The PS5 Pro console will be available this holiday at a manufacturer’s suggested retail price (MSRP) of $699.99 USD, £699.99 GBP, €799.99 EUR, and ¥119,980 JPY (includes tax). It will include a 2TB SSD, a DualSense wireless controller and a copy of Astro’s Playroom pre-installed in every PS5 Pro purchase. PS5 Pro is available as a disc-less console, with the option to purchase the currently available Disc Drive for PS5 separately.
The big question mark for me is that not only does it cost 800 euros, it does NOT come with a disc drive. There is no version of it with a disc drive like the PS5, you have to buy it as an accessory. I guess physical games really are going away.
Sadly not an option for console. I don’t own a PS5 currently but when I did own consoles I would trade games and buy used all the time, it’s a shame this might not be possible next generation.
I know it’s not an option for consoles. Since the 7th gen, it was always moving in this direction. It’s probably one of dozens of reasons that PC overtook consoles in market share.
We’ve been there basically since the PS4/XBONE made it clear the focus was on common architectures and software toolchains so that the majority of games could be multiplatform by default.
The issue is what it always has been. People are afraid of managing drivers and software and likely have horror stories about Windows and hate the average Linux evangelist with a passion. Whereas consoles “just work”
And price wise? A good gaming PC that will last you a generation or two tends to cost about what a console+refresh SKU does. AND you generally want to wait until a few years after the start of a console generation to buy that GPU (time blurs but I want to say RTX was the big thing when the PS5 launched and now it is upscaling). Which makes it even harder to sell because you are telling people to save up even more AND to wait.
Much like “The year of Linux gaming”, it is the kind of thing that some people claim is constantly happening and the rest of us acknowledge is unlikely to ever happen en masse.
the difference is at least you can see it in more real time numbers. Xbox is clearly a dying brand, which leaves Sonys home console sales for now (~60M) and the switch as a handheld device. Devs are already starting to port everything on PC, and 1st party game development rate has gone down a lot. 3rd party devs are also starting to abandon console exclusively/timed exclusively over time (capcom making the next monster hunter simul release on pc instead of a year and a half cadence, square enix backtracking on making final fantasy a timed exclusive due to not enough sales)
Japan is completely flipping its old image of PC being the device for porn addicts of years past and starting to heavily buy into pc too, which is why Valve went to attend Tokyo gameshow to pitch the steamdeck for japanese handheld players(which remain the majority of console purchases in japan)
Devs have been porting (or originating) everything to PC since the PS4/XBONE era. So a decade or so? And first party development is lower across the board (excluding all the stuff Microsoft was doing before they stared culling studios left and right) because first parties are expected to release CoD level games rather than cool and fun platformers (Astrobot aside). NOBODY is doing Last Of Us level games en masse.
But basically you are describing the paradigm that MS have arguably been working toward since the start of the current generation. The idea that it doesn’t actually matter what hardware you buy so long as you buy the services/games of one of the platform holders. If you REALLY love Halo? Get an XBOX. If you REALLY love The Last Of Us? Get a Playstation. With the rest being third parties. It… just so happened that Microsoft bought most of the big name third parties and are figuring out how to balance “CoD prints money” with “We want to sell xboxes”.
But that still leaves what box you buy. And, in that regard, consoles are still going to appeal to “gamers” more than a desktop ever will. Especially as more and more kids become adults who don’t even like laptops because EVERYTHING they do is on a tablet.
