General PS5 Stuff

I watched a couple of youtubers last week about it - both commented on the need for decent BT, and whether you have access to good enough built in or a dongle is going to be a gamble, but neither had any other issues. Once the BT was sorted they were both positive about the overall experience.

Just setting mine up. Did run into an issue with the controllers. The left one would connect and then instantly disconnect. Managed to get that working by only having one connected at a time and going through the firmware update on the Playstation VR 2 app. Now they both stay connected at the same time.

Just using my onboard Bluetooth receiver, so have to wait to see whether it works ok when actually playing.

After the connect headphones screen though, I get a screen saying to put my headset and controllers in an easy to reach place and the continue button is greyed out. Don't seem to be able to proceed beyond this. See some people saying uninstalling and reinstalling Steam VR solves this, so giving that a go now. Certainly not a pain free, plugin and go setup, but hopefully almost there.

Edit - and that seems to have got it to work (or it was the reboot). All sorted and had a round of Walkabout Minigolf. Working well and definitely an improvement on my Vive. Very bright and crisp image. Not seeing the pixels at all, which was always a big issue I had with the Vive. FOV is also quite a bit nicer. Still a little bit of black at the periphery, but not the goggle like effect I had with the Vive and only really noticeable if I try to look for it.

Controllers were working well. I was getting a little bit of drifting towards the end of playing, but I think that was more because the battery was at the end of its charge. No issues with it disconnecting, so hopefully means I'm all good with my onboard Bluetooth. Bit of a shame that it sounds like it is a right faff to get my Index controllers working with this (you have to use some dongle to connect them separately, as they only work normally with a headset that uses the lighthouses). Probably no point in keeping those.

Did find it a little awkward getting the positioning right. Got it good eventually, but it wasn't the most comfortable.

Today.. we shall be upset about PlayStation Stars being changed.

www.pushsquare.com/news/2024/08/sony-to-short-change-ps-stars-members-with-ps-plus-renewals-starting-next-year

I like their accept it or fuck off stance.

Glad that I never invested any serious time in it. Points expiring after a month is just plain daft!

Isn't that 13 months after they are added to your account? Where did you get the one month from?

So I will lose my ability to add digital collectibles from the PS Stars store to my account if I don't redeem them soon?

Oh. Well.

You get points for everything you buy in the store, and you can then spend those points on some "digital collectibles" (tat), select games or in-game items (these cycle), or convert them to wallet funds (1,250 points = £5).

With this change the points expire after 13 months instead of 25 months, and you no longer receive points for subs.

I don't think it's based on tiers, it's a separate sign-up (though may not be available in all regions).

www.eurogamer.net/playstation-5-pro-design-reportedly-leaks

A few things, so it's surprise, surprise called the ps5 Pro, looks like a slightly bigger and thicker Ps5. Interestingly it may release without a disc drive which is a choice I guess and most likely to keep the price down to something that isn't stupid.

Probably your cable. I had the same issue and I got one off Amazon that are quite well regarded and it's been fine since.

Think they were zeskit ones.

Hahaha. Ahhh man that whole incident made me dislike him even more.

Cable would be my guess too - get an HDMI Certified one and you should be golden.

If it doesn't have a built-in drive (which I totally understand price-wise) it makes it even easier for me to ignore, since I don't want to re-purchase my PS5 (and PS4 for that matter) disk-based games... Good move Sony

For me there's just nothing coming out to justify the purchase. It will be games I've already played and I don't think it's going to be a really transformative experience when games already play well and look really good.