Sony announces the Playstation 5 release date (and yes, it is simply called the Playstation 5 keeping in line with Sony’s naming convention) for Holiday 2020.  I honestly have to admit that I am NOT that excited for this console.  I have owned every generation of the Playstation since I was a kid, and I am at the point of wondering if it will be worth the cash.  Other than a few exclusives (The Last of Us Remastered, God of War, Spider-Man, Nier Automata and Horizon Zero Dawn) my PS4 has mostly been collecting dust. 

Between the superior online game play of the Xbox and the better graphical / FPS & Battle Royale experience of PC gaming, the Playstation has just felt out of place to me.  The Switch also fills the void of on the go gaming and I could make an argument that the Nintendo exclusives were just as good as the Playstations this generation. I would absolutely HATE if the Playstation brand went the way of the Dreamcast. The reported 8K video support and Ray Tracing (while very cool) via GPU just isn’t enough to really have me interested. Here is what will bring the hype train back for me:

#1 Mainstream VR

Virtual reality has been slowly picking up momentum, but I wouldn’t say that it is quite mainstream yet.  While brands like Oculus and Vive are fairly well known to tech geeks, your everyday person might not be as familiar with them.  High quality VR is also cost prohibitive as the equipment to run a high end experience can be pricey.  For Sony to pull this off, they would have to put VR headsets in the box and not expect the average consumer to go out and buy the equipment seperately.  This move could also potentially elevate the Playstation online gaming experience above Microsoft’s.  However, this would be extremely expensive to launch and also very risky if it did not catch on.  

#2 Fast SSD’s Out of The Box

It is time for mechanical HDDs to be put in the barn for gaming.  Going into 2020, no one wants to wait for loading.  I literally stopped playing God of War for a period of time because I got annoyed with the loading wait time. The Samsung NVMe SSD in my gaming PC makes that a joke.  SSD’s are not overly expensive at this point and there is not reason for ANY version of the PS5 to not have top of the line storage.  

#3 a Unique Controller

I get “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”, but something about Sony keeping the general form of the controller generation after generation makes the console not “feel” new when the controller is in your hands.  Haptic feedback (think the “rumbling” feature of the iPhone and Apple Watch) is rumored to be in the PS5 controller.  This could be an interesting experience if first and third party publishers implement it correctly in their games.  

That is my wish list, but I doubt all (or any) of those things will happen.  I am a true gaming blerd, so I will be picking up the PS5 regardless, and we have an entire year to save up.  Will you be picking up the PS5 and what would you want to see?  Let us know in the comments.