PS5

Pre Orders

Sony was a complete shit show.  No other way to describe it.  No information for months, then a quick presentation with no preorder info, a tweet about preorders the next day, and then Walmart unleashed the kraken and chaos descended upon the internet.  I got a pre-order notification email at about 7:30 from Best Buy and spent the next several hours hitting refresh / F5 with a system in my cart only to get gut punched.  The only other experience I can make an analogy to is the Pearl Jam 20 ticket debacle. 

Xbox:  After the PS5 debacle, I decided I wasn’t going to sit at home and try for a Series X and get my soul crushed.  The weather was way too nice on Tuesday.  I decided to check in on my phone at 11 am Tuesday.  I was in a woods, sitting on a log atop a hill with 2 bars of 4G service and was able to snag a Series X.  People can say the Microsoft preorders were as bad as Sony, but at least we had a chance before the bots cleaned everything out. 

System and Hardware Pricing

I was pleasantly surprised to see the PS5 priced at $500 for disc and $400 for digital.  I don’t need a disc drive so I was hoping to pick up a PS5 digital.  That is a good deal.  Yes the Series S is $300, but it is in a different weight class.  PS5 and Series X are pretty much identical in components (slight edge to series X on paper).  I think both companies are selling these at a loss on launch.  Either way, it is a great deal for the consumer … basically getting a $1000 gaming PC for $500 / $400. 

Now for controllers … PS4 controllers can play PS4 games on the PS5 but can’t play PS5 games on the PS5 … translation:  get ready to buy more controllers at $70 if you want to play PS5 games on your PS5.  Xbox current gen controllers will be able to play new Xbox Series X (I agrees they should have called the thing SCORPION or something …).  This is something that people who already own Xbox controllers really need to consider because that is a huge cost savings … and a probably a reason why Sony was able to lower their pricing to competitive levels if they can make profit on selling new PS5 controllers. 

Also for consideration for anyone with uber expensive racing wheels … it appears current Fanatec wheels on the current xbox will work with the Series X … I will be able to confirm when my Series X arrives … based on my history of racing wheels on Sony’s side, I do not expect to see cross-compatibility.

Rygar said:

Good points Jason P.
I think the debacle surrounding the Xbox pre-orders was all about site overload, which is common for big releases of most anything.  And sites like Amazon and Best Buy being slow (super slow in Amazon's case) to even get the pre-order page up.
I imagine the Sony pre-order was just as bad (or worse considering for popularity, despite the short notice).

The only thing I'll say is that I'm not convinced MS will time-limit the triple A Bethesda games to Xbox.  On the one hand it will surely influence console sales to some degree, but every copy of that game sold on a bigger install base of Sony is still money in MS' pocket.  I kind of think they'll get some new 1st party exclusive IPs, but we'll have to wait and see.

igotid88 said:

I saw that PS5 wouldn't be backwards compatible but now I see that it is

CROJAM95 said:

Xbox Series X better have “The Show” baseball game... or I’m gonna throw mine off the roof

not playing a baseball game for years robbed me 😡

i wonder if the 4K Blu-ray Drive is a little better than Xbox one x