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Comment by THENATHE | Hacker News Reader

Frankly, I dont understand why most people go playstation. Think objectively about it: if youre on hnews, you're not the target for a console, as you probably either dont play games, or play games on the PC. Then, the majority of people probably have a switch because nintendo is a very common household name. Then once you surpass all of those groups, you have ps5 or xbox. But why do people buy a ps5 when gamepass is so good, and the only real difference is cost (xbox wins) and exclusives (this generation, there aint a huge difference).

Anecdotal, but I know a huge number of people that play games casually, and almost all of them have playstations if they arent PC/switch. Why? I have no idea. Nearly none of them have any interest in any playstation exclusives, they just bought a playstation because. Why? No idea.

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People do not buy consoles, they buy games, and PlayStation has the best collection of them across all categories. Saying that can upset some, but i think its true. Also Xbox has a bit more “edgy” or action oriented brand, while PlayStation has a more wider whole family brand. All of this helps make the appeal wider in general, while Xbox can have more appeal in specific niches, eg shooters, for example.

Xbox has the highest rated racing game (Forza Horizon 5) which is one of my favorite gaming categories.

PS has Gran Turismo. And we could probably discuss endlessly about which one is better.

Forza Horizon 5 is the highest rated racing game of all time on Opencritic. Sony has no open world racing game at all so it loses by default in this space.

And how does that address the original poster's comment?

Forza (any Forza game) is either blatantly arcade (Horizon) or toxic online experience (Motorsport). Gran Turismo although has its own issues is miles ahead over anything Xbox has to offer. Horizon is as racing games as GTA Online for that matter

I think GT7 would beat it out in pure racing, it also supports VR which increases the fun 10x.

GT7 competes with Forza Motorsport, not Horizon. Motorsport is due for a new release this year, let’s see how that compares.

Sony has no answer to Forza Horizon—open world arcade racer.

They don't really need it. There's 3rd party options like Need for Speed.

There's lots of first party titles MS has no one to one answer for either. They don't have a big mascot 3rd person shooter platform game like Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart.

> Think objectively about it: if youre on hnews, you're not the target for a console, as you probably either dont play games, or play games on the PC. Then, the majority of people probably have a switch because nintendo is a very common household name.

HN readers don't use gaming consoles? "Nintendo" is more of a household name than "PlayStation" or "Xbox"? Doesn't sound like a objective analysis to me.

From a quick search, the switch has 122m units shipped to 116m ps4 units shipped.

Based on that, I’d agree that Nintendo and Sony are on pretty comparable footing - certainly not that one brand is notably more widespread than the other.

As a person who has both, you gotta admit the care that Sony puts into their hardware.

This time around the Xbox Series X is arguably sleeker, but by God is the controller pure trash.

The Xbox’s controller vibrations resemble those of a cheap trimmer, whereas the Playstation’s controller has a much nicer feel.

It’s also a fact that many games are better optimized for PS5, even though on paper the Xbox should have a slight edge.

I don’t care about console wars, and I’m glad I have both of them, but some games are only on PS5, which is another reason people opt for it.

Wow interesting. I have a feeling the controller thing is super dependent on what you’ve had more exposure to. I recently started gaming for the first time since I was younger and got the Xbox elite controller and love it but I can’t stand playstation controllers. The feedback feels wrong, buttons, everything. Granted like I said I haven’t used them much.

Xbox has always had more comfortable controllers imo. This gen it’s closer because PlayStation finally copied the ergonomics from an Xbox controller.

I've always found the original Xbox/Xbox one controllers horribly oversized and heavy compared to the PlayStation 2 ones. The early PS1 controllers without analog sticks were a bit small but personally they've always seemed to have the best balance of weight, size, shape, stiffness, and quality.

As I mentioned in another thread, dpads are still used especially in platform games that require precision and the Xbox dpad disk is horrendous.

I've had both playstation and Xbox, although I stopped after the original and the 360, and I can't imagine completing something like Celeste on an Xbox controller.

The Series S/X controller dpad is a pretty nice and clicky dpad. It's a farcry from the mush of the 360 or original Xbox and a step up from the Xbox One (which was already a lot better). I picked up one recently and even though on paper it's barely different from the Xbox One controller they made enough subtle tweaks and design changes that I actually really like it despite never really being a fan of the Xbox One controller.

