Have PS5 and XBX under delivered?

[Macalicious2011]

I have had my Series X for a year now. I love it. Fan noise is inaudible compared with my PS4 Pro that it replaced, loading times for 90% of games aren't even long enough to refill a glass of water. My favourite feature by far is quick resume. It's magical how I can jump back into a game that I haven't played in 2 months, without having to load from intro screen.

However. On the graphical front, I feel somewhat disappointed and oversold by both the Series X and PS5. With the exception of a few titles like Spiderman 2, Flight Simulator and Forza Horizon 5, the majority of titles feel like previous gen games. Removing checker boarding and bumping up frame rate to 60fps doesn't look ground breaking enough.

The marketing material for both titles hyped up 120fps, 4k, HDR, Ray Tracing and even 8k. An asterisk should be added to each of those. In most games, native 4k is a trade off in fps down to 30fps. Likewise 60-120fps means no ray tracing or 4k resolution. Alan Wake 2 looks good on the PS5 and Series X but visuals are noticeably inferior to PC.

Developers are resourced pressured. If feel like for console, they optimise for lowest common denominator - especially for fps games for which the total number of players is more financially motivating than winning awards for stunning visuals. This is unlikely to change. On PC, performance scale with hardware. If you are unhappy with the graphics, you can download shaders that make a 5 year old game look new.

PS5 slim lacks a power increase. Even if it has a 20-30% one, I don't think that most developers would have bothered optimising for it. Starfield is a 30fps flagship title! Sure, it was in development before MS acquired the studio but they still had the specs of the Series X 3 years ago! Therefore, I can't even count on first party titles to visually blow me away.

I will keep the Series but made the big decision this week to order my first PC in 18 years! Look forward to gaming on to play both Xbox titles and PS5 titles like the Last of Us and Spiderman.

Is anyone else a bit disappointed in current gen consoles?

 

[Heat_Fan89]

I have had my Series X for a year now. I love it. Fan noise is inaudible compared with my PS4 Pro that it replaced, loading times for 90% of games aren't even long enough to refill a glass of water. My favourite feature by far is quick resume. It's magical how I can jump back into a game that I haven't played in 2 months, without having to load from intro screen.

However. On the graphical front, I feel somewhat disappointed and oversold by both the Series X and PS5. With the exception of a few titles like Spiderman 2, Flight Simulator and Forza Horizon 5, the majority of titles feel like previous gen games. Removing checker boarding and bumping up frame rate to 60fps doesn't look ground breaking enough.

The marketing material for both titles hyped up 120fps, 4k, HDR, Ray Tracing and even 8k. An asterisk should be added to each of those. In most games, native 4k is a trade off in fps down to 30fps. Likewise 60-120fps means no ray tracing or 4k resolution. Alan Wake 2 looks good on the PS5 and Series X but visuals are noticeably inferior to PC.

Developers are resourced pressured. If feel like for console, they optimise for lowest common denominator - especially for fps games for which the total number of players is more financially motivating than winning awards for stunning visuals. This is unlikely to change. On PC, performance scale with hardware. If you are unhappy with the graphics, you can download shaders that make a 5 year old game look new.

PS5 slim lacks a power increase. Even if it has a 20-30% one, I don't think that most developers would have bothered optimising for it. Starfield is a 30fps flagship title! Sure, it was in development before MS acquired the studio but they still had the specs of the Series X 3 years ago! Therefore, I can't even count on first party titles to visually blow me away.

I will keep the Series but made the big decision this week to order my first PC in 18 years! Look forward to gaming on to play both Xbox titles and PS5 titles like the Last of Us and Spiderman.

Is anyone else a bit disappointed in current gen consoles?

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I would say they have delivered. The last pic is just marketing like the MPG sticker on a new car. I have an i9-10850K CPU, with 32GB of RAM, an RTX 3080 with a Gen4 Samsung NVME drive. My Series X plays Microsoft Flight Simulator in 4K better than my gaming rig albeit at 30 FPS. Both the PS5 and Series X are a low cost match with today's mid spec gaming rigs at less than half the price. Deathloop on either console @ 4K goes toe to toe with a modern gaming rig costing much more. In fact unless I stare at both screens, I wouldn't be able to tell you if it was a console or gaming rig playing the game. MSFS 2020 looks just as good on the Series X as it does on a PC gaming rig.

If I didn't have a gaming rig and I had to choose between the two, I would pick either of the latest consoles. My predication for next gen consoles is that they will comfortably handle 4K at a solid 60FPS. 8K TV's are not even mainstream, yet.

