Agreed. The upfront cost of games and a new Stadia-specific controller was too much. I subscribed to PS Now to play Spider-Man. I still had to buy a PlayStation controller, but it was reusable for other PC games.
Ironically, I am now only subscribed to a visit GeForce Now, which requires game purchases. This is primarily due to Sony’s lack of macOS support for PS Now, and my owning an M1 with no Bootcamp support.
Playstation Plus is what lead to my eventual move to PC Gaming. I didn't (and still don't) see the benefit of having to pay monthly just to play games that I want to play. At the time (ps3/4 era), most if not all the free games were all indy games and games I had no interest in playing. That meant that I was paying full price for games I wanted to play and I had to pay a monthly fee just to play online multiplayer (and internet of course). Moving to PC saved me something like 30$/month for something that gave me little to no value.
If the future of gaming is a subscription model, I'd rather just stop gaming.
The problem seems to be people are unlikely to pay large subscription fees, but they also generally play at the same time of day so you can’t get a large multiple between hardware and subscriptions. Worse, people still need hardware at home to connect to these services.
~130x as many people bought PlayStation 4 than subscribe to PlayStation now at just 20$ per month. While they might be extremely profitable for Sony, AAA games require huge customer bases.
I agree with you, and am having a hard time talking myself into a new console purchase. I have a gaming PC, which is what these consoles have become with the added insult of paying subscription fees for online play.
My partner has a ps4 and some subscription thing (PS now?). It ends up being about 6$/month and new games are available each month (including some AAA). If each month you add them to your library you quickly end up with a backlog of more games than you can play.
games seems to loose value rapidly after they are released so some are very affordable.
> When did they do this? As I remember they did not promise free upgrades, but was forced to provide them anyway for some games because of the backlash.
It's been a while, but I think it was with Horizon Forbidden West
> PS4 controllers
I agree this one needed a bit more nuance. I understand they wanted to incentivize the new controller features, but it's the fact that the PS5 is technically capable of using those controllers (since you can use them for PS4 games) but Sony chooses to not allow it that's anti-consumer. Also since you can use PS4 controllers to play streamed PS5 games on PC or PS4 itself.
> How did they raise the price of consoles?
In August 2022 they increased the console price by ~10% pretty much all over the world except the US. Microsoft did the same in June 2023.
"I know that the games themselves end up costing more"
Just got PS5 and the PS Extra membership whose library has almost every game I wanted. Maxed out my SSD storage on day 1. And I think the XBox subscription is even better. I mean PC is still cheaper but the difference is not that big anymore.
On the other hand, a Playstation 5 is $500 plus $50-$70 per game. A PC is even more expensive for the latest hardware. At $6/month it would take you 7 years before it costs you more renting than owning at which point there could be a PS6 and more games to buy.
For someone like me that rarely plays games, I'll probably sign up for a few months to play something that interests me then cancel it after I lose interest. I'll enjoy not having a console I hardly ever use sitting around collecting dust.
The fragmentation with movies/tv platforms has been awful, but Spotify has been amazing for music. I've probably listened to more music than I could ever afford otherwise. I don't think the price of movies has really changed either and you can still purchase them, so people are definitely making a choice to go with streaming over physical ownership. Go to any Goodwill and you will see shelves of discarded VHS and DVDs. I don't think people want to buy the VHS, then the DVD, then the BluRay, then the 4K BluRay and whatever 8K thing comes after anymore. Technology is changing so rapidly that's it better to pay a pittance each month now and wait for the next better thing just around the corner.
I’m on the other side. Almost bought a PS5. Or to be more accurate, wanted to buy a PS5, but they were insanely behind with shipping and the little stocks there were got bought up by resellers. Then once Sony managed to get stocks up somewhat, they jacked up the prices (something I don’t recall any other console manufacturer ever doing).
I bought a steam deck instead and I’ve been playing basically all I would’ve been playing on the PS5 I wanted to get, plus it’s a nice emulation machine and I’m also catching up on my PC backlog.
Compatibility is great in my experience, sleep mode is incredibly convenient, and the only real complaint I have is battery life is basically awful for modern games. You’ll be recharging after any modest length session.
I would love to go with a console as my main platform, I just always have the feeling that Sony is ripping me off with the cost of games and PS Plus. Do you find it evens out in the long run with the larger upfront cost of a gaming PC?
As I pointed out above Sony has, does, and will continue to make up the hardware subsidy by the markup and money they get on games. That is, there is no need for Sony to subsidize the platform further through ads.
This makes ads on the PS4 a product of greed alone.
Most of those are either remakes of older games, VR games, games that haven't been released yet, or games with poor ratings. The only real title there worth buying today would be Spider-Man 2.
I'm pretty disappointed in the PS5's library but for someone who never had a PS4 the PS5 is absolutely worth it. Maybe by the time they get through the backlog of good PS4 games there will be something worth playing on the PS5
I would've bought a PS5, but it's just not available. I won't go out of my way monitoring shops and/or pay premium plus for a console that is soon 2 years old at this point.
PS5 might as well not exist for many regular people.
This, uh - ‘increase the price of our hardware’ thing that console manufacturers are doing is so far ass-backwards it’s making a full circle around the Earth to the front again.
Meta’s ‘metaverse’ isn’t doing well - you know, that thing they renamed themselves to focus on?
So…their reaction to that was to increase the price of an aging piece of hardware that is the main portal to the aforementioned new company focus.
And I’m struggling to have any sympathy for Sony, either - who has typically subsidized console costs; and is now joining the loony bin with Meta.
I have never - in my decades of being obsessed with consoles - seen a manufacturer increase the price of a console a year after launch.
Sony’s made a dumbass decision here - for sure - but it’s nothing compared to the facepalm that is Meta increasing the price of the Quest. Mind boggling.
Although 20k seems quite low, I think it is reasonable given the rise of game subscriptions.
Who would want to jailbreak and leave their ps5 offline to get 5$ games that won’t work once the station is updated. Where on the flip side you could pay 5-15$ Monthly (not sure of PlayStation Nows cost but that amount is for Xbox game pass) to have hundreds of games at your disposal and never have to physically acquire a new disk via black market to play a new game?
Back in the late 80s/early 90s the cost of a new game was only $40, if you were part of the glorious PCMR. Now we're just subsidizing the console plebs.
Well I guess putting games on Steam for $70 would have prevented this but I guess not. Maybe Sony should increase the price of games to $80 and see how that goes.
And not that you could buy the PS5 for MSRP anyways because it's always bundled w/ something and on top of that the scarcity alone jacked up the prices.
As much as HN hates Microsoft they are handling Xbox 1000x times better
Ironically, I am now only subscribed to a visit GeForce Now, which requires game purchases. This is primarily due to Sony’s lack of macOS support for PS Now, and my owning an M1 with no Bootcamp support.
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