Now that I've had a few weeks to cozy up with my systems, I want to shed some light on the user experience with the Playstation 5 and the Xbox Series S.
Playstation 5 - In desperate need of a system update.
Now that I get to look at this every day, I've finally decided that the shape of this thing sucks. I'm glad that the design fully addresses the ventilation issues of the last generation, and who knows, maybe the shape factors in there. It's not that I'd rather have a rectangle, but the curve part on the right where the disc drive slopes out looks silly. Horizontally, the system looks awkward and unbalanced. It makes sense that 90% of the marketing and Youtube photos show it vertically. The PS5 doesn't even fit on the included stand securely in that position, as the securing screw only fits in vertical orientation. This is exacerbated by the fact that the included HDMI 2.1 cable is only 3 feet long. Additionally, the current system's drive has some pretty bad vibrating that makes the system as loud as the last generation. The most annoying thing is that if you leave a disc in the PS5, it will spin up every 20-30 minutes whether you're playing the game or not. I'm pretty sure this can be fixed with any kind of system updates.
The Dualsense controller is almost a hit. The balance is great and between that and the texture, it no longer slips off your lap, table, or any remotely-flat surface the way the PS4 controller did. The haptic feedback via detailed vibration and pressure-adjusted triggers is super cool. The console comes with the PS5's best launch game pre-installed and free. Japan Studio's Astro's Playroom is a complete game that might take 10 hours to platinum, but it's pretty, it uses all the features of the Dualsense, it's got a small install footprint of 10GB, it's fun, doesn't crash and showcases the system perfectly. The reason I say 'almost a hit' is because some idiot at Sony decided to remove the color of the buttons for aesthetics to the detriment of user experience. The redesign of the system is clearly trying to appeal to casual single-player gamers, so why would you remove the extra information of colored buttons? Think about it: if you're in one of those quick time events and need to hit the buttons as they come up on the screen, pink no longer means square, blue no longer means X and et-cetera. While I've been using the control scheme since the Playstation 1 and know where the buttons are, this decision doesn't reinforce Sony's decision to cater to more casual players. The games I've seen have even de-colored the buttons in their displays to reflect the change. Otherwise, I don't mind their decision to have the mic button light up when your mic is off.
You know me and frugality, so here's my advice package for PS5. I've never had an issue with storage because I think it forces you to commit to your games. Couple this with getting the disc version and selling it when you're done and I think the size limit adds some positive structure to your playing. I'm probably in the minority with that opinion. However, the Playstation Plus Collection on the PS5 means you have 20 digital games itchin to secure space. I ended up getting a used 2tb USB 3.0 Seagate for $40 and the games themselves run just fine. I did, however, move online PS4 games to the internal PS5 because I noticed a small delay in rendering objects and wondered what kind of lag that might translate to in Apex Legends. (Save $40-80)
I got the Sony brand controller charging dock for the full $30, as the only other controller drop-in dock (by Collective Minds) has a stupid USB-C connection that sticks out of the front of your console and looks stupid, even if the dock itself has a great build quality. (No savings)
I got 10ft HDMI 2.1 cables for $10 each to be able to put my PS5 where I wanted--vertically. (Save ~$10)
Instead of the perpetually sold-out $100 Pulse3d headset, I got a refurbished Arctis 1 headset for $80. They came with an assortment of USB adapters (and actually would have solved my 3rd party controller dock problem), but are ultimately wireless, are extremely well-constructed, and also do 3d audio wirelessly. Plug and Play. (Save $20)
Some saint on eBay was selling brand new shrinkwrapped copies of Miles Morales Ultimate (w/ a download code for Spider-Man remastered) for $50 instead of the retail $70. Read the fine print in that if you're looking for this package, 'used' copies of MMUltimate won't come with that one-time code unless stated. Mine did! (Save $20).
Mortal Kombat 11, Doom Eternal, The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk have already announced free upgrades to the PS5 version of these PS4 titles. If you missed the digital sales of these games, you can likely get the disc versions for pretty damn cheap and be ready to upgrade when the updates are available. (Save lots)
Performance: PS4 games look better in that they generally stick to their 30fps or 60fps targets and HDR comes through much cleaner. The system itself is super quiet except for the loud-as-last-gen disc drive spinning up stupidly every 30 minutes. While playing Miles Morales, early on in the game it abruptly shut the whole system off, and while booting back up refused to proceed. This was solved by unplugging the USB harddrive. Also, I'd seen warnings that putting the console in Rest Mode may cause this kind of issue, so I just make sure to close the game from the menu when I'm done for that session. While it's jarring to have your brand new system shut off for no reason, no data was damaged and loading is so fast that it was MAYBE 30 seconds to get back up and running. Anything related to loading is blindingly fast.
