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Drifting away from Playstation

XXL

Member
When you leave, can I have your stuff?
miley cyrus flowers GIF by iHeartRadio
 

AmuroChan

Member
It's ok to not love the same brands your entire life. If you're no longer happy with what PlayStation offers, move on. It's honestly not that difficult. I switch brands on various products all the time. I've owned or leased at least a dozen different brands of cars. I routinely fly different airlines depending on cost, availability, and destination. Lamenting over a certain brand is just silly in the grand scheme of life.
 

Bernardougf

Member
I have been a big PS fan, played most of my games on the platform. I loved the ecosystem, the variety and quality of their games.

sxie0212.png



But as of recently, I turn on the console less. Feels like the PS magic is fading away. This is no melodramatic reaction, but a gradually waning interest. Over time, mainly since 2022, I found that:

  • The PS Plus service offers far less value than before, or compared to competitors.
For an annual price of $135, the PS Plus Extra offers a far lesser catalog than the competitors. Each month 10+ games leave, but new arrivals never make up for the quality. Just look at the last three months. For the first time in 10 years, I stopped renewing my sub in March.

And then hardware. I never mind spending big, as long as the products offer good value. Based on the info out there so far, I don't think PS5 Pro is the case. I was dead firm to get it on day one, but now, I am holding off to see more about how much the PSSR can actually do.

  • The customer service is a nightmare to deal with.
It's genuinely mindboggling that a giant like Sony on the market, has this unfathomable abysmal customer service. For once I lost a digital game's license for no reason, I contacted them, I provided the receipt directly from PSN store, and after one hour of back and forth, all they could advise, was to ask me to factor reset my console. It's been 9 months, I never heard back. And of course there was a time when I needed to claim the warranty for a drifting stick DualSense. There never was an easy path to navigate on the website for the purpose, and I had to call the hardware service number right at 8 am, because any other time, you stayed in the waiting line forever. And at least I was lucky to get the warranty honored. There are folks never able to.



  • The states of current first-party studios are unclear, and I don't know what to anticipate.
And this is probably the final straw. after all, we love a console because of the games on it. Honestly, I had a great time with PS5, 2020 - 2022. The DualSense is magical, the graphics in Demons' Souls, Rift Apart, and Forbidden West are all breathtaking.
The downtime started in 2023, the mediocre showcase followed by debacles of their service game strategy. So far, we don't know a single project from any of PS's prestige studios (other than more Marvel from Insomniac). I am confident when the games from ND, SP, Bluepoint et al. come out, they will be great, but how long will it take? We used to have 2 - 3 high quality first party games every year.


I feel like I didn't want to go anywhere, but still drifting away from the console in the meantime. All I hope is that the Japanese take back all leadership of Playstation, and steer the brand towards what used to make it special.

Agree with almost everything except from the first party...Im not confiant at all in their future games ... hope they proove me wrong. The change to California fucked things up big time.
 

Bojji

Member
Have you tried those PC things yet. I heard they're swell.

Yep.

MS killed Xbox, Sony is squeezing every penny from their loyal fanboys while not delivering quality SP exclusives... PC is the best platform right now with free online, many different store vendors, the best performance, infinite backwards compatibility and the only place where you can play Bloorborne in 4k and 60FPS+.
 

MacReady13

Member
I feel like I didn't want to go anywhere, but still drifting away from the console in the meantime. All I hope is that the Japanese take back all leadership of Playstation, and steer the brand towards what used to make it special.
Well said. This is exactly my thoughts- give it back to Japan to take over. That was the Sony Playstation I loved. Today, it's a hollow version of that.
 
The PC and GAAS strategy is slowly killing the magic for me. Stuff that were available only on Playstation were somehow exciting because they were pushing the hardware. Stuff like Killzone Shadow Fall, Resogun, Demon's Souls or Ratchet and plenty of obscure AA production on PS2 and PS3 obviously. With their games developed with PC in mind (or cross-gen with PS4) the exotic stuff is fading away along with creativity caused by political correctness. The fact that they also stopped investing in SP games and instead are doing shitty GAAS doesn't help. Stuff like AstroBot are the exception, not the rule. But I expect Sony to eventually ruin Team Asobi creativity once they force DEI into that company.

