Comment by three_burgers
4 days ago
I think apart from cross-platform woes (if you can call it that), it's also that the technology landscape would shift, two or few years after the console's release:
For PS2, game consoles didn't become the centre of home computing; for PS3, programming against the GPU became the standard of doing real time graphics, not some exotic processor, plus that home entertaining moved on to take other forms (like watching YouTube on an iPad instead of having a media centre set up around the TV); for PS4, people didn't care if the console does social networking; PS5 has been practical, it's just the technology/approach ended up adopted by everyone, so it lost its novelty later on.
You got a very "interesting" history there, it certainly not particularly grounded in reality however.
PS3s edge was generally seen as the DVD player.
That's why Sony went with Blue Ray in the PS4, hoping to capitalize on the next medium, too. While that bet didn't pay out, Xbox kinda self destructed, consequently making them the dominant player any way.
Finally:
> PS5 has been practical, it's just the technology/approach ended up adopted by everyone, so it lost its novelty later on.
PS5 did not have any novel approach that was consequently adopted by others. The only thing "novel" in the current generation is frame generation, and that was already being pushed for years by the time Sony jumped on that bandwagon.
You've got your history wrong too.
The PS2 was the DVD console. The PS3 was the bluray console.
The PS4 and PS5 are also bluray consoles, however blurays are too slow now so they're just a medium for movies or to download the game from.
You're right, I mixed up the version numbers from memory. I'd contest the statement "the history is wrong" though, that's an extremely minor point to what I was writing.
> PS5 did not have any novel approach that was consequently adopted by others
DualSense haptics are terrific, though the Switch kind of did them first with the Joy-Cons. I'd say haptics and adaptive triggers are two features that should become standard. Once you have them you never want to go back.
PS5's fast SSD was a bit of a game changer in terms of load time and texture streaming, and everyone except Nintendo has gone for fast m.2/nvme storage. PS5 also finally delivered the full remote play experience that PS3 and PS4 had teased but not completed. Original PS5 also had superior thermals vs. PS4 pro, while PS5 pro does solid 4K gaming while costing less than most game PCs (and is still quieter than PS4 pro.) Fast loading, solid remote play, solid 4K, low-ish noise are all things I don't want to give up in any console or game PC.
My favorite PS5 feature however is fast game updates (vs. PS4's interminable "copying" stage.) Switch and Switch 2 also seem to have fairly fast game updates, but slower flash storage.
That is very country specific, many countries home computers since the 8 bit days always dominated, whereas others consoles always dominated since Nintendo/SEGA days.
Also tons of blue collar people bought Chinese NES clones even in mid 90's (at least in Spain) while some other people with white collar jobs bought their kids a Play Station. And OFC the Brick Game Tetris console was everywhere. By late 90's, yes, most people afforded a Play Station, but as for myself I've got a computer in very early 00's and I would emulate the PSX and most N64 games just fine (my computer wasn't a high end one, but the emulators were good enough to play the games at 640x480 and a bilinear filter).