Preview: Sony PlayStation 5 & Xbox Series X sets up a huge battle

News of the release of PlayStation 5 two days after Xbox Series X sets up a fascinating games battle of its own.

Sony’s PlayStation 5 console and accessories

SONY have announced the next generation PlayStation 5 console will launch in Australia on November 12 with an RRP of $749.95 for the version with an Ultra HD Blu-ray player in it.

A “digital only” version has also been announced, lacking the disc drive, with an RRP of $599.

The announcement comes a week after Microsoft announced the price (RRP $749) and release date (November 10) of their own next-gen console, the Xbox Series X (also featuring an Ultra HD Blu-ray player), along with its more affordable but less powerful and “all-digital” relative the Xbox Series S (RRP $499).

The date and price announcement for the new PlayStation console is significant and gamers had been waiting for Sony to release it, after Microsoft showed its hand on social media last week in what was either a superb example of viral marketing or a masterclass in leak damage control.

The PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X are – despite what hardcore fans of the respective platforms will say – more or less the same from a ‘what’s under the bonnet’ standpoint, in that they are both running AMD multicore CPUs and raytracing capable graphics processor units (GPUs) and feature solid state drives for storage.

Xbox Series X

Today’s news means there will essentially be three next-generation gaming components on the shelves in November – the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 consoles, and the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3000 series of computer graphics cards (available from this week).

So what does this mean for gamers?

Obviously it’s going to mean lighter wallets or somewhat diminished bank accounts, but in a practical sense it also looks like we’re going to see the continuation of the somewhat tiresome Console Wars that have been raging in some form or another since the 1980s.

Microsoft have long gone with a strategy of making games as accessible as possible to everyone – most of their first-party games are available on both Xbox and PC, and their Game Pass subscription service has established itself as an essential one for any self-respecting gamer, offering access to hundreds of games for a fixed price (currently $10.95 per month). This has also been enhanced by the news EA Play membership service will also be included at no extra cost.

Xbox are also supporters of cross-play; allowing gamers playing on one platform to play with friends with the same game on a different platform. This is quite a big deal for many gamers, because it’s rather frustrating having a copy of a game on a particular console platform but half your friends are on an incompatible one, so you can’t play together.

Sony are not as keen on cross-play but have a proven track record of releasing highly acclaimed top-tier, AAA PlayStation exclusive games which aren’t available on any other console or PC – games such as God of War, The Last of Us, Ghost of Tsushima, Days Gone, Gran Turismo and the Uncharted series (a number of which, incidentally, will be available for free to PlayStation 5 owners at launch).

GeForce RTX 3000 Series family

One point that hasn’t been getting a lot of notice is that (at least from my perspective) neither console has an especially memorable first-party launch title for it.

Microsoft were banking on Halo: Infinite to accompany the Xbox Series X launch, and that has now slipped to sometime next year, while Sony’s PS5 launch titles (Astro’s Playroom, Demon’s Souls, Destruction AllStars, Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales and Sackboy: A Big Adventure) haven’t, with the exception of Miles Morales, excited gamers a great deal.

This leaves CD Projekt Red’s hugely anticipated RPG Cyberpunk 2077 (November 19) and Ubisoft’s historical action-adventure Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla (November 10) as effectively the unofficial launch titles for all three next-gen platforms (PS5, Xbox Series X, next-gen PC).

It’s also important to note that while the next-generation platforms are getting all the focus now, the current generation isn’t going away. All the games on each platform due out for the remainder of this year, and probably next year too, will work on current generation (Xbox One/PlayStation 4) consoles, but without the enhanced graphics features available on the next-generation consoles.

Basically, your current platform will not become a paperweight on November 10 (or 12) and you won’t be missing out on any games if choice or circumstance mean you stay with the current generation consoles for a bit either.

Regardless of which platform you go for, it’s very clear we’re seeing the arrival of a new generation in gaming and the ramifications of it, facilitated by the new consoles, will be playing out for quite some time indeed.