Playstation 5 and Xbox Series X

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

i have been happily playing spider-man mm on my ps4 ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

B-but ray tracing!

Whatever that is

it does look slick as hell at 60fps on piss5 tbf

Once you've become a Framerate Guy you cant really go back

thats right

miss me with that 30fps shit, i’m a 16.6ms frame-pacing diehard now

I'm sure something will come up, but I've yet to play anything on PS4 that has made me think, man, I wish this ran better. The Switch? Absolutely. But the PS4? So far, so good, with the exception of storage, maybe, and PS5 doesn't solve that problem. Pretty soon I'll need to install Red Dead, and I suspect I'll have to clear out half the hard drive.

did you know you can attach an external to your ps4 via usb? works v well

yeah, but I actually have one plugged in there as my backup drive. and as far as I can figure out you can't use one drive as a backup and as storage. I could be wrong though, but it seemed kind of tricky.

lol it never even occurred to me to back up my playstation.

I forget why I did it, exactly, other than because I could, but it may have followed some horror story about being 2/3 of the way through a big game and then having something fail or crash? Honestly, if I was 2/3 of the way through a few games I've played, even the ones people play again and again, and I lost all progress, I'm not sure I would start over again.

I've yet to play anything on PS4 that has made me think, man, I wish this ran better.

Ha, I have no interest in that one. I suppose the most conspicuous bellwether will be Control, which iirc I did buy, and which I may get around to in 2021.

Would recommend getting the Control DLC, also, unless you bought the ultimate version where they're included. The Foundation adds new enemies, locations, and hidden bits, while AWE ropes Alan Wake into the Control universe. Playing with the various objects in Control made me appreciate the meta "Alan fights WORDS!" Alan Wake ending more. After fighting 'real' shadow enemies through the game, at the time, the ending didn't connect. On the second AWE mission now and enjoying it. The main game's jukebox Expedition is still kicking my butt, but other than that, have used YT to find any missing secrets and ramp up my player.

I think I bought the base game because it was on sale? Or maybe there was no DLC at that point? Anyway, don't know what Alan Wake is!

Older game with a Twin Peaks / X Files vibe. Writer goes to remote town, population vanishes, uses flashlight as weapon against shadow people.

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.

I'm not getting a PS5 anytime soon but when I do will i need to get the disc version of the PS5 in order to do this?

Would recommend getting the Control DLC, also, unless you bought the ultimate version where they're included

Ultimate edition is free with PS+ for Feb btw so don't pay for this now if you haven't already, you'll get it anyway in a couple of days.

I just went ahead and overpaid for a PS5 this week. It's my son's 16th birthday and honestly, if he'd asked for a PS5 I'd have gently told him to piss off. But he's not actually asked for anything at all. And 16 is a semi big deal and he's having to spend it locked down with no party or friend contact and so I wanted to get him something big and surprising and...couldn't think of anything that'd fit the bill better really. Ebayed some other stuff I had lying around to make up the difference between RRP and the price I paid and that was enough justify the expense to myself heh.

Anyway it's still under wraps but yeah it's in the house!

dad of the year! well done, totally makes sense

Makes sense except for the bit in 2.5 years where he moves out to go to college and takes it with him and then I need to buy myself a replacement! Hopefully there'll be a slim version by then, at least.

lol i didn't think of that

Being able to play PS4 games on the PS5 (with graphical/performance upgrades!) is a big sell.

So I've been reading up on this, because it's not always true you'll get better visuals or performance in back compatibility mode. But in some situations it makes a huge difference! At the very least you'll be getting PS4 Pro equivalent performance (though not all games were patched to run any differently on the pro compared to the base PS4 anwyay). Beyond that though it depends on whether the game in question was using dynamic resolution (if it was, you'll usually get more consistently high resolutions on PS5) or whether it had an unlocked frame rate (eg Ghost of Tsushima does, which is why it can run at 60fps on the PS5 when it was only hitting 30 on PS4). Best title-by-title resource out there so far seems to be this thread:

https://www.resetera.com/threads/ps5-backwards-compatibility-all-ps4-games-with-benefits.322747/

one underappreciated advantage is that the ps5 runs virtually silently compared to my old ps 4 pro, which perpertually sounds like a jet engine at max revs

I've heard our Joel's PS4 that was another big factor in wanting to skip straight to the 5

don't worry there will definitely be a nicer, cheaper version available in 2.5 years

https://i.imgur.com/veNpa5B.png

as the frequently annoyed owner of multiple left joy-cons that have become unusable thinks to drift (even after several self-repairs), may i be one of the first to say
NOOOOOOOO

Eh. I doubt any console has ever launched without some of its controllers doing this. The thing that makes the Switch special is that it eventually happens to ALL of them. Easy headline for clicks for now, but I’d be surprised if Sony’s fail rates are actually high enough to be a problem.

Let's see how they handle it. What also makes the Switch special is that Nintendo made it really easy to get the joy-cons repaired/replaced. Or at least it used to be that way.

