XSX vs PS5

[HardcoreRetro]

A few thoughts:
The video game community should call out all the dickhead "in the know" rumourmongers who peddled misinformation and lies. (They won't).
Microsoft should publicly execute their PR staff for letting the rumours get completely out of hand to the point retards were selling their consoles in anticipation of them going third party.
I would snap up a dockable Series S portable pretty quick.
Sony saying they expect PS5 sales have peaked and they are preparing for next gen is hilarious and stupid given that this generation has failed to launch in any significant way whatsoever.
Nintendo must be laughing at these recent developments while still selling shitloads of ancient hardware and rolling out game of the year candidates that sell bucket loads.
Valve and the other portable PC hardware makers are laughing at the console industry making themselves an absolute laughing stock.

The video game community should be called out for being fucking retards.

Also let them know I'm selling this cool Metropolis bridge DLC for the new Suicide Squad. You can be the sole owner of the Metropolis bridge in Suicide Squad.

[nachobro]

A few thoughts:

• The video game community should call out all the dickhead "in the know" rumourmongers who peddled misinformation and lies. (They won't).
  

not only did they not call these people out...the same people were immediately pushing rumors of a nintendo direct this week (it didn't happen) and the switch 2 being announced next month (unlikely) that everyone was gobbling up.

gamers are fucking rslurred

[who is ted danson?]

can't believe this gen started in 2020 and nothing launched at all

just wtf lmao 

and now its "get hype for next gen" time

even this xbox announcement was a wet blanket, at least stealth launch COD1-12 on gamepass or some shit

and this is coming from a casual who only picked up elden ring and rdr2 this xmas

[Potato]

It really is the worst generation of all time

[Nintex]

They spend so much time restructuring, GAASing, contenting, diversifying, business modeling and strategizing that they forgot all about the games.

I hope they drop the cross-gen nonsense day 1 with the next-generation.
If they don't do that the most powerful leap in hardware ever will result in a wet fart again. 

As for this gen, well there is also the issue with Performance not living up to expectations.

They printed 4k / 120fps on the box of the Series X and 8k on the box of the PS5. 

[who is ted danson?]

Cyberpunk Multiplayer....... only on PS6/XSXXX

GTA 6 (real edition)......... only on PS6/XSXXX

Then watch GabeN drop Steam Deck 2 in 2026 and it just uses some god tier open source DLSS destroyer to go from 144p max settings -> 4k max settings

[Nintex]

$80 video games 

Helldivers 2 is doing pretty well for itself at $40, already beating HALO Infinite in peak player numbers on Steam

[who is ted danson?]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/cnbc-sony-plunged-10-billion-after-its-ps5-sales-cut-but-a-bigger-issue-is-its-near-decade-low-games-margin.818616/

[Nintex]

“Their rev (revenue) on digital sales, add-on-content, digital-downloads are at all time highs… And yet their margins are at decade-lows. This is just not acceptable,” Goyal said in an email to CNBC.

 

They mention how hardware production costs are now lower but they don't seem to realize Sony did some pretty agressive price cuts on the PS5 to clear out stock for the Slim and now they're already doing promotions on the Slim too (currently 15% off in Europe). I think the rising cloud server costs, wages, inflation and poor market situation in the EU overall is hurting them the most. As well as Nintendo utterly dominating the Japanese market.

6% margin for the gaming division is low at this stage in the generation though, instead of PlayStation you could buy stock in a bank or insurance or something and probably get the same return. What probably spooks investors is that PlayStation is posting these numbers with a ~75% market share vs. the Xbox. This is usually the part of the generation where you bank on the investments made and the evergreen titles. 

With that said, investors expecting a 20% return on PlayStation are crazy.

[benji]

Real gaming insider says it:

Spoiler:  (click to show)(click to hide)

@Shifty_MG
1 day ago
Thank you PS5 I'll never forget the hundreds of hours of fun and entertainment I got out of playing PC games with your controller.

[Puffy Fucking Baby]

Dead while only having like one game with blowaway graphics (horizon forbidden soy)

[Nintex]

Seems that the industry in the west is in survival mode until GTAVI hits. 

But this strategy is kind of crazy tbh, first you buy a $499 box for next-gen games and apart from 3D audio it really doesn't do much different and most games are remasters and remakes, playable on your PS4 or PS4 Pro as well or sequels that are somehow worse than 5 or 10 year old games (Saints Row, Suicide Squad etc.) or licensed shit like The Avengers. It can't really handle the big graphics leap (Ray Tracing). 

4 years later they tell you to pay an additional $599(?) for the 'Pro' version of the console that actually delivers the performance that was promised even though the actual next generation hardware is only 2 or 3 years away. And all the big games they announce now (Blade, Physint etc.) are unikely to release until next-gen anyway. 

And finally realizing that their margins are low without sufficient game releases they release more games on PC, making the consoles even less interesting in terms of exclusives because the games themselves are usually far cheaper on PC, especially digital.

[Potato]

Gotta admit, I'm feeling pretty smug right now that I called this shit out years ago.

[HardcoreRetro]

Will the PS5 Pro be able to play The Last of Us Remaster: Remastered at 8K?

[Nintex]

Gotta admit, I'm feeling pretty smug right now that I called this shit out years ago.

I thought it would have turned around by now and games like Saints Row, Gotham Knights, Suicide Squad, Forza Motorsport, Redfall, Starfield, Callisto Protocol, Battlefield 2042, Immortals of Aveum etc. would've actually been good or better than they were. For the longest time studios hadn't delivered next-gen games yet. I was quite excited about the potential when I tried that Matrix demo.

