Force feedback or touch: who’s bringing the next-gen revolution?

More than any other feature, a console’s controller shapes your gut-level opinion of the quality of the hardware sitting beneath your television. On this front, Xbox One’s new pad makes a prestigious first impression. The bulbous contours of the 360 controller opted for sleekness at the expense of a chiselled physique. The new pad’s revised top-down silhouette incorporates a few sharper angles, noticeably in the crescent arcing between the pad’s handles. It’s more handsome as a result.The analogue sticks have been drastically improved. The slightly narrower diameter of the dish atop each stick provides a greater sense of precision, since your thumb no longer gets mired in the depression. Microsoft’s designers have wrapped a ring of tread around the perimeter of each stick that has no chance of wearing smooth like the dimples on the 360 controller’s sticks.Adding localised rumble in the triggers – which have had their travel reduced for heightened responsiveness – increases drama while playing. Turning your key in the ignition in Forza 5 and feeling the sensory feedback erupt in your fingertip before spreading to the body of controller feels like a step forward in tactile communication.However, the choice to elevate the bedding of the shoulder buttons, which used to sit naturally under your fingers at their resting position, feels ill-advised. It’s a new sensation to feel the tendon between your index and middle finger grumble each time you ask it to stretch for RB or LB. And the choice to offload touch functionality onto SmartGlass-enabled devices creates the first real functional discrepancy between Microsoft and Sony’s offerings. With the ascendancy of touchscreen gaming, it’s a minor liability for Xbox One, but a liability nonetheless.

Having grown so familiar with the PlayStation controller’s proportions over 16 years, DualShock 4 comes as a surprise. Though it clearly belongs to the same dynasty as its 1997 forebear, this is the most radical iteration from those early design foundations yet.For a start, DualShock 4 has shaken off its progenitors’ undernourished look. Its shoulder buttons and triggers, which are slightly concave and extremely responsive, now sit almost flush with the top of the pad, while the analogue stick bays protrude less. There is a greater sense of continuity, too, since the ergonomic design dispenses with the segmentation of previous DualShocks in favour of one flowing shell, with the D-pad and face buttons sitting on much smaller plateaus than on PS3’s controller.The result is a tidier-looking pad, the effect helped by the large touchpad in the centre that doubles as a Start button. While the placement of the Share and Options buttons that flank it feels like an afterthought, they’re easy enough to reach. The touchpad is a less comfortable stretch and lacks the heft of the other main buttons. Sitting just underneath it is a speaker.The D-pad, meanwhile, with its raised profile and angled indentations, feels significantly better than those on past DualShocks, even if Xbox One’s cross design allows for finer control. But it’s the analogue sticks that are most transformed. Sony has stuck with in-line placement, but the sticks are more comfortably positioned thanks to longer grips, eradicating that slight tension you feel in your left thumb when resting on them. There’s very little deadzone, too, and DualShock 3’s slippery convex tops have been replaced with a concave design with raised trim. At last PS4 has a pad that can compete with its Xbox counterpart.

Dissecting two schools of chassis design, and motion-sensing add-ons

While it may be hard to believe at first glance, Microsoft’s new console is an exercise in subtlety. It’s a substantial slab of plastic, at least in relation to Sony’s design, and there are similarities to be drawn between the two – the use of contrasting matte and gloss blacks, for example, or those austere facades and perpendicular dividing lines – but Xbox One’s flourishes are all but invisible until you get up close. In fact, when it’s nestled alongside your set-top box, a casual observer might not notice it at all. And that’s the whole point, indicative of Microsoft’s campaign to truly take control of the living room with this painstakingly inoffensive Trojan horse.Microsoft’s box might lack personality, but it more than makes up for it in terms of build quality. It’s heavier than an Xbox 360 Slim, but lighter than an Elite, and feels built to last. The slot-loading Blu-ray drive sits in a silver bezel just next to the pad-pairing button on the side of the console. To the right of the drive when the console is laid flat, as Microsoft recommends, a white Xbox logo doubles as a touch-sensitive power button, lighting up when the console is on. Kinect 2.0 is deeper and stubbier than the original, and sports a large rear-facing fan. Despite being packed in, though, Microsoft has finally admitted that motion control isn’t a blanket next-gen solution and, with any luck, won’t lean on developers to shoehorn in functionality.

