The First Xbox Series X And PS5 Game Comparison Shows Surprising Results

With the Xbox Series X and PS5 now both available, the next generation has officially kicked off. Despite that, there are surprisingly few games that make exclusive use of both new consoles, which makes early comparisons a bit tricky. Thankfully Devil May Cry V: Special Edition is only for new hardware, and the performance across them is quite surprising.

Digital Foundry has published its findings after playing Devil May Cry V on PS5 and Xbox Series X, going through all four of the game's rendering and performance modes. Despite the Xbox Series X's better performance on paper, the real-world findings show that the gap can sometimes be smaller and larger than expected.

In the game's Normal mode, for example, both the Xbox Series X and PS5 are tasked with rendering Devil May Cry V at a native 4K with an unlocked frame rate. In this scenario both consoles perform well, with only minor dips below 60fps. But it's also here where the Series X enjoys its biggest performance lead, with an average of 8% more frames-per-second than the PS5.

Things start getting weird with the High Frame Rate mode, which knocks the resolution down to 1080p to try and push the frame rate up to 120fps. The reality is that neither console can reach that, with the average hovering around 100fps most of the time. But curiously the PS5 manages to be significantly faster in most of the tested gameplay scenarios, with Digital Foundry suggesting this might be due to some unknown API bottleneck.

The other two visual modes enable ray tracing, with either performance or quality in mind. With performance selected the resolution is still at 1080p, and here both the Xbox Series X and PS5 perform most similarly. The Series X features some advantages, but its lead is reduced when compared to Normal mode. With quality selected the resolution is knocked back up to 4K and ray tracing really takes a toll, with the game barely hitting 60fps. Here the PS5 again manages to best the Series X in some like-for-like scenarios, but Digital Foundry notes that the difference between the two is usually as small as 2-3 frame-per-second.

There's not a broad conclusion to be surmised from a single game's testing, but it's an early indicator that both consoles have some surprises in store with regards to performance that listed specifications can't convey. With more Xbox Series X and PS5 exclusives expected soon the differences between the two will start coming into focus more clearly. You can check out our PS5 order guide to help find the console as well. You will need a little luck.