In November it will be two years since the launch of PS5, a console that together with Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S inaugurated what we all knew as “the new generation”. I’m not going to lie to you, expectations were through the roof, and the truth is that in the end this ended up doing a lot of damage because a “hype” was generated that in the end it was impossible to fulfill.
I am sure that many of our readers will remember some of the crazy things that were said about PS5, although two of the most famous were that It was going to be able to move games in 8K and that its GPU was going to perform like a GeForce RTX 2080 Ti. What can I say, the first statement has a grain of truth, since said console could play games in 8K, but they would have to be very simple to work smoothly, so it does not make sense.
Regarding the second, it was a nonsense hoax. To think that a GPU that is integrated with the CPU, and therefore shares an encapsulation, TDP and has huge thermal and space limitations at the silicon level, being able to perform like a GeForce RTX 2080 Ti is sheer nonsense. However, at the time it was not confirmed that Sony was going to repeat the use of an APU on PS5, and that is why I myself came to give it the benefit of the doubt, even though it seemed very difficult to believe.
Today, almost two years after the arrival of the new generation of consoles, it is already possible to make an assessment of what PS5 has achieved, the most anticipated console of that misnamed new generation, and the truth is that after seeing the achievements and the shortcomings of said console I am very clear that in the end I am going to completely pass PS5. I will not buy said consoleand in this article I am going to give you five reasons why I am not going to do it.
1.-PS5 has nothing revolutionary
This is the PS5 APU under the magnifying glass. Click to enlarge.
And the explanation is very simple, we are facing a console that hit the market in November 2020, and yet offers nothing truly revolutionary. I know what you’re thinking, what about ray tracing and SSD? Both technologies had been available on PC for a long time, and no, the 3D sound that Mark Cerny boasted so much about is not exclusive to PS5 either, it has also been working on compatible devices for a long time.
Ray tracing made its debut on PC with the advent of GeForce RTX 20 in late 2018That is, two years before the launch of PS5, and SSD drives have been making a huge difference in the PC world for years. To make matters worse, even a GeForce RTX 2060 is capable of outperforming the PS5 GPU in ray tracingso no, this console is nothing revolutionary or powerful, in fact it is “comparable” to a mid-range gaming PC from four years ago.
In relation to price-performance it is true that PS5 offered interesting value at launch, but the problem is that it was practically impossible Finding this console on the market at its recommended price, 499.99 euros, and even today it is a daunting task, so much so that in fact the last units that reached the market only did so in packs of between 700 and 800 euros, And they sold out almost instantly.
2.-The new generation games are great
Other older titles, such as Control, do not work well on PS5 with the new generation patch either, we already saw in this article that said game ran better on a PC with a GeForce RTX 2060and that in the version for said console it works with 1440p resolution, medium-low quality and ray tracing with a lower resolution than the native one of the game, all to maintain a tight 30 FPS.
That is the “next generation” experience offered by PS5, games in 1080p and 30 FPS with very limited ray tracing, or gaming at 1440p with reduced graphical quality, ray tracing well below the PC equivalent, and a scratched 30 FPS. If these are the results that this console is showing in its first two years of life, I don’t want to imagine what is to come. That is why I did not hesitate to qualify PS5, and also Xbox Series X, as the generation of disappointment.
3.-Almost two years without really interesting exclusives
Demon’s Souls on PS5 and PS3. Image courtesy of Digital Foundry.
On a technical level it is clear that PS5 has not made any truly spectacular demonstration in the last two years, and its game catalog also does not have any really important exclusives that justify the purchase of the console. To be honest, the Demon’s Souls remake caught my attention, but after watching several videos my “hype” completely deflated.
Most important triple A that PS5 has are available on PS4and many of them have come or will eventually come to PC. I imagine that, in the future, when the intergenerational transition is complete and PS4 is abandoned, the PS5 catalog will begin to improve considerably, but at the rate we are going, this will probably not happen until 2023 or 2024. By then PS5 will have been on the market for four years, and it will take at least another year or two for it to start accumulating interesting exclusives. We would already have completed a life cycle of 5 or 6 years.
This lack of interesting exclusives is not only going to continue for a few more years, but it will also be aggravated by the fact that most PS5 games are going to end up coming to PC. Yes, I know that they will arrive later, but this is not a problem since in the end the important thing is to be able to play them on that platform. We have already seen that even franchises like God of War have arrived on PC, and it is confirmed that The Last of Us Part I, the remake of the PS3 classic, will arrive on PC shortly after the PS5 version.
