PS4 Genshin Impact will be removed from PSN on Sept 10th, 2025

[ThunderBoy]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1952955494177317225

Where are my waifus

 

[Nebulon_Galaxy]

My heart almost dropped, i thought it was from payment processors or something, Its just that the PS4 can't handle Genshin anymore. I wonder whats the file size?

 

[Vexicrypt]

Pour one out for all the PS4 whales and their digital waifus.

 

[qw90700]

Who would have thought shitty anime graphics of Genshit was just because PS4 was too weak to make graphical impactful so they needed to switch to PS5 so the game could show more than its 1% power!!! lol

 

[Scotty]

So, basically, "If you want to continue playing this game, you need to fork out $500 for a technologically superior console?"
...or just play on PC & mobile.

 

[Bonkers225]

Yeah, I don't buy it.

 

[ZEGA ZONIC]

My heart almost dropped, i thought it was from payment processors or something, Its just that the PS4 can't handle Genshin anymore. I wonder whats the file size?

Probably the same size as a Call of Duty game.

 

[sama_lton]

So this is how Sony finally gets PS4 owners to upgrade, huh?

So, basically, "If you want to continue playing this game, you need to fork out $500 for a technologically superior console?"
...or just play on PC & mobile.

Considering several years from now they'd probably do the same to the PS5 version, you're honestly just better off playing on PC. At least you can upgrade that with a new CPU or GPU if the minimum spec pushes your old setup out.

Plus all the other perks like mods and monitor support.

 

[Morgana Veil]

So, basically, "If you want to continue playing this game, you need to fork out $500 for a technologically superior console?"
...or just play on PC & mobile.

It may be as simple as that, and most likely it is. But it could also be a GPU limitation. I think the PS4 has a custom AMD Radeon GPU, and it may not be able to handle some updates or whatever new DLC or cash grab they are adding.

Most likely Sony said "Hey Genshin, we'll give you more money to kill PS4 support and only support PS5, so people will buy more PS5s to Jerk it to their cartoon girls"

 

[qw90700]

Considering several years from now they'd probably do the same to the PS5 version, you're honestly just better off playing on PC. At least you can upgrade that with a new CPU or GPU if the minimum spec pushes your old setup out.

Plus all the other perks like mods and monitor support.

This is the fate of online video games on console. If you buy a console it means you accept that you'll need to buy a better console to play newer games. When it comes to online games naturally shouldn't expect online console games having a long life-span as much as PC online games. That's the way it's.

Basically put developers doesn't have to care and shouldn't be limited to old gen console as they update the game because their updates are limited by hardware. Clearly they were fed off with this limitation as the whole industry was always limited by consoles and therefore they wait for people to buy new consoles to release their newer games so people would buy the game. That's why don't get surprised if some new game won't be on PS4 but will be on PS5 so PC Master Race™ can enjoy new gen gaming like half a decade late or so as always!!! Just because people were so stubborn on PS4 finally next year people can enjoy the actual start of new gen gaming because the industry literally forces it now!!! lolol

 

[Sumea]

No idea how they cannot support a mobile game that runs on even the low end androids on PS4.

Thanks to their very sus anticheat methods that *could* be used for spying easily, the only platform I own and would been comfortable playing these games on would been PS4, and I did try out Genshit that way. Guess that is gone. I did not try the other games on their catalogue because they started to support PS5 and I will get PS5 after I find a bastard son and claim him as my own. Even PSO2 still supports and updates on PS4, as does Warframe (though, questionably functional on my console)... Fortnite still updates on PS4 so either Mihoyo are telling us they are very bad developers or they just are very bad developers.

 

[qw90700]

No idea how they cannot support a mobile game that runs on even the low end androids on PS4.

Well technically why the developers need to give up on PS4 is because PS4 using HDD but new games recommend you to use something faster than HDD which became industry standard these days. This is a general answer that is probably valid for Genshit Impact due to all the content they may try to add at this point. I wouldn't be surprised if the game actually run worse than usual since a few content update ago and since the game run on Unity I actually imagine it always would run like shit on PS4 because of how PS4 is low end console but even Genshit Impact would require a modern system these days. PS4 is ancient rubbish, cannot deny that in today's standards.

That's why even "low end phone" has a way faster storage device than HDD that games benefits a lot. Gotta think about that. However the situation is not really "PS4 cannot run it anymore" as the "only reason".

