I have read that Xbox has a feature on their discs that each one has a unique identifier that can be used to make this work. Can DF confirm that?

Also can they confirm if PS4 / PS5 discs have the same? Because if they don't they Sony couldn't really do the same disc to digital via your own drive.

I am pro-physical media, pro-choice for consumers, but what other result to you expect from a poll on an enthusiast gaming site and channel like DF? It's not really a fair representation of all gamers.

Personally I am gutted. But I sent a message to a group of friends who are more casual and they don't give a fig, they have been all digital for years. Only one was mildly annoyed and one pissed off like me. Unfortunately that's probably a more realistic slice of the view across the gaming landscape.

@matmartin That's the flip-side to this crisis. Selling prices are also high.

E.g. I can sell my Steam Deck for more than I bought it. Selling PS5 Pro (+ maybe the 1TB SSD) will fund a large part of the PS6 - assuming the PS6 allows me to play my PS4 & PS5 discs somehow...

Obviously would rather lower prices but it is a small silver lining.

@MattGPT I used to dual boot my PC but as I said I prefer the delineation of work and play. It's a mental thing more than anything.

I also used to have both a Steam Link, OG Steam Controller and a super-long cumbersome HDMI cable that went between rooms for if I wanted to play PC on the TV... but ultimately I just found I didn't use it. Despite gaming hard on PC in my 20s and 30s I've become accustomed to the "it just works" convenience of console and prefer to play there than endlessly tinker. Again a personal choice, not saying one is superior, it's just where I naturally gravitated. I still do a bit of PC gaming but for now will primarily stick to my consoles and leave the PC for work.

@MattGPT OLED has some pros but also some cons, there isn't a "perfect" display technology, they all have some concessions. It sounds like you made the right choices for your needs.

For me I had other needs and made different choices. I have an OLED as my laptop external monitor and don't like the text rendering at all, it's a fundamental issue with how the pixels are shown. John was talking about this in a recent DF how they have apparently, at least partially, solved this in this years models but for now that's top dollar screens only. If you don't notice this then it's not an issue for you.

I also work in a bright room and have found my OLED is a bit washed out, I prefer the brighter LCD in my setting.

Equally with burn in, I've had it on all the OLED's I've had before, both an LG TV and my laptop monitor, so I just don't trust the tech whatever others say about their personal experiences. Great for you if you haven't had it but general advice from sites like Rtings and other leaders is OLED is still not the best solution if productivity is your main driver, as it is for me, so I am happy with my choice.

Despite all that I did still considerer OLED long and hard, because I really like many of the benefits. In fact choosing a monitor was by FAR the hardest choice I found speccing my build. I even considered possibly having 2 different 1440p screens one OLED, one LCD - one for gaming spec, one for productivity and better colour accuracy - but ultimately decided on one 1440p ultrawide - again a compromise. But I know I won't really be gaming on it much.

Perhaps I won't like it, I can still return it if so and reconsider OLED... but I haven't got there yet.

@MattGPT I still think 4K (native) is just too computationally expensive for most and doesn't represent a large enough jump from 1440p. You have to have a larger monitor to really notice it, and most don't have that.

@MattGPT Ask me in a few weeks / months, I haven't set it up yet (Also building a new PC, but currently busy with projects) and will take a while to become accustomed to it. Try out Fancy Zones and other ways of multi-tasking with windows on one monitor not two.

To be clear this really isn't for gaming, it's for work. I specifically bought a monitor for productivity not gaming. It's not got a particularly fast response time (only up to 1ms), it's not OLED (because I don't want burn in from the same programs / UI panels open all day) plus I don't like how OLED renders text at all... though I hear the very latest most expensive panels potentially solve this, I didn't want to pay for that when I will barely use the other premium features.

I might still game on it a little - my one real amendment to spec for gaming was an RTX 5070 - and it should be a step up from my 1080p panels which were also for work not gaming spec. I am eager to try Cyperpunk with RT at least and maybe a few Game pass titles with great ultrawide support and lush visuals like Avatar. I also wouldn't mind playing 16:9 with bars.

