Are the XBONE/PS4 load times a deal breaker?

Hey there,

I'm living in Japan currently and my only things to play games with are a vita and a rather awful laptop that chugs playing Axiom Verge. There are plenty of new games that I want to play but the load times/other technical issues on the current gen systems sound pretty terrible. Are they bad enough to force me to save up for a bit and buy a beefy PC? Japanese apartment sizes and the fact I'll move in the nearish-future are pushing me away from building one. Not sure what to do, what do you say?

Loadtimes are fine in 99/100 games basically, the consumer outrage has developers (and platform owners sometimes) taking care of the loadtime trouble quickly. What is in common for most is that there's a single meaty load until you are "in the game", and that's it for notable loadtimes.

PS4 and you'll become a fan of remote play!

If there are enough games you want to play on PS4 or XONE I say you go for it. Technical issues are only a concern on a game-by-game basis, it doesn't have too much to do with the actual hardware, and honestly I think it's all been a bit overblown. The vast majority of PS4 games run fine and load fine, even some that used to not (I'm looking at you, Bloodborne). As developers get more and more comfortable with the hardware I think those problems are going to become more and more infrequent on current gen systems. Also, man, there are a LOT of cool looking games coming out in the near future.

Good luck with whatever you choose!

you've made it this far without buying them, just wait til you move and then build your dream PC. You'll be happier in the long run. Load times are not the deal-breaker here, performance is. Consoles just don't run games at a stable frame rate it seems.

They are certainly worse than a PC with an SSD, but I don't think they are unbearable, especially if you're not already used to SSD load times. I have a gaming PC, PS4, and Xbox One, and I try to get everything I can on PC because of the better graphics and load times, but that's only because I have a relatively high-end PC. I played Bloodborne earlier this year, a game which many people complained about the loading times, and found them to be long but not off-putting. It's not like I would put the game down and do something else while it loaded or anything. The crew have complained a lot about load times on the Bombcast this year, but I think some of that is just because they got used to fast gaming PCs.

If you're debating between a similarly priced PC and a PS4 or Xbox One, then I'd go with the console. If you want to spend some money and get a high-end PC, then you will have a better experience on PC (baring annoying technical issues that occasionally come with PC games).

Hybrid drive guys, get one. Even so, a PC with an SSD is probably 5 to 10x faster.

The consoles are fine but... a nice PC is just a wonderful thing to have right now.

The loading times in most games (Xbox One) is fine but for stuff like The Witcher 3 its really nice to have on an SSD it makes reloading saves and dying not a bother, the long load times reported on consoles would be a nightmare for me for that game but most everything is 100% fine.

I can only speak about the xbone, works fine with 3.0USB external drive. It does improve loading times against the internal drive.

As expected PC trumps all, but I wouldn't say loading times are a deal breaker for consoles.

Loading times vary quite a bit between games. I have a PS4 and Dragon Age Inquisition loads real fast for an open world game, but The Witcher 3 normally takes like 30 seconds if not more to load. I wouldn't say it's a deal breaker, but it's definitely not something I like.