The debates about the respective specs of the PS5 and Xbox Series and how they differ from each other have been raging for months, which isn’t surprising in the slightest to anyone who’s seen console generation transitions before. What’s interesting is that both upcoming consoles can claim to have the upper leg over the other in different ways.
With the PS5, the biggest advantage it seems to have on paper over its competition right now is its SSD, which seems to be ridiculously fast by all accounts. In fact, according to industry developer Matt on ResetEra (who actually has seen the tech in action), it is far beyond anything the industry has seen up until now.
Speaking about the SSDs in both upcoming consoles, Matt remarked that the Xbox Series X’s SSD is an impressive one, and definitely “a huge upgrade” over anything we’ve seen before. That said, according to him, the PS5’s IO is “on a whole other level.”
“The [Xbox Series X] SSD and whole IO setup is great, and a huge upgrade from anything we have ever had before,” he wrote. “Microsoft did a really nice job here, absolutely nothing to complain about.
“But in comparison, the PS5’s IO feels like it was taken from an IO-focused mid-gen upgrade 4 years from now. It is, very simply, on a whole other level. And yes, that allows for things you can’t do on any other platform.”
He went on to add that the fact that both consoles provide an SSD as a baseline should – regardless of the gap between the two – should nonetheless be a big advantage for developers and gamers.
“But it’s both consoles having a baseline SSD that will allow game design on the whole to advance across platforms, and every game and gamer will benefit from that,” he added.
“There are certainly things developers can do with the PS5 that can’t be done the same, as fast, or as well on any other consumer hardware at the moment. That’s also a fact. The PS5’s IO is a big deal that will lead to actual results in games,” he further stated.
He also went on to claim that PS5’s SSD is an all together different level, and there is no comparison with the Xbox Series X in this regard. “There is no comparison. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the SX’s IO or the speed you can get on a PC, and moving to any SSD based solution as a baseline is an incredible upgrade over the past that all games and gamers will benefit from. But the PS5’s IO is on another level. It does basically everything significantly faster than any competition in the consumer space. It is easily and by far the largest difference between the two next gen consoles.”
However, he acknowledged that the Xbox Series X is still a stronger system in many ways.
It’ll probably be a while before we see these SSDs being realized to their proper potential- unless PS5’s launch games somehow manage to do that right off the bat, which seems unlikely. Either way, the coming years look exciting for both the upcoming consoles.