Early game comparisons show the PS5 outperforming the Xbox Series X

Microsoft has been proudly discussing how powerful its Xbox Series X console is for months now. There have been deep dives into the tech inside, promises it’s “the world’s most powerful console,” and even news that the company waited on a specific AMD technology to give it a mysterious edge over the PS5. On paper, the Xbox Series X looks more powerful than the PS5. But The Verge reports that in practice early game tests show the PS5 outperforming Microsoft’s console.

Digital Foundry has been analyzing a number of new games across both the PS5 and Xbox Series X, and the results are surprising. With the Xbox Series X capable of 12 teraflops of GPU performance vs. 10.28 teraflops on the PS5, most onlookers expected there to be a small gap between the consoles. Microsoft’s next-gen Xbox also has higher levels of memory bandwidth and more compute units, but Sony offers developers less compute units running at a variable (and higher) clock rate to extract better performance out of the PS5.

Microsoft has spent years improving its tooling situation since the Xbox One, which was a messy launch period for developers. Still, I consistently hear that Sony’s tools are superior, even in the basics of providing more clear documentation for developers to follow. Not all developers are still getting used to the GDK, though. The team behind Dirt 5 praised Microsoft’s GDK ahead of the Xbox Series X launch. “We started doing the groundwork for Xbox Series X development long before we even received the hardware,” said Codemasters technical director David Springate back in June. “This kind of thinking from Xbox allowed us to get a real head-start on next-gen development, so after receiving our early Xbox Series X hardware, we were up and running really quickly.”

These performance gaps, weird bugs, and differences between the Xbox Series X and PS5 versions of games look like issues related to the games rather than a platform problem for the Xbox. If Microsoft delivered dev kits and tools far later than Sony, then it could take creators more time to optimize further for Xbox. It may also explain why we didn’t see a lot of Xbox Series X gameplay in the months ahead of launch, but Sony was happy to regularly deliver PS5 gameplay.

“We are aware of performance issues in a handful of optimized titles on Xbox Series X|S and are actively working with our partners to identify and resolve the issues to ensure an optimal experience,” says a Microsoft spokesperson in a statement to The Verge. “As we begin a new console generation, our partners are just now scratching the surface of what next-gen consoles can do and minor bug fixes are expected as they learn how to take full advantage of our new platform. We are eager to continue working with developers to further explore the capability of Xbox Series X|S in the future.”

Things have clearly been coming in hot on the Xbox Series X side, but the PS5 has also launched without variable refresh rate support to help smooth out any frame rate issues. These features and overall performance do matter greatly on these consoles as it affects how we all experience playing the games that developers create. The Xbox One consistently struggled to hit 1080p early on compared to the PS4, and while the differences aren’t that big yet this time around, it will clearly take months or even years to determine how this next generation of consoles will change the way games are played.

Ultimately, it’s the games that matter and Microsoft’s launch lineup has relied heavily on third-party games that aren’t backing up its performance claims. The Xbox Series X has been great at backward compatibility, accessibility, and accessory support, but Microsoft still needs to deliver more games from its Xbox Game Studios to really show the power of the console.

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