Reaction: Sony Continuing PS4 Production Shows The Xbox Series S Was A Great Move

Series S isn't for me, but it really was a great move on MS' part.

As someone who had never bought an Xbox system before, the Series S was a great way to lure me in. And now I'm hooked!

I've been hearing about a lot of people just going to a Series S these days. For one it's a lot more easily accessible, if you want a Series S it shouldn't be too hard to expensive to buy. That and it's at that perfect price point, at about $300, for a basic home entertainment device. Plus Gamepass has been a huge incentive for Series S owners, I know a lot of people seem to have it as a Gamepass machine. Makes it easy to get into when you know you can just instantly get access to a massive selection of games for the price of a subscription.

I have an S and an X and have wanted to buy S for all my friends and family. Perfect TINY machine.

It's the perfect system to get I to the Xbox ecosystem. Small, yet powerful and married with gamepass. Great 1,2 punch.

@JayJ I definitely don't think the Series S would be as popular if it weren't for Game Pass. If you remove that then there's very few options of how you can get access to games on that system. Just goes to show what a great idea Game Pass is.

Got one and it's fantastic value for the money.

The Series S is great, I really think it's viable next gen console... as long as it does get the proper support from developers.

Mine is second/bedroom console, but I am never disappointed when I use it.

It’s was a great move but only because Covid and the chip shortage came along.
But they best sort they AAA exclusive 2022 line up as it looks very spares until the very end of the year and that is if Starfield turns up.

the Series S is great. i know several people who prefer to game at their computer desk, but who don't have a gaming PC. their monitors are 1080p anyway, so the S fits in perfectly

@uptownsoul not likely. the #1 shortcoming is the resolution. almost any game runs fine at 1080p, many run BETTER lol

"Sony is set to continue PS4 console production through 2022. The report claims that the main reasons for this are PS5 supply shortages and to offer fans a lower-cost option".

This is the opposite of what they said previously: "Next-gen games won't be on PS4", "Series S won't be successful", "We believe in generations".

Okay, Sony. I see you changed your mind.

The Xbox Series S has been my first foray into the Xbox ecosystem, and based on my experiences thus far I think I'll continue with Xbox in the next generation (whenever that is).

My only real gripe is that Microsoft hasn't really positioned the console very well as a "party console" or "family console" the way the Nintendo Wii was in 2012-2014, which is a market the Xbox Series S would otherwise be a great fit for. The relatively low number of local multiplayer games are the biggest culprit, and while there are things Microsoft could do to improve the situation a lot of that has to do with third-party developers though.

Overall the Xbox Series S is a great value for the money and when paired with Game Pass a great option. If the Xbox Series X isn't an option I recommend it.

As soon as I saw it I knew I wanted it. Not counting my switch lite, it was my first brand new not-used console. I just like how it looks and how small it is compared to the Fatbox One. I'd already bought my physical games digitally through sales anyway so I was prepared for no-disc gaming. Pointless buying discs now when you have to install it first anyway, in my opinion.

It's availability right there in the store is what got me. Then access to a lot of classics like Jade Empire and Panzer Dragoon Orta was icing on the top. Been seeing the Retroarch videos, anyone know how well it runs the gamecube emulator?

@AstraeaV brilliantly with a couple games I've tried

@uptownsoul the short answer is maybe. The long answer is "hey it's still 2022 and devs are still making high profile games on switch, so, why not on series s?"

If I buy a disc game and run it on xbox one, would i then be able to access it on the series s? It is that reason why I'm cautious about a discless console as I don't wanna give that up.

In all honesty, you can go and buy a one x for less and that brings you into the ecosystem. Not missing out on much at the moment. Personally I would save and wait for the series x

I love my Series S. Runs all the games I could want and it looks cooler in my opinion compared to the Series X or the PS5.

@uptownsoul yea the Series S hasn't shown any difficulty with any of that. Microsoft (no company, really) would release a scaled back system that can't run everything the main system can. that would be really dumb.

@Boldfoxrd nope. I’ve tried putting disc games in the internal storage of the series s, but it will ask for the license that’s in the disc. MS said that they would give us a “way” to make them work, but that was before the console launched

I have a series s. I just came into a series x. Although I do have a handful of physical games, I've yet to set up the x. The s is "just the right amount" of everything. Perfect size. Games look and play great. I don't have an oled or crazy expensive tv. Just a samsung 4k/60hz, so not missing much on the graphical front. Games are the same. I guess I'm waiting for them to harness the full potential power of the x, before I set it up. First world problems.

