- I spent over $3,000 buying the
entire PlayStation experience,
to determine is this worth it?
Should anyone buy the entire setup?
Well, there's only one way to find out.
Now, it's easy to forget that 2023
was a massive year for PlayStation.
Pretty much every PS5 related item got an update.
We got a new console, we got a new controller,
PS VR, all kinds of stuff.
First of all, we have ourselves the PS5 Slim.
So this, is specifically the Digital Edition.
Now, if you wanna know more about the PS5 Slim,
I actually did an entire video on it.
We tore it apart, we X-rayed it.
There's a lot of interesting stuff about the Slim,
but this is specifically the digital version.
In that video, I took a look at the disc model.
Now you might ask, for my ultimate PlayStation setup,
why did I buy the digital?
Well, because I wanted the full Sony experience.
So we have,
the stupid $30 vertical stand.
On top of that, I purchased the disc drive.
So every PS5 Slim, is the same hardware this time around.
The only difference between the digital
and the disc version is whether or not
this disc attachment is included.
Most people, I'll admit,
shouldn't buy the digital and the disc at the same time,
because this is more expensive
than just buying the disc PS5 right outta the box.
But I'm just curious about how this works,
so this is part of our setup.
Now this is something I completely forgot about.
This is the HD camera for PS5.
It is meant for you to stream from your PS5 with.
So it's got background removal, 1080p.
I don't know why this exists,
if I'm being completely honest with you.
We're also gonna stream games using the PlayStation Portal.
Now, I have already taken a look at a PlayStation Portal.
I did a Short on it a little while ago.
I have some concerns.
But this is a streaming handheld
that'll allow you to do Remote Play for your PS5 anywhere,
you have, an excellent connection to your PS5 with.
And last but not least,
in this box, we've got ourselves, PS VR 2.
I have not tried PS VR 2 yet at all,
partially because, it's really expensive
and I was waiting for a price cut
and I have not seen a price cut.
So I paid, $600 for this.
In addition to the PS5 Slim,
and all the other things,
I also purchased a four terabyte WD black SSD.
If you purchase the WD black directly from Sony,
it is $350 for the four terabyte.
And it does come with the actual heat sink.
I instead went on Amazon and spent $220
on what is physically essentially the same SSD.
And then I spent $10 buying a heat sink for it.
So I'm gonna put a heat sink on this,
and save like a hundred bucks.
Inside we have power cable, HDMI.
Oh my God, and the dumbest stand in the world.
So instead of the nice stand that used to come with,
it comes with two little rejects from Ikea,
that allow you to set the PS5 up
in a horizontal orientation.
We do have a DualSense, which we don't need this.
- [Alex] Ew.
- Huh, who would wanna use the regular DualSense, gross?
- [Alex] Ew.
All right, geez.
- Instead we're gonna be using the DualSense Edge.
I didn't buy a new one 'cause we already have one,
but this is 200 bucks.
So we'll, we'll be using this in a little bit.
So this is our PS5 Slim.
Aw dude, you know what?
That looks so much better without the disc drive on it.
Like it's like, it looks like they designed this
and then they bolt the damn disc drive on the side.
Yikes, that just doesn't feel good.
So, we actually are no longer going to be using this shell,
because you can see here,
that we have to attach the disc drive here.
And then this has a replacement shell
that goes over the top.
So this is the digital stand that comes with it,
So it will sit flush.
So here is our disc drive.
Now I will give them huge props,
the disc drive is absurdly easy to install.
So if you look at it here, there are two little
like sort of clips which you can put these two into.
So you kinda line it up.
And then this is a single connector which goes in here.
If you wanna install a disc drive,
is as simple as taking it, line it up with these two
and then done that is an installed disc drive.
(pop)
- These are the worst noises.
This sounds like Matt,
when he wakes up on a Thursday morning.
- [Announcer] Bruhh.
- Next let's stand it up in style, with our vertical stand.
Oh my God, why do I have such a huge manual?
What the hell are.
Y'all, y'all, this is too much for a stand.
This is like, the back is like almost entirely empty.
