Join us as we examine Sony’s next-gen PlayStation 4 and review the console’s capabilities: is it the perfect low-budget game system to be celebrated for years to come, or is it an unfinished and rushed product sorely lacking in performance?
Sony’s PlayStation redefines the realm of console gaming. With dazzling power optimized for high-def gaming and interactive sharing features, the console ushers in a new generation of flexibility and efficiency to bring a lasting impression on anyone who plays it.
While the system is remarkable in many ways, there are a few areas where it falls short — namely entertainment — but most of these fit in line with Sony’s focus with the console itself.
In this review, we delve into the PS4 and uncover its most noteworthy capabilities while weighing them against the console’s downfalls.
Killzone’s amazing atmospheres are best represented by Vektan City, which showcases the PS4′s raw power.
Games people play
The PS4 is first and foremost a console for games. It does have entertainment apps like Netflix and Hulu Plus, but as Sony’s Dominic Mallinson recently explained at AMD’s #APU13 conference, Sony wanted to make a game console first and an entertainment device second. “We stopped trying to make a product that was all things to all people,” he said, contrasting the PS4 to the all-things-entertainment focused Xbox One .
Powered by a heavily-customized AMD APU with 8GB of GDDR5 memory, the PS4 delivers memorable high-quality gaming experiences with every title — which is in no small part thanks to its range of higher-tier specs.
Full-HD graphics provides pristine clarity across a range of launch games, all of which showcase the PS4′s power and capabilities. Every game so far has looked remarkably crisp and clear, with minimal jaggies, and very little performance issues. Atmospheres, environments and especially character animations are all fluidly defined, underlining a new era of console gaming.
The PS4′s main user interface is made up of a row of tiles, featuring your last played games and a few fixed panes.
Refreshed UI
The console’s user interface doesn’t try to overwhelm you with tiles, blocks, and imagery. It’s sleek, responsive, efficient and emphasizes ease of use.
Paired in two main rows, the PS4′s main hub is comprised of a horizontal tile-set that is accessed by a press of the PS Button. The home display features panes of every last-played game in sequential order, all of which have dynamic drop-down interfaces.
Some of the more noteworthy panes on this row are the What’s New tab that features live status updates on what you and your friends do–everything from recent screenshots and Trophy unlocks to ratings, recent purchases and more.
Above the main hub is the maintenance row where users can manage everything from their PS profile to console settings like data migration and more. Here you can also view notifications, peruse the PS Store, and start up a party with a friend.
The What’s New tab features live Facebook-like status updates from your PSN friends, showing you what they’ve been up to–along with your recent activity.
Gamers can call up the homescreen at any time with the PS Button, even while in-game. Users won’t be able to view a simultaneous feed of gaming and video like the Xbox One’s Snap Mode, but the PS4 is quite flexible and offers seamless transitions.
You can, say, hit the PS Button while playing Assassin Creed IV‘s campaign and start up Netflix to watch a TV show. What happens to your game? It’s put in a “stasis” mode known as suspension while you’re in an app (like Netflix and Hulu). When you’re done watching your content, you can switch back to the exact second you left off at in-game, which is very flexible to say the least.
Now gamers don’t have to interrupt their playing session to quickly look something up on the web or randomly check out Hulu for the latest episode of a favorite show
While the PS4 has a variety of peripherals that interact with it via the PS App, the DualShock 4 is the chief controller of content on the system.
Next generation Dual Shock
The DualShock 4 is an excellent peripheral that is a perfect fit for any type of game. The size scale is a bit off-putting to some, but it functions incredibly well for shooters — which have always been the home turf of the Xbox controller.
Fitting well in your hands with a textured back, the DualShock 4 won’t go sliding out of your hands and is contoured for ergonomic design. It also has “floating” right and left triggers that are fantastically well-designed for shooters, as are the re-designed analog sticks which feature an inner ring for thumb stability.
The Dualshock 4′s also have a nice glow that radiates outward, and changes colors; when users die in some games, it’ll change to red, and back to green upon respawn.
The Share and Option buttons are welcomed additions as well, offering instant responsiveness from the console. These can be a bit hard to get to at times and it takes some getting used to. The heft and weight of the DS4 is well-balanced however it does seem a bit too fragile and breakable.
Touchpad capability isn’t a major part for many games — Killzone Shadow Fall is the exception with its rather liberal use — but hopefully Sony will allow us to scroll through menus using the touchpad at some point.
It also has a speaker within it which can be used for various audio settings — the audio logs inKillzone, for instance, can be heard coming through the speaker. Overall this seems like something Nintendo would do, and is an innovative little addition.
The PS4′s internal components, with the stock hard-drive centered above the fan unit.
Storage
Every PlayStation 4 comes with a 500GB hard drive. While that might sound like a good amount, it really isn’t so much when you’re dealing with games that range anywhere from 10-50GB a piece. As gamers are required to install all disc-based games onto their console, space is eaten up quite fast.
