Your Hopes Are Only There to Be Crushed | A Personal Experience with The PlayStation 4
On the morning of Christmas 2015, there was no other present I was looking forward to more than Sony’s PlayStation 4. Hearing about its sleek physical texture and smooth user interface
just gave me goosebumps and made me feel a rush of excitement. I could not wait to open it up.
After opening up all of my other presents, I opened up the one that I had been saving all along. I knew this had to be it. I unwrapped it slowly and saw a rush of blue appear over the box. In ecstasy, I unwrapped the rest of it as fast as I could and saw the legendary video game
protagonist, Nathan Drake, appear on the cover with “The Nathan Drake Collection” titled over him. Knowing that this bundle came with all three remastered Uncharted games, each being
game of the year winners, I was extremely excited to try them out for the first time. I brought the box up to my room carefully and moved my Xbox One aside to make room for my “new favorite console”.
Opening up the box was catastrophically underwhelming. First came out the game. I unwrapped it to take a look at what it came with and all I found was a disc with the Uncharted 4 beta code which had already expired. Somewhat disappointed but still satisfied, I moved on to the controller. Being an Xbox gamer, I was used to proper controllers actually fitting the shape of your hand. I was horrified when I felt the PlayStation 4 controller for the first time. I almost
called Sony to make sure they had not given me a PlayStation 3 controller. But no, it was not a PlayStation 3 controller, it was far worse. The options and share buttons were horrifically small
and I could not comprehend how the human hand could possibly interact with them in the middle of an intense game like Call of Duty. Shocked, I messed around with the triggers and to my dismay, they were still just as bad as its predecessor’s. My satisfaction faded away within
minutes. I finally moved on to the console itself. When I unwrapped it, the smell of Styrofoam
gave it a brand new feeling. I really loved the look of the console until I compared it to a KitKat and I was overwhelmed with disappointment. “Well, as long as it does its job I suppose” I said
to myself. I looked all over the rest of the box but I could not seem to find anything else except
for 3 cables. The Mic, which I had initially thought was a cable, was so puny and cheaply made that I nearly threw it out. Disappointment was all that I was left with yet again. I thought to myself, playing the console must certainly be better.
After setting up the console and my account, I was pretty excited to check out the user interface and how it could step up its predecessor’s. From what I had heard, it was far superior to the
Xbox One’s new Windows 10 user interface (which I thought was incredible) and a lot quicker. Finding it to be utterly basic, bland, and a complete carbon copy of the ps3’s appalling layout, I grew bored of it and sick and tired of the noise that it made every time I would scroll by
something. To my amazement, I thought it had to be a glitch. I nearly called Sony yet again, but I realized that it would be hard to communicate with employees who were not familiar with
English. Moving on to the PlayStation Store, I found that there was a lack of deals, and Sony had completely failed to divide to the PlayStation 3 games from the PlayStation 4’s. How could they expect a child to decipher between picking up a PlayStation 4 game and a PlayStation 3
game? Shocked, I moved on to get myself a PlayStation plus membership. I read that the first 7 days were free and I instantly sought after this deal. To my amazement, Sony asked for my credit card information for a FREE trial. This left me at a loss for words and I wondered to myself how Sony could let children get the trial. Constantly blowing me away with
disappointment, I discovered something called PlayStation Now, a program launched by Sony in response to Microsoft’s critically acclaimed backwards compatibility feature. Expecting the
same amazing games and smoothness that came from the Xbox One, nothing excited me more
than to play some of my favorite games such as Far Cry 3, Assassins Creeds II, and {insert game, sorry I couldn’t think of a third one} on the PlayStation 4. I discovered that there was a
free trial for PlayStation now, but remembering that free did not actually mean free for PlayStation Plus, I had my doubts. Nevertheless, I preceded to try it out. Blown away yet again, they had asked me for my credit card information for a FREE trial. Enraged and utterly disappointed, I attempted to insert Uncharted the Nathan Drake Collection angrily. To my amazement, I had almost broken the game as I missed the PlayStation’s CD tray because of its horrific placement. Lifting the console up, I looked for the CD tray and found that it was beneath the excruciatingly basic power on button. I put in the disc and began my play through.
