Throughout this console generation, I have primarily been an Xbox 360 gamer. Whenever possible, I’d plump for the Xbox version of a game and rarely played PS3 exclusives unless work demanded it. This is in stark contrast to the previous generation, where I was a staunch PlayStation 2 supporter and barely even held an Xbox controller. In a few months, my allegiance is going to shift yet again. However, I’ve come to realise this has nothing to with the future and everything to do with the present…
When it comes to brand loyalty, console owners can be a pretty passionate bunch. Despite the fact these conglomerates exist solely to turn a profit, many gamers treat them like blood-relatives or deities who need to be defended and honored at all costs. By the same token, when a gamer feels they’ve been burned, they neither forget nor forgive. This is the chief reason why, as a consumer, I’m swaying towards the PlayStation 4.
Of all the console releases in recent years, few have treated consumers in as much of a slipshod fashion as the Xbox 360. Sure, there’s a lot to love about the console, but when you really stop and think about it, the litany of offenses is damnably high. In no particular order, here are some of the reasons I’ll be plonking my money down in Sony’s corner this generation; none of which have anything to do with the Xbox One.
They don’t make ’em like they used to
First off, let’s get the criminally obvious (and downright criminal) out of the way — The Red Ring Of Death. During its first years on the market, the Xbox 360 had an absurdly high failure rate which was rumoured to be in the region of 54.2 percent. This is completely unacceptable and should not be forgotten — especially when you consider many Atari 2600s from the 1970s are still plugging along. In the rush to beat the PlayStation 3 to launch, Microsoft basically pushed a faulty product on unsuspecting consumers. Sheepishly extending the warranty does not absolve them in my books.
In addition to its notorious failure rate, the original Xbox 360 console was poorly constructed in other areas too — it lacked inbuilt WiFi, had significant noise issues and came with an enormous brick of a PSU. Compared to the engineering ingenuity of the PS3, it felt like a machine from another era. The latest iteration of the Xbox 360 has corrected some of these flaws, but I still wouldn’t trust it to survive far beyond its warranty. In other words, the prospect of dusting off your 360 for a retro gaming fix in decades to come seems perilously slim.
Backwards (non)thinking
Cast your mind back to the launch of the Xbox 360 in 2005 or so. It was a time of intense excitement and optimism for gamers… unless you happened to be an original Xbox owner. Barely four years into the Xbox’s existence, Microsoft opted to jump the gun with its next-gen offering, casting aside around 25 million loyal Xbox owners in the process. As a consequence, the entire industry turned its back on the Xbox practically overnight: a bitter pill to swallow if you’d just bought one a few weeks prior.
There was still money to be made from the console, but Microsoft’s generational gamble essentially consigned it to the scrapheap before its time had come. (By contrast, games and hardware are still being produced for the PlayStation 2 to this day.) To add insult to injury, Microsoft also shirked on its backwards compatibility commitments, publicly stating that while this was something customers wanted, they didn’t actually use it that much. So why bother, eh?
Multiplayer = Multi Dollars
Most gamers would agree that Xbox Live Gold provides a superior online gaming experience to the Playstaion Network — but if you measure both services in dollars, is it really 80 times better? While the PlayStation 3 lets you play online games with others for free, the Xbox 360 requires a yearly subscription of $80. When you add this up over the lifespan of the console, you’ve spent a whopping $560 to date.
I got the Blus real bad
As I noted in a previous article, Sony took a big risk when it launched the PS3 with an inbuilt Blu-ray player. At the time, it was a completely unproven format and the impending war with HD DVD made a lot of consumers nervous. I can therefore forgive Microsoft for sticking to a DVD drive when it launched the Xbox 360. But that was in 2005.
During the past few years, there’s really no excuse for Microsoft’s refusal to support the format with a peripheral drive of some kind. Hell, it could have even gone inbuilt during one of its numerous console revamps — but that would have involved sending some money Sony’s way. So instead, Xbox 360 gamers got left with a DVD player for the duration of the console’s lifespan. Tch.
It’s American
Americans, eh? Seriously though, this is a significant issue when you consider many of the Xbox 360’s best features and services are restricted to the US. From its exhaustive video streaming options to the Xbox Live Rewards program, we simply aren’t getting the complete package. We also get charged more money for a watered down product. (This is an issue that’s only going to get worse with the Xbox One.)