Not only that, but you’ll have to keep an eye on your capture data, managing it carefully to discard the stuff you don’t need. Every time you hit the Share button, the PS4 automatically records a video clip as well as a screenshot, which is a convenient function to be sure, but after a while you should always do some cleanup.
To help with this, Sony’s internal PS4 hard disk can be swapped out and replaced by another internal drive with more capacity. For data migration, gamers can toss game saves onto USB sticks for easy transfers. PS Plus members also get up to 1GB of auto backups of their data saves on the PlayStation Network, which can be downloaded at any time on any console as long as you’re signed in.
The PlayStation App can do many things like connect to a PS4 for second-screen/keyboard interaction, or messaging your PSN friends on the go.
A flexible console
An instance that really highlights the console’s flexibility is the PS App integration. Connecting to a PS4 using the app, you can use your smartphone or tablet as a second screen for in-game content. It also duals as a touch-screen keyboard, which is incredibly useful if you don’t own a USB keyboard (typing with the DualShock 4 is not at all fun).
Using the PS Camera affords for some extra levels of convenience with voice and gesture commands, similar to the Xbox One’s Kinect 2.0. While the camera isn’t as versatile as the Kinect, it does perform many of the same functions and is a blast in the pre-loaded Play Room game that freely lets players bring their imagination to live on-screen.
The PS Camera can be used for gesture and voice controls, as well as unique in-game content.
Gamers can also use facial recognition with the PS Camera, which signs them in automatically when they’re near the lens, and the device also doubles as a mic/cam combo for broadcasting.
Apart from licensed Sony products, other devices are compatible with the PS4 as well. This includes USB hubs, USB keyboards, mice (although the ones we hooked up registered with the console, they didn’t move the pointer at all) as well as a few Bluetooth versions of these devices.
We even tried plugging in a wired Xbox 360 controller in to see what would happen–I’m sure you could guess how that went.
As far as Remote Play with the PS Vita, we’ll be touching upon that in a later article.
Users can customize their Share Button settings to optimize it for easy screenshots or efficient video recording.
Sharing
Interactivity has been a new emphasis for Sony’s next-gen console, and is underlined with the new sharing features. At the touch of the Share button, gamers automatically create a simultaneous screenshot and video recording, both of which can be shared on Facebook and Twitter.
The ability to broadcast your gameplay in live-streams across UStream and Twitch.tv provides even more social functions, turning everyday gamers into gamestream gurus. Using the PS Camera and the bundled mono headset, streamers can interact with their audience which provides a staggering amount of potential for unique content.
Every night offers a new opportunity for streaming; gamers can watch other broadcasters across PSN playing a plethora of titles.
Players can capture every perfect moment at the touch of a button, snapping off those unforgettable screenshots or immortalizing an unbelievable conquest in a multiplayer match. The sheer level of freedom given to players is surprising, but it’s still irksome that gamers can’t copy over their capture screens/footage to a USB stick.
If you’re the type who likes watching more than broadcasting, the Live from PlayStation tab is for you. Here you can view a huge offering of live-streams from players across the globe, from high-octane multiplayer matches in Call of Duty: Ghosts to fun experiences with Knack or Resogun.
Each game has its own drop-down pane where players can check out their recent trophies and compare them against their friends accomplishments, as well as peruse add-ons.
The install waiting game
The PS4 boots quite fast and game installs are even quicker; a full 40GB+ install of Killzone Shadow Fall, for instance, took a handful of seconds.
The play-as-you-download feature is a bit finicky in its current state, though. Right now game downloads are split into two parts; a fragment and the main game.
The fragment is smaller and can be played once its finished, whereas the main game is always bigger. For the most part, it works, but sometimes games (like Contrast for example) will flood users with “this game is ready to install” notifications.
The PS4 has a slew of entertainment apps upon launch, including the subscription-based services seen here.
Entertainment: there’s an app for that
As for non-gaming entertainment, the PS4 offers a catalog of media streaming services like Hulu Plus, Netflix, Amazon Instant Video and more under the TV & Video pane.
There’s no home media streaming via DLNA on launch, and Audio CD’s/mp3 playback has been nixed. As expected, you can watch both Blu-ray and DVD movies which is pretty much standard. Media on external USB drives isn’t supported either–right now we’re pretty much limited to the aforementioned services along with Sony’s Music and Video Unlimited subscriptions.
The PS4′s web browser is functional, but is lacking in a few basic ways including a “locked” URL bar and no USB mouse or pointer support with the PS App.
But it’s not perfect
Sony has made a great console, but it isn’t a perfect console. While some of these errors may be corrected with subsequent patches, they are very noticeable and annoying. The PS4′s web browser has a few weak points, but overall is solid. Flash isn’t supported, but some sites that support HTML5 like YouTube work properly. Unfortunately users can’t use their smartphone to control the mouse pointer (as you can with Microsoft’s Smart Glass), but you can use a USB keyboard’s arrows to “snap” to the nearest link.
