Remember when Mark Cerny dropped that very strange/boring technical video about the PS5 last year (or was that this year? I don’t know anymore. 2020 feels like it’s taken five years of my life). Back to the video: it had an audience of strange, shadowy paper cutout figures? Recently, I thought about when he was talking about the new audio enhancements coming to PS5, and how they would feel while gaming with headphones on.

I remember thinking, gaming with headphones on? Who does that? The answer: lots of people — I later learned.

I posted in a Facebook group and received many replies with many different reasons for why gaming with headphones is great and sometimes necessary. Lots of people do it for their kids, spouse or family. Others do it for better sound than their standard TV speakers. Some people do it for the chat. And others just…