 I have had both the PlayStation 5 and the Xbox Series X since they launched over a year and a half ago at this point. Time has flown by. But I gotta be honest, neither of them had a very exciting first year. That said, our PlayStation has had some stuff going on and now we have a handful of good exclusives to choose from. And I'm going to talk quickly about all of those today in my experience playing them, but I did also make these two videos about all the exclusives on PlayStation 5. So if you want a deeper look at any of those games, I did that already. However, over here on the Xbox side, we're only now getting the first big release in Halo Infinite. Although there was Forza Horizon 5, which is really fun, and there was Psychonauts 2. But with Microsoft, they also released all of their games on PC and even on the Xbox One. So the Xbox doesn't really have any exclusive games to talk about. Not that it really matters. I mean, the point of this video today is to look at both of these consoles and what it's been like owning them over the last year and talking about which of them or if both of them are worth buying now. Though it will be an interesting video to make because it might surprise you. I've actually played my Xbox a ton while my PlayStation has mostly been left collecting dust, but it's not for the reason you might think. Let's talk about that. This video is sponsored by Audible. Go to audible.com slash beatemups or text beatemups to 500 500. Oh, sorry, I was just about to listen to Audible because you see as a premium Audible member, I have access to the largest selection of audiobooks ranging from best sellers and new releases to celebrity memoirs, many of which were wrote by some of my dearest friends, languages, business, motivation and more like original entertainment from thousands of popular and binge worthy podcasts to top celebrity creators like myself. 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It's only $5.95 a month and even somewhat of my statue can tell a good deal when I see one. Give yourself the gift of listening. For more, go to audible.com slash beat em ups or text beat em ups to 500 500. Now, if you'll excuse me. Okay, so it's only fair to mention that both of these consoles released mid pandemic. While these consoles were ready to launch, a lot of game developers weren't able to develop. So it's no surprise that for both of them, the following year would be a bit quiet. That said, though, the PlayStation had a little bit more going for it into this generation. Sony had a massive success with the PlayStation 4 and were rolling in with a head of steam, whereas Xbox is still trying to get back into pun not intended the game. The biggest blow for them was not being able to get their flagship halo out on launch as intended and instead it was delayed an entire year. The campaign releases tomorrow as I'm filming this, but something Microsoft has done very well is making their platforms and their games accessible to everyone anywhere at any given time. Features like game pass and backwards compatibility still made the series X a viable purchase and the promise of upcoming titles like halo was clearly enough to keep it flying off the shelves as just like the PlayStation five, they have been consistently out of stock since launch. Actually Microsoft had their strongest console launch ever with the series S and X and they've sold over an estimated 8 million consoles to date. In fact, even game pass subscriptions are over 20 million. The sold out stock has been fun for those people that still don't have either console and are still trying to get one now with places like Walmart, Best Buy, GameStop. Every couple of weeks, they seem to have a stock refresh online, but within a few minutes, they're all gone again. This is mostly due to the insane chip shortages we're still facing during the pandemic though. So first up, let's talk about the PlayStation five. As I said, it's mostly been gaining dust. There's two reasons for that and one you will not expect. It's been gaining dust pretty much ever since June after I finished Ratchet and Clank. I did dust it back off to play some Ghost of Shushima once the PlayStation five directors car upgrade dropped in August, but then I put the controller back down and I don't believe I've picked it up since even though I adore my PlayStation five and I really do. I love the console for me always with PlayStation actually is they just that's always been my console where I play the PlayStation exclusives because I love pretty much all of them. PlayStation does what it does best in creating near perfect gaming experiences that can only be played on PlayStation games like Spider-Man, Ghost of Shushima, Last of Us. I never get as excited to play games as I do to sit down and play a PlayStation exclusive. It's right up there