From the November Edition - Out Now
Words by Gazz Wood
Christmas is coming, the goose has got 100% on GTA V and can’t log in to multiplayer online. He needs something else to do and he hasn’t got long before someone kills and eats him. Luckily for the goose in this strained metaphor, the XBOX One and PS4 are both released pre-Christmas so he can while away his final hours playing Titanfall. Or Infamous: Second Son, depending on the console he gets.
Words by Gazz Wood
Christmas is coming, the goose has got 100% on GTA V and can’t log in to multiplayer online. He needs something else to do and he hasn’t got long before someone kills and eats him. Luckily for the goose in this strained metaphor, the XBOX One and PS4 are both released pre-Christmas so he can while away his final hours playing Titanfall. Or Infamous: Second Son, depending on the console he gets.
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| Back stage at E3 |
First things first. I am currently an XBOX gamer. I always thought the PS3 looked more like it could grill chicken than produce excellent gaming experience and the trophies do nothing for me. My 360 has never ‘red-ringed,’ never broken down or frozen or forced me to wrap it in towels or anything. It’s been very good to me, so you’d think that when the time to pre-order rolled around I’d be clicking enthusiastically on the XBOX One button.
Not so. The numerous missteps and undesirable features that Microsoft tried to make us like have put me right off. First there was the ‘always-on’ DRM fiasco, in which Microsoft insisted you’d have to be constantly connected to the internet in order to make the XBOX One work at all. Then they said you’d have to have a Kinect stuck to the top of your console and if you tried to block its all-seeing electronic eye then the XBOX One would simply refuse to operate until you let it watch your every move.
All of these things, and several more, earned Microsoft’s 4th Gen offering the derisive nickname ‘the XBONE’ and had previous XBOX devotees abandoning ship post-haste.
Not that the PS4 is all cheesecake and blow jobs. There’s that stupid SHARE button, allowing you to post all manner of inconsequential gaming balls online. On top of that there’s the usual Playstation issue of there not actually being any games at all. The PS3 has like… 8 games max.
So which should you buy?
If you live by the acronym C.R.E.A.M (Cash Rules Everything Around Me) and honestly why wouldn’t you? Then the choice is clear. XBOX One is coming out at £429 and PS4 is a hundred sheets less.
However perhaps you’re some sort of Richie Rich money-bags type, living in a converted warehouse space in Kensington. Perhaps money is no object to you, because your parents can always just earn more. If this is you, then first of all you’re a bell-end, but second of all and less insultingly the price of the machine makes no difference. Maybe it’s the launch titles that are whetting your whistle.
A lot of the big games are coming out on both platforms, so you can enjoy Watch Dogs or Assassin’s Creed Black Flag or Madden NFL 25 regardless of who gets your money. In terms of exclusive titles though, XBOX One has the edge.
Besides inevitable sequels to blockbuster franchises (Halo 5, Dead Rising 3 etc…) the XBOX exclusive games include: Ryse, a 1st Person fighting game from the makers of the excellent Far Cry 3; Quantum Break, an action shooter in which you control time and Killer Instinct, an update of the mad 16-bit fighting game from the 90’s.
All PS4 has is a racing game (Driveclub), an indie game about an octopus (Octodad) and that Crash Bandicoot looking adventure game Knack. Obviously they’ll announce a few more PS4 exclusive games before release, but right now Microsoft is pissing all over the floor of GAME and marking their territory.
If online gaming is what cranks your cheese-wheel, then the PS4 has got XBOX One beat. And beat very badly. Microsoft still somehow have the bloody cheek to charge for the ability to go online. XBOX Live Gold is a thing, and they want your money for it even though they’ve already had £100 more of it than Playstation are asking for.
In many other ways the two are pretty evenly stacked. They both use BluRay, so will have players built in. They both use some sort of motion control if that’s your weird fetish, and they’ll both have bleeding edge graphics and all that other noise. It’s not like the PS4 is an iPhone 6 and the XBOX One is a Ribena carton with numbers written on it. Technically they’re fairly similar.
Taking into account; the price, the games, the lack of being watched by an immortal electric Sauron, then the PS4 comes out on top as a pure gaming console. Also the PS4 is much smaller and looks less like it might fire circular saws at you if you try to play a pirated copy of Destiny.