I had always heard PlayStation players boast about their incredible exclusives. I will admit that I did enjoy the Uncharted series for the short 10 hours that they actually were. Beating them, I
could not justify how they were worth 60 dollars for I barely got a days’ worth in playing all of
them combined. Because of this, I concluded that the Sony gamers pride in their exclusives were really not all that great compared to Xbox exclusives such as Halo that can last a lifetime. After
my Christmas break, I found that I had nothing left to play on the PlayStation 4. I instantly went back to my Xbox One to play a series of multiplayer games (which all lasted longer than all of
the Uncharted games combined). I decided to make use of my dust collector (ps4) once again by
purchasing the critically acclaimed, The Last of Us Remastered. I began my play through.. so I
thought. The game was so dark that I couldn’t tell if I was actually playing it or not. The
storyline was amazing, it was like watching a movie but often times I felt completely disengaged from the gameplay and I felt like I was using my PlayStation as a DVD player more than a
console. Beating the game in a very short time period, just like Uncharted made me wonder why all of these PlayStation gamers brave about their hour long exclusives. I felt as if my purchase
was a complete waste of money and I was left with no option but to replay the games I had. I replayed Uncharted 4 first and I found myself utterly bored of the predictable story and
gameplay. I just couldn’t understand how someone can justify a 60-dollar purchase by replaying the game. It’s as almost as if I had bought a movie for 60 dollars. I went on to replay many of
my other exclusives, but found the same predictable boredom as I began memorizing every line and every scenes outcome. I decided that not once had I ever enjoyed myself on the PlayStation 4, and I began to doubt my purchases.
Throughout my overly repetitive play through, I decided to make use of the recording feature and streaming options made available to me. On the Xbox One, the recording feature is instant and seamless for those who are playing a highly paced game and takes less than a second and
minimal effort to execute. On the PlayStation 4, however, I was once again blown away when
the share option had taken me out of my game and brought me to a completely separate screen in the most inconvenient mannerism possible. “How could anyone do this while playing a fast paced game?!?!” I said to myself. After completely disengaging me from my game, I decided to go through with it and record my clip. I did not know where my recorded clip went after I
recorded it as it did not give me the same option as it does on the Xbox One to instantly view it after recording. I figured out that I would have to go back to the terrible home screen to find my clip and view it there (keep in mind I am still in a game). By now I would have been kicked if I was on Call of Duty Black Ops 3. After viewing my clip, I was disappointed by the lack of
social features/options I had at my disposal like I did on the Xbox One. I could not like, share,
or comment on my clips or my friends clips like I could on the Xbox One. As a matter of fact, I
couldn’t even see my friend’s clips. I decided to try out the streaming feature on the PlayStation so that my friends on Xbox could see what I was replaying. Flabbergasted by the fact that the stream cut off nearly half of my game with a broad and overly obvious sidebar tab to let me
know that I was streaming (unlike the Xbox One where you get the entire game to appear on
your screen), I decided to get off of my console. The next time I went on, I was bombarded by updates that had left me in utter disappointment. I was once again, blown away by the minimal effort Sony had put into their console.
Utterly sick and tired of the plain blue PlayStation theme that I had since day one of my purchase, I decided to look for some new themes on the PlayStation store. To my dismay, I went under the themes tab under the PlayStation Store only to be suppressed with themes that costed several dollars. “Are you kidding me??” I thought to myself. To this day, I could not believe that the “superior”’ console, charged me for themes. I finally found the free themes tab which for whatever reason they hid, and was disgusted with my options. The Xbox One’s free themes were copious and could be found anywhere on the store. I gave up and went to my trophies and was excited to put some of my best trophies as my background for the PlayStation 4. Once again, blown away by Sony’s minimal effort, I discovered that unlike the Xbox One, you could not in fact, put a trophy as your background on the PlayStation 4. Tempted to sell the console, I attempted to find every reason I could to keep it. So, I looked for one of the only things the Sony gamers braved about, upcoming exclusives! I went to the PlayStation Store to check them out. Finally finding the exclusives, I searched for the option that I had on the Xbox One, the ability to pin your games to the home page. By now, I was completely unsurprised by the fact that there was none. As a result, I would have to go all the way into the PlayStation store to view the games I wanted to buy. I instantly attempted to turn my console off, but for some reason the disc came out. I realized that the power button was identical to the eject button in the same way that the PlayStation 3 is identical to the PlayStation 4. I unplugged the console and went to bed once again, blown away by Sony’s incompetence and minimal effort.
