PlayStation 5: A Critical Review - 2 Months Later, How Good Is PS5? (Console, DualSense, UI, Games).

[Music] this is playstation 5 and it's sony's latest next generation game console succeeding the wildly popular playstation 4. the company has always made it very easy and straightforward with their naming convention and certainly with their hardware design alone you'll know right away this is sony's new machine after spending over two months with ps5 and at the time of writing and preparing this review i think at this point we can take a look at the console more critically and get a better idea of how it's shaping up and what ownership could look like long term and that's what we really have to keep in mind when doing a critical review of an entire platform ownership can start at any point and this is a device that will sit in the market for a long time it will evolve and adapt through system software updates hardware revisions plenty of game releases so while it should go without saying ps5 right now does have some growing [Music] [Music] pains let's briefly go over the console spec sheet ps5 is an x86 based machine the cpu is eight zen two cores capped at a variable frequency of 3.5 gigahertz the gpu is a custom variant of amd's rdna 2 micro architecture with 36 cus capped at 2.23 gigahertz memory is 16 gigabytes of gddr6 internal storage is a highly customized ssd with 825 gigabytes and the disk based console has a uhd blu-ray drive now utilizing 100 gigabyte disks other key points of interest include hardware supported ray tracing an extra slot inside the machine for m2 ssd expansion a new specialized audio chip called the tempest 3d audio tech support for wi-fi 6 bluetooth 5.1 and hdmi 2.1 for tvs and monitors that support a 4k 120hz refresh rate on the console you'll find your power and eject buttons towards the bottom and a high speed usb and usbc port closer to the metal on the back you've got two more usba ethernet hdmi and power the console weighs about 4.5 kilograms for the disc model 3.9 kilograms for the digital edition from a vertical position ps5 is 390 millimeters tall 260 millimeters wide if it wasn't already obvious the only difference between disk and digital is the disk drive apart from that and just a slimmer profile on the digital edition they're the same we'll talk more about performance later for now at least let's go over what is easily considered more of a subjective matter the console design my gut reaction back in june during the reveal was that i liked it a lot dude wow this looks really good and with the console here i still do ps5 without a doubt follows sony's design philosophy and that this is a box with its own identity versus other playstation products you'll know right away this is a ps5 and moreover you'll know it's a ps5 versus literally anything else in your household not only is this thing large but the two-tone design makes it stand out especially with the accent lighting that beautifully reflects off the fins it's a styling cue that to me nails the intended contemporary design language for others it looks too much like a rendition of a jetson's console and i can certainly see that point of view some of the problems though this design requires a stand which thankfully sony supplies and in a vertical orientation it does the job just fine because it screws in from the bottom horizontal the stand works but it's not very secure i can guarantee you the first time you need to access the rear usbs and you just naturally try to move the whole machine to get a better reach the stand will fall out of place and it seems like right now a lot of people don't realize that you need the stand in the first place the console doesn't sit flat from this orientation and that's new for a lot of people who expect to set it and forget it like they always do with consoles so as elegant as i think ps5 looks it's potentially problematic for the uninformed the center section is a glossy black plastic and again i actually do like this a lot but glossy black plastic is the weakest material out there you can try as hard as you can but this will collect micro scratches very easily and something i've noticed with ps5 out of the box is that the light strip is susceptible to breaking up the continuous line so you can see on my main unit here that it has two cracks where there is a noticeable tiny fracture in the strip these are just a handful of smaller things that added up make the console feel a little less premium though one of the coolest things is that the giant white panels are removable very easily just take some careful prying no screws at all this doesn't even void your warranty because this is what you would do in the event that you want to install an additional m2 drive not only does this make it super easy to maintain and clean the console with the fan being right there but this allows consumers to easily customize their own plates so if it's the white color that bothers you painting or dipping the shells is a great alternative at first glance the dual sense seems like a radical departure for playstation controllers after all this is the one area where the company has broken up their naming continuity but when looking back the dualshock 4 is still considered the revolution from dualshock 1-3 the dual sense now feels like a natural albeit more bold and aggressive evolution from the outgoing model you still have a touch pad