Microsoft's Penello: No way is Xbox One giving up 30% power advantage t

[Showan]

Much of the focus in the console war between the PS4and Xbox One has been the perceived power advantageSony's console has over Microsoft's. Following a published interview with Rev3Games Thursday, Microsoft Director of Product Planning Albert Penello explained why there's no way the company is willing to give the competition a huge performance advantage.

The advantages for the PS4 over the Xbox One currently stand with the console's GPU and memory. The Playstation 4 GPU is said to be capable of 1.8 TFLOPS while it also uses GDDR5 memory for fast memory access at 5500mhz. Meanwhile, the Xbox One's GPU is reportedly capable of 1.23 TFLOPS (before the 150Mhzclock speed boost) and uses DDR3 memory at 2133mhz. However, Penello says that there's more to the story than just numbers on paper.

"I?m not dismissing raw performance. I?m stating ? as I have stated from the beginning ? that the performance delta between the two platforms is not as great as the raw numbers lead the average consumer to believe," Penello wrote on NeoGAF. "There are things about our system architecture not fully understood, and there are things about theirs as well, that bring the two systems into balance."

"People DO understand that Microsoft has some of the smartest graphics programmers IN THE WORLD. We CREATED DirectX, the standard API?s that everyone programs against. So while people laude Sony for their [hardware] skills, do you really think we don?t know how to build a system optimized for maximizing graphics for programmers? Seriously? There is no way we?re giving up a 30%+ advantage to Sony. And ANYONE who has seen both systems running could say there are great looking games on both systems. If there was really huge performance difference ? it would be obvious."

Penello then brought up similar instances where Sony and fans of the Playstation proclaimed superior performance with the PS2 and PS3 before concluding that, "in the end, games on our system looked the same or better."

"I?m not saying they haven?t built a good system ? I?m merely saying that anyone who wants to die on their sword over this 30%+ power advantage are going to be fighting an uphill battle over the next 10 years?"

Update: Penello followed-up with another post after some members of NeoGAF questioned his line of reasoning.

"I'm stating that not everyone knows all the facts. There are still a lot of important details about the platforms that are still unknown. I have many, many questions about what Sony is doing technically," he wrote.

"The question I posed earlier, and the statements I'm making now, will come out when we see the actual shipping boxes.

"The most obvious point is that anyone looking at games on both platforms do not see ANY difference, let alone this alleged 30% - 40%. Both systems are powerful. Both are capable of next-gen graphics. I'm merely saying the application of that performance will mean the actual difference will not be that great."

 

 

http://www.examiner.com/article/microsoft-s-penello-no-way-is-xbox-one-giving-up-30-power-advantage-to-ps4

 

[Arceles]

Well, he admitted one thing, PS4 is faster, not perhaps by 30%+ but it's faster nonetheless.

(And by the way Direct X is... well, I'm not exactly sure if the most optimized API out there)

[IceBreakerG]

Well, he admitted one thing, PS4 is faster, not perhaps by 30%+ but it's faster nonetheless.

(And by the way Direct X is... well, I'm not exactly sure if the most optimized API out there)

 

Umm, where in any of those quotes did he "admit the PS4 was faster"?  Because I don't see it.  Anywhere in anything he said.

[Astra.Xtreme]

*Yawn* These comparisons have gotten stale.

 

The PS3 had monstrously better CPU and RAM "spec" than the 360, but does it perform better?  Absolutely not.

 

These comparisons mean absolutely nothing, and people really need to let it go.

[Ironman273]

*Yawn* These comparisons have gotten stale.

 

The PS3 had monstrously better CPU and RAM "spec" than the 360, but does it perform better?  Absolutely not.

 

These comparisons mean absolutely nothing, and people really need to let it go.

While I agree that the comparisons being made are meaningless, the previous generation had Sony going with their Cell processor that could do everything 10x better than existing architecture plus brew coffee.  Reality was quite different which is why for the PS4 they're going with a dedicated PC in a box, like the 360 was and the One is.  It makes them easier to compare but there are too many factors to say one is better because one chip runs a little faster.

[123456789A]

So to conclude,

 

Sony Playstation 4 has blast processing.

Microsoft Xbox One has Mode 7 graphics.

[trooper11]

Like many of these debates, a lot of this will come down to how biased a person is for or against one platform or another.

 

The reality seems to be pointing to two consoles with similar potential and any differences are more down to how a developer makes use of the hardware, not what the raw specs say. 

 

I'm reminded of the current gen, where you had the ps3 and 360 turn out to be fairly similar power wise, even though the ps3 had a more powerful cpu in raw terms and the 360 had a more powerful gpu in raw terms.