I could go on, but I think the point has been amply demonstrated. While Sony was also guilty of some irksome behavior, it remains the lesser of two evils at this juncture. Time will tell whether the PlayStation 4 scolds my fingers back towards Microsoft in a few years.
See also: Xbox One Launch Post-Mortem: The Good And The Bad | PlayStation 4 Launch Post-Mortem: What We Like (And Loathe) | E3 Battleground: Xbox One Vs. PlayStation 4
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Comments
57 responses to “Why I’m Choosing PlayStation 4 Over Xbox One”
Agreed. I’m also in the camp of crossing over from Xbox to PS4, and what convinced me were the positives of the PS4 over the Xbox One leading into the future:
– Supporting Indie Developers, and allowing them to self publish.
– Giving the consumer the option to buy the consoles camera if its what they want instead of bundling it in with the console by default.
– An online service which while it is not free, still offers much more value for money than XBL has, including the Instant Game Library.
It felt like Sony got too full of itself last generation and made a lot of mistakes, yet they have actually learned from those mistakes. Meanwhile, Microsoft finds themselves exactly where Sony was 5 years ago. But hey, that’s just my opinion.
“We also get charged more money for a watered down product. ”
Excellent Point!
The feature list on the Non-US consoles is significantly shorter!
While this may purely be an opinion piece…
1) 54% rumoured failure rate – as you say is largely based on nothing but guesses. Similarly, comparing it to Playstation 3 – who also did not disclose concrete numbers on their own failure rates.
2) Backwards compatability is hard to do at all, let alone to do without hogtying your own system with overhead and bloat.. PS3 also does not make the mistake of attempting to do this, and instead runs them through the Gaikai (sp?) cloud streaming service they purchased.
http://www.polygon.com/2013/2/20/4010862/ps4-not-compatible-with-ps3-streaming
3) Multiplayer – to me, it’s worth it… It’s still a pretty damn low price compared to if you were to say, go out and buy the same amount of server resources you have access to with EITHER of these systems.. It might be expensive in comparison, but such infrastructure isn’t free.. In a year or two do you foresee Sony paying top dollar out of their own profit to provide a top notch service? God no. They’re going to cut every corner they can, including presumably when the PS5 were to come along, potentially ditching all support for older games, unlike xbox users who Microsoft are still actually profiting from the subscription, making it make no sense for them to do anything but provide a great service..
Microsoft are also market leaders in experience developing such networks/systems.. When part of your AAA-title game is running in the cloud.. You probably want that to be pretty failproof long term..
4) It’s much more complicated than that in reality. It’s fine to view things as a consumer, when most of us ARE consumers.. But imagine (as one example out of probably 200,000) you are one of the first companies developing a launch release exclusive for Xbox 360, probably before its even publicly announced, only to find out that soon after release – your direct competitor gets to release a game not just with lower development costs (as games already exist, there is knowledge on how various aspects of systems work in more detail), but now with 4 times the storage you had, which just blows your game out of the water in every respect.
The idea of a console is that it’s a static constant. Dev’s know exactly what they have, on every unit – and advances over time allowing better games do so because they’re actually technological achievements, not just throwing more resources at it.
I suppose they could have released a movies only drive, but then even now using the console in most homes as your primary media player is still quite rare.. And something that at least from what i’ve seen, the general market still seems to struggle with a bit…
5) Really not sure what you specifically are talking about to do with your last point about it being “american”. Anything they are under licence allowed to stream in Australia under Xbox LIVE entertainments licencing agreements, is supported. Sony will be under a very similar agreement in most cases – except where partnered with a specific Australian company (like Sony is with Redbox, who has Australian licencing).
It sucks a bit, and your perhaps not wrong in what you say – but its really still the media licencers that need to change here, not freaking game consoles that can in theory connect to anything these days, thanks to the wonders of modularity..
—-
TL;DR: In the end I mainly agree with your initial point.. These are the reasons YOU are choosing one or the other, not necessarily based on fact. In the end of the day, people who buy either will probably be quite happy.
Interesting points — I’ll probably add the forced Kinect bundling into the Kotaku version of this article (Incidentally, how old are you michael_debyl? I’d pegged you for at least mid-40s but you seem to know a lot about gaming for an oldie. 😛 )
Disclaimer: Did not read past first point.
