During Covid the PS5 would sell out immediately every time they hit the shelves, and the only reliable way to get your hands on one was from a scalper with a significant markup. Meanwhile the...
During Covid the PS5 would sell out immediately every time they hit the shelves, and the only reliable way to get your hands on one was from a scalper with a significant markup. Meanwhile the Series S would collect dust on store shelves, at about half the price of a PS5. I bought one, and I have been extremely happy with it. Friends and family were complaining about how hard it was to get the PS5 and how expensive it was, so I asked them why not get the Series S instead? I think every single person I asked brought up the Kinect and the always-online thing, and some even bemoaned that the Xbox was just a glorified TV box these days. Everything anyone seemed to know about the Xbox was from the disastrous launch of Xbox One.
Off-topic, but during lockdown I managed to snatch a non-scalped PS5 through a combination of email notifications and diligently refreshing product pages. (At some point I had even installed a...
Off-topic, but during lockdown I managed to snatch a non-scalped PS5 through a combination of email notifications and diligently refreshing product pages. (At some point I had even installed a program on my home server to automate the process, though this ultimately proved unnecessary.) Alas, after I had paid for the order, the vendor informed me that they had overestimated the stock of PS5 Digitals they had on hand. But rather than cancel my order, they instead shipped me a PS5 Disk!
And so, while others were still haggling with scalpers, I managed to secure a PS5 for $100 off MSRP -- which, even nearly five years into the PS5's lifetime, still remains its largest discount to date.
No compatibility with their existing library of PS4 games seems like the big one. A big part of the appeal of both new consoles in 2020-2022 was how much they enhanced last gen games through their...
so I asked them why not get the Series S instead?
No compatibility with their existing library of PS4 games seems like the big one. A big part of the appeal of both new consoles in 2020-2022 was how much they enhanced last gen games through their robust backwards compatibility layers.
I think Phil Spencer was right when he said the PS4/XB1 generation was the worst one to lose. That is the console generation where digital libraries on consoles really became a thing, and now backwards compatibility is way more important than it used to be.
yeah i got the Series S when Elden Ring came out bc i really want to play it and it cost like 200€ used. I feel like a Graphics Card alone with the same power would cost multiples of that. I...
yeah i got the Series S when Elden Ring came out bc i really want to play it and it cost like 200€ used. I feel like a Graphics Card alone with the same power would cost multiples of that.
I switched to a used Series X recently bc I want to play backwards compatible discs.
Obviously fuck Microsoft but yeah Sony has like 0 games im interested in either
Phil Harrison had done monumental damage to the Xbox brand with the whole "disc-based DRM" stunt he pulled at E3 twelve years ago. His successor (Phil Spencer) had gone for a completely different...
Phil Harrison had done monumental damage to the Xbox brand with the whole "disc-based DRM" stunt he pulled at E3 twelve years ago. His successor (Phil Spencer) had gone for a completely different strategy, which is to flip the middle-finger at having any exclusives, pawn off every franchise to Nintendo and Sony, host everything released by their studios day-one on a Netflix-like subscription service, then somehow hope that people would still want to buy an Xbox and their games.
I can't believe that two decades ago, Xbox were on top of the game and how badly they've fumbled the brand since.
They really screwed themselves over. I've never really liked XBox, but i can't help but feel sad for the fans when they keep scoring own goals over and over. The other thing that really screwed...
They really screwed themselves over. I've never really liked XBox, but i can't help but feel sad for the fans when they keep scoring own goals over and over.
The other thing that really screwed them was their Series S/X concept. They basically required developers to build for both, meaning that XBox was two consoles, not just one. Games like Baldur's Gate 3 were delayed by months on XBox because of this.
Also, for the consumer, which one do you buy? PS5 is clearly better than PS4. Switch 2 is better than the Switch. If I didn't know anything, what's the difference between One, S, and X? What value do I get for getting one over the other? If this was supposed to be a home media replacement, how was it better or more convenient than what people already had? TVs can stream Netflix and friends, BluRay players already exist in the homes of those who wanted them. What niche besides gaming does this product hold? Apparently Microsoft didn't think that all the way through.
Microsoft really did fumble the XBox hard, didn't they?
The naming of the previous two generations was a colossal failure. XBox One, XBox One S, XBox One X, XBox Series S, XBox Series X. They had current and previous generations S and X models. Should...
The naming of the previous two generations was a colossal failure.
XBox One, XBox One S, XBox One X, XBox Series S, XBox Series X.
They had current and previous generations S and X models. Should have just gone with a bigger number strategy. In fact (from memory, don't at me)
XBox
XBox 360
XBox One
XBox One S
XBox One X
XBox Series S
XBox Series X
Someone looking at that cold, would think, is a 360 better than a One? How about One S vs Series S?
Ridiculous. On the other hand
Playstation
Playstation 2
Playstation 3
Playstation 4
Playstation 4 Pro
Playstation 5
Playstation 5 Pro
Not much room for confusion there, except maybe is a 4 Pro better than a 5 non-pro? That happens sometimes where top of previous gen is almost as good, or slightly better than bottom of new gen, but it's not much of a confusion in this space, I'd say.
Nintendo are just Nintendo
DS
3DS
3DS XL
New 3DS
New 3DS XL
2DS (? this was the one with the solid screen and New 3DS capabilities, right?)
em
N64
Gamecube
Wii
WiiiU
Switch
Switch 2
It's also all over the place but somehow Nintendo seem to just about get away with it, save for the WiiU I'd say.
Oh, if only it were so simple -- those were two different devices! The Nintendo 2DS had a single, non-folding body, whereas the New Nintendo 2DS XL had the upgraded compute, larger screen, and...
2DS (? this was the one with the solid screen and New 3DS capabilities, right?)
Oh, if only it were so simple -- those were two different devices! The Nintendo 2DS had a single, non-folding body, whereas the New Nintendo 2DS XL had the upgraded compute, larger screen, and more conventional DS form factor.
Man how quickly I forget. Yeah the folding 2DS with the extra New oomph was decent. I have an old New 3DS XL and several old 3DS with various stages of cracked hinges
Man how quickly I forget. Yeah the folding 2DS with the extra New oomph was decent. I have an old New 3DS XL and several old 3DS with various stages of cracked hinges
The fact they went with “Series” as the overall name of the generation always seemed insane to me. I’m so excited to get my new Xbox Series S tomorrow! Oh cool, is that the upgrade from the Series...
The fact they went with “Series” as the overall name of the generation always seemed insane to me.
I’m so excited to get my new Xbox Series S tomorrow!
Oh cool, is that the upgrade from the Series One you have now?
Yeah, but it’s not a Series One, just One
Got it, so they’re calling the new ones Series Whatever from here rather than just Whatever, right?
Well kinda - this generation has the Series S and Series X
The… next model in the series came out at the same time and plays the same generation of games?
Yeah, Series is the name of the generation, One was the name of the previous generation. So the X doesn’t come after the S in a series, they’re just part of the Series range. The next one probably won’t be Series at all. Well not the next One, but you know what I mean…
?!?!
And that’s how I’d expect a conversation to play out with fellow 30-somethings who just don’t follow tech so closely. Good luck to the stereotypical non-gamer grandparents looking for gifts.
[Edit] Just to really belabour the point, because I can almost literally hear this alternative conversation playing out in my own family between a 10 year old kid and late-60s grandparent who's never used a controller in their life:
Hi grandma! Dad got a new PS5 game we've been playing together, do you want to see?