The main gripe I have with the PS4′s web browser is that the main window is separated from the URL and search bar. The latter two are “locked” apart from the content window; for example, you can’t drag the mouse pointer upwards to select the URL bar. Instead you have to hit Triangle, so if you hook up a USB keyboard to type, you’ll still have to use your controller to select the URL bar.
When we set up our PlayStation 4 for the first time, we ran into some minor troubles. Thankfully there wasn’t a Blue Light of Death, but we did have to download the Version 1.50 patch twice–navigate to Settings in the management row to get your updates there and everything is a-okay.
For many PS4 users, these errors are frequently interrupting their gameplay.
Secondly our PS4 froze while updating Warframe, but this is a common problem that many people faced. Other than those minor situations, we didn’t have any technical difficulties.
Additionally sometimes you’ll do certain things–like use the cross-menus too fast or scroll through your screenshots in a certain way–and you’ll be met with a Report Problem screen telling you “an error has occurred in the system software”.
Unfortunately many users will get in the habit of meeting this when running Battlefield 4, even if you have yet to download the game’s most recent update.
Sometimes Sony seems to overuse the Options button. While it is logical to get additional settings for any given pane one should press Options, but often the same functions offered by the mini-panel can just be assigned to any of the un-used face buttons.
To make the best of your next-gen console, you’ll need a decent internet connection. Broadcasting live streams will be bandwidth hungry, ditto for downloading Killzone’s titanic 50GB install size.
Even the small things add up quite fast, especially when you’re capturing in 720p HD.
The stock HDD is a bit small, as well, considering once you install Killzone you’ve already used up a tenth of your disk space off the bat. Above is an example scenario that shows all how much space is left when Knack, Assassin’s Creed IV, Battlefield 4, Killzone: Shadow Fall and all of the free-to-play PSN games are installed (not to mention a ton of screens/video captures).
Certain things aren’t so straightforward, either. If you’re like me and you crossed over from Microsoft’s Xbox 360 to Sony’s PS4, then the PS architecture is foreign territory. Learning to understand the ins and outs of the interfaces can be tedious at times, but its just a matter of checking over the menus and seeing what’s what.
Furthermore there is a limited selection of games at this point. PS Plus subscribers can pick up games like Resogun and Contrast for free, whereas non PS Plus gamers can pick up others likeBlacklight Retribution, Warframe, and DC Universe Online. Even with the retail selection, the PS4 launch games are shooter-centric, and the selection lacks some of the genres that defined the PS brand including J-RPG’s.
Conclusion: a flawed but impressive piece of hardware
Overall Sony’s PlayStation 4 is an impressive piece of hardware that pays for itself many times over with its performance. It’s svelte sable angles compliment its functionality quite well, making it a centerpiece for any living room.
The PS4 is fast, efficient, and provides a multitude of potential for amazing gaming experiences–and best of all it bridges the gap from the standard PSN multiplayer to the social sphere, offering a new age of interactivity. There are a few minor things that we don’t like, but these seem paltry when faced with the incredible fidelity of the graphics or its sharing functions.
Sony’s next-gen console emits a kind of unique atmospheric aura that encapsulates the evolved PlayStation brand, and has a certain mystique to it. While using the console–even just browsing through the menus–the soothing otherworldly music transports you to another realm, a realm where anything is possible.
Battlefield 4′s first campaign mission sets the tone for the rest of the game, and adequately portrays the PS4′s impressive visuals.
This feeling is amplified many times over when you jump into any launch game or join your friends for some 64-player Battlefield 4 matches on the PlayStation Network (when they become available again, of course).
It its current state, the PS4 is the framework for something truly amazing farther down the line. While it does feel a bit incomplete due to its many errors and hardships (think Blue Line of Death), it will continue to be made even better as it evolves under Sony’s meticulous care.
It doesn’t offer the entertainment experiences that the Xbox One does, but unless you’re particular about that sort of thing, the PS4 should do everything you’d want in a gaming console.
Pros
+ Blazing fast installs
+ Amazing graphics
+ Optimized for gaming
+ DualShock 4 controller
+ Sharing/broadcasting functions
+ Streamlined UI
+ Remote Play functionality
+ What’s New tab
+ Connecting via PS App
+ PS Plus isn’t required for many features
+ Swappable hard-disks
+ Amazing graphics
+ Optimized for gaming
+ DualShock 4 controller
+ Sharing/broadcasting functions
+ Streamlined UI
+ Remote Play functionality
+ What’s New tab
+ Connecting via PS App
+ PS Plus isn’t required for many features
+ Swappable hard-disks
Cons
- Glitches & Errors
- Blue Light of Death
- Fixed URL bar in web browser
- Can be an awkward transition from non-PS players
- Somewhat limited selection of games
- Video playback controls
- Limited native hard disk
- Blue Light of Death
- Fixed URL bar in web browser
- Can be an awkward transition from non-PS players
- Somewhat limited selection of games
- Video playback controls
- Limited native hard disk
Source :- vr-zone
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