Sony should never have made the PS5 and stuck with the PS4

A reader suggests that Sony would have been better off releasing a more advanced PS4 Pro rather than starting the current generation with the PS5.

We’ve had a lot of disgruntled PlayStation 5 owners writing in lately, but the one that caught my attention was last week’s Reader’s Feature about someone who said he wouldn’t buy one because he saw no point in upgrading his PlayStation 4. As someone who has taken that step, I can relate, although it would mean missing out on great exclusives like Demon’s Souls, Returnal, and Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth.

I find it hard to imagine that these games wouldn’t be possible on a PlayStation 4 though. Maybe the graphics wouldn’t be as good (probably not even for Returnal), but they certainly don’t do anything that screams ‘this needs to be next gen!’

Your mileage may vary, but the point I’m making is that I’m not sure Sony has gained anything by making the PlayStation 5 and they seem to have lost an awful lot when it comes to how much more expensive it is to make games now. .

However, the PlayStation 4 went great. The games were good, fans were happy, PlayStation easily beat Xbox… Sony was on a roll. Towards the end, sales started to drop, as they always do, but instead of making the PlayStation 5, couldn’t they have just made a new model PlayStation 4? A Super PS4 Pro or something.

For such a small improvement in graphics, it really doesn’t seem like this generation was worth it, not considering all the problems it brings and how short it apparently will be. The only significant change is the SSD, but throw that into the Super PS4 Pro and you’ve got a unique selling point there.

Obviously it’s too late now, but I don’t know of anything that suggests Sony ever considered this and they haven’t said anything that implies they’re going to take their time with the PlayStation 6. Instead, Xbox has already said they’re working on a next generation machine, I can’t imagine it will take that long for Sony to start talking about their next console.

This is stupid. There’s no other word for it. Sony and Microsoft knew that making games for this generation would be even more expensive, but they went ahead with it anyway. That would have been okay, to a certain extent, if they had a plan for dealing with it. But clearly, they didn’t. Instead, it seems like the problem caught them by surprise, which is… stupid.

And now they go ahead and make the exact same mistake again, making the problem even worse. I can’t wait until the next generation games take seven years to make and cost $400 million each!

If you’re reading this and thinking it’s stupid to purposefully hold back and not go for high-tech consoles when they’re available, think about Nintendo. They’ve been doing exactly that since the Wii, and last time I checked, they’re doing a great job. The way they talk also shows that they’re thinking much more long-term than PlayStation and Xbox ever seem to.

Someone out there needs to come up with a strategy, but I’d like to know what the plan is. I have a bad feeling that the last step is “win” and the step before that is just “???” – If you know what I mean.

Here’s my solution to the current problems in the gaming industry: buy a time machine for Sony and make the PlayStation 5 extinct. I’m sorry I couldn’t think of anything more practical.

By reader Hogie

Reader characteristics do not necessarily reflect the views of GameCentral or Metro.

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