Winter has packed up and gone, taking with it the woolly jumpers, thermal pants and the bigger game releases. We now approach that time of year where the release of AAA games and more renowned franchises slows to a trickle. Just like that lovingly crafted snowman in the visage of Mario you built in the backyard and froze your nips off in doing so, the big games evaporate in the sun as we enter what is commonly known as the summer slump.
For some, summer means a long and tedious spell of grinding through their back catalogue of downloaded games in anticipation for the next big release. For others, like myself, it’s an opportunity to catch up on the never-ending backlog of games that we haven’t had time to play.
Some however, prefer to spend the summer months actually socialising with other real-life people in the outside world, the absolute lunatics. If you’re looking to get a shiny new console, stay indoors and forgo those frosty beers on a sunny day whilst being harassed by wasps, getting sunburn and avoiding eye contact with chubby dudes who think it’s a great day to be shirtless and show the world their man boobs, then this may help you make your choice.
I’ll analyse the big 3 in console gaming from Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft and inform you about each model and its capabilities that allow you to play all the latest releases and classic backwards compatible games, not to mention some stellar exclusives.
Nintendo Switch
If you’ve decided that you don’t want to be cooped up indoors but still want to game in the great outdoors then this is the console for you. The Nintendo Switch is a console unlike any other. It takes HD gaming from the living room and out into pretty much wherever you want to go. Personally, I’d probably only take it as far as the bathroom but that’s just me.
Unlike Microsoft and Sony’s consoles which are designed to sit snuggly at home with a blanket and some fruity teas, the Switch wants to go outside and play frisbee in the park with an overexcited pooch. The Main console is a 6.2-inch touchscreen unit, controlled by two detachable Joy-Con controllers that dock either side of the screen. Depending on what you’re playing you can get 2 to 6 hours battery life. Never fear though my hermit friends, as the Switch can be docked to play on your living room TV.
Its Joy-Con peripherals are a little daunting at first, but offer the same functionality as a traditional controller. They can also be used as motion controllers and separately by 2 players for simpler games. It’s worth mentioning that a more traditional Pro controller can be bought separately.
Because of its size and portability, the Nintendo Switch is obviously not as powerful as the Xbox One S or PS4 Slim. With every game release there has been discrepancies in what the console can actually display. Whilst its undocked, the Switch has a 720p screen but when connected to a TV it usually runs around 900p then gets upscaled to Full HD. Unfortunately, the Switch doesn’t support HDR or 4K.
The Switch does boast some great exclusives from classics franchises such as Zelda, Mario and Metroid Prime 4 which is currently in development, along with newer titles like Splatoon 2. There’s also upcoming third party exclusives, including one that I’m very envious of: Bayonetta 3.
At the moment there isn’t an active subscription service for the Nintendo Switch. However, it has been announced that their service called Nintendo Switch Online with start in September this year. Currently Switch players are gaming online for free in lieu of a dedicated service but come September that will be incorporated into the new service. It’ll cost significantly less than Sony and Microsoft’s services at launch, at around £3.49 for a month to month membership and only £18 for a year. The lower price in comparison to the other consoles is justified by the fact that you will only get access to 20 classic NES games at launch.
A potential future issue may be the consoles minuscule storage, as just 32GB of in built storage is available. The games are significantly smaller in download size compared to its competitors but it’ll soon fill up once Nintendo Switch Online starts offering free monthly downloads as predicted. You can upgrade the consoles storage using microSD cards currently up to 256GB. The Online service will also offer cloud storage for your save games, which will make it practically essential.
Standard console packages start at around £250 in the UK around $300 in the US but you’re going to want to pay a little more to get a game with your console. Mario Kart 8 bundles are available for around £275/$360 or Zelda bundles are available for a similar price.
DEAL: Nintendo Switch – Neon Blue and Red Joy-Con ($299)
XBOX ONE S & XBOX ONE X
The Xbox One S is a slimmer and more stylish version of the original Xbox One launched back in 2013 that has since been discontinued, though you can still pick up an original model for a rock bottom price at some retailers. There isn’t a tremendous amount of difference between the Xbox One and the One S, though it did do away with the enormous external power brick and reduced the size of the console by 40%. It comes with a 4K Blu-ray player and HDR support for HDR TVs, and can support 4K video playback from streaming services such as Netflix, Amazon and Now TV, these features won’t mean much to you unless you have a 4K TV.
