"Today, PlayStation revealed that its PS5 has sold 40 million units. Microsoft doesn’t share hardware numbers typically, but court documents, math, and slides from an ID@Xbox in Brazil seem to suggest the Xbox Series X|S line-up is around 20-23 million units sold globally. That essentially puts the PS5 at a 2:1 advantage against Xbox, but perhaps the split is even worse than that beneath the surface. "
> > > I don’t think it’s hardware. It’s a differentiator. Tell me why I (or whoever) should pick an Xbox over a PlayStation? > >
They know it’s a losing battle to try to build the same product as an entrenched competitor after they burned themselves with the Xbox One, which is why they much prefer you’re a subscriber to Game Pass, with an Xbox or not.
> > > Some people may love Game Pass, but most people I know either never subscribed to it or only tested it when it was like 1,-€ for a month or whatever. > >
They’ve got like 25-30 million subscribers, so it’s quite popular. Probably half or a third as popular as Microsoft would like, but it’s popular. I myself have plenty of friends who want to play more games than they can afford, and now they can afford them because of Game Pass. Especially the flash in the pan zeitgeist stuff like Exoprimal or Rainbow Six: Extraction that they can say they’ve played but will never touch again.
> > > What else differentiates it from the PS5 in a positive way? > >
Quick resume. To be honest, what sets the PS5 apart from the Xbox hardware in a positive way? The SSD speeds that ended up not even mattering much for Ratchet & Clank, from what I hear of the PC port.
> > > The controller is…well, a decent controller. It doesn’t do anything special like adaptive triggers, yet it costs almost the same as a DualSense, and if you count in the optional (!) battery pack, it’s quite a bit more expensive even. > >
By contrast, I know tons of people who hate the PS5 controller, not the least of which for its short battery life and inability to swap batteries like you can for Xbox. As a fighting game player, I know competitive players who hate the d-pad, and Sony did everyone dirty by requiring the use of a PS5 controller only even though the entire scene has had controllers for a decade that would work just fine, and even work on the PS5 when running a “PS4 game” on a PS5. Xbox’s controllers are backward and forward compatible. If Sony had some kind of reason for requiring the functionality of the new controller, sure, have at it, but they put this requirement in place for games that make no use of the new controller’s features at all, which is a dick move.
> > > If you want to win market share, deliver a better product. With better services. With better conditions. For lower prices. > >
I think they did exactly that, but as far as which console sells more units, it’s still PlayStation, because they have a couple of games that, at least for a couple of years, you can only play on PlayStation. But I think Microsoft saw that they were never going to be able to compete with that directly, at least before their acquisition spree, so the Xbox is just a low-cost machine that gets you into Game Pass, long-term.
Is the Xbox controller being backwards/forwards compatible actually a feature? I thought that the only difference between them was the presence of a share button. Not to discount your point about it being bs that ps5 games require a new controller.
I guess the answer to your question about what hardware advantage the ps5 has it has to primarily be the controller. The new vibration and adaptive triggers are super engaging. I also personally prefer the way it feels to a ps4 one. Unfortunately I don’t have an Xbox so I can’t compare. Obviously that’s a personal preference thing though, it’s completely valid for you to dislike them.
That said, let’s be honest, I got it for the exclusive games.
Is the PS5 controller limitation for playing single player games? With multiplayer games the PS4 controllers work just fine IIRC.
It’s for playing a PS4 game vs playing a PS5 game. If you want to play the PS4 version of Street Fighter 6 on a PS5, you can use PS4 controllers. If you want to play the PS5 version of Street Fighter 6 on PS5, you must use PS5 controllers. Basically just arbitrarily forcing you to buy new controllers when the others would have worked fine.
Game Pass is great if you want to try a lot of different games and see what you like without having to do research or worry about whether or not a particular game is worth your $$. Especially if you like playing small indie games and tend not to replay them anyway - this way, $10-15 and you can play multiple new and old indie games for the price of one (or less), plus try a few of the big games, and maybe get surprised by games you didn’t think you’d like but gave a shot because they were included. And if you do want to replay any eventually, by then, the price will have dropped and you’ve still saved $$.
This is offset however by the fact it’s still buggy and frustrating as all hell sometimes. I hate the way it works with virtual drives. And it doesn’t work for stuff you want to mod or play the dlc for (no way no how am I actually buying a game/dlc on that platform).