It's 'cause they forgot Spanish.
Oh, you know what though?
That is a pretty nice stand.
So it actually is metal.
Oh look, and it's done.
That was so seamless and simple.
It took me six to seven seconds total.
- [Alex] Yeah. Didn't need the manual at all,
nothing ooh, didn't need that at all.
- Nope, it was so simple.
Look at my PS5.
The style has indeed been elevated
and it is not any more stable
because it bounces around on the stand.
Uh huh. Cool. Well there you go.
Next up, let's install the SSD.
To install an SSD on a PS5.
It is incredibly simple.
So there's a single screw,
and behind here you'll see an M.2 slot.
So lemme show you the difference between PS5 SSDs.
So this, is the first party-ish
PlayStation branded WD black 850P.
Not to be confused with the 850X,
which is the exact same thing in every possible way,
except it doesn't have
the PlayStation logo and the heat sink.
Now the reason why, I talk about the heat sink
is purely because these SSDs tend to run warm.
And one of the things we learned in the tear down is that,
there's actually a lot of the cooling done
for the PS5 done right behind this SSD slot.
So, you always should use a heat sink for PS5.
But especially with the Slims,
I think that they're probably gonna be
a little bit more prone to overheating,
just because you've got all the exhaust of the PS5 like,
that far behind where your SSD is.
But the good thing is, heatsink is like 10 bucks.
It's not that expensive.
So with that, we have our SSD installed in the PS5.
I swear every time I put these side panels on,
I'm afraid, I'm gonna like break this thing.
Oh God, did I already break it?
I felt one of the clips like.
I pushed down and I felt it in my hand like bend.
Oh yeah, I bent it.
Oh my God, look at that, I bent the little hook.
I felt it bend in my hand.
dbrand, can you please make Dark Plates?
I don't want to deal with these.
There we go.
Alright, let us begin,
the PS5 testing.
So, since I've already given Sony all of my money,
instead I'm gonna be using the INZONE M9,
which we already have here in the office.
Now as you can see, this is a PlayStation inspired monitor.
And it actually has some features,
where when you plug it into the PlayStation,
it automatically sets like the HDR and whatnot.
This is not a cheap monitor, at normally 900 bucks.
And I believe it's on sale right now for like $800.
But it is 4K, It'll go a full 144 hertz or 120 hertz,
so it's plugged into a PS5,
and it makes quite a nice PC monitor.
Okay so, once we have gotten everything set up,
it has recognized our M.2 SSD.
So you always have to format it,
which we'll let that run through.
And then once it's done with the format,
it should run a quick speed test.
So right now, oh yeah, perfect.
6,528 megabytes per second.
Now keep in mind, that what I've got in right now,
is the authentic PlayStation approved WD black.
So, with our four terabyte SSD installed,
let's take a look shall we.
Do, do, do, do.
And the number is.
Oh, it's faster.
See, we're almost at 7,000 megabytes a second.
So, we now have, four terabytes of even faster SSD storage
than that Sony approved one,
that was more money, ew.
You know, I do wanna try one thing.
Let me actually try to put a different disc drive
on this PS5, to make sure it works correctly.
Just so, you in the future,
if you say want to add a disk drive
to your existing PS5,
can maybe buy a used one and know that it actually works.
So now I'm gonna swap over,
to the disc drive from our PS5 disc edition.
Oh, updating my disc drive.
It's updating the firmware on the disc drive. What?
Okay, cool.
Yes so, I can confirm that if you buy a used disk drive,
or swap it from someone else's PS5,
as long as you can put it online
to do that initial sort of setup
and I guess firmware updates sometimes, you can swap that.
A lot of people ask us about that.
I assume that that would be the way it was,
'cause there's no reason why it wouldn't be, but,
so there we go.
Now we of course,
already have our DualSense Edge connected.
We got a whole lot more than that.
So, on top of our INZONE display,
let us add, our PlayStation 3D camera.
Okay, three pictures of me will be taken.
What? Oh.
What?
This is really how I set it up?
Now, there's a lot to talk about here.
One of the things is of course, the DualSense Edge,
which I have used in the past.
