The PS5 Pro Features Sony Didn't Tell You. | PS Plus Premium Classics Getting Better. - [LTPS #639]

Intro & PS Plus Reminder it is Friday September 13th let's talk PlayStation welcome back everyone to another expensive episode of ltps It's been a very turbulent few weeks for PlayStation there's a a lot going on obviously we've got concore then astrobot then PS5 Pro so a lot to go over of course but as always let's begin with our ps+ reminder so the ps+ essential September lineup is still live on PSN make sure you claim those games and also we have the PS plus extra and premium September lineup announc as well going live on the 17th so for ps+ extra PS Plus Extra September Lineup the big headline Title Here is of course the Plucky Squire launching day one into PS plus extra and that game still does look incredibly unique and interesting and that is absolutely the kind of stuff where I like seeing that launch day one into ps+ extra uh Elsewhere on the lineup you have Road 96 Ben 10 fir Cry 5 uh really for me I would recommend Night in the Woods I love that game a lot it's one of those more cozy style weekend games and uh while I don't live in a small town it has those kind of Vibes where I feel like it probably uh captures that Essence very well and also the protagonist is a cat and you know that's something I can really get behind so Night in the Woods I love that game a lot going into PS Plus premium though my God it's still only three four games PS Plus Premium September Lineup every month but I'm telling you this is getting so much better pistol whip psvr2 so still having some psvr2 games on there nice to see that Secret Agent Clank on PSP we had a feeling that was going to come fairly soon but for PS2 Sky Gunner uh Playstation 2 The Atlas sort of uh that's like a flight game and then Mr mosquito on PlayStation 2 as well both of those PS2 games I I don't know if Niche is the right word here but they're certainly a little bit more obscure and and unique and they're the kind of games where it's like I I was not expecting we would get those but my God I I I love it let's do more of that stuff especially because they are like lesser known you know they're not the kind of games that a lot of people had the ch to you know try out and play and they're very quirky I mean Mr mosquito is is just that you're you're a goddamn mosquito flying around uh biting people and it's it's super cool uh now we never got the sequel in the west but it's still nice to have that and then Sky Gunner 2 I think that did not ship in Europe in that game well alongside Mr mosquito uh the physical prints are you know they they hold their value really well they're like more than $60 plus dollars I think near 100 or so so this is always the kind of stuff that I really appreciate with revisiting and storing Classics on Modern Hardware so I mean I'm not going to front it's still like a very slow output for Classics but I mean PlayStation 2 I think is kind of out of the gate pretty strong here with the the sort of stuff that I really was not expecting Mr mosquito that is so cool and that's a game I was almost going to buy recently as well um and now it's it's great to have it on PlayStation 4 and five with rewinds saves dates video presets and I do hope that one gets trophies uh either day one or at some point which uh again implicit conversions has been pretty good with doing that even with their party games nowadays but moving on to our first news story we have the latest PS5 system software update now live on PSN version New PS5 10.00 System Update 10.0 a big one uh which this one interesting enough it was something where during the beta phase there really wasn't a whole lot there that was where the primary changes were the custom 3D audio profiles which is nice obviously um the Adaptive charging for PS5 slim models and now also confirmed for upcoming PS5 Pro Models uh being able to restore licenses on a per us a per user basis excuse me uh or enabling remote play on a per user basis but this is also the firmware that does include the upcoming big change for the explore icon where us consoles have the explore icon that's going to change to the welcome Hub which is essentially what they were testing previously uh so it's a customizable page with various widgets you can move around and resize and really ta uh tailor that to your liking and the big news here is that yes it is going to come to every console worldwide so it will not just be strictly for us PlayStation 5 owners now the big caveat with this I'm seeing a lot of people wonder why is this not actually out yet because you've probably already updated your console and you don't have this just yet this was confirmed on the Playstation blog and also via the uh firmware patch notes that it is going to roll out gradually so only a select few people in the US actually got the explore icon or rather the um the welcome Hub it's now called and it's going to roll out out slowly to those in Japan then select countries in Europe and then everybody should have it in about 1 to two months so it is kind of a pain obviously because with a lot of stuff lately during the PlayStation 5 cycle Sony's been doing just this whether it's like serers side updates uh firmware updates features that uh you know are either on playstation.com or the mobile app they always use this language now of rolling it out slowly so it's just something they've been doing a lot lately so it's a it's a pain but um just be patient because it does appear as though they are going to give this thing to everybody which that was the one question mark we had with this entire thing when uh I was in the beta phase for the Explorer changes which that was also separate from the actual PS5 beta firmware which I always was trying to tell people those two were technically separate one was serers side and then the beta codes were still normal with the 3D audio profiles and things like that so um but it's it's nice that that is actually married together and it's going to be coming out very soon so with the Explorer thing being primarily a server side chain you're just going to log into PS5 one day and it's just going to show up so you now have the latest firmware your console is prepped for getting widgets and you just have to wait it out and uh it's