Since the reveal of the Xbox Scorpio, some outlets have gone out of their way to bend the truth, until their narrative could be met with facts of their choosing. Microsoft revealed at E3 that the Xbox Scorpio would feature six Tflops of GPU computing capability, 4.5 times the power of the current Xbox One, 3.3 times to power of the PlayStation 4 and that it will have a 1.5 times performance advantage over the upcoming PlayStation Neo. These are facts set in stone given how PlayStation Neo development kits are already in the hands of game makers.
When the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 launched, the majority of media outlets pushed the narrative that the inconsequential power advantage that the PlayStation 4 had was enough to warrant gamers to boycott the Xbox One altogether. For three years every gaming outlet spent hours of their time regurgitating the perception that, because the Xbox One was running games at 900p, and the PlayStation 4 at 1080p, that gamers who purchased the Xbox One were getting screwed over because of reasons that were so vague, you would be hard pressed to validate them. For instance, outlets that would compare these games against each other would use phrases like “blurry” and in some cases pointing out random frame rate drops as reasons not to opt for the Xbox One. These outlets would then overlook these cases when it happened on the PlayStation 4, concluding that the “resolution advantage” was enough to overlook the often jarring frame rate issues.
When GameSpot did a study to find out if gamers truly could see these so-called advantages, their findings were that gamers couldn’t accurately perceive the differences, in some cases mistaking the Windows version for the Xbox One version. This was even more apparent when outlets would declare the PlayStation 4 the winner, saying things like “this one looks better”, even when both were the same resolution, frame rate and had the same texture quality.
These biases were even more pronounced and completely mind-boggling when Microsoft announced that the Xbox Scorpio would render all games—or which games the developer choose—in 4K. Media outlets have spent considerable time since then trying their utmost to find reasoning to justify not purchasing the device when it launches. The most glaring turn of events is how some have gone on to say that buying a device that renders games in 4K wouldn’t be useful to gamers playing on displays outputting at 1080p, failing to consider the fact that the game would be downscaled to 1080p, and that texture quality would remain exceptionally high even at the downscaled resolution.
They have played into the narrative that the PlayStation Neo is more than a worthy upgrade, even though it’s significantly less powerful and would display games at the same resolution and frame rate (and give the same 4K capabilities) as the Xbox One S, a device that costs as little as $300. It’s baffling to see how the narrative has changed in 24 hours after the reveal. Before this news broke, every person in the media and gaming community complained—and some quite loudly—that the current generation of consoles was “too weak” to compare to existing gaming machines, even though the majority of gamers on Windows run systems considerably weaker than the current consoles. I find it quite strange that as soon as Microsoft announced they fixed these issues, and offered a cheaper option for gamers who want an entry level device, each one of these loud detractors started complaining about how these upgrades are out of place and that they are not needed (except for the PlayStation Neo, of course, which is the second coming of Christ apparently).
Even if we accept that the differences between the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 were so pronounced that it validated when media and gamers, in general, chose the PlayStation 4 over the less powerful of the two, what has happened now? Microsoft offered a more powerful option for its fans. How can one accept the narrative that the weaker amongst the two is better? This reeks of hypocrisy in the highest order. Suddenly declaring that gamers won’t appreciate their games being rendered at a higher resolution goes in direct contradiction of what we’ve been led to believe for the last three years. Hopefully gamers will catch on and begin calling out these publications for their bizarre manipulation of facts.
Dreyer was a regular ICXM contributor between 2016–2017, publishing 139 articles across opinion pieces, game reviews, Windows and PC, and Xbox news. Their work focused on hands-on reviews, platform commentary, and breaking-news reporting during the Xbox One X launch year and Microsoft’s wider Play Anywhere / UWP gaming initiative. They post on X as @dreyer_smit.