We're getting to the point in the run-up to a new generation of consoles where certain people become obsessed with comparing spec numbers to determine once and for all which new system will be "more powerful" (and therefore "better"). Thus far this kind of navel-gazing stat-measuring contest seems to show numerical advantages of 30 percent to 50 percent for the PlayStation 4 over the Xbox One in a number of important specs, such as GPU cores, control units, memory bandwidth, and teraflop shading.

The stat battle has gained renewed attention recently, though, now that Microsoft Director of Product Planning Albert Penello has waded in to defend the Xbox One from accusations of it being underpowered. "The performance delta between the two platforms is not as great as the raw numbers lead the average consumer to believe," Penello wrote in gaming forum NeoGAF late last week. "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."

Those "things" include Microsoft's skills on the software side of the graphics-optimization equation, Penello writes, built up over years working on the DirectX standard:

"So while people laude [sic] 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."

"I get a ton of hate for saying this—but it’s been the same EVERY generation," he continued. "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..."

Penello followed up on those statements early today with a number-filled NeoGAF post clarifying why the way some people have been comparing the PS4 and Xbox One's specs of late "isn't completely accurate." Among his points (with instant "sniff test" analysis from Ars' own Peter Bright):

Pennelo's statement Quick analysis "18 CUs [compute units] vs. 12 CUs =/= 50% more performance. Multi-core processors have inherent inefficiency with more CUs, so it's simply incorrect to say 50% more GPU." "The entire point of GPU workloads is that they scale basically perfectly, so 50% more cores is in fact 50% faster." "Adding to that, each of our CUs is running 6% faster. It's not simply a 6% clock speed increase overall." "What the hell does that even mean?" "We have more memory bandwidth. 176gb/sec is peak on paper for GDDR5. Our peak on paper is 272gb/sec. (68gb/sec DDR3 + 204gb/sec on ESRAM). ESRAM can do read/write cycles simultaneously so I see this number mis-quoted." "Just adding up bandwidth numbers is idiotic and meaningless. While the Xbox One's ESRAM is a little faster, we don't know how it's used, and the PS4's GDDR5 is obviously a lot bigger." "We have at least 10% more CPU. Not only a faster processor, but a better audio chip also offloading CPU cycles." "Maybe true." "We understand GPGPU [general processing on GPU] and its importance very well. Microsoft invented Direct Compute, and have been using GPGPU in a shipping product since 2010—it's called Kinect." "Who cares about the API? It really doesn't make much difference." "Speaking of GPGPU—we have 3X the coherent bandwidth for GPGPU at 30gb/sec which significantly improves our ability for the CPU to efficiently read data generated by the GPU." "I don't know if that's even true."

It's a bit odd for Penello to be wading into this kind of raw numbers battle, given a June interview with OXM where he called this very sort of comparison "meaningless."

"So the whole numbers game—yeah, I've been following it online and it's like, we tried having that argument last time," Penello said in June. "Do I want to talk about HDMI 1.3 or 1.4, it's like 'Argh!' It doesn't matter. Did you see Call of Duty, it looks fucking awesome! It's going to be great, you know. So we're just saying, it's not worth the debate."

In the end, Penello's main point seems to be that getting mired in the numbers doesn't really change the fact that games in general look pretty comparable on both systems. "ANYONE who has seen both systems running could say there are great looking games on both systems," he wrote. "If there was really huge performance difference—it would be obvious." Of course we could just leave it there and stop obsessively comparing numbers... but where's the fun in that?