Playstation 5 [PS5] [Release November 12 2020]

[eastmen]

I think people are losing sight of the argument behind digital. I agree it's worth paying a premium if you know you'll get your moneys worth. I bought Last of Us 2 because I 100% knew I would love it (or rather I was confident). Would I buy GoT digitally? No fecking way. I'm not risking £55 on a game I have no idea about. And certainly no-one who is price sensitive will. And that's what I'm saying, due to the price of admission a digital only console is not a good investment.

here is the great thing , I have taken the time to find a handful of reviewers that I trust and then see what they are saying about their experiance. Also while i do use origin , gog and windows store the majority of my purchases come from steam with a liberal return policy. I do my best to make as informed of a decision as I can. Also a game like the last of us 2 , i wouldn't buy at launch anyway. I'd wait for a sale to the price I want. Its single player so i don't have to worry about friends moving off it to another game and I just avoid spoliers.

​

Not to be pedantic, but it'll still play with no internet and no patches - it's only online that won't work.

there are some games out here that wont play without day one patches , there is a skate board game where you have to download the whole gam even with the disc before it will let you play.​

Wow, paranoid much!? Going by my internet speeds I think it'd be quicker to pop to my local, buy and install. Just saying

Quicker than what? If its a launch game I can preorder it and it will be preloaded to my computer. As soon as its unlocked I go and play. Thats far quicker than leaving my house driving to the store , waiting for midnight and hten driving back before i play? Am i missing something ? Even if i buy an already released game while it downloads i can go take care of nature , i can make some snacks or do anything aside from driving out of my way to a store to get the title.

Well obviously, but there's 2 things there - one is that makes digital even more expensive and the other is the argument that the digital console is cheaper so will sell more to the price sensitive, I think we're losing sight of that.

The problem is its both. There are a lot of games that go onto sale digitally that are hard to find even used at low prices.

Yes, only online - if your account get's banned I think you lose access to everything, and I've heard of people get banned incorrectly.

How do you get banned incorrectly ? Een if you are , you call customer support and fix it ?

No, I don't - it's you misunderstanding! My point is, if Sony/MS want to sell me digital then make it more worthwhile. Let me try before I buy (maybe give me an hour to decide) - let me trade or sell back (say 25% back), or give me a better price (etc)

I think your still miss understanding. Its not about you. Your a dwindling number on their balance sheet. Every release , every year , very console more and more people are moving digital. Sony doesn't have to convince you because before long your going to only be able to buy digital. You'll see it accelerate in the US if gamestop completely closes due to covid but even then the writing is on the wall. If there is a ps6 (which i think we have another generation or 2). This is the generation that is going to mark the change.

I'm aware that infrastructure and storage costs money, but I can't believe that all things told getting digital to my console costs more than 20% more.

Again its about sony making more money. You may not like the fact that your paying more than the game because some retailer bought to much and has it sitting on shelves and now its valentines day and they need to put candy on those shelves or a big new game is coming out and they need inventory space. But sony cares and sony doesn't want that. none of the companies want that. Thats because Sony would rather have a longer tail of higher prices and so would the publisher and developer

That makes no difference, doesn't matter if it takes £100M or £1000 to make a game - it's the production/delivery we're talking about here.

What do you think will happen as bluray falls out of favor ? As less people buy bluray / uhd bluray and bluray games there will be less demand to produce them. Which means less manufacturing plants to produce them and then the price raises which will then either be absorbed or passed to the customer and either way its going to result in less blurays pressed and more plants closing and the cycle will repeat.

Just the other day i was reading some company has a compression codec that will result in files size half the size for the same image quality... half the size man. So youtube / netflix and all of them can now reduce bandwidth demand or offer a higher tier quality . Itunes / amazon / windows store and all the DD movie companies can start releasing movies that are half the size or better image quality. Demand for bluray is going to decrease. The only reason I own as many blurays as I do and the handfull of uhd bluray is because the image quality is the best. I am sure thats for many people. But that doesn't seem like it will hold true for much longer if this new codec is all it claims to be.

