If you got the cash to spare, Series X all day. If this is mostly going to just be a secondary console for Gamepass stuff, you can’t beat the value you get out of the S.

I went X.

Very similar to my gaming preferences, OP. I picked up a Series X because I wanted something a bit more laid back to play with since buying a really nice recliner for my office. I also play a lot of multiplayer games and more recently my son has gotten old enough now to want to play games like Rocket League with me, so a console just seemed more convenient. I gotta be honest with you, aside from playing the new WoW expansion recently, I haven’t played a game on my PC since getting the Xbox back in January of last year.

I've always preferred Playstation to everything else since the PS1 days. I've always owned an Xbox as well, but last generation I didn't get a new Xbox until the One X came out. The One truly was a piece of shit IMO.

That said, I got a Series X a few months after getting my PS5, and while initially I was still booting my PS5 up more often than the Series X, things sort of changed throughout 2022 and now I find my PS5 is mostly just an exclusives machine these days. Things like Quick Resume, and the overall UX of the Xbox I find to be a tad better than PS5. Not to mention Discord integration which has been huge being able to VC with my PC friends not having to rely on the in game voice chat services.

Of course there's GamePass as well, but I won't go too far into that since everyone knows the deal there already. Yes, it's great. Yes, I find myself playing way more games than I normally would due to GamePass, but I digress.

Overall, I've found myself falling more and more out of love with the main Playstation exclusives. 3rd person narrative driven action adventure titles just don't really do it for me anymore.

I personally don't see myself booting up my PS5 until FF16 comes out. Until then, everything is getting played on the Series X. And man, this year looks like it could be real big for Xbox. Won't hold my breath because, ya know, fool me once and all that. We shall see we shall see.

I have both, but I've always been a Playstation first gamer.

For me, I find myself booting up my Xbox over the PS5 for 3 primary reasons.

1. Quick Resume
2. Game Pass
3. Discord Integration

The first one I feel doesn't get talked enough about. I tend to play a few games at the same time. Being able to suspend each game and pick up right where I left off as if I had the game paused is a huge huge timesaver for me. This is going to be a godsend when I dive back into the Witcher 3 in a couple days. I play MW2 with my friends, so being able to jump back and forth without the need to cold boot the game each time is truly next gen to me.

Game Pass is awesome. I feel like I play SO MANY more games than I normally would and more willing to try stuff out I would never consider had I not had Game Pass. Vampire Survivors, Chained Echoes, Pentiment, all games I would never have even thought about downloading, but since they were on Gamepass I checked them out, and well, Vampire Survivors ended up being one of my favorite games this year. Really enjoying Chained Echoes at the moment as well.

Discord integration is HUGE. A couple of my friends we play MW2 with are on PC, so being able to all be in the same voice chat is a killer feature. On my PS5, I have to have Discord on my phone with an earbud in one ear, and my Playstation headset over it. Most of my friends say my audio is shitty. On Xbox, I can join Discord right from the dashboard. This apparently is coming to PS5 at some point though it's been delayed over and over and most recently seems to be an end of March expectation. We've had it on Xbox since September.

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I would say at this point the only reason I'd choose a PS5 over an Xbox would be if you REALLY love those 3rd person action adventure first party titles from Sony. I've kinda burnt out on them, so that probably also plays a large role in my current preferences.

I have both and have been a Playstation first gamer since the PS1 days. Completely skipped out on the Xbox One last gen. That said, through most of 2022 I've found myself booting up the Series X way more often. Here are some of my personal reasons why I think that is (in no particular order of importance).

