Xbox

Why Buying Bethesda Could Put Xbox On Top

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As you all probably know by now, Xbox have made the unprecedented move of acquiring Zenimax Media, the Parent Company of Bethesda, for $7.5 Billion. The announcement was made in the early hours of September 21st by Phil Spencer and is a huge play in lead up to next-gen. It’s also no coincidence that Xbox announced the move a day before pre-orders went live for the Series X & S. So, what does this all mean?

Firstly, it means that all of the studios under the Zenimax Studios banner will now be absorbed into Microsoft Studios, these include: Bethesda Softworks, Bethesda Game Studios, id Software, ZeniMax Online Studios, Arkane, MachineGames, Tango Gameworks, Alpha Dog and Roundhouse Studios. This pushes the total amount of studios they own to 23. Some of the more notable IP’s that are now the sole property of Xbox now include:

Phil Spencer made specific reference to Bethesda’s upcoming title ‘Starfield’ in his post announcing the move (Image Source: GamesRadar)

Phil Spencer made specific reference to Bethesda’s upcoming title ‘Starfield’ in his post announcing the move (Image Source: GamesRadar)

  • Elder Scrolls

  • Fallout

  • Doom

  • Wolfenstein

  • Quake

  • Dishonored

  • Rage

  • Deathloop

  • Ghostwire: Tokyo

  • Prey

  • The Evil Within

  • Starfield

If you’ve been paying attention to the recent PlayStation 5 developments, you will notice that ‘Deathloop’ & ‘Ghostwire: Tokyo’ are actually PS5 Exclusives. Xbox have already said that they will honour those studios’ existing commitments to Sony, meaning that Xbox will be making games that are exclusive to their rivals’ platform, go figure.

On the flip side of this, the question on everybody's mind is how this will work with regards to exclusivity on future releases. Phil Spencer has said that games made by these studios will be on Xbox, Windows and ‘other consoles’ on a ‘case by case basis’. Looking at that list, you’ve got some of the most successful and instantly recognisable franchises in gaming, not even to mention Halo. If the the next Elder Scrolls or Fallout were to be Xbox Exclusive, that would definitely make a lot of people at least consider the platform. Having the best titles split between two platforms could become quite expensive, so that would really suck for those who can’t afford to run two paid platforms. However, if you did have to choose one or the other, Xbox make a very good case with their Game Pass & All Access programs.

Xbox’s Game Pass is now one of the best deals in gaming, and it’ll keep getting better (Image Source: The Verge)

Xbox’s Game Pass is now one of the best deals in gaming, and it’ll keep getting better (Image Source: The Verge)

Exclusives (or high quality ones at least) are something that Xbox had a major shortage of in the last Console generation, with Sony running away with AAA titles that up until now, made it the biggest player going into next-gen. But that has all been turned on its head within the space of a day. Suddenly, Xbox Game Pass has evolved into one of the best deals in gaming with those heavy hitting titles that will be available on Day One of release, you might never have to buy a game again. It looks like Microsoft is slowly turning Xbox into a paid subscription, almost Netflix-esque type of service. There are over 100 games there already and that will continue to grow, this acquisition has made it abundantly clear that Game Pass is the future of Xbox. With the inclusion of the All Access program, you can have a Series S, Game Pass Ultimate for 24 months & EA Play for £20.99/month, or a Series X for £28.99/month with the same perks. Neither of these have an upfront cost either, making it perfect for entry level players or those without the money to buy a new Console upfront. Even if you can afford all of the upfront costs, Game Pass/All Access can effectively pay for itself just by saving you the need to buy games individually.

Also, I don’t think that Xbox are at all interested in playing out an ‘Exclusives’ war with Sony, they certainly have the means to go toe-to-toe with some of those huge titles (The Last of Us, God of War, Horizon etc), but that doesn’t mean they have to force that choice on the consumer. Sometimes the best use of that kind of power, is to not use it at all, or at least in the way Sony is currently flexing their First-Party titles. Xbox could easily allow all of their property to be available on all of the other platforms, but make their platform the best to have it on. As with their other First-Party titles, Zenimax releases would (very likely) be available on the Game Pass from release, meaning that you don’t have to buy it and it’s just there straight away. If it’s available on PlayStation, but you have to fork out for it when you could effectively have it for free, it might as well be exclusive. Additionally, Xbox could have a staggered release window with those properties releasing first on the Xbox with Game Pass, then collect the revenue from other platforms. It’s a win-win for them.

Playstation does have it’s alternative, but it isn’t nearly as flushed out or well supported as might ought to be (Image Source: GamesRadar)

Playstation does have it’s alternative, but it isn’t nearly as flushed out or well supported as might ought to be (Image Source: GamesRadar)

Another thing to note is that Phil Spencer has a well-known stance of not believing in Exclusives, he thinks they are bad for the industry. This approach would certainly make a lot of sense in that regard as they would not box anyone in (for the lack of a better phrase), they would just make their platform the best that it can be, irrespective of what titles Sony has. Moreover, they can use these titles as bargaining chips and completely breakdown the concept of Exclusives, industry-wide. If there are certain games that Sony want to just be on the PS5, Xbox can potentially use the likes of Doom, Elder Scrolls & Fallout as bargaining chips to keep other companies hogging properties.