Microsoft tout it as the complete entertainment machine and it’s not an exaggeration. The console runs on version of Windows 10 which allows it to combine a plethora of media sources into a single channel, while also seamlessly connecting to other Microsoft services.
The popular opinion seems like Microsoft aren’t really bagging the bigger exclusives these days, but there are still plenty of exclusive titles available. From classic and well-known franchises such as Halo, Gears of War and Forza, to more recent exclusives such as Cuphead, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds and Sea of Thieves, there’s something for everyone if you’re buying based on the available exclusives.
If you owned an Xbox 360 you’ll be pleased to know that Microsoft’s ever expanding backwards compatibility program allows you to play many of the Xbox 360 classics you remember and love. If a game you purchased/downloaded on the 360 is available, you can redownload it for free. There are currently over 400 Xbox 360 titles available in the backwards compatibility program with more being added all the time, and now you can play 3 generations of Xbox games on one console. Original Xbox classics such as Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II, SSX 3, Black and Red Faction 2 are all available to download and play.
Microsoft’s long running subscription service ‘Xbox Live’ is still as solid as ever, allowing you to game online with friends or complete strangers. An added bonus of being a member of Xbox Live Gold is the ‘Games with Gold’ program, which gives you access to 4 free games a month; 2 Xbox One titles and 2 Xbox 360 titles that you can play as long as you have an active subscription. Xbox Live costs £7.99 UK and $9.99 US for a monthly rolling subscription or £39.99 / $59.99 for a one-year subscription.
DEAL: 12 Month Xbox Live Gold Membership ($59.99)
Last year Microsoft started a new subscription service known a Game Pass, which is essentially like a Netflix service for games. For an additional £7.99 / $9.99 a month on top of your gold membership you can download and play over 100 Xbox One and Xbox 360 games for as long as your subscription is active. The service constantly changes from month to month and offers some pretty big titles like Rise of the Tomb Raider, Gears of War 4 and Halo 5: Guardians.
The service also acts as a platform for Microsoft to launch exclusive titles such as Sea of Thieves, State of Decay 2 and the hotly anticipated Crackdown 3. At the moment there is an introductory offer for the first 14 days of subscription for free, that’s a lot of games to get your sun dodging face into for just free. Just remember to cancel the subscription if there’s nothing that tickles your fancy.
If you’re really burning through your games like the sun on your sensitive skin, there is also the option of EA Access, EA’s own subscription service which is currently exclusive to Xbox. For £3.99/$4.99 a month you can play 40+ EA titles including Mass Effect: Andromeda, Titanfall 2, Dragon Age Inquisition and a whole heap of sports games like FIFA 17 and Madden NFL 17.
DEAL: EA Access 12 Month Subscription – Xbox One ($29.99)
Prices for brand new machines can start from as little as £199.99 / $279.99 for the basic 500GB model with one controller and no games. Unfortunately, 500GB isn’t a massive amount of memory if you want to store all those games. The One S can support an external hard drive up to 16TB to expand the console memory. With a little bit of shopping around you can find great deals on the 1TB model usually with 2 or 3 games or an extra controller for around £250 / $300.
DEAL: Xbox One S 500GB Console ($256.90)
Now we get to the meaty beast. The high-end version that packs as much punch as Microsoft could cram into their handsome little moulded plastic box. The One X is slightly smaller than the S but packs a lot more power, akin to a mid-range PC. The X does everything the S can do and more. While both consoles can play all available Xbox titles the X allows gamers to play titles with the ‘Enhanced for One X’ tag. What this means is that the X will render games at a much higher resolution as opposed to upscaling like the S so you can see every glorious little whisker sprouting out of Geralt from the Witcher’s chiny-chin-chin.
Currently there are nearly 150 games available in the ‘Enhanced for One X’ category with some AAA titles getting the treatment like Call of Duty: WW2, Far Cry 5, FIFA 18, Destiny 2 and Fortnite. It’s not just the One games that get the treatment, Some Xbox 360 run at a higher resolution and 9X the original pixel count like Fallout 3, Forza Horizon 2 and Skate 3.
The Xbox One X comes with a 1TB hard drive as standard but all that extra power and performance does come at a price. A bog-standard package with no games will start off at around £399 in the UK $499 in the US and that’s before you’ve added on an external hard drive or extra peripherals.
