it to any PC or Xbox on which I have the same account (though I don't think I can play in 2 places at the same time. At least not the same game). The Windows version matters. Can't be a business enterprise edition. The next one coming that I'm interested in is Crackdown 3. There is/was a feature I haven't used in a long time: a PC on the same router and network as the Xbox can play the Xbox game remotely on that PC. Hmmmm, I wonder if I can RDP into that PC from an even remote site and play from there? Gotta love toys.

 

Well, you are definitely not talking about the "OG" Xbox, which I've heard used to refer to the original Xbox console, from 2001 or 2 or whenever. There was definitely no Play Anywhere on that one! But at least the original Halo came out for both Mac and Windows, even if it wasn't right away. I played through the campaign on Mac

 

I'm curious about this PS 5 and its difference to the powerful console on the market which is Xbox One X.

 

3D Holographic displays are needed now to match available graphics potential.

 

From what I heard its impossible.

They would basically have to remake all those old games for the newer systems.

Something to do with programming or something.

 

The Switch is Nintendo, they don't really compete with other consoles and are in their own little universe. People buy it because of their first party titles that only Nintendo carries.

Kind of the same thing with Sony, their exclusive titles is the main reason pick that up and also the fact that they have a very loyal fan base because they've been around for so long.

The fact that Microsoft could even enter that market and become a competitor is quite a feat and they did it on the premise of being the more powerful console (whether true or not). While they didn't have the number of exclusive titles that the other two had, the ones they did have were absolutely huge, especially Halo, Gears of War, and some others. I can't imagine how many people bought the console just to experience those. Microsoft also dominated the other two by becoming more then just a gaming platform and they led the way in that. The ability to create your own little avatar and the connectivity of it was amazing. Their biggest selling point however was their online system. It came out of the gate nearly perfect, was simple to use, and allowed the kids to easily communicate with each other more than any other system or even the PC. Sony still can't even come close to competing with them on that and Nintendo is so far out of the loop their online system might as well not even exist.

Those are the reasons I switched to it when it came back and I've had all of the systems. I still buy the newest Xbox but really only play games on PC anymore simply because no other system can match the performance of the PC.

 

Something akin to a Virtual Console would allow them to do this, the real problem is licensing. Sony doesn't own every IP on their consoles, and it would be difficult in many cases to figure out who does.

But technologically it's a pretty simple matter. Microsoft has built a decent library of Xbox and 360 games on the XbOne.

 

The "play anywhere" concept really applies to digitally owned games, not physical copies.

 

They could write emulators certainly for ps1 and ps2 games and maybe even ps3 (If they included a Cell processor would be relatively easy) BUT they prefer to sell you the game a second time instead so they "port" it and sell it you twice or even 3 times.

The only game I've played in the last year is Fractured but whole on my PC, I think my PC would actually be pretty good to play games on in theory should be more powerful than a ps4 but I can't be bothered. I need a decent specced PC for CAD and it's a lot cheaper to use gaming GPU's than dedicated CAD GPU's and with Fusion 360 CAD GPU's offer NO ADVANTAGES!

 

That's not what the experts say.

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/why-are-current-consoles-not-backward-compatible/1100-6426818/

While they say it is technically possible the price of adding in the extra hardware to do it would be so expensive that consumers wouldn't buy the product.

 

That article was from May 2015. Just about a month after that article came out Phil Spencer would announce at E3 that they were building software emulators that could allow users to play 360 and Xbox games on the Xbone.

Not a huge gamer these days, but this was really exciting to me because some of my best memories are playing Fuzion Frenzy with my grandfather and cousins. So now when I want to I can go pick Fuzion Frenzy out of my menu and the Xbone emulates an Xbox, launch screen and everything.

Modders do this kind of thing all the time. You can play Nintendo emulators on your phone or PC, if you wanted (legality dubious).

Sony isn't going down this path because they're opting to go for streaming. An inch down the "games as services" path publishers have been salivating over for a decade.

 

I still have a few chipped original xbox's which were great for emulating old systems. I completed Zelda:OOT on N64 on Surreal64 (Emulator) on my xbox Connect them to a CRT and most emulators were almost identical to the original systems.

Legality I figure if I bought the game once already it's fine lol I won't loose sleep.

I kept my 1084s commodore monitor for retro fun. Been toying with fitting it in a custom arcade cab (I have a cnc machine) with one of the xbox's.