with the new Zelda for me, but when it comes to gaming online or even playing third-party titles, I always lean towards Xbox and that's just a personal choice. My high school friends and I, we've always been Xbox people when we were in school, the 360 good times after school and those long weekends of Halo lands, Gears of War lands. We've just always been Xbox people when it comes to playing online, so that's where we just always end up. Well that and honestly, we do prefer the Xbox for a lot of its online features. For me, like a PlayStation five exclusive game is over once I finish the story. I mean Halo Knights with the boys never end. And then there's the third-party games I mentioned before. Whenever games like Far Cry or Assassin's Creed come out, I always gravitate towards buying them on Xbox. Visually, I find the Series X does a better job than the PlayStation five. But for example, like the Mass Effect trilogy, it plays at 1440p60 on the PlayStation, but 1440p120 on the Xbox Series X. And I know it's a little detail that really doesn't matter. It doesn't change your gaming experience. There's a lot of reasons why I end up buying games for the Xbox. So when it comes to buying a game, I like to just try and keep them all in the same place. I'm not trying to come off as elitist by any means or start any kind of war as to what console can do what better. That conversation is so mute to me because really what it comes down to is a developer and how they utilize the hardware. And when a game like Spider-Man is made specifically for the PlayStation, it ends up looking better than anything else I have seen. But these third-party games that are split right down the middle, I just find that Xbox plays them a little better, but it's very small details. And if I have both, I may as well use both of them to the best of their capabilities. Oh, and I said there was two reasons why I preferred Xbox over PlayStation. I think I've listed way more than that. But the other main one, the PlayStation five throws the power in my house. I'm not kidding. And it's not a PlayStation problem. It's a me problem. It's my house problem. This new house that I have, they say don't buy a new build. And I'm starting to see why this house was built in 2017. The wiring is just shoddy in general. And the power goes out all the time. The PlayStation five will throw the power. My coffee machine will throw the power. We did Christmas lights at the front of the house. And every now and then, we'll look at them out there and they're off because they've thrown the power. The Xbox doesn't seem to do it. But I guess the PlayStation just puts out a little bit more energy. And you know, an exclusive game, I'll reboot it and keep playing. But if I can avoid that. Alright, so those are personally why honestly, the power thing wouldn't change much. I just thought it'd be funny to mention it. But that's why I've been using my Xbox more, not especially since Halo has been out. But let's backtrack a little bit. I feel like I started talking about the Xbox. Let's get back to the PlayStation because playing games on this is fantastic when the power stays on. So it launched with a handful of games. Miles Morales, Demon's Souls, Sackboy, Godfall, Astro's Playroom, and a couple of the fun titles like Bugsnax. And honestly, it was an amazing launch lineup. Probably one of the best I've ever seen. Again, you can watch my reviews for a better idea for each game and why I loved them so much or hated them. Godfall. But it was such a diverse lineup of games. I mean, you had the lighthearted and fun Spider-Man game, the hardcore, brutally punishing Demon's Souls, the cute co-op family Sackboy game. For me, it was a bunch of fun. I finished Sackboy with Kim. I struggled through Demon's Souls on stream and I've played and finished Miles Morales a couple of times now. In fact, whenever friends come around and they want to see the new consoles, I put on Spider-Man and I'm like, this is it. Legit had a friend come around like a month ago. I was like 10 minutes into swinging and the power turned off and I was like, yeah, it does that. So embarrassing. But from launch, things fell pretty quiet for a while on the PlayStation front until April when Returnal came out. But to be fair, it's been pretty consistent since then with Ratchet and Clank in June, Ghost of Tsushima, PlayStation 5 Upgrade Directors Cut Thing came out in August, then Deathloop in September, and then Death Stranding Directors Cut in November. Returnal took some time for me to warm up to it, but ultimately I ended up loving it. Ratchet and Clank was a bit repetitive, but a fantastic showcase of what the PlayStation 5 is capable of and a really fun game. I did like it, but I have not played Deathloop or the Death Stranding Directors Cut yet. Death Stranding because I've already finished