Ever since Spotify Wrapped became a thing, it looks like every app and platform decided to launch some kind of 12 months in review function. Soundcloud likes to remind me of all of the weird house remixes I’ve hyperfixated on in the course of the course of the 12 months. My podcast app dragged me with a top five list consisting of two sleep aids and three every day NPR podcasts, making me appear like some type of insomniac soyboy. Even Strava has a 12 months in review wrap up, which I’m sure won’t make me feel bad about my deskbound life in any respect.
Likewise, PlayStation and Xbox have 12 months in reviews too. Like many individuals on this line of labor, I even have a PS5, an Xbox Series X, a Nintendo Switch, and a PC, so I can cover all my bases with latest releases. I purchased my Xbox Series X first, because I wanted it to principally act as a Game Pass machine, which it did – until I got sick of Game Pass and started to default to my PS5, which I got last December. It wasn’t until I saw each wrap ups side by side that I realised exactly how much dust my Xbox had been collecting.
Let’s Compare The Stats
Quite frankly, my numbers on each consoles aren’t shabby. The difference is in how those hours were spread. I played 188 hours on Xbox, which is about 100 hours lower than I did on PS5. On PS5, I played 24 games – 40 hours of that was spent on Helldivers 2, a PlayStation exclusive, 70 hours was on Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth (figures, it’s my Game of the Yr), and the remainder was split between Sand Land, a mediocre game that I reviewed, Dragon Age: The Veilguard, and Star Wars Outlaws.
On my Xbox, I played just 12 games. The vast majority of the time I spent on my Xbox this 12 months was in January and February, after I dedicated 105 hours to Baldur’s Gate 3. I got my hands on BG3 before I got my PS5, otherwise I probably wouldn’t have used my Xbox in any respect. 40 of the remaining hours were on Dragon Age: Origins, after I was forced to provide up on a PC playthrough. A lot of the remainder of that point was after I recently forced a friend to play Alan Wake 2 while I watched, because I used to be too scared to play it myself but desired to see the way it ended.
Why Is This Happening?
Here’s the rub: I do know that when I even have the choice to choose from two consoles to play a game on, I lean towards my PS5. That’s not because I don’t like my Xbox – in spite of everything, it was my primary console for nearly a 12 months. In actual fact, I’d say that its quick resume capability actually gives it a leg up on Sony’s console, simply because picking games up where I left off is very easy.
But after I really give it some thought, it comes all the way down to one easy thing – the controller. The DualSense simply feels more ergonomic to me, and I like its haptics, but most significantly, Xbox controllers use replaceable batteries.
When the Xbox was my primary console, I used to be running through packs of the rattling things. It’s bad for the environment, so I swapped to rechargeable batteries, but that added an additional step – I all the time needed to have batteries charged and able to swap out, and the charger took an additional slot on my extension cord. You may see where I’m going with this.
The DualSense, in contrast, is much easier to charge. You only plug it right into a USB-C cord that you could then plug into your console. That’s really all it comes all the way down to. I could, technically, buy a chargeable battery pack for my Xbox controller, but that might run me 40 Singapore dollars for every pack. Adding all of it up, an Xbox controller with the identical charging capability as a PS5 controller would cost me greater than 15 Singapore dollars more, and an added inconvenience for my trouble. I could get a less expensive wired controller, but that type of defeats the aim.
It really will be that easy. In the case of two consoles which might be so evenly matched in hardware capability and overall functionality, even the smallest of things can create enough friction that I select to make use of one over the opposite for nearly all of the time. I’ll eventually boot my Xbox back as much as play Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, but I already know the small effort of getting to dig out my rechargeable batteries will send me running right back to my PS5 after I’m done.