a share button which is now named the create button and a more subtle light bar which accents well around the touchpad though these things realistically have to be brought forward for reliable backwards compatibility removing the touchpad would dramatically complicate matters and while the light bar isn't needed this time around it's likely here to avoid any issues from ps4 software that utilized it by altering the colors either way this controller feels like a distant but very stylish cousin of the dualshock 4. just to run down more of the changes though the controller is a bit bulkier similar to microsoft's pads the buttons are transparent there is no longer a gap between r1 l1 and r2 and l2 that's a first for playstation battery size on paper is a 50 increase over dualshock 4 you've got usbc for charging a microphone built in there's haptic feedback vibrations and adaptive triggers that can create tension and resistance when pushing them down in hand the dual sense is hefty and well built so much so that it feels like a dramatic quality jump from dualshock 4. spend enough time with this then grab a dualshock 4 it's amazing just how cheap that will feel now compared to the dual [Applause] sense quality alone is great but comfort can be more subjective the larger size might be an issue for some but i've always felt microsoft had some of the more comfortable controllers around spanning across 360 x1 and the new series line dual sounds feels closer to that and i love it the headline features though are the adaptive triggers and haptic feedback right now sony's pre-loaded free game astros playroom is the only title that will really demonstrate what these features can do much like joy-con hd rumble dual sounds can give off vibrations that have a level of presence and weight where traditional rumble is two weighted motors this utilizes actuators that can be more fine-tuned from the developer's perspective an astro that's demonstrated from subtle tapping as you walk across sand or a very slight but prolonged vibration skating on ice or perhaps an aggressive sensation felt from just one side of the controller these are just a few examples now the adaptive triggers are interesting the developer can create resistance when pushing down l2 or r2 pulling back an arrow can have tension as you start aiming and bug snacks when you snap a photo there's a tension point about halfway down that once you push past it it genuinely feels like a responsive click as if you snapped a photo from a dslr camera when you combine this with the haptic feedback it creates a unique symmetry that we just haven't really seen before astro was designed around showcasing all these features and it does it very well but it's also somewhat exaggerated most games likely wouldn't need or even want to use it to the same degree astro has but it is the benchmark and even inspiration for other developers to reference a handful of ps5 games so far have used these features in a more subtle manner but there's plenty of good examples so far and there is always the worry that these features fade into obscurity is another launch gimmick but right now there's a lot more to enjoy with these versus say the touchpad's introduction in 2013 or say six axis in 2006. there is a wow factor here the first time you feel the dual sense do its thing so while it's still on developers to really take advantage of these features what's there is really exciting and genuinely fun to use it is worth pointing out though that if for whatever reason you do need these features turned off you can do so in settings the ps5 user interface is completely new and built to leverage the incredibly fast ssd to give you a quick breakdown like ps4 your home screen will show a horizontal row of applications except this time around your games and streaming apps are separated so you can hit r1 or l1 to swap between them the playstation store is on the far left and it's built right into the ui it's not an application you launch all the content is loaded in and ready to go so you can start surfing the store right away the same is true for things like claiming your ps plus games or using playstation now you don't launch anything it's just there the far right will show you your game library this is a handy way to get a bird's eye view of everything you have or have had it's also worth pointing out that for pretty much all these pages you have sorting options or tabs that give you a better breakdown of what it is that you're looking for if that's not enough the main home screen has a search icon in the top right you can hit and that will let you search anything on the entire console the option for settings is also in the top right alongside your avatar icon to see things like your profile trophies switching users things like that the main interaction and navigation feature you'll be using is called the control center this is sort of like the quick menu on ps4 or even the xmb that sat above the icons on ps4 except for this you can summon these settings pretty much anywhere on the console one tap of the ps button brings this up and this will let you easily access the switcher notifications friends music quick settings devices power all sorts of stuff on top of the control center if you're playing a game for example you'll see these giant cards these have a few different functions they could be locked trophies to see what you're working