@Savage_Joe @uptownsoul Bear in mind that the Series S CPU is quite similar to the Series X CPU. It's the GPU and the memory it uses what has been cut so it's graphical power what is more limited on Series S but Series S is not designed for 4K gaming anyway.

EDIT: In case it's not clear, I'm saying that Series S won't hold Series X back.

@Banjo- That is just marketing crap. Series S can output native 4k 120 like its bigger brother, even if the games don’t end up with that resolution. It has a hugely better cpu, has more usable ram, and the gpu is 3 generations newer than the ps4 Pro, which was marketed as a “4k” console. And Series S also has some native 4k games like Ori & TWotW and The Touryst. If a dev is willing to make a native 4k game on Series S, there’s nothing stopping them aside from the hardware limitations they encounter.

I’m fortunate to be a PS5 owner but desperately wanted to play MS Flight Sim. Series S was perfect for this. Sold bedroom PS4 for £150 on eBay then found the extra £100.

Have to say love the Series S and game pass. Relatively low entry cost. To the casual observer (like my wife) it’s difficult to tell the difference between games on this or the PS5.

I’d recommend to anyone.

Maybe there's a lot of people like me who are mainly playstation users who play multi plats on ps5 but also getting the series S purely for gamepass and its exclusives (especially the Bethesda ones) and don't want it pay the higher price for the X.

Whilst those getting the X are the more hard-core xbox fans who buy games and want the best 4K graphics to play multi plats

@Savage_Joe That is a shame. I hoped that would work. Oh well, Series X it is one day.

@uptownsoul the most ambitious game on the market is MS Flight Sim and that runs on the XSS. At the moment it’s almost all for both previous and current gens. And quite frankly MS has console streaming; if it’s as bad as you think it is. I really don’t though. I think your concern is needless.

@Banjo- there is one thing that could effect the actual games though, it's RAM which I believe the series X has a lot more (6GB more I think). RAM is used in games to put more into its environment and especially in games like elder scrolls where the games have to remember where every piece of armor and items you drop in the world are.

I love my S but solely use it as a Game Pass machine. I have a huge collection of physical games and use my X for those. If I love a game on Game Pass I'll most likely end up buying it physically.

@Savage_Joe the series S can't handle native 4K naturally though it's just up scales the image for 4k TV's whilst the series X and PS5 are native 4K.

When my PS5 is connect to my TV it tells me the resolution which is 4K whilst for the series S its 1440p

Sony is probably surprised how well Xbox is doing and they need to keep up with demand by reverting back to PS4 to sell more consoles. I am not saying Xbox is selling more than the PS5, but that it has been a huge success with at least 12-13 million units sold.

I am glad the big 3 are all doing well. Gamers everywhere are happy!

@Banjo- To be fair to Jim, next gen games won't be on PS4. If they ever make any...... (ba dum tss)

@UltimateOtaku91 Yep I mentioned the memory but it's scaled down proportionately as @Widey85 said. The engineers calculated how much memory would be freed with scaled-down graphics so it's just the GPU and the memory it uses what is scaled down, not the rest of the memory used for other purposes nor the rest of the architecture (which is totally new-gen so TFLOPS are worth more than last gen and so on). Series S won't hold Series X games at all, they will be the same games at lower resolution and without ray-tracing in most cases.

@Savage_Joe Yes but as @Widey85 said, if you want to use the same technologies as Series X games use, you need to scale down the resolution accordingly so they're less heavy on GPU and graphics memory.

@Widey85 you’re wrong on the memory part. Ram is the Series S’ bane, meaning that it can’t fully utilize all the features of the gpu to its full extent. Draw distance, textures, and lack of ray tracing on games that on Series X are available are all affected thanks to the weak ram. Series S has less and much slower ram than the xbox one x. That’s why it can only output the one s version of last gen games.

@UltimateOtaku91 I have a monitor and Series S does output the full 4k signal. Do you have the Series S configured to 4k?

@NEStalgia I didn't get the joke 😅, what do you mean?

