Console launches are strange these days. Conjecture and speculation run rampant from dingy basements and crowded bars to the highest halls of media. Opinions are hurled about recklessly by everyone from the most well-informed expert to the most wildly ignorant blowhard. Often the accuracy of both is roughly comparable. Until a console actually releases into the passionately energetic hands of the consumer, it’s often hard to separate truth from rumor and propaganda.
Here at Pixelated Geek, we know how much you care about your gaming. We also know how much you care about your dollar. So over the next month, we’ll be giving you detailed information on the ins-and-outs of the next-generation of gaming consoles, without any of the nonsense, bias, or personal motivation that you’ll find in a lot of alternative sources.
Despite what you may have heard down at your local game store, or on your social media site of choice, the showdown between the PlayStation 4 and the Xbox ONE is far from decided. There’s no question that Microsoft has taken some serious body-blows very early on, due largely to some very poor communication and unpopular – either revolutionary or selfish, depending on who you ask – policies.
But it’s hard to call the winner of a dogfight before it starts. Both companies are delivering a compelling product with a strong launch line-up to a hungry fan-base with a combination of devoted fans and a large percentage of undecided parties. It’s an atmosphere that could make for a very interesting holiday, especially with so many of the vital details – product scarcity, unforeseen hardware issues, hype vs. truth – still up in the air.
The intention of this article is to create a hub that will present the fairest, most honest, and most pertinently detailed analysis of the most important details, strengths, and weaknesses of the two opposing consoles. We’ll be updating this article over the course of the next month, and would greatly appreciate any points or feedback you feel motivated to present.
The Tech
The PlayStation 4 – Official FAQ
The Xbox 360 – Facts
Conclusion: Barring any unexpected over-or under-clocking, or any last-minute substitutions, the technical specifications certainly paint a one-sided picture. The PS4 has the advantage in every single aspect of processing of approximately 50%, the only exception to this massively lop-sided advantage is the relationship between the PS4 Eye Camera and the Kinect 2.0 and their relative processing software.
Significance: The over-whelming numerical differences in this category are likely nowhere near as important as you might think – it’s universally agreed that the PS2, which was technically inferior in most categories to the original Xbox, was a far more successful gaming system. Numbers can mean a lot, but that does not necessarily mean they will mean a lot, even when the processing advantage is as much as 50%. More telling, however, is the conventionality of the PlayStation 4’s architecture and OS in comparison to the more exotic structure and parallel OS philosophy behind the XBONE. Many developers have already let slip comparisons on ease of programming for both systems, which are almost universally in the PlayStation 4’s favor.
The Games
Hardware is nothing without software, and it will be the decisive factor in this console generation. As character models improve, and as physics simulations creep ever closer to reality, technical superiority becomes less and less important. To consumers with the resources to spend half a thousand dollars on a piece of entertainment technology, the difference of $100-200 will make a difference, but not an incredibly decisive one. Other factors may incrementally modify the demand for a console, but games sell systems.
Shared – 11 Retail
2K Games: NBA 2k14
Activision: Call of Duty: Ghosts, Skylanders: Swap Force
EA: Battlefield 4, FIFA 14, Madden 25, NBA LIVE 14, Need For Speed: Rivals
Ubisoft: Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, Just Dance 14
WB Games: LEGO Marvel Super Heroes
The PlayStation 4 – 15 Exclusive Titles (4 Retail, 8 PSN Download, 3 Free-2-Play)
Rovio (Retail): Angry Birds: Star Wars
Sony (PSN): Blacklight: Retribution, Contrast, DC Universe Online, Divekick, Flower, Playroom, Resogun, Sound Shapes, Super Motherload, Trine 2, Warframe
Sony (Retail): Killzone: Shadow Fall, Knack
WB Games (Retail): Injustice: Ultimate Edition,
The Xbox ONE – 11 Exclusive Titles (8 Retail, 3 XboxLIVE Download)
Capcom (Retail): Dead Rising 3
Majesco (Retail): Zumba Fitness: World Party
Microsoft (Retail): Crimson Dragon, Forza Motorsport 5, Ryse: Son of Rome, Xbox Fitness, Zoo Tycoon
Ubisoft (Retail): Fighter Within
Xbox LIVE (Download): Killer Instinct, LocoCycle, Powerstar Golf,
Significance: Both manufacturers have made clear statements about the strategies behind their console. Microsoft crafted a media-centric unit with a heavy emphasis on becoming the entertainment center of your house. Sony, on the other hand, made specific overtures to the hardcore gaming crowd, and has subsequently prioritized focusing the unit on gaming.
