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Like many gamers I've found myself watching the announcements of the new generation of consoles with avid curiosity. Historically I've always been a Playstation fanboy but recently got an Xbox 360 in the sales so I'm approaching this all with an open mind. Which of the next-gen consoles would I like, which can I afford (the answer is neither if my wife is reading this), and why?
Playstation 4
When Sony announced the PS4 back in February I found myself underwhelmed by the announcement. With Sony focusing more on the social aspects of the console than the gaming it seemed that I was simply looking at another way to update my Facebook status (and a very expensive one at that). The controller looked ugly, the console itself didn't even get revealed, and the information on games was pretty much non-existent.
Fast forward 3 months to the first day of E3 and Sony, to be fair, haven't done a bad job of their announcement. The console is finally revealed, a (slight) throwback to the PS2 days of a menacing looking black obelisk stood below or to the side of your TV. All sharp corners and hard angles the PS4 blends together old and new styling mixing the glossy piano black of the original launch PS3 with the matt black of the current generation. Having seen more images of the Dualshock 4 controller from various angles it still looks like it's taken a beating with the ugly stick when viewed face on but it's subtle redesign, textured grip, and the light bar across the front make it seem fresh and new.
The specs for the PS4 have been known for some time already - boasting an 8 core X86-64 AMD processor with an additional Radeon based GPU for graphics processing, 8gb of GDDR5 RAM, a 500gb HDD (upgradeable for those of you who feel that half a Terabyte isn't enough space), and an upgraded Blu-ray Drive the PS4 is the most powerful of the next-gen machines.
The big issue, and the most likely point that will sway gamers one way or the other, is the ability to play second hand games on the console and the restrictions the developers will place on this. At E3 Sony announced that there will be 'no new restrictions' regarding second hand games meaning you can freely lend them to friends, sell them to another person, trade them in at your local game store, or buy them and play them on your PS4 without any fear that they won't work. There's no guarantees that Sony won't take this ability away at a later date of course (anyone remember when you could install a 3rd party linux OS on your launch day PS3 if you wanted to?) but for now this is a major selling point.
We all know that both the PS4 and the Xbox One will NOT be backwards compatible out of the box, HOWEVER, Sony sank a not inconsiderable sum ($380 million USD) to acquire the Gaikai cloud based gaming service back in July 2012 with plans to allow for cloud based emulation and streaming of PS1, PS2, and PS3 titles to the Playstation 4 over the internet. To date Sony are still to officially rule out any form of on-console emulation for older generations so don't throw away your old games just yet.
Xbox One
Microsofts Xbox One reveal in May began to hammer home the fact that this generation of consoles seemed to be less about the games and more about the additional capabilities of the machines. Touting the Xbox One (seriously??? my 7 month old daughter could have come up with a better name than that) as an 'all-in-one entertainment system' Microsoft seem to be forgetting that this is supposed to be a console and are trying to use it to muscle in on the media device market currently dominated by Apple TV and Google TV. Cable TV users can plug their connection directly into their Xbox One to further integrate the system, but this is no good for those of us who live in Blighty where we don't get Cable TV like the US.
Unlike Sony, Microsoft used their launch event to showcase the console itself, another throw back to the older generations, the device itself looks like a VCR my parents used to have. It may be boxy and retro in design but it's two tone "liquid black" finish marks it as sleek and modern. The only tell tale sign that this box is part of your home media system will be that little glowing Xbox logo winking at you from the shadows beneath your TV cabinet. Silently mocking you for spending an extortionate amount of money on it when you could have bought Apple TV for £99 and got the same effect. The joypad's had a little tweak in the design, not much to be honest as it didn't really need it, and has Impulse Triggers added in as a nice addition to the ongoing immersion in gaming entertainment. Impulse Triggers are individual vibrate functions for each of the trigger buttons mounted on the shoulders of the Xbox controller - a nice idea but not a necessity.
Specs wise the Xbox One on paper reads similiar to the PS4 - 8 core X86-64 processor, 8gb of DDR3 RAM (3gb reserved for OS and Apps and 5gb for games), a 500gb (non-replaceable) HDD, and a Blu-Ray drive. Microsoft claim the choice of the DDR3 RAM was a deliberate choice not to target the high end graphics market and means that the console will be slightly slower than the PS4 but not by so much you'd notice really.
