Playstation 5 Catch-All

Heard rumours of some preorders opening up at one of the Australian electronics chains. Had to come in person and pay in full for a stock drop coming some time in the next two weeks. Called a few stores and found one that said they had a few left. Grabbed my friend and we went down, got the last 2 slots. Two days later had an SMS to come pick up my new shiny toy!

IMAGE(https://www.getsmartacre.com/uploads/welcome-to-the-party.gif)

congrats!!

kuddles wrote:

Yeah, it's a glorified PS4 machine, but what a PS4 machine. So impressive it almost makes you want to hold off playing PS5 games until you can play them on a PS6.

I was lucky enough to get both a ps5 and a Series X at launch. Last gen I was just ps4, no Xbox since the 360. I’m surprised by how much I prefer the Series X. It’s whisper quiet, has game pass, and the UI is much better. The PS5 gets loud. It’s doesn’t stay loud but there are times it revs up like when your car gets stuck on 4000 rpm’s when shifting gears. I don’t like the ui. And there are basic usability issues that series x doesn’t have, like knowing whether to download the ps5 or ps4 version of a game. It reminds me of 2 gens ago, where Sony got all fancy with the ps3 and messed up the basics and Xbox took over because their system just worked. I don’t think it’s as bad that. Both ps5 and series x are good machines, but series x has come out much stronger. And they don’t even have any series x games yet. The next benchmark is if all their new studios can produce quality games on par with Sony exclusives.

What games are you playing where the PS5 "gets loud"? Mine does not make any noise...and I mean any noise at all.

I mean, it turns into a bloody space heater sucking air from every which way and blasting it out, but I get zero noise.

kuddles wrote:

What games are you playing where the PS5 "gets loud"? Mine does not make any noise...and I mean any noise at all.

I mean, it turns into a bloody space heater sucking air from every which way and blasting it out, but I get zero noise.

I feel like it happens most when I’m starting up a game and more when I’m playing off a disc. And it’s loud. I think it’s with most games. The ps5 is not enclosed. It’s on a shelf but open to air in every direction. I took the shell off and tried to adjust the disc drive per the Sony troubleshooting website. It didn’t seem to help much

I have noticed a slight whir when I'm starting up a disc. Other than that, mine has been whisper quiet as well. Anyone else having noise issues? I wonder if maybe your unit has a problem, IUMogg.

For anyone hoping that PS5s would become easily purchasable soon, prospects aren't looking good. PS5 shortages are expected to continue into 2022.

I've definitely heard lots of complaints about the noise of the disc drive, and of course that was even more a problem until the recent firmware fix that stopped the drive from spinning up every hour or so even if you weren't using the drive. It seems pretty clear to me that the PS5 was designed discless first, and they later slapped a disc drive on it, with insufficient dampening and giving it a weird lopsided appearance.

In my case, I haven't found the PS5's drive to be particularly loud, but then again I never found my PS4 or PS4 Pro particularly loud, so maybe I have the volume on my soundbar way louder than most people do.

And, outside of hardware designs, Sony really needs to get it together to come up with a compelling competitor to GamePass. Even before the launch of the PS5 PS+'s monthly offerings had gotten pretty anemic, but they've gotten even worse since the PS5 came out. When the PS3 was getting its ass handed to it by the 360, Sony finally realized that offering a real value with PS+ was a winning strategy, and we regularly got a big AAA game every month along with four other great games; I kind of want Sony to start really sliding in popularity so that they're forced to step up to the plate again.

I can’t believe this goddamn console is still so hard to buy nearly eight months after release. God, I hate scalpers.

Evan E wrote:

In my case, I haven't found the PS5's drive to be particularly loud, but then again I never found my PS4 or PS4 Pro particularly loud, so maybe I have the volume on my soundbar way louder than most people do.

I think it's luck of the draw. Maybe there's something they leave out or switch due to supply issues. Mine makes pretty much no sound but there are YouTube videos where others got one that sounds like a trash compactor.