 

[orangpelupa]

Just wanted to clears things up with banning. I don't know how it will work on PS5 but historically, on Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft, from what I read all these years (I have not got any of my console banned despite I use CFW on 3ds, hardware hack on x360, hacked FW on PSVITA) :

1. There's hardware ban and account ban
2. Hardware ban will make you can't go Online on that console, but you still can use it to play games, offline, as usual, including ps plus games. You even still able to download games off PSN by pushing them from web browser. Play on a different console and everything will be normal again.
3. Account ban will make you can't go online, but you still can play offline. Make a new account and everything will be as normal. Not sure with PS Plus license.

But the official words from Sony, any kind of ban, hardware or account, will result in loss access of content. https://www.playstation.com/en-gb/g...g/banned-and-suspended-consoles-and-accounts/

 

[goonergaz]

here is the great thing , I have taken the time to find a handful of reviewers that I trust and then see what they are saying about their experiance. Also while i do use origin , gog and windows store the majority of my purchases come from steam with a liberal return policy. I do my best to make as informed of a decision as I can. Also a game like the last of us 2 , i wouldn't buy at launch anyway. I'd wait for a sale to the price I want. Its single player so i don't have to worry about friends moving off it to another game and I just avoid spoliers.

​

there are some games out here that wont play without day one patches , there is a skate board game where you have to download the whole gam even with the disc before it will let you play.​

Quicker than what? If its a launch game I can preorder it and it will be preloaded to my computer. As soon as its unlocked I go and play. Thats far quicker than leaving my house driving to the store , waiting for midnight and hten driving back before i play? Am i missing something ? Even if i buy an already released game while it downloads i can go take care of nature , i can make some snacks or do anything aside from driving out of my way to a store to get the title.

The problem is its both. There are a lot of games that go onto sale digitally that are hard to find even used at low prices.

​

How do you get banned incorrectly ? Een if you are , you call customer support and fix it ?



I think your still miss understanding. Its not about you. Your a dwindling number on their balance sheet. Every release , every year , very console more and more people are moving digital. Sony doesn't have to convince you because before long your going to only be able to buy digital. You'll see it accelerate in the US if gamestop completely closes due to covid but even then the writing is on the wall. If there is a ps6 (which i think we have another generation or 2). This is the generation that is going to mark the change.

Again its about sony making more money. You may not like the fact that your paying more than the game because some retailer bought to much and has it sitting on shelves and now its valentines day and they need to put candy on those shelves or a big new game is coming out and they need inventory space. But sony cares and sony doesn't want that. none of the companies want that. Thats because Sony would rather have a longer tail of higher prices and so would the publisher and developer


What do you think will happen as bluray falls out of favor ? As less people buy bluray / uhd bluray and bluray games there will be less demand to produce them. Which means less manufacturing plants to produce them and then the price raises which will then either be absorbed or passed to the customer and either way its going to result in less blurays pressed and more plants closing and the cycle will repeat.

Just the other day i was reading some company has a compression codec that will result in files size half the size for the same image quality... half the size man. So youtube / netflix and all of them can now reduce bandwidth demand or offer a higher tier quality . Itunes / amazon / windows store and all the DD movie companies can start releasing movies that are half the size or better image quality. Demand for bluray is going to decrease. The only reason I own as many blurays as I do and the handfull of uhd bluray is because the image quality is the best. I am sure thats for many people. But that doesn't seem like it will hold true for much longer if this new codec is all it claims to be.

We’re just going to have to agree to disagree because you’re simply not seeing the advantages of physical nor acknowledging the disadvantages of digital. I can see the advantages and disadvantages of both formats, I totally get why digital is good but I will never understand the prices being higher, we know Sony(etc) make more so we know it could be cheaper and Sony (etc) could take the same cut.

I appreciate digital for you is perfect, but it’s simply not for everyone and it has nothing to do with being a dinosaur, vinyl is still sold today because it’s worthwhile selling, it’ll be a sad day when console games turn into PC games and you can no longer enjoy the experience of browsing physical games.

But again, all this is missing the point I was making originally that people (for some reason) think a 50-100 cheaper digital machine will sell well because it’s cheaper- to me that makes no sense because within a handful of games you start losing money. Price sensitive people will not buy a slightly cheaper console when the games are significantly more expensive...I just don’t get that thought.

