PLAYSTATION 4
THE REVIEW
In the seven years since the introduction of the PlayStation 3, we've seen our gaming consoles transform into living-room hubs through constant evolution and software updates. Those updates weren't always smooth – though on PS3, they were always happening – but it's easy to see just how far the platform has come.
Meanwhile, the designers of the PlayStation 4 were taking notes and designing a console that, feature by feature, sought to address the failings of its predecessor. The PS3 was notoriously difficult to program for, thanks to its proprietary silicon. So the PS4 was built to be developer-friendly, with a familiar, PC-like architecture. The PS3 was announced with a bizarre, boomerang-shaped controller, and launched with the rumble-free Sixaxis controller before settling into the never-great DualShock 3 controller. So the PS4 comes with the DualShock 4, inarguably the best controller Sony's ever made. And the PS3 launched at an abnormally high price point, costing $200 more than its competition. So the PS4 carries a far more aggressive price, asking $100 less than the competition this time around.
While Sony in 2006 was focused on driving adoption of the Blu-ray standard, envisioning another home media boom that never quite materialized, Sony in 2013 has no such distractions. The PS4 isn't built to sell 3D TVs, or Blu-ray discs or any other corporate mandate. It's a gaming console, a clear message that Sony has been quick to repeat.
That focus has resulted in a console that's better positioned than the PlayStation 3 was in 2006 to compete in an expanding turf war for the living room. But that same focus has also kept Sony from taking the kinds of chances that make generational leaps so exciting.
THE CONSOLE
HARDWARE & DESIGN
The PS4 is Sony's most attractively designed piece of hardware. It's a beautiful system, with a sharp, slightly angled profile accented by a light bar that acts as a console status indicator.
On the back, PS4 has gone digital-only with HDMI/optical ports, and no analog audio or video outputs. We appreciate the internal power supply — it sounds like a small thing, but it's one less object to sit on the shelf next to or behind the PlayStation 4.
In the bad column, it's a collection of moderate to minor annoyances. The PS4 doesn't support the new 802.11ac wireless standard, instead relying on an 802.11b/g/n radio at 2.4 GHz — no 5 GHz support here either, all of which is disappointing to see on a consumer device in 2013. More annoyingly to many on staff, the PS4 doesn't include an IR port for universal remotes, nor does it support Logitech's PlayStation 3 Bluetooth Harmony adapter or the PS3 Bluetooth Blu-ray remote. This omission seems to signal Sony's abandonment of the media aspirations that drove much of the PS3's basic design.
Players who want to game privately on their consoles might be temporarily annoyed at the absence of Bluetooth headphone audio support for the PS4 at launch.
This is offset somewhat: the PS4 can broadcast all game audio (and voice chat) to the audio/mic jack on the DualShock 4, which is compatible with all headphones and mobile headsets using 1/8 inch audio adapters — though enabling game audio output on the DualShock 4 disables all audio via HDMI and optical out.
Despite these problems, Sony nails the fundamentals with the PS4 hardware. The half-gloss, half-matte finish is a pleasant visual compromise. It's a grown-up machine, designed more like a stylish DVD player than a gaudy video game console. It's a small, attractive system, and one that also happens to pack more powerful hardware in its diminutive frame than any other console.
The PS4 is Sony's most attractively designed piece of hardware.
It's an impressive technical achievement. It's also compact enough to fade into your entertainment center without being distracting or ostentatious, and we appreciate that it retains the PS2's and PS3's ability to stand vertically. Those of you with frisky pets or children may want to invest in the vertical stand, sold separately, for some added stability.
Oh, and it will charge controllers over USB while in standby mode. Finally.
CONTROLLER
DUALSHOCK 4
We can say this unequivocally: The DualShock 4 is the best controller Sony has ever made.
Now that the PlayStation 4 and a new console generation are upon us, a contingent of Polygon's editorial staff feels free to finally admit a deep, unbridled hatred of the DualShock 3. The sticks were too close together, too squishy; the triggers weren't triggers; those of us with bigger hands had difficulty using the controller for very long.
DUALSHOCK 4
Sony has solved every one of these problems with the DualShock 4. Its sticks are farther apart, with semi-concave pits in the middle designed to hold the tips of your thumbs in place. The shoulders feature actual concave triggers with pull similar to an Xbox 360 controller.
