Geoff Keighley gives his thoughts on PS5 + XsX

Gaming
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The fact Hellblade runs at 24fps with lower res means it wasn’t pre-rendered because there is no reason to render that kinda thing offline. We also had it confirmed to be real time already by EPIC.

Sony is not properly promoting PS5 or its tech either. I dunno where you see them doing that in a meaningful way. They straight up are hiding the details on their GPU because they know it makes them look bad. They are a couple months from launch without a price or specific release date or details on availability or buying options. They have only a couple titles confirmed for launch, the only 1P launch title being a title that we have seen basically nothing of and it sounds like it isn’t the expansive open world Spiderman experience ppl are wanting.

Were this any other generation launch, the narrative would be about how far behind Sony is. At the same point in time leading in current gen, Sony had showed:

  • UE4 tech demo
  • their hardware specs
  • Knack trailer
  • all sorts of OS features (even some that didn’t come to exist iirc)
  • KZ: SF (actual gameplay, not just some cutscene-based trailer)
  • Driveclub with a gameplay trailer showing next gen visuals
  • inFamous in-engine trailer
  • gameplay demo for The Witness
  • tech demos for their camera
  • tech demo for character rendering/anim from Quantic Dream
  • tech demo/target gameplay for Deep Down
  • target footage for Agni’s Philosophy
  • Watch Dogs gameplay
  • Destiny gameplay
  • TLoU PS4
  • Beyond Two Souls PS4
  • New GT with game engine trailer
  • Batman trailer
  • The Order 1886
  • KZ: SF gameplay demo (another one)
  • Driveclub trailer (new one)
  • Infamous trailer (new one)
  • Knack gameplay
  • Quantic Dream tech demo for character rendering/anim (new one)
  • FF15 gameplay
  • Assassins Creed Black Flag gameplay
  • Watch Dogs gameplay (new)
  • Mad Max trailer
  • Destiny gameplay (new)
  • Until Dawn gameplay trailer
  • release date, buying options, pricing, availability…

Again, this is just the stuff Sony focused on for PS4 that was clear next gen leap above PS3 and/or was PS4-specific info like price/specs/etc. And it was understood that basically all of this stuff was next gen in some tangible, clear way.

For PS5, by stark contrast, the stuff lauded as clearly next gen are…Horizon 2’s visuals, R&C’s visuals and gameplay, UE5, maybe Dark Souls remake trailer, some of their specs…and that’s it. Nothing else stands out as next gen really (not just my view, but a commonly shared opinion). GT looked current gen in its overall aesthetic and had rly bad pop in. Their small scale games like Sackboy and indie stuff were the main stuff that they really showed so far. They had a whole SoP that has essentially nothing for PS5, yet ppl didn’t start asking ‘is this all they could possibly muster?!’. It should be understood that EA, Activision, Ubisoft, MS, Sony, 2K, Bethesda, etc are all behind the indie curve right now. Their AAA offerings are lagging because those dev teams are huge and complex and thus super difficult to get on target for major title releases while working from home whereas many indies have been doing that their entire existence.

This is a COVID issue combined with unfortunate timing for both Sony/MS. Nothing more.

I think your impression of what Sony has shown is not aligned with has actually been shown. Your notion that Geoff can’t possibly be biased is naive man. Come on. Don’t hide behind the ‘we aren’t like other forums’ stuff. We should be able to freely discuss whether some in the press have biases that shape their commentary, just as is the case in all forms of media. If anything, it should be expected to be more prominent in gaming media than most other entertainment media. For Geoff personally, he grew up entirely immersed in the E3 console warz fanfiction of the 90’s and 2000’s. That was formative of his self identity and he will gladly tell you as much. He lives for the soap opera while also doing a (mostly) good job staying professional. But sometimes his biases seep through and can be noted. The thing is, he isn’t a die hard Sony fanboy or anything like that. He truly does just love great games when they align to what he feels he wants. But at the same time, he seems blinded to what Xbox as a brand has to offer and its potential in the near and far term.

Pretending it isn’t there causes more problems in the discourse than it solves imho. You can freely acknowledge that biases exist in all of us and that they can be thoughtfully considered and that we can wonder what causes them without anyone dismissing what that person is saying.

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People keep saying Sony won’t have stuff till 2022. But from a first party level the first year looks to be

Spider-man Miles Morales Demon Souls Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart Sackboy A big Adventure Gran Turismo 7 MLB The Show 21 (also coming to xbox) Returnal Horizon Forbidden West

That all on it’s own is a really good first year to be honest. That’s not taking into account games that will likely skip the xbox platform by default without money hats of some sort .

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Every single thing except Pragmata and Project Athia is supposed to be 2021 at the latest from the show they did in June. Makes sense, because we’ve seen snippets of gameplay from everything except Pragmata.

