What does the Xbox Series X have that the Playstation 5 Pro doesn’t?

The PS5 Pro is the most powerful games console you can buy right now, and that likely won’t change for at least the next year or two. In terms of raw GPU specs, its clever built-in upscaling technology, and overall gameplay performance (even if the noticeable differences can often be negligible), the PS5 Pro has both the standard PS5 and the Xbox Series X|S beat.

But performance isn’t everything, and if you’re considering buying either a PS5 Pro or the flagship Xbox, you might be wondering what Microsoft’s console’s unique selling points are, if any. The most obvious starting point is that the Series X is cheaper, starting at $750 for the all-digital version. The PS5 Pro now costs a whopping $900 following Sony’s price hike earlier this year.

But there are plenty of other factors to consider as well. Here are eight things the Xbox Series X has that the PlayStation 5 Pro doesn’t.

The Xbox Series X has a lot of useful features that still impress more than six years after the console’s launch, and one of those is Smart Delivery. What this basically does is ensure that when you buy a game for your Xbox you’ll automatically receive the best available version for the hardware, in this case the Series X. Any features that have been added in updates, such as ray tracing or unlocked frame rate, will download automatically so you know you’re always squeezing every drop of power from your console.

The PS5 Pro might be more powerful than the Xbox Series X, but Sony doesn’t have a Smart Delivery equivalent, so when you download a game from your library to the PS5 you’ll often have to choose between the PS4 and PS5 (if one exists) versions, rather than the console doing it for you. Sometimes, you may also encounter issues with picking up your old saves from a PS4 version of a game when you move, forcing you to manually download them from the cloud before the PS5 version recognizes it. Smart Delivery syncs your saves across console generations automatically.

This one is pretty simple. When the Xbox Series X and base PS5 first arrived back in 2020, a disc drive was still an expectation for consoles. While the PS5 also launched with the option of a discless model, the Series X was initially only available with a drive (a cheaper all-digital variant eventually arrived in 2024), so if you’d racked up a big physical library of Xbox One games or blu-ray movies, you could still use them without a hitch.

Although you can still add a disc drive for just shy of $80 on top of what you’ve already paid for the console, the PS5 Pro ditched the disc drive out of the box, rendering your physical PS5 games completely useless. Sony’s recent decision to stop making disc-based PS5 games altogether in 2028 means it’s unlikely that the PS6 will have one either, although the same probably goes for the next Xbox.

Quick Resume is arguably the most impressive Xbox Series X/S feature, even today. It’s an SSD-leveraging magic trick that lets you suspend up to three current generation games (more if you’re playing older games) in the background, so you can pick back up exactly where you left off almost instantly.

When a game is suspended using Quick Resume, it moves to the SSD, so you’ll be able to return to the point you were at even after switching off or even unplugging the console. If you’re the kind of impatient player who hates loading screens and being forced to sit through title sequences every time you boot up a game, it’s a bit of a godsend. That is, if you mainly play single-player games. Live service games that constantly check for a connection tend not to play as nicely with the feature.

The PS5 can also suspend games, but only one at a time, and only when the console is turned on or put into rest mode. If you switch it off entirely, you’ll have to fully reload the game in question next time you want to play it. While load times are dramatically reduced on a console as powerful as the PS5 Pro, it can’t beat Quick Resume for convenience.

The PS5 Pro might be capable of things like advanced ray tracing and AI upscaling, but just like its less powerful brother, it’s still completely lacking in support for what many people would consider to be the best HDR standard. While the PS5 family of consoles does support Dolby Atmos audio, Dolby Vision has never been added for games or movies. If your TV supports Dolby Vision, as many now do, it may come as a disappointment to learn that the PS5 Pro can’t make use of the more accurate picture the standard delivers. Your only option is HDR10.

Annoyingly, the Xbox Series X also won’t play your blu-ray discs in Dolby Vision, but it does support Dolby Vision for games when they’re optimized for it, resulting in the best colors and contrast and saving you from messing around with tedious calibration sliders.

