Should You Buy An Xbox One Or PS4
Many readers already have their console, or have already answered this question with a resounding yes. For anyone without that commitment, conviction, or large pile of easily accessible cash, the answer is a likely no.
Consoles rarely hit the market fully-formed, and these two machines are no exception. PS4 is a slick little machine, but it just isn’t launching with enough exclusive software to justify making the leap — you’ve only got four games that you can’t play anywhere else, and in my estimation, only one of those is any good. Even a more generous appraisal doesn’t spell $400+ worth of gaming excitement.
The Xbox One has a deeper and more enjoyable software bench, but you’ll still burn through it fairly quickly, and it’s nowhere near what it’s going to look like once some third-party developers start churning out games. On top of that, the general consensus is that the “king of the entertainment center” functionality shows a lot of promise, but isn’t quite fully-formed yet.
Add into that the uncommon, but still present specter of potential hardware problems — faulty disc drives for the Xbox One, screwy HDMI ports for the PS4, and you’ve got a compelling argument to just wait and see how this new machines develop over the course of 2014.
The important thing to remember is that these consoles have little place to go but up. For Microsoft and Sony, there’s actually a powerful incentive to avoid launching with any of their top-flight exclusives. The hardest of the hardcore gamers were sure to gobble up any and all available machines whether they could do anything with them or not, and so the companies can reserve their Halos and their Uncharteds for later, when fanboys have been placated and its time to start attracting a mass market.
Both the Xbox One and PS4 have moved 1 million+ units already, with many more PS4s to come in the international release and many more of both throughout December. This means that the AAA publishers of the world have more than enough reason to get churning out as many titles as they can, and that’s great news for these machines. Next Christmas season we’ll probably have two machines with a wealth of hardware and software problems ironed out, as well as a deep suite of new releases that can only be experienced on new tech. There might even be a price drop.
If you want to see why you might want these consoles, here are my pre-release lists. There’s every reason to wait on what are bound to be two great consoles geared toward two slightly different gamer audiences, but not many compelling reasons to brave hardware shortages and pick one up now. Get a Wii U, build a PC, or just be patient.
TL;DR: No.
Update: To clarify a little bit: if you must have one of these consoles right now, I’d go with the Xbox One based on what you can do with it today. There are more, better games, and a wider array non-gaming applications. The PS$4 just doesn’t look like it will have the games to make it worthwhile until next holiday season. But smart money is on waiting, whichever console you prefer.
Forbes
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