RE first point. Granted theres no hard stats on either the PS3 or Xbox 360s failure rate. That said though I can’t say I have ever read a single article or heard from a single friend who owns a PS3 and had it PS3 fail. Have I read articles about 360’s failing. Many. Have I had mates whose 360’s failed in that horrible first two years. Many.
This doesn’t apply to everyone. I think I only know of one person who that’s happened to. And even then I don’t know if I’m right. Xbox failures are basically non existent now.
I worked at EB and Game (before they closed) and I received many returns of PS3’s with the Yellow light of Doom. If anything, in a similar ratio to the 360.
You have very lucky and unlucky friends and you don’t read enough. 🙂
Worked for both. Hopefully not at same time as that would be a breach of contract with eb
I never owned a 360 but I had friends that went through 3 or 4 or even more cycles of them failing, sending them back to MS, having them work for a few months then fail again. At some point you need to ask yourself if it’s worth it.
I’m a developer and the very first Xbox 360 debug kit I received on my desk had a hardware failure, brand new out of the box. Nice work MS.
They’re both quality hardware, and yes I had a 360 with RROD and it was replaced within a week by MS so wasnt an issue for me. Most of my friends that are serious (few hours a day) gamers have gone through multiple PS3’s and 360’s. Things wear out.
I have and play both the PS3 and 360. I like both for different reasons.
However, I am on my 11th Xbox 360, where as not one of the 3 PS3’s that I have owned (launch, slim and slimmer) have ever had any hardware issues. And I certainly put hours and hours on them, so none of them are sitting around doing nothing.
Yes, Microsoft did fix the hardware issues for the most part with the Slim, but too late in my opinion. So I have the same concerns going into the next generation.
Microsoft with their crappy quality hardware. And Sony promising all sorts of great OS features and such and then never delivering.
Agreed with one exception, Sony is changing Playstation Plus to the same as Xbox gold in regards to multiplayer with the PS4 so that’s the main counter to that point rather than the free vs quality of the previous generation
But yes agreed this was pretty much my reaction to the article, RROD was big but over 50% seems inflated, also remember consumer law in Australia counters most of these issues. Backwards comparability is a massive waste of silicone with the change to x86 architecture (and good emulation is an unrealistic expectation) so I’m glad both Sony and MS aren’t wasting resources on it. Blu-Ray being added mid 360 life would have been pointless since it would split the market meaning no game could be ‘Blu-Ray only’ without cutting their potential market massively. And yes the US only stuff is going to be an issue for both consoles since it’s mainly due to licensing agreements outside MS or Sony’s control, MS just focused on that side too much in it’s marketing campaign.
Honestly with MS’s 180 on the XB1 the two consoles are so damn similar I don’t see much outside of exclusives making the difference. There’s the GPU power difference but there’s no way to tell how big that is just yet with MS’s use of eDRAM, I doubt it’ll be a major difference in the long run.
In the end I’ll happily sit back with my PC for now but will likely pick up both over the coming years when the price is right and there’s enough exclusives to justify the purchase 😛
I’m pretty much in the same boat. A long time xbox user, indicted through the Halo god.
I always thought I would be an xbox man but after the scrooging of content by way of US exclusivity. The extortion of needing a gold subscription and bungie now making other not-halo-but-looks-like-halo games for more then one console I’m now going to go Playstation on my next console purchase.
I don’t understand why the Xbox 360 not having BluRay would have any relevance on the purchase of the PS4 over Xbox One? I don’t disagree with the general premise of the article but that point in particular seemed odd.
1. Xbox live – PSN is pay to play this generation too, so i’m afraid that’s a no win.
2. Blu-ray. Seriously. Go buy one for $60, it even comes with a proper remote.
3. Both consoles lack backwards compatibility, but in fairness Gaikai might win out.
4. You miss the point of bundling Kinect with everything.
If the X1 was the same price you wouldn’t be having this conversation.
XBLG is not the same as PSPlus. I’ve had both, Just the shear amount of free games it has and is currently bringing me begs to differ.
example: This month’s free game Battlefield 3.
Also I’ve never needed PSPlus to access Youtube, Skype or Facebook.
Also the free to play games don’t require PSPlus.
