Playstation 5 [PS5] [Release November 12 2020]

[Silent_Buddha]

It does lock people to buying network content though, which should mean higher long-term revenues I'd have thought. Indeed, the situation could have seen deliberately tying more people into a download only console as the only option to get a PS5 if they were produced as a significant proportion. From that perspective, seems odd to me Sony didn't try for that.

Incidentally, how much effort would it be to add a drive to PS5 Digital? Hardware is identical but I know you can't just plug one in. That suggests a firmware/hardware block to prevent the upgrade, suggesting Sony want to keep All Digitals all digital and not allow users to swap to disc-based gaming.

That's a valid point. And as more users switch to digital purchases that'll likely become an increasingly important position. However, currently digital versus physical is more evenly split on PlayStation than it is on other platforms. PC is all digital while Xbox is significantly more digital than physical. That makes the value proposition of a diskless PS5 much less clear cut than it is for XBS consoles (I'm actually surprised that MS doesn't offer a diskless XBS-X).

Sony may not yet be at quite the point where they think the lower profit (or higher loss) generated by the diskless version is more than made up for by digital purchase lock-in. If they were, I'd imagine they'd allocate more PS5 production to the diskless version than they are currently doing.

Perhaps they think that once the pandemic is "over" that buying habits of PlayStation owners will shift towards physical again. Although, I personally don't think that will happen and I doubt that Sony thinks that either.

Regards,
SB

 

[Arwin]

I think right now it’s just a matter of shortages forcing Sony to make a hard choice for the one more popular model.

I personally have a discless PS5 partly because it was suggested I’d get that one quicker and I thought should be fine I’m mostly all digital (since halfway PS3 era) and was only interested in disc version for very rare 4k BluRay use. It didn’t really pan out, getting it sooner, but I did get it a year ago already and am really happy with it. It’s quiet and looks great.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I think right now it’s just a matter of shortages forcing Sony to make a hard choice for the one more popular model.

I think it'll sell whatever model is out. I can't imagine PS5 Diskless sitting on the shelves as desperate wannabe PS5 owners shun it and wait for PS5 Full Fat. Pretty sure if Sony pushed 80% production to Digital, they'd still sell out, and they'd have a larger portion of the userbase tied in to digital only.

 

[orangpelupa]

Btw the "quickness" between PS4 pro (probably tmsame with regular PS4) with ssd, PS5, and Xbox Series. How does they compares?

Or it's per title basis? So game that supports fast loads will loads fast, that didn't support will loads slower. Like how Sony made some games practically loads instaneously via an update a few months (years?) ago.

For example, destiny 2, and judgement seems to load levels/maps/missions at about the same speed between Xbox series and PS4 pro with ssd.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

I think it'll sell whatever model is out. I can't imagine PS5 Diskless sitting on the shelves as desperate wannabe PS5 owners shun it and wait for PS5 Full Fat. Pretty sure if Sony pushed 80% production to Digital, they'd still sell out, and they'd have a larger portion of the userbase tied in to digital only.

I think for the most part you're correct, but if someone is coming from PS4 with a big disk library, the PS5 Digital Edition is going to mean losing or re-buying all of the content we continue to wish to play. Plus movies of course. If your console is your Blu-ray player, that role also has to be filled. Maybe that means not losing your PS4, but maybe selling your PS4 is partly financing your PS5 purchases.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Wow. [strike]Ten[/strike] Twenty minute patching thanks to 'copying update file' is still a thing? Sad times.

Sure my PS4 with SSD patched twice the speed of this.

 

[swaaye]

I've been using the PS5 for some Bluray and DVD watching. I also like the ability to use PS4 discs and buy ultra cheap second hand games so I definitely want the disc drive.

Also for some reason my local Walmart clearances out newish games occasionally. Got that (not so great) Aliens Fireteam PS5 game for $15 a month ago whereas the PS4 version was $30. Weirdness. I saw Returnal for $30 last week but I don't think it's for me. And the PS4 Aliens Fireteam had its turn at $15 too.

Btw the "quickness" between PS4 pro (probably tmsame with regular PS4) with ssd, PS5, and Xbox Series. How does they compares?

Or it's per title basis? So game that supports fast loads will loads fast, that didn't support will loads slower. Like how Sony made some games practically loads instaneously via an update a few months (years?) ago.

For example, destiny 2, and judgement seems to load levels/maps/missions at about the same speed between Xbox series and PS4 pro with ssd.

Games usually load quite fast. Not instantaneously but not much waiting time. However, some games still have significant loading times. Metro Exodus Enhanced for example.

I'm sure it's faster than a PS4 with SSD but I was never really bothered by loading times so eh whatever.

I imagine there are articles with loading time comparison graphs if you look around.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Wow. Ten minute patching thanks to 'copying update file' is still a thing? Sad times.

Seriously? What title did that? The longest I've seen on PS5 is about fifteen seconds and that was one of the massive AC Valhalla patches, the one which cut the game's install-size by a third so presumably had a ton of the game's assets re-compressed.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Seriously? What title did that? The longest I've seen on PS5 is about fifteen seconds and that was one of the massive AC Valhalla patches, the one which cut the game's install-size by a third so presumably had a ton of the game's assets re-compressed.

TBF it's a PS4 game. Apex Legends had a 400 MB patch. On base PS4, these would take 40+ minutes to update after download. I swapped to an SSD in PS4 and it dropped to more like ten. But even being a BC game, the sheer speed of PS5's SSD should see patching faster, not slower. Ended up taking about 20 minutes to 'copy' the update file. Now I'm back to dreading Apex updates! At least until next-gen version releases which hopefully uses the faster system.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

TBF it's a PS4 game. Apex Legends had a 400 MB patch. On base PS4, these would take 40+ minutes to update after download. I swapped to an SSD in PS4 and it dropped to more like ten. But even being a BC game, the sheer speed of PS5's SSD should see patching faster, not slower. Ended up taking about 20 minutes to 'copy' the update file. Now I'm back to dreading Apex updates! At least until next-gen version releases which hopefully uses the faster system.

