Pop Quiz; 2nd choice in Newest Gen is only one on shelf. What do you do? *Smolder*

So i'm in quite the predicament. I don't have a next gen console and I want one. Scarcity, artificial or not, is real and I could go either way on consoles. My first choice is the Series-X because of my library of unplayed games. My 2nd Choice is a discless-PS5 (I have digital games on my account and doubt i max out the harddrive for the entirety of the generation) followed by a Disc-PS5 and lastly the Series-S. I have not encountered any of these consoles in the wild. If i had i would have gone home with something more than likely. I'll come to terms with whatever I do because I will likely pick up one console and then get the pro version of the other console down the road.

In the heat of the moment are you saying no to your 2nd choice (even if it's the disc/discless, X/S, or vice versa)?

If I were going to wait years to buy the "other" console I would absolutely only go for my first choice at this point. These things are likely going to be widely available in a few months for anyone who wants them at retail price. This shortage is very temporary. I would not want to wait potentially 3-4 years (or longer) to tap into my library of unplayed games just for the convenience of having "something" sooner, especially considering that there's just not that much that's exclusive to these things now, and no that much in the immediate pipeline. You can play Demon's Souls or Astrobot in 3-6 months (if you want a PS5) and the Xbox Series consoles have literally zero exclusives right now.

I definitely would not get a Series S if I want a Series X, or a discless PS5 if I liked buying discs or had PS4 discs I wanted to use.

If you're rich enough that it doesn't matter then buy what you want, but these shortages are likely to be temporary and if you're going to own these things for the better part of a decade it makes no sense to get one you're less happy with just to be able to play a few things right now.

For similar reasons I would not buy a bundle that included a bunch of useless stuff, or go to a scalper. Frankly the only reason to get these things right now is FOMO and because they likely aren't going to get cheaper by the time there's a reason to buy them, so if you see the opportunity why not pick them up.

Plus both systems have bugs and issues at launch that will likely be cleared up in 6 months (the Xbox has issues with its quick resume and the PS5 has a few funky things that people have reported.) So your experience will be better than anyway.

The PS5 only has like 600 something usable GB of storage. If you only play small indie games or only one or two games at a time and never return to what you've finished, then that might be enough, but it's nowhere near enough to keep an entire library available. Not that discs will alleviate that issue this generation.

I'm a PC guy. I can't in good conscience spend money on an Xbox Series X when every first party game I want to play on it is (supposedly) going to come to PC at some point in the future and every third party game will likely be available on my platform of choice anyway. I already have a Switch. In my case, that means a PS5 is the only sensible next gen console for me, and even then Sony has made a few winks and nods towards the PC market. I do actually want one, despite some of the major issues I have with the console, but it's hard to justify buying one when I rarely played my PS4 and when there's already too much on PC I want to play.

What I'm saying is, there isn't a second choice for me. I basically already have an Xbox Series X. It's PS5 or no next-gen console at all.

EDIT: As another point, I'd discourage anyone at all from getting a Series S. It's nice a cute and tiny and tucks away beautifully and all that jazz, but we've already seen how underpowered consoles look and perform a year or two into the generation with the base Xbox One and I'm afraid the same thing is going to happen with a Series S. That, the lack of a disc drive, and the pitifully tiny amount of available storage even compared to the other consoles means it's an awful deal.

@justin258: I think it's strange that you consider Switch viable when it is a 360 (at best) console. What if Microsoft is trying to leverage some of the Nintendo 3rd party exclusives like Astral Chain (i'm not privy to the contracts, and neither are you) that may be part time exclusives. For me the Series-S is like when you write a paper for school and you are to keep it to under 1,000 words. If i recall correctly you can play Doom 64 in 4K on the One-S, that's supposed to be impossible. You see what the open world limitless design has wrought, just bigger maps with little innovation.

If the Series-S is what Microsoft considers (well essentially mandating) is the minimum spec for PCs for the next 5 years then there really isn't any concern. In 2020 I'm no more married to my console than I am to my phone. In fact I have 2- iphones and the things that once kept me from jumping ship to Android are a Dropbox download away. A little no-smoking sign on the couple of games that aren't playable on gamepass serie-s games of future christmas will be few and far between.

If CD Projekt can shoehorn Cyberpunk in an OG Xbox One (in 2020 that's trash tier but it's a tier) as a non-first party developer then the internal mandates from Microsoft will keep currently non-existant (outside the digital foundry nitpick and who asked them anyway, they would have been debbie downers for all the generations up to now... so what's new) complaints to a minimum and will design around it. But yeah, Switch development possible but Series-S (at same price point and i have a phone and havent cared about mobile gaming since 2009) totally unpossible.

I wouldn't buy something that wasn't your first and most wanted choice at this point. I've got a new gen console (disc PS5) and while it's nice to have over my base ps4, I wouldn't tell anyone that rushing the purchase is worth it. Especially if you are buying your second choice just cause it's there.

Wait it out. By the time enough games are releasing on these consoles they'll be widely available. If you happen to find the thing you really want, go for it. I happened to get lucky with sony direct and don't regret it, but again, don't let scarcity tempt you into settling for anything but what your really really want.

I'm too deep in the Sony ecosystem (still wish that wasn't a thing, but hey) to comfortably switch back to Xbox, but the Series does make a compelling case for owning it.