towards they could be recent screenshots official game news or they could be points of interest in a game and this is where you could actually select one of these and it will jump you right to that point in the game these are contextuals so it will depend on the game you're playing and how the developer has used them but these can let you easily access single player missions or multiplayer lobbies they could be fast travel and utilizing these will let you bypass the in-game menu you can even access cards from the main home screen under each game combine this feature with ps5's fast ssd and you could be darting all around your software quickly and effortlessly and it does indeed work that way ps5 games can start in just a few seconds it's incredibly quick so using a card to skip the in-game menus makes it even quicker [Music] with that foundation now set you can get an idea what the overall user experience could be but having spent enough time with ps5 some things are starting to really stick out the first being presentation ps5 is all around a clean easy to look at interface game pages are far less cluttered whereas ps4 had a little too much going on the applications themselves are smaller allowing more of the background graphics to dominate the screen and the control center takes up very little screen real estate versus the quick menu on ps4 even game based the new area where your friends and parties live is a pop-up box it's as if sony wanted you to spend more time looking at imagery instead of text for the most part i like the cleaner look removing clutter is always good but areas like the playstation store do suffer big images take priority and you have to spend a lot more time looking for what you want and in many cases you can't even see the current sales a lot of the time you have to know exactly what you're looking for and sometimes you just want to casually browse the store and see what you run into but that's less of a thing here it's quick and clean but a huge step back on discovery something else you'll start to notice is that the experience feels isolated the what's new feed where you can see your recent friend activities on ps4 that's gone and game base is fine but it's three extra button presses to see all your friends requests and messages it feels tucked away trophies too they feel like an afterthought as there's too much button pressing needed to see the fullest of a game that you might be working on [Music] and then perhaps the biggest issue people are having right now is that in order to get to the home screen it's a long press of the ps button this is reversed from ps3 and ps4 so if you've been on playstation for say upwards of 14 years then you've got a lot of muscle memory fighting you because a single press of the ps button is always going to bring up the control center first sony likely did this because they want you to use the control center and more importantly they want you to use cards now one of two things can happen here a software update is introduced to switch this or make it an option which a lot of people would likely do and then the overall user habit would fall back to the ps3 and ps4 experience cold booting games relying less in the control center and not using cards and that's not really what sony wants or they could improve the control center to where it does most of what you needed to do add more configuration trophy options friend activities so on and so forth this is probably the more likely road i suspect there's a reason why sony started their ui reveal in september with cards because they want them to be the hallmark feature and so far personally i haven't used them too much but this is partly due to the software i've been playing demon souls for example where i put in over 70 hours is a game where fast travel means you lose the souls that you're carrying that's not the ui's fault it's just something that's part of the game so if i use an activity card to travel in demon souls i have to drop my souls then astrobot had fast travel available right away in the menu so i often just use that so right now i think it's still too early for cards before we know just how useful they are but the result is definitely going to fall on the games that you're playing one thing i have appreciated so far though is the tracking estimated time and game help so that's another thing the cards can do for you they can display how long a level might take to beat you can track collectibles and while very few games support this you can actually see tips on the area that you're in if you're a ps plus member i actually did use this for demon souls the short videos were quick and it was just brief text giving me a better idea of how i should approach the area that i'm currently in and that was substantially faster than heading to youtube picking a video skimming through the video with no time stamps and then ultimately not finding the answer i was looking for thus having to click back to find a different video then i see a video with a spoiler in the thumbnail and that's where i also applaud ps5 i can totally see where they were going with game help and this is something i'd like to see more of [Music] so of course the number one reason why anyone would want a gaming console is to actually play games and right now in terms of the launch lineup in the first few months ps5 has a strong start this is arguably one of the best