As shiny, polished, and impressive as is the PlayStation 5, in net I'm almost more impressed with the Series X: I just installed the Xbox 360 port of "Wolfenstein 3D" which I'd bought what feels like a life time ago, and it actually runs properly via the backwards compatibility mode. The system even emulates the 360's shell, so the achievement "bleep" effect uses the old, low-resolution graphic.

That's a 2009 port of a 1992 DOS game, running on a 12.5 teraflops Xbox Series X from 2020. As an aside, these "Xbox Live Arcade" games don't carry their achievements over, so you can even enjoy re-earning them.

Want to get even crazier? Right now I'm installing the Xbox 360 port of the Gamecube port of the Dreamcast's "Sonic Adventure"-- and it will apparently run at 2160p with "auto HDR". For real.

The fact that one can jump from playing the cutting edge triple-A "Assassin's Creed Valhalla" blockbuster, to an Xbox One launch title, to an Xbox 360 launch game, to an early-doors original Xbox release, from moment-to-moment and all on the same system, feels somewhat mind blowing. Not only that, but it's 2160p and HDR across-the-board, even on the old titles thanks to the algorithmic "auto HDR".

Popping the physical "Splinter Cell" disc from 2002 into the Series X and having it "just run" simply adds to the strangeness.

It's a pity Sony didn't take the same approach with the PlayStation 5: I have physical copies of some old PSX and PlayStation 2 games in my basement, such as "Metal Gear Solid" and "The Legend of Dragoon": I can only imagine what it would be like to exerience those running on the latest hardware. Instead, the PlayStation 5 is razor focused on the singular task of running 2013-and-on triple-A games as well as possible.

There's no shame in that approach, especially because the execution is so good. But the Series X has shown me that Sony's latest machine could have been much more: like an official Sony-branded "Polymega", but which also has the core PlayStation 5's cutting edge capabilities.

A final note: Sony has said that they are working on a "Game Pass competitor", which proves they are open to changing direction based on the competition-- who is to say they won't later on add backwards compatibility to their previous systems? One can hope.