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1. I find the Xbox controller more comfortable than the Dualsense in the hands and tend to perform better at FPS games with the Xbox controller. This is obvious with MW2 as I own the game on both SX and PS5 (don't ask lol).
2. I much prefer the Xbox UI to the Playstation's UI. It's just more interesting to interact with. Clubs and stuff like that are occasionally cool to check out, and I feel like the stuff my friends are doing/sharing are more visible to me on Xbox. I share screenshots on both systems, but only on Xbox do I ever get likes or comments.
3. Quick Resume. Single handedly I think the MAIN reason the Series X has become my number 1. I'm currently playing through Cyberpunk 2077, MW2, Vampire Survivors and FIFA. Being able to seamlessly switch between these games and pick up right where I left off within seconds is a massive massive next gen feature for me and possibly my favorite feature of this generation. It's hit or miss with always online games for sure, but you still save a few seconds without having to cold boot the game each time.
4. Game Pass. This one is obvious. I sub to both GP and PS+. While Playstation's service has come a long way in the last year, it's still no match against Game Pass. Like not even close.
5. Discord integration. This one is coming to Playstation at some point or so I've heard, but this has been a bit of a game changer amongst my group of friends. I have friends that play MW2 on PC, so when we crossplay, it's nice to all be in the same VC right from the Xbox using Discord. On Playstation, I used to have to have an Airpod in one ear connected to Discord on my phone, then my Playstation headset over the airpod. It was annoying an uncomfortable. Discord integration is huge.
6. Bethesda exclusivity. This one might not be a big one for people that aren't huge Bethesda fans, but Fallout and Skyrim are some of my favorite games of ALL TIME. When I found out MS bought them, I was shocked. I'm super hyped for Starfield and it's going to be an Xbox exclusive.
7. I don't care much for the direction Sony exclusives have gone. I played all the original God of War games including 2018 and most recently Ragnarok. I gotta be honest, Ragnarok disappointed me massively. It seems Sony first party exclusives stray farther and farther from solid gameplay experiences and have become more about cinematic delivery. That's fine and well, and there's no denying Last of Us was one HELL of a game, but I don't know, my patience for playing games in 15 minute segments before a long cut scene of endless exposition has grown thin. At this point the only PS exclusive I really loved this year was Gran Turismo 7 (might be my favorite racing game of all time). There's also Final Fantasy 16 coming up in 2023 that seems to be an exclusive to PS5, so I'll be picking that up there. But all in all, the "PS5 has better exclusives" is very very hit or miss for me.
8. The Series X looks nicer on my tv stand than the ridiculous PS5 design. Seriously the ugliest Playstation of all time. Even the black body panels I bought for it aren't enough to save the look of that system.

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And those are the main reasons off the top of my head at the moment on why I personally seem to be preferring the Series X to the PS5 this gen.

There is something to be said about the fact that at launch, games seem to always perform just slightly better on PS5 than they do on SX. I'm not sure why that is given that on paper the SX is the more powerful hardware. But check out any Digital Foundry video from the last 5 major cross platform releases, and you'll see the pattern. This isn't a dealbreaker as it's not like the games run/look like shit on Xbox or anything and most people wouldn't even notice, but in games like Elden Ring for example, I played it first on SX then later on PS5. In my opinion the game looked sharper on PS5 and performed better as well. Perhaps this changes as the gen goes on, but usually when you see patterns like this persist 2 years into the console life cycle, they tend to indicate how the rest of the gen goes.

Anyway, I know you got the Xbox already and I think you've made the right choice. Perhaps at some point an exclusive comes out on PS you just gotta have and maybe you can pick up a PS5 at that point (ideally after a model refresh/upgrade), but for now if I could only own one of the systems, it's SX all day for me and that's wild considering last generation I thought Xbox was laughably bad. Say what you want about Phil Spencer, but I admire his communication and openness with the community. The lack of solid first party exclusives for Xbox after all these years is a massive L, but it does at least seem like they've been aware of this and we could potentially see a massive change to this in the next few years.

Hope that made you feel even better about your purchase.

Happy gaming!

I got a PS5 at launch and a Series X a couple months later. My PS5 hasn't been booted up in probably 4 or 5 months. Wasn't expecting that either. I've been Playstation first since the PS1, but also always owned an Xbox since the original, it was always just a "Halo, Gears, Forza machine". Completely skipped Xbox last gen, but was drawn to the Series X because I find it to be a better looking system than the PS5. I have to say, coming back to Xbox since the 360, I'm really surprised with how much I prefer the Xbox UI to the Playstation's. The Xbox ecosystem overall is better as well, and of course, Game Pass.

Super hyped for Starfield.

So yeah, kinda wish I would have saved the money I spent on a PS5, but I also don't regret owning it.