 

The fanboys will cry on both sides, but the reality is not that extreme.

[Crisp]

"The most obvious point is that anyone looking at games on both platforms do not see ANY difference, let alone this alleged 30% - 40%. Both systems are powerful. Both are capable of next-gen graphics."

 

1080p @ 60fps is next current generation, not 720p.

[Astra.Xtreme]

While I agree that the comparisons being made are meaningless, the previous generation had Sony going with their Cell processor that could do everything 10x better than existing architecture plus brew coffee.  Reality was quite different which is why for the PS4 they're going with a dedicated PC in a box, like the 360 was and the One is.  It makes them easier to compare but there are too many factors to say one is better because one chip runs a little faster.

Very true, but it also comes down to how the developers design the code.  Many will probably do crude ports between the two consoles and then maybe PC, so not much there would go into optimizing performance for a specific console.  It could have a bigger impact with exclusive games, but we'll see.

 

Regardless, these comparisons are making the assumption that games will be bottlenecking the consoles right away, and that's not realistic.  Hell, I bet the full potential of the 360 and PS3 hasn't even been tapped.  Maybe down the line we'll find out that one console can do something better than the other, but I don't think that will happen for a while.

[kaotic]

1080p @ 60fps is next current generation, not 720p.

 

Forza is 1080p and 60fps and we know Halo 5 will be too. There's no reason to believe good developers can't make their games run at 1080p at 60fps.

[BajiRav]

His original post: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=80168873&postcount=708

 

True story about this interview:

I made poor Adam wait for me for like 20 min. I had totally underestimated the fact it was going to take me NEARLY AN HOUR to find parking at PAX. So I was totally frustrated, had been in a car in traffic for over 90 minutes, and was RUSHING into the convention center. I had just walked in, and had been keeping him and his crew waiting. So I sat down, and we rolled ? no prep or anything. I?m surprised I didn?t come across as a complete buffoon given how cold I came into this.

I also found out this was going to be on-camera, which I?m not a big fan of, because, well? look at me. I have a face for Radio.

Anyway I appreciate the kind comments.

I?m not going to get into this PR thing again. There are clearly people who understand, and people who don?t. I?ve been a GAF member for a while, and was a reader long before that. I?ve been in gaming my entire professional career, and a player since videogames EXISTED. I come on GAF because I want to. I don?t get paid to post here or any other silly nonsense. Occasionally, the PR team will roll me out to do official interviews, which I?m not really a huge fan of doing.

Regarding the Kinect video I was talking about. There are several, but the one I like best is this. Also ? this is now several months old. Latency is even better now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hi5kMNfgDS4

Disc install ? Turns out, at this point the speed and throughput of the consoles exceeds the transfer speeds of the disc. I don?t have the exact numbers, but the reason BOTH CONSOLES do mandatory installs is because you?d be actually giving up a ton of potential performance by bottlenecking the systems at the read speeds of the disc. Even on 360 games like GTAV are mandatory HDD installs ? at this point reading from disc is just too slow. On top of which, the instant game switching feature goes away?

Performance: I?m not dismissing raw performance. I?m stating ? as I have stated from the beginning ? that the performance delta between the two platforms is not as great as the raw numbers lead the average consumer to believe. There are things about our system architecture not fully understood, and there are things about theirs as well, that bring the two systems into balance.

People DO understand that Microsoft has some of the smartest graphics programmers IN THE WORLD. We CREATED DirectX, the standard API?s that everyone programs against. So while people laude Sony for their HW skills, do you really think we don?t know how to build a system optimized for maximizing graphics for programmers? Seriously? There is no way we?re giving up a 30%+ advantage to Sony. And ANYONE who has seen both systems running could say there are great looking games on both systems. If there was really huge performance difference ? it would be obvious.

I get a ton of hate for saying this ? but it?s been the same EVERY generation. Sony claims more power, they did it with Cell, they did it with Emotion Engine, and they are doing it again. And, in the end, games on our system looked the same or better.

I?m not saying they haven?t built a good system ? I?m merely saying that anyone who wants to die on their sword over this 30%+ power advantage are going to be fighting an uphill battle over the next 10 years?

he really threw the gauntlet, didn't he? :laugh:

[George P Global Moderator]

Knowing a bit more about the XB1 SoC now than what we knew before I think he's spot on.  They've made trade offs, Sony went with faster ram and a beefier GPU so they could brute force high quality graphics through the system, what most if not all PC video cards do, because PC games are hardly optimized to any degree like a console game is, they just stuff as much data through as they can and the faster your video card does it the better your PC game runs.