XBLG was made to look like a necessity for the 360 in order for you to enjoy the full features of the product, whereas PSPlus is unnecessary yet extraordinarily enticing.
Xbox One is trying to do everything in one place. I get that. But gamers who like to do that have generally powerful PCs.
If one were to try and list the benefits of the Xbox One over other platforms, it gets difficult.
-Kinect 2.0
-First party games
I own both 360 and PS3, and I too favoured 360 because of the controller. I played first party games on both consoles. By “Favoured” what I basically mean is I played most third party games on 360.
This will definitely be reversing this generation. I already quit XBOX live gold. I bought myself a few years of PSPlus, and a Vita. I couldn’t be happier about this decision.
Being an american console has nothing to do with it, although I understand why so many people would go there, given Microsoft’s and EA’s messaging.
my only dislikes about the ps3 is the interface and the controllers. i find the xbox controllers way more comfortable and the xbox interface much nicer.
improve the controllers
improve the interface
add party chat
and ill be getting the ps4 first this time round
I think the party chat is confirmed. The controller is apparently improved but that is down to preference.
Not sure on the interface.
Yeah I agree with that, I prefer the positioning of the left stick on the 360, for me the placement of the playstation analogue sticks has always been an afterthought. They just tacked them on the bottom of the original PS1 controller and have never revisited the design since.
I found the original xbox controller was okay but way too big and then the 360 came out and suited me perfectly. But yeah its personal preference, I’ve never been a fan boy and appreciate this article as the author seems to judge each system on their merits.
Xbox One has a Blu-ray player so that point is essentially a lie
You have to pay for PSN multiplayer this generation
Your points basically boil down to something that happened 7 years ago and the fact that Microsoft is an American company…
We’ve already got lots of Australian content on the 360 so it’s not hard to imagine that we’re going to start with at least that as a benchmark on Xbox One.
Xbox One seems to be more ambitions this generation which, for me, makes it an easy choice
The first point is a lie because you didn’t read the article properly?
The whole article is explaining why he dislikes MS and considers Sony the lesser of 2 evils.
It was clearly stated this is about the current gen not the next gen.
Due to his dislike of MS’ previous choices and not the Xbone he will be purchasing a PS4.
Can’t really see how all those things about Xbox 360 relate to Xbox One at all.
I think PS3 did a terrible job this generation, if it wasn’t for great first-party games / free multiplayer / free stuff with PSN+, that would just be a complete disaster. But that does not mean PS4 will be bad, right?
You can list disadvantages of Xbox One and say “that is why I’ll get PS4” and that would be totally understandable. But listing cons of Xbox 360 while saying it was your console of choice this gen, and that is why you chose PS4? I don’t get it.
I thought I’d made it pretty clear in the intro that my reasoning was based on getting burned this generation, which is why the focus is on Xbox 360.
This isn’t a bizarre viewpoint — most people steer clear of a manufacturer in future once they’ve been sold a dud, whether it’s a console, a car or a vacuum cleaner. I was simply pointing out that Microsoft hasn’t treated us terribly well this generation which has prompted my switch to a new brand.
(As to why the X360 was my console of choice, I’m unfortunately not psychic — I’d already made my investment and it was too late to switch.)
During its first years on the market, the Xbox 360 had an absurdly high failure rate which was rumoured to be in the region of 54.2 percent. This is completely unacceptable and should not be forgotten […] I still wouldn’t trust it to survive far beyond its warranty. In other words, the prospect of dusting off your 360 for a retro gaming fix in decades to come seems perilously slim.
I would argue it can be forgotten. They developed a lemon of a first generation, then they fixed the issues and every console sold thereafter has a failure rate no higher than any other product. I’ve owned a single Xbox (the first model that came with HDMI) and it has served me perfectly for 5 years. I’m incredibly pleased with it.
You’re judging an entire console product line based on the failures of its first iteration.
As a consequence, the entire industry turned its back on the Xbox practically overnight: a bitter pill to swallow if you’d just bought one a few weeks prior.
Yes, and the Xbox 360 was a total failure as a result.
Microsoft also shirked on its backwards compatibility commitments, publicly stating that while this was something customers wanted, they didn’t actually use it that much. So why bother, eh?
