Sure, you can pop in a disc and play a few games, but what else can your console do? What more is there to that big hunk of plastic? There’s a lot actually. If it isn’t watching TV shows on your PS4, it’s playing Call of Duty with a keyboard and mouse. Here is how to unlock the full potential of your gaming console.
PlayStation 4
Mouse and Keyboard
It won’t replace the PC entirely, granted, but you can plug in any USB keyboard and mouse to your PS4 and use it to type as well as affect the UI. We all know what a complete mission it is to type a message using the PlayStation 4’s built in keyboard, so keeping a Bluetooth keyboard nearby while playing a game like A Realm Reborn: Final Fantasy XIV could save lives.
There are even certain games that support full functionality of the keyboard and mouse, like the cross-platform Final Fantasy XIV and the free-to-play War Thunder. But if you are looking to play every game with the keyboard and mouse, there are third-party hardware boxes that emulate this.
This is a great piece of kit, but it comes at a pretty penny.
KeyMander Controller Emulator, and it’s actually available locally, but at a rather steep price.
Just about the best media library you will find.
Plex Media Library
Plex is the greatest thing to happen in my household since I got my PS4. Plex is a media app that takes all of your “unprotected” videos, organizes them into a neat library and adds an intro song, a bio, episode number as wel as poster to each of them. It is a seriously neat app.
The PlayStation 4, PS3, Xbox One and Xbox 360 all have Plex. Be it by downloading the official app, or just finding it under “Media Servers” tab. The app is the way to go though as it is far more stable and you get all of the benefits like trailers for movies, bios, posters and it is all sorted like a digital DVD cupboard. The app does require a pass, around R59.00 per month, but that’s nothing if you watch a lot of media.
Be Social
We all know about the share button now, it’s old news. What is pretty neat now is the ability to find your Facebook friends on your PS4. Those friends who have linked their PS4 to their Facebook account will now show up under “people you might know”.
I have always been curious to see which of my Facebook friends were hardcore gamers, this shed some light on that. The results were: none.
Stop filling up so quickly!
Back it up!
500GB might look like a lot when it’s plastered on the front of your packaging, but its fills up very quickly. I am constantly deleting games before I can install a new game, it’s a disaster. Thankfully, thanks to the last firmware update, the ability to back up your entire hard drive onto an external means you can replace your PS4 hard drive without losing the installations and patches for all of those massive games. At this rate, I don’t even know if a 1TB would be enough to keep all of my games installed at the same time.
Xbox One
Speed up installations
Ever wonder why a game on Xbox One takes so long to install? Well I have no clue, but apparently it has something to do with an update. It seems that the game installs the update while it installs the initial disc data. To prevent this from happening and to help speed things up, disconnect from the network you are on before you insert a new game for the first time
Microsoft’s software experience has meant a fairly competent media hub
Media Stream
The PS4 might have Plex, but the Xbox One has a dedicated media hub which is pretty neat. Combined with Windows 8.1, you can set up sharing options to stream all of your videos from your PC straight to your Xbox One without any additional apps. Plex is still the best library, but this saves you some cash.
There is also something I just discovered on my PC. If your Xbox One, or any other media capable device, is connected to your network, just right click on a video and choose “Play To” and this will send the file to your console and start playing it.
It’s not removable, but then again, you never need remove it.
My hard drive is bigger than yours
Granted, you cannot take out the Xbox One’s hard drive, but you can plug in an external drive and use that to extend the capacity when your primary console storage. This is a godsend as are easily hitting around 35GB a pop. I’m talking to you The Witcher 3.
What makes things even more convenient is that the Xbox One has two USB ports tucked away. So you can literally plug an external in and tuck it away without ever knowing the difference.
Some other tips
- Pressing both the Triggers and “Y” at the same time will refresh your Dashboard. This is helpful when you have error codes like “unable to connect to Xbox Live”.
- Holding down the Xbox button on your controller for 5 seconds powers it off.
- Double tapping the “Xbox” button allows you to snap other apps to your game like Achievements and Party Chat.
- If you are watching YouTube on the same network as the Xbox One, you can just select the “Play To” option and it will automatically open the Xbox One YouTube App and carry on watching the video on it. You can then choose what you want to watch next and it will automatically play.
What other tips do you have to help maximize our consoles? Let us know in the comments and forum.
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