We now know the next-gen consoles that will be released during this month of November, which was already shaping up to be eventful. Indeed, in addition to the PlayStation 5 and the Xbox Series X | Xbox Series X|S, there are several must-have multi-platform games that are going to pop out, including Cyberpunk 2077, Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War and Assassin’s Creed Valhalla.

Lately, everyone is going from their little guide to find out which console suits you best according to your zodiac sign and your favorite animal, but I want to share with you my vision on this next-gen that I followed in details for several months.

I have managed to avoid the false information thus far so I will try to inform you as best I can with this article which has a lot of words but also videos and pictures because I know you like it.

We will do this in the form of fairly basic chapters, just to ask the right questions. And let things be clear, we are going to talk about games. We are not going to talk about teraflops and the number of polygons per m².

What is the next-gen?

The next-gen at PlayStation, it’s called the PlayStation 5 (two consoles, the PlayStation 5 at € 499 and the PlayStation 5 Digital Edition at € 399).

It’s prettier games, shorter load times, a new controller that offers more vibration, triggers with tension that change according to the actions in the games, PS5 exclusive games that will sometimes be released on PS4 at the start of the life of the PS5 (on a case-by-case basis only) and a goal of backward compatibility with all PS4 games fairly soon after the release of the new console.

The next-gen at Xbox, it’s called the Xbox Series X | Xbox Series X|S (two consoles, the Xbox Series X at € 499 and the Xbox Series S at € 299).

It’s prettier games, shorter load times, a new controller that offers an improved vibration motor in the triggers, Xbox exclusive games that will also be released on Xbox One, the ability to use all Xbox accessories One on Xbox Series X | Xbox Series X|S and a goal of backward compatibility with all Xbox games (currently 39 Xbox games, +550 Xbox 360, 100% Xbox One except Kinect games).

Are you a fan of exclusive PlayStation games?

For you The Last of Us Part II is the game of the year, we have done nothing better than Spiderman in the last 4 years and between us, you do not even see why we would play something other than God of War?

You are in the right section. Still, there are other questions to ask yourself about what you are going to do with your money at the end of the year. Because the PlayStation 5 you will have it one day or another, but should we rush on it before the summer of 2021?

Because PlayStation has announced that eventually, several games that were to be exclusive to the PS5 will also be released on PS4. They are only 3 at the moment, but there are still potential hits: Spider-man Miles Morales, Horizon Forbiden West and Sackboy A Big Adventure.

Suddenly, excluded side PS5 in 2020 which does not come out on PS4 we end up with Demon’s Souls, Destruction All Stars and Godfall (PC). Because Kena: Bridge of the Spirit, Deathloop and Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart are scheduled for 2021.

So if you are not in the race for power (better graphics, faster loads, a new controller with futuristic features, and you haven’t for example taken the plunge between the PS4 and the PS4 Pro ), the question to ask is the following:

Is Demon’s Souls, Destruction All Stars or Godfall enough for me to want to buy the PlayStation 5 this year or do I wait until 2021, at the same time as the release of games like Ratchet & Clank, God of War, Final Fantasy XVI or Gran Turismo 7 which for the moment are not planned on PS4?

If you can wait until 2021, you can still enjoy a great end to the year on PlayStation 4 with the winter releases because the majority of PS4 games will be PS5 compatible, and some (if not most) will benefit. even a performance update (graphics, loading time ….).

And if you follow the news, there are really a lot of games coming out in 2020 on PS4!

If you can’t wait until 2021 because you want to have the most powerful PlayStation around, no need to beat around the bush, you need to get a PlayStation 5. Version with Blu-ray player or not?

Do you have a good internet connection? You don’t resell your games? Frankly, it’s complicated to find advantages in the Digital Edition of the PlayStation 5 because on paper, if you buy it it is to save 100 €.

If you buy a PlayStation for the exclusive games, since they are not in the PSNow day-one (they will be in a few months however, you will have to be patient and wait for the hype to fall), you will go without any doubtless buy the exclusive day-one games in addition to your subscription, therefore full price on the PS Store (79.99 €), or watch the physical Internet promotions to earn a few euros.

You can even get your games with gift vouchers, or buy them at a special price soon after release, all in physical version. Suddenly, after 4 to 5 games bought about twenty euros less than the recommended price, you will have already caught up to the 100 € which separate the PlayStation 5 from the PlayStation 5 Digital Edition.

