Sunday 22 December 2013

Opinion: Why I'm Holding off Buying a PS4 (For Now)


PS4 is here in Malaysia, and many other countries, right now. It's definitely one of the gadgets I'm having in my wishlist. It packs a 8-core AMD Jaguar architecture CPU, Radeon GPU, 8GB of RAM, 500GB HDD, secondary processor to handle background and OS tasks. So, it's a ridiculously more beefy specs over the PS3, which definitely need to be, considering the PS3 is on its 7th year.

I'm certain that PS4 is my next console instead of the Xbox One, as my gaming habit and collections are built around the PlayStation, I'm not willing to start all over on the Xbox. But I'm not buying a PS4, at least within the first year, as I considered certain things I believe it's not worth it right now.

Malaysian PS4 is expensive



Economically speaking, this is the killer blow, Malaysian PS4 are ridiculously priced at launch. The US is retailed around $299 (RM1,200++) and Hong Kong is around the RM1,300++ range. However in Malaysia, PS4 is priced at a whopping RM1,799 for standalone and RM1,899 for the bundle! This makes the local PS4 not worth it, even with the beefy specs. I would hope that I can ask my relative who travel to other countries frequently to help me to look out for it, or wait for the local price drop.

Hardware Issues could be around

As a frequent gadgets follower, I know that a lot of tech gadgets suffer from hardware issues earlier in their life cycle, game consoles are no different. PS2 suffered from disc reading errors, Xbox 360 suffers from the infamous Red Ring of Death until the Xbox 360 S revision and PS3 also has a poor and half-baked software and OS earlier in the life cycle. There are some reports of PS4 not starting up properly and loose HDMI port while Xbox One suffers from discs reading issues as well. So advice is, if you're not eager to put your money on PS4 early, it's better you wait.

Launch Games are not that great



Killzone Shadow Fall, NBA 2K14, Battlefield 4 and Resogun looks and plays like a next-gen game, but the rest, CoD, Need For Speed Rivals, InJustice, Assassin's Creed Black Flag feel more like a port from PS3. And with games like inFamous Second Son, Watch_Dogs, DriveClub and many other good games are not coming to PS4 until sometime in 2014, holding off buying a PS4 until more great games comes along is a no-brainer.

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