Playstation 5 and Xbox Series X

About time from a thread on these right

currently live: PS5 - the future of gaming show
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuLci-lSeCo&feature=emb_logo

i'm guessing that anything with "project" in front of its name is a tech demo that will never be released as a game

1 more try
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuLci-lSeCo

quite underwhelming so far

feed gone

xp strong disagree, this is one of the most impressive console launch/line ups I've ever seen

the one where you're the cat in robot blade runner world? the avatar/spirited away looking one... the lbw4 trailer with the go team music!

I'm just here for Spider-Man: Miles Morales

SOLAR ASH looks like Journey?

new hitman looks class

ok this fake animal crossing looks bad lol. but most everything else looking pretty good I thought!

oh! the trailer had a dark twist ending...

PS.. is it 5? I think we're on 5 now. PS5

OMG HZD2!!!

we knew that was coming tho

I mean yes, I knew they had a sequel planned, but I did not expect it to be part of the presentation and be a launch title.

i doubt its a launch title unless they announced it as such and i missed it

2021 at earliest I'd think.

The one game (Pragmata?) had a 2022 date

this was my favorite trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-v1BxSETvI
weenie hands

"talkin bout Bugsnax!"

Was that the Morty voice actor?

Doesn't sound like him to me. Was that the Yakko voice actor in the Hitman III trailer?

That Bugsnax song is a jam

I love it when songs sound like they're in another language but it turns out to be english.

Unless they announce some kinda Game Pass equivalent I'm not buying a new system for a good long while

https://www.engadget.com/control-ps5-xbox-series-x-154810298.html

This was inevitable. Probably won't be available for launch (DLC isn't even completely out yet) but I'm sure when it arrives in a "Bureau Director's Edition" of some sort it'll have the DLC and look gobstobbingly amazing with ray-tracing and hopefully a smoother frame rate.

Control is one of a very few acclaimed PS4 games I want to play but haven't bought to add to my vast backlog just yet, not least because I've heard questionable things about how it plays on non-pro PS4 (though of course other people say it's fine). But if it's being better optimized for PS5, and the changes/improvements/additions turn out to be significant, I guess that means it's going to have to wait a few years for me, unless there is a PS4 fire sale that drops it below, like, $10.

can I not just buy a cheap digital copy of control... and it will play better on PS5?

they haven't given details, but the hope is that they'll actually bump up the graphics and such to use the power of the new consoles
i'm saying this is one of the remasters that will actually be worth supporting? i hope

digital foundry put up an article on backwards compatibility on the series x:
https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2020-xbox-series-x-back-compat-is-transformative

PS5 BC in boost mode should give similar results

"Should" as in "they need to match it to stay competitive" or "is reasonably expected to"?

Reasonably expected. It feels like these new consoles are more massive spec bumps than architectural leaps

That said I'm a little jealous when I see PC footage of games like Avengers which don't even come close to a steady 30fps on the stock PS4. Slightly makes me want to upgrade. Or spend $1k+ and get a gaming/streaming PC. If I do upgrade to PS5, (to be charitable) unoptimized multi-platform games like Avengers and Control will be my first tests.

i assume PS5 BC will just run the game with the PS4 Pro graphics/resolution settings unless the dev tests and patches in a new performance profile

> "Should" as in "they need to match it to stay competitive" or "is reasonably expected to"?

the latter, it's hardware compatiblity

> i assume PS5 BC will just run the game with the PS4 Pro graphics/resolution settings unless the dev tests and patches in a new performance profile

that's what the legacy modes are for and no patches should be needed there except for the rare pathological case

boost mode should work like series x: games with unlocked framerates run better, games with dynamic resolution spend more time in higher res or lock to the max, etc.
this is where issues are likely to appear and patches might be needed to fix problems, for example, some games like dark souls 2 tie game code to framerate so the 60fps ps4 port initially had a bug where weapon durability wore down 2x faster

We can't believe we have to say this, but please do not blow vape smoke into your Xbox Series X.

— Xbox (@Xbox) November 11, 2020

Not hearing a no from Sony, though.

Brag if you snagged one today so I can seethe in jealousy

theres no games yet

but bugsknacks

thats on ps4 and pc

I miraculously scored a PS5 thru Best Buy online the other week. Picked it up tonight. It’s huge and absurd, but honestly sitting here looking at it with its lights on in the semi-dark I’m coming around to it aesthetically.

It’s a lot of things, but I like how it gives me Hopper’s Nighthawks vibes most of all.

Demon’s Souls remake is incredible so far, I’ll save that for another thread.

i don't think i've ever felt as much desire for violent retribution as i do for the painful death of scalpers at the moment

The late teens looking kid who processed my order in the pick up area asked me “Is this your first one?”

Apparently a good amount of people have rolled through openly bragging about how this is the 3rd, 4th, 5th one they’ve snagged. Fuck those assholes for real.

real q - why is this such a big deal rn? surely there are very few exclusives and few TVs that can even show off the improved gfx?

