Top positive review
5.0 out of 5 starsFive's No Jive
Reviewed in the United States on June 8, 2024
A longtime PlayStation fan, I had been putting off getting a PS5 until the three following milestones occurred:
1) a reduction in size of the console
2) a reduction in the price of the console
3) a reduction in the price of games for the console
I thought that the introduction of the PS5 Slim last fall would spur my purchase, but Sony didn't cut the price, and even older PS5 games were still selling for $70.
But finally, during the Days of Play event this spring, Sony knocked $50 off the console's price -- I didn't want the Spiderman or COD bundles, not my favorite games -- and I decided to act. Four years is a LONG time to wait to play a new R&C title, after all!
So here are my thoughts on the PS5, now that's in my house:
1) Setup is remarkably easy, including wirelessly transferring game save information from a PS4. It did take me a while to figure out how to turn off the female voice heralding all my actions (under Accessibility options).
2) The PS5 runs like a champ. So far, I have not been aware of any fan noises or clouds of warm air exhaust spewing out.
3) The DualSense controllers had weaker rumble than I expected. It turns out that the rumble motors default to the "weak" setting if you have the controller's microphone enabled. I turned off the mike, and the rumble was back at full force, but with more finesse than that experienced with the PS4's DUALSHOCK controllers. If I'm not mistaken, the precision of the DS controller actually seems to improve my game scores...
4) The new user interface is kind of a mess. In particular, leaving the POWER button off the Home page was a boneheaded move. One of my first issues with the new console was -- how do I turn this bloody beast OFF??? I wish that the controller battery gauge was on the Home page as well.
5) It was a brilliant idea making the disk drive detachable. The one problem I had with my PS4 involved the machine's failure to read disks after a few years, which I am guessing was an issue of a dirty reading head; I sent the console to Sony to be fixed, and it came back working perfectly in one week. Now I assume I can just repair or replace the removable drive without sending in the entire console for repair...
6) Now that the PS5 packs 1 TB of memory, I was wondering how soon I would need to add more memory. Currently, I have plenty of memory to switch back and forth between a number of games, including Ratchet & Clank Rift Apart, plus several from the PS4, including WRC Generations, Far Cry 6, and Resident Evil 4, as well as the Pinball Arcade. One good reason I wanted the disk version of the PS5 was to minimize the size of game downloads to preserve memory.
7) The audio/video performance of the PS5 to play back DVD's and Blu-Rays is outstanding. And I was happy to find that the excellent Bluetooth PDP media controller I got for the PS4 works with the PS5 as well. Yea -- that made me feel better about spending $30 for the PS5's vertical stand instead!
8) And some of the PS5 titles are FINALLY coming down in price: Rift Apart and the latest Star Wars game, for example -- two AAA titles -- are now available for a far more affordable $30.
So if you have been putting off upgrading to a PS5, it may be time at last to make the move, provided you can catch a special promotion.
And to those who say, "Game consoles' days are numbered," I say -- as long as many of us prefer to play games sitting on a couch, enveloped in booming 3D sound and watching our dazzling big-screen TV's -- long live PlayStation consoles -- especially those that serve as a 2-in-1 machine, with built-in (or detachable) disk drives that also play DVD's and BR's!
