I'm new here, and I just thought i'd share my story of next-gen gaming with everyone. Let me know where you fit in about this.

Last generation I owned all three consoles. Wii, Xbox 360 and PS3. I bought into next gen at the release day of the Xbox One. I've seen all of the updates and games come since and am very happy with my purchase and the value i've had from it. On Xbox One so far I've played Forza 5, Battlefield 4, CoD: Ghosts, Deadrising 3, Titanfall, Destiny, and recently Sunset Overdrive and Halo: TMCC. I'm going to be picking up Forza horizons 2 on black friday, or when the price drops a bit, because I'm becoming a bit short on cash.

But that's not really what I want to share in the article.

At the time of the release of Titanfall, I was becoming more and more aware of the public relations advantages Sony was capitalising on. It didn't affect me, I was happy enough letting the whole console wars business slide by without getting myself involved. But it was becoming impossible to get honest reviews about games, especially Titanfall and other exclusives, with the whole atmosphere that was now surrounding gaming.

The user reviews regarding the game were so varied, it just was worthless. I've never trusted critical opinion, so I asked my friends who had bought Titanfall what they thought. They told me it was great, so I bought the game, loved it, and that was the end of that.

But I kept thinking. Why are people becoming so passionate about their consoles? Why are playstation owners going out of their way to negatively review games that they've never played, to make buying a game as difficult as walking through a maze of mirrors? The same was happening the other way around, too. scores of 0 were popping up for playstation exlusives by derranged xbox fans in exactly the same way.

I'd been gaming at that point 14 years, casually, and I began to get sucked into the internet. I wanted to know what was so different, now, about this generation, that meant that two consoles could no longer coexist in the minds of some people. As i said, I owned all three consoles last gen, and didn't give that a second thought.

What I found out, was this: Playstation players were obsessed with the slightly more powerful RAM within their system, ergo better graphics. Xbox Owners were obsessed by the superior online service, and more numerous, better rated exclusive games.

As soon as I found out about what the whole war was about. I thought it was ridiculous. Why should it concern person A if person B has another gaming system? What is wrong with these people? Do they not understand the concept of personal preference? I was perplexed by these people to say the least. But I just went off and enjoyed my summer, contemplating getting another hobby. Gaming was just becoming too negative to be considered a relaxing passtime.

Months later, I returned. I found myself following various gaming news websites, anticipating the launch of Destiny, and looking to the future, Halo (my favourite game of all time). The internet was now boasting the doom of the xbox one (my own console), and the sales and graphical domination of the playstation 4. I was somehow persudaded that, seeing as i was most likely going to buy a playstation for Uncharted 4 anyway, I would buy one for Destiny, because of its exclusive alpha and exclusive content, and just because that was the console the community seemed to be behind.

So it arrived, the destiny bundle, and I also bought Second Son, and Killzone. I had been hyped up to expect the best graphics, better X, Y and Z, etc. But, no. The graphics are nearly identical on both systems, and it was only when the servers were down on PSN that i decided xbox live was better, with that exception there were no differences. The controller I decided was not as good for first person shooters, but worked really well for Infamous, so I was happy enough with it. There was one massive question emerging... What is all the fuss about? The consoles are practically identical.

I decided, though money at the time was not an issue. That it would be economical to sell one of the consoles, and morever pointless to keep both at this stage. I made up my mind that there weren't any Playstation exclusives that interested me (personally!!), so it was gone, sold.

The reason I thought i'd share this story with everyone here is to point out that the differences between the consoles are minimal, and that people trying to persuade you otherwise are somewhat delusional. It's whether you prefer one controller or the other, or whether you prefer Halo or Uncharted, that's the long and short of it. So dont let this debate kid you. Don't let resolution or "the cloud" or any of the rest of it make your mind up. You're going to have just as much fun playing multiplats on either one. The question really is, which platform do your friends play on, and which one has your favourite exclusive games. Of course, if you are sure you want all the multiplats, buy both, that's more than justifiable.

So that's my experience with next-gen. PS4's not all it's cracked up to be.

Have a good day. Share your thoughts about the state of gaming with me.

Akimbo

So, which Wii games do you like?

When you see console fanboys arguing, just yell PC Master Race.