Sony did the same IIRC, removing PS2 game compatibility from the PS3 via software update so they could start selling PS3 games via the PSN. You can’t single Microsoft out for market manoeuvring that everyone was doing.
While the PlayStation 3 lets you play online games with others for free, the Xbox 360 requires a yearly subscription of $80. When you add this up over the lifespan of the console, you’ve spent a whopping $560 to date.
This article is about your choice of PS4 over Xbox One, so why are you basing your argument on the costings of the current generation of multiplayer services? The PS4 will require a paid plan for online multiplayer, just like the Xbox does now and will in the future.
During the past few years, there’s really no excuse for Microsoft’s refusal to support the format with a peripheral drive of some kind.
Again with judging the the next generation based around a business decision of the current generation. The Xbox One will have a blu-ray drive.
I thought I’d made it pretty clear in the intro that my reasoning was based on getting burned this generation, which is why the focus is on Xbox 360.
This isn’t a bizarre viewpoint — most people steer clear of a manufacturer once they’ve been sold a dud, whether it’s a console, a car or a vacuum cleaner. I was simply pointing out that Microsoft hasn’t treated us terribly well this generation prompting my switch to a new brand.
Sony did the same IIRC, removing PS2 game compatibility from the PS3 via software update so they could start selling PS3 games via the PSN. You can’t single Microsoft out for market manoeuvring that everyone was doing.
What ps3 do you have i own the MGS4 ps3 and play ps1 and ps2 games frequently and my system and the firmware is up to date the ps4 is only pay to play on certain games, games like DCUO will not require plus to play.
i dont see why no one understands that he is switching consoles because he’s thinking back now and he is disappointed in the choices that Microsoft made with their previous system so he is jumping ship
i def agree with the blu-ray comment does no one wonder why after HD DVD lost the war why they didnt just make a new system with a blu-ray instead of releasing games with 2 discs? GTA5 2 discs sounds stupid to me but to each his own i guess
GTA5 2 discs may sound stupid to you, but its one disc install, one disc play. So after the first play it’s one disc.
And your system may play PS2 games, but not many do. I got my Ps3 1 year before MGS4 and it doesn’t and hasn’t ever played Ps2 games. I dare say the majority of people own a ps3 that is incapable of playing ps2 games
These are all reasons why you are unhappy with the Xbox360… so what’s wrong with the XB1?!
See reply directly above.
I did, and it was pretty dumb.
I guess it depends if you are driven by irrational emotion (like Chris Jager) or if you are a logical person who only deals with the facts at hand. If you are the latter you would only compare XB1 and PS4 to make your decision, and forget about 7 year old issues which have been rectified.
My last Nissan, manufacturered in 1999, crapped out on me. Now, I am
wary of buying any new Nissan, although their quality might be much
better in 2013. It might not be purely logical, but it’s not rubbish,
either.
You can never know the future. You can never know exactly what people
will do in the future. All you can do is guess based on their actions
in the past. In the past, Microsoft chose to screw over their loyal
customers. That’s a fact. You don’t know anything about the quality of
the XB1, you don’t know anything about changes they might make to
their policies in the future, nobody knows this. All you know is the
actions they took in the past and the current marketing hype, and this
is what you should base your actions off of.
I am still undecided. I am going to wait till a game comes out that I really want and then get a console like I did with the 360.
One other thing to think about is MS are also a cloud provider with Azure so they will have some advantages over sony in knowing how to provide cloud services better than sony will. Also MS are in the process of putting in Azure kit in Australia too so we might get some better latancy in games :). All speculation, all depends on Microsoft using Azure for xbox live.
I like this article, and agree with most of it. For me personally (as a current Playstation user) the PS4 wins me simply because the XboxOne gives me no reason to want it. Both consoles have ended up being roughly equal hardware, with the PS4 being cheaper. AFAIK there are no Xbone exclusives that interest me, but there are for PS4 exclusives.
I still can’t believe they launched the Xbox360 without inbuilt wifi, that is so stingy.
