The topic has become a bit used up, although still arousing heated discussions. It is enough to look at the comments under each material devoted to the circulation of PlayStation 5, or Xbox Series X. I remember when many observers on their own predicted the imminent return of equipment to store shelves during the holiday season. Well, it still only remains online sales. Still, it’s a bit better. What do the publishers say? They carefully decay the market, still serving intergenerational hits, while for us, players – 2021 is a great opportunity to slightly reduce personal arrears. After all, we’ve all experienced the backlog, right? In addition, better and better subscription offers do not revive. Still others are looking for suitable replacements for the footnote “Remastered”, serving new, directorial editions of famous hits. In a word, it happens. Too much.
Service calculations
2020 will go down in the history of our industry – after all – very positively. Do we remember the same intense period in terms of the premieres of the long-awaited supersproductions and, of course, new consoles? Sony took care of the PlayStation 4 to say goodbye, while competing Microsoft took a different step. The Xbox division did not focus so much on the production of new games, but decided to use this time to arm themselves with powerful allies (read: Bethesda). And this is just the beginning of the arms race. I think that despite everything – we should be happy with the variety of choices. Both PS5 and XSX offer a slightly different approach to players. Sony evidently (not entirely honestly) uses the “quality privilege” developed over the years. The company immediately dictates increased prices in the name of a better offer. The complete opposite of the chosen publishing policy is Microsoft. Thanks to the increasing popularity of subscription gameplay, a significant number of good games appear in the Xbox Game Pass catalog. Yes, the malicious ones will say that most of them belong to previous years. However, I had the pleasure of playing the improved Doom Eternal, while the game was hosted on Redmond. Unfortunately, in the case of Sony, we also need to have the game in a boxed or digital version.
When the publishers quickly fired from the prepared productions, it was quite a rough period of premieres. In January we could feel our local folklore thanks to Bloober’s the Medium. The project could turn into a Ciche Hill over time, according to recent reports. For many enthusiasts of interactive entertainment, the winter period was rather marked by hunting for a new console. Interestingly, the January PS5 throw on Poland was sold out in mid-December. I myself had to wait over a month for a delivery to my address. And it started with the most advertised asset related to the current generation. It cannot be denied that for most players they still play the role of players of the long-existing software in better quality.
And Microsoft paved the way earlier, efficiently taking advantage of the competition’s negligence gap, when it focused solely on the production of games. Sony is very cleverly sneaking under the radar, adapting to Microsoft’s solutions, as we have already mentioned many times. I was reminded of a situation from the past, when the Japanese giant in numerous interviews promised that it would never place an offer of paid online gameplay. The credibility of these promises passed with the announcement of PlayStation Plus in 2010. Today, Sony uses more and more benefits, such as the ability to watch movies. Subscription services have become more attractive thanks to new generational updates. For developers working on tweaks, this is also a benefit. Currently, we can play A Plague Tale: Innocence adapted to PS5, previously Control: Ultimate Edition was proposed.
Attractive cosmetics
New generation updates have become a driving force today, often determining the attractiveness of new consoles. This is confirmed by the huge interest in every announcement to improve high-profile hits. Quite recently, the cheerful chatter was pleased to hear about Metro: Exodus, adapted to current standards. Earlier, we got Final Fantasy VII: Remake (as part of the Integrade publishing house) or several positions as part of the PlayStation Plus Collection. It is worth mentioning in this regard numerous activities and initiatives of Microsoft, which duly cares about the improved quality. Thanks to the FPS Boost Mode solution, many famous hits run in better performance. For example, Dying Light unfortunately won’t run faster when running on PS5, the XSX can do it. In other words, developers currently do not have to put much effort into creating newly generated worlds, because the clientele is very eager to reach for their favorite games in a better visual sphere.
Hence, perhaps we are still waiting for a real show of the power hidden in the beast of Microsoft. Sony has already provided the first, modern-generation experience at the time of the premiere and recently, respectively, with Returnal and Rachet and Clank: Rift Apart. Although we complain about the slow start-up of the current generation, we are very eager to play well-known titles – relative cosmetics are enough. The publishers bought some time with it, while console producers set their own standards in the background. I was curious how Sony, who is fond of re-publishing, will break through backward compatibility, which often improves the performance of games. After all, the predecessor’s library is extremely rich and solid, so naturally, the company has a chance to squeeze some financial resources. New generation games are selling, but not as Jim Ryan himself – the public enemy of PlayStation family owners, would like to do. The high popularity of running games from the previous term has a big impact here, thanks to backward compatibility, such as the PS Plus Collection offer. Meanwhile, it was enough to change the footnote to Director’s Cut and it’s ready. Thus, the directorial versions of Ghost of Tsushima and Kojim’s Death Stranding are already heading to the market.
After the price increase, the time has come for another publishing standard. 2021 is a key year of transition between generations. Thanks to the improvements through the update, we do not so much crave games that are redirected exclusively to the next-gen periphery. Do we thus show that we are in no rush to new positions? This is partly how it looks. In connection with this, I am still interested in a certain issue. The first next-gen games offer performance modes in action at the cost of minimal visual degradation. But when development studios start presenting real, technical monsters, will there be room for performance in them? We are used to acting faster, it is impossible to hide. What if the implementation does not allow such a compromise? In the current year, 2021, we do not take it into account yet, but in two or three years, it will become problematic for some of us. So let’s enjoy the year of transition, catching up in a more beautiful edition and the relatively normalizing deficit of consoles. Now you just need to do a good search, because sales networks have sets of consoles in their possession every now and then. If you are still waiting to buy “naked”, patience pays off. Supposedly.
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