PS5 vs Xbox Series X: full comparison

my friends the stage has been set you've got xbox in one corner playstation 5 in the other and you're asking yourself what do i do about next generation gaming well this is probably the most complicated it's ever been but i'm going to lay it all out for you and help you figure it out now that we have pricing for both the playstation 5s and the xboxes it's time to unpack the whole situation and really lay it all out there should you buy a new console should you wait should you just get a pc and call it a day everyone's answer is going to vary by their personal situation but the very best that i can do is educate you to a point where you can make the right choice for yourself so let's start with each console's messaging for microsoft it's been made very clear that this next line of xboxes is hyper focused on games as a service specifically gamepads this monthly subscription will get you access to not just microsoft first party games the same day they're released but also over a hundred legacy titles to boot then there's the value add of cloud gaming which is already live with over a hundred games that can be streamed to android and mobile devices but just not your xbox console which i know it feels kind of wrong but don't forget with that game pass subscription you can download those games anyway still feels weird but let's just leave that for what it is gamepass ultimate extends everything to pc and then sort of opens up this whole question of wait a second i have a decent pc i have game pass ultimate why do i need an xbox and the answer to that totally reasonable question might be you don't and that's the other theme of next gen for microsoft you don't need an xbox you're still gonna need that game pass ultimate subscription but the actual box itself is not required and it's that philosophy that really has brought upon this sort of you know rift between these two historically competitive brands for this next generation of consoles microsoft and sony have two increasingly different ideologies and this divide is probably no better exemplified than in microsoft's xbox all access plan a way to essentially finance owning a series s or an x there is a credit check for signing up but if you do qualify you can own a series s or x for 25 or 35 dollars a month respectively and get two years of game pass ultimate included so that's microsoft's plan to get you in the door but let's talk about sony's messaging over the last six months it feels like they've doubled down on the notion that playstation is a generational console meaning if you want to play the new and shiny games you got to buy a new machine and that still feels mostly accurate though there's been a slight walk back if you consider the new information that spider-man and horizon forbidden west are both getting ps4 releases in addition to their ps5 releases sony calls this a move in a way to support the ps4 community as they transition to next gen when they're ready okay but it's also clear that microsoft's concentration on bolstering xbox's value proposition has made a tangible impact the introduction of the playstation plus collection is that and it's a direct response to game pass even if it doesn't match game passes perks like day one releases we don't know a whole lot of the fine details about playstation plus collection and odds are if you owned a ps4 you probably purchased a good amount of those games but if for some reason you skipped over this generation there is an impressive list of ps4 exclusives and others really to hold you over on ps5 until the real heavy hitters start to arrive so where does this leave us the games right and and right now i do think in terms of short and mid-term outlooks the exclusive software does swing in sony's favor i mean that's the thing they've been reliably able to hang their head on for years now and there's only going to be one place to play certain games like you know the next god of war or whatever naughty dog does next and that's by owning a ps5 with xbox exclusives the path to being able to play those games is a lot wider now right like you can do that with a pc and you can do it with game pass microsoft has done an impressive job of acquiring serious development talent over the years but the argument for an xbox as a home for must play exclusive software just isn't fully realized yet for overall value though that's a different story when it comes to value at 299 it is really tough to argue against xbox series s being the best deal to be had out of the gate now it's not going to get you to that 4k sort of echelon but it's going to get you pretty close and it'll also get you into that next gen xbox ecosystem where you can enjoy all the perks of game pass and beyond for the same price of a nintendo switch but now for just a hundred dollars more a digital ps5 all of a sudden seems like a reasonable upgrade that doesn't require much of a compromise in hardware unless you really really really want a blu-ray drive which you might and if you really want to compare the hardware specs of the ps5 and the xbox series x you'll find pros and cons on either side of that chart if you are buying a console specifically for the amount of teraflops you're doing it the wrong way specs are one thing but until we're able to compare multi-platform games side by side there's not a whole lot to argue about and sometimes console exclusives look better than multi-platform games right i mean multi-platform games didn't really look good on ps3 but those exclusive titles were out of control bottom line it's too early to tell both consoles are going to get you to 4k up to 120 hertz and support for ray tracing technology whether or not you have the display for that stuff is on you okay let's take a step back for a bit of a recap right okay so you have xbox more economical seemingly better value and it's all about game pass the consoles will have backwards compatibility with some xbox one and some other legacy xbox games playstation 5 slightly more of an initial investment but more traditional and arguably stronger console exclusives and what appears to be a solid chunk of ps4 backwards compatibility but there may be other reasons you pick one console over the other right you might decide based on what your friends have or will buy even though the rise in cross-platform gaming makes this less of a deal breaker and of course we can't ignore the timely release of nvidia's new powerhouse gpu the rtx 3080 which judging from early reviews is as impressive as we all hoped it would be yes it's a more expensive investment but with a decent pc you've unlocked all of the xbox exclusives that are going to come out and with something like a 3080 in your machine you're going to see performance that these consoles will just not be able to reach i know this is a lot to consider it's confusing but put it this way the advice i have for the average person weighing their options for next gen is just wait just wait a little bit even i mean wait to see where we are at the start of 2021 how are multi-platform games performing on each console what is the core console experience like there are a handful of things we just don't know yet and won't know until these things are out and in our hands don't forget neither sony or microsoft have made a truly compelling argument that a day one purchase is a necessity and that's good for you because it gives you time to make a more informed decision now of course i realize this is not a cut and dry situation there are more variables to consider and i'm sure there's going to be impactful information that trickles out between now and november but the main storylines of this have been set right we have the clearest understanding of what each of these consoles is going to be able to offer okay i hope i've been able to lay out a good amount of that top-line detail so you can make a better educated decision about next-gen gaming let me know if you've decided how you're going to approach these new consoles look if i didn't have to test all of these consoles out for my job i would be waiting it out that is a promise and for my colleagues and friends that i've talked to that are in a situation where they can afford whatever they want they say they're going to be going with a decent pc and a ps5 well and a switch of course because they're not monsters

Channel: CNET

Views: 1,113,003

Keywords: CNET, Technology, News, Tech, vs, jeff bakalar, microsoft, sony, microsoft xbox, xbox series x, xbox series s, playstation, playstation 5, ps5, ps5 vs xbox series x, comparion, full comparison, xbox series x vs ps5, xbox, ps5 vs xbox, ps5 news, xbox series x news, ps5 games, next gen, xbox games, gaming news, next gen consoles, new xbox, ps5 vs series x, xbox console, sony ps5, next generation, playstation 5 news, new playstation 5

Id: NRD2ONAQkZo

Length: 9min 20sec (560 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 18 2020