A new generation of gaming consoles made by industry veterans Sony and Microsoft is scheduled to launch in about a year. The PS5 and Xbox Series X will go head-to-head holiday 2020 and, just as there was debate surrounding the power of the technology behind the PS4 and Xbox One leading up to holiday 2013, many are wondering which console will take the lead next generation.

Again, just like the PS4 and Xbox One, the PS5 and Xbox Series X are reported to be similar for the most part, though Phil Spencer has claimed in the past that the Series X will outperform the PS5 to some capacity. Both consoles will be utilizing an AMD Zen 2 CPU processor and AMD Navi-based Graphics. Another popular phrase that has been floating around these consoles is a rendering technique called ray tracing, which is supported in both the PS5 and Xbox Series X.

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Neither company has confirmed many details on the type and capacity of RAM included in the consoles. The Series X will be utilizing GDDR6 SDRAM but it is still unclear how many gigabytes it will feature, though there were previous rumors of it having 16 gigabytes of RAM. In the PS4 and Xbox One launch year, fans had made somewhat of a big deal out of the fact that the PS4 featured GDDR5 RAM compared to the Xbox One’s use of DDR3.

Another similarity between the PS5 and Xbox Series X is in the companies’ choice of storage. The Series X will feature a NVMe solid state drive and the PS5 is confirmed to feature an SSD as well, and the companies claim that these drives will drastically reduce load times for the next generation of games. In support of this, a video surfaced online in May of PS4’s Spider-Man being run on a solid state drive considerably faster than before, with that video somewhat revealing the potential for these reductions. 

spiderman ps4 selfie

Both consoles will feature optical drives for physical media, though there are lingering reports of a streaming-only Xbox to be featured among the Series X. Though the topic of used games was an explosive issue during the PS4 and Xbox One’s reveal, this topic will not return for this new generation as the PS5 and Series X will support used games.

When Sony released the PS4 Pro in 2016, there was an audible group of consumers who were bothered by the console’s lack of 4K Blu-ray support. This is another question that was quickly squashed by Sony as it confirmed that the PS5 will support 4K Blu-ray out of the box. Besides 4K, the PS5 and Xbox Series X are reported to support 8K. 8K gaming doesn't seem feasible in the foreseeable future, but when movies and more inevitably support this new resolution, the consoles will be ready.

The main differences between the PS5 and Series X lies in VR and cloud gaming. Sony is the only mainstream console maker that has a fully fledged VR unit in PSVR, which will be supported on PS5. With Sony dedicated to the future of VR, iterations of its unit could be expected within the next couple of years.

xbox xcloud

Microsoft has pushed its Project xCloud heavily in recent years, and with a new line-up of consoles, it has a prime consumer base to look forward to. Though Sony has success with its streaming service, PS Now, Microsoft has been touting xCloud as a pillar of its gaming future. This ostensibly also means that Microsoft is interested in more than just the console market, as it is using xCloud to potentially bring in consumers from other markets, such as mobile, and instill them in the console environment. Unless Sony can follow suit, there is not much it can compete with if all comes to fruition.

Microsoft is taking advantage of the relatively slower pace from Sony to build up momentum all the way through the launch of the Series X. Microsoft is heavily advertising the number of teraflops that the Xbox Series X is targeting, which is 12 compared to PS5’s 8, in a new era of technology marketing.

Microsoft and Sony released the Xbox One X and PS4 Pro, respectively, toward the latter part of the console generation in order to get another wave of console sales mid-way through it. In the marketing of these two consoles, one computer term rose above all else - teraflop. Simply put, teraflops are units that calculate speed; console and PC manufacturers like Microsoft and Sony are using teraflops to push for slogans involving more power. Gone are the days of blast processing and 16-bit commercials.

The PS5 and Xbox Series X are scheduled to be released holiday, 2020.

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