Xbox One vs PS4: Lets break down the actual differences

With Microsoft making strong moves to get in favor with consumers and developers again, their recent policy changes and all, my question to you is: what are the actual differences currently between the PS4 and Xbox One, not including exclusive games?

The reason I am asking this is because my friend keeps saying the Xbox One is better because of the improvements they've made to Xbox Live (with the new rep system, dedicated servers and all), and the recent 180 of Microsofts self-publishing policy. Is the thing about dedicated servers even true?

Help me break down the differences, oh wise GB community. Could be anything, policies, online infrastructure, hardware specs, cloud computing or even headset or no headset.

PS4 has better Hardware, Cheaper.

Xbox One will have a better online infrastructure (Dedicated Servers) and UI (It depends on your taste, but PS4's looks like Pintrest shit)

Still getting a Xbox One and will probably never use any TV stuff, I like Xbox games, ecosystem and service.

Er, well the PS4 is cheaper... I also think it has a bigger friends lists capacity.

If you were on gaf, you would know that nothing than Sony or PC. I would like to add a positive towards x1, but fear of the AstroTurf/ms schill has me not wanting to bother. Also hasn't this topic been done?

@tescovee: Sorry if the topic has been done before, just felt that a lot of stuff has been announced recently so it would be a neat with an update on how the PS4 vs. Xbox One 'war' is going on right now.

Could you elaborate on the dedicated servers part? What does it exactly mean?

This is not a very descriptive thread title BTW.

The PS4 has faster RAM, more available cores for games and a bunch of "housekeeping chips" which will handle things like updates in the background without the main CPU having to do it. Although, it is the same hardware architecture as the xbox. This means games will always look better, and run smoother on the PS4, with little or no developer work necessary.

The PS4 is cheaper. About 1.5 games cheaper.

The PS4 is no kinetc, or other motion control in the package, and even with the eye camera it is not as sophisticated as the kinect.

The PS4 is lacks PSN based dedicated servers. That being said, the multiplayer experience for me on the PS3 was not bad/worse than on my 360.

You can change the harddrive in the PS4 on your own.

If you really care about Call of Duty or motion-games, the Xbox is for you. Otherwise consider a PS4, but you really should by a PC.

2k friends is to many. 1k friends it to many

Mark Cerny is a sexy motherfucker.

Don Mattrick is a (blech) Canadian.

What's the difference? Nothing really. Publishers can't afford exclusives any more unless they are a first-party developer, the hardware couldn't be more similar, and online services like Netflix are going to be everywhere.

Which system your friends are going to get is going to be the most likely deciding factor for most consumers. People will have brand loyalty and want their friends list to carry over to next gen.

The only big stuff is the Streaming. X1 gets Twtich and PS4 gets Ustream. *The price of course* and exclusives.

1. Infamous: Second Son
2. Next Naught Dog game
3. PS4 will obviously have more indie games.

That's all you need to know.

It's really personal preference as before. I was more into my 360 because of the controller, interface, and more friends on 360. I've had a PS3 at my gf's house for a year now and have thoroughly enjoyed the Uncharted games and ICO. I recently picked up a 2nd PS3 at target on clearance for my place. Since then the PS3 has taken over. I still prefer the 360 controller but the interface has won me over. The 360 interface is so clunky and slow that I've gotten sick of it.

At this time, I'm ready to switch to the PS4 going into this generation. The facts that I don't care about motion games(kinect) and talking to my tv are reasons for going to SONY first this generation.

These 2 systems are so close in tech specs it doesn't matter.

Not really comparable. The Cell processor was so different and much harder to develop for than the 360, and that's why the 360 often was the lead platform. These consoles are essentially PC's, so the PS4's more raw power (mostly due to the faster RAM) will actually make a difference. I'm assuming, just like with the PC, that games will be developed for the lowest common denominator, but the difference will come in load times due to just faster components, if that makes sense.

