themightyant

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.

@Thretosix FYI her background isn't REALLY AI. Although she was President of CoreAI at MS this was more about integrating dev tools and Azure Studio. At Instacart she was COO where her day to day jobs would be executing operations, and trying to ensure teams hit the CEO's strategy. At Meta she was president of Product & Engineering especially for Messenger and Instagram Direct DMs.

Her expertise is more in marketing, management and operations, not AI.

That's a bit disappointing. It would be nice if they confirmed a few of the things that they've alluded to but not confirmed like Steam/Epic/etc. store support and if it will run all Xbox BC games natively.

I don't think we entirely know for sure yet. Perhaps we will have a better idea by the end of the day, but I doubt it.

Until we actually define what a console is and how it differs from a PC we can't really answer the question. e.g.

• Does fixed hardware and games optimised for that hardware make it a console? Will Helix do that?
• Does a console have to be low cost? If yes was the Neo Geo ever a console?
• If "it just works" is it a console? Plug & play is a console like experience.
• It it ALSO runs other Windows software is it now a PC regardless of how it plays games?
• etc. etc.

In my view the lines between console and PC have been blurring for years. There are aspects of modern consoles that are PC like (x86, M+K support, monitor support) and aspects of PC's, including Steam Deck, that are console like (prebuilt fixed spec devices, TV & controller support, "it just works" for Steam deck). I expect Helix to furhter blur those lines.

At the end of the day, does it really matter?

@Vyns Assuming it uses the same remapping software as SteamDeck yes you can remap virtually EVERYTHING per game, including trackpads as 4 directions + click.

That means between the 4 back buttons and 2 trackpads (5 each) you have at least another 14 hot keys. Plus a few others like grip sense, or even gyro that you can map as a function.

That’s on top of the normal controls like D-pad, triggers, face buttons, stick click, start etc.

Really refreshing interview. I love product design like this. Constant problem solving; weighing up solutions and what knock on effects they have.

I still don't think having 3 sets of controls per side is as ergonomic as just 2. You are always stretching / scrunching your thumbs, or having to remove the palm of the hand from the controller slightly to get to the extremes. That's why the original Steam Controller settled on 2 large trackpads, 1 set of buttons and 1 stick, though of course that was too much of a sacrifice for most users, though it's still brilliant in it's small niche as a mouse replacement controller.

This seems better for a wider range of uses and players, but there are sacrifices too. Can't do it all. I'd really like to give one of these a go, but with (literally) dozens of controllers already and this costing £85 it doesn't seem likely anytime soon.

It's looking pretty good but there seems to be a few issues with it.

• Stick placement. Several reviews say it's uncomfortable for their hands
• Trackpad small size and placement.
• The price £85 / €99 / £99 / $149 CAD is PUNCHY!

The first two are going to be subjective based on your hands, the third by the size of your wallet!

Looks fantastic and seems to address all my issues with Returnal (which I loved, even if it didn't always love us). That said there is so much to play right now (not to mention I'm busy in Skyrim VR) that this one is on the back burner for a bit. Still I will buy it to support the devs and this type of game.

FYI UK peeps. It's £58.49 at Currys after the 10% discount.

@wsjudd I own it but I never actually got around to Odyssey, despite playing almost every AC before that. Combination of being a bit burnt out on the series, Origins being so long, and hearing Odyssey was 100+ hours for completionists, which I was at the time. I heard it was even worse/longer for Valhalla. One day... maybe.

@MittenFacedLass I think I put in around 75-100 hours doing everything for the Platinum. But some of that was just sailing around singing sea shanties and shooting schooners. Fun game.

Looks pretty great... but I'm not very big on replaying open world games, as they are so long. Don't know if I will play this. Certainly not at launch, too many other newer experience to play.

(...he says as he enters hour 50 100+ in Skyrim VR)

Ha! You did manage to turn this headache into a bit of content after all.

