Next-Gen Console Gaming

The past few years have been a wild ride in gaming, and with the current generation officially coming to a close, its safe to say that Sony’s PlayStation won this war. There’s a lot of factors that lead the PS4’s victory, whether that being to the bevy on PS4 exclusive games, or how Microsoft’s mishandling of the Xbox One at launch such as it needing a constant internet connection to function (& that pissed a lot of gamers, me included).

When the Eight Generation started I chose my side without a hint of hesitation, and joined the Xbox caused as I’ve did with the 360 and the original Xbox before it. Now, as an adult and looking back, the whole concept of a console war is just dumb… Having grown the last several years, having a stable job, I did something I’ve never thought I’d ever do: buying a PS4. Honestly, owning both consoles gave me the freedom to chose on what to play. It gave the opportunity to play those PlayStation exclusive games that many having been raving on the PS4 Pro, meanwhile my Xbox One X became my go to console for major AAA games, & my main media center.

Well, that’s enough of me rambling on and I’ll get straight to the point, we’re literally less than a week a way from both Microsoft and Sony releasing their respective next generation of consoles, that being the Xbox Series X/S and the PlayStation 5. So, with the way things are with the world right now, you’ve either pre-ordered your next-gen consoles or still contemplating on which to choose that will give you more value for your buck. More than likely you’ve opted to save that for now, I totally get- I’m doing that to. So, let’s take a look at what both consoles have to offer, shall we.

Specifications

Category PlayStation 5 Xbox Series X

Processor	8x Cores @ 3.5GHz Custom Zen 2 CPU	8x Cores @ 3.8 GHz Custom Zen 2 CPU
Graphics	10.28 TFLOPS, 36 CUs @ 2.23 GHz Custom RDNA 2	12.155 TFLOPS, 52 CUs @ 1.825 GHz Custom RDNA 2
Memory	16 GB GDDR6, 256-bit	16 GB GDDR6, 320mb bus
Memory Bandwidth	448GB/s	10 GB @ 560 GB/s, 6GB @ 336 GB/s
Internal Storage	825GB Custom NVME SSD	1 TB Custom NVME SSD
I/O Throughput	5.5GB/s (Raw), 8-9GB/s (Compressed)	2.4 GB/s (Raw), 4.8 GB/s (Compressed)
Expandable Storage	NVMe SSD slot	1 TB Custom SSD expansion card
External Storage	USB external HDD support	USB external HDD support
Optical Drive	4K UHD Blu-Ray drive	4K UHD Blu-Ray drive
Size	390mm x 104mm x 260mm	301mm x 151mm x 151mm
Release date	November 12	November 10

Controllers

Let’s look at some controllers. Right off the bat, the controller with the most drastic change compared to it’s predecessor’s is the Playstation 5’s, the DuelSense. DualSense features a radical new design language for Sony, that matches the consoles. While some things may have changed, some still remain the same such as the button layout, the touhpad the speaker in the center of the controller.

We also know that the PS5 will support your old DualShock 4 controllers from the PS4 but only in a limited way. They’ll work when you play PS4 games on the new hardware, but not with PS5 games, which are ideally going to be taking advantage of DualSense’s new features if they can. One major improvement made to said controller is the addition of adaptive triggers much like Xbox’s. It’s even going to have built-in microphones so that you can chat with friends without a headset, in theory.

On the Microsoft side of things, new Xbox Wireless Controller will be released with the Xbox Series X, which comes with a new Share button in the middle and a similar D-pad disc to the one found on both the Xbox Elite Wireless Controller Series 1 and 2. One neat feature of the new console will be that it will work with all current Xbox One accessories – including its controllers. That means you can still use an existing Xbox One controller on the Series X, potentially lowering the cost for local multiplayer gaming for two players or more.

Games & Backward compatibility

With every new generation of consoles, there’s often the accompaniment of fresh new games for you to sink your teeth in, more so than that are the console only exclusive. As I’ve mentioned earlier on in the post, Sony excels when it comes to exclusives and has helped them win the previous console generation. While its certainly too early to tell if the same tactic will work again, there’s no denying Sony has acquired many first party studios to produce games for their new console. Take Insomniac Games producing a new Spider-Man as a launch title for the system.

While backward compatibility is certainly nothing new for the people at Xbox, but for those at Sony on the other hand, its an entirely new ball park. Backward compatibility was confirmed for the Playstation 5, although not all of Playstation’s gaming catalogue will be available. This however is not a total loss, as was revealed that, like on the Xbox Series X, many games bought for the PS4 will come with a free upgrade to the PS5 version when you upgrade. This is down to the publishers.

For Xbox owners, this not really an issue, Xbox Series X is fully backward compatible with all Xbox One accessories, controllers and games. One neat feature is that it can add virtual HDR to older original Xbox and Xbox 360 games, it will also intelligently upscale them and can improve their frame rates without any further development. With the adage of Game Pass and Game Pass Ultimate, gamers also get unrestricted access to Microsoft’s cloud gaming platform, Cloud Gaming with Xbox Game Pass Ultimate. It enables more than 100 games to be played on Android devices, with Xbox One titles initially and Series X versions added in time. EA Play will also be part of Game Pass Ultimate from the launch of the Series X – which adds much of Electronic Arts’ back catalogue at no extra cost.

Xbox Series X Quick Resume

Just like it says in the header, Quick Resume literally means just that, allowing you to continue a game from a suspended state pretty much instantly. So, within seconds, you can jump back into the game where you left off as if you never stopped playing – without having to sit through loading screens again. Not only that, but you can jump between multiple games that have been left in this suspended state in no time at all.

Price

The big deciding factor in all of this is money, and I’ not gonna sugarcoat it for you, these consoles are expensive! Both the PlayStation 5 and the Xbox Series X are priced $500 each, and once we convert that to Malaysian Ringgit that’s roughly RM2100, give or take taxes. Alternatively, there’s the digital edition PlayStation 5 priced $399 or roughly RM1660. Also there’s the Xbox Series S which also all digital but at $299, only $100 less the PlayStation, and after conversion that’s about RM1250.

Honestly, all of this comes to personal taste, and know what you’re more into, if you prefer exclusives and only buy a few games a year, get the PlayStation. On the other hand, if you don’t care for exclusives and want more titles to play, there’s the Xbox and Game Pass for you.