Goron_3

Got my Amazon order in for the S. Wasn't expecting them to be in stock as I woke up late but pretty pleased overall.

This is very true. The games aren't brutally tough; they are just punishing. People assume that the games are impossibly hard but they are actually very fair. @Ronnie Whilst I've not played it, the same team behind Bloodborne /Dark Souls also made a game called Sekiro which is also on Xbox (which I believe you have access to?). Sekiro is an even more aggressive version of Bloodborne from what I've heard, and having just reminding myself of the Easy Allies and Digital Foundry reviews, it looks like it runs wonderfully on the Xbox.

Get Bloodborne. It's the perfect entry into the series. The Victorian, H.P Lovecraft inspired setting is incredibly well put together and the gameplay is much faster and aggressive that Dark Souls. Gaggle summarises many of the great things about the Soulsborne titles, but it's the small things that really make the games so great. Using Bloodborne as an example, you're exploring a rich and diverse world without a map or markers to help you get your bearings. A big part of the experience is not just becoming skilled enough to defeat the enemies / bosses, but also in unlocking shortcuts in the environment to help you get between areas quicker (for example, opening a one way gate or activating a lift that let's you easily connect between the area in which you spawned in and the area in which you just spent an hour trying to reach). The Soulsbourne games also use a unique mechanic whereby the experience you gained by killing enemies (which you can use to level up) are lost if you fall in combat. When you respawnn, the enemy that killed you will hold that experience, but if you die again before you retrieve it, it's lost forever. It's creates these really tense scenarios whereby you'll have immersed yourself into an area and are pushing forward (often against you're own best judgement) because you're hoping you will unlock a short cut to connect you back to the save point. Do you back track to save area, cash in your experience and level up (which respawns all the enemies you just killed) or do you keep venturing forward knowing that if you die, you've lost all that experience? Furthermore, the bosses are universally loved in each of the games and they are designed to really test your ability to hold your nerve and make crucial decisions. Most enemies in Bloodborne and the Souls games, even the weak guys you saw in the trailer, can easily kill you in one or two hits if you're not careful. The experience is about understanding what move they are about to use, whether to block/roll or whether to attack. Honestly, even after putting 100 hours into Bloodborne, I've gone back to earlier areas and got wrecked by a relatively weak enemy because I wasn't focused enough. Give Bloodborne a go. It's just a brilliantly woven game. I can't praise it enough.

The amount of hyperbole around yesterday's event is absolutely comical. As much as I love forums and social media, ultimately they represent a tiny minority of the people actually buying consoles. The only real disappoint from yesterday's event was the news that Horizon is unfortunately a cross generational game, which suggests that it started development on PS4 first before having its engine tweaked to run on next gen hardware too. Yeah, it's disappointing, but that doesn't mean that Sony's 'we believe in generations' comment is invalid, and I'm certain that after a year or two cross gen games will stop completely from Sony's POV. The PS4 has 2-3 years left in it so it's not surprising that games originally developed on PS4 engines and tools will release on it. It's important to keep in mind that 'We believe in generations' does not mean that 'We will never release cross gen games again'. It simply means that Sony believe that games built from ground on PS5 will never be able to run on lesser hardware. I imagine God of War 2 will be one of those games, as are Ratchet and Clank and Demon Souls. Anyway, I decided against a pre-order despite Demon Souls being confirmed for launch. We're still isolating at my fiancee's family home and I can't justify a PS5 in two months when I don't know if/when I'll be playing it on a 4K TV. Having a new TV delivered here seems pointless when it's not my house.

Some of those games use current gen engines so it's not a surprise (apart from maybe Horizon). Once you get to games built ground up for PS5 (as soon as next year judging by GoW) they'll ditch the PS4 due to CPU and SSD advantages.

Demon Souls. Fucking hell. That looked extraordinary. Price is what we all expected. Hopefully they confirm the launch games soon.

"R&D investment - previously used to look at conventional tech that enabled a lower price and appeal to users. But now doing cutting edge technology, look at how intuitive it is for users, also battery life is important given game-play of 5-6hrs" Music to my ears. The Switch used a modern GPU relative to when it released (Tegra X1 was a 2015 chip). Hopefully they continue to use relatively new technology without sacrificing on battery life.

Tbh, I wouldn't even mind if the batter wasn't that much longer than the Dualshock 4 IF it also supported fast charging. Pretty much all of my devices can go from 0 - 80% charged in not much more than 30 minutes, so I'm hoping they can do something similar.

I'm still a bit gutted that the Series S is really tall and not a smaller, GameCube sized box

Scalpers will be happy with the production news.

