What’s up, XBRO‘s? AMGfail here with another Reader Discussion topic, and this one focuses on the current generation of consoles. Have you made the jump yet, or are you still rocking the Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii?
With May being the 6-month mark for the Xbox One and the PS4, both consoles have had plenty of time to sway your opinion. At this point Nintendo will have had a year and a half to state their case as well, and for the sake of this discussion we’ll be including them in the current-gen pool because sometimes it’s nice to have friends.
Do you own an Xbox One?
The Xbox One launched in North America on November 22, 2013. After the infamous Xbox 180, Microsoft managed to release a console that not only pleased their fans but brought with it a list of innovations. Voice commands make it much easier to navigate the Xbox One’s user interface and having the ability to snap between different applications and multitask has been a godsend. The Xbox One also offers a quick and easy way to capture and share your gameplay with friends with its built-in Game DVR and Upload Studio editing program, alongside HD streaming through the Twitch app. The most recent console update also allows owners to upload their footage directly to YouTube.
Of course every console has its downfall, and since launch the Xbox One has been under scrutiny as being under-powered in comparison to Sony’s PS4. Cross-platform games have constantly featured lower resolution textures on the Xbox One, with even the system-selling exclusive Titanfall failing to reach the 1080p mark. While this is more a problem on paper — as the gap in 900p to 1080p is barely noticeable, even when side-by-side — it did make the PS4 more appealing in combination with its lower price tag. Of course you can ask every Xbox One owner if the Kinect was worth the extra $100 and most would probably say yes. I know I would.
When it boils down to what matters most, being the games, the Xbox One certainly delivered the goods in terms of exclusives. Launch exclusives like Dead Rising 3, Forza 5 and Killer Instinct were all great games that were available immediately, and there were even a few odds and ends like Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare, Ryse: Son of Rome, Max: The Curse of Brotherhood, Halo: Spartan Assault and Crimson Dragon that found their niche audience over time. And we all know that Titanfall has become the game to own on the Xbox One.
Do you own a Playstation 4?
Launching one week earlier than the Xbox One on November 15th, 2013, the PS4 had a lot going for it right out of the gate. For starters, it launched at a cheaper price than the Xbox One and was coming off of a strong E3 1013 presentation earlier in the year. Promising to focus on gaming first — as opposed to the Xbox One’s all-in-one sales pitch — while stepping around the concepts of digital distribution and DRM, the PS4 embraced the indie gaming scene and won many people over with their consumer first mentality.
Like the Xbox One, it also offers video sharing and streaming through Twitch, but doesn’t allow PS4 owners to view any form of non-PS4 streams like the Xbox One does. It’s current video sharing system is also pretty lackluster in comparison to the Xbox One’s Upload Studio, only allowing you to set a start and end point and having no way to combine multiple clips at once or provide voice-over before uploading to Facebook. Sony is currently working on improving their video sharing feature with a new application, but an official release date has not been announced.
While the PS4 is currently the strongest console on the market, it’s lacked a big name exclusive until recently with inFAMOUS: Second Son. Killzone: Shadow Fall and Knack were supposed to be flagship launch titles, but both were met with a lukewarm reception by consumers and gaming publications alike. Until recently, Sony’s saving grace has been offering smaller exclusives through PSN and offering an incredible value with their Playstaion Plus membership.
Since its launch, the PS4 has offered some solid exclusives via PSN with games like Outlast, Towerfall: Ascension, Resogun, Mercenary Kings, Stealth Inc: A Clone in the Dark and Warframe. It’s also offered graphically superior versions of cross-platform games like Call of Duty: Ghosts, Battlefield 4, Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag and Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition.
Do you own a Wii U?
The Wii U is kind of the red-headed step child of the list. It’s nowhere near as powerful either the Xbox One or the PS4 and it’s also been around a year longer than both of them, launching back in November of 2012. The Wii U is Nintendo’s first jump in to the realm of HD and online gaming, and while the console did show a lot of promise with its innovative GamePad, it’s still failed to gain steam with consumers thanks to its archaic friend system, lack of third-party support and Nintendo’s complete lack of know-how when it comes down to anything having to do with the internet.