You're not alone. I got about 6 hours in before I got distracted with watching the Cyberpunk Edgerunner anime on Netflix. This lead to me getting back into Cyberpunk 2077 on my Series X (bought it originally on there) since I had heard nothing but good things since CDPR patched it.

It ended up pulling me completely away from God of War, and now I'm fully on Cyberpunk for the last couple weeks. Hard for me to put it down even. I may eventually circle back to beat Ragnarok just so I can say I beat it as well as justify the steep price tag, but overall, if I'm being completely honest here....I thought it was boring. Don't get me wrong, I feel the love and passion that Sony Santa Monica put into it, and I don't want to minimize their achievement at all, but at this point I feel like I'd just prefer a movie or animated series to tell me the story rather than play through a super linear interactive movie. The gameplay was just boring to me. From Software games ruined melee combat in every other game for me (except maybe DMC5) and Breath of the Wild ruined puzzles in every other game for me as well. It sure is a pretty game to look at though.

Overwatch 2, Apex Legends, and most recently Call of Duty MW2 ALL support cross play. I regularly play these 3 games with friends on Xbox, Playstation, and PC with no issues other than having to rely on in game voice chat vs a dedicated party chat. You can use Discord for this, and you can actually integrate your discord with Xbox at the moment (awesome feature). Discord support is rumored to be coming to PS5 some time in March.

You notice a difference between the two? I feel like I barely see a different in network performance between my SX and PS5.

PS5 - More exclusive games that you can't play anywhere else (God Of War, FFXIV, Gran Turismo 7, Last of Us, and many more to come). There also seems to be a trend with 3rd party games where the PS5 seems to run the games very slightly better (Elden Ring, Overwatch 2, etc.). You also have the Dualsense controller which is considered one of the more notable "next gen" improvements we've gotten this year with the new systems, though I wouldn't necessarily call it a "game changer". Overall, due to install base (more people have Playstations than Xboxes) you can count on many games often having little content exclusives for the Playstation versions that the Xbox version doesn't get (Modern Warfare 2 has some add ons that are exclusive to Playstation. You also see this in games like Destiny)

Xbox - Game Pass. I mean, seriously, Game Pass. I play MLB The Show, and that game was a day 1 free download on Game Pass while it was a whole ass 70 freakin' bucks on PlayStation. I tend to sample a lot more games on Xbox because of Game Pass, so overall, I feel my collection of games on xbox span a wider genre simply because I can try so many things out for free. Xbox, more specifically the Series X, also has better hardware in my opinion. I find the build quality to be slight better than Playstation's, and I personally prefer the UI on Xbox over Playstation (really a matter of an opinion though and I'm probably in the minority there. ).

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Honestly between the two, it's hard for me to not recommend the PS5 at the moment. You just have a better library of games to play (better as in quality). That may certainly change in the coming years if Xbox really pulls off a string of solid console exclusives with all the big studios they bought the last few years. I'm a HUGE Bethesda fan, and I personally can't wait to sink my teeth into Starfield (really hope that game lives up to the hype). I'm sure there's also some stuff Xbox has up their sleeves, but they really need to execute in 2023. In my opinion the Xbox had a dismal 2022 seeing all their major first party exclusives get delayed thus leading to a year where the PS5 seemed to get a huge console exclusive every quarter while Xbox gamers were stuck mostly playing 3rd party stuff you can play anywhere else.

I mean, if you don't care about exclusives and most of what you play is like sports games, or Call of Duty, then in that case who really cares which one you get because they both get those games and both run those games about as good as the other does. But yeah, as someone that's owned an SX and PS5 for almost 2 years now, I still gotta go PS5. For now...

I have both. Was primarily a PS4 player all last gen and didn't pick up an Xbox until the One X. Here's my opinion.

Look of Console: Series X looks better than PS5 IMO. I would say most agree with that. The PS5 looks fucking stupid on my entertainment stand, and that's with the aftermarket black panels from Sony. The day they release a re-design, I'll be first in line.