Some readers are missing the point of “Backwards (non)thinking”. It’s not about whether the console is backwards compatible, but what happens to the old console it’s replacing. Will the xbox360 simply be abandoned? Probably not, but who knows how long it will be around. What is the threshold before MS pull the plug? Sony have a track record of keeping a console available long after its successor is released. At least Sony have stated some sort of backward compatibility through GaiKai. Personally whats wrong with simply keeping your old console as well? I will be as long as Sony keep handing out *free* games 😀
The point about pay-for-online is a bit of a weak argument, and is easily shot down with:
xbox user: how long did it take you to download that?
ps3 user: it’s still downloading :'(
xbox user: lololoolooloololol
You get what you pay for, and the Xbox network was faster (when I last used it ~5+ years ago)
Fact of the matter is, thus far, PS3 users haven’t had a reason to get a XB1 yet there are many who are considering switching to a PS4 from a 360.
That in itself is a win for Sony.
As for Gold vs PS+. Only a fanboy would claim Gold is better. Gold is a rip off. It was a rip-off before Sony absolutely destroyed them with PS+ free games.
Have we all forgotten that time went the Sony Network was hacked and it was down for weeks? Millions of peoples account details were stolen.
So basically you had a range of issues with 360 – nearly all of which – were clearly in place from the start ( Xbox live fees, no blu ray) or weren’t so clear and applied to the first two years (RROD) of its eight years – and you continued to use it as your primary console, only playing PS3 exclusives if work required it (as you said) – and chose to save all these grievances for a next Gen article, where the points are basically all moot? (subscription multiplayer in PS4, BD in XboxOne, citing “rushed to market faulty hardware” where both these consoles have been cooking a long time and are releasing within weeks of each other)
I’m all for fair opinion pieces, but this seems to be reaching pretty far in its one sidedness.
It’s honestly like arguing that you’re not buying a Gamecube because you didn’t like cartridges in the N64. And hard to take as credible. Or not buying a PS3 because the PS2 lacked an in built Ethernet port.
You’re trolling us aren’t you Chris Jager?
All we can really do is wait and see. One thing that Sony is good at is supporting the previous generation hardware – ps2 still had plenty of life in it after ps3 release and still some AAA title (GT6) to come for PS3. You could pretty confidently keep playing your PS3 for a while and see how the next gen pans out before making a commitment either way.
Personally, i’m just getting a bad vibe from MS, the way they’re choosing to do business by paying off publishers and misleading conduct – they’re being a bit ‘apple’ and it makes me concerned about what sort of ecosystem they will try to develop going forward, and how they will treat their customers
I’ve played 360 since the Slim model came out and have been pretty happy with it. The main reason I chose it was because my friends were on 360. Now I’m switching to PS4 because I like the look of the PS4 exclusives, it’s cheaper, didn’t like the initial MS philosophy for XB1 and have friends thinking the same way.
I don’t consider myself to be a fanboy at all. (except I have a passion for PC building)
Funnily enough some of your reasoning is the reason I’ve really turned off the Playstation. I was Playstation 2 and 3 loyal, until the POS PS3 started freezing and rebooting on me, and eventually deteriorated into YLOD. While my friends with Xboxes had been hit by RROD, they’d also received excellent extended warranty to cover it, Sony had nothing to say about it. Sony also locked their hard drives to the goddamn serial number of the machine, meaning I couldn’t even take the hard drive out and put it in another machine without formatting it and losing all my save games. I first experienced this issue when the bluray drive died, which Sony would not guarantee me the same unit repaired on warranty and were originally going to send me a refurb until I escalated the issue and accepted a longer repair period. Backing up these saves was not an option as Sony had allowed developers to make saves copy protected which effected roughly half my games.
Sony also canned backwards compatibility very early on in the lifespan of the PS3, and I couldn’t afford the roughly $1000 it cost for the original PS3. Sony also absolutely refuse to allow renaming of Playstation accounts for some stupid reason even though every other gaming service allows it.
I also bought a PlayTV which Sony have barely updated and has run worse and worse over the years with further system updates, and doesn’t run anywhere near as well on my new Slim as it did on the old Phat before YLOD.
Now while I admit I didn’t buy an Xbox until the slim my Xbox experience has been flawless, everything has worked well, gaming online is a far better experience. After all the crap I went through with Sony I’m happy to pay $40-$50 a year for Xbox Live Gold. Games also run better than the PS3 where heaps of games were buggy ports of Xbox developed titles.
I’ve pre-ordered an Xbox One, because Sony have massively disappointed me this generation and I feel in general they’ve ripped me off. With the Xbox One having HDMI Passthrough and bluray, Sony have nothing to pull me back.
