PS4 vs Xbox One: Interface and Features
Both consoles have slick user interfaces. The PS4’s is simpler and better at getting you straight to the functions you use most when playing games. The Xbox One’s has a similar feel to Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8, with a start screen and live tiles for games and apps, but it can make simple operations like checking on your achievements or finding out what friends are doing seem like hard work. It’s best used with Kinect and voice commands, as you don’t need to remember which screen to find an app or feature on, you just utter the appropriate command.
Both consoles have their party pieces. The PS4 has a brilliant Remote Play feature, where you can stream games from your PS4 to a PS Vita handheld or Sony Xperia smartphone or tablet, and keep playing while someone else hogs the TV. It also has some great game sharing features with adapyer scuh as Sony PCG-FR150 AC adapter, Sony VGN-FZ AC adapter, Sony VGN-FS AC adapter, Sony VGN-FW518 AC adapter, Sony VGN-FW550 AC adapter, Sony VGN-Z880 AC adapter, Sony VPC-W121 AC adapter, Sony PCG-FX AC adapter, Sony PCG-R505 AC adapter, Sony PCG-Z505 AC adapter, Sony VGN-C290 AC adapter, Sony VGN-FE690 AC adapter, where you can virtually hand over your controller to another PS4 owner, and let them stream a game from your console over the Web. The Xbox One, however, can give you a split-screen view to run two apps or one game and one app at once, plus an instant resume which allows you to put your console in standby, turn it on again, and carry on playing exactly where you left off.
The Xbox One’s second-generation Kinect camera is a big improvement on the first, with more accurate motion tracking that works better across a range of lighting conditions, and can also track your body in more detail, even down to the individual finger joints. Sadly, it’s been grossly under-used so far, with just a handful of games that use it, and precious little sign of more to follow. The PS4’s PlayStation Camera is a cheaper and less high-tech affair, and works with the same PS Move wand controllers that Sony first launched for the PS3. Again, it’s barely been used so far, and shouldn’t be considered a must-have purchase.
Neither console is backwards compatible, so if you owned an Xbox 360 there’s no real reason to stick with an Xbox One this time, bar the fact that your Xbox Live profile carries over. The same applies with the PS4, though Sony is due to launch a game streaming service here next year, PlayStation Now, which will enable you to stream a range of PSOne, PS2 and PS3 games over the Internet. However, you still have to pay to stream games, whether you own them or not, so there’s not a massive advantage if you have a huge PS3 games collection.