The Next Generation

I've played a few great games lately, but none of them have made me want to put down the controller and pick up a pen

Hey folks. Once again, it's been a little while since I threw anything up in this space. I wish I had a decent excuse for that, but I don't. Mainly I've been avoiding my blog for Kingdom Hearts-related reasons (which I'll get to in due course), but there's also the fact that nothing I've played lately seems to have elicited a response from me that's been worthy of exploring in a written form. Looking back over the last eight or nine weeks (has it really been that long since I last wrote something here?), my list of games played features titles like Final Fantasy IV, God of War III, and The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons. I've enjoyed all of those games to varying degrees, but I haven't come away from any of them feeling like I have anything worthwhile to say about the experience. Arguably the closest I've come to that is with the racing game GRID, a game that zig-zagged back and forth between excellent and excruciating so frequently that the experience might be best com. When the game you find yourself wanting to write about most is a seven-year-old racing game, it's probably best not to contribute to the blogosphere at all.

This is still happening, I'm just not entirely sure when

Regarding the Kingdom Hearts/Keyblade Chronicles stuff, I absolutely still intend to write that series. Just... not right now. I've tried to go back to the first game a few times in the last couple of months, in order to get the series underway, but I just can't bring myself to sit through the game for what would be the third time in a six-month period. I've tried to write the first entry purely from memory, but I'm worried that in doing so I'm missing details, or even mis-representing the game altogether. The series is going to be a huge undertaking, so if I'm going to do it, I want to make sure I do it right, and at the moment I don't think I can. My plan for the time being is to put the Keyblade Chronicles on hold and play some other stuff, and then come back to it towards the end of this year, or maybe even in early 2016. Apologies to those of you who've been waiting on the series to start - I hope it proves to be worth the wait I'm imposing on you all.

I am excited for this like you wouldn't believe

With all that said, I can finally move on to the reason I'm writing this in the first place - the next generation of video game consoles. Or, to put it more accurately, the current generation of video game consoles - specifically Sony's PlayStation 4 and Microsoft's Xbox One. It's a slip of the tongue that's probably born from not owning either machine. I'm traditionally a late adopter of new hardware, mainly because it allows time for any kinks in the hardware to be ironed out, and for the libraries of games to expand to a reasonable level. However, I've decided that when next month's pay-day rolls around, I'll be dropping some of my overtime earnings on a shiny new current-gen consoles. Now that both the PS4 and XONE seem to be getting there in terms of their established libaries, and with titles like Fallout 4, Final Fantasy XV and Just Cause 3 on the way, it's finally feeling like a good time for me to make the generational leap.

There's just one teeny, tiny problem - I can't for the life of me decide which console to opt for.

I've been to-ing and fro-ing between the PS4 and XONE for the last few months, with neither really showing any demonstrable advantages or disadvantages over the other. So I thought I'd put together this little blog, to try and rationalise my thought process and maybe get some feedback from the awesome folks here at Giant Bomb. Below are the main points I'm taking into consideration while trying to make my decision.

Most Of My Interests Are Multi-Platform

This is the main thing to account for, and to be honest it's probably the biggest cause of my indecision as well. The vast majority of franchises that I play and follow - Grand Theft Auto, Final Fantasy, Metal Gear, Fallout and The Elder Scrolls, Assassin's Creed - are readily available across both consoles. Even now, most of the games I buy could be bought on either X360 or PS3, with small price differences (and occasionally franchise continuity) being the decisive factor. This means that both consoles are equally viable from a library standpoint. What about first-party exclusives? Well, I'm just getting to those...

I'm Invested In Exclusives For Both Consoles

Last generation I owned both an Xbox 360 and a PlayStation 3 (the former initially, with the latter following a few years later). The generation before that, I owned both a PlayStation 2 and an original Xbox (the former adopted in 2002, the latter in 2006). As a result, I have a historical investment in first-party exclusives from both Sony and Microsoft that date back two generations. This means that, whichever way I go, I'm going to miss out on some of the games I want to play - choosing an Xbox One means no The Last Guardian or Ratchet & Clank, and opting for the PlayStation 4 means skipping Halo 5 and Rare Replay. Given my history, it's likely I'll end up getting both consoles eventually, but I'm still trying to decide which machine's exclusives I'd end up missing more in the short term. On balance, I'd say the PS4 has the exclusives that I'm most keen to get stuck into sooner rather than later, but there really isn't a whole lot in it.

I Won't Be Playing Much Online Multiplayer

I know online multiplayer can make or break the console decision for some people, and rightly so. For those who play a lot of multiplayer games with friends, their mates' choice of console will likely determine which side the coin comes down on - after all, what's the point in buying an XONE if all your buddies have PS4s? Thankfully, this is something I've never really had to consider when buying consoles in the past, simply because I've never been heavily into online multiplayer gaming. If the two machines were going head-to-head on these terms then I think the Xbox One would win out, purely because of the possibility for co-operative play with one friend who's set to get an XONE in October. That being said, it makes up such a small percentage of my overall gaming time that I'm not sure it's a decisive factor.

Price Difference Isn't A Big Deal To Me

...mainly because, having done a bit of shopping around, there really isn't that much of a price difference here in the UK any more. A cursory glance at Amazon puts the 1TB models of both the PS4 and the XONE at £309.99 and £319.00 respectively. That's less than a tenner's difference, and when I'm dropping over £300 on a piece of tech, that's a margin that I'm happy to overlook. It's a weird situation to be in, as someone whose initial console last gen was practically dictated by price point (there was a good £100 difference between the X360 and PS3 back in 2008, and I didn't have anywhere near the amount of disposable income that I do now).

I Just Want To Play Some Video Games

Both the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 are marketed as powerful multimedia entertainment systems. They invite their users to stream, share and download music, TV shows, movies, YouTube clips and all manner of other media. Call me old-fashioned, but that's not why I buy these machines - I buy them to play video games. As a result, all of those bells and whistles that both consoles come with aren't factors I feel I need to consider when choosing one over the other.

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So, fellow duders of Giant Bomb, I put the question to you - which current-generation console did you (or would you) opt for, and for what reasons? There are a lot of great folks here whose thoughts and opinions I trust, and I'm confident that the responses I get will go beyond the incendiary one-upmanship of fanboyism and provide me with some helpful information that might help me reach a decision.

I'm really looking forward to playing Kojima's final Metal Gear game, hopefully opting for the last-gen version doesn't mean compromising on quality

Whichever side of the fence I end up coming down on, I won't be taking the plunge until the start of October. I have a fair amount of gaming plans that should keep me occupied until then. Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain launches next week, and after some deliberation I've decided to pick it up for the PlayStation 3. I'd contemplated waiting and getting it with my eventual choice of current-gen console, but the lure of having every single canonical Metal Gear game on a single console was too great to resist. Alongside that, I've launched a Pokémon Alpha Sapphire Egglocke - a variation on the Nuzlocke challenge that entails swapping every captured Pokémon for a mystery egg donated by a friend. If you're curious about the format, I'm uploading periodic video updates for the Egglocke which can be found here.

I'm not sure when I'll be writing my next blog post here. I don't want to commit to a schedule that I can't keep. I'm hoping that The Phantom Pain will evoke some kind of response from me that'll be enough to trigger some meaningful writing, but I make no promises. Until next time, thanks very much for reading, and I'll see you around.

Dan

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Currently playing - Pokémon Omega Ruby (3DS)