Except, yaknow, the games?
I see alot of butthurt people in these comments – gheeze its his opinion for goodness sake and i agree with the author 100% i experienced everything he mentioned on the list and even more scenarios with microsoft that made me want to never buy a product from them again. MS have made me feel that way noone else.
The new thing now going on in gaming is to hate on Microsoft and the XBOX One. Simultaneously showing all the love to Sony and the PS4. I get it. Its the way the world works now. Get on the hype bandwagon since its the new flavor. You folks are silly, shallow and just part of the sheeple.
First off, I could careless about Sony or Microsoft. I want the best product and more importantly, I want the best games. I have both the 360 and the PS3 (dumped the Wii). Both of these purchases have worked out but the 360 owned this past generation as a core gamer.
So much so that reluctant Sony fanboys like the clown who wrote this article were forced to buy one. Why? Because Sony royally screwed up the PS3. The biggest flaw was the lack of any real system seller for a long while to make the case as to why we paid more for the console. It is only now that the generation is ending that Sony’s first party games are now showing up. Never mind the years of poor ports, no killer exclusives, generic online and horrible UI. Did we mention the price and the 360 was cheaper? As for Blu-ray’s addition to gaming…mimimal. The only thing Blu-ray added was the need for only one disc for some games. That was main due to the developers. But for one Blu-ray disc you had to wait for installs since the drive is slow. Pick your poison, several disc or mandatory installs. In terms of graphics and gameplay Blu-ray added absolutely NOTHING.
I give Sony some credit since they took a beating financially to get them to see the light. I’m not ready to crown them but I do have my PS4 reserved.
1. As for MS, not sure why folks are still bringing up RROD. I lost two 360s to RROD but they were replaced at no cost. My big fat PS3 died on me and was replaced with a slim but it cost me $99 to replace it after paying that enormous launch price. Guess he failed to mention that.
2. Backwards compatibility is really a joke. Folks clamor for it but its hardly used once the real games for the consoles come. I never understood why folks just don’t keep their old console and use it if you want to keep your old games. Sony realized the same thing and stop giving BC on the late model PS3s.
3. As for mulitplayer, I really don’t understand why gamers pay for this crap. I this was clearly a money making scheme for MS and dopey gamers bought in. They tried to justify it by giving you access to other features that you can get free on your computer. Sony’s multiplayer was the same from a game experience but most folks were on LIVE. The PS3 has clearly upgraded and I really don’t see what makes LIVE better……Dopey Sony is now charging for PSN on the PS4. Genius.
3. As I’ve said before, Blu-ray adds nothing to the actual game this current generation. It was mainly for movies and Sony got clowns to believe that it was going to impact games significantly. MS did the right thing not to commit to either format.
4. American? I’m not going to even address that since it doesn’t deserve a response.
Overall, people who are bailing on MS because of the 360 aren’t core gamers or just Sony sheep that was forced to buy a 360 to get the best games until Sony got it act together with the PS3.
I understand peoples frustration with MS who did one of the lousiest jobs in making you want to purchase their new system. It was and will go down as one of the all time failures in gaming history. Nevertheless, I was more excited by the games I saw on the XBOX One than the PS4. That means nothing since launch games are generally weak. The console to come out with the first system seller, will most likely win. For me, I’m getting both so keep the competition up MS and Sony.
I agree with some of the stuff you are saying but to generalise everyone choosing the ps4 as sheep is fanboyish. Second to say xbox won for core gamers is a joke to me. Yes if I wanted to play 4 different versions of Gears, Halo and Forza it won but if I wanted to play Uncharted, TLOU, Resistance, Beyound two souls, MGS4, Dark Souls and many many more the PS3 was the choice.
Also his thing on American has nothing to do with the country but to do with the features on the console. So i think that is a huge deal if you are paying the same if not more and not getting the same experience.
@wildcat2325 Guess you didn’t read my entire thread. Let me very clear since the real fanboy is the TC.
1. I never said “everyone choosing the ps4 as sheep” but I did say that all this LOVE being shown to Sony and the PS4 is based on hype and being a sheep.
2. Maybe you missed it but I did say “I could careless about Sony or Microsoft. I want the best product and more importantly, I want the best games. I have both the 360 and the PS3.”
