I own a Series X, but I also own a 4k TV. So, for me, it made sense to spend the extra $$$ and get a console that could truly utilize my TV’s capabilities. If I had a 1080p TV, I probably would have gone with the Series S.
It makes sense. It may suprise a lot of people on here but their biggest market is not the people who demand 4k 60FPS in all games and will riot if they don’t get it. Their main market is kids playing FIFA and Minecraft and other casual gamers who just enjoy fun games at a reasonable budget. For that they really got it right with the Series S.
Nintendo understanding this market is a big part of how they’ve been outselling MS and Sony in the Wii and Switch generations despite being behind on hardware power.
While I agree with you, the fact that no game has released in the past 10 years without major patches and updates means what’s on that physical media is useless
It’s an absurd value. I have two that I just use as media centers and the house. You can also travel with it very easily. About the same size as my switch one you put a travel case on it.
Well sure, but you said you just use them as media centers. Unless you count games as media too. But for just viewing streaming services there are cheaper options.
I would argue that the Steam Deck's emulation capabilities surpass the Xbox. It might not play the latest games at amazing quality and performance, but it covers a wide breadth of games, far wider than what Xbox supports.
Compete in terms of value, not price. The series S gets you Xbox’s current gen game library and a selection of 360 games, and if you’re willing to use dev mode a powerful emulation suite. Deck gets a huge percentage of Steam’s 20-year catalog as one-click installs, most other PC games that don’t use anticheat as slightly more involved installs, every PC game if you want to install windows, and also a powerful emulation suite. Plus it’s a dockable handheld instead of something that needs a monitor and controller.
The series S has better media apps and can be woken up from the couch, though.
the steam deck is also just a regular ol’ PC so you can use it for non-gaming stuff like making a lil’ drawing on the go, or plug in some peripherals and just… use it like an honestly pretty okay performance desktop.
I mean, I would rather have a Steam Deck too, but then we're getting into how much people value openness versus price, and that's definitely not a constant; some people aren't going to care much about openness.
That said, if I were trying to compare Valve's offering and Microsoft's offering, I'd probably compare a desktop PC running Steam to the XBox, as they're more-physically-comparable in terms of what they can do; the Series S doesn't have one having to pay for mobility. If one were comparing to a mobile console, then sure, the Deck is a legit comparison.
I still would say that the XBox Series S is going to be cheaper on the low end, though, than a desktop PC. You can get a $279 PC that can play games and a comparable controller, but I'd bet that it'd be more-limited than a Series S.
That being said, Microsoft sells the XBox at a loss, and then makes it back by jacking up the price of games:
As VGC points out, Wright was also asked if there's ever been a profit generated from an Xbox console sale, which she confirmed has never happened. To put that in context, Microsoft has been selling Xbox consoles for nearly 20 years now, including the original Xbox, the Xbox 360, Xbox One, and now the Xbox Series X and Series S. In all that time, every single console sale cost Microsoft money.
The reason game consoles end up being profitable is through a combination of software, service, and accessory sales, but it's still surprising to find Microsoft has never achieved hardware profitability. Analyst Daniel Ahmad confirmed that the PS4 eventually became profitable for Sony and that Nintendo developed the Switch to be profitable quickly, so Microsoft is the odd one out.
We know that consumers weight the up-front price of hardware disproportionately -- that's why you have companies selling cell phones at a loss, locking them to their network, and then making the money back in increased subscription fees. I assume that that's to try to take advantage of that phenomenon.
If you wanted to compare the full price that you pay over the lifetime of the console, one would probably need to account for the increased game price on consoles and how many games someone would buy.
Now, all that being said, I don't have a Series S or a Series X, and I'm not arguing that someone should buy them. I have a Linux PC for gaming precisely because I do value openness, so in terms of which system I'd rather have, you're preaching to the choir. I'm just saying that I don't think that I'd agree with the above statement that the Deck is as cheap as the Series S.
Especially in Asia, which is a shame. My country doesn’t has a game pass and no official store. At least now we have a GP on PC, but not on the console yet
nah, this was true during launch when both were constantly sold out, but now that availability has grown this has not stayed linear. the PS5 currently makes up around half of all consoles sold in the UK, followed by switch and eventually xbox. xbox sales are actually down 20% or so year-to-date.
I’ve been waiting for a game that will be worth it, that I can only play on a new console, and so far I haven’t seen one. I’m closer to upgrading my graphics card than getting a new console at this point.
I played 10hrs and refunded. (Thank god for Steam)
I feel like im in Truman Show. I see how shallow the game is. Everything is a facade. They try to mask the issues of their old game engine and people (streamers and reviewers) just eat it up. Im watching streams where they run into game breaking bugs several times but still praise the game like they have a script to follow.
I mean, they straight up said that 90% of planets will be empty.
