Some of XBSX RAM is slower though. That would only be a partial truth. Also depends on how you want to look at the GPU speed. On paper, PS5 is clocked higher, so that's something MS would have a hard time pulling off in terms of marketing. Even if MS does keep fastest, it wouldn't be dumb for SNY to use that as well, since it will just confuse some customers, and if they can't decipher who's really faster and what each means, things like price and games will become much more important to them. If SNY doesn't use something like being the fastest in some of their marketing, they will be handing XBSX easy consumer points to their own detriment.

Correct. A portion of the memory is slower. - But those regions are mapped out and exposed so developers can prioritize the bandwidth-hungry operations to those memory locations where-as bandwidth insensitive operations can stay in the slower memory regions.

In general, it's a non-issue and still gives the Xbox Series X the faster memory advantage.

I was tying this to your game engine point. If MS gave one of their studios an unlimited budget to make a brand new engine, specifically to make games the best they could possibly be, to show off what XBSX can really do, would that studio build the engine with the rest of the MS hardware ecosystem in mind, or specifically for the XBSX? The less hardware you have to worry about, the better optimized it can be since all the time and money will go towards the benefit of that specific hardware.

If MS is making XBSX cross gen games for two years, and SNY is making some PS5 exclusives, what those SIE studios should be able to accomplish should be considerably more than what MS studios can early on. Assuming those engines are being upgraded or created with only PS5 in mind going forward. The amount of work for MS studio's to be able to create or upgrade their engines so they can be truly next gen ready, without terribly hindering last gen or adding a boat load of extra work, would take a considerable upfront effort. That's not to say it's impossible, but it's hard to believe that if games are being ported this quickly, that the engines are truly allowing for true next gen features. 

Now after the two year cross gen period, I would anticipate that MS first party games truly start looking next gen as they won't have to worry about last gen going forward, like some of the SIE studio's were able to at launch. Maybe MS will surprise everyone though. We'll see.

I see what you are saying, I guess it will be no different to how PC games are created. Lets say you play RE2 remake, that game is designed to run on the most powerful graphic cards and the game is one of the best looking games going around but can also run on a low end PC with obvious hits in performance. Nothings to say the same wont apply to the SX.

Another example would be Halo Infinite. That game is still going to take the full advantage of the Series X however it will be downgraded heavily to run on the XB1. It is believed the game is being designed around the Series X in mind first. Its not that hard to downgrade games to make them work on low end hardware. Lockheart is rumoured to just offer the 1080p version of the SX version, keeping most of the fidelity and assets etc however that's something we will have to wait and see.

For me personally, I think too many people think games are going to be hindered heavily because they are staying with current hardware as well.. honestly, when I play Assassins Creed Odyssey, the world is already big enough, if a next gen Creed game comes out with a world 10x as big, I wouldn't actually care because the current size is quite big enough and there is always such things as too big. Sea of Thieves is another example, how big do you want the ocean? It already takes ages to cross from one end to another.

I much preferred to see heavy upgrades to the visuals when playing an old game like Dead Rising 3 and seeing it get boosted on the SX running Ray-tracing, 4k/60, bigger draw distances and basically improving upon the entire game rather than lets just expand the game making it bigger when again, game worlds are already big enough. I know there is also a lot more to it than just world sizes but I am just stating an example. Play Doom Eternal and ask yourself, how do you improve that? Games look so good these days and I am sure Devs will continue to push the envelope  however even if a game is based on last gen hardware, it doesn't mean you wont get massive benefits playing on a next gen consoles or high end PCs, plus the games can still be incredibly fun regardless on it power output.

Zelda BOTW was designed on the WiiU hardware and not the Switches and yet that game is considered up there as the best game of all time and not just this generation. If they can make a game like BOTW on the WiiU than making great games on the XB1/PS4 hardware is no issue. Game quality wont be hinder as long as the devs are talented than they will continue to make fun and amazing games. 

I'm not saying Halo Infinite on XBSX won't be a better version of the game. With the new engine that's being built for that game, odds are this is the extra upfront work I was talking about that's being done for that game. As much as reasonably possible anyway. It's the XB flagship franchise, so it would make sense to put the effort in for that specific game. I'm curious as to what 343 will be able to pull off with this new engine across all hardware from top to bottom.

That's why Lockhart makes some sense. The games may very well be pretty terrible on XB1, but MS doesn't want to leave them behind. By offering Lockhart at $299, MS wouldn't be asking for all that much to get people on board with that updated hardware instead, while being able to offer them a more proper next gen experience. If they could get enough XB1X owners to upgrade to XBSX or transfer to Lockhart, that would be even better. If the Lockhart adoption rate was quick enough, you could potentially see MS move up the two year deadline since they wouldn't have to worry about XB1(X) anymore.

