Buying A Console General Gaming

[Spikey]

I am a very on-again, off-again gamer, having had various consoles down through the years right back as far as the PS1 and the original Xbox.

I play very rarely, as in I might play solid for a week, every evening for a few hours, and then not play again for many months. The last console I had was an Xbox 360 which I only dumped a few months ago so I'm looking to get something new and I'm looking at the Xbox Series X|S or the PS5.

I am not into playing multiplayer games and prefer to play alone with stuff along the lines of Bioshock, Mass Effect, Assassins Creed etc.

Just wondering if I could get some advice as to which console might be the better option or will it make any difference?

Also, what's availability like these days for these consoles?

 

[Best]

Having had the PS5 since launch, and the XSX for a month, going on the fact that you don't want multiplayer and prefer single-player games, I find it hard not to recommend the XSX simply because of Gamepass. Even a Series S with Gamepass is excellent if the best visuals are not important, simply because of the value you get. You'll miss on on Sony Exclusives (unless you also game on PC, Sony eventually throws the scraps to the PC players), but if that doesn't bother you, the XSS or XSX if you want the extra oomph and physical disc features. Oh, and I believe UBisoft+ is coming to Xbox so you get the Ubi games now too (Tom Clancy, Assassins Creed, Riders Republic, Watch_Dogs, etc) but I'd also imagine it's like EA where you need the Gamespass Ultimate for inclusion, otherwise it's a monthly/yearly fee.

Saying that I still prefer the PS5 because I feel that it's the next step forward, instead of just more power as MS has done. Some people don't like it or don't feel the difference, but I think the DualSense is a genuine step forward and when used properly adds an extra level of immersion, games like Astro, Returnalt, Ratchet & Clank all make excellent use of it, and I can only see it getting better as more developers get used to it. Plus it looks like it may be the only console VR available once PSVR2 comes out, and that looks beefy too.

Finally, PS5 is still harder to get. People are walking into store picking up the XSS for a while, XSX for the last couple of months or thereabouts (I believe), but PS5's are still a bit harder to get. Personally, XSS/XSX feel like really powerful consoles (in comparison to previous gens), whereas I feel the PS5 is trying to make a genuine step forward, and its power is yet untapped.

 

[Tom]

At the start of last year, I got the Series X and it's just amazing, especially with Game Pass. I never play multiplayer, and the Game Pass games suit me for that.

At this point, I wouldn't consider a Series S, the extra £200 for the X is worth it for the extra power but more importantly the extra storage. With the size of games these days 500GB minus system overheads is not a lot if you are going to hop between a lot of games with Game Pass.

For me, the Series X with Game Pass is just the pinnacle at the moment.

 

[Gemma]

I doubt you'd be disappointed with PS5 or Series X but I'd lean toward Series X and get the Game Pass stacked up. A ton of games on it and more being added to Cloud Play so can just jump right in.

I have a Series S which I thought looked like a decent option but seeing some of the games released on it, the visuals are pretty poor and it's only going to get slower although I'm just a casual gamer so it does the job. I can see Microsoft getting a lot of flak within a few years if/when they pull the plug on it. (For new games, Microsoft are better than most for maintaining legacy stuff)