The PS5 and Xbox Series X/S thread

That SSD Ratchet and Clank sold me a PS5.

It's not small…

I'm remaining open-minded for now but still on balance erring towards the Xbox Series X as my next-gen purchase: more powerful on paper, hopefully cooler and quieter (it is, after all, a coffin full of fans), and with GamePass to sweeten the deal. I'm not sure a handful of exclusives is what's going to drive my decision this time around, however much I like the look of that Ratchet & Clank game.

I'd play another Ratchet & Clank. Not sure I'd buy another console for it though.

Was there really not a Ratchet game on the PS4?

There was! It was a remake but quite a significantly different one and it was excellent.

Yes! I forgot about it.

I skipped it because I had just played thorough the original on my Vita.And I guess I was a bit disappointed that it wasn't a follow-up to Crack in Time which was such a good game.

I'd play another Ratchet & Clank. Not sure I'd buy another console for it though.

I meant more as a tech showcase. It was the only truly 'next-gen' moment of the whole thing for me.

Although I'll be all over the game itself, too.

I wonder how Hitman 3 is going to carry across progress. Ideally I'd prefer not to have to buy it on the PS4 (which for me is now very very loud) but can't see them managing cross-gen/cross-platform upgrades.

Which is particularly egregious, since you'd have thought that tracking this I'd of thing would be an actual advantage to requiring an online connection. I know for a fact it tracks certain things that way - I've unlocked challenges that show up on different PS4s without copying saves, for example.

Yeah, I've got all the H1 and H2 levels in one place, plus DLC, and have sunk hundreds of hours into it with lots and lots of unlocks. I'd very much like that to be the starting point for any H3 experience. Ideally I'd be able to transfer all that not only to next-gen but across to the Xbox, but I reckon the chances of that are pretty much nil. I guess there's a chance they'll manage PS4>PS5 though.

Given the touted back-compatibility, I'd certainly hope so.

Spiderman 2 Miles Morales was a great announcement.

I see they've now "clarified" that this is actually a remaster of the PS4 game, with some extra stuff.

Stray.

And that other game with a cat in it.

As Brian wrote a whole thread on, I didn't see anything there that couldn't be done on current gen hardware. So what's the point?

Ratchet & Clank couldn't be done on current hardware, if only for the speed of the loading times.

And while a lot out what they showed looked like marginal improvements in terms of fidelity and detail, the scale on display for something like Horizon Forbidden West is just ridiculous.

Ratchet & Clank couldn't be done on current hardware, if only for the speed of the loading times.

And while a lot out what they showed looked like marginal improvements in terms of fidelity and detail, the scale on display for something like Horizon Forbidden West is just ridiculous.

None of these things improve the gameplay, the substance, the thing I actually play. Show me that, then I'll care.

That comes in time though. Launch titles are always slightly shinier versions of what you've seen before.

According to Digital Foundry, most of the games in that presentation (and indeed all of the prettier ones) are running, and will run, at 30fps.

I wonder if Xbox is that much more powerful, or whether they're abandoning that 120fps nonsense mere months after coming up with it.

It's pretty clear that they will always decide that higher detail is more important than faster FPS.

If the Xbox Xbox Prime (or whatever it's called) is really that much more powerful, they'll release something which runs at 30fps but in screenshots and youtubelol looks better than anything the PS5 puts out.

Meanwhile, Nintendo's console is basically a toaster and they're the only ones committing to glorious, beautiful-to-play 60fps.

Meanwhile, Nintendo's console is basically a toaster and they're the only ones committing to glorious, beautiful-to-play 60fps.

We put gameplay first. Always have, always will.

I want something new to play. Neither Sony or MS has shown me anything yet. As soon as they do, I'll bite. Shiny shiny doesn't interest me.

My favourite bit of the presentation was when some bland white guy spent a couple of minutes taking about the totally new experiences and gameplay they'll be able to deliver on PS5 before presenting a third-person action shooter.

The problem is ambition. 90% of devs just don't have as much as is needed to take advantage of the things that can really make a difference. Graphics can always be shinier, frame rates can always be smoother. But looking at a console's unique offerings and putting them to good use in a way that makes a difference? Very few can, even less bother.