Of course! Wow, they're up to number five already? I still remember getting that first old grey PlayStation for your dad when he was about your age, it's all he talked about for a month!
Personally I think that tends to be more of a problem in the phone space (or other devices that update frequently) than consoles due to the time between "generations". Otherwise PlayStation...
Not much room for confusion there, except maybe is a 4 Pro better than a 5 non-pro? That happens sometimes where top of previous gen is almost as good, or slightly better than bottom of new gen, but it's not much of a confusion in this space, I'd say.
Personally I think that tends to be more of a problem in the phone space (or other devices that update frequently) than consoles due to the time between "generations".
Otherwise PlayStation mainline does seem to have the cleanest naming scheme of the console makers, including Sega when they were around.
Nintendo's handhelds feel more logical than the Xbox. The names for the consoles are mostly different, but it works since they tended to have massive differences. N64 had a cartridge and GameCube...
Nintendo's handhelds feel more logical than the Xbox. The names for the consoles are mostly different, but it works since they tended to have massive differences. N64 had a cartridge and GameCube had mini-discs, and then the Wii had full-size discs and motion controls among many other new features. Heck, part of the reason the Wii U flopped was because people thought it was some accessory rather than a whole new console. At least they learned their lesson from that with the Switch 2.
For handhelds though, they'd keep the names in the same "family" so long as enough similarities existed and they played the same games. Generally if it had the same base name, any physical cartridges for the original console in the family would work in it. The XL's were literally just larger versions, and the DS Lite was just a different design for the DS with no significant differences.
So I'd list the handhelds as:
Gameboy
Gameboy Color
Gameboy Advance
_
DS (+Lite)
DSi (barely count it as separate, but it did have more software and features)
3DS (+ 2DS + XL)
New 3DS (+ New 2DS + XL)
The "New" 3DS was definitely the dumbest name of the bunch. I gave up finding a telescopic stylus for my regular-sized New 3DS. The ones I found were either all for the XL, or the listings were for new, unused 3DS styluses. Honestly not 100% sure why that one exists, because it didn't really add much new features beyond a couple buttons. It had barely any exclusive games that couldn't be played on a regular 3DS.
Still better track record than Xbox though. I genuinely cannot tell you the difference between the One S and One X (or if there's even two versions), and I just know that Xbox Series S is weaker (and maybe digital-only?) because of complaints about delayed Xbox releases due to having to optimize for that one. Not sure they can salvage the name scheme at this point.
You missed the Gameboy Advance SP. It's just a Gameboy Advance, but with a backlight, rechargeable battery, and folding form-factor. Looking at its name, it's obviously just a version of the...
You missed the Gameboy Advance SP. It's just a Gameboy Advance, but with a backlight, rechargeable battery, and folding form-factor.
Looking at its name, it's obviously just a version of the Gameboy Advance (it plays GBA games), kind of like the Gameboy Color was just a gameboy with a color screen.
Oh right, good catch! Funny since I actually own both a regular GBA and an SP. I'd put it on the same line as the GBA since it was still the same software-wise, just different design. Though I...
Oh right, good catch! Funny since I actually own both a regular GBA and an SP. I'd put it on the same line as the GBA since it was still the same software-wise, just different design. Though I recently learned the Game Boy Color actually had some improvements beyond adding colors with the processing speed and memory. There were some exclusive games that wouldn't work on a regular Game Boy, like Pokémon Crystal and Hamtaro: Ham-Hams Unite! (both of which I own). Some GBC games were still compatible with the regular Game Boy (like Pokémon Gold and Silver), but that also meant they couldn't fully take advantage of the GBC's hardware improvements.
One other model I skipped mentioning, but screw it, this is a neat bit of a trivia: the Game Boy Micro. It was a very tiny version of the Game Boy Advance and the last Game Boy model released (hell, it released after the DS), and could only play GBA games. It might be the actual worst-selling Nintendo console besides the Virtual Boy since it only sold ~2.5 million units. The main reason I know it exists is because I saw a single commercial for it as a kid. That was all I heard about it for years, before one day looking it up to see if it actually existed. It was likely meant as an "interim" model to pad time while developing the next Game Boy iteration, but the DS's explosive popularity caused Nintendo to just retire the Game Boy line. Nintendo originally planned for the DS to be a third line entirely since it was such an experimental and different concept.
Come to think of it, they probably would've named it "Game Boy DS" or something similar if they had intended on using it as a direct successor. I'm realizing as I type this that Nintendo actually DOES try to follow a consistent naming scheme, but it's based on each console "family" rather than all their consoles. The Game Boy, DS and Switch lines are the most obvious, while the only home consoles that were really related were the NES and SNES, and the Wii and Wii U. I also just learned the Game Cube was actually the worst selling of their home consoles before the Wii U, and before that the SNES also sold less than the NES. That's probably why the home console names are mostly unrelated, they didn't want a new console to be tied to a less-successful one and subject to extra scrutiny. Given the Wii's massive success (and the fact it was the first one to outsell its predecessor), they likely intended to use that branding as their new flagstaff home console line.
You forgot about the Slim models of PlayStation, but they too are pretty intuitive what they are. Nintendo seems to have finally learned. Microsoft just keeps digging their naming hole ever...
You forgot about the Slim models of PlayStation, but they too are pretty intuitive what they are.
Nintendo seems to have finally learned.
Microsoft just keeps digging their naming hole ever deeper, don't they.
When Nintendo switches up their naming convention, it usually coincides with a big shift in what a Nintendo console even is. The DS was a radical departure from the prior line of Game Boys, and it...
When Nintendo switches up their naming convention, it usually coincides with a big shift in what a Nintendo console even is. The DS was a radical departure from the prior line of Game Boys, and it got a new name to reflect that. The 3DS was an iterative upgrade on the same DS design; faster hardware and a 3D screen so it got an iterative name that incorporates the new feature.
Like PlayStations, Every Xbox since the original is essentially an iterative improvement over the previous. Underlying architecture changes, sometimes radically, but that is largely immaterial to the user; it's still a rectangle that sits under the TV and plays games with a standard controller. The Xbox names don't do anything to communicate how they're different. PlayStation's simple numerical sequence very confidently says "It's like the last PlayStation, but better".
If Starfield had released during the One generation I would have surely bought it on release for full price, with the current generation I just bought gamepass for a month, had fun with it for a...
If Starfield had released during the One generation I would have surely bought it on release for full price, with the current generation I just bought gamepass for a month, had fun with it for a week on my tablet with streaming and left it at that. It's almost weird how easy it is to play new AAA games like it.
Xbox also doesn't seem to have any "true" exclusives. Pretty much anything on Xbox will also get a PC release, and a lot of people are likely to have a PC than a second home console. So if you...
Xbox also doesn't seem to have any "true" exclusives. Pretty much anything on Xbox will also get a PC release, and a lot of people are likely to have a PC than a second home console. So if you have a decent PC capable of running those games, why bother buying an Xbox? Microsoft has no incentive to prioritize the Xbox either since they'll be making money off those games either way.
Mainly because I just spent more on a graphics card than I can buy an XBox for, and this realistically is what you have to do roughly every console cycle ish (or more frequently as PC hardware...