First-Party
The libraries illustrate that neither philosophy has been abandoned. Sony has delivered more titles for their launch, and their line-up is better catered to the core-gamer demographic. Their most casual launch title is the pack-in download that comes with the system, and is more of a tech demo than anything else. While Sony’s publishing house is only bringing two full retail titles to the launch, they’re both heavy hitters: Killzone is unquestionably one of the biggest successes of Sony’s last generation, and Knack is ideally positioned to appeal to the Jak & Daxter and Ratchet & Clank crowd, and crafted by an experienced and brilliant team under veteran lead Mark Cerny. Additionally, there are a lot of excellent download titles from indie veterans like Housemarque (Super Stardust, Dead Nation, Outland, and the stunning Contrast).
Microsoft has delivered a much broader range of experiences with heavy commitment to Kinect 2.0. Two of their launch retail boxes are broad-demographic casual entertainment titles, two are exercise titles, and so on. The releases that are targeted at the hardcore market are somewhat questionable. Ryse has had a long, and strange development cycle, and Crimson Dragon seems like a game out of time. Forza Motorsport 5 will be excellent, and its faithful following will doubtlessly eat it up, but for it to be the closest thing to a real Microsoft mascot released at launch is somewhat bewildering.
Third-Party
The third-party overlap, despite its identical nature, still bears a bit of discussion, and all for the fact that it’s simply excellent. It features some of the largest titles of the year, and that means that no matter which system you buy, you’ll have some excellent games to choose from. The undecided parties won’t find any help here, but can conversely take solace in the fact that great third-party support won’t make for a blatantly wrong answer.
The third-party titles specific to each console are somewhat less compelling. Angry Birds: Star Wars and Zumba: Fitness Party both unquestionably hold some universal appeal, but neither of them bring any significant weight to their respective launch line-up. Casual games as a rule work far better after a console has achieved widespread penetration of a market, they do not themselves serve to aid it. Dead Rising 3 and Injustice, however, are both wildly compelling titles, though the latter’s great current generation sales might not greatly benefit future sales. What is perhaps most interesting about the third-party lineup is that it is so even, and that there aren’t many standouts favoring one or the other.
Conclusion:
The libraries for both consoles is surprisingly compelling for a launch lineup, but predominantly because of the shared third-party titles. Ryse and Killzone: Shadow Fall are compelling enough, and Knack and Forza Motorsport 5 will certainly attract a portion of the audience, but there just isn’t much first-party muscle this time around. This feels like a draw, for now.
3. The Price
The Xbox ONE
United States – $499 set containing the Xbox ONE system with a 500GB HD, one Xbox ONE controller, one Xbox ONE Kinect 2.0, an Xbox ONE mono headset, a category 2 HDMI cable (3D, and 4k compliant), and an Xbox ONE AC cord. Two different packages will be released, the Xbox ONE and the Xbox ONE Day One edition, the difference being a small block of etched text between the controller’s thumb-stick: “Day One,” and an exclusive Day One achievement.
United Kingdom – £429.99 – Same as above with a copy of Call of Duty: Ghosts or FIFA 14 dependent on retailer and date.
Europe – €599.99 – Same as above with a copy of Call of Duty: Ghosts or FIFA 14 dependent on retailer and date. As it stands, this is the complete list of targeted countries.
The PlayStation 4
United States $399.99 – The PlayStation 4 will include a PlayStation 4 System, a DualShock 4 Controller, a Micro-USB charging cable for the DualShock 4, a category 2 HDMI cable (3D and 4K compliant), a mono Playstation chat headset, and an AC power cable.
United Kingdom £349.99 – as above.
Canada $399.99 – as above.
Europe €399.99 – as above with PlayStation camera, a second DualShock 4, and a copy of Killzone: Shadow Fall. The PlayStation 4 will launch in Japan, Hong Kong, Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, and Latin America within six months of release.
Conclusion: The price point is invariably in Sony’s favor in every region of sales. The PlayStation 4 is also releasing earlier than the Xbox ONE in every market, and in a great many regions completely unchallenged.
