Episode 15: PS5 Pro Power, 2026 Steam Controller, and May Game Hits

Join Jahdie for a deep dive into the PS5 Pro performance of Saros and the new Invincible VS fighting game. We break down the sold-out launch of the 2026 Steam Controller, preview a massive May release calendar - including Forza Horizon 6 and 007 First Light - and review the Mortal Kombat II movie.

• Hardware: PS% Pro deep dive and the new Steam Controller's TMR tech.
• Reviews: Saros, Invincible VS, and Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream.
• News: PS6 delay rumors and the May 2026 release avalanche.
• Pop culture: Johnny Cage steals the show in Mortal Kombat 2.

Musical by Jeremiah Daniel.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:08

What's going on everybody and welcome back to episode 15 of Gaming with Grown Folks. I'm your host Jotty, and we have a huge episode for you today. We're covering everything that's pushing the PlayStation 5 Pro to its absolute limits, breaking down the long-awaited Nintendo nostalgia, and diving back into the chaotic hardware launch of the brand new 2026 Steam controller. We'll all be looking ahead at the massive lineup of games dropping this month and giving you the verdict of a new Mortal Kombat 2 movie. Right at the gate, I'd like to give my standard but always necessary shout-out to my man himself, Jeremiah Daniel, for releasing this episode with the absolute best intro and outro music in the business. That track gets me energy every single time by step to the mic. And for everyone listening right now, whether you're commuting at the gym or just chilling at home, please take a second to hit that like button, share the episode with your squad, and subscribe. If you're listening on Apple Podcasts, dropping a five-star review is the number one way to upgrade the show. I appreciate every one of you every single time. Alright, let's stop wasting time and get right into the games. First up is Soros. I've been putting some serious time into this sci-fi epic, specifically on the PlayStation 5 Pro, and is nothing short of a technical marvel. If you were on the fence about whether the Pro upgrade actually delivers tangible benefits, Soros is your exhibit. The PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution, or PSSR as normally referred to, is working over time here. You're getting an uncompromising 4K presentation unlocked at a buttery smooth 60 frames per second, and that's with all of the ray trace global illumination cranked up to the max. But beyond the tech, the game itself is phenomenal. If you're exploring these incredible dense, hostile alien biomes, and the sheer draw distance makes you feel incredibly small in the best way possible. The combat system feels weighty. Every time you're pulling the trigger on your butt, your guns, you're feeling the pulse through the controller. And then it also changes as you upgrade your skills or your weapon. And so the guns shoot differently depending on the type of gun that you have, and again the triggers uh respond appropriately. And then not just within the combat do you feel the triggers and the controller, but then also during the cutscenes, you know, you have fine haptic motors moving as the cutscene might have a scene that might shift for some reason from a left to a right or more granular. Um but you feel all that also through the controller. So, you know, Sony did a really great job with the dual-stick haptics, and you know, sorrows really takes advantage of it. Also, it has more of an elemental storytelling that does a lot of the heavy lifting, piercing together the lore of this dead civilization without holding your hand. It's challenging and glorious on the PlayStation 5 Pro in a definitive way to play, and not by comparison in terms of playstyle, but in terms of a hub, it does remind me a little bit of what we talked about earlier with Rob Pragmata, wherein you're going back to a central location, you know, upgrading your weapons similarly in sorrows, you know, similar to Returnal. You know, when your character dies, they are reincarnated and they go back again to start that level again, but they then are walking in, speaking with some of their teammates, or looking at notebooks that have a little more backstory of what you're doing, and then also upgrading either their health or their stamina or their weapons based on the items that they collect while they're out in the wild. And you know, similar to Returnal, it's kind of a Hubble Hell type shooter, and so you're often moving side to side, trying to dodge the bullets. Now it does have a shield mechanic, and so if any of the bullets are in blue, then you can you know turn on your shield, then it will absorb the power of those uh blue bullets, and then that actually gives you the power for your your your stronger weapon. So it's kind of a risk reward, you know, if you're fighting a hard enemy, you know, you will have to you know not just be in attack mode all the time, but kind of be strategic, you know, looking at what they're throwing at you. If they do have a lot of