Sheikah

To counter this - you also have a lot of people who are better off in a post-lockdown world - both saving money on travel and having more free time due to not travelling. We also might expect to see a bigger push to digital and away from preowned games in shops - which means more money back to Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo. As far as gaming goes, it's also very good value for money. I bought the game Overwatch for around 40 quid at launch and I've logged probably close to 1,500 hours from it. People might generally have less money across the board but I don't feel like gaming will bear the brunt of that. We might see slightly slower uptake of the new gaming consoles but part of me thinks that the opposite will be true (assuming the consoles are priced reasonably) - and we might see record new console uptake.

I think Microsoft's messaging has been fairly muddled. For example, Microsoft said that their new first party games would support Xbox One for the next 2 years. But as others have noticed, there's a good chance that this isn't the case after all. Either games are too far away (thus making this a bit of an empty boast), or games won't come out on Xbox One after all. You've also got the fact that they're touting having the most powerful console, then showing a demo for a game with bad pop in (which therefore looks like it's not taking advantage of the SSD) that looks like a slightly spruced up Xbox One game, and certainly not making the case for buying the new system. Then just yesterday they're removing the "optimised for Xbox Series X" stickers from games, which, while they were ugly, this now means that you don't know which games are optimised at a glance. Add to this that it wasn't clear at all if any games they recently showed were actually running on Xbox Series X (some were in fact shown on PC) and it's easy to be left confused as to why you'd want to buy a Series X within the first few years at least. If we contrast this with Sony, they have made it very clear that it's a new generation and they're not holding back the potential of new games by making them compatible with older systems. And we can see evidence with that with Ratchet and Clank with its dimension shifting. There was a good article on the Series X recently by Oli Welsh at Eurogamer. To quote him:

Maybe I'm wrong but didn't Microsoft add most of the 360 game support to the X1 later on? I do think it's very important to have this backwards compatibility support right away as it eases the transition. If I can go out and buy a PS5 at launch and immediately play Overwatch (with boosted performance) for instance, that's a big deal. I can pack away my PS4 right away. Give it a year or two after the launch of PS5 and backwards compatibility becomes less of a big deal. Another point on this is that we've now probably accumulated much bigger game libraries due to games included with Plus and also because digital (and digital game sales) is much bigger now.

Regarding the bolded bit, I absolutely agree. I've said it before but it's far, far more difficult to simply switch consoles than it has been in previous generations. You've got the digital software you'll lose access to like you said but there's more than that - people have got a lot of physical games that they can continue to play due to backwards compatibility and friends lists that they would lose if they switched. It's also become more difficult than ever to afford more than one of these new consoles due to how expensive it will likely be plus the online sub costs. It really did make that 2013 E3 so very important to get right, as we're seeing the knock on effects carry through to the next generation, and probably even beyond that. I'm also really excited about these new consoles. I think the introduction of the SSD will make the older systems feel really quite outdated by comparison. For a lot of the games that have recently come out (e.g. TLOU2, GoT) I'm holding off in the hope that they get a patch shortly after the release of the PS5.

Except it wasn't the general consensus, either with people or the websites which analysed his talk!

I swear you keep saying the Cerny talk was a blunder in the hope that you'll convince people through repetition. 3:1 likes to dislikes ratio doesn't lie.

Yep, and I feel I answered that quite well. I feel that they have prioritised the wrong thing here, at this point in time.

I have no problem with Series X supporting 120 Hz; it's perfectly reasonable that during the course of the generation, a lot of people will end up with more modern TVs that support it. My issue is that this game looks graphically very undercooked, yet boasts 120 Hz support on Series X despite the overwhelming majority of current TV players not having the means to take advantage of it. My own thought on this is that it they targeted 60 Hz they would surely be able to increase the graphical fidelity of the game, while still having a very respectable framerate that everyone would be able to take advantage of. I'll reserve full judgement until we see what graphics options they provide (e.g. both performance and resolution modes), but for now it looks to me that 120 Hz is possible because the graphical fidelity is low, probably because it was an Xbox One game that they haven't had time to optimse for Series X.

The trouble with the FOMO mechanics of battle passes, limited time events and microtransactions are that they generally rely on whales and obtrusive game design elements that detract from the game. An example that springs to mind is Apex Legends - to earn XP each day you're tasked with playing specific characters (ones that you probably wouldn't otherwise want to play or perform well with) land in specific areas and perform specific actions. As a result I have genuinely seem team members request to land in specific, otherwise inadvisable areas to land to increase their XP. My gripe about this is that even if you choose to ignore it, other people unfortunately don't.

