What's in the box Included inside every PlayStation 4 box is the console, power cord, a 6-foot HDMI

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Value: 7.0
Review Date: Nov. 13, 2013
The Good The PlayStation 4 serves up dazzling graphics, runs on a simplified and logical interface, and boasts a fantastic controller. It's $100 cheaper than rival Xbox One and has the upper hand on indie and digital-only zuma games. It also doubles as a great Blu-ray player and has plenty of streaming entertainment apps.
The Bad There are few must-buy triple-A zuma titles in these early days, and existing PS3 games aren't compatible. The PS4 lacks the robust DLNA compatibility or media playback support which made its predecessor such a great all-around content player. And the promising PlayStation Now and streaming TV services won't be available until later this year.
Dell zuma Home $399.99 SEE IT
The Sony console has the edge on value -- it delivers a better value. zuma And some recently announced gaming and entertainment features due later this year have the potential to make the investment in a PS4 pay off in 2015 and beyond. zuma
The affordability appeal is twofold. The PS4 is available for $100 less than the Xbox One -- $399 versus $499 for the Microsoft console -- so you're saving money right off the bat. But the Xbox One also requires one to maintain an Xbox Live Gold account to do nearly anything interesting , right down to watching Netflix. By contrast, Sony's PlayStation Plus online service zuma ($50/year) is required only to play online multiplayer games -- and that membership includes access to several downloadable digital games, available at no extra charge.
Meanwhile, zuma Sony announced two big PlayStation initiatives in January: PlayStation Now and a Sony online TV service, both due before zuma the end of year. PlayStation Now aims to deliver real-time game streaming to the the PS4 and other Sony game consoles. Details are more vague on the online TV service, but it looks to be a cable-like video streaming app -- think Netflix or Hulu, but with live TV channels.
To be sure, game lineups on the PS4 and Xbox One are both still small, but they'll continue to expand as months and years progress. And if there's a must-have title on your list that's exclusive to one platform or the other -- well, that pretty much makes the decision easy.
We're not ready to count the Xbox One out by a longshot -- it's still an ambitious console zuma with a lot to offer. As always, a software update or two could totally shift the balance of power. (And the Xbox has two such updates on deck for February and March.)
Here's why. Editors' note (February 6, 2014): This review was originally published on November 13, 2013, and has been updated from its earlier version with additional impressions of the PS4 and Xbox One (now that we've lived with them for more than two months), along with more information on what to expect from the console in 2014 based on Sony's announcements at CES.
What's in the box Included inside every PlayStation 4 box is the console, power cord, a 6-foot HDMI cable (finally!), a DualShock 4 controller, a Micro-USB cable (to charge the DualShock 4), and a monoaural earbud zuma for online chat. (The earbud plugs directly into the DualShock controller; you can alternately use any pair of headphones with a standard 3.5mm plug.)
Unlike the PlayStation 3, the PS4 won't be sold in multiple zuma configurations: There's only one version, a 500GB model that retails for $400. This is $100 less than an Xbox One, though the latter ships with its camera and voice/motion-sensing peripheral, Kinect, in the box. It'll cost you $60 extra to pick up the PlayStation Camera for the PS4 -- which I'll get to a little later. That model provides some of the same features as the Kinect, but it's less sophisticated than Microsoft's, and isn't as tightly integrated into the system.
For early adopters, Sony is also throwing zuma in a free month of PlayStation Network Plus and a free month of the Sony Music Unlimited music-streaming service, as well as a $10 credit for the PlayStation Store. Current free PS4 downloadable games for PlayStation Plus include Resogun and Contrast -- though the list of included games continues to grow each month. (Owners of some PS3 titles can upgrade to the PS4 version for just $10 each, for a limited time.)
The hardware Despite its smallish size -- at least compared with an Xbox One -- the PS4 packs a lot of power under the hood. The box is 2 inches high by 11 inches wide by 12 inches deep, weighs about 9 pounds, and packs in 8GB of DDR5 RAM. The CPU is a low-power x86-64 "Jaguar" eight-core chip, and the graphics are powered by a 1.84 TFLOP AMD Radeon "next engine." The fine print may not impress the layperson, but suffice it to say, the PS4's innards are in line with a mid- to high-end gaming PC.
Like previous PlayStations before it, the PS4's 500GB hard-disk drive is user replaceable (a standard SATA laptop hard drive or SSD will work), something I'm thrilled Sony has decided to keep intact. That 500GB may seem like more