DISPATCHES CHRISTMAS

Dialogue

Send your views, using ‘Dialogue’ as the subject line, to edge@futurenet.com. Our letter of the month wins a full 12-month, 13-issue subscription to Edge

Years of war

Your brilliantly written Knowledge piece in Edge 351 confirmed my position on the upcoming systems. At launch, it seems there is no real need to buy the new hardware, besides wanting to have the latest and greatest tech in your entertainment setup. Xbox’s commitment to Game Pass across new and old platforms, and PS5 delivering big titles to the previous generation, suggest that day-one benefits are few and far between – besides new controllers, faster loading and games that look a little prettier or have a sharper frame rate in 4K, neither of which I care for.

There is an exception: Bluepoint’s remake looks like concept art in motion, which I feel would not have been possible with the PS4. However I find both Sony and Microsoft’s lack of commitment to their new and 2021’s will be available on PS4 suggests that there is not that technical leap that we have come to expect with new hardware. It seems that the Xbox Series S/X and PS5, for the first year or two at least, will offer incremental ‘quality-of-life’ improvements (Quick Resume and Smart Delivery) over true next-generation experiences, and we will have to wait for studios to really get to grips with the architecture and technical capabilities of the platforms until we really see what is possible.