PS4 vs Wii U vs Xbox 360 – this seems to be the latest buzz in the gaming world. The release of Nintendo’s Wii U, late last year, and the much-awaited announcement of Sony’s PS4 in early 2013, has heated up the competition for the ultimate gaming console. Here’s how the big guns — the Sony PS4, Microsoft Xbox 360, and the Nintendo Wii U, hold up against each other.
Sales Figures of Older Models
PS3 – 77 million
Xbox 360 – 76 million
Wii – 99 million
Read about the epic clash of the PS4 vs Xbox One here.
Gamers the world over are rejoicing, with the official announcement of the successor to the extremely popular PS3 – the PlayStation 4, which goes by the code name Orbis. This comes close on the heels of the launch of Nintendo’s latest offering – the Wii U, the successor to the Wii. Microsoft too recently launched the next-generation of the Xbox 360 gaming console Xbox One, with features that seem to be out of this world!
Details are still rather sketchy about the performance of the PS4, which is slated to be launched sometime during the ‘2013 holidays’. Here’s a quick comparison between the PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, and the Wii U.
| Specs | PlayStation 4 | Wii U | Xbox 360 |
| CPU | 8 Cores | 3 Cores | 3 Cores |
| GPU | 1.84 TFLOPS | 352 GFLOPS | 240 GFLOPS |
| Memory | 8GB GDDR5 | 2GB GDDR3 | 512MB GDDR3 |
| Storage | Unknown | 8GB / 32GB | 250GB / 300GB |
| USB port | USB 3.0 | USB 2.0 | USB 2.0 |
| Wi-Fi | Wireless N | Wireless N | Wireless N |
| Ethernet | 1,000Mbps | NA | 100Mbps |
| Optical Drive | Blu-ray | 25GB Disc | DVD |
| Official Site | PS4 | Wii U | Xbox |
PS4 Vs. Wii U Vs. Xbox 360
Each of these consoles is brilliant in its own right. The latest from the Sony stables, the PlayStation 4 promises to take the gaming experience to a whole new level, with specs that could easily find their place in a Sci-Fi movie. The Xbox 360 from Microsoft is the oldest of the lot, and is from a different generation altogether. This however, does not take away from this tried and test mighty beast. The Wii U, from Nintendo, is a fun console, which tries to work on improving the user interaction with the game, much like its predecessor — the Wii. So how do these machines stack up against each other? Here’s a look.
Processor
PlayStation 4
Armed with a mighty AMD ‘Jaguar’ 8-core CPU, the PS4 has the best specs on paper, and going by past experiences, that should translate into an equally impressive performance.
Wii U
The Wii U is powered by a Tri-Core IBM PowerPC ‘Espresso’ processor, which is more than capable of handling all the complex functions that the console needs to deal with.
Xbox 360
At the heart of it, the Xbox 360 has a 3.2 GHz PowerPC Tri-Core Xenon processor, which in spite of being an ‘old’ CPU, can still give the competition a real run for their money.
Graphics
PlayStation 4
If the current PS3 is any indication, the Custom AMD Radeon GPU on board the PS4 should handle even the most demanding of games like a dream.
Wii U
The 550 MHz AMD Radeon GPU ‘Latte’ is a very capable GPU, and provides for some real smooth transitions right through the game.
Xbox 360
With the 500 MHz ATI Xenos ticking away, game play is an absolute breeze, with almost no noticeable lag while playing.
Memory
PlayStation 4
The PS4 has an incredible 8 GB of GDDR5 unified system memory. This translates to 176 GB/s of bandwidth.
Wii U
The Wii U has 2 GB of DDR3 RAM to carry out all its operations, which gives it a total bandwidth of 12.8 GB/s.
Xbox 360
The Xbox 360 has 512 MB of GDDR3 RAM clocked at 700 MHz. This provides for 278.4 GB/s of bandwidth.
Storage
PlayStation 4
The amount of storage space on board the PS4 is still not known, although it will undoubtedly come with plenty of storage space for its many HD games.
Wii U
The Wii U offers two storage options – 8GB or 32GB. This can further be expanded via SD memory cards and USB hard disk drives.
Xbox 360
The Xbox 360 comes in 250GB and 300GB HDD variants, along with 64MB, 256MB or 512MB flash memory. This makes for plenty of storage space for all your games.
Support
PlayStation 4
The console has only just been announced, and it already has 9 titles slated for it. The PlayStation being such a loved console, there are bound to be plenty more game developers thronging to get a piece of the action by the time the PS4 releases.
Wii U
There are just over 100 games available for the Wii U. The console is slowly but surely increasing its game library, with Nintendo promising to add to the tally.
Xbox 360
Currently there are just under 1,000 games available for the Xbox 360, with more games in the pipeline. This is by far the most preferred platform for most game developers.
Features
PlayStation 4
The PS4 also features the new DualShock 4 controller. The controller now has a touch screen with multitouch input, to interact with the game. It also has a headphone jack for the microphone that comes with the package. A new light bar now dons the front of the controller, and is supposed to indicate the health level of the player in the game.
Wii U
The Wii U can work as your TV remote as well. The 6.2-inch touchscreen on the controller enables you to interact with the games on the controller, while it is displayed on your TV.
Xbox 360
The Xbox 360 also doubles up as an Extender for Windows Media Center, and lets you wirelessly connect to your Media Center PC, giving you access to the TV, videos, photos, and music on it.
USPs
PlayStation 4
- It has brilliant specifications, which blow the competition right out of the water.
- The new DualShock 4 controller looks promising, and offers some very interesting features.
- It offers a unique social gaming experience through its cloud services.
Wii U
- It offers a unique and interesting way to interact with the game on the 6.2-inch touchscreen controller.
- It supports 1080p HD video.
- It now supports SDHC cards.
Xbox 360
- It has a huge library of games, and loyal game developers base.
- It works as an Extender for your Media Center PC.
- It gives you great networking features through Xbox Live.
Drawbacks
PlayStation 4
- The PlayStation is infamous for overheating issues.
- It may not be backward compatible.
- The console is expected to cost an arm and a leg.
Wii U
- The controller isn’t the most comfortable to use.
- The games available for the platform do not match up to the competition.
- The battery life of the controller is very short.
Xbox 360
- The console is outdated in comparison to the competition.
- It is known to develop technical snags over time.
- Online gaming is a paid feature on Xbox Live.
For now, it simply boils down to the PS4 vs Xbox 360, with the Wii U trying desperately to catch up with them. As you can see, picking a winner amongst these is a total no-brainer, with the PS4 completely decimating the competition. You might want to keep in mind though, that the PS4 and Wii U are the latest offerings from their respective manufacturers, while the Xbox 360 is an old warhorse. Nonetheless, the Xbox 360 gives quite a fight to the Wii U, in spite of the two being a generation apart.
So it needs to be seen how Microsoft’s latest baby — Xbox One compares with the others. While the competition may have a head start here, Microsoft can benefit by learning from their mistakes. For now, we will just have to wait and watch how the Xbox One actually performs. We will keep you posted on how and when the grand unveiling takes place, and then maybe we could have more of a fair ‘game on our hands’, quite literally so! Till then enjoy the game, and play fair (or do a good job of covering up when you cheat!). Cheers!