playstation vs xbox – Trekking with Dennis

The console wars have taken yet another toxic turn in recent weeks, after the Starfield showcase started getting fans hyped up. Xbox and PC players are eagerly awaiting Starfield’s launch… but not everyone is happy about that. A handful of loud PlayStation fanatics have promised to review-bomb the game regardless of how good it may turn out to be, as they appear to feel a mix of helpless frustration at not being able to play Starfield and pent-up anger for which the internet, Twitter, and the world of video games are the easiest available outlet.

I’m on record as defending review-bombing – at least in some cases. If a game is bad, broken, buggy, or overly-monetised, it deserves to be called out and criticised, and review-bombing on platforms like Steam and Metacritic are valid ways for players to register their disapproval. Review-bombing doesn’t need to stop at the mechanical level, either. If players hate a game’s narrative choices, feel that the company behind it has misbehaved or mis-sold the game, detest that developers were put under too much pressure and “crunched,” or even want to register their disgust at corporations like Ubisoft and Activision – both of which have been embroiled in scandals involving toxic behaviour and abuse – then review-bombing is again an acceptable outlet.

I think we can all agree that *Diablo Immortal* deserved its user score…

There may be some PlayStation fans who want to register their disapproval at Starfield being unavailable on their platform of choice, and this is something that feels like a fair or at least understandable point of criticism. Although I would caveat that statement by saying that I pointed out that this would happen as soon as Microsoft’s acquisition of Bethesda was announced – and before many people had been able to get their hands on a current-gen PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series console!

Although console exclusivity has been a part of the gaming landscape for as long as there has been a gaming landscape, it’s never exactly fun to feel like you’ve been locked out of what seems to be a great experience that other players are having. In the Morrowind days, circa 2002-03, I had a friend who’d regularly come over on the weekends or after work to play the game, because he had a PS2 and I had an Xbox. Yes, even in those days, Bethesda and Microsoft had an exclusivity arrangement!

I had a friend in the *Morrowind* days who’d spend hours at my place playing the game on my Xbox console!

As excited as I am to play Starfield, I’m not just going to blindly declare it to be “game of the year” before I’ve had a look at it for myself! In fact, if you check out some of my other pieces about Starfield here on the website, you’ll note that I’ve said time and again that I consider the game to be firmly in the “wait for the reviews” column thanks to Bethesda’s reputation, the poor launch of games like Fallout 76 and Redfall, and the overall unfinished state of too many games in 2023. So while I’m happy to defend Starfield in cases such as this, I’m also going to share my honest opinions on the game when it launches – and if it’s full of microtransactions or bugs, I’ll be scathing about that in my first impressions and review of the game.

But on the flip side, I don’t see why someone would be so anti-Starfield – a game that won’t even be released for another couple of weeks – that they’re already planning their review-bombing campaign. If the game is broken and unplayable, excessively-monetised, or just unenjoyable to play, then by all means – go for it. Leave a bad review, encourage others to join in, and chances are if you swing by Trekking with Dennis you’ll see the game get a bad write-up from me as well. But why pre-judge Starfield before it’s even out? Is PlayStation that important? Do some people actually take the console wars seriously?

Have some folks tied their entire identities to this piece of shiny white plastic?

Humans are, by nature, a tribal lot. You see it in sport, in politics, in regionalism and nationalism… so I guess it shouldn’t be a huge shock that gaming, too, has come with its own dividing lines. But it just feels so petty, so stupid, and so small to be tying one’s identity so strongly to a gaming brand that attacking a game on another platform for no good reason is in any way part of the conversation. Thankfully we’re dealing with a small number of people, but even so. It would be better if no one thought or behaved this way!

Growing up in the UK in the ’80s and ’90s, I saw a lot of football hooliganism. English teams were even banned from European competition for several years, in part due to hooliganism, and it was something that I just didn’t understand. I was a football fan as a kid, sure, but the idea of getting into a fight or even just disliking someone else simply because of a sports team that they support… I couldn’t wrap my head around it. And when it comes to today’s console war, I see echoes of that kind of tribalism all over again.

Hooliganism at football matches was common when I was younger.
*Pictured: A fire caused by hooligans at Odsal Stadium, September 1986.*

I’m not naïve enough to believe that I’ll change anyone’s mind by writing this piece. The handful of aggressive PlayStation fanatics who plan to review-bomb the game are unlikely to be dissuaded in that endeavour by a plea to their better nature nor an appeal to their common sense. Those ships, I fear, have long since sailed. But I want to register my disappointment – and above all my disbelief that this kind of toxic behaviour and militant console wars fanaticism still persists in 2023.

