A reader is upset that the PS5 has no first party exclusive scheduled for this year or next and argues that the pandemic does not excuse it.
There’s no doubting that Sony put on a good show this week with the PlayStation Showcase, with several really good looking games and some nice surprises and reveals. I particularly liked the look of Spider-Man 2, especially because I was relieved to find out that it is a PlayStation 5 exclusive, not a cross-gen game that is also on PlayStation 4.
So far, the only PlayStation 5 exclusives Sony has released are Demon’s Souls (a remake of a PlayStation 3 game), Destruction AllStars (a low budget indie style game that was free for a month), Returnal (a mid-budget game, at best), and Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart. I think you could make a good argument for Rift Apart being the only proper, big budget release out of all those and while that’s not so bad for the launch window it is pretty awful when you realise the situation probably isn’t going to change until 2023.
Horizon Forbidden West, Gran Turismo 7, and God Of War Ragnarök are the three big budget first party games for next year and all of them are cross-gen. There might be more mid-budget games, like Returnal, released next year but considering how early Sony tends to announce its games it doesn’t seem likely there’ll be anything bigger than the Last Of Us multiplayer spin-off. I’m beginning to think people that still haven’t been able to buy a PlayStation 5 yet are actually better off waiting.
What makes the pill harder to swallow is that this was not the original plan. Most of the PlayStation 4 versions of these games were announced several months after the games were first revealed and implied to be PlayStation 5 exclusives. The excuse given (by fans, I don’t think Sony has ever really commented on it) is that it’s the fault of the pandemic and the fact that not enough people have been able to get hold of a PlayStation 5 console yet, but that doesn’t add up.
The PlayStation 5, as we’re constantly told, is outpacing sales of the PlayStation 4 even with stock shortages, and yet the PlayStation 4 didn’t have to wait three years for the majority of its games to be exclusives.
Sony is trying to have things both ways, as on the one hand they talk about the power of the PlayStation 5 and how its unique SSD is going to change the way developers design games… and then they fail to make any games that prove it. Rift Apart used the SSD but Demon’s Souls and Returnal didn’t, for anything other than fast loading.
Spider-Man 2 and Wolverine presumably will but 2023 is a long way off and Xbox is rapidly gaining ground, with Forza Horizon 5 looking very impressive already this Christmas (when Sony has no exclusives planned).
My complaint is not that the games don’t look good enough on the PlayStation 5 but that the design changes we were promised for the SSD are impossible while games are cross-gen because if they use the SSD for anything other than fast loading they wouldn’t work on the PlayStation 4.
To be honest, even Rift Apart barely used the portal gimmick much, so there’s still a lot to do and experiment with and yet currently no sign of when to even hope for it, other than Spider-Man 2 in 2023. I hope there’s something before then, but I fear that the new generation won’t really start for another two years.
By reader Tomcat
The reader’s feature does not necessary represent the views of GameCentral or Metro.
You can submit your own 500 to 600-word reader feature at any time, which if used will be published in the next appropriate weekend slot. As always, email [email protected] and follow us on Twitter.
Source: Read Full Article