The Playstation 4 released today, and we have a lot of great coverage planned for you! Throughout the day we’ll be publishing posts with our initial impressions of the hardware, the games, and our entire first-day-experience with the PS4. Be sure to check back throughout the day, and please feel free to ask questions.
PS4 Hardware Setup
Gone are the days of waiting in long lines at midnight. Our PS4 was plugged in and ready to go by 9:00 am thanks to the ease of pre-ordering and stores opening early. We picked up an extra controller as well.
Opening the box, the PS4 is smaller than we expected. It lays flat with a nice, sleek low profile. The power button and eject button are kind of hard to see on the front, but integrated well into the design.
The PS4 came with a very simple power cord, HDMI cable, and one controller. The power cord is very, very simple and lacks the bulky power brick thing you’ll see on other consoles.
Once plugged in, it booted right up and the simple setup process was completed without a hitch. Our PS4 connected to our network and the internet flawlessly. There was a ~360 mb patch, but that was blazing fast. Start to finish the whole process took less than 20 minutes.
Dashboard
The Dashboard is better than the Cross Media Bar, though still a variation of it. It’s fast, gets the job done, but it’s really nothing exciting. Compared to the PS Vita, the PS4 dashboard (at least out of the box) is very boring. We’re trying to figure out how we can customize, if at all, to make it look more fun and gaming themed.
While still in the game, calling up the dashboard is easy, but has been sluggish for us while it loads. Holding down the PS button allows you to close open apps. Overall, if they can speed it up and remove the lag/sluggish feeling it’ll be perfect.
PlayStation Network / Store
The store is exactly the same as the store on the PS3. Downloading titles is very easy. We found a few games to download for free like DC Universe Online (more to come on this!). What’s really neat is that they download simultaneously. That’s a nice change from the Xbox 360 being a ‘one at a time’ process.
There are already two games available for PlayStation Plus members: Resogun and Contrast. We’re pretty sure you need PS+ to play games online.
Synching the PS Vita with the PS4
Synching the Vita and PS4 was extremely easy. Just turn it on, enter the code, and the Vita now controls the PS4. Playing around for a few minutes, the PS4 is now a Wii U. There’s no delay or latency between the two devices.
We’re booting up some games! More to come soon.
Quick question for you guys. When using the Vita for remote play, can someone else be using the PS4 for something else at the same time? Example, if I’m using remote play on the vita to play a PS4 game, can my wife watch Netflix on the PS4?
@Prairie McChicken: We just tried and it does not seem like it’s possible to multitask like that on the PS4. Like the Wii U, however, you could use the Vita to remote play and your wife can use another device utilizing the TV.
Graev and I both agree that this would seem fairly easy for Sony to update Right now a second user can log in and simply press the PS button to swap to their dashboard. All it would take it allowing a profile active on the Vita and a profile active on the TV.
I have owned the original Playstation, PS2, and PS3. All at launch.
However, I’m passing on the PS4 for now (and the Xbox One). They apparently have fancy features and many graphics, but all I care about is the games… and neither one seems to have any launch titles that excite me.
I guess I’m also gravitating more towards the PC now anyway. The games are so much cheaper, and the hardware will always be better.
@Fidjit: Launch window games are always lacking, and as Graev says there’s a drought during every launch. PS4 has some decent options, though. Knack and Killzone are exclusive and pretty cool. We’ll have more on them later.
Overall, I get what you mean.
@Keen Thanks for testing that out for me I’ve searched everywhere for the answer and was unable to find confirmation. I just picked up a PS4 but my only use for a Vita would be to allow my wife to watch Netflix while I game on the PS4 via the Vita’s remote play. Unfortunately we are a Netflix only household and our main TV only has a PS4.