Hugely disappointed in XSX performance so far and I am an XBot by heart. Something is not right... Higher memory bandwidth, better GPU utilization than PS5 in theory and yet it underperforms constantly. I do not believe for a second that the PS5 is punching above its weight. PS5 is doing what we are expecting it to do, i.e. solid performance but no surprises other than that. XSX is the anomaly. Poor software support from MS? if yes, when could we expect them to mature, and when they do... will we see a slew of patches released for already released games? Sure hope so.. And please, patch up Forza Horizon 4 and make it a high priority..
I sure hope for XSX sake it is a Dreamcast vs PS2 situation where PS2 was not impressive at launch but a year later or so was doing things Dreamcast couldn't keep up with.
End of rant..
Actually PS2 had at least a couple of impressive launch games, mainly Tekken Tag Tournament. THAT is how you do a cross-gen port, IMHO. But I wouldn't go as far to say there were a ton of PS2 games in 2001 or even 2002 the Dreamcast couldn't of done, because there are things in some games like Shenmue II the PS2 may not've been capable of during that same time frame.
Dreamcast AAA dev pretty much died right around the exact same time PS2 AAA dev kicked into overdrive starting with the release of GT3 that May in 2001. To this day I still think there's some untapped potential with Dreamcast. No there are definitely some things it'd lose out in (lighting, polygon geometry, particle fillrate being the main three areas), but I would've LOVED seeing some of that super-crisp texture work and deferred rendering (before it became cool) being put to work with Dreamcast's superior resolution output.
Regarding Series X...I'll give MS the benefit of the doubt and assume these issues (with mainly two multi-plat launch titles, FWIW. People are acting like this issue is across all the games but I'm not seeing it Series X struggle WRT games like Dirt 5 or NBA 2K1, where it holds slight edges in graphics and more than holds its own in load times) are related to Gamecore tardiness, but I really hope MS does something to show (rather than tell) what their system can truly do. And, I think they'll need to do so, sooner rather than later.
I can't lie and pretend Sony isn't controlling the flow of next-gen right now, and leading the discussion, because they are. I feel the swing in momentum started with the UE5 demo back in June combined with the "gameplay" from the Xbox Showcase earlier back in May (which I liked, but there wasn't too much actual gameplay and Valhalla was a huge letdown and "gameplay" became a meme), and it's just gradually continued since then. Now it feels like they're cementing impressions thanks to the launch lineup. All of this is irrespective of if Series X is actually more capable than PS5 or not, because for most people, seeing is believing.
Best thing for MS to do sometime soon, IMHO, is show off some real-time gameplay of either Hellblade II or Starlink running on a Series X. Make sure that gameplay and those visuals are incredible, and time it well. If they do it right, and if it looks as close to the Hellblade II footage from December as possible, I think that'll shut down all of these concerns and then some. But like I said, it needs to come sooner rather than later; Sony's got Rift Apart coming down the line and Forbidden West not too long after. GT7 might be coming H1 2021 as well, and if Ragnarok comes out in 2021 after all rather than getting delayed? Considering MS can't really count on Halo Infinite too much, if they let too many of these solidly impressive Sony games come out while there's no display of Series X's true capabilities (preferably from 1P software; kills two birds with one stone), then I'll start to worry about their long-term prospects for next-gen.
It's way too early to start sounding any alarms yet, however. This is still early days, and at the very least MS's Q1 2021 should be much stronger thanks to Scorn, Bright Memory Infinite, The Medium and The Ascent, among others (and if BMI and Exo-Mecha run in real-time as they were shown at their reveal events, they'll be two of the best-looking next-gen games, hands-down).
