Poll of the Day > Give me basic breakdown of PS4 vs PS5

(+) Yeah! (+)

A coworker wants some advice later for his son, but I stopped paying attention to consoles ages ago.

What are some key points I should know? Also, the PS5 is still incredibly hard to find, correct?

Honestly the PS5 isn't worth buying to me at the moment. I will wait until the pro comes out. Covid really screwed up the development timeline and tightened some wallets. Half of the PS5's lifespan will be stale. The first couple years of PS3 was like this too.

I wouldn't say they are incredibly hard to find but it's difficult due to supply issues. I used Discord groups and stuff to find one. I'll list improvements the PS5 has over the PS4:

The PS5 has a SSD in it - This is a big improvement over the HDD the PS4 has. This means everything is just faster including loading times.

The PS5 has a DualSense controller rather than a DuelShock controller - The controller features haptic feedback and dynamic adaptive triggers. These feel really good when playing games. The feedback from the controller is vastly improved.

The PS5 has Ray tracing, a 4K Blu Ray player and is just more powerful than PS4/PS4 Pro. Also the PS5 can play PS4 games. It has a digital or disk version. I chosen the disk version so I can play my PS4 collection too as I don't do digital. I hope this helps your coworker.

Ps4 wasnt using ssd? Thats wild. At least ps5 has WiFi6 tho

The PS4 is cheaper, easier to find, has ~9 years of games available to check out, and is still getting versions of most of the higher-profile new titles coming out. The PS5 is more powerful and has a handful of exclusives, but is more expensive, much harder to find, has more expensive games (because apparently monetizing the hell out of everything just wasn't enough money for the AAA industry) and most of its library is also available on the PS4.

Basically, unless you (or his kid, in this case) specifically want enough of those exclusives to justify hunting one down and paying the higher price, it'll probably be better to wait for more exclusives (presumably, at some point, the PS4 will stop getting new stuff) and a price drop/bundle that makes it more worthwhile.

wwinterj25 posted...

I wouldn't say they are incredibly hard to find but it's difficult due to supply issues. I used Discord groups and stuff to find one. I'll list improvements the PS5 has over the PS4:

The PS5 has a SSD in it - This is a big improvement over the HDD the PS4 has. This means everything is just faster including loading times.

The PS5 has a DualSense controller rather than a DuelShock controller - The controller features haptic feedback and dynamic adaptive triggers. These feel really good when playing games. The feedback from the controller is vastly improved.

The PS5 has Ray tracing, a 4K Blu Ray player and is just more powerful than PS4/PS4 Pro. Also the PS5 can play PS4 games. It has a digital or disk version. I chosen the disk version so I can play my PS4 collection too as I don't do digital. I hope this helps your coworker.

Yeah, but is the controller more reliable? Because I don't want to have to keep buying a new one at least once a year.

demonfang178 posted...

Yeah, but is the controller more reliable? Because I don't want to have to keep buying a new one at least once a year.

It feels more more ergonomic and more premium than the DuelShock controller. I never had any issue with the Duelshock controller through so I doubt I'll have any issues here. Hell my PS3 controller still works with no issues.

The PS4 has games

You can also buy an ssd for the ps4 and speed it up. I bought the best Maxtor that tested for it. There's a sweet spot because it can't utilize the super fastest, but it can go well faster than the factory hdd. It'll cost you, but consoles are cheap compared to what I spent on my PC anyway.

Thanks so much guys!

Especially Winter and Adjl those were good talking points and gave a ton of perspective

demonfang178 posted...

Yeah, but is the controller more reliable? Because I don't want to have to keep buying a new one at least once a year.

Honestly I'd say the controller is less reliable; I had to sent mine in for a warranty repair on the spring for the L2 button, and I've never had a problem with a PS4 controller over quite a few years of using them. Personally, I also prefer the PS4 controller ergonomically, mainly because it's smaller and lighter and I've never liked vibration or other feedback like that anyway (I turn it off at the console level, which both the PS4 and PS5 allow).

I'd say most of what I play on my PS5 is still upgraded PS4 games (some with native PS5 versions and some not); the improved load times are definitely noticeable for some games and it can be pretty nice, but if it's in question it's probably not worth the price difference.

one has a 4, the other has a 5.

No point in getting a 4 anymore. 5 makes it obsolete.

Metalsonic66 posted...

The PS4 has games

You can play them on the PS5 too, but better. Everything just runs smoother on the PS5.

Ozmose posted...

You can play them on the PS5 too, but better. Everything just runs smoother on the PS5.

This is true.
And some of those PS4 games have PS5 versions now and if no PS5 version, you can use the PS4pro features by default.

Replaying God of War on my PS5 and the 60fps is so nice.

Ozmose posted...

You can play them on the PS5 too, but better. Everything just runs smoother on the PS5.

The PS4 is purchasable

Just so I understand correctly, the PS5 is fully backwards compatible? Or are there some exceptions.

Krow_Incarnate posted...

Just so I understand correctly, the PS5 is fully backwards compatible? Or are there some exceptions.

Fully with PS4 games out of the box but Sony do offer a subscription service that lets you play some of the older games such as PS1, PS2, PSP, PS3 (streaming), PS4 and even add PS5 games to it. The library for the older stuff is limited right now but it might be worth looking into for your coworker.

Krow_Incarnate posted...

Just so I understand correctly, the PS5 is fully backwards compatible? Or are there some exceptions.

Yep, full BC with PS4 games with improved performance in most of them. Some PS4 games even have special updates with features only useable on the PS5. Like The Last of Us Part II, its still a PS4 application but you can enable 60fps mode on PS5 consoles only. Sekiro and Dark Souls 3 run at 60fps as well despite also being PS4 applications.

i cant recommend buying a ps4 this late in its lifespan when the ps5 does literally everything it does better.

That's the impression I'm getting. It just seems like the only thing holding it back is availability and price, which kind of go hand-in-hand.

Thanks!

Krow_Incarnate posted...

Just so I understand correctly, the PS5 is fully backwards compatible? Or are there some exceptions.

It will occasionally give warnings about something not being fully tested, but I've only ever encountered one minor screen-tearing problem which didn't occur on PS4. (It was in the original version of a game that also has a remaster available for the same system, which I suppose is a bad sign for motivation on patching the original.)