Mainly because I just spent more on a graphics card than I can buy an XBox for, and this realistically is what you have to do roughly every console cycle ish (or more frequently as PC hardware refreshes faster than consoles do). Then your platform goes out of date (I'm on AM4, this is my last upgrade) and when you then have to do the whole mobo/cpu/RAM dance, it's just expensive and annoying.
That's what makes consoles compelling. They're cheap, and you get a consistent experience with them. No-one's going to convince me that DIY hardware is going to ever be the gaming for the masses.
It's partly why I'm currently besotted with GeForce Now. That's one hell of a service. Fast, great looking, lag free so far as I can tell (and so far as I need it to be). And paying for that over the timescale of a gaming PC upgrade cycle is actually about the same, or if you hit a platform refresh, GFN is cheaper.
If game companies start exclusively targetting the PC architecture, I could see something like a Gaming Platform specification working, with the ability to buy (e.g.) the 1080 version or the 1440 version or the 4k version or whatever, but it needs to be simple and turnkey, and even now I've just added a bunch of complexity with those capability options.
To be fair, I'd assume the vast majority of those are gaming on a laptop or at-most-lightly-modified prebuilt desktop rather than a system they assembled themselves from components.
To be fair, I'd assume the vast majority of those are gaming on a laptop or at-most-lightly-modified prebuilt desktop rather than a system they assembled themselves from components.
Maybe, but I think people here are way over-estimating how hard it is to actually build a PC. Your average K'Nex kit is more difficult and time consuming to put together.
Maybe, but I think people here are way over-estimating how hard it is to actually build a PC. Your average K'Nex kit is more difficult and time consuming to put together.
I think us tech people underestimate how difficult it is to build a PC for someone who doesn’t have our knowledge. Does a PC come with directions to plug your monitor into the GPU instead of the...
I think us tech people underestimate how difficult it is to build a PC for someone who doesn’t have our knowledge. Does a PC come with directions to plug your monitor into the GPU instead of the motherboard? Maybe your GPU does. Do you just plug your GPU into any of the PCIe slots that look identical? If you read through the motherboard manual, it will tell you that some are electrically x8 or x4, or maybe some are only x16 if you don’t plug in a specific nvme slot. But motherboard manuals are super dense. And the last few motherboards I have bought don’t even include a paper manual, so you have to download it online. And will it tell you that you need to enable XMP (or whatever AMD calls it), or resizable bar? And what if you buy a motherboard and CPU that is compatible, but it has an old bios version that doesn’t support your CPU? And how do you debug issues? We have had multiple threads here on tildes asking for help debugging a PC issue, but none asking for help building a knex set.
Are these impossible to overcome? Definitely not. But portraying it as adult Lego or adult knex seems to be underselling it.
There are companies like Corsair selling DIY kits that come with all the parts you need and very thorough instructions. YouTube is also practically flooded with high quality videos from respected...
There are companies like Corsair selling DIY kits that come with all the parts you need and very thorough instructions. YouTube is also practically flooded with high quality videos from respected creators showing people how to put together a computer. People just need to be willing to sit down and learn for a minute.
I’m not saying that it isn’t possible. If someone wants to do it, it is a fantastic project. It gives you far more ownership and control over your computer. I would recommend it for everyone that...
I’m not saying that it isn’t possible. If someone wants to do it, it is a fantastic project. It gives you far more ownership and control over your computer. I would recommend it for everyone that is even somewhat interested in it.
But literally anyone can buy a Lego set and build it without having to watch YouTube videos. It’s just not the same. Even knowing that a small company like Corsair exists is a big expectation of general consumers (and, yes, Corsair is tiny compared to Microsoft and Sony). Can you buy a PC kit in Target?
There's an overall cost to take into consideration. Mid-tier XBox Series X is $600 right now, plus the mid-tier $15/month subscription since November 2020 ($855) = $1,455 and there's still at...
There's an overall cost to take into consideration.
Mid-tier XBox Series X is $600 right now, plus the mid-tier $15/month subscription since November 2020 ($855) = $1,455 and there's still at least a year's worth of subscription fees to pay before the next generation drops and the count starts all over again.
An upper-mid-tier PC (level 3 on the 4 tier structure) is $1,300-1,400 as of right now (with all the inflation and cost increases that have happened since the latest XBox's 2020 release).
It kind of already is. It's hard to get exact numbers for the install base of gaming-capable PC hardware, but we've had major publishers like Capcom saying for a while now that PC alone accounts...
No-one's going to convince me that DIY hardware is going to ever be the gaming for the masses.
It kind of already is. It's hard to get exact numbers for the install base of gaming-capable PC hardware, but we've had major publishers like Capcom saying for a while now that PC alone accounts for more than half their unit sales of new titles. PC gaming has absolutely exploded since 2010.
I really don't think this is true. I mean, if you want to be running the newest games at native 4k with all the eye candy and high frame rates, sure. But for 1080p, low settings (and these aren't...
spent more on a graphics card than I can buy an XBox for, and this realistically is what you have to do roughly every console cycle ish
I really don't think this is true. I mean, if you want to be running the newest games at native 4k with all the eye candy and high frame rates, sure. But for 1080p, low settings (and these aren't 2004 "low settings" anymore, these games are still gorgeous), >=30Hz? I was playing Oblivion Remastered—not a famously performant game—at roughly those settings on my "venerable" R9 390x, a GPU from 2016, when Nintendo was still on the Wii U and comfortably before the crytpocurrency GPU bubble. (There was a long period where I could have resold it for more than I bought it new, but of course, I couldn't have then replaced it with anything comparable for that higher selling price.)
One of the very weird things about PC gaming compared to consoles is that spread of plausible device configurations is nigh-infinite, and gamers can intentionally place themselves pretty much wherever they want in that spread. Want to absolute best performance and most expensive effects? You can shell out for that. Just want to play the games and don't care as much about that? Then don't.
My new card gets nowhere near native 4K/60 on the latest pc titles. RX7800XT for video and 5800X3D for the CPU. Fake frames required to hit these numbers too. I strive for 1440/60 and mostly get...
My new card gets nowhere near native 4K/60 on the latest pc titles. RX7800XT for video and 5800X3D for the CPU. Fake frames required to hit these numbers too.
I strive for 1440/60 and mostly get there with medium settings, but only with frame gen.
You have to be comparing XBox and PS5 with comparable pc settings, of course one could set up a potato vision pc but not many people would be happy with that.
There are also very many horribly optimised pc games that sometimes you can’t even out hardware the performance issues.
Personally, I would recommend high quality upscaling over frame gen when struggling to hit 60. FG is very much a "win harder" button that doesn't make a ton of sense unless your base framerate is...
I strive for 1440/60 and mostly get there with medium settings, but only with frame gen.
Personally, I would recommend high quality upscaling over frame gen when struggling to hit 60. FG is very much a "win harder" button that doesn't make a ton of sense unless your base framerate is already north of 60.
A 7800 XT shouldn't really be running games at 30 FPS though. Even Doom: The Dark Ages, a pretty demanding game with mandatory ray tracing, exceeds 60 FPS on this GPU with medium settings and native 1440p output.
I don't think having a PC capable of running AAA games is much of a given. Commodity PCs and laptops aren't shipping with discrete GPUs. They use a lot of power, and lately have been prone to...
I don't think having a PC capable of running AAA games is much of a given. Commodity PCs and laptops aren't shipping with discrete GPUs. They use a lot of power, and lately have been prone to shortages and absurd pricing, so you generally only have one if you bought it specifically to play games or do professional work that actually needs the performance.
