- Hey guys, this is Austin.
It's been seven years since PS4 and Xbox One were released
which means only one thing,
time for the next generation.
At this point both the PS5 and Xbox Series X
are officially coming out,
so that leaves me with four questions.
When do they come out?
How powerful are they?
What exactly is new?
And how much will they cost?
The release dates are pretty straightforward,
both Sony and Microsoft have gone on record
saying that their consoles
will be coming out holiday of 2020,
which very likely means either October
or November of this year.
If it's anything like last generation,
they'll likely come out really close together.
Back in 2013, the Playstation 4 came out exactly one week
ahead of the Xbox One here in North America.
One thing to consider are the announcements.
So Microsoft of course,
surprise dropped a ton of information
on the Series X back at the Game Awards last year,
however Sony, while they've been talking about the PS5,
have yet to do their official announcement for it yet.
So based on rumors,
we should expect that to happen very soon,
so make sure to subscribe to the channel
so you're kept up to date
with the latest on these next gen consoles.
A difficult question is exactly how powerful
are the Playstation 5 and Xbox Series X?
Now to start out with,
we actually do have a fair bit of official information.
Both the PS5 and Series X are taking advantage
of AMD technology on the CPU and GPU side.
Processors are likely to be one of the biggest jumps,
so Xbox as well as Playstation this time around
are sticking with an eight core design,
however it will be taking advantage
of the latest Zen 2 core from AMD,
which as we've seen in the PC space with Ryzen,
is incredibly impressive, and especially when you compare it
to the last generation consoles,
which had pretty weak Jaguar CPU cores,
which were essentially mobile chips,
it makes a huge, huge difference.
And in fact we actually did a video
where we built a PC as close to PS5 spec as possible,
and we saw something in the neighborhood
of about a three times performance improvement
going from those old school last generation console CPUs,
to this new generation,
it's gonna be a big leap.
Graphics are where things start
to get a little bit more interesting.
So again, both Sony and Microsoft
are opting to go with AMD Navi GPUs,
which is pretty much what happened last generation,
in that the Xbox One and PS4 had very similar graphics,
just slightly differently configured,
and I expect that to be the case this time around.
So in addition to the Navi GPU core,
we also should see much faster GDDR6 memory.
Now that's what we know officially,
however if we take a little trip into rumor town,
a lot of things are lining up that the PS5,
while it will be significantly
more powerful than the PS4 Pro,
as well as the Xbox One X,
will still be at a power deficit
compared to the Xbox Series X.
And the reason for that is really straightforward,
seems like Microsoft are spending a lot of money,
and a lot of engineering on just simply
brute-forcing their way to a more powerful console.
So we're talking about a larger chip,
as well as higher clock speeds,
and the cooling to support that.
Funnily enough, we actually have more information on this
thanks to Phil Spencer, the head of Xbox,
who recently changed his Twitter profile photo
to be a shot of the chip inside the Series X.
Now while there have been a lot of attempts
to sort of figure out exactly how big it is,
it's kind of hard to tell
since there's no clear reference point in that photo,
but I do think it's a very safe bet to say,
that this will be larger than the Xbox One X chip,
and especially considering that it should be
on the seven nanometer process,
expect a ton of power packed into this guy.
(coughing)
Oh, nicely done,
I think you made that, right?
But there is a wrinkle to all of this,
and that is there actually might be
three next generation consoles, instead of two.
So for over a year now we've heard rumors
about an Xbox Lockhart console.
Now this was something that was a little bit more akin
to say the Xbox One S, versus the One X.
Still the same basic consoles,
still capable of playing the same games,
however with a cheaper price tag,
and with less performance.
So say Series X is aimed at 4K,
this Lockhart, or what I'm gonna call the Series S,
will be aimed at something like 1080p or 1440,
if you're saving a couple hundred dollars,
might be worth it?
