My thoughts on Next Gen gaming

     Both sides are strong, bringing the heat on completely different sides of the equation. Sony and Microsoft are posed in a duel for the consumer's dollar, both sides with raging fanboys, and what is it that I have to say about this? I'm not firmly planted on either side, both sides do have solid pros as well as cons to them, though for the sake of transparency, I'm planning on getting a PS5. It will be a little while until I go about purchasing one, hopefully I can wait for a price drop, but we'll see. I just wanted that to get off my chest before I launch into this little article.

    What is it you're looking for in your console? That's the biggest question the consumer needs to ask at this point in the next gen lifespan. Playstation has invested time, effort, and money into their studios, and it has certainly paid off over this last generation, generating far more sales than Xbox One. Games such as the Uncharted Series, The Last of Us, God of War (PS4), Spider-Man (PS4), and the most recent gem in their collection, Ghost of Tsushima, have given Sony a massive edge over Microsoft's titles. For a long time, it looked like Xbox as a brand really only had Halo to fall back on, but over the past few years, they've been developing a new strategy: selling themselves as the discount brand.

    Gamepass is really what Microsoft is putting all of their money behind, and it's the biggest reason to buy an Xbox console for the next generation. For about $15 a month, Xbox gamers are able to play an enormous catalog of games, over 200 games, both first and third party releases, and in many cases, they are put on the service on the first day that they are released. This is a tactic that Sony has started to try competing with, but as of right now, Playstation Now, Sony's response, is nowhere near as strong of an offering, and it seems that they are still not quite willing to pour the resources into the service that will make it great. Microsoft has recently bought up a bunch of beloved studios, such as Obsidian (known most recently for The Outer Worlds), Playground Games, Double Fine (Psychonauts), Ninja Theory (Hellblade), and as of September 21, Zenimax, the parent company of Bethesda as well as many others, which gives even more value considering that those games will also be put on Game Pass.

    Continuing on with the point of quality over quantity, there's a big issue in this upcoming generation, with games being $70 a pop on launch day, raising it another 10 dollars from the current. This is not the end of the world by any means, but when you consider that games just started costing more back in 2013 with the current generation of Xbox One and PS4, raising them from $50 to $60, it does show a worrisome trend. I think the industry knows that people aren't going to pay $100 for a single game, but $70 is a lot, and really increases the value of a service like Gamepass to an even higher level. The PS4 has been really good about sales, basically there always seems to be a sale on something, including some of the best games of this generation, such as God Of War, being part of the Greatest Hits collection, meaning that the normal price is $20. I bring that up to say that I hope the PS5 will continue being as big on sales, because I think the sales are going to be extremely important for Sony to at least be somewhat competitive with Microsoft's game development model.

    This is going to be an interesting generation all around. It will certainly show which model is going to pan out more, the emphasis on digital gaming with each company putting out a version of the system without a disk drive will be interesting to see, and may even mark the end of physical editions of games, who knows? The Console Wars always get rowdy around this time, with Sony and Microsoft fanboys yelling at each other on the internet about how the other side is wrong for supporting the other company, but as far as developers go, I don't think they care about that as much. They probably like it because it will raise understanding in their product if more people talk about it, but I don't think that's going to change anyone's mind.

    As I said before, I'm planning on getting a PS5 because I want to play a lot more of those games that they've shown off more than what Microsoft has shown so far, though for the first time in a while, Xbox series X or S is looking pretty appealing. With the Game Pass library of games seemingly getting better by the day, recently merging with EA Play, as well as all the Bethesda games such as Elder Scrolls, Doom, Wolfenstein, etc. Thanks for reading this post, and feel free to let me know in the comments which side you're more on. Please don't hate me for going with PS5, both sides are really good, I just need those exclusives! I hope you'll all have a great day, and I'll talk to you next Friday.