Anecdotally I'll have to disagree. The only GaaS game I played frequently was OW/OW2 and I'm completely done with that series due to the combination of F2P and GaaS ruining the franchise.
I know a lot of people that play COD, Fortnite and Minecraft but those are exceptions to the rule. People do not have the free time or the desire to grind many GaaS simultaneously which are time intensive and have a low reward for effort and money invested by design.
If you had a 4k TV certain games were significantly upgraded visually on the PS4 Pro/XOX vs the base consoles. It's unlikely we're going to see as many process node drops this console generation so I expect it'll be years before we'd see a really meaningful performance increase for AMD's APUs.
I wouldn't say the PS5 is hideous but it certainly isn't an elegant design and the XSX is bland like you said but functional which I am ok with. I hope the PS5 Slim has a more compact design.
As a current gen console owner who didn't own a PS4 Pro or XOX enhancements both allowed that carried over to the PS5/XSX.
The XOX was about saving face for Microsoft, the original XO was a massively compromised system due to Microsoft's lack of focus and while I think the original XO punched above what I though it's relatively weak hardware was capable of the weak CPU cores in the PS4/XO consoles ended up being far more a detriment to game developers.
Microsoft knew prices on hardware was not going to come down over time like it had in the past and that manufacturing costs were going up, not down which is price inflationary even before COVID-19 due to manufacturing competition with mobile makers, GPU manufacturers vs TSMC's limited manufacturing capabilities.
SOC prices were never going to go down over time like they had in the past. Likely lack of cost reductions over time and inflation in SOC prices over time comp...
I don't see it happening with inflation the way it is which is why Microsoft made the Series S (for better and worse).
CPUs in particular have not progressed to the point new hardware would enable games that are not possible on existing PS5/Xbox Series systems and because games would have to be backwards compatible with the base model it's a moot point anyway as games wouldn't be fully able to take advantage of the new systems so we'd likely get nice to have...
I am really sick of linear games being bashed.
Linear games have pros and cons. I'd much rather a shorter, linear game with a tight and compelling story then a openworld game with a poor story and non-existent pacing because of a vacuous open world.
Not every game has to be in the Souls/Elden Ring vein, that will get old quickly especially since most imitations will be vastly inferior to the games that inspired said games.
This is true for a lot of VR games, when there's so much junk and so few hits people aren't going to invest a quite large sum of money for VR headsets.
If the market wasn't so fragmented and you could use the one headset on multiple platforms VR would have far better penetration but that's never going to be the case when you have so many competing VR headsets and no one headset has established itself as the de faco market leader with a sufficient install bas...
Sorry I have no interest in VR. I prefer most genres with a traditional controller and some genres with KB&M.
Many people simply don't have the money for VR and the money they do have they'd rather spend on traditional games. Other people are not obligated to follow and validate your choices.
I think people are more annoyed at Sony's repeated attempts to disingenuously paint themselves as the good guys when they have shown repeatedly in the past they are just as bad as Microsoft with both companies having a well documented history of anti-competitive practices and abusing their market power and not just in gaming I might add.
When all's said and done many of these anti-competitive practices will backfire, if Microsoft and Sony engage in tit-for-tat makin...
Crystal Dynamics often preferred to focus on their lead platform(s) and outsource porting of their games to other platforms to Nixxes Software who Sony now own.
Crystal Dynamics is a tiny company compared to the behemoth that is Square Enix.
The whole thing could backfire with Microsoft making scummy moves like making the next Elder Scrolls game exclusive to PC and Xbox consoles which is a really shitty move against Playstation owners who are fans of the series.
The PS5 and Xbox series are so close in terms of specs there's not really any compelling reason to make existing franchises with large playerbases on Playstation consoles have future instalments exclusive to Xbox.
Nintendo were toxic AF using their market power to coerce and control developers and publishers which is why many jumped ship to the PS1. Once Sony gained a foothold with the PS1 they also abused their market power specifically against Sega but other companies as well.
All's fair in low and war and the console makers were most certainly at war back then despite what ignorant people like yourself would like to think.
The console business has always bee...
You clearly have no understanding of the situation.
After the failure of Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within Sakaguchi had to accept responsibility as is customary in Japanese business culture and his standing fell within SE. He'd been working out of Hawaii for a while at that point so he wasn't really connected to the inner circle at SE anymore which had become increasingly corportate and lost a lot of staff from the Square days.
He was depressed a...
I really enjoyed it co-op for what it was, an action game. While I wouldn't want every game from the series to be in the same action vein it was a very good game.
Honestly this is quite a worrying set of financials for AMD as consoles SOC are low margin products and AMD GPU sales have dropped as AMD has reduced GPU supply in an attempt to keep prices high. AMD's marketshare of GPUs is tiny so willingly reducing supply and releasing poor value products (7900 XTX and XT) is something AMD cant afford if they want to be of any relevance in the PC space and is extremely short-sighted.
Nvidia is also complicit with trying to force poor...
The way regulations are it's entirely possible a developer/publisher that is knocked back could sue MS/Sony/Ninty and win. No platform holder could get away with what Nintendo imposed back in the day with the SNES which is partly to thank for the rise of the Playstation.
Hell back in the day you had app creators trying to put malicious apps on the App Store then trying to sue Apple when Apple refused to allow said apps on the App Store.
The platform h...
The recent attempts by Sony to block Microsoft's acquisition of ABK has exposed the hypocrisy of both companies.
Microsoft pulled the same crap with timed exclusives on the Xbox360 then promptly left core gamers in the dust to pursue other ventures like Kinect that didn't pan out then came back to core gamers with their tails between their legs after the debacle that was the XO.
Microsoft and Sony have plenty of blemishes on their track record whi...
Modern game engines are very scalable and working around a less capable GPU and RAM capacity and bandwidth is easier with a trade-offs for resolution, textures and effects. It's not that hard to scale games for the S, most games have to have scalability since there is a PC release and many PC gamers are using older quad core systems that are far more detrimental to modern games.
While I wouldn't like to play some titles on Series S where the native resolution can dr...
After the debacle that was the XO I think Microsoft are just about increasing console sales vs what the console sales they had with the XO. If Microsoft didn't differentiate with Game Pass I and many others would not have a current gen Xbox console.