Why I’m buying a Playstation 4 instead of an Xbox One

So I decided to switch back to Sony instead of upgrading to the Xbox One. I had an original Xbox and have had a 360 until about a month ago (when I sold it to help fund the PS4 purchase). So why did I switch?

The Last Generation

Let’s talk about exclusives for a moment. Mass Effect is the only Xbox exclusive from the last generation that could have swayed me in which console to buy, but that’s not even an exclusive anymore. Meanwhile, Sony has come out with exclusive after exclusive. I have seriously debated buying a PS3 just to be able to play Uncharted. E3 from this past year made it seem like the next generation is going to be just the same.

Xbox Live

I don’t play video games a whole lot, and when I do it isn’t usually online so I don’t care a whole lot about multiplayer. Yes, I know that Xbox Live has rock solid multiplayer compared to Playstation Network, but why on earth should I have to pay for Xbox Live to use Netflix? Kind of scummy. I have an AppleTV that I use for Netflix anyway, so it doesn’t change things much for me, but no matter how you look at it, it’s kind of messed up. So what do I get for my $60 a year then? Basically, just the ability to play online. Meanwhile, Sony is giving multiple free games each much to PSN+ subscribers along with discounts on some downloadable titles. Sony doesn’t give just any old game. They give current and popular games like XCOM Enemy Unknown and Uncharted 3.

Kinect

I had a Kinect, and while it was cool to control the Xbox by moving my hands and having it play videos by talking to it, the novelty wore out fast. Speaking of the Kinect, the only decent game was Dance Central. Meanwhile, there were quite a few decent games for the Playstation Move. Still, Microsoft insists on forcing everyone to not only buy a Kinect, but also to have it plugged in an on for the Xbox One to function. Is that really necessary? Maybe I could see where they were coming from if the first Kinect had been useful.

The Playstation Vita

Immediately after selling my Xbox 360 I bought a Playstation Vita. Why? For one, I still wanted something to play games on besides my iPhone or Mac. More important to me however, is Remote Play. All PS4 games are going to support Remote Play. Which for me means that if my wife wants to watch TV and I want to play a video game I can sit on the couch next to her and remotely play any PS4 game on the Vita.

I just want a console for playing games. I don’t care about feeding all my video sources through my Xbox, and I certainly don’t want to make it the centerpiece of my home theater. I would have decided on the Playstation 4 even if the consoles had been the same price, so the $100 difference and the whole used game debacle are just icing and reinforcement that I made the right decision.