Sony have been up front and open about the PS4’s technical specs and components, especially when system architect Mark Cerny is doing the talking. However, Xbox One’s product planning boss Albert Penello has dismissed the numbers and details, classing them as “in some ways meaningless.”
“The problem is that Sony decided to go out and publish a bunch of numbers, which are in some ways meaningless,” he said. “Because this isn’t like 1990, when it was 16-bit versus 32-bit.”
“As a matter of fact,” he added, “they actually go out and they talk about how proud they are about their off-the-shelf parts. Our guys’ll say, we touched every single component in the box and everything there is tweaked for optimum performance.”
[drop2]General consensus is that the Xbox One isn’t quite as powerful, overall, as the PlayStation 4.“For me, I’d rather not even have the conversation, because it’s not going to matter,” Penello continued. “The box is going to be awesome. The games are going to be awesome.”
“I heard this exact same argument last generation and it’s a pointless argument, because people are debating things which they don’t know about.”
“Why are we having this discussion?”
“You bought a system to play great games and have great experiences.” he says. “I feel like our games and experiences are going to be every bit as good, if not better, technically – on top of all the magic we’re going to add with the instant switching, and the power of the cloud.”
“So the whole numbers game – yeah, I’ve been following it online and it’s like, we tried having that argument last time. Do I want to talk about HDMI 1.3 or 1.4, it’s like ‘argh!’ It doesn’t matter. Did you see Call of Duty, it looks f**king awesome! It’s going to be great, you know. So we’re just saying, it’s not worth the debate.”
In some ways he’s right – it’s all about the games and until we see final versions of those (at that includes first party exclusives and the multiplatform games) the numbers don’t matter at all. The PS3’s Cell was hugely powerful, for example, but most early Xbox 360 games performed better.
Via OXM.
The Von Braun
LOL, i meant gamble, not gammble.
as an original Xbox and 360 owner MS are really putting across a straw-man case here, to start to whine on about Sony playing the numbers game now, after 2 generations of the doing the very same (MS might have changed the numbers on final hardware for original Xbox, but were more than happy to shout about 733 Mhz CPU’s, 250 Mhz GPU’s, unified memory, 6.4 Gb/s bandwidth, Dolby 5.1 as standard, vertex and pixel shaders, anything techno-babble wise it had over the PS2 was hammered home and 360 war fought in same manner).
You cannot suddenly cry foul when person who’s face you’ve been happy to rub dirt into for past few years, suddenly punches you in the guts, you loose wind and next thing you know he’s got you by the hair and it’s your face being rubbed in dog sh*t (sorry, rough upbringing :-) ).
You played the sales figures game with 360, same way Sony did with PS1, PS2.It’s a dirty industry and fire is fought with fire.If you have faith in your system, your line up, then why rise to what Sony is doing, stand on your own 2 feet and prove to the consumer you are listening and can deliver, bleating away now just makes your case look poor.
The Von Braun
MS:The numbers war becomes meaningless…WHEN WE SAY IT DOES.
DJ Judas
If numbers truly are meaningless, why not let a third party run a benchmark with Vsync off?
It is of course meaningless in terms of whether one “enjoys” games on the system, but all talking about it does is make other people talk about it.
In terms of hardware performance, the PS4 is more powerful because of the GPU, and no amount of RAM speed comparisons will change that. What matters is the underlying code that links the components together, and the software that runs on the hardware, the impact of which we will only see upon release. The prime example of this is the Apple Vs Android debate – Android handsets can be complete hardware powerhouses, but the tied down environment of iOS allows for lesser hardware to be used for a high-performance experience.
CarBoyCam
I totally agree with you, however, I think the Xbox OS is a bit of a hog from what I’ve seen. :P
Amphlett
Phew, it’s getting hot in here.
Wardy-77-
so take off all your clothes,i am gettin so hot i wanna take my clothes off…
TSBonyman
How could he forget 5 billion transistors?
LegendishThingy
Why do Microsoft have to compare the Xbox One to the PS4? Seems like Sony aren’t even being moved to make comments about the Xbox One and it’s just a case of Microsoft trying to downplay the machine that Sony have come out with this time around.
The fact that Microsoft feel the need to attack Sony in this manner surely says something about just how behind they feel this generation.
CarBoyCam
Yes the PS3 was more powerful and games were better on 360 last generation, but this time round, there is no mountain to climb for developers who want to develop on a Cell processor… I bet one Freddo that the games will look as good as, if not better, on PS4 for the whole generation.
More Microsoft hot air in my opinion. XD
The Von Braun
And this has got to be said…Ms..lets go back…back in time…enter the mists of time…a journey….
Sega have annouced the Dreamcast, talk of between 3-5 million polygons a second…….Sony roars, pahhh, PS2 75 million polygons a second, you MS, out to make an impression with your console come out with..150 million polys a second.developers take a look at you and say soppy sods, with everything turned on, effects wise, your looking at around 20 million polys a sec MS.
Nintendo said well Game Cube is looking at around 15 million polys a second, but by that we mean upper limits and said polys are lit and texture mapped.So they went with numbers not so big, but damn sight more meaningful that crap you said and you did’nt downgrade your figures to compete.
Lyts1985
So MS say specs and numbers are pointless…
Yet when you preorder the X1 you “earn” an achievement for purchasing “the most powerful console ever made”!
That statement is ironically untrue and yet they still shout about it!? So, as far as not caring about specs and number… Right hand, meet left hand ;-)
XisTG
This from the guys that said their console had 5,000,000,000 transistors…