Significance: A price-point advantage is one of the strongest forces in consumer retail – though unquestionably surmountable, pairing that advantage with a technically superior console, a head-start, and a much broader market – most of it unchallenged – makes Microsoft’s battle uphill at best. What is perhaps most puzzling about this situation is that after consumers expressed concerns about the mandatory nature of the Kinect, Microsoft waffled and removed the requirement, but still insist on packing the motion-sensing accessory in with every console. Given that many of the core-demographic gamers have absolutely no interest in the Kinect, and that one of the system’s greatest weaknesses is its unfortunately high price-point, it seems like a relatively straight-forward line between issue-to-solution to release a basic model of the system without the Kinect at a lower price point.
4. The Experience
The PlayStation 4
Sony has elected to charge for their online services this generation. While that wasn’t their most popular move in recent history, they’re still charging $10 less than the comparable XboxLIVE with the additional value of the unquestionably brilliant PlayStation Plus. The added revenue will hopefully go a long way to fixing the issues that the PlayStation Network have always suffered: poor connection and less-than-reliable service. On the bright side, a Party system, and the ability to engage in cross-game chat, has finally been implemented.
The Dynamic UI is certainly a compelling concept, assuming that it proves as dynamic in execution as in promissory illustration. Whatever the end result, it can hardly be anything short of a vast improvement over the Cross-Media Bar.
The Sharing feature – a priority of Sony’s in this generation as they designed the controller with it in mind – will be another interesting facet to watch, in particular the Social Networking connections and the ability to directly capture and upload footage from the consoles. Whether this feature falls on the same side of the fence as PlayStation Plus or PlayStation Home, we will see.
Along the same lines, and as we mentioned in our previous hands-on coverage of the DualShock 4, Sony added a depressable touch-pad to their controller. The application of this is thus far a nebulous thing. The FAQ has spoken to several points, and we know that Killzone: Shadow Fall will utilize the device as part of its control scheme, but beyond that, there is little concrete detail. Given the quiet agreement made several months ago between Google and Sony, will we see some cross-over from the Google Play store to the Sony Entertainment Network with similar touch-controls?
The Xbox ONE
The biggest question here is whether or not the rumors trickling out of developers about the reliability of the system are true. After the PR nightmare surrounding Microsoft’s early policies, and given the other disadvantages they are currently facing, Microsoft simply cannot afford another endemic hardware issue along the line of the Red Ring. The giant from Redmond absolutely must put its best foot forward with this machine, especially given its lackluster performance in the mobile market and the poor reception of Windows 8.
It hardly comes as a surprise that Microsoft’s real push with the Xbox ONE is to turn it into a literal entertainment center, as it’s intended to aggregate your TV, your internet, and your gaming system into one easy-to-use system, and if that works as promised, brilliant. It will be a great all-in-one solution that is of value. But in a market where Time Warner Cable is losing 100,000 customers a month, where two pieces of legislation in as many months have been put before Congress challenging the oligarchical strangle-hold the cable companies have on the American market, and where the average consumer with $500 to blow on entertainment technology has a laptop, a tablet, and a smartphone, it’s a questionable solution of questionable value. Seamlessly, and with a quick input, I can pause my Xbox and search (using Bing… sigh) for hints and tips, but I can do that with my laptop, my tablet, and my smartphone. Immediately, I can pause my Xbox and switch to check the score of the game, but I can do that with my remote, my laptop, my tablet, and my smartphone as well. Instantly, I can pause my Xbox and call or video-chat with my friend across the country, but I can do that with my laptop, my tablet, and my smartphone. It’s a cool idea, but it’s not a win button. There’s nothing this multi-channel media strategy is offering me that I don’t already have access to through multiple devices that I already own.
Negativity aside, XboxLIVE is a titan. It’s got the best reputation of any online service of any console to date, and for good reason. It did everything better than everyone else has done. XboxLIVE’s brilliant execution in the 360 generation is a completely justifiable and viable reason for Microsoft loyalists to stick to their guns. There’s no reason to worry about its quality and execution. The expanded achievement system, added servers, and broadened access to Gold features for every account on a system can only serve to expand the value. The Cloud system is potentially the most exciting aspect of the NextGen consoles, not for any of the over-hyped, over-blown PR soundbites, but rather because of the potential that Cloud processing has to take the process load off of the system. Titanfall has already established that it uses cloud processing to handle many of the operations necessary to the AI and environmental animation. Increases in bandwidth and refinement of the network can only serve to improve this, and as such it will be very interesting to observe the ways and degrees this impacts development.
