PlayStation 5 Year One: How Has Sony's Current-Gen Console Fared So Far?

RJ Pierce, Tech Times 23 November 2021, 06:11 am

The PlayStation 5 has been out on the market for over a year now, having celebrated its first anniversary last November 12. It has basically come out as the next-gen console to get, with people still going crazy about it and hype remaining at the highest levels.

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Living room with a Sony PlayStation 5 home video game console alongside a television, taken on Novemebr 3, 2020.

But how exactly has it fared so far after over a year of being out? Here is a quick look at the year one performance of the Sony PlayStation 5.

PlayStation 5 Performance

Sony was keen to build on the massive success they experienced with the PlayStation 4. Last generation, they won the big-name console war, and they were determined to keep the crown.

Sony once again brought PS4 lead architect Mark Cerny to design the PS5. His work would go on to make quite the powerful console, according to TechRadar.

One of the biggest hype-generating pillars of Sony's new machine is actually the SSD--not its CPU and GPU, which are more or less similar to what the Xbox Series consoles have.

Last year, Sony made an extremely bold claim: that the PlayStation 5 will be 100 times faster than the PlayStation 4, as per GamesRadar. The SSD is central to this claim, as Cerny considered it the "key" component of a true next-gen experience.

Developers explicitly wanted to have an SSD, and Cerny obliged. With the storage upgrade, loading times on the PlayStation 5 are basically non-existent now. It is rare for a PS5 game to take over 10 seconds to load up from a cold boot.

Here's a demo video showcasing just that:

Lastly, the custom AMD Ryzen CPU and RDNA2 GPU has finally allowed consoles to run games at a far-smoother 60 FPS (120 FPS on certain titles) at resolutions reaching as high as 4K. There was even support for the revolutionary new rendering tech called ray tracing, which made games look even more lifelike.

Game Library

To date, the PlayStation 5's game library is quite extensive. For one, it is built to be backwards-compatible with an "overwhelming majority" of PS4 games, according to PlayStation.com. This is something that the PS4 never had with PS3 games.

That said, the PS5's library of exclusives aren't to trifle with, either. "Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart," "Returnal," and upgraded versions of excellent PS4 games such as "Ghost of Tsushima" and "The Last Of Us Part II" are all considered among the biggest games of the current generation.

The DualSense Controller

According to GameRant, the new DualSense controller is more than just the successor to the already-excellent DualShock 4.

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A Sony PlayStation 5 DualSense controller, taken on October 29, 2020.

It was one of the PlayStation 5's main selling points (along with the SSD), and for good reason: it was a massive hardware upgrade that further improves on the next-gen feel of the console.

According to lead architect Mark Cerny, their idea was to improve on the overall immersion and bring players more "into the game" by adding haptics. Simply put, you will "feel" the difference when a character, for example, walks or rides their horse through mud, paved roads, or rocks.

The DualSense controller further adds to the immersion with the use of adaptive triggers. In other words, the controller's triggers will feel different if you, say, fire different types of guns. The trigger of an assault rifle will feel different from that of a pistol, or the pull of a bow string when you're shooting an arrow.

What The PlayStation 5 (Or Sony) Did Wrong

This might not be technically Sony's fault, but the one dark cloud that has remained over the PlayStation 5 is just how tough it is to find one.

It was revealed back in October that 13.4 million PlayStation 5 units have been sold so far. And yet, people still cannot get them, because they're barely in stock at local retailers.

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HONG KONG, CHINA - 2021/09/03: A shop sells Japanese and American video gaming system brands created and owned by Sony Computer Entertainment and Microsoft, PlayStation 5, Xbox S and Xbox X series, in Hong Kong.

People point largely to constrained supply lines due to the pandemic, or the insane hype causing scalpers to snatch any stock they could find to be resold at an insane markup. But the core issue remains: you can't find a PS5 without scouring all of creation.

Looking Ahead

The PS5, despite troubles surrounding its supply chain, did a lot of things well. This means a promising future for the console's entire life span. The only thing left to do now is iron out some of the kinks, and Sony might be well on their way to claiming yet another console war victory.

This article is owned by Tech Times

Written by RJ Pierce