PS5 to counter XBox One X: PS4.5 Was Just the Bait

E3 2016 was full of surprises, more so than most of the prior year’s shows. The biggest curveball of them all was Microsoft’s announcement of Project Scorpio, now named XBox One X. It is a new console, promised to be the most powerful one ever made. It’s also coming out in holiday 2017. This puts Sony in a bind, but they’ve never been one to let Microsoft walk all over them. PS4 Neo has been confirmed, but we still don’t know much about the upgraded system. It will most likely release before Project Scorpio, but it’s not the real secret Sony is hiding. You see, Sony used PS4 Neo to force Microsoft to show their hand. Now they can move forward with PS5 and position themselves to once again crush the competition. PlayStation’s CEO Reacts to XBox One X: ‘I was surprised’ Andrew House, boss of PlayStation, interview with the Guardian post E3 and revealed some interesting insight into their ultimate console plan. We knew several days before E3 that the PS4 Neo (PS4.5) was real, but Sony had no plans to show it at E3. “The point of confirming the existence of PlayStation 4 Neo and the bare bones of the plan last week was not about disappointing the fan base who would obviously come to E3 with high expectations of all kinds of announcements. From past experience, the worst thing you can do is disappoint and pull the rug away from people. That’s why we went out last week and said, yes, it does exist, but don’t expect to see it at E3. I think it was the right thing to do.” In reality, he’s absolutely right. People expected PS4 Neo news at E3, and by tempering their expectations, Sony was able to set up the proper approach for their epic press conference which wowed the audience with a live orchestra and tons of big game announcements. Sony’s approach is very calculated. House stated that they didn’t want to show the PS4 Neo until they had a proper “range of experiences to showcase.” They don’t have that right now, so there’s no point in showing the system. That being said, Andrew House seemed surprised at Microsoft’s announcement of their hardware: “I was surprised by the step of announcing something over a year ahead of time. The dynamics of the tech industry are such that there’s a much heavier emphasis on immediate gratification than there was. A lot of that is to do with how Apple has very cleverly and elegantly managed the ‘available now’ approach. So yes, that was a slight surprise to me.” Notice how he said “slight surprise.” More on that later, but he went on to say that Sony learned their lesson back in 2013 when they announced PS4 and people wanted to know where the system was. They realized that the industry had changed, and they needed to change with it. Our next extremely important point before we dive into the details and speculation, … Read More

PS5 vs XBox 2 – The Eternal War

The Future of Console Gaming Since the dawn of console gaming, there has been a war being waged behind the scenes. PlayStation versus Xbox with Nintendo doing their own thing. Every generation, the battle continues. Each system tends to borrow pieces of technology from one another, but they also bring their own secret weapons to the table. The next generation console from Sony, the PlayStation 5, is coming holiday 2020. The Xbox 2, known officially as the Xbox Series X, made an appearance at the 2o19 Game Awards. More recently, in February 2020, Microsoft dropped major details on the Xbox Series X in a blog post written by Phil Spencer. Sony, for starters, is skipping E3 2020. Microsoft, meanwhile, took a page out of Sony’s book with this blog post on Xbox Wire acting as a major announcement. As of March 2020, Sony revealed major spec details via a stream meant for the cancelled GDC conference. As such, it was filled with technical details, and ultimately allows us to look at the specs of both systems side by side: Xbox Series X does have the edge in a few categories, which shows just how tight the next console race is going to be. Of course, power isn’t everything, so let’s talk about the other major factors. Sony Focuses on Games and Experiences With the PlayStation 4, we’ve already seen a transition into a digital focus. Games can be purchased on the day of release and downloaded directly to the hard drive. We know that the PS5 is going to have a solid-state drive (SSD) that should essentially eliminate or vastly decrease load times. While we don’t know the size of the drive included in the new system, it stands to reason that games will probably go up in size as they include higher resolution graphics and more complex gameplay. When the PlayStation 5 releases, we can also expect a new controller, which Sony has described in some detail. We know that it will have a better battery life, adaptive triggers, and coil actuators for more detailed feedback beyond the rumble we know and love. With new forays happening today in the field of virtual reality, the time of the PlayStation 5 will be heralded with virtual reality that is sleek, immersive, and intuitive. The current PSVR headset will work with the new system, but plenty of rumors and patents point to Sony also making a next-generation headset after the new console’s launch. Knowing this, it is apparent that Sony has a clear and concise vision of a gaming system that once again will revolutionize the way we play games. With PlayStation 5, you will be submerged into the world of your games. Looking at the state of PlayStation in 2020, Sony is absolutely destroying the competition in terms of exclusive titles. We are still looking forward to massive titles like The Last of Us: Part 2 and Ghosts of Tsushima in 2020. The recently released Dreams from Media Molecule also … Read More