Every seven years, approximately, occurs a new cycle of generation in video game consoles. 2020 is one of those years that will serve to say goodbye to the current generation, with PS4 and Xbox One as the main affected, and to welcome the descendants of these successful machines of Sony and Microsoft: PlayStation 5 and Xbox x Series.
it Will be the ninth generation since this type of home systems are a reality in the market, which will be marked by new aspirations and technology ideas that will change, one way or the other, the way that we understand of to consume video games. The emergence of the streaming, the on-demand content services and the power close technical computers of high range are all aspects that have come to stay and that, once again, will lead to the end of 2020 the beginning of a new “war of consoles” where will be the video game exclusive that end up tipping the scales toward one option or another.
Because both the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X have already shown their cards; they have both first name and last name, but they are still many unknowns unresolved: launch price, number of available models in each family, as a catalog of video games out…
Nintendo stays out of that battle. Nintendo Switch —launched in march of 2017— is selling at full speed, is at its best and will come in march to 50 million units sold; it has been as much in Spain as in the rest of the world the console’s best-selling, 2019. The competition, PS4 and Xbox One, facing the end of its useful life after more than six years in the market. The first, with more than 102 million units around the world; the second, to lack of know most current data, it is estimated that is around 50 million units shipped.
Xbox Series X Microsoft Game Studios
Main features of the PS5 and Xbox One X
PS5 and Xbox Series X (first model in the new range) have already submitted your main bets and are, at first glance, consoles with many similarities in hardware and performance. Both will opt for the so-called ray tracing, the ray tracing to real-time to infer the place of repeat of the light thanks to the processor, which will improve the effects and real time reflections.
In the case of the new PlayStation will use an AMD GPUS Navi, and a CPU Ryzen Zen 2. To this we must add that, for the first time, the next generation of consoles will provided memories solid-state storage SSD, much faster, with the ability “to dramatically improve load times” and to reduce “significantly” the development times of video games. A memory SSD will not have lots of duplicate data in the hard disk, so that the reading in the raw data will be more fast and accurate.
To that, we have to add the integration of a modular facility: the player will choose whether you want to install only the campaign mode of a video game, the aspect of multiplayer, or both, for example; it will not be necessary to install the whole set. Discs physical Blu-ray of PS5 will be 100 GB of capacity. All in all, we are talking about a system that is able to playback content until resolution 8K, although the community hopes to ensure that the grand goal is not met in the present cycle: the long-awaited 4K with 60 frames per second.
Xbox Series X will be a display of power. According to the recent presentation of the console this past month of December, there were three key aspects with which Microsoft wants to distance himself from his great rival: power, efficiency and compatibility. Promise that, in addition, it will be a console highly silent, underlining the concept of ecosystem through the backwards compatibility both with video games from previous Xbox consoles as peripherals (gamepads included) of the previous consoles of the family.
Its main credentials are a processor AMD Zen 2 with architecture RDNA four times more potent than the model Xbox One X and ray tracing accelerated by the hardware itself. Ensured that the 4K resolution with 60 FPS is guaranteed thanks to its RAM GDDR 6, although dared to say that it will be able to play even in the resolution 8K in the future with up to 120 FPS. In addition, the novel technology VRS, a shading technique of variable speed so that developers can take full advantage of the power of the hardware. Also a memory SSD to “virtually eliminate load times”.
according To a recent report published by the british Digital Foundry, the PS5 will have a capacity of 9.2 teraflops of power (compared to the 1.84 teraflops of the PS4, while Xbox Series X will come fitted with a figure close to 12 teraflops.
Senua’s Saga: Hellbade 2. Microsoft Game Studios
the battle of The ‘streaming’ and the main differences between them
All of this leads us to two consoles look very similar, at least on paper, with the idea of guaranteeing the immediacy and the access to a catalogue of video games, exalted, with emphasis on streaming and the cloud. During these past three years we have witnessed the settlement of services like PlayStation Now in the case of Sony, and Xbox Game Pass in the us firm, both compatible with the next consoles natively.
The first of these offers more than 700 games of PS2, PS3 and PS4 to be played in streaming both in console as in PC; the download option on PS4 with works in both PS2 and PS4. All for 9,99 euros per month. Xbox Game Pass is, to date, the great dominating in the battle of the services. Your price is the same in their model of subscription-based and, although it has many less games (around 150 titles), bet more for recent works, many of them high-budget with just a few months old; in addition to the guarantee that the productions unique to Microsoft and are hosted from the day of release in the catalog. As if the premiere of the film will be launched simultaneously in a VOD service. Microsoft will maintain this philosophy in the future.
PS5 and Xbox Series X, will also have differences, not only in its catalog of video games exclusive, but in some of its stakes in peripheral, control and possible price. The virtual reality continues in its attempt to establish themselves in the market as one more element in our living room, but the availability of a VR helmet at home continues to be something expensive and far from the usual. According to the official sources of Sony’s own, the helmet PlayStation VR PS4 has sold over 4.2 million units around the world and have in mind a version “with fewer cables and less mess”. It is expected that a future model can get to work without cables, which is completely wireless, but, for the moment, there is no official information about that.
Microsoft believes that now is not the time for virtual reality on Xbox, at least not in the short term. According to Phil Spencer, head of the department of video games of Microsoft, speaking to Stevivor, the VR “I isolate, and I think that video games are an experience that must be shared”.
Another of the points differential of both consoles will be its controls, and the tools that accompany it, literally, to the players for hundreds of hours over the next five years. The Xbox Wirelles Controller that we will see in 2020 will incorporate a Share button to share directly on social networks catches of content, both photos as clips from our games, as does the DualShock for the PlayStation 4. But Microsoft wants to go beyond and offer a premium option, with a d-pad that improves the classic crosshead, a few triggers that offer the feeling of immersion and depth, in addition to improved ergonomics.
Sony does not want to fall behind in this regard and will offer a new version of the command, which is currently know as the DualShock 5, with much more emphasis than in the past to be the best controller ever made by the company in these five generations. On the one hand, triggers adaptive with different levels of resistance, so that we can feel the differences between to grab a gun or holding a bow, with the cadence, tension and weight relevant. On the other hand, a vibration advanced localized on the lugs both left and right, which allow on games of driving to differentiate between going on the asphalt, or stepping on a piano. A remote, more sensory, more realistic and immersive.
finally —for many, most importantly— video games. Even though both consoles are able to offer multimedia content, and to be in the future compatible with programs such as Netflix or Spotify, the focus will be on be consoles designed to play games, not mainly centers multimedia. So much power and controls so advanced. During these last few months we have seen both Sony as Microsoft have closed the purchase of numerous studies of development to work exclusively for them. On the one hand, Sony has fourteen internal study at Sony Interactive Entertainment Worldwide Studios, with Insomniac Games —authors of Marvel’s Spider-Man— as the last great movement. This will ensure that your sequel to see the light only in PlayStation 5. Other major intellectual properties with which the japanese want to impose are Gran Turismo (Polyphony Digital), Uncharted and The Last of Us (Naughty Dog), or God of War (Sony Santa Monica).
Microsoft has a handful of internal studies. They have gone from being a minority to take the lead, at least in quantity. To highlight, Halo (343 Industries), Gears of War (The Coalition), Forza Motorsport (Turn 10 Studios) and Hellblade (Ninja Theory).
it was Not until within a few weeks or months when we know what games will the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X of launch, the price will come to Spain and if there will be some kind of pack with which to access your membership services. The generation most connected, the most service-oriented and the more power of the story is about to begin.
