Is A Ps4 Worth It In 2021

Is buying a PS4 or Xbox 1 still worth it?

(Image credit: Tom's Guide)

If you're in the market for a PS4 or Xbox One, you lot are surprisingly not alone. In spite of the PS5 and Xbox Serial X coming out months agone, Sony and Microsoft's last-gen consoles are just as popular as always, non to mention increasingly hard to find.

It'due south non hard to sympathise why people are buying PS4s and Xbox Ones in droves. They tin't find PS5s or Xbox Series Xs, and information technology's better to accept an outdated console than no panel at all — especially if you needed something to give every bit a holiday souvenir.

Play the best PS4 games
Besides try the best Xbox 1 games

As well, the PS5 has few true exclusives; the Xbox Series X has none. The PS4 and Xbox One still take at least a little life left in them. But is information technology worth picking up one of these crumbling consoles instead of their hard-to-observe replacements?

The short answer is "no." While the electric current-gen consoles have their charms, particularly for new gamers, they simply no longer represent a good investment.

ps4 pro ps4 — (Image credit: Mike Andronico/Tom'south Guide)

Why buy a PS4 or Xbox One?

During big sales events such as Black Friday and Cyber Monday, the Tom's Guide staff uses search trends to aid u.s. find deals. Imagine my surprise when I found that "PS4" and "Xbox Ane" were, far and away, 2 of the most pop search terms.

Customers were desperate to find PS4s and Xbox Ones (specially PS4s), and when nosotros were lucky plenty to find the elusive consoles in stock, they sold out nigh as fast as their newer counterparts. (The Switch was also ridiculously pop this holiday season, but you can now find one pretty much anywhere. The PS4 and Xbox One are still fairly elusive.)

Equally I said, I retrieve the time to purchase 1 of these consoles is by unless you can discover a new-in-box model at a staggering discount. (Think $200 or less.) Just clearly, at that place must exist some reason why people are still buying these systems in droves.

The simple answer is that no one can discover the PS5 or the Xbox Serial X, whereas the PS4 and Xbox One are comparatively more than available. Since nosotros're very early in the next-gen consoles' life cycles, the current-gen consoles still play 99% of the aforementioned games. Combine this with the holiday compulsion to requite gifts and it's not hard to empathise why the PS4 and Xbox One are having one last hurrah.

In all seriousness, there are a few reasons why the PS4 and Xbox I are yet viable. There's the game library, every bit discussed above, which should be relatively stable for at least the next year, possibly more. Also, nigh consumers don't own 4K TVs, and then 1080p-optimized consoles aren't as much of a dealbreaker as you might recollect.

If you lot haven't owned a console in a while (or e'er), the PS4 and Xbox 1 libraries could theoretically continue yous busy for years. If and when you upgrade to a PS5 or Xbox Serial Ten, you can have your games and your salvage files with you, thanks to cantankerous-gen compatibility. Failing all that, you can always employ a current-gen console equally a very large streaming box.

Still, I tin't remember of a keen reason to purchase a PS4 or Xbox Ane at this phase of the game, and it has to do with backwards compatibility. That, and the fact that the PS4 is in the process of being discontinued equally I write this article.

Xbox One X — (Image credit: Tom'south Guide)

Don't buy a PS4 or Xbox One

This is mutual knowledge for dedicated gamers at this point, just may not be immediately credible to more casual consumers: The PS5 is fully backwards uniform with the PS4. The Xbox Series X is fully backwards compatible with the Xbox Ane, and partially backwards uniform with the Xbox 360 and original Xbox.

As such, y'all tin can pay $300 for a PS4 or an Xbox One, or $500 for a PS5 or Xbox Series X. When you consider that you'll probably have to upgrade within a year or 2 anyhow, putting that $300 toward a new console instead of an old one makes a lot of sense.

The calculus is fifty-fifty starker when you call up that the 4K-capable PS4 Pro and Xbox One X variants still get for around $400, and both the PS5 and Xbox Series Ten accept cheaper versions bachelor. The $300 Xbox Series Ten isn't 4K-capable, only is otherwise a very powerful little machine, while the $400 PS5 Digital Edition lacks a disc drive simply is otherwise identical to the standard PS5.

A PS5 will play every PS4 game (with a few niche exceptions). Information technology volition also play 4K Blu-ray discs, which no PS4 model has ever supported. An Xbox Series X volition play every Xbox One game, and you can even go all offset-party Microsoft releases for a apartment monthly fee with Xbox Game Pass. (The Series X will besides play 4K Blu-rays, but to exist fair, so will virtually Xbox Ane models.)

Essentially, buying a last-gen console but delays your next-gen buy, while tacking an extra $300 onto the cost tag. Except for firsthand availability, at that place's no existent benefit — and enough of drawbacks, one time you have to figure out what to do with a bulky, outdated, unsellable panel a few years downwards the line.

Every bit for when you'll be able to pick up that shiny new PS5 or Xbox Series X, well, that's harder to answer.

Marshall Honorof is a senior editor for Tom's Guide, overseeing the site's coverage of gaming hardware and software. He comes from a science writing background, having studied paleomammalogy, biological anthropology, and the history of science and technology. After hours, yous can find him practicing taekwondo or doing deep dives on archetype sci-fi.