PlayStation 4

The other day, I bought a PS4. It seemed initially to be a result of the perfect combination of peer pressure, (too much) disposable income, peer pressure and finally, peer pressure. While I'm eager and always willing to blame my friends for my seemingly absurd purchases, I have nobody to blame but myself. This allows me to step back and look at the long, storied history of factors that put myself in a Wal-Mart at 7:20am on a Thursday morning, asking for - and subsequently - purchasing the latest iteration of Sony's home video game console.

PlayStation History

Keeping in mind that I was a video game fanatic in the early to mid-Nineties, you can understand that I was keeping on top of all the news and wanted to buy every single system out there. Obviously, my family couldn't afford to do that. Instead, they fed me monthly purchases of a host of video game magazines, including Electronic Gaming Monthly (EGM), GamePro, Nintendo Power, EGM2 and Next Generation. There was a side dish of console rentals, allowing me to play the 3DO, 32X, Saturn and some other systems that I would eventually go on to own, like the Sega CD, SNES and Genesis. The PlayStation was one such rental. It was also highly anticipated. Now, I may have owned both a Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo, but I was always a Nintendo die-hard: they were the first system of any generation I sought out (from NES, SNES, to Gamecube at least). However, the N64 was being hit with delays, and being a young teenager with a short fuse, I was losing my mind. The magazines didn't help, with their "news" and speculation. I read all about the Sony/Nintendo failed CD-ROM add-on for the SNES, and it infuriated me. The N64 was built up in my mind, that the expectations were unrealistic. Every news of delay, or reduced features, or anything negative really, was met with hostility.

For Christmas 1995, the PlayStation was under the tree, and it was mine. Feeling a twinge of pain as I seemingly turned my back on Nintendo for a moment, but I didn't look back - for a while, that is. Ridge Racer was brilliant: for the first time I felt like I was playing the arcade at home. The ability to play music CDs, outside and in (some of) the games was astonishing. This was the future, and poor Nintendo was stuck with cartridges. The N64 would come out nearly a year later, and I would get the system in 1997, which is roughly around the time that I abandoned my PlayStation for the glory of Mario, Zelda and Goldeneye. It was a simple choice, really: the PlayStation may have had a lot of games, but they were jagged, poor games that were often hit or miss. Shovelware was not a term I knew then, but I know now: with cheap licensing, Sony allowed just about anyone to release a game on the system, which is both good and bad. After pushing dozens of hours into Gran Turismo I sold my PlayStation to a friend. I looked back though, in Christmas 1999, as more titles were coming out and interest was renewed - and I couldn't resist the release of Gran Turismo 2. I picked up the PlayStation on Boxing Day, bought a few titles and went about my way.

I didn't immediately jump on the PlayStation 2: I already had a DVD player and the Gamecube interested me more. I was in university with less time to game. The PlayStation 3 I purchased fairly soon after release, paying the full $499 asking price. It was for the Bluray player. All other players at the time were in the same price range, or they were a bit cheaper but the PS3 gives you the gaming console as a "bonus." It would also prove itself to be the best, even by today's standards. With the built in hard drive and easily upgraded firmware, it would fulfill any new Bluray specifications to come out. It has served me well as a Bluray player, and less so as a gaming machine. The system is marred with slow, tedious updates and system crashes. By the time I get to play a game I've lost interest, and would move on to another platform.

Peer Pressure

The plan was simple, but the timeline was not. First, comes the Wii U, then a gaming PC, then the PS4, then the Xbox One. A plan to own all the systems, as I typically do, but I didn't focus on the timeline. Last Christmas, I received the Wii U as a gift, and thoroughly enjoyed it for months after. Then, I built a gaming PC, which I enjoyed thoroughly. There was no plan to buy the PS4: the idea was to wait until it dropped in price, or there was a decent selection of games available. This could take years, which is perfectly fine. I've enjoyed the PlayStation line of consoles much more so after they have matured a bit. So what happened here?

