History tends to repeat itself, and according to Microsoft Studios’ partner creative director Ken Lobb, that’s exactly what’s happening with the Xbox One and PlayStation 4. Both pieces of hardware are more powerful, feature-rich, and connected than anything we’ve seen in the past, but the chatter that’s taking place from the community is similar to what we just saw with the last generation of consoles. Many of the arguments center around which box is more powerful, but Lobb knows that this single factor won’t determine the victor.
“Should all boxes be free and all power be infinite? Of course. This is what every consumer and developer is going to tell you. Period,” Lobb told Edge in a recent interview. “We’ve got a box that’s very powerful. Not to step on anybody –because I love all of my toys equally – but this [smacks of] 2005: 'We’re way more powerful!' I don’t know who thought which [console] was more powerful last generation.
“A lot of it will come down to developers. And there are some amazing PS3 games. The Last of Us. Awesome game. And clearly Naughty Dog pushed that machine. [Xbox One] is a very powerful platform – I guarantee you that we’re going to see amazing things out of that.”
Other members of the Microsoft team have argued that nothing currently looks better than Xbox One exclusives Ryse and Forza 5, and really, that could be true. Comparisons between third-party games don't say too much at this time. But it’ll likely take a few years of development practice before we see the talented creators squeeze the true power out of these machines.
