The PS4 and the Xbox One have now both received a price cut, with both consoles now retailing for $349. This is big news ahead of this Holiday season, with both consoles being sold at the same price point, and each coming with their own positives and negatives that will serve to divide customers looking who are finally looking to jump onto this current console generation.
While we have still yet to be inundated with a plethora of games that truly make it vital to swap out your old consoles for Sony and Microsoft’s latest systems, by the end of 2016 both will have likely seen a respectable amount of killer games release on them, making this Christmas a great time to finally take the plunge.
But unless you’re one of the rich kids who wouldn’t have been able to empathize with Biggie when he rapped about having to choose between the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis, you’ll likely have to perform the gaming equivalent of Sophie’s Choice by picking which one should sit beneath your TV. With that being said, let’s run down the pros and cons of both the PS4 and Xbox One, in order to determine which one you should be playing come this Christmas.
Exclusive Games
Right now both the PS4 and Xbox One have suffered from a lack of killer exclusive games, though that is set to change in the near future. The PS4 has had the best original game added to its library thus far in the form of From Software’s Bloodborne, with the Xbox One recently bringing Forza Motorsport 6 into the fold to bolster a somewhat lackluster line-up, which includes the divisive Sunset Overdrive and the underpopulated multiplayer shooter Titanfall.
However, the Xbox One has a fair few more games up its sleeve that will be released throughout the rest of 2015 and 2016, including Halo 5, Gears of War 4, Crackdown 3, Scalebound, ReCore and more. It will also have a “timed exclusive” in the form of Rise of the Tomb Raider, which basically means that it will come out first on Microsoft’s console before being released later on the PS4. On the other hand, Sony’s line-up of exclusives leaves a little to be desired, with Uncharted 4 being their biggest game on the horizon after being delayed to March 2016, while the impressive looking Horizon: Zero Dawn only has a tentative release date of 2016 and Persona 5 will appeal to a more niche market than the games included in the Xbox One’s line-up.
Sony do have one ace up their sleeve, though, and that’s their exclusive acquisition of Street Fighter V, which will only be released on their console and on PC. While this annoying for fans of the series who own an Xbox One, for Sony it ensures that those in the fighting game community will be forced to purchase a PS4, with Capcom stating that no future versions of the game will be available to purchase on Microsoft’s console until the release of Street Fighter VI.
But while Street Fighter V may be the biggest game either console can tout as an exclusive outside of their own first-party releases, Xbox One has a more varied range of games coming to its platform in the near future, and therefore takes the crown here.
Winner: Xbox One
Multi-Platform Games
While exclusive games are a big deal, how each console presents its multi-platform games is also a big deal given that the majority of releases will grace both the PS4 and the Xbox One. While the Xbox One has the better line-up of games, when it comes to third-party titles its lesser power stands to ensure that the PS4 routinely has the upper hand in terms of performance and visuals, which has proven to be a big blow for Microsoft. News surrounding this current console generation has frequently revolved around the contrasting resolution and frame rate of games on both consoles, with the PS4 managing to achieve 1080p, 60fps reasonably regularly while Xbox One games often only attain 900p and, in some instances, have fallen to 30fps, too.
While the difference between 1080p and 900p is negligible to the average eye a lower frame rate does have an impact upon gameplay, though this is becoming less of a regular occurrence with the Xbox One now that developers are starting to get the hang of making the most out of the console’s specs. Still, the PS4 able to regularly provide the more powerful experience, which has inevitably been a big selling point, with Sony also signing deals with many third-party developers that has seen them release DLC for their games earlier on PS4.
Though releasing the best first-party games is arguably a more pressing matter, the PS4 continuing to deliver the best console versions of games is nothing to be sniffed at, and given that this current console generation has seen plenty more multi-platform games than it has exclusives is proving to be a major reason why the PS4 is currently the more popular of the two consoles.
Winner: PS4
Online Services
PSN always struggled to compete with Xbox Live in the last console generation, but with the PS4 Sony has finally managed to catch up to speed and deliver a competitive online experience. It’s still not quite up to scratch in comparison with Xbox One’s offering, though, as PSN continues to suffer from lengthy shortages as a result of scheduled maintenance sessions which frequently run over the time allotted for them, and also doesn’t boast the same amount of dedicated servers for its game as Xbox Live does, therefore delivering a less reliable online multiplayer experience.
Microsoft is also touting cloud computing as eventually contributing a great deal to the Xbox One delivering more powerful games, with games such as Crackdown 3 looking to benefit from this by using the cloud to render the destruction of buildings in real-time. Microsoft showcased this during their E3 2015 presentation and it was undoubtedly impressive, though we’ll have to wait until the game’s release until we can pass judgement on how well it works in practice.
Sony’s major selling point with PSN continues to be the free games that the service offers, and though the Xbox One’s Games with Gold feature goes the same route, they’ve only recently started to compete with Sony in terms of the quality of the games that they offer. While the PS4 has given away very few major releases to PS Plus members thus far, the quality of the games they’ve handed out for free has been commendable, with Rocket League being a recent highlight that has swiftly become one of the most popular online games on the console. That’s without even mentioning the wealth of discounts offered by the service, which Xbox Live also features but in less plentiful supply.
