Sheikah

Yeah, I started on Mario 64 a couple of weeks back. To be honest I got maybe 40 stars in and unlocked a few extra areas but don't find myself longing to go back. It's weird, Mario 64 is easily one of the most significant games of all time and I think from a control standpoint it has aged very well, but as a game I feel it lacks the charm of something like Banjo Kazooie, and the camera is annoying as fuck.

This is great, just a small list and not exactly very popular games.

I'm honestly quite surprised by that, I got the impression from your posts that you thought Xbox were doing a much better job of it. Think I saw that you were interested in Ratchet and Clank, will that be day one for you? As much as I want Demon's Souls I doubt I'll be buying it at launch for 70 quid.

There are plenty of reports of Series X getting very hot (being referred to as "like a fireplace"), and this is just when playing BC games. We have no idea what it'll be like when playing intensive Series X games. More to the point, heat will be a limiter to performance and potentially longevity. As a result of the design we could well see Series X making a fair bit more noise further down the line, especially once it starts to get filled with dust.

I think you're trying to be a bit disingenuous with that question, as it's pretty clear from looking at the photo of the Series X innards what I'm getting at. If you look at the parts inside the Series X (e.g. the disc drive) these look like completely standard off-the-shelf parts. At the very least, even their custom parts have not exactly been designed and spaced with airflow in mind. Not just that, but the design ethos of the Series X seems to have been to more or less layer parts on top of each other like a compact PC, without actually putting much thought into airflow and heat dissipation. It feels as though a lot more thought and customisation of the individual parts and design has happened with the PS5. Just look at the PS5's motherboard for instance, with the spacing of modules on it. You're making the point that the Xbox is more powerful but then it has reduced airflow and cooling...that's not a good combination then, is it? There are already many reports of how the Series X gets very hot during use and that's just when it's playing BC games. I don't share people's obsession with the size and appearance of the unit, especially after seeing the impressive teardown - would people really rather have a machine that overheats and gets noisier in place of it being smaller and more box-like? Who even looks at their machine while playing games? I don't, but I certainly hear it.

I would much, much rather have the PS5 purely from an engineering design perspective. For me there is just no comparison between the two systems when you see them torn down. It's kind of crazy to see how much effort and thought has gone into every part of the PS5 design when watching the teardown video (even the stand is a appreciable piece of engineering). I wasn't expecting much when I started watching the video but by the end I was really, really impressed. And I'm not someone who is usually interested in the nitty gritty tech stuff. For me I'll take the look and size of the PS5 if it means having a system designed to be run cooler, and quiet (impressions are suggesting the PS5 runs much cooler). I mean, look at this (Series X). The design looks as though there is very little customisation. It looks almost as if it has been filled with stock parts and that they have been more or less layered on top of each other: It's not just the design though, the cooling doesn't look anywhere near as comprehensive. With the PS5 the case is designed to dissipate heat all along the unit and the heatsink takes up something like 40% of the internal space. The PS5's horizontal fan also blows to both left and right sides of the console when upright (the Series X's fan meanwhile is situated at the top). You've also got this stand on the Series X which can't be removed which is effectively blocking a vent, even if you position the console sideways and don't need to use the stand: For anyone with even a mild interest I really would recommend watching Digital Foundry's teardown of the Series X and Sony's teardown of the PS5. The customisation and thought that has gone into the PS5 is abundantly clear to me, but I don't get that impression at all with the Series X.

I've had time to watch the PS5 teardown video more closely now. One thing that struck me throughout is just how much more smartly (and painstakingly) designed the PS5 is compared to the Series X, which we saw torn down by Digital Foundry a few months back. Everything inside the PS5 looked custom made and tailored to the design of the PS5, which revolves around heat dispersion. In contrast the Series X looked to more or less contain standard stock components. One thing I also noticed in the Series X video is how the airflow is blocked by internal components in a lot of places, as well as the case sides and even the stand. Any negative thoughts people might have on the design and size of the PS5 should be vindicated by this video. It's really an impressive piece of engineering - the size of the heatsink and fan, and shape of the case all work together to dispel heat buildup. At the end of the day I would much rather have something big and unorthodox in my living room if it means I don't have a loudz overheating machine. Roll on November!

One cool thing that was done with Final Fantasy XIII on PS3 was that if you unlocked the platinum trophy you were able to download a special system theme from the disc (and I think there were others for getting some other specific trophies too). Would be nice to see developers do stuff like that again - and for Sony to encourage it. But how many are Xbox fanboys wanting to see a PS5 get dismantled. [emoji14]

How long before the videos of people licking it, much like the Switch cartridges?

