Michael Siebenaler: Virtual Reality (VR) is an important new frontier, and all of the big three could form partnerships with companies. It’ll only be successful with quality stories, otherwise it’s just a hot-cold fad that comes in and out every few years, but cannot sustain gaming companies.
Of course, most people don’t think long-term anymore, so video games will always be driven some “passing fancies”. I have always appreciated the backwards compatible, multi-functional, and forward thinking game hardware, accessories, and software.
I really admired how Nintendo kept fighting, circled their wagons and built some amazing games this year to bring the Wii U back from low participation (in the U.S.). Now they have a very promising game release calendar coming up including this spring’s fun precursor to FPSs – Splatoon!
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So there you have it. I think I am probably going to go with a PS4, but what about you? If you are a gamer, how would you answer my six questions?
Personally I think it can be a little simpler, and you can take personal bias out of the equation mostly.
First do you have friends who play games that you want to play with? In today’s world that is becoming even more important than it ever was in the past. If they are all, or mostly on one console, that is the one you need to get.
Have some deep roots with Nintendo properties,(Mario, Zelda, Metroid etc.) and do not really care about having the best available graphics, Wii U that one is easy.
Is this taking the role as an entertainment machine? Right now the Xbox One would have a slight edge. It already supports DLNA for home network streaming, and if you have a cable/satellite box it can run through the system for dual control as well. Also if they can pull off the forthcoming Windows 10 updates this will be even better. PS4 should get DLNA support sometime, so it’s close, but the Wii U is terrible in this aspect, no blu-ray, not going to ever be able to network stream, and it is solely designed for gaming, for better or worse.
Game’s is mostly a tossup. They all have some impressive first party stuff, with Xbox One probably being slightly ahead of PS4 as of now. One big caveat though is Japanese RPGS. Playstation is way ahead here and that won’t likely change soon.
Controller is probably more personal preference than anything, although it is hard to argue that the control stick layout on the Xbox controllers isn’t better than the PS4.
Going back to my first statement though, if you are a social gamer, and all of your friends are on one console, that is going to be where you want to be, regardless of the other qualities of the competing systems.
GREAT points, thanks! So … which one do you have? =)
I am betting XBONE due to the controller comment … I am more familiar with it as well so it feels more natural to me, but I find that is one of those ‘what you know’ things.
But I love all of his points!
Personally I do have an Xbone, and have been an Xbox guy since Halo 2 or thereabouts. The main reason at the time was Xbox Live. To put it simply, it just worked. Playstation guys always cried about it costing money, but it also never went down and was very very well supported.
Now it is kind of a wash in that department. They are both pay services, and both have so many little outages it can be frustrating. These new systems seem to have some pretty big growing pains that have come with the package, even though the hardware is more computer-like then ever. I was not an early adopter last time though and I am sure there were hiccups then as well. Eventually I will get a PS4, but it probably wont be until Gran Turismo 7 as that is the only title I even own the PS3 that I bought over the holidays.