Among the myriad of games at the E3 gaming convention, Sony and Microsoft might have just initiated the biggest shakeup in the gaming industry for years to come, the introduction of Virtual Reality Consoles.
Whenever these two consoles heavy heads come face to face, a war is not far behind, and who could wish for a finer battleground than E3.
With the debut of Microsoft's Xbox Scorpio, and Sony's Playstation Neo, these two giants of gaming clearly believe that the future of video gaming lies in the immersion of Virtual Reality.
Both consoles intend to be released with a variety of console exclusive games. Xbox offering a collection of the latest Gears of War and Halo games, while Playstation will unveil the latest chapters in their Gran Turismo and the Last of Us franchises.
By comparing specification of these two state of the art consoles, we can conclude that the Xbox Scorpio completely destroys the PS Neo on paper. While the PS Neo is certainly a powerful machine in its own right with a 4.2 Teraflops GPU, it simply can't compete against the 6 Teraflops GPU of the Xbox Scorpio.
While losing in raw power, the PS neo makes it up in price. Rumored to be $399 at release, the PS Neo will be much cheaper than the estimated $499 of the Xbox Scorpio.
Microsoft has confirmed the release of their console will be during Christmas of 2017, but Sony rumors that their console will be released by the end of this year. Microsoft might have just given Sony the time they needed to dominate the Virtual Reality Market.
A report by the BBC offers an explanation, stating that "Microsoft's view of virtual reality seems to chime with that of Oculus and HTC: if you want VR to hit its real potential, you have to back it up with serious computing power that goes beyond the capabilities of the current console generation."
Microsoft does not think Xbox is ready.
It's a gamble. No one knows how offering a finer tuned product a year later than expected will go. Right now, the fate of Gaming rests in the balance.