 

[BRiT]

Price sensitive people may be looking at game subscription services like EA Access or Game Pass, so that may be the route they go. For the price of 3.5 games a year they get access to hundreds and have new games rotating in. Saving the extra $50 to $100 up front is icing on the cake.

 

[JPT]

Digital and physical has pro and cons, which are different for different people. I doubt we will get more consensus than that.

Will physical become niche ala vinyl albums, I would say yes. Maybe not in the next 5 years, but definitely within the next 25 ( my guess )

Is it cheaper to sell digital games than physical games, I do not know. As mentioned in this thread, common sense says yes. But digital storage and services are not cheap and you can of course spread some of the cost over titles, but as DSoup said, the more customers you have the more infrastructure you also need. PS+ and PSNow might cover some or all at it, but we do not know.

 

[Frenetic Pony]

Price sensitive people may be looking at game subscription services like EA Access or Game Pass, so that may be the route they go. For the price of 3.5 games a year they get access to hundreds and have new games rotating in. Saving the extra $50 to $100 up front is icing on the cake.

It's only a "good deal" though for the right sort of person. If you're someone with broad tastes that just wants to play whatever game those sorts of things have appeal. Others however want only a handful, or even a single, very very specific game. If all you want is to play the next Dark Souls entry, or you only care about role playing games, or etc. then those services are probably a waste of money, as there's no guarantee of them having what you want and they quite possibly cost more than you'd spend buying the specific games even if they did.

 

[BRiT]

Yes, if you have specific tastes or look for specific games, you're only going to buy those so you likely dont buy a lot of games overall and could wait for them to go on sale, so I dont see digital costing more.

 

[eastmen]

We’re just going to have to agree to disagree because you’re simply not seeing the advantages of physical nor acknowledging the disadvantages of digital. I can see the advantages and disadvantages of both formats, I totally get why digital is good but I will never understand the prices being higher, we know Sony(etc) make more so we know it could be cheaper and Sony (etc) could take the same cut.

I appreciate digital for you is perfect, but it’s simply not for everyone and it has nothing to do with being a dinosaur, vinyl is still sold today because it’s worthwhile selling, it’ll be a sad day when console games turn into PC games and you can no longer enjoy the experience of browsing physical games.

But again, all this is missing the point I was making originally that people (for some reason) think a 50-100 cheaper digital machine will sell well because it’s cheaper- to me that makes no sense because within a handful of games you start losing money. Price sensitive people will not buy a slightly cheaper console when the games are significantly more expensive...I just don’t get that thought.

That's fine with me. The prices are higher because the content is the same. Its a way for the company to make more money. its not about the consumer at all. In a few years your going to be hard pressed to find physical games in the USA and most of Europe.


A $50-$100 cheaper system is cheaper up front. You get the initial savings and then for many gamers they are going to subscribe to psn or gold anyway to play online. To a lot of people the free games they get monthly are all they might ever play outside of one or two big titles. For a lot of people they may want the convivence of digital. Dunno if you have kids or anything but they don't do the best at taking care of stuff. Once a disk gets scratched up enough or cracked its worth less, once its lost its worthless . For you it might be great but there are many people for who it wouldn't be great.

I've said many times my platform of choice is my pc. However if I was to get an xbox series x it would be digital. I buy 1-3 major releases a year and everything else i play on game pass or I wait for a steam sale . I bought doom 2016 during the winter sale. So for me that $50-100 bucks is a year or so of game pass. heck before i worked for MS I would just use bing and get gold free , you can get ultimate free with game pass for pc and xbox with gold for free that way. Makes a lot of sense to me

One game I want to buy is the new star wars dog fighting game. Its $40 at launch supports vr and what not. At launch is when the game will be most active. If I wait 3 months or 4 months to get the game on sale at retail what am I really saving and how much of a community will be left ?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Price sensitive people may be looking at game subscription services like EA Access or Game Pass, so that may be the route they go. For the price of 3.5 games a year...

That's actually a lot of money. The Price Sensitive wouldn't spend on 3 new games a year ever. They'll spend 5-20 bucks on a game and then resell it or trade it. The people buying 3+ full price game a year are the core gamers. Heck, the majority don't even spend that much. PS4 has a very high attach ratio, 10 games, as of Jan 2019, which was ~4 years on the market, so that's 2.5 games a year.