you know blue bullets that they're throwing, you know, absorb those so that you can get in closer for the kill. Also, what I found interesting was you know, some of it is color-coded, and so you know, at one point in the game I kept trying to fire at an enemy that had a red shield around it, but it wasn't making any difference. I mean, and then it dawned on me that by getting close and then hitting the RB button, I was able to punch and break the shield and then you know fire on the enemy. And similarly, you're gonna have other parts of the game that may be color-coded, you know, with a red force field. You know, again, you have to get in close and and break that in order to progress. But you know, this isn't like a gears of war where it's more methodical and slow. This is fast-paced, so as soon as your character leaves their main hub, they're running and they're moving and they're darting and they're jumping, and you know, and so you know, once you get into that that rhythm, you know, then you kind of see how the game really opens up, you know. But it is a different you know kind of playstyle. So if you're used to something a little more methodical, like a Gears of War, or even to an extent of Call of Duty where you're running for cover and popping up and shooting, you know, this, you're really encouraged to be out in the open, moving and dodging and you know, taking out the enemies, absorbing the bullets that they're throwing at you, dodging certain types of bullets that you you know can't absorb, uh, understanding that's your shield, you know, if it's a blue bullet, you're gonna be able to absorb that. But if there are other types of bullets, you still can have a shield, but it will take down that shield quicker if it's a different color-coded bullet. But you know, with Soros, it was definitely a fun game. Definitely look forward to to finishing it. But, you know, I did find that interesting that they used kind of a similar hub world where you went back to talk to the other characters in the game, similar to Pragmata, where you're able to go back into the hub and interact with characters and upgrade your weapons there as well. But definitely um Soros is a great game and it's something that really uh lets the PlayStation 5 approach. Uh so next up, we're pivoting uh to the absolute unadulterated chaos of the Incredible versus uh game. Now, I've heard that they were making a 2.5D traditional fighting game based on the Amazon Prime animated series. I was costly optimistic, but I tell you, Nether Realms and Skybound knock this entirely out of the park. First off, the art direction is insane. The uh cell-shaded graphics make it look like you're literally playing a cartoon that runs flawlessly on the PlayStation 5 Pro, giving that a central rock solid 120 frames per second performance mode for competitive play. But what really shines is a roster in the mechanics. Playing as Mark Grayson feels exactly as desperate and heavy-hitting as he is on the show. Omni Man is an absolute terror. His rushdown mechanic and screen clearing combos make him a top-tier threat. They even nail the lesser-known characters. Bannel Beast is grapple heavy nightmare, and Adam's Eve zoning capabilities with her construct sets up the uh our incredible deep. And yes, because it's invincible, the damage modeling is brutal. As the match progresses, costumes tear, the screen gets painted red, and the finishing moves are straight out of the most shocking, R-rated moments of the show. It's fast, technical, and completely respects the source material. Again, if you love the show, again, you need to play this game. And also, you know, the team that made the game, I believe there are some that were also involved with, you know, other fighting games as well. So it may be a relatively new studio, but it's got a good pedigree of developers that know the fighting game scene. So they did make it for professional play as well. So for those of you who do play professionally, you know, you can hone your skills, and hopefully you'll see Invincible versus you know out there in the wild that you know you can take advantage of. Uh, but you can also play across platform as well as you're continuing to hone your skills. So if you have the PlayStation version and your friend has the Xbox or PC version, uh, you're able to cross-play. But it is kind of a you know, three-person, three or two versus two team type of uh combat game. And you know, as a as the show is definitely R-rated, you know, so is the game. So if you got little ones, you definitely want don't want them around as you're playing it as it is. It's pretty graphic and uh it's pretty profane, you know. So they do use a lot of curse words in there as well. But again, it kind of mimics the the show. And so that part I found was pretty cool. You know, I just started getting into Invincible when I heard they were having a game, so I wanted to kind of catch up and watch some of the shows to kind of know what it was about. But the game is is right on point. They do have a campaign story mode, pretty short, about an