After the testing dust settled, a clear winner emerged in Sony’s PlayStation 5. Because the two consoles have similar technical guts, choosing a winner, for us, came down to the available catalog of games, and what was in store for the future. Compared with the Microsoft Xbox Series X, the PlayStation’s past and promised future games make a compelling case for owning the machine.
It is worth stressing that both systems are excellent. As much as Sony or Microsoft might want to claim the units are vastly different technological achievements, they aren’t so much, for most people. Both display stunning 4K graphics, have real-time ray tracing that makes games look more realistic and solid-state storage, and so on. The biggest difference is in Sony’s controller, which has haptic feedback built into its triggers; the function creates a feeling of resistance that coincides with the game’s action. It’s certainly neat if a game uses the feature, but many of the games Barron’s tried didn’t offer it.
What ultimately tipped the scales for Barron’s was PlayStation’s high-quality back catalog of exclusive games built for the PlayStation 4, many of which have been updated for the PS5. Such a strong record of success suggests the promise of another batch of games over the PlayStation 5’s lifetime.
For many current PlayStation 4 owners, an upgrade to the PS5 is likely a question of when, not if. For people willing to spend lots of money, buying a high-powered videogame personal computer and a PlayStation 5 will unlock access to most games available for either system, including the Xbox exclusives, which usually appear on PC too. But for anyone buying one console, or buying a system for the first time, the PlayStation 5 is the best choice. It’s a call option on Sony’s future games. That is, if you can find one.