These new systems are basically mid-range PC's. The Sony PC has a substantially better graphics card. Of course there's a difference, just like if you took your PC and upgraded to a new model GPU. On top of that, the One is running Windows and I think that bogs it down.

Sony surprised just about everyone with the price and power of PS4. It was all made possible by charging consumers a subscription fee.

They don't collaborate with each other to ensure they have the same hardware capabilities. The fact is MS bet on Kinect (hence the $100 more cost) and PS4 bet on the core machine being stronger (and decided to sell at bigger loss).

kinect.

A) adds to the total purchase cost.
B) subtracts from the budget to buy components that increase raw performance
C) subtracts from raw performance in order to run all the calculations/data processing kinect does.


hope you like talking to your xbox because it was a very expensive feature.

MS said kinect 2.0 costs ~$150.  So it adds $100 to the purchase price while also subtracting $50 from the budget to buy other components.

dissect things any which way you want,.. the core reason is still kinect. 

It's because Microsoft was making a Media Center Box instead of just a game console. They wanted it to do everything well, but nothing great, and so you wound up with a $500 box that is good at a lot of things but great at none of them. The PS4 decided it wanted to be a game console first and foremost, and is very good at it, but won't have the same flexibility as the Xbox One in the future.

This was pretty well discussed during the Console flamewars, most people acknowledged that the PS4 would be more powerful than the Xbox One, but that the Xbox One was "truly next-gen!" because it offered features that integrated with your TV, and the Kinect, and voice commands. The PS4 on the other hand is just a great game console with internet-based streaming features instead of TV features. Mind you, this was before people started touting ESRAM as some sort of miracle worker by way of discrete mathmatics that logically make no sense.

Both consoles have tremendous potential, but I think Microsoft ultimately wants to become a cable box that games, where as the Playstation 4 wants to be a game console with bonus features. For now, I'll probably buy a PS4. It's cheaper, and I don't need to pay an additional $60 a year to watch Netflix on it (other than NFS: Rivals which I play on PC, I don't really game online very much).

Clearly PS4 is more powerful. But the fact is you can't judge capability on the first run of 3rd party games. In a year or so they will once again look nearly identical.

How is the x1 more flexible?? sony is launching a Tv servioce that does not require a HDMi in port. PS4 can do all the media, multi-tasking of x1.... There really is nothing x1 can do ps4 cannot, ms just trying to jsutify kinect with things like snap, voice (Which can be done with a mic) is pure marketing/or. Keep in mind sony owns a lot of movie/tv properties, ms doesn't.

Sony TV/Movie is completely separate from their console division, there should be on expectation that it means anything. Sony can talk about launching a TV service, much like Microsoft did, but it's worthless until it fully launches, like Microsofts did not. The HDMI-input is pretty handy for a total integration, and the development of apps could be fairly interesting if they develop it properly on Microsoft's side of things. It's nothing that Sony cannot implement, and I hope at some point they do, even simple stuff like the Xbox One's tablet/screen mirroring.

In terms of pure gaming, the PS4 will be ahead of the Xbox One all generation, which is one reason why Microsoft will likely be buying up IPs like crazy - since it ultimately comes down to the games. Though, frankly, I no longer see the appeal of Halo, Gears, or Killzone (never did on this one) - and Titanfall looks like Tribes by way of CoD. It should be an interesting generation regardless, but Microsoft definitely made some odd mistakes. It's like having two identical PCs, one has a webcam and a lesser graphic card, the other has no webcam and a better graphic card for $100 less. Sort of a no-brainer.

It's quite simple really. MS prioritized the bundling of kinetic. So in order to keep the total price of the x1 down and fit kinetic, they needed to make sacrifices on the rest of the hardware. This resulted in MS choosing a gpu equivalent to a hd7770.

Sony on the other hand chose not to bundle their camera and focus on the core components. This resulted in a much better gpu and better memory for gaming. The biggest contributor to the power difference though is the gpu...which is equivalent to a HD7850 more or less.

Have a look at the benchmarks between those two gpus and it pretty much says everything.

Disagree totally, hdmi in was the WORST way to go about it, it doesn;t work with PVR's which right away makes it useless for most, you still need you existing cable box, a waste of time. Streaming is the way to go not using 20 year old technology.

seperate division means squat lol, ms has none, sony has many Ip's they can leverage in that space. Sony already has tablet , second screen integration and remote play. Ms has nothing like PS now currently either and Ps4 is way ahead with twitch OS integration.