There are close to 500 more total games available on PS4 than Xbox One. It’s library is roughly 18% larger in sheer number of titles to play.
Way to selectivity quote, Brad. Jeezus, some people…
Digital Foundry Division 2 next gen upgrade comparison.
I haven’t seen the video yet, but it’s nice to read that that the Xbox Series S gets all the visual enhancements of the Xbox One X, but at 60fps instead of 30fps, and a lower resolution target (900p to 1080p). Series X gets 60fps at 1800p-2160p. And PS5 gets 60fps at 1080p to 1890p. It sounds like there’s some bugs with the PS5 version that I’m assuming will get fixed.
Still, it’s pretty cool that the Series S, in this case, didn’t get the visuals of the Xbox One, but the enhanced visuals of the Xbox One X, but at double the frame rate. This is what I was hoping to see for most games for the Series S. Higher frame rate, but same visual features, and limit the resolution to 1080p.
Chip shortages (and, perhaps, implied, the low margin nature of consoles) due to stockpiling and preferential demand for smartphones has predictions being made that console shortages will last to the end of 2021.
I suppose this is the thread to make this observation. It always seems to me that prices are better on the Xbox store, and mostly not locked being having a Gold membership (though there are additional sales every week for those folks). Case in point this week- Sony is doing a Double Discount sale for those with PS+. Sounds great! But the prices are exactly the same for everyone on the Xbox store, with or without Gold, for the same games and bundles, so it’s a little disingenuous. For a while I was checking both stores every week to see if there was a deal on anything I wanted, and nearly always if there was a price difference, it was cheaper on the Xbone, so I just kind of stopped checking Sony- I really only did after a while in case there were any good VR games, but it turns out those very seldom go on sale. Meh.
I haven’t done a study on it, but just from casual observation, I’d say it can go either way. Sometimes I buy a game on the Xbox sale, and notice that it’s on sale on PSN the same week, but is much more expensive. But other times I’ve bought stuff on the Xbox sale and noticed it’s slightly cheaper on the subsequent PSN sale.
Mostly I stick to PS exclusives on the playstation, so it’s not really an issue for me either way.
Yeah, it was just a casual thing for me, too. And yup, mostly use the PS4 Pro for exclusives, too. In fact, this post was prompted by hearing Dreams was on sale, and that’s something I’d like to check out in VR. It was $15 ($10 with Plus), so I bit. But while browsing around I saw some stuff I’d noticed on the Xbox sale this week- Xcom 2 Collection and Borderlands 3, for example. And the non-Plus prices were crazy for being on sale, so I started doing comparisons using a non-logged-in browser on the Xbox site and confirmed it.
Yeah, when I’ve checked on a particular game I was interested in, it seems like the sale sticker price is the same on both platforms (which makes sense, since I assume it is set by the publisher). But the Xbox ecosystem winds up ahead on cost in at least three main ways for me (even aside from the value of Game Pass):
- Constant trickle of rewards points building up in my account from searches, Game Pass quests, etc., automatically converting $10 worth of credit per month for “free”.
- Rebates for major new releases and holiday sales that work out to ~10% back worth of points.
- I wanted a full set of four controllers for couch multiplayer with the family. Doing that for PS5 would have been $210, since the controllers haven’t been on sale and you can’t use PS4 controllers on new games. XSX was $40 for a spare new controller during black friday sale, and then $0 to reuse two old-gen controllers that were lying around.
