I should have never bought the PS5 HD Camera – and neither should you

techradar.com:

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but I still don’t know why I bought the PS5 HD Camera. In fact, I don’t even have the thing plugged in anymore – a testament to how much I’ve been enjoying my spurious new purchase.

Perhaps I bought it out of mere curiosity, or maybe it was because the Shellder-looking device was on sale at the time. Unfortunately, apart from using it to stream on Twitch now and then, the PS5 HD Camera is woefully limited in what it can do.

I remember questioning why anyone would buy the PS4 Camera when it first launched, but it’s currently a far more capable device than Sony’s recent iteration of its proprietary webcam. The PS4 Camera has facial recognition so you can log in to your PS4 hands-free, includes a microphone so you can shout out voice commands, and eventually became an integral part of PSVR, allowing head and gesture tracking.

The PlayStation 5 HD Camera, in comparison, doesn’t have a microphone, has no facial recognition for seamless logins, and won’t even be necessary for PSVR 2 as the new headset has inside-out tracking and dedicated controllers. You can’t even replace the PS4 camera with the PS5 version if you do want to use it for PSVR, which says it all really.

You do get significantly better image quality on Sony’s new PS5 camera, as the PlayStation 5 version is capable of 1080p capture while the PS4’s version tops out at 800p. However, the PS4 camera was at least used in some games like Alien Isolation, all of the Just Dance titles, and Tearaway Unfolded. No games support the PS5 HD Camera right now.

I know that my buyer’s remorse is entirely my own fault, of course – I didn’t have to buy the PS5 HD Camera, and it’s not like I didn’t know that it could only be used to broadcast yourself on