And just like that, my PS5 has become my primary console

Players go where the games are.

Let’s get this out of the way: this isn’t some doomsday post saying that Xbox is done after Phil Spencer confirmed that titles including Hi-Fi Rush and Sea of Thieves are heading to PlayStation. I love the idea of players picking up their games wherever they are, on whatever they have on them. I also, very clearly, love me some Achievements.

That said, the fact of the matter is that first-party is faltering no matter which of the big players you’re talking about. Right this second, no matter if you’re on Switch, PS5, or Xbox, new first-party titles are nowhere to be seen. I’ve fired up my Xbox twice in the past two weeks – once, to see if Suicide Squad Kill the Justice League would finally unlock an Achievement I’d already meant to have earned (it didn’t), and second to try a game code that was graciously sent to me (it’s under embargo, so mum’s the word on that).

Otherwise — and for countless hours over the past month or so — I’ve been on my PS5. And I’ve something of a newfound appreciation for it, too.

It started out with a bit of FOMO over Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth and realising I kinda gave up on Final Fantasy 7 Remake around the midway point. I jumped onto my PS5, found the current-gen version of Remake and remembered I could import my PS4 save straight in. I had everything on the one PS5, so doing the import was a breeze.

That’s when all the Trophies started popping. And you know me.

Rather than doing the sensible thing and playing on PS5 proper to take advantage of improved framerates and loading times, I picked up where I left off on PS4, periodically doing the save transfer thing to double-up on the Trophies I’d earned. Before long, I’d burned through all of Remake, bought Intermission, and then was ready for Rebirth.

Rebirth’s a bit better, in my opinion… though I’m only in Chapter 6 of Cloud’s newest journey.

With all those Trophies popping up in the PS5 UI, I broke up Chadley’s innumerable World Intel quests with Control as a palate cleanser. I was able to do this because I’d also bought a new LG C3 OLED, and that meant I was bouncing between two consoles scanning crystals.

Don’t understand that connection? Well, for that I needed cloud saves. Like it or not (PS it’s the latter), that meant I needed PlayStation Plus. And my past self was sensible enough to have redeemed Control when my sub was active at the time.

While Control didn’t have a fancy save import thing between its PS4 and PS5 versions, it’s Control – Stevivor’s Game of the Year for 2019. Fresh off a Platinum in Alan Wake 2, playing through Jesse Faden’s story two more times for two more Platinum Trophies seemed like a no-brainer.

Just like that, 8 Platinums turned into 10.

My hubby was taking note of all the PS5 usage during this time and jumped back in himself, earning his own Platinum in Spider-Man 2 before delving back into Control too.

One night, he very cautiously entered our study — where “my” PS5 is kept cause he’s playing “his” PS5 on the swish new TV — and made me pause a game of Queen’s Blood so he could tell me something.

“I have a confession to make,” he said. “I think I like the PS5.”

What is this reputation I’ve earned? Instead of being angry, or annoyed, I laughed – after all I was playing PS5 and enjoying myself at the time.

“I like the controller better,” he continued.

I stopped laughing, as that’s where I draw the line… to a point. I don’t see the point of the touchpad and I prefer offset joysticks, but I do agree that haptics are neat and need to be standard across console contollers.

“That’s fine,” I said. “Maybe I ask for more review code on PS5 then rather than Xbox?”

Hubby nodded. We do game sharing in our household, and he knows enough to abide by embargoes; it’s a thing. It’s then I mentioned I just bought Crisis Core in a Sony sale.

While I’m digging dual Trophy lists, I’m still not cool with having to pay twice for a game to get access to them. I’m not thrilled with the pricing of PlayStation Plus, or the need to use the subscription service to access save files across more than one console. I still don’t know what the PlayStation Portal is for.

Nevertheless – and, again, not trying to make this a doomsayer post – Phil Spencer is right in that players go to where the games are. There’s already so much available on PS5, through exclusivity deals or simply just publishers finding it easier and more financially rewarding to publish to PlayStation, and that doesn’t seem to be changing soon.

So with that in mind, it looks like you’ll be finding this household logging far more hours on PS5 and earning more Trophies than ever before. Could we get cross-cloud saves working next, please?