The new era of Sony and Microsoft consoles are set to release in the upcoming holiday season; The Xbox One from Microsoft; The Playstation 4 from Sony. Both consoles, as usual, have strong suits and imperfections, but nonetheless, they are a very close match this time around, unlike the Xbox 360/PS3 battle.

The Microsoft  Xbox One and Playstation 4 are both undoubtedly stepping up their game, with advances in graphics, a more social experience with online gameplay, sleeker designs, and, of course, the new controllers.

The Xbox One, appearance-wise, resembles a sort of VCR look, with a boxy design. The Playstation 4, on the other hand, has the similar sharp edge feel, but is slanted and two toned with a glowing blue line down the middle. The design of the Playstation 4 is somewhat similar to that of its forerunner, the Playstation 2. Overall, the Xbox one wins the battle of the console appearance, and seems to look nicer under a television, and fits more efficiently.

Both consoles will support “4K” graphics, which are predicted to be launched in a new wave of T.V.’s in the near future. Xbox One has an “Illumiroom” feature which uses the Xbox Kinect device and a projector to extend the display of the television across a whole entire room, but was not shown at the E3 conference. A recent update from Call of Duty: Ghosts showed that the Playstation 4 ran natively a 1080p display for the game, while the Xbox One ran at 720p, unless converted to full HD. Both pack the same high definition power, but evidence from Call of Duty gives Playstation the upper hand on the focus of graphics.

There is one major difference between the two: The price. The Playstation, unlike last era, is cheaper at release than its foe the Xbox One. The PS4 will drop at a more reasonable $399.99, while the Xbox One will be at $499.99. Another difference is in the release dates. The Playstation 4 releases to stores on November 15^th, 2013, while the Xbox One delays a week, coming out November 22^nd, 2013.

Both core consoles feature the same storage space on the hard drive, with a whopping 500GB, but with the advancement in the games, the storage might seem a little less roomy than one might have anticipated. One perk of Xbox One is the option for external storage on a USB drive, which it’s Sony counterpart does not offer, which leaves the Playstation 4 users to have to manage storage more often. Both Consoles offer the newly-popular “Cloud storage”, which seems to be what all electronic devices that have storage are progressing to. The Cloud will offer storage online through either provider’s website, which allows for more storage, and storage for the more important data.

Xbox One will have mandatory game installs, which, in reality, is only doing a favor for the gamers. Installing the games helps the system run faster, and gives the people less of a worry of scratching the disc to the point of incompatibility; Playstation 4 has optional game installs.  A very nice feature that both consoles offer is the “Play as you download” feature, which is self-explanatory. Most Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 users know the frustrations of downloading full games to the console, and the tremendous wait required. This feature will allow the gamers to download full length games, and play the ones they own already as they wait, a very convenient feature if you ask me.

The question always arises when a new generation of consoles is teased, and that is whether they will be backwards compatible. For those unfamiliar with the term, “backwards compatibility” is a console’s ability to run games from its predecessors; for example, the ability to play Halo 3 from the Xbox 360 on the Xbox One. The answer is NO. Both consoles are not featuring backwards compatibility. This is a real bummer for most of the true fans of each respected console, but in the end, doesn’t make much of a difference.

One advantage of the Playstation Network over Xbox Live over the past years was the payment. Playstation Network required no online subscription fee for multiplayer and other online features, while Xbox Live did. Unfortunately, for the loyal Playstation fans, Playstation Network has a required fee for online use, which was inevitable in most people’s minds.

New to this generation of consoles are the handheld on-the-go devices that are compatible with them -The PS Vita for the Playstation, and Smartglass for the Xbox One. PS Vita definitely has the upper-hand, because it is actually a handheld console in itself, that can download saved game data from PS3 and PS4 games , and the user will be able to resume saved games on the go. Smartglass for the Xbox One is essentially just a remote to navigate through the dashboard more swiftly.

Both the Xbox One and Playstation 4 have great launch bundles. With games on both consoles such as Assasin’s Creed Black Flag, Madden 25, Killzone, Call of Duty: Ghosts, and Forza 5 are available bundle options.

Both consoles are sold out of pre-orders, and will be making an inevitably huge splash during Black Friday and the Christmas season. The new generation of gaming has finally arrived in 2013, in the form of the Microsoft Xbox One and the Sony Playstation 4.