EDIT: OK, I think I get it, that PS5 games aren't new-gen games which is true 🤣.

@Banjo- only Returnal has been the true “next-gen” game from Sony

@UltimateOtaku91 The system ram and Vram is just a unified pool it uses for everything. The S has less because it needs less for 1080p and lower res assets, and should be, more or less proportionate. In theory it shouldn't affect the memory used for inventory, world geometry etc at all, just the memory needed for the GPU.

In theory of course, I'm sure there's some amount of differences that apply now and then. FH5 at 60fps mode on an S has pretty Doom '93-ish billboarding and pixelated vegetation with crazy pop-in, while the X version does 4k with far less pop in and vegetation that doesn't look like it's from Doom '93. It doesn't ruing playing the game on the S though, unless you're used to it on an X. It plays great and looks good enough for a $299.99 box. The Matrix demo on S proves what it can do, and since that's a UE5 tech demo, a lot of games will take advantage of it by default.

@Banjo- Right! Not saying MS's are comparatively more next-gen, just that Sony's obnoxious chest-beating about next-gen in 2020 consists entirely of last-gen games in 2022... The big big title of the year is literally PS4-lead development, and the other one very literally started as a DLC for a 2018 game. So they didn't lie. next gen games won't run on a PS4. Will there be any today? No. Will there be any tomorrow? No. Will there be any someday? I believe that.

@Savage_Joe I'm inclined to agree. Technically there's still nothing about that that would have been hard to do last gen, the worlds aren't really that graphically complex, or particularly large, but it's definitely a game that needs 60fps, and honestly, needs an SSD, otherwise it would have been obnoxious to play. Realistically, the only "next gen" thing about it is that the 1990's HDDs in the old consoles would have made it completely unfun.

@Savage_Joe Yes, the others only use the PS5 hardware for gimmicks like quick travelling (which can be possible on last-gen hardware with pre-loading as explained by some developers) and barely any Sony games use the DualSense in a meaningful way except for a few like the demo-game Astro's Playroom. It's kind of a 1, 2, 3 Switch gimmick.

@Widey85 Right and that's exactly what I mean in my comments and what Digital Foundry said. Xbox One X has a more powerful GPU than Series S (TFLOPS can't be compared because they belong to different architectures and generations) so Series S is not able to run Xbox One X enhanced games smoothly because many of them (all of the backwards compatible games) run in native 4K resolution.

@Banjo- Ratchet and Returnal use the DualSense in the only actual practical way other than enhancing feedback effects which is basically creating an "L4"/"R4" button with a trigger half-pull. Returnal makes that functionality more or less essential to play. R&C IMO uses it in a way that's not effective, and really starts hurting your joints if you're playing long enough, while the half-pulls are kind of useless on most weapons, and eventually painful for the...whatever the thing is galled that you have to keep repeatedly pulling the trigger to bounce the ball back and forth. I avoided using that gun, and it was physically painful to have to level that one up. The dog-bomb gun was kind of annoying because of it too, but ultimately a lot less painful than the other one.

@Widey85 The 1S BC profile is my only real annoyance with XS. Yeah it can't do 4k, but getting stuck at 900p non-aa, 30fps with low res textures for 6 year old games definitely feels "not next gen" on the BC front, it probably could have done better there. But for the price point, I get it.

@NEStalgia I hear a lot of complaints about the triggers resistance in the DualSense. This reminds me of other gimmicks that are detrimental like motion controls when they are not necessary. The HD rumble a la Switch has more potential but it's as ignored as on Switch and in a few years it will be as useful as the touch panel of the DS4.

I remember when the series X was announced & fanboys were banging on about 'more teraflops' & how it made it superior to the ps5 however when it comes to the series S it seems power doesn't matter at all

Gamepass I believe has also turned more ppl digital and they have looked and thought why not its not a bank breaker and I get some off the bells and whistles lets see.

@Would_you_kindly Who have said such thing? People are discussing how Series S is tailored to lower-resolution games but the rest of the architecture is on a par with Series X. Also, people concerned about power still prefer Series X.

@Banjo- fanboys on twitter mostly

@Widey85 No problem and thanks! 😁

@NEStalgia @Widey85 That's very interesting, indeed. I think that Series S is almost there to play older games in 4K, probably it could be possible with some optimisation. Xbox One X has a lot of GPU power available but I think that Series S could do the task somehow.