Irrespective of whether or not the prospect of another Killzone instalment excites you, this is exactly how a next-gen console should look. PlayStation 4 has the air of a recovered alien artefact, its inscrutable surfaces bereft of any colour – even the Sony and PS4 logos are black, the latter ditching the Spider-Man font. But the blanket obsidian is broken up when you switch it on and that bisecting strip of light pulses from purple to blue. The design is set off by the console’s steep rhombus profile, and the back, where various ports sit in angled, segmented bays among the system’s vents. The overall effect is reminiscent of a Michael Blampied car park.The machine feels less robust than Xbox One, its plastic top flexing under pressure. But if you’re in the habit of moving your console between different houses, its smaller dimensions and reduced weight will be a boon. Similarly, PS4’s touch-sensitive power button is less satisfying to use than Xbox One’s, sitting in an awkward recess next to the Blu-ray drive. That’s not much of an issue, though – both consoles will likely be powered on via controllers most of the time. While Kinect 2.0’s chunky design alludes to its power, the slimmer PlayStation Eye appears decidedly lower tech, but as input devices the pair are broadly similar, and Eye’s performance is significantly improved when used in conjunction with the controller’s light bar.

Which console has the best opening barrage?

Diminishing returns in visual fidelity were inevitable, but it’s hard to not feel deflated given how dramatic generational leaps once felt. The most next-gen thing we noticed in our demo of Forza 5 was the fact that switching between paint finish options in the pre-race showroom sees each preview update instantly, without the customary loading hesitation of current-gen games. But the pixel is still alive and well in the Xbox One launch lineup. Get out on the track and you might even mistake Forza 5 for a 360 title: it’s undeniably handsome, but with occasional texture pop-in on the track and low-resolution textures on parts of the car’s dash.Killer Instinct makes up for its flat skyboxes with a host of impressive particle effects: explosions of sparks, crackling lightning, and moves accompanied by bright flashes. The next generation promises to be filled with such things, and the now-ubiquitous vision of a flock of birds abruptly taking wing is destined to spawn its own drinking game. Killer Instinct’s microtransactions are probably its biggest next-gen signifier. The impact of the free-to-play business model’s success on mobile will hit consoles with the force of a meteor strike, and like the dinosaurs, many gaming conventions of years past are liable
to slump to the ground as the dust chokes them.In Ryse: Son Of Rome’s Colosseum multiplayer mode, the foliage and level furniture that emerges from the floor of the arena via enigmatic machinery looks amazing, but the gameplay gets a downward thumb. Combat feels sludgy and unresponsive. And in a post-300 world, who makes a gladiator game with pits and doesn’t give you an option to kick enemies into them in slow motion? Microsoft seems keenly aware that it just needs to tide people over until Titanfall arrives early next year. The day it drops, however, Xbox One claims an advantage.

With Sony having historically put a greater emphasis on specs, you’d expect its firstparty studios to relish in establishing next-gen production value benchmarks. Launch title Killzone: Shadow Fall is a visual triumph, mixing shimmering futuristic cityscapes with a woodland whose tree trunks and branches cast god beams beautiful enough to make a grown space marine weep. Still, the most enticing application of PS4’s processing muscle comes in the form of spacious, nonlinear environments. Players will be invited to tackle objectives in the order of their choosing, as opposed to being funnelled through a shooting gallery.Evolution Studios’ arcade racer Driveclub has a focus on asynchronous friend rivalries in addition to the standard finish-line quest. Every corner has the potential to spawn more competition, since the game measures drift length, cornering time and numerous other metrics with which to goad your friends. These aren’t brand-new ideas – the debut of Autolog functionality Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit kept racing fans coming back to reclaim bragging rights – but Sony is delivering on the next-gen emphasis on social interaction. And creating granular challenges within each track relieves some of the pressure of always having to gun for a first-place finish.Based on our glimpses of the game, Knack has the potential to be the weakest of either console’s launch roster. It features ageing thirdperson brawling mechanics, collectible hunts set in overly sparse environments and a cartoon hero who’s about as lovable and distinct as a pile of scrap metal. Preloaded title The PlayRoom also occupies the family-friendly niche, but feels like an endearing tech demo more than anything, perhaps even an enticement to splash out on a PlayStation Eye.

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