Another issue is due to ancient technology PS4 they would need to optimize PS4 version of the game perhaps way more than usual since content keeps adding up and therefore makes the game require overall optimization enough to re-developing assets of the game way more than ever was which would put more work than they would spend for the phone version. If they think "not many people play PS4 version anyway" or they predict people will play the game on PS5 anyway it's a realistic choice to give up on support for PS4.

In the end they could downgrade the game more and more to make it work on PS4 but then eventually the game would have to sacrifice graphics so hard most people wouldn't wanna play it because of it lol. The game already looks like a PS2 game so would people wanna play a N64 version of the game just to befit the storage device's performance limitation to the new state of the game? This is not realistic at all lol.

 

[DrunkGecko]

That's fine
My ps4 is literally only for Bloodborne anyway

 

[qw90700]

That's fine
My ps4 is literally only for Bloodborne anyway

Then it's not PlayStation 4, it's "PlayBloodborne 4" lol.

 

[DrunkGecko]

Then it's not PlayStation 4, it's "PlayBloodborne 4" lol.

Exactly

 

[Jayonnaise6105]

I played a lot of Genshin for about a month or so last year, but I played it on PC.

This same situation happened to me like 10 or so years ago I think?
I was obsessed with an admittedly terrible WWE match-3 puzzle game on mobile and then one day my phone was considered too obsolete to continue playing it.
There was no way known I was getting another phone just for that!
Thankfully, I never invested any money in it, nor any other online microtransaction game I've tried.

I never thought about it, but it really sucks that this can happen on consoles too!

 

[Sumea]

Well technically why the developers need to give up on PS4 is because PS4 using HDD but new games recommend you to use something faster than HDD which became industry standard these days. This is a general answer that is probably valid for Genshit Impact due to all the content they may try to add at this point. I wouldn't be surprised if the game actually run worse than usual since a few content update ago and since the game run on Unity I actually imagine it always would run like shit on PS4 because of how PS4 is low end console but even Genshit Impact would require a modern system these days. PS4 is ancient rubbish, cannot deny that in today's standards.

That's why even "low end phone" has a way faster storage device than HDD that games benefits a lot. Gotta think about that. However the situation is not really "PS4 cannot run it anymore" as the "only reason".

Another issue is due to ancient technology PS4 they would need to optimize PS4 version of the game perhaps way more than usual since content keeps adding up and therefore makes the game require overall optimization enough to re-developing assets of the game way more than ever was which would put more work than they would spend for the phone version. If they think "not many people play PS4 version anyway" or they predict people will play the game on PS5 anyway it's a realistic choice to give up on support for PS4.

In the end they could downgrade the game more and more to make it work on PS4 but then eventually the game would have to sacrifice graphics so hard most people wouldn't wanna play it because of it lol. The game already looks like a PS2 game so would people wanna play a N64 version of the game just to befit the storage device's performance limitation to the new state of the game? This is not realistic at all lol.

Nah, low end phones have a flash/eMMC or other such storage, way slower than a good HDD PS4 baseline is. PS4 is hardly "ancient technology" compared to a midline and even some high end phones it still has a GPU and a CPU that beat those, especially CPU. Overall, when Genshin is a phone game that is playable on mid and low end phones the PS4 has those options beat, by a long mile. Even Switch beats those options with it's OS and GPU but Switch does not beat a PS4. PS4 is old but the tech it has is not beat by most phones. The smart thing hoyo does is not use fidelity but enough fidelity for character models and simplified world map. There really should be no reason to ditch PS4 if they already optimize for low end phones as they do for all their games. Like said; stuff like warframe still runs on PS4 and it's graphical fidelity beats genshit. Fortnite still runs on PS4, quite well even, 60fps locked, and that one has a open world battle royale map, relatively high fidelity character models and all that. There is tons of games with better technology that still update on base PS4 and have a good performance too. "PS4 is old" is a good excuse and all but it is not a slouch in performant hardware is your game already targets other performance reliant hardware. Like said, Phones absolutely have slower storage, and that is not an issue for skilled developers who can make ever changing fortnite map stream OK from that HDD.

 

[ThunderBoy]

That's fine
My ps4 is literally only for Bloodborne anyway

 

[qw90700]

I played a lot of Genshin for about a month or so last year, but I played it on PC.

This same situation happened to me like 10 or so years ago I think?
I was obsessed with an admittedly terrible WWE match-3 puzzle game on mobile and then one day my phone was considered too obsolete to continue playing it.
There was no way known I was getting another phone just for that!
Thankfully, I never invested any money in it, nor any other online microtransaction game I've tried.

