Samsung Galaxy S4 and HTC One Comparisons

The Android device story has followed a predictable pattern for the past few years: Samsung, HTC, LG, and Sony release top-tier hardware to carriers the world over, with their own proprietary software layered over Android. Google, meanwhile, partners with one of those companies to release a Nexus phone running “pure” Android software, usually without carrier support and usually on hardware that doesn’t feel quite up to snuff.

 

This year, two flagship phones, the Galaxy S4 and the HTC One, represent the pinnacle of Android hardware. They seem to have everything you could ask for: fast processors, gigantic and beautiful screens, LTE, and (mostly) great hardware design. But like their predecessors, they also come with a lot of extra software you probably didn’t ask for.

But this year, Google found a way to get HTC and Samsung to offer those same phones without their so-called “skins.” Both the Samsung Galaxy S4 and the HTC One can now be purchased without their respective manufacturer customizations for $649 and $599, respectively. Offered unsubsidized, unbranded, and unbesmirched by carrier software directly from Google, together they represent something we haven’t seen in a very, very long time: the best available hardware paired with Google’s vision of Android.

On top of all that, for the first time we can compare a customized version of Android directly against stock software running on the same device with manufacturer support. Do Samsung’s TouchWiz and HTC’s Sense really detract from the “true” Google experience?

 

Samsung Galaxy S4 and HTC One: Full Comparison

Hardware

Since we’re already reviewed the hardware on the Galaxy S4 and the HTC One, let’s quickly list out the physical changes on the stock editions. On the Galaxy S4, the carrier logo and the "Galaxy S4" logo have been replaced by a simple, single "Samsung" logo on the back. HTC’s "beatsaudio" logo remains, as this stock edition supports it.

That’s it.

Inside and out, these phones are identical to their predecessors

Inside and out, these phones are identical to what we’ve already seen. They’ll do LTE on both AT&T and T-Mobile, but may not be able to utilize T-Mobile’s AWS HSPA+ networks at their maximum speeds. They use the same NFC, IR ports, cameras, processors, radios, speakers, screens, and all the rest. It’s worth noting that the HTC One’s storage is 32GB, double that of the Galaxy S4 — though the latter still has a microSD card slot for expansion.

Now that we’ve had several months to get to know these phones, the fact that they have identical hardware turns out to be a mixed blessing for both of them.

The HTC One is still the most beautiful and elegant Android phone by a very wide margin. The screen looks great, the speakers are crazy loud, and it simply feels more premium than any of its competitors. However, HTC’s obstinate refusal to bow to the design norms of the Android market hurts the stock One as much as it hurts the skinned model.

The power button, located at the top of the phone, is nigh-impossible to reach with one hand. Samsung, LG, Nokia, and many others put it on the side now, an infinitely more reasonable choice for large-screened phones. More annoyingly, HTC continues to participate in Google’s campaign to rid the world of a dedicated menu button. In a perfect world, developers would follow Google’s guidelines and update their apps with on-screen menu buttons. In the real world, Samsung still ships a menu button on the bestselling Galaxy line, meaning there’s simply not enough incentive to get developers to redesign their apps.

Arcane Android politics aside, the bottom line is that HTC only provides two buttons — home and back — with the home button awkwardly placed on the right-hand side. This means that when you install an Android app that doesn’t follow Google’s Holo guidelines for on-screen menu buttons, you’re stuck with a gigantic black menu button at the bottom of your screen. Those apps are, thankfully, becoming increasingly rare, but they happen often enough to screw up whatever muscle memory you’ve built up with the keyboard whenever it gets shifted up.

The stock Galaxy S4 has the same slimy-feeling back cover, faux-metal plastic rim, and overall midrange aesthetic. In our original S4 review, David Pierce wrote that the hardware "makes an awful first impression" and I can’t say that I disagree. But what the GS4 lacks in panache it makes up for in utility. That back cover comes off so you can replace the battery and add an SD card. It also has the traditional three-button menu/home/back button layout that works better with stock Android.

I was able to get some third-party apps to successfully work with the GS4’s IR blaster, though app selection in that regard is still quite limited. Google says that the IR blaster on the stock HTC One doesn’t work right now, but will with a future software release.

 Cameras Comparisons

Since the hardware and stock Android software are both known quantities, the biggest question surrounding these phones is how well the cameras would perform. Both Samsung and HTC put a lot of effort into their custom camera software and hardware, and more importantly they tout their improvements as essential facets of their custom software experiences. Samsung piled an absolutely gigantic set of (occasionally gimmicky) features onto an advanced 13-megapixel shooter, while HTC took the risky route of using fewer megapixels that could take in more light — the so-called "ultrapixel" camera.

