I would like a PS5. Not just because it would make my current games run faster and because I’m tired of waiting, but because it would be useful for my job of writing about technology.
But sometime between the launch of the console in November 2020 and today, I stopped trying to buy it, even when flashes of available stock appeared on social media.
I knew I had changed my point of view when a friend displayed a screenshot of their successful purchase in a Discord chat. They did that. They beat the Monster of Scarcity PS5, the toughest boss out of Demon’s Souls.
But I didn’t feel anything, not even jealousy. That’s when I realized that I stopped worrying about the PS5.
1. Too much wasted time
I’m not saying this just because my bosses are going to read it, but it’s true. One of the biggest reasons I missed buying a PS5 was because I was too busy working, watching TV or doing anything else. To stay tuned for “PS5 on sale” news, which randomly appears as a spam call throughout the day, you need to be very connected.
You need to check specific Twitter accounts, like Wario64, or PS5stockalerts often. If you’re really dedicated, you can enable notifications for all tweets posted to those accounts. Or, as I did at one point, make a TweetDeck column for them. But then you soon realize that even these specialized accounts don’t have enough return on investment.
And even if you’re lucky to see a notification at the right time? The quantities are so small that their chances of success are still minimal.
Wario64 does much more than just announce if PlayStation Direct has new PS5s on sale, and I don’t need my phone to ring every time there is news in the wild world of games. And even PS5stockalerts publishes more tweets than I found valuable, because I don’t need to know about the availability of PS5 in Canada or at the Sam’s Club exclusive to members. And when I see PS5-related items for sale, it’s usually just the headset, remote control, or controller charging station.
Eventually, I realized that I would rather do something else.
2. Expensive packages are not worth it
So, I started to see more packages than independent consoles. Antonline, from Atlanta, which I had never heard of before, is one of the biggest offenders when it comes to taking consoles that people want and involving them in unnecessary things.
Take, for example, the Xbox Series X package from Antonline, which has an extra Elite Series 2 controller, Forza Horizon 4 and three months of Game Pass Ultimate. Not wanting to offend people who prefer this controller, like racing games or subscribe to the Game Pass, but the Xbox Series X costs $ 500.
Xbox Series X Package in Antonline https://t.co/naVVAVco6j pic.twitter.com/ImNsSEl6BcJanuary 19, 2021
Now are you going to tell me that I need to spend more than 150% of the original price – this package costs $ 759 – to get an Xbox Series X?
No thank you. It is difficult to make an attractive package.
3. PS5 exclusives still don’t excite me
Astro’s Playroom and Demon’s Souls, the two games that you can play only on PS5 (and not, for example, the PS4 that I already own) don’t really do that for me. Astro’s Playroom, which shows the PS5 DualSense controller in some interesting and meta ways, looks like an empty version of a game I’m already addicted to: Ring Fit Adventure.
Nintendo’s fitness game is also obsessed with its own controls, as it uses the two Joy-Con controls to push you to the limits of training. Astro’s Playroom, a showcase of how DualSense has many tricks up its sleeve, sounds worse. There is not much to be gained by learning about DualSense’s force feedback.
I will hope that the advantages of DualSense show themselves in games. For example, as my colleague Marshall Honorof liked the advantages of DualSense when playing Demon’s Souls.
I’m also not the type of person who has ever enjoyed the super-difficult gameplay of crawling dungeons in titles like Demon’s Souls. So I’ll wait. Perhaps God of War 2: Ragnarok it will be that game for me – except maybe that game can still be played on PS4.
4. It’s okay to wait for the first glitches
While the PS5 has yet to see a serious problem with the Red Ring of Death style, the potential for such a malfunction is one reason why I never felt the need to have a PS5 in my childhood. These problems, when they arise, tend to penalize the first users.
In fact, we found news from a Xbox Series X controller disconnect failure which only started making headlines in January, months after the console’s launch.
While many of these possible bugs can be fixed with a firmware update, I fear the result of ending a hardware problem.
5. Working with my backlog
To paraphrase that a meme, “there are already PlayStation games at home.” Final Fantasy VII Remake was a game that didn’t get its grip on me the first time. But when I put him back just before the new year, I realized that he now had my number – so much so that I am annoyed that I didn’t put pressure on him in our Games of the year 2020 debate.
The PS4 is also not dead for people who like to play. New PS4 games are still being released. From modern Hitman 3 to remastered Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: The Game, the PS4 is still being treated as a member of the family that you have not disowned. He still gets a seat at the table.
While many players see the PS4 as yesterday’s news, I can’t see it as a “state-of-the-art console” like the Co-founders of CD Projekt Red did when they tried to save their face after the Cyberpunk 2077 disaster. When the PS5 is so hard to get, and the PS4 is still working, I feel like Homer Simpson chasing that flying pig, saying, “It’s still good; it’s still good! ”
(I just need to make sure that my PS4 doesn’t fall into a dam. I’m pretty sure that too much water would kill it.)