 

Now MS went with a more optimized and tweaked SoC that can, from the way it looks, run and do a lot of work without needing to run as fast as far as the pure theoretical numbers go.    I think when we've had a few well known developers come out and say that the two systems are very close performance wise and not this 30-40% number that gets tossed around that people should've taken note and not tried to dismiss it.

 

As far as I see the XB1's SoC tweaks have made it a very efficient beast that can push out great graphics without all the "force" of Sonys method.    It's almost going back to the old GHz wars between Intel and AMD when having the fastest CPU no longer meant you had the better performance and that it was all about IPC.

[vcfan]

His original post: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=80168873&postcount=708

 

he really threw the gauntlet, didn't he? :laugh:

 

damn, albert went pretty hard there. he was pretty fired up. where the hell were they hiding him all this time. he should have been the one doing the e3 conference.

[blerk]

damn, albert went pretty hard there. he was pretty fired up. where the hell were they hiding him all this time. he should have been the one doing the e3 conference.

Them's fighting words Albert wrote. First time in any of his posts have I seen him come across as rather irritated with the general perception of XB1 as a slow, low-end PC. 

 

And his later comments - well they're not really retractions in any way - they seem to show him in a more level-headed state attempting to qualify his points to the best that he's currently able/allowed to. 

[vcfan]

  

[Atomic Wanderer Chicken]

What about the Wii U?

[astropheed Veteran]

It doesn't matter which one is more powerful, the games will be created with lowest common denominator in mind. Even if there was some difference, you wouldn't notice it, and if you thought you did, it's your bias talking either way.

[Showan]

It doesn't matter which one is more powerful, the games will be created with lowest common denominator in mind. Even if there was some difference, you wouldn't notice it, and if you thought you did, it's your bias talking either way.

Developed for the lowest common denominator is one of the lamest things I keep hearing.

Does anyone understand what that means when they say it?

[spenser.d]

Excellent interview.  Really starting to get into this.  If I get an end of year bonus at work as has been typical, hopefully it'll allow me to pick one up.

[M_Lyons10]

Umm, where in any of those quotes did he "admit the PS4 was faster"?  Because I don't see it.  Anywhere in anything he said.

Exactly.  And the PS4 doesn't offer any of the cloud support, which will allow developers to take advantage of performance that doesn't ship in the box as well.  Whereas the PS4 has to rely on what's in the box for 10 years, the XBoxOne does not...

[astropheed Veteran]

Developed for the lowest common denominator is one of the lamest things I keep hearing.

Does anyone understand what that means when they say it?

 

Yes, I understand what it means.

[giantpotato]

It doesn't matter which one is more powerful, the games will be created with lowest common denominator in mind. Even if there was some difference, you wouldn't notice it, and if you thought you did, it's your bias talking either way.

 

If that were true the PC version of multi-plats would never have better graphics.

[astropheed Veteran]

If that were true the PC version of multi-plats would never have better graphics.

 

Although the PC version may have 'better graphics', this doesn't negate what I said. I can see the logic applied to conclude this, though. It's true that they may increase X, Y or even the resolution, but the game was designed with the lowest-end hardware it's meant to run on in mind. I assure you this is limiting the capabilities of the software. Also, often enough PC ports are handled by a third-party and they will improve things to the standard of a typical PC that neither console version will ever get. It's just not cost effective to develop for each system with different capabilities in mind.

 

Usually the only graphical difference is they add a few more leaves of grass, some particles and up the resolution. The consoles have had some of these differences from time to time, but it doesn't happen often enough to justify worrying about which system is more powerful. It doesn't matter; not when they're this close. All it does is fuel angry video game nerds which drives competitive consumerism and lines the hardware distributors pockets with money. Microsoft and Sony want you to fight, it's good for business.

[Zaic]

Exactly.  And the PS4 doesn't offer any of the cloud support, which will allow developers to take advantage of performance that doesn't ship in the box as well.  Whereas the PS4 has to rely on what's in the box for 10 years, the XBoxOne does not...

You dont know what you are talking about...

First of all cloud costs money, if anyone will pay for it it will be you.

The fact that microsoft has Azure cloud service doesnt mean anything to your games that come from EA or other publishers

If you think that games can ofload AI or other parts of the game proccessing to the cloud, think again.

The only cloud support I see for XBOX is based on skydrive, and thats it

[Andre S. Veteran]

There are funny theories about the Xbox One having a secret dGPU that'd make it way more powerful than the PS4. Anyway, the Xbox One has shown it can do 1080p 60fps in AAA titles so of course we're not talking 40% overall performance difference from PS4. Probably the ESRAM alone negates most of the GDDR5 performance advantage, and who knows why it has 33% less shaders.