Thank god for Japan   

Now they just need to follow the Korean example and completely ignore the diversity and inclusivity bullshit. 
Considering what happened to Forspoken and Sony publishing Stellar Blade I predict that will happen sooner rather than later.

[HardcoreRetro]

I got a winning strategy for Sony.

Release more games where the characters basically turn to the screen and start spouting propaganda at me. Those are my favourites. That's why Spider-Man 2 was my favourite game last year. All the characters were written like they're constantly walking on eggshells, all the rough edges sanded off. That makes for the most interesting characters I can get invested in.

Insomniac: "Here you go, some gay shit!"

Are you going to say anything interesting?

"Here's some more gay shit."

Okay, cool. More of those please Sony.

I do find it funny that the dogshit diversity squad, Sweet Baby inc, basically put the same black female character in two of the games they worked on. *Starts up God of War Ragnarok* Wow, a black girl that's also an artist. How cool. *Switches disc to Spider-Man 2* Wow, a black girl that's also an artist. Very cool. Can this shit get any more diverse!?

[Nintex]

They're even dropping Xbox games on PlayStation 4.

I hope the Nintendo Direct B-roll slot was worth it. 

[Potato]

I didn't even see this on the Direct. Only saw the first game.

Edit: Wait, I did see it and assumed it was some sort of shitty indie garbage and didn't pay attention to it.

[Nintex]

[Nintex]

Granblue Fantasy Relink - Not on Xbox
Foamstars - Not on Xbox
Pacific Drive - Not on Xbox
Monster Hunter Stories - Not on Xbox
Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth - Not on Xbox
Gundam Breakers 4 - Not on Xbox
Rise of the Ronin - Not on Xbox
Stellar Blade - Not on Xbox, picked up by Sony (actually announced on Xbox One back in the day)

I think MH Stories is the first time Capcom skips Xbox for a multiplatform PS4/PS5/Switch release.

Feels like having a GameCube again lmao

[Potato]

Granblue Fantasy Relink - Not on Xbox
Foamstars - Not on Xbox
Pacific Drive - Not on Xbox
Monster Hunter Stories - Not on Xbox
Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth - Not on Xbox
Gundam Breakers 4 - Not on Xbox
Rise of the Ronin - Not on Xbox
Stellar Blade - Not on Xbox, picked up by Sony (actually announced on Xbox One back in the day)

I think MH Stories is the first time Capcom skips Xbox for a multiplatform PS4/PS5/Switch release.

Feels like having a GameCube again lmao

Except they skipped the stage where they released gimped versions 6 months later at full price as a "test" and then complained they didn't sell well enough to warrant further investment.

[Potato]

Had an interesting thought...

What if all these so-called leaks were just Microsoft doing a psy-op to weed out the people who leak shit to journos so they could be added to the list of redundancies?

Probably just the conspiracy theory part of my brain going into gear, but would be fun to find that out.

[Nintex]

It was probably a matter of poor communication. With some people working on PS5 games not having the full picture of what MS was planning to do and canning the hardware and physical teams in the wider restructuring. To illustrate this, my bro said just like with Embracer some people at Activision/Xbox are still unsure if they will keep their jobs or not. 

I think the overall strategy hasn't changed though, they can promise the most powerful Xbox of all time today and change those plans if things continue to go south.
It'll depend on how well Xbox games do on PS5/Switch (will their playerbase actually grow), if the next-slate of "exclusives" like Hellblade II and Indiana Jones live up to expectations and how much confidence Xbox owners continue to have in the platform.

Interesting to note that Xbox games on PS5 are branded as 'Microsoft Corporation' and not Xbox, the Xbox splash screen is also missing.

And ours you clowns. Another long development effort wasted on a shitty GAAS project what could've been a good sequel to Arkham Knight instead.

[chronovore]

GaaS is such a plague on the market.

[HardcoreRetro]

I for one can't wait for the insecure Joker DLC.

Where the main writer projects her own insecurities on the character and thinks she's being really deep.

"Joker bad, because bad childhood."

Which is then followed by another twitter fit when people tell her it isn't deep but dogshit writing.

[Nintex]

Harada calling out the talentless hacks 

[Potato]

So, after all the handwringing and chicken little "the sky is falling" bullshit, were at pretty much the same place we were before so this bullshit started.

Microsoft are occasionally putting niche titles on other platforms.

Literally everything else is the same.

Fuck I hate the parasites that report on the video game industry.

[Nintex]

I get the sense that despite MS sticking with Xbox in the long run the damage has already been done as far as this generation is concerned.

Microsoft started to release games on PS5/Switch and announced the next generation. If they don't want a repeat of this generation and they're not doing a mid-gen refresh I can see them move Xbox Series X games to next gen to have a stronger line-up in 2026.

However Sony is also not in a position to agressively push Xbox out of the market in the US like they were during the PS4/Xbone days and they don't seem to want to considering the overall poor outlook for the industry this year. 

One of Microsoft biggest mistakes that barely gets mentioned was to prioritize expanding the XCloud infrastructure instead of producing more Xbox Series X consoles before Sony got their own supply issues fixed. They probably worried more about Stadia and Amazon beating them in cloud gaming space than they did about PlayStation selling more consoles. If Xbox Series X had sold double the numbers it has now, third parties likely wouldn't have skipped it as much.

[Nintex]

[Potato]