As has been mentioned before, the PS4 and Xbox One are very similar in most respects. Sony and Microsoft are direct competitors in this space. Both companies brought out high powered updates to their consoles around the same time, namely the PS4 Pro and Xbox One X. Both these updates essentially brought more powerful processors to the table and enabled 4k video output. However, if you don’t have a 4k TV and/or don’t intend to get one, there’s not much point splashing out for these versions. The only other major difference is that the Pro has a 1 Terrabyte hard drive whereas the original has a 500 Gigabyte drive (half the size). You need the storage space to store game files, either the full games when downloaded digitally, or files which are installed from the physical disc versions. Either way, there’s plenty of space to get started and you can also expand this storage using a USB thumb drive if you ever need it (although there are some compatibility considerations if you ever get that far).
Assuming you’ve settled on Playstation. There are only the two versions worry about if you are buying new. You will either get the standard PS4 (known as the Slim) or the PS4 Pro. However, if you buy second hand, this brings the original PS4 model into play. There are actually a handful of different versions of this as they updated the chassis a couple of times. These models can come in both 500GB and 1TB versions, but you may need to be mindful of which version you are actually picking up as there are some hardware differences between them which could impact both their age and reliability.
In terms of accessories, it won’t matter which console version you have.
Controllers are wireless to play and are charged using a standard USB micro socket (like many mobile phones). There are 2 USB ports on the console itself and all controllers come with a USB cable. You can also charge the controllers using standard USB phone chargers or by connecting to a PC USB socket. If the controllers are plugged directly into the console, they can be used to play even if the batteries are dead.
Games come either on a disc or can be purchased digitally. There are some games which are only available as digital downloads. Once you purchase a game digitally, your Playstation account stores your purchase, so the game can be safely deleted from the console and re-downloaded without having to re-purchase.
Sony have a subscription service (PS Plus) which is required if you want to play games online. In addition to this functionality, it also gives you access to a small number of games for free each month (lists are updated monthly). It’s also worth noting that some games are only for online-multiplayer and as such are not worth buying if you don’t have the subscription. There are also other games which require an active internet connection in order to play, they don’t necessarily require the subscription, but they store game information online and are therefore not really playable unless the console is connected to the internet.
Again, as mentioned before, the launch of the new PS5 which is expected next November, will not stop the PS4 from working. PS4 is among the best selling games consoles of all time and Sony won’t be alienating its user-base for several years yet. Typically, when a new Playstation comes out, you will get many games being launched on both platforms for a period of time, but even so, there are thousands of PS4 games already in existence which won’t be going anywhere (if anything they’ll just get cheaper!). It’s also worth noting that the PS5 is expected to be backwards-compatible with previous Playstation games, so if you did ever upgrade to the PS5, the old PS4 games should still run on it.
The Black Friday deals are already running at many retailers including Amazon, Game, PC World, etc. You can pick up a standard PS4 Slim bundle for around £250 and a PS4 Pro bundle for around £300. It’s possible that better deals may crop up in the Amazon flash sales on Black Friday or Cyber Monday, but these will go super-fast and probably shouldn’t be relied on. The bundles tend to include a game or two, depending on which games they put in (incidentally, the PS5 price has recently been floated at around $499 so expect it to be about £450+ when it launches and that will be with no games or accessories thrown in). If you are intending on buying a second controller as well, it might be worth keeping an eye out for bundles which include additional controllers as this might be cheaper, but beware that some retailers (including Game) sometimes bundle in their own 3rd party controllers instead of an official Playstation one. These tend to be far inferior products and not really worth owning.