If Xbox were to use this responsibly, which I think they will, this could be a great thing for gamers in general and maybe help to bring down some of those pay-walls for content that everybody should be able to play & enjoy. They might surprise me, they have every right to play hardball and battle it out with Sony with a duopoly of the best & biggest titles currently out there. But this would go against what they’ve been doing with their Game Pass & All Access programs and how they’ve acted on this subject up until now. This may put companies such as Steam in a difficult position, with those titles at their disposal, Game Pass could be a very viable alternative to a paid store front. Only time will tell how they respond to this, or if rumours of an agreement between the two materialise.

There is also the subject of Sony, how do they respond to this? Do they continue with their current strategy, or do they start to prioritise Playstation Now in the same way that Xbox do with Game Pass? This could spark a new trend of Studios being founded and aggressively snapped up by either Microsoft or Sony, which could heavily limit the amount of independent game titles in the future.

What we do know is that this is one of the biggest power-plays the industry has ever seen and is sure to turn more than a few heads towards the Xbox Series X & S, especially over time.

PS5 vs Xbox Series X – The Complete Buyer’s Guide!

PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X? Which one is the better Console and which one should you guys get? Well, spoilers, they’re both very good Consoles. You’ll be extremely happy with either of these two.

But, there are quite a few differences that might make you pick one over the other. We did a similar comparison back in March, but that was before we knew the Design of the PS5, or even the Games and Graphics reveals, so there’s tons of new details in this video.

So, without any further ado, here is the ultimate PS5 vs Xbox Series X comparison, covering the Design, Specs, Games, Graphics, Special Features and finally…Price.

Design

Starting off with the Design, the PS5 and the Xbox Series X couldn’t have been more black and white, literally. The Xbox Series X has this very elegant and classy look in all Matte Black. It is bigger and fatter than the Xbox One X, but that’s because of the massive Cooling System that this Console needs. 

In terms of the Ports, we have three USB Type A Ports, all are USB 3.2. We have one on the front and the other two are on the back. In addition, we have a HDMI 2.1 Port, which supports 4K120 as well as 8K60, an Ethernet Port and a Kensington lock so that you can lock your Xbox in place. This is very useful for public spaces, as well as the Expansion Slot for the first party SSD Expansions, which I’ll be covering in just a second. 

The Digital-Only Version of the PS5 is definitely the better looking of the two.

The Digital-Only Version of the PS5 is definitely the better looking of the two.

The PS5 on the other hand, is completely different. First of all, it comes in this really nice Matte White colour, with Glossy Black accents and a blue LED strip which I’m assuming would change its colour based on the different states that your PlayStation can be in, such as Rest Mode, Sleep, Powered-On and so on. Size-wise, the PS5 is gigantic. It is much taller than even the Xbox Series X and also taller than pretty much any Console ever made. It is also said to be very heavy at 4.8kg, however, the PS5 is slimmer than the Xbox. 

When it comes to the Ports, the PS5 features one USB C Port on the front, as well as a USB Type A. We don’t really know any other details and Sony hasn’t shown us the back of the Console just yet. It is safe to assume that it will have an HDMI 2.1 Port, an Ethernet Port, a PSVR 1 Port and likely even a PSVR 2 Port, which will allow the External Receiver for that to be connected. The PSVR 2 will be a completely wireless Headset. Also, I do expect a few more USB A Ports on the back. 

Now, there will be two models of the PS5, a Regular Version and a Digital Only Version, which lacks the Blu-Ray Drive. This Digital Only Version looks much better as it’s perfectly uniform. The Disc Version looks like it has this tumour that grew on its side, it doesn’t look good at all and it’s pretty obvious that when Sony designed the PS5, they designed the Digital Version first as that’s really the future. Speaking of models, there is a rumoured second model of the Xbox Series X just around the corner, this is the Lockhart / Xbox Series S, with this possibly having a very square and boxy design. Personally, I really do like both but I am leaning more towards the Digital Version of the PS5’s Design. Something about it just makes it look more futuristic and high-tech, I’m really into that.

Specs

When it comes to the Specs, both of these Consoles feature an AMD CPU and GPU alongside hardware based Ray-Tracing and a very fast SSD. So, you would assume that these Consoles are identical in terms of the Performance, but that’s not really the case.

The Series X splits its RAM into two chunks, at different speeds.

The Series X splits its RAM into two chunks, at different speeds.

CPU-wise, both feature an AMD Ryzen Processor based on the Zen 2 Architecture. These are basically Desktop class CPU’s that you would find in AMD’s latest offering. They’re both 8-Core Processors, however, the Xbox Series X is clocked at 3.8GHz, while the PS5’s CPU is clocked at 3.5GHz. Not only that, but Sony has confirmed that the PS5’s CPU will be running at a Variable Frequency, meaning that while the Xbox will be running at a constant 3.8GHz, the PS5 can go up to 3.5GHz, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that it would run this high all of the time. This was apparently done so that the PS5 has more power to divert to the GPU, when needed. Otherwise, the CPU might consume a ton of power even when the Game itself doesn’t actually require that much. 

On the GPU side, both GPU’s are based on AMD’s new Navi/RDNA 2.0 Architecture, which isn’t even out for PC yet. The Xbox GPU has 52 Compute Units, or “Cores” that each clocked at 1.825GHz, while the PS5 has 36 Compute Units, clocked at 2.23GHz. This translates to the Xbox having 12.15 TFLOPS of GPU Compute Power, while the PS5 has 10.28 TFLOPS. That’s a 1.87 TFLOP difference. Fun fact, the difference between the PS4 Pro and the Xbox One X was 1.8 TFLOPS, so this is quite significant. 

