There's only one real reason people get Game Pass: day one Xbox Studios games. Before Microsoft announced that, Game Pass was a nice curiosity, but it was largely ignored because it's the most expensive console subscription. People were already complaining about Xbox Live Gold costing $60 a year, and then to have this new subscription that cost $15 a month? Nah son, nah. When Microsoft announced all first-party titles would come to Game Pass day one, that's when people started taking notice.

Microsoft first-party exclusives are what get you in the door. And once you're in, and you see the selection and you start playing some of those games, it becomes very hard to give it up, and almost as hard to justify paying $60/70 for just one game.

You're really going to hang your hat on 1 second faster load times? Well guess what? The Xbox Series S/X version supports Dolby Vision. That's the real premium experience.

Summary

• Xbox Series X targets1440p/60fps in performance mode, 2160p/30fps in quality mode. It hits both resolution targets while maintaining the framerate targets using dynamic resolution scaling (DRS)
• Xbox Series S targets1080p/60fps, with no quality mode. It also hits the framerate and resolution targets, also using DRS
• PS5 offers the same resolution and framerate targets as Xbox Series X.
• PS5 load times are cut in half with the new patch (native PS5 as opposed to PS4 back-compat)
• Xbox Series S/X load times are about a second slower than PS5 with the patch

The new patches feature slightly upgraded textures and shadows compared to the last-gen back-compat versions

Both consoles exhibit minor framerate drops during cutscenes and occasionally during gameplay. DF theorize it's due to background data streaming, not lack of GPU performance.

PS5: the new patch largely fixes the drops during cutscenes, but not the drops due to world streaming.

Xbox Series X suffers major hitching during world streaming in performance mode only. Same with Xbox Series S. These drops are infrequent.

It's basically a wash between the two consoles.

Satire is clearly not something you are aware of.

LOL, I can tell "multiplat", "back compat" and "not optimized" are going to be the go-to excuses for PS5's poor performance this gen.

@Pedro: Not all Game Pass exclusives will be available on console, PC and cloud. For example, Age of Empires IV will be PC only.

A lot of reasons:

• To get ahead of leaks, eg. "I heard developer X is working on a massively-multiplayer dating sim!" Er, no. We know what they are working on because they announced it a year ago.
• To gauge interest and overall buzz. If they announce it early and nobody gives a hoot, they can figure out what to do about it, whether to change the marketing pitch or change the game itself, or cancel it altogether. This is much easier when the game is three years out than when it's six months out.
• Simply to let everyone know "hey, we're still here and making a game!"
• To aid with hiring. Drop a well-received teaser three years out, and you'll attract more developer talent as you staff up for full production.

We're giving credibility to random YouTubers now? In that case, my mate runs a YouTube, and he says R&C:RA is the worst game ever made, and he's using the disc as a coaster. 🙄

We’re still doing 56k warnings? What year is it?

Another easy win for Xbox. 😁