lineups available for a new console with an absolutely beautiful remake of demon souls a short but sweet experience with spider-man miles morels and the fun casual 3d platformer sacked by a big adventure third party games you've got the likes of assassin's creed valhalla call of duty black ops cold war watchdogs legion the pathless godfall that's a little lukewarm but something that you might enjoy this is an area where if nothing speaks to you right now that's okay it takes time for any console to see its library grow and the upcoming software for ps5 is looking bright with a lot of announcements already made from sie and plenty of third-party games coming too so this is a category where we'll be focusing more on game performance and what ps5 is capable of early on which mind you this is also an area that will improve with time so we're still in a cross generation period where most games are still shipping on ps4 so right now we've long been approaching the landscape of diminishing returns from a visual perspective this isn't necessarily a leap that will blow you away or at least not in the same manner that you might have seen two decades ago but still these native ps5 games look gorgeous demon souls is yet again our good example here with high resolution textures tons of breakable objects littering the environment and a 60fps performance mode miles morels also looks stunning especially with the recently introduced ray tracing performance mode that's one of the bigger takeaways here is that it's becoming more commonplace for console games to offer where you want your performance to go for decades it's been very commonplace in game development to sacrifice your frame rate for visual fidelity it's always the first to go but with resolution reconstruction methods and a greater desire for options we're seeing a lot of developers implement performance settings like ps4 pro so you can choose native 4k at 30fps or knock it down to a base resolution that's dynamic in 60fps depends on the game of course but some are even allowing 120 frames per second it's just incredible to finally have this become standard amongst some of the larger budget games that could really use it and for ps5 specifically the console is performing very well if you've always preferred playing on a console the jump in resolution and frame rate in most games alone will look fantastic same with ray tracing this is where a game's lighting will accurately bounce and reflect off objects and it looks stunning so one of the biggest aspects of ps5 is its highly custom solid state drive sony's been touting the incredible speeds this can deliver combined with our 12 channel custom controller that drives all the data in parallel so that there's no bottlenecks and the results really are impressive ps5 games boot up in a matter of seconds and in most cases you can skip any splash screens and get into actual gameplay in under 10 to 15 seconds from a cold boot from the home screen and when playing games respawn or fast travel that's also a matter of seconds this is a huge quality of life jump that can't be undermined if you get used to this it'll be tough going back to anything else the only drawback is limited storage capacity where your usable space is roughly 600 gigabytes out of the box that's gonna go quick with a handful of your typical retail games but as we mentioned earlier there is an expansion slot inside the console which right now it's disabled we're still waiting for sony to enable this and let consumers know which third-party drives will be available this is unfortunate but necessary since ps5's current ssd is so fast so any additional m2 drives will need to be just as fast in order to be compatible but either way this is still a great benefit third-party drives will come down in price over time and technically speaking this is an expansion so you'd still keep the 600 gigabytes of storage you have on top of what you end up buying there is a downside here though because ps5 ssd is soldered onto the board having it go bad means the whole console goes bad so it's a trade-off that might look grim long-term in the meantime external drives work for ps4 games so if you know you'll be playing ps4 titles move those to the external storage especially since you can't store ps5 games to external storage and then say move them back over later to play them off the ssd you can't do that so in any situation where you run out of ssd space you'll have to delete or reinstall when necessary which is a bummer now another key principle of ps5 is keeping this console properly cooled so that the fans don't operate loudly this was a big problem with ps3 ps4 ps4 pro and so with ps5 sony's implemented a few things here liquid metal cooling instead of traditional thermal paste a massive heat sink a large fan and a cpu and gpu with variable frequencies tied to a power budget the frequencies are interesting because it's basically a reverse boost clock ps5 is always operating at the top end and it will only dip on taxing situations for all my playtime so far i can safely say the console is indeed mostly quiet mind you the fans and disc spinning will kick in periodically or when you're actually copying a game from desk the ps5 will certainly sound very noisy there but that stops after a minute or two during regular operation ps5 is quiet with a slight caveat one of the early issues that we're seeing is coil