Looping in and out of almost buying a PS5, a coming of age tale
Life's funny.
I grew up poor, unable to have a single console back in the day. I eventually started owning PCs, inherited from wealthier cousins who lived in a bigger city. So I started playing the past generation of games, and discovered the web, C++, hacking and the likes of a nerd kid back in the late-90s-early-2000s.
Years passed, I got myself a bachelor in electrical engineering, started working in tech and got myself to a nice paycheck. One day, fighting a mild hangover (it was my mid 20s, after all), I decided I should buy a PS4. I'd finally have a console!
That I did, and the console came with The Witcher 3. And I played games! Horror games, adventure games, RPGs, puzzles, GTAs, indie marvels and all the sorts of new and old console games I could (i) buy and (ii) make the time to play.
Work caught up, and ended up preferring games that were ~8h to complete rather than epics of 100+ hours. Fun was there, just circumscribed by specific criteria.
Sports caught up. Relationships. The desire to improve specific skills. The urge to make more money. The desire to start a family. Other sports goals. Side projects.
The console sat still. Silent. Decorative. A monolith reminding me of all kinds of fun I could find, a button push away.
That proposal of fun, though, it started feeling like tradeoff. I could, yes, have hours of fun there! But at the expense of waking up early to go running. At the expense of having quality time with my wife. Of learning french. Of working a bit more on that funny little software. That fun started sounding only mildly nice, and somewhat draining.
Games are still an exciting medium, though. Challenging, with the capability of creating complex storytelling in which you participate actively, demanding attention, context building, skill acquiring. It also takes you to a space where your head is able to both relax and expand. And boy, these PS5 games do seem crunchy right? I mean, look at this.
I have the money now. A nice TV. A neat sofa. And if I'm being serious about it, also the time.
I just don't have the will anymore. While there's some desire to learn what's so great about Returnal or anxiety around having a nice setup to play GTA VI, I just find other things more interesting right now. I'd rather go climbing, build me tiny softwares, read, make plans with my wife, stare at the beautiful face of my child.
I miss games, they were cool. And every now and then, they make me seriously consider buying a PS5. But it would just become then Yang to Yin which is my PS4 stalled here.
So in deep respect to my inner poor kid, I find fun in knowledge (which I also found!), and every now and then bask in gameplay YouTube videos, and relax. Funny enough, back then, I did a lot of watching of people playing games in their better computers, in their consoles. Now I do so, knowing I've played a lot of these games and that I could play some more. As I'd rather not, I give my innie these bites of play through a known, comfortable watch. We move on, and give up on buying a PS5 yet again.
