In the conversation surrounding the differences between thePlayStation 5and the Xbox Series X, Sony has a surprising critic. Chris Grannell was a Senior Game Designer at Sony Computer Entertainment Europe for well over a decade. He worked heavily on theFormula Onefranchise, as well asWipeout HD: FuryandKillzone 2. And Grannell believes that Sony has “rested on their laurels” when it comes to thePS5’s hardware performance.
In late March, Grannell’s comments made the rounds after he was one of the few industry insiders to speak up on the subject. Grannell said at the time that the difference between theperformance of the Xbox Series X and the PS5 was “quite staggering,” in Xbox’s favor. He also said that this is a sentiment shared by multiple game developers that he’d talked with. Spinning off of those comments, Grannell was invited to be a guest on the RDX Podcast, where he talked further about the PS5.
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During the podcast, Grannell lays out the difference between the PS5 andXbox Series Xsimply, nothing that the PS5 is “slower on numerous kinds of paths than what Microsoft has put together.” Regarding the scale of the different, Grannell says that, “the machine that Microsoft has put together is an absolute beast compared to what Sony has put together.” This sentiment, again, is apparently shared among the developers Grannell has spoken with.
Getting more specific, Grannell describes that the PS5 may struggle comparatively with real-time ray tracingand “those big third-party games like open world [titles].” He later elaborated on Twitter, punctuating that Sony would “struggle with getting the right balance (as in may need to make compromises).” He makes clear that if Sony’s PS4 and PS4 Pro can run huge open-world games beautifully, the PS5 will do so too. The question is in terms of comparison.
It remains unclear how big of a role performance will play between the PS5 and Xbox Series X consoles. ThePS5’s hardware designbeing built around its SSD is certain to allow developers opportunities that hadn’t previously been considered, but the tangible results haven’t been made clear yet. The advantages the Xbox Series X will have are much more understandable, as they can be compared to previous console generations like the original PS4 and Xbox One or the PS3 and the Xbox 360.
The question Grannell brings up is whether third-party developers will have the time or resources to make special accommodations for the PS5’s unique hardware. Or whether, even if they do make accommodations, it will make up for the different inpure GPU and CPU performancethat the Xbox Series X has an advantage in. The coming months will be very exciting.