The good news is that, for the most part, you can still get good photos from the stock versions of these phones. In many cases, I was unable to discern any difference between the skinned-version photos and the stock-version. Especially when you’re shooting with the default auto settings, photos from both the GS4 and the HTC One were nigh-indistinguishable from their skinned counterparts.

There are exceptions, though. HTC’s camera in particular managed to get slightly sharper shots in extremely low-light settings with Sense than the stock version. On both the GS4 and the One I found that video was slightly better on the skinned versions as well, with richer colors and less "jellyvision."

I can’t say how much effort these companies put into making sure their cameras worked well with the stock Android software, but it does seem clear that they spent at least a nominal amount of time tuning the image processing. Samsung should have probably spent a little more time doing so — the stock Galaxy S4 exhibited a noticeable and troubling shutter lag that isn’t present on the skinned version nor on either HTC One.

While just pointing the phone at a subject and clicking the shutter button doesn’t yield remarkably different results between skinned and stock, that’s far from the whole story.

Both Samsung and HTC offer a series of settings that can give you significantly more control over your camera. White balance, shutter speed, exposure, and countless simple modes all combine to give you power over how your image will look before you snap your photo. Given the amount of engineering and money that goes into the hardware behind these cameras, it only makes sense that the software should offer more utility.

In this regard, Google has a lot of catching up to do. The stock camera does offer some basic settings, but they’re hidden behind its poorly-thought-out radial menu. It's a slightly updated camera interface compared to what's available on the Nexus 4, but it's still not as powerful as I'd like. HTC Sense and Samsung TouchWiz treat their cameras like cameras, but stock Android still feels like it’s stuck in an old "cameraphone" world.

Performance Comparisons

What happens when you have (virtually) identical Android software loaded on phones that share the same Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 processor? As you might guess, performance comparisons between the two are a study in differences so tiny as to be inconsequential. If forced to choose, I’d give a slight edge to the stock GS4 over the stock HTC One. But both phones are at least as snappy as their skinned counterparts, if not slightly faster. Again, the speed differences here are minimal. Benchmarks across the board were practically within the margin of error, including stock vs skinned and GS4 vs HTC One.

Battery life was a little different. Surprisingly, the stock versions of both the Galaxy S4 and the HTC One well outperformed the skinned versions. In the Verge Battery Test (our standard test that cycles through a series of popular websites and high-res images with brightness set to 65 percent) each phone came in at about six hours. In HTC’s case, that’s a full hour longer than the Sense version managed to pull off.

I have more experience with the HTC One than the GS4, so I can say that in my day-to-day use the stock version definitely seemed to last longer into the evening. Sadly, it’s still an "into the evening" kind of situation — the Droid RAZR Maxx HD this is not, so be prepared to grab a charge in the late afternoon depending on your usage.

 

Software Comparisons

If you haven’t used a Nexus device, I expect you’ll find stock Android 4.2.2 a refreshing, clean change from other Android devices. While TouchWiz and Sense have toned themselves down compared to years past, there’s still the nagging feeling that some "core" apps come from one place while others don’t. With stock, that dissonance is much reduced. More importantly, Google often just does a better job with things like Calendar and Messaging. They’re generally better designed in my taste, with a cleaner and flatter look that also happens to be much more functional.

Even if you assume that HTC and Samsung could re-skin every single corner of Android with their respective look and feel (and you shouldn’t assume that at all), at the end of the day I just think their aesthetic sensibilities are off, and Google’s are better.

That said, Android’s design still suffers from nagging inconsistencies. Icons, including Google’s own, seem to be randomly sized based on whims and vagaries. The back button still will take you to strange places. The select/copy/paste icons that appear when selecting text are practically inscrutable the first time you see them. Some apps utilize edge-swipes to take you to a menu, but not all, and it’s hard to find rhyme or reason as to why.

There’s also sometimes radically different style even within Google’s own apps — the recent Gmail update, Hangouts and Google+ each seem to be tracking in almost wildly divergent directions. Android designer Matias Duarte said last September that "Personally I feel like I’ve gotten only about a third of the way to where I want to be with regards to consistency, responsiveness, and polish." Sometimes Android design feels like it’s two steps forward and one shuffle-step sideways. Say what you will about where exactly the new design of iOS 7 is headed, but if nothing else it feels like there’s a firmer hand on the Apple rudder.

Of course, the software story on these two phones isn’t so much about what’s here as what isn’t here. There are no apps from HTC or Samsung, and there are no duplicate apps for things that Google already provides, like Music or Calendar. More importantly, there’s nothing from the carriers. You won’t have to wait for the Contacts app to unnecessarily call home to AT&T or Verizon anymore.