Now in conjunction with all the talk about
this Lockhart Series S console,
there are actually quite a few leaked benchmarks,
and some leaked specs,
however I would take all of these
with a massive pile of salt,
- [Ken] Pile of salt?
- Yes, pile of salt.
Not a pinch of salt, not a sprinkling of salt,
you need a pile of salt.
Because some AMD researcher in some lab
loaded up Windows and ran 3DMark does not mean
that's how powerful it is. (laughing)
But pile of salt aside,
what you should I think expect,
if this Lockhart or Series S console
does see the light of day,
is for it to be perfectly powerful,
it's going to be capable of playing
all the same games,
it just won't be playing it at that same resolution,
that same frame rate, that same graphical fidelity.
Now while the Xbox Series X is official,
this supposed Series S is not official yet.
And because of that,
I highly doubt that we will see it come out this year,
so my money would be on the PS5 and the Xbox
coming out later this year,
with the Series X coming out maybe early next year,
just to kind of give a little bit of space on the launch.
Now when it comes to the performance of these consoles,
while yes, both the PS5 and Xbox Series X
will be capable of 8K resolutions,
thanks to their HDMI 2.1 ports,
beyond that, I really don't think
that's going to be the goal,
besides, who actually has an 8K TV at this point?
Realistically, both consoles should be focused
on 4K, 60 frame per second gaming.
Again, Phil Spencer has already gone on record
as saying that's really what they're targeting,
they don't care about the raw pixel count,
rather the frame rate, the fluidity,
and probably most importantly,
the actual graphics that you're delivering.
I mean, seriously,
you can watch a life-like version of,
oh, I don't know,
planet, what is it?
What's planet world?
World planet?
What's the nature doc that everyone loves?
Planet Earth?
You could watch Planet Earth in 720p,
it's gonna look a whole lot more realistic
than "The Witcher" at 4K on an Xbox.
Pixels aren't everything, Marques has been lying to you.
You can watch MKBSD and it'll be just fine.
(siren wailing)
- [Ken] Jesus.
- So along side of that,
some games will likely take advantage of higher frame rates,
so something like 120 frames per second,
and maybe like 1080p might be an option
for more eSports oriented titles.
And both the PS5 and Xbox Series X
will have additional features,
including support for hardware ray tracing,
which will make the lighting much more realistic,
and especially on the audio front,
Sony's really been pushing their,
I think they call it ray tracing for audio,
which is definitely not the correct term,
but something along those lines,
that'll be a much more realistic audio experience.
Another big advantage will be standard SSDs across the board
for this next generation.
Now this is something which will help for several reasons,
first of all, the previous generation consoles,
they had these huge worlds,
but a lot of times they would take
like a minute or two to launch.
However this time around,
we should see significantly cut down load times,
and as a side benefit, some companies,
such as Microsoft, have been touting the fact
that they'll be able to use this SSD
as virtual ram, to give even more memory available
for even bigger, more higher detailed textures and worlds,
and all that kind of stuff.
Ultimately, this generation consoles will be more powerful,
but it won't be a massive leap like we saw
from the Xbox to the Xbox 360, or something.
While yes, we will technically be capable
of high resolutions, really what I expect
are more detailed game worlds,
and sort of smaller, more evolutionary steps.
The bigger difference here is going to be,
of course, in the actual games.
Now I'm curious to see how this shapes up,
because obviously this generation, with the Playstation 4,
Sony has dominated with dedicated
and very sort of embedded studios
have been cranking out great content
that is really exclusive to the Playstation.
And while Xbox has definitely trailed so far,
a few years ago they purchased a ton of major studios
and a lot of those exclusive games
are going to be coming out on the Series X.
Although I will note that Microsoft
has actually said that a lot of the Series X games,
at least at launch and for the first year or two,
will also be coming out on PC and Xbox One,
so you can still probably experience these things,
just not quiet as shiny and new as on the Series X.
- [Ken] Or you get the PC version.
- Or you get the PC version,
which will probably look better than all of them.
The next question is what exactly is new this generation?