The controller is just a little heavier, just a little bigger. It's much more comfortable to hold over long periods of time. Making even die-hard DualShock 3 haters on the Polygon staff converts, the DualShock 4 is the most immediately apparent improvement offered by the PS4.
The DualShock 4 is the best controller Sony has ever made.
There are several small touches that, as with the console itself, underscore a sense of general hardware quality and polish. The DualShock 4's front-facing light glows blue for the primary connected player and changes colors based on the order in which it's synced to the console. Games can also take over the light and change its color, but the most practical use is the amber glow the DualShock 4 emits while it's charging.
While Sony has seemingly done nothing to expose or surface it, the DualShock 4 also introduces refined gyroscopic and accelerometer-based motion control. It's an incredible improvement from the Sixaxis and the DualShock 3.
IMPERFECTIONS
The DualShock 4 isn't without some minor issues: the new options and share buttons are far too flush with the face of the controller and take too much pressure to use. It quickly proved easier to use the PlayStation button — now situated between the controller's analog sticks — to suspend a title to take quick breaks.
But our biggest complaint for a controller that some at Polygon otherwise consider the best they've ever used: the battery life.
The new touchpad works well for certain functions, like selecting weapon modes in Killzone: Shadow Fall. But it proved a poor mouse substitute inAssassin's Creed 4's map screen, with slow, latency-prone movement. We'll need more opportunities to use it in more titles before we can determine whether this is a hardware or software problem.
But our biggest complaint for a controller that some at Polygon otherwise consider the best they've ever used: over the course of 100-hundred plus hours with the DualShock 4, the battery life appears to sit somewhere in the 7- to 8-hour neighborhood, a fraction of the 30-hour battery life on the DualShock 3. As the system only includes one micro USB cable 1.5 - 2m in length, marathon sessions might happen on your floor near the PS4. As with the DualShock 3, the DualShock 4 battery isn't intended to be replaced, though enterprising users may be able to find replacements online in the coming years.
GAMES
LAUNCH LINEUP
After we've spent approximately four weeks with the PS4 at review events and with review hardware, Sony's primary goal for the system is clear.
There are pros and cons to this approach. This drive toward games first will in all probability lead to a strong ecosystem of exclusives and multiplatform titles on the PS4. The emphasis on powerful hardware dedicated to gaming software is already yielding tangible advantages over the competition, with games like Battlefield 4 running in higher resolution on the PlayStation 4 than the Xbox One.
Make no mistake: the PS4 is demonstrably more powerful than the competition.
However, at launch, the PS4 has failed to muster a software library that sells that hardware.
Downloadable shooter Resogun is a beautiful bright spot in the PlayStation 4's lineup, and even better, it's free for PlayStation Plus subscribers. But Sony's major AAA launch exclusives are impossible to recommend. Killzone: Shadow Fall is gorgeous but poorly designed and boring for the duration of its campaign. Sony Japan's Knack is a surprisingly difficult grind, which drags on for too long with too little to say or do.
Worse for Sony, the delta between most next-gen and current-gen releases this fall has proven minimal beyond superficial visual improvements. While games like Assassin's Creed 4 look better on PlayStation 4, they aren't enough to recommend stepping onward and upward to a new console.
This is an enormous challenge for the PS4. As a system focusing on games, that's where it currently lives or dies. Just as problematic, Sony's currently announced slate of platform exclusives is thin — shy of Infamous: Second Son, there's little to carry the PS4 through the spring and summer of 2014. This is a notoriously precarious period for new consoles, as demonstrated by the software struggles of both the PlayStation Vita and the Wii U in the year following their release, and we're not sure what bridges Sony intends to build between release and holiday 2014.
Sony's repeated emphasis on indie titles has borne little fruit for launch outside of the disastrousContrast, which appears for free on PlayStation Plus. We expect that 2014 will be dotted with some of the titles that Sony brought to this year's E3 and Gamescom stages — but their absence from view has us wondering what happened and, more specifically, why they couldn't make it for launch.
To be clear, we're not saying there won't be good, interesting software for the PS4. We think that's inevitable. But we don't know what that software will be, or when it will see release.
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