A Playstation 4 and Xbox Controller. Photo by Marko Deichmann, Pixabay
Which of these consoles is the most superior?
by Shenay Mbemba
Updated: 1 November, 2025
For as long as I can remember from childhood, the video game industry and its community have been defined by an infamous battle of superiority. It’s a popular topic that always seems to come up in conversations among geeky gamers, driven by curiosity. Whether you’re a casual enthusiast or a die-hard gamer, there’s no clear label to it.
As the two dominant forces within the market, PlayStation and Xbox have earned the appeal, devotion and loyalty from millions of customers and users worldwide over the past few decades. The question is: which of these are better? Or could it be that they are simply two sides of the same coin?
Origins of the PlayStation
The first PlayStation. Photo by WikimediaImages, Pixabay
It all began with Ken Kutaragi, nicknamed the “father of PlayStation“, when he was present at the Sony’s Information Processing Research Center back in 1984. His significant inspiration from this event was drawn from Sony’s System G, in which he “envisioned providing this high level of 3-D computer graphics to console gaming and ultimately dominating the video game industry.” according to the PlayStation Museum.
In 1994, the finished product and therefore official PlayStation, owned by Sony, was released in Japan and other areas internationally such as Europe (UK), and North America only a year later. Throughout the early years of PlayStation’s release to the market, it was competing with the likes of Nintendo 64 and the Sega Saturn. By YK2, the second instalment of the PlayStation (PlayStation 2) was launched and became best-selling.
Origins of the Xbox
The first Xbox. Photo by janeb13, Pixabay
Before we knew what we know today, back in 1998 Microsoft’s plans of creating a gaming console took off when a group of four men – Seamus Blackley, Kevin Bachus, Ted Hase and Otto Berkes – pitched an idea to then-CEO Bill Gates. He enthusiastically approved. “Originally dubbed the DirectX Box, the console was intended to be the first game system built like a PC, bringing all of the flexibility and power of a gaming rig to the console market.” Gabe Gurwin said.
The first Xbox console was launched in March, 2002 in the UK. A month after its release, sales started to grow following a reduction in price. Xbox introducing itself to the video game console market and consequently faced the challenge of PlayStation’s established status, “weekly sales are running neck-and-neck with PlayStation 2.“
Measuring the superiority
Dimitra Koukountzou said he used to play the PlayStation when she was younger. “I liked the PlayStation more because of the games, the graphics,” said London Metropolitan University student.
Marino Calcagni, also from London Met said: “I had a PlayStation all my life. I started from PlayStation 3 to 5. When I was younger, you could just ask for CDs. It was easier to share games with my friends.”
On the contrary, Collin Flatt, a video game reviewer for Geekadelphia argued against PlayStation’s advantage.”Playstation fans don’t have it quite so easy, as there’s absolutely no way to change your PSN profile name once it’s been created. If you make your online name “XxGodsmackSpartan420xX”, you had better be prepared to wear that title with pride until the end or time, or to forfeit all the digital content you’ve purchased when you make a new account.“
Flatt also spoke about the storage system, “While adding a bigger hard drive to the PS4 involves opening the console up and swapping the old one out, Microsoft went ahead and made storage upgrades easy for gamers. You can connect any USB 3.0 compatible hard drive that’s bigger than 256 gigabytes to your Xbox One, and in minutes, it will be set up and ready to use.“
Where do I stand?
As a child, I was given the Xbox 360; a prized possession in my eyes at the time. It was something I identified with, the largest element that formed my childhood. For that reason, the Xbox 360 has a very tender place in my heart.
My older sibling owned a PlayStation 3. I always saw the PS3 as the ‘next best thing’, the ‘top dog’ if you will. I remember feeling quite intimidated by that, as funny as it sounds.
Once it was passed down to me, it felt strange having to switch loyalties from one to the other. Strange but also promising because in the back of my mind I knew it was going to make an impact in my life from that point.
Which brings me to a notion that nostalgia can easily play a major part to this question besides the facts or pros and cons. It’s probably safe to say that nostalgia leaves the window open to bias? The beauty of a debate is that a mixture of opinions (in this case from two sides) reinforces the result of no right or wrong. To each their very own.
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