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Sackboy isn’t looking like a meaningful title in line with what Geoff is talking about, nor does Returnal tbh. The Show is a yearly release, so not surprising it is coming on schedule (at least presumably). Sony has a long history of announcing games for a general year and then delaying them so I wouldn’t count on all of those making 2021. Spiderman sounds like PS4 DLC up-ported to PS5 as a launch game to fill a void. We will have to see how their output turns out but keep in mind they do thsi sorta song and dance every cycle because the marketing works for them.

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Dunno man a release is a release in my book. Half the reason why i’m launch for PS5 is because i wanted Miles Morales, and my girlfriend really wants to play Sackboy and Horizon 2. That’s the thing with mindshare every game sony shows is kinda a major release thanks to their position currently. PS5 having certain games by default just means your gonna have certain gamers pick it instead or at least first.

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The discussion is a about the strategy sony + ms are using not about which line up you or others prefer.

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Yeah PS5 is bursting from the gate with a strong exclusive lineup, not even counting their unfortunate moneyhats. Series X will have some catching up to do in 2022 and beyond.

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I never questioned if it was real time, that was clear when it was first shown. I’m questioning whether or not it’s nothing more than smoke and mirrors like the original Halo Infinite trailer and many others shown in this industry.

As I’ve said before, Sony could improve on things as well but it’s better to have your games do the talking than to beat your chest over amazing specs with nothing to show for it. With them having the weaker machine, it’s no surprise they don’t want to put a real focus on it. MS did the exact same thing with the Xbox One.

Do you mean any other generation where MS weren’t behind what they are currently doing? All this talk of narrative when I’m just saying MS isn’t doing enough to show off or sell their system. Yes, Sony can do more as well but they are doing better than MS. As we covered in our recent article and now video, MS is not going to be held to the same standard as Sony and Nintendo and they need to fight harder for mindshare and attention. This is all the result of their actions leading up to the Xbox One launch. It’s true that Phil has done a great job earning back respect for the Xbox platform but they are still lagging behind Playstation and Nintendo here. They need to do more than Sony and they currently doing less.

EA, Activision, Ubisoft, etc. aren’t releasing a new console in a couple months. Again, no matter what little Sony has done, it’s still much more than what MS has done. We have no idea what their first party games will look like on the Series X. The same can’t be said for Sony where we at least have some idea.

I understand that COVID is a thing, but I’m still going to point out if they look unprepared compared to their competitor.

Last, no one complained about the SoP because Sony clearly set correct expectations prior to the show. This has been one of MS’ biggest problems so far, setting up expectations they can’t live up to.

I see nothing wrong with talking about bias or even preferences. However I don’t agree with calling people within the industry fanboys or making claims that they are trying to push console wars. Plenty of gamers have participated in console wars but they grow up and move past that. I’m going to give that same benefit of a doubt to someone who puts their own money on the line to have companies from all three console manufacturers in his show.

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Regarding talk on the hellblade 2 demo, its really not hard to believe,

They are just using some advanced features of UE4

For senas character

For those next rocks.

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Absolutely agree with every point. Everyone is biased, normally in more subtle ways, but denying Keighley’s obvious, easily verified bias seems as intentionally naive. I also think some commentators tend to forget Sony’s pretty consistent track record of delays, so I wouldn’t be surprised if we see a number of those “launch window titles” seeing the same treatment; I could be wrong given most insiders claim the PS5 was supposed to launch last year, thus giving devs an extra year to develop their titles. It’s also important to remember that, objectively, reality doesn’t match Geoff’s clearly-biased narrative, just look at this link right here:

https://www.metacritic.com/feature/game-publisher-rankings-for-2019-releases

Given the consistency of their releases this year, and having Flight Sim as one of the highest rated games this gen, I see a pretty similar outcome for the next year. So the basis of his argument of quantity over quality is wrong by objective metrics, thus showing his clear bias; according to objective metrics, they’re releasing quantity AND quality. We can argue about subjectivity all day long and get nowhere, so as a data-driven guy I use date to make my conclusions and the data doesn’t fit Geoff’s clearly biased narrative. It’s really as simple as that in my book.

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Your entire premise was MS wasn’t doing enough, and my (quite thoroughly demonstrated) counterpoint was that it isn’t just MS, it is everyone. Why should that matter? Because it highlights the actual reason MS is behind the usual cadence: COVID. The same reason everyone in the industry is way behind too. You are framing that as a MS-specific issue that then is being used to explain away the furrowed brows from Geoff’s expressed opinion. Opinions are fine but ought to be based on facts, especially if you are a games media guru wanting to maintain some semblance of respect for the way you present games.

His views, however, do not appear to be constructed with any reference to reality. Instead, he is building his views seemingly from the narrative pushed by Sony fanboys for yrs now. When gamers see personal biases overwriting what could otherwise have been thoughtful commentary, gamers get disappointed.

