Ghostwire: Tokyo on Xbox peforms ‘quantifiably worse’ than PS5 version, analysis suggests

Ghostwire: Tokyo performs “quantifiably worse” on Xbox platforms than the “not great to begin with” PS5 version, according to a new report.

Speaking on Digital Foundry’s DF Direct podcast, Oliver Mackenzie discussed his initial findings on the game, which will be broken down in detail in a full Digital Foundry video at a later date.

“In general, it runs worse than PlayStation 5, and Series S is a bit of a mess,” Mackenzie said, “so it’s a really weird situation and not really what you would expect from what is now a Microsoft first-party development studio.”

Mackenzie explained the situation in more detail: “The ray traced reflections are somewhat lower quality, there are shadow alignment bugs with the ray traced shadows.

“Resolutions are pretty similar for the most part but the quality mode has a moderately lower resolution than PlayStation 5, it looks like, and performance is typically 5-10% lower than PlayStation 5 [when comparing] the same scene.”

Regarding the Xbox Series S performance in particular, Mackenzie says there are two graphics modes on Series S – Performance and Quality – and that neither has ray tracing. The game’s Performance mode also reportedly runs at less than 60 frames per second.

Noting that the PS5 version released in March 2022 had its own performance issues, Mackenzie said: “My hope, frankly, was that they would fix some of the issues from PlayStation 5 that John [Linneman] and Alex [Battaglia] observed last year, and if anything it’s gone in the opposite direction.”

After a year of PlayStation 5 exclusivity, Ghostwire: Tokyo arrived on Xbox consoles and Game Pass last week alongside a new major update called Spider’s Thread.

Further reading

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Bethesda has added Denuvo DRM to Ghostwire: Tokyo, as it’s confirmed Redfall will have it too

Some believe the controversial tech affects game performance on PC

The game, which was one of two Bethesda PS5 console exclusives alongside Deathloop, was signed to PlayStation prior to Microsoft’s acquisition of Bethesda, and thus Tango Gameworks.

VGC’s Ghostwire: Tokyo review called it a “memorable, but flawed action-horror game.”

“At times it feels like the game’s incredible art direction, music and visual style deserve a game that’s better mechanically,” the review stated, “but when it all comes together, Ghostwire Tokyo is one of the more memorable recent games in the triple-A space, if you can ignore its gameplay stumbles.”