The magic will be completely gone once they become fully multiplatform and release their games on PC day one, which will happen eventually. Many people are already expecting this and are slowly transitioning to PC ecosystem thinking than even stuff like Demon's Souls or Bloodborne will be ported to PC (and rightly so). From there Nintendo and Steam will have completely taken over the videogame market and eaten most of the money. PSN store will slowly become Xbox Store after having followed its auto-destructive strategies.
 
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It's ok to not love the same brands your entire life. If you're no longer happy with what PlayStation offers, move on. It's honestly not that difficult. I switch brands on various products all the time. I've owned or leased at least a dozen different brands of cars. I routinely fly different airlines depending on cost, availability, and destination. Lamenting over a certain brand is just silly in the grand scheme of life.
It isn’t that easy with ecosystems. This isn’t a car or house where you can just sell it and move on to something new. People have invested money into tons of digital purchases and they can’t just sell their playstation because that locks them out of that library.

The best strategy I guess would be for the OP to play the remainder of his digital content backlog on his PS5 and not build it further towards a PS6.
 

Golgo 13

The Man With The Golden Dong
Sony had a really good run the last few generations (PS3, PS4) - some incredible output from first party studios. The cross-gen focus of this generation has been the biggest impediment to really being wowed by games for me on the PS5. I dreamed of what ND, SSM, Guerilla, and even Sucker Punch could do with the full abilities of PS5, but we’ve only seen small glimpses of that early in the generation. And, to be fair, the incredible talent at some of Sonys studios has left and/or their focus shifted - tainted by politics - which affects everything from hiring the top talent to the actual content of their games.

I hope things change, and soon.
 

Bojji

Member
People are really self destructing left and right over this $100 difference than what they expected.

But what happened to the guys that were saying why do we even need this? You wanted it all along didn't you 🤔

I expected 600-700$ but WITH the disc drive and not this RIDICULOUS price in Europe

PAKdXTW.jpeg


This is aimed for like 5% of their fans, Sony was always selling high price products but when it comes to consoles they always offered great value instead (even with the PS3 that was packed with tech).
 

AmuroChan

Member
It isn’t that easy with ecosystems. This isn’t a car or house where you can just sell it and move on to something new. People have invested money into tons of digital purchases and they can’t just sell their playstation because that locks them out of that library.

The best strategy I guess would be for the OP to play the remainder of his digital content backlog on his PS5 and not build it further towards a PS6.

I get it. I have premier platinum status on United. I "should" fly United every single time since all my miles are there and I risk losing the status if I don't fly with them enough, but I don't. It's the reality of life. Also, the OP said he doesn't turn on the PS5 all that much anymore. So he's basically ready to move on anyway. And his account doesn't have to be purged or anything. If after 5 years his interest in PlayStation is rekindled, his account with all of his digital purchases will still be there waiting for him.
 

laynelane

Member
I have PlayStation mostly for 3rd party games and Team ASOBI…..I don’t give a fuck about rest of their western first party games.

Same. I play the occasional first-party release (last one was TloU a long time ago), but mainly buy Japanese games from Atlus, FromSoft, Capcom, SquareEnix, etc. Being able to buy physical games (which are usually cheaper than digital) is an added plus.
 

Guilty_AI

Member
Pc really took off for a lot of people when the big Japanese publishers jumped on steam. Squareenix was the last real hold out but I think they won't do many more timed exclusives.
I think there's more to it than that. Despite some thinking pc gaming is expensive, truth is if you need a PC anyway (which is a considerably large number of people) and you don't fret too much about graphics (also a considerable number of people), its actually the cheaper alternative. Add to that the modern PC market being a mix of the 90-2000s PC + ps2 ecosystem's, as well as all the online and f2p stuff that many people prefer, and you have a generally great place to be in.

Since they aren't like Nintendo that can keep pumping out games with considerable content, popularity and replayability all the time by themselves, i think they should just open up their consoles and be done with it.
 
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Draugoth

Gold Member
I have been a big PS fan, played most of my games on the platform. I loved the ecosystem, the variety and quality of their games.

sxie0212.png



But as of recently, I turn on the console less. Feels like the PS magic is fading away. This is no melodramatic reaction, but a gradually waning interest. Over time, mainly since 2022, I found that:

  • The PS Plus service offers far less value than before, or compared to competitors.
For an annual price of $135, the PS Plus Extra offers a far lesser catalog than the competitors. Each month 10+ games leave, but new arrivals never make up for the quality. Just look at the last three months. For the first time in 10 years, I stopped renewing my sub in March.

