Some problems I have with the PS4

1) Anybody else not getting anything under the "What's New" icon? At this point, everything should be new, but nothing is coming up. It doesn't seem like a big deal, but its bugging the shit out of me, since I can sometimes press down, and I can hear the cursor moving and I can hit X, but nothing happens.

2) I had the PS4 hang when installing the 1.50 update. It downloaded without any trouble at my usual internet speed, but then, it was stuck on Preparing to install... and never stopped. I had to delete it and do it again. Thankfully it installed, but still, that is a stupid problem. I just hope there was no corruption.

3) I already got a crash on Killzone only after an hour of playing. I know it's a new console and a new game, but it took years before I got a crash on any game on my Xbox 360 or PS3.

4) The speaker in the controller is one of the most idiotic and pointless things I have ever seen, or rather, heard. Not only that, but there doesn't always seem to be a way to control how loud it is. Why do I need to listen to audio logs on Killzone on the shitty speaker in my controller, when I would be perfectly content listening to them on my new tv? They sound terrible, and it's actually too loud and sounds partially distorted. Maybe that was for dramatic effect or something, but still, it pisses me off. If anyone saw a way to turn it down or off and force it to play through the tv, at least in that particular game, please let me know, because I have searched and didn't see anything. I wouldn't mention this if it wasn't distracting or take away from the experience, but when I'm sitting on the couch with the controller on my lap, it sounds like the audio logs are being transmitted out of my crotch, which is very distracting listening to the sound coming from the tv and my crotch. What the fuck, Sony?

5) This is what pisses me off the most. The interface is, quite possibly, the worst I have ever seen on a console. And I didn't even hate the XMB, so I was prepared to be lenient if it wasn't perfect. The headings and names of the actually categories are the worst part. It took 20 minutes to find out how to turn off automatic renewal, because the names of the menus often make no sense and are not intuitive at all. It's under "Wallet" for fucks sake. I must have glazed over that a hundred times. Why wouldn't there simply be an option called automatic renewal or transaction options? Not only that, but the console itself tells you to look for this under menus that don't even exist. As far as I can tell, there is no menu on my PS4 called "Account Management", but that is where it told me I could turn off the automatic renewal option. The XMB wasn't the best thing ever, but at least it didn't lie to me.

Needless to say, I'm disappointed. I was pumped. Sony did everything right, made Microsoft look like a bunch of dicks, and really sold me on the console. And now, looking back at my first problem above here, they can't even advertise their own shit on their own console properly.

I would seriously consider taking the console back, but I already opened a game and I refuse to sell it to gamestop. *sigh* I haven't regretted a purchase like this in a while.

I feel like Sony didn't show the UI because it's not great. It's an improvement over the XMB in someways, but it's not great. The organization is abysmal. It's a problem we (early adopters) face. I would look forward to the upcoming games like Watch_Dogs, inFAMOUS Second Son, and the like.

If you really want to return it you can sell your used game on Amazon and get $45-50 instead of the $30 offered by GameStop.

@l4wd0g: Out of curiosity, are you having the issue where nothing is showing up under the What's New icon on the homepage? Also, I forgot about Amazon taking used games. Thanks for reminding me, because I refuse to go to gamestop. I'm not even going to capitalize that sack of shit.

I kinda like the UI. It'll take some getting used to since it's different but I'm not too offended by it

Don't sell it to Amazon, but sell it yourself on Amazon you can name your own price and amazon takes a small cut. Under what's new is just a list of stuff I have done. To be fair, I am watching our 3mo old and I haven't turned on the system in over 24 hours. And my initial system was broken but the store had extras and replaced it for me. Sony offered to fix it but it would take 2-6 weeks.

I'll be straightforward here. This is the biggest problem I have with my PS4. I don't have one.

I don't see anything under What's New, but then again, everything is new, so I don't really expect anything to show up there right now.

1. "What's new" and the info that's supposed to pop up under games on the main screen are disabled for everyone right now. Seems to be because of the psn issues.

4. You can change the controller speaker volume by holding the PS button on the controller and then go to "adjust devices" or whatever it's called.(don't have it on right now.)

