Gaming

People have been saying these things since 2020 and it has convinced me that people in online gaming forums are out of touch.

Here's my argument against the Series X though:

• It has nothing I can't play on my PC. Even though Sony has started releasing their games on PC, their ports usually come years later. I don't hold this against Microsoft though, I'm more than happy to play games like Halo on PC instead of buying another console.

• Sony console exclusives are better and more numerous than Xbox exclusives. This has been the case since the Xbox One.

• The DualSense is a way cooler controller. I'm pretty miffed that the Xbox controller still doesn't have a gyroscope, When utilized properly a gyroscope makes aiming in shooters a lot easier.

So the way I see it, there isn't much reason to buy a Series X beyond its awesome backwards compatibility.

My issue at this point is I have SOOOO many PS games that I wouldn't want to have to re-purchase on Xbox. I've had a playstation since the 2 so have a pretty extensive library. If there was a way to transfer things over without re-purchasing I would likely make the switch. As it stands, I made my bed so now I lay in it, lol.

I think it's down to a few reasons. One you touched on is exclusives. Most consumers aren't going to have both consoles like you do, they're going to pick one or the other and Xbox doesn't really have many exclusives, even fewer than PS, and theirs are much more likely to end up on PC when they do have them. So for consumers who want the larger variety of games, PS5 currently wins.

Another is performance. While both the PS5 and Series X are comparable, the Series S offering has created a very odd phenomenon of accidental exclusivity for Sony because of performance limitations. It's a relatively new thing but I suspect it's going to be more common as the generation goes on. The current example is Baldur's Gate III. It simply cannot run on the S. As a result the developer has put an Xbox release on hold indefinitely and it may never come out on Xbox because they don't want to have to deal with the confusion of selling an Xbox game that is not playable on one of the two SKUs. They decided that if the S can't run it then it just won't come out for the X either.

Third, and probably more relevant earlier in the generation, Sony had some snappy gimmicks on their side that might have been a difference maker for some consumers on the fence. The advanced haptics of the Dual Sense for example. I think the novelty of that wore off pretty quickly but there was a lot of buzz around it closer to launch to the extent that it's impact on sales is probably more than nothing at all. I think the PSVR2 was also briefly a console mover as Xbox doesn't have comparable hardware. I don't think anyone at this point is rushing out to get a PS5 just for VR now, but there was a brief period of time after the PSVR2 was announced where people were eager to have a PS5 because if they did want VR, Sony's was the cheapest way into that market at modern performance levels without having to give Facebook your entire identity just to game. Again not significant on its own, but it's impact is more than nothing at all.

Fourth is just that Sony came into the generation ahead of Microsoft with the PS4. More PS4 owners with big libraries are going to want a new system that can play their old games rather than starting from scratch. So if you have a bunch of PS4 games that you still play, you're going to choose PS5 and it's kind of a no brainer.

And lastly I'd say Sony has just done a better job marketing it's console as a must-have piece of consumer tech. From the jump there were a lot of people who already had gaming PCs questioning why they would ever need an Xbox. And Microsoft did little to address this narrative, it almost felt like they accepted that they were going to cannibalize their own console's sales right from launch because everything gets ported to PC for them and just decided they didn't care. There are plenty of reasons to own an Xbox but MS has pushed like none of them in advertising. Sony meanwhile did a great job early on marketing the PS5 as a status symbol and has kept in the public eye much more consistently with game exclusivity, and more recently media tie-ins with the Last of Us tv show. And while the exclusives may be few and far between, they are big draws like Final Fantasy, Horizon, and Spider-Man. When Xbox occasionally gets an exclusive, it's always in the news for the wrong reasons like Halo almost universally agreed upon to be no longer good or Redfall being an absolutely embarrassing catastrophe of a release.

I have both also. The Series X is the more powerful machine, no doubt about it. I prefer the DualSense for everything but FPS games, though. I much prefer Sony’s exclusive lineup, and having ps4 games work makes it even better, because I much preferred Sony’s exclusives in that generation too. Overall I end up playing the PS5 far more often than my Xbox. Microsoft’s backwards compatibility is so great though. I love being able to pop in original Xbox games I have laying around and playing them in 4k. That alone was enough reason for me to pick it up.

I thought some people would think it was interesting. I'm sorry if you weren't one of those people and I hope you had a good day.

why waste your time commenting something like this?

PS4 is 117M lifetime, PS3 is 87M lifetime, PS2 is 155M lifetime.

40M sits between the N64 lifetime and SNES lifetime sales. Keep in mind, as time progresses, the gaming market is bigger, so direct comparisons cant be done. Its only the 3rd year for the PS5, so it hasnt hit its half way point in its projected timeline.

PS4 also sold 40M units by it's third year.

Also, the PS2/3/4 all had hardware revisions, then the 4 had a Pro model. The PS5 will inevitably do the same eventually, and get a boost in sales numbers for it.