Halo Infinite seemed interesting based on it's style in the teaser. Old school Master Chief was cool to see. Older style gear, older style attitude. This makes me think the game may be headed in a better direction than 343 has been taking it. Now, while fun matters more for games overall, MS has to be careful promoting so heavily their powerful hardware, if using it to it's potential isn't the plan often enough. Having an exotic car with 12 cylinders is a waste if you're only going to run regular fuel in it. The Hellblade II trailer looks like a higher octane though. How many of those does MS have coming though is the question?

In practice yes, but SNY can easily muddy that with non specified SSD marketing if they want to. If MS is simply going to use catch words without explanation, SNY can as well and take away that marketing advantage XBSX has right now. Based on the more recent "for the players" and "best place to play", SNY may very well ignore any hardware advantages completely in their slogan/phrases for PS5 though.

PS5. The Fastest. Most Advanced.

That would be hilarious to see. lol

I was tying this to your game engine point. If MS gave one of their studios an unlimited budget to make a brand new engine, specifically to make games the best they could possibly be, to show off what XBSX can really do, would that studio build the engine with the rest of the MS hardware ecosystem in mind, or specifically for the XBSX? The less hardware you have to worry about, the better optimized it can be since all the time and money will go towards the benefit of that specific hardware.

If MS is making XBSX cross gen games for two years, and SNY is making some PS5 exclusives, what those SIE studios should be able to accomplish should be considerably more than what MS studios can early on. Assuming those engines are being upgraded or created with only PS5 in mind going forward. The amount of work for MS studio's to be able to create or upgrade their engines so they can be truly next gen ready, without terribly hindering last gen or adding a boat load of extra work, would take a considerable upfront effort. That's not to say it's impossible, but it's hard to believe that if games are being ported this quickly, that the engines are truly allowing for true next gen features. 

Now after the two year cross gen period, I would anticipate that MS first party games truly start looking next gen as they won't have to worry about last gen going forward, like some of the SIE studio's were able to at launch. Maybe MS will surprise everyone though. We'll see.

Well if you don't know anything about game development, partially because it's never really talked about much in general, and especially in a casual friendly way, hardware specs are something they can latch onto. Not that they understand that well either, but it's easier to grasp in general and much easier to market.

Some of XBSX RAM is slower though. That would only be a partial truth. Also depends on how you want to look at the GPU speed. On paper, PS5 is clocked higher, so that's something MS would have a hard time pulling off in terms of marketing. Even if MS does keep fastest, it wouldn't be dumb for SNY to use that as well, since it will just confuse some customers, and if they can't decipher who's really faster and what each means, things like price and games will become much more important to them. If SNY doesn't use something like being the fastest in some of their marketing, they will be handing XBSX easy consumer points to their own detriment.

Correct. A portion of the memory is slower. - But those regions are mapped out and exposed so developers can prioritize the bandwidth-hungry operations to those memory locations where-as bandwidth insensitive operations can stay in the slower memory regions.

In general, it's a non-issue and still gives the Xbox Series X the faster memory advantage.

IF they go down that path and depending on the wording they employ, then they would deserve criticism for misleading consumers and possibly even blatant lying.

I would also assume it would create an internet shitstorm that would result in bad PR for them.

Microsoft and Sony can't just "get away" with whatever they want, there are various groups of fans/supporters that just won't let it happen... Remember when Microsoft said that if you want to play games offline you should just buy an Xbox 360? Yeah. That didn't go down well.

Well marketing is tied to bending the truth in several cases. So Sony can put just like MS used before "The strongest Playstation ever" and let people imagine what they want of it being the strongest console if they so much wanted. Still Sony didn't use this for PS4 at all and it doesn't move that many consoles anyway so they don't need it. "Best place to play" and other totally subjective terms would still do them fine.

This was the first thing that came to mind below. V.  Looks like it came to Don right away as well.

SNY did this well after MS and all of their "most powerful console ever" marketing with XB1X. It didn't seem to phase Pro sales though and any backlash that may have existed was so minor I don't ever remember hearing about it or seeing it bubble up to a point where it became a problem. I don't see why it would be a problem now for PS5, other than the backlash that would come from XB fans.

A slogan for the PS5 hardware like PS4 and Pro had, and an overarching slogan for the PS(5) ecosystem like "greatness awaits", wouldn't be a surprise.

Also if PS5 releases like a week before XSX it is already enough to claim "the strongest console ever" even if they can only use it to hype before launch and couple days =p

Also since marketing get some leeway they can still say it is the strongest even after XSX releases, Sega do what Nintendon't, blast processing, etc weren't factually right but never prevented them using it.

Not to forget how many competitive products will use the "best product" at the same time (you can't have all of them as being the best) or those comparisons saying it is XX% better than competitors (and just tag a no name product for comparison). So Sony could also be silly and claim they are 8x more powerful than competitor by pretending Ouya, Switch or current gen is the competitor they are talking about without disclousing it.

That is why I never trust ads and marketing.