@Savage_Joe I have no idea lol I will check when I next go on, but I just thought I only have one hdmi 2.1 port on my monitor which the ps5 is plugged into so would that effect it

It also shows the 2020 launch was a horrible idea

@Savage_Joe ratchet and clank Rift Apart and demon souls remake and Deathloop (yes I know Microsoft bought them after it was made) were all also next gen games. The ps5 so far has been more "next gen" than the series S/X

@Would_you_kindly I mean here, nobody's saying that power doesn't matter which is what you said. On Twitter they also said that power mattered when PS4 was more powerful than Xbox One and then when Xbox One X was more powerful than PS4 Pro power didn't matter anymore. Mark Cerny avoided talking TFLOPS when presenting PS5 and was very ambiguous describing PS5 specifications (as a PS4 owner, I watched the full presentation and I was disappointed). Sony overclocked the PS5 GPU significantly because they didn't expect Series X to be so powerful and wanted to shorten the gap at the last minute.

@UltimateOtaku91 Next-gen (currently new-gen) is not just "runs on PS5", it's making a game that is not able to run on previous hardware and not because of some gimmick (DualSense or SSD) but because of the generational gap, e.g., Microsoft Flight Simulator. That is the most new-gen game on any platform.

@UltimateOtaku91 yes. If you have the series s on the hdmi 2.0 port it will have max 1440p if it's on 120hz, but changing it to 60hz makes the 4k option available. Plugging it on the hdmi 2.1 port will have the full 4k 120 with hdr and vrr available

@Banjo- yes I know, ratchet and clank Rift Apart, Demon souls remake, Deathloop and Returnal aren't available on the PlayStation 4. So that's 4 new gen games for Sony and 1 for Xbox so far.

@UltimateOtaku91 They are not new-gen just because they don't have a PS4 version available. I mean, technically they are but you know what I mean, they aren't really using the new-gen power to make a new-gen game like Microsoft Flight Simulator.

@Banjo- I didn't say on this site , I don't really care about power just things I've seen on twitter both consoles are good for the price & I want a ps5 before I get a series X despite the slightly better specs , I am disappointed with my switch though because it really weak

@Banjo- but how would you know that sony didn't make them using the new gen dev kits? I mean digital foundry awarded the best next gen graphics award to ratchet and clank last year.

I can't really say about Deathloop and demon souls as I didn't play them and Returnal didn't wow me. If you mean just graphics wise then I'm sure we are a good 2-3 years away before we start seeing any jaw dropping visuals from Sony and Microsoft.

@Would_you_kindly Then I didn't understand your first comment but it's no problem. Yes, Switch is terribly underpowered, even for first-party games like Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and Link's Awakening. Besides, the resolution in some games goes below SD (Xenoblade Chronicles 2). I know, so many people love Switch and I have a Switch Lite but it's the most disappointing Nintendo console, in my opinion (Virtual Boy wasn't released here). Funny the hate Wii U gets when it did four years earlier what Switch does.

@UltimateOtaku91 Ratchet & Clank (PS4) also looks gorgeous! I see little differences between them.

@Banjo- switch might actually be the living proof that hardly anyone cares about "power" and 4K gaming.

I picked up the Series S after passing on the Xbox One entirely, having only my PS4 Pro. Curiously, they seem to perform comparably with the performance edge going to the XSS.

I do intend to pick up a Series X still when I can easily find one at retail.

@uptownsoul I also mentioned console streaming…

@UltimateOtaku91 Japanese surely don't.

@Xiovanni The Xbox development kits are super easy to work on and the architecture is the same so that won't be a problem.

I much prefer my Xbox Series X over my Playstion 5, Which is why I'm selling my PS5

@Xiovanni And they always sucked, but while a PHYSICAL half pull with the haptics sounds better, it partly is, having a detent to mark the half pull, bit in frantic action you mostly just pull all the way automatically, and with frequent use it gets painful and stressing on the joints.

Imagine a real rifle having "pull half way for laser sight"lol.

