Microsoft's Penello: No way is Xbox One giving up 30% power advantage to PS4

http://www.examiner.com/article/microsoft-s-penello-no-way-is-xbox-one-giving-up-30-power-advantage-to-ps4

Now I know this article is old but it still drives a point.

Microsoft's Penello: No way is Xbox One giving up 30% power advantage to PS4:

Much of the focus in the console war between the PS4 and Xbox One has been the perceived power advantage Sony's console has over Microsoft's. Following a published interview with Rev3Games Thursday, Microsoft Director of Product Planning Albert Penello explained why there's no way the company is willing to give the competition a huge performance advantage.

The advantages for the PS4 over the Xbox One currently stand with the console's GPU and memory. The Playstation 4 GPU is said to be capable of 1.8 TFLOPS while it also uses GDDR5 memory for fast memory access at 5500mhz. Meanwhile, the Xbox One's GPU is reportedly capable of 1.23 TFLOPS (before the 150Mhz clock speed boost) and uses DDR3 memory at 2133mhz. However, Penello says that there's more to the story than just numbers on paper.

"I’m not dismissing raw performance. I’m stating – as I have stated from the beginning – that the performance delta between the two platforms is not as great as the raw numbers lead the average consumer to believe," Penello wrote on NeoGAF. "There are things about our system architecture not fully understood, and there are things about theirs as well, that bring the two systems into balance."

"People DO understand that Microsoft has some of the smartest graphics programmers IN THE WORLD. We CREATED DirectX, the standard API’s that everyone programs against. So while people laude Sony for their [hardware] skills, do you really think we don’t know how to build a system optimized for maximizing graphics for programmers? Seriously? There is no way we’re giving up a 30%+ advantage to Sony. And ANYONE who has seen both systems running could say there are great looking games on both systems. If there was really huge performance difference – it would be obvious."

Penello then brought up similar instances where Sony and fans of the Playstation proclaimed superior performance with the PS2 and PS3 before concluding that, "in the end, games on our system looked the same or better."

"I’m not saying they haven’t built a good system – I’m merely saying that anyone who wants to die on their sword over this 30%+ power advantage are going to be fighting an uphill battle over the next 10 years…"

Update: Penello followed-up with another post after some members of NeoGAF questioned his line of reasoning.

"I'm stating that not everyone knows all the facts. There are still a lot of important details about the platforms that are still unknown. I have many, many questions about what Sony is doing technically," he wrote.

"The question I posed earlier, and the statements I'm making now, will come out when we see the actual shipping boxes.

"The most obvious point is that anyone looking at games on both platforms do not see ANY difference, let alone this alleged 30% - 40%. Both systems are powerful. Both are capable of next-gen graphics. I'm merely saying the application of that performance will mean the actual difference will not be that great."