The First 5 Years Of PS5 Vs PS4 Games At This Point In Their Lifecycles (And The Clear Winner)

We are approaching our fifth anniversary PlayStation 5worldwide launch, prompting many to look back at the console's performance to date. As anyone who follows gaming media or online gaming forums is probably already aware, sentiment around the PS5 hasn't been entirely positive: there have been accusations of poor first-party output and seemingly less of a leap forward in looks and performance compared to previous console generations.

It's clear that the PS5 is more powerful than its predecessors – there are plenty of games across generations that demonstrate this disparity – but that doesn't matter as much as the actual games available, at least for the average consumer. In the end, really, it's all about what kinds of experiences people can have on the platform, and how those experiences compare to what they might be missing on, say, the Nintendo Switch. So is it true that “PS5 has no games”? How does it compare to the first five years of the PS4, a console often considered one of the best exclusive lineups of all time?

PS4 vs. PS5: Which console had more impressive exclusives after five years?

Notable exclusives from the first five years of the PS4

Notable exclusives from the first five years of the PS5

The PS5 holds its own, but the first five years of the PS4 were clearly better

Before creating this list, I was expecting the PlayStation 4 to easily clear the PlayStation 5 exclusive lineup, but the PS5 isn't really as far along as I expected. The obvious highlights of the newer console exclusivity are Ghost of Yotei, Death Stranding 2: On the Beachand Astro Botall of which push the hardware to its limits and deliver experiences you'd be hard-pressed to find on older consoles (DS2 has particularly great graphics, with some players jokingly calling it “the first PS5 game”). Other notable PS5 exclusives from the past half-decade include Marvel's Spider-Man 2, Returnand Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart.

But those are pretty much the only big, “real” exclusives the PS5 has to its name: the console's few other claims to fame, like Horizon Forbidden West and God of War Ragnarokthey're also available on PS4, albeit with a lower resolution, lower FPS limits, longer loading times, etc. Additionally, many of the biggest PS5 exclusives to date were either limited-time exclusives that came out on other platforms a year or so later, or were remade; the console even launched alongside Soul of Demonsa remake of the 2009 classic.

Contrast that with the PlayStation 4 exclusive line-up five years later, which consists of far more ambitious and genre-defining projects like Horizon Zero Dawn, Bloodyand God of War. Crucially, these are games that weren't released on PS3 and probably couldn't run on those platforms, period: these games felt more like true “next-gen” experiences, taking full advantage of the leap in hardware prowess from the previous hardware line. Right now we're starting to see obvious, immediate differences between PS5 and PS4 games, while the differences between, say, Uncharted 4 and Uncharted 3 they were remarkable and undeniable. Perhaps history will look more kindly on the PS5's lifetime catalog of exclusives, but for now it seems clear that the PS4's first five years were exciting, exciting and technologically significant.