Which Console Should I Buy?
We’re coming up on the year anniversary of the Xbox One and PS4, and a lot has happened since last November. They’ve been around long enough for Sony and Microsoft to kit out their consoles with software updates, new features and other unique selling points. Of course, there have been a fair few new games released since then too, with some of the highlights including Destiny, Alien Isolation and Forza Horizon 2.The PS4 is proving to be the people’s favourite, with stock shortages still a regular occurance and UK sales alone topping the 1 million mark. But Microsoft is fighting back, with the Kinect-free Xbox One and an entourage of incoming game hardware bundles, including £329 deals for games like Sunset Overdrive.
Overall, the Xbox One is a more rounded entertainment system, but it’s all down to your personal preferences. The decision is far from clear cut.
To help you work out which console is right for you, we’ve compared each aspect of the console duo, so you can make an informed decision in your Xbox One vs PS4 debate.
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Xbox One vs PS4 – Price
A year into the lifecycle of both the Xbox One and PS4, the two consoles have pretty much reached a pricing stalemate. When the Xbox One was launched it was a whopping £80 more expensive than the PS4, due to the fact you were forced to purchase the Kinect pre-packaged with it.However, back in May, Microsoft introduced a Kinect-free Xbox One option for the same price as the PS4 - £349.99. This help boost sales and made it a much more viable choice for those who couldn’t afford to spend over £400 on a new console.
The issues plaguing the Xbox One at launch have also been mostly removed. You no longer need an Xbox Live Gold subscription to access entertainment services like Netflix, Amazon Prime Instant Video or the One Guide.
We’ve made a list of all the current and upcoming console hardware bundles you can purchase with their RRPs. Of course, if you shop around a bit, you can pick up console bundles for quite a bit cheaper, so it’s worth spending some time researching if you want a bargain.
Prices are based on the RRP of what was available at the time of writing
Xbox One vs Sony PS4 – Design
PS4 – Slanted design, 2.8kg
In terms of design the Xbox One and PS4 are completely different prospects.
Microsoft’s Xbox One is far, far larger – an imposing black monolith of the living room. The PS4 is sleeker, slimmer and less likely to dominate your under-TV space.
Both keep the severe, black and masculine style that’s common to games consoles, though.
The Xbox One is 10 per cent larger than its predecessor, the Xbox 360. It weighs around the same as the last console, though, at roughly 3kg. The PS4 is only marginally lighter, at 2.8kg. This shouldn’t come as a great surprise, though, as they both have to fit in similar components.
Why the extra size in the Xbox One? It’s likely that part of the internal volume of the Xbox One’s case is there to aid cooling.
Overheating was a significant problem in the Xbox 360, responsible for causing many of the red ring issues that plagued the console’s earlier years.
We'd rather have the smaller PS4 in our living rooms, but the Xbox One may end up being more reliable in the long term thanks to that extra cooling. We've gone a year now though and neither console appears to have any major hardware issues which is great news for consumers.
This picture demonstrates the size difference very well.
PS4 vs Xbox One - Interface
Here's a quick look at what the interfaces of the Xbox One and PS4 look like in use:
Xbox One
The look of the Xbox One software is heavily inspired by elements of Windows Phone and Windows 8. Microsoft clearly wanted to reach a certain level of parity between its platforms.
It has a modern look, but many people have criticised the software for its glitchiness and bouts of odd behaviour. At present it doesn't quite feel right - it's something that Microsoft is likely to address in time, but is something to consider if you want to do more than just play disc-based games on your console.
The PS4 has a simpler, somewhat less ambitious user interface. As it leaves you scrolling in just one direction most of the time, we find it a more intuitive experience than the Xbox One's software.
There is room for improvement, though. For example at present you can't bring out the Netflix app to the top 'recently used' layer of the UI, even though it's a PS4 favourite for many people.
PS4 vs Xbox One - Which is more powerful?
If you're a hardcore gamer, there's a good chance you care about how your games look. And that's all down to the power a console has on tap. Which of the new consoles is more powerful? The simple answer is the PS4. We'll look deeper into the technical reasons why in a minute.
What this means in practice right now is that some cross-platform games, such as Battlefield 4, run at a lower resolution on the Xbox One than they do on the PS4. This may equalise over the life of the consoles as developers learn more about each consoles, but the PS4 definitely has a slight edge at launch.
Xbox One vs PS4 – CPU
Xbox One – AMD 8-core Jaguar CPUPS4 - AMD 8-core Jaguar CPU
The Xbox One and PS4 use extremely similar CPUs made by AMD. Both use an APU setup, which links together both CPU and GPU into one package.