Current Xbox controller is just fine, but I feel it stopped evolution. I want to see any evolution for controller, like trackpad for aim on Steam Controller.

This reads a lot like the feigned ignorance old Slashdot meme:

“I haven’t watched TV in 10 years. Do people still watch TV”?

It’s not hard to find real data that goes against your anecdotes.

For me it is still the controller.

I had an OG Xbox, and the dpad was horrible (ignoring the size of the thing). I hate the disk shape dpad and like the traditional cross that Playstation offers.

If they made a controller that was nice I might reconsider my options, but after also having to deal with Microsoft locking hard disks, and then doing the same during the 360 era soured my attitude towards them. And this is ignoring all the other bad will that Microsoft has generated over the decades.

I've stuck with Playstation, Nintendo and Steam and I don't see anything Xbox that I'm missing so unless something fundamental changes, I'll stick with Playstation over Xbox.

Why would anyone buy Xbox? No idea.

> But why do people buy a ps5 when gamepass is so good,

You might have just fallen into the trap you were warning us about. Do they know or care about "gamepass"? They know "playstation" because that's what their friends had when they were kids, etc. Brand can be incredibly strong.

To add to this, in Ireland the main retailer for toys was Smyth’s. They didn’t sell the original Xbox because they sold PlayStation and when Microsoft tried to get the Xbox 360 stocked by them, they initially refused saying when people want to buy a games console they come into the store and ask to buy a PlayStation or a games machine. Nobody was going in asking for Xbox. Microsoft had to do a massive deal with them to get shelf space and it was always in the corner away from the Sony and Nintendo stuff.

Gamepass is good, but PS Plus is also good. Arguably the main thing you get with Gamepass is more AAA games, but honestly, both iclude more games than you can reasonably play.

> exclusives (this generation, there aint a huge difference)

The difference doesn't need to be huge, it just needs to be there. For me personally, the backcatalog of From Software games (including 2020 Demon's Souls) and Returnal were enough to push me towards PS5.

> the majority of people probably have a switch because nintendo

I do also own a switch. It's nice and all, but for me competes in a different niche: portable indie game machine. Anecdotally, I also don't know anyone where a Switch displaces PC/PS/Xbox, so the non-overlapping group logic doesn't really apply.

Games. It's the same reason I also own a Nintendo Switch.

By the same token, I would happily own an Xbox as well if it had the games I want, but it's severely lacking in that department.

For one, gyro aim is such an improvement for console shooters (at least for me) that I absolutely cannot downgrade to a console that can’t even support it.

A couple of reasons why I personally will buy PS5 vs XBOX: - I already have a bunch of games for PS4, which will still work on PS5 - I try to avoid Microsoft when possible. They are too powerful and spread out for their own good. And yet I still happily use VSCode, Microsoft ToDo daily. Same sentiment goes for google products. - I can fit PS5 under my TV. XBOX Series X won’t fit.

PlayStation has a lot of exclusive games that have never come to PC, or only arrived on PC until significantly later—see: Killzone, Gran Turismo, The Last of Us until recently, Horizon Zero Dawn until recently, Dark Souls until recently, Bloodborne, God of War, Death Stranding. People want to play those games, and they want to play them now.

Thankfully, PlayStation exclusives do appear to be coming to PC more often nowadays. Hopefully the timed exclusivity window continues to decrease.

Death Stranding came to PC ~7 months after it released on PlayStation, which isn't too bad if they were focusing on finishing the game for the PS release rather than working on the port.

The delay in the FFVII remake was painful though, ~2 years before hitting Steam. It's a shame to see FFXVI release only on PS5 as well, the game looks interesting.

> if youre on hnews, you're not the target for a console

I dont think you know the HN demographics, I would assume lot of them are gamers.

Maybe console gammers are not that much into trying different games so gamepass is worthless. Personally I couldn't care less about a game subscription. I just want to buy the game I like and play it for 20 years at least!

PS Studios have been making consistently critically acclaimed games since mid-late PS3 times.

My friends got playstations because their friends had them. They wanted to be in the same ecosystem so they could play together. Of course with cross console play, this is becoming less and less of a thing.

Mostly exclusives. XBox used to be synonymous with Halo. Microsoft shit the bed with that franchise so Sony took over.

I got a PS5 because we had so much fun on our PS4. We got a PS4 partly to play GTA V. Everyone has their reasons

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