Most of the games I want to play will be out for PS4. The only thing that really got me with the Xbox One way Quantum Break.

Halo. I'm getting both.

You're right, updated the thread title.

Xbox will have eye tracking for ads and put services like Netflix, Skype, Amazon Instant, etc. behind the xbl paywall.

PS4 has Octodad.

I hope we one day live in a world where I can attempt to play Octodad with a Kinect.

I think it's kind of impossible at this point but I think they are pretty huge and my opinion is quite the opposite of the general opinion on gaming forums.

Xbox One: 3 methods of inputs out of the box. Touch, speech, gesture recognition, which can all seamlessly integrate with each other thanks to Kinect. Kinect wraps around the core controller without interfering so it's an extension of traditional controls.

PS4: 1 method of input, standard controller. Also has a touchpad but still deals with touch input.

I can't really think of a bigger gap in tech than this. There was a point when the PSX had D-pads only and the N64 came out and had analog sticks but it was quickly rectified by the Dual Shock. If that was a gap, this is a grand canyon.

X1's Azure: A world wide newtork capable of offering very low latency to anywhere the console is supported and dedicated X1 hardware that combined makes it possible to achieve hybrid, console/server, real time processing. The X1 can also be used to plug into a streaming cloud gaming service.

PS4's Gaikai: A smaller, streaming cloud gaming service.

Hardware capabilities: Offline, PS4 has the edge due to its GPU and GDDR5 RAM but the X1 isn't just an offline, closed box, console. Online..no idea. How will exclusive that take full advantage of the PS4's GPU advantage compare to exclusives that take full advantage of the X1's capabilities when hooked up to Azure? No one can honestly answer this at this point. And until this question is answered, no one really knows which console is more powerful.

The real differences between the systems will probably not be known till after they get shipped. Everything about the online structures and ecosystems, download speeds, kinect functionality, ram allocation to OS/games, app functionality etc. will not be really be known till people get their hands on the system and play some games on them.

I will take John Carmack on his word about the hardware being identical, so services and software will probably be the big difference down the line.

This is dumb. How is having a higher friends list max a negative, exactly? You aren't forced to fill the list. It's only a positive for both consoles.

And people comparing the PS3 being more powerful than the 360 to the PS4 being more powerful than Xbox One are completely ignoring a key aspect: Developers admitted how hard it was to develop for the PS3, while the PS4 is, according to those same developers, very easy to develop for. That means the power difference could make a bigger impact this time around than last time.

Guys, the PS4 has a touchpad and the Xbox One has super-rumble controllers. Also, the PS4 looks like a slanty PS2, and the Xbox one looks like my parents' cable box.

There is only 1 difference.

Halo or Killzone.

Everything else is practically identical at this point. A rig with one controller a camera peripheral and online is about the same price. And all third party games will be on everything.

The problems with threads like this is that people jump in with their opinions about which features are worthless to them.

Based only on things we know now.

Ps4 has faster ram and GPU. How much faster remains to be seen. It can also record 15 minutes of gameplay. ustream. It is $100 cheaper.

Xbox one has better networking (dual band, wifi direct), some new custom audio chip, wireless audio streaming, 5 minutes of recording. twitch. kinect. It is $100 more.

As far the the OS goes, the xbox one seems to have a bunch more system level features.

Game preference is subjective.

None of the Xbox One features unveiled thus far come even close to being better than Sony's promise of Gaikai offering backwards compatibility, demo streaming and allowing a PS Vita to stream PS3 and PS4 games.

I dunno how much I'll use it, but if that stuff actually pans out it's pretty killer.

Not really. And that's a pretty big difference to begin with.

