Arts & Entertainment

QU Game Design Expert: Avoid eBay, Don't Rush to Buy New PlayStation 4

Quinnipiac University game design expert Greg Garvey encourages consumers to avoid eBay and not rush out to buy the new PlayStation 4.

PlayStation 4 debuted at midnight on Thursday, but a Quinnipiac University game design expert cautions consumers to not rush out and buy one – unless they plan to resell it on eBay during the holidays.

“Wait and see what Xbox One brings,” said Greg Garvey, a professor of interactive digital design and director of game design and development. “The emerging consensus is that PlayStation 4 is powerful, but it’s not a must-get-now machine.”

However, the PlayStation 4 is already showing up for resale on eBay at hugely inflated prices – $600 and more. This may lead to artificial scarcity in stores as resellers attempt to cash in leading up to the holidays, Garvey said.

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PlayStation 4, which costs approximately $100 less than Xbox One, features a powerful processor with a graphics processing unit capable of 1.84 teraflops. The new PlayStation has a smaller footprint and is nearly half the weight of the PlayStation 3. The onboard camera for tracking and facial recognition requires ambient light and is unreliable in lowlight environments whereas the Kinect relies on infrared light for operation, Garvey said.

The share button is an innovative feature of the new PlayStation that enables live broadcasts to the Internet and uploads to Facebook.

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“My recommendation is to forget about eBay and wait a year, especially for new games that take full advantage of its features,” Garvey said.

 Garvey earned a master’s and a bachelor’s of fine arts from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He also has a master’s degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.


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