Xbox Issues Reminder As PS5 Unveils 'Confusing' SSD Expansion Process

It's definitely an amusing situation. I still feel the Xbox solution is a bit overpriced, but in time I'm sure the price will come down. The convenience however is permanent with what the Xbox has done as opposed to the PS5.
Everything about the PS5 seems like an oversight. Even my N64 had a plug in and play expansion! It's not difficult...

I do love these friendly jabs from time to time - and let's be honest, I think Microsoft takes itself a lot less seriously than Sony - I mean, come on, we are getting a Series X mini fridge this year for crying out loud!

Unfortunately they only throw more fuel on the absolutely illogical fire that is the "console wars".

I like the hot swap of the drive, especially when I can download and update all the games at home with great internet speed and just put it in my pocket when I head over to the summer house to the next xbox

I think they need to do a mini advert like the good old Sony "This is how you trade games" one from PS4 launch.

In all seriousness, both have pros and cons.
If you are remotely tech savvy, installing one in your PS5 is fairly simple.
The main issue is how Sony haven't tested drives and approved them, leaving any issues firmly at the feet of the customer.

Is it harder than the Xbox solution 100%, is it the gargantuanly difficult task requiring a mechanical engineering degree many are making it out to be, no not at all. In a couple weeks there will be plenty of info on compatible drives/reviews etc and the actual process is just as easy as the PS3/4 were. People really making a mountain out of a molehill with this one.

The tweets are funny though lol!

Echoes of the infamous how to share a game clip Sony did. Fair play to MS, it's definitely a win for them. Albeit the M2 drives may drop in price as time goes by, but then the Xbox storage cards have already been discounted here and there. I love my PS5, but this really does show up it's shortcomings in terms of how it has been engineered next to the Xbox. MS really do deserve plaudits, the Series S and X are by no means flashy but they are beautifully compact and masterfully engineered

I remember them (and media) berating Xbox with the little Timmy and his grandma narrative. Well good luck searching for a compatible SSD.

@blinx01 yeah that’s the really ***** part Sony are like we can’t guarantee ANY of these cards can give similar performance to the PS5’s internal SSD and any problems, well that’s on you.

I swear PlayStation fans are becoming more and more like ISIS. Just saying. Speak out against their console or make any small critcism and it's full Jihad.

Both have their pros and cons. I don’t mind having to open up the console to add more storage, it’s not that much different from putting another HD in your PS4. The confusion here comes from which NVMe SSD’s are and will be compatible and what performance you’re actually going to get out of it.

The Xbox solution I like, plug a card in and get the same performance as the internal SSD straight off the bat, no fuss and no confusion.

I love my extra expansion cards. Super easy to manage. Just plug in and play. A bit pricey but I despise uninstalling and redownloading games just to save storage space. That will get me to play less new games and just play the same old thing again and again. The idea of having to crack open my console and installing additional hardware is a no no from me with cats and carpets and an unsterile environment. Screwed up a PC applying heatsink before.

There is nothing confusing about the PS5 upgrade path. This is hyperbole at best.

@Doctorwhoooourgh you’ve only just noticed? 😉 they’re cult like. I mean every brand has their crazies but Sony simps are the loudest and most annoying with their superiority complex I find.

Sony’s solution makes more sense from an enthusiast perspective. However, from a parental/general perspective MS’s solution is more elegant. For instance, my mother could go to the store and despite having a picture and as soon as she got to the store she’d buy the cheapest one she saw. It’s not a knock on her (single waitress mother kept clothes on my back and food in my stomach) but the point is you can’t buy the wrong thing with MS’s solution.

The argument convenance vs customization will always exist. See IPhone vs Android. It’s not new.

@Fenbops I like the ones who are trying to appear unbias but ultimately lose it when you disagree with them hahaha

@SplooshDmg Oh Jesus I think I know the ad your talking about... it was absolute savage when they released that. But the tables have turned since.

@GamingFan4Lyf Yeah, Sony should release a “PS5” WiFi 6 router haha

As a Xbox Series X owner I just recently bought the 1TB expansion card and I appreciate the ease of installation.