The Xbox One will come shipped with the upgraded Kinect sensor and the console WILL NOT function without the Kinect attached although users can choose to turn off all Kinect functionality whilst keeping the unit attached to the console. The new Kinect has an upgraded camera for greater accuracy in tracking users and is apparently so accurate it can track your heart beat (which could offer some interesting opportunities for use in the development of survival and horror games like the Resident Evil series). The microphone on the Kinect will remain in an 'always-on' state so it can accept voice commands, even when the console is in sleep mode.
Microsoft have taken a hard line approach to the second hand market on the Xbox One console stating that it would be down to the game developers to decide if second hand games could be played and any costs incurred in doing so. When you buy a game it is registered to your Xbox account, you can loan it to a friend but ONLY ONCE and only if that friend has been on your friend list for more than 30 days. The Xbox One also needs an 'always-on' internet connection as it needs to connect to the Xbox servers every 24 hours for verification, if it can't connect it won't let you play (although you can still watch DVD's and live TV) and, even worse, if you're logged into another console playing your games on the cloud the console will require authentication EVERY HOUR.
Xbox One won't be backwards compatible and, according to sources at Microsoft, it never will be as “Xbox One hardware is not compatible with Xbox 360 games,” ... “We designed Xbox One to play an entirely new generation of games—games that are architected to take full advantage of state-of-the-art processors and the infinite power of the cloud. We care very much about the investment people have made in Xbox 360 and will continue to support it with a pipeline of new games and new apps well into the future"
The Xbox event at E3 was solidly about the games, having got most of the hardware stuff out of the way at the earlier conference, and seems to be where Xbox have the edge. Offering more launch titles than the PS4 from day one Microsoft seem to be forgetting that the majority of gamers would buy these titles, play them to death, then trade them in for their next game. Something Microsoft don't seem to be willing to offer it's loyal customer base but Sony will.
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Like many gamers I've found myself watching the announcements of the new generation of consoles with avid curiosity. Historically I've always been a Playstation fanboy but recently got an Xbox 360 in the sales so I'm approaching this all with an open mind. Which of the next-gen consoles would I like, which can I afford (the answer is neither if my wife is reading this), and why?
Playstation 4
When Sony announced the PS4 back in February I found myself underwhelmed by the announcement. With Sony focusing more on the social aspects of the console than the gaming it seemed that I was simply looking at another way to update my Facebook status (and a very expensive one at that). The controller looked ugly, the console itself didn't even get revealed, and the information on games was pretty much non-existent.
Fast forward 3 months to the first day of E3 and Sony, to be fair, haven't done a bad job of their announcement. The console is finally revealed, a (slight) throwback to the PS2 days of a menacing looking black obelisk stood below or to the side of your TV. All sharp corners and hard angles the PS4 blends together old and new styling mixing the glossy piano black of the original launch PS3 with the matt black of the current generation. Having seen more images of the Dualshock 4 controller from various angles it still looks like it's taken a beating with the ugly stick when viewed face on but it's subtle redesign, textured grip, and the light bar across the front make it seem fresh and new.
The specs for the PS4 have been known for some time already - boasting an 8 core X86-64 AMD processor with an additional Radeon based GPU for graphics processing, 8gb of GDDR5 RAM, a 500gb HDD (upgradeable for those of you who feel that half a Terabyte isn't enough space), and an upgraded Blu-ray Drive the PS4 is the most powerful of the next-gen machines.
The big issue, and the most likely point that will sway gamers one way or the other, is the ability to play second hand games on the console and the restrictions the developers will place on this. At E3 Sony announced that there will be
'no new restrictions' regarding second hand games meaning you can freely lend them to friends, sell them to another person, trade them in at your local game store, or buy them and play them on your PS4 without any fear that they won't work. There's no guarantees that Sony won't take this ability away at a later date of course (anyone remember when you could install a 3rd party linux OS on your launch day PS3 if you wanted to?) but for now this is a major selling point.
