Sony has been more than lenient with the availability of free upgrades, now it’s time for us to bring our share.
Since the release of the PlayStation 5 on the 12th of November 2020, it’s clear that Sony’s latest console is one of the most sought-after pieces of gaming tech. With the basis specs consisting of AMD Zen 2-based CPU with 8 cores at 3.5GHz, 10.28 TFLOPs, 36 CUs at 2.23GHz, Custom RDNA 2, 16GB GDDR6 256-bit, 448GB/s memory bandwidth, custom 825GB SSD, IO throughput 5.5GB/s (raw), typical 8-9GB/s (compressed), NVMe SSD slot for expandable storage, USB HDD support (PS4 games only), 4K UHD Blu-ray drive (capable of 4K/120fps with support for 8K/60fps).
It’s also mostly backwards compatible with PS4 games and somewhat backwards compatible with games for PS3 and older PS consoles; on condition.
Hiroki Totoki – the chief financial officer- had initially set a goal for 100 million units to be sold in the consoles’ lifetime; whereas the end of July 2021 sales already had it comfortably sitting on over 10 million units sold worldwide.
keeping in mind that the launch date was set amidst the global (and still ongoing) Covid pandemic, as well as the shortage of stock due to the extremely overwhelming and unexpected demand (also partly due to the short supply on semiconductor chips). The stock shortage is expected to continue well into 2022 due to Sony needing to catch up with the major backlog of orders. Either way, the PS5 has easily become the fastest-selling console in history.
“I don’t think demand is calming down this year and even if we secure a lot more devices and produce many more units of the PlayStation 5 next year, our supply wouldn’t be able to catch up with demand,” Totoki said.
With that being said, Sony has been extremely generous and more than lenient with allowing the free upgrading of game titles for if you haven’t been able to get your hands on a PS5 just yet, you can grab it for PS4 and upgrade for practically no extra cost once you have the eye-candy-PlayStation-5.
This doesn’t necessarily apply to every game released but it’s a good chunk of them that have been made compatible for cross-gen gaming. This is also not to say that it won’t be a thing at all, publishers are still free to make the call on whether they want that option available for their titles or not.
These changes were initially going to start taking place with Horizon Forbidden West where players would have to pay a $10 (roughly R143) fee for the PS5 upgraded version. However, there was major backlash from the players who are now used to getting the free upgrades, so the decision was pulled back for Horizon but with the reversal of this statement, Sony made sure to make it known that hereon after the $10 fee will apply to all PS4 to PS5 upgrades.
This was confirmed by CEO and president of Sony Interactive Entertainment, Jim Ryan; and among the specifically mentioned titles regarding this was the new God of War and Gran Turismo 7.
Will the upgrade fees be worth it? Well, that’s up to you to decide for yourself. Obviously, the PS5 version of the games will have enhanced graphics, smoother playability and shorter loading times, have DualSense controller support, and likely bits of extra content, but come on, why would you not want the best of what you can have? This wouldn’t be the first time that we’ve bought another version of a game for another console (*nudge-nudge* ahem…Skyrim…)
But if you still choose to not pay what is actually a fair price for the PS5 version (instead of forking out what would be the full cost of a new version, technically) then do not fret because as mentioned above, the PlayStation 5 is backwards compatible with PS4, but obviously won’t include of the PS5 features or exclusive content.
To sum things up, I honestly don’t see this as a bad thing. Sure it was nice while it lasted but it was to be expected eventually and quite frankly, it’s only fair. We’ve always had to buy the new version of a game for next-gen consoles, Sony was more than generous with what they’ve done here; they gave us the hand, so let’s not take the entire arm. They are still running a business after all and need to make their money to provide us with more great things.