Will The PS5 Be More Powerful Than The Xbox Scarlett?

We could be looking at the console war to end all console wars next year, and right now, it seems it'll take place between two systems we don't have actual names for yet. Microsoft is sticking to Project Scarlett for its next-gen machine. And Sony — for whatever reason — isn't calling its next platform PS5.

That should tell you everything you need to know about where we are in terms of comparing the two consoles. Right now, they're a bunch of words and ideas that some developers presumably have access to, but we in the press and the public know very little about.

As far as rumors go? Well, those aren't providing a clear-cut answer, either.

There's this tweet from Game Informer's Andrew Reiner, sent back around E3 2018, in which he states, "Rumors before the show say the PS5 is more powerful than Project Scarlett, but we'll see." That claim was half backed up, half refuted by former IGN editor Colin Moriarty, who said on his Sacred Symbols PlayStation podcast that he'd heard the PlayStation 5 dev kit is more powerful, which doesn't necessarily speak to the power of the final product. And then there's analysis from other websites (like GamesRadar for example) that simply states there isn't enough information available to judge one way or the other.

When developers are more able to candidly speak about the capabilities of each console — or even better, when the folks at Digital Foundry are able to tear each one down — we might finally know once and for all if the PS5 is actually more powerful than Microsoft's Xbox Scarlett (Project Scarlett), if the two systems are on even ground, or if Microsoft's system actually has the upper hand.

Right now we just don't know. But be sure to check back sometime in early 2020. It's very likely we'll have more information about each console's specs at that point in time.