Haha I was looking for our New Consoles thread but when I search I found this old thing
I got myself a PlayStation 4! Yay!
Let me get the downsides out of the way first:
It's a Japanese unit so that means the confirm/cancel buttons are reversed (X is cancel and O is confirm). This issue has already resulted in an accidental purchase. Killzone Shadowfall was listed as a game in library, so I clicked on it. When Ir realized it was just an expired trial and it said something like "you must purchase this content in order to play" I wanted to just back out of the menu. Now, in that particular menu the buttons reversed back to the standard X to confirm and O to cancel. Apparently, when I clicked what I thought was "cancel" (since it's a Japanese unit) the PSN Store immediately purchased
Killzone Shadowfall for $60 with no confirmation. It just charged my card instantly "thank you for purchasing.." I have no intention of ever playing that game, I was simply looking at the option in my library. Even if I did want to play it I would not pay $60 for it. Anyway, I'll get over it I guess. I'm trying to get Sony to revoke the purchase since it was unintentional.
Anyway, this is causing an issue because the confirm/cancel buttons change depending on the region of the game I'm playing, so basically the confirm/cancel buttons are constantly changing causing a lot of unintended confirms and cancels.
Sony claims that the PS4 is region-free but the fact is the infrastructure backing it is not; which completely undermines the point of having a region-free device. Sure, you can get any game disc, no matter where it's from, but any DLC or redeemable codes will only work with an account of its native region. For example, my PS4 came with an online code for
Knack. Unfortunately, since I have a Middle-East (ME) account I cannot redeem the code because it is for a Japanese copy of
Knack, despite the game being actually available in the ME PSN Store. Just to be clear, there is no "Middle-East Edition" of the PS4 or PS4 titles yet so this is effectively a problem with most download codes for me (except for the DLC code of
Infamous Second Son). According to Sony's support this is up to the game publishers and not Sony or PSN. Which makes little sense because one would imagine Sony could simply remove regional tagging from PSN accounts and leave it to the tried-and-true geo-location method used by practically everyone else.
Ok, got that off my chest (partially, I'm still burning up inside over the asinine concept of regional restriction).
On to the good notes!
The PS4 is an awesome and gorgeous bit of hardware. The console itself is sleek and fits really well with my setup, currently horizontally. It is also remarkably silent compared to the PS3 when it's on. The only noise that can be heard is the disc spinning up when I first launch a disc-media game.
The DualShock 4 gamepad is a massive improvement in all aspects; its shape, its grip, triggers, analogue sticks (grip and sensitivity). The touchpad feels somewhat gimmicky so far. All the games I've tried so far use it as replacements for functions that could just as easily be a single button or assigned to the d-pad.
Second Son tries to innovate on the functionality of almost all the gamepad's features: swiping, tracking, and clicking the touchpad, sixiaxis-like controls during the graffiti segments where you hold the gamepad to its side and pull the R2 trigger like it's a spray can, and various other minor tweaks on traditional controls.
Since I have a Vita I got to try out the remote play features and it is amazingly simple. The Vita works seamlessly with the PS4 and every single game I've tried has worked in Remote Play. I have yet to try the "Second-Screen" experience since none of the games have the feature, at least not to my knowledge. The only drawback is the huge difference in comfort between the PS4 DualShock 4 and the Vita's controls. A fair trade-off for the convenience of playing top-tier PS4 games on your Vita.
The UI is not great but acceptable. It's certainly better than the XMB of the last generation but it needs some work and tweaks to make it more efficient and more appealing. It gets the job done in the mean time. With that in mind, the functions of the PS4 are improved. Party voice chat is great, sharing is a breeze, and jumping in and out of games is as seamless as alt-tabbing (without crashing
).
The library of games is still sparse but the few top-tier titles look incredible. At full 1080p,
Second Son looks sharp, crisp, and full of vibrant detail. From the models and animations to the special effects, it is a next-gen visual experience. Sadly, in terms of mechanics I would argue that there's very little innovation in the current games. They're really just new games with better graphics so far. Sony are really pushing to support indie games too. I've got
Don't Starve: Console Edition and
Contrast, both of which play really well and look pristine on the PS4.
Barring a few minor mishaps and Japanese button configuration (to which I'm having a hard time adapting) I'm loving the PS4 and I'm really excited for what's coming! I'll keep you all posted on my experiences.
