PS4 vs Xbox One

The release dates in South Africa are speculated to be at the end of 2013 for the PS4 and the first half of 2014 for the Xbox One.

Both consoles look remarkably alike, with Microsoft choosing to change the Xbox colour from white to black and Sony have chosen to give the PS4 more shape by adding sharper angles.

Despite the design of both being similar, their features rival each other. Microsoft describes the Xbox One as ‘the ultimate all-in-one entertainment system, one system for a new generation’.

Although, Sony enthusiasts will argue that some of the new features on the Xbox are not practical and it has become too expensive.

The price range of the two also differs a lot, with the PS4 going to be in the R5 500 range and the Xbox in the R7 000 range.

So what does each offer their gamers in terms of features and specs?

Initially, the Xbox One was supposed to have a constant online function which meant that you would have to check in online at least once every 24 hours or your games would be off limits.

You would still be able to watch TV, watch Blu-Ray discs and surf the web, but your games would not function.

Sony saw that Xbox fans did not like this, so made sure to state the PS4 would not have this function.

Since then, it has been rumoured that Microsoft retracted this constant online function.

Under the hood, so to speak, both consoles are just about identical. Both have 8GB RAM, a 500GB hard drive and an 8-core CPU.

Both the Xbox One and the PS4 boast great online features and activity, like watching movies, streaming videos of your games to share with your friends, higher quality multi player gaming and the chance to buy and download full games on the same day as their retail release.

But South Africa’s Internet infrastructure is still too poorly equipped to handle such high bandwidth features, so local gamers would need to be attracted to the other aspects of the consoles in order to buy them.

Another big difference that Sony fans will love is that there is no additional Internet charge. If you want to use apps like Netflix, chat with friends or use free-to-play games on the PS4, there’s no extra cost.

But on the Xbox One, all of those services require a fee of about R600 per year for the Xbox Live subscription. Sony only requires a subscription for online multi player.

One negative feature of both consoles is the fact that you cannot play games you own for the PlayStation 3 on PS4, or Xbox 360 games on Xbox One.

This means you won’t be able to trade in your older consoles for the next generation editions if you want to continue to enjoy your current library of games. This will probably change over time, but for the first batch of consoles, this will apply.

Sony have brought in the PlayStation Eye, which works a lot like the Kinect, so this is one thing Sony is following Microsoft on. The cameras in the Eye can cut out the image of a player from the background or differentiate between players in the background and foreground, enhancing game play.

To debate the controllers of both is not easy, because gamers already have a locked-in preference. This is why neither Sony or Microsoft have made big changes to their controllers over the years.

The DualShock 4 is a little bigger in the next generation PS console because of it’s unique front-and-center touch pad. Sony stuck with the dual analog sticks in front though.

Microsoft also didn’t change much, only slightly modifying the controller of the Xbox 360 to the Xbox One. It’s design innovations are subtle, including the tweaked D-Pad on the bottom-left of the game pad.

All this being said, both consoles are of the highest quality and in the end, it is not likely that Xbox fans will switch to PlayStation or vica versa.