Less of an issue, but still of some importance, is more effectively supporting Kinect 2.0. Based on the launch line-up, it’s clearly something that Microsoft is invested in, but there’s a massive gulf between making Kinect appealing to the casual demographic and convincing the hardcore crowd. Games like Mass Effect 3 and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim both served to illustrate what the Kinect could mean for conventional gaming and just how far it needed to go to provide a polished, compelling experience. Microsoft needs to find a way to make the Kinect meaningful to the hardcore crowd, and that’s no simple matter. Games are developed under unimaginable amounts of pressure, by hundreds of people working overtime against some of the most vicious deadlines anywhere, meaning that every single second of development time counts. And coding for something as specific as the Kinect requires time that can be spent developing or polishing other aspects of game-play. As a consequence of this, it’s only rarely the case where anyone other than Microsoft’s first-party developers, or those developing exclusively for the system, have any compelling motive to work on the Kinect. In order to make Kinect a selling point for the console, Microsoft needs to make it as attractive to the developers as possible. And they absolutely need to give us a reason to have a Kinect beyond: “Netflix: Next Episode.”
Conclusion: Microsoft has some major advantages in momentum. The 360 built a fan-base of believers, and XboxLIVE is the service to beat. But Sony has taken a page from their book, and built PlayStation Plus into a service that is more appealing to customers at a lower price-point with a higher intrinsic value. Sony has also moved in on the motion-sensing territory with an optional (Win) camera with similar functionality to the Kinect 1.0 at a remarkably attractive price point and innate voice-control out of the box via the mono headset. The addition of social networking and cloud processing on both ends are certainly exciting ones, though only time will tell if it will be a gimmick or a gem.
Significance: Unfortunately, this is the most nebulous area and is completely subject to conjecture. It’s likely that many of these issues won’t be completely resolved until several years into the operational life of either system.
Which console comes out on top?
It’s just too soon to tell. There are too many questions, too many variables to account for at present, and while some of the most vitally important of these will be answered shortly – reliability, hardware launch issues, availability and the like – there are many more that simply require time. The great news for all of us is that neither one of these is going to be a stinker – compelling arguments can be made for both camps and they’re certainly far superior to both of their predecessors in capability, features and launch library.
UPDATE POST PLAYSTATION 4 LAUNCH:
Post Sony’s launch, there are several factors that we can begin to speak to.
The Social Network – This is really the surprise – the networking aspect of PSN is a lot like Facebook for gamers. It posts in a layout similar to Pinterest, combining your recent experiences and those of your friends. This will certainly be of interest to social gamers, those with active clan or community interests.
The Online Experience – The online launch was somewhat problematic, but only for the first several hours. By 5AM EST, everything I tried to access was up and running – the strange thing is that all necessary functions were working at all times. The patches, the updates for games, the social network connections all worked from the get-go, but certain multi-player services had regular time-outs. At the time of this update, everything is completely functional, but the downloads are creeping. I’m amazed that it’s working as smoothly as it is.
Sharing – The Share button takes some real getting used to – gamers from last generation will doubtless activate this function accidentally on a regular basis for the first month of so. The lack of a ‘Select/Start’ button will certainly take some getting used to. Capturing screens and video is quite simple – though it feels like there’s a bit of lag involved – setting up the Twitch.TV and Ustream accounts is quite counter-intuitive. On the whole, I don’t really feel like this, or the social networking aspect will be used over-much by the PlayStation faithful.
Supply/Launch Issues – There are reports of some video issues, and these seem to predominantly be related to the HDMI ports. Kotaku has a great article detailing this issue right here. Long story short, please make sure that you pay attention as you’re plugging your HDMI cable in. It’s a very tight fit, and if you have one of the systems with the overly-present flange you can ruin an otherwise completely functional $400 system very quickly – simply use a safety pin, or other small thing object to depress the flange before inserting the HDMI cable. Other than that, the fail-rate seems to be completely acceptable – 1-2%.
The UI/Camera – This is a major improvement for Sony – the UI is simple, and easily navigable. If you’re getting the system, strongly consider grabbing the camera – it drastically improves the experience on almost every level. The camera does suffer from the same issue as the PlayStation Eye when used for chat – there’s far too low a level of broadcast volume, and that drives other people crazy in multi-player.