About the numbers going up, that's why I never saw the point in Gamerscore. Just a large number going up and up, which didn't really mean anything. The achievement system for me has always been about the number of Platinum trophies.

I think the primary purpose of the PS+ Collection is to entice people over who had an Xbox last gen and so never got to play these exclusive games. When you look at it that way it's kind of a fantastic package that can tempt people over. Sony also said The PS+ Collection was a bonus thing you get, so it's not replacing the Plus games each month. That said, as @drahkon mentioned, don't expect to see full PS5 games in it for a while. We saw this at the start of the PS4 generation; it takes a while before they start giving away those sorts of games.

Both Sony and Microsoft are basically saying the same thing - that being that effectively "thousands" of games will work. Neither have said that every game would work, which is pretty much to be expected.

So ShopTo have now said that many Xbox Series X/S orders won't be available for launch either. ShopTo have really not done a great job here.

That could amount for some of the consoles but I wouldn't think many. Most people I would think have only ordered one.

Not true, both PS3 and PS4 were readily available in the UK around launch, they never fully sold out over here. PS3 in particular there were plenty on the shelves. Not saying they might have sold out locally in some regions around the world, but they were definitely available here.

I think it might be more of an issue to do with overall stock levels. It's rumoured that up to 80% of the consoles they've manufactured are the disc version so they must have believed the digital version would have fairly limited appeal. The digital model has also sold out everywhere which suggests demand is there for it. I was pretty confident that the PS5 would sell out across the board (unlike the PS3/PS4) just because of how well the PS4 did this generation, and video games becoming more popular during the pandemic. I'm guessing they just couldn't produce more consoles in time.

Shotgun jetpack was always the dream in Spelunky 1.

Sorry to hear this. Eurogamer have an article about the ShopTo preorder situation. The ShopTo spokesperson told Eurogamer that this issue was down to the customer not clicking to convert their interest into a preorder in time. Seems as though ShopTo are not being honest and suggesting it was down to the customer being slow rather than the issue being caused by them releasing too many preorder slots (and later finding out they didn't have a big enough allocation).

Oh yeah, I can see why people might not want to commit to £450 right now, for sure. I just don't ever consider the cost of the console based on what is there at that very moment - for me it's a 7-year investment. Rather than seeing it as spending £450 for me it's more or less a question of how much will I likely save if I buy it in a year when games like Horizon are here. Given the tech inside and current price of these consoles I just don't see there being much difference, meaning it's probably better value to buy it now, in terms of getting your money's worth out of it.

The difference on that point though is that a Pro/One X doesn't grant you access to any new games, whereas the new consoles will. For me I know I will be gaming over the next 7 years (and that games will stop being made for PS4/X1) so the question comes about when I'll be buying it rather than if. Since there doesn't seem to be much reason to wait I'll be getting one right away.

I actually think this will be one of the best generations to onboard early and I'm quite excited about it. With regards to launch titles, Sony's offering at launch is pretty decent and certainly a lot better than many of their past offerings. Xbox's does leave a lot to be desired though. In particular the benefits from the SSD in terms of load times and the immediate boosts to visual fidelity look tremendous (going by the recent Xbox videos). I have a lot of games I'm still playing or yet to play that would benefit immediately. It might not be as exciting as having more brand new games but it's still a very strong reason to get a new console now if you're planning to get one anyway at some point. Traditionally one of the big reasons for not upgrading to new consoles right away was that you could pick up the console cheaper down the line when there are more games. However we saw with the PS4 that it took 2 years just to get an official discount of 50 quid - if we saw the same again, I'd argue it's worth having considerable improvements to your existing games for 2 years for 50 quid is more than worth it (as well as the best versions of games that come out in that period). The new consoles are also clearly being sold at a loss so it's reasonable to assume that we won't see any big price cuts for a while. Because of all this (and gaming being one of my main hobbies), it gets really easy to justify buying one of these at launch.

I saw these images elsewhere too - I don't quite understand the discrepancy between the loading times between the two sources. Surely the Series X hardware should be the same across the board? Maybe they counted from different points...

Certainly sounds that way. I know in the past with some console launches there has only been one round of preorders (I'm looking at you, Wii). Presumably there'll be a point where Sony know realistically how many consoles they can provide by launch, and those console preorders will be filled.

Weirdly though, the shortcuts actually make Spelunky harder (since you miss out on money/shops/hearts you could have encountered up to that point). My guess it's for people wanting to practice certain sections, or for speedrunners.

I'm in