The CPUs are 8–core chips using ‘Jaguar’ cores – a term picked by their maker AMD to denote their chipset generation. The Xbox One runs at 1.75GHz, which was bumped-up from their original spec of 1.6GHz. Sony's runs slightly cooler at 1.6GHz, which may make some of you think the Xbox One is more powerful. This is not the case. The power of the GPU is much more important here.
PS4 vs Xbox One – GPU and RAM
Xbox One - Comparable to Radeon HD 7000-series, 8GB DDR3 RAM and 32MB eSRAMPS4 - Comparable to Radeon HD 7000-series, 8GB GDDR5 RAM
The PS4 and Xbox One both use an AMD GPU.
At first glance it seems like their GPUs may be identical, but they are not. On paper the PS4 graphics processor is 50 per cent more powerful, with 1,152 shader processors against the Xbox One’s 768. Realising that this sounded pretty bad, Microsoft worked on upping the One's power a bit and on 2 August announced that its GPU speed from 800MHz to 853MHz. It's a nice tweak for the tech heads, but doesn't see the Xbox One match up to the PS4.
Having extra processing power will let the PS4 perform more tasks simultaneously – which should in theory allow for more impressive visual effects.
A more impressive GPU is matched with more impressive-sounding RAM. The PS4 uses GDDR5 RAM, while the Xbox One has more conventional DDR3 memory – and both have 8GB of the stuff.
GDDR5 has much higher bandwidth than DDR3, designed for intensive applications such as in graphics cards, while DDR3 is ‘bog standard’ system memory.
If DDR3 was all the Xbox One had, it’d be in serious trouble. But it also has an eSRAM buffer that should help to bridge the 100GB/sec bandwidth gap between the two RAM types. It has a 32MB chunk of eSRAM that will function as a frame buffer.
The news that the Sony PS4 is (almost) categorically more powerful than the Xbox One is one of the reasons why the PS4 pre-order sold out before the Xbox One's.
With a more powerful GPU and, seemingly, faster memory, the PS4 is clearly out in front on graphical specs.
But how do they pan out compared to PC graphics cards? The Xbox One is said to be on-par with a Radeon 7790, the PS4 a Radeon 7870. Unless you're a PC gamer, that's really not going to mean much.
Let's reduce it to cold hard cash. That the Radeon 7790 costs around £100 and the Radeon 7870 £150 tells you all you need to know.
However, EA’s chief technology officer Rajat Teneja claims that the consoles are a whole generation ahead of the top-end PCs on the market. To some that’ll seem like a ridiculous statement when top-end gaming PCs cost thousands of pounds, and these consoles will cost a few hundred.
What’s less contentious is that the Xbox One and PS4 are around 8-10 times as powerful as the previous-gen Xbox 360 and PS3. However, let’s not forget that an increase in graphical fidelity requires an exponential increase in power – so we won’t be looking at games that look 8-10 times as good.
Xbox One vs PS4 – Graphics
One of the main reason core gamers have chosen to favour the PS4 over the Xbox One is its categorically better graphics hardware. But does it translate to better graphics in games? In quite a few cases it does. It’s not necessarily a case of missing effects, less complicated shadows and other such obvious cut-backs, but output resolution. With many games, the PS4 renders at a slightly higher resolution than the Xbox One.
Here are some of the examples we know about so far:
If you have a good 1080p TV, you will be able to see the difference if you get up close and personal. However, in the current wave of games there is not really a gigantic difference between the two.
Here are a few grabs from some of the many graphics comparisons that have been made online:
via IGN
Here it looks as though there's more detail in the Xbox One shot, however, the PS4 details are actually obscured by an environmental dust effect. The PS4 footage is also a lot higher-contrast, which is seen consistently in graphics comparisons.
via NowGamer
Once again, there's higher contrast in the PS4 footage, and there appears to be a bit more texture information in the road surface.
Digital Foundry performed a very interesting test to see the difference between the hardware available to the two consoles. It specced-out PCs with roughly the same GPU hardware as the Xbox One and PS4, and found that the PS4 performed roughly 24 per cent better in benchmarks.
via Digital Foundry
We’re already seeing the PS4 perform better in current games, and this is only likely to continue as more ‘new-gen’ titles are released.
Xbox One vs PS4 - Apps
The Xbox One currently has a slightly stronger apps line-up. It has access to services like 4oD that aren't currently available on PS4. It's all slowly equalling out, but the Xbox One is still the more dominent entertainment console.
What's also important to remember, if you're interested, is that the Xbox One now has a dedicated Plex app for Plex Pass users. That means anyone with a Plex Pass membership can stream all their media from their PC/Mac to their Xbox One. Official DNLA support is coming with a later update, but for those who are already Plex members, it's a quick and easy way to get your videos, photos and other content on your Xbox One.
Aside from Plex, here is what's available on both consoles so far:
If you want the game console to work as your primary entertainment station, the Xbox One is clearly superior at the moment.
