Over the previous 12 months, extra next-gen consoles are within the palms of gamers (*4*). I used to be elated after I obtained my palms on a non-price-gouged retail PS5, and since then I’ve been residing in a two-PlayStation home. But I used to be unhappy that my PS4 had to sit idly by after making room for its substitute.
My trusty PS4 had served me nicely for a few years, and I’d already upgraded its inside drive to an SSD in the course of the PS5 dry season. Could I observe the actions of the lots and promote it? Yes, however how may I convey it such dishonor? It nonetheless had nice worth to me, not simply to others, and I knew that there have been some ways it may proceed to convey glory to my home as console emeritus. If that sounds acquainted, right here’s how one can take advantage of yours too.
Relocate It
If you could have different televisions or displays in the home, relocating your PS4 goes to be the precursor to the advantages I’ll get into beneath. I moved mine to my workplace, the place my gaming rig can also be arrange. I do know various individuals who have consoles of their bedrooms, making it simpler to get pleasure from some gaming earlier than you drift off to sleep. (Although, to be truthful, screens and sleep are a bad combination.) The children’ room, whose tiny inhabitants might not want the complete energy of a next-gen console, is another choice. Maybe it turns into a transportable console for household journeys—or simply your personal travels. Wherever you are taking it, you’ll nonetheless get so much out of it.
Enjoy Those PS Plus Benefits
If you could have a subscription to PlayStation Plus, these advantages lengthen to your PS account, not only a single console. This means your PS4, even when it’s not your major console, can obtain and stream content material whereas connecting to the identical cloud saves you utilize in your major PS5. Want to play some Spider-Man: Miles Morales in your front room? Great! You can proceed it elsewhere in your PS4, along with your saved recreation intact.
Make It a PS5 Jr.
Upon the PlayStation 5’s launch, Sony added a feature to the PS4 to stream immediately from it, supplying you with a second console to entry content material that’s in your shiny, new PS5. Using the Remote Play choices within the system settings, you’ll be able to pair the 2 consoles. I’m not going to lie, it’s not *excellent—*the controls aren’t precise—though I haven’t had a lot of a problem. Since you’ll be utilizing a Sony DualShock 4 controller (or equal) it gained’t have the complete capabilities that the PS5 DualSense controller comes geared up with. But thus far, outdoors of enjoying the flute on the PS5 version of Ghost of Tsushima, I’ve been OK.
Make It a Media Streaming Box
PS4 apps and video games are nonetheless going to be downloadable for a very long time, which suggests your media and streaming apps, like Netflix, Hulu, HBO Max, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, Apple TV+, Paramount+, and the remainder can flip your PS4 into a powerful leisure middle for streaming and native content material.
My favourite media app on the PS4 is Plex, which permits you to join to an area Plex media server (if in case you have one) to entry all the content material in your native community. Because I’m that stage of geek, I’ve ripped most of my DVD/Blu-ray assortment to a digital library that sits on a media server in my workplace. Using Plex, all of that, plus different native video I’ve (OK, it’s all jiujitsu instructionals) is accessible for play on my PS4.
And it’s not simply video. The PS4 is nicely geared up to deal with music and podcasts as nicely, together with these soundtracks that got here along with your special-edition recreation purchases you could’t actually switch or play simply wherever else (which is nuts, as a result of the place you really need it’s in your automobile or on a CD or actually wherever else).
But I digress.
Physical media isn’t off the desk both. If you could have your music, films, and even photographs on exterior USB drives, you’ll be able to simply plug and play. A phrase of warning: The PS4 doesn’t help NTFS, the default file system that Windows PCs use, in order that bodily media may have to be formatted in both FAT32 or exFAT earlier than you copy your music and films over to it. And if you happen to’re a disc fan who likes to pay attention to all the extra audio tracks and bonus disc content material, it’s nonetheless among the best Blu-ray gamers you may get.