Wow that 26 year old John "Gestalt" Bye / EG article is a wonderful jaunt back in time. Thanks for sharing.

• Nvidia's new 0.18 micron process - not a nanometer in sight
• 200MHz clock speed and a whopping 32MB of 333MHz DDR memory
• 800 x 600 res up to 1280 x 1024px @ 48fps
• $350 / £250 for a top end GPU

How things have changed in 26 years.

Not quite sure what the 16fps in the headline was referring to.

@EvilRacer329 Same. Played very little of Horizon 5 after putting 100+ hours into FH4 etc. It just felt TOO familar, like i'd played it all before. I HOPE there's a little more interest. Japan at least looks far more interesting than their version of Mexico. Fingers crossed.

Love that they are returning to the Metro - I missed that in Exodus - and that it's a darker tone. Looking forward to it, but need to see more, this is just a tease, albeit a good one.

I am a bit split about whether to offer a CF Express slot on Helix.

Part of me thinks they should ditch it, keep costs down, and move onto the better more widely supported m.2 NVMe format.

The other side of me thinks costs are already looking to be sky high for Helix, will including a CF Express slot actually add much to BOM? It could be useful for those of us that bought these cards... at some cost! It's likely the system won't have a lot of storage already with current SSD prices.

As long as frame times are within a more generous VRR window (at least 48fps on Series X/S or 40fps on PS5 when running in 60Hz mode)

@wsjudd Isn't this the other way around? I believe it's the XSX|S that has the wider VRR window of 40fps+ and PS5 with 48fps+ at 60Hz. Though I am not 100% sure what the window is at 120Hz on each.

@MattGPT I need a whole new PC - perhaps I could recycle the case and PSU but that’s about it. Everything is 10 years old or more. Has served me well so I kept putting off upgrading. It’s mostly for work.

At this moment ideally I want to wait to see what Xbox Helix is and if it will allow me to do everything I want in a gaming PC. Ideally with Console like experience + tinkering, emulation, VR, mods etc. if you delve a bit deeper. If it does all that I’ll likely go with Helix and just buy a more modest PC just for work. But I still need at least 32GB of RAM and 8TB+ of storage. However not sure my PC will last that long, it’s quirky / slightly on the fritz at the moment, may not have that option. But I’ll cross that bridge if/when it comes. For now I’ll wait.

@Rich_Leadbetter I think it’s not just about expanding their audience, which is undoubtably true, it’s also about bringing their current PS4 audience to PS6, a £699+ console isn’t going to do that. A lower cost perhaps £399 console might.

It was only last year I believe that Sony said PS5 players overtook PS4 players, the GTA Online leaks this week show how many are still playing on PS4 and XOX - over a third of the player base were on last gen and each had a higher percentage than PC for that game.

As enthusiasts the PS6 home console probably isn’t for us, but it is importantly for enthusiasts that we have lower cost entry points for other gamers otherwise prices of games and hardware will just go up if the player base shrinks. We will lose these more casual gamers to other media. It’s vital imo and a key issue for gaming coming forward.

As for Switch HC as someone that plays almost exclusively on tv I would probably buy that and sell my Switch 2 handheld. Probably.

@Granadico Same. I had a 256GB SATA SSD and then a 4TB HD that then got replaced by an 8TB HDD. Can do the same with fast NVMe gen and another cheaper drive.

Internet speed will depend where you live, plenty of places in the world have Full Fibre to the Premises (FFTP) and offer up to 1Gbps+ but then others only offer Fibre to the Cabinet (FFTC) and people are stuck around 24-72 Mbps. Of course download speed is limited by the server too.

@MattGPT I specced out a mid/high-end PC last year at around £2k and right now that same PC is over £3k, it's bonkers. Admittedly I was aiming for a lot of RAM (64GB DDR5) and plenty of SSD storage (8TB), it's more for work, and these prices have gone up 2x - 5x in less than 6 months.

