Sony PS5 buyers and owners (1 Viewer)

[Bryan^H]

https://www.engadget.com/2019/10/08/the-playstation-5-launch-date-holiday-2020/

" Rest assured, physical games will still exist on the PS5, coming on 100GB optical disks on a new drive that doubles as a 4K Blu-ray player."


Huge win for physical media, nothing like having 50-100 million UHD Players in homes.
Also a bunch of info about new rumble features in the controllers that no one is going to give a fuck about.

 

[Morgan Jolley]

I find it funny that you think people will care about having a UHD player but won't care about the controller rumble features. I'm not sure people will really care about either too much, but they'll certainly experience one of them.

The rumble stuff is neat, but it sounds like the Xbox One's rumbling triggers combined with the Switch's HD rumble. Everything else about the PS5 sounds good in the I-would-expect-nothing-less way.

 

[Bryan^H]

I find it funny that you think people will care about having a UHD player but won't care about the controller rumble features. I'm not sure people will really care about either too much, but they'll certainly experience one of them.

What do you find funny?
I didn't say everyone would care. I said it is a huge win for physical media...which it is. The PS5 will sell millions, and millions of units. If a small fraction of those consumers get into 4K discs because of the PS5, that is fantastic for the UHD format. More sales for movies. Healthier life cycle.

Controllers..yeah they are going to rumble and shake differently. Big deal.

 

[TJPC]

I use my PS3 as the main Blu ray unit for my system to play flat and 3D blus. I anticipated upgrading when a PS would play 4K discs which PS5 apparently does. My major question is will PS5 also play 3D discs?

 

[Bryan^H]

I use my PS3 as the main Blu ray unit for my system to play flat and 3D blus. I anticipated upgrading when a PS would play 4K discs which PS5 apparently does. My major question is will PS5 also play 3D discs?

I'm sure it will. If not initially, with a firmware update like the PS4.

 

[Bryan^H]

It is going to be a very expensive Holiday season next year, as I might be getting both of these ( mainly for the exclusive games for each system )

 

[LeoA]

I sadly suspect that backwards compatibility bit is going to end up misleading to a degree.

If I were a betting man, Microsoft's claims about support for four generations of Xbox software and their promise of accessory backwards compatibility is going to play out by the system simply being fully Xbox One compatible.

My bet is that all your Xbox One software and accessories will work, but that the only original Xbox and Xbox 360 support you'll see is what the Xbox One already is capable of. So I suspect that IGN chart is going to end up rather misleading where BC is concerned.

I'd love to be proven wrong. Support for all retail Xbox games, all retail and digital Xbox 360 games, and wired USB Xbox 360 accessories (Wireless tech has changed a lot since 2005) would be exceptional and something I'd love to see. Taking the dream a step even further, I'd love to see Xbox Live accounts that bought original Xbox DLC back before support ended being allowed to retrieve that on Xbox Next (Perhaps Microsoft has this data in our account history even though original Xbox DLC was tied to the purchasing console rather than to the purchasing XBL account).

Sadly, I'm quite confident this is all pure fantasy. We'll see full Xbox One software/accessory support and continue to be able to enjoy the scores of Xbox 360 classics that Microsoft's backwards compatibility team rolled out for the XB1 (and the tease that original Xbox support ended up being on the XB1), but all the rest of our original Xbox and 360 software libraries will be unplayable on Xbox Next.

I'd sure love though to pop in my Project Gotham Racing 2 disc, redownload the Long Beach and Paris booster packs that my gamertag bought 10+ years ago, and take a spin in this game on Xbox Next with the graphics rendered in 4k.

 

[Bryan^H]

My bet is that all your Xbox One software and accessories will work, but that the only original Xbox and Xbox 360 support you'll see is what the Xbox One already is capable of.

I think you are probably right about that....unfortunately.

 

[Morgan Jolley]

If the next Xbox is powerful enough to run a full-on emulator for the Xbox One and 360, then we might get complete backwards compatibility. The two questions are whether or not it will be that powerful (possibly, I really don't know) and whether or not MS will put resources into making that work (I find this plausible, if it means they don't need to do the one-at-a-time BC process they currently have for Xbox One). That said, I honestly find it odd that they even care to cover anything pre-One with BC in the next console because it isn't really a strong enough selling point to get people to buy in. The PS4 outsold the One handily without any real BC support (I'm not sure where I'd put PS Now and the PS2 originals as "backwards compatible") and the Switch has seen a lot of previous gen ports be successful, so the business incentive would almost be to not have too much BC and instead just straight-up re-releases of ported-up games.

As a gamer, I hope they have strong BC (and I hope the PS5 does something worthwhile, too). But I'm skeptical of it being robust.

Regarding UHD, yes it's a good thing to have those disc drives in people's homes and I could see that meaning some sales of UHD discs, but the market for physical media has only really been going strong with games. Movies aren't selling like they used to and most people who buy a PS5/XBWhatever won't really use their system for watching UHD movies all that often. Conversely, they'll actually experience the improved rumble features. I mean, I know this is the HOME THEATER Forum, but we're also talking about GAMING consoles. The game-focused features are what people really look for.

 

[Sam Posten]

I use my PS3 as the main Blu ray unit for my system to play flat and 3D blus. I anticipated upgrading when a PS would play 4K discs which PS5 apparently does. My major question is will PS5 also play 3D discs?

No, no bluray player will ever play 3D disks again.

 

[LeoA]

I don't believe they'll be emulating the Xbox One or be forced to recompile games, Morgan. I believe the GPU and CPU of Xbox Next can natively handle those instructions as-is. Same story with PS5.

Think Wii U style situation. Bigger, beefier hardware. But hardware that can still understand how to directly run the game code from the previous generation without any special effort.

