The PS5 is the most boring console I’ve ever owned – Reader’s Feature

It’s starting to get into its midlife period (Picture: Sony)

A reader is frustrated at Sony’s hands-off attitude and lack of new games, and begins to wish he’d bought a PC or Nintendo Switch instead.

As we all sit here waiting to be disappointed by the next PlayStation State of Play, one of the worst things about Sony’s ongoing silence is that the only two things they’re guaranteed to release this year are the PS5 Pro and live service game Concord. To say I’m not interested in either of those things is an understatement and it’s all the more depressing considering that by the end of this year we’ll probably be halfway through the PlayStation 5’s life.

Things started off fine. Given the pandemic I thought they did an excellent job, despite the fact there wasn’t really a lead launch game and Demon’s Souls was kind of an odd choice to go with. The first two years, when you could’ve excused them for not being ready, were all good and I was happy. Even if it was ironic that the best first party exclusive, Returnal, looked like a PlayStation 4 game.

But then at the end of 2022, after the release of God Of War Ragnarök, Sony went radio silent and no one knows why or when or if they will ever start acting sensible again. They haven’t announced a new single-player game in over two years; they only released one last year and may end up releasing zero this year. Their lack of effort is not just weird it’s putting me off the entire console.

There’s been a lot of talk recently about consoles tying you into their ecosystem, which is why the Xbox Series X is struggling to get any traction and the PlayStation 5 is sell gangbusters without Sony doing anything. That’s true but it’s more than that, because when you buy a console you buy into the whole identity and community around it. And I’ve got to say, in my 25 years of playing video games, the PlayStation 5 is the most boring console I’ve ever owned.

Thanks to Sony it seems distant and aloof. It seems to want to make me think it’s an honour for me to own one and be allowed to play it. Even the ugly, impractical console design seems to dare you to criticise it. Well, I do dare. It’s awful and so is everything else about the console, except the DualSense (I can only assume they had a different team work on that).

Obviously, there’s been lots of great third party games for the PlayStation 5 but that has nothing to do with it or Sony. I could’ve easily just played them on a PC and frankly that is seeming like by far the most sensible option right now (if I wasn’t put off by the stories of bugs and games taking months to work properly, but that’s another subject).

If people are starting to lose interest in video games, as some sales figures suggest, then I honestly don’t blame them. Sony are so hands-off now it’s as if they don’t even want to be in the industry anymore.

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Sony made the PlayStation 5 and they seem to increasingly think that that’s the end of their job. We’ll be lucky to get even one new exclusive game this year and yet still be expected to buy expensive new hardware, which seems to be the only thing Sony can pump out on the regular.

I haven’t got an Xbox Series X but things don’t seem to be any better there, in fact they’re probably worse because it’s had even less high quality exclusives and all of those seem to be racing games. I realise now I should’ve just got a Switch, but there’s no point now so I will instead wait to see how the Switch 2 turns out and spend any money I might have reserved for the PS5 Pro on that instead.

By reader Austin

The reader’s features do not necessarily represent the views of GameCentral or Metro.

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A reader is frustrated at Sony’s hands-off attitude and lack of new games, and begins to wish he’d bought a PC or Nintendo Switch instead.