I'm more interesting in Killer Instinct, Ryse, and Forza since those are actually launch titles and not FPSs. After that there's Powerstar Golf, Spark, Kinect Sports Rivals, Quantum Break and Fantasia, before I even begin thinking of your overdone, and overplayed FPS franchises like Halo, COD or Killzone. Not to mention, before you even get to Halo, TitanFall will be out. The game variety on the X1 even beginning at launch and shortly after is amazing. You don't even have to touch the safe and popular third party titles like Battlefield, Call of Duty and Assassin's Creed, and still have so many games to try out. Hopefully more people try out the others.

I know you're asking about stuff other than games, but shouldn't the games be the most important thing? Why fret over other details?

That's some terrible reasoning. The PS3 tech was too damn complex for nearly everyone but the first party studios which showed in the terrible ports for the first half of the console's life cycle. Also let's not forgot how Sony shot themselves in the foot out of the gate by charging $600 for the PS3, they clearly learned their lesson from that.

Of course there will be the lowest common demoninator factor but if Sony comes out with strong sales then other people besides first party will actually start taking advantage the PS4's better hardware.

I feel like at this point it's kinda about games. At least for me. The $100 difference I don't care about, I'm not paranoid about Kinect, both systems are doing things that I like. I was getting pretty tired of Xbox Gold but they've been making some changes that are bringing me back around. I didn't ever have a problem with the DRM stuff but the changes are good, the only thing that I felt PS4 had over Xbox was how indie friendly they were and MS is taking steps to do the same now. PS4 is slightly higher tech but since when did that ever matter with consoles? (I'm talking comparatively between the two systems, WiiU is a whole other thing entirely.)

So yeah for me anyway the difference is games and Titanfall, Quantum Break, Sunset Overdrive, Halo, Below, Forza, Destiny etc, all have me leaning towards the Xbox.

I honestly don't care about the differences. Maybe ps4 will be more powerful, maybe it won't. Maybe the xbox 1 will have better online play, maybe it won't.

All I know is, historically, I've enjoyed sony exclusives WAY more than microsoft exclusives. I doubt that will change much, so I'll probably end up with the ps4 (I also have a vita, and I would much prefer laying in my bed playing a ps4 game on the vita than having a kinect).

I wouldnt focus so much on what has been announced for each system. Sony will deliver stellar exclusives as well (most people consider them the best in that department), just because they havent been announced doesnt mean they dont exist. Also, destiny isnt exclusive

Key word here is "promise". You'll also notice that I didn't mention Azure for the xbox one. Azure actually exists in the real world and can be used right now. It is already being used for xbox one games. If you ask me, the promise of using off site servers to take gaming to the next level is a lot more promising than streaming the same games I could just play at home and have a better experience.

Gaikai is something that will launch next year at the earliest so calling that a feature right now is about as good as making something up completely.

We are also talking about the consoles and what you get in the box and what they can do. Last time I checked, the vita doesn't come in that $400 package. So let me pay $250 to get streaming to a device that has less buttons than the DS4. You really think streaming console games on the go is going to be great?

People screaming about Gaikai are a bit ridiculous. Ever tried On Live? Even with the best connection possible, it is not like playing locally and won't be any time soon.

This is supposed to be a comparison of what these boxes can do when you get them in November. The xbox one will allow you to do more things. Big things or little things, it doesn't matter. More is more. Attribute that to the $100 price difference if you want.

@syed117: Technically MS is promising as well. Its not like ANYTHING is set in stone (the past 6 months have proven that anything and everything is liable for change)

Uhm....Azure wipes the floor with the "Gaikai promise". Gaikai is a $400 million dollar, first generation cloud streaming server, limited to certain areas, vs the 2nd largest cloud service newtork in the world. Microsoft's Iowa data center alone costs double Gaikai's worth. Gaikai's a toy and Azure is a real supercomputer, on the world's top 500 list.

Smartglass also allows for streaming games.

One's promising to stream old PS3 games, while Azure will actually team up with an X1 and be used to process next-generation X1 games.