As for Japan: The key there is not “Steam”. it is “Deck”. Japan has ALWAYS loved handhelds. In large part because the cities don’t have a lot of space for a giant TV and an entertainment center that can fit however many cubic meters the PS5 Pro is at this point. And a bigass desktop PC is also going to be a major space issue when so many people are used to a laptop while they sit in a chair or whatever. And while I do think the Steam Deck is going to do wonders to increase PC market share in Japan, I still don’t see it significantly overtaking consoles for “gamer gaming” as it were and to instead be more slotted in the mobile space and indie games like Stardew Valley that run perfectly fine on ultrabooks.
im not saying consoles have 0 appeal and wont have buyers, its just that their market is in real time, decreasing while on pc has increased, especially post covid. with the advent of streaming, more and more people are shifting over to PC because of it. im not saying consoles are dead as in 0 sales, but the market is forever going to decrease for it, as more people get into pc, and those countries that cant afford to already got into mobile gaming (mobile gaming accounts for more than 50% of the profits of game sales)
I mean, console sales decreased in the 80s and never went back up, right?
The reality is that a lot of people haven’t migrated from the previous gen. Partially because of supply chain issues from COVID. Partially because of economic uncertainty.
Stuff goes in waves. Time will tell. But in terms of “core” gaming, consoles still continue to dominate the “casual” market. And I suspect we are more likely to see “core” gaming going away in favor of mobile than for PC to suddenly dominate at the AA/AAA level.
the problem is the covid supply chain ended a while ago and console sales havent drastically picked up since then. the PS5 has been orderable direct from sony for quite a long while now, and shortly after in stores. physical game sales (something console users champion, has gone way down (according to sony, only 30% of their users buy physical now)
Yeah. Almost no one I know buys physical anything anymore. Kinda sad to see it go. We really need to instill some better laws around ownership of digital goods.
That’s wild. I have had one or two work out around the same price. Like I bought the SMT V Steelbook or whatever cause I wanted that sick art on the case 👌
Laws aren’t going to help keep the price down which is also an issue apart from the digital ownership. It’s always cheaper to buy physical games as they go on sale. What’s stopping Sony from selling PS Exclusive for $100 only in their store?
Are we going to get restricted to only buying from Sony store or is Best Buy going to sell me a box with a digital code?
I think this shift will be the end of me buying newer games, period.
I am that person who doesn’t ever buy digital. I have not bought a single digital game thus far (I haven’t pirated a game since like 2006, either). I have certainly played some, like with the PS+ subscription I got for a year when it was pretty cheap, but I wouldn’t buy them because I can’t be sure I own them, and there’s really no way to transfer the license to resell them.
If I can’t buy physical media, I simply won’t buy the games. Maybe I’ll use subscription services now and then, but more likely I’ll either find a way to play free or won’t play them at all and find other stuff. I want the physical media because I’m poor, and having the option to sell them in a pinch is important to me if I’m going to shell out a significant amount for something I’ll probably only play once, particularly since there won’t be a used game market to reduce my spend. I haven’t had to sell my games in a very long time, so I have some 400 discs, but it’s something of a savings option that inflates alongside currency, and sometimes much more.
I was very close to getting a digital PS5, but I still need the drive for my old PS4 games and movies. If I were just getting into Sony now though, I imagine the story would be different.
No disc drive and no fucking vertical stand/mount.
And yeah. Sony actually tried to “kill” physical games years ago with the PSP Go (?). But that was still when Gamestop and Best Buy were power houses and there was a lot of threats of “okay. We will give all the good shelf space to MS and Nintendo” and that went away fast.
But now brick and mortar are basically dead and everyone is periodically pissed at Amazon because they did an unsanctioned 2 dollar discount on a new game. So we are seeing the return.
In theory it annoys me because the playstations have always been okay-good media players and I have one of the gundam breakers on a physical disc because that was the cheapest way to get all the DLC. But for higher end digital media we are missing the codecs (because money) and physical digital media as a whole is going away. So… probably the right decision to wean people off it.
That said: Charging extra for the fucking vertical stand is just insane since a lot of us had tv stands that cannot fit the PS5 horizontally. But also, considering this looke like it is a bit taller/longer, it also can’t fit it vertically so… Even more reason to build a new HTPC over the next few years.