I will remind you all that Sony exclusive "Kraken" technology chipset and software on the PS5 massively compressed storage data. AC Vahalla latest patch took nearly 24 GB update on Xbox Series X/S, well on the PS5 it was less than 7 GB. As more 3rd party games (to go along with 1st party) take advantage of this the PS5 will be able to store more games on there internal HD than Xbox Series X/S. (There are videos on YouTube about this Kraken technology on the PS5)

Finally, Sony was smart to offer 3rd party companies to make expansion HD's instead instead of a what MS is offering. Prices will go down for Sony HD's over the years and offer a cheaper option. Sony HD is over twice as fast and costing just a little more right now than MS.

Cheers!

Massive Kudos to Frasier here - it’s ridiculous to claim the Xbox solution is a good one. - it’s just better than the current mess at Sony - but as Frasier states - long term Sony’s offering is far far more consumer friendly and should lead to some very decent cheap offerings.

I wish people weren’t such fanboys and offered a more balanced view and unlike the comments here - frasier has… and it’s why I still come here.

@GrafUlrich88 It's definitely a tale of two approaches to this generation.

Sony chose "brute force" when it comes to overall IO speeds. Microsoft chose to kind of split IO speeds between physical hardware and software techniques.

What does this mean? Well, to Sony's credit, developers can just...well...do less work optimizing IO. The brute force "just works."

Developers can get similar results on Xbox Series consoles, but with a little more work.

Here is the following excerpt from "Xbox Velocity Architecture: A Closer Look at the Next-Gen Tech Driving Gaming Innovation Forward on Xbox Series X":

"Through the massive increase in I/O throughput, hardware accelerated decompression, DirectStorage, and the significant increases in efficiency provided by Sampler Feedback Streaming, the Xbox Velocity Architecture enables the Xbox Series X to deliver effective performance well beyond the raw hardware specs, providing direct, instant, low level access to more than 100GB of game data stored on the SSD just in time for when the game requires it. These innovations will unlock new gameplay experiences and a level of depth and immersion unlike anything you have previously experienced in gaming."

Unfortunately, until first-party titles start taking full advantage of Velocity Architecture, we won't see the it in full-force any time soon because I just don't see third-party developers taking complete advantage of Velocity Architecture.

@Carck this is a beta firmware. Likely in the future Sony will whitelist a few select drives that work best. If someone can’t simply input a recommended brand and model SSD into Amazon and select “Buy”, I don’t know what to say to them.

Even old-fashioned Nintendo had a list of compatible HDDs for Wii U on their official website that I checked to buy mine. Sony is just saying, "Buy this kind of SSD but it might not work". Xbox solution just works and is as easy as to plug it in and double the capacity of Series X. They suggested that a 2TB expansion card will be released and the price of the 1TB expansion card has been discounted several times. The console and the expansion solutions are better engineered than Sony's.

@AgentGuapo Whilst I agree with you about the difficulty level in putting the drive in, this last statement of yours severely out of touch with people. I have to help my boss whose only in his 40s open attachments on his phone. My list of people who can’t* do what you say is at least 20 people long if not more

@GrafUlrich88
Kraken is not Sony exclusive. It's at least 5 years old and can be used by anyone. It's a general purpose compression. Microsoft has its own compression, called "BCPack", which is more efficient when it comes to texture compression. On top of that, the velocity architecture encompasses more than mere compression/decompression. It's a set of tools that cleverly approaches storage I/O.

I realize, that I'm sounding like a MS sales person right now, and I don't like it - but I dislike even more, how Sony manages to downplay everything MS does, with basically "magic" as an explanation. In that regard, your comparison of patch sizes doesn't show much. These are two different game versions, with different approaches to problems, hence they have to be patched differently from time to time.

The series X was simply engineered better.

Yeah, the Xbox just seems alot more user friendly that's for sure. Nobody should have to pop open their console to add storage, should be just plug & play. (Or attach a screw to the base so the damn thing won't fall over for that matter!)

@AgentGuapo Upgrading the SSD in the PS5 reminds me of my Thinkpad that to upgrade the RAM, you had to remove the keyboard. Thing still has a gash in the inner tray from the screwdriver used to pry it out. I've been building PCs since the requirement of an (ISA slot) video card that had VRAM (any VRAM....at all) was seen as a weird requirement few could meet.

The PS5 solution is....not good. I say that as someone eagerly desperate to add storage to my PS5. Who already bought the XSX expansion day 1. I'm definitely gonna' wait for everyone else to go first and work out the inevitable problems. I'm not going to guinea pig my hard to replace PS5. We're talking about a console that could brick because you used rest mode while connecting any USB drive, at launch, which Sony has still never actually acknowledged the problem or announced a fix.

