PlayStation 4 v Xbox One, who will win?

Twenty years ago, when 3D gaming was in its infancy, competing console manufacturers had no qualms about committing infanticide to gain a competitive edge. By the late 90s three Japanese manufacturers; Sony, Nintendo and Sega were the remaining survivors, the Yakuza’s of the now multi-billion dollar gaming industry.  But the good times hit an abrupt end in the early 2000s when Microsoft shocked the gaming community by joining the console wars with the unveiling of their mighty secret weapon, Xbox…

War games

…Since its inception in 2001, Xbox drove Sega to extinction and nearly buried Nintendo, leaving the defiant PlayStation still standing, like sworn enemies they've been slugging out it ever since. This battle between East and West is synonymous with the arms race of the Cold War, only difference is now the challenge is to develop the meanest gaming consoles instead of weapons of mass destruction.  The rivalry has seen the CPUs of these ‘toys’ become so advanced they could easily launch any of the Cold War nuclear missiles. Last week at Gamescom 2013 in Germany, Sony and Microsoft announced the release dates of yet more powerful consoles, the Xbox One and PS4 respectively. So which of these incredible machines will win this round?

Inside PlayStation 4

PS4 will have an 8-core AMD Jaguar and an AMD Radeon GPU with 1.152 shaders. Its disc tray takes both Blu-ray and DVD. It will run on an impressive 8GB of RAM and have a whopping 500GB hard drive plus cloud saving capabilities. It can emit Ethernet, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.1 frequencies. The ports take USB 3.0 HDMI flash drives and joysticks have been upgraded to a Dualshock 4, Eye†, Move ‡. Its second screen can either be a PS Vita, tablets or smartphones with PS4 apps. Unfortunately it is backwards compatible with selected PS3 games but its power supply will be internal.

Uncovering Xbox One

Xbox One will also have an 8-core AMD Jaguar but its AMD Radeon GPU has 768 shaders. You can pop in Blu-rays and DVDs and its ports, memory, storage and internet capabilities are exactly the same as its rival. It does have Ethernet and Wi-Fi but no Bluetooth connectivity. SmartGlass app for tablets and smartphones can serve as a second screen. It’s not backwards compatible with any Xbox games which is a big disappointment and it will use a bulky external power brick.

Verdict

At $399 (about R4K) PS4 is merely $100 cheaper than Xbox One. PS4 will launch globally in November while Xbox One is delayed until 2014, so what? Remember, PS3 launched before the Xbox 360 but many units were recalled due to malfunctioning Blu-ray lasers. So until they’re official launch dates, nobody can confidently say which is more superior because it looks like they’re evenly matched. Moreover, the fact that Microsoft named their 3^rd generation console Xbox One could be a cheeky hint that their only getting started. This war is going to be ugly.