5 Reasons to Be a PS4 Owner

Great Exclusives

While most of the biggest games from 3rd parties tend to come to each platform, Sony has a good lineup of studios and deals to bring some of the biggest and best experiences solely to the PS4. With world-class studios like Naughty Dog and Sony Bend offering huge AAA titles, accompanied by other smaller studios offering great indie experiences, Sony has something for everyone in its exclusive lineup.

That’s not to say that the Xbox One doesn’t also have great exclusives, but with Microsoft doubling down on the Universal Windows Platform, you can expect many future Xbox One exclusive titles to also release on PC. For the most part, Sony’s exclusive titles can only be played on the PS4. There’s the occasional title that will also come to PC, such as No Man’s Sky or Street Fighter V, but this doesn’t take away from the fact that these titles are still some of the best available on the market.

Fast Install Times

As far as games have come in recent years, offering mind-blowing graphics and some of the most in-depth systems and huge open worlds we’ve ever seen, they’ve come with a cost. Games now need to install onto your systems and Day One updates plague the opening hour or so that you spend with your new release. There’s nothing quite as bad as having to wait a good chunk of time to play that game you’ve been eagerly anticipating because your install is slowly ticking up by one percent.

The PlayStation 4 largely mitigates this issue, using a secondary processor to handle the installation of your game. This significantly speeds up game installations to the point that it’s kind of spooky how fast 50gb can be installed onto your hard drive and be ready to go. Though it’s not a huge revelation in gaming, it does quell the sacrifices we’ve had to make for prettier and bigger games in recent years.

PS+ Instant Games Collection

In this day and age, most gamers are playing online, and so you’ll be paying for an online subscription. While the $60 PlayStation Plus subscription fee not only gets you discounts on the Store, a smooth online experience, and cloud storage, it also gets you a bunch of free games every month to keep for as long as your subscription is active.

While there is the odd month where the games may not quite be to your liking, for the most part, Sony is good at offering some excellent and compelling indie titles that you may have overlooked had they not been put in the PlayStation Plus spotlight. Of course, nothing quite beats it when some of the biggest and best games make their way to the service for you to enjoy free of charge. The amount of value that PlayStation Plus offers is huge when you take into account the full price of each game, and it’s a huge asset to the PS4.

No Need to Buy Extras

When you’re shelling out a good few hundred bucks on a console, you don’t really want to be spending any more on accessories and other bits and pieces to have your system up and running and ready to go. Taking your PlayStation 4 out of the box, you’ll find that you’ve got everything ready and waiting for you to get right into the action of your games. The headset in there might not be the comfiest or the best quality you’ve ever had, but it does the job.

One thing that the PlayStation 4 doesn’t require, however, is batteries for its controller. The DualShock 4 has a built-in battery, meaning that you won’t have to worry about your controller cutting out and frantically having to search for AA’s when you’re in the middle of an online match. You can just connect your controller to the USB cable and carry on playing. Not only does this avoid any unnecessary downtime in the middle of a match, but you’re not having to pay for batteries, or for the privilege of having a rechargeable battery.

The Vita Partnership

While Sony’s handheld is by no means flying off the shelf, there are a couple of really neat benefits to owning one if you have a PS4. The first being cross-play. A lot of downloadable games that come to both the PS4 and Vita are now part of the cross-play initiative. This means that if you buy the Vita version of the game, you’ll also unlock it on your PS4. Not only this, but each version of the game will have its own trophy list, meaning for those of you really interested in raising that trophy level, you’ve got twice the number of trophies to unlock and earn. It’s a neat little way to provide a little extra value to each purchase you make on the PlayStation Store that qualifies for it.

The Vita’s remote play functionality is also pretty handy to have if you’re often fighting for control of the TV. Allowing you to simply connect your Vita to your PS4 and stream the game onto your handheld, you can head off to a different room and continue playing without having to battle against your family members. Though some games don’t work quite as well as others, it’s a handy feature to have. Especially considering it can be used even when you’re not on the same home network.