@Xiovanni that's why last year a few games that just the ps 5 versions were delayed ? Eg sniper ghost warrior contract 2 and another that I can't think of the name of, I'll edit later to include the title

https://www.theloadout.com/sniper-ghost-warrior-contracts-2-ps5-delay-reason

Reason according to the creators

there were some technical challenges the team faced that took a little longer than expected to resolve

Tbh I'm not convinced we're going to see any "next gen"games. I'm not sure that means much anymore. I think running at full res at 60fps is all next gen really will ever mean. Phil more or less said that already as well.

@uptownsoul no company including Sony can make a game that can't run on low mid range pcs with physical hdds.... If anyone is holding games back, it's valve and epic. The average pc specs shown in steam make the bass PS4 look 1337..... The cruddy CPU and HDD is what made those consoles suffer.

Trust me, for sales it's a great deal. For buyers, I kinda pity them...they don't get the true next gen experience and are basically getting and Xbox One X S

@Widey85 yeah, I mean, I know the GPU is technically much weaker than the 1x, so it sure can't do 4k where the 1x did by brute force, but the s is capable of so much better bc than the 1s, and it really sells itself short as is.

I got my s when the x was broken and in for repair. I was playing some Yakuza 0 at the time. I'd streamed it on xcloud for months at xsx spec. Then I set up the old 1x when the xsx broke, and Yakuza 0 ran identically as on the xsx. Then I got the xss and ran the game.... Low res, blurry, jaggy, low fps mess..... That's just wrong when I can take a 4 year old game from last gen and it runs worse on a next gen console than a base PS4 but with better load speeds... The hardware definitely can do more.

@Xiovanni What are you talking about?

I recently traded in my original Switch after buying an OLED model - as I play it 99.9% in handheld mode - and got a Series S for £90. It's my first time having an Xbox console and I'm having a great time with it. GamePass is great and I really like the look of the console.

I wish PS had a $300 current-gen option. They’re losing money.

@Xiovanni Ray tracing requires GPU power and it's usually disabled on Series S but it's not different from PS5 games that can't do 60FPS and ray tracing at the same time and have two or more video options.

@uptownsoul but why does it have to play natively on the S? The devs, knowing it’s an option, could offer that instead. We talk about MS not allowing it but Nintendo does ala KH Collection, Hitman, etc I mean if they absolutely feel the game would “comprise” design. I’m really not sure that’s the bulk of games but anyway. I think it’s a non issue that you are making out to bigger than it has to be.

This gen is not going to be like other gens.

@uptownsoul if the dev is kind of incompetent on assets streaming, yeah I agree with you. But there is a game that defied all logic on running at very high resolution while loading in less than 5 seconds on a crap hdd, that being Ghost of Tsushima. R&C Drift Apart would be very possible on ps4 if Insomniac could copy the techniques used in GoT to load levels and assets.

@Banjo- Were there no chip shortage and they found a way around scalpers it is likely shops would still be struggling to keep the PS5 in stock alongside the Xbox consoles.

And make no mistake Sony will have their engineers working around the clock looking at how to slim down the PS5 or maybe offer a 1080p version but the chip shortage will be putting them from putting it to market.

Gamepass is great value of you play a lot of games but for people like me who only play 2-3 games a year due to time commitments it is a liability to perpetually rent a title for £11 a month when it is likely I can get it in a sale for £30 (and if it's a title you really like you end up buying it anyway when it's gamepass time ends)

The last Xbox I got was the 360, once it red ring'd I did the "xclamp fix" and it worked for a number of years until about the release of the original State Of Decay. Completely skipped the One generation and picked up the Series S a few months ago because it was available. Haven't touched my PS4 since.

Microsoft really knocked it out with the Series S. The backwards compatibility has been great, I get to play the new-gen games, and its one of the most aesthetically pleasing systems ever. Oh and Game Pass? The cherry on top. Kudos Microsoft 👌

I'm a bit of a tech snob in that I will buy the higher end version if I can but I can certainly see the appeal as an entry system.

Anyone else think perhaps Sony also see this as a way to stop the Switch taking over the PS4 sales-wise? Not saying that is the main driver, but if they can keep PS4 sales cheap and constant they might be able to ride it out? I think the Switch will still take it though.

I love my series s. I usually chase the highest end gaming set-up but found myself on the move a lot and I can take this everywhere and easily set it up and play anything I want (emulation to next gen). Combined with gamepass, its the perfect mini console to play anything, anywhere.

