Yes. Probably all of us have heard people arguing about who was better: Ali or Frazier ? People in pubs, bars, stadiums, streets, you name it. It’s like comparing a lion with a tiger, and who would win in a fight. It was always baffling to me why would people argue about it. Isn’t it clear? Ali is the clear winner!!
Anyway, thankfully now we live in a new time where people stopped arguing about such things and turned their attention on something else, something bigger, something more advanced. The “Ali and Frazier” of our time – PlayStation vs Xbox.
Founders and corporations
When we speak about these two consoles we must point out that PlayStation brand is produced by Sony, while Xbox by Microsoft. If we compare the consoles and measure which one is better by the popularity of the founders of Sony and Microsoft, Akio Morita (the founder of Sony) would smoke nervously in the corner (if he was alive, of course) because from the other side of the corner is the very famous name that always comes up to our minds whenever we speak about richest people of the world, introducing (you can read this with Bruce Buffer’s voice) the business magnate, software developer, investor, and of course the founder of Microsoft – Bill Gates. But speaking of PlayStation, that’s a different story, and I bet that wherever one would go in the world and ask people about this console, majority of them would be already familiar with it. Assuming that, if this was a popularity contest between the founders of the corporations which produced the brands which produced the consoles, the Xbox would win, but since I know that people care for this popularity contest as much as Ninja cares about Twitch, the conclusion about which console is better is kind of way more complicated.
Specifics and comparing
Let’s start with PlayStation. First there was PlayStation 1, and that was the very first love of many gamers who have spent hours in prayers for some particular games to start working when starting the console. And of course, there was PlayStation 2, then PlayStation 3, and 4, you see the point, and even a 4 year old would find a logic in it. And as for Xbox...One would think that after Xbox there would be Xbox 2, but no. Next came Xbox 360. Finding logic in that? I tried, and the best explanation I got is that they wanted to make a point that the new Xbox generation would be 360 degrees better than the previous one. But then they realized it didn’t work, and therefore the next generation of Xbox they called it Xbox one. Maybe they thought it’s never too late to start something over and fix the mistakes from the past. And now in 2020 PlayStation comes with a new generation of consoles called (as we already guess) PlayStation 5, while Xbox developers obviously hate numbers and their future generation of Xbox console they will call it Xbox Series X. Imagine a person who has never played a console before and wants to buy the first generation of each brands, to start gaming from the very beginning. He would buy PlayStation 1, and then when he goes by simple logic he would buy Xbox One, and he would be tricked. But regardless, soon he might find out about the bitter sweet moment here and realize that Xbox provides an Xbox plus subscription, which is for free and gives you access to variety of games, while in PlayStation there is PlayStation Plus, but one need to pay for that. Speaking of which, Xbox is cheaper and has 1 terabyte, and as for PlayStation, it’s more expensive, especially if you buy second gamepad, PS plus, etc.
PlayStation is more useful for streamers and one doesn't have to use a capture card to broadcast a game. One can do both, play and stream on YouTube or Twitch at the same time, plus one can turn on even the comments to the stream there and choose the quality of the video. Nevertheless, share play is also something that many could find intriguing, like, if you have a game and your friend doesn't, you can use Share play and broadcast the multiplayer to his console, so you'll play together. PlayStation is iOS which is very functional, while Xbox is on Android. A bit less user friendly, although some people may like it.
Finally, when it comes about games, both consoles have big titles under their names, but Sony has many partners and it gives them more freedom to create new games. All due of respect to Xbox games like: Gears 5, Forza Horizon 4, Halo 5, Ori and the Blind Forest and Sunset Overdrive, yet I believe games like: Uncharted 4, Spider-Man, Horizon: Zero Dawn, God of War, The Last of Us II, would by far outlast the others.
Which console is right for you?
It all depends of the individuality of the person. In my opinion, PlayStation wins this race by far. Mostly of their specifics are similar, and even those people who say that size matters, they don’t have to worry about anything, because both these consoles start with 500GB of storage that you can easily expand by connecting an external hard drive and the starting versions of both consoles have an 8-core x86-64 AMD Jaguar processor with 8GB of RAM, an AMD Radeon GPU and a 500GB hard drive. So although the $249 Xbox One S is the cheapest console out there and the value for money is more compatible, yet what matters the most are the games that a console supports, and games like Spiderman, God of War or Uncharted will always have the upper hand over the Xbox ones. So ladies and gentlemen, unless the Xbox developers do some drastic changes and create an Xbox who would read minds so the players could lay down and play games without even using controllers, I think PlayStation will always remain the undefeated and undisputed heavyweight champion of the video game consoles, but I also must point out that Xbox will remain its biggest rival for a long time.