My purchase of the Playstation 4 was impulsive. I never really made a decision on which next gen system I'd want to get. And I certainly didn't expect to be buying either right at launch. Both had intriguing benefits, I had my preferences with exclusive titles, and of course there's the whole $100 difference.

So for the past 5-ish months I've gone back and forth. Ultimately I figured to just wait it out well past launch. Let things develop, see if one takes an obvious advantage.

But then November 15th came - and with it came the "new, shiny" itch. Still, I figured I'd just buzz through Best Buy the next morning, MAYBE pick one up if they were on the shelf. Around 11:15 I logged onto Amazon for the hell of it, and saw the "Launch Edition" was available. Click on that, click on ACIV, and it was done.

Anyone who did something similar knows the next steps. Excitement, but a little nervousness. Did I make the "wrong" choice? Did I just blow $400+ just before Christmas on a whim? When I got my system, I hesitated to even open it. I thought about flipping it on Amazon to get an Xbox instead, or even maybe a Wii U.

But "new, shiny" kicked back in, and before long I was playing Resogun. An hour into that, and I knew. If owning a PS4 is wrong, I don't want to be right.

In many ways, Resogun is the perfect way to break in a new system. Uncomplicated but deep gameplay, beautiful sights and sounds, along with that "just one more run" mentality to complete the package. It won't change your life, but it'll whet your appetite for the next gen.

I also played a bit of ACIV, which thus far is the first in the series to grab me since ACII. I look forward to many more hours at sea.

I even picked up Killzone, regardless of it's largely negative reviews. At this point I'm thinking it's gotten a bad rap. There's no innovation to be found, but it's beautiful and plays well. (My opinion is probably a little higher since I've almost completely avoided the CoD craze.)

As far as the system itself, there are many things to love. I'm more excited about the sharing features than I ever expected to be. The streaming and the ease of sharing video is fantastic. I also like the "friend stream" kind of social features they've built in. One other unexpected joy I'm getting out if it is the way they've been using the speaker on the controller. It was great the first time I heard it in Resogun, and I LOVE the way KZ uses it to play the audio logs you find in the game. It's making me hope for a Bioshock Infinite PS4 version JUST so they can do the same.

So I went from unsure to elated. I'm thrilled about the system and what's to come. And there's plenty to hold me off until InFamous. I've told family members they can buy me any PS4 game they choose. With so few, they are unlikely to screw it up. For once I'm not going to proscribe EXACT games to get. (Sure, NBA Live will be returned, but I'll try about anything else.)

So who else is with me? Who's on the PS4 bandwagon, and proud of it?

Makes me wish I bought one. Just got a Wii U instead, feeling pretty strong on that one too.

Sony was sending the right messages, and delivering better value at every turn (for what I'm into). The PS4 was a no-brainer. I'm also ecstatic that my one pre-purchase PS4 concern--the UI--ended up being a pleasant surprise; the UI is super fast and makes it stupid-easy to get to whatever you need within seconds.

Happy customer over here. :)

I'm always an impulse buyer... that is if I got it to spend.

I don't regret my purchase of a PlayStation 4. For me it wasn't a matter of "which one will I buy?," it was "which one will I buy first?" I, like a lot of people, was swayed by Sony's showing at E3. They were poised; they were not as complacent as the were last time around. After favoring my 360 most of this generation, I decided to give Sony the leg up and get a PS4 first. Then, that's where things got real dark. Watch Dogs delayed, DriveClub delayed. Two of the supposed "launch games" that practically sold me on the concept of next-gen were gone. I thought about cancelling my preorder and going after an Xbox. I decided to stick it out and thought "Well, there might be at least one thing on that machine I'll want to play." I bought the console with Need for Speed: Rivals (I fell off with Assassin's Creed years ago and it was the only game that appealed to me) and, for the most part, I've enjoyed it.

The more I use the console, the more it feels like Sony was riding the wave of terrible Microsoft press to hide the less-desirable parts of the console. I don't regret buying it. I just regret the fact that I'll be waiting another four or five months before I get to play Forza.

