Playstation 4 v. XBone

The Game Room
1

This is two threads, really.

Thread 1: Fishing for help resolving XBox Live sign in issue I’ve been drinking XBox 360 Flavor Aid for about 3 years now and lately I’ve become quite frustrated. I’ve learned to take the mid-game disconnects (MW2) and aimbot cheaters in stride as I reckon every system has its qwerks. But, after 2 years XBox Live decided “MyNakedVillainny” was somehow inappropriate as a gamer tag and forced me to change it. It rejected my alternative “TiptoeFaggot” so I had to go with something completely banaal that really isn’t me. As soon as I was able to log on, the first gamertag I saw was moderately obscene but lacking in trigger words and I could only roll my eyes at the nannies in charge of 'Live. But at least they didn’t charge me for the name change. So that sucked. As of a week or so ago I have been unable to log in at all. Sort of. I try to sign in, I get prompted for my XBox Live email and password, I enter it, a box pops up that announces I’m in, and then another box pops up and tells me my email and/or password are wrong. When I get on the PC to access my XBox Live account, I have no trouble at all and all my efforts to troubleshoot have resulted in numerous password changes, new security codes needed, etc. And now 'Live is acting like someone is actively trying to hack my account. Of course, I can’t get any of the mooks on the phone or chat to work through the issue. I’m pissed off and ready to leave XBox Live. I’m not seeing how Playstation could be worse.
Thread 2: Opinions from people who’ve played Playstation AND Xbox 360 Which do you prefer and why? I’m with Xbox 360–can you talk me out of Playstation 4 as compared to XBox One? (based on PS3 and 360 experience, of course). I understand XBox can integrate itself with the rest of my home network, but I really don’t care much about that. 99% of the time my Xbox TV is used for gaming.

2

I believe the PS4 (and the PS3) can integrate with networks just as well. It’s just that they didn’t see any reason to put something that every machine does into their conference.

And I think someone is hacking your Xbox Live account.

3

You’re almost certainly not seeing aimbot cheaters on the 360. Also, yeah, it sounds like you’re getting targeted a bit there.

4

I own both a PS3 and an Xbox 360, and I vastly prefer the 360. That said, I can’t say how this will translate to the next generation. The reasons I dislike my PS3, such as the clunky controller, amateurish interfaces, and irritating installs and updates, all look to be fairly improved on the PS4.

It sounds like you’re mostly an online gamer. I’m offline 95% of the time. For online gaming, I think Xbox does have a better system (and will likely continue to do so), but, of course, both are going to be severely revamped.

5

I can’t imagine why…

It sounds that you haven’t changed the contact details somewhere important and they’re having conflicts. Talk to MS tech support - they might be able to track down where.

In regard to the PS4, the Sony interface often isn’t great - neither’s MS’, but in my opinion Sony’s is worse. Other than that, if you have a UPNP network they’ll both mesh in fairly well. If you use it for media, both sets of codecs are pretty poor, but they’ve got different holes in them - the PS3 will play one file the 360 won’t, then vice versa.

6

The PS3 interface is godawful. Of course, the new 360 one isn’t so hot either (really liked the one before the latest revision.

We try to avoid using the PS3 as anything other than a “put the disc in and push play” system because doing other stuff in it just feels like you fell through a timewarp into 2002 or something.

I concur that your issues sound like an actual “get them on the phone, because something is not right” issue.

7

Yeah, the PS interface is worse than xbox (both are still pretty poor though) - that said, I still prefer using my PS3.
I dont have any controller issue - to me, the xbox controller feels far too large (which is wierd as I have pretty large hands) - I guess its what you’re used to.
The thing that wins it for me though is the online service. I like having the choice to not pay and still play online, although I can’t forsee me not subscribing, since the free games you get on PSN are amazing.

As for trying to convince you to get an XBone - Why? For that matter, why get a ps4?
Wait 12 months first - there’s still games coming out for the existing consoles, wait a year and you’ll have more choice in games and have it way way cheaper.

8

davidklk has an excellent point.

If you actually looking for next gen console advice, my advice is: buy NEITHER console until AT LEAST this time next year. AT LEAST. Preferably more like holidays next year or LATER. There’s still tons of stuff coming out for the current gen, and there are almost no advantages to being an early adopter.

9

…But I want one NOOOOOOW…

I’m an early adopter with most tech, but for consoles there’s rarely any point until the first ‘big’ game that I generally want - and that hasn’t been announced yet because Bethesda didn’t say anything about Fallout 4 at E3. The big games that are yet to be released might have a port that interests me - Watch Dogs, for instance - but it’s going to be built around the old systems’ limitations.

Actually, that’s one reason not to get too het up over the fact that the PS4 specs are better than the XB1’s - just as in this generation the games are going to be almost identical to each other because they’re written to be multiplatform and therefore not to push either system to its limit.

10

I have both the 360 and the PS3. I mostly use the Xbox for online games and had been using the PS3 for netflix and what not. After that fiasco with the sony hack, I would more trust Microsoft with my CC. No network is really secure, but the totally amateuristic security set up they had was criminal, at least make the bad guys work for it.

