I haven’t done an update in a long time. Really I’ve been busy moving into a new house, on holidays, etc so I haven’t had time. Or at least that’s my excuse anyway.
I picked up a new PS4 Destiny bundle this week. To be honest I haven’t played a lot of games in the past few years. I sort of got burnt out, or maybe I’m just getting older and lost interest. I don’t think I’ll ever get bored of having electronic toys though and a new gaming console is probably one of the top tier ‘electronic toys’ out there. It feels strange because back in 2005 the launch for the XBOX360 was a highlight for me, yet this new console generation has started out as a bit of a ‘meh’ for me. Developers still haven’t had enough time to create enough compelling software.
I decided to go with PS4 (as opposed to XBOX One) because none of my real life friends really game much anymore. (unless you consider tablet/phone games..gaming). Last gen on the 360 I had a lot of real life friends as well as online friends to play with but with this new generation I’m sort of starting from scratch. It seemed to me to pick the machine that will have the best content. The PS4 is a technically more capable machine and PS+ (their online subscription service) is offering a lot more compelling content that XBOX Live is. I won’t lie though, the PSN network does not seem as fleshed out as XBL. The sense of community feels very sterile, though that may be a side effect of having so few PSN friends. I’ll sniff through the GAF PSN posts and see if I can headhunt some people from there to help populate my PSN friends list.
From an aesthetics standpoint the PS4 is very nice, it is well designed and a handsome device. Even my girlfriend, who doesn’t really have any bias in terms of video games said that the PS4 looks like something Apple would design. Not that I’m the biggest Apple fan, but you can’t deny they are good at making eye-pleasing hardware.
On the software side the PS4 is an improvement over the PS3. As I mentioned the system does feel very sterile, boring perhaps but it is easy to find whatever you’re looking for on the device, no sniffing around 40 different pages or sifting through dashboard ads to find games and content. I haven’t used the device enough to find out how seamless the PSN->PS4 connectivity is. I suspect it still won’t be as easy to use as XBL chat groups, mail invites to games and that sort of thing. In my 2 hours of playing Destiny last night I never heard even one person talking (and since the game is so popular there are a LOT of people playing) so I was disappointed to still not have any idea how easy to use and good-sounding the voice chat is. Though I suppose that may be just the design of the game rather than a limitation of the PSN network.
Once I have a little more time with the system I will probably have a follow up post with my overall review of the system and games I’ve played. With the winter months quickly approaching I will likely have a lot more time to sit and enjoy my electronics.
