Hello, I’ve been a gamer since the dark ages (Sega Master System) and have had PlayStation consoles since the ps1. I did have an original Xbox (still have it) but didn’t follow a long with Microsoft at all after that. Going into 2024, I’m feeling like Sony is getting a bit stale with the games selection and its offerings for the price of their subscriptions. I’ve been thinking about picking up an Xbox x and wondering what the pros and cons would be compared to the ps5? I see the Xbox x is on sale at quite a few places for $349 to $399as well. Thanks, in advance!
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Life long PS owner thinking of switching to Xbox?
- Thread starter delsoul
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Game pass is an obvious pro. I really like Quick Resume, which lets you seamlessly switch between multiple games without losing your place or reloading. The backwards compatibility with the admittedly somewhat limited number of Original Xbox & 360 titles is pretty great too, especially on those that get a resolution boost.
For cons, there is just less exclusives. Getting more fast storage is more expensive too, PS5 lets you use standard M.2 SSDs while Xbox requires Xbox specific options. You can use USB drives for older games or as storage for newer games at least though.
Technically the Xbox Series X is more powerful but it doesn't seem to show up a whole lot. Games between the two are generally similar.
For cons, there is just less exclusives. Getting more fast storage is more expensive too, PS5 lets you use standard M.2 SSDs while Xbox requires Xbox specific options. You can use USB drives for older games or as storage for newer games at least though.
Technically the Xbox Series X is more powerful but it doesn't seem to show up a whole lot. Games between the two are generally similar.
I ended up getting an XBx while they still had them in stock since they were selling out fast due to the $349 price tag. Just got done setting it up and so far so good aside from a few things I’m finding really confusing. I don’t see Xbox gold anywhere but I see the game passes. I thought you need gold pass to go online and then the game pass is to play their online game library? I’m surprised to find a lot of the old original Xbox games I used to play are actually available on the system too, very cool!
They renamed Xbox Live Gold to Xbox Game Pass Core recently.
Right now, game pass has 3 plans. Core lets you play online and gives a small selection of games to play, console Game Pass gives you the console game pass library but no online play and Game Pass Ultimate lets you play online and gives you the full console game pass library + PC game pass + EA play.
If you have the original discs for backwards compatible games you can just pop them in.
i was thinking of getting a series s. like you a sony user, ps1, ps4, psp, now ps5.
for me the attraction was/is starfield, plus the thought of future bethesda exclusives, plus this mythical omg game pass.
thankfully someone suggested trying it on my samsung tv. it actually works well, virtually no lag. not saying it would handle online fifa but....
however.. underwhelmed by starfield (so far but still trying). tbh for me, game pass looks like PS Plus premium. the only difference is the couple of microsoft first party games will go straight to game pass. as a brand new user i was expecting to see tons of games i wanted to try. Outside of starfield, i thought well Lies of P is free whereas on PS5 id have to pay for it. and thats about it. maybe the old halo games, maybe. Honestly a brand new player would get far better games in a years PS Plus than game pass.
and tbh the future of bethesda for me isn't looking as bright as id thought. when microsoft bought them i thought oh no, need to get an xbox. Bethesday of the past....fallout 3/NV/4, Prey, Wolfenstein, Dishonored......
But Bethesday of the present. deathloop, looks and sounds like it should be great but cant get into it. ghostwire. meh. redfall, aspires to be meh. starfield, hmmm..
Game Pass is a pro AND a con, because as an example I bought the new Dead Space, only for it to be on Game Pass 5 or 6 months later. You have no idea what games will and won’t be on the service so may very well find yourself paying premium prices for digital games or disk ones, only for those games to be on Game Pass a few months later. Also the endless forced ads on the dashboard are annoying as heck and I found them to be very intrusive, you were allowed to customise the dashboard however you wanted till Microsoft changed it to the total opposite so now have very little customisation allowed.
But Quick Resume is one fantastic feature, Microsoft also has great refund policies. I sold my Series X due to the forced ads and that Starfield was very boring to me, and no new Gears of War was on the horizon and State Of Decay 3 has no release date, those were the only real big games I was interested in. I switched back to PlayStation.
GP is akin to Netflix, HBO, Disney or other streaming services.
Some people only watch 1 show but pay for the full service.
Other people tap into everything but not finish anything.
Third people binge watch everything.
This pretty much sums up the clientele of the GP. I do not use streaming services just because i don't watch TV so money wasted.
GP has clear picture: you either pay for it and enjoy all or some as in examples above. Or there are many people who don't pay GP and but straight what they want on sales: without caring if it will make it to GP.
Also GP saves are not transferable, so if you made big progress and the game is pulled, you have to buy a game and start over.
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PS 5 vs Xbox is quite easy choice.
Xbox - the best value for beginners. Beginners have not played anything in the last decade or more and will be happy to tap into endless GP. Also ton of 3 party like RDR1, RDR2, GTA4, GTA5 or *insert name of the game which is available on PC/PS/XBox
Price: Hogwarts was $20 and many sales like this on xbox due to promos on various websites.
