PS4 and Xbox One Launch Thread

[TheGodBen]

The PS4 launches at midnight in North America, the Xbox One launches worldwide (kinda) next Friday, and the PS4 launches in Europe the following Friday. I thought it would be a good idea to have a single thread discussing the news and reviews of the consoles as the next generation of gaming gets fully underway.


Five months after dominating the show at E3, the PS4 has been getting some mixed reviews. The hardware itself is reviewing pretty well, but the two AAA exclusive launch titles, Killzone: Shadow Fall and Knack, have received a disappointing critical reception. For a console that was billed as being all about the games, the lack of a killer exclusive at launch is a let-down. But the console UI is said to be fairly solid, even if it's somewhat unexciting, and the controller is being praised as one of the best around. Everything so far suggests that the PS4 is significantly more powerful than the Xbox One, with multi-platform games on PS4 typically displaying in higher resolutions, but the PS4 lacks many of the nice UI features of the Xbox One.

There have been some reports of hardware failures already, but given the thousands already out in the wild such things are to be expected. No need to panic about that yet.

There's going to be a launch event tonight where Sony is due to reveal some new upcoming games, so that will give some idea about what to expect game-wise in the coming months.

So, is anyone planning to get a console at launch?

 

[Timby]

Everything so far suggests that the PS4 is significantly more powerful than the Xbox One

Just as a point of order, it's not that the PS4 is significantly more powerful (under the hood they're largely identical), but the difference is in the Xbox One's RAM structure, which is more difficult to code for. It's basically this generation's Cell processor.

So, is anyone planning to get a console at launch?

I'll be waiting until at least the spring, both for manufacturing kinks to get worked out (I can't remember the last Rev. A hardware I bought) and for decent games to start rolling out. If I were to buy an Xbox One or PS4 at launch (not that you'd be able to, everyone's been sold out for months), it'd probably gather dust for a few months.

 

[Kelthaz]

So, is anyone planning to get a console at launch?

$400 or $500 to have the privilege to pay $60 for mediocre and overhyped launch games? Yeah, no thanks.

I'll most likely pick up a Wii U next year for Mario and Donkey Kong, and then buy a PS4 in 2015 or 2016 when it gets a decent library and a hardware revision. I'm in no rush.

 

[Kemaiku]

First Slim revision to the PS4 after I see the reviews and the game prices come down, which seems to be what most people are planning.

 

[Skywalker]

I'll probably wait at least a year before I jump on board the next gen train, just like I did with this gen. Launch consoles are almost always faulty in some manner, and most of the launch games so far seem to have been developed for the PS3/360 and then ported to the PS4/X1.

 

[Jax]

I have my console Pre-Order for a before Christmas release as I missed out on launch day but I changed my package from PS4 + Knack & KillZone to PS4 + Killzone & 365 PS Plus membership. Knack reviews and the videos I've seen are a big letdown though overall Killzone got solid reviews. Sony are announcing a ton of games apparantly tonight (old and new IP's from what I hear) and the PS4 long term promise is more appealing than XB1 IMO as my primary console...Assuming these PS4 faults I've been reading about today are the small minorty

 

[-Brett-]

I'll wait a year or so. Let them get out some decent games and sort whatever hardware issues crop up.

In the short term, most of the games I'm interested in will be available for the current gen as well as next. The ones that won't will still be there in a year.

 

[RoJoHen]

The only PS games I've had any interest in recently have been Arkham Origins and Assassin's Creed, both of which I bought for my PS3. The next PS game I'm interested in playing is the new Infamous game, which I don't think comes out until February. That's the earliest I will probably pick up the PS4.

 

[AlphaMan]

I want a PS4 so bad and I'm holding out hope I'll be able to get one tomorrow.

I know Knack didn't review well, but I like what I see and I'm sure my kid will too. I'm sure it'll be in the bargain bin in a few monhs, so I'll hold off for now.

I've never been too hot for Kllzone, but the Vita game in September was pretty good and the 1080p/60fps segment in Killzone.com looked fantastic.

While I think Ryse gives Xbox One the advantage on launch titles, I'm definitely getting the PS4 first. I know it's just a slight difference in RAM architecture, but a lot if developers who are in the know claim it makes PS4 50% more powerful.

By far, the next gen game that interest me most is inFAMOUS Second Son.... And Destiny.

 

[Haggis and tatties]

I went for the Wii-u after seeing the price next gen games are going to be selling at, no way i would ever spend 49 quid on a game, and that's without dlc and season pass nonsence.



It's a game, not a down payment on a morgage. lol

 

[RoJoHen]

I went for the Wii-u after seeing the price next gen games are going to be selling at, no way i would ever spend 49 quid on a game, and that's without dlc and season pass nonsence.



It's a game, not a down payment on a morgage. lol

From what I've seen, next gen games are going to cost exactly the same as current gen games.

 

[AlphaMan]

... So Uncharted 4 is officially a thing now... No idea when, but hopefully Q4 2014.

 

[Aragorn]

Well Amazon.com announced today that they were going to sell a PS4/Kindle bundle for $600, which is not a good deal.

However, as of this minute, they also have the $400 PS4 without any extra costly bundles added available to purchase.

 

[Haggis and tatties]

I went for the Wii-u after seeing the price next gen games are going to be selling at, no way i would ever spend 49 quid on a game, and that's without dlc and season pass nonsence.



It's a game, not a down payment on a morgage. lol

From what I've seen, next gen games are going to cost exactly the same as current gen games.

Well on amazon they range from £43/49, play is the same, going into my local game i laughed at the £49/54 price tag of some.


