Both PlayStation 5 and Project Scarlett have similar specs and hardware. After continued rumors of the PlayStation 5 being more powerful than Microsoft’s Project Scarlett, former IGN editor Colin Moriarty is concerned about what this could mean if it really is true from a price standpoint.
During his podcast, Sacred Symbols, former IGN editor Colin Moriarty talked about the recent rumor suggesting PlayStation 5 is more powerful. Moriarty discusses that the people who have tried dev kits for both consoles report that the PS5 is more powerful than Project Scarlett.
Of course, this debate has been going on for a while now. Even though the Xbox vs PlayStation console war has existed for decades, it has now shifted towards Project Scarlett vs PlayStation 5.
These rumors recently got traction when Andrew Reiner, the executive editor of Game Informer, confirmed PS5’s superiority. Given his position, his word has credibility so it spread like wildfire. Moriarty mentioned this in his podcast as well.
People that have access to both builds [PS5 and Xbox Scarlett] for making games are saying the PlayStation is more powerful.
Just to be clear, dev kits that are given to developers can be immensely different from the finished console on launch day. Currently, those people who have access to the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Scarlett dev kits have said that the PS5 is more powerful in terms of its computational capabilities.
Moriarty adds that this is concerning because powerful hardware is more expensive generally.
Now that is a scary notion to me because if a machine is running a game at 120 frames and 8K, I just don’t believe that’s even possible. I think you have to choose one or the other. Otherwise, this machine is going to be extremely expensive. And if PlayStation 5 can do even better than this, and I don’t think they can do better than 120 or 8k, but if it’s more powerful then how much are these machines going to cost?
So if the PlayStation 5 is more powerful than Project Scarlett, does that really mean its price will be higher? The answer is complicated. Powerful hardware doesn’t always mean efficient hardware. And more efficient hardware doesn’t always mean it will be more expensive.
If we look at the spec sheets that have come out in this past couple of months for both PlayStation 5 and Project Scarlett, we can see that they both have similar hardware. The GPU is the same AMD Radeon NAVI with GDDR6 RAMs. They also have custom SSDs allowing for reduced loading times.
So there are two possible reasons why Sony’s PlayStation 5 is outperforming Microsoft’s Project Scarlett.
1: PS5’s 8 core CPU — Even though Microsoft’s Project Scarlett and Sony’s PlayStation 5 are packing similar hardware specs, the PS5’s AMD Zen 2 CPU comprises of 8 cores. These cores can enable the console to utilize multi-threading. This could be the real performance punch. These 8 cores might just be the thing that is leading developers to believe the PlayStation 5 is more powerful than Project Scarlett.
2: PS5 Firmware — Optimization is could be another factor. Both consoles are running on different firmware. PS5’s firmware is well optimized and that is a huge contribution towards its efficiency. It could be that Sony has designed the PS5 in such a way that it is able to utilize its hardware better as compared to Microsoft’s Project Scarlett. Where the hardware is the engine of a car, the firmware is the driver of a car. Two different drivers can drive the same car but one driver can still win the race.
Of course, nothing is confirmed at this point since we haven’t seen these consoles in action ourselves. Microsoft gave a ton of details officially in its E3 2019 press conference. Since Sony didn’t attend E3 2019 at all, we didn’t get the same amount of information about the PlayStation 5.
Microsoft’s Project Scarlett has a holiday 2020 launch date with no announced price yet. Sony’s PlayStation 5 has an estimated launch date of 2020 with no price announced yet.
The best thing to do right now is to take all of this with a tiny grain of salt and wait until Sony is ready to unveil its next-gen PlayStation 5.