wine so for those that don't know coil wine is an audible buzzing that you can hear and this is caused by the physical parts in the power supply or anything that transfers power it's vibrating enough for you to actually hear it and the surefire way to know that it is coil wine is to change what the ps5 is doing this is an issue that can plague pc parts and it's happened on consoles before but in this situation it's getting a bit more attention since ps5 is so quiet to begin with so if you had this issue on say ps4 pro you probably didn't notice since the console's fan noise easily drowned it out ps5 is extremely quiet so depending on your sensitivity to sound you might be able to hear coil wine if your console has it now it's worth pointing out most pc part manufacturers do not consider this a defect and sony probably won't either so if you have it you have it it doesn't actually affect operation negatively or anything like that i'm sure soft model revision will eventually change the power supply and probably address this issue or at least ideally that's what will happen [Music] so this time around ps5 supports backwards compatibility with the vast majority of ps4 games and this is due to the consoles having a similar architecture and for those unaware that's the exact reason why ps4 never played nicely with ps3 we've done extended videos and topics on this already so we won't dive into that explanation here but getting back to ps5 it can not only play ps4 games but improve performance of them dramatically in most situations ps5 can improve load times and boost the frame rate in others ps5 can improve the resolution this is highly dependent on the game you're playing and how it was made on ps4 so with frame rate if a ps4 game is say locked at 30fps then ps5 can't do much other than keep it at a consistent 30 which is still incredibly helpful if say a ps4 game struggled to hold 30 ps5 will brute force it and keep it at a solid frame rate now if the frame rate is unlocked in a game ps5 will almost always push it to 60 and hold it loading times for the most part will see a huge reduction thanks to the fast ssd but there's certainly limitations there as well ps4 games weren't made to acknowledge that kind of i o throughput so you can easily see a reduction of a few seconds maybe even up to a minute but games aren't going to boot or load levels as quickly as say native ps5 games resolution could be improved if the game supports a dynamic resolution this was less common so it's not something that you'll see often but definitely an area where ps5 will push it to its cap of 1080p or 4k depending on that game in the situation of 4k that would be a ps4 title that had a pro option and ps5 will always default to the ps4 pro setting if there is one and then improve it from there which is great since most ps4 pro settings often have performance toggles with dynamic raz or unlock frame rates all around the experience of playing ps4 games on ps5 is fantastic and it's a no compromise experience you're not stuck waiting for ps5 games to come out and you're not sacrificing anything for playing older games ps5 still communicates with ps4 consoles so you don't lose your friends parties online play nothing the only hiccup with backwards compatibility is that there's about 100 titles out of the 4 000 total that might showcase odd behavior these games are playable but when starting them you'll receive a warning that it might act a little strange and that could mean things like running into weird graphical artifacting some of the titles that i've played that display this message didn't even have anything noteworthy pop out so your mileage will vary here there's also an extremely small list of games that don't work at all so just an fyi if you happen to own one of these games we can also quickly point out that playstation vr is supported on ps5 though with this there's a little more hassle involved you need to request a camera adapter from sony using the serial number of your current headset it's completely free and they'll usually send one out to you in a week or so but you will need this adapter to plug in your ps4 camera you will also have to use dualshock 4 since there's no way for a dual sense to be tracked from the camera like how psvr worked on ps4 and thankfully these games still can see boosted performance but all around using psvr on ps5 does feel a little tacked on it's great the compatibility is there but it is a little more involved than ps5 finally there's next generation game upgrades one of the other huge consumer friendly benefits that we're seeing there's about 40 to 50 games so far possibly more that have a next next-gen upgrade available right now or one that's coming out and most of them are free you might be walking into a console where you already have ps5 games waiting for you based on what you have for ps4 this helps ease that transition even more and better yet if you're a ps plus member you're walking into the ps plus collection a benefit where you can freely download 20 fantastic ps4 games being an early adopter for any product can often be a painful or lesser experience but for ps5 there's a really compelling case here there's a lot that comes with it [Music] another key area sony spent a lot of time on with ps5 is 3d audio the tempest 3d audio tech is hardware level support so you can bring in almost any headphones and start using those