*This post may contain affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
Gaming is a 120-billion-dollar industry, and these numbers are expected to double in the next five years. Video games have totally dominated the entertainment industry in the 21st century, with nearly everyone having played video games in one form or another. This has been especially true since the advent and widespread presence of smartphones. They have enabled gamers across the world to enjoy a variety of video games on the go but video game consoles have still remained very popular.
Two of the biggest video game console makers are Sony and Microsoft with their respective consoles, Playstation and Xbox. If you have never owned either of these two consoles and are trying to determine which one has cheaper games or if you are simply curious which console offers cheaper consoles then this article is for you.
While there is almost no difference in terms of the prices of newer games released on both the Xbox One and the PS4, the Xbox One has a larger number of older games that are cheaper to purchase. The reason for this is that the Xbox One is backwards compatible, while the PS4 is not.
This means that many (but not all) of the games that were designed to run on the older Xbox 360 and the original Xbox, can run on the Xbox One. These games are very economical since they are older games and were designed for older console systems.
While games for the PS3 and the PS2 are also cheap to purchase, they cannot be played on the PS4 console, leaving only expensive newer titles for the users to purchase.
Thus, if we were to ask which console has a greater number of cheap games, the Xbox One takes the cake.
To see exactly which titles are backwards compatible you can check out the list on the Xbox website.
Just because the Xbox has backwards compatibility on some of the games and you can save some money by buying those older games does not mean that you should immediately run out and get an Xbox. There are a lot of other things to consider as well before deciding between these two consoles.
We will discuss each of the consoles in more detail below or you can check out this video as well.
If you love PlayStation you need to check out this amazing game room light decor. It looks just like the buttons on the PlayStation controller and the light reacts to the music that you are playing as well! You can check it out by clicking here.
Video game console history
If we go back a few decades, the gaming industry was a significantly smaller market. Even up to the early 2010s, in order to play the major gaming titles, you either needed to have a strong personal computer or one of the top-notch gaming consoles. With each passing year in the 21st century, gaming has had a slow and winding journey into becoming accessible for the common tech user.
Until the 1990s, there were multiple competitive manufacturers in the console market space. The market was equally divided between Nintendo, Atari, etc. However, once Microsoft and Sony made their entrance, they quickly became the dominant players in the console ecosystem.
The Rise Of The Modern Console Players
Sony’s first PlayStation, the PS1 was released in 1994 and led to the initial rise of Sony in the market. However, it was the release of the PlayStation 2 that enabled Sony to dominate the console market. Its success was so massive that the PlayStation 2 is still considered the best-selling gaming console of all time.
The PlayStation 3, launched in 2006, continued to combine high end graphics with smooth performance and exclusive game titles to make one of the best consoles ever. The success of the PlayStation 2 and the PlayStation 3 made Sony a dominant force in the console world and geared the gaming world for their next console, the PS4
The PlayStation 4 was released in 2013. This release marked the beginning of the “console wars”, and the long standing discussion on whether the PS4 or the Xbox One was the better console.
Now we move to the other side of the widely touted “console wars”. Sony’s opponent to defeat was Microsoft. The software giant that was the manufacturer of the Windows operating system decided to bring its talents to the console market by launching the first Xbox in 2001. While it was a competent gaming console, it failed to stand up to the highly popular PS2 that it was competing with.
However, Microsoft quickly found their footing with their next console the Xbox 360. The Xbox 360 was a worthy competitor to the Sony PlayStation 3. It was capable of stable online multiplayer gameplay and outperformed the PS3 in this regard.
Selection of Game Titles, A highly Important Aspect of Consoles
Today’s gaming consoles, the PS4/PS5 and the Xbox One are giant tech ecosystems in their own rights. It is often this ecosystem that acts as a determining factor when it comes to customers choosing either console to satisfy their gaming needs.
A crucial and very important part of these ecosystems is the games that are associated with them. Even though the PS4/PS5 and the Xbox One are marketed as comprehensive home entertainment systems, their primary prerogative is gaming.
How Games Are Played On The Xbox One And PlayStation 4
Both the Xbox One and the PS4 have large libraries of games, but there are multiple ways in which users can access these games. Let us first explore the running of games on these consoles from a hardware point of view.
Upon purchase of the PS4 or the Xbox One, users are given various options when it comes to the storage capacities of these consoles. This storage is very important as it is what stores the games once they have been installed and it is from this storage that the games run.
When you go to a physical store to purchase a game, you can browse through many titles that are sold in the form of discs. In both the PS4 and the Xbox One, these are Blu-Ray disks, a high capacity form of optical storage.
These discs contain an authentication code and a part of the game. When you insert the disk into your console, it installs the part of the game that is stored on the disk and proceeds to download most of the game from the internet, automatically using the authentication code. The reason for this two-step process is the extremely large sizes of modern games.
The other option gamers have for acquiring games is to directly do so from the PlayStation Store or the Microsoft Xbox Store. Users can pay online and directly download the games to their consoles using these two stores.
Conclusion
If you are a budget conscious user, the console with the cheaper selection of games would be the best one for you and in that regards the Xbox One wins simply because of the backwards compatibility factor. Not all Xbox games will play properly on the Xbox One but enough of them will, that it will make it 100% the choice if you are only concerned about saving money.
There are a variety of other pros and cons when comparing these two consoles so deciding which console to buy based solely on the price of the games probably isn’t the best choice. Watching the video below to see comparisons of the two consoles is a great place to start and there are bound to be tons of other great videos and articles comparing these two popular consoles.
When it comes to pricing on games however there is no comparison, the Xbox wins by a landslide.