the game and yeah, I don't think there's enough there for me to dive back in and Deathloop I haven't played purely because it just didn't grab me and I had a feeling that it would be cheaper than full price pretty soon. But I did hear really good things about it. I have been pretty happy with the output of PlayStation 5 games. I mean, it's hard to say anything bad when comparatively it's on par with Nintendo's output for the last year. And I mean, it could be worse. I also appreciate that PlayStation tried to match what Xbox has done with its Game Pass service in the PlayStation Plus catalog. It's not nearly as much of an extensive library as the hundreds of games you get with Game Pass, but it's a nice handpicked selection of quality PlayStation games that you can play essentially for free. The big white futuristic skyscraper tower console that it is has grown on me actually. At first, I thought it was pretty ugly, but now I really like it. I like the whole color scheme in general and with the white switch dock OLED that I have now, they look really nice together. I do like the PlayStation 5's UI. There's some things I find annoying, like when I put a disc in while the console's booting up, it doesn't bring that game up into the menu of games. So then you have to like go into your game library and like find the disc that you put that frustrates me every time. But yeah, ultimately, it's a really fun console. And I mean that it feels fun. The controller is filled with so many fun surprises and features. This controller feels like something Nintendo would make. And you really get the full experience playing Astro's Playroom with this controller. I mean, the console, it just feels like a more, I don't want to say adult Nintendo console, but kind of. It's just fun. And I always look forward to playing a new game on it. But flipping back over here and going through my year with Xbox, it was a completely different experience. Since launch, I'd easily say that I've played more games on this thing. A lot in part due to Game Pass, but I've had a ton of fun with that. Psychonauts 2 really surprised me. I don't know if I would have bought that game for myself, but the fact that it was free and I tried to mess around in it, ended up finishing the game and loving it. I want to review that game actually and a game like Halo. I've been waiting to make a video like those PlayStation videos, but I need like five games as Halo, Psychonauts, and I guess Forza would be the third. I need two more. But Forza is really fun as well if you haven't played it. And for the most part, it's just a gorgeous looking game to look at. I also had fun on 12 minutes. It was a cute game that came to Game Pass and Kim watched me play it. It got a little repetitive near the end, but it was a really cool concept. And then the third party titles I was talking about like Assassin's Creed Valhalla surprised me. Another stunning game, and it was probably one of the better Assassin's Creed games they've made. Far Cry 6 I picked up to play Co-op with my friend Michael and now we didn't love it. It's boring. Sorry. Halo though, that's the real deal. That is honestly for me the first time I sat down to play my Series X, and I felt like I was playing an Xbox game. The best part about Halo is that even though it's on PC, it's a game that's built for controllers. So playing it on console still feels like the true experience and it helps make Halo feel like the big Xbox exclusive. The campaign comes out tomorrow as I'm filming this video. I thought about waiting to film it until I'd played that, but honestly I'm probably going to wait to play the Co-op, which is launching later. It's kind of a whole mess on Xbox. The game is out, but is it? I mean the multiplayer came out a couple weeks back. Now the main game's coming out, but the Co-op and other features are coming later. It's fine. I tried back for blood and I didn't love it. I much preferred World War Z. Been playing some older titles like Yakuza, which is incredible if not a bit repetitive near the end. A lot of games I've talked about today have been repetitive. And Sea of Thieves is always good to dive back into, if for anything, but to just stare at the water. It's mesmerizing how good this game looks. I think it's 120 FPS too. And on that TV, PlayStation Who? Oh I did try the medium and I liked it. I just, I forgot I was playing it. And straight up, Biomutant sucked. I went and got that on launch day and I was like kind of excited and I think I played it for two hours and then wanted to return it, and didn't. I just have it now. I honestly could have played way more on the Xbox too, but there is a third console that we're not talking about today that takes a lot of my attention. The Switch. And I know I did say the Xbox is my third party console, but when there is that