hour or so. But you know, for a future DLC, they may add to it. They also have for single players a traditional arcade mode, you know, where you go through the roster and and compete, you know, between different characters until you get to uh the end boss. Uh so you know, again, it's a it's a good fighting game. It's uh pretty fun, uh, but definitely give uh Invincibles a try. Uh now to cleanse the palette uh from all the bloodshed, I spent a weekend diving back into pure, concentrated Nintendo Magic with Tamagotchi Life Living the Dream on the Switch 2. We begged Nintendo for years to bring this franchise back, and they finally listened. Uh they took the Mii framework from the 3DS era, modernized the island, and turned the social dynamics up to 11. The amount of chaotic, unscripted drama that unfolds is hilarious. Just yesterday, my Mii got into a rap battle with the me of Gordon Ramsey over a slice of moldy bread, while the two of my other uh friends, me's, were secretly eloping on the beach. It's the exact random weird, voyeuristic charm, but now with vastly improved quality of life features. The apartment customization is incredibly robust, and the new mini games are actually engaging. And the online features allow you to share seamlessly between your friends' islands and trade items. So it's an ultimately low stakes, high comedy game to unwind with. You know, and again, you know, you know, from the original Tamagotchi, uh, outside of video games, but you know, back in the 90s, you used to have these toys, Tamagotchi, these little plastic toys that had uh digital creatures that you had to take care of, that you had to feed and interact with. And so the game kind of mimics that as well. So, you know, when you do come back, you know, you have to make certain to defeat your me characters. They get bored, so they may want to play games with you. They get bored with their environment, so they may want you to upgrade their apartment and make their living look different. Also, you can give them gifts as they level up, and it's cool to kind of see the gifts that they like, they like to play with, the gifts that they don't like, you don't see them use. And then also you're able to control, you know, their not directly, but by placing them next to each other, how they interact with other Miis. You know, some Miis are more social and outgoing, others are a little more reclusive, and you have to kind of pull them in to make friends. And then, you know, as you create more Miis, then you're able to tell how they relate to each other. And so my case, I'm creating Miis based on family. So right now we're all interrelated, and so with the exception of me and my wife, you know, that's probably the only ones that would have a romantic, you know, relationship. But as we add more and more me's, then I'm certain that those that aren't related, you'll start to see them gravitating towards people that they like or that they want to have a romance with. But you know, it kind of reminds me a little bit of the Sims, I mean that you're not controlling directly the characters, you're just you know managing the environment. And so similarly, you know, with the Tamagotchi life, is a dream game. And same thing, you know, you're you're kind of coming in, monitoring, and when you're not playing the game, they go about their business. So it's not that the game pauses and nothing happens, you know, they're still moving around, they're still doing things. The other cool thing is as you add more Miis to your island, then it also opens up additional things that they can do. Like initially, we had to get so many Miis before a grocery store would open up, and then once the grocery store opened up, you're able to buy food to then feed the Miis. You had to add so many Miis before a clothing store opened up. And so once the clothing store opened up for those who were bored wearing the same outfit, you were able to buy different outfits that they can wear. Similarly, if they got bored with just the room that that defaults for the game, nothing in it, no furniture, no decorations, then an interior design store opened up. And so you're able to go in and buy items that they can place in their rooms or just do the entire room where they can just have a themed uh set. And you know, they it's funny to see how they like or dislike things or how they gravitate to certain people or indifferent to other people, and so it's kind of a great uh kind of social experiment, but definitely is a nice uh palette cleanser, you know. If you've been playing games like Soros or Invincible or Gears of War or any other type of uh hyper, you know, violent game, you know, this was a nice way to kind of um reset and you know uh have a nice cozy time on the couch just playing it. Uh so definitely uh check out uh Tomagasy Life is a dream on the Switch 2 when you have a chance. Now, moving over from software uh into hardware, let's talk about the new Steam controller that Valve just dropped in May, May 4th. They've officially launched the long-awaited Steam controller. And if you weren't