The Specs of the Next Gen mean very little and here is why

We now have our first specs for both the Xbox Series X and the PlayStation 5, after both companies released them this week, Xbox at the start of the week and PlayStation just this morning. To make it a little easier for you, below is a quick infographic that shows the listed specs for both consoles, as well as who has the edge in any given category, except for the ones where only one of them has something in it, or its a tie.

As you can see, Xbox has the edge when it comes to raw numbers, but it is very important to note that numbers are not the be all to end all, think of it like a fast car. If we put Xbox down as a Ferrari and PlayStation as the Porsche, both offer similar experiences, but just have different ways of delivering it.

Both those car brands are known for throwing their cars on race tracks around the world and they are constantly going back and forth as to which is the superior brand, but that is the point, each track makes one car perform better than the others.

Some tracks will favour a car that can break faster, or one that accelerates better, even the heavier car can win on some, as it might corner smoother, there is no one perfect car and there is no one perfect console. Both the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 will deliver similar performance, but it is the games that will determine how things shape up.

In the past we have seen games like The Elder Scrolls V Skyrim release on multiple platforms at once, being PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 and while the game was the same, it was a pile of hot garbage on the PS3, due to the team not understanding the hardware. Conversely, a game like Watch_Dogs performed far better on Sony’s hardware than that of Microsoft’s.

Hardware is important, the massive leap in performance that both consoles are aiming to deliver will allow developers more freedom to create better games than ever before, but it does not mean we will see whole new genres. During the PlayStation 5 event, The Road to the PS5, Mark Cerny showed off a map from a level of Jax and Daxter, which showed how they made changes to the level, in order to optomise the experience for the player, by only giving them limited sight lines, this ensured that the game did not have to load up parts of the world that the player couldn’t see.

The problem with that argument is that Grand Theft Auto 3 was out around the same time and had massive sight lines and while there were some load issues, they were not massive ones, like you might be thinking. The extra functions and performance will only matter to a game that is made for that platform, Halo Infinite will be a true showpiece for Series X, where as whatever title Sony launch the PlayStation 5 with, will do the same for their machine.

Technical Specifications are great to gauge how powerful something is going to be, but to most gamers they are just numbers, something to grab a hold of, in order to prove that your machine is better than the other one. Ignore the numbers and focus on the games, that is what matters and be honest, you don’t camp out to buy a new game console, just to stare at the box, you want the games it can play, so be smart and leave the numbers alone.