At the time of writing, my PlayStation 4 is sitting in some warehouse in this city. It actually arrived on Saturday but UPS is waiting to deliver it to me on Monday. That’s not too bad considering Amazon.ca started shipping on launch day.
Despite the delays on my personal console, I was still able to participate in the launch day festivities. My brother was able to pick his console up on launch day morning without any fuss.
Installation and setup of the console went without a hitch. I asked my brother not to use the included HDMI cable after hearing some the issues that cropped up because of it. I don’t know if it’s actually the cause but better safe than sorry, right?
There have been a number of reported issues in threads like this but fortunately my brother’s unit is flawless thus far. We don’t know how widespread those issues are and whether the element of Twitter is distorting the magnitude of these issues but there are reports out there. I don’t think we’ll get a clear picture until a year or so after launch. With over 1 million units sold in North America and the anticipation surrounding a new platform launch, there will be issues and the people who have those issues will be vocal.
Having used a working console for the past few days, I believe Sony delivered on their promises. There were expected PlayStation Network outages on launch day and there are some peculiar oversights in the operating system (where’s the “Download List” and the ability to see which disc is inside the console?) but overall, I’m very pleased with it.
Everything on this console is quick, snappy and convenient. All those little pauses and loads that were in the PlayStation 3’s XMB are gone or reduced to practically nothing. Background installs are nice but thanks to the quicker Blu-ray drive, those 30+GB installs are completing faster as well.
I haven’t spent much time with the controller but I’ve liked what I’ve experienced thus far. I played a bit of Resogun and it works very well with that. I really like the grippy texture of the sticks. I would like to play some first person shooters before I make any proclamations though.
I haven’t “shared” anything yet but I have checked in on some Twitch streams from random users though. I was curious about NBA2K14 and decided to find a stream and watch some random user play and talk about the game. The feature worked as advertised. I don’t foresee myself streaming and and chatting it up with viewers but I would like to make some YouTube worthy clips. Unfortunately outputting to Facebook is the only option right now.
As for games? It’s far too early to say anything other than Killzone: Shadow Fall, Battlefield 4 and Call of Duty: Ghosts all look amazing. Some are more impressive than others but the increase in resolution alone makes a significant difference on the big screen.
So far so good for Sony. I hope the console hardware issues remain reasonable and I hope they continue to evolve their operating system in a rapid manner. Continued momentum is important and I hope they capitalize on their early successes.
Even though I’m not picking up an Xbox One, I am looking forward to its launch as well. I hope the Xbox One comes in competitive because that’s what we need in this industry. Sony wouldn’t have been so successful with the PlayStation 4 without Microsoft’s efforts with the Xbox 360. I hope they deliver on their promises. For the sake of NeoGAF’s servers, I sincerely do.
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I’ve been meaning to start BioShock: Infinite’s “Burial at Sea” episode one but I was sidetracked with Rayman: Origins’ Platinum Trophy run. What a great game that is. I was tempted to pick up Rayman: Legends on Steam for $20 but I didn’t want to burn out. Those are dense games and too much of a good thing can still mar an experience.
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