RAM wise, both have 16GB of GDDR6 Memory, but they’re both using it in a fairly different way. For example, the PS5 has a 448GB/s Memory Bandwidth for the entire 16GB chunk. The Xbox, on the other hand, has 560GB/s but only for 10GB, while the other 6GB are running at a slower 336GB/s. 

At this point, it seems like the Xbox Series X is superior, Performance wise, to the PS5, which is indeed correct. However, the PS5 does have one big advantage when it comes to the Storage. Both Consoles now have a Flash Storage Module, or an SSD, compared to the mechanical HDD’s that the current-gen Consoles have.

Microsoft have Proprietary Drives, but the PS5 allows Third-Party Support.

Microsoft have Proprietary Drives, but the PS5 allows Third-Party Support.

The Xbox Series X comes with a 1TB SSD, while the PS5 comes with a 825GB SSD. But, while the Xbox’s SSD has a read speed of 2.4GB/s, almost 50 times faster than what the Xbox One, the PS5’s SSD has a read speed of 5.5GB/s, 110 times faster than the PS4 and Xbox One’s Drive. I’ll go into more detail about why this is important when we get to the Graphics section of this video.

Now, with both of these Consoles, you will be able to expand the Storage if you really need to. On the Xbox, Microsoft will be selling Drives that they’ve developed in partnership with Seagate, which will allow you to add one extra Terabyte to the Console. 

Sony won’t be selling any first party SSD, instead, you will be able to buy any third party m.2 Drive and replace the Internal Storage with that. However, it will need to have at least the speeds of the Internal Drive. As of right now, there are no Drives that even match that speed. 

You can indeed connect External HDD’s to both of these Consoles, but you would not be able to play any next-gen Games from those as they’re simply way too slow. You can store your current-gen Games on those, which will be playable on both of these Consoles. 

Games

But the specs really don’t mean anything if there are no great games to take full use of them. So, what games are we getting for each Console? Well, this is where the biggest differences between these two Consoles really show.

‘Horizon: Forbidden West’ is just one of the many AAA Exclusives that Sony will have before there are any on the Series X (Source: Sony).

‘Horizon: Forbidden West’ is just one of the many AAA Exclusives that Sony will have before there are any on the Series X (Source: Sony).

On the PS5, you will have Exclusive Games. So, just like with the PS4 now, all new games made by Sony studios will only work on the PS5. That means that the next ‘Spider-Man’, the next ‘Horizon’, the next ‘God of War ‘and so on. The good news is that those games will look absolutely incredible and truly next-gen. The bad news is that you need to buy a PS5.

When it comes to the Xbox, things are entirely different. Microsoft says that for the first two years, there will be no Exclusives at all on the Xbox Series X. This means that any new Game that you will buy for the Xbox will work on the Series X, the Xbox One X, the Xbox One S, the Xbox One as well as on any Windows PC. So, the great news here is that you don’t really have to buy the Xbox Series X to take advantage of the new Games. The bad news however, is that the Games will not look as good as the Exclusives will on the PS5. There’ll be more about that when it comes to the Graphics. 

Graphics

So now, which Console will have better Graphics? This is also really tricky.

If you’re into cross-platform Games, such as ‘Call of Duty’, ‘Fortnite’, ‘Minecraft’, ‘Overwatch’, ‘Assassin’s Creed’ or basically anything that works on both Playstation and Xbox, those Games will run better on the Xbox. Most of these Developers have already confirmed that the Xbox Series X will run their Games at a higher Resolution and higher Frame-Rates. In fact, Microsoft is aiming for a full Native 4K experience at least 60 FPS, with some Games even targeting 120 FPS. 

Footage from ‘Halo Infinite’ did not showcase the best of what the Series X can offer (Source: Xbox).

Footage from ‘Halo Infinite’ did not showcase the best of what the Series X can offer (Source: Xbox).

Sony, on the other hand, hasn’t really confirmed that they’re even targeting 60 FPS. Insomniac Games for example, the Developer of the next ‘Spider-Man’ Game, have confirmed that ‘Spider-Man: Miles Morales’ will have a 60 FPS Mode. But, their Tweet is a bit strange and it sort of implies that you’ll have to choose between 4K and 60 FPS or if you want 60 FPS, you’ll need to have some graphical options disabled. 

Since the PS5 will indeed have Exclusives at launch, these games will indeed look true next-gen, while the launch Games on the Xbox Series X, since these are cross platform/non-exclusives Games, will just look like the current-gen in higher Resolution and at a higher Frame Rate.

Take a look at ‘Halo Infinite’, which we just got a gameplay reveal for last week. The game looks decent, it runs in Native 4K60 but the Graphics themselves just look like current-gen. Take a look at the Grass and the Lighting, now compare it to, let’s say, ‘The Last of Us: Part 2’ or ‘Ghost of Tsushima’. In these games, the Foliage Density is significantly higher. Not only that, but in ‘The Last of Us: Part 2’, you can even interact with the foliage to the point where you can bump into a Pine Tree and you’ll see the snow fall off of it. Also, pay attention to the Lighting and compare both of these to how it looks in Halo Infinite. Also, keep in mind that ’The Last of Us: Part 2’ and ‘Ghost of Tsushima’ are PS4 games, ‘Halo Infinite’ is a next-gen title.

Long story short, when you develop a Game, you have to develop it on the weakest common denominator and then let the more powerful hardware run that same Game at a higher Resolution and Frame-Rate.

