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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F00L1Sh - Friday, November 22, 2013 - link
I found this explanation very helpful.beefgyorki - Wednesday, November 20, 2013 - link
Anand, when MS initially talked about the Xbox One OS design from their description it certainly sounded like the Xbox OS (i.e. the gaming OS) was just a VM running on top of a hypervisor. Given that, then in theory that VM could be modified to be made runnable on say a Windows Desktop PC or potentially even a Tablet.With one in hand now, is there anything that can be done to shed some light on that possibility?
To me the most intriguing aspect of XB1 is the OS if it truly is just a VM because that could open up some really interesting possibilities down the road.
flyingpants1 - Wednesday, November 20, 2013 - link
What do you mean "just a VM", don't you realise the Xbox 360 OS was running in a VM too?Elooder2 - Thursday, November 21, 2013 - link
This. Was Xbox360 on an x86 CPU? No. But Xbone is. Therefore it seems logical to consider that if there is a possibility of somehow "extracting" the actual VM from the XBone, it could be made to run on a normal Windows PC with much less modification and hassle than the Xbox360 VM because there's no need to worry about the difference in architecture. Basically, I perceive that the biggest deterrent to making an "emulator" of the XBone (via a VM) is some form of software or hardware DRM. The Mac has a similar mechanism in Mac OS which will not let you install that OS on a regular PC because the regular PC doesn't have some extra chip that the boot code of the OS install disc looks for. As we all know, this was quite successfully cracked and Hackintoshes are plentiful. Ok, so Microsoft is not Apple and they may go down on anyone releasing an XBone emulator, but it doesn't mean it can't be done. It would seem much easier to produce an emulator for a console that uses, basically, almost, off-the-shelf parts.PliotronX - Wednesday, November 20, 2013 - link
Good lord the Xbone falls short. The embedded SRAM is irrelevant, trading outright strength in 3D for faster operations tied to the subsystem is a failing strategy dating back to the PSX and Sega Saturn.Teknobug - Wednesday, November 20, 2013 - link
Looks like PS4 wins not only in hardware specs, but graphics visuals. The only difference maker between the two seems to be game titles. I would have bought the Playstation 4 if Gran Turismo 6 was coming out for it but nope they released it for the PS3, bummer. I have Forza 2, 3, 4 for X360 and will not get Forza 5 after how Turn10 turned Forza 4 into a cash cow with DLC cars.warezme - Wednesday, November 20, 2013 - link
Exactly, it is huge failure on the MS side and I suspect many a game developer will eventually reveal just how limiting their decision has been. Overall for the two consoles that I would consider to be a modern investment of 3 to 5 years, these are pretty pathetic hardware examples. Current gen PC's are already way ahead and the difference will only continue to surpass these consoles.Homeles - Wednesday, November 20, 2013 - link
Actually, what's wrong with you? It's pretty common knowledge that ROPs are huge consumers of memory bandwidth in a GPU, and with the Xbone having half of them, memory bandwidth becomes far less of an issue.Get educated.
Spunjji - Tuesday, November 26, 2013 - link
Less of an issue at a given performance level. Your performance becomes gated by the ROPs instead, so it's still a bloody stupid design decision for a "next gen" console.Sabresiberian - Wednesday, November 20, 2013 - link
Frankly, I'm disappointed in both of them In an age where PCs are moving to 2560x1440 as a standard, 120Hz, and G-sync. These consoles are simply already dated, even more so than at the release of the Xbox 360 and PS3. Good on the upgrades, but I simply can't see buying one over a PC I can build for around $500. (To be fair, it would cost you closer to $700 if you buy pre-made, but I'll point out that almost every one already has a PC. $500 for a PC and $400 for a console means spending more money, not less, for less capability; it only makes sense if you need 2 different pieces of hardware so one person in the family can use one while the other uses something else.)The only thing consoles offer is existing community. If all your friends play on an Xbox, or Playstation, it is hard to buy a PC instead. However, that isn't a plus, it is a minus because it sets apart gamers that want to play together. It polarizes those gamers that are emotionally attached to one or the other, and that is just bad for everyone. Good news is that Microsoft is talking about making it so PC players can play with Xbone players - but how is that going to effect the quality of the PC versions? Are they going to have to be capped in terms of game responsiveness and frame rates in order to level the playing field?
Don't get me wrong; I'm not bashing console players themselves. And, I get the attraction to cool hardware, I'm even tempted a bit myself, just cause "cool hardware" despite the limitations involved. And, there's the whole playing with others thing, havng both consoles would mean I didn't have to exclude people I want to game with. But, I'd feel like I'd be supporting a part of gaming that I really believe is bad for gamers in this day and age, so I won't be buying a console.
(And, don't give me any freakin tired, old arguments about controllers and a "different experience". It simply is not true, you can use any console controller on a PC. There is absolutely, categorically nothing you can do on a console that you can't do on a PC, except connect with exclusive communities and play exclusive games. Exclusive communities are bad for gamers as a whole, exclusive games are bad for gamers, too. Crappy hardware is bad for everyone.)