I never thought about it, but it really sucks that this can happen on consoles too!

I understand it happens to online console games because the topic would be hardware limitation to how unrealistic it would be to co-develop multiple versions of the same game especially when the company busy with mobile version at home already lol, but mobile apps requiring "a new phone" due to update is half because of greed and naivety and half because of security risk.

Android is a huge market revolves around making people buy phones. Even the way making people buy some new iPhone by forcing very big deal mobile bank process requiring you to use iPhone is BS of this current society. Naivety comes in play here that assuming "everyone keeps buying new phones anyway" so they just update the app for how new phones work and call it a day without caring most of the world cannot afford keep buying new phones because it's too expensive for them due to their country has to import phones -> taxes -> currency conversion -> lack of local phone market to produce phones to buy affordable phones. Then people stick to a phone until the end making apps reduced usage and customer base. For example android could be developed in a way it would necessarily support old apps so no more "this old app cannot work on your android" or "you need new android version to make it work" but this is because of laziness in security.

Due to security risk it's wise to change how android works from time to time and therefore you gotta update how your app works. In the process backwards compability was sacrificed and it is never implemented when they can but they are too lazy for it.

In the end their greedy naive ass only can think of "better buy new phone anyway" and it seems like keep buying the same game every time it's updated lol.

 

[Jayonnaise6105]

I understand it happens to online console games because the topic would be hardware limitation to how unrealistic it would be to co-develop multiple versions of the same game especially when the company busy with mobile version at home already lol, but mobile apps requiring "a new phone" due to update is half because of greed and naivety and half because of security risk.

Android is a huge market revolves around making people buy phones. Even the way making people buy some new iPhone by forcing very big deal mobile bank process requiring you to use iPhone is BS of this current society. Naivety comes in play here that assuming "everyone keeps buying new phones anyway" so they just update the app for how new phones work and call it a day without caring most of the world cannot afford keep buying new phones because it's too expensive for them due to their country has to import phones -> taxes -> currency conversion -> lack of local phone market to produce phones to buy affordable phones. Then people stick to a phone until the end making apps reduced usage and customer base. For example android could be developed in a way it would necessarily support old apps so no more "this old app cannot work on your android" or "you need new android version to make it work" but this is because of laziness in security.

Due to security risk it's wise to change how android works from time to time and therefore you gotta update how your app works. In the process backwards compability was sacrificed and it is never implemented when they can but they are too lazy for it.

In the end their greedy naive ass only can think of "better buy new phone anyway" and it seems like keep buying the same game every time it's updated lol.

Yeah, I hate that philosophy of phone design. I kinda hate phones in general and only buy another one when I really have to hehe Console does have a similar mentality, I guess they at least space out the release of new consoles a lot more than mobile phones.

I had an iPod back in the day and that made me never want another Apple thing, so I've never had an iPhone.

I'm pretty glad emulating mobile phone games is so easy on PC. I never have to worry about not being able to play a game I'm interested in just because my phone sucks or is perceived to suck.

 

[JC Denton From Deus Ex]

Why did they give the fans hope?

 

[Questless Knight]

Well I should not told my boyfriend he reacted with well jus t fucking delete my account then and never play anymore.

I understand why but still sucks for people that don´t have the money for a PS5 or a PC that can run the game. Kind of sad.

I can play my PC can run it but my boyfriend hates playing on PC.

 

[Jayonnaise6105]

The biggest downside to the GOTY version of the disc...

 

[qw90700]

Nah, low end phones have a flash/eMMC or other such storage, way slower than a good HDD PS4 baseline is.

PS4 using SATA 2 when SATA 3 was standard so it's an aspect of its ancient rubbishness lol. Naturally PS4's storage device speed limited to 300 MB/s, however developer cannot assume everyone has installed SSD. Its rubbish 5400 RPM HDD speed is up to 100 MB/s and 7400 RPM HDD is up to 150 MB/s due to laws of physics causes most of the reason for speed limitation here due to mechanical nature of the storage device. PS4 having a HDD is way common than they have a SSD because PS4s shipped with an HDD. HDD is too slow for today's standards and it's not exactly why HDD is bad anymore, it's also about how it works. HDD reads file while it checks it from A to B and when it finds the file in the list it gotta start from A to look for another book. It spins unnecessarily which is another reason why it's sloooooooooow. Anything using HDD is ancient shit anymore.