 

[Pezimak]

Ignore the marketing gumpf, but remember they have had to both deal with launching a new gen of consoles during a global pandemic with the world on lockdown, so they have had to play catchup delivering the games, and still are. Plus devs have had to get to grips with Unreal Engine 5.
So they have delivered really considering and have released some good games. Plenty more to come too.

 

[Macalicious2011]

I have an i9-10850K CPU, with 32GB of RAM, an RTX 3080 with a Gen4 Samsung NVME drive. My Series X plays Microsoft Flight Simulator in 4K better than my gaming rig albeit at 30 FPS. Both the PS5 and Series X are a low cost match with today's mid spec gaming rigs at less than half the price. Deathloop on either console @ 4K goes toe to toe with a modern gaming rig costing much more. In fact unless I stare at both screens, I wouldn't be able to tell you if it was a console or gaming rig playing the game. MSFS 2020 looks just as good on the Series X as it does on a PC gaming rig.

That’s interesting to learn. I have played FS since launch day and it’s an exceptional showcase of the Series X. Just fire the game up and play. No need to spend £2k on a computer or endlessly tinker with settings.

I have ordered a gaming computer with similar power to your machine.

AMD Ryzen 7 5800X 3D - 8 Core, 16 Thread, 4.5GHz Boost
MSI VENTUS 2X RTX 4070 12GB Graphics Card
Gigabyte B550 AORUS ELITE WIFI V2 ATX Motherboard
Corsair 16GB Vengeance RGB (2x8GB) 3200Mhz DDR4 Memory
Western Digital SN350 2TB NVME M.2 SSD - Read 3200MB/s , Write 3200MB/s
Adata XPG GAMMIX S70 BLADE 1TB SSD Gen 4 NVME PCIe M.2 Solid State Drive

Ignore the marketing gumpf, but remember they have had to both deal with launching a new gen of consoles during a global pandemic with the world on lockdown, so they have had to play catchup delivering the games, and still are. Plus devs have had to get to grips with Unreal Engine 5.
So they have delivered really considering and have released some good games. Plenty more to come too.

Valid point. Big titles take 4-7 years to develop. Most studios couldn’t start developing for the PS5/XSX before final hardware and software were shipping to retail. Unreal Engine 5 is barely out of beta. Therefore, the best UE5 tiles are a few years away. However, I’m also excited about titles that use other engines!

 

[Heat_Fan89]

That’s interesting to learn. I have played FS since launch day and it’s an exceptional showcase of the Series X. Just fire the game up and play. No need to spend £2k on a computer or endlessly tinker with settings.

I have ordered a gaming computer with similar power to your machine.

AMD Ryzen 7 5800X 3D - 8 Core, 16 Thread, 4.5GHz Boost
MSI VENTUS 2X RTX 4070 12GB Graphics Card
Gigabyte B550 AORUS ELITE WIFI V2 ATX Motherboard
Corsair 16GB Vengeance RGB (2x8GB) 3200Mhz DDR4 Memory
Western Digital SN350 2TB NVME M.2 SSD - Read 3200MB/s , Write 3200MB/s
Adata XPG GAMMIX S70 BLADE 1TB SSD Gen 4 NVME PCIe M.2 Solid State Drive


Valid point. Big titles take 4-7 years to develop. Most studios couldn’t start developing for the PS5/XSX before final hardware and software were shipping to retail. Unreal Engine 5 is barely out of beta. Therefore, the best UE5 tiles are a few years away. However, I’m also excited about titles that use other engines!

The one point to keep in mind is that videogames today are rarely developed only for the PC. If ANY game is a multiplatform title, it is typically designed first around the latest console. In fact Microsoft came out and said that MSFS 2020 would use the software technology it learned by optimizing the Series X/S versions and use that to optimize the PC version.

When I play MSFS 2020 on my PC rig, I "always" encounter stuttering and micro-pauses as soon as I get to an airport. It doesn't matter if it's a small regional airport and i'm flying a Skyhawk Cessna. This happens with my i9-10850K rig in 4K or 1080P and my Alienware rig with a 3800X and RTX 2070 Super with 32GB of system RAM in 1080P. Everything is smooth up until I approach an airport.

On the Series X, that's never a problem except I prefer playing in 60FPS with DLSS turned on.

 

[MisterSavage]

I'm happy. You're never going to have a several year old console that is topping current gen PC visuals.

 

[C7 POWER]

I have both the PS5 and Series X, since launch day. I feel the Series X has been a huge let down, mainly it just doesnt feel like its a next gen console. I upgraded from the One X. The PS5 I feel the console, the controller, etc feels next gen. 90% of my console time is on my PS5, I go several months at a time without using the Series X

 

[MisterSavage]

The PS5 I feel the console, the controller, etc feels next gen.