Sub services seem to be more about better value for more money, rather than very cheap gaming. Gamers who'd buy on average 2 games a year can push for that 3rd in budget and get access to a whole load more games, making that extra $50 really good value, and those who'd buy more than 3 games can save cash.

 

[mrcorbo]

That's actually a lot of money. The Price Sensitive wouldn't spend on 3 new games a year ever. They'll spend 5-20 bucks on a game and then resell it or trade it. The people buying 3+ full price game a year are the core gamers. Heck, the majority don't even spend that much. PS4 has a very high attach ratio, 10 games, as of Jan 2019, which was ~4 years on the market, so that's 2.5 games a year.

Sub services seem to be more about better value for more money, rather than very cheap gaming. Gamers who'd buy on average 2 games a year can push for that 3rd in budget and get access to a whole load more games, making that extra $50 really good value, and those who'd buy more than 3 games can save cash.

You can't do the math that way, though. Not everyone bought their PS4 in year one (in fact the great majority didn't), so to determine an average purchase rate based on the average attach rate, you have to determine an average time of ownership first.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Fair point. It's likely a bit more as the latest owners haven't been buying that many games. This doesn't change the argument that subs are far more expensive than most price-conscious owners can afford.

 

[mrcorbo]

Fair point. It's likely a bit more as the latest owners haven't been buying that many games. This doesn't change the argument that subs are far more expensive than most price-conscious owners can afford.

People who buy used games don't contribute to the attach rate at all, though, and if they buy/sell/trade enough games in a year they may very well get to the same $$ figure as someone who buys three games new and only plays those games (focusing on multiplayer). The value proposition for these services for anyone is based on how many different games they play over the time they are paying for the subscription. No matter how cheaply a consumer could effectively pay for each game as a standalone purchase, there is a certain number of games played where they couldn't possibly get the same number of games for cheaper than they could via a subscription service.

 

[goonergaz]

Fair point. It's likely a bit more as the latest owners haven't been buying that many games. This doesn't change the argument that subs are far more expensive than most price-conscious owners can afford.

This seems to be missed by a lot of people, I’m unsure of current prices, but let’s say £10pm - that goes into a void like digital and you have no control over the games you get...neither what gets added or when stuff gets removed- so you could be halfway through a game and have the rug pulled.

Let alone the question if price sensitive are happy to commit to a monthly sub like that vs having complete control over expenditure.

All these small monthly subs are adding up, first it was internet, then it was live/PSN, then it was game pass and now EA pass and other passes - and we’re not even talking about the TV side which has gotten ridiculous lately - but that’s where gaming is heading and I can’t say I like that thought...I always said live was the thin end of the wedge.

 

[steveOrino]

The value proposition for subs IMO only applies if the consumer actually cares about the titles in library. For games this is far worse than streaming video services since not only are you locked to what the provider has in their licensing portfolio (at the time) you also get tied to the physical platform itself, not to mention the potential 10x time commitment in each title vs watching an episode of Breaking Bad. So for subs like Gamepass, its a shit value proposition for me since I care for maybe 10-20% of the library. So guess how I feel about the prospect of paying for multiple subs to play a handful of titles in each catalog. The value only gets worse if I want to play a typical UBIsoft micro-transaction copy paste open world shit fest for example. To me, subs are just a publisher dumping ground for garbage that you pay more for in the end to get access to what you actually want.

Personally, I rarely buy new games and in general I wait the 6mo to a year for that $20-30 price tag on physical media because there there are so many great games to play these days for cheap I simply don't have the time to play everything I want anyway.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

So for subs like Gamepass, its a shit value proposition for me since I care for maybe 10-20% of the library.

Well 10-20% of 400 titles is still 40-80 titles. That's a lot of game for the money! I think Gamepass subscribers also find themselves exploring other titles they otherwise wouldn't and finding stuff they enjoy. I think if you can afford it, it's very good. If you love MS's first party, it's pretty much a no-brainer thanks to Day One inclusion. And then if you know and care how to play the Reward Points game, you can get it obscenely cheap and basically profit from MS's desire to give stuff away.

 

[MrFox]

Sony's most recent fiscal year is 51% DD/Disc ratio, which includes the covid19 quarter.

