November is the month for the next generation console war. What am I talking about? The launch of the Playstation 4 and Xbox One consoles. While I am excited about this, I am regretting the endless “which platform is better” battles.
I know the Wii consoles are usually part of the next generation consoles but I am going to leave them out of this particular post because, well, Nintendo is not really keeping up.
First, let’s cover a bit of a quick history of the two consoles.
Sony has so far launched three Playstations consoles.
- The original Playstation launched in November 1995
- The Playstation 2 launched in November 2000.
- The Playstation 3 launched in November 2006.
Microsoft has only launched two Xbox consoles.
- The original Xbox launched in Australia in March 2002.
- The Xbox 360 launched in Australia in March 2006.
The closest that Sony & Microsoft have gotten to launching together is by approximately eight months. The latest consoles, the Sony Playstation 4 (PS4) and the Microsoft Xbox One are now approximately launching eight days apart from each other. The Xbox One launched on Friday, and the PS4 is set to launch 29th of November.
Both consoles are much more than a gaming console than their previous versions. The integration with your TV moves the consoles into entertainment boxes. The Xbox One touts that you can switch instantly between gaming, TV and other functions. An interesting feature since I have spent many, many hours waiting for games to load. While the PS4 has increased its social gaming aspects allowing you to share game related information and recommendations. Both consoles have cameras that allow for facial recognition, as well as voice commands.
There is talk about ease of developing for each platform. I’m not a games developer , so I can’t comment. There are rumours now that some launch games for the Xbox one are being developed at 720p, instead of the 1080p. Recently IGN published an interesting article from the Executive producer of Infinity Ward, who develops Call of Duty: Ghosts. He talks about these 720p / 1080p display rumours.
Personally, I have always favoured the Xbox 360 for multiplayer gaming. It has been easier for me to interact with and communicate with friends online. The Playstation 3 I have favoured more for individual gaming, with the greater bluray storage on discs. Saves me having to get up and change to Disc 2 during some games :)
Why I won’t be getting a launch console for the first time?
The consoles are fairly closely spec’d. This then leaves the user interface feel and what my friends will use. The reason? It’s not worth playing a multiplayer game if all your friends are on other consoles.
I’m also keen to see how each device performs. The previous generation of consoles had their fair share of issues. The most well known was the Xbox 360 red ring of death, where your console was unusable. While my original PS3 had issues where the Blu-ray drive broke. This also happened to a few of my friends as well. This rendered the console useless since all the games use blu-ray discs.
I am excited to see the next generation of consoles coming out. But I’m hoping that means a more exciting type of game coming out too! Games like The Division and Quantum Break look really exciting. Hopefully they make really great use of the new features and add to the gameplay, not detract and become gimmicky. Bring on the new fun stuff!