No i am quite happy to sit this next gen launch out for a few years.

 

[Rincewiend]

I went for the Wii-u after seeing the price next gen games are going to be selling at, no way i would ever spend 49 quid on a game, and that's without dlc and season pass nonsence.



It's a game, not a down payment on a morgage. lol

From what I've seen, next gen games are going to cost exactly the same as current gen games.

Well on amazon they range from £43/49, play is the same, going into my local game i laughed at the £49/54 price tag of some.


No i am quite happy to sit this next gen launch out for a few years.

Prices should be the same...
Though here in Holland sites also ad €10 to the €60 price, but that hopefully changes in a couple of weeks...
I will also wait a while before getting a PS4 when some more pure PS4/XB1 generation games are available...

 

[FPAlpha]

So, is anyone planning to get a console at launch?

I'll get a PS4 next spring when my tax refund arrives and there are some more and diverse games.

At launch i have the choice between 50% shooter games, 25% sports games and the rest is somewhere out there. As i plan to get at least CoD or BF4 (or both) it's not too bad but i'd like some variety and hopefully by spring/summer the games have branched out some more (especially waiting for Destiny).

Additionally i hope most of the start problems will be solved by then so i'll have a stable console from the get go.

 

[Yoda]

Just as a point of order, it's not that the PS4 is significantly more powerful (under the hood they're largely identical), but the difference is in the Xbox One's RAM structure, which is more difficult to code for. It's basically this generation's Cell processor.

Sort of, but not really. You're missing the associated consequences of the XBO memory structure. Slow DDR3 vs GDDR5 on PS4 requires them to come up with a solution for more bandwidth. The solution they came up with is the ESRAM. So yes, that's harder to code for, but in the grand scheme of things not a huge difference in isolation.

The problem is that ESRAM takes up a lot of space on the APU die. Space that in PS4 land becomes more GPU resources, which is where the real ~50% advantage comes in. Even if you master coding for ESRAM (which from the sounds of it is kind of impossible at the moment thanks to the state of Microsoft's dev tools), you're still way behind in performance. Granted I'm sure there's some diminishing returns in play here, but it's still a significant difference in raw GPU stats.

At least with Cell, if you mastered farming out work to all the SPUs you could come up with really impressive results. But the highly similar architectures between PS4 and XBO just make that sort of thing less plausible. They're an apples to apples comparison, and one just has shittier apples.

Anyway, got my PS4 in a day early (won from the Taco Bell contest, Live Mas, Think Outside the Bun, and have yourself a delicous Cheesy Gordita Crunch or two). It's not without its problems so far. Froze up once while downloading a game update. Completely lost power another time while transitioning from gameplay to a cut-scene in Knack.

Someone said that the UI is good? Ehh, not really. I mean it's better than what they had on the PS3 but... it still gets crusty at times, it's not very intuitive. Though the limited voice commands work OK. There is absolutely a ton of room here for all the Xbox One Kinect shit to blow people away. Which is kind of the only hope, since they don't have a chance of competing in raw horsepower, having yielded an advantage they've had since the launch of the original Xbox...

Let's see... games... Knack is kind of fun. It looks pretty good, but not an OMG next gen transition. So far I think the reviews have been a little harsh... I don't know, I got it for free, I'm not really the target audience, but if I were 10 years old I'd probably be blown away.

Resogun is fun, but not completely intuitive. Why am I losing humans? I get that I'm supposed to hunt down 'the keepers' or something when they are announced, but I'm not sure what they are, there doesn't seem to be a timer... ehhh... I'm just confused. Fun game though.

Contrast didn't hook me right away. Haven't given it much of a chance. Frame rate really hurting on this game, and it doesn't even look that amazing. Leaning towards declaring this one an Indie Turd.

Tomorrow I'll have some of the big guns, BF4, COD: Ghosts, and Killzone.

Oh and let's see... the controller. Much nicer than Dual Shock 3... but it seems to have on fatal flaw. While there is a nice lip on the sticks for traction, the middle of the stick is still humped, and I am sliding off the controller way too much. It's too bad, the material all feels great, the new shape is tons more comfortable.. the buttons feel great, the triggers are pretty decent now... they just needed to copy the shape that the 360 sticks used. I'd say even the Wii U sticks end up with better traction even though they are concave and not very grippy material.

 

[Bob The Skutter]

RevdKathy is buying me a PS4 for Christmas, so I know I have one but won't be able to touch it until Christmas Day. I'll have to keep an eye out for any games I want between now and then. I think Assassin's Creed, Knack and the PS+ games should do for starters.

 

[BigFoot]

I'll get a PS4 as soon I can get my hands on one over. While the EU release is November 29th, they haven't announced an official release for Slovenia yet (everyone is saying 2014).

A few local stores might import them though, so I'm hoping I can get one that way. I also pre-ordered it from Amazon Germany, so if all else fails I'm hoping I can get it from them reasonably quickly.

I haven't purchased any PS3 games that also got a PS4 release (Assassin's Creed 4 and Battlefield 4) so I'm itching to play them.

 

[Seven of Five]

My boyfriend is getting a PS4 some time between it's actual release date and Christmas, via Amazon. He likes playing with new consoles, but I wouldn't have bothered myself. There is a limited release of expensive games, there will be issues to iron out, and the price of the consoles will come down too.

I guess in 12-18 months I'll see if I really feel like getting an Xbox One, as I currently have a 360. I don't like the idea of forcibly having to pay extra to have Kinect, especially as I wouldn't use it.