However, Xbox Live manages to come out on top due to the ease in which players can share and stream content, its game sharing feature with Windows 10 and a generally more reliable online experience, not to mention Microsoft are far more on the ball when it comes to delivering software updates that have significantly improved the console and its features since its launch. Microsoft have also pleased Xbox One owners with recently implemented backwards compatibility with Xbox 360 games, which significantly trumps Sony’s underwhelming PlayStation Now service, which not only charges for renting out games from a disappointingly small PlayStation library, but also streams the rented games therefore relying hugely upon a decent Internet speed.
Winner: Xbox One
Entertainment
Ever since Microsoft first unveiled the Xbox One it has placed an emphasis upon it being an entertainment hub, and though the company now spends less time pushing these features as its key selling point, it’s still very good at linking cable TV with your streaming apps and video games. While there are now plenty of devices available on the market that will allow you to access the likes of Netflix, meaning that the Xbox One’s entertainment features shouldn’t be a reason for you to go out and buy it, it certainly has a great deal more to offer than the PS4 in this regard.
The only real positives the PS4 has over the Xbox One in this department is its own music apps, which are better than Microsoft’s offerings (though still not exactly impressive). PS4 also has Spotify, which is a nice added bonus, though nothing earth-shattering.
The Xbox One does excel, though, with its Xbox Fitness app. Though it’s not necessarily “entertainment,” it is a hugely underrated facet of the Xbox One that provides the best fitness experience of a console to date, utilizing the Kinect better than any game and, unlike the Wii Fit, actually provides intense workouts that are actually made to be pretty fun.
In the end the Xbox One does a better job with its entertainment features, though both consoles boast the likes of Netflix and Amazon Instant Video, meaning you won’t particularly miss out if you choose one over the other.
Winner: Xbox One
Hardware
As previously mentioned the PS4 is the more capable console of the two, housing 8GB of 5500Mhz GDDR5 RAM and an AMD GPU with 18 GCN compute units, compared to the 12 units boasted by the Xbox One. Thus far this has granted the PS4 an advantage at almost every turn in terms of delivering better visuals and performance, though Xbox One owners are unlikely to be too disappointed given that the console is still a significant step up from the Xbox 360, and is capable of producing 1080p, 60fps games, albeit less frequently than its rival.
Still, this is a major advantage for the PS4, and a large part of the reason why the Xbox One’s sales haven’t managed to match Sony’s console, given that they have both shared similar price points but with one having a distinct advantage to sell to prospective buyers.
Outside of the consoles themselves, Microsoft’s key selling point around the launch of the Xbox One was its Kinect 2.0, the improved version of its Xbox 360 motion-controller that, as predicted, once again failed to cause much of a stir with console buyers. While it’s certainly a great deal more accomplished than the PS4’s lackluster camera, which is beyond useless, it was nonetheless an unnecessary inclusion that only sought to help navigate the console’s messy user interface at launch. It provides users with a quick way of navigating the console, but it’s certainly not worth the extra money considering the very few games that make good use of it.
However, Microsoft does manage to best Sony in terms of the Xbox One’s controller, with it featuring “Impulse Triggers” which successfully mimic the action taking place in-game. This feedback from game to controller provides a great, immersive experience for the player whether they’re shooting enemies in an FPS or taking a sharp corner in a racing game, and the PS4 controller can’t compete with it. While the PS4 controller is arguably the best controller Sony has produced, it’s simply outclassed by the Xbox One’s, and the pricey Xbox One Elite controller is an even better option for those who have the extra cash to spend.
But despite the Xbox One having the clear advantage when it comes to its impressive controller, the PS4 still takes this one due to it being the superior console in terms of raw power. There’s nothing Microsoft can do to compete with it on this front, save for encouraging developers to produce Xbox One games with a similar performance level to their rival’s system.
Winner: PS4
The Verdict
While the Xbox One has a few more selling points heading into 2016 than the PS4, and its wider array of exclusive games is a major bonus, both consoles are worthy of your consideration at this juncture. The Xbox One looks set to have a more diverse 2016 thanks to its wide array of varied games, but Sony’s E3 2015 presentation highlighted a number of great titles the company have lined up in the console’s future, and it has the added benefit of having the larger player base meaning that, if you’re an online gamer, it’s likely that the majority of them will own a PS4 over the Xbox One.
In the end it’s all down to preference. The Xbox One is the more reasonable purchase heading into 2016, with it seeing the release of a ton of games spanning a wide variety of genres. On the other hand, if you’re planning on buying only one console this generation, the PS4 may have a quieter 2016 lined up at the moment but it looks set to have the brighter future, so now would be a reasonable time to jump on it. There’s no clear winner here, but there are advantages to owning both systems, so decide which one best suits what you’re looking for in a console before you take the plunge.