great to see that it does look the way that it does cuz it's a very useful feature this is probably the one aspect of the console UI where we can all agree this is a a very welcomed great change now there is one thing that was a little strange about this firmware and that's over on the Playstation blog Screenshot Showing PS VR2 Battery Indicator where Sony always does the separate write up talking about what's in the firmware how it's going out later today the Loy show official screenshots and so one of those screenshots for the welcome Hub if you zoom in on the battery widget you can see the psvr2 headset as an icon with its own battery indicator now that's a little weird because psvr2 is not a wireless headset and we do know that for the psvr2 cense controllers those have their own unique icons for the left and right showing the battery status for those controllers cuz that would obviously make sense you can't consolidate those into one icon it's not that in fact I can confirm that's how it worked back during the Explorer beta phase um which I I don't actually have the updated welcome Hub just yet uh but I can't imagine that's not going to like that's going to change obviously so uh seems like a little mishap here because Sony already did change out the picture so now it does show simply two generic controller icons and then also the pulse explor on there as well so definitely a little bit of a mistake but I guess it does pose the question of what went on with the original picture because I will play Devil's ADV here and that obviously some would look at this and go okay it's clearly just a little mess up from the social media team that drafted up that picture but the problem is the picture still is usually sourced from like the team that works on the UI um it's either captured on real Hardware or just sort of you know in a virtual machine or something they send over a screenshot and uh from that point forward the team might maybe dress it up or make changes so that's where there's some plausibility on maybe they forgot to take that out or the UI team forgot to take it out or maybe it was something where they only had like one example in the battery widget from the UI team then the social media team stepped in and added something after the fact right so it's just a little bit weird there although I would probably Venture a guess and say we're not actually going to get this sort of updated revision for PS VR2 where it's like truly Wireless uh now I would say it's a possibility but I just certainly was not expecting that you know psv1 had a a very slight model revision about a year and a half two years in that's where the breakout box could then finally accept HDR pass through and then the actual um headset itself had integrated headphones as well so it's like a very soft revision uh this I would consider much more substantial so while some are hoping that psvr2 with it even doing as bad as it is doing that the company would maybe sort of uh you know introduce an updated version at the same price point or maybe God forbid it's a little bit higher but um you know I I think it's uh there's a chance that's happening but I would say maybe not just uh I would say there's some plausibility here on maybe that actually was a genuine mistake but we'll keep watching this and see what develops all right let's move on to some astrobot news of course the game came Team Asobi Had A Lot Of Support For VIP Bots out last week so we've seen a lot of things pop up with uh new interviews and some sales data so uh let's mention the one thing which is the VIP bots in the game because there is like 170 of them a lot of them of course being uh deeply integrated from PlayStation history and so uh recently team mob's creative director Nicholas Dua was speaking on the Playstation blog and gave us some insight into how easy it was to get those Bots into the game so he said and I quote here since this title packs in much of PlayStation history we worked closely with all the PlayStation Studios when we shared our concept with Studio directors and game creators their responses were overwhelmingly positive initially I thought we could only feature around 50 characters out of the 150 characters we wanted to feature but to our greatest surprise the studios unanimously agreed to The Cameo of all 15 characters apart from our PlayStation Studios we were also lucky to collaborate with third party Publishers yes there are indeed a lot of characters in there uh some that I was very surprised by and it is one of those things where you know I I kind of hearken back to like something as funny as and you might remember this which was in The Last of Us Part Two where and this was during the state of play so it's not like a spoiler or anything but uh it was a matter of like there's a PlayStation vaita in the game like one of the characters is playing a PS vaita then Ellie comes in and like you know stabs theit out of him uh but I remember Neil Duckman talking about how it was actually very hard to get that cleared like you would think okay it's a PlayStation Studio are they allowed to use PlayStation products and he said it was actually a lot more difficult to actually get that cleared than one would think so in the case of something like astrobot even though they're all internally owned IP um it's cool knowing that there was a bit of Outreach and talking with the you know the studio directors and things giving them some concepts of what the Bots would look like maybe looking for for a feedback loop on you know is it okay if we include them and to make them look like this or whatever and it's just it's very cool that out of 150 they damn near got everything in there and there are so many uh still working on my uh well I finished the game obviously but working on a more of a super cut similar to what I did for Astros playroom I wanted to try and get that up this past week but that just clearly was not going to happen especially with the uh PS5 Pro stuff going on that should be up next week so uh you'll see my genuine re reaction to all the uh VIP Bots and a lot of the big moments in the game but it was uh very cool to know that they had a lot of um this this unanimous support coming from the internal Studios now something else we should also mention for those VIP