All that to say that you must order a PlayStation 5 as soon as possible if you want to enjoy a console that performs better than your PS4 right away!

By the way, there is a complete dossier on the PlayStation 5 that will teach you everything you need to know about the console.

Are you a fan of Xbox exclusive games?

When someone tells you 117 or Marcus, do you immediately think of an action-packed story that made you cry while having fun times? Forza Horizon made you love racing when you didn’t have the license? Welcome to one of your sections.

If you already have an Xbox One (be it the first, Xbox One Xbox Series X|S, or Xbox One X), you are already guaranteed to be able to play Xbox exclusive games for a while. No need to go to the next-gen to continue enjoying the Xbox games that will be released for the next 2 years and yet … yet we can ask two questions.

The first is simple: are you a fan of power, 4K graphics, and instant load times? Yes ? And have you subscribed to the Xbox Games Pass?

Logically yes, because with the Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, for 12.99 € per month (155.88 € per year) you already have access to a catalog of games, but above all you have all the exclusive Xbox day one games, and that’s why you bought your xbox originally.

And as you said at the beginning of the chapter that for you, it is games above all, tell yourself that Xbox Game Pass Ultimate costs the equivalent of a Gold subscription to play online (99.96 € per year) + 55.92 €, or € 14 less than the price of a game bought by each year.

So if you’re not a collector at heart, there’s no good reason not to grab Xbox Game Pass Ultimate. With this in mind, let’s come back to the question of whether or not to buy an Xbox Series X | Xbox Series X|S console.

We stopped by the fact that you are a fan of 4K and performance and suddenly it is the Xbox Series X that interests you. It costs 499 €. It’s a lot to come out all at once, but Xbox offers a “subscription” called “Xbox All Access”. For € 32.99 per month for 2 years, you have an Xbox Series X and an Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription. So for € 20 more than Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, you have the most powerful Xbox around, which is yours after 2 years.

In addition, you are a winner because € 32.99 per month for 2 years, that’s € 791.76 Gold, an Xbox Series X (€ 499.99) + the subscription (€ 311.76) is € 811.75. You save 19.99 € if you take the Xbox All Access compared to buying the console and the subscription separately.

This means that if today you already have Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, you add 20 € to your monthly plan and you will have an additional Xbox Series X, which belongs to you in 2 years.

Take the other option, where 4K is not really your hobby. You are more in the wow effect with the HDR (in 1440p on your PC monitor, or in 4K upscale on the TV in the living room?), But it still connects you not badly, the next-gen with more fps and optimized loads. We will obviously go to the Xbox Series S. It costs 299 €. Yes, it’s the same price as a Switch (we compare without comparing, the two consoles have no relation apart from their price). The switch is a portable console, the Xbox Series S is a portable console: it is the smallest Xbox in terms of size.

It costs 299 € and you can also buy it with the Xbox All Access option. But for her it will cost 24.99 € per month or 599.76 € for 2 years. Same calculation as earlier: an Xbox Series S (€ 299.99) + the subscription (€ 311.76) equals € 611.75. You save 11.99 € if you take the Xbox All Access compared to buying the console and the subscription separately.

This means that if today you already have Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, you add 12 € to your monthly plan and you will have an additional Xbox Series S, which belongs to you in 2 years.

There is a BUT for this option is that the Xbox Series S, it is FULL DIGITAL. That is, it does not have a Blu-ray player. Goodbye physical games, hello dematerialized. Why am I only talking about it now? Because in fact, you’ve already gone dematerialized if you’ve made it this far, with the Xbox Games Pass. (And yes, you didn’t even see that one coming.)

I think you are ready to take the extra step towards everything dematerialized because the games you buy, you can get them with discounts (via your Game Pass subscription), or by looking on the Internet for promotions on digital cards where we sometimes find cards worth € 50 on the store that you can buy € 40 on merchant sites.

Oh by the way, the Xbox Series S comes with a 512GB SSD to store games, which is half the size of the Xbox Series X SSD. The good news is that Xbox Series S games will weigh less. heavy than Xbox Series X games (30% less according to official communications). Indeed, there will be no need to install data which takes up a monster space such as 4K textures.

On the other hand, if you want to add additional storage space, you will have to buy an “expansion card”. I talk about it in more detail in this article.