I got home with my PS4 about 6pm last night and have put in at least 12 hours of gaming between killzone AC 4 and resogun, and its been a great experience so far. And i am pretty sure there is a option under sound and screen that lets you set the controller speaker volume. As far as the UI is concerned i like it but at the same i don't care about such things, its just not that important to me. I personally think getting rid of it after one day is a bit of overreaction but you have to what makes you happy.

@rangers517: Thanks for the information on the speaker. I'll check that out again. I thought I already tried that, but I'll look again. I still hate the speaker and think it is a ridiculous gimmicky waste of time, but being able to control the volume will at least make me not want to throw my controller through the wall just so I don't have to listen to it. Also, do you know how to install games, because I've tried when I first put in Killzone, and I didn't see the option. There also isn't anything in the "Downloads" section in "Notifications". Thanks.

I like the UI quite a bit. It's essentially a leveled XMB. It's also pretty snappy. It just needs some more customization options and we're set.

who gives a squirt

Dat Edit. How much Microsoft Point do they pay you @tyrrael??

Launch consoles! Woo!

Also, am I the only one that isn't bothered by console UIs? Sure, NXE got a little crazy there at the end, but I never had an issue navigating screens and finding what I wanted.

i love mcdonalds and microsoft, praise be to our great lord obama

Use caution when going over.

Actually Sony owns that Patent.

@bigjeffrey said:

@tarsier said:

didnt you hear the ambient music, and the calming serenity noises?? what is your problem!! i bet the xbox one is going to have nickleback and creed as the background music. and the only way to make it stop is by saying "I LOVE MCDONALDS" or "PRAISE OBAMA"

Actually Sony owns that Patent.

Also Sony owns the patent to add commercials into games...

Those all seem like pretty small issues to me. The Xbox One will also have its own quirks that people will have to deal with on day one. When you get things at launch, expect there to be issues that need ironing out.

I remember that silent hill wii game playing audio stuff through the controller, I liked it. It was supposed to be coming from a phone I think.

In games when you find an audio log its usually some little tape player or Dictaphone type thing so I can kind fo see what they are trying to do.

Not sure whether OP is nitpicking, or if he simply fell victim to launch hype and assumed PS4 was going to be the second coming of Christ. -- "Sony did everything right, made Microsoft look like a bunch of dicks, and really sold me on the console."

That aside...

• The Wiimote had a speaker too. You're able to adjust volume or even mute it. So I might try to find out if PS4 has an option like that. (Does anyone here know?)
• Your PS3/360 never crashed for years? That's odd, my Xbox 360 crashed regularly when I first got it.
• The content in What's New was curated for gamers. As a result there is nothing left.
• While your update was installing, Sony decided to curate it for gamers. That was the cause for the interruption.
• Curated for gamers.

settings>devices>controller>adust speaker volume

@tyrrael: You adjust the speaker volume by holding down the PS button and going to the devices area. This will allow you to lower the volume. You can also enable all audio to come thru the headphone jack. I did this and run some earbuds with mic thru the controller. Pretty handy. I would say this feature is no more gimmicky than the WiiU. Sony designed a large feature set, most of it will probably never be used, but developers could come up with a cool function. As long as they allow me to shut it off, then its fine. I wish they would allow me to shut off the light and universal control of rumble, I don't need these.

You don't need to install games. Just pop in the disc or begin a download. After a few minutes you can start playing while the game finishes the install. If you want to patch however, you need to quit and initiate the patch. Check out the GB PS4 stream they ran into this multiple times. KZ crashed for me on day 1 as well, same with BF, but I applied the game patches and seems to have fixed it.

Give the UI a chance, sounds more like you are just not used to it. I hated the XMB and think this is an improvement, although still clumsy in many areas. Like you, I get nothing in What's New. I think its server problems. It works in the morning on the East coast when I know no one is on, but when I have a bunch of people on my friends list online the menu is always loading. The menu seems to be dynamically updating as people are popping off trophies and uploading status messages/screenshots, and its crashing. I'm hoping Sony is working on this as well as more robust sorting features for friends, feeds, and game library management.