While there are Xbox, Nintendo, PC, and mobile players who are, I’m sure, just as angry and as aggressive when attacking other platforms, I want to draw a comparison. PlayStation has done phenomenally well in recent years with exclusive titles. Ghost of Tsushima, The Last Of Us, God of War, and Horizon Forbidden West all spring to mind, and PlayStation fans are about to receive another highly-rated game that won’t be available on Xbox for a while: Baldur’s Gate 3.

*Baldur’s Gate 3* will be released on PlayStation 5 the same week as *Starfield* is on Xbox and PC.

I have thoroughly enjoyed my time with Baldur’s Gate 3 thus far, and I highly recommend the game to all PlayStation players when it arrives in a couple of weeks’ time. Stay tuned for a review, by the way! But here’s something for PlayStation fans to chew on as they make their sockpuppet accounts and prepare to review-bomb Starfield: there’s no comparable campaign from Xbox fans to target Baldur’s Gate 3. There were no review-bombing campaigns from crying Xbox fans targeting any of the PlayStation exclusives we were just discussing… and while there may have been a few wayward negative reviews or social media comments, by and large this isn’t something that Xbox or PC players have done to PlayStation games.

Although I don’t own a PlayStation 5, it makes me happy to see great games on that platform. Part of me hopes that the likes of Ghost of Tsushima will make it to PC one day, and I’d even consider buying a PS5 if the right game came along and I had the financial means. But above all, good games are good for gaming, no matter what platform they launch on. As someone who supports gaming as a hobby, and who believes that games can be just as good – better, in some cases – than films or television shows, I support good games wherever they appear. Yes, even mobile games!

Good games are good for all players – they raise standards across the industry, push boundaries, and innovate.

In a perfect world, all games would be available on all platforms. And I get that it must hurt to see a popular game that looks great and is getting people hyped up… and know you won’t be able to play it. I’ve been there – we all have. But some PlayStation fans – a small minority, thankfully – seem to have developed an attitude of entitlement born of being spoiled in recent years. There have been relatively few Xbox exclusives for a full decade now, going back to the launch of the Xbox One in 2013 – and even fewer that were any good! PlayStation players, in contrast, have enjoyed a number of fantastic exclusive titles… and that has unfortunately led a handful of fans to begin acting like spoiled toddlers when they see anyone else having a good time or being the centre of attention.

If Starfield sucks, or if it’s a microtransaction hell-hole, I’ll be saying so in my review. But if it’s great, good, or even if it’s just okay… why bother picking on it and singling it out for a review-bombing campaign? I just don’t see the point, the attraction, or what anyone would gain by doing so.

It’s my hope that platforms like Metacritic will be aware of what’s going on, and will step in, if necessary, to hide or even delete reviews that are clearly not about Starfield itself. Such things have happened in the past, so the review-bombers could find that this whole thing is a massive waste of time in the end! Perhaps that would be the least bad outcome.

Starfield will be released on the 6th of September 2023 for PC and Xbox Series S/X consoles. Starfield is the copyright of Bethesda Game Studios, Bethesda Softworks, Xbox Game Studios, and/or Microsoft. Some promo images and screenshots used above courtesy of Bethesda. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.

For me, the beginning of September has always marked the start of the slow march to the holiday season. It’s the end of the summer holidays, kids return to school, the weather slowly cools, leaves begin to fall, and sunset gets earlier – all signalling that autumn has begun. It’s around this time of year when thoughts turn to the holidays, and to budgeting for big expenses at that time of year. With that in mind, now that we’re into September, it’s a surprise to me that we don’t know how much the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X are going to cost.

It’s pretty obvious that both companies are playing a high-stakes game of “chicken” – neither wants to announce first so they’re both holding fast, waiting for the other to make the first move. Looking back at past console launches, the cheaper system has been by far the best-seller. The Xbox 360 undercut the PlayStation 3 and enjoyed great success in that console generation, and the PlayStation 4 came in $100 cheaper than the Xbox One, and while in that case price arguably wasn’t the only factor in the Xbox One’s troubled launch, the fact that the cheaper console sold significantly better is clearly impacting Microsoft and Sony’s decision-making at this critical time.

The upcoming Xbox Series X. Price? Unknown.

But in past cycles, prices were announced much earlier. By the middle of June 2013 we knew the prices for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One – more than five months ahead of their launches. Microsoft promise the Xbox Series X is coming in November, and it’s assumed that the PlayStation 5 will follow suit. But November is literally in just a couple of months now, and there’s still no price information.