Operating System: A short-press of the PS button brings up the quick menu where you can look at Friends, Parties, Music, News and other stupid casual crap. Everything useful except for a shortcut to looking at your trophy list. This really rubs me the wrong way. The PS5 breaks its back catering to casual gamers and some of the PS5 titles have these 'Cards' that will highlight a trophy with an estimated time for completion and even hints. This is really cool, but I don't have children or a busy life and really don't need all this extra help. I'm all for accessibility, but I simply want to be able to bring up the trophy list without having to dig through menus. There are a host of annoyances with the PS5 menu and I just hope that a future update will let you customize better or simply revert to the PS4's established menu. Also, where the hell are folders? It really looks like I'm using a smartphone, which is the last thing I want to do when trying to play games.
Xbox Series S - Ya win some, ya lose some.
I love the design of this console. It's neat, sturdy as hell and the two tones are attractive. Game Pass is the best subscription deal alive, and all the ways to add months to your account for as little as $30 per year for ~200 rotating games is amazing. In general, Microsoft has been much more transparent about their plans, the systems' capabilities, and Microsoft has also made accessibility a priority. The $300 price point--with an included controller--for a console more powerful than a similarly-priced PS4-Pro together with Game Pass makes this a more-affordable option to get a powerful and convenient system.
However, it had been seven years since I had a Microsoft console. The controllers are boring and feel like a step backwards from Playstation and Switch. For a retail price of $50-60, you still have to provide 2 AA batteries that last a week. The alternative is a ~$20 play and charge kit, bringing the cost OVER its contemporaries and there's no gyroscope, speaker or touchpad like Nintendo or Sony's controllers. I would have respected the increased battery life that comes with dropping these gimmicks if it was reflected in the price, but it isn't. The button layout would be fine if Microsoft had some originality when they entered the game 20 years ago. Nintendo, since 1990, has had the layout using XYAB. Sony went completely different with the shapes. Microsoft decided to flip the order of buttons instead of coming up with something original and less confusing when you're changing between any of the two companies' systems. First world problem, I know, but is it too much to ask for the world's most valuable company to not copy notes from their neighbor?
However, MS deserves praise to the moon for spending the resources on the Adaptive Controller. Unfortunately, it's not yet able to use on the Series X|S, but I imagine it will be the company's priority to enable its use in the near future. The other place where MS deserves huge praise is that their controllers are flexible among generations in a win for sustainability. The only thing this generation's controllers added was a share button, which of course you can do from the menu anyway. Sharing is good and bad. The good part is that your Microsoft account is tied to all gaming, cloud storage, store activity and MS applications, so you can upload screenshots and videos directly to OneDrive! However, currently, the system will notify you ONE-BY-ONE of each image uploaded. If you turn off notifications, you get no reaction whatsoever to hitting the share button. These features need to be separated so that I get a notification when I capture, but not 20 notifications when I upload 20 images at once.
Performance: The Series S is super quiet, and the games are all quick to start thanks to the ~350GB SSD. However, the games and apps crash too often. While it's not as extreme as Miles Morales shutting off the PS5, you can pretty much count on the Game Pass and Microsoft Rewards apps crashing about 50% of the time. This reliability factor sucks. Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon crashes regularly and makes me alter gameplay by seeking out save rooms more often than I should have to.
Speaking of Microsoft Rewards, don't sleep on those. With an MS account, you can get points for a daily amount of web searches in Bing. MS also tied in Game Pass so that playing certain games will also add points to your account. While you might generate $1 per day if you exhaust all the tasks, this can all be done in a few minutes. Some Redditors bought their $500MSRP Xbox Series X directly from the Microsoft Store using points generated over 1-2 years of this. Not bad at all! You could buy a game or two or extend your Game Pass subscription for the entire year without spending more than 5 minutes per day.
That might be the longest post I've written. Thanks for reading/browsing! I'm gonna go back to playing!
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