It honestly shouldn’t be a big thing right now. Unless you’re a Souls dork and are really excited for that Demon’s Souls remake. Which is me. And maybe 10% of the market.

People freak for a hyped product regardless of its immediate usefulness, particularly if it’s rare and status-y.

I never got a PS4, I want a new gen machine to catch up on stuff I've wanted to play for ages and maybe new stuff over the next few years, shd've known capitalism never comes thru when you want it to

I was also stoked on grabbing the PS5 because I have a grip of PS4 games on disc that I never completed because my optical drive shit the bed. Being able to play PS4 games on the PS5 (with graphical/performance upgrades!) is a big sell.

Reports seem to indicate the PS5 won’t be terribly hard to come by in a couple of months. Production’s ramped up hard.

Demon's Souls and Spider-Man MM is way better than most launch lineups I can think of tbh, and I hear the platformer that comes preinstalled is really fun

Also being able to play Hitman 3 with fancy graphics and no Epic games compatibility headache would be a draw for me

oh right! i forgot about those

I thought I saw rumors they might go up *again*.

they will, as will all consumer electronics

as expected Xbox prices up again, the S 512GB version now costs the same as the X 1TB at launch ($499)

no one wants to go into GTA release selling their box at a loss, this is when you're supposed to finally recoup

A timely video posted a few months ago:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXf66oSSwHU

Key comment: "It is so scary that the game industry is showing signs of collapse even though it is the largest entertainment industry because it isn't PROFITABLE ENOUGH!"

The discussion with Jason Schreier and Jacob Geller on MinnMaxx the other day was pretty illustrative too, not just Schreier's reporting about all these imminent studio closings but Geller sadly, cynically all but throwing his hands up and calling this turn inevitable, with the inflection point being Microsoft's buying spree and specifically buying Activision Blizzard for an insane $75 billion back in 2022. Playstation is guilty of bullshit, too. Think of the way it bought Blueprint and then shut them down with next to nothing to show for it (though I guess they contributed to the last God of War game). These companies are being run by monkeys that like shiny things but barely know how to use their thumbs.

xbox has been abysmally managed since like... 2010? pretty much every decision they've made has been extremely short-sighted or has actively undermined their previous attempts at a strategy and now it's all really falling apart because buying activision cost so much that microsoft actually cares about what xbox is up to and none of their previous decisions ever cohered into being able to turn things around.

sony has also made a ton of terrible decisions over the past decade but they're still an order of magnitude less incompetent

There are rumors the manufacturing cost of the PS6 may run around $900, $200 higher than previous estimates, which means the console itself (supposedly slated for 2027) may top $1000. Someone broke it down how Sony has sort of backed itself into a corner when it comes to the release: "If prices keep going up, then delaying is actually worse than releasing it ASAP. If prices are stable, then there’s no point in delaying it. If prices go down in 2028 or 2029, they can lower the price as they did with the PS3; the only downside is initial sales in 2027/2028 would be lower than normal.” Meanwhile, GTAVI is apparently being priced between $80 and $100, with no physical version. Doubt that will affect sales at all, but like a lot of industries there's a real all-eggs-in-one-basket vibe to video game companies these days.

i don't think they will release the PS6 into this climate

You'd think, but as that quote illustrates, there's not necessarily a win in delaying, or no less of a gamble. Materials and manufaturing could cost even more, as we've seen from post-release price hikes on the PS5.

launch PR and momentum seems so important for this stuff, historically. and there is just wayyyy less sentiment out there that the PS5 is showing its age than there was with the PS4 at this point in its lifecycle. if they put out a $900 PS6 today it would get roundly mocked and i don't think that will change next year or the year after

massive layoffs incoming & thousand dollar plus consoles, western AAA gaming is heading for a huge crash if things don't turn around quickly

we're already in the crash, though it'll probably accelerate after GTA6 comes out and doesn't do GTA5 numbers

GTA6 is going to do ok (more people are preordering the $99 version!), it's everyone else I'd be worried about

yeah, I do wonder if indie games will get a boost as new AAA games get more scarce?

that said... given the general state of the world, even if that happens, it'll prob be a monkeys paw version of it where everyone is playing some gambling micro transaction game developed by palantir or something

yeah sadly indie games are just a different audience for the most part. same as with movies, the people who only go see blockbusters arent gonna start seeing indie films if the blockbusters go away, they'll just stay home and watch more youtube

There's some part of me that wonders if the increasing cost of hardware isn't at least partly a deliberate strategy to drive consumers toward game streaming services. The ongoing subscriptionization of everything, "you will own nothing" etc.

feels like a legit concern to me! i think the new xbox ceo (ex meta, ex openai iirc) has gestured towards that publicly. i imagine the end goal probably is something like this, like maybe a fee for how many microsoft tokens you’ve used to play ceo simulator

I'm not that worried about it. Xbox is the only streaming service with any foothold at all and they have effectively destroyed it with their latest moves.

yea. these guys love burning money on greedy, obv terrible ideas tho.