Of course there’s one thing Nintendo does better than anyone else, and that’s make games. The Wii U has had a long time to build a strong library, and it’s done just that with games like The Wonderful 101, Pikmin 3, Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker HD and Super Mario 3D World. Nintendo has also started to embrace the indie scene with solid exclusives like Mighty Switch Force, Nano Assault NEO, Mutant Mudds Deluxe and the upcoming Shovel Knight, which is a big step for the company.
While sales figures and the overall lack of support continue to disappoint, the future looks bright for Wii U owners as some heavy hitters are just over the horizon. The biggest of course being Super Smash Bros., but they also have Bayonetta 2, Mario Kart 8 and X to look forward to at some point in the future. Let’s also not forget that the Wii U is the only current-gen console that is backwards compatible, allowing owners to play their entire Wii library — upscaled in HD no less. It also functions with all Motion Plus-enabled Wiimotes from your Wii, saving you a small fortune instead of having to buy new controllers.
If you haven’t made the jump to current-gen yet, what’s stopping you? We know it could be anything from finances to waiting for better games to release, but we want to know what’s holding you back. Maybe you’re a part of the PC master race? Let us know in the comments!
Bradley Keene is an avid gamer & aspiring writer from Baltimore, MD that handles news and reviews here at What’s Your Tag?. If he’s not writing or knee-deep in some form of video game, he’s usually watching low-budget horror films or following Orioles baseball. Follow him on Twitter @amgfail_WYT, or contact him by e-mail at bradleykeenewyt@gmail.com. Love gaming? Join TEAM XBRO today!
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Not yet…I’m planning on building a PC instead.
If I was to get a next-gen console, I’d probably get the PS4, possibly the Wii U.
I wouldn’t get an Xbox, not because of the resolution, but because I live in Australia and we have barely any streaming services, meaning that its use as an all-in-one device would be limited. Also, the I heard that the Kinect has trouble with Accents etc and thus I might as well save an extra $50 (over here).
Yeah I hear that are a lot of issues with different accents, but it sounds like they are consistently releasing updates to increase the responsiveness for folks outside the US.
I can definitely respect that. I have no problems with the Kinect as an American, and I’ve played with a lot of French Canadians who have thick accents, but they say their Kinect has no problems understanding them at all while speaking English. Not sure if the same would be true in Australia, but $450 is a lot to risk on it.
Who told the Wii-U that it could leave its corner?
I’ve taken my first steps toward Sony-ism and got the PS4 first. Then I took a step back and got a PS3. My 360 wasn’t very pleased with me switching sides but seemed to calm down once I reminded it that getting a PS4 meant that it wouldn’t be put away.
I personify my stuff….hush.
I didn’t want Nintendo to feel left out, and the whole time I was typing this up my Wii U was looking at me with Nintendog eyes. I had to.
You picked up a PS3 for BlazBlue Chrono, right?
You shouldn’t get the Wii U’s hopes up. The pain will be that much more when they come crashing down.
Yep, and it was well worth it. Thanks to it, I can now play all the PS3 only games that I’ve been pretending didn’t exist for the past 8 years.
I want to believe that, but it’s basically the new Dreamcast. No one will understand how great the games were until it’s gone.
That’s very true, unfortunately. I loved my 64 and Gcube. They literally were my childhood. I didn’t play that many games on my Wii but I liked all the ones that I did play. I might rag on Nintendo but I really don’t want them to go under. Hopefully they’ll find some way to get back the top.
The Gamecube didn’t do too hot either, but still had some great games. People fall in and out of love with Nintendo’s home consoles all the time, so it’s nothing new. At least the 3DS prints money, right?
I was going to jump from 360 to PS4 as the Xbox One exclusives seemed to be lacking. Then I realised that PS4 was also lacking. I use the philosophy that when five games come out that I want to play on any given console I’ll buy it. At this rate I am likely to buy a PS3 first – but at the moment it is PC for me.
Right now I’d say the Xbox One has more of the bigger retail releases, but the PS4 has better indie stuff. As far as PS4 retail exclusives, inFAMOUS: Second Son is the only one worth anything unless you never got around to checking out Injustice: Gods Among Us on last-gen consoles. On the Xbox One, I’ve really enjoyed Dead Rising 3 (especially playing with friends), Forza 5, Ryse: Son of Rome and I know our other staff has put a lot of time in to Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare and Titanfall.
