The PS5 Slim puts Xbox in a great position for the rest of this console generation
Oct. 11, 2023Opinion| The Xbox Series X refresh looks far more impressive than the PS5 Slim
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Sonyannounced thePS5 Slimyesterday, confirming years of speculation and getting out ahead of Xbox in the battle for the mid-generation console refresh. At least they would have done, had Microsoft not leaked its own mid-gen upgrade last month. And while the PS5 Slim might be landing first, it’s the new Xbox that I’m far more impressed by.
The PS5 Slim is 30% smaller than its predecessor, and will boast a detachable disk drive and an extra 175GB of internal SSD storage (equivalent to about two major games nowadays, if you’re lucky). Beyond that, there’s little to set the new console apart from the old, unless you’d like to spend $30 on an official horizontal stand or hike your PS5 around often enough that you’ll benefit from the 18% or 24% reduction in weight. The Slim is even the exact same price as the original PS5.
If you need catching up,here’s everything Xbox accidentally revealed in its FTC case- from a new console to a Fallout 3 remaster, and a lot more besides.
Officially,Microsoftdoesn’t have a mid-gen refresh planned for the Xbox Series X, but unofficially, documents that leaked from the FTC court case have confirmed the existence of Project Brooklin. TheXbox Series X ‘Refresh’leaked in full in September, revealing everything from specs to price to release date, so we can say with some certainty that while Microsoft won’t be matching Sony with a new console this year, there’s definitely something on the way.
And from what we’ve seen so far, Xbox Series X Brooklin is set to leave the PS5 Slim in the dust: storage is increasing from 1TB to 2TB; improved WiFi will reduce latency, and improved Bluetooth will mean better connection to your accessories; the entire console will be more efficient, reducing power draw by 15% and lowering the Series X’s standby power usage to just 20% of the current Series S. A new controller, codenamed Sebile, promises improvements over the current controller and longer-lasting thumbsticks. An enhanced Series S, Ellewood, is also on the way. And for all those improvements, neither console will get more expensive.
PS5 Slim vs Xbox Series X Refresh
Perhaps that’s forgivable. As Microsoft has made clear many times over the past year,it’s struggling to compete with Sony in the console war. WhileXbox chief Phil Spencer is pretty confident that his company offers the better hardware, it’s more than fair to say that Sony has had the better time of it when it comes to software, and that its raft of top-tier exclusives have put the PS5 in a far stronger position that the Xbox Series X.
But Microsoft’s first Bethesda exclusives are starting to appear, and while the less said about Redfall the better, you can’t deny the impact that Starfield has had in spite of its exclusivity. And with theXbox Activision dealexpected to close in a matter of days, Xbox’s arsenal is about to get even bigger.Call of Duty might be staying on PlayStation, but can the same be said of future Blizzard games? As Microsoft gears up to make the most of its shiny new first-party studios, that software gap seems likely to close, and hardware might start to be seen as a far more important factor than it is right now. As we move towards the second half of this generation, Microsoft seems to already be winning that particular race, and while the PS5 Slim does nothing to close that gap, it’s looking like Brooklin could widen it, setting us up for a new-gen console war clash that might be far more closely-fought than we initially thought it might be.
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I’m GamesRadar’s news editor, working with the team to deliver breaking news from across the industry. I started my journalistic career while getting my degree in English Literature at the University of Warwick, where I also worked as Games Editor on the student newspaper, The Boar. Since then, I’ve run the news sections at PCGamesN and Kotaku UK, and also regularly contributed to PC Gamer. As you might be able to tell, PC is my platform of choice, so you can regularly find me playing League of Legends or Steam’s latest indie hit.
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