PS4 vs. Xbox One: We take a look at what’s going to happen next between Sony’s Playstation 4 and Microsoft’s Xbox One, with E3 2013 right around the corner.
It’s that time again for gamers. You love your console, but now you’ve seen the newer, greater successor plastered all across the Internet, and you’re giving in to the temptation of an upgrade. Sony and Microsoft have both revealed their next-generation console plans, with the Microsoft Xbox 360 and Sony Playstation 3 looking destined for the attic, after a long, pleasurable life.
Both of the new next generation consoles are set to come out later this year with a Q4 release date. We’ve seen rumours of the Xbox One to be released on November 30 in the U.K. but nothing has been leaked or rumoured from Sony’s corner.
We expect the battle to be close, and somewhat ugly in the run up to Christmas, with both Microsoft and Sony trying desperately to persuade you to buy their consoles.
We will take a look what’s happened so far between Microsoft and Sony, and ask what’s next for the new generation consoles, with E3 2013 to be the next battleground for the technology giants.
Sony Playstation 4: What we already know
Sony were the first to announce their plans with the Playstation 4 back in February of this year and have appeared to have had the jump on Microsoft.
And in case you missed it, here’s the announcement made back in February.
Still to this day, we don’t know the exact appearance of the PS4, but we’ve been teased as to what it may look like. This appears to have worked well for Sony, as they still have much to unveil come E3 2013, where we expect the duel to begin officially between Sony and Microsoft.
Microsoft have given a way a lot, and fast. And in the recent days since the Xbox One’s announcement, it appears as though Sony has made ground in the early rounds of PS4 vs. Xbox One. Sony’s shares shot up by 8% on the announcement of the Xbox One, and with Xbox fans seemingly uninspired by Microsoft’s conference regarding the Xbox One, this is early but crucial ground taken by Sony.
Concealing the PS4 has definitely been good for Sony. They’ll be arriving at E3 2013 after confirming their presence for June 10. There will be bags of room for Sony to talk about at E3, adding to the excitement of not only the unveiling of the appearance.
Here’s the quick teaser that Sony gave regarding the PS4’s looks.
This is all we know about the PS4 appearance wise, but we’ve seen some artists impressions from the imagery of the teaser video. We think that Sony’s PS4 will win the battle of looks between itself and the Xbox One. The Xbox One appears to be a little boring, but as long as Sony move away from the “George Foreman” feel of the Playstation 3, this could be right up gamer’s avenue.
Sony PlayStation 4 Controller: DualShock 4
Sony have revealed the controller in the form of the DualShock 4. The DualShock 4 will connect to the PS4 via Bluetooth 2.1, but the DualShock 3, however, will not be compatible with PS4. The DualShock 4 will be equipped with new features, including a built-in two-point capacitive touch pad on the front of the controller, which can be clicked.
The controller will support motion detection via a three-axis gyroscope and three-axis accelerometer and improved vibration. Additionally, the existing Playstation Move controllers will be supported on the PS4. Here’s what Sony had to say regarding the DualShock 4.
The DualShock 4 looks like a huge improvement from the DualShock 3. In the Apple-style video, you’ll see all the people behind the development telling you how amazing it is compared to its predecessor. We think it’s going to be a little alien to PlayStation fans at first, but overall it does appear to be a vast improvement.
What do you think about the DualShock 4? Is this everything the DualShock 3 wasn’t? Will the new controller lose that retro “feel” about PlayStation controllers with its new, tweaked design?
Sony PlayStation 4: Specs, features and what’s coming
During the PS4 announcement Sony gave us the specs of what to expect for their PS4. The work of the PS4 has been ongoing for some time, and it’s clear that Sony has built a machine for longevity, with the majority of the hardware components up-to-date and somewhat futureproof. Let’s begin with what we know about the PS4’s hardware.
The CPU
The main processor will be a single-chip customer processor made my AMD. The chip made by AMD will be an x86-64 “Jaguar” sporting a whopping 8 cores. Super fast.
The GPU
The PS4’s GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) will be a 1.84 TFLOPS, AMD next-generation Radeon based graphics engine. This will delight video games developers, with the PS4 set to have a huge graphical upgrade from its predecessor, the PS3.
Memory
The PS4 will offer 8GB of GDDR5 RAM. Impressively, better than the Xbox One.
Hard Drive
The PS4’s internal hard drive capacity has not yet been announced.
USB
USB 3.0 will be supported on the PS4.
Blu-Ray Drive
Blu-ray 6xCAV, DVD 8xCAV
Video Output
HDMI, Analog-AV out, Digital Output [Optical]
Communication
Ethernet (10BASE-T, 100BASE-TX, 1000BASE-T), IEEE 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.1 (EDR)
Sony PlayStation 4: Gameplay and Graphics
As noted the PS4 will be seeing a huge graphical improvement with all the new hardware slotting together to make this new generation console. Only a few games at this moment have been confirmed to be coming to the PS4, but we’ll share with you the 3 most exciting titles we believe will hit the PS4 when the launch date arrives. Now, it’s easy to forget that the gameplay videos, although are hugely impressive, are just the early days. As time passes, with developers spending more and more time working, tweaks and improvements will come thick and fast.
‘Destiny: Bungie’s :Last Adventure’ confirmed for PS4
‘Killzone: Shadow Fall’ on PS4
‘inFAMOUS: Second Son’ on PS4
These are just some of the games that have been confirmed for the PS4, with currently 10+ confirmed titles, we expect Sony to help ensure developers push out as many titles as they possibly can in time for the PS4 launch.
If Sony do only have just over 10 launch titles, even with some of the biggest hitting video games that debut every year, especially the Call of Duty and FIFA series, we feel that the current lineup of launch titles is somewhat threadbare.
However, there is still many months to go before the PS4 will be hitting the retailers, and we expect a big push at E3 2013 from June 11-13. E3 is the usually the event that developers show off their latest and greatest of what’s to come, but this year the focus will surround Microsoft and Sony about the next unveilings regarding their new consoles.
Sony PlayStation 4: What E3 2013 should give fans
As mentioned E3 2013 will be the first hurdle for Sony and Microsoft. However, we’re going to look at what Sony have yet to announce and this could be the most significant event in the lead up to the launch of the PS4.
What haven’t Sony given us yet? Aside from the appearance of the new console, we’re still yet to see several features.
The first and foremost is pricing. We still have no indication of what Sony will charge for the PS4, and what “bundles” will be offered. The general trend is hard drive space which defines the bundles pricing, so we expect the PS4 to ship with several sized hard drives. However, with the PS4’s cloud gaming service, is there any real need for opting for the largest hard drive system?
Also, we’re concerned with “apps” that may or may not be included with the PS4’s user interface. Twitter and YouTube were absent from the OS preview, but we hope that this could be rectified by the launch date.
Crucially though, this has been rather impressive from Sony. The general thoughts of the public are already leaning towards the PS4 being the stronger console, but we’re going to examine the Xbox One over on the next page, seeing what Microsoft has revealed to fans thus far, what we do and do not like, and which new generation console will be coming out on top.
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