If it were good news, I think it’s fair to assume we’d know by now. If either company were planning to launch a system for less than say £350, they’d have made that abundantly clear and would be using it as a selling point. The fact that they’re keeping their pricing plans secret is in part because of how they’re in competition with each other, but it’s also at least in part because it’s bad news – both consoles are going to launch with a hefty price tag, which is not a good look in 2020 with the economy flailing.

Microsoft has perhaps the most riding on pricing. As I’ve said before, undercutting the PlayStation 5 is perhaps their last good strategy for the already-beleaguered Xbox Series X, which has seen incomprehensibly bad business decisions already hamper its launch. If the Xbox Series X could find a way to be a hundred dollars (or more) cheaper than the PlayStation 5, suddenly it seems a better proposition and Microsoft is back in the game.

The soon-to-be-released PlayStation 5. How much will it cost? Nobody outside Sony knows.

Sony seems better-placed than Microsoft right now, with a good lineup of exclusive games that are being built from the ground up for the PlayStation 5 instead of being limited by current-gen hardware. But an excessively high price could see them repeat the problems faced by the PlayStation 3 two generations ago, and even if they don’t end up charging $600-650 as some have suggested, if Xbox is able to undercut them they could still suffer. So while Microsoft has arguably the most to gain from a positive reaction to pricing, Sony certainly has the most to lose from a negative reaction.

At this late stage, though, both companies are going to suffer criticism and negative feedback for as long as they keep their prices covered up. With two months to go until launch, players and parents need to know how much to budget; keeping this information private is incredibly anti-consumer. Both Sony and Microsoft know their prices by now, having worked out how best to break even and turn a profit. They’re staying quiet on purpose, and people are starting to talk about that.

These are undoubtedly going to be pricey machines.

Sooner rather than later, both sides are going to have to rip off the metaphorical bandage. If the prices are high, reaction will be negative, especially from players whose jobs are under threat in a seriously disrupted economy. But going into the launch with that negativity around their necks will be harmful to Sony and Microsoft, and the more time they have after making price announcements means more time for their marketing and PR departments to spin it in a positive way – or at least blunt the edge. In short, if it’s bad news, giving players more time to get used to it rather than going into the launch window with potential buyers still reeling from the shock announcement will be beneficial.

A delay helps no one, and in the end will backfire on both companies and hurt them as they go into their most important sales window in seven years. In the absence of news, people will make their own assumptions – and the assumption right now is that if they had something good to say on pricing, they’d have said it ages ago and built their marketing around it! The conclusion gamers are drawing is that both consoles are going to be expensive – perhaps the most expensive machines ever, even topping the $600 mark. That’s putting people off right now, as in the current economic climate it’s increasingly hard for many people to justify such a large expense on a “luxury item” like a games console.

We need to see both companies make immediate announcements on price and stop messing around. The corporate game of “chicken” has gone on too long, and its anti-consumer nature is already causing both companies and their brands harm. They can’t keep this up any longer – players have a right to know how much they’re going to be expected to fork over for the new consoles.

At this stage I don’t know when we could expect an announcement. It may be imminent from one or both companies… or it may not be something we’ll get for weeks or even until next month. That would be a mistake for the reasons I’ve already given, and at a time like this, consumers need clarity. Both the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X are going to be expensive pieces of kit. We get it. But please just tell us how expensive so we can either start saving up or get the disappointment out of the way.

Both companies have been looking at this situation selfishly. Microsoft sees a pathway to a better-than-expected launch, and Sony fears losing the dominance they’ve enjoyed for years. But both companies’ selfishness has crossed a line into being something decidedly anti-consumer, and it needs to stop. At this point, I’d even wager that the company willing to make an announcement will get at least some positive reaction simply by demonstrating they’re not covering up their price. Either of them could even stage an event based around how their competitor is keeping their price a secret – something that could give them at least a temporary boost.

Either way, this has gone on too long. It’s past time that players around the world got to learn how much they’ll have to play for next-gen gaming in a couple of months’ time. We shouldn’t be in this position of having to ask and ask and ask – this information should have been available ages ago. From this point on, every day that Microsoft and Sony continue this cover-up is going to hurt them – and hopefully when they see that, they’ll finally come clean.

The Xbox Series X is the property of Microsoft, and the PlayStation 5 is the property of Sony. Both consoles are due for launch before the end of 2020. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.

Tag: playstation vs xbox

Review-bomb Starfield by all means… but only if it deserves it!

How long can Sony and Microsoft get away with hiding their prices?