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Now one year old, the PlayStation 4 is already one of the most successful games consoles of all time.
After selling an incredible one million units in just its first 24 hours in the US, the PS4 has now been snapped up by 13 million gamers all over the world.
That's a huge number which is even more impressive when you consider it's almost exactly double the number of Xbox One consoles that have sold in the same time period.
And the sales gap is growing every day.
Things certainly don't look like turning round, either. With more graphical power than the Xbox One, 32 times more system memory than the PS3 and a firm focus on pure gaming experiences rather than media might, the PS4 has established itself as the next-gen console to beat in this generation.
It's a games console built by gamers for gamers and won the hearts and minds of many from the word go, with lots of prospective next-genners left feeling alienated by some of Microsoft's bizarre policies and choices for the Xbox One – many of which were reversed as a result of a backlash.
Now available online for £325, the PlayStation 4 is a bargain too - about the same price as Microsoft's Xbox One bundle without Kinect. It doesn't come with the PlayStation Camera but this can be bought separately for £39 if you so wish.
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The differences between the PS4 and Xbox One are actually evident before you even switch them on. Despite the two consoles both sporting similar half-matte half-gloss finishes and containing very similar internal components, they really couldn't be more different.
For a start, the PS4's parallelogram form is small and sleek in comparison to the enormous VCR-like cuboid of the Xbox One. And this means that the PS4's box is half the size and weight. The Sony console can be extracted from its packaging and plugged in and booted up in a couple of minutes.
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The PS4 launched in white in October 2014
Xbox One on the other hand comes in a huge, hulking box. It's fiddly to open and unpack, and it's full of little compartments, with loads of carboard and plastic bits to get in your way.
This is the kind of streamlining that typifies the PlayStation experience with PS4. It's a console designed for gamers to play games and in this respect it could be described as more of spiritual successor to the PlayStation 2 – still the best selling games console the observable universe has ever known.

Design

One look at the PS4 and you know you're seeing Sony hardware. It's slim, sleek, available in jet black and shiny white, and amazingly it's roughly the size of a second generation PS3 Slim. The full measurements are 275 x 53 x 305 mm so it's a lot more compact than an Xbox One, which is longer, taller and squarer.
You can use the cables from your PS3 Slim if you want to
You can use the cables from your PS3 Slim if you want to
In a feat of engineering worth tipping your hat to, and in spite of the PlayStation 4's slim stature, Sony has tucked the power supply inside the system, leaving no external power brick to trip over.
The Xbox One on the other hand retains the external power brick of the Xbox 360, leaving you with more mess behind your TV.
PS4 sports a sloped, asymmetrical design. That's its largest departure from PlayStations past. It lies flat on its belly by default, but can go up on its tiptoes with the help of a plastic stand, sold separately for £16.99.
On the front you'll find a slot loading Blu-ray disc drive and to its right are two powered USB 3.0 ports, which can charge your DualShock 4 controllers even when the system is turned off.
Along the top, or the side if you've opted for the stand, is a light, which glows blue when you boot it up. It breathes some life into the otherwise cold industrial design of the system. Turn it on and it blinks a yawning hello.
The PS4 is shaped like a parallelogram
The PS4 is shaped like a parallelogram

PS4 specifications

Inside, the PS4 is all business. It has a custom single-chip processor that combines an eight core x86-64 AMD "Jaguar" CPU with a 1.84 teraflop GPU based on AMD's Radeon graphics technology. That's backed by 8GB of mega-fast GDDR5 RAM, and a 500GB mechanical hard drive.
You can also remove that 500GB drive and replace it with a larger drive, or an SSD for better performance. Sony says these do it yourself upgrades will not void the system's warranty which is fabulous.
Overall, Sony claims that the PS4's overall performance is ten times that of the PS3.
Those two USB ports are the PS4's only front facing connections. In the rear you'll find HDMI, Ethernet, a digital optical audio out and a proprietary auxiliary connection for the PlayStation Camera.
For wireless connections, the PS4 uses 802.11 b/g/n for WiFi and Bluetooth 2.1 for its wireless DualShock 4 controllers.
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The DualShock 4 is a big step forward from the PS3's DualShock 3

What's in the box?