I was about to say it’s overall a better deal for developers, then I remembered that Microsoft ate half the AAA studios

We’re a long way from the days where releasing a game on different consoles meant nearly rewriting it from scratch, though. The SNES/Genesis days were harsh. The last console that tried anything really proprietary was probably the PS3, and Sony had to really work hard to write a more generic software layer on top of what was a pretty impressive technical architecture to rectify that.

I regret buying my Playstation 5 a bit; I hadn't owned a console since PS2 since I have a good gaming PC but there were exclusive games I wanted to play, like the Final Fantasy remake and the Last of Us. But those all ended coming out on PC anyway, so I ended up playing them there since I love installing mods. Plus, I usually wait for sales anyway, so don't feel the need to play anything immediately upon release. I probably get more use out of it as a Blu-ray player, honestly.

I have a friend who bought a dock and a couple of controllers for his Steam Deck which he connected to his tv, basically turning the Steam Deck into a handheld/tv console similar to the Switch. He's pretty happy with it so far, much cheaper than buying a new console (which he was also considering) since he already had the Steam Deck.

Agreed about Switch 2 - I got it and it's a very nice machine, but not a huge improvement over Switch 1 besides more subtle things (snappier OS performance, the joy-cons are better). For me it's more an obvious investment in the future library (and my existing gigantic backlog of Switch games will run nicer as well) and it's hard to deny the pleasures of a Mario Kart. You can wait on that one, maybe until the next Mario or Zelda is out.

The backwards compatibility of both systems is a huge plus; especially with Sony my online library of purchases is almost 20 years old. Not as big as Steam, but still huge. Too bad PS5 never got the rumored PS3 compatibility/emulation included, as I have a ton of games from that era on my account. Thankfully, Nintendo's finally got on board with this.

I'd love to get a Steam Deck, but am hesitant for the reasons mentioned above -- new one coming out within a couple years, probably, and it's already underpowered so future ability to play games is a big question mark (though thankfully developers seem to be optimizing modes for it specifically). Still, it's tempting since my desktop is an 11-year old iMac.

I wouldn’t make any console buying decisions right now (especially if steam deck is an option you’re considering), because the Steam Machine is due soon. And there’s a fair chance the price is going to end up high enough that it won’t realistically sit alongside these other options, but if they manage to get it out at £500ish it might be the answer (I’m expecting it’ll be more like £800, although some supposed leaks are already saying £1,000+).

I’ve got all four at the moment though, ps5, series x, steam deck, switch 2. And I reckon over the last six months or so, steam deck is the one I’ve used most, followed by Xbox (because I’m trying to get as much value out of my pre-paid gamepass period before it runs out and I refuse to renew it at the new price), then switch 2. Hardly touched the ps5 this year.

I'll add that in addition to the Xbox outlook generally being grim, there's still the ongoing BDS boycott of MS products -- specifically of its XBox products, which includes hardware, subscription services, and game studios -- for the company's continued role in the genocide in Gaza.

welp now all steam decks are out of stock, presumably due to RAM shortages, and no one knows when/if they're coming back. might have to look for a used one :/

https://www.pcworld.com/article/3059692/the-steam-deck-is-out-of-stock-at-the-worst-possible-time.html

About time gamers got radicalised enough to start Luigi Mangione-ing big AI bosses

Not that surprised, I assume their production capacities are limited and they're still building out a chain for the Machine and possible future Deck. Plus, the world as it is right now

i ended up getting a PS5. the lack of available steam decks and the likelihood that there will be no next-gen consoles in the near future helped make the decision for me

FWIW PS5 is more powerful than the Deck, so if you like your graphics pretty, that's a plus. If you're interested in multiplayer though you'll have to subscribe to their online service.

yeah i've had the last few generations of playstations and have subscribed to ps+ sporadically. i almost never do multiplayer but i might sign back up for the monthly games
a lot of the appeal of the deck was access to more indie games, i love point and click/adventure style games and there are a bunch from smaller companies that aren't on switch/playstation. but i also don't get through games very quickly so just the access to the most recent generation of console games should keep me occupied for a while. i got astro bot as my first ps5 game.

I forgot how many generations of Playstation I'd had and, as part of an effort to clear all the old video game stuff out of my storage area along with many other things, handed off the PS 1 - 4 to a friend a couple weeks back to find good homes

big shakeup at Xbox - Phil Spencer retiring, Sarah Bond resigning, new CEO is Asha Sharma who is "currently the President of Microsoft's CoreAI product"

I feel like there's a distinct possibility that Switch 2 and PS5 console prices will go up in the next year... has that ever happened with a current generation machine? Not counting launch scalpers and the like.
Feels like the industry hasn't had this "opportunity" before, usually they have to drive prices down as the console gets older.

Series S & X prices increased last year, the others are definitely going to follow

ps5 already went up $50 last year

oh right! i forgot about those

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

they will, as will all consumer electronics