I think putting games on PC has been a smart move for both Sony and Microsoft. They don't have much to lose. PC gamers aren't likely to give up all the things they like about the platform and switch to consoles. Enticing them with exclusives only goes so far, since they likely only use the console for those exclusives and aren't buying multiplat games and mtx on your storefront. So you might as well remove the low-margin $500 barrier between these potential customers and your high-margin $70 software products.
They were only really top of their game in terms of online gaming, for 2 generations. Competition caught up and they lost that edge. Xbox would then spend the next 15 years acquiring companies and...
They were only really top of their game in terms of online gaming, for 2 generations. Competition caught up and they lost that edge.
Xbox would then spend the next 15 years acquiring companies and squandering almost every investment along the way. Even their own truly homegrown evergreen franchise has waned. In that same time, Sony had had a completely differeny lineup of hits rise up (albeit at the cost of some older franchises stagnating), and Nintendo only made their brands more valuable while still getting a few bit hits in there (Animal crossing, Splatoon).
I'm not going to claim I know what or where Xbox fumbled so hard on the hardware side, but they almost never had the software, save for a very brief Halo stint. Which is sobering for a software company.
What I find so yucky about Microsoft is that they never acknowledge mistakes. They never say, "we tried this and failed", they act like all is going according to plan and we just don't get it. And...
What I find so yucky about Microsoft is that they never acknowledge mistakes. They never say, "we tried this and failed", they act like all is going according to plan and we just don't get it. And that makes it hard to trust anything they claim to commit to since you just know they'll pivot to the sleaziest money-grab the moment they have a chance. I don't want them to hold any power over the future of gaming for that reason alone.
At the end of the day, getting rid of console exclusives makes it really hard to sell consoles. I have an Xbox, and while I enjoy it occasionally for relaxing in front of the TV, it really is...
At the end of the day, getting rid of console exclusives makes it really hard to sell consoles.
I have an Xbox, and while I enjoy it occasionally for relaxing in front of the TV, it really is mainly used as a powerful client for self-hosted streaming. I have a Series X, and its best feature is realistically enhanced emulation since basically every modern game runs better on PC.
I considered buying a second hand PS5 a few days ago, but realized its only possible use would be for Demon's Souls, streaming, and possibly Gran Turismo.
The Demon's Souls remake is one of my favourite games of all time and the entire reason I bought a PS5. Gran Turismo is, IMO, ass. I'll not ever forgive them for the stunt they pulled where the...
The Demon's Souls remake is one of my favourite games of all time and the entire reason I bought a PS5.
Gran Turismo is, IMO, ass. I'll not ever forgive them for the stunt they pulled where the in-game economy was set one way for the review period, then nerfed into the ground for the customer release. Did the reviewers go back and edit their reviews, having praised the in game economy? I've not found one that did. Disgusting behaviour. Oh, and it's online only, which can get in the bin.
The next generation of Xbox is probably going to be closer to a specialized PC than a console with talking about external stores and custom Windows stack. Makes sense if they're going to go with...
The next generation of Xbox is probably going to be closer to a specialized PC than a console with talking about external stores and custom Windows stack. Makes sense if they're going to go with more of a Sega strategy with Game Pass only being available on Windows adjacent hardware with Microsoft published games being available anywhere. (Although, if it's in the cards to access Game Pass through Steam...)
I got a Series S as part of a Verizon promotion and between that, and 6 years of Gold boosted into Game Pass for about $350, I think I got my money's worth out of it. I can count the number of games I played to completion on one hand, but there was a lot of things I tried that I wouldn't have played otherwise, which is appreciated.
I'm not too surprised by this. Xbox have been focusing on getting their games on multiple platforms so there isn't much reason to buy an Xbox. I'm actually unsure of any compelling exclusives on...
I'm not too surprised by this. Xbox have been focusing on getting their games on multiple platforms so there isn't much reason to buy an Xbox. I'm actually unsure of any compelling exclusives on the Series consoles. I know 0 people with the latest gen Xbox but do know a handful of people with PS5s.
I also wonder if there's a big deal of confusion with the naming too, sort of like a Wii U situation. The upgraded versions of the previous gen were called the Xbox One X/S with the new ones being called the Xbox Series X/S. As someone who follows tech closely I'd understand the difference but I feel to an average consumer there'd be some confusion there.
I like Xbox controllers better than PS controllers and I don’t pay attention to exclusives. So for the past 3 generations of xbox I’ve picked one up on sale mid-to-late-cycle. I could game on PC,...
I like Xbox controllers better than PS controllers and I don’t pay attention to exclusives. So for the past 3 generations of xbox I’ve picked one up on sale mid-to-late-cycle.
I could game on PC, I guess. But graphics cards are expensive and gaming on Linux wasn’t generally a fun, easy, or even workable experience back in the day. I won’t buy a license for Windows or use it at home, and Civ VI runs on the MacBook well enough.
Not to be that guy, but if "back in the day" was more than a few years ago, you should probably give Linux gaming another shot. Proton has made remarkable strides in compatibility, and Steam or...
Not to be that guy, but if "back in the day" was more than a few years ago, you should probably give Linux gaming another shot. Proton has made remarkable strides in compatibility, and Steam or tools like Lutris will handle all the fiddly management you used to have to do manually (winetricks, ugh).
I've definitely fallen out of the target demographics of the gaming industry so perhaps my opinion doesn't have much weight, but it seems like these days there really isn't any good reason to buy...
I've definitely fallen out of the target demographics of the gaming industry so perhaps my opinion doesn't have much weight, but it seems like these days there really isn't any good reason to buy the new consoles as they come out. They don't offer any particularly amazing exclusives to hook you in, they aren't that much better than their predecessors in performance or graphics, and the improvements they do provide are dwarfed by the ridiculous price tags of the consoles themselves and the games. The only reasons to buy a new gen console these days are 1. You aren't struggling with money and can afford it because why not, or 2. There is a particular game you really, really want to play (and also you can afford it). It doesn't feel like you get your money's worth with them at all. The base PS4 still holds up extremely well these days, has a great library of games, and more importantly, doesn't cost the same as a second-hand car.
And again, maybe this is just me being really out of touch with the gaming masses (keeping in mind I've never played a CoD game), but the new big triple-A games very rarely seem worth it these days in the way they were only 5 years ago; indie games are the way to go now, and they can often run on just about anything. At least that's how it feels sometimes. Then again, the new iPhones always sell like fire and I don't get that either. Am I out of touch? No, it's the consumers who are wrong.
This is more of a Xbox issue than an industry issue. The PS5 is selling well, and the switch 2 just had the best launch of any console ever, sales wise. It really doesn’t. Very few to no games...
This is more of a Xbox issue than an industry issue. The PS5 is selling well, and the switch 2 just had the best launch of any console ever, sales wise.
The base PS4 still holds up extremely well these days, has a great library of games, and more importantly, doesn't cost the same as a second-hand car.
It really doesn’t. Very few to no games come out on it, and there is definitely no cars you can buy for $500, which is the cost of a PS5.
Just for fun I pulled up a second hand car sales website and it gives me 1487 results for a car between €400 and €500. I sold my PS5 for the cost of a used car because it doesn't provide anything...
Just for fun I pulled up a second hand car sales website and it gives me 1487 results for a car between €400 and €500.