But in reality after sitting in this chair all day for work I do most of my gaming on console in front of my tv. I prefer the delineation of work and pleasure. I was excited by the Steam Machine - before low specs and price - and now am waiting to see if Helix might fill that void for convenient PC under TV.

I just bought my first Ultrawide (3440 x 1440 - 3.09% of single monitors) having had 2 x 1080p (48.48% of multi-monitors) for a decade and a half. Was surprised by the proportion of single monitors at 2560 x 1600 (5.64%) as I didn't really see many of those while shopping around.

Also what's with around 4.5% of multi-monitor users having odd heights like 3840 x 1081 - 3840 x 1086... where are these extra 1-6 pixels coming from. Software error? What am I missing?

Absolutely HORRIBLE news. I hate it.

@Max_the_German At this point that is the best we can hope for. Thought to be honest if there is no way to play my physical PS4 and PS5 games on PS6 then in one fell swoop Sony have made me less interested in getting this day 1. I was going to sell my PS5 Pro to help subsidies it, but if I can't as I still need it, I may just wait.

Lionel Messi Edition.

Possibly buy the handheld in addition. Depends on cost and what it does.

I do use PS Portal in bed a lot, and when away, and I am hoping - maybe foolishly - that Sony will allow us to keep using that with PS6.

Doubt it. It’s just a low-spec Linux pc in a small form factor.

@Pesky_wabbit Exactly. I also had to buy a 4TB SSD (I'll stick with my current 16TB HDD for colder storage for now) and the prices were mostly over £400 each. I will have to buy another in due course, but hopefully I can wait it out till prices drop... if they ever drop.

One of the reasons I jumped yesterday specifically is there were quite a few "Amazon Day" deals on the lower spec system I had put together on PC Part Picker reducing it from £2k last week to £1.6k. Usually I am quite sceptical about these "sales" but I seemed to luck out with my build. I don't think I will be "saving" almost £400 anytime soon so I pounced.

My one thing I am still trying to decide on is whether to stick with my 2 x 1080p monitors or Switch to 1440p Ultrawide 3440 x 1440 monitor. As this is for work I don't want OLED - text fringing (I tried one before and it hurt my eyes, sent it back), burn-in a reality when using the same programs all day, etc. but ideally i'd like to get something that I could game with a little as well without breaking the bank and getting super slow response times. Not found it yet.

Honestly I don't think parts prices are getting cheaper anytime soon. Steam Machine is ludicrously priced, Apple have just hiked their prices as have Xbox etc. (Not to mention that £3k 8TB m.2 drive)

With that in mind I just bought parts for a new PC yesterday, it's more modest than I was planning - the system I'd specced last year for £2k is now over £3k and I just didn't want to pay that. I've built something a little more modest with potential to upgrade later if prices come down in a few years.

It's crazy that £299 for 32GB of Corsair Vengeance DDR5-6000 RAM felt a bit like a bargain. Strange times indeed.

"Easily outclasses the PS4"... with all due respect, isn't that the bare minimum expectation? It would be a pretty shoddy port if it didn't.

@wsjudd Not sure it is fixed. £69.99 is the standard AAA price right, not "a full £10 more than other triple-A titles". I certainly don't think anyone thought it would be LESS than that. Whole article and headline seem off base imo, at least for UK pricing.

@Granadico At least with a Game Key card your family and friends can play the game too once you are done with it. And if you want you can still sell it.

Code in a box? You lose ALL your rights. AWFUL ***** decision.

Such a ***** decision. I don't want to support it.

Honestly I have not pirated a game in years, but this boils my blood, and if it was releasing on PC I would.

I can understand not wanting leaks due to discs releasing early (last time a truck was hijacked IRL) and requiring an additional download might have been an understandable compromise, but just a code in a box is awful.

