Topic: The PlayStation Fan Thread

More like the slim doesn't look much smaller...

@CanisWolfred Going by the dimensions on the Sony website, the PlayStation 4 slim is actually 30% slimmer than the original model. They blew the roof off of the top of it!

@BiasedSonyFan Also PC gaming has some extra kinks and quirks that some find obnoxious to deal with. It's not even just the hardware anymore, either...

PC is always the best choice if you want superior performance and control options. I own my PS4 exclusively for exclusives (the day I can play games like Gravity Rush 2 and Persona 5 on my PC is the day I abandon Sony consoles entirely).

@BiasedSonyFan - I don't know how to say this quickly and suscinctly, and I refuse to go on a long a long rant about it, but: Computers are a pain in the butt. I don't know if that's just me. Maybe you've never encountered compatibility issues? Maybe you've never had a cheap part break on you? Maybe you've never had to spend hours out of your day just trying to get a game to run properly? Maybe you've always known, or at least properly researched all of the dozens, if not hundreds of settings that you can tweak in order to get the best performance possible? Maybe you don't mind having to rebind all the keys just so your hand doesn't cramp up when you try to play, since you can't use the controller you want without having to download an out-of-date 3rd party program that might be filled with malware from Yugoslavia? Maybe you've never bought a game during a Steam sale, only to discover that you already bought the game from a more obscure online retailer 2 years prior? Maybe you've never had to rummage through support forums in order to figure out why your game always crashes, only to discover that the dev abandoned the game years ago, and now you have to personally modify the game files just so your $30+ doesn't go to waste? Or maybe you've never had to resort to downloading fan-patches to fix a similar issue, only to screw up the installation and completely ruin your game, in such a way that even Steam won't run it anymore?

Maybe every game you've gotten runs perfectly out of the box at max settings, and always comes from the same reliable source?...actually, now that I think about it, I guess I've had that experience, too! Yeah, I think it was every time I play games on consoles!

@Peek-a-boo yeah most of the size decrease is in the thickness. I plan to get one myself.

i really dont want to insult you but that's just plain stupid and not the fault of "PC-gaming".

you can get a proper pre-built gaming pc that can play current gen games in 1080p 60fps for as much as one of the current gen consoles. most games nowadays already have controller support. i play elder scrolls online on my pc with the 360 controller and it even has the controller layout for the menus!

btt:
ps4 pro...huh? well im not interested
wont buy a console in this confusing and lame generation. just hope the NX can show something refreshing. consoles live and die with their exclusives. this gen is nothing but a disappointment in that regard in my opinion

@BiasedSonyFan LOL The PC I built in 2011 was roughly the equivalent of a PS4 in terms of power. The one I had built last year completely smokes the PS4 and PS4 Pro in every way. We've gotten to the point where it's very easy to get way more power out of a PC for a good deal less than $1000.

@CanisWolfred I think you're really overstating the problems of PC. I play primarily on PC and, quite honestly, most of my games run perfectly once I download them. You really don't need to obsess about which settings to mess with, as most games come with a consumer friendly "low/medium/high/ultra" set of preconfigured graphics options. As for controllers, you could always get ones that are easier to use. Xbox 360/Bone controllers pretty much work right away with every naturally controller-compatible game. Steam controller can be painlessly optimized for pretty much any kind of game on PC.

Is there a little more work involved in gaming on PC? Probably. I think it's a fair trade considering you're not tied to a box running sub-standard tech and exactly one control option, though.

EDIT: Of course, if you prefer consoles, there's nothing wrong with that. I just wanted to share my experience as a primarily PC gamer.

tbh i trust sony and indies to make ps4 games that run competently on ps4.

New PlayStation slim bundles for Canada ($379) and the US ($299):

And for Europe and the UK:

Both consoles are 1TB as opposed to the standard 500GB.

The Call of Duty bundle is rumoured to be £349, bearing in mind that buying the 'Infinite Warfare Legacy Edition' separately is £80.

There's no price for the Watch_Dogs 2 bundle, which includes a copy of the first game.

I look at that Call of Duty: Infinity Warfare bundle and think, 'I can buy the PlayStation 4 Pro instead'!