It’s almost too obvious to even state, but one of the biggest advantages that the Xbox Series X has over the (in most other respects) superior PS5 Pro is Game Pass. While the price of entry for Microsoft’s subscription service has fluctuated confusingly over the last few years, it’s still one of the best deals in gaming, guaranteeing you access to almost every first-party game on the day of launch on the Game Pass Ultimate tier.

This year, that has meant that Game Pass subscribers have been able to play the likes of Forza Horizon 6, Halo: Campaign Evolved and Gears of War: E-Day on the service, as well as a host of third-party titles and indies. And as the Xbox Play Anywhere program expands, Game Pass also allows you to play supported titles on PC and Windows handheld devices as well as your Xbox, with all your save data carrying over automatically.

PS Plus still offers decent value, but if you want to play Sony’s own games on your PS5 without buying them outright, you’ll usually have to wait at least a year or two for them to show up on the service.

Both the Xbox Series X and PS5 Pro are backwards compatible with previous console generations, but the Xbox offering is far more extensive in 2026. As well as the vast majority of the Xbox One library, the Series X will also accept hundreds of Xbox 360 games and even select original Xbox discs. 

Microsoft has largely stopped adding new games to the Xbox program, but its early-generation commitment to making as much of its back catalog playable on modern hardware (as technology and licensing would allow for) really paid off. Often older titles will also look and play better too, thanks to features like FPS Boost, Auto HDR and enhanced resolution.

The PS5 Pro plays most PS4 games without a problem, and you’ll often notice improved frame rates and shorter loading times. But no physical PS3, PS2 or PS1 games are supported, and while Sony has added retro PlayStation games to its Premium PS Plus tier over the years, the library is fairly paltry and doesn’t seem to be a big area of focus for Sony. PS3 games on the service can only be streamed, making them a bit of a non-starter for anyone with an unreliable network connection.

The newest addition to the Xbox Series X’s arsenal of features not currently matched by the PS5 Pro is Microsoft’s disc-to-digital licensing program. This enables Xbox owners to make digital tokens of their physical games which function as digital games going forward.

It only works for Xbox Series X and Xbox One games, and not all games are eligible, but for the hundreds of games that are supported, all you need to do is insert a disc once to create the license. Once you’ve seen the pop-up message letting you know it worked, you can play that game without needing the corresponding disc inserted. And if the game in question is part of the Xbox Play Anywhere program, you can also install it on your PC or Windows handheld.

Selling or lending the disc to someone else will automatically cancel your digital license, as they’re tied to the disc rather than your Microsoft account, but Sony has nothing like this right now, despite its commitment to ending physical disc production in 2028 and possible plans to do away with a disc drive on the PS5. Microsoft’s disc-to-digital program ensures that physical Xbox players can carry their libraries forward if the next Xbox is discless.

At 2TB, the PS5 Pro has twice as much built-in storage as the Xbox Series X, but if you play a lot of AAA games you’ll likely still hit the ceiling eventually on either console. Luckily, both machines let you expand your storage, but the process is faster and easier on the Xbox.

To upgrade your PS5 Pro’s storage, you’ll need to insert an M.2 SSD into the dedicated expansion slot inside the console. This involves removing the faceplate, unscrewing the expansion slot cover and screwing your additional SSD in before reattaching everything. It’s fairly straightforward, especially if you’ve done it before, but a bit fiddly. And no matter how many times you remove the faceplate, wrenching your very expensive console apart never feels completely natural.

On Xbox Series X, all you need to do is pick up an officially licensed Storage Expansion Card from Seagate or Western Digital, and plug it into a slot on the back of the console. That’s it. This takes no more than a handful of seconds and doesn’t require you to dig out the toolkit. You shouldn’t choose the Xbox over the PS5 Pro for this reason alone, but it’s a nice perk.