Especially kicking myself for not picking up 4 x 16GB of DDR5 RAM when 32GB was on sale for around £60 last autumn now it's £300+, the rest I could suffer.

Still flip-flopping whether to wait it out or dive in and just accept it. Will likely depend on if my PC dies on me!

Or have a small faster boot drive and slightly slower but larger SSD for games / storage. Games barely see much benefit from NVMe gen 3 - 5. Perhaps a few seconds difference at most, not that noticeable without a stopwatch. Even SATA SSD's are not always much slower in many games.

You could also install games on the faster boot drive when it makes a difference, or games you are currently playing if cost is really an issue.

@Tyrion8338 I agree 2x and 3x is all that is needed. E.g.

5x and 6x on 240Hz could mean base frame rates as low as 40-48fps, assuming it holds to 240fps, that will feel horrible.

My point is that MFG only really works when you already have an acceptable frame rate to begin with and that is only on higher end cards (or ancient games). It’s not like normal DLSS where games on lower end cards can really see a benefit.

Regarding BOM cost as Moore’s Law is Dead (MLID) and Kepler_L2 showed Sony were aiming for a more affordable device around $580 BOM perhaps from $549 at retail, but parts, tariffs, wars etc have bumped up the cost of making the device. It’s a real shame, but it also is what it is.

Considering the global situation I like MLID idea of making a lower cost TV version of the handheld to get gamers on PS4 to upgrade as without volume the console economics don’t work especially for devs.

Pretty disappointing port, especially on Pro. But I already played it on Game Pass.

Pretty disappointing results, but to be expected. While it's good the devs are making changes things like introducing a 4K toggle that doesn't fix the issue it just compounds them if they don't optimise the rest of the game around it.

Series S looks super rough.

After hardware price hikes and the frosty reception to DLSS5 Nvidia really could have done with a win, but this ain't it either.

In general Frame-gen is a weird one as the people that could really do with a frame-gen increase are those that are already running lower frame rates, but they can't use this at all. Whereas the people that can take advantage of frame-gen are the ones least likely to need it.

It isn't like typical DLSS which could claw back better frame rates for those on lower end GPUs. Hence it's not a killer feature in the same way.

$900 / £830 for just the CPU... even if it's a Halo product we really are in the worst timeline for PC pricing.

Post Script. Welcome back Will!

Brilliant review Tom. Especially love the side-by-side comparison of the Pro and Base PS5 versions at similar settings. Really highlights the difference the extra GPU, through higher settings and PSSR, gives.

It's a shame this 4K upgrade is part of a $20 package of multiplayer content I have no interest in. I'll stick with the current version at that price.

This is a very cool feature, and a sensible one many called out for.

But personally I know I will almost never use it as I barely use my Switch as a handheld. Still glad it exists for everyone else.

@A1an Base PS5 is still plenty powerful enough for current gen in 99% of games. I believe only a handful of games don't have 60fps modes and there's only the occasional game like Crimson Desert that is perhaps a little behind what you would want at 60fps. But I suspect that will be fixed in the coming months too. It's more a dev issue imo.

@BespokeExPoint I suppose if they are simultaneously working with Xbox and PlayStation they kinda have to remove the numbering.

Can you imagine the fanboys if you said XBox is running on FSR5 and PS6 is running off code based off FSR6.

Yesss Rich! Great interview and glad to hear they were looking at the performance side of the auto-enhanced PSSR from the start so it's a drop in replacement.

As unlike PC, a console game is optimised specifically to that current spec and it makes sense to not make devs have to go back. Whereas on a PC you can just turn down a few settings yourself.

Personally been very happy with Pro overall since launch but this is a welcome bonus to fix a few of the small issues. Look forward to playing more games with it.

Once again being rewarded for having a massive backlog, coming to games later and getting a better, more rounded experience. That's a pretty huge leap. Looking forward to it in due course.