Glad I picked one up. Had it pre-ordered back when it was first available. It's a new shiny thing. It's being part of the whole internet/social experience launch fun. And most importantly, I was going to get one sooner than later so might as well get it ASAP. I've got 50-some-odd games for PS3 and would expect to have just as much or more with another new system so of course I'm going to get my money's worth even at $400; and that much money for something that should last 5+ years is a great investment IMO. Plus, if you have a more expensive hobby (modifying cars in my case) it can adjust your perspective on the cost of video games.

I didn't pick up a Xbox One yet as I don't have the money, but I plan to as soon as I do. Does it matter what games are on it at this moment? Not really as I'm sure there will be a few exclusives on it I'd enjoy, including the Forza series.

I should add that this isn't a "PS4 is the best choice" post. I'm just happy to have one currently. I too will likely own all three in the future.

I've been enjoying it so far. But as with any launch, I have no regrets because I'll know I'll spend thousands of hours with it in the long run.

With that being said, I'll be buying a Wii U before the Xbox. Next-gen newness still played a factor in me getting the PS4 first (despite the Wii U having a bunch of games I'd already want to play).

Yo, I know I'll love it too *knocks on wood*.

I spent most of last month's gaming time on playing BF4 on PS3, a transgenerational multiplatform game. Sunk like 160 hours into it already, and soon BF Premium is going to add the first expansion to the package. For me, BF4 is a killer app right there. Going from grimey looking sub-720p running at an unstable 30ish frames per second, all with a more than halved playercount and overall much lower fidelity assets - I know I'll be over the moon with my PS4 running the game without cutting corners quite pristinely at a 60 FPS. It's going to be like night and day. I knew the next generation was here, when my PC wasn't able to run BF4 properly anymore. The PS4 arrives just in time.

Hopefully all goes well tomorrow for me, and I'll be setting sails into the new generation with a pristine EU-launch day PS4.

The PS4 kicks ass. Fuck Thanksgiving and family. I'm staying home and ranking up in BF4 (sending error reports the whole time).

Aren't the BF4 launch woes patched by now? Please be patched! *cries in a corner*

My PS4 will be arriving tomorrow :D

I really love my PS4. Allow me to talk your face off about it!

Like you, I was really questioning myself all day before getting home and plugging it in. There's just somuch cynicism online and so much "oh there's no games" and yadda yadda yadda.

Frankly, as soon as I held the controller I felt like I made the right decision. The texture of the lower half of the pad, the angle of the handles, the thumbsticks, everything feels high end. Playing Resogun was just the icing on the cake. I've been putting in time every day with that game since launch day and just love it more and more. Warframe is also a big favorite of mine and - to my utter complete shock - I really like Assassin's Creed IV. Yeah, it's not that different from the PS3/PC version but it's cool seeing the ultimate version of last gen tech in this way and IV seems very much the culmination of the series in terms of gameplay and narrative (not in the Desmond way, but, a meta way?).

I gotta talk about that controller more. I feel it's a revelation. Yes, the first day or two you're accidentally going to hit the Touchpad rather than Options, but you figure it out after that. It's actually kind of genius. When your thumb is on the right stick, a natural extension takes you to the Touchpad (which is way you may hit it accidentally the first time - the gameplay button is at the most natural reach); to hit options you need to move your thumb straight up, rather than extend. Once your muscle memory figures that out it's all smooth sailing. The cool thing about the Touchpad is that it's actually really sensitive. Moreso than it looks. You can do any swipe motions in just a little corner and it'll register. This is good to know because on Day 1 I found myself always swiping in big, broad strokes right in the centre of the pad and thinking "Err.. not very convenient Sony..." You can also pinch and zoom (ACIV map is a good example for this).

