Journalist and industry insider Jason Schreier has revealed in a podcast what game developers have told him about the new console PlayStation 5 (PS5). It is said to be better than it looks on paper, but Sony seems to be undervaluing it at the moment.
Who is speaking? Jason Schreier is an investigative reporter for the US site Kotaku. He is known for his reliable leaks and insider information. He has written high-profile exposés on the creation of AAA games like Anthem (Electronic Arts), Diablo 4 (Blizzard), or Destiny (Bungie), which suggest that dissatisfied developers have spoken frankly with him about what has been going on behind closed doors.
Many of his “insider information” has proven to be true: He even predicted back in January that Horizon Zero Dawn would be released for PC.
This is the current situation: In recent days, Sony and Microsoft have revealed the specifications of their next-gen consoles PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. According to the raw numbers, the Xbox Series X is stronger than the PS5, especially in terms of CPU and graphics performance.
Schreier talks in a podcast about what gaming studios have confided in him about the two consoles.
PS5 and Xbox Series X are both extremely powerful
This is what Schreier says about the strength of the PS5:
Everyone is currently looking at the performance sheets with the specifications and seeing the PS5 with 10.2 TFLOPS and the Xbox Series X with 12 TFLOPS, but the people I’ve talked to in the last months and years, who are actually working with the PS5, basically all say: “This thing is a beast, it is one of the coolest pieces of hardware we’ve ever seen or used. There are so many things about it that are revolutionary.”
There’s a general consensus that both devices [the new consoles] are extremely powerful and that they both resemble each other in many ways, but they each do different things in really cool ways. Both are extremely impressive pieces of technology.
Jason Schreier
Sony has poorly presented the PS5
This is the mistake Sony made:
However, due to the way Sony has presented their thing, there is now the perception that the Xbox Series X is much stronger than the PS5. And I think that this is a huge mistake on Sony’s part for this console generation. Maybe this will be forgotten when the PS5 is cheaper at release or launches with a lineup of killer apps, but right now: Sony has just squandered the advantage after so many years of smart decisions.
What I hear from people who are actually working on the things, who are working with the hardware, is that the Xbox Series X isn’t significantly stronger than the PS5, despite the teraflop numbers.
Jason Schreier
Discussion does not reflect developers’ perception
This is what Schreier says about the current perception:
Sony has squandered the advantage, and it’s going to be like this for weeks and weeks, maybe even months, especially because Corona is disrupting everything: Now people will only talk about how the Xbox Series X is the most powerful console and the PS5 falls short in every way. But in the meantime, I get texts and messages, even today, from developers telling me: “The PS5 is superior in all these other ways – it’s such a shame they can’t get this message across or talk about it properly.”
I’ve heard from at least three different people in the last hours, since the Cerny talk, who tell me: “The PS5 is actually the superior piece of hardware in a whole lot of ways, no matter what the numbers say.”
Jason Schreier
In the discussion at Kotaku, it becomes clear that Schreier’s information reflects the current state of affairs. Players have had time due to the Corona crisis to discuss the specifications extensively, but the companies still have plenty of time to influence the perception of their consoles.
A precise comparison of PS5 and Xbox Series X and what costs it would incur to replicate the performance with a PC will be shown in this article.