Bots is that Astro Bot Credits Reveal Unused Cameos we might end up seeing more of them by way of the already confirmed upcoming speedrun and challenge DLC which uh now that we have the base game and we know the sort of basic structure which not quite a spoiler I'm not going to you know show or talk about anything in particular but there are those Gauntlet style levels which are you know challenging and they can have a speedrun field to it and so we're going to get more of those but those are laid out in a way where there's always one VIP bot per those challenge gauntlets and so we're probably going to see more of those and so for the VIP Bots what we saw in the end credits of the game is teamas SOI thanking various Publishers and IP that did not end up being in the base game so again spoiler if you don't want to hear about these but it does seem like we might see some VI IP Bots for the following franchises that being Assassin's Creed Beyond Good and Evil Rayman Croc worms Stellar blade and Rise of the Ronin I think it did show that they're looking to do about 10 to five uh extra like DLC free levels that they'll end up doing at some point it it sounds like they already got the green light to do these characters so probably that's what's going to end up happening uh which I am all for I mean those are some of the funnest moments in the entire game is those Gauntlet style levels and so not only do I want more those but uh I say really Lean Into The Challenge and and make them like punishingly difficult they're they're so fun it's like platforming at its absolute finest and the VIP Bots are like the really fun thing near the end as well CU they're just they they're so cool so maybe we'll see like an evebot or a worm bot Croc as well I I think those would be super dope so uh and not only do I hope that's like that that that's what we're expecting in this first round of free DLC but I quite frankly I I want more I just hope that there is more Beyond you know 10 or 15 levels okay moving on to some astrobot sales data we are of course going to watch this game very closely and see how Initial Astro Bot Sales Seem To Be Okay well it does because that would maybe build well for SE more Astro or games like it so we have some early data coming in suggesting the game did you know reasonably well but maybe not outstanding so uh from the UK we have Christopher dring of games industry. Bez uh letting us know that UK sales for astrobot were initially tracking behind Ratchet and Clank but the first week sales in total for physical and digital do have it tracking 21% higher on the flip side the game did not do all that well in Japan selling only 12,000 copies at retail uh no Digital Data but 12,000 still not necessarily great for a PS Studios game uh and we can also briefly mention that for the PS5 price increase in Japan that unsurprisingly made the console sales completely tank going down from like 37,000 to now like 11,000 or something so that is not too surprising there uh but we do have early indicators so far that the game is doing like okay it's really hard to judge right now obviously um especially without having cirana with us sales data but um so far it does seem like the game is doing okay and that's sort of what I was getting at the entire time right I mean I'll always say like I want the game to do Millions Gang Busters I would be very happy but at the same time I would be overly cautious and say the one game we can really compare it to is ratchet and I just don't really see game somehow matching ratchet or at least not at the same sales Pace initially uh Astro might have good like longterm legs on the market especially with how much Goodwill the game is uh generating nowadays with just positive buzz and word of mouth and so maybe over the holiday season the game is going to do much much better um and it's obviously doing good right now anyway so it is tracking ahead of Ratchet and Clank which is good I mean that's that's kind of the entire point right um the thing with ratchet is that it's an established IP it's so well known and it is uh very appealing in that first year because it is something where for early adopters even though the PS5 install base is not necessarily all that big you're still going to have a lot of people in drobes go out and buy that game so it's not like this particular title 3 years later with 60 million ps5s out there has to in turn represent a three-time improvement over Ratchet and Clank that's not really how these things work but it it still does show that the game is doing okay uh even good I would say the other aspect is that this game doesn't actually have to do like 10 million plus copies right away right it's Astro it's only a three-year death cycle 65 person team very modest budget relative to everything else that PS Studios is is outputting nowadays so this game I I think is probably in a very safe territory to earn a profit and that can be a great stepping stone to having more astrobot you know it's one of those things where like Rome was not built in a day and this really was the first time where Astro was able to really be uh like this was it's shot to to be proven as an IP because as we often say the camera app on PS4 most people did not have the chance to try that or or mess around with it and that's still very much a technical demonstration PS VR1 of course most people didn't play that and then playroom on every single PS5 that's good that's a great starting point not everybody even played that so this is still the first opportunity for Astro to be sold as a standard you know retail digital $60 game platformer anybody can play this and enjoy it so um you would hope that it it is a it is a stepping stone for you know another astrobot maybe another one and then from there the IP and reverence and appreciation for the character can build over time and that's that's what I hope for it doesn't have to necessarily be this knockout success right away although I still inherently hope that does happen but so far we're looking I'd say we're looking safely good for Astro now before we move on to the very Sony Increases Price On DualSense Controllers expensive Ive PlayStation 5 Pro we should also talk about the Dual Suns controller because this too saw a very slight but also annoying price