One thing I’ve noticed about both Xbox Live and PSN is that even though they have special sales for Gold Subscribers and PS+ subscribers only, those same games can be had for the same price or cheaper in other sales, and don’t require PS+ or Gold. For example, this week in the Games with Gold sale, you’ve got the Kingdom Hearts games for sale, and a bunch of others like Raji and Void Bastards and Warhammer: Martyr, but those same games were recently on sale as part of the Lunar sale just last week for the same amounts. Similarly, I was not a PS+ member for most of the life of the PS4, and I got games like God of War for $10, Uncharted Collection for $7, etc. Sure, those games were on sale at times for those prices only for PS+ members, but I got them when they were on sale for everyone, not just for PS+ members. So no biggie. No one should be getting these memberships just for sales. The sales come for these games all the time whether you’re a member or not. In fact, Uncharted Collection, I remember getting it for $7 in a general sale for everyone before it was on sale for PS+ members for $10. So I actually got a better deal than the PS+ deal that came later.
Indications of more Sony releases coming to PC.
This is about the PS4/One era of games but you’ll notice it’s a bit lopsided
The list
10 . Spider Man 2018
9 . Death Stranding
8 . Final Fantasy VII Remake
7 . Sekiro
6 . Resident Evil 2
5 . Horizon: Zero Dawn
4 . Ghosts of Tsushima
3 . God of War
2 . The Last of Us Part 2
1 . Red Dead Redemption 2
Honorable Mentions:
- Forza Horizon 4
- Arkham Knight
- Witcher 3
- AC Valhalla
A really great discussion about resolution on Digital Foundry. I queued it up to that discussion, it lasts about 15 minutes, and is worth listening to the whole thing.
For those unable to watch, to briefly touch upon some points, resolution was really important during the PS3/360 era because switching away from CRTs to LED screens, the difference between 600p or 720p was really big in terms of image clarity. Then in the next generation XB1/PS4, it became less important but it was still important. But now in the era of good anti-aliasing techniques, well handled dynamic resolutions, and the distance you sit away from your TV, resolution isn’t really all that important to image clarity anymore, but people still are used to focusing on it out of inertia from previous generations. They discuss that what they need is some other way now to measure image clarity.
(Though, obviously, it’s still an issue on the Switch, resolution is still important there for image clarity).
Yeah, it’s actually funny. The term “native resolution” was born as a term to define a rendering resolution that matched the physical resolution of the display device. That was a useful distinction, especially at the time, but it eventually morphed to a somewhat arbitrary distinction over whether the opaque geometry rendering resolution matched the framebuffer resolution irrespective of the display device. Given the quality achieved using reconstruction and temporal techniques like DLSS, temporal injection, etc, that has become a pretty pointless distinction.
It gets them good will but their catalog isn’t exactly the greatest for preserving. The reason people want Sony and Nintendo to just make every game they ever made available on current platforms is because many of those games are truly classic. Their scarcity is due to actual value of the originals.
Of course to do that takes money, a lot of it. And when they have made those games available whether through Virtual Consoles or re-releases, people also lost their fucking minds at having to pay $5 to play Super Mario Bros. or $8 to play Super Mario World.
So because their catalogs are so sought after, and it’s not as easy as just dropping them into emulators with no QC, they are in a no win situation and always will be.
I’d rather they push forward instead of look back. If Microsoft had new games to sell on Series X they wouldn’t be this focused on the past. Right now it’s all they have.
Holy shit. That is an absolutely amazing post.
Lol. There are zero negatives to this and yet somebody is still shitting on it in defense of their preferred system.
Too popular is the justification for not doing similar? Yet, not popular enough to shell out less than $10$?
You shoulda stopped at youd rather they look forward. Of course that has nothing todo with them working on new stuff as they wouldnt really be competing on resources but at least it is philosophically sound reasoning.
Everyone wants the true classics released on their platform.
No one will pay $5 to play true classics on their platform.
Exactly.
What people actually want is to play the classics for free or be tricked into thinking it was “free” by paying $15 a month for 12 months a year.
And to be clear, it is good PR, but the vast majority of system catalogs on all systems aren’t interesting to the vast majority of gamers, but because all of us, me included, are so deeply caught in the FOMO of gaming, it seems like a greater thing than it is.
If you have a disc or digital license Game Pass isn’t needed on Xbox. Game Pass is just needed to stream via Xcloud.