4.-PS5 has been unable to offer native 4K and 60 FPS
And let’s face it, this is a problem. Promoting a console as next-gen when it gets stuck at 1080p and 30 FPS when ray tracing is on is a huge blow, but what about this console? still having trouble delivering native 4K and 60 FPS in all games without having to pull rescaling or dynamic resolution says a lot about the shortcomings that PS5 has.
In this sense, it is important to note that this problem is due precisely to the architecture that Sony has used in the PS5 GPU. Said GPU is an integrated solution with all the limitations that I already told you when we saw five PS5 secrets, and in this sense we must also take into account something very important, the absence of the infinite L3 cache on the GPU.
This lacks the infinite cache that AMD has used in the Radeon RX 6000and for a very simple reason, said cache does not fit, there is not enough space at the silicon level on an integrated GPU to fit 64 MB or 96 MB of L3 cache. This memory helps improve performance in a similar way to how the Xbox One eSRAM did, with spikes in bandwidth that could be exploited by dynamic graphics elements, that is, those that change frequently and do not require of a large amount of memory. Lighting and shadows are two of them.
PS5 is not a console to play at 4K and 60 FPS, that has become more than clear. Control works in 1440p and 60 FPS with medium-low qualities, although it can be upscaled to 4K. It also runs Cyberpunk 2077 in dynamic 4K without ray tracing (it stays at 1440p most of the time), and with performance mode said title runs in Dynamic 4K and 60 FPS, but mostly stays at 1440p. It is curious to see that, in the end, not even this generation of consoles has been able to make the idea of playing in 4K with a stable 60 FPS and very high qualities a reality.
5.-The price of the games is ridiculously high and you pay for the online mode
Playing on console has its advantages, but the problem is that many of those benefits have totally or partially disappeared, and some of the disadvantages they have compared to gaming on PC have only become more acute. In this sense, one of the most important is the price of the games and it is that, let’s be honest, we find ourselves in a situation in which a game for PS5 can cost us more than 80 euros, and for Sony this is something normal that we must accept.
Square Enix has not hesitated to try to transfer that pricing strategy to PC, in fact Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade costs 79.99 eurosbut this is the exception to the general rule, and it is that playing in compatible is much cheaper than doing it in the Sony console. The offers from Steam and other digital distribution platforms, together with the promotions that allow you to get triple A games for free with a certain frequency, represent a unique value.
Doing accounts of the money I’ve recently spent on PC games I have bought five triple A games for what it would have cost me one on PS5. Not convinced? Well, look at this special pack of Resident Evil games for PC for only 29.41 euros, and calculate what all those games would cost you on PS5. And don’t forget that we can introduce Microsoft’s Game Pass into the equation, which will allow us to play a huge number of games for only 9.99 euros per month.
I know that someone will tell me that a PC is more expensive, and that the price of the hardware is an issue, but you forget that the price of PS5 is also inflated (around 700-800 euros), you also forget the enormous cost that games represent due to their higher price, and to this you have to add the extra to pay to enjoy the online functions of the console, including multiplayer mode. Doing accounts a couple of years, in the end it turns out that the PC is a better investmentespecially now that it is possible to mount a powerful configuration for less than 800 euros.
Final notes: Xbox Series S has been the most interesting console of the new generation
The truth is that Microsoft has created a true masterpiece. Xbox Series S has been available for only 260 euros, an incredible price taking into account the components that it integrates and the user experience that this console is capable of offering, since it is up to what we can consider as a new generation thanks to its Zen 2 CPU, its RDNA2 GPU and its working SSD unit at 2.4GB/s.
If we add the value offered by Xbox Game Pass to its low price and good performance, we have a difficult combination to beat, especially for those who do not have problems with jplace in FullHD resolution (1080p), since this is the level at which Xbox Series S offers its best. Personally, I am quite clear that if I did not play on PC, I would buy this console and Xbox Game Pass, and I would only consider buying those key games that I want to keep “forever” once they drop in price.
On the other hand, Xbox Series S has never had stock problems and has always been available at a good price, another important advantage that has contributed to its enormous success. And no, it has not been a success because I say so, but because 95% of total ratings of users who bought said console on Amazon (about 10,597 people at the time of writing this article) It has been rated four or five stars.