DEAL: Xbox One X 1TB Console ($482.98)
PlayStation 4 Slim & PlayStation 4 Pro
Just as Microsoft did with the Xbox One, Sony released an incremental upgrade to the PlayStation 4 in 2016. If Microsoft’s upgrade can be described as incremental, then Sony’s effort can be described as infinitesimal. Estimated to be 30% smaller than the original 2013 model, the only real difference between the 2 machines is the removal of the optical audio port. The DualShock 4 controller also received a slight redesign with the light bar being added to the top of the controller’s touch pad.
In terms of exclusives, Sony’s console has some pretty heavy hitters that are the main reason the PlayStation 4 has sold more units than its rivals. There really is some stellar exclusives available on the PS4 such as Uncharted, The Last of Us, God of War, Gran Turismo, Death Stranding, and Horizon: Zero Dawn to name but a few of the impressive exclusive titles in Sony’s arsenal.
A major boon for the PlayStation at this moment in time is the added support of VR. The PS4 supports Sony’s exclusive PlayStation VR platform, which allows you to play a variety of different VR experiences and games like Doom VFR, The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim VR, Batman Arkham VR and upcoming procedurally generated first-person horror, The Persistence.
DEAL: PlayStation VR – Doom Bundle ($279.99)
PS Plus is your basic subscription on the PS4 which allows you to play online multiplayer and gifts members at least 2 free games a month. It’ll cost you £6.99 / $9.99 a month or £49.99 / $59.99 for a full year’s subscription.
PlayStation Now for the PS4 is Sony’s game rental service. Priced at £12.99 / $19.99 a month it is a significant price difference from the Xbox Game Pass service. However, you do get some bang for your buck. Like Microsoft’s service you get access to a library of Sony’s PS4 and PS3 games but Sony’s library at present is much larger. The service which started back in 2014 now offers over 500 titles to choose from including many of the platforms exclusive titles like the Uncharted series, The Last of Us, Until Dawn, God of War Remastered and Heavy Rain.
It’s worth noting at this juncture that PlayStation Now operates differently from Xbox’s Game Pass service. Unlike Game Pass which allows you to download a game onto your storage device, PlayStation Now streams games to your console from a cloud. So if you suffer from a poor internet connection in your area you may not be able to utilise the service.
A bog standard new PlayStation 4 Slim with 500GB memory starts at around £229 in the UK, $299 in the US but there are a variety of bundles out there for around £250 / $300 that will throw in 2 or 3 games. It’s also worth mentioning that the PlayStation’s internal memory can be swapped out for a larger drive unlike the Xbox which relies on external drives to expand your memory. You can pick up a 1TB edition, usually with a game for around £250 / $300.
DEAL: PlayStation 4 Slim 1TB Console – Star Wars Battlefront II Bundle ($339.99)
Sony’s super console, the PlayStation 4 Pro, does everything the standard PlayStation 4 can do. However, it’s twice as powerful than its predecessor with an upgraded processor that can now run 4K. Unfortunately, only some games will run at a native 4K Ultra HD whilst games that demand more of the console will run close to 4K and be upscaled. It’s not necessary to have a 4K TV for either the Xbox One X or the PlayStation 4 Pro but to enjoy the full ability of the consoles it’s probably a good investment.
Similar to the Xbox ‘Enhanced for One X’ collection of games, Sony has the ‘Enhanced for PS4 Pro’ range. These games boast enhanced frame rates in stunning 4K. Whilst Sony don’t have as many enhanced titles available yet as Microsoft, with around 45 games holding the ‘Enhanced for PS4 Pro’ tag, more are in development and the current selection isn’t lacking in big game variety.
Titles such as Gran Turismo Sport, FIFA 18, Horizon: Zero Dawn, Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End and The Last of Us Remastered are all in the program. Price wise, the PS4 Pro undercuts the Xbox One X for a basic package, around £349 in the UK and $399 in the US with a game or two in some outlets.
DEAL: PlayStation 4 Pro 1TB Limited Edition Console – God of War Bundle ($537.95)
I hope this has helped you make a slightly more informed decision as to which console to buy to avoid going outside. What games are you looking forward to playing? How much do you hate wasps? Let us know below if you’re getting a new console for summer.
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