A PS4 Thread: Because You Had to Play "Knack"

awww shit, bloodborne's about to be free (with a playstation plus account). i should probably try to beat Dark Souls 3 first.

ooo really? maybe time to resub my plus account

plus ratchet & clank, which is a little less exciting, but i never played any of those games so i might check it out.

i'm still kicking myself for not grabbing MGS V: Phantom Pain when it was free a couple months ago

Whoa! Bloodborne is great. I recently fired it back up and had forgotten how different the mechanics feel from DS3, even though they're cousins (and how hard the early game can be resource-wise).

bloodborne is all-time

sony cutting the number of free ps plus games from six to two as of next year kinda sucks tho, hope they significantly up the value of the PS4 games they’ll be offering as they cut the ps3 and vita titles

We also have an important service update. Starting next year on March 8, 2019, the PS Plus monthly games lineup will focus on PS4 titles and no longer include PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita titles. This won’t affect any games you’ve already downloaded, or will download, prior to March 8, 2019. Those games will still be part of your PS Plus games library as long as you remain a member. Your game saves and other benefits of PS Plus will also remain the same – the only change is that no new PS3 and PS Vita games will be added to the PS Plus monthly games lineup beyond March 8, 2019.

Many of our fans are playing on the PS4 platform, with the increasingly vast number of PS4s in homes around the world. We’ll continue to prioritize the benefits you receive through your PS Plus membership, such as online multiplayer, online game save storage, PS4 monthly games, and exclusive PS Store discounts across content and network services. As a reminder, if you do not wish to continue your subscription, please be sure to cancel it by turning off auto-renewal in your account settings before March 8, 2019.

There are plenty of new games and exclusive PS Store discounts to come for PS Plus members, and we look forward to sharing this with you in our ongoing monthly blog posts. As always, we thank you for your continued support.

hmm

only a couple of months after they racked up the price too

thx sony

honestly might be for the best. i let my sub lapse bc most of the games they released on it were shit. if bloodborne + R&C are representative of the quality of games going forward it'd be worth my while.

yeah, the quality of the PS+ games was pretty low for a long time. i didn't download anything for several months in a row. it seems to have been bumped up recently.

disappointed in that drop in games. i still crack open the ps3 often
and, just like when I was on XBL, i am tied to PSN for online multiplayer anyway. ah well

Hay guys, check out this new game that was just released today for PS4 and Vita!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zBsgsdouB4

Just a reminder: we're living in the year 2018. It's 2018 right now, and this is a brand new game.

that is incredible

it's like if mike kelley designed a video game

bet that looks amazing in 4k

I'm vaguely fascinated by this company (see also: the Skylight Freerange games) because I honestly can't tell whether they're trying as hard as they can or not trying at all.

So can anyone give me some used PS4 guidance? It's been around a while now, so what's a good price? And is there a specific model with specific requirements I should be searching for, or are they all more or less the same specs (aside from the new Pro)? Does hard drive size (500GB vs 1TB) really matter? Anything else I should be looking for? I know some people hunt for consoles with an earlier build so they can hack them, but I don't think I need that (unless that's really the way to go in 2018).

i've only had my trust old PS4 that i bought new, so I'm no help on where to get a good used one, or durability/reliability.

i don't have a Pro, but it only seems worth getting if: you have a very nice display/speakers to take advantage of it, and/or you care about enhanced graphics/framerates. personally, i don't have nice equipment, and whenever they do the A/B test on Pro vs old PS4 on certain games, i can barely tell the difference. my eyesight is awful, however. so basically if you want to pause FIFA and enter camera mode and zoom in on a lone glistening sweaty hair in that mysterious zone behind the kneecap and view if from every angle and watch the sweat glisten in the digital sun as purely as possible, you should probably get a Pro. BUT also, i'd guess that used Pros tend to be in better operating shape than used older models. and also maybe the fancy displays/speakers that really take advantage of the Pro's capabilities will become more commonplace over the lifetime of the PS4. so i don't know. follow your heart!

on the hard drive question, i have a 500GB model and exclusively download games, and i've rarely had a problem. 500 GB is enough to download 15-20 games, give or take, and that's about the amount that i like to have on hand at any given moment. and if you have a game that you've purchased/downloaded and want to delete to save space, you can always just re-download it later if you want to play it again, it doesn't take long and isn't much of a hassle. and of course, if you're not lazy like me and occasionally buy physical copies of games, you don't need to worry about the hard drive question at all.

just my two cents, and ymmv!

as always sorry for typos and mysterious missing sentence fragments

500 GB is enough to download 15-20 games, give or take,

and there's a lot of give or take there. there are a ton of good indie games that are only 1-10 GB, so if you lean toward those you'll be able to store 50+ games on a 500 GB HD. then again, a lot of modern bloated AAA titles (like AssCreed, God of War, etc) clock in around 40-50 GB, typically.

feel like i'm constantly butting up against the limits of the 500gb hd, deleting stuff i'd prefer not to so i can fit in something new. i don't know your habits, but if i had to buy again would 100% get the 1tb.

