I tried to order a PS5 about a month ago, when Walmart was scheduled to drop some. Just as a sheer exercise to see if I could. I kept taking my eye off of the ball and barely missing the drop every ten minutes. So it became a challenge to overcome. And then, finally... the order actually went through.
I had the chance to pre-order before launch, but didn't really have any desire for one. The hard drive capacity seemed untenable, it looks like a life-sized obelisk/monolith, there weren't any exclusives that I really wanted, and $70 games are for the birds.
None of that has really changed since. But the difficulty of scoring one made me more curious, oddly. How green WAS that grass, really? FOMO! Plus, I figured that I could try it out, redeem the PS Plus Collection games, and then pass it along for a profit. Which I still might.
But y'know what I really hate? Like, with the intensity of a thousand suns? My PS4 Pro. Because it sounds like it has a thousand fans. Every time I boot up that clunky piece of shit and am forced to install hours of updates and just... listen to it's dynamo-esque acoustic output, I'm filled with the deepest regret. Plus, they don't sell them anymore! So they're kind of going for a lot on Amazon, seemingly. Except Amazon won't let me sell them?
Anyway, I'm still in the middle of figuring out the most financially rewarding way to kick my PS4 Pro to the curb, but I did try out the PS5. The transfer gave me some issues, but whatevvvs. And I still don't really care about the library (the PS5 library, I mean - real libraries 4 Lyfe!), but just the quiet operation and fast loading almost make it a worthwhile way to play games that I don't really enjoy.
The new Dual Sense features are really cool in Astrobot (which is also cool). The triggers seem a bit gimmicky, but the haptics really are a step up from the Switch's HD Rumble. The position of the thumbsticks is still horrible, though, and it really irritates me that Sony won't let you use DS4 controllers on PS5 games.
Will I keep it? I dunno. I got the disc version, because god(s) bless the library. I rented basically every single PS5 game the day the system arrived, and I don't really plan to buy anything day one (or maybe at all),
ever. (I can't try too many at the same time, due to limited hard drive space, though. So far, I've only played Astro Bot and Fenyx Rising, which is a decent BOTW-like, if too repetitive and slavishly devoted to the Ubisoft open world formula.) It basically makes the PS4 obsolete, so if I can get a decent price for mine and keep renting everything, it will be an affordable way to play the ol' AAAAAs. The onboard media decoders stink, but it has 4K Blu Ray capability. Plus, I feel like the demand and resale value will stay high for a while.
To be honest, I was thinking of building a new PC, instead, since mine is 25 years old... but all of the parts are super-expensive right now. I'd also like to reward Xbox for their hardware design and Game Pass ecosystem, which is an insane deal, but the inertia of my existing library makes the PS5 a better choice, even though there's no easy/cheap way to try out indie games on PS5. Those guys could use the buys, anyway, I guess...
Anyway, that's my story! What are your "next-gen" plans (by which I mean modern PC/PS5/Xbox Series)? And if you've already jumped in, what do you think, so far?
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