I'm definantly not getting anything under the What's New or any game descriptions. They were working on day one so I assume they turned these things off to handle the load better.

GB's stream of the PS4 has made me more optimistic for its future but that future still won't have me in it if they don't start cleaning up their UI.

MS looks like they may end up having the better interface which makes sense seeing on how much of a focus that was for them, but it's too bad that I don't care for much else that they have to offer.

I'm not getting the PS4 until next year but c'mon dude, the console hasn't even been out for an entire weekend yet! Can't give up so easily.

yeah, I like it. It's the best console interface I've seen so far. It works, it's simple, it's responsive.

I disagree on the controller speaker. I think it's awesome if it's used right. I love the effect in Resogun.

#2 is pretty scary. I can see why that would seriously darken your opinion on the console. That should never happen. I installed the update from a USB and the whole thing took less than 5 minutes including console setup and PSN sign-in. But then it hard locked launching Netflix after it downloaded. Pretty scary moment. I had to pull the power plug.

I think that Sony nailed marketing, hardware and courting developers. However they have never been good at basic usability and they still aren't. The result is a console that is not very pleasant to use. Of the currently released platforms of the last 2 years it's second to the Wii U and, I suspect, will be 3rd once the Xbox One comes out. Additionally the network isn't as robust as Xbox One's is either.

Honestly I'm happy about this. Everyone's overestimated PS4 and it turns out Xbox One actually does (or most likely does) have an edge in some very key areas. Usability and network infrastructure. My first impressions of the PS4 is that while AC4 does look pretty I'm glad I'm getting both and Xbox One has a good chance of becoming my main. Means this is fight is not so one sided after all. Love it.

I'm on the other end. I'm having a damn blast. I love the controller speaker and never want to listen to an audio log on my tv ever again, it's also used to perfect effect in Resogun. The update was smooth for me but I think I might be one of the lucky few (console launches have issues always), at least they have bug reporting built into the hardware (which is incredibly smart especially at launch). The new interface is useful and available on the fly and I'm not as confused by it as you seem to be.

That sucks you don't like it but man, I don't understand it at all. Also Sony didn't make Microsoft look like a bunch of dicks. Microsoft did that. Sony just publicly called them out.

@themasterds: I'm mostly confused about what you're saying, UI on Nintendo has always seemed terrible to me like they just ignore that other companies have made amazing UI with touch screens and just live in there bubble of how things should work. While every UI update on my 360 slowly turned it into a way to show me adds and not a way for me to play games. PS3 while not great was the best UI of last gen in my book. I've yet to try the ps4 one but it looks like it will take a lets look through all the options of my new device to understand it fully. Xbox one I'm expecting it to once again become an advertisement cluttered nightmare.

Bought a Sony console and expected a navigable UI. Mistakes were made OP.

I like the new UI but they are definitely going to need folders or something because one long unbroken line with every single one of my games on it is going to get a little cumbersome when there are more than a handful of games out

@egg: I didn't mean to imply that I thought the console itself was going to perfect. All I was saying is that Sony essentially said that they had a console that didn't have the restrictions of the Xbox, and it was cheaper. All the fun, none of the bullshit. I never thought it was going to be perfect, but I wasn't expecting to have several hours of problems after opening it either.

And yes, I shit you not, I have had 2 Xbox 360s and 2 PS3s, and across all of them, I have had maybe 15 crashes total. Keep in mind that that's across 4 consoles. Also, the first one I had of each didn't break, if you were wondering. I sold them and bought the slim models with the 250GB hard drives as I was running out of space and they ran much louder than the slims, especially the Xbox. I used to play a lot at night, and everything I could do to keep noise down was very important.

The newer and more complex these systems get over the years, the more crashes/bugs they will originally have. The only game that has given me issues is Battlefield. But that's besides the point.

This console has an excellent foundation to build off of. So much was wrong with the PS3 right out of the gate, and they never were able to catch up with the way the hardware was designed.