@kellercl Probably not part of their teams current workflows. They usually optimise their games pretty well and perhaps don't think the frame budget it worth it. It is a shame though, would like to see them try.

It's too late. As others have posited without the price of parts increasing and US Tariffs this would probably be around $599 - $699 for the base model not from $1049 for a 512GB model. It also would have come with dual channel memory meaning better performance.

Delaying it wouldn't help anything, prices aren't getting drastically cheaper any time soon - in fact many think it might get worse - and it would just put it nearer next gen consoles and newer GPUs.

I mean.... it is pretty bare bones imho.

Did they want to launch a Raspberry Pi?

What's crazy is this almost seems well priced vs some of the competition. What a time to be alive...

@BravelyBasic At the end of the day the Steam Machine is just a little black cube (with an accent side if you pay more for a faceplate). It's not all that dissimilar to the Fractal Design Node 304 in build #3 which isn't a big PC box, but also isn't as compact and cute as the Steam Machine. But for many this will just be buried in the tv cabinet and you will basically never see it.

There are also other better looking PC case like the Fractal Design Terra, but they are more expensive.

@Darren1967 They are matching the Steam Machine with 512GB. If you want a 1TB, 2TB or more SSD you can factor that in. The advantage this has over the Steam Machine is you can build the specs you want now, or upgrade it later if prices come down.

Whoa! Enthusiast site and only 5% (so far) say they will buy at launch... that strongly suggests they haven't made a compelling offering.

For me the specs are just too weak. Between last gen and this gen consoles on paper with next-gen likely not far off... yet costing more than current systems. Feels like somewhere something went horribly wrong.

That's a bit further away than I thought. Good. Studios will still mostly still be using UE5 for the next 4+ years and slowly transition to UE6 like they did with UE5.

I hope they have addressed some of the key performance concerns with UE6 as a key pillar.

Absolute joke. SSD prices may be rising but you can get an 8TH m.2 NVMe for £899 and buy a stock heatsink for £10. Why would ANYONE pick this option? Or do they know something we don't...

Amazing work. Saddens me they don't have a team working on this. We can hope and pray for PS6.

Poll: No plans to BUY E-day, but i'll play it with Game Pass. (EDIT: on XSX)

DualSense work great on PC with more and more games using it's features. I don't like the Xbox Dpad at all, though I used to use an X360 pad on PC.

XBOX can't explain it one clear sentence so what hope have we got?

They say their big multiplayer live services will be multiplatform... then make Gears exclusive. Which is it?

We infer from that statement that perhaps their single player games might be exclusive then... yet they then add PS5 and other logos to Senua, Spyro and State of Decay 3... perhaps they have to begin with an 'S'.

Afterword different Xbox execs seemed to contradict each other.

I believe the two most honest statements came from Matthew Ball and Asha Sharma. Ball effectively said they have a plan but they can't share it today. Sharma said they want to have more exclusives but the business is currently unhealthy now hence there's just one or two, but "as the business is healthy, we will look to try and do more.”

Effectively if they can turn the XBOX ship around we will see more exclusives and they might reveal what they actually want to do, but until then, it's a crapshoot. It all feels a bit chicken and egg, as it feels like they need exclusives to turn it around. But at just 3% profit margins a healthy business is a long way away. Frankly I wouldn't expect too many exclusives anytime soon based on that... until they change their plans... again.

Xbox > PlayStation = SGF >>> Nintendo.

Nintendo's was a pretty weak show for me with many low points and only a few high points saved it. PlayStation and SGF were both good in different ways, Xbox was the standout with few lulls, though it didn't nail the landing.

But we all like different things. If you ONLY have a Switch 2 it was probably a pretty good show seeing all these great, but older, games getting Switch 2 versions. For me with other more powerful hardware options there was NOTHING to get excited about until the second half. But I was very happy with a few of the later announcements.

I would argue The Finals did this years before E-day on UE5 so it's not the first, but I am still excited to see what The Coalition can do with the tech especially what they can achieve on console.