Could be placeholder prices but there are images on resetera of a Spanish retailer having prices of €399/499 on their systems as of this morning for the DE and regular PS5 respectively.

There wasn't a single year that generation where the 360 outside PS3 worldwide. Yes, PS3 had Japan, but you've got to remember that the 360 flat lined massively from around 2010. Microsoft poured a huge amount of money into marketing Kinect which gave it a second bump, but that was nothing but a temporary way of getting more sales.

@Dcubed You're assuming people will just jump from PS5 to Xbox. People who like the Playstation brand will always stick with that. Even in the PS3 / 360 era, Microsft got virtually everything right yet the PS3 still outsold it every year thanks to its performance in places like Europe. It's like the whole Apple vs Android debate. You can argue semantics, but in reality most people stick with one ecosystem / brand. £21 a month for 2 years with Gamepass? Will be fascinated to see how it takes off.

The PS5 is pretty much the perfect device to me *shrugs* Perfect combo of hardware and software. I don't expect services like Gamepass from Sony and Nintendo.

It's important to remember that PlayStation is the dominant gaming brand in Europe. They've got nothing to worry about.

I do think it's absolutely hilarious that Microsoft are knocking it out of the park in virtually every way other than software. I'm definitely getting the Series S as I don't have a 4K TV yet, and so I'm happy to wait for a PS5, but if Demon Souls is a launch title then that goes out the window.

Consider this: Sony are known for getting excellent value for money from their CPU/GPU partners, presumably as they can promise around 100M sales across a 5-6 year period. For example, the PS4's bill of materials for the GPU, CPU and RAM was estimated to be $140 per console, only $30 more than what Nintendo paid for the Wii U's, which was significantly weaker Sony's SSD has been produced internally, has it not? As it's not off the shelf, I imagine they'll simply accept that as the cost of R&D, whereas Microsoft will have purchased their own SSDs from suppliers. The XSX has much more expensive components. Additionally, as the end of the last financial year, Sony made more money from PSN than Xbox and Nintendo combined (I think that was profit, not just revenue). The margins on digital downloads are so big that I think Sony will be happy to take a small loss on each console. I'm expecting U.S prices of $399/$499 (pre-tax obv).

Pretty much what I expected. I imagine Sony will go down the $399 (DE), $450/499. I'm also going to predict that Series S will outsell the Series X by a significant margin (70:30) for the first year.

I don't think so, simply because the entire industry was already aware of the Series S and I'm sure Sony knew it was going to effectively be a budget device. What I am interested in is seeing how it sells. XBO and PS4 continued to sell more than the XBX and PS4 Pro as most people don't care about extra graphics. It'll be interesting to see if the Series S can help Microsoft in territories where Sony are typically stronger.

I doubt it'll be that cheap. Series S is cheaper because it has a much cheaper GPU, and therefore it needs a much cheaper cooling solution and packaging. It also has an off the shelf SSD, unlike the PS5. I'm expecting £399 for the DE PS5 and the £499 for the regular PS5.

They are losing money now in the same way Spotify and Netflix lost huge sums upfront. They will enter a phase will GamePass where long term subscribers are continuing to pay but are playing less frequently - that's where the money lies.

I imagine even 2-3 years of GamePass is insanely profitable for them. Likewise, dat digital download profit $$$.

The Series S is much more powerful than the One X. At the very least, you're getting a 8X CPU boost and a 40x boost in memory speed (I think that's right). The only thing that is similar between the two machines is the GPU - they are roughly equal in terms of peak power however the Series S has a much more modern architecture. The Series S is essentially a replacement for the current One S, and the Series X is a replacement for the One X, but the Series S is going to be capable of running games built for next gen. This is something that the current gen consoles could only dream off. The issue with 4K is that it's incredible resource intensive due to the sheer number of pixels it's pushing. If they've got this right, the only difference between Microsoft's next gen consoles is that one pushes games at 4K and the other at 1080p.

It's a great idea tbh, and that's a great price for a next gen piece of hardware. I've only got a 1080p TV, and whilst I'm mainly a Nintendo / Sony camper, GamePass is a great initiative. Boy...I can't wait to play Resident Evil 4 once again

It's a bit disappointing that these are really low effort. SM64 lacking widescreen for example is a bummer. That said, my main disappointment is that Sunshine is 30 FPS. For those that don't know, the game ran at 60 FPS throughout it's development but because the game had to be rushed out due to poor GC sales, they dropped the framerate to 30. Truthfully, you're better off playing it via Dolphin. At least it's full HD.