The reason Sony is "promising" to stream PS3 games is because Gaikai would need to be completely re-vamped, extended and upgraded to handle anything more and the PS4 would also have to be designed for this capability. Their plan for Gaikai is probably going to pan out more for their Smart TV business because as of right now it's just not capable of streaming anything more than PS3-quality or current gen PC-quality games on a PS4. Not sure why you would want to do that if you're buying a PS4.

Also, I wouldn't get my hopes up about backwards compatibility. The idea of true backwards compatibility would mean Sony would have to store every single PS3 game in the cloud. The fact is, in order for you to have "free access" to your "old games", there has to be some kind of way for you to prove you own the game. I would imagine the only way to do this is if you own a PS3 game that can be installed and uploaded to Gaikai so it can be ran off the server but then that would kind of defeat the purpose if you still had to have the PS3 around to do this. Go take a look at your typical cloud service, and you'll see this is a fairy tale because they hold a limited number of games and in Sony's case they didn't buy it to not profit from it. You'll probably have limited games being streamed, that you will pay for again, and in that case, as I said, it would be beneficial to those with Smart TVs who own neither a PS3 or a PS4 or the game similar to services like OnLive or Agawi. Or to the original PC version of Gaikai.

Example of what X1's cloud service is capable of graphically

The potential of Xbox One's cloud service is mostly going unrecognised in this discussion. The video above is from nVidia, but the Microsoft has been talking about this exact spec repeatedly. Basically it offloads certain graphical features, like global illumination or rendering more detailed world meshes, that destroy modern GPU's. According to the video, latency is not much of a problem in game play situations (in the video there is mostly not difference between a ping of 0 and a ping of 1000ms). So if a developer implements cloud support, developers can actually make Xbox One games look better than their PS4's counterparts. This is assuming that Sony does not implement these same features as Microsoft has, but the current situation is that this exists already for Microsoft, it is at best, in the works for Sony.

Let's just get one thing straight.

People should not be comparing Azure to Gaikai. There is no comparison. Azure is a multibillion dollar cloud infrastructure with data centers all over the world. It can be used for hosting, streaming, computing and pretty much everything "the cloud" exists for. It's also getting bigger every day.

Gaikai is a cloud streaming service bought by Sony for $380 million. People have been screaming Gaikai since day one and very few of them have any understanding of what it is and how it would work. You basically need massive centers with hardware capable of running the games you want to stream. That DOES NOT exist right now and frankly I don't understand how Sony would even get that ready by next year. If they do offer some kind of service, it is going to be extremely limited.

For things that exist in the real world, the promise of Azure is a lot closer to reality than what Gaikai could possibly offer.

The Xbox One has hell of transistors, so....

Your friend sounds like everyone else posting here on these forums.

Is your friend trying to convince you to buy one? Do you want to play games with your friend? Those are the real questions. If my friends could convince me that X game for the WiiU is worth buying a system for then sure I'll go get one even if every arm-chair analyst on the internet is telling me that the WiiU is basically dead at this point. I can deal with the superfluous bullshit around the OS and such if I could play wicked games, and that's how I'll be making my purchasing decision this holiday season.

If you want just straight up comparisons, search online, people are posting extensive lists of differences for both consoles.

Both are going to need the internet to work fully and both pretty much have at launch the same line up on you basic games.... both will have "indie games" but if it isn't an ultimate mugen mash-up or fan made reboot of a long dead Sega game(streets of rage remix) or Jade Empire 2(somebody please make this game I give up on EA/Bioware on continuing the series) that's no biggy really.... besides the hype pending on which fanboy you talk too, not much really tilts to a side clearly...

In the Online only future I'd said Microsoft has set up a solid base with their network and has put a lot of thought into the OS and tends to update it yearly.... Kinect seems to be better and also more thought out and usefully for small gaming spaces(hopefully a Gunstringer or Double Fine Party get ported over to the One)...

I still don't trust Sony when it comes to online anything, the network is slow even with plus, and they haven't made up my trust since the whole hacking a few years back(free games are nice)... the vita stuff could be cool and like the cross play options but the UI and controller has always been a hurdle on PS3... so I'll wait on the PS4 til that killer app comes out....