It is totally fair to think that if you were in MS’s shoes, you’d do things differently. We all feel that way most likely. But we also are wholly ignorant of how things work on the inside. They will show us more before launch and likely before October. So let’s just wait to see what happens. It’s not like there is some indefinite uncertainty here.

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Legit surprised/impressed to see that list and the rather prominent placement of indy game publishers! I agree wrt to the disconnect between the narrative and the actual results. I think Sony’s timing of announcements/delays plays into that significantly too. If ya announce a game for 2021, then everyone will treat it like a 2021 title and it will show up in list warz left and right. If it gets delayed it often is presumed to still have a remote chance of hitting 2021 or at worst early 2022, so ppl just don’t bother updating their head canon and the narrative that it stacks up as a big hitter for 2021 persists. Sony seriously appears to make some decisions based on what console warriors on forums want to see. Like a pol throwing red meat rhetoric to their base. Folks in the gaming press, however, should not so readily gobble that up.

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COVID hasn’t stopped Sony from doing more, so yes, I’m going to hold MS to same and sometimes higher standard because they need to do more than Sony but aren’t. I don’t care about Activision, EA, THQ, or whoever else. MS should be doing more, plain and simple. I’m not expecting them to do as well as they would during normal times, I’m just expecting them to do better than what they and Sony has been doing because they have to. I can only frame this point in so many ways and I don’t care to continue this conversation if you want to continue ignoring it. I’ve acknowledged your points, even those I don’t agree with.

I’m also done talking with people here regarding Geoff. I don’t see a preference or even bias towards playstation as a call for console wars, where you apparently do. So we can agree to disagree there as well.

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You are saying that you hold MS to a wildly different standard here than you are willing to hold Sony, EA, Activision, etc…yes that is fine but ya need to jump back to reality. Suggesting that MS should be magically able to push past COVID challenges is just a weird stance to take. Especially given that their Xbox Day event is being held up by Sony’s pricing plans, not MS themselves.

None of this run up to launch matters unless Sony starts showing meaningful next gen games running on retail units with hands on playtests available. So far, they have shown little. MS can easily usurp that position in this sense just by showing off stuff at their Xboxing Day thing, TGS, XO if they have one, etc.

If ya don’t wanna talk about Geoff and his bias, I dunno why ya are here in the thread. o.0

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I don’t consider saying MS should be doing more than Sony by now as holding them to a wildly different standard. We know they have better hardware, but you’d never know it by the games they have or have not shown. I’m not saying that MS should magically push past COVID, I’m saying they should be doing better than they are now. Please stop misconstruing what I’m saying. It shouldn’t be described as magic to do a better job than their competitor when that in itself is another low bar to exceed. You can continue to downplay what we’ve seen so far of the PS5 but it is a fact that we have a better idea what that system can offer so far and that’s the crux of my problem with MS’ approach. I’ll wait until their future shows before judging what they do in the future, all I can do is judge what they have or haven’t been doing so far. If MS actually show things running in real time and finally sell the strengths of the Series X, great, my opinion of their approach will change. After multiple disappointing attempts, they don’t deserve the benefit of the doubt, at least not from me.

Last, I thought we were supposed to be talking about Geoff’s opinion of their approaches so far. Not grabbing our torches and pitchforks calling people console warriors and fanboys because they hold a different opinion than us. Me understanding where he’s coming from is where this whole “what MS and Sony have done so far” conversation has stemmed from. Along those same lines, I don’t blame him for waiting to actually seeing these AAA games from Xbox before getting excited about anything. Xbox hasn’t proven they can match the standards of other 1st party companies, so it shouldn’t be seen as some console heresy for people waiting to see more before changing their opinion.

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At some point you are designing standards specific to MS that set them up to fail your own arbitrary test. Ya rly shouldn’t read into their marketing mistakes lately as if they are tied to actual platform readiness.

If Geoff thinks Xbox’s vision is to offer low budget sorta knockoff titles as per his generic cable TV analogy, that is only due to his own biased viewpoint. There is no thoughtful commentary one could realistically put forward where the rational conclusion is that studios like Playground, Coalition, Rare, Obsidian, inXile, 343, etc are incapable of producing top tier AAA games. And yes, that is precisely what he is saying there.

Lots of us Xbox fans are frankly tired of the goalposts being moved constantly to try rationalizing biases. It was all about power last gen, until it wasn’t. It was all about indie games with the focus on story and not gameplay depth, until it wasn’t. It was all about being pro-consumer, until it wasn’t. It was all about 1P games, but now that MS has that too we are being told those don’t count somehow. There clearly is a narrative that is being pushed. Geoff is reiterating that narrative.

