It’s been nearly seven years since I last attended a Comic Con. The last time I went to one, the PS4 was about to reach its peak with a selection of generation-defining video games. So to get an invite to check out Sony’s booth at Comic Con Mumbai this year was exciting. How is the company interacting with its fans on the ground? What’s the turnout going to be at a convention primarily geared towards Otakus and comic book fans? The answer - quite impressive.
Before I write about Sony’s PlayStation booth at the event, I must say that I did manage to pick up some comics from local artists. TRIO is an original Indian manga with an anime also in production, while AN-ONE is an intergalactic tale about an Indian-origin superhero.
Back to PlayStation - the booth reminded me of the setup I saw at the PS5 Cricket 24 bundle launch event in Delhi. It’s clean, complimenting the design and aesthetics of the console itself.
The PS5 Slim, as the name implies, is a shrunken-down model of Sony’s console, offering increased efficiency and storage. Compared to the base PS5’s 850GB of storage, the PS5 Slim includes a 1TB SSD. The one key feature distinguishing the console from the original release is the availability of a standalone Blu-Ray disk drive that can be attached to the PS5 Digital Edition. It also replaces the front USB 3.0 port for USB-C, which should be pretty handy when transferring captured media to an external drive.
This is a pretty big deal, given that Indian gamers have an affinity for game disks. While some games are available with regional pricing on the PlayStation Store, the reality is that most AAA releases are far more expensive than they should be. Having the option to attach a disk drive and install games with it, gives players the option to offload some of the game’s cost by either buying pre-owned copies or selling them off. This benefits gamers across the board because, unlike what most of X/Twitter would have you believe, most games are feature-complete on disk.
I don’t expect the Digital Edition of the PS5 Slim to take off in India. We’ve seen this happen before, but whether its lower price and instant availability through apps like Blinkit will have any impact on long-term sales, remains to be seen.
As for the games, Sony had a variety of exclusives running across the booth. From Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 to Rise of the Ronin and even third-party games like EA FC24, the country’s favourite. Interested buyers could pick up the console and related accessories with some goodies thrown in for good measure. The company also held a competition to give away a PS5 Slim console, although I didn’t stick around long enough to watch it all.
Was I disappointed to not see yo boi Pulak, the face of PS India, shooting a video at the Con? Yes, I was. But that’s fine. Pulak’s busy touring the studios of other game developers in India, so he gets a pass.
As I took photos of Sony’s impressive PlayStation booth, one question bugged me - where is the PS VR2? The VR headset was released in India earlier this year, but we haven’t seen a big marketing push for the accessory since then. That’s true for Sony in general, as the company is scrambling to make the VR2 work on PCs to mitigate the disappointing release cadence of PS VR2-compatible games.
When asked about the PS VR2’s absence, a Sony representative told us it was due to hygiene concerns. The Comic Con show floor had hundreds of people walking around, with dozens visiting the PlayStation booth. It makes sense for Sony to skip a hands-on session with the headset, although some form of live demonstration would have been welcome.
Among all the chaotic fun, I also had a chance to exchange a few words with Mr. Prosenjit Ghosh, the head of PlayStation India. Did I ask him about the rumoured specifications of the inevitable PS5 Pro? No. I probably should’ve, but we all know there was no answer coming on that front. Sony is hard at work creating the mid-gen console upgrade, and I can only hope that this time it will be released in India on the same day as the rest of the world. I hope that pricing for the same will be kept in check, and the same goes for games in that direction, which is something Mr Ghosh has stated publicly before.
The original PlayStation 5 is available at a discounted price from retailers. The PS5 Slim is available in two SKUs - Digital Edition priced at Rs. 44,990 and Standard Edition at Rs. 54,990.
