PS5: Is It Worth the Hype?

On November 12, 2020, Sony released their supposed magnum opus of a console, the PS5. The PS5 has been highly anticipated ever since some wondered what the next step was after the PS4 Pro a few years ago. SO this naturally leads to high expectations. After being declared the clear winner over the Xbox Series X in terms of hype, does the console actually live up to it?

Yes!!! . . . and uhh not really. 

Let me explain. So the Playstation 5 is everything it wants to be, and more. It delivers beautiful 4k gameplay, managing to run 2160p content and ray-tracing, all while maintaining a consistent 60 fps. This was perfectly demonstrated during my at least 40 runs with Spider-Man: Remastered and Spider-Man: Miles Morales. These games, for the most part, ran completely smooth and managed to impress visually, and performance-wise. These are great launch titles, perfectly demonstrating the surface of what the PS5 can do.

Not to mention, the console is beautiful. The matte white exterior gives me a feeling no console ever has. This console prioritized form and function, and it clearly pays off. One of the main selling points, the controller, lives up to all of the hype. The console comes pre-loaded with Astro’s Playroom, which demonstrates the controller’s capabilities, with the new adaptive triggers (become easier or harder to pull depending on what you are doing), the immersive haptic response, or the microphone (in the aforementioned game, you can genuinely feel what ground you’re walking on based on vibrations and sound). This all goes without mention of the new design, or the new look. The build is undoubtedly worth it. 

Now the bad. Within 15 minutes of the PS5 starting up, it could not recognize my wifi, and it needed a full system restart to work again. 2 hours later, it happened again, and I had to restart, in the middle of a GTA game. I looked this up, and it was a common issue, many players had experienced this, and had their qualms with the system as well. Not to mention, both of the aforementioned titles have experienced console threatening crashes, needing me to unplug the console as it becomes fully unresponsive. May God help you if you allow the Playstation to go into rest mode while playing either Spider-Man game. I was convinced my console was broken for about 20 minutes. 

Overall, if you can get your hands on this console, then go for it. If you can’t, don’t worry too much, because honestly, it might be worth it to wait for patches to release. While the console delivers on every promise (and trust me, it delivers), it can also be a clunky mess, which crashes every time you want to have fun. The console’s main detractor is when it takes you away from how great it actually is. You could be in the middle of marveling at ray-tracing or running a game at 120 fps, and it will suffer through a horrible crash, where you have to unplug the console to get it to work again. However, if you are one who needs to have the latest and greatest tech, this is definitely for you. If you’re not, I still recommend it, just after they tweak it a little.

OVERALL SCORE: 8.5