Don’t play the Playstation, play the Xbox

Christmas is coming fast and there are lots of people looking to give their children a game console. The mainstream consoles are currently the Xbox One X and the PlayStation 4 Pro (PS4 Pro). If you don’t want to spend your retirement funds on a gaming PC for your child, you should buy one of these consoles instead. Consoles are decently priced, have intuitive controls and feature nice graphics. While both the Xbox One X and the PS4 Pro are great consoles, if you want to know which one is the more advanced console, it is the Xbox One X.

The Xbox One X is currently the most powerful console on the market with a custom AMD processor to make your gaming experience smooth and attractive. The Xbox is armed with a 12 gigabyte (GB) hard drive and is currently priced at $599.99 Cdn in Microsoft stores today. It also has faster graphics and runs smoother than the PS4 Pro due to top-of-the-line parts making up this console. The Xbox one just loads faster and plays more smoothly. This matters a lot to your daily gaming experience and also makes a big difference in how fast things update. Every time I play games with my friends I will load into the game faster than everyone else because my console is more powerful than theirs.

The PS4 Pro is priced at $499.99 Cdn. This console also has 4K graphics and is $100 cheaper than the Xbox One X. It is armed with an 8GB hard drive. Though this console has downgraded parts compared to the Xbox One X, it is still quite powerful and runs almost as smoothly.

Another reason why the Xbox has an advantage over the Playstation is the controller. The Xbox One X remote is much more better designed. The PS4 Pro and Xbox One X place the buttons and joysticks very differently on the controllers. This makes the controller feel more comfortable in your hand allowing you to have an overall better gaming experience.

One of the great features associated with the Xbox One X is the Xbox Game Pass. Xbox Game Pass is a subscription service from Microsoft that allows you to download any game from the catalog. Game Pass is priced at $11.99 Cdn per month though it can be bought in yearly subscriptions as well for only $99.99 Cdn. If you cancel Game Pass, you will be unable to play those games until you renew the subscription. You get access to almost every game on Xbox.

The next major subscription service is Xbox Live Gold which allows you to play certain games that require an online feature. Most games today require the online feature if you want to play with your friends or other real people. Gold is priced at $11.99 Cdn per month just like Game Pass. Gold also gives you the ability to talk in party chats with your friends where you can invite up to 11 other players.

Playstation has its own subscription service as well called PlayStation Plus (PS Plus). PS Plus Gives you access to premium features such as discounts on selected games, online gaming, and a selection of free games to choose from. PS Plus is basically Sony’s version of Game Pass but better. With the Xbox you have to buy two subscriptions–Game Pass and Gold–whereas on the PlayStation you only have to buy one subscription that gives you everything. In this respect, the PS4 Pro may have the edge over the Xbox, but it isn’t enough to make it a better choice overall.

Another important consideration in which I have to admit, Playstation has the advantage, is the exclusive games. Each console has certain games that are exclusive to one console. PlayStation has many exclusive games such as Spiderman, Persona 5, God of War and others. Xbox exclusives include Gears of War, Forza Horizon, and Titanfall. Though both consoles have great exclusives, it looks like PlayStation have the better ones. Those three Playstation games have a combined IGN review scores of 28.4 (8.7+10 +9.7) whereas the Xbox games have a combined score of 27.8 (9.2+9.6+9.0). Hit games like Spiderman and God of War, can be enough to draw a lot of people to the PS4.

Despite the PS4’s superior subscription service and exclusives, I would still say the Xbox One X is the better choice overall due to its better hardware, including both the controller design and processors in the console itself. The Xbox One X may be faster but it also may be too expensive for some people, so if you are looking for a more reasonably-priced console, the PlayStation 4 Pro is still a good buy. However, if what you want is a top of the line machine, go Xbox One X all the way.

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