I have a 1080p epson projector for my home
Cinema and the série s is the best thing I bought last year , very happy with it!

With PS Now potentially being pulled to make room for a new upper tier of PS Plus, maybe Sony see a demand for PS4 rise when PS5 games could be cloud streamed and in the current chip shortage, that could be a slightly attractive option.

When paired with All Access the Series S is a great option for low cost next gen gaming. The difference between X and S when it comes to playing games is pretty small really. Often just a lower resolution, and a couple of effects dialled back that you really wouldn't notices unless it was side by side.

The big drawback of course is there's no disc drive to play movies or backwards compatible titles, and the small storage is far too little for a digital only console. You need to factor in the price of an expansion which blows out the value proposition

@K1LLEGAL That's one of their reasons, I'm sure. Xbox 360 oversold PS3 during the longest part of the generation but Sony kept selling very cheap and stripped-down versions of the PS3 even after the PS4 launched so they managed to boost sales belatedly.

@K1LLEGAL Just to elaborate, a Sony spokesperson has confirmed to Bloomberg that they have no intention of stopping production on the PS4, saying “It is one of the best-selling consoles ever".

I’ve always been a Sony and Nintendo guy, but the series X and game pass has seriously won me over to Xbox. I’ve found that things just work with Microsoft and I realised how worn down I had gotten over the years with Sonys endless system level jank.

I rarely turn on my PS5 tbh, and the Xbox has become my go to home console, supplemented by the switch and PC. With game pass and Microsoft rewards I’ve found that gaming is much cheaper on Xbox as well as Sony is set on gouging UK customers this gen. so I’ve been getting all of my third party games on Xbox.

It’s been really fun catching up on all the stuff I’ve missed out on like Halo 1 & 2. Forza horizon 5 was amazing also, I’m really looking forward to some new Xbox exclusives.

The series X is a great option for families on a budget or people unsure about the Xbox ecosystem. But I wouldn’t give up my series X for the world. I just hope Xbox continues to get Japanese games and JRPGs on the system as that’s what will keep me here. Being able to play dragon quest 11s on my pc and series X was definitely the biggest highlight of 2021 for me.

I got my XSS last year. At the time, I was not using my PS4 Pro (mainly the noise) or my Switch despite having games available. Then Game did a deal to trade a Switch + £40 for an XSS. I jumped at it when I found out the XSS was deathly quiet. Its now the main entertainment hub for me. I don't regret it one bit. I didn't even get GamePass until December as I'm still playing the Gears 360 games that I never got around to playing (claimed on Games w/ Gold years ago).

@Xiovanni
"Rift Apart can seamlessly load a completely different level in an instant, which it needs to do for one of the core features."

I wish people would stop claiming that. It doesn't load a complete different level. It's just a small portion, a limited box, if you will.

Also, the claim that there is no loading in between is wrong. The tunnel sequence is a cleverly disguesed short loading screen. There were already tests on slower storages that showed no meaningful difference.

@Clankylad
I wouldn't bet on that. Sony is a weird one. They build consoles and let them run dry. Just look at heir handholds. I wouldn't be surprised, if they continued to build PS4, but don't really support them much longer.

@lokozar That's right, it's more or less what they did with PS3, keep selling cheap versions just to set another hardware record. The Vita was a sad case, only supported by the indie and homebrew communities eventually. Rift Apart could run on PS4 according to all developers but Insomniac. It's just prettier and loads faster than the PS4 game.

@uptownsoul @Xiovanni In some ways, Rift is the canary in the coal mine as to why more tech isn't always better. The "instantly load levels" tech sounds good, but the game itself feels too small. The PS4 one felt more varied, while the PS5 one feels like you go to a few places, and then you're done. Part of that is because of the use of more scripted sequences that make the first time through a more fun adventure but make the replays feel like a chore (the Bioshock type sea lab for example) but the only real place (excluding boss battles and speedle races where only a tiny area is loaded which doesn't need PS5) the world swap thing happens is the 2 maps that have a "ruined" version to jump back and forth 2. But that has specific load points, and aren't really full levels, they're very specific alternate versions of the same level and usually restricted areas of them (or just debris fields that aren't full areas.)

