How The PS5 Destroyed The Xbox Series X

Script written by Ty Richardson

Why the PS5 Destroyed the Xbox Series X

Welcome to MojoPlays! Today, we’re looking at why the PS5 destroyed the Xbox Series X. Does Microsoft actually know how to make a console anymore?

The messy launch of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S is set to continue into at least the summer of 2021, with very few people actually able to get their hands on a console. But despite the fact that both Sony and Microsoft have sold their entire stock of machines, there’s already a winner in the 9th generation console wars: at every step of the way, the PS5 has outsold, outshone, and outplayed the Series X – but exactly why has this happened?

While the PS3 and the Xbox 360 were more evenly matched – the PS3 was generally more powerful, but sales-wise they were on equal footing for a long time and both had solid exclusives – Sony took the lead with the PS4, and that lead has been maintained ever since. Microsoft can’t compete with Sony’s reputation for having the best platform, and a huge part of that is console exclusives.

It’s no secret that most Xbox exclusives aren’t that good. Almost none of them are system sellers, and the Xbox One had an incredibly weak game library from the beginning, with forgettable launch titles like “Dead Rising 3”. Meanwhile, Sony has some of the best video games in the industry, and some of the best video games of all time, with “God of War”, “Ghost of Tsushima”, “The Last of Us”, “Uncharted” and “Bloodborne” all available only on PlayStation.

It’s games like these that mean serious gamers don’t have any choice but to buy a PlayStation. And for people who didn’t get a PS4, Sony’s “PS Plus Collection” offers new PS5 players the best of the best – many of its high-caliber games are there to download for PS Plus users. And Sony doesn’t have plans to slow down any time soon, focusing closely on putting out blockbuster exclusives that more than justify the price of a new console.

But it’s not just that Microsoft’s exclusives aren’t great, Microsoft has plenty of enormous franchises with huge player bases under its belt, like “Forza” and “Halo” after all. It’s that none of these games are Xbox exclusives, they’re all also available on PC, unlike the vast majority of Sony’s games. Though “Horizon Zero Dawn” has appeared on PC, it’s unclear whether this trend will continue for Sony.

Game Pass is one of the only things Sony is losing to Microsoft over, but even that is also available on PC, giving PC players access to all Microsoft’s IPs. Unlike both Sony and Nintendo, Microsoft hasn’t given players any reason to buy an Xbox if they already own or are thinking of getting a PC instead.

You need a Switch to play Nintendo’s polished and beloved games, and it’s these games that form the basis of Nintendo’s continued success despite putting out underpowered and more limited consoles. PCs have other benefits over Xboxes, too, like the fact with a decent rig you can also play thousands of acclaimed indie games that won’t ever come to consoles. And while PCs become quickly outdated, practically every component is upgradeable, so you’ll still be able to keep pace with consoles - though it might be costlier in the long term.

The Xbox Series consoles have so far failed in other departments as well. The Xbox Series X, despite being on paper a far more technically impressive console with a marginally faster CPU, almost two teraflops more GPU power, and a larger SSD, has consistently underperformed against the PS5. For whatever reason, developers haven’t yet been able to eke out the same performance from the Xbox Series X that they’ve achieved on the PS5 even when running cross-platform games like “Assassin’s Creed Valhalla”.

And this is in spite of games like “Valhalla” alleging that they are “optimized for Xbox Series X”. One big reason why this could be is that Microsoft sent out dev kits for the new Xboxes much later than Sony, meaning developers simply had less time to optimize for Xbox. Because of this, we could see the performance situation change over the 9th generation – after all, the Xbox One X ended up being the most powerful console last gen – but it’s impossible to predict. At the moment, if you’re someone who cares about getting the absolute best performance possible – and a lot of people do – you’ll need a PS5, not an Xbox.

But perhaps the final, killing blow for Microsoft has been the controller. The Xbox 360 controller is still widely regarded as one of the best controllers of all time, and Microsoft has definitely taken an “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” approach. This means Xbox controllers have barely changed since the 360, while Sony has been innovating. The Xbox Series controller doesn’t match up to the new and exciting DualSense, which has been the biggest design shake-up for Sony in the entire history of PlayStation.

With bells and whistles like the best haptic feedback in the business and adaptive triggers, the DualSense promises a gameplay experience Microsoft can’t match currently. There are rumors that Microsoft is going to add more features to the Xbox controller in order to better compete with DualSense, but only time will tell how good a job they do. And Microsoft is still producing expensive controllers that don’t have rechargeable batteries as a matter of course. Xbox has severely fallen behind where controllers are concerned.

The Xbox Series consoles might have some things going for them – like the cheapest entry point into next-gen gaming and access to Game Pass – but Microsoft still hasn’t been able to make a machine that is truly competitive against Sony’s flagship console. And that’s why the PS5 destroyed the Xbox Series X.