I believe that Sony has deliberately done this, in hope that the whole 'pay a little bit more (for better)' mentally lingers through the minds of potential customers.

On another subject altogether, Mission 10 on Gravity Rush nearly had me quitting the game for good, where Dusty ate some 'bad food' thus momentarily taking away your powers.

Who thought that that was a good idea? It was not fun at all...

@Peek-a-boo Yeah, that's a weird chapter. Definitely ramps up the difficulty if you're used to using your powers all the time.

See, that's the kind of price that stops me from playing games on a PC. I have never paid more than £299/$349 for a console.

I also prefer consoles for the whole sit down and play factor, especially when I have my friends over sitting in the same room as me.

I cannot see how you can have those kind of social experiences on my sofa that I have had with both my Wii U and PlayStation 4. I am sure there is a way, but I cannot envision that it would be cheap or convenience.

Turning the console on with my pad and pressing 'X' to start the game is my idea of gaming, not playing around with sliders until my computer is happy with the settings I have adjusted them to.

Everybody is different!

Fair enough. The entry price for PC gaming is higher, although you get way more bang for your buck and end up paying a lot less overall given the fact that PC games tend to drop significantly more in price and there are no obligatory subscription systems needed for multiplayer or cloud saves.

I never really got the "gaming on a sofa" thing. Why does everybody online always say this? Are they shipping out free sofas with new consoles or something? Most people I know, including myself, sit in chairs when playing games.

I actually have a much easier time with social gaming on PC than PS4. See, I have a variety of controllers I can get to work on PC, so if I want to play with people, it's easy to dig out an old controller and use it when I'm playing a game. Consoles require a specific type of controller when playing, though, and I don't want to shell out for another DS4, for example, just to be able to play with other people once in a while, so I end up never engaging in social gaming on my PS4.

Wii U is an exception. All sorts of controllers work with a lot of its games, so I never have to worry about not having enough controllers.

Also, like I told @CanisWolfred, you don't really need to worry about adjusting settings beyond "low/medium/high" these days unless you're super-anal about customizing your experience. I haven't messed with a setting for a PC game in years.

PS: To be clear, I don't care if people prefer consoles over PCs. That's a personal choice and none of my business. What bugs me is console gamers acting like PC gaming is this gigantic hassle when it really isn't.

Currently playing the Witcher 3..

I decided up front to not bother with Gwent and just play the game itself, as I really want to play other games this year as well.. Then I started my first Gwent match.. I got a new card and a notification ''Collect them all''.. Well, I know how this is going to end..

@Ralizah @ThatOtherGuy - I was specifically stating problems I've had playing games on PCs over the years. I'm not "overstating" anything. If you guys have never encountered issues playing games on your PCs, then fine. It's certainly not every game where I have these kinds of problems, either, but that's more problems then I've ever had to put up with on consoles. The most I've had to deal with there were some buggy game, or ones that would require cleaning before they would play properly. And even in those cases, I have a tendancy to just get a refund, unless it was something I knew I had to play right away. It just ticks me off how even casual PC gamers forget the things that Console gamers take for granted, and act like money is the only barrier, when "time" is a far more precious currency.

@CanisWolfred I certainly wouldn't say I've "never encountered issues" on PC. I've encountered issues on every platform I've ever owned. One thing I wanted to point out is that PC gaming has become much more user friendly over the years as services have become more accessible and mainstream and obnoxious things like GFWL have become relics of the past (there's still paranoia about things like Denuvo and such, of course, but it's hard to take that kind of thing seriously). You used to have to mess around with invasive DRM, CD-Keys, and other annoyances that kept you from just enjoying your games. And it's certainly not perfect now, as certain games do still launch broken on PC. Then again, so do certain console games.

I'm not trying to sell you on PC or disqualify your experiences, it just sounds to me like you're judging modern PC gaming based on annoyances that have largely been, if not erased, at least extremely minimized. If it's not your thing and you don't want to bother with it, then that's perfectly okay, but I don't want people to come away with the impression that PC gaming today is still some big hassle when it really isn't anymore.

