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The Xbox One X is the most powerful console ever made, but coming a year after the PS4 Pro, we wondered if Microsoft was concerned about being seen as a bit late to the party. But Albert Penello, who leads marketing for Xbox consoles globally, told MCV that he was full of admiration for the PS4 Pro:
I give them a lot of credit for what they did there,” he says. But for me, the most interesting observation is that we both arrived at a similar idea even if the execution is slightly different.
This business tends to diverge and converge in interesting ways, and obviously we don’t know what they’re doing. We don’t have insight into what their plans are, so when they announced the Pro, I was as surprised as anybody else was,” he admits.
They had a different idea in mind for what they wanted to build, so in retrospect it may seem like we were reacting to what they were doing. But people in the business know that this has been in the works for years, and we have to lock the specs years in advance.”
This business tends to diverge and converge in interesting ways
Albert Penello, Xbox
Those specifications are built entirely around bringing 4K gaming into living rooms, with Microsoft claiming that its ‘True 4K’ console is a notably superior visual experience to the PS4 Pro’s ‘Dynamic 4K’. While both consoles are capable of the full, native 3,840×2,160 resolution, it’s Microsoft’s console that looks better-equipped to achieve that standard consistently on the biggest releases.
We saw the 4K shift coming,” added Penello. We don’t jump on every technology that comes along, we pretty much skipped 3D if you remember in the 360 era, so we really believe in 4K. We were convinced and we wanted to create a box that was the showcase device for 4K televisions. That was our design.”
