The Xbox One - Mini Review & Comparison to Xbox 360/PS4
by Anand Lal Shimpi on November 20, 2013 8:00 AM ESTImage Quality - Xbox One vs. PlayStation 4
This is the big one. We’ve already established that the PS4 has more GPU performance under the hood, but how does that delta manifest in games? My guess is we’re going to see two different situations. The first being what we have here today. For the most part I haven’t noticed huge differences in frame rate between Xbox One and PS4 versions of the same game, but I have noticed appreciable differences in resolution/AA. This could very well be the One’s ROP limitations coming into play. Quality per pixel seems roughly equivalent across consoles, the PS4 just has an easier time delivering more of those pixels.
The second situation could be one where an eager developer puts the PS4’s hardware to use and creates a game that doesn’t scale (exclusively) in resolution, but also in other aspects of image quality as well. My guess is the types of titles to fall into this second category will end up being PS4 exclusives (e.g. Uncharted 4) rather than something that’s cross-platform. There’s little motivation for a cross-platform developer to spend a substantial amount of time in optimizing for one console.
Call of Duty: Ghosts
Let’s start out with Call of Duty: Ghosts. Here I’m going to focus on two scenes: what we’ve been calling internally Let the Dog Drive, and the aliasing test. Once again I wasn’t able to completely normalize black levels across both consoles in Ghosts for some reason.
In motion both consoles look pretty good. You really start to see the PS4’s resolution/AA advantages at the very end of the sequence though (PS4 image sample, Xbox One image sample). The difference between these two obviously isn’t as great as from the 360 to Xbox One, but there is a definite resolution advantage to the PS4. It’s even more obvious if you look at our aliasing test:
Image quality otherwise looks comparable between the two consoles.
NBA 2K14
NBA 2K14 is one cross platform title where I swear I could sense slight frame rate differences between the two consoles (during high quality replays) but it’s not something I managed to capture on video. Once again we find ourselves in a situation where there is a difference in resolution and/or AA levels between the Xbox One and PS4 versions of the game.
Both versions look great. I’m not sure how much of this is the next-gen consoles since the last time I played an NBA 2K game was back when I was in college, but man have console basketball games significantly improved in their realism over the past decade. On a side note, NBA 2K14 does seem to make good use of the impulse triggers on the Xbox One’s controller.
Battlefield 4
I grabbed a couple of scenes from early on in Battlefield 4. Once again the differences here are almost entirely limited to the amount of aliasing in the scene as far as I can tell. The Xbox One version is definitely more distracting. In practice I notice the difference in resolution, but it’s never enough to force me to pick one platform over another. I’m personally more comfortable with the Xbox One’s controller than the PS4’s, which makes for an interesting set of tradeoffs.
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melgross - Wednesday, November 20, 2013 - link
Because nobody used Media Center.Da W - Friday, November 22, 2013 - link
Because nobody made an off the shelf, plug and play, HTPC. Since MS is making hardware now, i don't know why they didn't try to rebaggage Media Center as a Windows 8 app and make another try. The whole world is fighting for your TV, Microsoft was here since 2005 and somehow they call it quit (for the PC) and put all their eggs in Xbox basket.How expensive would it be to offer two options instead of one? I know a good deal of enthusiasts that will kill for a 2k$ HTPC with full XBone capabilities. Would cut the grass under steambox feets too.
taikamya - Wednesday, November 20, 2013 - link
So wait.. that IGN review where they stated that the PS4 has a 2.75Ghz clock is false?'Cause this can explain the faster response times and more power usage, since the GPU's are not THAT different. I don't think that all that power difference of 20W-30W is GPU only.
Okay, "max frequency of 2.75Ghz".. either way, that could explain a lot.(including the overheating problems some people are having now)
http://goo.gl/Fd6xJY
taikamya - Wednesday, November 20, 2013 - link
Excuse me, I'm new here so.... I'm sorry if we're not supposed to post links or anything for that matter. The IGN review is called "Playstation 4 Operating Temperature Revealed".I would be glad if someone could clear this up for me. Since this Anand review states that the PS4 runs at 1.6Ghz.
althaz - Wednesday, November 20, 2013 - link
It runs at 1.6 Ghz, IGN are incorrect.A5 - Wednesday, November 20, 2013 - link
Don't go to IGN for technical information. Or anything, really. They're just plain wrong on this.cupholder - Thursday, November 21, 2013 - link
Yeah, double the ROPs = not THAT different.Each of my 770s are totally the same as a Titan... Totally.
bill5 - Wednesday, November 20, 2013 - link
14 CU's, yes, it does have 14 for redundancy.The worst part is as I tweeted you, as recently as weeks from launch MS was strongly considering enabling the two redundant CU's, but choose not too. Both my own reliable sources told me this, as well it was somewhat referenced by MS engineers in a digital foundry article.
Anyways I strongly wish they had, 1.5 teraflops just would have felt so much better, even if no paper a small increase.
MS was so dumb to not beef up the hardware more, charging 499 for essentially a HD7770 GPU in nearly 2014 I find sad.
Hell my ancient 2009, factory overclocked to 950, HD 4890 has more flops in practice, even if the 7770/XO GPU is probably faster due to being more advanced.
Think about that, the 4890 is a 5 year old GPU. The XO is a brand new console expected to last 7+ years. So sad I dont even wanna think about it.
Ahh well, the sad thing is by the looks of your comparison vids MS will very likely get away with it. even the 720P vs 1080P Ghosts comparison there is not much difference (and I imagine over time the XO will close the resolution gap to something more like 900P vs 1080P)
One of the most interesting parts of your article though was the speculation XO is ROP limited. Not something I hadn't heard before, but still interesting. Shortsighted on MS part if so.
Overall it feels like as usual MS is misguided. Focus on Live TV when it's probably slowly fading away (if not for that pesky sports problem...), and other things that seem cute and cool but half assed (voice recognition, Snap, Skype, etc etc etc).
Yet for all that I can still see them doing well, mostly because Sony is even more incompetent. If they were up against Samsung or Apple they would be already dead in consoles, but fortunately for them they are not, they are up against Sony, who loses pretty much every market they are in.
I think if XO struggles it would be a nice rebrand as a kinect-less, games focused, machine at 299. For that it'd arguably be a nice buy, and cheap DDR3 base should enable it. But if it sells OK at 499 with Kinect, and it probably will, we'll probably never get a chance to find out.
djboxbaba - Wednesday, November 20, 2013 - link
It really is sad.. Good post.augiem - Wednesday, November 20, 2013 - link
I agree for the most part, but 14, or even 18 CUs isn't going to be enough to really makea big difference. I think the sad part technology-wise is how not one of the 3 major console gaming companies this time around focused on pushing the horsepower or even doing anything very innovative. Don't get me wrong, I for one don't think graphics is primarily what makes a good game, but since the days of Atari -> NES, this really feels like the smallest technological bump (was gonna say "leap", but that just doesn't seem to appy) from gen to gen. What makes it worse is the last gen lasted longer than any before it. You know the rise of the dirt cheap phone/tablet/FB/freemium game had something to do with it...