sitting at your desk refreshing the page, you missed it. Absolutely sold out in 30 minutes, plagued by checkout errors, forcing Valve to set up a totally new reservation system just to handle the demand. But the$99 price tag actually worth it. Hype? Oh, absolutely. Valve took all the lessons they learned from the Steam Deck and the original 2015 controller and engineered a masterpiece. The biggest upgrade here is the analog sticks. Instead of the standard or even Hall Effect sensors, Valve went with TMR, which are more magnetic-based resistance. Uh, this technology makes the sticks entirely immune to stick drift while being incredibly power efficient, which is exactly the feature, heavy wireless pad with the feature that uh definitely is needed to have more of a longer uh battery life. You then you also have the puck. This is Valve's new 2.4 gigahertz wireless dongle that acts also as a Minecraft base. So you just snap the controller onto the puck when you're done playing, and it charges right back up while providing latency that is practically matches the uh wire connection. And then a nice thing as well for the puck, it can accommodate up to four steam controllers. And so if you have a household that does a lot of multiplaying, multiplayer games, then you know you can get more than one steam controller that the puck can then recognize. And then for the hardcore tinkerers, the track pads are back, flatter, and larger, giving you all that essential mouse-like precision for strategy games or RPGs from the couch. They also introduced uh grip sense, so the handles have capacitive touch sensors, so you can use gyro aiming. So either you're putting your fingers on the thumbsticks that have compassitive buttons, and you could use gyro controls there. Well, likewise, as you're grabbing the controller, it also recognizes that and you can use gyro controls. I I haven't really found a need really for gyro controls, but for those of you who like to game that way, and but for those who aren't aware, uh basically what gyro controls do is it allows you to tilt and move the controller as a form of input. So, you know, if you have gyro controls set to aiming, you know, you may have more fine height aiming with gyro controls as you would using the sticks. So, you know, again, it's another option uh for for gamers out there. And you know, it the nice thing about it also is that uh by having the touch pads, and I believe the touchpads default to mouse inputs, so one would be scrolling and the other would be you know using the mouse to select items. Yeah, if you are not in Steam and the regular Windows PC, it does give you a little more of an ability to navigate things on your desktop or if you're looking online to scroll down, if you're reading uh content, but it will recognize it more as a mouse versus a controller. Now, again, once you are in Steam, that's where you really get the full functionality of a Steam controller. You then put it in big picture mode. You're also able to go through a long list of presets that others have made for Steam controls for certain games. And the great thing that Valve did is by putting out the Steam Deck and it being so well received and popular, you know, a lot of people did over the course of years put in different control mechanics for the Steam Deck, and so you're able to also mimic that with your Steam controller and pick out you know the playstyle that is best for you. So I think you know, for those who are going to be in Valve's ecosystem, you have a great Steam library. Uh you know, the Steam controller definitely makes sense. And then if you're looking to pick up uh a Steam machine or a Steam frame, you know, all of this is going to be integrated. And so again, a steam controller would be a great purchase. But again, you're gonna have to be patient. You know, the as I said again, when it launched on May 4th, it was out, uh, sold out within 30 minutes, of course, to scalpers or try to make a premium and instead of$99 charging$200 or$250, but I didn't would not advise that you do that. I think that Valve probably will come out with more of these. The great thing is because as a controller, you're not having to deal with RAM shortages as it would with the PC, uh, then they should be able to come out with more of these frequently, and you'll be able to get your hands on one soon. So yeah, definitely if you're in that ecosystem, uh, I would think you definitely want to check out the new Steam controller. Uh so May is going to be a busy, busy month when it comes to gaming. Uh so look at your bank accounts and apologize right now because it's a massive gauntlet of incredible games that are gonna be releasing in May. On May 19th, Xbox and PC players are getting Forza Horizon 6. Playground Games is finally taking the festival to Japan, and the early footage is staggering. The contrast between tearing a heavily tuned Nissan skyline through the neon silk streets of Tokyo at midnight and then rallying up the muddy, rain slick uh Mount Fuji is going to consume hundreds of hours of my uh playtime. Uh