It's not about being lazy, because a lot of devs aren't. A lot also want to provide a specific experience that, while potentially unique in the way it's told, isn't necessarily unique in the way it's delivered (everyone's favourite Spec Ops: The Line being an unbelievably perfect example of that). Taking the opportunities presented to you - be they motion control, haptic, VR, social engagement, whatever the gimmicks are - and molding your experience around those to make something truly original is something very few folk accomplish.

The only people who ever truly take advantage of a console's unique functions properly are system holders, and even then it's usually only at launch to show stuff off. Then no-one else bothers, functions get forgotten about or put to the side and we get back to churning out the same experiences we've always had, just prettier and bigger. It's the same story every time.

I'm not falling for it again. I've got so many games to play, I absolutely don't need new tech. I'll catch up when we're halfway through the lifespan and the systems are half price on Black Friday.

Thing is, apart from platform holders, who in this day and age is going to want to make their game platform-exclusive anyway? The PS4 controller had a touchpad and motion controls but the Xbox One controller didn't, so no-one used those features. PSVR's taken a huge amount of investment from Sony even to make it a thing, and no-one in their right mind's going to sink a load of money into a AAA PSVR exclusive. The PS5 and XSX will have ray-tracing capabilities, which should in theory allow for reduced development times, but there will always be one eye on a PC conversion where not everyone will have that feature so in actual fact games will continue to be developed much as they always have been.

So you end up with stuff that needs to scale across a whole bunch of platforms, from Switch up to high-end PC, because people demand ports. The only way to do that is to make your gameplay straightforward and your graphics scaleable. That's not going to change.

PSVR's taken a huge amount of investment from Sony even to make it a thing

Actually, that's a point – anybody else slightly surprised by the complete omission of PSVR?

I'm not falling for it again. I've got so many games to play, I absolutely don't need new tech. I'll catch up when we're halfway through the lifespan and the systems are half price on Black Friday.

Looks like mart is Day One.

Looks like mart is Day One.

Day -50, outside Toys R Us in my pop-up tent.

You already have one don't you? #martanomics

Interesting rumblings in the Xbox camp - their unloved Twitch clone, Mixer, is being shut down and moved across to Facebook Gaming of all things (has anyone ever heard of Facebook Gaming?) It's a pretty high-profile shuttering given the amount of money they've pumped into it and the fact it had a dedicated tab on the Xbox One dashboard until a couple of months ago.

Then, separately, Facebook has just acquired Ready at Dawn, makers of The Order 1886.

Everyone still hates Facebook, right? Just checking. Hopefully Microsoft aren't going to announce some sort of partnership with them or integrate it heavily into the Series X - it could be the biggest misfire since "TV TV TV" sunk the Xbox One.

Facebook own Oculus now, so I have mixed feelings on them. The Facebook integration into that platform is definitely more than I think I'm happy with, and I can see MS going down a similar route.

Mixer and Facebook Gaming both have tiny market share (the "Ninja on Mixer lol" thing didn't really work out), but I think there were some stats circulating showing that Facebook gaming and plenty of Facebook streamers make a decent living out of it as a niche. You can see how it targets a different market to Twitch as that's a conscious decision to consume but Facebook game streams are stumbled upon incidentally as people browse social media. While nobody under 40 now uses Facebook, Instagram I suppose is the virgin beach they'll be looking to despoil with this at some point I'm sure.

I think streaming is far more important than TV ever was, but a corporate MS and Sony flailing for what "the kidz" are into is always going to chuck stuff like this up I guess.

On a slightly-related note, I've been trying to keep an open mind about next-gen, but weirdly I still don't think I've seriously contemplated getting a Series X yet, despite there being signs that it might be the "sensible" choice next gen (and the Bone was the first MS console I haven't actually owned). They seem to have gotten a better handle on backwards-compatibility again (Sony's attempt is an improvement over the ones for the PS3 and PS4, but still has a faint whiff of 'token stopgap' about it), which is something I would still deem important, despite not having owned an XBOX game in over ten years.

Hopefully their next showcase will be a bit more interesting, as at the moment it seems to be the exclusives swaying me again (as well as the recent brand familiarity), and while the Sony show wasn't necessarily mind-blowing, the only things I remember at all from the XSX one are the Ori game (a series I'm still forever interested in), Assassin's Creed Valhalla (couldn't really care less), and Call of the Sea, which I did think looked genuinely interesting. The Sony exclusives aren't necessarily (all) system-sellers for me, but I am at least interested, whereas I'm sort of out-of-the-loop-and-generally-not-that-bothered about stuff like Halo and Gears of War these days.

