Compare and contrast XBox One and PlayStation 4 from the user perspective

[KitRoot]

PS3's UI was obvious. For videos, go the Video tab and scroll down the list. Same for games. For downloads, go to the internet. For a setting, go to Settings and scroll through the list. Want to set a custom wallpaper? View your image, press the options button, and select 'set as wallpaper' from the options. Or go to theme settings and pick a wallpaper from images on your HDD. Which you could download from the browser, intuitively. PS4 has more features so that adds complexity, but they aren't arranged in any meaningful way. As I say, I've had the thing some 18 months now and only just figured that I could find my downloads by going to Notifications and pressing Options to select Downloads. That's illogical. Downloads are a file operation associated with games or the network. Notifications are simple feedbacks for events and activities. They don't belong together other than a notification when a download is complete.

Library->Games. Game downloads show up here. You can even sort by install date to see newest to oldest downloads.
Library->Apps. Same here but for apps like Netflix, Twitch, etc.
Library->Purchased. Any games,apps,demos, etc. you ever downloaded on your account show up here. Makes it easy to redownload anything you might have deleted.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

That doesn't work the way it should. When downloading, that's a current action with potential management requirements - you want access to your current downloads to pause/cancel/resume downloads. The new games appear on your game list but selecting them only shows amount of download to go. There aren't options to pause/resume, not if you select Options when on the game icon, nor if you select the icon to view the full-screen download bar and then press options. The only way to pause downloads seems to be via Notifications.

Every time I add the PS+ titles to my library, I have a string of downloads that PS4 performs in parallel. If I want to select the order of the downloads (kinda what you'd expect using a queue) so they download one after another, I have to manually manage that, through notifications. Can it be done? Yes. Is it a good, intuitive system? I'd love someone to explain how! How is going through Notifications more intuitive than clicking on the game icon and having options what you want to do with the download, which is what I'd assume behaviour to be?

 

[Tkumpathenurpahl]

I don't mind going through Notifications, although you are highlighting that they've chosen the wrong term: Action Centre or something would be better.

As pertains to not being able to pause and resume via the icon: that's really never cropped up for me, I just go through Notifications, but it's definitely poor design. Fair enough to have everything in one place, as Notifications does, but multiple means of achieving the same end is always preferable.

The lack of any real download settings bothers me too. There are two options that would help with this:
1) the ability to reorder the downloads without having to hack it by way of manually pausing the items for which you can wait.
2) the ability to set the maximum number of simultaneous downloads: I don't need more than 1 game downloading at a time. On the rare occasion that I do, I'd gladly manually resume any automatically paused downloads.

The matter of themes is the only aspect of the PS4 that's still behind the PS3. I've still yet to find a satisfactory theme for my console, so I've just stuck to one of my many Uncharted 4 screenshots. Thankfully, the whole game's a screenshot generator.

On the topic of themes, I would really like an option to just clear the icons and observe the background, especially for some of the prettier animated themes. Having the icons fade away after a couple of minutes of inactivity would be a nice touch.

 

[bunge]

I don't mind going through Notifications, although you are highlighting that they've chosen the wrong term: Action Centre or something would be better.

That would really confuse those of us in the USA.

 

[Tkumpathenurpahl]

How about "Freedom Hub" then?