As far as spreading out the handcrafted content goes, in my 60 hours it’s been pretty good, but I also deliberately stick primarily to actual quests, only dipping into random exploration and proc-gen mission board quests like bounties and cargo delivery on occasion. I was initally worried that the handcrafted stuff would be limited to the three major cities, but there’s plenty of other towns and locations out there. I think there’s like three small towns just in the Sol system. It feels like every other system has one or two big handcrafted locations or questlines. I came across stuff like a resort town, a small assortment of settlers I had to negotiate a mutual defense pact for, an abandoned zero-g casino space station, a mercenary bar/motel with the absolute motherload of contraband (and a free ship), just to name a few.
The side and faction quests also are almost entirely handcrafted locations and not just clearing out enemies in generic locations like half the stuff in FO4 was. All the proc-gen quests have been relegated to Mission Boards, so every quest you get from an NPC will be an actual quest, although I had to do one single proc-gen mission to join one of the factions.
Also I’m surprised you saw that many game breaking bugs on streams, because it’s actually a very stable release. There’s some of the usual Creation Engine physics stuff, or an NPC might stand on a table or something, but I haven’t really encountered all that many bugs.
The last drop was when I realized that it’s not as open and “huge scale” as people seem to think it is. It’s kind of “fake open” if that makes sense. You cannot get into your ship and fly 800m east to your mission. If you click on your mission marker and click travel, a new instance is loaded and your mission is not there. You have to go back and run those 800m.
You really don’t even need a ship honestly, you just fast travel everywhere.
I’ll probably get it once the price goes down to 30-40 bucks or so.
100 was waaaay too much for this shallow game.
You actually do need a ship for fast travel, and you can travel distance in space (thousands of meters) to other ships or space stations in space, but yeah you can’t travel to other planets manually, but why would you want to, the scale of the cosmos is just too big. People who were expecting seamless travel between planets and systems have never played Bethesda game before.
Why would it have to take hours?
You already spend hours jogging on the empty planet surface in Starfield, because you cannot use your ship to fly 800m east to your mission marker.
That game was such a bummer. The first game was tons of fun but the sequel missed the mark in pretty much every respect. Even things that shouldn’t have been impacted by all the rewrites and cut content, like combat, were a letdown.
I think the fact that the first game was such a masterpiece is part of why I rate the second one so poorly. The first game does everything so much better that it’s hard to believe it’s 7 years older. The camera work in the cutscenes, the physics, the inclusion of firearms, the fact that you, Crane, and the game itself all give a shit about the story.
Contrast that with DL2’s bethesda-ass cutscenes, the zombie animations taking priority over physics, the lack of firearms, and the fact that the game doesn’t give a shit about anything in its own story. I played the whole game with the objective of wanting to save my sister, and in the end I blew up the city for her, and Aiden just dips? He just fucks off not caring that his sister is… dead? The game never even makes says what happened to her! Aiden just came in, ruined the place, and leaves!
I totally agree. I’ve played through DL1 like 5 times and that’s something I rarely do once with games released in the last decade or so. I couldn’t even bring myself to finish one play through of DL2.
You find Waltz, who it turns out is Mia’s dad and Aiden’s father figure. He starts a process of launching rockets to destroy the city or something, I can’t remember and it doesn’t really matter. After you do a boss fight with him, a very frail and maybe dying Mia walks out of a door and says “stop fighting guys,” and suddenly you and Waltz are besties. Y’all are like “oh shit, the rockets are gonna destroy the city but we’re friends now!” You have to choose between letting your actual bestie Lawan sacrifice herself to blow up the rockets in the bunker, or save her and let the rockets launch, destroying the city.
Side note, remember Hakon? That fucker that betrayed you and then tried to kill you like three times? If you didn’t murder his ass the first chance you got, he comes in for a heel-face turn and blows up the rockets himself, saving Lawan and the city. That’s an ending I just found out about, because on my playthrough I spent a few extra grenades making sure his dumb Judas ass was actually dead.
You might be wondering, what happens to Mia after the ordeal with the rockets? Good question! The game literally goes from “save the city and let Lawan die or destroy the city and let Lawan live” to Aiden fucking off into the wilderness. I was so goddamn pissed when I found out that the WHOLE REASON AIDEN CAME TO THE CITY was left as a loose end. Maybe the DLC ties it up. I’m certainly never gonna find out.
Haha I like the descriptions a lot. Unfortunately the plot was so forgettable that I barely remember who any of those people are. I think I had just met Lawan shortly before I stopped playing.
I know I’ve finished Dying Light 2, but I don’t remember much about it.
I remember the insane amount of copy paste in the maps. Oh another roof with the half fenced in area with the same backpacks. Or the exact same ramp again.
In Dying Light 1, traveling at night was terrifying.
Being pursued by… whatever those were, looking back with your flashlight, just trying to gtfo.
In the second, it’s mostly just annoying. Shoot the same screaming zombie that’s basically dropped every 150m in a square grid.