increase so across the board it's now $5 more which uh that would mean $75 controllers or 80 or 70 went up to 75 uh this showed up on PS direct and third party retailers so it is indeed the actual MSRP for the controllers now and this also popped up in other markets as well so not just say North America uh the controller is more expensive which is definitely annoying I mean this this console generation has been very expensive and Sony is in a place where they are getting to a point where it's very much unchecked Behavior I mean we always on this channel like to discuss you know the business side of things why is Sony doing the things that they're doing it's a matter of like trying to rationalize it from a business point of view right and there are certainly many cases where component prices have gone up and inflation is a very real thing to consider and um you know Co changed everything the supply chain uh really messed everything up and and so there there is very much something that is widespread across the technology sector which is technology is more expensive you know so there's certainly a lot of that at play but that's not necessarily excusing Sony of anything when they are also a clear market leader and this might just be also an example of them trying to increase margins when they have the reason when when they have the uh freeway here to do it right they're being unchecked and they're really trying to they're not shy and looking for the ceiling on what their customers are willing to pay going up to 70 is is certainly one thing right like it's it's going to happen controllers were going to go up games were going to go up but man it's uh it's it it keeps going up is the problem so this uh this stings it's a small price increase but still one that hurts all right moving on to PlayStation PS5 Pro Details: PSSR, Free Patches, 8K, & More 5 Pro we have some additional details to clear up here from the initial uh console reveal which happened on Tuesday so with the dust now settling on that there's a number of things that we've learned after the fact so we'll cover up all that in kind of a you know sort of a bullet point list here because it's all kind of coming from different sources uh the one Hands-On that we had go live shortly after the reveal uh was just from CA they were the only ones that were able to get some Hands-On time with the console that was Scott Stein of CNET and so they actually did show a real life photo of the console next to a slim and uh that console does show that it is the same width so despite the language on the PS blog it does appear as though the existing covers should in theory fit on this console now we are hearing that Sony's proprietary AI upscaler pssr is going to apply to the entire library of games and that includes the thousands of 1080p PS4 games that never saw a PS4 Pro enhancement uh and that is also going to apply to psvr2 games in the future and that is the language there so there's probably going to be a firmware update that's going to enable that down the road and we're still not hearing of any psvr2 games that are going to receive native patches to enhance the uh the experience for those games uh now the rear of the console does have an extra USBC port instead of usba so I assume that means one of each instead of two usba uh and again this is on the PS blog but you know some people are still overlooking this two terabytes of storage and also Wi-Fi 7 included in the console as well still definitely a bit polarizing that Sony maybe didn't spend time talking about these sort of enhancements and features for their 9-minute demonstration uh but they are are confirming that for day one they're expecting around 40 to 50 games are going to get free native PS5 Pro enhanced patches uh these will all mostly focus on 4K 60fps upgrades across the board but enhancements will vary across titles where you know we could see new things like volumetric lighting and effects more onscreen characters or modes that can now go up to 120 from the base console um the big deal from scat is that they did get some handson time with Gran Turismo 7 which is going to have a playable 8K mode likely not AK native pssr is probably coming in to do that uh but pany has always historically been the studio that likes to really push the envelope on Playstation Hardware they do you know silly things like 1080p modes or 1080i I think it is on PlayStation 2 uh Playstation 3 they have that weird thing where for five and six you can actually connect five PS3 consoles and five monitors and get more of a full display for racing so they always kind of do things like that so uh gt7 as a AAA PS5 game it is going to have an AK mode there is also going to be a 4K mode with additional rate tracing effects as well we're also hearing from Sony Based on data that they have around a quarter of P owners right now do have a 120 Herz enabled TV and around 1 in0 owners in total have a vrr enabled TV uh the system architect Mark cery also provided some quotes here where he dives into more about the hardware and the games and what they're expecting so he says and I quote here I've already seen games with three different PS5 Pro modes as time goes by particularly for the games which are launching after the hardware releases we'll increasingly see a more nuanced approach where the focus is less on resolution and much more about higher image quality through a variety of strategies PS5 Pro uses the new Advanced rate tracing feature sets that AMD created as the next step in the road map architecture but if you look around there are no other AMD gpus that use it yet we motivated the development and I'm very happy we did so the response from the developers has been extraordinarily great now Cy also touched on this new relation relationship the company is seeing with their PC ports and how the overlap is mutually beneficial so some of their high-end PC settings for their PC ports might find their way into the PS5 pro versions and for the Hands-On portion with CET Scott Stein did also talk about his experience where a lot of them did feel very subtle he admits where he had to visibly look back and forth between the Basse console and PS5 Pro to really appreciate the differences but a noteworthy example he did point out is Final Fantasy 7 rebirth