Winner: Xbox (matter of personal taste)

Hardware Performance: This one's hard to say. On paper, the SX is supposed to be more powerful than the PS5, though the PS5 does have much faster storage. There have been a handful of 3rd party games that seemingly appear to perform marginally better on the PS5 (Elden Ring most notably). I played Elden Ring on both and couldn't tell the difference and I'm usually pretty good with spotting that stuff. In Overwatch 2, I notice an infrequent, but still there, drop in frames on SX that I never get on PS5. For now, I'd say the PS5 probably takes this one until we start to see 1st party devs really optimize for Xbox.

Winner: PS5 (for now?)

Controller: This one is going to be subjective. The Dualsense is definitely more "next gen" than the SX controller. That said, there's no denying that the offset triggers of the Xbox usually mean I tend to perform better with shooters. I honestly love both controllers equally, so I'm going to call this one a TIE.

Winner: TIE

UI: PS5 is all about simplicity and efficiency. That said, it borderlines on "boring" with how basic it is. The Xbox on the other hand has a busier UI, but infinitely more customizable. I used to hate the Xbox UI but once I got used to it, I actually prefer it now to the Playstation. Plus you can have custom wallpapers. Not sure why Sony didn't include that with PS5.

Winner: Xbox

Games: This one is hard for me to decide. On the one hand, games like The Last of Us and God of War are some of the best gaming experiences I've ever had. That said, I do find that when it comes to first party Playstation exclusives, I really do have to be in the mood to play them. They're basically interactive movies with incredible polish and acting, but sometimes that's just not really what I'm looking for know what I mean? I never finished the first Spider-Man, Ghost of Tsushima bored me after 12 hours or so, Horizon bored me as well after about 25 hours. Shit even God of War took a min to click with me (having the same experience now with Ragnarök) I find it difficult to really stick with a PS first party exclusive all the way through to the end. There is something to the "walking simulator" criticisms they get. GT7 though is hands down THE BEST driving game of all time for me, so for that, I still gotta go with PS5 for games. Xbox has Game Pass. I don't have to go into detail there. You'll either think it's the best thing ever, or you'll be one of those people that installs multiple games, plays them for 15 min, then never touches them again because they were "free" so you don't have the same guilt you'd get as if you spent $60-$70 on it. Firing up a PS exclusive the first time is generally quite the experience.

Winner: PS5

Features/Apps: Xbox has Discord voice chat integration (something rumored to be coming to PS5 some time in March '23). I can't express how much of a huge deal this is. Playing cross platform games with my PC friends is now easier due to this integration. On Playstation if I want to talk to my PC friends on a cross play title, we either have to rely on the often shoddy in game chat, or use Discord which means I have to wear a separate earbud in my ear under my headset which is dumb and uncomfortable. For some reason the picture quality on the Netflix and HBO Max apps on Playstation are hit or miss. Some Netflix shows look super washed out and I can't figure out why. I had odd audio issues with House of Dragons this season when attempting to watch on my PS5. None of these issues exist on the Xbox.

Winner: Xbox

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Overall: Up until now I feel like I've come off as an Xbox fanboy which actually couldn't be further from the truth, lol. I've been team PlayStation since the PS1 days, and have ALWAYS gotten the Playstation console first each generation. That said, there's no denying that Xbox is just as important to the overall health of the gaming industry as a whole, so to actively root against them seems like shooting yourself in the foot. Even if you're a Playstation first gamer. Competition is good!

I think Microsoft has some SERIOUS issues getting quality first party titles out, and it's a problem. Halo Infinite coming out the way it did was unacceptable. Not having a major exclusive to hang your hat on for the entirety of 2022 is such a bad look it's not even funny. Especially considering the last 10 years and how they've gone. It's borderline embarrassing. That said, I think with some of the acquisitions they've made, they are at least in position to have some banger years coming up, but it seriously needs to start SOON. I'm talking by end of Q2 2023 at the LATEST. Otherwise, I think we're going to have another runaway generation of consoles where Sony just obliterates Microsoft. I don't want that to happen. I want both consoles to be worth owning.

If I had to absolutely pick one right now, there's no denying the library you get on PlayStation, so for me, it's gotta be a PS5 for that true next gen experience.

I still picked up Modern Warfare 2 on Series X because I prefer the controller for FPS and the discord chat.