Also console itself was $150 cheaper to boot with.
Controller: some heavily prefer xbox joy feel.
Saves: free cloud save
Network: if your friends on Xbox then you are tied to xbox if you want to play together.
PS5 - you either played them all (above 3rd party games) and seeking for new or you have limited time and interested in Sony 1st party games.
Controller: technologically light years ahead of xbox but ergonomically is not one's cup of tea. If you are ok with it then great.
Price: no sales prices aside BF 1 day deals, and games are full price. If games are discounted then it will be priced on par with Xbox US prices - Xbox games are priced the same, and only offer huge discount due to games bought in other countries.
Game saves: pay for cloud saving or do manually via usb stick.
Network: if your friends on PS then you are tied to PS if you want to play together.
In conclusion, if money is totally no object, then PS5 all the way - you can just buy your way out of all the GP and sale items box has to offer. But if money is limited, then I saw people with 400-700 games libraries(backlogs) on xbox far more frequently than the same speed of acquisition on PS.
Performance can be excluded cause it is a long topic. For example RDR1 got 60fps update for PS5, but RDR2 is worse on PS5. Xbox RDR1 is capped at 30FPS, while RDR2 is better on Xbox.
It is just easier to say that performance is equal cause there are games that work better on one or the other - eventually they will be patched to run more or less the same.
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agree with a lot of it but disagree with two fundamental bits of the PS5 description. Firstly i think a lot of people over estimate the difference between game pass and PS Plus. what i would say is that a) GamePass gets some big games straight away, but these are relatively few and far between. PS Plus tends to get them a year later. Plus i guess the other thing i need to remember is that PS Plus gives a lot of its best games as monthly games, so signing up for PS Plus isnt going to instantly get you the same library that say i have having had PS Plus for about 5 years. Given that people can only play so many games realistically, i dont think you are really worse off getting a lot of the ps plus games on the basis of 6-8 new games every month (3-4 monthly, and 3-4 newly added for extra/premium). If you had PS Plus just for 2023 you would have got 37 monthly games including Saints Row, PGA Tour 2k23, Alan Wake remastered, COD Black Ops cold war, NBA2k23, Star Wars Jedi fallen order.
As an immediate start, PS Plus extra has 400 games including Horizon Forbidden West, Ghost of Tsushima, Uncharted Collection, Deathloop, Yakuza, GTA5,. Im sure Game Pass has more but how many games can you play a month?
as someone recent to Game pass, i was completely underwhelmed. Starfield and Lies of P basically. Admittedly there's a lot of games there that ive already played on PS4/5.
the second thing i disagreed with was the bizarre 'no sales prices aside BF 1 day deals'. I never pay full price for a game (GTA5 was the only) as the PS store has constant sales.
Bit of a flaw with your first comment, you need Game Pass to play online. Even the new base package still has games in it. Plus the 15 rows of mandatory ads on your dashboard mostly promoting Game Pass.
Also Sony has constant sales on, no idea why you think otherwise? In fact IMO Sony has more sales then Microsoft do. And that's been since the 350 / PS3 days.
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I got a PS5 and Series S, I only use my PS5 for GTA, cod, and FIFA but I use my Series S for all the older titles on Game Pass. I got 13 months of Ultimate Game Pass for $34 so for me I prefer Game Pass since it's cheaper compared to PlayStation. I'm not paying $60-$80 for PS Plus to play Cod and GTA even though I like the dualsense. Game Pass will be better once Call of Duty goes on Game Pass.
I think Game Pass tends to get a new release once a month or so on average. Like just the past few months it got:
Starfield, Lies of P, new Forza Motorsports, Persona 5 Tactica, Like a Dragon: The Man who erased his name, Exoprimal, plus some smaller games like Party Animals, and Cocoon.
Something I have noticed with the PS5 is Sonys implementation of upgrading your existing games is atrocious, truly is. I updated my Doom Eternal to the PS5 version and instead of just updating my existing game, like how Microsoft do it, it downloaded an entirely new copy of the game so I had 2, one for PS5 and one for PS4, Xbox Series is MUCH better with that I have to say.
yeah you are right, my wording was wrong, i guess what i meant was a new AAA game that interested me. As a new game pass user (on my tv but still thinking is it worth buying a series s) i thought i would see tons of games that interested me, but starfield i cant get on my ps5 and lies of P its free when it would cost me €40 on my ps5.
Pros and cons. MS's setup is simpler but it also means you can't run the Xbox One version on Series X|S if both versions exist. If you care about performance more than graphics sometimes the best performing console version is the PS4 version running on PS5.
If you like Yakuza check out Like a Dragon, they renamed the series to be more in line with the Japanese name and non-Yakuza focus of some titles.
Quick resume is probably the most underrated feature of Series X. I recently got a gaming PC and at the lack of the feature is highly noticeable.
