Xbox One vs. PS4

[Crasstoe]

I praise MS on that front - with a lifetime supply of free batteries I couldn't be happier being able to simply replace them when they wear out - after a month or 2 of course.

I know I'm not the heaviest gamer out there but with both me AND the mrs playing on it at different times we are easily racking up 35 hours use a week, and that isn't including when the console is on for TV (the controllers aren't in use during that time thanks to SmartGlass and Kinect).

Actually thinking about it that is how MS should advertise...
"Kinect, save your controller for when you need it"

 

[Keith Wallace]

You're right in that "6-8h" vs "4-5 weeks" wasnt the fairest comparison, but even then it's not subjective at all, it's a fact that the Xbox One controller has way better battery life regardless of use. I recall the launch of the consoles, many reviewers were saying something like 30-40 hours they got out of the default batteries, many said they didnt manage to run them out in the time they had the console available for testing before writing the review.

I can't understand why on earth did Sony make them 1) not user replaceable 2) way bigger. The battery life on it at the moment is quite pathetic and I would be really pissed off. It kills half of the point of a wireless controller when you have to put it on the charger after every session, let alone having to plug it in midsession (not a problem to all, but would be to me with a toddler in the house)

I can't not agree on all of this. I assume Sony ran out of space or worried about heat (proximity of battery to sensitive parts) or something, as far as making the internal battery bigger is concerned. Still, I also think that they figured 6-8 hours to be within the time frame of most users' time spent on the console at a single time, meaning if people weren't too lazy to charge their batteries after every 1-2 uses, the life wouldn't be as much of a problem. Of course, not putting my batteries on the charger for a few weeks at a time (because I haven't played that heavily of late) is nice because I forget and am lazy (nor do I want to deal with taking the batteries out and putting them in and such). That's to say that I could live with 6-8 hours. I mean, from the official standpoint, having a rechargeable battery from MS makes their controllers $25 (for the Play & Charge) more than Sony's, so I can also forgive Sony for the battery life because they kept consumer costs down.

All that said, I'm pleased with my eneloops (the one time I really put them to the test, they lasted 5 days or so), but I also didn't like spending the $21 for 4 AAs and a charger to get my controller going.

 

[berty6294]

I prefer this over Microsoft's solution. Super elegant, long battery life, and easy.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/insignia-dual-controller-charger-for-xbox-one/2352071.p;jsessionid=DE04EA3F8E97C282DD570687883635B4.bbolsp-app04-201?id=1219073326634&skuId=2352071&st=categoryid$pcmcat310600050019&cp=1&lp=3

 

[coip]

There's definitely bias in your battery assessment. The PS4's controller might die after 6-8 hours of heavy play, but then you basically quote an Xbox One controller's battery life based on occasional play. The Play & Charge certainly won't last 4-5 weeks of heavy play, no batteries do. My eneloop rechargeable batteries last a week AT MOST when used heavily.

There isn't bias in my battery assessment. I was never claiming to have conducted a scientific experiment comparing battery life between the two devices. I reported that battery life on the Dual Shock 4 is unimpressive, citing the 6 to 8-hour mark that my PS4-owning friends have revealed, and compared it to my own experience with my Xbox One controller, which lasts 4-5 weeks on average. Others since then have reported similar battery life, and all of my Xbox One-owning friends have indicated the same (and, yes, as another pointed out, SmartGlass and Kinect voice and gesture commands greatly aid the battery life in Xbox controllers as quite often I never even have to turn on a controller, but that is a feature of the Xbox One that can also be factored into the battery life comparisons). Clearly scientific experiments would be preferable, but until that happens, nitpicking ignores the point: the Xbox One controller batteries last significantly longer than the PS4's do. Ergo, because the author of the "unbiased" article didn't mention this, that article is biased.

An opinion isn't bias. I didn't read the article, but just because the author has an opinion on the controller, it doesn't mean it makes the article unjustly biased, but that the author has a preference and expressed it .

An opinion isn't bias? Every opinion stems from bias. That said, the bias in the article, which you admitted to not reading yet still felt compelled to chime in on, lay not in the presentation of the author's opinion but in the omission of facts. He presented something only as a pro when it has both pros and cons. That's not the expression of a preference. That's bias by omission.

 

[Keith Wallace]

So much crap in this. I can't even bother with the first, because you're assessing two different use cases to defend battery life. You have to have a controlled environment for comparison. If your PS4 friends play 6-8 hours straight, while your Xbox friends are mostly on Netflix, it's not a 1:1 comparison. You'd need similar habits, and if you used that, you wouldn't get 4-5 weeks of battery life on a One controller.

As for saying that an opinion is rooted in bias, that's dumb. An opinion can be completely fact-based, even if it's an anecdotal sample. For example, I have a hard time recommending Seagate HDDs over Western Digital because, in my personal experiences, WD drives have held up better. Is that a Western Digital bias? No, it's an observation. In my opinion, based on real-world experiences, Western Digital drives are better because they last longer. That's not a bias, that's an analysis.

In my opinion, the PS4 has better gaming hardware, regardless of my BIAS towards the Xbox, due to game preferences (and other things). Actually, I guess that's not an opinion, that's a fact. Ignore that.

 

[coip]

So much crap in this. I can't even bother with the first, because you're assessing two different use cases to defend battery life. You have to have a controlled environment for comparison. If your PS4 friends play 6-8 hours straight, while your Xbox friends are mostly on Netflix, it's not a 1:1 comparison. You'd need similar habits, and if you used that, you wouldn't get 4-5 weeks of battery life on a One controller.