Now imagine Joe Consumer.....

@NEStalgia with all due respect, the only thing you have to remove on the PS5 is the white panel and the SSD slot cover. Removing the white panel requires no tools or prying. The SSD cover is what. A single screw? I mean. Come on here.

@AgentGuapo Opening the shell is half the battle. Seating the M2, buying the right M2, managing the heatsink for M2 (required for some options, but not others, in Sony's own words), troubleshooting any issues that occur from the "totally not guaranteed to work right" M2..... this is all "normal" if you're a techie. This is like replacing an ATV suspension for the 80+ million PS customers that aren't.

@GamingFan4Lyf Yeah, generally the XSX can outperform PS5 in circles, theoretically, if games are ultra-optimized for it. Unfortunately, history (and windows) tells us devs will never optimize like that and just rely on brute force for everything. So it falls to MS to make middleware to "auto optimize" things. I doubt they'll really succeed too much there, so the default performance probably goes to PS5 for most 3rd party, but MS could make 1st party REALLY sing if they choose to. The inverse of PS3/X360 but less stark. OTOH a lot of the optimization techniques will be required for DX12 and PC games to the point that even Sony will be implementing a lot of the "Xbox optimization" into their games from now on, and Xbox will benefit from the ubiquity of PC implementation.

@GrafUlrich88 The raw drives are twice as fast as gen3 on PC benchmarks, but PS5 doesn't actually support using them at their full speed. It's using the raw performance to emulate the parallel channels of the internal solution (or rather, the internal solution uses parallel channels to emulate the theoretical specs of gen4 before it was available), but the end result isn't actually utilizing the full capability of the gen4 drives, so the PC benchmarks don't directly translate to drive performance in a PS5. It's faster, absolutely, but PC benchmarks for just how much faster don't apply here.

Also, Kraken and Oodle are middleware from RAD Game Tools, which is now owned by Epic/Tencent, and is also baked into UE4/5. Everyone can use it if they license it. Sony just built hardware decompression of it into the system, while on Xbox you'd have to use some of the CPU for that.

@SplooshDmg it's less a paperweight and more an embosser.

@Stocksy Pricing is speculation on both sides. As others have said, SSD prices really haven't dropped much, at all over years, and while the promise of PC tech was forever declining prices, the whole crypto craze (which I still don't really understand at all) has been driving prices up instead of down. And it surely won't be until the chip shortage ends fully that they might. Sony's solution relies on widespread PC adoption of gen4, which is still a little dubious vs mass market penetration of gen3, for the prices to drop. And Xbox's storage is proprietary only as a "timed exclusive" for Seagate, after which the flood gates open and other competing drives can be certified. Drives which use overall cheaper gen3 tech. The pricing could swing in favor of either of them. Phil also mentioned other "form factors" meaning the possibility of an external enclosure to also use your own (cheaper gen 3) drives is potentially on the table as well, from a third party.

Just purely poor planning on Sony's part. They wanted (apparently) to come out with the new console in 2019, but caught wind of MS coming out with something more powerful the next year. They got stuck with their pants down and had to reengineer on the fly.

To have to open your console up and 'install' unverified memory is absolutely ridiculous. Sure a group of us who more hard core then your regular folk would have no problem, but to ask the regular kid to do that and not potentially brick their console is brutal.

This is coming from a company who's first console had an easily slot-able memory card.

@SplooshDmg Oh, I hadn't know that Xb had a hardware decompression solution. I thought theirs was entirely software, but relying on the more powerful CPU to utilize it. That's interesting. Sony marketing sucks massively, but they managed to market "Oodle" and "3D sound" to the extreme. And haptics. Every game is the best version on PS5, because Sony makes the best vibrator.

I still truly don't get Crypto at all. I don't get how it exists or is valid. People spend vast fortunes on infinite compute power/space to materialize magic numbers to invent "money" out of thin air. I mean, yes, that's what the Fed has done for almost a hundred years without any tech budget at all beyond #2 pencils, but I still don't get how it's a useful currency that's valid for anything, or holds any value unless it's pegged against AMD shares. Sure "shiny gold rocks" really had imaginary value as well (until electronics were invented), but the basis of currency was supposed to be that at least everyone agrees on its value and what it represents. Crypto.....isn't that.