Now I use a Roku for the netflix stuff, and the PS3 is gathering dust at the moment. Regards the new consoles, unless you have to get the very latest system now, Id wait a few months till after christmas, and we get the feral review of both systems.
But if not, then just pick one, if your not happy with it, I am sure you can probably move it and get almost all or a bit more money than you paid.

Declan

11

Surely there’s a time value of having a better product for a period of time.

While it’s true that there’s certainly an advantage for specifically coding for the capabilities of a system, there are plenty of things you can do to improve the gameplay without system-specific adjustments. Higher frame rates, higher resolution, better post processing effects that are basically add-on processes like FSAA, less input lag, lots of stuff like that.

The architectures are so similar that it would be relatively easy to design for the PS4’s extra capabilities then turn off a few non-essential features on the xbox version.

12

Indisputably. However there is an argument around games consoles specifically, which is that you may not have a better (more enjoyable) experience, even if the console itself is better, since it relies on external factors (which games are available) - made more complex because many games will be available on other formats too (e.g. PC)

At the end of the day it all comes down to what the user judges the experience to be worth, and either get it or wait for it to be down into the range they consider reasonable.
The trick is to try and ignore all the illusions put into your head by various marketing when determining its worth.

13

As for your XBox 360 issue, I had the same problem. It’s a corruption of your profile on the console. To fix it, you need to delete your profile from your XBox (have it delete the profile ONLY, not the data…so all your savegames and achievements will stay on the console). Then, after that’s deleted, redownload your profile from Xbox Live, and it’ll reinstall it on your console. You’ll have to go through a few security things, but after this is done, you shouldn’t have any log in troubles anymore.

14

For a while, I had both the Xbox and PS3.

The last game I bought for the Xbox was Skyrim, because Bethesda have issues with Playstation coding (and it turns out I was right, as there were lots of issues).

For cross-platform games, I went PS3, as I didn’t have to pay extra to play online. Some people would say that you get what you pay for regarding infrastructure, but I never had any issues (this was after the hack).

I then got PlayStation Plus, the premium online service for Playstation, and all I can say is wow.

First of all, your Playstation updates automatically, whereas before you were stuck waiting half an hour every time you turned it on. It allows cloud saving with all your games. Most importantly, you get discounts on the online store and a rolling selection of free games. Since November, I’ve got:

Sleeping Dogs
Just Cause 3
Quantum Conundrum
Bulletstorm
XCOM
Lord of the Rings: War of the North
Kingdoms of Amalur

And probably a few more smaller games which I can’t remember. You can basically make your money back on the initial purchase of PS+ within a month, depending on how many games tickle your fancy.

I traded in my 360 a few weeks ago, and will be picking up a PS4 at launch. If they continue their PS+ provision (and they’ve said that they will, as far as I know), I might not need to actually buy any games for it until 2014. I mean, I will, but I won’t need to.

ETA: Also, I like the menu system. And the various TV and LoveFilm apps work really well.

15

Totally on board here - i’ve been on it two months and got more gaming time out of it than out of paid for games - great ones too. I actually bought hitman for christmas for £40, then a few months later its free on PSN and i’m thinking: “Damn. i should have just bought a years subs instead of the game!”

16

PS+ has reduced the number of games I buy partly by making me paranoid that they’ll be free a month down the line.

I almost bought XCOM last month, and I’m glad I didn’t.

17

Not really in this case, if you think about it. You’re going to have that system for the rest of your life unless you choose to sell it, so what’s a year or so? Especially when it’s likely to be a year or so in which the objectively least good games for the system are released, barring one or two good release titles? (Let’s face it - the initial titles for a system always include a bunch that were rushed to have ready for launch, or which don’t utilize the hardware to its fullest because developers don’t know what they can “get away with” on the hardware.)

One presumes that you still have plenty of good games to play, because if you don’t, holy crap, where do you get all that free time? This is really the crux of it - are you so starved for good games that you will pay $500+ to play one or two that probably aren’t as good as the stuff that will be out next year?

18

It seems to depend on which console is more development-friendly. In the PS2/X-Box generation, the PS2 was much easier to build for (probably in no small part due to an earlier launch meaning devs were more in practice), so the PS2 became the standard base build and devs rarely upgraded for the X-Box’s better specs when they ported.

In the most recent generation, devs typically build for the 360 because (as I understand it) its architecture is easier to build to and then they port to the PS3 - which means that games rarely take advantage of the PS3’s better specs and that games often end up a bit janky on that platform (and Bethesda I’m looking straight at you, but Rockstar you’re next on the list).

I haven’t heard about the new generation, so I have no idea whether studios will be more likely to use the PS4 or XB1 as the ‘lead’ platform for development.

19

They’re almost exactly the same hardware, except the PS4 is better. They have the same architecture. They’re basically precisely HTPCs in a box, no weird/original console hardware at all, except I guess that GDDR5 isn’t used for main system memory on any PCs, but the architecture is pretty much the same.