Remap, but also Rob Zacny (so you can never tell how much is actually a bit), did a REALLY good bit where they immediately priced out the new Remarkable with all the expensive attachments and… it is still (probably) cheaper than a PS5 Pro with a disc drive and a stand.
No. Its a tablet. Marketed toward Professionals because of its focus on handwritten notes and sketches and the kind of thing where even the people who swear by it acknowledge it is insanely expensive and not something people should really buy.
Recurring theme on Remap but it very much highlights what category the ps5 pro is in. Same with comparing it to an apple vision pro.
They can still kind of kill physical games with good service. The whole “honey rather than vinegar” argument.
That’s what happened with the PSVita. While overpriced game cartridges existed, most of its lifespan people were buying its games digitally which worked great for indie developers that didn’t have a budget for physical releases.
I mean… that is what happened on PC. I know people forget we exist, but basically anyone who was “a gamer” back in the early 00s embraced digital distribution and Steam for a reason. Because after the third time that you have done four disc swaps and entered three 30 character keys to play Neverwinter Nights 1? That shit gets REAL old. Same with needing to be aware of what order to install what patches so as to not brick Dawn of War: Soulstornm and have to reinstall everything.
Contrast that with double clicking something in fricking Impulse and then waiting 30 minutes for it to install.
Which is kind of what you described with the Vita. Nobody wanted to have to carry two or three UMDs with them anywhere they want (let alone the rise of indie games that never had a digital release). Tinfoil, but I strongly suspect Nintendo made a big deal about not licking cartridges so that the Jeff Gerstmanns of the world would… lick that shit. Which led to the meme and people wanting to buy cartridges.
My memory may be hazy, but I recall the mainstream acceptance of the digital distribution model on PC as more of an early 2010’s thing. People hated Steam at launch, having yet another launcher you had to download which was basically just DRM for Half-Life 2 and Counter-Strike.
It wasn’t until their marketplace opened up and they offered very attractive sales that people came around to it eventually.
As someone who buys expensive games, games I’m excited for, or just franchises I’m invested in, the death of discs is going to really make me reevaluate my gaming. I’ll probably at least wait for a sale for every single game if I can’t have a physical copy.
Almost all of my digital purchases are cheap games.
Yeah, I thought about getting the Ally, buying the Steam Deck’s the way to go. Now if only Linux get a bigger market share and more apps, that’d be great.
if you have modern hardware and newest nvidia GPU, just stay away from Linux. Windows is still best atm. But, if your newest hardware is ageing, then Linux is the best for that.
Not really true at all. If all you care about is raw performance, then that’s debatable, but if you’re talking ease of use then Linux is fine. Just grab a distro with an Nvidia ISO like pop_os and install, nothing else left to do.
My hardware is 2 years old (ryzen 5900HX and RTX 3070). I use manjaro/Ubuntu LTS and Non-LTS/PopOS/LinuxMint/Zorin/LMDE/Nobara and endeavour OS and it’s freezing quite often and I have to go back to Windows atm. I think Nvidia is main culprit here. If I move to Full AMD or the current nvidia hardware is getting older (more than 5 years old). I might try Linux again
Freezing doing what? I’ve got modern hardware and I’m running nobara and I don’t get any issues except my Taskbar freezes on Wayland. On x11 I have no issues
What nvidia drivers did you used? The open source one or the proprietary one? Because I have the rtx 3070, and I have not experience a problem using the proprietary drivers in plain old debian stable, using x11
tested with proprietary with 525,535,440. it’s awful. But, my other working laptop ThinkPad E14 Gen 2 (Intel) with Kubuntu 22.04 with Iris gpu is perfect without issues.
You are technically correct, but Valve is a very “consumer first” company. This of course is no guarantee they’ll always be “good”, but Valve has earned and maintained my trust over the years and I trust them more than any other company I can think of. Far and away orders of magnitude more than Microsoft.
