For over a decade Sony and Microsoft have been fighting for console supremacy but nearly
two years into the latest console cycle how do the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 stack up?
To kick things off let’s take a look at the console hardware and here you’ll see
a big difference. The PS4 has a smaller footprint while also being thinner which is no small
feat. Take a look at the iFixit teardown and you’ll see that the PlayStation is built
more like a laptop compared to the distinctly desktop-like Xbox One. Considering the Red
Ring of Death overheating issues that plagued the 360 it’s not a surprise that Microsoft
played it a bit safe this generation but there’s no getting around that the Xbox looks more
like a VCR than a game console. Thankfully you can customize both with a skin from dbrand
which I have on my consoles, it’s easy to get the exact look you want like two tone
carbon fiber or my personal favorite the 1981 edition PS4. Look past the, well looks and
the consoles are surprisingly similar. Up front you’ll find a slot loading Bluray
drive and power buttons on each and while they’re perfectly usable I do prefer the
bigger touch sensitive buttons on the Xbox compared to the smaller, less accurate buttons
on the PlayStation. You’ll find a pair of USB 3.0 ports on the front of the PS4 where
the Xbox has one USB on the side along with two more around back. You’ll also find the
power connector, HDMI out, Optical Audio, HDMI in, dedicated Kinect port, IR blaster
and an Ethernet jack. Compare this to the PS4 and we’ve got the same HDMI, Optical
Audio, Ethernet and proprietary PlayStation Camera port but the Xbox is the clear winner
for this one. The extra USB 3.0 is nice, the IR blaster can be helpful for home theater
setups and the HDMI in allows the Xbox to control a cable or satellite box. It also
comes with dual band Wi-Fi compared to the single stream 2.4 gigahertz solution on the
PS4. If you live in an area with a lot of Wi-Fi networks like I do the Xbox One does
a much better job of pulling in a consistent signal where the PS4 has so many wireless
issues I had to run an Ethernet cable for it. It’s not all good news for the Xbox
though. While both come with 500 gigabytes of capacity the PS4 officially supports swapping
drives. You can add a larger hard drive or go the SSD route to cut down on loading times
which is awesome but at least the Xbox One allows installing games on a USB drive which
the PS4 doesn’t. Even though the Xbox is bigger it also needs a large external power
supply where the PlayStation is able to make an internal power supply work making it quite
a bit easier to fit into tighter setups. Something else to consider is that these consoles can
put off some serious heat. Take a look at the Xbox One and it tops out around 41 degrees
Celsius under a full gaming load which isn’t too bad, this is mostly thanks to the top
half of the console venting the hot air. Move over to the PS4 and you’ll see similar temps
on top however most of the exhaust happens in the rear and here we’re reaching nearly
60 degrees. This isn’t dangerous but you’ll want to make sure the PS4 has access to plenty
of cool air, put it in a crowded entertainment console and you could have issues. Dealing
with all of that heat can result in a noisy console so next I ran Grand Theft Auto 5 on
both the Xbox and PlayStation for 10 minutes and measured how loud they got.
While the Xbox One is barely audible the PS4 gets considerably louder, during gaming this
isn’t much of an issue but the Xbox scores a clear win here. Next I measured power consumption
for each console at idle, while watching YouTube and playing GTA 5. Here the Xbox makes the
clean sweep, consuming 30 less watts at idle and a still significant 16 fewer watts under
gaming. Some of this gap has to do with the more power hungry GDDR5 memory inside the
PS4 but Microsoft has done a good job of optimizing for less demanding use which is likely to
make up most of the consoles’ life span. Sony has built a better looking console in
a more compact package with some serious power under the hood but Microsoft made a lot of
good choices to make a quieter, cooler console with more hardware features giving it the
edge in this one. That’s not the whole story though. Want to know how the controllers stack
up? How about the performance? Stay tuned, this console war is just getting started.