Otherwise, if you develop the Lighting and the Physics on a higher-end Platform, porting that down is going to be incredibly difficult. For example, ‘Halo Infinite’ was developed on the Xbox One and then ported onto the Xbox One X, the Series X and then onto PC.

For a PS4 Game, ‘The Last of Us: Part 2’ looked truly next-gen (Source: Sony).

For a PS4 Game, ‘The Last of Us: Part 2’ looked truly next-gen (Source: Sony).

Luckily, Microsoft has also shown a few Games developed on the Series X, which would not work on the Xbox One at all, just the Series X and PC.  Those games were the new ‘Fable’, ‘State of Decay 3’, ‘Forza Motorsport 8’ and a few more. Finally, these definitely looked like next-gen Games.  Unfortunately, Microsoft hasn’t said when we’ll get these Games, but it seems like they will all come out after those first two years as again, these Games will now be “Exclusives” rather than Games that also work on the Xbox One series, in order to take full advantage of the hardware inside the Series X. 

So, at launch, cross platform Games will look better on the Xbox One X, while Exclusives will look better on the PS5 as the Xbox won’t actually have any until two years after launch. We don’t yet know to what extent cross platform Games run better on the Series X just yet, this is because the PS5 does indeed have that much faster SSD. If we take a look at ‘Star Citizen’, a Game that is actually a PC Exclusive, it has been fully optimised with SSD’s in mind and if you have an m.2 Flash Storage Module for example, that game can run at up to 20 FPS higher than if you were running the same Game, on the same platform, with the same specs, but on a HDD.

The speed difference between a HDD and a standard 2GB/s m.2 Flash Module is a factor of 40x. The speed difference between the PS5’s SSD and the Xbox SSD is only about 2x. This is not enough to give us 20 FPS or anything like that on the PS5, but likely something that can make this Performance gap between these two Consoles, look smaller.

Special Features

So what about the Special Features? Is there anything unique in terms of each Console that might make you pick one, over the other? Well, the Controllers are a pretty big difference here. 

The Xbox Series X Controller looks almost identical to the Xbox One X Controller, which is not necessarily a bad thing as that Controller was regarded by many as the best Controller on the market. This has been improved this time by adding a Dynamic Latency Input which is supposed to significantly reduce the Input Lag, making this Controller likely the best  choice if you’re into competitive gaming. 

Microsoft have very much taken the approach of ‘If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it’.

Microsoft have very much taken the approach of ‘If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it’.

However, the PS5’s Controller is a complete redesign. Not only that, but it also implements a Touch-Bar and Haptics Support similar to what we have on modern Smartphones, just on steroids. This will give you the ability to feel different surfaces in a Game, I’m really curious to see how well it works.

The Xbox Series X though, has a massive advantage in terms of Backwards Compatibility. It allows you to play Xbox One, Xbox 360 and even original Xbox Games, while the PS5 will only allow you to play PS4 games with the DualShock 4. Also, the Xbox does feature the Xbox Game Pass, which lets you play a selection of Games via a monthly subscription, which is pretty amazing if you just want to try some Games out. Sony does have PlayStation Now, which is also a monthly subscription, but this one streams Games rather than downloading them, so the quality is affected here. Some Games can indeed be downloaded though, but only a few. 

However, one big advantage to the PlayStation could be the new 3D Audio Engine. This is a hardware-based engine, which will immerse you significantly more into a Game by giving you 7.1 Surround Sound in all PS5 Games. 

Price 

And finally, let’s talk about the price. So the prices have not been revealed as of yet, which means that the prices that I’m going to give you are based on leaks from some reliable sources. 

The PS5 is said to start at $400 for the Digital Version and $500 for the Disk Version. The Xbox Series X is said to start at $500, but we’ve also seen reports that Microsoft will also launch another Xbox, the Xbox Series S, which would start at around $300. However, the Series S will be considerably less powerful than the Xbox Series X, whereas both versions of the PS5 are identical in Performance. 

PS5 (2020) – 25 Things You Didn’t Know!

INTRO 

The Playstation 5 has finally been revealed by Sony! Well, some of it, anyway. Mark Cerny, the lead system architect for both the PS4 and the PS5, has gone on stage for almost an entire hour and has talked very in-depth, just the way we like it, about all the main specification of the PS5. So, without any further ado, here are 25 interesting facts that you might not have known about the PS5!

1) World’s Fastest SSD

At Number One, the PS4 came with a traditional HDD. The PS5 now comes with an SSD. But this is not your usual SSD. This is actually a custom SSD module made by Sony, that is ridiculously fast. It turns out that this SSD module that Sony custom made for the PS5 is actually the fastest SSD module in the world right now!

2) 110 Times Faster

Ok, but how fast is this internal storage of the PS5? The PS4 had a traditional HDD, that had around 50MB/s transfer speeds. The PS5 now uses this brand new Custom SSD, which as transfer speeds of 5.5GB/s (or 5500MB/s), which makes it 110 times faster! 

A top of the line MacBook Pro, iMac Pro or Mac Pro, which are known to have the fastest SSD modules on the planet right now, have around 3.5GB/s transfer speeds. The PS5 has 5.5 GB/s, a massive improvement over even the fastest SSD modules out right now. But, how is this even possible? Well, the PS5 is now taking full use of the brand new PCIe 4 standard, this is how it can achieve these incredible speeds.

3) Mark Cerny

The guy that was on the stage and talked about the specs of the PS5 and how the entire system works, is none other than Mark Cerny himself. Mark Cerny was the lead system architect for the PS4. He was the main reason as to why the PS4 was so successful when compared to the PS3. The PS3 had this very complex architecture with the Cell Processor, that developers found extremely difficult to develop games for. 