where the game looked noticeably sharper smoother kind of like putting on glasses and then Gran Turismo 7's 8K mode and the 4K RT mode were also very stunning as well he said and uh we also had John linman of digital Foundry chime in as well saying he too was very impressed with rebirths image quality and it does sound like maybe they got access to the hardware so we might see something from digital Foundry fairly soon which they are certainly the ones to uh watch for their Insight on how this this console is going to perform which I guess that's where we can get into um this particular portion right is the performance of this machine because I think what is so polarizing about the reveal and we will Discussion On The Bad PS5 Pro Reveal absolutely get to price in a second here but it's um it's a matter of how they did it right uh now there's there's ways they could have I think navigated this to where they could maybe soften the blow on that price tag but in general I think the consensus here does seem to be that the presentation just was not very good especially knowing everything that we just went over which is why did we not spend time talking about this during the live stream or rather the YouTube Premiere and now the video on YouTube which has you know more than a million something views but also very likely a lot of dislikes because it's just you you can see how they tried to go about doing this I actually called this right before the the the premiere actually happened which was they're probably trying to address the problems they've had in recent console reveals which is being maybe a little bit too long maybe a little bit too technical not being consumer facing enough and so things like road to PS5 which yes they that that was meant to be a GDC talk but it was still something everybody had their eyes on and then they watched it and went you know what the hell was that um they've done console reveals before for like Mainline home systems where they'll spend an hour two hours talking about it with renting out a venue or it would be E3 and you know they won't reveal the console or talk about price and things like that which is historically what they've always done but it's you know it sounds like they tried to take take all that feedback in and create a very tight show of like 10 minutes it's very flashy looking which it was I mean you can tell it was very consumer focused but it still begs the question why did you not talk about all these other things which is you know the 40 to 50 games that are going to have free patches why are you not talking about the 2 terabytes of SSD storage or Wi-Fi 7 uh or frankly pssr where we're now learning that that's going to apply to the entire library of games that's kind of a big deal I I would actually argue that if pssr is going to have some very good results for the thousands of 1080p PS4 games that never got a PS4 Pro enhancement that is a big deal I mean if that ends up looking pretty good you know I it's it's a why are you not talking about that during this presentation it's a very bizarre thing you're speaking to the most engaged customers that are on paper willing to spend more money to buy this console and uh you didn't really do that and even more over you're zooming in on these sidebyside comparisons now that's that's fine that's not the problem but it's like why did you not make that full screen to really highlight the extra detail that those games are going to present like a digital Foundry you know it's it's like you can see what they're trying to do but why did they approach it that way you're already fighting against YouTube uh the the YouTube video player and the compression there cuz it's it's never going to look as good as it being right in front of you so it's just the whole thing was yeah not like the messaging was not very good that there was no shot that they were going to be able to really control the messaging and the narrative surrounding this console especially by the time the the price tag did show up um but you know in terms of performance we're already seeing and we're having early indicators that this thing is going to do exactly what it is meant to do on paper cuz we already knew a while ago now at this point that the GPU was the the really big sizable increase and pssr was now this new in-house proprietary technology that the company would be using for all their games which we're now learning uh but the CPU was going to be the same they're just clocking it 10% faster uh which that too is also a very big story that came out yesterday where the digital Foundry guys are feeling very confident in saying now that a very big game like say Grand Theft Auto 6 is not going to have a 60 FPS mode on PlayStation 5 Pro which that in a way is is certainly going to be an outlier there's not nearly as many CPU bound games as uh well I I guess speaking broadly for the entire library because the other aspect is that you still don't need the console because it's a very Enthusiast machine the base console has a a the vast majority of titles on there are 60 FPS right um but this machine is going to step in not only potentially clean up some of those slightly unstable 60fps games or the ones that have high frame rate modes that sit around 80 990 maybe this console is going to push it up to 120 more reliably but also having pssr step in um or even if pssr is inactive there's still the the possibility that they can just uh raise the the base resolution of those particular games if it's Dynamic and so there is still a lot of visual upside but we are still in the landscape of diminishing returns so it's not like you're seeing this sort of two times increase over PS4 to PS4 Pro this thing is even more incremental and it does show but if you are the kind of Enthusiast buyer that still wants the best looking games the most refined experiences and you still prefer playing on Console which pound-for-pound despite the the very steep price you're going to come in under equivalencies on PC it's just the simple reality that's the entire point of consoles Sony will still to this day understand that sort of uh you know those Optics which is you can't price this thing too high because then it really does look very unusual so uh even at $700 or 800 Euro again where it gets really