game that falls on all three, I play it on Switch because that's kind of my whole thing. For example, Death's Door came to Xbox and I really wanted to play it, but I waited and now I'm playing it on Switch. That's the games and the console is really just the console. It's sleek. It's powerful. I like it. As far as the controller, I love the Xbox controller. I kind of prefer the Xbox controller over the PlayStation. I know the PlayStation one is fun, but as far as just holding a comfortable controller, I don't know. I got big man hands and the Xbox controller just feels good. I bounced between using the one that came with the console and using the elite, because I kind of love the elite a lot. But I also, I know this video might be painting me as a little bit of an Xbox fanboy, but I did just pick up the Xbox Anniversary Edition controller, which looks so nice. But the one biggest thing the Xbox has in its favor, the Xbox just dominates with Quick Resume. I love Quick Resume. You can have three games running at any given time and just switch in between them almost like you're closing tabs on a PC. It's so cool. I mean, that's a feature I wish the Switch had. It's so nice. So that's both consoles and my year was both of them. But ultimately, both of these consoles are worth buying in their own right. Xbox has a ton of value for your money and that's just being honest. A casual gamer asked me if they should buy a PlayStation or an Xbox. I always let them know that if they buy an Xbox, they don't have to spend much more or any money to buy the games. You can get Game Pass for like $10 a month and you have all the exclusives. You have hundreds of games from third party to whatever EA games even to download and then games with gold on top of that. You don't have to buy anything. I mean, you can if you want to play something that's not on there, but you don't need to. And that doesn't even get in a backwards compatible. I mean, you can buy the Series X and then go and pick up some $1, 360 games and play those. And then, you know, you also have whatever games end up coming out. I'm really hopeful that Xbox is going to get back into the pun-not-intended game and start releasing a ton of fun experiences. A new Fable, hopefully, the new Hellblade game. There's a lot they have announced and all that will be free day one. But it's still, even with that, hard to recommend the Xbox over the PlayStation. Because if you're looking for the biggest newest experiences in gaming that are doing things that I haven't seen done before, I mean, that's all happening right now on PlayStation. It has been for a while. You've got a sure bet of great games coming like God of War Ragnarok and Horizon Forbidden West. I would absolutely feel like I was missing out on the current and future of gaming if I didn't have a PlayStation. It's always a tough thing when someone asks you which one I should buy, because I just don't think there is a clear answer. For me, I need to have both. And I'm in a lucky position where I can get both. But I couldn't imagine not having all three of the current generations of consoles. I need to play my Nintendo's, my Breath of the Wild, my Mario's. But I also need to play my Gears of War and Halo, which I've grown up with my whole life. And I also definitely need to play anything that PlayStation is doing. I couldn't imagine not having one of each. If you only had to pick one, it just comes down to you and what you're looking for, what games you want to play, and what experiences you need. There is no answer. For some people, a Switch is better than both an Xbox and a PlayStation. For other people, a PC is better than any of these. It just depends on what you're looking for. And I can only give you my experiences and break down what there is. And then you need to make your own decision from there. If you have to pick one, pick the one you want. I guess if I can end with anything, it's that even though it's been really quiet for this year and not a ton has happened, I am glad these consoles released when they did. And I'm thankful for the experiences that I have had with them. They're definitely a huge upgrade on what was on the market. I mean, the load times on both these consoles now are incredible. But what do you guys think? Leave your thoughts down below. You can literally say which one you prefer. Nobody fight, okay? I don't know why people get so angry about this. It's all preference. It's fun to talk about video games, and it's fun to talk about video games that aren't Switch every once in a while. If you're a regular viewer of mine, I hope you enjoyed this video. Like it, subscribe on it, hit the bell to be notified for more content. I hope you have a happy holidays because they're coming up, and I hope you're enjoying Halo, or I guess PlayStation doesn't really have a holiday game.