The PS4 vs Xbox One rivalry has been a bit too friendly for our liking, with both parties seemingly content to co-exist without too much squabbling.
However, when it comes to the next iteration of each console, the great gaming scrap of our times could be very much back on.
See Exhibit A: The Sony PS4 Pro won’t be powerful enough to provide gamers with ‘true’ 4K gaming experiences, Microsoft’s head of Xbox planning has claimed in an interview.
Related: Xbox Project Scorpio cs PS4 Pro – specs comparison
Albert Penello says Sony’s 4K marketing is full of caveats and asterisks, whereas Microsoft’s rival Project Scorpio has the power to deliver native 4K.
He told Eurogamer: “I think there are a lot of caveats they’re giving customers right now around 4K. They’re talking about checkerboard rendering and up-scaling and things like that. There are just a lot of asterisks in their marketing around 4K, which is interesting because when we thought about what spec we wanted for Scorpio, we were very clear we wanted developers to take their Xbox One engines and render them in native, true 4K.
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The numbers Penello refers are the teraflops of power available within the respective consoles. The PS4 Pro will have 4.2Tflops, while developers creating games for Scorpio will have access to 6Tflops.
“They’re going to be able to decide to take that six teraflops of power and do what they think is best for their game,” he said.
“But I know that 4.2 teraflops is not enough to do true 4K. So, I feel like our product aspired a little bit higher, and we will have fewer asterisks around the 4K experiences we deliver on our box.”
Penello stopped short of accusing Sony of misleading customers, claiming the firm had been “very open about the compromises of 4K.”
Are you weighing up whether to buy a PS4 Pro this year or waiting until 2017 for Project Scorpio? Is this Microsoft’s route back to the top of the console mountain? Share your thoughts below.
Video: PS4 Pro: What’s new?
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
