10 thoughts on the PS4

[Lord Helmet]

The only game I have played so far is COD: Ghosts. Haven't played the campaign yet but the multiplayer is great as always. Coming over from Xbox Live I was interested in PS+ and how it would stack up. So far its been great.

 

I love the size and look of the console itself. It's much smaller than I expected. Got it up and running quickly. Had to DL the day one patch twice before it would update but that's the only minor thing that went wrong.

 

The controller is GREAT. Its a little light when compared to the Xbox 360 controller I've been using forever, but I'll get used to it. The d-pad is great. Thumbsticks feel solid, and the triggers are crazy responsive. This may well be the best controller I've ever used.

 

The sharing features are cool. I like streaming my gameplay via Twitch, and I'm surprised at how much I have enjoyed watching others play as well.

 

Overall I'm extremely happy that I went with the PS4 over the Xbone.

 

Oh, and since I have no PSN friends please add me: xLord_Helmetx

Edited November 21, 2013 by Lord Helmet

[cimerians]

The only game I have played so far is COD: Ghosts. Haven't played the campaign yet but the multiplayer is great as always. Coming over from Xbox Live I was interested in PS+ and how it would stack up. So far its been great.

 

I love the size and look of the console itself. It's much smaller than I expected. Got it up and running quickly. Had to DL the day one patch twice before it would update but that's the only minor thing that went wrong.

 

The controller is GREAT. Its a little light when compared to the Xbox 360 controller I've been using forever, but I'll get used to it. The d-pad is great. Thumbsticks feel solid, and the triggers are crazy responsive. This may well be the best controller I've ever used.

 

The sharing features are cool. I like streaming my gameplay via Twitch, and I'm surprised at how much I have enjoyed watching others play as well.

 

Overall I'm extremely happy that I went with the PS4 over the Xbone.

 

Oh, and since I have no PSN friends please add me: xLord_Helmetx

 

The controller IS great, I think it's winning me over as the best controller period. Although I'd like to try the Xbox One's mainly for my PC.

 

Try Resogun, I know its not a full launch game but its an awesome Defender clone. Its free if your on Plus

 

If I forget to add you my id is cimerians

[Karyyk]

I used to think that I cared about backward-compatibility, and on some level, I probably do. That said, I think it's more of the principle than anything practical. I bought the first iteration of the PS3 when I found out that the next version wouldn't be PS2 backward-compatible, then I failed to take advantage of the feature almost completely. It's a nice thing to have, but at this point, it's no deal-breaker.

[GKC]

It wasn't a deal breaker for me either but I had just picked up GTA 5. It would have been nice to be completely done with the PS3 instead of keeping it hooked up along with my PS4. Also, I bought the PS3 late, around 2011, after dealing with too many failing 360s, and there are a lot of ps3 games that I'd hoped to still get. It would have been great to pass the post launch game lull with some ps3 games I never got around to. I still can do that, I just can't do it with my nice new $400 machine.

[Robocop2]

That makes me wonder if we really care about backwards compatibility anymore. The machine sounds amazing!

I know that I do. It's one of the things holding me back on getting either a PS4 or Xbox One. I have a lot invested in the last gen and while I want to experience the new, I still have a lot of the old that I want to play too. Of course, not everything I like could even be BC since well it's older stuff but that's a given.no it's not a requirement but it is a nice perk to have.

[TheGameCollector]

I think the reason it used to be a big deal was because we didn't have the massive PS3 library that is available now. We didn't have equivalents of all those quirky niche games that the PS2 had delivered and wanted to see on the PS3 until later and we wanted to feel cool playing the PS2 games on the PS3 so we would like our PS3 system better to spite the Xbox people or at least put it as an equal to our own Xbox 360 if we had both. After all, PS1 and PS2 games did allow many of us to get more use out of our PS3 than we would have, and at no extra charge when it came to rebuying games digitally or using the ones we already had.