Well the easiest place to start
is certainly with the physical designs themselves.
And with the Xbox Series X,
well it's big, it's really big.
Expect it to roughly double the size of the Xbox One X,
if not even a little bit bigger than that,
which makes it less-so a console,
and more-so a small gaming PC,
similar to the one I have right behind me,
very coincidentally.
Now this is necessary because you do need more cooling
for the extra power of the Series X,
but that being said,
get ready to clear some space underneath your TV,
or behind your TV,
or beside your TV,
or on the ground in front of your TV.
Besides the fact that it has an optical drive
and USB port up front,
that's about all we know officially with the Series X,
however a photo of the rear of it got leaked on Twitter,
and it looks very standard.
HDMI, USB, optical audio,
but what's kind of interesting is,
is that there was a very clearly readable serial number,
which someone was able to successfully register
on the Microsoft site.
So yeah, this is probably
what the Series X is gonna look like around back.
Like the Xbox, the Playstation 5
will also have an optical drive,
although this time they're using a custom disk,
which will have 100 gigabytes of capacity,
as well as backwards compatibility on the PS5,
with UHD Blu-rays, and probably standard Blu-rays,
and DVDs and all that kind of stuff.
Now what likely will not have an optical drive,
is Xbox Lockhart, aka the Series S.
Now this actually no surprise to people
who have actually been, you know,
looking at Xbox's recently.
As they've already brought out
a all digital version of the Xbox One S,
and I wouldn't be surprised,
especially considering that the Series S
is supposed to be significantly cheaper,
that in addition to cutting some of the performance
and some of the specs,
they'll also drop out that optical drive.
If you want to buy a physical disk,
you gotta get one of the big boys.
Or just download them, which is probably the smart move.
Now the feature that isn't new is that Xbox Series X,
should pretty much be a full replacement for the Xbox One.
So peripherals, accessories, controllers,
should all come straight through and work, no problem,
as will all of the backwards compatible games.
So you will be able to play Xbox One games on the Series X,
as well as Xbox 1, and Xbox 360,
or sorry, Xbox original, Xbox 360,
and Xbox One, because that's even more confusing now.
But the nice thing here is that really
by getting a Series X,
theoretically it's a drop-in upgrade,
all of the current games,
all the current Xbox One gear you have right now,
will just work.
On the Playstation side,
things are a little bit more ambiguous.
So Sony has claimed that they'll have great
backwards compatibility, but realistically
that's probably going to mean
it will just work with Playstation 4 games,
as the AMD architecture
going from PS4 to PS5 is very similar.
Now while it would be great to have PS1, PS2,
or even PS3 backwards compatibility,
I'll believe it when I see it.
We have a brief look at what the controller will look like
on the Series X, and surprise surprise,
it's almost the exact same as on the Xbox One,
with some slight tweaks.
Now the Playstation's a little bit more interesting.
Now while officially they've talked a bit about
the idea of having some back buttons
as well as more customizable triggers,
but they coincidentally just released an add-on
for the Dualshock 4,
which not only adds those customizable rear buttons,
but also an OLED screen to the back of the controller.
I think that's a, maybe a little more than a coincidence,
and I feel this is a very good look
at what the PS5 controller will look like,
but at the very least,
some of the features that it will have.
But last and arguably most important question
about these next generation consoles
is how much will they cost?
Now for this we have no official information yet,
however between the rumors and basic common sense,
I think we have a pretty good guess.
So when it comes to Xbox Lockhart,
aka the Series S,
we're likely looking at a console around $400.
Move up the the Playstation 5,
and that one has been pegged at about $500,
whereas the Xbox Series X
will likely come in somewhere around the $600 price-point.
Now I'm curious, what do you guys think
about these next gen consoles?
And don't forget to hit that subscribe button
to make sure that you're kept up to date
with the latest and greatest of the console wars,
V17, or whichever generation we're on right now.
I think it's nine actually,
but who's counting?
(upbeat music)