However eMMC speed is up to 250 MB/s. It's a speed it's okay for today's standard but it also doesn't work like a HDD. When it looks for a file it casts "Accio" magic and calls every file it needs so it does add a significant aspect for its speed than HDD even if they had same "read/write speed" lol.

As for Universal Flash Storage, its speed can be at least 700 MB/s and up to 4.2 GB/s depending on its version which this is fastest a phone storage device can be... for now.

And PS5's SSD is around 5.5 GB/s making it pretty much a modern console and IDK if Genshit Impact really would need that much speed!!! lolol

Nah, low end phones have a flash/eMMC or other such storage, way slower than a good HDD PS4 baseline is. PS4 is hardly "ancient technology" compared to a midline and even some high end phones

IDK why we have to compare it to phones. Compare it to what is standard in its own context. PS4 is previous gen for a good reason and it makes it ancient alright lol.

Nah, low end phones have a flash/eMMC or other such storage, way slower than a good HDD PS4 baseline is. PS4 is hardly "ancient technology" compared to a midline and even some high end phones it still has a GPU and a CPU that beat those, especially CPU. Overall, when Genshin is a phone game that is playable on mid and low end phones the PS4 has those options beat, by a long mile. Even Switch beats those options with it's OS and GPU but Switch does not beat a PS4. PS4 is old but the tech it has is not beat by most phones. The smart thing hoyo does is not use fidelity but enough fidelity for character models and simplified world map. There really should be no reason to ditch PS4 if they already optimize for low end phones as they do for all their games. Like said; stuff like warframe still runs on PS4 and it's graphical fidelity beats genshit. Fortnite still runs on PS4, quite well even, 60fps locked, and that one has a open world battle royale map, relatively high fidelity character models and all that. There is tons of games with better technology that still update on base PS4 and have a good performance too. "PS4 is old" is a good excuse and all but it is not a slouch in performant hardware is your game already targets other performance reliant hardware. Like said, Phones absolutely have slower storage, and that is not an issue for skilled developers who can make ever changing fortnite map stream OK from that HDD.

Well we'll see if they will fully switch to PS5 lol.

It depends on what the game needs and their engine.

Genshit Impact runs on Unity therefore gotta sacrifice graphics to focus on process speed and when it's open world you need more optimization and more sacrifice. There is a limit for what you can do.

Technically they using Unity from the start is a bad choice, it would be better if they had used Unreal.

 

[cloudsets]

If only that Stop Killing Games movement had come out swinging a little sooner, then perhaps an end-of-life plan would be in place instead of simply total abandonment of this $1.10B game on a platform with a 117-million-unit install base.

I tend not to play these kinds of games purely because I always get the creeping feeling that I will miss out on content, as is an intentional part of their FOMO marketing. I simply do not have the necessary time to invest in a single video game on its schedule,s o I can't accept time-limited access like that. Even for a game as charming as Genshin Impact. This kind of abandonment might simply be the result of allowing this business model to become normalized. The game will go away eventually, and you will miss its content if you did not pay for it. That's the entire way these games make money.

I agree that this shouldn't happen. I agree that it is bad that it is happening. That said, I think accepting the existence of games built on this model (so long as there is no legal, financial, or social incentive not to ensure continued access in some form or another) means you also have to accept their inevitable death.

For me, games might as well not exist if they cannot be pirated at this point. I have no trust that the legal rights holders will not prevent me from playing the games I bought unless I can crack them and end up with a working product. By and large, I only buy games that either have been cracked or that I know I could crack without largely reconstructing their content given enough time investment.

I already don't think that it's okay that I might have to break copy protections on the games I buy just to keep playing them. As a result, I can't bring myself to make the extra compromises that come with this.

---

As for Genshin Impact specifically, I can only assume PS4 players aren't collectively whaling for Hu Tao as much anymore and that the gamers who can afford to buy a PS5 and render their PS4 e-waste are spending more. Given that its PC hardware requirements are 8 GB of RAM and an Intel Iris Xe, I also assume the majority of the player base does not use hardware specifically dedicated to gaming. Especially considering that the current version also seemingly runs on just about any Android device from the past 8 years. Navigating the world without a smartphone or computer is incredibly difficult when employers need you to apply online and many businesses and even governments require you to use an app to access fundamental services. Console gamers are a niche demographic, and last-generation console gamers with expendable income even more so.

I can only suggest switching to mobile or PC. The minimum and recommended hardware requirements are listed on the official website, and there is a decent chance that you will be able to play it on something else you have access to.