I’ve been using the PlayStation 5 for just over 3 months now, and after hundreds of hours of gaming I think it’s time I gave you my updated thoughts on it. Is it any good, what issues have I had and is it worth upgrading from the PS4?
Controller
Now I’ve said this before, probably 4 times in other videos, but the new DualSense controller is a game changer. It is the best controller I’ve used.
So it still feels like a DualShock 4 controller, just bigger and heavier, but familiar. In fact after the first day of using it, I instantly preferred it over the old controllers.
The haptic feedback or the vibration of this controller is awesome, it’s not just a rumble like we’ve had before. It reacts to what you’re doing and every game can feel totally different. So depending on what the developers have chosen to do with it, the controller provides vibration as you’re walking or driving over different surfaces. Even as you shoot a gun in Cold War, the controller reacts and you can feel this.
Then there’s the adaptive triggers, which for a lot of games I’ve played work really well. I love the fact that they change depending on what you’re doing, so as you pull the trigger to shoot a gun, you can feel the resistance like it’s got an elastic band inside the trigger. But as soon as you fire, the resistance goes. Or when driving, you can feel the wheels spinning through the trigger as the resistance changes depending on the road surface. Definitely next gen features here and not something I anticipated being this good.
The motion controls built into the controller are great, and the touch pad works well, although other than on Astro’s Playroom I don’t think I’ve used it much.
It’s got a built in speaker and microphone, a feature I’ve never used, apart from by accident. It’s great if you don’t have a headset, but the number of times I’ve jumped onto Cold War for one quick game, and realise that my mic is on. I can see this getting people caught out if you’re not careful.
I like the fact it’s USB C. So although it comes with a cable, and I’m using the dock anyway, at least you can use any USB C cable you’ve got lying around too.
The PS icon button, if you tap it it’ll bring up a quick menu across the bottom, that’s cool. And now, which I’m sure this didn’t work at launch, if you press and hold it’ll take you straight home, to the dashboard. So that’s easy enough to use.
I’d like to see it changed though. Something like single tap for the menu, double tap for home and press and hold to turn it off, like on the Xbox.
Games
So over the last few months I’ve played a lot of different games. And everything I’ve played has looked, sounded and performed so well.
The first game I played, which was free and I recommend everyone playing, was Astro’s Playroom. It’s a proper fun game and shows off the controller’s capabilities. Also it’s an easy plat if you’re a trophy hunter too.
Next was Spider Man Miles Morales, it’s up there as one of my favourite games, great story and runs incredibly smoothly. I was playing this in 60 frames per second, which you can’t see from this video, but it’s awesome. There are 3 gaming modes for this, you’ve got Fidelity which runs at 30 frames and has Ray tracing enabled. You’ve got performance mode which is 60 frames per second, but has Ray tracing disabled. And then you’ve got the new mode, which wasn’t available at launch, this is performance RT, which runs at 60 frames and has ray tracing enabled.
I’ve played lots of Cold War which in 120 at 4K looks great. I’ve never properly gamed on a PC, unless we’re counting GTA 1 and 2 from the 90s, so I’ve not experienced 120 hz before. And it’s incredible on the PS5.
You’ll obviously need a TV that supports HDMI 2.1, 120 hz and VRR to really make the most of what the PS5 has to offer, which the 77inch CX I’m using here does. But yeh, it looks awesome.
Other games I’ve played so far include SackBoy, Destruction AllStars, Dirt 5, WatchDogs, WRC 9, Nioh (Neo) and Demon’s Souls. All look, feel and sound great on the PS5.
The graphics, even for the remastered Nioh 1 and 2, are great, and a noticeable step up in quality. I imagine over the next couple of years as more games are released, we’ll see what the PS5 is really capable of.
As for PS4 games, whether disc or digital, 99% of them play and run great. In fact they run quicker than they did on the PS4. So if like me you’ve got a library of games you want to take with you, well you can. 99% of PS4 games can be played on the PS5, so you can either download or insert the disc to play them.
Some of the PS4 games I’ve played on here so far include Cyberpunk, Mafia, Concrete Genie, Tomb Raider, Need for Speed Heat and Tony Hawk. They all look great still, and I’ve had no problems with transferring game saves and continuing where I left off.
Also if you are still using a PS4 and the PS5, you can have both consoles on and playing, it won’t kick you out of one.
Remember that with the PS5 you do get loads of free games too with the PlayStation Plus collection. These include Days Gone in glorious 60 frames per second, God of War, The Last of Us and Ratchet and Clank. I’ve played all of these already on the PS4, but I will definitely be playing these again on the PS5, especially those that have been upgraded.
Then on top of that, if you’re paying for PlayStation Plus, which for me is a no brainer, you also get free games every month to download and keep. Take February we got the new Destruction AllStars, Control and Concrete Genie.
Speed
Now the speed of this console at loading almost anything is quick. The boot up time, the load time, the multitasking. All of it is so fast. I take it for granted now as I use it daily, and I’ve kind of gotten used to it. But only the other day I turned on the PS4 to record some footage, and realised how slow that used to be. And this is the PS4 Pro, yet it felt sluggish.
