I love tech. I like gaming. I like to talk about, and discuss gaming tech.
I have been tapped on the shoulder by the mods for making threads that compare the PS5 and Series X as its close to warring.
The way I see it is this.
Both Sony and Microsoft spent many years and hundreds of millions of dollars developing the PS5 and Xbox Series X. They had their smartest people putting together what they thought was the best technology for a gaming console in 2020. They made some big bets, and some big investments in these consoles.
At the end of it we have the PS5 and the Series X.
Why is it than when we try to compare these two companies products, and the tech decisions they made, do people consider it warring?
I donât understand why people wouldnât want to talk about if the XSX has an advantage with its Mesh Shaders compared to the PS5s Primitive Shaders. Or to try and see if the XSX is going to have an advantage with its Machine Learning over the PS5. Or if wider and slower GPU is more performant than a narrow and fast one. How about if the PS5s SSD is a smarter way to go about I/O compared to Microsofts XVA solution.
Why do some people avoid these types of conversations?
The amount of toxic arguments are high. So its possibly not you honestly from the mods perspective but everyone else who replyâs. It would probably be hard to have a civil discussion. Just my two cents.
No issues with technical discussion at all, but from a console warz perspective?
The problem becomes when users take their investment in hardware personally and it becomes a team game, where it suddenly becomes not about the technology at all, but how âthe other sideâ will lose, fail, âget destroyedâ and so on.
At that point, it serves no purpose in my opinion.
I also feel you could simply say âboth machines are avtually pretty similarâ and both will have great games. The end.
I would never discourage that technical discussion, but I would say youâd be very optimistic for it to lead anywhere good!
For sure, but if someone posts something like âSoNy sUcKsâ or âXbots are stupidâ itâs pretty easy to just delete their posts and remove them from the ability to post in the thread. But if they post that they think one system or the other has an advantage in a particular area because of some particular fact, then even if they are wrong they are posting with maturity and good intentions.
I donât feel its a consequence of the topic but a larger one of the forum in which it is discussed, Im not sure its particular to any subject.
Communication as we do via purely text opens any conversation up to a myriad more different interpretations from the readers than if we were to discuss together face to face. Internet discourse is a very new and different kind of social interaction that we are not âwiredâ to trust. Add to this the difference in language, or even dialect due to us (as people) communicating across the world and any subject can be interpreted as more hostile or dismissive or baiting so easily.
Then you add other issues, people (like me) who find it difficult to put what they think down as text clearly, people speaking in absolutes about any topic, Opinions being different, discussing in bad faith and just outright trolling and thats before we get to a topic being possibly âcontentiousâ.
Then the topic, in this case comparing tech. So often the mere act of comparing comes down to being something that can only be discussed as one is wrong, one is right, after all that is a common reason to compare anything.
If we further consider a great deal of the comparing happens early on in tech, such as XboxSeries Vs PS5, we could discuss the differences on a tech level but I feel, we miss a giant part of the conversation, what those companies/devs or what that hardware does with its design decisions. The software.
We can argue about how x would be a better choice than y but if the software does not leverage it, it becomes moot. A far more, for me, interesting and deeper conversation can (and should) happen towards the end of a generation where we can point to evidence of why we think this was a good or bad idea. Until then for the reasons above its a conversation which too oft boils down to being objective, without âproofâ to back up arguments and easily derailed to tribalism due to the nature of the Internet.
I wish I could have said this as concisely, without a ramble. Basically this. The internet is a terrible place for nuanced conversation, and such topics only make it harder to discuss with nuance.
One thing I pointed out to the mods, which they didnât 100% agree with, was that this is an Xbox based forum. Thereâs not too many Sony fanboys here, so you should be able to avoid those types of wars here.
I think most people can be honest about the tech in the consoles.
Like you said, both are pretty similar, and both will be good platforms to game one.
Last gen it was pretty definitive that the PS 4 was a far better gaming hardware than the Xbox One. More power, better RAM set up for starters. This gen there is more differences between them than last.
