It was after the PS5 Showcase, shit started to hit the fan.
The showcase itself was littered with good news, as you would expect. Final Fantasy XVI, Spider-Man Miles Morales continuing to look glorious, a Wizarding World RPG finally unveiled (despite the near-universal calls for an immediate boycott given, well, JK) and The PlayStation Plus Collection brought the good news to those looking for Sony to step up to the Game Pass juggernaut. It was 45 minutes of pure PlayStation 5 goodness that may have convinced any naysayers that this was the place to play next-generation.
Or so we thought.
Less than an hour after the Showcase wrapped is when the news began to break that not everything was quite as it seemed. See, as gorgeous and wonderful as the Showcase demos were, news slowly began to break on Twitter that a majority of these PS5 ‘exclusives’ were also going to be landing on PS4. Namely, Sackboy, Spider-Man Miles Morales and Horizon Forbidden West, Sony’s big ‘one more thing’ title from their original PS5 console reveal video. Well, you can play it on the console you already own.
Final Fantasy XVI was represented as a console exclusive, but it isn’t. It’s timed six months before the PC release and 12 months before, presumably, an Xbox Series X/S release. Potter RPG Hogwarts Legacy is coming to absolutely every PlayStation / Xbox iteration currently in circulation and it’s only Demon’s Souls that’s a nailed-on PS5 exclusive on Day One. Is that enough? Granted, it’s a huge release and no doubt will be highly-anticipated by those who are looking for a Souls hit, but that’s one game. Is Demon’s Souls a Super Mario 64? A game that single-handedly sold N64’s on day one? The push of day one exclusives may not be the necessity it once was to adopt a console (look at Xbox, for god’s sake), but one would assume there would have to be something that showcased what your new system can do without being held back by previous gen tech?
It was Horizon Forbidden West coming to PS4 that instantly made me rethink my holiday plans. Granted, I’m super hyped for Miles Morales also, but I can play that on my PS4 now. I thought Horizon would be the consoles killer app. The reason to invest heavily into next-gen, the reason to take a bunch of cash into my local GAME and drop it, no questions asked. I was hyped beyond belief and ready to be excited about what else would be coming to Sony’s shiny new console.
But, nope. I can just stick with my PS4 Pro and have the exact same experience, albeit less shinier. That’s it? I have a 4K HDR10 compatible television and it’ll no doubt look utterly glorious, much like the first one does. Miles Morales looked beautiful running on PS5 but it’ll look lovely on my Pro so the question is, what’s the rush?
Perhaps it’s not just the games. Sony have spent a good proportion of the year talking up the DualSense controller and all that it’s capable of. It’s haptic feedback and whatnot. These gimmicky additions that add an extra £15 to the price of every controller and will probably only be used by a small minority of first party developers during the consoles initial 12 months. I’ve no doubt it’s cool, but it’ll never be worth buying the system for. 3D audio? I’d argue that’s more of a game changer, though of course to experience it fully you have to drop £100 on Sony branded headphones. It’s a persistent ‘to experience this you’ll have to fork out this’ and it’s beginning to give me a headache.
I’m sorry Sony, I just want to play the games. Fortunately, I’ve already got a console that can do that.
So what’s next? Well, there appears to be a real lack of an argument from both Sony and Microsoft to drop £500-odd on their systems this Christmas. Of course, pre-orders for the PS5 disappeared as soon as they arrived across every possible outlet. I don’t even want to get into Sony’s piss poor handling of the pre-orders (dropping them at midnight with no warning other then ‘retailers will be taking pre-orders soon’, even though in August they promised this wouldn’t happen) but after a morning of attempting to secure one, I was left barren.
Now, you’re probably thinking ‘why did you want to get a pre-order down if you don’t want one?’ Well, that’s fair. I figured this morning when I woke up that should I change my mind and actually want to land day one into the brave new world of next-gen I’d at least have a pre-order nailed. I came away unsuccessful after several hours of trying, but I wasn’t frustrated. I looked at my laptop, shrugged and got on with my life. It’s been quite a day at FG Towers, make no mistake. The last thing I was going to do was mope about not securing a PS5 when everything I’ve seen that I want to play on it will come to PS4 in the first year or two.
Then that’s the thing isn’t it? Yes, eventually I will have to upgrade and I’m happy to do that. I’m excited for God of War Ragnarok, and I’m excited to possibly see a third Last of Us down the line, maybe another Horizon before the generation is done and dusted, just not yet.