That’s a good point. I’ve never participated in that so it didn’t really factor into my opinion of them. In every way I’ve interacted with the company they have been excellent.
I like them because they make niche products that may not have mainstream appeal, but that their customers love (steam link, steam controller, valve index, steam deck). They have excellent customer support and always do more than they have to:
My GF lost the power adapter to her steam link and asked how to buy a new one, they just sent her an entire replacement device since they were stopping production anyway
One of my Index lighthouses died and I had bought it used from a guy since they didn’t sell them in my country yet. No questions, they sent me a new one
When they were releasing Half Life Alex they just checked if you’d ever had an index connected to your PC and if so they gave you a copy. No asking for proof of purchase or redeeming codes that expire.
I could go on, but yeah to me they are pushing Linux forward, making hardware that excites me, have reasonable prices, and great service. So I like them.
I mean... if somebody has a gaming storefront monopoly in Windows it certainly isn't Microsoft. Concern about monopolistic practices is a great catch-22 between the OS dominance of Windows or the platform dominance of Steam, and I'm about as concerned about both.
FWIW, I have both a Steam Deck and a GPD Windows handheld and, being entirely agnostic about that entire conversation I default to my GPD Win 4, because of ergonomics, usability and compatibility concerns, in that order.
No way Microsoft let’s that happen. He’ll be forced out. The only reason Microsoft looked into this consolidation is because he was running the company value into the core of the earth.
He was the CEO of Electronic Arts when the controversial loot box monetization was added to FIFA 09. He made news when he called developers “fucking idiots” over some developers’ reluctance to introduce monetization schemes earlier in the development process. There’s also the infamous clip of Riccitiello talking during a shareholder call about charging Battlefield players a dollar to reload their guns.
Look at this guy...I couldn't read all of the Bloomberg article due to paywall, so I don't know if this jackass actually provided proof of these "death threats."
While I don't condone them, it seems awfully convenient that an executive who's known to stir controversy with his monetization strategies received "alleged" death threats. I have a hard time believing it without proof because this guy is a sleaze ball greedy mofo.
In any group of people there will always be a tiny subset of the population who will pull this unhinged bullshit. It's unfortunate, but now the CEO gets to play the victim, and anyone who's against his bullshit gets to be painted with the same brush as the unhinged guy.
I never understand freaking out about death threats. If someone actually wanted to murder you, they’d be quiet and methodical about it, not grandiose. To be fair, I’ve never received a death threat so perhaps I’m not theeeeeeeeeeeee
I mean you are assuming the person who is trying to murder you is a rational actor but you can't really be a rational actor if you are threatening death to someone because of their shit monetization policies on your entertainment. Hell some people throw "Death threats" at people because they decide to change a reload speed by a fraction of a second. So yeah "gamers" can be quite unhinged. Hell you had idiots in Jan 6 who loudly stated their intention and beat a cop to death. Hell we have seen situations of weirdos getting close to celebrities (in their heads) then trying to kill them, and I imagine cases like that will only get worse with parasocial relationships getting a bit out of hand with modern influences and streamers.
That's the fallacy of trying to understand criminal acts. For the most part, if someone were as smart, logical, and thoughtful as you are when you imagine the best way to commit murder, the kind of person to actually try and commit the murder would not be as smart, logical, or thoughtful to have gotten into that situation in the first place.
There are exceptions, of course, but it's enough of a possibility that it's probably better to take them seriously than not.
Edit: typed all that, scrolled down, some other dude already said it
You don’t - it’s a bullshit excuse. It’s like a 5 year old with their hand in the cookie jar saying “I didn’t mean to do it.” Yes you did, little Jimmy, what you didn’t mean to do was get caught. Now blow that idea up to a greedy, unethical, billion dollar corporation.
Yeah, I also read that they stopped the project of building an official Xbox handheld to focus on 3rd party hardware. Because otherwise the delay would make them not launch at the same time than the home console.
