Microsoft boasted that Xbox Series X was the most powerful console ever, especially as a point of contrast against its chief competition, Sony’s PlayStation 5. With both consoles out in the wild, though, testing has shown PS5 periodically running ahead of Xbox Series X performance, and Microsoft has now responded.
“We are aware of performance issues in a handful of optimized titles on Xbox Series X|S and are actively working with our partners to identify and resolve the issues to ensure an optimal experience,” a Microsoft spokesperson told The Verge. “As we begin a new console generation, our partners are just now scratching the surface of what next-gen consoles can do and minor bug fixes are expected as they learn how to take full advantage of our new platform. We are eager to continue working with developers to further explore the capability of Xbox Series X|S in the future.”
As an example, the report notes the performance of Devil May Cry 5. Xbox Series X performs better in the 4K mode with ray-tracing, the PS5 shows better in performance mode with big frame rate gaps between the consoles. The report also notes that some developers said they were only allowed to submit games in June, and that dev kit allocations were limited. PS5 dev kits were reportedly available much earlier, giving studios more time to optimize those versions.
This would seem to align with comments Xbox head Phil Spencer recently made in an interview, also with The Verge, in which he said that Microsoft got its manufacturing spinning up later than Sony.
“We started manufacturing late summer,” Spencer said. “We were a little bit later than the competition, because we were waiting for some specific AMD technology in our chip. We were a little bit behind where they were, where Sony was, in terms of building units. We started in late summer.”
There have also been instances where backward compatible games run more consistently on PS5, like in the case of Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, seemingly because they’re using dynamic resolutions instead of a locked 4K resolution.
