Meh. Talk to me in a year. These early jitters are nothing IMO.
It's click-bait gold for DF, but I think all these unoptimized ports on incomplete dev kits are telling us almost nothing right now.
I agree that over time these early days issues will be ironed out, but it's hard to disagree with the idea that having several 3P games running better on what MS's own messaging for months now has suggested was the "weaker" system, isn't really that good of a look, regardless of what SDK and API maturity issues could be going on.
Because the thing is, most people are simply going to pay attention to what these systems are offering them...right now. And that's an area I have to admit PS5 is winning in. Even in terms of PS4 BC it's doing a lot better than others were thinking it would (though maybe not really considering the Ariel and Oberon leaks kept showing regression testing for PS4 BC, so they were obviously testing BC for a while by that point). The SSD advantage is nowhere near what it was hyped up to be, but outside of that they've got a system either staying on-par or outperforming Series X in multiple 3P games (even games MS has marketing rights on like Valhalla), and 1P launch games that are more or less the best-looking/performing next-gen games currently out, that can either only be played on PS5 or play best there (Demon's Souls, Miles Morales). Not to mention the neat bonus Astro's Playroom turned out to be.
So yeah, maybe DF are kind of playing into some of the more fanboy-ish debates raging on, but I don't think they're anywhere near leaning too far into it, and the results are the results at the end of the day. This kind of performance stuff means nothing for the larger mass market, but IMO hardcore/core gamers are still the most crucial in the early years of any new console gen, they're the ones who are going to drive where interest from casuals and mainstream eventually go, and if hardcore/core gamers are choosing PS5 over Series X because of some of these early results (and the possibility this could continue for several more 3P titles going into at least early next year), that could influence the mass market to follow suit.
That's a danger for MS in my honest opinion, because we know they want the Series S to appeal to those casual/mainstream types, that's why it was developed. I guess the question is, how strong can Series S maintain its sales outside of big holidays like BF or Christmas? Is enough of the casual/mainstream market at a point where they don't follow the trend the hardcore/core gamers set beforehand, as it's traditionally been? I would like to think so, and I know the Wii might be a good candidate to point to, but the Wii actually got a ton of hardcore/core gamers on-board from Day 1 as well, and that probably helped a lot more with encouraging the mainstream to jump in than some people might think. Plus it had its unique controller; can MS position Gamepass & Series S in a way that hits the way Nintendo was able to position the Wii to mainstream/casual gamers back in its day?
That's what they need to ensure not just the consoles but Gamepass itself hits the way it should. But if the performance differences we're seeing in most 3P multiplats between Series X and PS5 persists (heck, even into a year from now), and that in turn drives more hardcore/core gamers to go with the latter...again, are there enough casual/mainstream gamers out there who don't necessarily follow where the hardcore/core go, and therefore be suitable folks to still push Series S and Gamepass to? This is a bit of a contingency scenario I'm playing out, fwiw, if the performance trend continues for longer than expected.
If so, will that create a shift to start deemphasizing Series X in marketing/production numbers? Will that shift 1P base platform focus from Series X to Series S if so? Will that create a run-off effect of hardcore/core gamers in the Xbox ecosystem drifting away if they feel their needs aren't being catered to, in these first few years? Am I asking too many questions?
At least for the last one, probably