I read that somewhere as well, it coincided with reports of SteamOS being more performant that Windows 11 for gaming. How related they both were I have no idea but it sounds like MS were already aware and are trying to resolve that here as it prevents resource intensive processes from launching (desktop, etc).
I still think the real XBox handheld is another 2-5 years out. This is Microsoft dipping their toes in the water and the ROC is a great system to start that partnership
Not saying I’d get one, but I am a Xbox gamer. It’s where the majority of my purchases are. I hardly play PC because I just don’t like sitting at a desk, when I’m in a desk chair most of the day. I maybe have 3-4 games on steam, but my PC is getting old just found out even though my graphics card can do ray tracing, my processor is only 2.9ghx and recommended min is 3.2 and can’t run the new doom game.
So if you were to get one would you stay with the steam deck or wait for the Asus?
Looking at your use case, I would go with Asus. You would already have a decent library because of some Xbox Play Anywhere titles, plus there is also gamepass.
I’d agree with this to be honest. As much as I love my Steam Deck I’m not sure it’s the choice they’re looking for. But, I also haven’t used any other Asus offerings with handhelds, to make a full run down of advice and comparison.
I get your point but the speed of the CPU means nothing without mentioning the specific model. My old i7-4790k came stock at 4.4GHz and would massively struggle to run modern games, but if I underclocked my current 7600x to 3.2GHz it would easily handle the latest games at 60 FPS.
I’d say it’ll backfire when people can’t play those odd Xbox games that for some reason never came to PC, but there’s so few people using Xboxes anyway, I doubt it’s going to matter. They’ve well and truly dropped the ball since the Xbox 360, and don’t really show any signs of being interested in picking it up again.
Everything just points to them making enough money from everything else to not really care. This is as token an effort as it’s possible to make in the handheld space.
The bill very explicitly calls out ByteDance and any website, desktop application, mobile application, or augmented or immersive technology application owned by them.
Hmm, I may be reading it wrong, but it’s just talking about the distribution/updating of foreign controlled applications. Based on what I’ve seen Marvel Snap isnt controlled by them, they just provide services for the application, so it wouldn’t technically apply. However, I’m not a lawyer and may have the wrong read on the app, but given the game developers were surprised I’d think that’s the right read.
They did. And they already are rolling it back, specifically thanking trump for helping to “restore service”. It was all a political stunt, and nobody’s gonna care cause their skinner button got turned back on again.
If consoles want to remain relevant in the age of the gaming PC, they have to try harder than being locked-down gaming PCs.
Free and simple multiplayer, subsidised hardware, and physical game ownership were staples of most consoles for years but now the urge to turn every device into an “everything machine” has kneecapped the very purpose of these devices.
At best, these are slightly less hassle and slightly more social than a gaming PC. At worst, they’re as anti-social and user-hostile without the cost benefit that once made them genuinely preferable.
Sony will try to drag this thing out at least one more generation. If that goes like this one–and it has room to actually go worse–then Sony will have to make some hard decisions.
Shit, if they haven’t started it yet, it better not be coming out in 2026. I want at least four years of peaceful development without them rushing it and burning out the devs. I want good stories and plenty of werewolf content. And no gamebreaking bugs like Cyberpunk, whose campaign got glitched for me.
To be fair a game like elder scrolls might even need a whole decade of proper development to avoid gamebreaking bugs, Skyrim took 6 years and we got the civil war quest line…
As much fun as werewolf penis is, I want real story development, haha. Questlines, explore the affliction, marginalized werewolf underground societies, maybe even a remote village where everyone, men/women/children are werewolves and/or other types of were creatures? I feel like there’s plenty to explore aside from the yiff and relationship type stuff!
maybe even a remote village where everyone, men/women/children are werewolves and/or other types of were creatures?
It was some time ago but I’m pretty sure I did a quest in The Elder Scrolls Online that had something like this… Not sure where it was but it was a good side quest with its own hidden area
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