It is no trouble to tell that this time around their focus was making things fast and fluid, rather add every little bell and whistle they possibly can. Other than some network hiccups here and there, it has been running fantastic. Looking forward to seeing this thing evolve over the years. It's gonna be great.

I'll definitely check out adjusting the speaker volume. Also, I don't know why people keep bringing up the speaker in Wii and WiiU remote. I never implied that I thought the speaker in both of those was ok, but the one in the PS4 isn't. I hate it across all the consoles. The speaker on the Wiis are just as bad as the PS4. It is incredibly distracting, and until I, hopefully, get it fixed, it's very loud, and I mean on the brink of physically hurting my ears. Not just annoying, but actually causing minor pain. It's very scratchy, tinny, and full of feedback and distortion. Thinking about that, it could be broken. I'll check it out when I adjust the volume.

On a related note, I don't think the headphone jack on the controller is gimmicky at all. I consider that an absolute stroke of brilliance, and I'll use it constantly. Not only does this allow me to put the headphones on and continue playing with my Bose headphones (they are amazing, Model OE2 if you're interested) when it gets particularly loud and I want to play in peace, but it also allows me to play at night without having to constantly turn the TV speakers up and down worrying about waking someone up. The only time I usually get to play is at night when I get off work, so this feature is perfect.

One last thing, Killzone actually crashed after I installed the patches. I never played it without the patches installed. Even so, this is a AAA exclusive launch title. I would have thought they would have made basically put in every effort to iron out the problems pre-launch. I don't expect every game, or even any game, to be perfect, but I got a crash after playing an hour on the first game I ever played on a brand new console. It's a little daunting, to say the least.

I do hope we get an option to turn off the controller speaker and re-route it through the normal speakers. It's hard to even make out what the Killzone audio logs are saying because that speaker is so shitty.

The rest of your complaints I don't really share or haven't experienced. UI is great IMO.

I'm having a great time with mine.

As far as the what's new, it's back up. I imagine they flipped it off to help stability. For the most part, considering launches these days, I'm surprised how well psn worked and how well it's working now.

You could easily do this with the Wii, seems pretty dumb if it's not possible with the PS4.

When I got my launch Xbox 360, I remember very vividly games like Perfect Dark Zero and Gun causing frequent freezes and crashes. I would say launch releases regardless of AAA or not, would have the most problems due to developers having newer hardware to deal with. It's hard to expect games running "perfectly" at launch or even a year into the console cycle as developers are getting familiar with ins and the outs.

I don't get where the idea of plug and play launches come from, or who waits to the launch of a Halo game or w/e to buy a system, when they KNOW they'll have to plug it in, input wifi settings, register an account, download updates, plug everything in, charge the controller, etc etc.

@village_guy: Where can I purchase some of this Best Brand Cola I've heard so much about?

Seem like absolute INSANE reasons to return a video game console to me, especially week 1. But that's just me.

@iragequit: I am a web designer and UX designer...

I wanted Sony to do a good job, and I do see them taking key positives from what people like on things like the xbox UI. That is always a good thing, look at what people like and what works and emulating that. That is design, its not copying but if something works why do something that does not because it is different?

In saying that I do not think Sony has got the interface quite right. I actually think its rushed and a bit messy in places. That is why I also feel they left it till the last minute show it properly to the world, It was not ready. And that big update makes quite a few tweaks and changes and moreover fixes to the UI etc more then anything else.

Is it fixable? Yes of course and over time the PS3's interface got a lot lot better. Is this something Sony is good at? No, I do not like their Tv interface? Nope (well I do not like any of them but Sony is one of the worst ones for me).

You may love the interface and if you do - great! You may love your PS4 and people who own an Xbox One will love that. Everyones different and that is why we all buy different phones, clothes etc.

I am also concerned with the increasing reports of dead PS4's, failing PS4's and poor build quality - Things that can all be fixed in time but again it shows signs that they rushed to get it out the door.

Microsoft have chopped and changed on Policy with the Xbox One and took a lot of flak for doing so, But they been constantly been showing off build of the console and the UI. For me I can see from my job skill set that there has been effort in the polish of the Xbox UI. I actually do not like the Metro/card what ever you want to call it - I am a mac person but my main PC at home is Windows 7 because I hate windows 8.