This is bizarre but cool. Would have been even more bizarre if it hadn't leaked! (Grrr!)

I never actually finished the last expansion as having played the game and both DLCs back to back for 200+ hours I got a bit tired. This is a great reason to go back. Hopefully they improve the combat which wasn't great even then, though it's not that important in the whole scheme of things.

@wsjudd Ha! Random related question: Do you ever review ergonomic keyboards here? Having had wrist pain issues when I was younger I exclusively use these (and thankfully haven't had issues in the 20 years since) but they seem to have discontinued the model of Logitech Keyboard I use. I'm on my second one and likely will need to replace it in the next few years.

Alex Battaglia would make a great Bond villain imho, menacingly head bobbing on his walker in all communications.

@Max_the_German I get what you are saying, but the thing is you can get a keyboard that does all the main tasks just as well for a fraction of the cost (£75 - £150 as the article states). Is the gimmicky touch screen OLED actually worth that price premium of £350? Of course that's subjective, but for most no.

Yes, I will still be using it, but only for exclusives, same as today. I only really use it as a home console and for that there's better devices.

Silkson... oh wait that actually launched.

(checks list)

Dishonored 3. Dammit that was the the wrong leaked list!

Jokes aside i'd love to see any new single player game from Sony that looks cool. Not TOO much to ask, right?

I'm split on this.

On the one hand gatekeeping games away from other fellow gamers isn't great, most will only choose one console, or PC, and i'd rather more players had access to these games and got to experience them.

On the other I still believe exclusives are important to push the industry, and if everything was on everything would half of these games even exist at all?

I think it's the right call for their business, but not one I get excited about.

That's a pretty big caveat, and hardly surprising, but also interesting.

Could someone explain, in the simplest of terms, what difference memory timing makes. I've always been confused by this, and while i've sought to learn, it's never quite stuck. Still don't know if CL30 or CL36 (for example) has any actual tangible impact on gaming, or other uses.

@Darren1967 I hope Microsoft realise they are getting left behind on controller tech. It isn't just Sony anymore, it's everybody except Xbox, that's no longer acceptable imo. Would be good for gamers to have a more unified set of controller features so that devs are more likely to implement them cross-platform and elevate our games.

I agree on battery life to an extent, but in reality it's not really a big issue, even the PS5 lasts around 8-12 hours which means even if you play all day it will last. You'd have to do a marathon session for it not to assuming you charged it. But I agree they should still have put in a bigger battery in, 1,560mAh isn't large, 2,500mAh+ would have been more reasonable. That said you can buy an aftermarket one that's 2.5x the capacity if you really want to, but we shouldn't have to.

Personally I just have a long USB-C cable next to my couch that charges everything from a phone to a Steam Deck that I plug my PS5 controller into when i'm done, or even while i'm playing if I forgot to charge it.

Looks good on paper, but bad timing imo with Helix presumably not that far off, and most expecting Helix controller to have more features in line with PS5 / Switch 2 / Steam Deck i.e Gyro, Proper Haptics etc. I'd wait.

@StooMonster I know, would love to FINALLY see it. Trying not get my hopes up.

@StooMonster + Portal 3, DOTA 3, Counterstrike 3, Left for Dead 3, Team Fortress 3... Valve really are allergic to 3s.

No Steam Controllers were hurt conducting this test.

I wouldn't pay more than $599 for it, to be honest I don't think I would even pay that... UNLESS there's some USP I am missing - it's yesterday's technology tomorrow!

But I am sure there's a small niche market for it... just not me.

What is truly BIZARRE about this is they are talking about running on a GTX 960 4GB. Why not just say the minimum GPU is something like a GTX 1070 (a 10 year old GPU) and do away with the frame-gen and uproar. Odd.

@Vyns @Granadico It's not unreasonable for players to want more than one controller. How many PS5 or XSX pads do most people have? Whereas one Steam Machine / Frame per customer seems more reasonable.