By Nelson Schneider - 06/21/25 at 09:37 PM CT
I saw a random video essay the other day that went into detail about how the PlayStation 5 feels like a console that doesn’t really exist, even though it was released 5 years ago. Yeah, FIVE years in, which, in the days of Moore’s Law and the rapid progress of microchip potency, would have been an entire hardware generation. Consoles like the NES, Sega Genesis, and even Sony’s first PlayStation had lifespans of about 5-6 years – maybe a tad longer – before their eminently-more-powerful successors would arrive on the scene. The video essay in question, produced by small-time YouTuber, Save Slot, suggests that, as the PlayStation 5 reaches the end of what would have been one of its predecessor’s lifespans… it really has nothing to show for itself.
I can’t help but agree, and foresee a similar problem in the Nintendo Switch 2’s future. Both the PlayStation 5 and the Switch 2 are platforms that, at launch, are basically glorified port machines, allowing Sony, and then Nintendo following Sony’s paradigm instead of the other-way-around, to simply rehash an entire previous generation of software, sell it for an increased price ($70 for Sony, and an eye-watering $80 for Nintendo), and continue to wring more money out of work that has already been paid for and off the books for many, many fiscal years.
And the worst part of this is, this is NOT the first generation of consoles where the libraries have been propped up significantly by last-gen ports and so-called “remasters,” but the second. The PlayStation 4’s library consists of a large number of 7th Generation games ported to a PlayStation that was easier to develop for than the notoriously obtuse PlayStation 3 (and DA POWA UV DA CELL!), while the original Nintendo Switch’s library is around 50% WiiU games, forward-ported with maybe a dab of extra content to bait out reluctant double-dippers who already demonstrated their loyalty to the Nintendo brand in purchasing a WiiU in the first place.
While, the PlayStation 4 and Switch leaned heavily on ports and remasters to flesh out their libraries, they did at least gain a sizeable portion of their own games that trickled out over the course of their respective lifespans. Some of these original games on both platforms were downright great, and did a lot to soften the hearts of grumbling Console Warriors after the disastrous 7th Generation.
The PlayStation 5 and Switch 2, on the other hand, don’t really have much of anything to their names, making them feel like something akin to a Ghost Console that doesn’t really exist or have a life of its own… and I fear that things are going to stay that way. Both Nintendo and Sony have dumped a LOT of development money into their 8th and 9th Gen first-party games, and only having the opportunity to sell them to a fraction of the total gaming market (their console install base) for a vanishingly small period of time (their console lifespan) doesn’t make financial sense. It’s obvious why modern consoles are constantly flooded with ports and remakes: It’s the platform holders desperately struggling to squeeze a decent profit out of games that cost tens of millions of dollars to develop.
Sony seems to have seen the light, at least, with their recent cross-platform endeavors in porting first-party PlayStation titles to Steam (and doing a generally good job of it, outside of the PSN login debacle), realizing that they can get sales out new PC gamers effectively “forever” without having to throw anymore resources at an existing game, since a game like “Ghost of Tsushima: Director’s Cut” will work on old, contemporary, brand new, or yet-to-be-released PC hardware, and if it’s a GOOD game, people will continue to want to buy it and play it. Sony seems to realize that Steam and the long-tail sales model might allow them to focus on creating new games instead of constantly recycling old ones to be playable on new hardware, with a premium price-tag.
Nintendo, on the other hand, is, as usual, behind the times. They’ve only just gotten on the train of predatory subscriptions, perpetual rentals, and DLC, so we’re likely to see at least one more Ghost Console out of them before they’re forced to come to the ultimate realization that both Sony and Microsoft already have: Running your own hardware ecosystem is a fool’s errand in today’s software development economy, and trying to wring new-sale-money out of old product will only go so far before their target audience realizes they’re being ripped off and stops double-dipping.
It will be interesting to see if Nintendo has any actual system sellers up its sleeves for the Switch 2, as the current launch window library is their most dismal since the Nintendo 64. We’ve already seen that Sony had next to nothing teed-up and ready to go for the PlayStation 5 over the last half-decade. Hopefully we’ll get the chance to play a new ‘Mario’ platformer and a new ‘Zelda’ game before the Switch hits its own 5-year mark.
Ultimately, the post-Console Wars environment of Console Gaming right now feels a bit like Western Civilization after World War II: All of the big movers and shakers are lost and adrift without their old behaviors to fall back on, leaving a world that believes it is at the so-called “End of History.” Both Sony and Nintendo are going to have realize that there is no “end,” and if they don’t keep bringing their best efforts to market in a timely fashion, the only thing coming to an “end” will be Sony’s and Nintendo’s relevance in an ongoing and ever-changing gaming ecosystem.
