Should Sony have kept quiet about the PlayStation 6? (AFP via Getty Images) (Credits: AFP via Getty Images)
A Reader’s Feature insists that Sony is wrong to start hinting about the PlayStation 6, only days after they announced the PS5 Pro.
Can someone explain to me why the very first thing that Sony did after officially announcing the PS5 Pro (an announcement, need I remind you, that went down like a lead balloon) is to start talking about the PlayStation 6?
I’m not a business expert or anything but I would’ve said that that reminding the people that you’ve just tried to sell a £700 console to (and have all told you to get lost) that there’ll be another one out in just two or three years is probably not a good idea.
I don’t need to consult any focus groups to know that nobody wants another new generation of consoles right now. The PlayStation 5 hasn’t even begun to be stretched, with less than a handful of exclusives, which makes the PS5 Pro completely unnecessary but the PlayStation 6… to even think about it right now is madness.
I’ve heard it said that Sony are just making sure they don’t get outmanoeuvred by Xbox but, come on. Xbox couldn’t outmanoeuvre a broken shopping trolley. Sony has wiped the floor with them time after time, so the idea that they have to rush to counter the next gen Xbox is nonsense to me.
Better to let Xbox crash and burn once again and just concentrate on making good games, which used to be the reason why everyone liked PlayStation. Nintendo has proven that console cycles and generations don’t matter. Just get the hardware right and stick with it, pumping out great games and staying focused.
Of course they won’t do that, because for some reason they never look to Nintendo for inspiration, even though they’ve survived longer, and produced better games, than anyone else in the business.
But then Sony has had a weird attitude towards hardware all generation. They won’t make any more new games, but they keep pumping out new hardware. The PlayStation VR2, DualSense Edge, PlayStation Portal, PS5 Slim, and now PS5 Pro… they’ve made more next gen hardware devices than they have next gen (as opposed to cross-gen) games!
And before you try to argue that it doesn’t matter because they sell, and the PlayStation 5 is doing so well they don’t need to make their own games, that’s just not true. Yes, they’re beating Xbox but that’s not exactly hard. Nintendo is doing that too, with the seven-year-old Switch.
PlayStation 5 sales are in decline and much earlier in the generation than was expected. And oh gee, I wonder why that might be? Could it be because… Sony stopped releasing games for it!
It really is ridiculous how Sony and Microsoft will do virtually anything but just knuckle down and make some great games. If they’d done that from the start (and realised that maybe they should hold back on the budgets a bit) we wouldn’t be in this ridiculous mess.
And yet after having apparently never learnt anything from any of their experiences (bonus fact: PlayStation is 30 years old this year) they’re now both planning a new generation. For Sony in particular that’s ridiculous.
It goes without saying I won’t be buying the PlayStation 6 but I’m willing to bet that most other people won’t either. I’m not sure if Sony realise this but they’re stretching people to breaking point. Nothing they are doing right now is what we want and a brand new console, on top of the one they only announced last week, is the exact opposite of what they should be doing.
By reader Rory
The PS5 Pro was only announced last week (YouTube)
The reader’s features do not necessarily represent the views of GameCentral or Metro.
You can submit your own 500 to 600-word reader feature at any time, which if used will be published in the next appropriate weekend slot. Just contact us at gamecentral@metro.co.uk or use our Submit Stuff page and you won’t need to send an email.
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