Xbox One or PS4 | The War is On

By Kieran Webber

With the release of Xbox One and PS4, a time old question has made it’s way back into all of our heads “PlayStation or Xbox?”

Microsoft and Sony are about to go Head-to-Head to decide who is king (or Queen) of the next gen consoles. Each have their own strengths and weaknesses but what will it come down to? What will be the edge? Hopefully through this article we can find out.

Design

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Both consoles follow a similar rectangular shape although the Xbox One is considerably bigger, by two halves to be exact. The only attraction to the Xbox One in terms of design is the sleek front with the slot – loading Blu ray disc drive, at the back pretty much all the cable slots hang as usual with the added HDMI input port for live TV, an added bonus which the PS4 does not have.

PS4 have gone back to their roots with design, reminding a lot of people to the PS2 design but more “boxy.”

It certainly won’t be the design that sells this console; neither are game changers in design.

Inside

Inside both consoles beats a very similar heart, both consoles are x86 octa-core CPUs, these eight-core processors are designed and built by the same company; AMD.

Xbox 360 used an IBM PowerPC processor, while PS3 partnered with Toshiba and IBM on it’s own cell processor.

Xbox One will run a heavily modified eight-core AMD processor and the PS4 will utilize a x86-64 “Jaguar” CPU.

AMD will also be creating the graphics card for both consoles, this will be what separates them from their older versions.

Xbox One marries its GPU to the CPU in a system-on-a-chip design, according to techradar, with DirectX 11.1 support.

However the PS4 graphics processor is described as semi-custom AMD Radeon that runs at 1.8 TFLOPS, giving PS4 the edge.

What’s really impressive about the PS4 is the impressive 8GB GDDR5 RAM which game developers are going to enjoy a lot. But the Xbox One fires back with an equal amount of RAM.

Xbox One DRM

Early on in the buildup to both consoles Xbox One announced that due to its strict DRM policy that barred used game sales and required Xbox One consoles to connect to the internet once every 24 hours.

Outrage among gamers was immediate, hundreds of people vented their anger via blogs and forums. Thankfully this triggered something in Microsoft and they reverted the policy.

Gamers can enjoy the same function that they did with their beloved Xbox 360 and PS3.

Xbox One Kinect Vs PS4 Eye

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Both consols will come with a form of motion sensor, the Xbox One with Kinect and the PS4 with Eye. Could this finally be the era of motion gaming? Well it would seem both companies are trying to push this.

The 1080p Kinect 2.0 will process 2gb of data per second, meaning it can pick up slight movements of the wrist and shoulder and can even pick up your heartbeat. Microsoft’s motto being “human control for a human experience.” This comes with your Xbox One package as standard.

The PS4 Eye does not come with the console on purchase, meaning you have to fork out extra cash for it but at least its gives you the option. It features two 1280×800px cameras inside an almost identical shaped camera bar.

The Controller

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This for me is vital to the gaming experience and has the potential to be what splits the two consoles. Both consoles show no real change in the design which for Xbox One is a great thing the only real change is the slightly different D -Pad. I have always felt the Xbox controllers are far superior. Although the PS4 controller has some what beefed up, but is not close to the comfort of the Xbox One.

Game Launches

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This is where the decisions will be made, each console has its own specific games to show off that have been developed especially for them.

Xbox One games will include: Ryse: Son of Rome, Dead Rising 3, Forza Motorsport 5, Killer Instinct, LocoCycle, and Kinect Sports Rivals: Pre-season and Minecraft all on day one.

To add to this Call of Duty: Ghosts which is not exclusive to Xbox One but will have a times -exclusive DLC.

Xbox One is looking very exciting for day release.

PS4 exclusives will be: Killzone Shadow Fall and Knack which will be day one releases. Other games such as DriveClub have been delayed until 2014.

Sony has been consistently showing off inFamous: Second Son, The Witness and The Order 1886, all of which are coming out in 2014.

PS4 gets an exclusive hour of game play on Assassins Creed: Black Flag a similar deal is with Watchdogs but that has also been delayed to 2014.

The future for PS4 is looking good but it’s going to be about grabbing customers in the beginning, which Sony at the moment is lacking.

Release

PS4 launch date will be Friday November 15th in North America, then Friday November 29th in Europe and Australia.

Whilst Xbox One is taking the Global approach and releasing it world wide November 29th, this could no doubt aid the hype around the console.

The Price

Xbox One will be priced at £429 in the U.K and the PS4 will be at a much more competitive £349. The PS4 Eye though will cost £54, still cheaper all together but if you want a full experience I fear you will need this and it could be an annoying extra cost.

This said, the way money is in today’s world Sony may take an edge here.

Overall both consoles offer a great experience for gamers, it will be exciting to see them both develop after release date and to see who gets the edge and if it is deserved.

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