Someone like Geoff should know better than that. In fact, he was LITERALLY talking about precisely that issue earlier in this conversation! Anyone who straight up dismisses GP on the basis of their own status of being gifted free games as part of the ‘press’ or compares the service to generic cable TV is not making thoughtful points in good faith.

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There is no arbitrary test. My expectations were always aligned to what they have set themselves. They have failed to live up to those standards or the standards that their competitor have met. You’re acting like showing some solid Series X gameplay is akin to asking for world peace. I also haven’t said anything about platform readiness, as in the system itself. It’s their ability to properly promote the hardware that I am questioning.

The video and article below is exactly what I’ve been talking about.

Maybe you’re just misconstruing his words like you’ve been doing with mine? Look at their output the last few years. In terms of AAA, we got SoT, Crackdown, Forza Horizon 4, Gears 5, and Flight Sim. The rest have been lower budget, titles. Not to say they have been bad, Ori is a GoTY contender IMO. Even when we look at their AAA output, it’s been hit or miss. People can only go based on what they’ve seen. Sure we have a lot of promising titles announced, but we know nothing about them and not everyone is willing to go on blind faith like you are. When you look at their output over the last few years, his view is closer to reality than yours. Will their output improve? Yeah I think so, but I don’t blame anyone for taking a wait and see approach. Also when you have developers questioning the impact Game Pass will have on game development, is it a stretch to think some journalists or industry people will as well?

Unless you only engage with PS or Nintendo fanboys, there really is no narrative like you describe. Power still matters to an extent, same with indie games, being pro-consumer, and etc. I think you need to step back and see that people are rightfully skeptical of Xbox and it’s up to them to prove them wrong. Not anyone else.

As an Xbox fan, I don’t see a lot of rationalized bias. I see persecution complex and people willing to pin bias on a lot of people in the industry instead of holding Xbox accountable for their missteps.

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First off, the stuff you are linking to are also focused on the marketing and not the actual games or their quality. The marketing for the May event, for example, was accurate and on point. It is literally explained in the tweet Greenberg was replying to. But because the narrative was that they lied about gameplay and then didn’t show any (they showed exactly what they said they would), that is the canon that gets stuck in ppl’s heads, i.e. the narrative. That is the argument Sik is making. Marketing only exists to help shape the narrative within the target demographics.

You talk of persecution complex in the same post as asserting that I’m misconstruing the exact arguments you keep repeating. I am not misconstruing you or your arguments. Marketing missteps are not the same thing as mistakes on the platform’s foundations. You are more concerned with the narrative and how that plays with onlookers than you are the actual quality and value of the platform, just as Geoff is. It’s totally ok to be focused on marketing but don’t act like you are somehow above console warz when this is how you choose to focus your arguments. The entire point of marketing is to fight those console warz, to push or pull on narrative threads within the communities on forums and YT and whatnot. There is a big difference between wanting to see more gameplay for your own interests and wanting MS to show it for the sake of better promoting their plastic box.

And it isn’t ‘blind faith’ to see that the output from Rare and Obsidian and inXile, etc are top notch any moreso than it is to assume as much from Naughty Dog or SSM, etc. And the issue is you ARE NOT taking a wait and see approach because your concern is the marketing and not the actual games. You are asserting that they don’t have stuff worth showing, like ya did in the ONL thread, which is NOT a marketing criticism; it’s a claim about the quality of games being developed. It is a judgment about stuff you have not seen purely on the basis of you having not seen it. That is irrational. You can look at track records to see these studios are top notch. You can see their current projects are ambitious. That doesn’t magically change just because they will land on GP day 1.

You list SoT, Forza Horizon 4, Gears 5, FlightSim, and Ori but you are ignoring the stuff made by the teams they just bought recently too like The Outer Worlds (strong GOTY contender) and Wasteland 3 (said to be among best crpg’s ever made). Who cares what the budget is? That is you looking for excuses to dismiss some of the industry’s best games. Why? Why should gamers care about the budget more than the actual game itself? Oh, right, because you want to go back to the well and dig the narrative that you think isn’t there right back up as a way to critique marketing.

You can have the last word here. My point is that marketing in service of console warz narratives is not the same thing as actual quality on offer for a platform or its games. Repeating this more won’t help it sink in and we have taken over the thread with our bickering.

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I don’t care to have any last word but from your response it’s clear we’ll have to agree to disagree on what’s actually going on. You claim the marketing was on point when Aaron himself admits that they shouldn’t have built up the May show. That very tweet is in both the article and video.

I can go on but it’s pointless. I’m talking about XGS and MGS on Microsoft’s side and you’re talking about everything else. So I give up.

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I will never understand why anyone takes what D-Pope has to say seriously regarding Xbox. He’s been pretty consistent in his disdain for the brand for years, going back to G4.

The lengths some people go through to dismiss Gamepass will never not be amazing to me though that’s for certain.

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