The PS4 on the other hand, not only had significantly more power than even its competitor, the Xbox One, but it had a more traditional PC like architecture and it was so much easier for developers to take full advantage of it. All of this was thanks to Mark Cerny.

He was not only responsible for the PS4’s success, he was also heavily involved in the development of some very well known 1st party PS4 titles, such as Ratchet and Clank, Crash Bandicoot, Uncharted Drake’s Fortune, God of War 3, Killzone 3, Knack, The Last Guardian, Knack 2, Spider-Man, Death Stranding and so many more.  Not only that, but as an American, he’s also fluent in Japanese and moved to Japan in the 80’s and 90’s.  

He’s given tours of their game development studios to Steven Spielberg and Michael Jackson and he’s well known for developing the “Cerny Method’, this is where developers try to complete just a small portion of the game in pre-production fully and from there they can decide if the whole game is worth taking any further. Now, Mark Cerny has also been directly involved with the PS5’s development by being the lead system architect.

4) Massive Freedom for Developers

Since this new SSD is so insanely fast, it brings some massive freedom for developers. For example, because of how slow the HDD was, in some cases developers had to implement a lift, or a very long staircase, or a subway system or something that would allow the game to load a new part of the world or scene in the background. Masking loading times with a subway ride would no longer be required so developers can now design their games much more freely.

5) SSD as RAM 

We knew it was going to be fast, but this was totally unprecedented.

We knew it was going to be fast, but this was totally unprecedented.

Because of that insane 5.5GB/s speed, the PS5 can actually use the SSD as RAM (to some extent) and offload some of the assets onto it, keeping the RAM free for the most important assets.  But, how much faster is the actual RAM?

Well, DDR1 memory at 266MHz is around 2.1GBs. DDR2 Memory at 533MHz is 4.2GB/s. DDR3 memory at 1066MHz is 8.5GB/s and DDR4 memory at 2133MHz is 17GB/s. So this SSD, while still nowhere near the speed of RAM, is still close in performance to DDR3 memory, which is still very impressive. 

6) Kraken Compressions

Mark Cerny did mention that they’re using something called Kraken Compression to reduce the size of the games by 10%. Not only that, but he also mentioned, last year, that the PS5 will allow you to install or uninstall specific portions of the game. For example, in a game like Modern Warfare, you will be able to just install the campaign and then uninstall it once you’ve finished playing it, then you can install the Multiplayer and so on. This will save a ton of space by letting the user install just what he or she wants, in a game. 

7) SSD Size 

We know that this SSD is fast but how big is it? Well, Mark Cerny hasn’t really said that but, in a slide from yesterday’s livestream, he did mention 825GB as an example for the size. This points to a 1TB SSD, but the usable capacity for developers would indeed be smaller, at around 825GB, due to formatting and the space that the OS will require. 

8) SSD Expansion

The good news is that you will actually be able to expand  this 1TB of internal storage in a pretty genius way. While Microsoft will be selling their own 1TB Proprietary SSD modules for the Xbox Series X, Sony will actually allow you to install any m.2 Drive that you can buy off of Amazon. However, they will need to be at least as fast as the internal storage, and they will need to be PCIe 4 modules. At the moment, there are a few of these drives but the speed varies. Mark Cerny did mention that we should wait until manufacturers start producing these drives, but once they do, you would be able to buy any 3rd party drive as long as it matches the 5.5GB/s speed of the PS5 SSD.

9) Weaker than Xbox Series X?

Speaking of the Xbox Series X, now that we know the GPU power of the PS5 (10.28 TFLOPS), it seems like it is noticeably weaker than the Xbox Series X (12 TFLOPS). However, that might not necessarily be the case, or at least not to the extent that it seems. 

10) CU & Clock-Speeds 

The PS5 has 36 CU’s (compute units) at 2.23GHz. The Xbox Series X has 52CU at 1.82 GHz. Mark Cerny has said that he always prefers a higher clock speed, reason why they decided to go for a lower number of CU, but at the much higher clock speed. We do believe that he does have a very valid point here. 

Think of CU as the cores of a CPU, as an analogy. While some applications, like 3D rendering for example, do prefer a high number of cores at a lower clock speed, games in general prefer a lower number of cores but at a much higher clock speed. Usually games don’t need more than 4 cores. Now this is a GPU not a CPU, so things are quite a bit different but, depending on how the games are optimised, a higher clock speed might be preferred in most cases, to a higher number of compute units. So, while the Xbox Series X does look much more powerful, the gap might be much smaller than it looks. 

11) Xbox Series X SSD

Will less, turn out to be more?

Will less, turn out to be more?

Also, the SSD speed for the Xbox Series X is 2.4GB/s which while still fast, the PS5 has more than twice the speed in their SSD, which could not only mean that games will load noticeably faster on the PS5 but like we mentioned before, developers can also use the SSD on the PS5 as RAM, to some extent. This is quite a bit more difficult to do on the Xbox. 

12) Faster CPU 

CPU wise, we finally know the frequency. We now have an AMD CPU, a Ryzen 3rd gen, based on AMD’s Zen 2 x86-64 architecture. Also, we have 8 cores at 3.5GHz. While this is a pretty big improvement over the PS4’s 1.6GHz 8-core AMD Jaguar processor, the Xbox Series X does indeed have a clear advantage in the CPU department, thanks to a 3.8GHz processor, compared to 3.5GHz on the PS5. 