playstation makes the majority of their revenue now from PS+ subscriptions, not from game or console sales. they want the hardware to be inexpensive so more people buy in and subscribe! the console is basically sold at cost to facilitate this. it just really is getting more expensive to produce due to AI hyperscalers buying all the chips

for some reason i forgot about ps+ lol

prob because its framed more as an expansion of the pre-existing online play subscription. smart move by them tbh

I was referring more to the game-streaming model where the game itself is being run entirely on a remote server and streamed to your smart TV or whatever, removing the need for an expensive, powerful local machine. Idk how much of the market that model currently takes up or if it's growing. I can imagine it being the future of distribution for mainstream AAA stuff. Everybody knows now that you get media through a streaming subscription, and that owning a personal copy is for sickos

they still haven't really solved the latency issue with remote served games

'cloud gaming' is still being worked on yeah but microsoft is the only console maker that is invested in that space. and it hasn't really panned out so far. gamers don't want latency issues and casuals don't want to play games designed for a controller on their phone

Google tried but abandoned it pretty quick

companies were briefly obsessed with this idea that there's some large undetected Potential Gamer segment out there who would pay for a gaming subscription but not a console. they're trying to will a 'retired boomer with netflix subscription and low standards' audience into existence but it's just not there for video games

How did the PS5 Pro do? It seems like covid and the PS5 scarcity completely fucked up the release rhythm, they're still making PS4 compatible games, and that console came out, what, 13 years ago? And then AI fucked up the availability of cheap storage and chips everyone took for granted.

There has been some curiosity about how well GTAVI will perform on the base PS5 (it's already been announced it won't play on the PS4, iirc). I think the Digital Foundry nerds have predicted it will max out at 30fps, which, as one of the major spec benchmarks for games, is wild in 2026.

xpost I'm trying to remember where I saw it, but there was a think piece on the shortsightedness of companies not marketing to boomers and olds, since they have more time and disposable income (in theory) than kids.

Maybe this?

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/nobodys-making-games-for-the-retired-people-the-growing-yet-underserved-market-for-grey-gamers

what type of games do these old people want to play that aren't being made yet?

6 months into 2026, Japanese game company stock moves to date:

Sega -9.6%
Bandai Namco -10.3%
Square Enix -16.3%
Capcom -17.9%
Konami -18.7%
Sony -19.6%
Koei Tecmo -20.5%
Nintendo -36.0%

making and selling products to consumers is out of fashion with investors right now

caveat that apparently those figures are a bit misleading due to being ytd and generally falling from a high point last year

6 months into 2026, Japanese game company stock moves to date

damn, like, eg capcom seem to be putting out lots and lots of successful games lately?

making and selling products to consumers is out of fashion with investors right now

oh yeah

Playstation ending physical game production for new games January 2028, guess that answers the question if PS6 would have a disc drive

https://blog.playstation.com/2026/07/01/physical-disc-production-ending-in-january-2028-for-new-games-releasing-on-playstation-consoles/

At least they didn't make the announcement a few days after (checks notes) deleting more than 500 movies from their servers that would be immediately removed from the libraries of customers that paid for them. That would have really emphasized the importance of owning physical media.

Sigh. I assume the PS6 will at least have one of those optional removable disc drives. Or maybe you can pay $1500 for a PS6 with an integrated drive. Or $1500 for the drive alone, who knows.

Lol, I'm not spending a grand on a PS6, even in 2028.

cloud gaming is an absolute dead end as long as the whole AI thing is going on, unless someone figures out how to monetize extra data center space that's temporarily idle to sell the capacity to Sony, Microsoft, etc.

Microsoft's probably pushing it because they do have some underutilized capacity since they also own a cloud. Nvidia does the same thing with GeForce Now but iirc they limit the number of hours. You're timesharing with non-gamers regardless.

So mad about the end of physical for Sony, and even Nintendo is probably going to move that way eventually

It's always been irritating to me that digital is more or less the same price as physical, especially since consumer ownership of these downloads is clearly ... conditional. They could have at least started charging a premium for physical, for those that care or want the option.

nintendo has already started charging $10 less for digital games, though that's likely because the cartridges are getting hit by the storage/RAM crisis

Second hand discs never seem particularly cheap nowadays. I stopped bother with physical because of that, digital copies on sale are the cheaper option. Still want to use my console for blu rays tho

Though of course as you implicitly point out, discs often retain a lot of their value on the secondary market. There may not be a lot of deals, but you can always sell them later. Digital, you can't do anything with them when you're done, and for that matter Sony could simply delete them on a whim.

Yeah true I guess I'm more interested in acquiring than offloading

Xbox cuts announced, 1600 job losses today with another 1600 over the next year
Double Fine & Compulsion to go indie & keep their IP
Ninja Theory & Undead Labs sold to undisclosed buyers
Arkane still in negotiations which will be longer under French law
a lot of management getting cut, the statement said that there were up to 14 levels of management in some sections which is fucking crazy
no games cancelled apparently

probably a lot of jobs lost in the studios sold or going indie

nice that the studios get another chance but thats still a tough situation to be in, making the pivot back to indie at a time when there's very little funding out there