As for saying that an opinion is rooted in bias, that's dumb. An opinion can be completely fact-based, even if it's an anecdotal sample. For example, I have a hard time recommending Seagate HDDs over Western Digital because, in my personal experiences, WD drives have held up better. Is that a Western Digital bias? No, it's an observation. In my opinion, based on real-world experiences, Western Digital drives are better because they last longer. That's not a bias, that's an analysis.

In my opinion, the PS4 has better gaming hardware, regardless of my BIAS towards the Xbox, due to game preferences (and other things). Actually, I guess that's not an opinion, that's a fact. Ignore that.

I already said that a scientific experiment comparing battery life would be needed to accurately compare the two. That is the ideal way to do it and, based on all previous scientific studies that have compared battery life among rechargeable battery packs and standalone batteries, we already know that rechargeable battery packs are less efficient.

Regardless, you're creating counterfactuals to try to undermine a plethora of qualitative evidence that shows there is a hugely significant gap in battery life between the Xbox One controllers and the PS4 controllers. If my PS4 friends play 6-8 hours straight their batteries will die. If my Xbox One friends play 6-8 hours straight theirs won't (not even close).

Ironically, after chiding me for using an anecdotal sample to prove a point, you then use an anecdotal sample to try to prove a point. Your 'personal experience' that Western Digital drives hold up better than Seagate drives is not fact-based. To know that, you'd have to have a controlled experiment. Your personal experiences--experiences that were not scientifically controlled experiments--biased your opinion of the two drives. Opinions are always rooted in bias. Facts are facts. Opinions are not.

Having said that, there is validity in qualitative data, especially widespread data. If tens of thousands of people on the Internet also indicate that WD is better than Seagate, there is very likely to be truth to that. In that vein, it's very clear from similar qualitative evidence that the Xbox One controller battery life destroys the PS4's. Most people online indicate the Xbox One controller batteries last weeks. Most PS4 reports peg the Dual Shock 4's battery life as hours to days. It's highly likely that scientific experiments would confirm this discrepancy. Therefore, to get back to the point, the original article was biased because it only mentioned the merits of the PS4 controller (i.e. rechargeable batteries) without mentioning the demerits (comparably worse battery life).

 

[jonnaver]

Latest sales reports are in the range of 10 million PS4 and 5 million Xbox One

 

[FearL0rd]

Latest sales reports are in the range of 10 million PS4 and 5 million Xbox One

PS4 is a Chinese knockoff horse... Runs fast and will no be able to finish the race... X360 is a good example

 

[jonnaver]

PS4 is a Chinese knockoff horse... Runs fast and will no be able to finish the race... X360 is a good example

10 vs 5 million says otherwise

 

[Jas00555]

Latest sales reports are in the range of 10 million PS4 and 5 million Xbox One

Considering that the "5 million Xbox One" is from like 5 months ago and the 10 million PS4 count is from last month, that's not exactly a good report that you're using.

 

[Baryex86]

PS4 is selling a lot more consoles than Xbox due to Microsoft marketing problem and initial ideas of including a kinect and not letting people share games. Talk about shooting your both legs.

P.S. I am a happy owner of a Gaming PC and an PS4. If I get more money Ill buy an Xbox just because.

Peace

 

[jonnaver]

Considering that the "5 million Xbox One" is from like 5 months ago and the 10 million PS4 count is from last month, that's not exactly a good report that you're using.

Not exactly a bad report either

 

[Jas00555]

Not exactly a bad report either

When its outdated, yes it's bad. We don't know hoe many Xbox Ones have been sold. They could've only sold a half million since April or they could've sold another 3 million.

 

[Keith Wallace]

Considering that the "5 million Xbox One" is from like 5 months ago and the 10 million PS4 count is from last month, that's not exactly a good report that you're using.

The 5 million from 5 months ago was shipped, not sold. It's probably around 5 million sold by now, and 7 million shipped or something. Sony's numbers are actual sales.

 

[Keith Wallace]

PS4 is a Chinese knockoff horse... Runs fast and will no be able to finish the race... X360 is a good example

LOL, WtF does that even mean? The thing is sold by a Japanese company and has an APU made by a company whose HQ is in California. I think it's assembled in China, but some Xbox Ones are as well, so I don't get your point.

 

[Jas00555]

The 5 million from 5 months ago was shipped, not sold. It's probably around 5 million sold by now, and 7 million shipped or something. Sony's numbers are actual sales.

And I'm saying that we don't know what it is. All we have now are rough estimates, but declaring that it's 10 million vs. 5 million just seems silly IMHO. It very well may be, but it just seems dumb to declare it when no one except Microsoft knows how many have actually been sold.

 

[Keith Wallace]

And I'm saying that we don't know what it is. All we have now are rough estimates, but declaring that it's 10 million vs. 5 million just seems silly IMHO. It very well may be, but it just seems dumb to declare it when no one except Microsoft knows how many have actually been sold.

I honestly don't know how this site tracks this stuff or if it's reliable, but they have numbers to support it: Platform Totals - VGChartz

 

[jonnaver]

And I'm saying that we don't know what it is. All we have now are rough estimates, but declaring that it's 10 million vs. 5 million just seems silly IMHO. It very well may be, but it just seems dumb to declare it when no one except Microsoft knows how many have actually been sold.

Yes, OK you've got a point. In that case, it's 5 million Xbox shipped vs 10 million PS4 sold. Which is actually even worse than what I originally stated.

 

[Coreldan]

Cos it's very likely they havnt shipped a single console more in like 6 months now? That 5 million is a very old number by now.

I think they will be waiting at least until late this month/early next before next numbers, cos after that they'll fit in numbers from China, Russia and like 15 other markets

 

[coip]

I honestly don't know how this site tracks this stuff or if it's reliable, but they have numbers to support it: Platform Totals - VGChartz

VGChartz is notoriously unreliable. They basically just guess and then retroactively fix their numbers when official numbers get released.