13) RDNA2 

But, the PS5 does indeed come with AMD’s RDNA 2 architecture (same as the Xbox), which isn’t even out yet for PC. This is AMD’s most advanced GPU architecture, which should hit stores by the end of this year. 

14) Legacy Modes 

Something pretty awesome in terms of the PS5, are the Legacy Modes. Essentially, the PS5’s GPU can turn off some of the Compute Units and the Clock Speeds, in order to make it essentially identical to a PS4 & PS4 Pro. This means that many PS4 games will be natively supported at launch.

15) Backwards Compatibility 

Speaking of this, Mark Cerny said that they tested the top 100 PS4 games and most of them were playable on the PS5, at launch. Without any updates at all required by the developers. That is great, however it does seem like not all the games will work, but a good majority of them should. Of course, if developers do release updates to their games, PS4 games will run at an even higher Resolution and Frame-Rate on the PS5 hardware. 

16) Ray Tracing

Just one example of what RTX will bring to Next-Gen Consoles.

Just one example of what RTX will bring to Next-Gen Consoles.

Probably one of the biggest new features of the PS5 will be Ray-Tracing. Long story short, this will allow for some significantly improved Lightning, Shadows, Reflections and even Audio will be ray-traced. All of this would make the Graphics and the sound look way more realistic than anything we’ve seen up until this point. 

17) Video Memory 

Video Memory is also a very important aspect of the next generation of consoles. Mark Cerny has now confirmed that the PS5 will come with 16GB of GDDR6 memory, up from the 8GB of GDDR5 memory that we had on the PS4. Some of this is used for the OS as RAM, some for games and we’ll go through this and how it comes with the Xbox Series X, in a future video. Lots of interesting things to cover there so do make sure that you’re subscribed. 

18) Memory Bandwidth 

Aside from the amount of Video Memory itself, the Memory Bandwidth is also extremely important. We now have 448GB/s of bandwidth, up from 176GB/s, which is a gigantic upgrade. 

19) Advanced API’s and Tools

Sony will be giving developers a few API’s and tools that will make a big impact on their games. We have a new Geometry Engine, we have Primitive Shaders, which are essentially a heavily improved version of the Shaders that we have now. Long story short, a higher resolution on 3D textures (rocks and bumps in roads etc). These will look much more realistic on the PS5. Primitive Shaders aren’t something that developers need to use out of the gate, but if they choose to, they can take full advantage of them and heavily improve the realism in games. 

20) Cooling System 

Now, one of the mean new features of the PS5, will be its cooling system. We’ve all seen those insane looking Dev-Kits, we were actually the first to reveal the 1st image of an actual Dev-Kit that got sent to us. 

21) Design

Mark Cerny did say that they have made a very special cooling system, and thanks to the many reports that we’ve seen that claimed that the cooling system is an extremely expensive component for Sony, it is quite likely we would see a design similar to the DevKit or at least the 2nd leak that we got. This could quite possibly be something that implements a V-shaped cooling system and still has a modern design.

22) Tempest Engine 

We got a taste of 3D Audio with the PS4, but Sony are really pushing the boat out for the PS5

We got a taste of 3D Audio with the PS4, but Sony are really pushing the boat out for the PS5

Mark Cerny did indeed talk a lot about their new Tempest Engine. Essentially, what this is, is a single Compute Unit dedicated for the new Audio Engine. We would be getting 3D Audio at the hardware level. This means, that no matter what headphones you have, you would be getting 3D audio, just like you used to on the PS4 with Sony’s 1st party 3D headphones. Not only that, but Sony is currently working on optimising the Tempest Engine for speakers as well as sound-bars, in order to be able to provide 3D audio, even if you’re not wearing headphones. This is unfortunately much more difficult to do, but to some extent at least, it is doable. 

23) Release Date 

If you’re wondering when the PS5 is getting released, this will indeed be by the end of the year. We have had many leaks saying that the actual release date would be in mid-November. 

24) Price

Price-wise Sony hasn’t said anything about the PS5, but this is expected to cost $500 in the US.

25) Selling at a Loss 

However, because of the sheer amount of high end components that Sony is packing into the PS5, we’ve seen reports that they are really struggling with the price. In fact, Sony might even have to sell the PS5 at a loss at first, in order to sell it at that $500 price point that many consumers would buy. They will be making their revenue back from the actual sales of games but, when it comes to the actual hardware, they might be at a loss.

PS5 & Xbox Series X – The Next Generation of Games!

Welcome back to the ultimate comparison between the PS5 and the Xbox Series X, based on everything that we know so far. We uploaded PART 1 of this comparison back in January. In that video, we talked about the CPU differences, the GPU, the Resolution, the Frame-Rate and the in-game Graphics.

This is PART 2 of that comparison, and here we will be covering the RAM, the SSD  and any Special Features that both of these consoles will come with, alongside any other recent leaks since our last video.

It seems like the Xbox Series X will be a bit more powerful than the PS5. The CPU will be pretty much identical between the two, but the GPU will be slightly more powerful on the Xbox. The Series X would have around 12.2 TFLOPS of raw GPU performance, compared to around 9.2 TFLOPS on the PS5. These are the calculations that DigitalFoundry made based on the recent AMD APU leaks from a few weeks prior, this will very likely be the case with the final unit. 

However, this is mostly because Microsoft will have two models of the Xbox, the low-end ‘Lockhart’ and the high-end ‘Scarlett’ (which will be more expensive than the PS5).