I don’t mind making an effort, but I won’t be able to help you move to the next-gen for even less …

Last detail, the Xbox Game Pass Ultimate has the particularity of being compatible with PC and Android smartphone / tablet. You can install over a hundred games for free on PC, and you can also play over a hundred games on your Android smartphone streaming via the Cloud (you don’t even need to own a console or PC, and it works on all). Android smartphones).

Finally, if the current generation is already fine for you and you’re playing it easy on your console, you can stay on Xbox One for a few more months (years?) Because the exclusives will still be releasing on Xbox One for a while. You are in no hurry. By then, next-gen consoles will have dropped in price.

Do you mainly play cross-platform games?

Call of Duty, Fortnite, GTA, Assassin’s Creed, Cyberpunk 2077, Watchdogs … all these games have one thing in common: they are released on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X | Xbox Series X|S. You can choose to stay on the current generation (PS4, Xbox One) if graphics and power aren’t what changes your gaming experience.

Otherwise, you will face a different problem: which next-gen console to buy if exclusive games do not represent the majority of your gaming time?

Which console do your friends play on? If you want to play Fifa or Fornite with them, you’re going to need the same console. Fifa 21 players on PS5 will only be able to play with those on PS5, ditto for players on Xbox Series X | Xbox Series X|S. In this case, it is not really you who will choose your console but rather your entourage, to be able to continue playing with your friends.

This is not a problem ? Do you really want me to choose for you? Okay.

If you can afford to buy both consoles, you are the big winner. You will still need no less than 1000 € in this case (if you also want to buy games).

Otherwise … You don’t have a budget of 600 €? The only option for the next-gen is the Xbox Series S and full digital from € 299.

If you have them, you are left with a choice between a PlayStation 5 and an Xbox Series X (I already explained that the PlayStation 5 Digital Edition is not a valid option).

We end up with roughly the same console suddenly, if exclusives are not your thing. Same price for the console, equivalent performance (especially for multi-platform games), if you put the two side by side there is a chance that you will not see the difference, if not the controller.

Both consoles are backward compatible with the games of the current generation if you have them (PS4, Xbox One), the subscription to play online is the same, it will be played on details.

The PlayStation 5 offers a new controller with haptic feedback to feel more intense vibrations. It also includes a microphone, a speaker, a touchpad and adaptive triggers. On paper it’s nice, to see in real life if it becomes more than a gadget (we remember the revolutionary features of the DualShock 4).

The Xbox Series X | Xbox Series X|S also features vibration technology in the triggers, textures on the triggers for more comfort and a redesigned d-pad. There is also nothing transcendent.

We can also talk about PS VR on the PlayStation side with the possibility of playing games optimized for. It’s a bit niche as an audience, and the technology used for the PS4 version is a bit outdated, but we should see some nice things on PS5.

There is one last point that is close to my heart, and that is storage. We talk a lot about the SSD performance of consoles, but we try to forget the size they are. For my part, I spend my time deleting the games on my consoles and downloading them again (thank you Fiber), so I don’t need any additional storage.

On the one hand, the PlayStation 5 has an 825GB SSD on board. If we say that a game weighs on average 50GB high, that allows us to store 16 games (16 games at the same time, it’s not bad anyway). Obviously there are exceptions that will explode the average (with a Call of Duty that weighs more than 200GB, we laugh less).

You will tell me: I don’t care, I will plug in an external hard drive. Well no. And this is the beginner’s mistake. You see, the next-gen, if it is so powerful it is among other things because it embeds a powerful SSD. And for your next-gen game to continue to be optimized for the PS5, it needs to be installed on an SSD that is at least as good as the original one.

And on this occasion, PlayStation has opted for a very particular choice. You will not have to connect an external SSD by USB, it will have to be connected directly to the console motherboard. Already, it’s not very user friendly (we wait to see what it looks like because at the back of the console there is no slot, that means that it must be opened?), Then we’re not really going to take him for a walk or take him to a friend’s house, and above all that doesn’t exist at the moment.

Indeed, the first discs meeting these performance criteria should see the light of day in the coming weeks to become truly democratized (we hope) from 2021. In order not to be mistaken when we buy it, Sony has announced that it will specify the “certified OK” SSDs for PS5.

