The Playstation 5 is finally available on the market after waiting almost five months since its revelation. Thus, this is the end of the successful 7 years era of the Playstation 4 as Sony's main console, after selling 108 million units globally, making it the second best-selling console in history after the Playstation 2. will the new console be able to achieve the same result and exceed the sales of the PS4?. Well, in reality, it won't be a simple task as its direct competitor, The Xbox series X, is a staggering console with superior hardware and outstanding online service.
The initial problem that many gamers are finding beforehand is the limited available units in the market since it is sold out in many retailers in the United Kingdom and the United States. So, it is already generating that many people are reselling the console at outrageous prices. Therefore, it is worth paying such prices for a console that currently has few available games?. I don't think so.
To give an example is the launch of the VR headset for the PS4, the available games were not the best except for few that were somewhat entertaining. However, it took a good time to see good titles like Firewall Zero Hours or Astrobots, which is a gem of VR. Sony recently announced that all units worldwide are sold out. Part of the console shortage is the impact of the global pandemic over the chain of production. However, it is to be expected that the current units in production will be available.
After several days of constant gameplay with the console, we have some impressions about the Playstation 5.
The initial one when unboxing is that the console is bigger than all the predecessors and its design is modern. Therefore, consider that it will use a greater space in your leaving room, especially if you put it horizontally. Also, it is heavier than the previous consoles and the Xbox Series X.
Turning on the console and loading each game is quick as it takes less than a minute, so that initial long wait when turning it on is a thing of the past. It achieves this thanks to its new ultra fast internal memory type SSD which makes searching for files faster than a traditional hard drive, and its fast 8-core AMD Zen 2 processor with 3.5 Ghz. Something much higher than the Playstation 4 Pro.
Most of the games available are remakes than new content for the PS5, so it takes a while to have great titles available for the console. On the other hand, The PS plus Library contains few titles to play compared to the competition.
The DualSense controller of the new Playstation is undoubtedly the best on the market and a step forward in the direction to immerse the player into the game. A real leap in generations, unlike the Xbox series X controller. When testing games like Astro the Playroom, you can notice the differences with the predecessor since you can feel sensations like for example
having spheres inside that move from one side to the other or the presence of tiny beings within the controller. The rear triggers have distinct sensations to the point that in shooting games, the trigger of different weapons will be differentiated. Also, its speaker is small but with descent sound quality, and it has a built-in microphone. Its only problem is the battery, since having new capacities, the battery runs out quicker, so it was necessary to charge it more frequently.
The picture and levels of detail in games such as Spiderman Miles Morales or Assassin's Creed Valhalla are great, and if you have the right TV with HDMI 2.1 ports, you can take advantage of the fast frames per second and image quality. During several tests, we could verify that the image quality was not affected much when we played at 120Hz. It should be remembered that with more frames the resolution tends to drop, so if you decide to play at 4K, it is to be expected that the smoothness of the images sequence will not be so fluid. However, the result with the PS5 was satisfactory with the available games and you can really see the difference between generations.
It is important to note that the advertised 8K resolution is intended for multimedia, so playing games in that quality will not be possible and is simply an advertising strategy.
The capacity of the hard disk is more limited than we expected since of its 825 GB of capacity, around 650 GB are available. So having multiple games available in the internal memory will be difficult, and therefore it will be necessary to remove installed games if you want to save a new one. Perhaps acquiring a new external memory will be necessary and if this is a hard disk, the loading speed will be reduced. Therefore, it is advisable to purchase a fast speed SSD external memory to be able to maintain the speed of the game. Obviously this type of external memory is more expensive than traditional ones.
In conclusion, the Playstation 5 has a better performance than expected and without a doubt the developers are going to take advantage of its capabilities to launch games that will impress. At the moment the availability of titles is limited, so waiting a little longer to have a PS5 on hand is recommended if it is not available at the right price of £ 459 in the UK or $ 499 in the US.