By Jeremy Hannaford (Contributor) – Email
Print Edition: November 20, 2013
PlayStation 4 is now out, with Xbox One following on November 22.
Many people will flock to stores to purchase these new home consoles. Judging from pre-order numbers and general reaction on internet forums, it seems Sony’s PS4 will fly off the shelves compared to Microsoft’s controversial Xbox One.
Debate aside, one thing is for sure: I’m not getting one.
At least not yet.
If life has taught us anything when it comes to gaming or hardware, the best tester is the regular consumer. QA departments and play testers can find a majority of issues, one can never fully prepare for what the public will discover. This is why some big online multiplayer games like Battlefield or Halo have beta testing, where a preliminary version of the game is sent out to a small section of regular gamers. The data from the small majority who actually send good criticism (rather than just gloat about playing the game before its release date) can help improve the game. How hard can it be run before it crashes? How long can it go before issues begin to break the game? A lot of issues can be unearthed by the larger sample size of beta.
So when I say I’m not getting a new console on day one, I say it because I learned my lesson hard the last time. When the PS3 and Xbox 360 came out in 2005 and 2006, they were both full of issues. Xbox 360 had issues where it melted or scratched discs when the system was standing up as displayed in advertisements. PS3 had an absurdly high launch price of $599, and had very few interesting games for months after its release. The competition between the two was badly handled by both corporations and led to both systems being released before heavy testing (the 360 especially) could work out all the kinks.
There is also the issue of which console to choose. While most people were right to go with PS4 after Microsoft announced its controversial no-used-games-allowed feature and must-always-be-online component, the tables have become level over time. After Microsoft saw the rapid decline in pre-orders compared to PS4 and garnered a lot of hate from the internet, they retracted those features of the system. Now both boxes are very similar in terms of hardware and capability.
But since Xbox One has undergone so many changes within the last four months, it is impossible to say there will not be any “issues” with the system. The notorious “Red Ring of Death” may re-emerge to plague Microsoft gamers with broken launch systems. This is why Xbox One will have a 500MB day one patch to prevent this from happening – but even that isn’t a complete guarantee. Along with PS4 having a similar 308MB day one patch as well, these systems are being pushed before they can be perfected. That is the main reason why I am not getting a console on launch day.
I’m going to wait and see how things play out. Early reviews of PS4 launch titles have been average, which is to be expected. What I will regret is not getting to play games like Battlefield 4 or Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag on these new systems. It is obvious that they are chugging along on the current gen and would flourish on the more powerful hardware. But I want to be safe with my money. I want to weigh my options. I will most likely purchase my new system, whichever it is, between late March and May. I am waiting for the second wave of shipped systems so the bugs from the launch ones will be fixed.
With horrible stories of launch day acts of aggression like robberies or fights over systems which have happened for both the 360 and PS3 launches, I just feel safer waiting. I trust people will act accordingly this year, but you cannot account for everyone. For anyone who wants another example, remember how hard it was to get a Nintendo Wii after it came out? While I am not encouraging others to follow this route, which I doubt many will, I am saying as a gamer who has learned from the past: be patient and wait it out.