In the meantime, one of the drives that could do the job is the Samsung 980 Pro. If it follows its big brother in terms of price, it came out at no less than $ 500 for 1TB. Be careful though because I am taking the high-end SSD disks as an example, not the low-end. We should probably get away with it for $ 250 …

This point on the additional internal storage on PS5 has not received any official communication since the video of Mark Cerny in March.

So on the Xbox Series X | Xbox Series X|S side, we went into another frenzy. Maybe not better, it’s up to you. Indeed, it will also be necessary that the additional storage respects the performance of the internal storage and for this Microsoft has added a slot at the back of the console to connect an “expansion card”. A proprietary memory card (it reminds us of the heyday of PlayStation), designed by Seagate, which is rumored to cost a little over $ 200 for the 1TB version.

It’s more affordable, but it’s to be taken with a grain of salt because the prices of the two options (internal SSD PS5 and Expansion card XSX) still do not have an official price.

On the other hand, it is necessarily easier to walk around than the internal disc.

If you still hesitate, you will have to decide with the exclusives and the price that you are ready to put in them. More than one excluded per year? The Xbox Game Pass Ultimate for the XSX is a good deal on the Xbox side, because you will get, in addition to the catalog of +100 games, the EA Play, therefore free EA games and rewards in your games. The PS Plus subscription will allow you to discover twenty PS4 hits on your PS5.

If we compare the outstanding exclusives of the current generation, we find more solo adventures in 3rd person on the PlayStation side (Uncharted, Ratchet, God of War, Spiderman, The Last of Us, Ghost of Tsushima …), and more single / multi Xbox side games (Gears of War, Halo, Forza Horizon, Sea of ​​Thieves …).

And again, this last comparison is flawed because the landmark games are not the only ones to be released.

If you still haven’t decided which console to buy, it might be time to ask yourself if you need and want to upgrade to the next-gen this year finally. The new consoles will still be on sale in 2021, don’t worry.

Good plans ! 

The trend is to increase the price of games for the next-gen. Sony has revealed that first-party games will now be priced at € 79.99. While it is not known at this time whether Xbox will follow this trend, it will not impact you if you are subscribed to Xbox Game Pass.

PlayStation exclusive games coming out on PS4 and PS5 at the same time are cheaper than the price of PS5 only games. They have remained for the moment at 69.99 € and they will be optimized for free on PS5. It is therefore very beneficial for players that PlayStation is still releasing PS5 games on PS4.

The rants!

You’ve decided which console to buy, and that’s good. Now I’m going to share with you some rants that are not intended to change your choice, but it’s good to share it.

Xbox made us dream with Halo Infinite at the launch of the console only to push it back to 2021, and now the Xbox Series X | Xbox Series X|S comes out without a new game Xbox Game Studios day one. So yes there are Gears Tactics (already released on PC) and optimizations for Forza Horizon 4 and Gears 5, but we would have liked a new game to chew on for D-Day.

Two months before the release of the Xbox Series X | Xbox Series X|S, we still haven’t seen a big gameplay session really running on the console. Pre-orders begin in 6 days and we still do not know if the communicated line-up is final. We have just learned the price of Xbox All Access for the Xbox Series X.

PlayStation explained to us that the next-gen games were a new gaming experience that could only be experienced with the new controller on the new console and in the end, we were told that the PlayStation Studios PS5 games (only 3 for now) will also be released on PS4.

We are told about the DualSense which is revolutionary, but we do not have a complete gameplay video that explains how it works in a phase of play of a PS5 game?

And are we talking about the launch of pre-orders for the PlayStation 5? We learn the price of the consoles in the last minutes of the event (it’s almost 11:00 p.m.), we haven’t yet had the final line-up because the games in the videos never clearly indicated the release date.

We discover with tweets a few minutes after the video that Destruction All Stars, Demon’s Souls and Sackboy a Big Adventure are in the launch line-up, but that ultimately games are no longer exclusive to the PS5.

And in the process, it’s almost midnight when resellers open pre-orders in a general cacophony after we were told this summer “don’t worry, we’ll let you know in advance of the start of pre-orders so that everyone can read them. ‘buy”. Hell.

Don’t worry, if Xbox misses the opening of pre-orders like it did for PlayStation 5 (with the law of the jungle at resellers), I will update the article so that this point is also noted in the getting mad.

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