obscene in some markets um they do realize that aspect of it and so there is the there is still you know something to be said about the performance of the machine where it is probably going to deliver some good returns and it's just it's very bizarre that they were not able to demonstrate that where we're already hearing that the console is actually pretty good at what it's meant to do which is be a low volume Enthusiast console that only a select few are going to be interested in buying so now that we've cleaned up all those details let's go over some uh pricing discussion which uh the one Analyst Predicts PS5 Pro Sales By 2029 thing we can touch on is the expected sales of PS5 Pro which I think a lot of us are sitting here wondering how many of these things are they really going to move when they've got a price the way that they do so we have some analysis coming in initially from Amper analysis this comes from Pier Harding rules where uh they did this right up where they do expect a large majority of sales to come from existing owners that are looking to upgrade they also believe the price is more reflective of the general supply chain inflation Sony protecting their margins and also feeling no pressure from a direct competitor allowing them to protect those margins so as for sales they're forecasting 1.3 million PS5 Pros will be sold for this year compared to the 1.7 million PS4 Pros that were sold during the original 2016 launch window and so compared to the entire life cycle they're expecting numbers to be a little bit more similar where PS4 Pro did around 14.5 million lifetime sales and they expect PS5 Pro to be around 13 million by 2029 so it would appear as though the console maybe is not going to do as well as PS4 Pro but maybe similar enough to where that would be surprising to some I mean I I am curious as to what will end up happening cuz this is an analysis it's not accurate just yet but uh with that price tag being so high I'm just I'm wondering are they going to be able to really match the sales Pace that PS4 Pro saw where that was low volume to this certainly will be and it is going to sell I have no doubt in my mind the pre-orders will probably go up and uh they will likely sell out but that's also highly dependent on the initial allocation how many consoles are they going to manufacture but it is still going to move some units and it's going to do I think reasonably well in context of what Sony is looking to get out of this thing which is making money obviously but at that price tag that is I think very clear what they're looking to do there is um you know an argument to be made about why it is priced as Discussion On PS5 Pro Price, Why Is It So High? high as it is because you know this goes back to like the presentation where like right before it went up like I wholeheartedly thought yes this thing is going to be a lot of money and I said like oh worst case scenario 649 without a drive I did not think we were going to get a console with a drive because in theory that meant if you know 649 is the console without a drive then just don't offer a console with the drive at all because that means the console with the drive is going to be touching the $699 price tag and that's where Optics are going to look really bad but sure enough it's $6.99 without that drive and yeah the Optics are terrible because it is rightfully earned the console is a lot of money I mean it's to the point where you know in Europe at 800 with drive and enthusiasts are probably going to want that drive so that's another what is it 130 or something and then if you God forbid want to orientate this thing vertically I mean yeah you're looking at nearly $1,000 for a pro midcycle console it's a ton of money we cannot Overlook that it's insane it it is to the point where I knew it would be a lot of money but now you are very much really looking to find where that ceiling is and uh you're probably going to price out people that even were expecting to pay a lot of money and even there are the ones that are going to be sitting here going yeah I I can't at that price right it's it's a lot of money but I completely agree with what aier is saying as far as the rationale behind the price tag which is really a two-fold thing number one yes they are going unchecked there is just no doubt at this point where the company is in a very sort of free position to you know price things a lot higher and it's not like everybody else has not been doing this right again there there is still the much understood context Stu Bill materials are are up inflation is up technology across the board everybody is dealing with this in a way where things just generally cost more money but they are still in a position where they are unchecked from a direct competitor and this is why I keep saying I want Microsoft to do well I like traditional consoles I like all consoles I like all games I want them to do well I do not want us to be in this environment where Sony can start doing things like this you know the console was going to be a lot but it probably would have been maybe a little bit less money if you know Microsoft was maybe doing a lot better and they were also showing up with a midcycle update as well so that's one aspect of it the other angle is and this is this is a very important thing with um you know discussing PS5 Pro it is a midcycle console that most buyers don't actually need to go out and get right that doesn't necessarily excuse it but it's a matter of they don't have to subsidize this console and so that price tag I think is very reflective of them making like a very good margin on this thing like every PS5 Pro that gets sold is probably going to be a very healthy profit for them uh it's not like a new console launch where the model almost always is you're going to lose money on the box initially uh have economies of scale come in but also you're going to subsidize it with the eventual purchase per buyer of every you know person going out and buying multiple games and accessories controllers and that's how it offsets that's how the console model has always worked and it even still to this day has been like that with PlayStation 5 now in recent console Generations PS4 and PS5 turned to profit a lot faster than what we saw in Prior Generations um but with