We have a wide and slower vs narrow and faster GPU. Hardware based speed for Sonyâs SSD, while XSX has a less faster SSD but MS have done other things like XVA to make the XSX perform above the 2.4gbs.
Then we have MSs DirectX 12 Ultimate features which the XSX has and the PS5 lacks. Thereâs alot more to talk about and discuss than last gen.
To add on to that part in particular, so much of the discussions become âfanboi fodderâ even on specialized technical forums. I now save these technical topics for smaller semi-closed discussions, private chats, or for the strictly professional trade shows and events.
I have lost all hope of meaningful public technical discussions on anything where brand loyalty exists. That says a lot coming from someone whoâs been a participant in technology matters since the late 80s.
Yes, the forum is called XboxEra, and by design I expect there to be an Xbox slant. I think thatâs normal.
But do I want that to mean the community can post fanboy-level drivel without repurcussion just because itâs âpro-xboxâ?
Iâm not saying ânoâ by the way. Iâm saying that if a thread discussing tech specs turns into something filled with uneducated hot-takes and console warring, even if the âother sideâ isnât in the room, itâs going to get locked pretty quick. I also wouldnât be surprised to see it go that way.
I mean you could always just move on past it. You donât need to comment if its not interesting to you.
Or, you could make threads up that interest you and add content to the forum.
Either or.
I mean not that the difference will be gigantic, and of course both are going to get great games, but there are some possible big architectural differences in how they designed the consoles.
From the extra features Ms waited for (which could end up being a fluke) to Sony going the overclock route.
I think as more data points appear from games thereâs a legit discussion to be had on this topic more than just comparing the games themselves
By people you could mean mostly children invested with their favoured company, the so called âfanboysâ. Gaming is a hobby of people of every age and in the internet you really canât discuss just only with adults like in real world where, unless they are your children, you donât spent free time with kids but adults. Hence level of discussion is really varied in social media because of lack of real world barriers, presence anonymity, etc.
Nobody knows why, nobody knows who⌠everybody knows that: It just is.
So who are we to challenge and argue with this wonderful colorful tradition.
AKA: I just got sick of it during the Dreamcast, with Playstation Fanboys just spouting bullshit about it being so dangerously powerful that it couldnât be sold to Iran!
People that donât read up on civil engineering, shouldnât compare bridges for build quality!
Oh wait: Itâs an Xplainin treat. The man behind the âinfinite power of the Cellâ thread, yeah⌠Iâm moving on.
Seriously man, youâll get us in trouble with Uncle Kiryu. And I cant out punch that man, so donât you go hiding behind me when shit hits the fan!
Because its almost always people taking things out of context without understanding the wider systems they sit in and using them as buzzwords and bulletpoints for lists without having a clue what any of it means in real terms. Often stuff is used as the âkilla appâ before a single dev has got their hands on itâŚ
Well the reason you canât really have meaningful technical console comparisons is because 99% of the forums/internet lack the knowledge to actual have an honest discussion about it. Basically itâs just people taking bullet points from tech blogs and arguing over descriptors like âwide and slowâ vs ânarrow and fastâ like that actually means anything. Itâs not even a technical discussion, itâs just another console A is better than console B because of âbullet points from the internet that sound good and support my positionâ.
I think that it needs to be expected that the internet allows individuals to be belligerent and stubborn to a degree far greater than they are in person (hopdfully!) and is not related to Xbox/Playstation in a vacuum.
If you go to the comments section for any WWE/AEW wrestling video you will see an equally pointless and equally needling selection of comments despite (as with PS5/Xbox) none of the contributors working for either company, owning shares in either company, and having no obligation to stick to either company. They are purely a consumer, usually a pretty distant one.
With football there is a slightly different tribalism which is often linked to a family history of âsupportingâ that team, driven from growing up locally and having close geographical rivals. More so, it is a sport, with a clear and deliberate winner/loser. Comparing video games consoles or television programmes is not the same remotely.
So, in short, people are idiots and enjoy arguing.