There's no doubt Sony has the upper hand with their exclusives, I hope Microsoft has something big to announce that doesn't involve Halo or Forza, again. I'm still erring towards the Xbox thanks to Game Pass, backwards compatibility and build quality, but they're going to lose out big time if they think the same three or four exclusives are going to swing it for them yet again.

This really pisses me off. I really enjoyed using Mixer to stream our regular Sea of Thieves nonsense, and now that's all gone. I will never, ever sign up for anything tied to Facebook. It's a cesspit totally lacking in moral values and Mark Z can get fucked.

I'm just one person though. I doubt that'll matter.

As said above, none younger than us uses Facebook.

I'm not sure either side has an upper hand with their exclusives as nearly everything shown has looked pretty shite.

The Xbox does have the issue (for me) that I have a One X and a gaming PC so I'm not entirely sure it's going to differentiate itself much from what I already have. The PS4 is probably the best complimentary choice, but I think I'll wait for a redesign as it looks hideous.

Off the top of my head I can't think of a console which wasn't significantly improved by waiting for the slim version.

My ex-wife said that about me.

Badum TISH.

What on earth have Microsoft actually been doing all this time?

That showcase was just a whole lot of generic shooty meh, cross-platform Psychonauts, and a Halo game that seems like it'll be great… on a console I already own.

Oh and a CGI trailer for Fable. How is that not ready to show off yet?

Yeah. Microsoft are doing a very good job of persuading me to keep my One X with GamePass, and buy a PS5. And I really wanted to get behind the Series X, too.

To be fair, the PS5 presentation was mostly shooty meh too.

I've got no interest in upscaling at all. There's just no incentive, unless you're the kind of idiot who has to have the shiniest new thing immediately (shush, in before any of you* even say it)

(* cav)

I'll probably pick up a PS5 at launch. I'll own one eventually anyway, and it's not like they drop in price much.

But it does feel like we're seeing diminishing returns on visuals now. Remember the Rogue Squadron demo on Gamecube? That was mindblowing, and single-handedly sold me the console. Now we're in an age of "yeah if you squint, I can sort of see this one has more pixels".

I'd guess that it's going to be the scale (or density) of stuff that'll the big difference next gen - something like Horizon Forbidden West is going to be colossal.

I dread what kind of horrifying, collectible-scattered hellscapes Ubisoft will forge with this kind of power.

But it does feel like we're seeing diminishing returns on visuals now.

I've been saying this for years now, current gen was really a plateau and it's hard to see how much 'better' things can really get. Unless we're talking uncanny valley stuff, but who wants that from games? Some people, I guess.

Time for devs to step up and actually be creative with their content, instead of relying on ooooh shiny.

Now we're in an age of "yeah if you squint, I can sort of see this one has more pixels".

The most disappointing thing about this march towards photorealism, for me, is the dearth of interesting art styles in AAA games. It feels like a whole lot of these games could be set in different corners of the same world. I guess this might also be a consequence of a broader uptake of third-party engines.

This is an official screenshot, provided by Microsoft yesterday to show off the flagship game for their self-titled "most powerful console on earth".

Who on earth cleared that? It looks like an upscaled Xbox 360 screenshot…

God, everything about that screenshot is bad.

The framing on it, the colour grading, the composition. It somehow looks too dark and like there's no shadows anywhere at the same time. There's no light source coming in from an actual location. The characters look like they've been pasted into the screenshot in photoshop and there's low lod trees in the background.

There's 2 ways this happened:
1 - It's a forcing function by someone at microsoft that wants to push changes in the game and needs community reaction metrics to make it happen.
2 - Microsoft are fucking awful at marketing games and developing them.

You can have both at the same time and I am willing to side with number two having been on the inside of that machine.

Just watched a gameplay video, and it looks no better in motion. They seem to be using the same tech they did on Halo 4.

Next gen is all about the loading times aint it? And how that means you don't have to have levels designed with corridors etc to mask loading times?

That's the dream we've been promised for so long…