I was worried about having more components involved with this PS, so I went disc-less. It is beyond quiet.

Happy Dave wrote:

I can’t believe this goddamn console is still so hard to buy nearly eight months after release. God, I hate scalpers.

Scalpers exacerbate the problem, but it's mostly the global chip shortage that makes it attractive to scalp them. Sony can't make PS5s fast enough at the same time other companies can't make cars, smartphones, video cards, TVs, etc., fast enough.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/12/the-...

https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/29/busin...

I understand the human desire to find a villain, and scalpers are certainly villains; but the blame by far seems to go to Covid-19 and U.S./China tensions. (Maybe throw in some "laissez-faire capitalism allowing chip making to become so concentrated" if you want to get political.)

I wish I'd replaced my cellphone and television last year. I hope I don't need to for another year or two.

Very true. And really, 'I can't get hold of the console I want' is not really a big life challenge. I'll be fine, just gives me more time to save up for it.

A bunch of "final preview" type articles were posted today for Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart. Here are a few:

Polygon: Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart is Insomniac’s ‘Into the Ratchet-verse’
Gamespot: Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart Is PS5's Gorgeous New Comfort Food
The Washington Post: ‘Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart’ is Insomniac’s attempt at a timeless game

Easy Allies:

I was sufficiently wowed by the State of Play presentation from a few weeks ago, so I'll be skipping any other previews or trailers until launch.

I didn't realise it was coming out so soon!

I'm even more excited considering I've only seen that first reveal gameplay of Rift Apart. What a one-two punch Returnal & Rift Apart are for the PS5 in first half of the year.

After how well Returnal has used the Dual Sense I can't wait to see Insomniac's full creativity behind it.

beeporama wrote:
Happy Dave wrote:

I can’t believe this goddamn console is still so hard to buy nearly eight months after release. God, I hate scalpers.

Scalpers exacerbate the problem, but it's mostly the global chip shortage that makes it attractive to scalp them. Sony can't make PS5s fast enough at the same time other companies can't make cars, smartphones, video cards, TVs, etc., fast enough.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/12/the-...

https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/29/busin...

I understand the human desire to find a villain, and scalpers are certainly villains; but the blame by far seems to go to Covid-19 and U.S./China tensions. (Maybe throw in some "laissez-faire capitalism allowing chip making to become so concentrated" if you want to get political.)

I wish I'd replaced my cellphone and television last year. I hope I don't need to for another year or two.

You say that, but that doesn't change the fact there are tens of thousands of units on ebay for a $1000 markup and 0 units available from retailers.

Tens of thousands is a drop in the bucket compared to 7.8 million worldwide, last tallied. And this is taking your claim at face value instead of hyperbole (I don't care enough to fact check myself).

That there's also so many at such a high markup that's not selling also indicates a lot of those scalpers spent a lot of money on product that's not moving. So justice may be slow, but it's at least moving.

thrawn82 wrote:

You say that, but that doesn't change the fact there are tens of thousands of units on ebay for a $1000 markup and 0 units available from retailers.

ccesarano wrote:

Tens of thousands is a drop in the bucket compared to 7.8 million worldwide, last tallied. And this is taking your claim at face value instead of hyperbole (I don't care enough to fact check myself).

That there's also so many at such a high markup that's not selling also indicates a lot of those scalpers spent a lot of money on product that's not moving. So justice may be slow, but it's at least moving.

Since I am curious enough to do the research, checking right now, there are roughly1,600 for sale in the U.S. (You get some earlier model Playstations in the search results, this is an estimate.)

Looking at "Sold" listings, they're going for $455 to... well, it's hard to say. Some have sold for $10,000 or higher bids, but I can't help but be skeptical that those sales are actually going through, since most "but it now"'s are under a grand. It seems like $600-$700 shipped is about average over the past two weeks.

So yeah, there are scummy scalpers jacking up the price, and I have no problem with hating them. A lot of them have set prices indicating that they'd absolutely love to make you pay double or more. But they probably look like more of a problem than they are, since the ones being marked up at over double the price are mostly sitting there as unsold listings (and probably being relisted repeatedly in the hopes of catching a desperate whale).