If you do break down and pick up a new console, keep us posted on which one! We have an open gaming community on Facebook where you can find people to play with if you’re in to the multiplayer thing.
Ahh yes, I will ensure to keep you up to date. To be honest though – Steam keeps me plenty amused for the time being 🙂
How can you beat a million games for $1, right?
Hey, when the entire Bioshock series of £4 for all three games, how can any of the consoles even be close competitors?
I’ll likely pick up a PS4 for dat Final Fantasy XV though. But until then, I’ll just spend 450 more dollars at some point and get a better graphics card, a better monitor, and a external hard drive and get everything a current gen has to offer.
And more, probably.
The way I see it, you can’t pay $400 for a PC that will not require upgrades over the next 7 or 8 years. But if you do keep up on your PC upgrades, it’ll always be superior to any console on the market.
Exactly. You can’t find a decent gaming rig for $400 bucks and knowing that your console will play games for the next several years without updating the hardware is always comforting.
You may have to upgrade to a larger HD, but that’s relatively cheap in the console world.
Well I already paid like $400 bucks several years ago and got a great processor, great deal on RAM, and a good motherboard and decent graphics card, so alls I need is a new graphics card (about 200) and a 21st century monitor (preferably a 120 refresh 1080p one for 200) and a 1 TB hard drive and I’m good to go. Lol
So for pretty much the price of a Wii U, I could have super good graphics. If I was making a good amount of money from gaming journalism, I could write all of the stuff off on my taxes. Lol
I will get a PS4 eventually, but am in no rush at the moment. My backlog of uncompleted PS3 games is huge and history has taught me that being an early adopter is a bad idea. Patient consumers often get rewarded with a price drop and a bigger library of games to choose from.
Waiting usually always pays off! My PS3 backlog consists of Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch, Lightning Returns, Tales of Graces f and Saints Row IV. If I can clear those out, I’m golden.
Still rocking the XBox360 I have a few games I haven’t played yet. As well as the PS2 (it has my favorite game on it, Star Wars battlefront 2)
I still need to finish Alan Wake, Lost Odyssey, Blue Dragon and Infinite Undiscovery on the 360. All the RPG’s I’ve put 40+ hours in to but never finished them =\.
Battlefront was a great game. My PS2 backlog is probably the biggest out of all the consoles, and it probably has no chance of being finished with all those RPGs.
A few of the Xbox 360 games I have yet to finish are: mass effect 3, assassins creed black flag, a few naruto games, a kinect Dragonball z game
sooner of layer these might get done… Hopefully!
What’s your favorite game for the 360 and for the ps2?
ME3 and AC4 were both amazing games, so you’ll have a lot of fun with those.
My favorite 360 exclusive is probably Bastion. As for retail releases, Left 4 Dead or Gears of War 2. Lost Odyssey is in there as well, but seeing as how I never finished the last disc, I’m not sure if it’ll all fall apart with the ending.
For PS2, my favorite game overall is probably ICO or Final Fantasy X. I’m also a huge fan of the Shin Megami Tensei games, so SMT: Nocturne is in there.
How about you?
Hmm that’s a hard question, at least for the 360…ps2 would be star wars bf2! For Xbox, I’d say the portal series, I love how it challenges the player without using brute force and there are no zombies that randomly pop out of sludge cough half life two cough!
I picked up The Orange Box on the 360 during their $5 summer sale last year! Totally worth it. Portal 2 was one of my favorites as well.
Battlefront 2 was the bomb-diggidy. I can’t wait for the reboot.
For the assault, I think it was, on mos eisley (sorry for spelling mistakes) did you choose the heros or villains?
I liked choosing the heroes because Yoda so ridiculous in it. That little guy had mad hops!
I’m still using my 360 (and I sometimes pull out the PlayStation), but I’m thinking of getting the PS4. I’ll be waiting for Black Friday to get that one, though (me and my frugality).
Nothing wrong with waiting and the PS4 is a great value for the price. Just starting off you have access to 4 free games right now just for having a Playstation Plus subscription.
*stares at her collection of all three* I’m a whore… A DIRTY WHORE.
I’m apparently a dirty whore as well.
We’re both dirty, nasty whores