Monday Blaaaaagh! Xbox One vs. PS4

Haven't had one of these for a while: what I call the "non-specific quota topic blog." Or, put another way, I haven't got any specific thing to write about, but I do need to write.

So.....!  Here are some amusing Xbox One vs. PS4 comparisons I have discovered this week:

Both machines require a full download of any disc-based software to run said software. However, the PS4 can do it pretty much immediately (presumably streaming from disc as it downloads in the background) while the Xbox One takes a while before it reaches a minimum percentage downloaded to function. Winner: PS4 but it's a pyrrhic victory

The new Xbox One OS doesn't require Kinect but does like to mention a lot how if you had one you could be doing voice commands. PS4 just had an update that likes to tell you it can now do voice commands if you have a mike plugged in. Xbox One came with a mike but apparently that's not enough to do the voice stuff. Winner: PS4 by a slim margin, unless you love voice commands in which case it's by a wide margin. But since I haven't actually tried to do voice on either, I couldn't tell ya'.

Xbox One's standard interface is smooth and efficient and actually quite an improvement over the Xbox 360 interface once you get used to it. The PS4 interface however is smoother and more efficient and a HUGE improvement over the PS3 interface. Winner: tie; they both work and have improved on what came before.

The Xbox One gets turned on and off occasionally by my cat who has discovered he likes to brush up against it when prowling. This seems to have no effect whatsoever on my Xbox One. The PS4, while having a touch-sensitive strip to turn it on and off, is pretty hard to actually make this happen by accident. PS4 hates being turned off unexpectedly (i.e. power loss) not sure about Xbox One yet. Winner: meh.

Xbox One interfaces with Smartglass on my Surface, letting me use the Surface's keyboard to type in codes and instruction. Nice! The PS4 lets me play games and navigate on a remote connection with my PS Vita. Also nice! However, the PS Vita is tied to an old account of mine with my real name showing (thanks Sony for not letting me change that) so while that account is on my PS4, I use my "not real name" handle account for all gaming. Since my PS Vita won't let me use a different account, it is largely useless to me for anything involving online gaming as a result. Winner; Xbox One by a wide margin. Microsoft's willingness to help fix accounts with name issues and smooth multi-media integration of smartglass is awesome. It's a shame, too, because the PS Vita's remote play connectivity is also amazing, but Sony's stubborn refusal to let people change game handles, especially on old established accounts made when, say, a confused person didn't think/realize he'd even have an online gaming tag to worry about (ahem) makes it necessary for said person to create an entirely new account to start migrating everything over to, when all he really wanted to do was change his Effin online game handle. Rant off!

Xbox One runs Netflix better than PS4. 'Nuff said. Winner: Xbox One.

Xbox One has Sunset Overdrive, a sort of genre mashup of Saint's Row, Borderlands and a mild acid trip. It's also hot the Master Chief collection coming out soon. PS4 hasn't got it's killer app (yet) but The Order: 1880 should be along early next year. Winner: Xbox One by a hair, but that's changing.

Space: it's a challenge for this era of consoles. When both machines require that you download the full game to the HDD, it means that you have to keep an eye on the 500 GB of space each console comes with. I've already had to think twice now about what games I will keep active on my PS4, having run out of space after about 14 games or thereabouts, and it's affecting my consideration for future purchases and what console they go on....do I keep CoD: Ghosts installed on my PS4 since I still enjoy dipping into the multiplayer, or do I delete in anticipating of the likely 60GB of space CoD: Advanced Warfare will command? Or do I simply by Advanced Warfare for the Xbox One, which currently still has 48% of its space free? Decisions decisions. Winner: no one wins here.

The Xbox One controller is very comfortable, works flawlessly on my PC, has cute feedback in the triggers, and is a perfect refinement of the old Xbox controller. PS4's controller is very comfortable, has a nice track/swipe square, fixes every conceivable issue one could imagine on the insanely bad old Dualshock controllers, and is very comfortable. Winner: toss up, I love them both.

Conclusion: tomato, to-mah-to. Seriously these are both fine machines in their own right and both also suffer from not having enough exclusives to really make either machine properly stand out. That's changing, slowly, but next time you see Sony fanboys mocking the Xbox One for it's 720p performance on some games (hint: I can't tell the difference) or Xbox cronies deriding the PS4 for Sony's epic failz just step away and hose them all down. Real gamers own both consoles!

Focusing on the Positives!

Okay, back to the usual round of gaming stuff on the blog!

Penny Arcade summed up Microsoft's E3 presentation nicely:

At this point....like, literally the only thing Microsoft can do to salvage it's image issue with the Xbone is to recant some of its established position. My suspicion is that due to numerous behind-the-scenes agreements and issues already in place that this is not feasible, so I guess they'll have to keep figuring out ways to spin their current tangled web.

I mean....if you haven't seen the video by now, it's really quite amusing: PS4's process for sharing games:



Sony really owes Microsoft, they couldn't have made E3 so entertaining and successful without them!