You're bringing home more than a just a stylish, black or white parallelogram. In addition to the actual system you get a power cord (not a big power brick), an HDMI cable, an earbud microphone combo, one DualShock 4 controller and its charging cable (we charged our DualShock 4 pad using the Xbox One and the world did not end).
Extra controllers don't come with another charging cable, so don't lose that one. Also, note that we said earbud singular, not earbuds, as in just for one ear. It's cheap but serviceable, but you can actually plug any headphones you already own into the controller's headphone jack, so it's not much of an issue.
Touch buttons on the front turn the PS4 on and eject discs
Touch buttons on the front turn the PS4 on and eject discs

Setup

Setting up the PlayStation 4 is very easy, especially if you have a PS3. You can actually use the same cables from Sony's last system, making for a very easy swap.
As mentioned above, the PS4 is super easy to extract from its box and set up, leaving minimal mess and very little environment-killing packaging.
Once it's all plugged in and booted up, your new PS4 will ask to connect to internet. It wants to download the latest patches which could take a while depending on your connection, but it doesn't need it for offline play. You are able to skip WiFi or ethernet altogether and just pop in a game. Unlike the Xbox One, you can get to the homescreen without initially connecting to the web and patching.
Once you do connect to the internet, you'll need to let the PS4 update before you can make purchases from the store or play online.
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Custom backgrounds is one of the few visual tweaks to the PS4 XMB so far

PlayStation Store

The PlayStation Store is your portal to every shred of content Sony has available on its system. You'll use it to shop for the latest games, movies and featured content that the Big Blue thinks you ought to know about.
Of course featured games have come and gone over the course of the past year, but one new feature that's stuck around is the ability to buy a digital copy of a game and have it install days before its retail launch. You won't be able to start it until the midnight of its launch-day, but just having a game the second the clock strikes 12 is convenient.
PS4 app
If you're not buying a game the minute it comes out, you can even start playing part of the game before the download completes.
When purchasing a game like Killzone: Shadow Fall, you'll be asked which portion of the game should be prioritized, single player or multiplayer, essentially letting you choose which part of the game you want to hop into first.
In a little less than an hour, you'll be able to start playing a title. It may seem like something only the truly impatient would enjoy, but when you consider that many releases weigh in excess of 35GB, it's real luxury feature, and another impressive bit of engineering.
Then there's the PlayStation app for iOS and Android. With just the stroke of a touchscreen, you can remotely purchase games and get the download going on your PS4 so it's ready and waiting when you get home (the console will turn on, download and switch off on its own).
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Using the Vita you can play remotely or use it as an extra control pad

PS Vita and Xperia Remote Play

When Remote Play for the PS Vita and Xperia smartphones was announced, everyone chirped that the PS4 would be the best thing ever to happen to Sony's struggling handheld.
In short, a WiFi connected PS4 can stream gameplay to a Vita or recent Xperia handset, much like a gaming PC streaming Borderlands 2 to the Nvidia Shield, or the Windows to Linux streaming of Valve's Steam Box.
We used the PS4 and Vita over our home WiFi and the connection to the PS4 was lag free so you can actually use it as an additional control pad, as well as a second screen. It's a great way to avoid using the on screen keyboard, if nothing else.
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Other than a few tweaks, the interface remains the same as on launch day

Sharing gameplay and videos

When Sony pulled the PS4 out of the shadows and started rattling off features, it mentioned one truly original and intriguing feature: saving and sharing gameplay videos with the press of the Share button on the DualShock 4.
At all times when playing a game, your last fifteen minutes of action is being recorded. This can be disabled, if you find it creepy or want to save on hard drive space, but it's switched on by default. There are also places where recording or screen grabs are locked out by developers. It's usually during cinematics or in certain menus.
Right on the console you can manipulate the video to a limited degree, more like trimming than true editing, and then share it to Facebook or on the PSN. You can also take a screenshot by holding the Share button, and then attach it to a PSN message, Facebook or tweet it.
Sharing videos and screens is limited to social networks and the PSN. There's no way to get them to YouTube or Flickr, or create a private link to the video. That's a real disappointment, especially since the Xbox One offers you a lot more freedom with your clips, like uploading them YouTube. In a perfect world we'd be able to plug in a thumb drive and grab the raw video, but that's not allowed.
However, you can stream live gameplay for others to watch over Twitch and Ustream, something PC gamers have enjoyed for a while now. It's quite painless to set up, especially compared to the third-party mechanics needed to employ this on a last-gen system.

Share Play

Share Play allows players to let friends take control of the game they're playing, watch their in-game progress, and even lets them invite friends to play with them co-operatively or competitively (depending on the game). The most interesting aspect about this is that both players don't need to own the game in order to have a shared session.
It's pretty simple to use; simply hit the Share button on the control pad and a menu pops up in which players can select the Share Play feature. Then it's all a matter of sending out an invitation to a player in their friend list.