Do you remember when I recommended you put your PS4 games on an external SSD? That's one of the reasons why. That way the drive can have a native PS4 filesystem which works even faster than it did on PS4/Pro. The PS5 filesystem is almost certainly very different and likely has to work with virtualised containers for PS4 games - inflating them for patches and updates, then deflating them. Both things that are a bit slow even using the latest virtualisation techniques. If you copy data from another drive to your PS5s SSD you can see what it's write speeds are impressive. But PS4 games don't know they are installed on a PS5, let alone an SSD. The patching is code designed for a 2.5" 5400rpm HDD :-/

 

[orangpelupa]

TBF it's a PS4 game. Apex Legends had a 400 MB patch. On base PS4, these would take 40+ minutes to update after download. I swapped to an SSD in PS4 and it dropped to more like ten. But even being a BC game, the sheer speed of PS5's SSD should see patching faster, not slower. Ended up taking about 20 minutes to 'copy' the update file. Now I'm back to dreading Apex updates! At least until next-gen version releases which hopefully uses the faster system.

maybe a deliberate design decision to keep the SSD cool? as PS4 patching process basically do reads and writes in the same disk.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

maybe a deliberate design decision to keep the SSD cool? as PS4 patching process basically do reads and writes in the same disk.

I think if they were the case PS5 would limit write-speed to the internal SSD. Having copied stuff back and forth between an external SSD, the internal SSD and my internal NVMe drive, I've not noticed any issues relating to extended bouts of copying data between drives but particularly to the internal drive.

I think it's just the way Sony have implemented PS4 emulation on PS5, mostly likely because of a very different file system.

 

[PSman1700]

TBF it's a PS4 game. Apex Legends had a 400 MB patch. On base PS4, these would take 40+ minutes to update after download. I swapped to an SSD in PS4 and it dropped to more like ten. But even being a BC game, the sheer speed of PS5's SSD should see patching faster, not slower. Ended up taking about 20 minutes to 'copy' the update file. Now I'm back to dreading Apex updates! At least until next-gen version releases which hopefully uses the faster system.

Most games and software dont really utilize the nvme of the ps5 as of yet, some AAA sony games do but thats it. It will be awhile before we really start seeing the use of faster storage (same for the other platforms).

 

[orangpelupa]

I think if they were the case PS5 would limit write-speed to the internal SSD. Having copied stuff back and forth between an external SSD, the internal SSD and my internal NVMe drive, I've not noticed any issues relating to extended bouts of copying data between drives but particularly to the internal drive.

I think it's just the way Sony have implemented PS4 emulation on PS5, mostly likely because of a very different file system.

That's only read or write instead of read and write tho.

Although to be fair, I don't really know whether read and write brings more heat than read or write.
On the other hand, IME with pc ssd, read and write does perform waaaaaay slower than read or write.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

That's only read or write instead of read and write tho.

Unless PS5 is doing something weird or stupid, I would expect updates to mostly be writes. The patch file will include new data and that will be writing over existing data, or much more likely, written to new/least-used cells with with the controller and filesystem keeping track of where the data is and how is all linked. There will be reads too, of course, because you need to ensure what you are writing is written successfully.

The reason some (not all) PS4 game updates result in a temporary spike in disc usage during updating is because after a number of updates, or more likely when the PS4 filesystem detects a certain degree of fragmentation, the filesystem will decide to create a new contiguous version of the game install on the disc. To do this, may meaning around game installs around to create a space big enough. Anybody who has written a defragmentation algorithm will know how convoluted and complex this can be become. You may need to move other game installs around more than once while you reorganise the physical distribution of data on the platter, just so that you can make a big enough space for your freshly updated game.

I very much expect this normal PS4 behaviour to be completely mitigated on PS5, but this would create every weird virtualised disks for PS4 games. Assuming that is how they are stored.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Do you remember when I recommended you put your PS4 games on an external SSD? That's one of the reasons why.

Okay. I would use the PS4 SSD except at the moment I'm not sure I can give that up. I can't use Dreams on PS5 with Move controllers without the camera adaptor and Sony aren't making this available to me. Been in touch with email support and they iterate the adaptor is only for PSVR users. Hence if I'm ever to get around to making Dreams stuff, it'll actually have to be on the PS4 at the moment.

 

[Arwin]

Yeah or with the DualSense of course. But yeah that is annoying. Maybe you can ask someone to give you their PSVR serial if they don’t plan to use it with PS5 anyway.

 

[MrSpiggott]

Okay. I would use the PS4 SSD except at the moment I'm not sure I can give that up. I can't use Dreams on PS5 with Move controllers without the camera adaptor and Sony aren't making this available to me. Been in touch with email support and they iterate the adaptor is only for PSVR users. Hence if I'm ever to get around to making Dreams stuff, it'll actually have to be on the PS4 at the moment.

Third party camera adaptors have become available on Amazon. Here's a couple of examples.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B09P4N695K/?tag=b3d-21

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B09KN4KCW3/?tag=b3d-21

Dreams runs noticeably better on PS5, to the point where it's probably worth the annoyance of buying one.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Third party camera adaptors have become available on Amazon. Here's a couple of examples.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B09P4N695K/?tag=b3d-21

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B09KN4KCW3/?tag=b3d-21

Dreams runs noticeably better on PS5, to the point where it's probably worth the annoyance of buying one.

Cool. Didn't know 3rd party options were available. Cheers.

 

[swaaye]

Nevermind lol