Why PS4 Is The Best Place To Play

When I was born, my father had a Super Nintendo Entertainment system, and from a very early age I can remember watching and playing Super Mario World with him and my brother. From there I was lucky enough to own a N64, a PS2, an XBOX 360, an XBOX One as well as a PlayStation 4. I’ve played games in arcades, on PC’s, and anywhere else that I could, but in today’s landscape I prefer to play using the PlayStation 4. There are a few factors that I make my decisions as to where I prefer to play, including the system hardware itself, the games I can play on it, and finally the ecosystem surrounding it. Without any further ado, let me tell you what makes PlayStation 4 the best place to play games.

Hardware to me includes the box itself and the accessories, and while I am aware that the PS4 isn’t at the top of its class in either, I find that they don’t trend too far behind the competition. Starting with the look of the PS4, I find the box to be sleek, stylish, and small enough not to make an eyesore on my entertainment cabinet. The controller looks fine as well. Nothing spectacular but nothing wrong with it. There are some strange and unused aspects such as the light bar on the top and the touchscreen in the middle. I personally find the controller a little light in terms of weight, and makes it feel cheap, but truly I don’t find it bad at all. In terms of the power of the console, I know that it isn’t state of the art anymore, and that the PC can run circles around it, but games are generally made to the specifications of the PS4 and XBOX One because that’s where the most games are sold. This means that even if it had the same amount of power as a PC, it wouldn’t really change much. In some circumstances like Playerunkown’s Battlegrounds, a game isn’t really playable on PS4 or XBOX One due to lack of power, but for the most part there is no issue.

Next comes the ecosystem surrounding the PS4. This to me is the user interface, the features, and the online capabilities. This is one aspect where I find that the PS4 is better than the rest. From the simplicity of the main menu, to the trophies unlocked in games, to the online system, PS4 is fantastic. As with any new technology, there is a learning curve, but finding everything you are looking for came quite easily on the PS4. Trophies are something that some people love but a lot of people couldn’t care less about. I fall on the side of loving trophies, and that it’s something that makes me play games more and more. As someone who played XBOX 360 for quite some time, I never cared about achievements. To me I think that there is a specific trophy generally for collecting every other trophy in the game. These platinum trophies are easy to see when you look at somebody else’s profile, whereas with achievements in other systems are just mindless numbers that feel more meaningless. In terms of online, I do find the PlayStation Network goes down for maintenance a lot, but for the most part the online works, and it works well. Chatting with friends online is easiest on the PS4, joining games together is generally easy (with the exception of COD which the game itself I think is at fault, since year after year, no matter which console I somehow have trouble connecting to a friend who lives down the street but can connect to a friend living on the other side of the country no problem), and there are so many players who play on PS4 that finding matches is no problem at all. So while the PS4 ecosystem isn’t perfect, it’s the best out there in my opinion.

Finally the meat and potatoes of what makes PS4 the best place to play games in 2018 is the games themselves. For the sake of my argument, I won’t talk about games that are made for every platform like Call of Duty, but instead about the platform exclusive games. This is because whether you play COD on XBOX, PC or PS4 you get generally the same experience in my opinion. As for the exclusive games though, PS4 offers the best and biggest variety of games compared to any other competitor. When it comes to PC gaming I think of exclusives such as StarCraft, Age of Empires, and other real-time strategy games. When I think of XBOX exclusives I think of Halo, Gears or war, and other first-person shooters. With PlayStation, however, there is Killzone, Last of Us, Horizon, Bloodborne, Journey, and Resogun. These are all not only games that I played and thought were amazing, but they are all different genres and are all exclusive to the PlayStation systems. While I know a few of these came out on PS3, I played them all on the PS4 and was amazed by them all. When you ask me about my favorite games of all time, I would probably say half of the at this point are PlayStation exclusive games. While I loved Halo on XBOX 360, the newest iterations on the XBOX One I found mediocre at best. Age of Empires was great while I was in grade school playing against friends during computer class, but it’s become too vast and complex for me to enjoy the newest versions of those games today. I understand that some people still love these games, and I’m not saying that they’re bad, just that they aren’t for me. The only system to come close to PS4 in terms of exclusives is Nintendo, but in their case the system is too weak to play those ‘Triple A’ games I mentioned before.

The competition between video game consoles is as fierce as it has ever been, in my opinion, where each one has its pros and cons, but PlayStation is proving themselves the leader of the pack right now. Had you asked me 5 years ago before the new generation of consoles, XBOX was the clear leader. Who knows, in 5 more years there could be a new company to enter the competition and take over, and I couldn’t be more excited to find out where the video game industry goes next.