Standard PS5 polling at 65% regardless of price is unsurprising, considering most people who prefer disc also buy some DD games, and while used games and borrowed games are not counted in sales figures they certainly count in terms of consumer preference and actual use. (1 physical copy reaches two gamers on average, according to a previous report).

 

[Svensk Viking]

Well 10-20% of 400 titles is still 40-80 titles. That's a lot of game for the money! I think Gamepass subscribers also find themselves exploring other titles they otherwise wouldn't and finding stuff they enjoy. I think if you can afford it, it's very good. If you love MS's first party, it's pretty much a no-brainer thanks to Day One inclusion. And then if you know and care how to play the Reward Points game, you can get it obscenely cheap and basically profit from MS's desire to give stuff away.

I have yet to pay more than the special price for the first month, but the subscription services are definitely awesome for trying out games you have looked at but never been convinced to buy. A hidden gem I ended up playing via Gamepass was A Plague Tale.
I'm probably going to activate Uplay+ free week this afternoon and try AC Origins.

It's obviously bad value if you pay full price month after month and all you're ending up playing is Gears 5 multiplayer however.

I haven't kept up with how things really work on PS+ and Xbox Live work nowadays, but I do like that you know exactly what you get when you subscribe to these services on PC. Whereas the main reason I would pay on the console services is for the online paywall, and perhaps I might get access to a game I like one of the upcoming months if I am lucky.

 

[Inuhanyou]

Sony's most recent fiscal year is 51% DD/Disc ratio, which includes the covid19 quarter.

Standard PS5 polling at 65% regardless of price is unsurprising, considering most people who prefer disc also buy some DD games, and while used games and borrowed games are not counted in sales figures they certainly count in terms of consumer preference and actual use. (1 physical copy reaches two gamers on average, according to a previous report).

I just want the option for physical if i find a good sale or watev. Also i have plenty of disc ps4 games id be locked out of playing with the digital edition as well

 

[dobwal]

Digital only costs more because platforms have a pricing strategy that doesn’t want to alienate BM retailers.

As digital sales become more prominent and B&M retailers accept that software sales will not be a major revenue generator going forward, digital prices will be based more on market forces within the digital store or other competing digital stores and less on supporting BM's demands.

The value proposition for subs IMO only applies if the consumer actually cares about the titles in library. For games this is far worse than streaming video services since not only are you locked to what the provider has in their licensing portfolio (at the time) you also get tied to the physical platform itself, not to mention the potential 10x time commitment in each title vs watching an episode of Breaking Bad. So for subs like Gamepass, its a shit value proposition for me since I care for maybe 10-20% of the library. So guess how I feel about the prospect of paying for multiple subs to play a handful of titles in each catalog. The value only gets worse if I want to play a typical UBIsoft micro-transaction copy paste open world shit fest for example. To me, subs are just a publisher dumping ground for garbage that you pay more for in the end to get access to what you actually want.

Personally, I rarely buy new games and in general I wait the 6mo to a year for that $20-30 price tag on physical media because there there are so many great games to play these days for cheap I simply don't have the time to play everything I want anyway.

For your average consumer value is determined by the cost of the subscription plus the titles available. Netflix would hardly make any money if all the content was on-demand and individually priced at $3-$20 per episode or film. The movies/shows wouldn't be compelling enough to warrant the level of revenue Netflix generates from the content it offered under that circumstance. $10-$15 a month for a few hours of content is not the same value as $10-$15 a month for 10s-100s hours of content.

For Game Pass, there are a number of games I tried and enjoy that I would have never bothered to buy as an individual title unless they were priced closely to free. My son tears through the content faster than I would have been willing to support as one time purchases.

Game Pass isn't suppose to outright compete (1st party titles excluded) with one time purchases of newly release AAA games. No more than Netflix competes with movie theaters. These types of subscription models provide value by offering a ton of less compelling content at way cheaper pricing.

 

[mrcorbo]

I just want the option for physical if i find a good sale or watev. Also i have plenty of disc ps4 games id be locked out of playing with the digital edition as well

Ironically, while I have only one physical PS4 game (Persona 5), I actually have multiple physical Xbox One games because of console game bundles I got when getting the OG One and when I upgraded to the One S.

It seems the only time I will opt for physical media is if I can get it at a discount (not used) or I can get it free.