I sold my PS5 for the cost of a used car because it doesn't provide anything extra that my PC can't do.
I've had consoles since the early days. I've owned an NES, PS1-2-3-4 and 5, and an OG Xbox, plus some handhelds like the OG Gameboy, Gameboy Color, DS, and PSP. The PS5 is the only one I've sold.
The Dutch market is known for being more expensive than their neighbouring car markets. It's not going to be a pretty car, but a cheap clanker that will shake you to your destination. Think 1996...
The Dutch market is known for being more expensive than their neighbouring car markets. It's not going to be a pretty car, but a cheap clanker that will shake you to your destination. Think 1996 Suzuki Alto, but functional.
Or an actual one: 2003 Nissan Micra with 155k miles. It'll drive. Won't be pretty. But it'll go.
I'm referring more to the backlog of games on the PS4. Again, I'm definitely not representative of the masses, but I care more about playing games that are good than games that are brand new, and...
I'm referring more to the backlog of games on the PS4. Again, I'm definitely not representative of the masses, but I care more about playing games that are good than games that are brand new, and I can still have fun on the PS4 with all the games available. I can buy a half dozen triple-A titles for $40 in my local second-hand games store, and that will get me easily several month's worth of entertainment or more.
Of course (and this is the kicker), I do have a PC that's capable of running most new releases, and that is certainly not something the average gamer will have. I don't really play games on it, but in the event that I wanted to play a brand-new release, I have the easy option of getting it on Steam, rather than having to buy a brand-new system. I get how others without the option would gravitate toward buying a new-gen console, but personally, I'm always happy to wait for a game to become available rather than needing to play it as soon as it releases.
The PS4 game library is also kind of a selling point for the PS5, since it’s back-compatible. Mine has gotten a fair amount of use as a “PS4 Pro Max” that loads games more quickly and can run at a...
The PS4 game library is also kind of a selling point for the PS5, since it’s back-compatible. Mine has gotten a fair amount of use as a “PS4 Pro Max” that loads games more quickly and can run at a solid 60FPS (and occasionally where devs have pushed updates, uncapped) in cases where the PS4 struggled.
As always with games, it's a social thing. People like new stuff, people like to enjoy new stuff, people like to be among the firsts to enjoy new stuff, people like to enjoy it together. FOMO is...
As always with games, it's a social thing.
People like new stuff, people like to enjoy new stuff, people like to be among the firsts to enjoy new stuff, people like to enjoy it together.
FOMO is very big and people don't like to miss out on new experiences.
The Other Frost recently spilled some funny wisdom about how the "Everything is an Xbox" campaign is really the result of the console market (or their console, specifically) breathing its last breath
The Other Frost recently spilled some funny wisdom about how the "Everything is an Xbox" campaign is really the result of the console market (or their console, specifically) breathing its last breath
The Braum's comparison is a unique lense. I remember people buying PlayStations to watch Blu-rays, but I can't remember anyone ever buying an Xbox for media, especially when cheap streaming boxes...
The Braum's comparison is a unique lense. I remember people buying PlayStations to watch Blu-rays, but I can't remember anyone ever buying an Xbox for media, especially when cheap streaming boxes exist.
For sure, I'd actually argue that the last breath is gone and Microsoft has already swallowed the soul and is now parrading the corpse of the Xbox brand in front of people to make the transition...
For sure, I'd actually argue that the last breath is gone and Microsoft has already swallowed the soul and is now parrading the corpse of the Xbox brand in front of people to make the transition to the more typical acquisition based software service offering that MS is more comfortable with, more appealing.
I know exactly one person with a PS5, and exactly zero people with an xbox. All my friends bought PCs for the first time during 2020 lockdowns, and nobody I know has bought a console since. I...
I know exactly one person with a PS5, and exactly zero people with an xbox. All my friends bought PCs for the first time during 2020 lockdowns, and nobody I know has bought a console since. I think that consoles just don't have the appeal that they did, since everything else is slowly but surely catching up.
During Covid the PS5 would sell out immediately every time they hit the shelves, and the only reliable way to get your hands on one was from a scalper with a significant markup. Meanwhile the Series S would collect dust on store shelves, at about half the price of a PS5. I bought one, and I have been extremely happy with it. Friends and family were complaining about how hard it was to get the PS5 and how expensive it was, so I asked them why not get the Series S instead? I think every single person I asked brought up the Kinect and the always-online thing, and some even bemoaned that the Xbox was just a glorified TV box these days. Everything anyone seemed to know about the Xbox was from the disastrous launch of Xbox One.
Off-topic, but during lockdown I managed to snatch a non-scalped PS5 through a combination of email notifications and diligently refreshing product pages. (At some point I had even installed a program on my home server to automate the process, though this ultimately proved unnecessary.) Alas, after I had paid for the order, the vendor informed me that they had overestimated the stock of PS5 Digitals they had on hand. But rather than cancel my order, they instead shipped me a PS5 Disk!
And so, while others were still haggling with scalpers, I managed to secure a PS5 for $100 off MSRP -- which, even nearly five years into the PS5's lifetime, still remains its largest discount to date.
I really liked my Series S. It gave me access to loads of great games, it was small, quiet, pretty good value, and available.
No compatibility with their existing library of PS4 games seems like the big one. A big part of the appeal of both new consoles in 2020-2022 was how much they enhanced last gen games through their robust backwards compatibility layers.
I think Phil Spencer was right when he said the PS4/XB1 generation was the worst one to lose. That is the console generation where digital libraries on consoles really became a thing, and now backwards compatibility is way more important than it used to be.
yeah i got the Series S when Elden Ring came out bc i really want to play it and it cost like 200€ used. I feel like a Graphics Card alone with the same power would cost multiples of that.
I switched to a used Series X recently bc I want to play backwards compatible discs.
Obviously fuck Microsoft but yeah Sony has like 0 games im interested in either
Irrelevant response but oh wow hey, are you the same selib with whom I used to chat on music_survivor back in 2017/18? Small world if so!
Phil Harrison had done monumental damage to the Xbox brand with the whole "disc-based DRM" stunt he pulled at E3 twelve years ago. His successor (Phil Spencer) had gone for a completely different strategy, which is to flip the middle-finger at having any exclusives, pawn off every franchise to Nintendo and Sony, host everything released by their studios day-one on a Netflix-like subscription service, then somehow hope that people would still want to buy an Xbox and their games.
I can't believe that two decades ago, Xbox were on top of the game and how badly they've fumbled the brand since.
They really screwed themselves over. I've never really liked XBox, but i can't help but feel sad for the fans when they keep scoring own goals over and over.
The other thing that really screwed them was their Series S/X concept. They basically required developers to build for both, meaning that XBox was two consoles, not just one. Games like Baldur's Gate 3 were delayed by months on XBox because of this.
Also, for the consumer, which one do you buy? PS5 is clearly better than PS4. Switch 2 is better than the Switch. If I didn't know anything, what's the difference between One, S, and X? What value do I get for getting one over the other? If this was supposed to be a home media replacement, how was it better or more convenient than what people already had? TVs can stream Netflix and friends, BluRay players already exist in the homes of those who wanted them. What niche besides gaming does this product hold? Apparently Microsoft didn't think that all the way through.
Microsoft really did fumble the XBox hard, didn't they?
The naming of the previous two generations was a colossal failure.