It also feels next gen when game updates don't feel like they're updating in slow motion.

 

[Heat_Fan89]

I'm happy. You're never going to have a several year old console that is topping current gen PC visuals.

But those PC games will probably be designed around the consoles then ported over to the PC side. So all the assets will be pretty much the same. The only difference will be is that you'll be able to tweak the graphics settings and run them at a higher framerate (maybe) because we've seen console games ported to the PC suffer performance issues. The game developer will make compromises that will insure the games look good enough.

And I honestly would not be able to tell the difference unless I starred at the screen looking for the difference. All the multiplatform games I have played, look basically the same on the latest consoles as they do on my gaming rigs in 4K. If there are any differences, they are good enough and a $500 console vs a $2500 plus gaming rig is enough to lean me towards the console.

 

[salamanderjuice]

I have both the PS5 and Series X, since launch day. I feel the Series X has been a huge let down, mainly it just doesnt feel like its a next gen console. I upgraded from the One X. The PS5 I feel the console, the controller, etc feels next gen. 90% of my console time is on my PS5, I go several months at a time without using the Series X

Quick Resume on Xbox feels really next gen to me. The ability to just swap games and be exactly where you were is incredible. Wish it was everywhere.

 

[Macalicious2011]

Quick Resume on Xbox feels really next gen to me. The ability to just swap games and be exactly where you were is incredible. Wish it was everywhere.

Is the quick resume feature on the PS5 as good?

But those PC games will probably be designed around the consoles then ported over to the PC side. So all the assets will be pretty much the same.

For some games, there are shaders that can bump up the visuals of a 3-5 year old game that doesn’t maximise your hardware. However, it makes sense that textures are the same across consoles and PC. Developers build for the lowest common denominator or 80% of hardware, rather than optimising for the top 20%.

I have both the PS5 and Series X, since launch day. I feel the Series X has been a huge let down, mainly it just doesnt feel like its a next gen console. I upgraded from the One X. The PS5 I feel the console, the controller, etc feels next gen. 90% of my console time is on my PS5, I go several months at a time without using the Series X

I will see how I feel about the Series X after owning a gaming PC for a few months. My gamepass ultimate subscription ends in 10 months and has been brilliant for trying games that I would otherwise not have purchased, and I own an Xbox backpack that I use to transport the console between mine and my GFs house. I would be tempted to replace it with a PS5 but might not, if the Spider-Man and Last of us titles are as good on PC.

 

[salamanderjuice]

Is the quick resume feature on the PS5 as good?

No, it just skips some of the splash pages booting a game. Doesn't put you back exactly where you were when you swapped.

 

[diamond.g]

My predication for next gen consoles is that they will comfortably handle 4K at a solid 60FPS. 8K TV's are not even mainstream, yet.

I am 100% comfortable with saying the next consoles will heavily rely on upscaling to do 4k60, more so than they do now. Native resolution gaming is all but dead these days.

 

[Macalicious2011]

No, it just skips some of the splash pages booting a game. Doesn't put you back exactly where you were when you swapped.

That’s a bummer. Quick resume is a saving grace for big games that take “long“ to load. I can jump from Street Fighter to Cyberpunk and then to Flight simulator where I resume straight into my favorite route and plane.

Do PCs have quick resume? If not then I will greatly miss the feature!

I am 100% comfortable with saying the next consoles will heavily rely on upscaling to do 4k60, more so than they do now. Native resolution gaming is all but dead these days.

I agree on this. Gaming is also changing. Mobile games are greater revenue generators than desktop of console games. Console manufacturers and developers will pivot accordingly.

 

[diamond.g]

That’s a bummer. Quick resume is a saving grace for big games that take “long“ to load. I can jump from Street Fighter to Cyberpunk and then to Flight simulator where I resume straight into my favorite route and plane.

Do PCs have quick resume? If not then I will greatly miss the feature!


I agree on this. Gaming is also changing. Mobile games are greater revenue generators than desktop of console games. Console manufacturers and developers will pivot accordingly.

PC's can have quick resume if you don't close the game.... (that is more or less what Xbox is doing and why you can only quick resume from 3 games at a time)


I am interested in knowing how much money Capcom made from the mobile version of RE8. They will likely never break those numbers out.

 

[salamanderjuice]

PC's can have quick resume if you don't close the game.... (that is more or less what Xbox is doing and why you can only quick resume from 3 games at a time)


I am interested in knowing how much money Capcom made from the mobile version of RE8. They will likely never break those numbers out.

