Although official hardware specs have yet to be published by Microsoft, the Xbox 720 (Next) and Sony Playstation 4 (PS4) are likely to be somewhat evenly matched in terms of hardware. As such, the battle for supremacy will likely center on other aspects besides raw horsepower.
Indeed, Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter believes price will play a major role in determining the winner of the next-gen console wars.
“The reason I think Microsoft wins, I think that you’re going to get a subsidy. So I think the price for the next Xbox is going to be subsidised either by a cable TV company or an internet service provider,” Pachter said in a recent GameTrailer video clip.
“I think ISPs have a reason, if you add broadband to get the next Xbox, we’ll give it to you for 100 bucks. If you subscribe to our cable TV and sign up for a couple of years, we’ll give you the next Xbox for 100 bucks.”
According to Pachter, the Xbox 720 will have a “gigantic advantage” until Sony picks up the slack and offers similar incentives.
“That’s why I think TV is a killer app. I think you’re going to see Xbox Live with tiered pricing, so if you get TV service you pay a little more because you get rid of your cable box. If you use Skype, they’ll give you unlimited Skype calling to any place, even phones, for another few bucks,” he added.
As TG Daily previously reported, the PS4 is powered by an AMD CPU and GPU. According to reports, the console boasts 8 x86-64 CPU cores, while the GPU is based on the next-gen Radeon graphics engine, capable of 1.84 teraflops of performance power. Because it is an APU, both the CPU and GPU reside on the same physical die, sharing 8GB of GDDR5 memory.
The console is also packaged with a redesigned controller that features a touchpad on the front, a share button, a headphone jack, a light bar for player identification and tech to sense a player’s depth and 3D position.
Meanwhile, the Xbox 720 (Next) is reportedly powered by an AMD 8-core x64 1.6GHz CPU, a D3D11.x 800MHz graphics platform and 8GB of DDR3 RAM.
