It's that time again, the Xmas cheer is slowly bubbling up amidst a swathe of tinsel-covered window displays and festive TV adverts setting the scene - but there's only one question on the lips of every prospective gamer waiting to make the leap between console generations. "Do I get a PS4, or an Xbox One?" The last two years have done about as much to help you answer that as the Kinect did for motion controlled gaming, but now the consoles have received a huge amount of patches on both sides - Microsoft's Xbox One in particular being a totally different beast now than at launch, prompting anyone with cash in hand to wonder where it would be best placed. Fanboys, steady your pitchforks. Let's do this.
10. The Best Exclusives Already Available
First, the most obvious one; the games themselves. Chances are, the biggest titles you're looking forward to playing - your Witchers, Star Wars Battlefronts, Batman: Arkham Knights and Fallout 4s of the world - are multi-platform, and thanks to a parity in actual console horsepower (more on that later), it puts the onus on whichever franchises Sony and Microsoft can call their own. As it stands, the PS4 can offer you things like the brutally-hard Bloodborne, horror gem Until Dawn, PS3 upscales of legendary titles like the Uncharted trilogy and arcady phenomenon Rocket League. The PS4's indie game is pretty strong too. Supergiant Games' Transistor was many peoples' game of 2014, Super Meat Boy provides suitably engrossing platforming chops, and top-down strategy gem Armello props it all up nicely. In contrast, the Xbox One has the mighty Halo 5 which, for anyone who was a fan of Bungie's initial run before Destiny, will seal the deal right away. That sits quite nicely alongside Rise of the Tomb Raider, as although that is coming to PS4 at some point in 2016, it certainly doesn't hurt to have one of the best games on modern hardware as even a timed exclusive. Next to that we've got Sunset Overdrive - a great little fun title that challenges you to find a TV big enough to do its thunderous explosions justice, Dead Rising 3, and the absolutely spectacular platformer Ori & the Blind Forest. Point goes to... Xbox One It's a tough one, but mainly the PS4 has kept its lead thanks to stellar third party support, whereas when you knuckle down and compare the roster of exclusives, the Xbox One edges it considerably, the one-two knockout blow of Halo and Tomb Raider providing something the PS4 just can't live up to.