I’m fully at peace with not getting a PS5 at launch. I don’t need it yet, I’m excited for everything to come on PS4, and there’s plenty of life in the old dog yet.
I was sold on the PS5, obviously. Then I watched the Showcase, and now I’m not. Sony’s radio silence and broken promises have made me want to hold on to what I have.
I didn’t see that coming.
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Im still buying ps5 and xbsx
That’s grand, I hope you enjoy them both mate. Not here to tell people what to do, just a personal opinion. Crack on! Exciting times ahead.
And miss out on Demon’s Souls remake? PS5 day one ^_^
Also, secured my preorder when you were supposed to. Like you were really going to get one yesterday morning with 15 million people waiting and hovering over a preorder button at the same time.
If you couldn’t get one Wednesday, you had no chance regardless.
Certainly seems that way. Like I said, no big deal. Enjoy Demon’s Souls, looks like it’s gonna be massive.
I mean I got one on amazon at 9am Thursday. They are also one if the few retailers that actually followed soby’s instructions for when preorders were meant to go live
Yeah I feel the same. All this send us your psn ID thinking I be a chosen one. Then hand all the systems over to eBay scalpers. I’m good too. I defended every decision made by the company. But this is terrible.
Hard agree.
After the Sony conference, I was busy with work and paid no attention to phone or emails, and later on that night I discovered retailers were offering pre-orders early, before the Sept. 17th date Sony mentioned on their website/twitter but didn’t even bother to mention in their conference. I went online to several retailers and was shhhh outta luck at all of them. Went to bed, woke up around 2-230 am and decided to give it a shot. None of the retailers outside of Best Buy even had available options. Best Buy website was still having problems, but after several refreshes and broken pages I managed to order one….did it through paypal so the money was immediately withdrawn… secured the 499 model. Gamers should never have to work so hard to preorder a console they are willing to support.
Sony severely dropped the ball here, after stating that gamers would not be blindsided and gamers would have adequate notice of preorder information. The way it rolled out was just absolutely ridiculous, and people absolutely were in fact blindsided. I guess we all should have known this was going to be a complete clusterfluck when Sony starting giving out invitations for the right to sign up to be notified when they would give you the honor of preordering a console from them, but only if they deemed your account worthy. It smacks of ps3 arrogant Sony all over again. I hope this is not the case, but they have done themselves some damage to the good will they have built over the years since that ps3 debacle.
It wasn’t Sony, it was retailers!
The conference was prerecorded awhile ago it would seem. They clearly weren’t sure when exactly they’d drop it as they CLEARLY had been waiting for Microsoft to drop their price and dates first. That’s why there were no dates in the show.
I dont know WTF is going on but in my country, Croatia, I preordered PS5 at 1AM.
Didnt get a feedback so early in the morning I went to the store. The line was trough the roof!
Didnt need to ask anything because one man in front of me was asking, why U didnt replay on my mail, I preordered PS5! No confirmation no nothing. BLAH, BLAH, BLAH Shortly said, they told him that he will get PROBABLY his console in January next year O_o
He was so pi$$ed and, no I`m not lying, he broke the shelf of glass and left the store.
I called every single gamestore and everyone told me that I dont need to preorder PS5, and everyone said that new shipment is coming in January of 2021.
Sorry call me crazy, dumb I dont care but I dont know WTH is going on and Sonys lips are sealed.
Damn. That’s really unfortunate mate. I’m not gonna call you crazy or dumb, it looks like retailers were as blindsided by this as everyone else. Once one opened, the rest probably felt like they had to follow suit immediately in order to not miss out on the buzz. It was entire shit show all round and it’s not out of line to react with anger and confusion.
I can’t condone breaking glass though, we all gotta keep our cool in these situations and hopefully retailers and Sony can all get more stock sorted for those who missed out. I hope you’re set with a pre-order soon!
Game are to blame here in the uk. They went live with preorders like an hour after the conference and didn’t warn anyone till they were up. Sony had clearly said the next morning and places like amazon did follow their instructions. What’s most ridiciulous is a GAME rep tried to tell me they hadn’t expected oreorders to go live… im like “then how did you have bundles with accessories and stuff all ready to go live literally an hour after the show ended if even that? ” what a nonsense.
Yeah, thanks… I think its gonna be a looong wait 🙁
A tweet from Sony
https://twitter.com/playstation/status/1307364082341740544?s=21