To Buy or Not to Buy Next-Gen Consoles At Launch

Xbox One or PlayStation 4? Black and blue or lime green hue? That’s the big question facing gamers this Holiday Season, as both Microsoft and Sony go all out to gain their first tentative footholds in the 8th generation.

With most major retailers having sold out of their pre-sale allocations months ago, the odds of locating a launch day console are now as hopelessly slim as prospective profits are fat – but, is that necessarily a bad thing?


Given what we already know about launch day difficulties, should gamers really be diving into the next generation of video game consoles with both feet , or has the worm finally turned in favor of the early adopter?

Late to the party: lame or lucrative? Game Rant decided to find out…
Launch Prices vs. Price Drops
Weak Launch Lineups
Hardware Reliability
Console War Defeat
Feature Loss/Addition
Conclusion: Your Big Decision

Launch Prices vs. Price Drops

Video game hardware manufacturers bank on excitement, building up a buzz before unleashing their latest kit at a premium price point. Of course, no sooner have they done this, than those same manufacturers begin slashing prices in a vain attempt to renew flagging sales and interest (see: Nintendo 3DS and PS Vita). As such, conventional retail wisdom tends to suggest holding off on your purchase, in order to take advantage of the absolute best deal possible – but does this wise advice apply to video games?

From the mid-90s all the way to today, the average cost of a premium-level console has tended to remain at around $350. The average time it took a major console manufacturer to drop prices during this 18-year span, was seven-and-a-half months (ten if you include the Wii’s three year price fix), meaning that patient gamers could find themselves waiting until the June-to-August period of 2014 for a cheaper PS4 or Xbox One (if then). Interestingly, the average amount of money lopped off a console’s opening day price tag during that time was $83, the same figure a player might expect to spend on a special edition game release today.

Verdict – Is a saving of $83 worth a near-eight month wait? Probably not, but there are many more launch day factors to consider, including…



Weak Launch Lineups

Widely recognized as one of the major drawback of early adoption, poor launch title selections aren’t usually enough to scupper a console on their own, though they do beg the question of why gamers would willingly buy into an experience sporting little more than shovelware. Sure, the better games are on their way, but for the time being you may be stuck with an expensive platform, and only a selection of overpriced and rushed titles to choose from.

Investigating the launch lineups of over a dozen consoles doesn’t exactly do much to generate confidence – outside of a few key franchise-spawning hits like Haloand Resistance. Every past machine seems to feature the same checklist of genres, including at least one exclusive shooter, platformer, racer, fighting title and as always, a healthy selection of licensed sports games. Notable examples from the previous three generations include –
PSX – Air Combat, Rayman, Ridge Racer
Nintendo 64 – Pilotwings 64, Super Mario 64
Saturn – Virtua Fighter, Panzer Dragoon, Daytona USA
PS2 – Tekken Tag Tournament, Timesplitters
Xbox – Halo, Project Gotham Racing, Jet Set Radio Future, Dead or Alive 3, Munch’s Odyssey
Gamecube – Luigi’s Mansion, SSX Tricky, Super Monkey Ball, Star Wars: Rogue Squadron II: Rogue Leader
PS3 – Call of Duty 3, Resistance: Fall of Man, Marvel Ultimate Alliance
Xbox 360 – Call of Duty 2, GUN, Project Gotham Racing 3, Kameo: Elements of Power
Wii – Call of Duty 3, Rayman: Raving Rabbids, Red Steel, Wii Sports

As video game consoles continue to morph into fully-fledged ‘multimedia devices’ this issue is steadily becoming less and less apparent. Modern gaming systems are outfitted with enough connectivity to ensure that here’s always something to do, whether the platform’s gaming lineup is strong or not. Plus, the relative ease of use involved in Xbox One & PS4 development has led many studios to jump at the chance to headline their respective launches. As such, gamers can expect many credible cross-platform releases this holiday season, including – Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, Battlefield 4 and Call of Duty: Ghosts.

Verdict - If a gamer can’t find something to enjoy on tomorrow’s multimedia-rich consoles, then the chances are – they aren’t looking hard enough. While it’s true that most launch titles do tend to be weaker than their successors, improved ease-of-development appears to be stamping out this issue.