PS4 takes the First Shot and hits it out of the park

Who knew?!?!?! The idea that Sony, only slight less vitriolic and clueless at times than Microsoft, would properly announce a Playstation 4 that caters to all the features that the now infamous Xbone has specifically eschewed.

According to Gamespot:

The PS4 will support the used market as it exists currently....so no convoluted new scheme to force  consumers to give up the Right of First Sale, nor to assume that there is any harm from the used market that must be squelched, presumably.

No online check-in required. Wow!

And at the Escapist (I don't recommend Escapist for properly researched news bits, but it is convenient):

Price point of the PS4? $399. That's one hundred bucks less than the Xbone.

It'll come packaged with a 500GB hard drive, controller, headphones and HDMI cable out of the box. Looks like it does come with a Sony Eyecam or whatever it's called. I wonder if it will be an "always on" element or not? Given the Ps4 is designed to facilitate offline play as much as online, I'm guessing not.

Also, it's shaped like a Rhombus and does not look like it fell off of a Delorean.

Tech Radar has the best overview I've found so far.

I'll be putting my preorder down for the PS4 it looks like. Nice to feel excited for a console, even if it's just to be a part of the process.

Your move, Microsoft.

Grumpy XBone Post #2

So Microsoft released more details on the XBone and it's not terribly reassuring for many people. Ars Technica has an overview on the new info here. In parsing out the new data, there are actually some decent features being pesented.....but they're modest and hard to appreciate in the wake of the other more draconian elements. Specifically:

1. You can have a family account with up to ten people on it. This is pretty neat actually, something Steam doesn't provide for on PC and something the current Xbox 360 only touches on with family accounts. On the other hand, I can pop a disk into my 360 and anyone can play it. In fact I am pretty sure the only limits right now are on DLC and XBLA downloads purchased on my account. Even Sony's PS4 is a bit more reasonable than that, allowing a certain number of current accounts to access my downloaded content (so my wife can play Demon Souls too, basically).

2. The phone in online-every twenty four hours or every hour at a friend's thing doesn't really bother me because I'm always online at home, but the friends part does because I like to drag my Xbox 360 to my friend's house once in a while for some Halo or Gears of War gaming and he's got occasional internet issues (also, he doesn't even have an Xbox Live account so we usually don't go online at all). The new Xbone doesn't favor this freedom. The loss of offline functionality for more than 24 hours is problematic for the two or three times a year that Comcast/Xfinity craps out, too. I've always been able to lean on the 360 in the past to fill those periods with gaming. Admittedly, that's not a big concern for me....I am not lacking for offline entertainment, I admit....but it's still a negative, another loss of freedom that Xbone's predecessor offered.

3. The used games issue isn't a deal breaker for me either, as I don't buy many used games. However, the key reason I will buy a used game is if I want to try it out but want to return the game should it prove to be a terrible experience, and Gamestop still offers that sort of return one week from date of purchase. I also happen to think that Microsoft's got lots of evidence on its own current XBLA store that they don't really plan on moving to a competitive digital sales model ala Steam, simply because they barely touch upon the concept now. Xbox Live weekly sales are occasionally cool, but 95% of the time most sales are "meh" at best and the typical cost of games on their current digital service are disproportionately high relative to the long-tail value of PC titles, for contrast. If you want even more compelling evidence that Microsoft has no interest in consumer-friendly pricing structures and sales look at the travesty that is the Games for Windows Live store. So in this regard I have to clearly state that Microsoft's demonstrated how it handles digital sales, and it's not pretty.

4. There's no upside best as I can tell to the always-on Kinect elements, and I'm going to show my paranoid colors here by stating that for every other issue with the Xbone, this is the one which kills it for me. Actually, the language Microsoft itself used is what's the deal breaker, as the curious covert double speak, suggesting that the Xbone can and will be recording if you don't specifically opt out, is a tacit implication that it can spy like this, and therefore one must assume at some point it will do so. Someone coined the phrase "Xbox1984" as a title for the new machine, and I think it's apt. Yes, they do state "we won't record you," but the fact that they then discuss "opting out" as a process you have to go through suggests the default setting for the machine is "we can record you if we want, unless you specifically tell us otherwise. And even then, who knows!" The level of detail the Kinect is capable of recording is even more disturbing.

 At this point, literally the only reason I can see to purchase an Xbone is if I want to continue with the Halo franchise. Gears of War was a great series, I quite enjoyed it....but it was clear with Gears of War: Judgement that the franchise was done and had just released one more retread that I strongly suspect was intended originally to be a DLC content pack for GoW 3 before Cliffy left Epic. Meanwhile Halo 5 will have direct competition from its progenitors at Bungie with Destiny....which, of course, will also be on the PS4.

All Sony needs to do is announce a PS4 that operates in the same core model of digital sales and distribution as the PS3 currently, with continued support for used game sales and I think they've won this console war before the first machine is ever sold. We'll see. That...or Wii U needs to do some aggressive advertising and Nintendo needs to display a distinct uptick in the number of third party releases for its machine. However, if the PS4 jumps on the Xbone bandwagon and Wii U continues to look irrelevant....then I think PC gaming is going to dominate.