XBox One, XBox One S, XBox One X, XBox Series S, XBox Series X.
They had current and previous generations S and X models. Should have just gone with a bigger number strategy. In fact (from memory, don't at me)
XBox
XBox 360
XBox One
XBox One S
XBox One X
XBox Series S
XBox Series X
Someone looking at that cold, would think, is a 360 better than a One? How about One S vs Series S?
Ridiculous. On the other hand
Playstation
Playstation 2
Playstation 3
Playstation 4
Playstation 4 Pro
Playstation 5
Playstation 5 Pro
Not much room for confusion there, except maybe is a 4 Pro better than a 5 non-pro? That happens sometimes where top of previous gen is almost as good, or slightly better than bottom of new gen, but it's not much of a confusion in this space, I'd say.
Nintendo are just Nintendo
DS
3DS
3DS XL
New 3DS
New 3DS XL
2DS (? this was the one with the solid screen and New 3DS capabilities, right?)
em
N64
Gamecube
Wii
WiiiU
Switch
Switch 2
It's also all over the place but somehow Nintendo seem to just about get away with it, save for the WiiU I'd say.
Oh, if only it were so simple -- those were two different devices! The Nintendo 2DS had a single, non-folding body, whereas the New Nintendo 2DS XL had the upgraded compute, larger screen, and more conventional DS form factor.
There was also the DS Lite, the DSi, and the DS XL.
Man how quickly I forget. Yeah the folding 2DS with the extra New oomph was decent. I have an old New 3DS XL and several old 3DS with various stages of cracked hinges
The fact they went with “Series” as the overall name of the generation always seemed insane to me.
I’m so excited to get my new Xbox Series S tomorrow!
Oh cool, is that the upgrade from the Series One you have now?
Yeah, but it’s not a Series One, just One
Got it, so they’re calling the new ones Series Whatever from here rather than just Whatever, right?
Well kinda - this generation has the Series S and Series X
The… next model in the series came out at the same time and plays the same generation of games?
Yeah, Series is the name of the generation, One was the name of the previous generation. So the X doesn’t come after the S in a series, they’re just part of the Series range. The next one probably won’t be Series at all. Well not the next One, but you know what I mean…
?!?!
And that’s how I’d expect a conversation to play out with fellow 30-somethings who just don’t follow tech so closely. Good luck to the stereotypical non-gamer grandparents looking for gifts.
[Edit] Just to really belabour the point, because I can almost literally hear this alternative conversation playing out in my own family between a 10 year old kid and late-60s grandparent who's never used a controller in their life:
Hi grandma! Dad got a new PS5 game we've been playing together, do you want to see?
Of course! Wow, they're up to number five already? I still remember getting that first old grey PlayStation for your dad when he was about your age, it's all he talked about for a month!
Haha wow dad you're oooold!
Personally I think that tends to be more of a problem in the phone space (or other devices that update frequently) than consoles due to the time between "generations".
Otherwise PlayStation mainline does seem to have the cleanest naming scheme of the console makers, including Sega when they were around.
Nintendo's handhelds feel more logical than the Xbox. The names for the consoles are mostly different, but it works since they tended to have massive differences. N64 had a cartridge and GameCube had mini-discs, and then the Wii had full-size discs and motion controls among many other new features. Heck, part of the reason the Wii U flopped was because people thought it was some accessory rather than a whole new console. At least they learned their lesson from that with the Switch 2.
For handhelds though, they'd keep the names in the same "family" so long as enough similarities existed and they played the same games. Generally if it had the same base name, any physical cartridges for the original console in the family would work in it. The XL's were literally just larger versions, and the DS Lite was just a different design for the DS with no significant differences.
So I'd list the handhelds as:
Gameboy
Gameboy Color
Gameboy Advance
_
DS (+Lite)
DSi (barely count it as separate, but it did have more software and features)
3DS (+ 2DS + XL)
New 3DS (+ New 2DS + XL)
The "New" 3DS was definitely the dumbest name of the bunch. I gave up finding a telescopic stylus for my regular-sized New 3DS. The ones I found were either all for the XL, or the listings were for new, unused 3DS styluses. Honestly not 100% sure why that one exists, because it didn't really add much new features beyond a couple buttons. It had barely any exclusive games that couldn't be played on a regular 3DS.
Still better track record than Xbox though. I genuinely cannot tell you the difference between the One S and One X (or if there's even two versions), and I just know that Xbox Series S is weaker (and maybe digital-only?) because of complaints about delayed Xbox releases due to having to optimize for that one. Not sure they can salvage the name scheme at this point.
You missed the Gameboy Advance SP. It's just a Gameboy Advance, but with a backlight, rechargeable battery, and folding form-factor.
Looking at its name, it's obviously just a version of the Gameboy Advance (it plays GBA games), kind of like the Gameboy Color was just a gameboy with a color screen.
Oh right, good catch! Funny since I actually own both a regular GBA and an SP. I'd put it on the same line as the GBA since it was still the same software-wise, just different design. Though I recently learned the Game Boy Color actually had some improvements beyond adding colors with the processing speed and memory. There were some exclusive games that wouldn't work on a regular Game Boy, like Pokémon Crystal and Hamtaro: Ham-Hams Unite! (both of which I own). Some GBC games were still compatible with the regular Game Boy (like Pokémon Gold and Silver), but that also meant they couldn't fully take advantage of the GBC's hardware improvements.
One other model I skipped mentioning, but screw it, this is a neat bit of a trivia: the Game Boy Micro. It was a very tiny version of the Game Boy Advance and the last Game Boy model released (hell, it released after the DS), and could only play GBA games. It might be the actual worst-selling Nintendo console besides the Virtual Boy since it only sold ~2.5 million units. The main reason I know it exists is because I saw a single commercial for it as a kid. That was all I heard about it for years, before one day looking it up to see if it actually existed. It was likely meant as an "interim" model to pad time while developing the next Game Boy iteration, but the DS's explosive popularity caused Nintendo to just retire the Game Boy line. Nintendo originally planned for the DS to be a third line entirely since it was such an experimental and different concept.
Come to think of it, they probably would've named it "Game Boy DS" or something similar if they had intended on using it as a direct successor. I'm realizing as I type this that Nintendo actually DOES try to follow a consistent naming scheme, but it's based on each console "family" rather than all their consoles. The Game Boy, DS and Switch lines are the most obvious, while the only home consoles that were really related were the NES and SNES, and the Wii and Wii U. I also just learned the Game Cube was actually the worst selling of their home consoles before the Wii U, and before that the SNES also sold less than the NES. That's probably why the home console names are mostly unrelated, they didn't want a new console to be tied to a less-successful one and subject to extra scrutiny. Given the Wii's massive success (and the fact it was the first one to outsell its predecessor), they likely intended to use that branding as their new flagstaff home console line.
You forgot about the Slim models of PlayStation, but they too are pretty intuitive what they are.
Nintendo seems to have finally learned.
Microsoft just keeps digging their naming hole ever deeper, don't they.
I did. And the digital only versions of the consoles too. Ahh well.
Don’t forget the Switch Lite!
Dangnabbit
When Nintendo switches up their naming convention, it usually coincides with a big shift in what a Nintendo console even is. The DS was a radical departure from the prior line of Game Boys, and it got a new name to reflect that. The 3DS was an iterative upgrade on the same DS design; faster hardware and a 3D screen so it got an iterative name that incorporates the new feature.