 

Long time Playstation users also liked what the PS2 had done for them in allowing playing PS1 games on it. Seeing an entire favorite game series continue across 3 platforms that can play the older ones is such a boon. At one time, Gamecube expanded with Game Boy Player could physically play a version of all official Zelda games due to a collection disc. Almost all of the Sonic games had become available on Gamecube as well. All the official 3D Tomb Raider games in the series can be played on a BC PS3. Likewise with Final Fantasy apart from III which still was at least finally ported to PSP. And then of course the Tony Hawk games can all be played on a BC PS3. There would probably be more examples of this if more series hadn't died out, giving their last hurrah during the PS2 era. Things like Legacy of Kain would have been awesome to see on PS3 as a new entry in HD. Give Kain some other enemy to fight with Raziel still in his sword talking to him to give puzzle solving suggestions (as long as he isn't as pestering as Navi).

 

Due to the whole PS1 on PS2 thing and continuous series' trend, Oddworld moving to Xbox stuck out as a sore thumb in my book. It was the only Playstation series I could think of that completely jumped ship and it was the main reason I got an Xbox because of it. It was frustrating to my teen self to see this happen and need to buy a competitor's system just to continue one of my favorite series.

 

Nowadays it doesn't matter so much to me as I'm more of a purist, preferring to use original hardware for each platform as not to wear out a different generation's system. If PS1's weren't so common and were more like a Saturn or Neo Geo CD, yeah I'd play the games on the newer, more easily replaceable PS2. But PS1's are still in abundance and cheaper than the more in demand PS2's, so the effect is the opposite and I can be a purist all I want. Original Game Boys and Game Boy Pockets are starting to climb so it makes more sense to collect those and instead wear out a GBC or GBA, but the $10 climb in price could also just be due solely to recently raised shipping costs.

Edited November 24, 2013 by TheGameCollector

[Reaperman]

Silly question, is PSN Home on PS4?

 

The only reason I ask is that I went back on it a few days ago and noticed that after all this time it was still in "Beta."

So many people worked on it for so long, it'd be a shame if it never got a proper release...

[cimerians]

Silly question, is PSN Home on PS4?

 

The only reason I ask is that I went back on it a few days ago and noticed that after all this time it was still in "Beta."

So many people worked on it for so long, it'd be a shame if it never got a proper release...

 

I waited for a long time for a non beta version and at this point I'm thinking maybe it was a beta and the full Home will come out on PS4. I have no idea.

 

I rarely used it though, but when I did I got addicted to some of the stuff and I kind of liked collecting things in my house. I think there were arcade cabinets you could buy and play like Asteroids, Centipeded etc. It would be cool if they expanded on that game room stuff.

Edited November 26, 2013 by cimerians

[DoctorTom]

 

Ahh... okay. We're talking about two totally different scenarios here. I assumed the PS4 was designed to lay flat and had 4 feet under it and that people were complaining about it wobbling. If there's only two feet on one side, then yes - chances of wobble increases exponentially. Duh! They should have included a couple extra feet for those not choosing to stand the thing vertically then. I'm seeing more and more audio components (speakers and DAC's mostly) that give you the two choices: a little rubber boot to stand things vertically AND some extra rubber feet that you apply yourself, if you want to lay the thing flat.

 

Mine lies flat and does not wobble in the least; I've tried really hard to make it happen, but no. So I guess it's not an issue with all units.

 

Also, I believe the PS4 graphics do in fact pretty much scream next gen -- there's a substantial difference to my eyes.

Edited November 27, 2013 by DoctorTom

[R.Bear]

The only 2 things that annoy me about the PS4 really is the lack of BC and the fact that we now have to pay a monthly fee to play online.

 

Still can't wait to get mine though, you never know some of the "free" PSN games might be worth the monthly fee too.

 

If my 60GB PS3 ever breaks, I'll still have to buy a new one for those old PS3 games, heh...

[cimerians]

That Miley Cyrus avatar is great...makes me chuckle every time I see it.

[cimerians]

Final thought.