To me, I've never been a huge fan of it.
It's quite glossy,
so it does feel like it needs a skin or something.
And for $200, the battery life is not great,
but it is a reasonable pro controller.
Probably the best option on the PlayStation side.
Oh my god, are you trying to tell me
that this camera only works
when I'm streaming and I can't record with it?
Is that really, all that you could do with this?
Okay, well don't need that anymore.
Next up, we have the INZONE H9 headset.
Now, you might be asking Austin,
the INZONE headset is an interesting choice
considering that,
there's a series of brand new PlayStation branded headsets
and audio devices that are en route at the moment.
There are, I couldn't get them.
They got sold out, a long time ago,
and I couldn't find 'em in stock.
Now, I briefly used this one as well in the past.
It actually is quite good.
It has very strong noise cancellation.
Much like the monitor,
it is designed specifically to work with PS5.
There's a toggle, on the little dongle
where you can actually flip it over to PS5 mode,
and it just works.
So let's start out by talking about the INZONE display.
So this is a 4K, 144 hertz panel,
super, super bright.
It is a IPS display, so it's not OLED.
But other than that, it looks terrific.
For me, I feel like the standard DualSense
is such a solid controller,
that I don't really get anything else out of this.
I mean, really what you have
is the ability to swap out the sticks,
you have the paddles and some software customization.
That's largely it.
Problem with all this stuff, is that, it's 2D.
It's flat.
I'm not in the game, I'm staring at the game.
I know, I'm ready to be in the game.
I'm ready to be in the PS VR game.
We have headphones.
It comes with headphones? Oh, interesting.
Oh, I guess the headphones kind of just clip on.
All right, that's cool.
We have a copy of Horizon VR Call of the Mountain.
I'll, you know what, I'm gonna just give you the code
'cause I'm not gonna play this game.
Do not redeem this code, thanks.
So we have the SENSE controllers,
which are massive, what the.
All righty, so I'm gonna plug this in.
It does come with a very long USB-C cable.
So, unlike something like a Quest,
which is a fully wireless headset,
this is a decidedly very, wired headset.
- Whoa, - [Alex] Whoa.
(Austin laughing)
What kind of dome you rocking boy? Jesus Christ.
So I'm gonna put this on.
I'm going to tighten it down.
You can't continue a setup now
because your PS VR2 Sense battery is too low.
Your controller will turn off.
Fine, you know what?
Fine, fine, fine, fine, fine.
While my controller's charge,
why don't we move on to
arguably the greatest PlayStation branded
accessory of the year, PlayStation Portal.
(Austin chuckles)
- [Alex] Are you being sarcastic?
- Yeah, I'm being sarcastic.
This things, okay.
So, if you're not familiar, (Alex laughing)
PlayStation Portal at first glance,
looks like a straight up PS VITA 2,
until you realize that the PlayStation Portal
is a glorified Remote Play machine.
You know, the app that you can download on your phone
and play PlayStation games
on your local Wifi or when you're remote.
Although, really the local Wifi
is the only thing that's remotely sort of usable.
That's what this does.
It feels terrific in the hand.
It has the full capability of a DualSense.
There's nothing that makes this appreciably better
other than the controller, which if you own a PS5,
you could just pair your DualSense to your phone.
Or the larger display.
But it's important to keep in mind,
that this doesn't do anything on its own.
It always relies on a connection to your PS5.
And that's an important distinction.
There's some good stuff about it.
Boy, there's a lot of stuff I don't like.
Okay, lemme just start out right here. Okay.
So you can see, that I am in the system menu.
If you look, this might be a little hard to see on YouTube.
If you're watching on your phone,
you'll need to put it on full screen.
On this display right now,
I've got a beautiful interface, crystal clear, 4K.
Now this is a 1080p feed, but it is heavily banding,
so you'll have to get quite a close shot.
You can see that, all the individual lines kind of break up.
That's actually really indicative of the overall quality.
Because what you're getting here with Remote Play,
is essentially no different than the
Remote Play that has existed for years,
that you could connect your phone with or whatever.
