Sony PlayStation 4 launches today. The battle for the living room is about to start as PlayStation 4 is ready to go thermonuclear, hitting North American retailers on November 15. Just a week later, Microsoft is set to launch Xbox One console.

Among the PS4 midnight launch areas will be Gamestop, Best Buy and Walmart locations. Gamers who had pre-orders on the new PS4 game console will get their hand today with the online PS4 orders still available, but quantities limited.

Under the hood

Sony has vaulted us into the next generation with style, delivering a powerful system that’s sleek, speedy, and most importantly, user friendly. Early tech reviewers said that PlaysStation 4 graphics are vivid, the performance is speedy. The creator Tetsu Sumii intended to make console slimmer and minimalist design. It has decked out in a black chassis with a combination glossy-and-matte finish, divided by a strip of glowing blue light. Sony has opted for slanted, parallelogram design rather than a typical boxy or dome-shaped approach found in Xbox One.

Under the hood, PS4 is ten times faster than last generation PS3 console. It has an 8-core x86 CPU, 8 GB of GDDR5 RAM, faster GPU processor by AMD that can capable of playing games up to 60 frames per second. In addition, the console has 500 GB hard drive, native 1080p resolution, two USB 3.0 ports, Wi-Fi, HDMI out, Ethernet Blu-ray/DVD player and Bluetooth. Sony has said the PS4 will not support external hard drives, at least not at launch, but the console’s internal storage is upgradeable.

DualShock 4

The PlayStation 4 is fast. The DualShock 4 is the best gamepad Sony’s ever created. Engadget, GamesRadar and other described the outward-curving rear triggers DualShock 4 make it friendlier for purveyors of first-person shooters. The controller is beefier, heavier and looks stylish and when combined with the PS4’s camera. The touchpad works like a phone with click, flick, drag, and drop features.

The DualShock 4 will be available in standard black, wave blue and magma red version. The color variations will be available at a recommended retail price of $59. However, Sony support for wireless stereo headsets will not be available at launch but will be introduced later.

Camera

PlayStation Camera is a newly developed camera for PS4 that incorporates two highly sensitive cameras that can recognize the depth of space. The PlayStation Camera is capable of sensing the color of the controller’s light bar to judge the positions of multiple players sitting in the same room. PlayStation Camera is also compatible with the PlayStation Move motion controller, reflecting players’ in-game movements more accurately than ever in PS4 titles that support it.

In addition, users will be able to login to their PS4 with face recognition and are capable of using their own body movements or voices to enjoy games more intuitively.

Social and Music Unlimited

PlayStation 4 gives the option to user to record 15-minute intervals on your screen in the background, which can be edited and uploaded to Facebook or Twitter. The PS4 comes with streaming video services such as Netflix, Hulu Plus, Crackle, and Epix.

The Sony console now comes with Music Unlimited feature. It lets you set up a media server, or play MP3s or audio CDs. Sony offers a free 30-day trial to the subscription service as part of buying a PS4 to listen to unlimited music. The Music Unlimited navigation is identical to the PlayStation 3 apps, with a variety of suggested categories sitting on the main menu.

Games

The PlayStation 4 represents an impressive package for video game players, with significant improvements to the controller and menus, and fresh features such as game sharing. At first glance, it feels like Sony’s gone a long way toward fixing what ailed the PS3, and toward enabling a much better and more impressive gaming experience. Navigating through the new interface was certainly more agile experience than on the PS3 and game loads are much faster on the PS4.

Sony’s got plenty of titles prepped for launch day. It has exclusive Sony computer entertainment worldwide studios titles such as Flower, Sound Shapes, Flow, Escape Plan, Killzone Shadow Fall, Knack and Resogun.

Sony is delivering third party titles like Angry Birds Star Wars, AC IV Black Flag, Call of Duty Ghosts, DC Universe Online, FIFA 14, Battlefield 4, Just Dance 2014, Injustice: Gods Among Us Ultimate Edition, Lego Marvel Super Heroes, Madden NFL 25, NBA 2K14, and Skylanders SWAP Force among others. In addition, some Indie titles games including Contrast, Pinball Arcade, Super Motherload, Tiny Brains and Warframe will be launched on the D-day.

PS4 deals

Some of the video game titles like “Killzone: Shadow Fall,” “Call of Duty: Ghosts,” “Battlefield 4,” and “Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag” are available at a priced close to $60 each. Best Buy has released their list of stores and pre-orders will start getting processed at two hours before midnight.

Gamestop and Walmart locations also started taking pre-orders. Sony Stores are also participating in a midnight release event, but there’s limited availability of the PS4 bundles. The Amazon website is offering “Buy 3 for the Price of 2” sale on Sony PlayStation 4 games.

Day one patch and bricked consoles

Soon after the launch of the console, Sony will release the so-called day-one patch. The first update of the system software of the next-gen platform brings this to the version number 1.50 and at the same time also adds new features. In the course of a lengthy FAQs relating to the console, Sony officially confirmed that the new firmware will then support USB headsets.

IGN is reporting that several early lucky publications and end users who received via special contest or promotions reported that the console is either bricked when they arrived or developed a fault that stopped them from displaying correctly. The faulty part is the HDMI jack and Sony will replace them under the standard twelve-month warranty. But the whole episode does set a bad trend ahead of the launch.

Sony has published the PS4 user manual in full here. The website features detailed information on hardware, settings, games, friends, messaging, party, video/TV, music, browser, sharing and more.

The Sony PlayStation is $400 without games. It comes with peripherals such as PlayStation Eye or PS Vita for Remote Play (still less than Microsoft’s Xbox One that costs $100 more). The good news is, almost all of the PS4’s issues right now could be solved with creative developers and software update, but for now the PS4 is very much a better PS3. Overall, the PlayStation 4 is the console of choice for those looking for a gamer-centric experience.