 

Apparently you don't need PSplus to play every online multiplayer game:

 

http://www.destructoid.com/blacklight-retribution-is-live-in-europe-today-on-ps4-266868.phtml

[+Gemintronic]

I think the lack of backwards compatibility is bad. What's worse is that I know Sony can and will rip out features I bought ala PS3. Not going to sponsor that kind of behavior. Fool me once Sony..

[sh3-rg]

I think the lack of backwards compatibility is bad. What's worse is that I know Sony can and will rip out features I bought ala PS3. Not going to sponsor that kind of behavior. Fool me once Sony..

 

Don't agree. Sony, particularly PlayStation, is a world away from the company you hark back to. What exactly could they remove from ps4 that is there right now? I can't think of a single feature... there's only going to be more features added over time, same with the xbox one, not less.

 

As for a lack of BC being bad, it's really not. If you have a desire to play your existing games, you probably should already have the console they were made for... they're so cheap these days I can't see it being worth disposing of one, used prices must have plummeted recently. I've got 3 ps3s, not touched any of them since the ps4 arrived, don't plan on doing any time soon (well, maybe I'll stick the old ps4 hdd in one, I put a 1TB hybrid in before doing anything else (thanks to remow for the prompt, I'm sure I would have been reluctant if I'd not been good to go when it arrived, wouldn't want to go through the install stuff yet again).

 

The ps3 hardware is so different to the ps4's it was never going to be possible to emulate in software (even mighty PCs can't come close) so it'd effectively have to have the guts of a ps3 in there as well, that'd bump the price way out of the sweet spot they sit in now... nobody wanted a repeat of the ps3's launch price woes.

 

All that said, I don't really even have the time to play the new console, let alone spend time with the last one, despite having a huge backlog of ps+ titles and over a dozen boxed and unplayed games.

 

...

 

I saw AC:BF mentioned several times in this thread, particularly comments saying the graphics were nice. Anyone notice much of a difference between the original version and the native 1080P+AA version once patched? A friend of mine who saw the game pre-release (at the AC4 party) said the jaggies were glaring. By the time the ps4 arrived in Europe, the patch was live. I almost considered playing offline just to see, but since I couldn't redeem the codes from my skull edition (vouchers were disabled for the first few days to ease psn load) I didn't bother, so I've only seen it looking gorgeous :0)

 

On the subject of AC4, DF did a vs for all formats. The ps4 is the best console version, they claim 1080P/30 pretty much rock solid - it's seemed like nothing else sat here playing it. Interestingly, the WiiU version performs worst of all formats - frame rate lower than both ps3 and 360. WiiU gets no love from anyone, eh?

[KrazyKaiju]

Those of us that care about backwards compatibility are definitely in the minority, but I still think the lack of BC will slow down sales after the Early Adopter rush is over. Especially since most of the huge AAA titles are being delayed until next summer (or later). Not being able to play GTA 5 or Gran Turiso 6 on your new $400 console over Christmas break will be a major let down to a lot of people.

 

I also don't see Gaikai doing any better than Onlive did. It'll probably be even worse since Sony's plans don't take into account the download caps and throttling that every ISP seems to be doing now. The broadband infrastructure in the US just isn't there, nor is it likely to be while every region is under a monopoly.

[VW]

I think the lack of backwards compatibility is bad. What's worse is that I know Sony can and will rip out features I bought ala PS3. Not going to sponsor that kind of behavior. Fool me once Sony..

They have already ripped out features from the PS4, in a sense. It will not do DLNA local media server streaming which the PS3 does. Some months I use this on the PS3 more than play games on it. This is a big enough deal to me that I will never consider buying a PS4 unless they add this feature..

[Mendon]

I've been playing around with the PS4 a bit more recently since Don't Starve has been released. And in doing so, I have to agree 100% with Cimerians about the speed of doing anything on the PS4 being faster and easier than the PS3.

 

I downloaded and installed Bioshock Infinite on the PS3 the other day and then went back to the PS4 for a bit and the PS3 just seemed so slow and clunky compared to the PS4. A big, big difference to me and very nice enhancements by Sony.