The console gaming industry is currently dominated by two names, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 4. Both consoles were release quite close to one another. Both of them suffered slow sales in their first few months due to limited title support. However, both consoles have almost identical hardware and software. The following shows a brief comparison of the two console giants.
On hardware, both consoles use octa-core AMD chipsets. Both have 500 gigabyte hard drive and supports Blu-ray optical drives. Although both consoles have the same eight gigabyte RAM, the PlayStation 4 slightly gains the upper hand in this criterion. PS4 runs using a DDR5 RAM while the Xbox One runs on a slightly slower DDR3. At first look, the difference might be a major game changer, but it is actually dismissible. On this benchmark, it is safe to say that it is a tie.
The major factor however when it comes to console gaming is the availability of games, excellent games to be exact. Majority of the biggest games on the market are cross-platform, which means it is available for both consoles. However, there are some exclusive titles that prove to be big enough to affect the sales output of the consoles. On Xbox One, the most notable exclusive titles are Dead "Rising 3", "Killer Instinct", Halo, Sunset Overdrive and Titanfall. Although less impressive, PlayStation 4 still has some pretty remarkable exclusive titles. Among these are "Killzone", "InFamous: Second Son" and "LittleBigPlanet 3". Although the PS4 lacks some serious punch when it comes to exclusive titles, this criterion is based primarily on the games popularity rather than the overall performance of the console.
In the ongoing tussle to be the best console for gaming, the biggest factor would have to be the price and marketing strategy. The Xbox One was release for an introductory price of $499 while the PlayStation 4 was released for only $399.99. Perhaps this factor has greatly affected the marketability of Xbox One, especially for those gamers who are on a tight budget. On the last quarter of 2014, decided to cut down the market price of Xbox One, the move was deemed effective and saw Xbox One sales almost leveling with that of PS4.
