The PlayStation 5 is officially one year old, though you may not know it by looking at store shelves and online retailers. The console is nearly as hard to find now as it was in 2020, making this generation suffer from an awkward, lurching start. Still, as it turns a year old we can take a look back at its first year on the market, and the parts about it that surprised us the most.
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Cross-gen games like Spider-Man: Miles Morales and Resident Evil: Village have gotten a notable boost on PS5 compared to their PS4 brethren, and many other games that released near the end of the last generation have gotten free upgrade patches. On top of that, the PS5 has gotten notable and well-reviewed exclusives in its first year, including Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, Returnal, Demon's Souls, and Deathloop. That's a much more stacked lineup than I would have expected just a year ago at this time.
That said, the surprises haven't all been positive. Some games, most notably Horizon Forbidden West, were delayed out of the holiday season and will miss the first year of the PS5 lifespan. In Horizon's case, this almost meant no free upgrade path as Sony had promised for games within the launch window, before fan outcry caused the company to double back and make good on its previous commitment.
Some games have incorporated the quick loading times into the gameplay itself, as in the case of Ratchet & Clank. Others just make it a lot more convenient to get around, like in Spider-Man: Miles Morales. No matter how it's incorporated, it gives us more time to actually play our games, and less time to doom-scroll on our phones while waiting for the game to load.
But unfortunately, Astro's Playroom is the exception rather than the rule. Numerous games have used DualSense functionality here or there with mixed levels of success, and no one has really made a full-fledged experience that consistently captures the magic of Astro. (Sackboy might come the closest, which goes to show how the platformer genre is great for that sense of playful tech). Maybe more developers will utilize it better going forward, but for the time being the implementation is more miss than hit.
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Similarly, while many games have offered free new-generation upgrades for their games, Sony has gotten into the habit of charging for "Director's Cut" upgrades for a few of its highest-profile games. Death Stranding and Ghost of Tsushima both offered substantial new "Director's Cut" content, but they came at a premium price. Your mileage may vary on whether these upgrades are worth it, but those hoping to simply check out the new-gen enhancements were left with no option but to pay up.
PlayStation Now is the closest comparison. It offers full game downloads in addition to its streaming offerings, for a comparable price and library size. But it hasn't committed to first-party games appearing on PS Now the way Microsoft has for Game Pass, and when it does offer big first-party games like The Last of Us Part 2 or God of War, they aren't available on launch day, and they come with expiration dates. Sony also hasn't made PS Now front-and-center in its public messaging and marketing the way Xbox has with Game Pass, which makes it feel less central to its strategy. PS Plus has started to offer the occasional new game at launch, like Bugsnax or Destruction All-Stars, but that record has been spotty.
This could be intentional. In an era when Xbox is pushing services, it's also deemphasizing the importance of new hardware. Sony has been clear in its messaging that it sees generational upgrades as vital to its business, so it may not want to pursue a services model as strongly. Still, Xbox Game Pass is regularly hailed as a great value proposition and is becoming synonymous with the Xbox ecosystem. It's surprising that Sony isn't trying to replicate that success.
Several retailers have found ways to combat the problem of scalpers and bots snatching up all the PS5s, from virtual queues to staggering restocks in 10-minute chunks. Those have helped make finding one easier than it once was, but only just. If you ended 2020 looking for a PS5, you might still be trying to find one at the end of 2021.
The reasons why are multifaceted and complex. Video games are growing more popular and mainstream, so it makes sense that a new generation might outsell the prior one as a general rule going forward. But the COVID-19 pandemic added its own wrinkles as well, like increasing people's time at home looking for something to do, and sets of stimulus checks from the government gave people some added disposable income, and of course, a semiconductor shortage that appears to be impacting manufacturing. Whatever the reasons, the PS5 is just as in-demand now as it was at launch, so it's difficult to tell when the momentum might slow. Eventually you'll be able to walk into any big box store and just buy a PS5 off the shelf. We just have no idea when that's going to be.
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PlayStation 5: One Year Later
Firearms Expert’s FAVORITE Weapons Of 2023
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