PlayStation 5 actually as far as I know the digital console was still losing money and that's why that machine did see an MSRP price increase um but the point is you know nowadays it's a lot different with um Bill materials not going down and so nobody can price down consoles you know by year three year four year five that's why this generation is very different and that's why PS5 Pro was going to come in at a very high price tag but it's to the point where okay that's going to be more than the base console and it's now going to be even more than that to earn a earn a profit on every console because they don't necessarily have to have to subsidize it in a way where it's a new platform and you want people to get in the door and encourage you know buyers into this new ecosystem and and so that's why the other elephant in the room here is PlayStation 6 you know the the concerning thing is what does this mean for PlayStation 6 because that console has to be better than PlayStation 5 Pro but if PS5 Pro is priced at 700 and we know how this has been playing out prices are not going down so does that mean a new console cycle is going to start at possibly $700 that's a very concerning thing now my hope here is that there's a few things working in favor of ps6 not being this crazy price tag now it would probably still be very high because we also have to bear in mind that's 3 four years away from from now so yeah it's going to be more money nowadays but uh because it is going to be a new generation they might have to go back to the subsid model which is you know potentially it cost initially to get buyers to jump in buy multiple games and subscribe to plus and things like that um and there's also the other aspect of uh fabrication plants where I think by 2028 29 there should be a lot more options hopefully really lighten the load on the entire technology sector to where we might not have to see PlayStation 6 be an an absurdly expensive box but uh it's still a very alarming thing because if console buyers which are normally not used to this price range if they you know get accustomed to that price tag and and Sony's looking to obviously make money because why not then you know they'll they'll price the console at whatever they think they can get away with it especially if Microsoft becomes more and more Irrelevant in the high-end console space so it's a it's a very concerning thing I would like to hope that they return to the subsidy model especially because you know they subsidize in a way that is just far and above easier than what they saw during like PlayStation 3 and 2 even or PS1 I mean those consoles are that was like actual retail sales like oh we have to sell a number of games and controllers and things it's like it's the model surely looks different now we we know how much money you make from revenue on the PlayStation store right like like microtransactions DLC subscription MTX all that stuff you make so much more money during the PS4 and PS5 cycle that conceivably you can offer machines at a pretty low price I don't want to say substantially low but you know there's a a a subsidy model that exists nowadays that is a lot more conducive to offering perhaps lower entry price points than you could on PS1 through 3 I would argue so this uh it doesn't look good I I'll say that much but PS5 pro at least in the Here and Now is a very Enthusiast console priced very high and I guess we'll have to wait and see how the the market responds to it but so far with uh the Optics they look very bad now there is one aspect of this we Detachable Disc Drives Are Selling Out can look at right now for gauging PS5 Pro interest and that is the disc drive attachment that they're selling right now for PS5 slim consoles cuz that is going to work on PS5 Pro and sure enough that drive is selling out on third party retail uh last time I checked PS direct it is still available but it does seem like by the time we had the PS5 Pro announcement the disc drive was now selling in droves so there are some people that are absolutely looking to prepare themselves for uh PlayStation 5 Pro it's a very small key indicator but still one that I think is worth pointing out now we should also clarify that if Pre-Order Info For PS5 Pro you do want a PS5 Pro then there is going to be two separate pre-order waves so the first one is psir only on September 26th but if you do want a thirdparty retailer that's going to be October 10th so your GameStop Walmart Best Buy Target all that stuff uh I think Amazon is going to be separate so that might be a different date but October 10th is going to be for all other retailers so there is going to be two different waves to possibly secure a console and if you do happen to live somewhere without PS direct then it's actually September 26th for all other retailers that are a participating third party retailer for offering PlayStation Hardware so so just keep that in mind uh obviously pre-orders can be a kind of annoying stressful thing if you are looking to grab this stuff especially with Bots and and scallopers so that's obviously going to be another very big issue with this console I'm more than certain that will probably play out as well so just keep in mind if you are looking to get one of these things September 26th for PS direct October 10th for third party retailers now we did just have a lot of very expensive news stories so why not do an affordable one as well PS5 Sony Starts Selling Refurbished PS5’s refurbished consoles are coming soon to PlayStation direct that and also controllers as well so it does seem like Sony is opening up this new refurbishment style program where you can buy PS5 consoles from Sony uh at a slight discount I would actually say a very good discount so uh digital consoles are 349 and dis is $3.99 refurbished dual sound controllers are going to be available from $60 to $65 USD uh and the consoles are CFI th000 series models as well which I would say is good good and bad depending on which model you want to look at uh digital consoles that means they cannot take on a disc drive so if you buy that it is always going to be digital but if you buy a disc console that is the OG model where the the drive is you know fixed onto the machine and it's always married to the to the motherboard and so that