So, I'm just gonna jump in
and we're gonna play a little bit, okay.
Okay so, at first glance, it's fine, right?
The latency is there,
but the stuttering never goes away, in my opinion.
Like, it will be okay-ish for a while.
Technically it's supposed to be 1080p 60.
But the problem is that, it's not a consistent 60.
Again there's a stutter there.
Like I can kind. Oh there see, stuttering there.
Like, it drops so many frames.
Dude, the stuttering is.
I'm trying to be nice here, I'm trying to be nice.
You are not gonna be able to see it too much on
a YouTube video.
I'll just tell you like at 60p, it drops frames.
The problem I have is that while ergonomically,
it's really nice, it feels great,
it feels way better than something
like a Steam Deck or whatever.
Like it's really, really nice.
I like the concept of it.
The problem is that, the execution is not there.
There's so many things.
First of all, this doesn't do,
it doesn't have inexplicably Bluetooth.
So you either plug in via AUX,
or you buy one of these Sony, like Pulse headsets
that have their new,
you know, proprietary connection algorithm,
which is okay, sure, whatever.
You can't connect this to your PS5
and use it like a controller.
I don't know why?
Oh wait, I do know?
'cause they didn't put Bluetooth in it.
You also can't use this to stream games from the cloud.
So, if you have PlayStation Plus, the higher tiers,
the specifically the highest tier I believe,
you get access to some streaming games.
You could play them on this via your PS5,
which would mean that you're,
streaming the game from the cloud to your PS5.
From your PS5 to here.
Not a good experience.
This should be able to connect directly to the cloud
and play those games at the very least.
If you're interested in a PlayStation Portal,
may I highly suggest don't buy that thing.
Okay, now I've got that out of my system,
let's see if our controllers from PS VR2 already, shall we?
Okay, now it is time to go into our VR world.
Okay, I've got pass through.
So you see what I see right now, right?
- [Alex] Yes.
- [Austin] Okay, wonderful. All right.
- [Alex] It's dark and trippy.
- I will say this pass through is pretty decent.
It's a little jittery,
so it feels like it's like, maybe 30 FPS or something.
But this, what you're seeing on the TV actually looks like
a pretty good analogy for what I'm seeing.
Adjust eye tracking. Okay.
Follow the red dot just with your eyes
without moving your head.
Okay, staring at the red dot.
This calibration is actually quite cool.
The fact this has eye tracking is very, very good.
Set my play area.
Okay so, don't walk into the walls.
Got it, got it, got it.
So, I do have a long cable,
so I actually can walk around pretty easily.
Sees the couch.
I'm all set. Alright.
Oh, holy. - Hugs.
- I'm in the car.
Holy. - Hugs.
- [Austin] What? - [Alex] Yeah, we see it.
We see it.
- Yeah, I'm like in the damn car right now.
Wah!
Ah!
No!
Stop!
So, I am in a car right now,
and this is trippy as hell.
I have no idea what gear I'm in.
Oh, I dude I can see what gear I'm in.
(Austin laughing)
Holy, It's cool.
I've got full volume.
I feel like I'm actually in the car right now.
I am actually kind of speechless right now.
And this is actually where the vibration
of the controller really helps.
'cause my body feels like I should be feeling the G-Forces.
Woo.
The frame rate is great.
The presence is just real.
Like, I am in this damn car right now.
Get down, Get down, get down.
Yeah!
Unreal.
I just had like a god damn experience.
That, is the best VR experience I've ever had in my life.
Like the presence in the car,
the 10,000 RPMs screaming in my ears.
The fact that like,
the realism is so down to the point where like,
I was wondering what gear I was in.
I looked down at my shifter to see what gear I was in.
Like, it's wild.
So, is it worth spending $3,000
on everything that PlayStation sells?
No, of course not.
I mean, look, if I'm gonna rank my favorite items,
it's PS VR 2, PS VR 2, PS VR 2, PS VR 2.
Thank you very much for watching.
Subscribe to the channel.
I'm gonna go back to driving 'cause that was,
I'm not, I'm not done with this by a long shot.