Like PlayStations, Every Xbox since the original is essentially an iterative improvement over the previous. Underlying architecture changes, sometimes radically, but that is largely immaterial to the user; it's still a rectangle that sits under the TV and plays games with a standard controller. The Xbox names don't do anything to communicate how they're different. PlayStation's simple numerical sequence very confidently says "It's like the last PlayStation, but better".
If Starfield had released during the One generation I would have surely bought it on release for full price, with the current generation I just bought gamepass for a month, had fun with it for a week on my tablet with streaming and left it at that. It's almost weird how easy it is to play new AAA games like it.
Xbox also doesn't seem to have any "true" exclusives. Pretty much anything on Xbox will also get a PC release, and a lot of people are likely to have a PC than a second home console. So if you have a decent PC capable of running those games, why bother buying an Xbox? Microsoft has no incentive to prioritize the Xbox either since they'll be making money off those games either way.
Mainly because I just spent more on a graphics card than I can buy an XBox for, and this realistically is what you have to do roughly every console cycle ish (or more frequently as PC hardware refreshes faster than consoles do). Then your platform goes out of date (I'm on AM4, this is my last upgrade) and when you then have to do the whole mobo/cpu/RAM dance, it's just expensive and annoying.
That's what makes consoles compelling. They're cheap, and you get a consistent experience with them. No-one's going to convince me that DIY hardware is going to ever be the gaming for the masses.
It's partly why I'm currently besotted with GeForce Now. That's one hell of a service. Fast, great looking, lag free so far as I can tell (and so far as I need it to be). And paying for that over the timescale of a gaming PC upgrade cycle is actually about the same, or if you hit a platform refresh, GFN is cheaper.
If game companies start exclusively targetting the PC architecture, I could see something like a Gaming Platform specification working, with the ability to buy (e.g.) the 1080 version or the 1440 version or the 4k version or whatever, but it needs to be simple and turnkey, and even now I've just added a bunch of complexity with those capability options.
Apparently, there's now over 40% more PC gamers than console gamers.
To be fair, I'd assume the vast majority of those are gaming on a laptop or at-most-lightly-modified prebuilt desktop rather than a system they assembled themselves from components.
Maybe, but I think people here are way over-estimating how hard it is to actually build a PC. Your average K'Nex kit is more difficult and time consuming to put together.
I think us tech people underestimate how difficult it is to build a PC for someone who doesn’t have our knowledge. Does a PC come with directions to plug your monitor into the GPU instead of the motherboard? Maybe your GPU does. Do you just plug your GPU into any of the PCIe slots that look identical? If you read through the motherboard manual, it will tell you that some are electrically x8 or x4, or maybe some are only x16 if you don’t plug in a specific nvme slot. But motherboard manuals are super dense. And the last few motherboards I have bought don’t even include a paper manual, so you have to download it online. And will it tell you that you need to enable XMP (or whatever AMD calls it), or resizable bar? And what if you buy a motherboard and CPU that is compatible, but it has an old bios version that doesn’t support your CPU? And how do you debug issues? We have had multiple threads here on tildes asking for help debugging a PC issue, but none asking for help building a knex set.
Are these impossible to overcome? Definitely not. But portraying it as adult Lego or adult knex seems to be underselling it.
There are companies like Corsair selling DIY kits that come with all the parts you need and very thorough instructions. YouTube is also practically flooded with high quality videos from respected creators showing people how to put together a computer. People just need to be willing to sit down and learn for a minute.
I’m not saying that it isn’t possible. If someone wants to do it, it is a fantastic project. It gives you far more ownership and control over your computer. I would recommend it for everyone that is even somewhat interested in it.
But literally anyone can buy a Lego set and build it without having to watch YouTube videos. It’s just not the same. Even knowing that a small company like Corsair exists is a big expectation of general consumers (and, yes, Corsair is tiny compared to Microsoft and Sony). Can you buy a PC kit in Target?
There's an overall cost to take into consideration.
Mid-tier XBox Series X is $600 right now, plus the mid-tier $15/month subscription since November 2020 ($855) = $1,455 and there's still at least a year's worth of subscription fees to pay before the next generation drops and the count starts all over again.
An upper-mid-tier PC (level 3 on the 4 tier structure) is $1,300-1,400 as of right now (with all the inflation and cost increases that have happened since the latest XBox's 2020 release).
It kind of already is. It's hard to get exact numbers for the install base of gaming-capable PC hardware, but we've had major publishers like Capcom saying for a while now that PC alone accounts for more than half their unit sales of new titles. PC gaming has absolutely exploded since 2010.
I really don't think this is true. I mean, if you want to be running the newest games at native 4k with all the eye candy and high frame rates, sure. But for 1080p, low settings (and these aren't 2004 "low settings" anymore, these games are still gorgeous), >=30Hz? I was playing Oblivion Remastered—not a famously performant game—at roughly those settings on my "venerable" R9 390x, a GPU from 2016, when Nintendo was still on the Wii U and comfortably before the crytpocurrency GPU bubble. (There was a long period where I could have resold it for more than I bought it new, but of course, I couldn't have then replaced it with anything comparable for that higher selling price.)
One of the very weird things about PC gaming compared to consoles is that spread of plausible device configurations is nigh-infinite, and gamers can intentionally place themselves pretty much wherever they want in that spread. Want to absolute best performance and most expensive effects? You can shell out for that. Just want to play the games and don't care as much about that? Then don't.
My new card gets nowhere near native 4K/60 on the latest pc titles. RX7800XT for video and 5800X3D for the CPU. Fake frames required to hit these numbers too.
I strive for 1440/60 and mostly get there with medium settings, but only with frame gen.
You have to be comparing XBox and PS5 with comparable pc settings, of course one could set up a potato vision pc but not many people would be happy with that.
There are also very many horribly optimised pc games that sometimes you can’t even out hardware the performance issues.
Personally, I would recommend high quality upscaling over frame gen when struggling to hit 60. FG is very much a "win harder" button that doesn't make a ton of sense unless your base framerate is already north of 60.
A 7800 XT shouldn't really be running games at 30 FPS though. Even Doom: The Dark Ages, a pretty demanding game with mandatory ray tracing, exceeds 60 FPS on this GPU with medium settings and native 1440p output.
Monster Hunter Wilds is my current struggle. I've resorted to abandoning my PC and playing it on GeForce Now where it's much better.
I don't think having a PC capable of running AAA games is much of a given. Commodity PCs and laptops aren't shipping with discrete GPUs. They use a lot of power, and lately have been prone to shortages and absurd pricing, so you generally only have one if you bought it specifically to play games or do professional work that actually needs the performance.
I think putting games on PC has been a smart move for both Sony and Microsoft. They don't have much to lose. PC gamers aren't likely to give up all the things they like about the platform and switch to consoles. Enticing them with exclusives only goes so far, since they likely only use the console for those exclusives and aren't buying multiplat games and mtx on your storefront. So you might as well remove the low-margin $500 barrier between these potential customers and your high-margin $70 software products.
They were only really top of their game in terms of online gaming, for 2 generations. Competition caught up and they lost that edge.
Xbox would then spend the next 15 years acquiring companies and squandering almost every investment along the way. Even their own truly homegrown evergreen franchise has waned. In that same time, Sony had had a completely differeny lineup of hits rise up (albeit at the cost of some older franchises stagnating), and Nintendo only made their brands more valuable while still getting a few bit hits in there (Animal crossing, Splatoon).
