Gadgetory

consuls have evolved to become the hub of the living room so how did the ps4 and Xbox one stack up in the software department even though both consoles are closed in most areas they take two totally different approaches for the interface the ps4 is focused on gaming with media as a secondary feature where the Xbox one puts a much bigger emphasis on entertainment both are outfitted with a blu-ray drive that supports DVDs but the ps4 oddly doesn't work with audio CDs the Xbox also has an advantage by supporting the vast majority of video formats over USB and you can also run your cable box through the one to control everything through a single device you'll find all the standard streaming apps on both like YouTube Netflix Hulu Amazon Prime video and twitch and quality wise we're looking at 1080p across the board they also have some exclusives Skype is only available on the Xbox and Spotify is on the ps4 which is a pretty killer feature for me it would be nice to have 4k considering some hundred dollars streaming devices can handle it but it is technically possible for 4k support to be edited at some point unlike the last generation both consoles can multitask the ps4 will keep apps running in the background and bring it right back up when you open but it's quick to kill things when it needs the memory the Xbox handles things more elegantly you can hit the Xbox button to minimize the app or game while it's still running you can even run two apps side by side I find myself using snap all the time to watch a video or live stream in the background which is especially nice on a large TV something optional for both consoles are connect and the PlayStation camera they both serve basically the same purpose by supporting a few camera enabled games and giving you voice commands the PlayStation camera will do a few basic things and although I feel it's not as accurate as connect the camera does a good job of tracking to let you play some pretty cool games the Kinect includes Bing which works well as a more Universal search and it's also got more commands such as being able to turn on and off both the Xbox and TV with your voice the problem is that both of these are fairly expensive add-ons that don't seem to have much of a future especially in the Kinect's case get into gaming and both have plenty of cool tricks the Xbox one just added backwards compatibility for 360 titles and it works really well you can use disks or downloaded games which work inside an emulator it's basically indistinguishable from playing on the original hardware and it even works like a normal Xbox one app for things like multitasking on the ps4 side digital foundry discovered Sony snack and a ps2 emulator as of today it only works for a handful of Star Wars games from a limited edition bundle the bigger push is PlayStation now which is a way of playing ps3 titles via streaming if you've got a solid internet connection it's a cool way of playing a lot of games that will probably never come to the ps4 but you can't play your own games and it's about 15 dollars a month which makes the Xbox solution hard to argue with the ps4 does however have remote play on a few devices like the PS Vita you need to solid connection between the pair but it works really nicely you essentially get a mirrored display on the Vita and some games have specific support for the controls the Xbox has streaming to Windows 10 devices which is basically the same thing you connect the controller to the PC and you're able to stream Xbox games right over to the computer one thing to consider is that both consoles require a subscription to play online PSN is $50 a year where Xbox Live comes in at 60 however it's often available for quite a bit less than that both give you access to free games and discounts each month and the selection is pretty comparable recently but regardless you'll have to show up for a subscription to get the most out of these consoles while the series so far has been closed this one's pretty straightforward the ps4 has a nice interface quite a few cool tricks and enough apps to cover the basics but the Xbox one has more features a better design UI camera and backwards compatibility giving it the clear win this time around with four episodes down the Xbox and ps4 tied so stay tuned this isn't over just yet