I'm sorry but I keep seeing the bolded stated over and over but I'm very doubtful that there will be any game designs on the PS5 that won't be possible on the XSX as well. Just because the drive is slower than the PS5s doesn't mean it's slow in the slightest. Assuming you're getting maximum speeds if something takes 1 second to load on the PS5 it will take 1.8 seconds to load on the Xbox. What game changing mechanic is going to materialize between those 800 milliseconds?
This is what the Xbox blog said about the storage in the X:
Instantly accessible. How much faster do you need things to be than available instantly? Yes, initial loading of the game will be faster on the PS5 but I can't see how the in game asset streaming will allow new "game design and interactivity" that isn't possible on both machines.
Again, there are more tightly knit custom hardware components up and down Sony's I/O pipeline. MS's solution is good. Sony's is better. Sony's solution should give us ROM Cart like level of instant access to data. MS's won't be far behind. Again, it's not just about the SSD...it's maximizing i/o throughput and coherency in conjunction with minimizing bottlenecks along the entirety of the I/O pipeline. There is also a difference in terms of (near)real-time and 2 or 3 seconds of load time in terms of game design flexibility and interaction possibilities. Streaming, LoD, and draw distance capabilities are also impacted in the same sort of way.There is a tipping point / threshold where certain new possibilities are possible.
MS will have a clear advantage in terms of APU (CPU, GPU) and to a certain degree RAM bandwidth. But Sony's solution won't be far behind. But maybe this means that Sony needs to utilize a more hybrid lighting model approach for leveraging ray-tracing, and therefore lighting models in XSX will clearly have an edge. Same with framerate.
These machines are both competent. That is not what I'm arguing. I'm saying that Sony's SSD and I/O pipeline solution gives it real advantages in certain areas. This strength shouldn't be downplayed. We are not talking apples to apples in terms of an SSD and I/O pipeline implementation you'd see even in a high powered PC today. This is clearly different, and both consoles will have an advantage over that sort of PC implementation.
In fact, I'd be more concerned if XSX didn't have a good competent solution, as it would make it much less likely that devs would spend time working on systems to take advantage of all this custom SSD and I/O pipeline hardware.
