PlayStation Neo (PS4K) vs Project Scorpio: What’s the rumoured difference?

During this year’s E3, Microsoft announced its smaller, more capable refresh for the Xbox One, the Xbox One S, which is coming this August. However, it also tantalisingly teased Project Scorpio for 2017, a device Xbox boss Phil Spencer called “the most powerful games console ever”.

Before the show even started, Sony Computer Entertainment head Andrew House also confirmed the presence of an upgraded PlayStation 4, codenamed – according to leaked documents – PlayStation Neo (or PS4K, as the press called it originally).

He didn’t reveal much, but from the rumours and leaks we’ve seen elsewhere, it’ll certainly rival the Microsoft machine for that “most powerful” tag.

That’s why, even at this early stage, we thought it useful to look at what we know about both consoles, mainly through the gossip and speculation over the last couple of months, to start to paint a picture about how the next phase of the gaming wars might shape up.

READ: What is Project Scorpio? The future of Xbox explained

Microsoft

PlayStation Neo vs Project Scorpio: Graphics

While a lot of the spec of both consoles comes down to pure speculation and the occasional leak, one thing we know for sure is that they will both offer 4K HDR gaming.

Xbox promised as much during its press conference at E3 2016. What’s more, it claims that the graphics chip in the new console will be not only capable of 4K resolutions, but at 60 frames per second to boot.

Its system on chip (SoC) will have 6 teraflops of computing power just to render 4K graphics – that’s high end PC graphics card stuff.

We haven’t been told the exact specifications of Neo yet, but Andrew House did confirmed in an interview with the Financial Times in the UK that the PS4K, or whatever it is finally called, will indeed be capable of 4K video output.

In alleged leaked documents, the Sony machine will be lighter in spec, with a purported 4.14 teraflops of GPU power and GDDR5 memory running at 218GB/s.

However, regardless of the slight drop in spec, we doubt you’ll be able to notice the difference on screen.

READ: Sony PlayStation 4K: What is PS4.5/Neo, when is it coming and what will it offer?

PlayStation Neo vs Project Scorpio: CPU and memory

During its E3 reveal, Microsoft confirmed that Project Scorpio will have an octa-core processor, although it didn’t mention the clock speed.

The Neo is also rumoured to have an octa-core processor, with speculation adding that each core will run at 2.1GHz.

Microsoft

Both consoles will be mega powerful though, if these are to be believed.

It is thought that the Scorpio and Neo will both have 8GB of RAM on board, but that’s not confirmed by either company.

We do know though that the memory sported by the Project Scorpio will have a bandwidth of 320GB/s. The Neo is rumoured to be restricted to 218GB/s.

Again, this might not make much difference in general 4K gaming, at least in a conventional sense. The higher the spec though, the more developers will be able to eek out of it in the future.

PlayStation Neo vs Project Scorpio: Virtual reality

One of the aimed digs Xbox sent PlayStation’s way during its E3 press event was about virtual reality.

While Sony was focusing a lot on the imminent PS VR headset during its own event and at the show, the Microsoft team delighted in revealing that Scorpio will be capable of running better, higher-res VR devices, backed up by Bethesda that said Fallout 4 is likely to be available through it.

One train of thought is that Microsoft will ally with Oculus for Rift support, which even today is a better spec’ed headset than PS VR. The PlayStation VR uses a single 1920 x 1080 OLED panel to serve 960 x 1080 to each eye, while the Oculus Rift (and HTC Vive) has an overall resolution of 2160 x 1200, so 1080 x 1200 for each eye.

To be honest, from our experiences with all three headsets, that doesn’t matter much when a game is good enough.

READ: E3 2016: All the launches, games and consoles at the show

Maybe the Xbox team suggests an even higher resolution headset for the future, one with a 4K screen. That’d provide 1920 x 2160 to each eye and would be significantly sharper. But for that, the console would need to serve 4K at higher than 60fps, as previously stated. The Rift and Vive are both capable at running at 90Hz (90fps), while the PS VR can output up to 120Hz.

In terms of the Neo, it has been suggested for a while that one of the reasons for the upgrade is to better serve virtual reality. And even if there’s no update to the PS VR next year, we would imagine it would be able to work with the current model more effectively than the standard PS4 – perhaps output at the full 120Hz rather than use frame doubling technology.

Either way, if things go to plan, VR will be a significant battleground for both manufacturers come the holiday season 2017.

PlayStation Neo vs Project Scorpio: Price and release date

At present we have no idea of the release date for PlayStation Neo, only a suggestion from House that Sony will announce it when it feels the market is ready.

The Project Scorpio will be coming “Holiday 2017”, so anytime between October and December next year, we feel. What’s the betting on them both hitting the same launch window, like the Xbox One and PS4 did in November 2013?

As for price, we honestly have no idea at present. Neither will come cheap though, considering the confirmed or rumoured specifications. The smart money is on £500 apiece or even more. Some murmurings in the halls at E3 even put them at £600 a pop. That would be ludicrous though, and you’re treading onto PC gaming ground at that level.

Microsoft

PlayStation Neo vs Project Scorpio: Backwards compatibility

One of the things current-gen console owners will be most worried about is what will the launch of two new consoles mean for their machines.

Thankfully, both manufacturers have already stated that while they plan to release better, higher spec’ed hardware, all games released will be compatible with the standard consoles too.

Think of it like a PC. Some people have the ability to play games at 4K, others in Full HD, and others still are capped at lower resolutions depending on their graphics card. They can still all buy the same games though, which scale at a software level to offer the best experience possible per computer.

The new consoles will do the same, it is said. This is the official message coming from both the Xbox and PlayStation camps.

Conclusion

To be honest, at this stage it is impossible to judge which of the two consoles will be “the most powerful ever”. It is early days and while they have both been confirmed, one even announced, we will see neither hit the streets until late next year – almost 18 months away.

We will likely find out more before then – after all, both Microsoft and Sony held proper announcement events in the spring before their respective current-gen consoles went on sale – but until that happens, we will be left to speculate.

That’s why, although we feel confident in what we discuss here, we cannot be 100 per cent sure. In addition, Xbox has shown its hand early, giving PlayStation time to adjust its plans to suit.

One thing’s for sure; it’s an exciting time to be a gamer.