BUT I can see the effort, the snappy performance etc effort. I want to get my hands on it to see how it will work, how useful the voice is etc, it may not but what I am trying to say is that I can tell is that if feels ready. It will evolve but I think it has a jump on the PS4 in that front and is coming out a the right time for Microsoft. I think they are more ready and more polished and set to evolve. Sony I can see having more patches, this is a guess but I think that will happen.

In terms of the online structure I think Sony is still lacking, Microsoft are good at that stuff and the Azure framework is actually pretty dam good. And those servers HOPEFULLY will mean smooth online experiences.

TIME, Time is the key here and we got to give them BOTH time to settle. Like a website or new software - You launch it. Its never ready and if you hold off until you think it is ready you will never get it out the door. This is fact, you got to get it out the door. So there will be issues for both and updates to fix them.

It is just down to who has the least issues and who comes through the early days the best. For me right now this could be Microsoft.

Another UI design person checking in and I actually mostly like the PS4 UI so far. It's super fast to get anywhere that I need to go after using it for a day or two, it feels natural now to me the way the 360 guide button did. (instead of going left or right through the "blades", just press up after hitting the PS button for a similar setup) I suppose it's an extra button press up, but everything is so fast on the menu side and back to the game that it doesn't bother me. There is room for refinement and improvement, of course, but overall the experience is so much faster / better than the old slow / stupid XMB on PS3. Even the main dash on the 360 is kind of confusing to me since they metro-fied it and the things I used most on 360 (recently used games, friends, store) are replicated well on the PS4.

My only real gripe is the controller battery life so far. Overall I'm really enjoying the system and feel satisfied with the purchase. Still have the X1 coming this week because i'm irresponsible with money though, so we'll see how it stacks up.

I actually really like the PS4 UI, minimalist is always better. Its clean there are zero ads its fast and responsive. Its missing a few features but those can always come later. I cannot stand the Xbox interface and X1 looks more of the same from what they've shown. Its overbearing and kinda gross. And one of the major reasons why I just stopped playing my 360 I couldn't stand using it. I'm not going to use your service that I pay for to be assaulted by marketing in a menu.

I had the problem installing the 1.50 update. The process ended up taking almost 2 hours by the time I was done downloading it twice and waiting just to be sure it was really hung. I didn't want to accidentally brick the console by aborting the update without giving it a reasonable chance to recover. I'm not too disturbed by early software glitches as long as they don't completely prevent me from using the hardware.

The UI feels pretty clunky and disorganized so far, but hopefully that will get tuned over time or I will just get used to it. At least it isn't overrun with ads.

I'm really disappointed by the delay of Drive Club. Hopefully it will result in a better game though and I'm only a few days away from Forza 5 now so it's not that big a deal.

There are almost no demo's available in the PlayStation Store. I really wanted to download demos for the various games to figure out which looked/played best on the new console. The reviews and online feedback are all over the board for most of the games right now and with 2 console launches and a plan to set up a high end Steam PC for my TV, I need to be at least somewhat selective when it comes to software expenses.

Some things I really like so far:

Having several FTP options available right with the console is great. With the reviews they've been getting, I don't feel like dropping $60 on games like Kill Zone or Knack until I have a chance to check out a demo or rental first. Having Resogun, Contrast, SoundShapes, Flower, DC Universe, War Frame, and Blacklight: Retribution available for effectively free (SoundShapes and Flower were paid downloads, but the console and PSN purchase came with $20 of PSN credit) has been really cool. I haven't even had time to try all of them due to a hectic schedule this weekend and a big portion of the free time I had was taken playing World of Tanks with my kids (their preference).

The controller is really, really good. I know this has been well covered by the press, but it's worth noting how big a deal this is (for me at least). I still don't care for the analog stick placement, but every other aspect of the controller is well done. the triggers feel good, the weight on the sticks is good, it fits well in my hand. It's so much better than the PS2 and PS3 controllers were.