console does not ever need to register the drive online which uh that with the slim consoles is still a onetime thing generally but it's something where the console will stay truly offline for the entire of its life cycle which is pretty cool um I I will say I mean this is actually a very good deal more so because they're also uh directly from Sony as in you're going to get a warranty with them as well you can always get PS5 consoles for around the 300 something dollar range but there's always value in getting them from Sony having a receipt and being able to have a warranty as well now how long that warranty is I don't know just yet I'll probably double check and see if they did outline that but uh still having a warranty is better than not having one at all and uh I guess it really depends on how well the refurbishment process actually is are these consoles really cleaned up do they look good I mean you would expect that from Sony uh but if they do turn out okay then this is a a very viable way to end up buying a basee console so this I think is actually great to see and in this environment where things are as expensive as they are next up we have another Rumor for RUMOR: State Of Play Is Around Sept 24 the upcoming stateof play presentation that we're all expecting which at this point it's more or less just clarifying exactly when we can expect this show to actually happen uh so this comes from giant bombs Jeff grub where he says uh on a recent gamees decides episode that the state of play should be showing up in around 12 days now 11 which would line this thing up to be around September 24th uh which would be uh Tuesday I believe so the expectation probably is they'll announce on Monday then the show goes up the following day uh Monday they do also and they do this with every single state of play but they've always been very good on outlining exactly what's going to be in that show so saying it's from third party Partners or psvr2 games or hey PS Studios is going to be here or they're not going to be here so at least by Monday we probably will know what we are walking into which you know we already heard it was the last week of September anyway and that already narrowed it down based on the like 3-day window CU TGs was starting on the the 26th so yeah it seems more and more clear the state of play is coming and now it's a matter of what is it going to be and uh sentiment has been unsurprisingly very low at this point in the game it's been a very turbulent few months for PlayStation right or at least the past month and a half or so where it's like you know Concord it's so over then astrobot we're so back PS5 Pro it's so over and now we have state of play where I think walking into that it's already kind of low because it is a state of play and that's the expectation thing but uh you know it's as I've said before like the Showcase moniker is just maybe something we should maybe aband abon at this point because with state of play we had some that were actually better than the 2023 showcase right so it's it's like just stick to state of Play Always outline what's going to be in here like a direct you know never change the the language unless it's something really big and pertinent like new PlayStation hardware and uh just kind of do that where it's always something where you know the state of plays can run a gamut they can be singular presentations on one game they can be psvr2 focused Indies or of course PS Studios as well and we are absolutely getting to that point where we should be seeing something from PlayStation Studio Partners although I do want to stress again it's it's my understanding that a lot of the studios are just in this position where they don't want to say things unless they feel a little bit confident about a release window that's why 2025 I mean there are going to be some big Marquee games coming uh after let's say around April March cuz that's the metric that we have for uh major sequels to existing IP but you know they they probably want to try and announce and release within a tighter window which was something we did see in a way early on with the initial cycle when this console kicked off so I don't want to get into the weeds of it but it's it's a matter of we have a state of play coming very soon hopefully it does deliver I'm not going to be super optimistic but I think we will possibly see at least one or two things that are I think a little bit encouraging and will probably reinvigorate the audience a little bit for some uh some exciting content now with all that said it is time for let's talk plus the weekly let's talk PlayStation giveaway where Let’s Talk Plus one of you can win a $10 PSN code I would like to congratulate this viewer right here I'll be contacting you very soon via email or X and if you'd like to win a $10 PSN code it is so simple follow the link down below enter The Gleam giveaway and supporting this channel a number of ways can gain you an entry and I'll announce the winner next week because I'm trying to help pay for your games those are all the stories from this past week that I want to talk Housekeeping about with you all and we had the PS5 Pro reactions discussion on Tuesday right when it happened and then yesterday if you saw we did the uh typical PS5 update video where it's uh pretty short but it goes over every single change log item showing you exactly what was in that new firmware and then yeah coming up is definitely going to be my astrobot playthrough still working through all that footage it's definitely going to be more of a super cut not like a proper let's play but it's going to be long probably an hour 2 hours I don't know I'm still working through it um but you'll probably get that I just don't know when and then probably something else with it as well so if that doesn't show up by Tuesday maybe something else will show up in its place maybe astrobot Wednesday or something I don't know but uh yeah you'll you'll definitely see my reactions and big moments to the entire game similar to Astros playroom which was uh it was a very fun fun game so you'll see all that but uh that is pretty much it so that concludes this week's episode of let's talk PlayStation I'm Ryan Beni thank you all so much for talking with me and I will see see you all next Friday [Music]