Well my comment was specifically on the Series X version of Halo Infinite, which I supect the overwhelming majority will be playing on TV rather than a gaming monitor (I believe many with a decent monitor will be playing on PC rather than Xbox). Not saying a proportion of people won't hook up a Series X to a gaming monitor but it seems strange to me that they'd target this slim minority of gamers on Series X with a 120 Hz option with somewhat iffy graphics, rather than target a perfectly good 60 Hz option that everyone can enjoy, but with much higher graphical fidelity as a result. It feels like it's serving the slim minority with a feature they comes at the expense of serving everyone. Of course, if they provide both performance and resolution modes then that's different, and I suspect the issue with the graphics then is that it's a current gen game that they haven't had time to optimise for Series X.

Unfortunately though free to play brings its own set of issues, namely microtransactions, battle passes and various currencies to make profit. Given the option I would always pick paid for over free to play any day of the week. For 120 Hz, won't we also need a new TV capable of supporting it? It sounds great, but also something that actually won't be accessible to the majority of people. I also feel like they're able to pull that off at the cost of graphical fidelity, based on the gameplay demo.

I agree with this, except I'd swap 3D platformer for Mario 64, and general choice for Banjo Kazooie.

My main thoughts on the focus on Game Pass is that something will surely have to give with that. People are converting years worth of Xbox Live subscription time into Game Pass Ultimate through the 1 dollar/pound Game Pass trial promotion, which is still going. As such, Microsoft are bankrolling it at a loss, presumably up to the point that they feel they have enough customers to start charging properly for it.

Ugh...really? Games as a service in full price games needs to go away.

The thing is though, at least Sony will have a handful of big games that they developed to properly take advantage of PS5 by end of next year, including Horizon 2 (which looks amazing) and Ratchet and Clank. Based on Microsoft's presentation they will have nothing they developed themselves by next year that truly looks next gen. It feels like there is very little reason to buy a Series X within the first year or so. Out of interest, how did Sony present their games as if they were coming out sooner? Both Microsoft and Sony were showing trailers for games that they didn't attach a date to. Microsoft also showed CG teasers for games that won't be out for ages - like Fable.

I've watched through this now and was thoroughly disappointed. There was so little there that demonstrated the power of the Series X, and indeed that's true as all first party games will run on Xbox One too. Right now I cannot see a reason to pick one of these up at launch. I cannot understand why they thought it would be a good idea to release cross-gen first party games. The whole point of being the console manufacturer is that you back your new console with unique games to show off its potential and attract customers. Microsoft's decision to do this is baffling. Halo also looks like it hasn't really changed much in over 10 years. This is something I have felt about Halo for a while, actually. Overall this wasn't just an issue with the graphics of these games; the games themselves felt flat, as did the presentation in general (like the amount of devs spending time talking about their games). When you think back to the Horizon 2 trailer, Microsoft had absolutely nothing on that level to show here. Based solely on this, if both consoles are priced similarly I expect Sony to run away with it again. Microsoft will do well on the value proposition with Game Pass and I expect that will see them through, but man, this presentation was sorely lacking for me.

What did you think about the last quarter or so of the game?

I agree with a lot of what you've said, especially that they really need to knock it out the park. The Sony showing recently was excellent, so they have to go one better. If there's one thing we've come away knowing this generation it's that Sony had far more exclusive games, so they've got to prove that they have a lot of great games releasing within the next year or so.

Yes...wipe down everything after use.

Too true. The bigger the burger, the more annoying it looks to tackle. Also don't get me started on brioche buns that look nice but often fall apart when handling. I have a lot of places I like to eat at in London, when I get chance I'll post some pics.

Collectible If you were playing this particular game with others and you saw this drop, it didn't matter how long you'd known your friends for. They were dead to you.

If it's anything like Super Paper Mario on Wii I wouldn't be happy paying even £5 for it.

First the disc drive bulge, next the two-tone case design. Sony need only one more thing and they'll have the trifecta of steering people to the digital-only console!

This is the thing, even if the official RRP becomes 65 quid, a lot of people like myself will still just wait until the games are 15/20 quid, with a few exceptions (e.g. the occasional exceptional game). This is why the PS5 with the disc drive will be a must for me. Mind you, this might not work out immediately (I remember PS4 games around launch took a while to reduce in price).