Duderino

Bethesda definitely elevated it in terms of adding games to the slate people can look forward to. I’d say both Starfield and Redfall were the highlights, even if I have no clue what either will actually play like based on the trailers. I do wish MS would show at least a slice of gameplay with their biggest E3 reveals, but I can understand why they’d want to play it safe with games a ways out, especially after Halo’s mixed reception last year.

There was a massive flood of FPS games in general, both new and old.

Also addressed the engine scalability argument. Dismissed the idea that developers can just drop texture resolutions + dial in a few settings and call it a day.

The online paywall is subtracted value from your initial console hardware purchase. Yes, PS plus provides plenty of value on it’s own, but that doesn’t change the facts. You are paying for a feature that is free on PC (and was free on prior consoles, and even smart phones/tablets). It’s this generation’s equivalent to our parents and/or grandparents paying cable companies for local channels, but at least they’re getting a better picture out of it . I can justify the subscription but do support decoupling online play from it. Both MS and Sony traded (lots of) short term revenue for overall market share; PS+/XBL have no question driven a good portion of their potential consumers to Steam. Also, while the FTP exception is a positive on the surface, it will drive developers further away from traditional online modes, given less potential players beyond the initial game cost barrier of entry.

Not a good look for either. Unfortunate that there are not stricter rules against false advertising of this scale just before and after release.

Think that speaks more to CD Project Red’s practices and the potential cross-gen caveats of not building to the specs of the weaker platforms.

There has been less attempts at passing off target renders as gameplay, but also fewer demonstrations, even if smoke and mirrors, of what next gen enables devs to accomplish. Think the truth is somewhere in the middle. (Though it would probably be a different story without insomniac) Cross gen may be impacting next gen ambitions to an extent, but the other half of it is necessary engine retooling to better leverage the new hardware.

The mid cycle Pro and OneX were partially possible due to the performance per dollar gains going from 28 nm to 16 nm. The Series X and PS5 are at 7 nm now. There is no guarantee that the next leap will come within a similar timeframe to the pro/x or provide the same value proposition for the console makers. With soo many gamers embracing the mid-cycle console upgrades this gen, it’s a fair assumption that both Sony/ms will want to pursue it again. While it could happen, the conditions still need to be just right. IMO, it’s not a foregone conclusion that we’ll get mid-cycle refreshes. Even if we do, they may not resemble the same leap we saw with the pro/x.

FFVIIR is a big step up from FFXV.

Delisting is just the latest blow to what was already a nightmare scenario for CD Project Red. The entire situation should be warning to devs/publishers that poor last gen ports can lead to considerable consumer backlash. The oneS and PS4’s lacking horsepower is clearly a contributing factor to a rise in game breaking bugs. It’s not just that the game looks awful and runs poorly on these systems.

Sony having a specialized Infinity Cache configuration that is not standard to the core RDNA2 feature set sounds very speculative. Not saying it’s impossible, but I’m not going to entertain this possibility without concrete evidence. No doubt the Velocity architecture is going to assist future XSX titles, but whether or not it addresses the exact bottlenecks giving the PS5 a slight edge right now is up in the air. Given how close the two platforms perform currently, I do think it's possible for futute driver + api optimizations to tip the scale in the XSX's direction. Whether or not that happens though, who knows. I certainly don't have the inside scoop from MS engineers. Can't imagine you do either.

I think we could see that 15-20% advantage on paper manifest with games that have really excellent CU utilization and limited GPU idle time. Further improvements Microsoft makes to the API will help, but I suspect developers will have an equal part role to play in getting there. Results that favor the PS5 right now could come down to the higher clocked CUs counteracting some bottlenecks and game inefficiencies.

Torn between FFVIIR and Hades.

Now this doesn't add up: Observer: System Redux is Simply Better on PS5 Than Xbox Series X WWW.GAMESPEW.COM Thanks to a ray tracing toggle and more, the PS5 version of Observer: System Redux is notably better than its Xbox Series X counterpart. I'd guess the PS5 was their main console SKU. Perhaps with Raytracing in particular this will matter more this gen.

It's crazy that I've spent more time with Hades than my PS5 this week. Game is just that good.

Another game where in very specific circumstances one console can outperform the other, but neither are producing a bad experience, especially in gameplay. Will wait for DF to get the full picture (and Raytracing details in quality mode) but based on this I don’t think you can go wrong with either console for COD: Part of me does hope this keeps up. While performance is important, a better multiplat experience is not something that typically temps me to buy a second box or one console over another. Even going back with the OG Xbox, it was Ninja Gaiden and Panzer Dragoon Orta that reeled me in. It’s still too early to say, but I really hope the differentiators between consoles this gen have less to do with resolutions and performance graphs on cross platform games. I’d much rather see exclusives really demonstrate the strengths of each platform. Hopefully in the comming years we'll see more of that.

Well one thing is getting clearer. Differences between the consoles (specs/api/architecture) are not always producing a predictable and decisive leader. Both are very competitive at this moment in time. The good news is both XSX and PS5 look like they'll be supplying decent enough Raytracing for the price.

I can confidently say after playing Astrobot for a while that haptics are definitely a step up from the switch. It’s like a much weightier and more directional version of the haptics in the Vive. The adaptive triggers though are easily the more impressive bit. Feel great, can put up a lot of resistance, and can simulate a wide range of sensations.

I haven’t played both, only watched 4K videos, but I could see rainy London + neon lights highlighting the RT reflections a bit more. Reflections within reflections also probably add to the look there too. I do think though WD’s cube maps fallback really wouldn’t hold up well in Spider-Man’s setting, where distant reflections of the city skyline and streets below are more front and center. Outside of RT, Spider-Man’s character rendering looks far superior to my eyes. Ultimately though what “LOOKS” more next gen is going to be a bit subjective.

Worth noting as well that despite not being tested yet, the raytracing setting configuration file for the Series X and PS5 match. Means that aside from some potential dynamic resolution and FPS differences, we can expect visual parity across both flagship consoles for watchdogs.

Seems more likely that the Series X and PS5 ports were just sent out a little too early. DMC5 wasn’t exactly a poorly optimized game on the OneX and PS4 pro. It’s not really here either outside of the much needed FPS cap and a few oddities. Anyways, not a bad start for both consoles.

Just go watch the Digital Foundry breakdown. There are compromises, but not along these lines. Both Spider-Man and Watch Dogs are full of objects receiving reflections and present in them, both static and dynamic. Yes, Spider-Man’s reflection resolution and frame-rate will be lower than Watch Dogs on a high-end PC, but that doesn’t make Insomniac’s RT implementation any less impressive. There are clear aspects it excels at. Both game worlds are extremely difficult settings for Raytracing. I wouldn’t say Spider-Man is any easier with its city scape vistas.

Yes, and it sacrifices much less in the process. One major difference is Spider-Man doesn’t fallback to cube maps past a certain distance. Distant objects and their cast shadows are present in reflections. It’s pretty remarkable that an open world game, let alone on a console, is achieving this with such minimal compromises. Think it will easily be one of the top Raytracing showcases this year.

My guess, CPU is a loading bottleneck here, especially given none of these games tested would be taking advantage of a more direct path to the GPU both consoles provide. It is a sign however that if game and engine devs are not working towards reducing additional asset CPU loading overhead, the SSD gains may be limited.

It does, however RT can still be quite a drain on resources even at lower resolutions. Given RT support on the XSS has not been the norm, I'm inclined to believe scalability is a complicated matter for devs at the moment.