Gaming PlayStation 4 Review

For those who want to play in the living room on the PC, I got a couple of Logitech controllers and hooked my PC to my TV via HDMI and I can play "console" games in my living room with all settings on Ultra. The whole console gaming because living room is not a valid argument anymore. I expect more and more people will be doing this through this console cycle, at least those who won't buy consoles.

Also my PC plays anything I want to watch and I can watch it on the TV. No need to get a 350 pound DVD - or streaming machine.

 

10 games at full whack over time and that's nearly £1000 in total, for either console. Ouch

 

Whats your point, its only a few quid cheaper on PC and as mentioned you can resell console games, you can also wait 3-6 months to get console games at a much lower price.

 

You're looking at paying £100 per game? Or are you talking about including a console as well? In that case by the time you build a decent gaming PC and buy the extras such as controllers you are probably hitting around £600 so add in 10 full priced (release price) PC titles and you are once again at the £1000 mark.

 

I think Sony have done a very good job learning from their mistakes and talking to developers about what they would want to work with when making games.

But for both consoles the price of the games would get really expensive you look back and realise you have a spent a couple of grand already on games.

 

I get that people say you can get console games cheaper, but the same holds true for PC games, and they are still a damn site cheaper than their console equivalents.

 

From the review:
"Just make sure you buy the physical versions. For reasons nobody can comprehend, prices on the PSN store are a good £5 to £15 higher."
Yeah, cos Steam, Origin, GreenManGaming (Digital content), GAME (as with GMG)... they're all cheaper than the retailers arent they!? Oh, no they're not.
Personally i find that a rather idiotic comment, we all know the reason why they're more expensive and thats because they want and need to keep the retailers on-side. Its the same reason GMG will sell you a DVD of a game for £30 and the digital version for £40. Its not by choice, but by necessity and almost certainly an un-written agreement from the developer not to p*** the retailers off because they need retailers happy with the deal because they advertise and generate hype which sells their games.

As for PC's as a living room machine, yes theres definitely ways of getting around the handful of issues which put people off, but they're just not as user-friendly to a wide audience like consoles and some people just arent as tech-savy, you couldnt plonk a PC in a living room and expect a couple of 8-10 year olds with mates round to go through all the hassle, they'll be begging for a console within a week, regardless of the fact that the PC is the superior hardware and offers infinitely more possibilities than a console.
Theres absolutely no harm in accepting consoles are better gaming devices for a wide audience, its exactly what they're built for. PCs aren't, they're far more accomplished but at least until Steam's OS arrives, it doesnt offer the simplicity of *just* switching it on, picking a game, and playing it from the couch like a console does. IMO PC gaming is miles better, but that isnt what people are saying. Its about simplicity and doing the job its designed & purchased for.

I've barely touched my PS3 in a year (GTA5 is about it) yet im glued to my PC which sits a foot away from the PS3, but i'd have bought a PS4 in a heartbeat if there was a decent launch title, and i will buy one in about 6-9mo because they are excellent at what they do.

 

Shadowfall takes ages to actually get into the game ><

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Not really sure cost can be debated either way.

10 full price pc titles say bf4 and cod ghosts they are all £39.99 + most of the major releases are this price for AAA Titles these days.

If your starting from scratch pretty difficult to build a windows gaming pc ( that is at least as powerful as the ps4 ) for under £600 as Windows 7/8 Monitor and keyboard mouse / controller is £200 of your budget minimum. £400 buys pretty little as no IGPU offers the ps4s level of power so your in dedicated gpu land 7870 is basically what the ps4 gpu is. ( Linux is not ready for mainstream gamers it does support alot of AAA Titles and unless steams box takes off will likely never do so)

£140 that gpu is that leaves you with £260 - £35 for the same 500gb hard disk £225 for everything else good luck with that one. If you go nasty power supply and case it might be just about doable.

People who already own a pc would be better off upgrading it sure but it does not apply to alot of people, Ipad and its ilk have took over the casual end of the pc sector.

Very few peoples pcs are in any state to upgrade these days. With locked down dell /lenova / hp mobos which dont even include a pcie socket. ( dell and lenova and hp are a good 80% of all desktop pc sales at the lower end price point. ) or low end psus and bad cases that dont have the cooling or power requirements to support a big gpu.