@Arcnail At least they didn't do a Vita and require us to buy 256GB SSDs for $399.
.....and not include one with the console......

You need a god damn degree to install one of these things lol.. Just to the sane thing and get yourself a Xbox Series X or S

The Sony version reminds me of people who change their own oil in their cars. Unless you do a lot of car work, for the average person, it's a huge PITA, you still have to buy all the oil and filters, and then spend half the afternoon futzing, then you still have to dispose of the old oil.

Or, you spend $15 or $20 bucks more, and just have it done for you at a garage.

I got my Series X expansion card at launch for $180 bucks, deals can be had - and in any case, I'd rather have the plug and play, guaranteed to work version I've gotten, than if I saved a few dollars to get a 3rd party one. I mean, having to (possibly?) attach a heat sink? All that uncertainty, and you don't even know if it's gong to work or not?

Yeah, I'm glad I'm an XBOX player on this one. I haven't regretted my Expansion purchase for a moment, and I'm glad I don't have to deal with the mess on the PS5 side.

@Arcnail It was mentioned on many websites that PS5 was overclocked because of Series X being quite superior and that Sony had to make the final design bigger because of the extra heat. PS5 has a huge heatsink. That's also why Mark Cerny was so ambiguous about the hardware in the presentation, avoiding TFLOPs, suggesting that the peak clock numbers of PS5 are sustainable (they aren't) and using ambiguity and flashy terms to market the console, the opposite of Microsoft that presented Series X objectively and openly (The Beard, Digital Foundry...).

@NEStalgia Well this turned into a lively debate. So many comments about Kraken.

Well something everyone here needs to know is that Sony is a minority owner in Epic (I believe 3% or 4%) so they get to use Unreal Engine and any other Epic owned proprieties for free. Kraken was as I understand not just a software but a hardware component on the chipset (which is wise). If anyone here would be kind enough to share a screenshot of the PS5 chipset and where the Kraken is suppose to be on the motherboard.

What baffles me though is why MS won't get their act together and use their supposed awesome decompression software so when I install Halo Infinite this Fall it won't be taking up 100 GB or more space. MS Flight Sim is horrible more worse. I was warned that I need to basically set aside 200 GB for base game (roughly 102 GB as know) and other content. Also why does the internal HD only give you 802 GB well the 1TB Expansion card give you 920 GB. That is a lot of space for a operation system. Why have I lost between the both of them 212 GB of space. That's horrible.

MS needs to go through all their games and start do their magical "Decompression" software. A update for AC Valhalla shouldn't be Xbox Series X nearly 24 GB and PS5 lest than 7 GB. That's bad for the consumer. I though MS had such smart people working on their Xbox Software, but sadly MS wishes and dreams of having a genius like "Sir Mark Cerny". Many developers have commented over the years that he is always the smartest when it comes hardware and system software design.

As a Xbox Series X owner I want all the magic MS keeps promising. It stinks that I have to suffer through false promises and words. I had to make a hard choice either keep deleting and reinstalling games over and over again or suck it up and go buy the 1 TB expansion card (which I did last weekend). If MS would utilize their "Magical" decompression software on 1st and 3rd party game like Sony is doing then I wouldn't be forced to spend more money on HD space.

(Well this should increase the fireworks of debate).

Have a great evening everyone! Cheers!

@GrafUlrich88 I'm a little baffled about the HDD space part. Are you a PS5 owner as well? Did you see how much of that itsy bitsy HDD is usable? PS5 os takes more space of the smaller drive than xsx is. And unlike xb PS4 bc has some sort of compatibility layer that grows as you install games, so if you have bc games a huge chunk of the already smaller HDD is gone. Internal space is just unforgivable on PS5. Workable but unforgivable.

You speak very highly of PS5, so I assume you have one, but your criticism of the xb storage makes me think maybe you haven't seen that and don't have the 5 yet.

Sploosh already covered the kraken part and added that xsx also has hardware decompression (I didn't know that, myself!) Of it's own tough it's underutilized so far.

And yeah flight sim is literally a model of the entire planet. The full game isn't installed, the assets are cloud steamed. Full install size is 3.5 petabytes and growing. It's unprecedented in scale, because it's the first major simulator in maybe 15+ years. It really can't and shouldn't be compared to any other game is an incredibly unique case and we probably won't see anything else like it for quite a long time. If nothing else is a rare tech demo for what benefits cloud tech offers.