So with the PS5, whether you’re booting from rest mode or completely off, it’s quick. But that’s not where you really notice or need it, it’s when you’re using it.
So switching between games or loading up menus, especially when you’re in a game is great. So on the PS4 if you were playing a game and you needed to return to the dashboard and go into the settings for something, not only would the console start spinning the fans up it would be pretty sluggish. But the PS5 is so smooth and effortless.
And jumping into games is quick. So here I’m loading up Miles Morales, I’m not speeding this up, and I’m not trying to do it as fast as possible. So once the menu loads I choose the game save I want to play, and then press continue, and within a few seconds it’s loaded. It took less than 17 seconds from start to finish. That’s rapid. And this is the same for most games I’ve played.
Now there is a switcher tab, that would lead you to believe it works the same as Xbox’s Quick Resume, but it doesn’t. So Quick resume lets you switch between games, and resumes from the exact part of the game you were last at, which is incredible. However on the PS5 this doesn’t work. It’s more of a ‘recent game’ button. If you press it it just closes one game and opens the other, nothing more than that. It doesn’t save the current state.
But as I say I’ve taken the speed for granted now, but it also means I’m never sat here waiting for menus and options to load up, it reacts and does what I need within seconds. Now don’t quote me on this, but I’m sure games are downloading quicker too. I assume this is down to the SSD rather than HardDrives we’ve previously had.
Storage
Now the available storage on the PS5 is pretty poor, I’m really disappointed in what we’ve been given. When I had the PS4 Pro it had a 2TB internal storage, I never needed an external drive. Whereas with the PS5 it comes with just 825 GB internal storage, of that only 667 GB is usable. I’m already deleting games which isn’t great after only a few months. Maybe Call of Duty games need to ship with their own SSDs.
But the PS5 should have had a 2TB SSD drive, or at least support external drives from launch. I am using a sandisk SSD drive to store my PS4 games on, but as of now you cannot use PS5 games on it, they have to stay on the internal drive.
Appearance
So I know there’s a divide out there on the design and looks of it, but I like it. Whether it’s laid down like mine or stood up, it looks absolutely fine to me.
When it’s off there are no lights on it at all, when it’s in standby or rest mode there’s a small orange glow at the top. And when it’s on it turns white, it looks pretty clean overall.
The faceplates are removable, which means you can take them off to wrap them, spray them or change them. I’ve recently ordered some matte black plates from dbrand, so in a couple of months I’ll show those off. Maybe we’ll see some themed and custom ones from PlayStation themselves later this year. But this must be the easiest console we’ve ever had to customise.
UI
Overall I think the UI of the PS5 is really clean. The fact it’s now in 4K really shows too, it’s super sharp. The menus all look pretty nice.
Games and media are now split out into sub headings across the top, I never go into media though.
Now each game has its own theme, so while navigating the dashboard, when you stop on a game it’ll change the background and sometimes play some music.
If you go to the full game library, you can see all of the games you’ve purchased previously, so these will be your digital games you’ve bought and can redownload again. Then if you tab across to the installed games, you can see what you currently have.
As I have both PS4 and PS5 games installed, I can scroll down to see the different games, split out into their categories. Only when filming this did I realise I had Dirt 5 installed for both PS4 and PS5. But I think it looks nice and really easy to navigate.
App Store
As I buy most games digitally, I spend a bit of time in the app store, and it’s so much faster to navigate and use over the PS4 again. The search features work great, and the ability to filter between PS4 and PS5 games is awesome. So you can see what PS5 games are available at a glance.
I usually use the mobile app to add games to my wish list, but you can see them on the store here too. Along with everything you expect to see.
Issues
So although the console has been awesome, I’ve had a couple of issues so far. Most of these were within the first few weeks, and since then I’ve not had any problems at all.
The first issue was games crashing. I experienced this what felt like every single day at the start, where I was playing Cold War, and it would error out on me and shut the game down. This could have been a game issue, it’s hard to say for sure.
Then on two separate days the console shut down on me shortly after powering it on. Just completely turned off. Then it wouldn’t turn on at all, the controller and the button on the front was unresponsive for about 30 seconds. I did check to see if it was hot but it was cool as it hadn’t been used that day.
Eventually it turned back on, again no idea why or what caused it.
Would I recommend?
So would I recommend you getting a PlayStation 5. Yes, 100%.
It’s got an awesome controller, incredible exclusives and it’s stupidly fast at loading games. Plus with the option to remove the plates you could change the look of it quite easily if you didn’t like the white.
On top of that if you’ve already got a PS4 and you want to bring your games with you, well you can. So other than the PS5 being out of stock everywhere, there’s no reason to stick with the PS4 now. In fact the PS5 will provide you a better experience overall.
I did a comparison a while back where I put the PS5 against the Xbox Series X and picked a winner, if you want to check that out you can too.
Thanks for reading!