I don't think people are going out of their way to bash or defend consoles. Extends past that, they just want to argue and insult people on the internet anonymously.

It doesn't sound like your tired of gaming, it sounds more like your tired of the internet. Take a week of or something!

EDIT: I was talking about this comment:

 But I just went off and enjoyed my summer, contemplating getting another hobby. Gaming was just becoming too negative to be considered a relaxing passtime.

I've mostly concluded that it depends on personal tastes and momentum.

I bought a PS4 at launch last year, and a Wii U in December.  At the time I also picked up a Day 1 Xbox One as a great deal, paying just 450 on eBay.  However after looking at the differences between PS4 and XB1 I dicided there was no real justification to owning both at the time and I sold the XB1.

This November, with current deals I got an XB1 for essentially $200 and tax.

My opinion though is very different.  I like to play all kinds of games, not just a handful of exclusives as you can probably tell from my Sig.  Today I will add GTAV and FC4 to the list.

As the consoled are mostly similar, except multiplats coming out better on PS4, its easy to see I value my Ps4 much more highly.

Over the next 8 months, I expect I'll be adding 3 or 4 games to my XB1 library, and 15 to my PS4 library.

I also don't have a good appreciation for the Xbox Ones user experience.  Some of this is because I don't have a kinect.  Some is because of momentum with PS4.  Anyway I think the slowness of installing games on XB1 is undebatable, and the XB1's store is also undebatably poor compared to PS4.

The controllers, I find them the same for shooters.  For anything that requires selecting options, or fighting games the DS4 is miles better IMO.

Anyway its not worth debating personal tastes.  We debate about sales predictions, and why we think one will do better than the other.  That is not arguing against your taste, just trying to reason about things overall.

Welcome to VGC! :P

The same thing happens every time new consoles are released. The internet is just ultra prevalent right now. Way moreso than any other release. Remember how people used to hate on PS3 so bad beginning of last gen but look at how it sold...Bottom line, in my opinion all 3 of them have plusses and downfalls that I and tons of others have discussed at length in other discussions. I'm not sure how old you are but people were completely freaking out and talking smack in person pre-internet popularity when SNES and Genesis were released just like this, but it was mainly you and your friends as we didn't have easy access to forums and tons of fake "journalism". Also, sidenote but somewhat related. I can't speak to other countries , but in the U.S. the modern sense of entitlement young people feel and express is basically destroying objectivity and killing the fun in many aspects of their lives. Hence, why it is just best to stay out of it, IMO.

don't follow the consoles. follow the games.

now take the above suggestion, and add a bit of maturity to it. don't follow the games, follow your faith in the brand that great games will be available for it. Now weather or not it matters to you if those games run slightly better on one brand as opposed to the other, if one brand has more or less exclusives, if one brand has more or less variety in their kinda games.... then thats all up to you and completely subjective.

I trust the playstation brand to always have more games on its platform than I would ever play per generation. For 3 generations of playstation sony has always delivered on the games front. Exclusives + multiplat. Thats enough for me to warrant an investment from me. I am just getting the platform I want to play games on. And I dont have enough time in the day to play that many games (especially with how I play games, I am a completionist) so having more than one platform never made sense to me.

I will never push anyone to get one console over another cause to do so will not be t respect that everyone is different. But If w are having a technical discussion, I won't sit idly by either and watch people say there is no difference or they are the same (cause they aren't).

You guys are all right about the internet. And the feeling of entitlement as soulfly666 said certainly has a lot to do with it. I think someone asked how old i am; - I'm 22 from London, UK. Everything that has been said here is somewhat reassuring that there are at least some people who think the way I do! I major part of me was expecting to be screamed at by either side for downplaying each one's supposed advatages. Anyway its good to know some people are still sane.
Add me on Xbox i'm: xAKIMBO TITANx
or on PS3 i'm: n0hand13bar5.
See you 'round.

You are wrong that there is no difference between the consoles.

Have you not heard about the "evil" parity clause Microsoft forces on developers.

Have you not heard that 1080p is 10x better than 720blurryp.?

Did you know that PS4's GPU has like all these extra TFLOPS compared to xbox one?

There has been 100s of threads arguing these points.