I've also been broadcasting to Twitch, but not showing comments on screen or even attaching a mic. It's just cool that if someone wants to they can check out a game I'm playing and it really doesn't affect me in a negative way at all. It's so easy to do it's remarkable. Twitch will no doubt see a massive increase in broadcasters if someone like me who has no friends and never broadcasted before will do it.

Sorry if this is getting long but there ain't many places on any site to just talk about what you actually like about the system, so I wanted to put some little details here:

• the way the light on the machine seems to breath is a really cool beauty touch. The pulse is rhythmic and seems to "wake up" or "go to sleep".
• not necessarily a revolution but being able to hook up surround sound headphones to the controller is so awesome. I've always preferred headphones to home theatre and never had an easy way to do it in the living room until now.
• you can move the text entry box around with the right stick, for whatever reason; haven't tried using my phone to do text yet, but I guess you can?
• simultaneous user login (having PSN friends physically over) is easy and fast, and getting Trophies at the same time is great, even if you don't care about Trophies. It's a psychological thing. In the past, Player Two never mattered. They were just a ghost character. Now it really feels like two people playing together when the system recognizes you.

TL, DR: 100% satisfied right now.

I played for 3+ hours last night with zero problems. First time I logged in since last week and it was a great experience online.

Hopefully the servers hold for tomorrow's avalanche of new PS4 users. I finally need to get some time in jets. I barely touched them yet, playing Rush only.

Judging by Sony's track record I'll never understand how anyone can have doubts with picking up one of their consoles

@xalienxgreyx: The PS3 aged like wine, but when it launched it was very, very bitter. I loved Resistance, but it definitely was not "Five hundred and ninety nine US dollars"/"you'll get a second job" good.

So when are we playing Killzone's Multiplayer and Warframe together?

For me, the most amazing thing has been Sony's ability to turn me from someone who barely turned on my PS3, to someone who now has a Vita and a PS4 and is still keeping the PS3 hooked up. It comes back to the introduction of PS Plus for me. They threw a bunch of games at me, got me interested in their ecosystem, and in a weird way, convinced me that they care about the games and what they're doing. I'm certainly no fan boy, I'm 31 for crying out loud, and I think that Microsoft is doing what's best for them, but top to bottom, the PS4 and their gaming environment is pretty close to everything I want out of a console.

I played last night and have issues still. I was kicked out of the game with the e-3yadayadayada error code :( Conquest is at least playable though....

Yes, a working Conquest is at least a step up. First week I didn't get into a single one.

Apparently more people are continually having a bunch of issues so I was an isolated case, unfortunately.

I'm excited to see what games my family members get for me with no restrictions or edicts on what to buy. I'm thinking I should swear that I keep whatever they give, as long as they aren't repeats. In which case I may find myself playing NBA Live late next month. :)

Also, I'm having a lot of fun with Killzone right now, and feel that perhaps it was judged too harshly. Again, this might be a product of my avoidance of most big FPS games of the last few years.

I don't regret getting one at all, but I'm disappointed with what they put out. Especially the overall quality of the product itself. It doesn't look or feel like a $400 product. A lot of the same problems exist with the ps4 that did with the ps3 which is the most disappointing aspect. They didn't learn.

The xbox one has a bunch of issues that need to be addressed, so that hasn't been much better. I might be more disappointed with the xbox simply because they did so many things right with the way the 360 worked and while Sony didn't learn, microsoft tried to fix what wasn't broken and ended up with something inferior in some ways. Luckily that thing doesn't look and feel like trash. Everything from the packaging, the materials used, the controller, headset and even the cables are built better and finished much more nicely.

It's nothing major on either side. You can still play games and have a good time, but both machines need some serious updates to the system level software.

Very few people are critical in anyway way, and gamers tend to be the worst when it comes to that. Since they bought it, it must be the best thing ever. There is room for massive improvement on both machines. They will only get better from here, but neither is there yet.

I disagree. The only part I care about feeling "premium" is the controller, and the PS4 hit the controller out of the park. I happen to like the sleek look that fits right in my entertainment system without unnecessarily drawing attention to it. What is this about, the cheap earbud?