Not a lot of games the scream "play me I'm only here" but launch games are rarely that great....

@naru_joe93: no I know it's not but Titanfall is. I get both games on the Xbox. Also I know both systems will have great games Sonys always had games I've wanted to play but for now I can only afford one system and MS has more games in the near future I want. Plus I like a lot of the interface stuff.

The PS4 is the safer option but the Xbox One offers a, potentially, much more exciting future.

The PS4 isn't really doing much except making a more powerful, easier to program for PS3.

The Xbox One is trying to change everything up.

If you're planning on buying both eventually, the PS4 is probably a better option at launch. If you're only ever going to buy one you should wait a while to see if the Xbox can actually live up to the potential.

http://kotaku.com/john-carmack-on-ps4-vs-xbox-one-specs-theyre-very-c-994733823?utm_campaign=Socialflow_Kotaku_Twitter&utm_source=Kotaku_Twitter&utm_medium=Socialflow

[John] Carmack then discussed why he's not quite sold on the Kinect motion controller, even while he thinks it's a technology that's set to grow and improve. He summed up Kinect thusly: Saying that he's given Apple grief for its one-button mouse, Carmack describes Kinect as "kind of like a zero-button mouse with a lot of latency on it."

He has a good point. Based on how simple it must be to add voice commands to your game, and how successful the first kinect was, if traditional gamers wanted to shout commands to their video games, we would be seeing FAR more Xbox 360 titles that allowed it.

On the other side of things, when a game uses more commands than a current controller allows, PS4 users will be able to use a touchpad to activate many more commands. On the Xbox One, gamers will be forced to activate those same commands with voice controls or hand gestures. That fine for those who would prefer that to more buttons or swipe controls, but it's very bad for users who actively dislike the idea of using voice controls or hand gestures.

There's only one difference: I can't mastrubate while playing my anime games on Xone without being spied on.

" Now new on Xbox One video: 'Gamers Gone Wild!' Only 1200MS points!"

Here's yet another difference I only just realized in the last day:

Xbox One requires you to have an Xbox Gold subscription to use the Game DVR and twitch streaming functionality. The Ps4 doesn't require any kind of subscription for Game DVR and ustream functionality and is available to all.

Microsoft continues being Microsoft. Super.

The only difference how good the games will perform and play on each system, And in truth that is all that matter to me. Everything else i dont care about.

PS4 doesnt come with a marketing tool thats monitoring me 24/7 so that is a big plus in my book.

Xboxone is not being released in Asia (where I live) for a full year after the initial release date. PS4 is already available for pre-order in some Asian countries.

Personally the PS4 controller looks more appealing to me. Although I love my 360 controller, I hate rumble and always turn it off. The new Xbox controller doesn't look like much of an improvement over the original whereas the PS4 looks like a marked improvement. The trackpad may provide some interesting navigation functions and Sony fixed the sticks.

This Eurogamer video was also eye opening on how games will actually run on the console. Granted none of these games are optimized for the specific console but nevertheless its revealing for games in the immediate future.

I also have zero faith that MS won't screw up the Xbox dashboard even more than it is. I foresee a future of ads and annoying embedded commercials. I'm no fan of Windows 8 and everything about the UI looks like a deeper integration. The PS4 UI although it hasn't been fully demonstrated looks like a ripoff of the Xbox tile system UI without the fluff. The console will also have 3GBs of ram to work with so I'm hoping it will run/load smoothly which was my biggest complaints about the PS3 system.

I really don't want yet another spybot in the house. After all that's happened over the past few weeks, it beggars belief why someone would want to add to the list of devices already spying on them.

And I don't like the pay-for-online introduced to PSN with the PS4.

So it's a stalemate at the moment for me, not to mention none of the games showcased so far have been remotely remarkable in my eyes.