As a dad, I'm busy and alway try to squeeze in gaming sessions where I can even if they are 10-30min. On the XSX there is minimal friction to gaming. Thank to quick resume I can fire up any of my games and instantly resume where I was. No need to wait for loading time or navigate menus to pick up where I left.
Some games don't have manual saving such as Alan Wake 2. Other game do but not in some missions or quests. When playing on PC, this is a problem.
Some missions are 40-60min long but I don't know which ones. If I need to go to bed or attend the kids whilst half way through, I will lose my progress if I switch off the PC. I will not put the PC on sleep for 1-4 days as it consumes too much power.On the Xbox, I can pause any game by pressing start or switching to another title. Without fail, the game will resume even if the Xbox has been unplugged for days. I travel with my XBX between mine and my GF house.
I love that I can be inside a game where I left off, within 10 seconds of pressing the power button. MS has a mixed history when it comes to software innovation but quick resume is one that works flawlessly.
Series x is so underrated for many reasons.Quick resume is probably the most underrated feature of Series X. I recently got a gaming PC and at the lack of the feature is highly noticeable.
As a dad, I'm busy and alway try to squeeze in gaming sessions where I can even if they are 10-30min. On the XSX there is minimal friction to gaming. Thank to quick resume I can fire up any of my games and instantly resume where I was. No need to wait for loading time or navigate menus to pick up where I left.
Some games don't have manual saving such as Alan Wake 2. Other game do but not in some missions or quests. When playing on PC, this is a problem.
On the Xbox, I can pause any game by pressing start or switching to another title. Without fail, the game will resume even if the Xbox has been unplugged for days. I travel with my XBX between mine and my GF house.
I love that I can be inside a game where I left off, within 10 seconds of pressing the power button. MS has a mixed history when it comes to software innovation but quick resume is one that works flawlessly.
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It has more pros and cons. Sales in the Xbox store are frequent and at 30-70%. If you don't desperately need a game on launch day, a 3-12 month wait will allow you to either play it on gamepass, buy at a discount or get a used copy on eBay.
However the Series X is missing killer triple A role-player titles.
IMO. If you can, you should own both a PS5 and XSX/XSS if you. They are complementary.
I would get the series x with the disc drive. The games take up a lot of space honestly I even had to buy an expansion card lol. I like the Xbox controllers better than PS personally. the backwards compatibility is awesome as well! Buy used games online much cheaper.
Small update…the Xbox has been getting a ton of use and the PS5/Switch have been practically just sitting and maybe turned on once just to watch a movie (already logged in there, didn’t want to go through the process again). Been playing a lot of battlefield 5 (how do you go from THAT to 2042??), a bit of Starfield, and Dead Space on the game pass. I tried Hellblade but couldn’t really get into it at all. I can see where PS5 has a leg up on a few more blockbuster titles (I was before the time gaming was taken over by business majors with their AAA business jargon, etc) but I feel like the majority of everything else is very solid on the Xbox. I do like that they automatically give you the best and most optimized version instead of making you pick between the ps4 and ps5 versions, etc. Just one less thing have to deal with.
My experience is the polar opposite. I too was a long time PS user, and I bought an Xbox. I found the Xbox was collecting dust and unused where as I wanted to get back to the playstation. I bought a PS5 this past year, and that is getting more use then my Xbox.
the gamepass is certainly better then Sony's subscription, but I guess I just enjoy the ecosystem better. I found the games on sony are just plain better. What exclusives does Xbox have? Right now its rather threadbare. I think for games that are on both platforms its a toss up, both platforms handles those games equally well, though I do like Sony's controller then the Xbox - personal preference.
I'm totally the opposite. I have always been platform agnostic but primarily an XBOX gamer but I always buy every console at launch, regardless. I have found myself gravitating towards the Switch and the PS5 both because of their exclusives. Microsoft's exclusives have been underwhelming with Refall, Starfield and then the new Forza Motorsport. I love Sony's exclusives as well as anything Nintendo puts out.
As a person who missed on the gaming from 2010, enjoying xbox to catchup on games because bought 10 titles for 60 dollars. On ps that would have cost me a ton more.
The gampass subscription was the very reason why I switched over to the xbox and the fact the microsoft bought bethesda, which meant the yet unreleased game starfield wasn't going on the playstation platform. With that said, I already owned a ton of bethesda titles for the Playstation.
My experience isn't everyone's but I found the playstation platform to be superior - again a personal preference
plus bethesda isnt the bethesda of old, and thats not microsoft's fault but its imho clearly true.
the bethesda of old made Fallout 3/4/NV, the Dishonoured series, Doom, the wolfenstein games, Prey. At least 6 of my top 20 games ever are in that pile.
Draw a line at 2020.
the Bethesday after 2020....
Deathloop. reviews are mixed.
Ghostwire:tokyo. reviews are meh.
Hi Fi Rush. lets not even go there.
Redfall. reviews are bad.
starfield. reviews are meh.
seems to me that microsoft spending billions on bethesda would have been like if Messi had got injured when he arrived at Inter Miami and was never the same player again.