This review has spent 3,000 words talking about the PlayStation 5, which is the most I’ve written about anything. It’s as good a video game console as there has ever been. The combination of ultra high-definition video, increased framerates, high-end graphics techniques like ray tracing, and the lightning-fast SSD make it feel like a real-deal, next-gen successor to the PlayStation 4. And if you’re not ready to give up on the previous console, the PlayStation 5 reliably runs a vast majority of the PlayStation 4 library, with many of those games receiving upgrades to fidelity, framerate, and loading times.
But I’d be remiss to ignore all the reasons not to be excited for the PlayStation 5.
The world is still reeling under the weight of the covid-19 pandemic. There are more Americans out of work right now than at any point in the country’s history, with no relief in sight. Our health care system is an inherently evil institution that forces people to ration life-saving medications like insulin and choose suicide over suffering with untreated mental illness.
As I’m writing this, it looks very likely that Joe Biden will be our next president. But it’s clear that the worst people aren’t going away just because a new old white man is sitting behind the Resolute desk—well, at least not this old white man. Our government is fundamentally broken in a way that necessitates radical change rather than incremental electorialism.
The harsh truth is that, for the reasons listed above and more, a lot of people simply won’t be able to buy a PlayStation 5, regardless of supply. Or if they can, concerns over increasing austerity in the United States and the growing threat of widespread political violence supersede any enthusiasm about the console’s SSD or how ray tracing makes reflections more realistic. That’s not to say you can’t be excited for those things—I certainly am, on some level—but there’s an irrefutable level of privilege attached to the ability to simply tune out the world as it burns around you.
-Ian Walker
This isnt what I wanted at all when I asked for ethics in game journalism
Is it too much to ask for reviewers to keep POLITICS out of gaming? ugh
edit: why am i getting downvoted?
God I just want to be able to play Black Ops: Call of Duty: Kill all Commies in peace, politics really distract me from the amazing new Kissinger skin
That's such a strawman 🙄 It's okay when games use politics in the STORY but not when they're trying to push an agenda by shoehorning modern politics - Learn the difference
Yeah I said recently I should finally upgrade my phone cause I think this gen of phones is the best they're ever gonna get
The Roman Empire continued to produce novelty entertainment well into it's collapse.
Hell, "Bread and Circuses" was practically the tag line at the end there.
Drugs help, or so I'm told.
Also, logging the fuck off and spending a few days doing something with your body that doesn't involve being hunched over a screen. I spent Veteran's Day bike riding in the woods and finished with a bit of yoga. Now all the bad political news in the world can't sour me.
G*mers are a scourge that need to be cleansed from this earth. All things considered this was actually a really informative review while also being right about how ultimately the PS5 isn't that big a deal.
Ian Walker is good people and I appreciate that he angers the Capital G Amers
Even better than his Xbox review where he went "who fucking cares" in as many words as possible and kind of dunked on his boss.
Oh, I'm wrong.. it was this review, but the opening line cracked me up. I can't tell the difference between consoles.
I’m sitting at my desk, staring at the PlayStation 5 looming over my media stand—“entertainment center” is a little too grandiose for the small piece of Target furniture that holds all my gaming stuff—and wondering how the hell I’m going to review this thing. How would my boss, whose various PlayStation 4 reviews I’ve skimmed several times so as to glean some insight into what I should cover, review this thing? How can anyone, at this very moment in time, review this thing?
$500+ to see better reflections and loading games faster...why not just get a fucking PC rather than a proprietary box owned by rich assholes?
a proprietary box owned by rich assholes
Famous worker-owned co-ops Nvidia, AMD, and Intel
nvidia, amd, and intel are all compatible with each other. I can't install shit into a PS5 and if one part of it is broken it might all be fucked and irreplaceable.
but yea the rich assholes part is correct.
Nvidia is the worst one because they won’t make open source drivers and tried to get around Linux’s licensing rules.
Unironically, because I have $400, a decent TV, a comfortable couch, and a deep seething hatred for Windows 10. I do not have $1000, space for a good monitor, or a comfortable chair. Also, to be a lib, I do think that the kind of work that goes into making specialized computing hardware is pretty neat.
Edit: also I'd like to play the single player games that came out as ps4 exclusives, and I'm unwilling to buy more than one console a decade.
If you keep an eye on ABS pc's like this one they frequently come down as low as $600. There's no reason you couldn't plug it into your TV. These are great specs that'll play anything modern, and as ps4 emulation comes around, it'll probably be able to do it like a breeze. Just my two cents. Even though you'll have to deal with Win10 (which I couldn't agree with you more about) for the time being for most gaming, you could always dual boot it for Linux for everything else
I've bought a few of the $600 ABS pc's, their PSU's are fine. Plainly sometimes $600 is the best you can do, even if the parts aren't "high quality".
