Sony’s Speed Advantage and Microsoft’s Teraflop Advantage: An Analysis of the Xbox Series X vs. PS5 Performance Comparisons in 2022
Last night, the biggest XBOX leak in history, revealed multiple new XBOXes, as well as plans for an ambitious hybrid XBOX that could arrive in 8 years. There was a conversation between Phil Spencer and Satya Nadella about the Sony PS5 that was revealed.
But neither Sony’s SSD speed advantage nor Microsoft’s teraflop advantage has always played out in the real world. At launch, the PS5 turned out not to need a particularly speedy SSD and yet outperformed the Xbox Series X. In June 2022, Digital Foundry’s John Linneman said that out of 15 direct Xbox Series X vs. PS5 game performance comparisons, Xbox did pull ahead eight times, while the PS5 pulled ahead twice.
The price of solid state disks have fallen off a cliff, and even good PS5-ready drives can be found for less than they did three years ago.
Phil Spencer said he was proud of the team, and that they took after almost 12 hours of soaking in their unveil, taking apart their specs and seeing the community responses.
In a document Microsoft revealed that it planned to subsidize the Xbox Series X and S to the tune of 15% of their prices in order to hit its price targets. “That’s our largest hardware subsidy ever in the Gaming P&L,” the document reads.
The FTC Leaked Files: The Biggest Revelations From the Microsoft Xbox Leaks, Incident Report on ResetEra
The files were discovered early Tuesday morning by users on gaming forum ResetEra. FTC spokesperson Douglass Farrar tells WIRED that the organization was not responsible for the uploaded plans; the court later confirmed. Leaks happen constantly in the game industry—earlier this year, Sony suffered its own leak as part of the FTC v. Microsoft trial over some poorly done sharpie redactions—but this particular instance is exceptional in its size and breadth, and the sheer volume of speculation about Microsoft’s future the documents caused.
According to the internal documents, mid-cycle console refreshes are on the way. The Series X console refresh is expected in November. It’s more cylindrical in design than its boxy predecessor, has no disc drive, and will offer 2 terabytes of storage and a USB-C front port. It also promises features like faster Wi-Fi capabilities and a new controller, at a $499 price point.
Details on Ellewood, the codename for the Series S refresh, aren’t quite as specific. The documents promise better internal storage and wi-fi for $299 with a 60day gap between the two console releases giving Ellewood an advantage to sell more of them.
The two-toned controller, codenamed Sebile, includes “direct-to-cloud” connection, a rechargeable and swappable battery, “precision haptic feedback,” quiet buttons and thumbsticks, and lift-to-wake capabilities.
The documents suggest that the next console from Microsoft will be a hybrid game platform that will fully utilize the cloud. The company wrote in an internal slide that they will allow new levels of performance outside of the client hardware alone.
Spencer goes on to mention Valve alongside Nintendo and being in full support of merging with or acquiring either company “if [the] opportunity arises.”
However, Spencer noted that he didn’t see a “mutually agreeable merger” for the two companies, and he didn’t believe “hostile action would be a good move so we are playing the long game.”
Source: The Biggest Revelations From the Microsoft Xbox Leaks
The First 64-Body Game in Elder Scrolls VI: The First 2026 Game on PC and MS5 at the End of the epoch
Elder Scrolls VI will only be available for PC and Microsoft consoles, and it won’t be available for PS5 until 2026 at the earliest.