Xbox One vs PS4

In this article, we'll be putting the two consoles head-to-head over a number of categories. We've tried to be fairly concise, without leaving out anything crucial.


We don't believe that either console is simply better for every gamer, it all depends on what you want from it. Have a flick through the article and at least read the areas that interest you most, before heading to the conclusion.

Price

Unsurprisingly, both consoles have fallen in price since their launch gets back to late 2013 (has it been that long!), and both have seen redesigns that allow for a far lower price too. Prices have been slipping down gently over time, with both consoles now available for around £250.

   Xbox One console's 'real world' price has been dropping steadily since its launch, partly due to actual price drops, but also thanks to a series of 'free' bundled games and the option to buy the console without the Kinect sensor.

You can buy the console standalone for as little as £220 right now, with FIFA 16 or Battlefield 4 for £250, or with two top titles for £280, for all these deals click the link below.

PS4 Prices on the PS4 have also fallen considerably, and you can get a standalone console online for as little as £260. There are better bundles, though. The best is undoubtedly a DOOM and Uncharted 4 double pack for just £270, two of the latest and best games around.

Which one is best? – Deals chop and change regularly, the Xbox One is a little cheaper on its own, but there's not a big difference when it comes to bundles at present, and so you shouldn't be making your choice on price alone.

   Games

You can talk about hardware, controllers and operating systems all day, but it's the games that really matter on a console. Previous console generations have often been defined by their big exclusive franchises, such as Halo, Mario and Uncharted. If you really wanted to play a certain game, you had to but the console that had it.

However, this time, exclusives haven't been as critical in the battle between the Xbox One and the PS4. Both consoles use very similar hardware, as we'll discuss later, and the ever-increasing costs of games development mean that Sony and Microsoft will have to splash huge amounts of cash to compete with titles that will be released across multiple formats.

 To date, many exclusives have fallen short of must-have status, with the biggest games on both platforms being multi-platform releases.

 MULTI-PLATFORM

 My most-played games from this generation have appeared on both formats. We played a lot of Destiny and Far Cry 4 was another early big hit; then there was the excellent The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and the bonkers Metal Gear Solid 5: Phantom Pain.

As a team, we also enjoyed playing Fallout 4, Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 and Star Wars: Battlefront too, so plenty to keep you entertained there.

As we note in our hardware section, the PlayStation has the technical edge in most of these games, with slightly higher resolutions producing sharper visuals in game. It's not a huge difference and we wouldn't abandon an established group of friends on Xbox Live for it, but it's worth keeping in mind, all other things being equal.

Specifications

What we know for sure, as we did some time before they even launched, is that the PS4 has a significant horsepower advantage over the Xbox One. It has 50 per cent more GPU compute units, allowing for greater parallel processing power that can either be used for on-screen fidelity, or for in-game effects like real-time physics.

   It also has a simpler memory system with a single lump of 8GB of fast GDDR5 memory, compared to Xbox One's slower DDR3 memory and 32MB high-speed cache. Simple is always good when it comes to console architectures, with some developers already criticizing Microsoft's design and some multi-platform games being forced to run at a lower internal resolution than on Sony's hardware.

The Xbox One has certainly suffered in direct comparisons between the hardware. Many cross-platform games run at a resolution of 1,600x900 on the Xbox One, but at a slightly sharper 1,920x1,080 on the PS4. The difference isn't huge, and occasionally it's offset by slightly more consistent frame rates on the Xbox One, but overall the PS4 is consistently having the better of it when it comes to head-to-head showdowns.
  
Which one is best? - A clear-cut advantage here for Sony, as it’s able to provide you with more powerful graphics hardware meaning that games look sharper on PS4

Bottom Line

As you can see by yourself, there is no winner and loser in this comparison, but now you know the main pros and cons of each console, ready to take your pick and buy games and consoles on Jiji.ng because it’s cheaper and safer than any other Nigerian retailer.