shikamaru317 said:
I really don't think that the slower SSD is going to be a big issue for XSX. We're still looking at I believe a 40x I/O speed increase compared to the archaic 5400 RPM laptop hard drive that was used in base Xbox One, that is a massive increase. We also have to remember that MS claims to have worked a bit of software wizardry to partially offset the disadvantage of their slower SSD, with their Velocity Architecture which is designed to optimize texture streaming and reduce the CPU overhead of decompressing textures. Those claims could be secret sauce bunk, but if they turn out to be true it will offset alot of the disadvantage of the slower SSD. Xbox Series X also has access to DirectX12 Ultimate features, such as Direct Storage, which is designed to further optimize texture streaming.
We also have to remember that 3rd party multiplat devs always try to make things simple for themselves and optimize for the lowest common denominator, then scale up from there, the vast majority of them are not going to do extra work to take advantage of PS5's faster SSD when it comes to things like faster flight or having no elevator loading screens like have been talked about as an advantage of PS5's SSD, so the PS5's SSD advantage will mostly show itself with faster initial load times and fast travel times and maybe a bit less noticeable level of detail pop-in on 3rd party multiplat games. It'll mainly be the 1st/2nd party devs who are able to take full advantage of PS5's faster SSD.
We also have to remember that there are 2 very good reasons why MS went with a slower SSD:
1. Price. A custom SSD like the one Sony used is going to be alot more expensive than the basically off the shelf SSD XSX is using.
2. Expandable storage. MS wanted users to be able to easily expand their storage, so they went with an internal SSD that was roughly the same speed as the SSD cartridges you will be able to buy and plug into the port on the back of the system. Sony on the other hand, while claiming to have expandable storage, won't be able to sell SSD's as fast as their expensive custom internal SSD, so you'll have to expand it's storage with a slower off the shelf SSD, which will handicap the performance of any games that are designed to take full advantage of the fast internal SSD if you install them on your 2nd SSD.
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That is patently not true, Cerny said at the time of his presentation no existing SSD was fast enough, but in the next year compatible SSDs will be made available and Sony will certify those to ensure they are up to the required specs. Besides you can always have the internal SSD as the one games run from, and use an external drive as cold storage. So both options are there, and nobody ever mentioned running PS5 games off of slow SSDs.
I don't even want to go to the rest of the post as it sounds a bit like wishful thinking bundled with some damage control on behalf of the XSX, so I'll mark it as opinion only.
