14 DAY TRIAL // The PS4 and the Xbox one have been present on the market since November of last year and so far both have been selling quite well, although Sony's console has a distinct advantage over Microsoft's devices.
The two new platforms brought forth a huge amount of innovations, new features, extra power, and many other things over their predecessors, the PS3 and Xbox 360.
On Sony's side, there's a big emphasis on extra power, remote play using the PS Vita, and full HD gaming experience.
For Microsoft, the focus is on not just games but an all-in-one entertainment system capable of interacting with TV set top boxes, but also with a huge amount of entertainment services, provided you have Xbox Live Gold, of course.
Both consoles enjoyed a good amount of popularity and praise for their innovations but, as almost anything nowadays, they were not perfect.
Problems affected both the PS4 and Xbox One since day one, ranging from actual hardware faults, to software issues, errors, and more.
Enter the updates
Fortunately, nowadays, system software (firmware) updates are quite common and both Sony and Microsoft were able to release new patches for their consoles.
Things kicked off with day-one updates for both devices, as the PS4's 1.50 actually enabled a huge amount of features, while the Xbox One needed the new operating system to perform adequately.
For the PS4, Sony followed its traditional firmware update schedule and strategy, just like it did with the PS3 or PS Vita, releasing smaller updates regularly without offering any actual details besides the "system stability improved" or other such things.
There was one big update, in the form of 1.60, which brought a few more enhancements.
For the Xbox One, Microsoft abandoned the really slow update process seen on the Xbox 360 in favor of a quicker method designed to address feedback from customers as soon as possible.
The company quickly rolled out subsequent system software patches in order to improve the party chat, the operating system issues, or the friends system.
New things are coming
This week, both Sony and Microsoft confirmed the first details about their next firmware updates for the two consoles.
On Sony's side, the company is sticking to promises made last year about removing the HDCP encryption for the HDMI connection, but also improving the Twitch broadcasting system or allowing players to save their screenshots and videos onto a USB drive, instead of forcing them to share the items on social networks.
Microsoft, on the other hand, is preparing to make more improvements to the friends system, while bringing enhancements for the Kinect sensor or the GameDVR system.
While firmware updates may seem trivial to some, they are a great way of seeing if a company is interested in listening to fans and improving its products.
Both Sony and Microsoft seem eager to do just that but it's going to be interesting to see just what other surprises might appear via system software updates for both the PS4 and Xbox One in the future.