Both the Xbox One S and the PS4 Pro are taking advantage of 4K resolution and HDR (high-dynamic range) technology. But while the PS4 Pro boasts a more powerful processor and graphics chip, the Xbox One S is the only console available with a built-in Ultra-HD Blu-Ray player. This is important.
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First, let’s get some definitions out of the way.
Most HD television sets right now boast a 1080p resolution. That’s “HD” and that’s also the resolution that a standard Blu-Ray disc plays at.
But now we have a new generation of TV technology called Ultra-HD. This displays at 4K resolution—essentially four times the pixel count of 1080p. It’s much more high-fidelity, and is mostly noticeable on bigger screens.
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The only way to properly take advantage of this resolution is with Ultra-HD media. Ultra-HD Blu-Ray plays at 4K, basically four times that of regular Blu-Ray. While some websites like Netflix and YouTube and Amazon Prime all have 4K streaming options, streaming is always limited by internet speeds and compression.
This means that to truly take advantage of 4K media, the Xbox One S is your best option this holiday season, since it’s the only gaming system that has an Ultra-HD Blu-Ray player. If you get a PS4 Pro and still want that feature, you’ll also need to buy an Ultra-HD Blu-Ray player, which cost around $300 at the moment.
2. The Xbox One S is cheaper.
With all the above in mind, it’s important that we talk price. The PS4 Pro costs $399, which isn’t a bad price at all considering it’s a very powerful system.
However, the Xbox One S is just $299. That hundred dollars could go toward a new game and a second controller.
Now consider how much it would cost to get a PS4 Pro
and an Ultra-HD Blu-Ray player. $300 + $399 = $699. That’s a healthy chunk of change on top of a potential TV upgrade (
considering you’ll need an Ultra-HD TV with HDR to take advantage of either of these consoles.)
To be fair, the PS4 Pro is a more powerful console. If price isn’t an issue, then the PS4 Pro has the horsepower advantage. But the Xbox One S is absolutely the budget-friendly winner in this fight.
3. The Xbox One S is bundled with five games.
There are various Xbox One S bundles you can buy this holiday season, but by far the best deal out the gates is the standard Xbox One S that, for $299, is also bundled with
Halo 5 and the
Halo Master Chief Collection.
That collection includes four games:
Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, Halo 2, Halo 3, and Halo 4.
That’s five
Halo games and a brand new console for $299, one of the best bundle deals I’ve seen pretty much ever. Of course, if you already have all those
Halo games, one of the other bundles might make more sense.
4. The Xbox One S will have mod support for games like
Skyrim Remastered.
One of the exciting things about this generation of consoles, is just how similar the Xbox One and PS4 are to gaming computers. Sure, they’re not as powerful as the beefiest gaming PC, but they were closer, and they were going to offer us new features like mod support.
Leading that charge was publisher and developer Bethesda, the maker of
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and
Fallout 4. These are games that have a ton of support for user-generated content (mods) on PC. Soon, that feature was supposed to roll out on PS4.
Now we’ve learned that
Sony is unwilling to let Bethesda support mods the way that company says they need for mods to happen on the PS4. What this means, at least for the time being, is that mods will only be available on PC and Xbox One.
5. Backwards compatibility
If you’re upgrading from a last-gen console, your library of games may be an important determining factor in which new console to buy.
Unfortunately, the PlayStation 4 is not backwards compatible with PlayStation 3 games. Sony does offer a great subscription service—PlayStation Now—that lets you play PS3 and PS2 games on your PS4 (as well as other devices like your PC) and there’s also a number of top-notch remasters available on PlayStation 4. However, you can’t simply pop a PS3 disc into your PS4 and play it.
Not all Xbox 360 games are backwards compatible on Xbox One either, but
a large and growing list are. This isn’t an important feature to everybody, but it is nice to be able to trade in your old system, but still keep some of your favorite games.
6. Xbox Live is still better than PSN
I was hoping that in 2016 I could happily report that Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network were both equally safe and secure and free from long stretches of downtime. Sadly, the fact remains that the PSN goes down more often than its Xbox counterpart. We report on PSN outages far more often than Xbox Live outages, and that’s still true in 2016.
And now that Xbox also offers Games with Gold, the free monthly games advantage that came with subscribing to PS+ has evaporated. The only remaining advantage to PlayStation’s network is the fact that you don’t need to pay for a subscription to use each and every online service, such as game demos and betas.
Still, at the end of the day if security and reliability are a concern, Xbox Live is the way to go, adding just one more reason to buy an Xbox One S over a PS4 Pro this holiday season.
Bonus: Xbox One exclusives are now ‘Play Anywhere’
One final benefit to purchasing an Xbox One S over a PS4 Pro? Going forward, Microsoft has adopted a “Play Anywhere” philosophy for its exclusive content. This means that when you buy a game like
Gears of War 4, you’ll get a copy for your Xbox and a copy for your PC (so long as you’re running Windows 10.) This means you can play on either your console or your computer. That may not be super important to everyone, but it’s a nice feature. Any time you can get two for the price of one, it can’t hurt.
In Conclusion
Ultimately, there are reasons to buy both these consoles. There are factors that I didn’t touch on in the above six reasons that should guide your purchasing decision. These include the games you want to play.
Each system has its own exclusives, from
Uncharted and
God of War on PlayStation, to
Halo and
Gears of War on Xbox. You should absolutely consider which console has the exclusive content you prefer before buying.
Another big factor in determining which console to buy is which one your friends play on. If all your friends are playing on PlayStation 4, buying an Xbox One S might leave you out in the cold (or vice versa.)
And there are reasons to buy a PS4 Pro over an Xbox One S which I’ll touch on later. For now, hopefully these reasons help you at least think more carefully about which console you should buy going into the holidays this year.
Finally, the prices listed here are as of this writing. There will be deals on both systems and certainly on older versions of both the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 as we trudge toward Christmas. We’ll try to keep readers appraised of any good deals we come across.
The Xbox One S has already launched. The PS4 Pro comes out November 10th.
P.S.
Oh, and one final note: Microsoft is releasing its own “Pro” console in 2017, codenamed the Xbox One “Scorpio.” This is much more powerful than the Xbox One S, and spec-wise, even more powerful than the PS4 Pro. We don’t know much about it yet, but if you’re a patient consumer, waiting until the Scorpio lands might be a smart move. Whether it truly outperforms the PS4 Pro, and what it’s price-tag will be, remain to be seen.