No, it's not the same. For starters, Quick Resume survives turning off the console and moving it. It saves the state to disk, not RAM. You can also Quick Resume a lot more than 3 titles. It depends on the memory usage of the games. You can cram a good number of 360 and Xbox games in there.

On PC it's still sadly a crap shoot if alt+tab will mess up a game, let alone suspend.

 

[diamond.g]

No, it's not the same. For starters, Quick Resume survives turning off the console and moving it. It saves the state to disk, not RAM. You can also Quick Resume a lot more than 3 titles. It depends on the memory usage of the games. You can cram a good number of 360 and Xbox games in there.

On PC it's still sadly a crap shoot if alt+tab will mess up a game, let alone suspend.

On PC you'd have to pause the game (if it can be paused) then switch out, but it won't suspend the same way it does on Xbox, so any other game launched will be competing for resources. It would be cool if MS allowed it for PC Gamepass games, since you have to use the Xbox store to get them. They could have set it up the same way each game is a VM on Xbox proper. But they didn't, so here we are.



I saw online that only 3 QR sessions could be saved. To be honest I don't play the Series S, my son does and outside of him playing Starfield I dunno what other games he plays or if he uses the feature, so I have no clue. I know the PS5 doesn't have an equivalent (the closest they have is the ability to jump to a challenge from the home screen and that isn't a feature in every game).

 

[headlessmike]

Many games today are released for both the current and previous generations of consoles. It makes sense given how similar they are in terms of architecture, but it's probably holding them back a bit too and explains why the differences aren't always that great. In the past, the previous generations didn't linger around with the same level of support as they are getting today.

 

[Heat_Fan89]

For some games, there are shaders that can bump up the visuals of a 3-5 year old game that doesn’t maximise your hardware. However, it makes sense that textures are the same across consoles and PC. Developers build for the lowest common denominator or 80% of hardware, rather than optimising for the top 20%.

But the question remains at least for me, is that enough to justify spending thousands on a current gaming rig or just sticking with the latest console where I might find it hard to tell the differences between the two? That's the pull towards gaming on a console and yes the lowest common denominator are the consoles which is why we have yet to see BG3 on the Series X because Microsoft wanted parity between the Series X and S consoles.

I also would hedge a bet that console game sales are probably a lot higher than the same game on the PC. That's why developers target the consoles as a base for development.

 

[Macalicious2011]

I am interested in knowing how much money Capcom made from the mobile version of RE8. They will likely never break those numbers out.

Genshin impact has only existed since 2020 but averages over $1b per year. Full fat version of resident evil is now available on the iPhone 15. If Apple’s SoC keep sustain their rate of improvement over the coming years, there will incentive to buy a console if you can get 80% of the experience on the mobile device that’s always with you.

Mobile gaming is the biggest reason why MS was super keen to acquire Blizzard Activition. They are also pivoting Xbox towards become a service/eco-system rather than a service. Hence why I believe that current gen consoles may be the last to be a spec sheet war. The spec war isn’t even exciting this time as PS5 and Series X performance the same in almost all games because developers don’t like to waste money on console specific optimisation.

Many games today are released for both the current and previous generations of consoles. It makes sense given how similar they are in terms of architecture, but it's probably holding them back a bit too and explains why the differences aren't always that great. In the past, the previous generations didn't linger around with the same level of support as they are getting today.

Good point. For the first 2 years of the PS5 and Series X, we were mainly playing backwards compatible games. However, it’s not uncommon for the best optimised games to launch towards the latter years of console‘s life cycle.

 

[Spaceboi Scaphandre]

The consoles are fine on a technical level they just need games. It's been dry for exclusives for both, moreso for Xbox.

 

[Zest28]

I was playing the latest Forza Motorport on my M1 iPad Pro (120 hz mini-LED display) and it looked incredible. Closest thing to real life I have seen.

And with games like Diablo 4, the difference between the $499 Xbox Series X and a high-end gaming PC for alot of $$$$$ isn’t much.

So the graphics of the Xbox Series X is fine to me.

 

[Macalicious2011]

My PC arrives this weekend. Will let you know next week what i think of it vs the XSX

 

[delsoul]

I only have experience with PS5 and while there’s no doubts it’s a capable and technological wonder, the supply of quality games is very questionable. They offer a few exclusives, a handful of remakes, and that’s about it. I’ve had PlayStations since the first model and never seen such a dry spell of decent games as I do currently. In that sense, I feel they’ve definitely under delivered

 

[Zest28]

GTA 6 will only launch on Xbox Series X and Playstation 5. So there is that. No mention of PC.