to experience 3d audio and supported games the console has 5 audio profiles to choose from and it is important to pick the one that sounds best to you everyone hears sound differently so choosing the right setting will provide the best level of immersion though sony makes it a point to say that down the road they will offer more options as these current ones aren't going to be a one size fits all and that's probably the biggest caveat here it's tough to say this is a killer feature when in reality you may very well be a fringe case that can't necessarily notice the level of immersion that's being advertised for now sony's launch games all support 3d audio and for me personally it's been hit or miss astros playroom sounded flat to me i couldn't really notice or make out anything around me whereas demon's soul sounded excellent running through stone fang mines or the tower of latria was haunting and ghoulish as i could make out all these uncomfortable noises happening around me there was absolutely a noticeable amount of presence whether it was behind me to the side or even below it worked well and i really enjoyed it like many aspects we've gone over so far the experience is probably going to vary widely depending on what you're playing something as upbeat and carefree as astro arguably doesn't have much to gain from 3d audio versus say an upcoming horror experience like resident evil village that in my mind is where you'll want 3d audio to succeed most and based on what i've played so far i'm cautiously optimistic for what's to come [Music] playstation 5 is in many ways a really creative take on what a next generation console should look like in a world where graphical jumps aren't the be-all and all metric to judge anymore there's obviously a massive performance increase here over ps4 and ps4 pro but sony has opted for more sensory experiences with the dual sense and 3d audio and while there's still a lot of uncertainty about how well these features will be utilized these are without a doubt some of the most convincing and engaging features we've had so far on a console and i'm incredibly pleased with the overall proposition sony has made here as far as a new console is concerned you can walk into this machine with your ps4 games playing better than ever continuing communication with friends online accessing the plus collection for some fantastic games you're set up very well the moment you buy this thing and that's never really been the case when a new generation starts certainly not to the degree with this one now you may have noticed i haven't mentioned anything about technical issues or problems with the hardware and that's because well i haven't had many my big one is that on the very first day for whatever reason ps4 games weren't launching i did a system restore and that solved it since then it's been smooth sailing and that's one concern that many have reached out to me for asking is it safe to use rest mode are external drives working correctly i heard game upgrades are acting weird has that happened to you i'm not saying these issues aren't real but i just haven't run into them personally and that's the perception thing those with issues will be vocal online and those without will happily play their ps5s and not randomly write my ps5 works so for me i'm in that category mind you there have been reported technical issues so something might happen but at a glance those issues appear to be far and few between over time i'd like to see where the ui goes that's an area that needs some work and that's sort of expected but the thing is there's a good amount of features already in place they just aren't as intuitive the interactions feel lonely certain settings and screens are moved or tucked away and it's been two months some of these things aren't becoming the new norm they're just becoming more problematic with continued use then there's the coil whine some of the quality issues with the hardware we mentioned earlier there's plenty we can continue to nitpick but thankfully it's just that nitpicking playstation 5 is off to a great start and with consoles delayed satisfaction is always best because you can wait for the library to grow new features get added there's updated hardware cheaper prices but right now there's plenty of instant satisfaction and from this point forward it's probably only going to get better thank you everyone for watching it was finally time for me to do my own formal ps5 review and up to this point of course we've already done things like reviewing all the accessories ps now ui deep dive noise and heat test all those things i'm gonna link those down below but we have a lot more topics to still go over so if you haven't yet please subscribe for the best playstation news reviews and updates that are here on youtube you can follow me on twitter at mysticryan and that is it i will see you on my next video you take it easy you

Channel: Mystic

Views: 1,274,567

Rating: 4.8876715 out of 5

Keywords: PS5 Review, PlayStation 5 Review, PS5, PlayStation 5, PS5 games, PS5 games gameplay, PS5 game reviews, PS5 reviews, PS5 overview, PS5 UI, PS5 user interface, PS5 controller, Sony, PS5 Hbo go, PS5 hbo Max, PS5 5g, PS5 unboxing, PS5 Noise, PS5 noise test, PS5 vs Xbox Series X, PlayStation 5 Game Play, PlayStation 5 games

Id: 1Z9c2Ca15tc

Length: 32min 6sec (1926 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 19 2021