We may see ceasefires from time to time, but the console war will never really end. There’s always a major battle around the corner in this war, and 2020 will be a pivotal year in gaming history. Microsoft and Sony will release their most powerful gaming consoles ever, just as high-end game streaming experiences get even better — the two companies are also working on game-streaming offerings in addition to their next-gen console hardware.
Sony and Microsoft have already revealed some of the main features of the upcoming PlayStation 5 and Xbox Scarlett and consoles, more than a year before they’ll hit stores. And both devices will feature almost the same hardware. AMD is in charge of manufacturing custom CPUs and GPUs for the Xbox Two and PS5, and both devices should offer massive performance bumps compared to their predecessors. Yet Sony is ready to take hits at Microsoft’s next Xbox, as the company seems to think the PS5 will be the “world’s fastest console” following its release. But Sony was just as quick to walk back its claims once they became public.
The PS5 has been featured more extensively than the Xbox Scarlett in the media recently, thanks to a combination of Sony announcements and a few exciting rumors about the next-gen console. So it wasn’t surprising to see several blogs discover Sony’s latest job listing for the PlayStation team, which is where Sony made the remark.
Here’s what a previous version of the ad said (emphasis ours):
You will be managing distributed systems that are powering 100+ million PS4 consoles that deliver immersive gaming experiences. You will also be one of the leaders of an elite team that is super excited to launch the upcoming world’s fastest console(PS5) in 2020. You will love working at PlayStation if you have a strong passion for systems, availability, and resiliency.
Then Sony felt the need to remove the subtle dig at the Xbox from the listing:
You will be managing distributed systems that are powering 100+ million PS4 consoles that deliver immersive gaming experiences. You will love working at PlayStation if you have a strong passion for systems, availability, and resiliency.
The internet never forgets, however, and a cached version of the ad is still available online:
We’ll probably see both companies take plenty of shots at each other in the near future, as we get closer to their launch events. But it’s also very likely that both the Xbox Scarlett and the PS5 will deliver similar experiences when it comes to speed and overall performance next year. Proclaiming one or the other as the world’s fastest console should be quite difficult.