RAM

The Xbox Series X may dedicate more of its RAM to the OS than the PS5, but there’s still plenty left for developers to use.

The Xbox Series X may dedicate more of its RAM to the OS than the PS5, but there’s still plenty left for developers to use.

Unlike PC’s where we have separate Video Memory (GDDR) and System Memory (DDR), consoles only have Video Memory, which the Operating System (OS) gets to use a chunk of. For example, on the PS4 Pro, we have 8GB of GDDR5 memory, out of which only 1GB is allocated to the OS, while the remaining 7GB are used by games. On the Xbox One X, we have 12GB of GDDR5 memory, out of which 3GB are used for the OS and 9GB are usable by developers, in games. When it comes to next-gen, both the PS5 and the Xbox Series X are said to come with 24GB of GDDR6 memory. 

When it comes to how much of this 24GB of GDDR5 memory would be dedicated to the OS, and how much can actually be used by developers, we don’t yet know. It really depends on how both companies approach their new OS on the next-gen consoles. If both companies follow a similar approach to the PS4 and the Xbox One, then Sony should have less memory dedicated to the OS, compared to Microsoft. So developers should have more to play with, in terms of video memory, with the PS5. 

In terms of the bandwidth, the Xbox Series X is said to have 560GB/s vs around 512GB/s on the PS5. 

Storage

Moving on to the storage, this will actually be the third massive change that the next-gen consoles will be getting, aside from the new CPU and GPU.

The current generation of consoles use plain old HDD’s. Yes, 5400RPM Hard-Drives, which we don’t really even see in laptops anymore, unless you’re looking at the lowest entry models. The HDD inside the current generation consoles only reach speeds of around 50-75MB/s, which is very slow. SSD’s, on the other hand, can reach speeds of up to 550MB/s but are limited by the SATA connector. While m.2 based Flash Storage can reach speeds of more than 3500MB/s. 

Luckily, both Sony & Microsoft have confirmed that the next-gen consoles will both be using Flash Storage. Yes, not even SATA based SSD’s, but m.2 based Flash modules that can reach some insane speeds.

Mark Cerny, the Lead System Architect for the PS5, said in a recent interview with ‘The Wired’, that the PS5 will have a storage module that has higher bandwidth than any SSD’s available on PC’s at the moment, which is very interesting. In that famous Spider-Man game demo, a scene that took 15 seconds to load on a PS4 Pro, only took 0.8 seconds with the PS5’s new storage (18.75 times faster). However, if we take the PS4 Pro’s HDD speed, which is about 75MB/s, and multiply that by 18.75, we get 1406MB/s. This is much faster than a SATA based SSD, so this is indeed an NVMe Flash Module, but nowhere near as fast as other flash modules that can reach speeds of over 3500MB/s. Still, it’s a massive improvement over what we currently have now.

Credit: Takashi Mochizuki

Credit: Takashi Mochizuki

In another Spider-Man demo, Sony showed how fast you can actually swing through New York on the PS5 version of the game compared to the PS4 Pro version of the game. The PS4 Pro version ends up freezing once Spidey reaches a certain speed as the HDD simply cannot load the game assets fast enough, while the PS5’s Flash module has zero problems. So, with this new type of storage, not only will the games load up pretty much instantly, you will also be able to achieve much higher speeds in games where…you know…speed is important. For example, games such as Gran Turismo, Wipeout, or any other games that feature a ton of fast moving scenes, will feel so much more immersive with the next-gen consoles. Especially once you keep in mind that 60fps would be the standard with the next gen consoles and both the PS5 and the Xbox Series X will also support 120Hz output. 

We have seen a few reports that Samsung would be supplying Sony with their NVMe drives, to be used in the PS5.  Samsung did have an internal presentation and one slide did get leaked. We can see that they’re teasing their new generation of NVMe Flash modules that would apparently be used in 2020 consoles. We can also see how the system boot time drops from 49 seconds to around 9 seconds, this would be 5.44 times faster, which looks to be quite low for a Flash module.

So then why did Sony say that their drivers will have a higher bandwidth than SSD’s modules in PC’s today? Well, they were either referring to SATA based SSD where the bandwidth is indeed limited by the SATA connector or they might have been referring to the fact that their drivers would be using PCIe 4.0. This is something that AMD’s current Zen 2 platform supports and that’s where we’ve also first seen PCIe 4 introduced to the market.

Microsoft will also be doing something similar, they talked about this when they first unveiled Project Scarlett.  It will feature custom made Flash storage, something miles over what we currently have. A recent leak gives us a bit more insight into the Xbox Series X’s Flash module. A former Phison employee posted a description of his former job, on LinkedIn and it seems like we was working on a specific DRAM-less controller for the Flash module inside the Xbox Series X.

Check out @zoneofconcepts on Instagram for more behind the scenes content on our videos.

Check out @zoneofconcepts on Instagram for more behind the scenes content on our videos.

Judging by these specs, the Xbox Series X will only be able to achieve PCIe 3.0 speeds, rather than the 4.0 speeds that Sony are working towards. But, it’s extremely unlikely that Sony will be using drives with read speeds of 6500MB. So even if Sony will indeed support higher bandwidth storage, the Flash modules inside both the PS5 and the Xbox Series X will likely be very similar. 