the weather dynamics are promising. Look, next gen in every sense of the word, but you know, uh Nintendo definitely isn't holding back either. On May 21st, we're getting Yoshi and the Mysterious Book. It's our first 2D Yoshi platform in years, and they're using the incredible pop-up book aesthetics where the foreground and background constantly fold or unfold to solve puzzles. Then literally the next day on May 22nd, Lego Batman Legacy of the Dark Knight drops. This isn't just a level-based game. They built a massive, fully explorable, open world Lego Gotham. You can seamlessly switch between the entire Bat family, customize your Batmobile brick by brick, and tackle dynamic crimes across the city. And again, with you know this game, it's like I said before, it's gonna take a different spin. It's gonna probably be closer to a Legos version of Arkham Knight. So that's gonna be fun, and I'm looking definitely forward to that one. But the crown jewel of the month has to be the 007 First Light, which launches on May 27th. IO Interactive, the masters behind the Hitman World assassination trilogy, are finally let us step into the tuxedo. It's an origin story of focusing on young James Bond earning his 00 status. If IO brings their signature clockwork level design and sandbox assassination methods to the cinematic flair of James Bond, we might be looking at an early game of the year contender. So to wrap things up, uh let's step outside of gaming for a second and step into the cinematic event of the weekend. Mortal Kombat 2 officially hit theaters, and man, they nailed it. Director Simon McQuid clearly listened to the fans' feedback from the 2021 reboot. They stripped away a lot of the exposition and just let the torment breathe. The biggest addition, obviously, is Carl Urban stepping into Johnny Cage. Uh he brings exactly the right amount of arrogant, obnoxious Hollywood swagger that the first game, first film desperately needed to balance out the serious tone. The scale of the outer world is massive this time around, and the introduction of Shokan is incredibly intimidating. They don't hold back on the R rating either. The fight choreography is significantly faster. Camera work is wider so you can actually see the martial arts, and the vitalities are completely unpologistic and also practical effect, heavy gore fest. Hearing some of those iconic classic gaming catchphrases delivered perfectly in the middle of a massive theater is an experience. If you grew up mashing buttons in the sake of gender, Or the arcade cabinet, do yourself a favor and go see this on the biggest screen possible. So it's been a while couple of weeks in the gaming industry, and we need to talk about the massive shift happening over at Sony. Throughout late April and early May, reports have exploded regarding the PlayStation 6. If you were hoping for a 2027 release to stick to the traditional seven-year console cycle, you might need to temper your expectations. Due to the severe, ongoing global RAM shortages, driven almost entirely by the explosive demand for AI sector, Sony has reportedly pushed the PlayStation 6 launch to a date of 2028 or even 2029. They just cannot secure the high bandwidth memory at a reasonable price right now. This means that the PlayStation 5 Pro is going to have to carry the torch for a lot longer than we thought. On the other side, the Switch 2's news cycle is heating up. Just a few days ago on May 7th, Nintendo officially lifted the lid on our highly anticipated Starbucks Star Fox 64 remake, simply entitled Star Fox. It's dropping exclusively on a Switch 2 in June. They revealed the box art and it looks incredibly clean. But the big news is the price of$49.99 for digital and$60 for physical. To build the hype, they even dropped a 10-track sampling of the remaster score on the Nintendo music app. So it looks like the Switch 2 is going to have a massive summer. One news thing that did come out also with the Switch 2, Nintendo held off as long as it could, but it looks like they are looking to also increase the price to the Switch 2 by 50 bucks. And so it's going to now be$500 or$499. So it's not as extreme as you saw on the PlayStation or the Xbox. But again, you know, for the Switch 2 that also appeals to families, you know, definitely kids,$500. You know, it is it is a good chunk of change to put down on a console. So I mean they held out, I guess, as long as they could, but they are going to do a price increase uh of$50 uh for the Nintendo Switch 2. And that's gonna officially wrap up episode 15 of Gaming with Grown Folks. Uh thank you all so much for riding with me today. Once again, a massive shout out to Jeremiah Daniel for the elite soundtrack that keeps the show moving. And as a quick reminder, before you close out the app, please hit that like button, share the episode with your gaming circles, and make sure you're subscribed and jump on for the Apple Podcasts. Leave a five-star review. Keep your controllers charged, keep playing what makes you happy, and we'll catch you right here on the next episode. Peace out.