There were different endings, which really only hinged on one or two choices that you make way early in the game and pretty much nothing else you did really mattered in the end.
Also, Alyx was there, but she spoke like Ahsoka and didn’t have a crowbar.
I used to sneak in to E3 in the 2000s when it was industry only. It was always a blast. But I also think this style of show is done for in general. I really like the Nintendo Directs and it seems like other companies have figured out how to do their own version. I also like that we get news throughout the year instead of in May.
I can see a lot of bad new standards develop from this, but i also recognise it gets more than just early review copies out rhe door before the majority buys the game making it a tactic bad games cant do and will reward good games to cash in. Still. Lots of potential bad stuff is intertwined with these same points
My concern is when I'm seeing streamers play games like Starfield and run into a ton of bugs, often game-breaking ones, but then go and praise the game to high heaven.
I just want a basement level of proper standards, that's all I'm asking for.
have you seen what happens if you say you didn’t like it? you’re told you’re a troll, you’re negative, you “just don’t get it”, or they take your criticism and then act like the only alternative is the complete and total opposite of that and try and pull a ‘gotcha’
on one hand I would obviously LOVE for reviews (across the board, not just in gaming) to be realistic and not all be 7+/10 but I also understand why they don’t to an extent
I’m watching a streamer play the game, and what I see looks like I’d have some fun, and others probably feel the same way.
I’m just not interested in playing at like 30fps on a 3080. Maybe some patches or driver updates can improve things and I’ll check it out in the Steam Winter Sale or something.
Microsoft? Fix bugs? Are we thinking of the same microsoft? Best they can do is integrate a weather app nobody asked for. And install candy crush without your consent.
I heard this is because NVIDIA didn’t fund optimizations. AMD did so it’s running a lot better for them. I said fuck it and bought an Xbox with 2 year payment plan and game pass included. Cause no way my 1080ti is ever gonna play this game that good I don’t think. End of an era.
My 980 is pulling 30 fps with most things on medium and high, and shadows on low because it has the most effect on performance. Also turn off resolution scaling, for nvidia at least, don’t know about AMD cards.
With resolution scaling it doesn’t matter if you’re using AMD or Nvidia, it’s doing the same thing and looks the same on both vendors.
If your GPU supports it (RTX cards), you can mod DLSS into the game and then get (supposedly) better image quality, on the same level of scaling as the non-modded FSR2, or potentially lowering the scaling even more, for better performance, while still getting a comparable image as a higher FSR2 preset.
I’ve also watched some streams, and the performance hasn’t even been my biggest concern. I’m just… not interested? It hasn’t been gripping me. Even though there are these shiny new things and bells and whistles, it still just looks like another Bethesda game to me, but with a blander setting this time. Though maybe it’s more fun to play than watch. I just haven’t really seen anything that makes me go “goddamn I gotta get a piece of that”.
Here are some numbers. I’m at 42 hours played. Resolution 2k, settings are on High. Ryzen 5800x and a Radeon RX 6800xt. The last session of ~5 hours had an average FPS of 108, Starfield is more optimized than BG:3 and Remnant 2… at least for AMD. I had to lower a lot of Remnant 2 settings and it still averages around 55.
Ony 3080 with a 5900x I'm constantly getting 60fps at 1080p (unfortunately for now that's the only screen I have), meanwhile BG3 would dip to low 10s after a few minutes of playing every time
EDIT: I would also like to add that I didn't use DLSS or FSR in both games, since my hardware is more than capable of running both on maximum quality at 60fps 1080p.
That’s exactly what I have, but I play on 3840x1600, 24:10 Ultrawide.
I don’t remember BG3 giving me any problems, even in Act 3, before the last patch, that supposedly addresses some performance problems. I loaded up a save just now and get ~50fps running around in the Lower City (very short test, only like two minutes). That’s with most settings maxed and DLSS Quality.
Depending on the area, I’d probably get similar numbers in Starfield (according to the benchmarks I’ve seen), but for me, it’s a difference playing an FPS or isometric RPG.
AMD folks are having a good time, but nvidia folks will need to wait. The game is purposefully not optimized for nvidia at the moment due to AMD sponsorship. (Also potentially to point out that many AAA titles tend to be optimized for nvidia but not AMD at launch)
CPUs though, since with those, AMD is much worse than Intel
Simply untrue with later AMD. Slight advantage to Intel, but not the blowout it used to be. Intel loses entirely if power consumption and cost is taken into account.
But of course, games rely largely on GPU power, and the CPU concern is generally secondary.
In Starfield the 13900K is 20% better than the best AMD offering, the 7800X3D. Even the 13600K is better than any AMD CPU. A 13100 is on the same level as the 5800X3D. I wouldn’t call that just a slight advantage.
It’s only this game right now, that’s why I’m saying something might be up.
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Aktywne