2024 is likely going down as the most mixed bag years of modern gaming that we will see in this decade. While Nintendo floods the Switch with long requested returns of classic games, their sales have started slipping. While Xbox is finally starting to deliver on their spectacular game lineup, Xbox fans fret over whether their console is still a worthwhile investment.
And then there’s Sony, who can claim to have had some of the biggest third party games exclusive on their platform, such as Stellar Blade and Black Myth Wukong, but also have the stain of Concord on them.
On another front, Sony launched their mid generation update to the PlayStation 5, the PlayStation 5 Pro, to healthy launch sales. But what should have been a source of elation is now backfiring big time, as PlayStation 5 Pro owners are reckoning if they were the victim of false advertising.
The word initially spread on Reddit, but several content creators would go on to confirm, and the developers eventually admitted the situation. Because of initial issues with making PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution (PSSR), some games actually run worse on the PlayStation 5 Pro.
As we argued before, this should have been expected with PSSR being yet another upscaler for developers to deal with. Anyone who stood by Nvidia and AMD, and recently, Intel, when they improved their games, it can take months, even years, to get this all sorted out. Sony was smart not to require all PlayStation 5 games to be ‘enhanced’ with PSSR, but even their best laid plans were unable to avert this issue.
Last week, Ubisoft updated Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora so that players could choose to disable PSSR. Today, Remedy has made the same kind of update, to disable PSSR for Alan Wake 2.
As explained in this Digital Foundry clip, Infinity Ward Poland believes they have come up with a fix for the PSSR issue on Call of Duty: Black Ops 6. However, that fix is still going through QA certification.
Developers for other affected games, such as Bloober Team with Silent Hill 2, are now making their own determinations if they can fix these issues immediately, or if they’ll have to disable PSSR for now so that players can just get a better experience now.
We don’t think this situation will necessarily hamper PlayStation 5 Pro sales, as many fans will just look at the games that are doing better and rationalize that they will be fixed later.
But on an individual level, if you’re reading this and you haven’t picked up a unit yet, you should really think twice about doing so. The base PlayStation 5 has had great sales since Thanksgiving and will likely get a strong holiday push for the rest of the year, so that may be the better option for you if you were determined to stick with Sony.
But it’s also smart thinking to look at other options available now and that are on the way. Xbox Series consoles with Game Pass are objectively a better value, for example, with the quality and volume of games available. Nintendo may create waves in a matter of months as well, as the Switch 2 is rumored to be powerful enough to play current generation, not just last generation, games.
And then there’s PC, as Intel has emerged as the unlikely savior of PC gaming with their Arc B580 Battlemage GPU raising the bar to 12 GB RAM and 1440p at only $ 250. XeSS does have a one year lead over PSSR, so will a budget PC turn out to be the PS5 killer after all?
All of this is in play because Sony didn’t quite hit the PlayStation 5 Pro out of the gate like we all expected. So we’ll see if Sony can rally fast enough to regain their narrative.