No fireworks really, just some odd points. No question third parties are using sonys tools better right now. By all accounts, their tools are easier to use. And since that's the largest platform many devs will just optimize there and move on. First party will hopefully be a guide on what to do, and with the windows 11 launch in fall, I think pc will start requiring more of the xb Apis to be put to use, so multiplats will start to benefit on xb more often from windows development.

@SplooshDmg @NEStalgia Great information from both of you.

Oh, I don't own a PS5 (I will get one someday when you don't have to battle scalpers. I have PS4 Pro). I got my Xbox Series X through the "All Access" program back in early March, really enjoying it.

Yeah I agree with many of your well written out thoughts and informative info. I just like to see MS and 3rd parties utilize decompression on the Xbox Series X/S. It would help all of us gamers to have more space for the many games we want to play anytime. I don't have a data cap, however sadly many people do have data cap limits and I think (correct me if I'm wrong) installing games from your library over and over again because you like to switch between them can be a little frustrating. I had to make the tough decision of getting the 1TB expansion card last weekend. I enjoy now more space but paying that much for one was not fun.

Again nice, lively, and informative discussion!!!

Cheers!

Apart from internal SSD performance, the way Sony invent their storage on PS5 is such a mess. Soldered internal SSD and complicated mess of picking up the correct M.2 SSD, deciding whether you buy the heatsink too or not, & worriness of the SSD might not work on the system.

The convenient of Xbox Series ... just plug the damn expansion card and you're good to go. But on Xbox you stuck with proprietary solution with only 1TB option you say? No worries since more capacity from more storage manufacturers are coming soon. Soon enough xbox customers just have to buy their desired capacity, plug the damn thing, and start using it right away. Also notice that the internal storage can be replaced too. I've had a hunch that when SSD with 2230 form factor become more common and cheaper, MS will allow & also provide guide for Series users to replace the internal storage within for easy repair & upgradability.

They both have individual advantages. Personally the Xbox way means that it will never come down in price enough to ever be a viable option while at least the PS5 method gives me hope. One of those situations where i think Xbox owners are happier now but 2 years down the line ps owners will be happier. Bit like the 360 v PS3 days. No way in a million years would I buy the 360 hard drive but bought a cheap drive for PS3 after a few years of purchase. And at no point did the 360 come down in price ever.
The real shame is that they couldn't both meet half way and produce a hybrid version with best of both worlds.

@GamingFan4Lyf This situation isn't an illogical console war though, it's perfectly acceptable that Microsoft saw an opportunity here and took it.
The only thing illogical is Sony's way of installing an internal SSD drive. It's the fact they appear to have done zero testing of the drives, despite Mark Cerney stating they would test them and release a list of them. But in Sony's blur it for this beta it states that some games will NOT perform the same on your installed drive as opposed to the built in one and will offer worst performance. Microsoft stated and it is true it's plug and play one offers exactly the same performance as the internal drive.
So not only have YOU got to buy a compatible SSD, make sure it physically fits in the PS5, make sure it has a heat sink or buy a heat sink and fit it (another requirement) and make sure it all physically fits, but you won't always get the same performance anyway, oh and of course Sony have also stated they will not be held responsible for any damage these drives may cause, that YOU are testing, and also you must speak to the manufacture or vendors for any support on the drives as Sony won't be offering any, for its own machine....
It's probably the worst way and most anti consumer way of supporting a storage solution I've seen, these are games consoles not PC's people are building.

@StonyKL First sentence is wrong, Microsofts drive has been on sale several times and is now currently £180 on Amazon:

http://smile.amazon.co.uk/Seagate-Storage-Expansion-Solid-State/dp/B08K48F6QZ/ref=mp_s_a_1_1_sspa?dchild=1&keywords=xbox+series+x+storage+expansion+card&qid=1627718496&sprefix=xbix+series+x&sr=8-1-spons&psc=1&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUEySllSN0M5RERLRzhOJmVuY3J5cHRlZElkPUEwNTU1MTY4M1NBTVY0SFU3T1RHWCZlbmNyeXB0ZWRBZElkPUEwMjQyMzg1UVA3Szk0OVBIVlczJndpZGdldE5hbWU9c3BfcGhvbmVfc2VhcmNoX2F0ZiZhY3Rpb249Y2xpY2tSZWRpcmVjdCZkb05vdExvZ0NsaWNrPXRydWU=

@Residentsteve01 So because if Sony's design flaws you are going to wait and give them more money for another PS5? They must love you.

