Reading the forums recently and witnessing the ongoing fight between the Microsoft and Sony fanbases about the capabilities of their respective heir to the throne, I’ve been getting the impression we’ve been living a lie all those years.
Didn’t we spend 6 years praising how beautiful the games of the 7th looked? The jaw dropping scenery of the Uncharted games, the highly detailed character models of God Of War 3, the boring yet very realistic cars of Forza and Gran Turismo, the million shades of grey/brown of every FPS, the charming world of LittleBigPlanet, the vibrant colors of Bioshock Infinite’s Columbia, the list goes on and on.
The general consensus about the 7th gen is that we got some motherfucking good looking games (some of them were also fun!). Now, I know things have to go forward and the time for new consoles has arrived so it’s a good thing we’ll soon be able to get our hands on the PS4 and the XBOne.
The successors to the PS3 and Xbox 360 have some key differences. From what I understand, the Xbox One’s RAM will only be able to play up to Dance Dance Revolution 3 and the PS4 will be able to handle more major flops (Maybe I should pay more attention to specs talk...).
Seriously though, both companies have put forward very capable machines and while one will probably outclass the other (whether it’s through cloud magic, better RAM, hidden processors or the power of PR spin) the 8th gen will see amazingly-incredibly-extraordinarily beautiful games from both sides.
So why is knowing which one is the most powerful pointless? Simply because a console’s success is determined by its games. Always has, always will. Since the two platforms aren’t too far apart, it’s safe to assume that the vast majority of 3rd party efforts for the next gen will appear on both platforms and that they’ll be close to identical to anyone who doesn’t spend hours comparing screenshots in order to figure out in which version the main character has more detailed facial hair.
I understand that some people are genuinely interested by the technical aspects of video games but anyone with knowledge in that field is sure to recognize that with the law of diminishing returns and the relative closeness in specs of the PS4 and XBOne that the differences between what each console can render will be minimal and irrelevant to the majority of gamers. Whoever comes out on top won’t have that great of an advantage over the less capable console. It’s more of a “bragging rights” things than anything else.
Once again, the deciding factor will come down the first party games and which company has the games that suit your tastes best. With so much power at their disposition, I feel Sony and Microsoft will be limited more by the collective imagination of their first and second party studios than by the capacity of their machines.
Ultimately, people will end up choosing the console with the games they like best and all this power talk will have been just a big dick measuring contest or an exercise in pointlessness.
tldr: Read it, you lazy bum!
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