Pre-E3 Comparison: PS4 Vs Xbox One

Intro

When the reveals for the consoles were announced, things started to get exciting for the console market.  We'd all been expecting them for a while and to finally get official confirmation that they were real things was great.  Then we had the reveals and everyone has their own opinions.  These opinions are my own.  I always try to be objective but this time I might not be.  What I am going to say is that these are my thoughts on the two consoles at the time of writing.  I'm going to be focusing mainly on what I care about as a gamer.  I'm only going on official information here, not rumours and speculation.

Let's begin with the hardware.

The Consoles

Looking at the consoles in terms of specifications, there's not much difference.  The specifications are so similar with each having plus points.  Neither console seems inherently better than the other here, and as a retro gamer I know that this isn't all that important either.  A fancy bit of kit might look shiny but great graphics don't make a great game.  The only new feature is in the PS4, which has a small bit of extra hardware so that it can download stuff in the background.  Unfortunately for Sony, the Xbox 360 has been doing this since launch and it's been doing it with software.  As I see it, there's really nothing in it here.

No one knows what the PS4 looks like as they didn't show it off.  The X1 has been getting a lot of criticism though, both for how it looks and the name.  I find both of these arguments to be trivial and almost moot.  Yes, the name might be silly, but as they say 'a rose by any other name'.  As for looks, well, I might have gotten the Halo 4 Xbox 360 because it looks nice, but it's not the most important feature and it wouldn't stop me buying the console if it didn't look good.  I also don't buy a console so I can gaze at it like it's art.  It sits there and gets ignored for the most part.  I happen to like the X1 looks, but I guess that's just preference.

The Controllers

The PS4 controller looks much like the other Playstation controllers, which is fine.  There hasn't been much said about it other than that it has a button to easily share video clips and stream live over the internet.  There's also a touch pad.  I have no idea what it does as they didn't say.  All they really said was 'it has a touch pad'.  It's like the light on the top of the controller.  It changes colour depending what player number you are, though I'm not sure how practical that is seeing as you won't normally see it.  I think that Move might track it but I'm not sure on that either.

The X1 controller looks much like that Xbox 360 controller, which is good.  I find the 360 controller to be comfortable so I'm guessing the X1 controller will be too.  It has an improved battery compartment to make it better for different sized hands and it has feedback in the triggers.  I'd like to know more about the feedback as I dislike rumble feedback, but it's an impressive feature.  The new Kinect sensor can track the controller too.

Optical Sensors

This is where the X1 really gets one over on the PS4, if this is your thing.  The new Kinect sensor has been designed to work in smaller spaces than the old one so more people can use it.  It can now track way more than the old one too.  It can track limb rotation, momentum, heart rate, and the controller.  This has applications in motion controlled games as well as fitness as Kinect can now tell how accurately you hit a target, for example, and how hard you hit.  It can also be used to tell how hard you are working out as well and thus give better feedback about overall fitness.  While I don't think it has been said, it is most like using Eulerian Video Magnification which works on all skin colours and is worth looking at even if it isn't used in the X1.  I don't have any information as to how accurate the voice recognition is, but in the reveal it looked rather good with commands being carried out straight away and with no discernible delay.  While I probably won't make use of the voice recognition, it is good to see it there as it's a useful feature for disabled gamers.  The only downside is that it needs to be plugged in all the time, but it can be turned off when you're not using a Kinect based game.

The PS4 Move controller tracks a light.  It can track the controller because it has a light on it.  The Wii can do that without a visible light.

The Interface

If you like the Xbox 360 dashboard then the X1 dashboard will be ok.  It has the same Windows 8 styling so there's nothing new in terms of looks.  What is note worthy is how quickly and easily it seems to work.  It has various hand gestures and it can do several things at the same time.  I'm not sure I want to talk on skype while I'm watching a film, but if that's your thing then great.  I'm also not into sports or fantasy leagues, but for those that are then you can get live feedback on fantasy leagues while you're watching the game.  This is what has taken most of the stick from others, but to me I thought this was great.  To me, the great thing isn't that it can do live TV or Skype or whatever, it's that it can do it all at the same time and work flawlessly.  It seems to be a great bit of software engineering.

We don't know anything about the PS4 interface as they didn't show it off during the reveal.

Overall

While many people criticised the X1 reveal for being TV focused with not enough games, I thought it was quite exciting.  It showed me the features, how it will work, what it does, how I'll use it, and what it'll be like to use it.  I don't care for the TV features, but it was good to see it in action.  Replace the TV content with something else and it'd still work the same.  As for the lack of games, well, it was a console reveal.  More games would have been nice but I think the star of the show was the X1 so showing it off should have been the focus.  I'm just happy that Forza 5 will be a launch title.

In comparison, the PS4 reveal seemed more like a developer conference.  They spent 20 minutes explaining why the designed the architecture the way they did, and then 20 minutes talking about the streaming technology.  It's not that it isn't interesting, but it wasn't what I wanted to see.  None of that matters to me though.  I just wanted to know what it'd be like to use it and how the features work and how they'll translate into great gaming.

For me, the winner here is the X1, simply because there's so much more information about it that's relevant to gamers.  I can look at the information and be confident that it'll be fun and easy to use.  I just don't know enough about the PS4 to make an informed decision on it yet.

E3 is coming up in a few days, which will be a great opportunity for both Sony and Microsoft.  Sony has got to show the console and software.  They have got to get some more information out there as to how it'll work and what it looks like.  Microsoft on the other have to prove that the X1 is a gaming console.  This means showing off more gameplay videos, revealing at least some of the exclusives, and generally reassuring the games that it's not just a set top box but rather a gaming console with some fancy features.