All fun aside: I know there is likely a limitation over motherboard location and distance to the GPU, but I insist the Xbox should have had the expansion slot on the front, to make it as easy to add and hot-swap expansion cards as it was to swap memory cards on consoles of old.

@StonyKL there is a big difference. First, PS3 HDD was the same as any laptop would use, the fact that almost any laptop, and many desktops, used those drives drove prices down.

M.2 are niche that are only installed by power users. The chances of the price being driven down are much lower.

At the same time, the current Xbox expansions are exclusive from seagate only for a year. There will be more competition offered in the years to come m, and that is likely to drive down prices.

Being ridiculously easy to install, I see the most casual of users actually buying them, while I doubt anyone but the most dedicated gamers will ever remove the plates of their PS5s for any reason, much less to install an M.2

@S1ayeR74 That's not a sale! A DFS sofa reduced from £5000 to £300 doesn't mean it's cheap. Sales 101 tactic to con consumers.

@StonyKL You need to go and read your comment mate, you stated 'the Xbox way means it will NEVER come DOWN in price', you never mentioned the word 'sale', so don't be so salty when your called out as being wrong.

@Arcnail Is their evidence to support this? I’d like to read it.

@S1ayeR74 ok fair enough - I meant to a reasonable price. I'm also only going by experience of the 360/PS3 days. It's also guess work by everyone. As someone else mentioned the PS method only comes down if these drives start getting used by pc's / laptops in future. If neither come down to reasonable prices I can't see many people buying them. Bit like the Sony memory sticks always being crazy expensive for the vita when SD cards came down. I'm just not optimistic in the slightest that the Xbox memory will ever be a reasonable price. Happy to be proven wrong though.

Right now, I have 7 games on my PS5 with 200+ GB remaining and 9 games on my XSX with 350GB remaining.

Are people that actually fill these up playing 15-20 games at a time? I find that incredibly hard to believe.

By the time I would need to delete a game from either hard drive, the odds of me playing it again are minuscule so right now I see no need to even think about buying an expansion. If all games start coming in over 100GB then I’d have to reevaluate.

One Single PSfanboy in the comments trying best to defend everything that Sony does on a Xbox website as always..
Edit-- I was being polite not a fanboy but this guy is an absolute PONY.. Just go through his comments.. Holy Cow look up to see who i am talking about

The PS5's solution is not confusing. It's actually fairly easy, but obviously nothing can be easier than sliding a card into a slot like on the Series X.

@Doctorwhoooourgh At least from the outside looking in, I think it’s a rough time to be a Sony fan. Best case, you have a “Nintendo New 3DS”... a small handful of exclusives and a better version of the old hardware. Plus, every decision and statement Sony makes is baffling.

Memory cards are back, baby

@Spiders I agree. I use to be super duper into ps4 haha, but when I tried game pass out and started looking at both companies without a bias lens, I learnt that Xbox was under new management and far more consumer friendlier whilst Sony made my wallet ache. Sony have great exclusives but at that price tag, nah. Their whole director cut fee and SSD confusing along with their constant schoolyard critcism of their competitors leaves a sour taste in my mouth. I tend to drift toward more positive outlets and so far, Xbox is putting out them vibes

I just stick with two 2nd-hand SSDs from CEX, 240gb-ish, 1 for each next gen, works a treat.
But further down the line, yeah, I'll buy an expansion for team green - MS wins this round

@Doctorwhoooourgh i was the same had a og xbox one but it was garbage conpared to my fathers ps4 so i got a ps4 when i traded that day one edition in then i upgrades to ps4 pro when that came out, but about a year before the series x came out i got a One X cheap at bestbuy when they screwed up the price 249.99 i now have a series x and the one x is my wifes...Gamepass is what sold me on the xbox and got me to ditch my ps4 all together for now...someday ill grab another 4pro if for no other reason to get my games i got digital.

@Blessed_Koz I wish my game store screwed the price hahah. Same here though, my wife has my one x now while insane the Series X. I think I'll end up getting a ps4 pro for the same reason, but not in any rush haha

@StonyKL But the series X drives have come down to reasonable prices at the moment? You just labelling it as expensive because it's your 'opinion' it's expensive. For what your getting its good value especially at the moment.
The PS5 is in a much more difficult position as it requires third parties to make not only NVME drives of specific speeds, but also specific physical sizes with specific thermal properties with specific physically sized heat sinks. And only then if those drives sell well enough to PC users will they potentially drop in price.