All things being equal, the line between PC and console gaming has blurred as PC gaming services become more convenient and consoles become complex enough that they shift away from the plug-and-play appeal of previous generations. If I'm being honest, this is a big reason I'm still largely an enthusiast of retro hardware: I never have to worry about apply patches or updates to my PS1 or Gamecube games. I just pop them in and go from there.

EDIT: Of course, if you go outside of the prescribed boundaries of what services like GOG or Steam provide, things can, of course, become hairy. As you pointed out, something like input mapper is still a bit of an inconvenience when you want to use a DS3 or DS4, and I recently had to run the executable for a certain VN through a hex editor to get it to run on Windows 8.1.

@Ralizah Yeah, I don't just use Steam, because between Early Access/Greenlight bullcrap and the fact that I'd rather get cross-platform stuff on my home consoles, I generally only play on PC what's only available to me on PCs. Needless to say, that's lead to some problems right there. Even GoG's stuff can be obnoxious simply because they're old games. I was looking at one game that they put on their service 2 years ago, and apparently when it was released, it was unplayable ( wanna say it was some kind of adventure game), and I could not, for the life of me figure out if it was ever fixed, because most of the reviews were either old, or incoherent, and I gave up trying to search through their support forum, I wasn't that interested in it. I also have indie games I've gotten through Green Man Gaming, Humble Bundle, Bundlestars, and Indiegala. Not to mention adandonware, weird Japanese-only games, Emulated games, legit indie games that you have to download from the dev's blog, free RPGMaker games, even mods...of course, I only play those when 100% prepared for screw-ups, and I wasn't using those as a basis for those games. But some of the old (as in more than 3 or 4 years old) games on Steam don't actually work without a lot of effort, too. Fallout 3 and New Vegas specifically I had to go into the game's folder via Windows explorer and modify several .ini files while following the instructions of a user on a random forum I found after a google search, just because it was never updated to work with quad-core processors. Even when those games were going on sale at least once a month, they couldn't have updated it so that's how it works out of the box? That's bullcrap! Bethesda outta be ashamed! Even the last time I redownloaded it, I had to redo those edits to get it to work again. And that's only one example. Don't even get me started on all the things I had to do to get KOTOR to work (kind of. Changing the resolution from the default 800x600 still breaks everything, so I had to put up with stretched out faces and barely-readable text).

@CanisWolfred You know, I've heard for years about how buggy New Vegas is (across all platforms, apparently), but I never had an issue with it. Fallout 4, on the other hand, has been bug after bug after bug. Bethesda often can't seem to get its stuff together. The PS3 version of Skyrim, for example, is supposed to have this weird memory leakage issue that makes the game practically impossible to play after you've invested dozens of hours in it.

If there's one area where digital stores on console are superior to digital PC storefronts, it's definitely with regard to their general lack of early access games. Getting your game on Steam's front page used to be an accomplishment, but now there is so much early access, asset flipping nonsense on there that it floods every page on Steam and bogs down the sales. I will defend Steam greenlight, though: a lot of neat games have become much more accessible after being greenlit.

Back on the topic of the PS4, is anyone getting anything in September?

@Ralizah PS3 Fallout 3 has that issue, too. It's their engine. The same one they've been using since Oblivion. It's buggy, it never worked, yet they keep using it. Fallout 4 should've been a total overhaul, not just slightly upgraded from the same horrible foundation. Ugh...don't even get me started on the save issues, you basically have to make new saves constantly. Turns out my brother was just lucky that he did that instinctively in Skyrim, because, in his words, "why not?"

@BiasedSonyFan I am not saying I don't believe you, but is £299/$349 really that expensive over a space of six, seven or even up to eight years?

I look at the prices of new graphic cards and personally think that I could buy a whole new console instead!

It's just a phrase to use when everybody is sitting in the same room, or even on the same sofa as you, playing local multiplayer games likes Mario Kart 8, Nintendo Land, Rocket League or TowerFall.

I cannot envision local multiplayer games on PC being as convenience and hassle free as consoles are, is all.

I can openly see many, many positives with PC gaming however, I prefer the comparative simplicity of consoles.