We're seeing X86 based hardware be replaced with far more powerful X86 based hardware. So more a PC style evolution this time around than what we've traditionally seen in the console world. BC is essentially a freebie this upcoming generation where legacy XB1/PS4 support is concerned.

They'll take time to confirm major games (And hopefully many minor games) work as they should, but there should be few game specific issues that need them to intervene to correct.

 

[Bryan^H]

That said, I honestly find it odd that they even care to cover anything pre-One with BC in the next console because it isn't really a strong enough selling point to get people to buy in. The PS4 outsold the One handily without any real BC support (I'm not sure where I'd put PS Now and the PS2 originals as "backwards compatible") and the Switch has seen a lot of previous gen ports be successful, so the business incentive would almost be to not have too much BC and instead just straight-up re-releases of ported-up games.

I don't really know the statistics of retro video game owners- collectors (I would guess maybe a million worldwide..if that) so offering backward compatible functionality at this point does seem sort of pointless. I just think Microsoft is covering all the bases to make themselves the "Gamer friendly" console to buy. Remember last launch of the XBOX ONE? Step by step guide on how to alienate, and anger concerned gamers, with snarky responses, no sharing, and Kinect influenced launch. All of which failed miserably. PS4 won this console war for a reason, and exclusives!

 

[DaveF]

I'd wrongly assumed that The Last of Us Part II was a launch title for the PS5. I was thinking that I'd be buying a PS5 to play TLOU in 2020. But it looks like I can just renew my PS+ service, replay the original and then buy and play the sequel on my PS4. That's a $600 savings.

Although, if I don't get to the sequel at launch, I may well put it off until next Christmas and do a PS5 upgrade just to play that game ni the best possible quality.

 

[Morgan Jolley]

Leo - what I meant was that I think the next Xbox could possibly emulate the original Xbox and the 360. MS already said that XBOne games would be natively supported, which makes sense since at this point consoles are basically underpriced gaming PCs.

Bryan - I agree that MS' launch for XBO was bungled, but if I'm being totally honest I don't think the Xbox brand as a whole is that strong. Sony sold more PS3 units than MS sold 360s and the original Xbox capped at somewhere between 30-35 million units. The 2 reasons the 360 appeared as strong as it did was that it launched an entire year before the PS3/Wii and it had CoD4: Modern Warfare as an exclusive for a period of time. Putting those two factors aside, the PS3 did better than the 360 in every way. Even looking at console unit sales every month from when they individually launched, the PS3 sold better than the 360.

So I don't think MS can really do anything to make their next console sell better. The One is kind of a flop all around.

As for retro gaming, I think even MS' own data shows that backwards compatibility is a severely underused feature. Sony said it wasn't a priority for the PS4 (which is also probably some way of underselling the idea, since the PS3 Cell architecture made it really hard to pull off natively) because of how few people even used it with the PS3.

 

[Bryan^H]

Leo - what I meant was that I think the next Xbox could possibly emulate the original Xbox and the 360. MS already said that XBOne games would be natively supported, which makes sense since at this point consoles are basically underpriced gaming PCs.

Bryan - I agree that MS' launch for XBO was bungled, but if I'm being totally honest I don't think the Xbox brand as a whole is that strong. Sony sold more PS3 units than MS sold 360s and the original Xbox capped at somewhere between 30-35 million units. The 2 reasons the 360 appeared as strong as it did was that it launched an entire year before the PS3/Wii and it had CoD4: Modern Warfare as an exclusive for a period of time. Putting those two factors aside, the PS3 did better than the 360 in every way. Even looking at console unit sales every month from when they individually launched, the PS3 sold better than the 360.

So I don't think MS can really do anything to make their next console sell better. The One is kind of a flop all around.

As for retro gaming, I think even MS' own data shows that backwards compatibility is a severely underused feature. Sony said it wasn't a priority for the PS4 (which is also probably some way of underselling the idea, since the PS3 Cell architecture made it really hard to pull off natively) because of how few people even used it with the PS3.

The XBox 360 sold close to 85 million units. Although the PS3 sold a few million more units it was a pretty close race. Both were hugely successful. Sony dominated this generation by so much it almost seems Microsoft was forgotten. The Microsoft exclusives were nowhere near what I would consider strong (the Forza series is about it). Insult to injury is the timed exclusives like Tomb Raider which didn't seem to make much of a difference.

I'm hoping that Microsoft can nab some "forever exclusives" that are worth the price of the system, because at this point I think that is what they really need to compete with Sony.

 

[Edwin-S]

No, no bluray player will ever play 3D disks again.

What are you talking about? Every Blu-ray player to date is able to support 3D playback, including 4K players, even though the format is effectively dead in North America.

 

[Sam Posten]

LMAO

 

[Edwin-S]

LMAO

What is to laugh at? Name one 4K BD player that does not support 3D playback.

 

[TJPC]

What are you talking about? Every Blu-ray player to date is able to support 3D playback, including 4K players, even though the format is effectively dead in North America.

I have 5 Blu ray players. The only one that will play a 3D disc is the PS3. All the others display a warning that they can’t play 3D discs when I have accidentally put the wrong one in.

 

[Edwin-S]

I have 5 Blu ray players. The only one that will play a 3D disc is the PS3. All the others display a warning that they can’t play 3D discs when I have accidentally put the wrong one in.

I guess I stand corrected on that point then. All of the players I have looked at or bought have that capability. Of course, I always look for that capability in every player that I have considered. I figure the PS5 player will have that capability in its 4K player. If it doesn't then no big deal to me as I will have a player that can play the discs. I would never buy one without the capability.

However, Sam Posten's unequivocal remark that no Blu-ray player will ever play 3D again is complete nonsense AFAIAC.