This past generation, visual fidelity in games have come a long way from some of the early high-definition games on PS3/Xbox 360. Now games like The Last of Us Part 2 and Red Dead Redemption 2 are some of the largest and most impressive games ever made. Plenty of games from the PS4/Xbox One console generation have pushed the benchmark for visual fidelity forward, meaning graphical leaps and bounds from the PS5 and Xbox Series X may not be as drastic. That being said, the jump in power from PS4/Xbox One to PS5/Xbox Series X is still genuinely huge, meaning there's still plenty of overhead for grander video game graphical fidelity.
Even before the consoles are out, there's been some early criticism from leakers stating the PS5 is not as powerful as Xbox Series X. Within the last few days, there's been some insider reports pointing to the PS5's hardware having some performance inconsistencies. Details from certain leakers are stating that several games are struggling to reach 4K resolutions on PS5. On the other hand, the Xbox Series X allegedly doesn't have this problem, despite only slight differences in the hardware technical specifications. The truth is that any of these claims that the PS5 is weaker are not only unfounded, but ultimately don't matter for Sony and PlayStation anyway.
The PS5's "Struggle" Likely Is Not True At All
Primarily, it's important to note that a lot of this "weaker console" messaging is based on mid-development conjecture. Any discussion of PS5 consoles not handling 4K resolution from games like Resident Evil 8 yet carries no weight without any evidence to support these claims. Dusk Golem, a prominent leaker for Capcom and Resident Evil titles, made the claim that they have "heard from other [developers] that PS5 struggles with 4K games in particular so you'll see a lot of fake 4K." At bare minimum this is just hearsay, or could very well be a statement taken out of context, especially without any opportunity to acquire tangible evidence or sourcing to back this up.
Any game that's currently in alpha/beta (or even earlier) phase of development for next-gen can't possibly be running 30/60 FPS at native 4K on PS5 already. Is there potentially some truth to this statement? Absolutely, given how both PS4 Pro and Xbox One X utilized versions of upscaling/checkerboarding to display games on 4K televisions prior. Even for a game like Resident Evil 8, a title Dusk Golem has leaked information for several times, has likely been in development for at least a few years prior to its reveal. If Resident Evil 8 isn't running at native 4K on a PS5 right now, before the console is even out, there's numerous factors that could cause this mid-development.
Any of these anecdotes about potentially not displaying in true 4K should at bare minimum be contextualized with; how far the game is in development, whether this claim originates from an earlier devkit or production hardware, among other factors like Capcom's RE Engine perhaps not allocating resources properly and bottlenecking CPU/GPU performance. Otherwise these comments have no legitimacy.
PS5, Xbox Series X Have Similar Hardware Capability
Even if these comments at their face value are true, and the PS5 is theoretically less powerful than its competitor Xbox Series X, the difference wouldn't even be that drastic. Both Sony and Microsoft have announced the technical specifications of the PS5/Xbox Series X, and despite numerous fans commenting on the difference in Teraflops, the truth is they're both equally powerful gaming consoles. The only serious differences between the two consoles are the CPU and GPU clock speeds, both of which are still relatively similar and largely won't affect game performance between both versions.
For clarity's sake the PS5's CPU/GPU clocks in at 3.5GHz processing power and 10.28 TFLOPS at 2.23 GHZ respectively, whereas Xbox Series X's CPU/GPU clock speeds are 3.8GHZ processing power and 12 TFLOPS at 1.825GHz respectively. That's theoretically an average difference in power of maybe 10 percent, probably lower when you take into account individual various other factors that contribute to processing speeds. Vague math aside, even without crunching the numbers, the difference isn't so vast to the point where developers would drastically tone down game quality between PS5 and Xbox Series X versions. Not to mention third-party developers will design and optimize games to run as best they can on both consoles, rather than developing two completely different versions of the same game.
Performance Differences Don't Matter for PS5
Plus, at the end of the day, none of this realistically matters for Sony and PlayStation. The PS4 solidified the mantra of PlayStation moving forward as a premium console with premium games. Even if that's not necessarily true, that is the marketing perception of the brand. All of this is realized with its landmark triple-A exclusives like The Last of Us, Uncharted, Ghost of Tsushima, God of War, Bloodborne, Spider-Man, etc. Even some third-party franchises like Call of Duty and more recently Marvel's Avengers game are striking exclusivity deals with PlayStation. While many of those games are some of the most graphically impressive games of this generation, they could've theoretically run better on an Xbox One X. But in the end, that still doesn't matter to PlayStation or the developers themselves.
Technical prowess is a non-starter when it comes to PlayStation's true sources of success: the games themselves. Considering what we've seen from both the PS5 and Xbox Series X console reveals, the PS5 will continue to cultivate that success through its exclusive lineup. Microsoft has already made it clear that this generation they're not playing ball with the exclusivity tug-of-war, with services like Game Pass and their overall shift to consumer-friendly strategies as evidence of this. PS5 will succeed in the same vein the PS4 did, with exclusive titles and the perception of PlayStation being the best place to play all games, not just the ones that don't necessarily display in true 4K quality.
The PS5 launches this holiday of 2020.