3. I do agree that many people have different taste but gamers have selective amnesia. I bought a launch PS3 ($599) and launch 360 ($399). It took forever for the PS3 to get going. Years. In between that time the 360 was churning out 3rd party games that were not on the PS3 system (Bioshock, Mass Effect, Dead Rising, Ninja Gaiden, Lost Planet, Oblivion, etc). Those games showed up much later on the PS3. For most of this past gen the 360 was the leading platform for almost all 3rd party games. Then the 3rd party games were better on the 360 since developers had difficulty with the PS3. Look you can argue which games you like better but for most of this past gen the 360 had more games first. The last few years Sony has finally changed that but its was much later.
4. As for American, give me a break. The PS3 was way more expensive as a console. It took them years to get the price down. I think that is a bigger deal. Not to mention those of us that forked out the launch price to get a system that was suppose to be WAAAY better than the competition. I believed the hype and bout it but Its not. I think that’s a much bigger deal especially when were were told that we were future proofing.
I understand where you’re coming from, but I think its ridiculous you are basing your decision to go to ps4 as a result of the failures of the Xbox 360….
Sony handed out your credit card numbers.. lol
I for 1 totally agree, I had 1st the Xbox ( which was great) , then I got the 360 and the RROD x 2 ,( I believe the figures are higher than we think as many like myself would ship direct for replace/repair and not go to a game stores, so figures impossible to identify). After a few years I sold the 360 and the wifey bought me a PS3, (I have had PS1 and 2), it was great, reliable, good selection of titles, had no issues with online. PS+ gave me some great games for not a lot of money per year.
When the new models were announced I pre-ordered the PS4, as the author indicates, confidence in the brand and at least believing you will get the better service/product is enough, I may be wrong but as with any product you go off past experiences in choosing new items.
Two points jump out of this article immediately (and this is why you should get Angus to proof these things):
1) Using a rumoured number to make a point – even if you use something like 54.2 it to make it look very specific and thus not made-up – is deceptive in the extreme.
2) Even if you were stupid enough to pay $80pa for XBL – it’s available every day of the week for a little over half that – how does that make it 80 times anything compared to a free network? Mutliply by zero, and so on. More poor use of figures.
Opinion pieces are all well and good, but let’s make them a bit more realistic. Leave the made-up stuff to Gizmodo.
And now in english? What exactly are you trying to say?
Exactly what I said.
1) Only an idiot pays $80 a year for XBL.
2) Even if that was the figure, how is it 80 times worse? 80 x 0 = 0, so that’s not a sensible way of working it out.
There, is that simple enough?
I guess your second part is worded poorly that’s all. I simply would’ve said “Live has been a strong service since day 1 and PSN only became a strong service around half way through its life when Plus came into existance, essentially, you get what you pay for”. The maths really is irrelevant there and serves no purpose.
Hi Chris I would suggest you write another article exactly the same next week except write it for getting a XBone and list all the issues and problems with the PS3 over this Gen.
Am I the only person who ends up getting both consoles?
You know we all will at some point.
I feel the problem with this article is that its mostly based on previous generation problems that have put Chris personally against the Xbox brand. Sure its an opinion piece, but personally my next gen choice will be made later on when we have an accurate account of what games will be coming exclusively to each console, not on whether or not the 360 had a blu-ray drive accessory.
Your using the last generation to show that somehow xbox treated fans worse then sony did??!
How about sony losing CREDIT CARD Information on a VAST amount of its users. I think that pretty much topples anything that can be mentioned.
wow people get so hyped out when in term to choose between these 2 consoles…. I am happy with my iPhone as gaming console 😀
i have both PS3 and XBOX360 with Kinect.
Online gaming, I prefer PS3 coz it’s free (I am a casual gamer, since I have a family)
but for dancing games or exercise games, I prefer Xbox with Kinect compare to PS3 Move. (used to have Wii too but sold it when Kinect was out :D)
But If I have to choose between buying games for PS3 and XBOX 360 (for the same title), I look for PS3, is due to no subscription fee to play online. but controller wise, I like the XBOX better than PS3 controller, I use that controller for my PC
PS4 and XB1… too early to tell, all these speculation really not relavent to me until full hands on review from few sites. but PSN with subscription sucks for casual gamers.