Edit: not to mention that plainly, $600 in individual parts has never amounted to the sort of specs that these ABS systems have, not to mention including the OS.
reliably run all your games
No, honestly half my hatred for consoles comes from the fact that this isn't true - the opposite if anything. A PS5 will not play any xbox or nintendo games, even if you own them, it will not play most indie games, it will not play any game at all that you haven't payed for, and it won't even play games you legitimately bought for one of their platforms if you happen to have bought it for a too-old version/too many years ago.
If i have to buy three consoles to be able to play all the games i want out of this generation, i'm not buying any at all - and thats not even factoring in the lack of emulation or piracy. You use a console and suddenly so much content becomes completely and totally inaccessible.
Personally I mostly just play old console games on emulator. There are enough fantastic games out there that it's not like I'm ever going to run out, I figure I might as well pay $0 to go back and play Super Metroid or Banjo Kazooie rather than shell out the big bucks for something about as good just because it came out this year.
And that's not even factoring in fan content.
Because it'll run new games for 5-7 and Sony makes good first part games. At the moment a $500 can't come close to comparing.
Very funny seeing gamers whine about a short section at the end of the piece being mildy political and extremely honest after he wrote an insanely thorough review of the fucking thing that answers nearly any question a person might have while deciding whether or not to buy it
This seems like it would make liberals way more mad than it would chuds.
it's increasingly a distinction without difference, they all killed Rosa
The PS4 isn't even that old and they already rushed out a new console. Part of why I have been scared to buy a new console for years now is the seemingly planned obsolesce around them. You spend so much money on a new console and games aren't cheap anymore. $60 for a new game is not cheap.
The last console I bought was the 3DS and I was having a great time up until when Fire Emblem Warriors came out and you needed a newer model 3DS to play it.
The PS4 is about 7 years old now, which is about how old the PS3 was when the PS4 came out.
I think it just feels like the PS4 isn't that old because the games still look pretty fucking good and the PS5 isn't offering nearly the same graphical improvement unless you've got a 4K TV.
We've basically hit a graphical plateau where games from two or three years ago dont look significantly worse than games released today, but Sony has to please the shareholders somehow by pushing out a new console.
Definitely not worth it. I remember when they ran for $50 when I was younger and thinking that was too expensive. Then they went up to $60. Part of why I bought a Nintendo 3DS is cause the new games were $40 and we were getting a new Zelda game (Link Between Worlds which turned out to be pretty good) and the Ocarina of Time 3D remaster turned out to be the best port of it.
Yea its a racket. They're gonna be $70 and still monetize the shit out of every aspect of the game. But if you get the $100 ultimate version you'll unlock like 30% of that content, what a deal!!
Monetization/micro-transactions and the focus on multiplayer have largely ruined games in general. I have friends that play sports games and they've been ranting about this for over a decade now with how Madden has turned into a racket. All the focus is on multiplayer now and people paying for those stupid card packs to build a fantasy ultimate team and then destroy people in multiplayer matches. My friends are still playing the old NFL 2K5 and Tecmo Super Bowl with mods cause they refuse to buy another Madden.
The micro-transaction stuff even got into the Fire Emblem franchise and really ruined the Fates games. You had to spend $40 on two separate games (Conquest and Birthright) then an additional $20 to get the third game and unfortunately, all three of them were pretty mediocre (Conquest had some great map design though).
EA took Star Wars Battlefront and turned it into a racket with the loot box crates. Battlefront 2 ended up having so much more content and that game was made in 2005. I posted on here last month that one of the reasons I think Doom 2016 was such a success was cause it was the first singleplayer based FPS game we got in a long time, and for that alone it was a breath of fresh air.
Gaming was so much better in the 90s and up to the mid 2000s. There was so much more creativity in the industry back then and an actual focus on single player. Grand Theft Auto is another series they ruined by focusing on multiplayer and micro-transaction BS. GTA 5 was such an empty lifeless game, you could tell they poured most of their focus to the Online mode rather than the single player.
Old school original nintendo games ran for as much, and that was in the 80s
$70 isn't all that expensive, assuming you're getting 50-100 hours of gameplay out of it.
It's all the micro-transaction and grinding shit that makes games terrible, today
PS4
7 years is a very, very long time when it comes to hardware
yeah they released upgrades but it's still limited by whatever previous design choices made, versus just starting anew with a way higher bar of tech and then just employing backwards compatability
