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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IKeelU - Thursday, November 21, 2013 - link
Those "obsessions" in the PC-sphere are academic exercises to underline the differences between otherwise very similar pieces of silicon. Good GPU reviews (and good PC builders) focus on actual game performance and overall experience, incl. power and noise.And of course it matters that the PS4 is has a better GPU. It's just that native 1080p vs upscaled 720p (+AA) isn't a world of difference when viewed from 8-10 feet away (don't take my word for it, try for yourself).
But like Anand states in the article, things might get interesting when PS4 devs use this extra power to do more than just bump up the res. I, for one, would trade 1080p for better effects @ 60fps.
chelsea2889 - Thursday, November 21, 2013 - link
Great comparison of both products! Has anyone else heard of Why Remote though? I heard it has face and hand gesture recognition and apparently integrates with different types of social media and streaming apps. It seems pretty cool, I'm looking forward to seeing them at the upcoming CES convention!greywolf0 - Thursday, November 21, 2013 - link
Wow and I thought the Xbox One was just significantly handicapped in both memory bandwidth and GPU cores. Now I learn about this magical third thing called ROP where the Xbox One literally has only half that of the PS4 and it noticeably affects perceived resolution and is even lower than the standard AMD configuration for proper 1080p output. More nails in the Microsoft coffin.If you want to talk exclusive games and variety, the PS4 has more than enough bald headed space marine games and yet-another-space-marine-FPS-OMG-oversaturation to satiate any Halo desires, if you even had one to begin with. What you won't find on the Xbox One, however, is all the exclusive Japanese-made games, because lets face it, the Xbox is gonna sell poorly in Japan regardless, and that means no incentive to even make a half-ass port for the Xbox. This means all the JRPG fans and quirky Japanese adventure and indie games are not coming to Xbox, just like last gen.
And Microsoft just opened a Scroogled store selling more anti-Google paraphernalia, a continuation of their assinine and low-brow tactics and culture. They continue to be nothing but assholes day in and day out. They may have curbed their evil corporation ambitions with the backlash from their Xbox mind-control "features", but they show no sign of letting up anywhere else. I didn't think I could care much about tech companies, as they are all in it for money, but Microsoft continues to be the most morally reprehensible one around. A company not worth supporting or saving. To be shunned. It helps that all their recent products have been absolute out of touch flops, from Windows Phone to Windows RT and 8. Ditto Xbox power grab.
UltraTech79 - Thursday, November 21, 2013 - link
>More nails in the Microsoft coffin.Drama queen. This shit just doesnt matter in consoles unless youre a fanboy of one side or another. What matters is how good the game plays when they are done and its in your hands.
immanuel_aj - Friday, November 22, 2013 - link
Have to agree with you on the Japanese exclusives. They either take forever to get ported or don't get ported at all, unless it's a big title. I never got a PS3, but the PS4 seems like a good place to start and hopefully there'll be more indie stuff from Japan as well. I'm just waiting for a limited edition console to be released before getting one! Though using a Japanese PSN account is a bit of a pain sometimes.However, I don't think the PS4 has that many bald headed space marines ;)
jonjonjonj - Thursday, November 21, 2013 - link
i agree there's always someone crying about power costs. if the $5 a year in power is that big of a deal then you probably shouldn't be spending $500 on an xbox and $60 a year on xbox live.tuxfool - Friday, November 22, 2013 - link
Or alternatively they might care for the environment. Multiply all that "wasted" power by everyone and it adds up. This is doubly true when the apparent tasks this power is used on don't really require it.maxpwr - Friday, November 22, 2013 - link
Both "next generation" systems are increadibly weak and outdated. Not enough performance for Oculus Rift, let alone 4K displays.cheshirster - Friday, November 22, 2013 - link
Please, stop your squarephobia.Origin64 - Friday, November 22, 2013 - link
I acnually feel this generation is pretty bad for innovation. The PS3 And 360 made sense, at the time. They were very fast machines for the money. Sony sold PS3s at a loss for years. MS I dunno.I feel like time has kind of caught up with that kind of console. What's the use of building a whole new OS when these machines are x86 and fast enough to run Linux? Why focus on all kinds of closed proprietary online features when all that has been done before - and better - by volunteers building freeware. You build a PC thats comparable performance-wise and competitive on price with these machines, if you rip some parts out of an old one and replace PSU/mobo/cpu/gfx. Everyone can find a battered old pc that you can screw new parts in. People throw the things away if they get a little slow.
Then you can have the power of running what you want on the machine you paid for. Complete control. It'll save money in the long run.