I don't mean to imply that we shouldn't vent, and I definitely hate scalpers. But if you're looking for solutions to the problem, efforts to stop scalping would probably be difficult and not give great returns. On the other hand, more chip manufacturing (especially in western countries), while it'll take an investment of time and money, will prevent supply problems like this in the future. That's the solution I'd like to see.

it was hyperbole. the actual value is a continuously turning over stock of about 2000. As of Feb 1, looking at only successful auctions or buy-nows, 61,586 units sold on ebay at a median price of 987. on Dec 1 the sold number was 25548

I'm pretty sure the data stops in feb because that's when eBay implemented capcha to prevent the scraping of auction data.

IMAGE(https://github.com/driscoll42/ebayScraper/raw/master/2101-Update/PS5%20Median%20Pricing%207%20Rolling%20Average_.png?raw=true)

Spikeout wrote:

I'm even more excited considering I've only seen that first reveal gameplay of Rift Apart. What a one-two punch Returnal & Rift Apart are for the PS5 in first half of the year.

After how well Returnal has used the Dual Sense I can't wait to see Insomniac's full creativity behind it.

Markus Haveri, the marketing director of Housemarque said on on a recent podcast that they had about 80 external (Company itself has ~75 people) contractors working on Returnal and a number of them were from Sony. Apparently this and their prior history with Sony let them really dig into the haptics and 3D sound early on in the development. And it shows.

I would imagine Insomniac gets similar support from Sony on the new features.

Yeah I heard they ramped up their staff for Returnal. It's good to have the resources of Sony behind them, they've really created a fantastic AAA product in my opinion. When Death Stranding was being developed there were apparently around 70 staff from Guerilla Games helping with the development, with Kojima Productions using the Decima Engine (that powered Horizon Zero Dawn).

I've high hopes that Insomniac will do some Astro's Playroom style level of feedback when Ratchet is on Grind Rails or on the back of a mount etc The weapons could be the real wow factor if they can get each one feeling totally unique via the resistant triggers & haptics. I think of something like the saw blades & you getting the sensation of them shooting forward right down the middle of the controller. There was a weapon that sounded like a sort of pinball attack that hovered above enemies, you had to time the button presses to do more damage. I honestly can't wait.

Why is the red one $5 more? Damn you, Sony.

Also I knew there was a good reason not to get a bundle or second controller at launch. They always come out with more colors and there weren't enough PS5-only couch co op games yet.

Of course, I just bought another white one a few weeks ago. Dang, it. That dark red is sharp.

On that note, I gotta say I love the PS5 controller. I know some people say the size cramps their hands, but I find the opposite. It take much longer for things to get uncomfortable (and it's about the time I should take a break anyways) and for whatever reason I don't suffer from the sweaty palms phenomenon that much either.

As someone who bought a couple weird third party controllers to mimic the X360 one for my PS3 back in the day because I detested using the Dual Shock 3 so much, this is a huge change for me.

My only complaint is that I wish the buttons were still coloured because for some reason my dumb-dumb brain isn't good at remembering shapes. During quicktime events, I still occasionally blank out on where the triangle button is unless the screen prompt is green in which case I usually clue in.

My brain does well with the symbols. Switching back and forth between Nintendo and Xbox really does my brain in.

Thankfully qtes aren't as prevalent as back when, oh, Asura's Wrath was a thing.

garion333 wrote:

My brain does well with the symbols. Switching back and forth between Nintendo and Xbox really does my brain in.

Thankfully qtes aren't as prevalent as back when, oh, Asura's Wrath was a thing.

I am right there with you, standardize the xbox button format!

Hobear wrote:
garion333 wrote:

My brain does well with the symbols. Switching back and forth between Nintendo and Xbox really does my brain in.

Thankfully qtes aren't as prevalent as back when, oh, Asura's Wrath was a thing.

I am right there with you, standardize the Nintendo button format!

Fify