Two of my friends picked up PS4 consoles in a relatively short period of time. My first buddy's purchase earlier this year didn't have much of an effect on me, as I was in the process of building my gaming PC. While he was talking about buying Don't Starve for a sale price of $9.99 on the PS4 online store, I had purchased the same title for a fraction of the price at $3.74. At that point I knew I had made the right decision, and for the next few months I would enjoy a bevy of PC gaming goodness.Enter, Destiny, the latest shooter from Bungie. It's not something I looked forward to, but it seems my friends had different ideas. Another friend went out and picked up the special console edition of Destiny, and in short time they were playing together online. And there it was: online play with friends. They began pressuring me, telling me how great it is, how great it would be to go on missions. Another friend, who already had a PS4, said he would buy the game if I did, so that we could play together. The offer was too good to pass up, and with the price getting better on the console, I had to take the plunge.

Xbox One

With being so into the Xbox 360, one has to wonder why I didn't jump on the Xbox One, but opted for the PS4 instead. The question is simple - and could be complicated - but my answer was simple: The Xbox One was not designed for me. I believe I wrote about it, but I watched the reveal of the system with great anticipation, with the expectation that I would happily throw my money down for the system (maybe even pre-order). What I got instead was talk of being able to watch television through the Xbox, and a mandatory Kinect sensor with every system. Baffled, I lost hope. There was little to no discussion on games, aside from the Call of Duty series - which I had lost interest in ages ago. Sony would make their reveal presentation the next day, and fix all the wrongs: they were going to correct everything that was wrong with the PS3, they were going to focus on indie developers, they were going to focus on gaming, which is exactly what I wanted to hear. A more powerful processor, social features and no forced accessories would make for a trifecta of a good system. It seems to have worked, as the PS4 is outselling the Xbox One; a year into release and we seem to have a winner already, and Microsoft is affirming this by making desperate, significant changes in their removal of the Kinect. By then it was too late as my mind was made up, and with the knowledge that many of the Xbox exclusives would come to PC, there was but one system to purchase now.

Disposable Income

None of this would be possible without some disposable income, which is a convoluted mess of opportunity cost measured against needs and wants. No, I don't need a PS4. Do I want one? If I were to put my desire on a scale of one to ten, wanting this console would hover around a six or seven, which is in a tricky spot. There is money burning a hole in my pocket, and if it's one thing I know how to do, is spend it. So a 'Want Level Six' is not something I would persue with great effectiveness, with a disposable income level at where it is, the purchase becomes nearly impulse. I'm not made of money, not rolling around in it, but it becomes easy to spend this amount of money every month on luxury items when it doesn't mean taking on any debt.

I also tried another approach though, which is to use gift cards. Through PC Financial, I have accumulated hundreds of dollars in "PC Points" which you can use to buy anything in store. This means you can have your feast at the gift card section; it's just a matter of what store you want to buy with. So I picked up some cards, using my points, then used those cards to subsidize my purchases. Simple and elegant.

Conclusion

I write this without having played Destiny, or any other PS4 title yet. That comes later: the other night I had just enough time to plug the system in, attach my PlayStation ID to it, and begin downloading a system update as well as some free games I've amassed through the PS+ membership. Only with foresight can I ask myself questions such as: Was this a good purchase? I can tell you one of the factors in the purchase was to get a new Bluray player, one that doesn't do the decoding of the newer, high definition audio formats. I want my receiver to handle that. In that sense, it's overkill - Bluray players are cheap these days. There are a few titles I'm looking forward to, including The Last of Us, which has appropriately been "remastered" for the new system. The thing is, I don't expect miracles here. I don't have time to try and play everything now, but instead, I can focus on the top games and series. Hopefully they release an Uncharted anthology. And there are interesting accessories coming, including a VR headset and PlayStation TV device that essentially allows you to put a PS4 on every television in the house.