Charging for the ability to automatically use cloud saves is pure bullshit. Plugging in a USB and doing it manually is not a reasonable alternative at all and people have documented their struggles with it; the entire point is that, if your system has some kind of catastrophic failure*, you can pick up right where you left off on another system. Nobody wants or should want to have to remember to do a manual backup of every save in Current Year.

*or, y’know, you just don’t have to think about it! I was able to pick up a 360 game I hadn’t touched in nearly 20 years, and play it on my Series X or PC right from where I was at. Didn’t have to pay a dime for that privilege. Steam is the same way; I reinstalled Half Life 2 this year and my previous save files were just there. No bullshit about remembering to save my files on a USB stick. I don’t know how anyone can justify the limitation, honestly.


Same shit, different pile, in my opinion, because as you said, the key caveat with the PS+ benefit is similar in that you have to maintain your PS+ membership to play those games you claimed and very much do not ‘essentially own’ no matter how anyone spins it. Sure those titles are ‘there’ but without an active membership, that’s just as useless to someone as a Game Pass game being revoked (which… I get the argument being made, but that does come with at least a couple weeks’ warning, for what that’s worth. You just have to look at the ‘leaving soon’ tab.) These ARE subscription services after all; people understand that subscriptions change (sorry, “revoke”) the titles offered all the time.

It’s funny that on consoles, you need to pay the subscription fee to play online (and cloud saves for PS5), but NOT for free-to-play games! Those games (which earn their money by micro transactions, in-game subscriptions, points/bucks, etc.) have all worked out deals with console makers to let you play online for free and they keep the saves on their own servers to ensure ranking and progression aren’t hacked.

Honestly it’s high time that online play is made free again across the board.

I’ll add that PS+ Essential has ultimately been a shit-tier service in the PS5 era, in my humble opinion. I know, I’m a hater or whatever, despite owning and being generally happy with all five generations of Sony consoles, and TLOU probably being my favorite narrative series ever. But, that doesn’t track for PS+ as a service as I think the monthly game offerings since PS5 launched (which is when I finally joined and paid for 6-7 years worth based on all the positive word of mouth) are rarely of interest to me, and all the types of games that would have ended up in that tier (before it was renamed) during the PS4 era are now routinely available only behind Extra/Premium. I never bothered to update past Essential, so put that on me if you want, but it’s pretty obvious the introduction of two new tiers was designed to make Essential subs effectively useless. But hey, at least I get cloud saves out of it, right?

While I agree that the monthly game offerings have been of a lesser quality than previous years, I still find enough value to keep the service around. I can't recall the last game I actually bought, sticking to the games on the PS+ service that come at no additional cost. I don't play online, or use the cloud save service. I agree that it would be nice if Sony would offer an online play/cloud save only tier for the people who only want that.

Well they're done supporting it as a live service, but we'll be getting Suicide Squad for free in January. And I have always kind of wanted to check out The Stanley Parable.

The Stanley Parable is fantastic. The new-ish console version (it came out in April 2022…) adds quite a bit of extra stuff, but I’d recommend not going down that path (it will be obvious) when the option arises, until you feel you’ve accomplished as much as you can in the main game.

Pretty incredible to start 2025 off with a GOTY contender!



I haven’t done more than tear the shrinkwrap off the physical copy I bought for cheap in November, but whatever.

I excited to get to play The Stanley Parable. I'll add the other two to my library, but I don't see myself every playing them.

All-black PS5 accessories incoming.

PS+ Essential Games for Februrary:
Payday 3
High on Life
Pac-Man World Re-Pac

Decent month of games I don't have any of the three and I'm interested in trying all three of them out.

X - Formerly Twitter

So for those who actually went out and got the Pro, how is it? I know it's not a lifechanging upgrade but is it even that noticeable?

I sort of liked what I played of High on Life when it was on Game Pass. Then it got pulled. Glad I'll get to play it again (from the beginning though) without fear of losing it again.

I think Payday 3 is still on Game Pass. Edit : Nope, it got pulled as well from GP

I've only played a couple of games that were actually Pro-enhanced, but I thought Miles Morales and The Last of Us Part II: Remastered both looked sensational. It's very nice to have the best of quality mode and performance mode without having to really compromise. Even better if you have a display that supports VRR since that can open up even more options, with bells and whistles in a 40fps mode that wouldn't be possible in 60fps.

It does introduce some headaches. For example, I got Black Ops 6 as a gift back in November (I was actually gifted three copies, thanks to relatives who don't understand how Amazon wish lists work), and the campaign has a ton of white sparkles all over it from a weird PSSR implementation. And the Pro sometimes introduces additional modes, and instead of being "one mode to rule them all!", there can still be a bunch of "which of these options is better?" questions. And that's without even getting into the disc drive and stratospheric price tag.

I'm happy with my purchase, but I also think I'd be content with my base PS5 if the Pro never existed.

So, I have the Pro on my big screen upstairs and moved my PS5 to the living room. I definitely notice an upgrade playing FF7 Rebirth on the Pro, BUT also the past few nights I was playing it on the base PS5, and downgrading was not all that noticeable (considerably smaller screen though from about the same distance)

For me, it was probably a bad purchase. Sure, Rebirth looks excellent but most of my gaming is not cutting edge, modern games that would benefit. I got a good deal selling my launch model, but I can't say the few hundred I had to drop was money well spent.

Sony is (against the wishes of literally everyone who has a PS5) removing the OG PS1 start up from PS5 tomorrow. Why they're not letting live as an option to keep it is wild. It will be back at some unknown point in the future.

Maybe they can't show as many ads for some reason if the keep it... but it really is baffling. Like making a really in demand legacy console version of something and limiting it to 12000.

PSN down. Feels like the old days.

This is crazy, it's still down?

Not sure if the community note shows up unless you go directly to the app.

^ No update from Sony in 14 hours.

My boys live in three different cities and have been planning all week to play the Monster Hunter Wilds Beta this morning… but no network. They’re bummed.

Hopefully it’s not like the 2011 crash, which lasted over three weeks.

Free donuts because of the outage!!

X - Formerly Twitter

The snack of champions for all the diabetic gamers.