But because they had to create that alternate content for those areas, it keeps the game feeling like you only went a handful of places and makes the whole feel thing smaller rather than a larger world-hopping adventure. The gimmick was cool the first time through, but feels tired when you replay (and it's a game with speedrun options built into the menu....) and it took away what could have been more memorable new places to go on the adventure.

I don't want to say I was disappointed by the game, because I really did enjoy it, but it's not purely addictive like the PS4 one was. The more scripted, paced areas kill the fun of just endlessly replaying it. The Juice sequence and antigrav ruins at the mine were interesting the first time, but it squelched the fun of replaying.

@Banjo- IDK if S could do the 4k thing, it probably lacks the ram for the high-res textures (and the SSD space.), but games certainly shouldn't look worse than on a base PS4 on it like Yakuza 0 does. And I would hope they could make it look better and higher framerate than just running on a 1S.

@Medic_Alert yup thats been going on since pentium days... chips that didnt meat the pentium standarrd got slapped with celeon... still decent chips but they wouldnt pass pentium standards.

@Rural-Bandit You're right about Series S and you sound even more objective because you would have preferred a disc-less Series X as the $400 option.

@NEStalgia I don't know either so that's why I mentioned some kind of optimisation. Series S doesn't have the brute GPU force of Xbox One X and is not able to run the Xbox One X profile smoothly so, unless they create a new profile for backwards compatible games, it goes to default which is why those games look worse than on a launch PS4 (obviously, it's not because PS4 is more powerful, you know this but some people reading you might not). Interesting mini-review of Rift Apart!

@uptownsoul The Switch is mobile technology that was already dated in 2017, it's basically a very dated smartphone/tablet with detachable controllers. Series S is exactly the same as Series X with scaled-down GPU and with a proportionated reduction in the memory that graphics use.

@Rural-Bandit That's right and that is why Switch can run Doom Eternal, a game that looks absolutely incredible on Series X at 120fps or 60fps with ray tracing. The game looks like a blurry mess at 25fps on Switch. Games can be scaled down or up and that doesn't mean that the top version is held down by inferior hardware. The Doom Eternal Switch port was made later but there are other examples developed at the same time, like Sea of Thieves that looks stunning on Xbox One X and even better on Series X at double frame rate but it also run on very cheap PCs at launch which is something Rare was proud of at the time.

If anything, Series X will run the best console version of games including multiplatform games this generation because both Series X and S consoles and PC run games on Windows and the development kits are the same. We already saw this on Xbox One X where games were better than on PS4 Pro and usually had the PC settings set to high or ultra. Of course, being more powerful than PS4 Pro and PS5 respectively also helps.

@uptownsoul Perhaps it could but in 160p 10fps.

@Rural-Bandit I agree about Horizon Zero Dawn being boring. I bought a PS4 before an Xbox One but then I started getting third-party games for Xbox because it was quieter and had a better controller and then when I upgraded to Xbox One X most of the games were remastered for free so I know what you mean about being rewarded. Series X is the best console ever but the Xbox One X was an incredible upgrade and so sleek.

I have a Series X and a PS5, and while great graphics are a big part of immersive gaming for me, I think we're getting diminishing returns on console "generations". TLOU2 looks better than anything that's come out so far for this generation, and that's due to art direction, not processing power. (Don't get me wrong. I would much rather play it on my PS5 at 60FPS.) The fact that Sony is still manufacturing PS4s speaks more to the fact that their systems are still in way more demand than Microsoft's, and Sony would be foolish not to meet that demand in whatever way they can. I don't know how you can look at games like Horizon Forbidden West and claim Sony is compromising the current gen to make sure exclusives are playable on previous-gen hardware. When I look at videogames now I'm in complete awe of what they achieve visually.

@Rural-Bandit Thank you, too! 😁

It's funny I just wrote a comment about this on another thread:

Naughty Dog in particular knows how to create cinematic games with the right animations, pre-backed lighting and camera angles but the gameplay is usually scripted because of that.

Back to Xbox, I'm genuinely intrigued by the next Perfect Dark and Fable games. The Initiative is a new studio with a "greatest hits" collection of developers and artists so who could not be intrigued? Fable as a sequel to one of the best Xbox 360 games and made by Playground, that's something I don't want to miss. I am also curious about Starfield, The Elder Scrolls VI and Avowed although we know more or less what those are going to be.