I'm not going to claim I know what or where Xbox fumbled so hard on the hardware side, but they almost never had the software, save for a very brief Halo stint. Which is sobering for a software company.
What I find so yucky about Microsoft is that they never acknowledge mistakes. They never say, "we tried this and failed", they act like all is going according to plan and we just don't get it. And that makes it hard to trust anything they claim to commit to since you just know they'll pivot to the sleaziest money-grab the moment they have a chance. I don't want them to hold any power over the future of gaming for that reason alone.
At the end of the day, getting rid of console exclusives makes it really hard to sell consoles.
I have an Xbox, and while I enjoy it occasionally for relaxing in front of the TV, it really is mainly used as a powerful client for self-hosted streaming. I have a Series X, and its best feature is realistically enhanced emulation since basically every modern game runs better on PC.
I considered buying a second hand PS5 a few days ago, but realized its only possible use would be for Demon's Souls, streaming, and possibly Gran Turismo.
The Demon's Souls remake is one of my favourite games of all time and the entire reason I bought a PS5.
Gran Turismo is, IMO, ass. I'll not ever forgive them for the stunt they pulled where the in-game economy was set one way for the review period, then nerfed into the ground for the customer release. Did the reviewers go back and edit their reviews, having praised the in game economy? I've not found one that did. Disgusting behaviour. Oh, and it's online only, which can get in the bin.
The next generation of Xbox is probably going to be closer to a specialized PC than a console with talking about external stores and custom Windows stack. Makes sense if they're going to go with more of a Sega strategy with Game Pass only being available on Windows adjacent hardware with Microsoft published games being available anywhere. (Although, if it's in the cards to access Game Pass through Steam...)
I got a Series S as part of a Verizon promotion and between that, and 6 years of Gold boosted into Game Pass for about $350, I think I got my money's worth out of it. I can count the number of games I played to completion on one hand, but there was a lot of things I tried that I wouldn't have played otherwise, which is appreciated.
I'm not too surprised by this. Xbox have been focusing on getting their games on multiple platforms so there isn't much reason to buy an Xbox. I'm actually unsure of any compelling exclusives on the Series consoles. I know 0 people with the latest gen Xbox but do know a handful of people with PS5s.
I also wonder if there's a big deal of confusion with the naming too, sort of like a Wii U situation. The upgraded versions of the previous gen were called the Xbox One X/S with the new ones being called the Xbox Series X/S. As someone who follows tech closely I'd understand the difference but I feel to an average consumer there'd be some confusion there.
I like Xbox controllers better than PS controllers and I don’t pay attention to exclusives. So for the past 3 generations of xbox I’ve picked one up on sale mid-to-late-cycle.
I could game on PC, I guess. But graphics cards are expensive and gaming on Linux wasn’t generally a fun, easy, or even workable experience back in the day. I won’t buy a license for Windows or use it at home, and Civ VI runs on the MacBook well enough.
Not to be that guy, but if "back in the day" was more than a few years ago, you should probably give Linux gaming another shot. Proton has made remarkable strides in compatibility, and Steam or tools like Lutris will handle all the fiddly management you used to have to do manually (winetricks, ugh).
I've definitely fallen out of the target demographics of the gaming industry so perhaps my opinion doesn't have much weight, but it seems like these days there really isn't any good reason to buy the new consoles as they come out. They don't offer any particularly amazing exclusives to hook you in, they aren't that much better than their predecessors in performance or graphics, and the improvements they do provide are dwarfed by the ridiculous price tags of the consoles themselves and the games. The only reasons to buy a new gen console these days are 1. You aren't struggling with money and can afford it because why not, or 2. There is a particular game you really, really want to play (and also you can afford it). It doesn't feel like you get your money's worth with them at all. The base PS4 still holds up extremely well these days, has a great library of games, and more importantly, doesn't cost the same as a second-hand car.
And again, maybe this is just me being really out of touch with the gaming masses (keeping in mind I've never played a CoD game), but the new big triple-A games very rarely seem worth it these days in the way they were only 5 years ago; indie games are the way to go now, and they can often run on just about anything. At least that's how it feels sometimes. Then again, the new iPhones always sell like fire and I don't get that either. Am I out of touch? No, it's the consumers who are wrong.
This is more of a Xbox issue than an industry issue. The PS5 is selling well, and the switch 2 just had the best launch of any console ever, sales wise.
It really doesn’t. Very few to no games come out on it, and there is definitely no cars you can buy for $500, which is the cost of a PS5.
Just for fun I pulled up a second hand car sales website and it gives me 1487 results for a car between €400 and €500.
I sold my PS5 for the cost of a used car because it doesn't provide anything extra that my PC can't do.
I've had consoles since the early days. I've owned an NES, PS1-2-3-4 and 5, and an OG Xbox, plus some handhelds like the OG Gameboy, Gameboy Color, DS, and PSP. The PS5 is the only one I've sold.
You must live in a different market. €500 is "probably doesn't start and definitely won't pass it's next roadworthiness test without repair" level
The Dutch market is known for being more expensive than their neighbouring car markets. It's not going to be a pretty car, but a cheap clanker that will shake you to your destination. Think 1996 Suzuki Alto, but functional.
Or an actual one: 2003 Nissan Micra with 155k miles. It'll drive. Won't be pretty. But it'll go.
I'm referring more to the backlog of games on the PS4. Again, I'm definitely not representative of the masses, but I care more about playing games that are good than games that are brand new, and I can still have fun on the PS4 with all the games available. I can buy a half dozen triple-A titles for $40 in my local second-hand games store, and that will get me easily several month's worth of entertainment or more.
Of course (and this is the kicker), I do have a PC that's capable of running most new releases, and that is certainly not something the average gamer will have. I don't really play games on it, but in the event that I wanted to play a brand-new release, I have the easy option of getting it on Steam, rather than having to buy a brand-new system. I get how others without the option would gravitate toward buying a new-gen console, but personally, I'm always happy to wait for a game to become available rather than needing to play it as soon as it releases.
The PS4 game library is also kind of a selling point for the PS5, since it’s back-compatible. Mine has gotten a fair amount of use as a “PS4 Pro Max” that loads games more quickly and can run at a solid 60FPS (and occasionally where devs have pushed updates, uncapped) in cases where the PS4 struggled.
As always with games, it's a social thing.
People like new stuff, people like to enjoy new stuff, people like to be among the firsts to enjoy new stuff, people like to enjoy it together.
FOMO is very big and people don't like to miss out on new experiences.
The Other Frost recently spilled some funny wisdom about how the "Everything is an Xbox" campaign is really the result of the console market (or their console, specifically) breathing its last breath
The Braum's comparison is a unique lense. I remember people buying PlayStations to watch Blu-rays, but I can't remember anyone ever buying an Xbox for media, especially when cheap streaming boxes exist.
For sure, I'd actually argue that the last breath is gone and Microsoft has already swallowed the soul and is now parrading the corpse of the Xbox brand in front of people to make the transition to the more typical acquisition based software service offering that MS is more comfortable with, more appealing.
I know exactly one person with a PS5, and exactly zero people with an xbox. All my friends bought PCs for the first time during 2020 lockdowns, and nobody I know has bought a console since. I think that consoles just don't have the appeal that they did, since everything else is slowly but surely catching up.