Hardware Reliability

With the Xbox’s popularization of online console gaming came many other unique possibilities; multiplayer-only adventures, downloadable add-on packs and even post-launch patches. Unfairly abused by some studios as a way to ship out and then fix up broken titles, these patches can act to alleviate otherwise game-breaking bugs, glitches and assorted hardware failures. They can also occasionally cause them.

A 2009 survey conducted by SquareTrade found that the failure rates of otherwise ‘healthy’ new consoles amongst major 7th gen competitors was – 23.7% for the Xbox 360, 10% for the PlayStation 3 & 2.7% for the Wii. While many of these early Xbox 360′s were undoubtedly the victims of the hardware’s weak soldering agent – resulting in the now-infamous Red Ring of Death scandal – that doesn’t explain every single failure encountered. The survey goes on to state that the platform’s failure rate fell to a much more manageable 4% with the introduction of the new ‘Jasper’ model 360 in Q3 2008. Simply put, those gamers who had waited to take the plunge were rewarded with a more reliable console.


Verdict – Following the RROD disaster, neither Sony nor Microsoft will be looking to skimp on extensive hardware testing this time around. While the eventual introduction of slim-line models could affect failure rates in some fashion, you can expect both the original Xbox One and PS4 models to perform much better than their predecessors.



Console War Defeat

Caught between generations, SEGA’s innovative Dreamcast system started out strongly enough, before the power of the almighty PlayStation 2 came crashing down on top of it. In an industry filled with failed competitors, SEGA still seemed too big to fail. When they did, gamers everywhere suddenly became much more wary about backing the perceived winning team. Supporting your favorite IPs was one thing, but watching them disappear halfway through the race was quite another.

It’s important to remember that just about anything can happen between now and a prospective 9th generation, and no one wants to become saddled with an unloved, unsupported console two years from now. Of course, even if your console itself survives, there’s no telling if all of its features – features you may end up investing both time and money in – will also endure. HDDVD had as much right to exist in the post-DVD environment, as did Sony’s Blu-ray. Gamecube’s mini-discs and PSP’s UMDs seemed to reflect the industry’s move towards increasingly small storage devices. Yet all of these technologies ultimately failed. For better or worse, the hardware, features and services for both the PS4 and Xbox One are extremely similar, possibly more than any consoles prior.

Verdict - Obsolete/unsuccessful tech is probably the best reason to embrace a wait-and-see approach. The console market had seemed to crystallize into three major competitors as recently as last year, yet Nintendo’s recent struggles with the Wii U have reinforced the idea that nothing can be taken for granted. On the plus side, the 8th gen really isn’t presenting us with too many new, or exclusive technologies (the Xbox One features Blu-ray, for example) so it’s unlikely either Xbox One or PS4 will become outright failures, especially with the amount of non-gaming services they will also offer.



Feature Loss/Addition

A somewhat less important factor, later console models often cut production costs by removing seemingly unnecessary features, meaning that late-arriving customers may miss out. The PlayStation 3 launched with PS2 backward compatibility, a feature that was later dropped – even before the system’s slim line debut. Given that Sony is now reselling PS2 titles via their network, some gamers will likely have shelled out for an experience they already own in disc form. While it’s difficult to predict exactly which Xbox One or PS4 features will be culled (should the consoles eventually receive slimmed down makeovers) feature losses should always be expected.

Of course, later editions can also spark some notable additions. Microsoft’s horrifying ‘Duke’ controller was eventually replaced 6 months after the original Xbox’s debut by the shapely S-variant, a design that the company has continued to iterate on ever since.


Verdict – It’s tough to say where and how later cuts may occur. Xbox has already cut its always-online requirements, meaning it’s highly unlikely to budge any further, at least as far as feature sets are concerned.



Your Next-Gen Decision

Hardware launches are not an easy thing to pull off, but at least both of the 8th-gen contenders – PlayStation 4 and Xbox One – appear better placed than their predecessors. Whether any of these noted improvements equate to an ASAP-type buy is entirely up to you, but for those on the fence, try considering the following questions.

Is a prospective eight-month wait worth $100 or so? Are cross-gen titles a worthy addition to launch? Will Sony or Microsoft skimp on hardware testing to save money? Which features will end up on the scrap heap, and will both sides survive the upcoming struggle? Give us your opinions, and tell us which console you plan on picking up, (and when), by heading to comments section below.

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The PlayStation 4 will debut on November 15, 2013 across North America and November 29, 2013 throughout Europe. The Xbox One launches worldwide on November 22, 2013.