The Next Generation is Almost Here - PlayStation 5 v. Xbox Series X | S

[etoven]

Going PC/Switch makes a lot of sense.  The main reasons I think the XSX is also interesting despite having a decent PC is that I can't easily attach my PC to my television, they are in different rooms some distance apart, and while I do have that Steam Link it is 1080p only.  For people who can easily run PC games on both their TV or computer setups this isn't an issue but this will vary from person to person.  Additionally, the new consoles will improve the console games we already have, which is a pretty big deal.  I'm much more excited for the next gen for improving current gen right now than I am for new games.

And on that note, we finally know something about PS5 PC and... it has similar framerate improvements to the XSX, and a lot of games run much, much better.  However, it does NOT have similar load times improvements for BC titles.  Instead, it basically runs PS4 games with loading tiumes just as bad as they were on the PS4, instead of dramatically cutting those times as the Xbox does.  Yes, in BC games the "slower" Xbox Series SSDs load significantly faster than the "ultra fast" PS5 one because Sony's trying to match PS4 speeds because they aren't as good at making backwards compatibility. That's not great!  And worse, there are NO drives approved for the internal expansion slot right now.  That will come later. And unlike the XS line, you can NOT back up PS5 games to an external hard drive; external drives are for PS4 games only, no exceptions.  Even save games cannot be backed up manually to a hard drive or such; they are internal or cloud storage only, and the cloud requires Playstation Plus of course.  Ugh.  And remember, the PS5's SSD is on chips soldered to the motherboard.  If those chips fail or run out of rewrites, the thing's basically a giant, expensive paperweight.  In comparison,  the XS has a socketed drive inside it, so if that drive breaks it should be replaceable.  That's a much better design!

So here's my comparison of the BC features of the two.

BC

PS5:
+ Most games work, over 99% of games as Sony said.
+ The PS4 has many 1080p games, vs. 900p games on the X1 for many non-X1X enhanced titles.
+ PS5 Pro enhanced games sometimes have better framerates than X1X enhanced ones since they're running at lower resolutions in many cases so not as much work is required to run them at max framerate.
- 100+ games have graphical glitches and other compatibility problems that probably will not be fixed. This is not a short list and some games have big visual glitching, see Assassin's Creed Syndicate videos for example.
- The HDR added is underwhelming- Load times are about the same as on a PS4 or PS4 Pro- Fewer 4k games, as mentioned above.

The Takeaway: games not enhanced for the PS5 really only see a framerate boost and nothing else.  More titles do run at 1080p60 though.  Hope those graphical glitches aren't bad!  I've seen a video where they are in at least some games.

XSX:
+ X1X enhanced games have better visuals than their PS4 equivalents and are much more likely to run in 4K.
+ Good automatic HDR added to all games, and more; visual features are enhanced.
+ All games work perfectly, excepting only Kinect titles, none of which will work due to the camera not being supported. Microsoft put a huge amount of effort into testing games and it shows.
+ Significantly reduced load times in all BC titles are seen, there is a big difference between the PS5 and XSX here it seems.
- 900p games.
- There is no Kinect support as mentioned above.  I don't have an X1 Kinect (yet) and don't like the tech much, but this is quite annoying, I'm sure it would have been easy to support since the XSX basically runs the X1 OS and the X1 still supports it.
- A few games have not totally stable framerates at 4K because they're running at full real 4K.

The Takeaway: Overall a much more impressive implementation, 900p aside.

Wow this is basically just a medium end gaming PC. That's not good.