Consoles are getting annoying to setup

[Shuri]

I got my ps4 last night and god damn it was annoying to setup. Tons of various accounts to input (psn, bf4, twitch), a big system update to download, and then its not OVER! I bought COD:G on disc; and then it's not over -- I started a single player game, then decided to try multi - i get a quick popup telling me to download an update to play online .. How? Where? It's automated? It still lets me go thru, I guess the update was downloaded? (excellent UI testing guyz,gg), and now I get a very generic "Could not find cod server, please try again later and check http://callofdutyblabla for online status". I go online, it says something about some PS4 users experiencing difficulties; I'm like.. Ok.

I take a little break, come back half a hour later; try again -- damn, same thing. I hop online, check on neogaf about the error mssage, some guy tell me i must install the update. What? I get on the ps4, exit out of the game, then notice that I have two labels now for Ghost.. One that says Start with a rotating disc, and the other one says "Start" with nothing else. I select start with the rotating disc; it gets into the game, i try online.. Still an error message. Exit out, I decide to try the second option.. Suddenly it says something about updating the game. Ah! I go online.. It takes a few times to get into a game, but it eventually works.

The game is kinda meh.

I get into the psn store, buy BF4; it downloads two big chunks of the game, a part is like 6gb, the other 2gb (or something), I come back a while later, it says that it's ready. I get into the game.. what the fuck. It's only the single player stuff. It says something about "play the single player mode while the rest of the game downloads!" so I start playing, and I come back to the menu to check on the progress. I get bored of the single and exit out of the game and walk away to take a shower and do some shit, expecting the game to be done when i come back.

What the fuck, it's stuck at 56% when I restart at BF4. Either the download stopped, or it does not download the rest of the game when you are in the playstation interface? BF4 has its own downloading system? I start the game, and leave it at the menu and walk away.. It eventually downloads the rest of the stuff and like 30 minutes I get to play.

I dont want to imagine how longer it could be for someone with a slow link.. I know it's the launch period, but damn it's an hassle to set up at first. I can only imagine how much of a nightmare it could be for regular people..

[Smooth Groove]

That's why I haven't even bothered to reset my PSN account since the lost data fiasco.  It's just too much hassle and by that time I already had other devices that were Netflix ready. 

At least with the PS3, you can always play games without ever having log into PSN. 

On the PS4, are you required to sign in, at least once? 

[Eel O'Brian]

You have to download the Day One patch to enable a lot of stuff, but after that I think you don't have to connect again if you don't want to.

[MCD]

PS software can be a pain but the hardware is simple to setup compared to others. No power brick or extra camera/controller/docking/whatever. Just a power cable and HDMI.

[demi]

Still not getting any pussy

[Tasty]

Weeeoooo

[Himu]

When I play PC games if I can play with a controller I do so and with it hooked up to HDMI. That's how I played games like Borderlands 2, Dark Souls, and others. Playing PC games is easier than ever. Especially in a TV setting.

[Diunx]

I remember the days of video adapters and switches and shit, that was a real setup, now it' s just waiting for shit to download

[Himu]

COD and GTA have the ocassional cheating. But hey it isn't like it was revealed that cheaters have infiltrated GTA Online or anything and that's on consoles.

I have a computer from 2009 and my computer can run most AAA 30 fps and higher. The only games that struggle are the ones that awful ports or the devs don't take consideration for people with dual cores.

[Stoney Mason]

I have to fiddle with tons of stuff to get certain PC games working. When people try to promote this idea that games tend to work flawlessly on a PC nowadays I laugh. That is not my experience at all. Not saying it isn't worth it. But there are often lots and lots of issues. Especially when you go back and want to play games that are a few years old. And I'm even talking about 10 years or something. COD 4 had a weird quirk on my particular system that literally took me 6 months of off and on investigation to figure out why it wasn't working.

And yes in multiplayer games PC cheating is more rampant. Just watch any counter strike stream on Twitch. Which is not to say that there aren't certain situations where cheating has become prevalent on a console game like COD 4 and MW 2, and World at War suffer.


To address the thing in the op though. That's just the way things are nowadays. These are internet connected devices and devs now patch in functionality. I bet the new generation doesn't even blink an eye at this stuff. Its probably just standard procedure to them. They didn't grow up with SNES and N64 and simple plug and play consoles. It's people my age or slightly younger who are of that generation.

[Himu]

I don't have to fiddle with many games at all. Then again, your tastes tend to lean towards shooters, which these days, are usually ports. And often bad ones too.

[Stoney Mason]

Simply put the variation of machines with the parts and the setups causes an infinite amount of situations that can't be tested for. That very thing can cause one weird setup or situation to be an issue with any game. That is obviously the strength of a PC, its customization, but it is an annoying weakness when you just want to sit down for an evening and play something and it doesn't work for whatever reason.

That is why consoles exist. And that's why a simple solution alternative will always exist to PC's whether its a console or a steam machine, or a tablet, or something that will always have a high degree of standardization to simply make things work 99% of the time.

I fiddle with games all the time with any computer I've ever had in a life time of owning PC's. I think tons of people do. They just accept it as the cost of operating on that platform. Some people are fine with that. Some people aren't.