By this time, I was playing quite a bit of Xbox and had the crave to replay Uncharted 4 again. I went back on the console and started my replay. After only being an hour into my play through, the controller almost died, and the two-inch-long cord didn’t help. I could not understand why
they gave me a two-inch-long cord considering the fact that 99 percent of their player base plays in their living room but nonetheless I plugged in the cheaply made cord into my controller to
charge. Sickened by this console and its cheap accessories, I decided to turn the controller off and go back to my good old Xbox. I struggled to find the options to turn off the controller as I
am used to just holding down the home button on the Xbox one controller and turning it off within a matter of seconds. When I finally figured it out, I realized that to turn off the
PlayStation controller, I would have to go through a series of at least three separate screens to do so. Once again blown away by Sony’s incompetence and effort, I was ready to play Xbox for eternity.
Adding a few friends from school on my PlayStation I wanted to try their party system and the cheaply made Mic. I started up a party and was shocked by the appalling features before starting a party such as naming it and adjusting a few settings. This took far too long to do as I am used
to the snappiness of the Xbox One. Nonetheless, I decided to invite a few friends and found that
the invite was not in messages. Now for some reason my friends didn’t join and I texted them to do so by the regurgitated messaging system that the PlayStation 4 took from its appalling
predecessor which lost that console war by a long run. I was met with the answer, “I didn’t get
your notification”. Shocked, I checked myself to see if this was true and they were not lying. I didn’t get their notifications and they didn’t get mine. I figured out that I had to go to the
settings myself to turn them on manually which should not be required of me on a next
generation console. On the Xbox One, I get notifications for nearly everything, so I am never left blindsided. I then had to explain to my friends to turn on their notifications after they joined my
party. While explaining, I heard a giant echo in the background which I was completely not used to coming from the Xbox One. I had to abandon the party and resort to Microsoft’s incredible application called skype. That was the last time I used the party feature on the PlayStation 4. Once again, I was blown away by Sony’s lack of effort, but I was totally unsurprised by it this time. New to PlayStation’s online service (from which I had heard was appalling due to outages and several other instances), I was actually excited to try Uncharted 4 online. As soon as I got on, I was appalled by the fact that I had to get through a training course prior to playing with others. This had never happened on Xbox, but I am not surprised that PlayStation gamers have to get through these training courses as they are much less skillful than Xbox players as many of them only play once a week in their living rooms. After completing the courses, I finally got into a game online only to be greeted by horrific hit detection, overuse of physics (like the rope), and a horrific health system. All of this was accompanied by a terrible online service which contributed nothing but lag and anger. Once again, I was blown away by Sony’s lack of effort and I decided to resort to one of my favorite games, Fallout 4.
I beat Fallout 4 in full completion and I was sick of replaying games so I was desperate for new features to add flavor to the game again. I found out that mods had come out on consoles and I
wanted to try them on my PlayStation. As soon as I got on, I could not find the mods feature like I could on Xbox and was met with the sad realization that mods had been delayed due to the
PlayStation’s inferior power. “Oh well” I thought to myself. “This wouldn’t be the first time PlayStation delayed something I was looking forward to.” I went back on my Xbox One and enjoyed the mods that it could well handle and streamed it to my laptop so I could multitask in watching TV and playing the game at the same time. I wondered if PlayStation would ever figure out how to do something as incredible as my Xbox One.
Fellow reader, by now I hope that you have discovered what the PlayStation 4 really is. It is not the most powerful console in the world. In fact, I would argue that it is not even a next
generation console as the Xbox 360 beats it by a landslide. I do not make this article to hate/bash on the PlayStation, but to tell the truth in my investment. I have now sold my PlayStation 4 and
couldn’t be happier with that weight off my chest. Many of these people that are bragging about
the PlayStation have never owned or played the Xbox One and are trying to justify their purchase by simply replaying their 10 hour long exclusives and studying the graphics intensely. To the PC world out there, I completely agree with you when you say PC Master Race because you are comparing your PC to the PS4, a console that can barely compete with the original Xbox. We must not be brainwashed like these so called gamers, because gamers do not care about how a game can run on graphics that are barely noticeable to the human eye. To my fellow Sony gamers, if you are mad at this article I only ask you to argue against me, but do so logically. By that I mean, do so without mentioning three things. 1. Graphics 2. FPS 3. Exclusives. I hope this article has helped you realize the travesty you have purchased and that these points you may argue are irrelevant to the greatness of the Xbox One. Now if you will, I would like to conclude this article by stating that I will now enjoy playing Fallout 4 mods and talking to my friends with an online service that is actually worth it.
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