That all said, this gen makes an even more compelling case for waiting until a hardware revision drops anyway. Do I want a PS5? Definitely. But unlike the end of the PS3/360 era, the gen switch doesn't feel like a desperately needed upgrade in the same way. So, I guess I'd just hold on and wait. Now, if I saw a PS5 on the shelf and I magically had the money for it in my pocket... yeah, I'd probably give in.

@justin258: "Just because you're OK with a shitty presentation of whatever game you're playing doesn't mean it isn't a shitty presentation."

Actually...it does.

If you buy something and you're okay with how it performs then by definition it's not shitty. It's okay.

A whole lot of people who play games but are not video game enthusiasts really don't care about or even notice things like resolution and frame drops. They really truly don't. They want to play The Madden or The Call of Duty or maybe some other stuff they're into, and they want the box to stream, and that's really it. That's who the Series S is for. They don't care about the SSD space because they aren't playing many games so it's fine, and they are willing to make compromises on performance to save some money and maybe have a machine that fits in nicer in their living room because that's what matters to them. Or they're a parent buying a machine for a kid and kids just take what they're given and enjoy it because it's what they have.

You're judging the Series S based on your personal preferences, which is silly. It's fair to criticize it for its flaws, both current and projected, but that's different from dismissing it altogether. It's a very capable little machine for what it is and what it's supposed to do.

If you want a high end console that will reliably (maybe) give you 4K graphics then Microsoft is selling the Series X. That's not the market the Series S is targeting.

I currently have my Xbox One X hooked up to a 720p TV because that's what's mounted on my treadmill. I like having it there and I probably use it more than my Series X if you include streaming time because I use my treadmill a lot and I like watching stuff or, if I'm walking on an incline, playing some games while I workout. It would be wasteful to have a Series X hooked up to a monitor that can't display above 720p anyway, and it would be silly to buy an expensive 4K TV for a mount that can only handle 19".

There are lots of people in similar situations. They might want a console for a second home, or one that can play the mainstream multiplats but that they can travel with more easily, or just something that will play 1 or 2 games a year or give them access to gamepass with no hassle and they don't care about things like framerate and resolution as long as the thing mostly works.

Assigning your preferences to other people is just silly, especially because the video game market is way different from the enthusiast market.

@senorsucks2suck: The Switch is very much a "viable" console if what you're looking to play are Nintendo games and/or have a wide indie game selection to play on the go. As for a primary machine, yeah I don't think so. I don't love Nintendo that much.

I deleted my comment because it came across a little more aggressive than I meant for it to.

Regardless, a shitty presentation really is a shitty presentation. If you're OK with it, then that's great! I'm honestly glad for you. Sometimes I wish I was just as A-OK with it. But the Xbox One, when it comes to games over the last few years, is the gaming equivalent of the cheapest headphones you can find at Wal-Mart - they'll technically do the job but you're missing out on so much. It's like watching a movie on VHS on a 60" 4K TV - it looks bad, and some people are OK or don't even realize how bad it is, but it's still bad.

This isn't a subjective thing. It can be measured, in solid numbers, and rather easily, as Digital Foundry points out for many major releases. Just because average Joe doesn't notice how bad it is or thinks it's OK doesn't mean it isn't bad. It's fine for average Joe but it's not good.

I believe the Series S will wind up being the same thing and I can't, in good conscience, recommend that to anyone.

@justin258: There's no such thing as an objectively shitty presentation because what constitutes "shitty" is totally subjective. It's only shitty if the person experiences it feels it's shitty. If that person doesn't care then actually, for them, it's fine. You can objectively measure things like frame rate and resolution and loading times but you can't tell someone a presentation was shitty for them if that was not their experience.

You mention a few comparisons like VHS and cheap earbuds. Well as of 2018 DVD sales were still higher than Blu Ray. Lots of people preferred the cheaper alternative even though they knew it had lower resolution and worse sound. I can appreciate the sound of a nice pair of earbuds or headphones but I've also bought plenty of cheap ones to act as backups or spares (keep them in your desk at work for if you forget your good pair on the way, or toss them in your Switch or Vita carrying case so you know you have earbuds if you want to play on the train.) Are they less enjoyable than good ones? Sure, but for me they provide like 80% of the value if I'm listening to music and close to 95% if I'm listening to a podcast. Maybe you can only enjoy Vinny's dad jokes with a perfect balance of bass and treble and active noise cancellation but for me the dad joke is just as funny through a $6 pair of earbuds as it is through a $200 pair.

There are lots of games that will run just fine on a Series S. Older games. 2D games like the upcoming Hollow Knight: Silksong. Many of the hot new releases for the next few years at least. I could absolutely recommend one to someone who said they don't care about resolution and frame rate, or that price or form factor are more important to them.

I give advice to people based on what's important to them not what's important to me. Would I personally be happy with a Series S as my primary console? I don't think so. But I know lots of people who would be and I would recommend it to them as long as they knew what they were getting into. The whole reason that Microsoft made the Series S is that Xbox One S apparently outsold Xbox One X and Phil Spencer thinks that most people care more about price than performance in a console. Just because you're not one of those people doesn't mean they're making the wrong choice for them, so long as they understand what the tradeoffs are.

I would consider a discless PS5, to be honest. The reviews almost always come in codes these days and can use digital sales to pad out the library.