 

I'll be waiting until GT7 get's released for the PS4. Until then I'm happy with my PS3 and the upcoming GT6.

And besides, I'm not playing that much games on my PS3 anyways, but use it primarily as a media-player in the living-room connected to the 40" and the soundsystem.

 

Received my PS4 yesterday with Killzone, here are my first thoughts:

Pros:
Really small compared to what I expected.
Mostly high quality hardware ports.
HDMI cable included.
Routing all audio through the cable (I have the PS4 hooked up to my monitor which has no speakers, PC is also hooked up on DVI).
Sound quality is very good in my opinion.
The console renders things a lot better from what I see in Killzone, very smooth framerate for the most part.
Great controller.

Cons:
Gets hot.
Would have liked a headphone jack for my speaker system on the console itself.
Dust shows up really easily.
Maybe just me being poorly informed, but I wasn't expecting a £40 yearly charge to play online.
If they had put hardware ports at the bottom of the back, it would have saved some space. At the top of the back, this means cables jut out even more.
I really miss the start button, the replacement option button is sometimes difficult to press quickly, you often press the touchpad by accident.

 

That's the precise reason I still have an optical drive fitted to my PC, and won't be removing it any time soon. Just recently I paid £24 on Amazon for BF4. Origin wanted £39.99 IIRC.

I'm not sure exactly why digital downloads are always (every single time) more expensive than physical media (that costs money to produce) but until these digital download providers can stop being so god damn greedy I'll be buying physical media. I also feel like I have something in hand to show for the money I spent, rather than just another name in a list.

The only time I buy games on download is when they're on sale, or as part of a Humblebundle.

Yeah I can agree to that mostly. PC games can be a bloody bugger to get running. A few weeks back my lady had an issue with some indie game she bought on Steam. Something about sending in ambulances and fire engines ETC (a sim of some sort). Any way a quick Google and some ini hacking and she was up and running, but most would have just thought the game wouldn't run and not played it.

And it happens a lot with PC games. Just recently I felt like playing Mirror's Edge again. Then I found out it had issues with Physx so you had to go patch it on EA's site, but again none of this was automatic. It was all manual and took poking around the net to find the fix. Most would have just given up.

Then there's the Dirt (insert number here) bug. If you run it at a resolution the ini files store it and then if you try to run a different resolution it crashes to a black screen (if you change monitor or something). The fix? delete the INI, let it create a new one then open it with a text editor and set your new resolution manually.

But again, doesn't work automatically and again, requires time and effort put in.

All of these things are what stopped many people gaming on a PC, and with no change it's hard convincing them to come back.

 

Sony saw the XBL cash cow and wanted a piece of that pie - was also announced on launch . At least you get free games - XBL is now offering that as well.

 

Dont think sony had alot of choice in the matter, The cost of PSN services was rising and will continue to rise with the new ps4 launch. The £40 yearly fee bearly covers much of anything.

Xbox live fee does not make Microsoft money they have said as much themselves several times. They make the cash on virtual goods and stuff ( Music / games / Movies ect ) you buy from there store $1 billion + at last check last year.

 

The digital distribution platforms don't set the price, the publishers do that.
Although the digital distribution platforms typically take a 30% cut from each sale, so publishers probably increase their prices accordingly.

 

Exactly what I feel too.

 

But the games that are usually expensive are published by the digital distributors.

IE - BF4 is really expensive on Origin. It is published by EA who run Origin.

 

Well i don't know if the 30% cut taken from sales applies when the DD platform is selling the publishers own titles, but i would guess it does purely because they don't want to undercut other publishers and risk upsetting them.

 

True. PC gaming is just nothing like console gaming - other than some of the games are available on both.

I'm playing Skyrim now with eyefinity and it took me best part of an hour to have it right. Rechoosing my mods (checking them also...), using the Flawless Widescreen app and all sorts ate into my time before I could actually play it.

If a feature like that was on the consoles you can be damn sure it would just work. Or everyone would cry about it until it was easier. Whereas PC gamers are just left to figure it out and put up with it.

 

but isn't the tinkering part of what we enjoy as pc gamers?