@irishdoom:

Your definition of premium is very different from mine. There is absolutely nothing premium about the PS4, the dual shock 4 or the packaging that it comes in.

I had the opposite experience. I got the machine home, hooked it up, downloaded resogun and flower and had a killer first weekend. Then I tried Killzone and it was fine but just a prettier version of what had been done before, then Battlefield 4 which was a total trainwreck, and now I really haven't felt the desire to turn it on in awhile. The software just is not there yet. Meanwhile the PS3 has a ton of rich involving games I haven't played through yet like The Last of Us and Dragon's Dogma. There's nothing even close in scope unless you want to count the multiplatform AC4. I should have waited 6 months to a year, but the hassle of returning isn't worth the chance that there will be a price drop, and I am pretty pumped about Infamous Second Son. If that game's great it will be what convinces me my PS4 purchase was worth it.

I finished off Killzone last night (single player anyway) and was quite satisfied. Sure, I wasn't floored by any forward-thinking mechanics, but it was in fact a shooter. I shot things, I was able to shoot what I meant to shoot, and I won. So that's good. And damn that game looks GOOD. I also like what they did with collectibles, in how you can see what you missed and choose to go right to that mission to try to find that comic page or audio log or whatever. I don't know if that's new or a stolen idea, but I like how it works.

So far so good on my end. The biggest feeling for me initially was that games on PS3 and 360 looked decent. Thinking back to The Last of Us mainly. Did we need a new generation? Then playing on it a bit I felt like nothing has changed. But over time those feelings changed. I mostly have been playing Battlefield 4 and watching others playing on Twitch. Not super impressed with the user interface of the PS4 but at the same time satisfied with it's simplicity. Glad I can use any headset on it with a mini jack. I use my PC's headset which has an input for mic and headphones which required for me to pick up a small F/F to M adapter. Works much better than the headset that came with the system. Also an awesome way to watch movies or listen to the game without pumping up my speakers on the TV. Came in handy when I visited my bro's and brought the system with me. Baby had to go to sleep so I just popped in the headset. Resogun is growing on me. Loving Battlefield 4. Tough start with all the crashes but has gotten decent and looking forward to playing with some folks from the site who friended me so far.

Loving the controller and the speakers on it as well. I played a little with the voice commands so far and not too familiar with it yet. Hope they do expand on it. I would like the option for either controller or voice commands. Why let the Xbox One users have all the fun? In all I'm glad I got this console first. I'm liking some stuff the Xbox One has but I may have to wait a bit before I get it. May not happen since PC and PS4 should be enough but you never know.

This is definitely good to hear.

I hope to pick up a PS4 in April with the release of Infamous: Second Son. I'm hoping more games start to get announced as the new year kicks off. Otherwise, it looks a little barren so far going in to 2014.

Killzone starts to go downhill in the later segments, but they also just patched the game to minimize the very parts that I found incredibly annoying.

Some more games will definitely be announced at VGX and over the year. We know a lot of stuff is being worked on at the many Sony studios, Sony has been a bit coy with what they show.

This flies in the face of 99% of all threads on this website and every other game website.

Maybe you can point me to the magical wonderland websites you've been going to, or maybe you just haven't noticed that the majority of people are complaining about the launch, not celebrating. Just look at Giant Bomb. Go to the thread that asks if people are disappointed and you will see that 40% are in fact disappointed and only 10-20 are happy. Gamers are among the most negative I can think of when I really think about it. This is the most successful launch, for any company, in the history of videogames, and it comes at a time when every analyst was crying that consoles had died. We should all be up and down jumping with glee but instead half us are saying "It sucks" and a third is saying "It should be better", which leaves the precious few of us actually happy.

There's ample room for improvement, but I love the PS4 already.

@vertrucio: The only parts that bothered me were the freefall segments. They were cool to look at graphically, but frustrating to play. It also had it's share of monster closet, unending waves of enemies that I rarely enjoy. I got through them just fine though.