Something pretty cool that you’ll be able to do storage-wise on the PS5, is that you will be able to uninstall certain aspects of the game. So games will be made in such a way so that if you want to only install the campaign, you can do that and then once you’ve finished it, you can uninstall it and install the multiplayer part of the game. This will let you save up a ton of storage. Not only that, but the games themselves will actually occupy less. On the current generation of consoles, because of how slow the HDD’s are, a lot of the games actually had to store multiple copies of textures so that the HDD could load the data from them faster. This won’t be required anymore, with the next gen consoles and so games, at least at launch, will occupy less.

We’ve heard a lot about Sony’s production costs and how material scarcity may end up affecting the RRP, what price do you think the PS5 will launch at?

We’ve heard a lot about Sony’s production costs and how material scarcity may end up affecting the RRP, what price do you think the PS5 will launch at?

And speaking of launch, PSErebus (a leaker who’s been very accurate in the past) stated that the PS5 will come with a 2TB SSD and a retail price of $500, 500 euros or £450. That’s pretty impressive! If Sony does indeed ship the PS5 with 2TB of storage, then this would be the dream. We don’t know anything in terms of the storage on the Xbox Series X just yet, but considering that the Series X is expected to cost more, around $600 for the high-end model, it should come with at least as much storage as the PS5 does.

Sony has confirmed that PS5 games will ship on new 100GB Blu-Ray disks and yes, for those of you who are wondering, Blu-Ray drivers are much slower than even a regular HDD, with read speeds of just around 25MB/s. So, with the PS5 and Xbox Series X, the games would not be run from the Blu-Ray disks anymore The only use case for the Blu-Ray disks would be to copy the game direct to your console, as opposed to downloading it from the online store. This is useful if your internet connection is slow and you will also be able to sell the games this way. The Blu-Ray drive will still be required to be inserted into the console, for licensing purposes. 

Since the next-gen consoles will rely so much on the internal storage, even games will make full use of this faster storage by enabling a seamless open-world with no loading times at all,  both consoles may heavily limit the use of external storage use. At the moment, you can plug in an external HDD or SSD and expand the internal storage that way. It’s a pretty easy and straight-forward process.  However, with next-gen, it’s very likely that we would either have First-Party storage modules, or the Third-Party external storage options would need to surpass a certain speed threshold in order for them to be used. Our guess is that only external SSD and m.2 drives will be usable.

Special Features

Finally, the last thing that we want to cover here, is the special features that both of these consoles will have.

RTX is going to be a real game-changer for next-gen consoles and thankfully, it will be on both.

RTX is going to be a real game-changer for next-gen consoles and thankfully, it will be on both.

Both Sony and Microsoft have confirmed that the next gen consoles will support hardware based Ray-Tracing. In case you don’t know that Ray-Tracing is, it is pretty much the key selling feature of Nvidia’s RTX series of GPU’s. Real-Time Ray tracing is the most realistic way of casting shadows and reflections in games. This is because, unlike regular reflection and shadow mapping which are always fixed, Ray Tracing involves each light ray being individually cast and reflected to light up a scene, resulting in extremely photo-realistic environments. This might not sound like much but it will make a massive difference in-game.

Additionally, each of the consoles will have some unique features to them. The Xbox Series X will have Microsoft’s Project xCloud, which will essentially turn your Xbox into a server that you’ll be able to access from pretty much any device and play your games, a little like Playstation Remote. Another new feature of the Xbox will be a Windows Mode, according to some recent leaks. This would allow you to access Steam and the Epic Games Store and play PC games directly from there. As Mouse & Keyboard are fully supported, the Xbox Series X will be closer to a PC than a console.  Also, Microsoft has already confirmed that all the Series X “Exclusives” will also work on PC, so the Series X won’t have any console exclusives games. That’s pretty much it in terms of the Xbox. Microsoft hasn’t really talked about any other new and exclusive features. On the PS5 side however, we do get quite a few unique features.

We can already get 3D Audio on the PS4, how much better will it be on the PS5?

We can already get 3D Audio on the PS4, how much better will it be on the PS5?

For one, Sony has teased 3D Audio quite a lot. They said that this will make a massive difference as to how games are perceived and that the PS5 will even have a hardware based 3D Audio Chip that will handle all the 3D Audio processing. Now, there are a few First-Party headphones from Sony,  which do support 3D audio on the PS4 already and we happen to own a pair. They’re very good, but from the looks of it, this 3D Audio chip should take audio to the next level. Something else that Sony will have is next-gen haptics on the controller itself. Sony has already confirmed that the haptics in the new controller will be so good, that you will be able to feel the surface that a car in a game is driving on. So you will be able to feel the difference between asphalt, dirt, grass and so on. And lastly, the PS5 will support both the current PSVR as well as the upcoming PSVR 2. Microsoft has already confirmed that they won’t be doing a VR headset for the Xbox Series X anytime soon, as Phil Spencer himself, the head of Xbox, said - “nobody’s asking for VR”. 

One last key thing to mention here is that both the PS5 and the Xbox Series X will support Backwards Compatibility in games. The PS5 supporting PS4 games with rumors of this going all of the way back to the PS1. While the Xbox Series X will support Xbox One games as well as Xbox 360 games.

Conclusion

In the end, both consoles are going to be light years ahead of even the PS4 Pro and the Xbox One X so no matter which one you get, you’ll be extremely happy. The Xbox will offer slightly better specs and PC game compatibility, while the PS5 will offer things such as Haptic Rumble on the controller and VR support. Also, Microsoft will be offering two models of the Xbox, a low-end and a high-end, while Sony will only offer one, the PS5. 

Phil Spencer might think the console war with Sony is over, but who’s he kidding? 

Which one are you getting?