Maybe teraflops really don’t matter (pic: Sony)

A Crytek rendering engineer believes the PS5 is the ‘better’ console compared to the Xbox Series X and is much simpler to make games for.

While we now know a lot more about both the PlayStation 5 and the Xbox Series X from a technical standpoint, with ray-tracing in particular being the hot new thing, it’s arguably still too early to tell which of the two consoles will perform better.

One insider previously claimed that the two were equally as powerful. However, new claims suggest that the PlayStation 5 may have a distinct advantage that will make it more favourable, at least, for developers.



In an interview with Persian website Vigiato (which was helpfully translated by Twitter user man4dead), Crytek rendering engineer Ali Salehi spoke about the specs for the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, and made the claim that Sony’s console was superior.


His reasons for saying so is that the PlayStation 5 is much simpler to develop for and that it is much easier for developers to reach ‘peak performance.’

‘The developers are saying PlayStation 5 is the easiest console they have ever coded on to reach its peak performance. Software-wise, coding for PS5 is extremely simple and has so many abilities that make the [developers] so free. In total, I can say PS5 is a better console.’

As for the Xbox Series X, according to Salehi, while it is possible to reach peak performance, it can only be done under the most ideal circumstances.

‘… If all parts can work efficiently in Xbox Series X alongside its GPU, it can hit that number in practice, which doesn’t seem so possible. Beside all these, there’s a software part too.’

He even added that developing games for the Xbox Series X might be somewhat difficult because of its software and the fact that it uses two different kinds of RAM that differ in bandwidth.

Since developers are likely to want to use the higher bandwidth, Salehi believes that could cause issues.

‘Because the total amount of things we want to put in the fast part is so much that it may cause problems. And if we want to support 4K it will be another whole story. So, there will be some things that will hold the GPU off.’

The interview and translation on Twitter have since been deleted, but Wccftech were able to report on it beforehand.

It’s unclear why this has happened, and man4dead has stated that Salehi has chosen not to confirm the information in the interview.

I must say that Ali Salehi doesn’t confirm the content of the interview anymore due to personal reasons. — . (@man4dead) April 6, 2020

It’s interesting though that the comments paint a picture similar to the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, except with the roles reversed. Sony’s last gen console was more powerful on paper than Microsoft’s, but was awkward to program for and few games were able to take full advantage of it – with most multiformat games being superior on Xbox 360.

The PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X are currently scheduled to release in time for Christmas this year.

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