We all know that both the PS4 and the Xbox One will NOT be backwards compatible out of the box, HOWEVER, Sony sank a not inconsiderable sum ($380 million USD) to acquire the Gaikai cloud based gaming service back in July 2012 with plans to allow for cloud based emulation and streaming of PS1, PS2, and PS3 titles to the Playstation 4 over the internet. To date Sony are still to officially rule out any form of on-console emulation for older generations so don't throw away your old games just yet.
Xbox One
Microsofts Xbox One reveal in May began to hammer home the fact that this generation of consoles seemed to be less about the games and more about the additional capabilities of the machines. Touting the Xbox One (seriously??? my 7 month old daughter could have come up with a better name than that) as an 'all-in-one entertainment system' Microsoft seem to be forgetting that this is supposed to be a console and are trying to use it to muscle in on the media device market currently dominated by Apple TV and Google TV. Cable TV users can plug their connection directly into their Xbox One to further integrate the system, but this is no good for those of us who live in Blighty where we don't get Cable TV like the US.
Unlike Sony, Microsoft used their launch event to showcase the console itself, another throw back to the older generations, the device itself looks like a VCR my parents used to have. It may be boxy and retro in design but it's two tone "liquid black" finish marks it as sleek and modern. The only tell tale sign that this box is part of your home media system will be that little glowing Xbox logo winking at you from the shadows beneath your TV cabinet. Silently mocking you for spending an extortionate amount of money on it when you could have bought Apple TV for £99 and got the same effect. The joypad's had a little tweak in the design, not much to be honest as it didn't really need it, and has Impulse Triggers added in as a nice addition to the ongoing immersion in gaming entertainment. Impulse Triggers are individual vibrate functions for each of the trigger buttons mounted on the shoulders of the Xbox controller - a nice idea but not a necessity.
Specs wise the Xbox One on paper reads similiar to the PS4 - 8 core X86-64 processor, 8gb of DDR3 RAM (3gb reserved for OS and Apps and 5gb for games), a 500gb (non-replaceable) HDD, and a Blu-Ray drive. Microsoft claim the choice of the DDR3 RAM was a deliberate choice not to target the high end graphics market and means that the console will be slightly slower than the PS4 but not by so much you'd notice really.
The Xbox One will come shipped with the upgraded Kinect sensor and the console WILL NOT function without the Kinect attached although users can choose to turn off all Kinect functionality whilst keeping the unit attached to the console. The new Kinect has an upgraded camera for greater accuracy in tracking users and is apparently so accurate it can track your heart beat (which could offer some interesting opportunities for use in the development of survival and horror games like the Resident Evil series). The microphone on the Kinect will remain in an 'always-on' state so it can accept voice commands, even when the console is in sleep mode.
Microsoft have taken a hard line approach to the second hand market on the Xbox One console stating that it would be down to the game developers to decide if second hand games could be played and any costs incurred in doing so. When you buy a game it is registered to your Xbox account, you can loan it to a friend but ONLY ONCE and only if that friend has been on your friend list for more than 30 days. The Xbox One also needs an 'always-on' internet connection as it needs to connect to the Xbox servers every 24 hours for verification, if it can't connect it won't let you play (although you can still watch DVD's and live TV) and, even worse, if you're logged into another console playing your games on the cloud the console will require authentication EVERY HOUR.
Xbox One won't be backwards compatible and, according to sources at Microsoft, it never will be as
“Xbox One hardware is not compatible with Xbox 360 games,” ... “We designed Xbox One to play an entirely new generation of games—games that are architected to take full advantage of state-of-the-art processors and the infinite power of the cloud. We care very much about the investment people have made in Xbox 360 and will continue to support it with a pipeline of new games and new apps well into the future"
The Xbox event at E3 was solidly about the games, having got most of the hardware stuff out of the way at the earlier conference, and seems to be where Xbox have the edge. Offering more launch titles than the PS4 from day one Microsoft seem to be forgetting that the majority of gamers would buy these titles, play them to death, then trade them in for their next game. Something Microsoft don't seem to be willing to offer it's loyal customer base but Sony will.
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