Why you shouldn’t buy a PlayStation 4 today. Yes, and yesterday too, I’m not biased

There is one in my collection of gaming devices that I have a particularly negative attitude towards.

And although many simply adore the PlayStation 4, I consider this console to be one of the most uninteresting, both in terms of hardware and ergonomics, and in terms of games, the so-called exclusives.

For me personally, buying a console in 2017 was a mistake. It’s also not worth buying in 2023.
And that’s why:

1. It really was better before

The one who fought with the Matador from Shin Megami Tensei 3 in the circus is not laughing

Before we talk about the problems of the PlayStation 4, let’s remember a little about the advantages of its ancestors.

With all sincere respect to Nintendo and Microsoft, my personal feeling is that Sony consoles have always had more worthy exclusive projects. From hardcore JRPGs with a high threshold of attendance to popcorn blockbusters in the style of Uncharted. This was the case on all Sony consoles until the PlayStation 4.

I loved Sony consoles for games like these. But, unfortunately, love did not last forever.

My main point is that there is something for everyone in the library of exclusives. For example, I’m a big fan of psychological horror. The excellent Siren Blood Curse was released on the PlayStation 3, from its father from the Silent Hill series, by the way.

And my friend really loved first-person shooters, and again thanks to the PS 3 for the Resistance and Killzone series. Yes, and the PlayStation 2 and PlayStation 3 were assembled to be of much higher quality.

2. PlayStation 4 is a low-quality product

I bought the PlayStation 4 not at the start of sales. Until 2017, I was not interested in anything in the list of already released exclusive games. Plus there was the insult of the termination of PT – the horror of Hideo Kojima.

Around the end of 2017, I bought and still purchased a PlayStation 4 Slim with 500 gigabytes. To be honest, at that time I practically did not follow the industry and was full of hope for the new generation of consoles.

But hopes were quickly dashed by harsh reality. And she was like this – in my hands it turned out to be a product made of inexpensive violin plastic, which is controlled by some of the simplest gamepads in history.

The Dualshock 4 is beautiful in its absurdity. Everyone has laughed at his “flashlight” on the end for a long time and many times and scolded him for the sticks that failed, I won’t repeat it. But what struck me more was the simply disgusting quality of the plastic from which the case was made.

The gamepad very readily picks up hand marks (and I’m talking about yesterday’s version), creaks if you squeeze it minimally, and its screws are made of very poor quality metal, and after a year of use they rusted.

But these problems can be attributed to the fact that the PlayStation 4 is a cheap console and by no means a premium device. The main thing is the games, right?

And this is where my main problems with the PlayStation 4 begin.

3. Exclusive things are similar to each other, like two peas in a pod.

A huge part of the libraries of exclusive games made using the so-called “PlayStation exclusive tutorial” What does it consist of:

✔️ This is always an action-adventure from third parties, optionally in the open world.
✔️ This is always a story that somehow touches on the topic of family, a problem with a very tense drama.
✔️ This is always about the presence of crafting/stealth mechanics in the gameplay in high and low leveling of weed, as in role-playing games.

Examples? Both parts Horizon, Ghost of Tsushimaboth parts Last of usrestart god of War, The Notorious Second Sonseries unknown. All of these projects contain the elements outlined above.

The conclusion naturally suggests itself: “then play something else.” I would be glad. But Sony hasn’t released any shooters this generation. Good arcade racing too. There are not as many games from Japan as we would like in Japan.

The only games that come to mind are Gravity Rush 2, Shadow of Colossus, Persona 5 Royal and Death Stranding. The last two are my favorite games on the platform.

Unfortunately, it was in the PlayStation 4 generation that Sony began to lose diversity in its projects. PlayStation 4 exclusive games have become too similar to each other, resulting in less variety in games. The reason is obvious, they sell well. And this is deserved; the example of the game given is an expensive and high-quality product. But not piecemeal, as it was before, conveyor belt and soulless.

4. The console is out of date.

And don’t be fooled by the releases of the corresponding games on it. They look bad and often play at low, low frequencies.

And even in times of relevance, the console could not please with honest 1080p in games without banal system stabilization.

Most of the “hits” from the library of exclusives have completely gone into the segment of multi-platform projects and play much better on PC or Xbox.

And in conclusion, here is one unpleasant fact. By the end of the 7th generation, Sony had lost several important assets. They closed the studio behind the Motorstorm series, lost exclusivity for the Persona and Yakuza series, and released their oldest studio, Sony Japan Studio, which was responsible for 80 of the company’s latest hits.

This fact has buried the uniqueness of PlayStation and is the main reason why I am unlikely to again be an active and enthusiastic fan of the brand, as I was before.

I used to love Sony consoles. I was angry, but continued to play the first Crash Bandicoot, memorized the turns on the tracks in Gran Turismo until I lost my pulse, finished watching Metal Gear Solid 4 with a weak heart and took great pleasure in scoring kills in the multiplayer Killzone 3. From the moment the PlayStation 4 was announced until 2017 I was looking for a reason to buy it. Looking back from 2023, I’m willing to admit that I hated it.