And then hardware. I never mind spending big, as long as the products offer good value. Based on the info out there so far, I don't think PS5 Pro is the case. I was dead firm to get it on day one, but now, I am holding off to see more about how much the PSSR can actually do.

  • The customer service is a nightmare to deal with.
It's genuinely mindboggling that a giant like Sony on the market, has this unfathomable abysmal customer service. For once I lost a digital game's license for no reason, I contacted them, I provided the receipt directly from PSN store, and after one hour of back and forth, all they could advise, was to ask me to factor reset my console. It's been 9 months, I never heard back. And of course there was a time when I needed to claim the warranty for a drifting stick DualSense. There never was an easy path to navigate on the website for the purpose, and I had to call the hardware service number right at 8 am, because any other time, you stayed in the waiting line forever. And at least I was lucky to get the warranty honored. There are folks never able to.



  • The states of current first-party studios are unclear, and I don't know what to anticipate.
And this is probably the final straw. after all, we love a console because of the games on it. Honestly, I had a great time with PS5, 2020 - 2022. The DualSense is magical, the graphics in Demons' Souls, Rift Apart, and Forbidden West are all breathtaking.
The downtime started in 2023, the mediocre showcase followed by debacles of their service game strategy. So far, we don't know a single project from any of PS's prestige studios (other than more Marvel from Insomniac). I am confident when the games from ND, SP, Bluepoint et al. come out, they will be great, but how long will it take? We used to have 2 - 3 high quality first party games every year.


I feel like I didn't want to go anywhere, but still drifting away from the console in the meantime. All I hope is that the Japanese take back all leadership of Playstation, and steer the brand towards what used to make it special.


Why not just wait? In 2 years you will get Halo Master Chief Collection
 
They pissed me off bad enough with Last of Us 2 and I haven't looked back since, they've yet to win me back.

They sent a message with that game they didn't want me fans like me anymore, so I took the hint.
 

Cornbread78

Member
I have been a big PS fan, played most of my games on the platform. I loved the ecosystem, the variety and quality of their games.

sxie0212.png

  • The states of current first-party studios are unclear, and I don't know what to anticipate.
And this is probably the final straw. after all, we love a console because of the games on it. Honestly, I had a great time with PS5, 2020 - 2022. The DualSense is magical, the graphics in Demons' Souls, Rift Apart, and Forbidden West are all breathtaking.
The downtime started in 2023, the mediocre showcase followed by debacles of their service game strategy. So far, we don't know a single project from any of PS's prestige studios (other than more Marvel from Insomniac). I am confident when the games from ND, SP, Bluepoint et al. come out, they will be great, but how long will it take? We used to have 2 - 3 high quality first party games every year.


I feel like I didn't want to go anywhere, but still drifting away from the console in the meantime. All I hope is that the Japanese take back all leadership of Playstation, and steer the brand towards what used to make it special.

You're a sexy mofo, just sayin'. : )


I will say that my frustration this gen is with their handling of their first party studios and all their legacy IPs. Wtf are they doing? At this point all developement should be headed towards PS6, buuuut..

Their reliance on 3rd party titles amd lack of game diversity & selection from their amazing studios is mind boggling....
 
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Kerotan

Member
Mods change thread title to "I'm getting old".

We've also reached a point in realism in gaming that the jumps in games we used to see won't be seen again.
 
Pfft, try being an Xbox fan if you want to experience desolation.
I don’t feel that way at all. Gamepass is a good deal, and I play a bigger variety of games than ever before. I don’t care about exclusives for either PS or Xbox anymore because I can play them all on pc a few months after launch anyway. But gamepass has been really good.
 

DryvBy

Member
I am struggling to not be busy gaming at this point. Maybe having 500+ platinums ran you down where games became a chore rather than fun?

Pro-tip: get platinums because you are enjoying a game, not because your brain thinks you need to collect em all.
 

Fahdis

Member
OP I used to love PlayStation but then I got a PC. I didn't even bother getting a PS5 this gen. I felt free for the first time. These consoles are expensive walled gardens. While PC is the sky.
 

nial

Member
Since they aren't like Nintendo that can keep pumping out games with considerable content, popularity and replayability all the time by themselves
Nintendo can't do that either, I honestly don't get why everyone is always oblivious to the fact that 75% of Nintendo's output is external development, something that Sony does as well, but people are always ready with the "second-party" goalposts in that case.
 
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