The PlayStation 5 and Xbox Scarlett both release in Holiday 2020 but tension has been stirring for a while between the two. Both are aiming to deliver 4K resolution gaming (if not higher) and both are competing in terms of power. However, they both use AMD’s Zen 2 CPU. Just how much of a difference does this make over the current hardware?
GamingBolt spoke My.Games’ Ivan Pabiarzhyn who’s the franchise lead on free to play online shooter Warface. When asked how big of a leap the Zen 2 CPU would provide and whether it would help in development, Pabiarzhyn said, “Featuring the new generation of AMD processors in the PS5 / Xbox Scarlett will bring an increase in processor frequency by about 50 percent.
“For games, this means an improvement in quantitative parameters: detail / size of worlds, more AI characters processing. But what’s more important is that it will be possible to create previously inaccessible effects. For example, calculation of a physically reliable reflection of sounds from walls, which can turn the genre of competitive shooters, which at the moment rely more on the player’s reaction speed and shooting accuracy, makes compromises in assessing the accuracy of enemy positioning using sound.”
It’s actually pretty interesting because till now, we haven’t really heard much about the competitive impact that the new consoles could have. And that could mean more than just having maps or models with improved visual fidelity.
Microsoft has been promoting Project Scarlett for a while and promises that it will “not be out of position on power or price”. Meanwhile, Sony has claimed that developers and publishers are finding it easier to have code running on the PlayStation 5 than on any previous PlayStation platform. Who will come out on top in the next-gen war? Stay tuned for more details.