I've no idea what pricing looks like, but I'd be hesitant to get a used one without at least a short warranty, unless you're buying it off a dependable friend.

I've got a spare SSD around and I'm tempted to do the upgrade to get a little speed boost, although backing up and reinstalling has made me hold off.

anecdotally, I had to delete a game this week in order to get updates running smoothly again

games on the ps4 are really cheap compared to e.g. switch, like even the biggest AAA games are like $15 if you're not jumping on them at release, so I'd stay away from used and avoid the risk. but I dunno. I got a pro 1tb a few months ago.

it's not hard at all to buy a 2TB hard drive and stick one in if you want to later, but yeah, i wouldn't go less than 500GB. most physical games now require a full install which could be 50gb+
when I got my PS4 I planned ahead and bought a particular external USB drive with 2TB and stuck it in right away
and yeah, PS4 games are dirt cheap especially if you're coming late like this, you're gonna love PS+ sales

also second just biting the bullet and getting a new system. and go pro because why not

i like to go semi-pro and then work my way up to pro through hard work and dedication

Ha. I wouldn't go pro because I don't have a 4K TV and that seems to be the greatest distinction.

In graphics-intensive games it can keep up better, iirc

it also has minor technical tweaks across the board, but nothing that striking. just a little bit more future-proof imo

Good to hear the advice about hard drive size. But what am I looking out for in new v. used? What could go wrong with a used PS4, as opposed to a used anything? Places likes Amazon, or even Swappa, seem to have pretty solid guarantees and/or vetting. I mean, should I be more cautious buying a used PS4 than I would be buying a used phone?

I'm in the same boat Josh. I'm inclined towards the Slim, first because I assume it uses less electricity and second because it's cheaper and third I don't care that much about 60FPS or whatever. (I mean, whatever framerate or resolution or whatever you're playing on, you're going to get used to it after playing enough to the point that it's merely normal instead of WAU.)

even if you don't have a 4K tv you'll get better frame rates/performance across the board with Pro
but yeah honestly it doesn't matter much, since all games have to run on the OG PS4 at at acceptable rate regardless

i kind of want to trade in my ps4 and games and put the money towards a switch. i've lost pretty much any appetite i used to have for games revolving around killing people. the main loss would be being able to play blu-rays.

i'm not actually going to do this.

the big mystery to me is why the PS4 Pro doesn't have 4k blu-ray capability

probably they weren't making drives that'd work in a console at scale when they decided to release the thing but it's so insanely dumb. sony makes well-rated drives that are relatively cheap that do that! but their console upgrade, where one of the specific reasons for release was 4k games.. nope

Apparently the PS4 Pro inexplicably does not play blu-ray, despite the console being introduced for better image quality and despite Sony being the first to embrace the fucking blu-ray format. Makes no sense to me, and it's another strike against a Pro.

xpost!

Twinsies!

It plays Blu-Ray, just not 4k Blu-Ray as far as I know

Gotcha.

still - bizarre! maybe there was an extra license fee to playback 4K codecs or something

That was it, yep. It would've cost them more to provide a function they figured most people wouldn't use, and they were skimping on costs. MS were happy to put a 4k BR drive in the Xbox One S though, so it's especially stingy of Sony.

On the other hand, who owns any 4k bluray discs anyway? Those things are still hugely unjustifiably overpriced.

it's a very weird market for sure. depending on the streaming, a 1080p blu-ray looks better than a 4k stream, but I think people see a difference in the newer streaming stuff and assume they'll need a 4k blu-ray

4K disc prices are starting to come down a lot. you can buy It 2017 and Dunkirk this week at Target for $13

I'm a huge fuckin' nerd and have a couple movies in the limited edition steelcases, that came with 4k blu-ray discs, but no way to watch them. I've rewatched the movies via streaming.

Question: is 4k super-relevant? it always seems like you'd need a massive screen and UHD, or whatever the other one is both feel like enhanced viewing experiences without either the data and compression issues or the (to me) meaningless emphasis on pixels = viewing improvement.

For this generation, probably not. I mean, there are few games that are even 1080p/60fps, let alone 4K. But the processing power for HDR and framerates, the likelihood that next generation will embrace it (and PC gaming of course is already there)...

I have to sit pretty close to a 55” 4K screen to notice a big difference between 1080 and 4K on a television. I think it’s one of those things where it sets a new baseline and all other aspects have to elevate to handling a larger image, and therefore get better

like how 3d television was gimmicky but the real feature was the ability to have a faster refresh rate

didn't the 4K standard give up on 3D altogether? thought that was lame, they should've tried to keep it going. maybe after the new Avatar series comes out

but yeah, i totally agree with what you're saying re: refresh rates

I have no idea, there is no reason to do both 4K and 3d at home because you’re wearing foggy-ass goggles