@Doctorwhoooourgh You soon learn Nintendo is exactly the same, for instance I tried a game this week on my iPhone, it was a free demo, it was a cool game, it cost 8.99 to unlock the full game. Bit expensive but it's the full game.
The very same game is on Nintendo Switch eshop, no demo, but it costs 18.99, so over double the price! And that's for a worst screen then my iPhone. Now yes I could plug it into my telly, so long as it isn't a Switch Lite of course, but it's the story with Nintendo in general.
Games on the Switch are more expensive then other platforms, and it's first party titles very very very rarely go on sale ever!

Now you look at Xbox, it has Game Pass with free games and discounts galore, then it has sales too with all games reduced in price, even new releases can be on sale after a week.
Their is a game and it's sequel that I loved to play on my Switch and the same devs are making a new game in the same style, now I know on the Switch it'll cost full price, trouble for Nintendo is the same game will be on Xbox PS and Steam, so that means the Steam Deck.... I think the Steam Deck will take a few Switch sales cause of Nintendo's greed. Just like how Microsoft are taking sales from Sony because it's better value.

@S1ayeR74 agreed =) I ended up selling my switch because of the hefty price for games. It sucks because I actually really like the quality of games both Nintendo and Sony out out, but it also feels like I'm being taken advantage of. Video games shouldn't be a rich persons game, it shouldn't cost you a chunk of your earnings. There should, and thankfully is, a more affordable way to game. I use to be one of those people who waited a whole year for the latest release so I could at least get it at discount. Thanks to game pass I get to play first party day one games. I'm very tempted by the steam deck, though. I'll wait and see =)

@Doctorwhoooourgh Truly. I'm always biased to what I'm playing on at the moment, but I've been lucky enough to have had most major consoles and handhelds.
As a Sony fan who can't get a PS5 even if I wanted or could afford it, current Sony feels like a more subtle PS3-era Sony.

I haven't really played on Xbox since the original and early 360
(my "Most Recent" games still has Geometry Wars, Lost Planet, Dead Rising 1, etc. haha). Gamepass for PC has been a great gateway, and I'm getting those same vibes from current Microsoft as you.

It likely won't last forever, but right now it's crazy not to see the positives of what they're trying to do going forward, and all the negativity I really think is that frustration I mentioned earlier, and some kind of Stockholm Syndrome for these platforms.

From your above comment - this last year and a half really changed how I buy and play games just because it kind of had to — probably a lot of people. I went pure backlog / PS+ games up until a month a go (blessing in disguise). Getting Gamepass on PC (and GG Strive which will give me thousands of hours of gameplay over the next couple of years) has let me budget for something like Metroid Dread or SMTV on Switch. If I played handheld, Steam Deck looks like an amazing option to be able to play great games on a budget over the long run.

@S1ayeR74 I don't think it's greed necessarily for Nintendo or Sony, it's just the consequences of the environment they created — but yeah, Xbox::Sony and hopefully Steam Deck::Switch are going to be great for everyone having strong competition for the value proposition.

@Spiders No it’s just greed, Nintendo make profits on all their consoles sold, and they charge more for the same games as you can buy elsewhere, and they charge maximum for Wii games they relaunch on the Switch and rarely put them on sale. Sony just increased its PS5 game prices but they have far more generous digital sales then Nintendo. Nintendo’s pricing can be a joke at times.

I see what you're saying, but keep in mind a couple of things: they don't set the prices on their store. many of the games that are available on other platforms come a lot later — if you look at the price drops relative to when the games releases it's the same price slashes.
As far as the full price remakes — I agree with you. On Wii, they had Gamecube re-releases called Wii New Play Control! that were budget priced, and I think they should have done that for this generation, as well as doing their 'Player's Choice' line. They're doing there "evergreen" strategy though, so it's hard to call it greed when they're still charting in Japan with 3 and 4 year old games.

On the other hand, there is some consumer value to Nintendo keeping their first party prices high — you get a lot more on the used market even years later sometimes.

I don't think Nintendo having a profitable console is greed either, they’re not Sony or Microsoft with multiple divisions that can bolster their gaming efforts. They're sink or swim on everything they do.