The release of the new PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X has reignited the long time rivalry between fans of the gaming industry titans. 

There’s a lot of debate on which console is better and which is the most popular or sought out console out of the two but in this new generation of consoles, Sony’s PS5 has a slight lead over Microsoft’s Xbox Series X.

Design wise, the PS5 has an edginess that the Series X lacks. The PS5 has an all white exterior, accented with a glowing blue light that gives the console a futuristic look and has an sleek redesigned controller to match.

The Series X is very bland compared to the PS5. It’s a rectangular, all black console with a logo on the top left of the box.

 At about 12 inches tall, six inches wide, and six inches deep, it’s bigger than the Xbox One. It’s a decently sized box structure, but looks very plain and the controller is the same as the last generations, seeing just a slight change to the D-pad of the controller. 

Performance-wise, the Xbox Series X has the edge over the PS5. The two consoles are very similar in hardware, but the Xbox Series X has a CPU of 3.8 GHz AMD Zen 2 compared to the PS5s CPU of 3.5 GHz AMD Zen 2, meaning that the Series X processes information more efficiently and is faster than the PS5 when it comes to starting up and loading games. 

Additionally, Series X has a GPU of 12.0 teraflop AMD RDNA 2 compared to the 10.3 teraflop AMD RDNA 2.  The Series X has the advantage when it comes to the speed and framerate of video games and television display overall. 

The Xbox also has 1 TB custom NVMe SSD storage compared to the PS5s storage 825 GB custom SSD, which allows for more space to store games and data, allowing users to keep more software downloaded without the worry of deleting other downloaded content. 

What good is the power and storage of the console if you won’t have very many options to choose from video game wise? The PS5 offers similar power and performance while offering a variety of different console exclusive games. 

When it comes to console exclusive games, the PS5 has the edge over the Series X. The PS5 has a lot more appealing games at launch compared to Xbox such as “Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales” which has gained a lot of attention.

Even though the Xbox is more powerful than the PS5, you won’t be able to fully use it due to the limited amount of game options offered as a player. 

The only thing Xbox has that PS5 doesn’t is an Xbox Ultimate Game Pass. The game pass is a $15 monthly subscription that gives you access to download over 100 games of different genres from old and new gen consoles. 

PS5 has their own version called PS Plus Collection which is not as good, but has potential to compete. Sony has also mentioned that it’s a work in progress, this means it could catch up to or even one-up the Xbox game pass.

The PS5 also offers a digital version of the console for $100 less which is the exact same as the original console, the only difference is having to buy games digitally instead of by disk. This is an advantage due to the fact you’re paying less and you save space from having to consistently buy disks of new games coming out. 

Overall, there are two consoles with a lot to offer and have some similarities. Each console has something the other doesn’t which really splits the decision when deciding which one to get, especially during the holiday season.

But the answer is the PS5, offering similar performance as the Xbox, giving a more aesthetic pleasing design and access to a superior selection of PlayStation exclusives to choose from.