Strangely, there are a couple pieces of software the stock Galaxy S4 comes with that don’t appear on the stock HTC One: Google Earth and Google Wallet. The former you can install on the HTC One, but the latter doesn’t appear to be compatible. That’s unfortunate and frankly hard to understand, given that the HTC One has NFC. Then again, given Google Wallet’s recent troubles, it maybe isn’t a great idea to make that app an essential part of your life right now anyway.

Also, neither of these phones are technically "Bone Stock" Android. The Galaxy S4 comes with a "TouchWiz" feature: it works with Samsung’s S-View Flip Cover for displaying information when the screen is off. HTC’s One comes with Beats Audio hidden away in a checkbox within settings (but thankfully not in the notification bar). The skinned version of the One sounds much better with Beats than the stock version does, with less distortion. Turning on Beats Audio on the stock One seemed to dampen sound while adding only a small bit of bass.

Technically, the "stock" Android on these phones doesn’t come directly from Google (as with the Nexus line), but instead is built and maintained by Samsung and HTC. Google says that both phones will receive timely updates, but there could be an added wait from Samsung or HTC when the next version comes out. It certainly won’t take as long as it would if the carriers were involved, but there’s no guarantee that the stock GS4 and One will get same-day updates along with the Nexus line.

All Comparisons

Phone	One (2013) Google Play edition	Galaxy S4 Google Play edition
Description	The HTC One Google Play edition is a Stock Android Jelly Bean, LTE handset with an aluminum unibody construction and features a 4.7-inch, 1080p display and Qualcomm's Snapdragon 600 chipset with a quad-core 1.7GHz processor. It comes with front- and rear-facing 1080p cameras with an f/2 aperture and optical image stabilization.	The latest in the popular line of Samsung's Galaxy S smartphones, the Galaxy S4 ups the ante with a larger 5-inch 1080p display, Snapdragon S4 Pro processor and 2600 mAh battery to match. The Google Play edition is an unlocked device featuring a stock version of Android 4.2.
Availability	Status: Available Availability date: Jun. 26, 2013	Status: Available Availability date: Jun. 26, 2013
Hardware	Height: 5.41 inches Width: 2.69 inches Thickness: 0.37 inches Weight: 0.32 pounds Form factor: Slab Color: Silver Loudspeaker: Stereo	Height: 5.38 inches Width: 2.75 inches Thickness: 0.31 inches Weight: 0.29 pounds Form factor: Slab Color: White, Black Loudspeaker: Yes Noise cancellation: Hardware (multi-mic)
Display	Screen size (diagonal): 4.7 inches Technology: LCD Pixel arrangement: RGB Resolution (Y): 1920 px Resolution (X): 1080 px PPI: 468 Touchscreen type: Capacitive	Screen size (diagonal): 4.99 inches Technology: Super AMOLED HD Pixel arrangement: RGBG (PenTile) Resolution (Y): 1920 px Resolution (X): 1080 px PPI: 441 Touchscreen type: Capacitive
Connectivity	Other carriers: Factory Unlocked GSM: Yes GSM frequencies supported: 1900, 1800, 900, 850 UMTS / HSPA: Yes LTE: Yes LTE frequencies supported: 700 WWAN data standards supported: LTE, EDGE, HSPA+, HSUPA, HSDPA, GPRS Wi-Fi: Yes Wi-Fi support: 802.11n, 802.11g, 802.11b, 802.11a GPS: Yes Bluetooth: Yes Bluetooth version: Bluetooth 4.0 NFC support: Yes Tethering / mobile hotspot: Yes Media streaming: DLNA	CDMA: Yes GSM: Yes GSM frequencies supported: 1900, 1800, 900, 850 UMTS / HSPA: Yes UMTS frequencies supported: 900, 2100, 1900, 850 LTE: Yes LTE frequencies supported: 700, 1900 WWAN data standards supported: UMTS, LTE, EDGE, HSPA+, HSUPA, HSDPA, GPRS Max WWAN downlink speed: 100 Mbps Max WWAN uplink speed: 50 Mbps Wi-Fi: Yes Wi-Fi support: 802.11n, 802.11g, 802.11b, 802.11a, 802.11 a/c GPS: Yes Bluetooth: Yes Bluetooth version: Bluetooth 4.0 NFC support: Yes Tethering / mobile hotspot: Yes Media streaming: AllShare
Processor	Manufacturer: Qualcomm Brand / family: Snapdragon 600 Clock speed: 1.7 GHz Number of cores: 4	Manufacturer: Qualcomm Brand / family: Snapdragon 600 Clock speed: 1.9 GHz Number of cores: 4
Memory	RAM size: 2 GB RAM type: DDR2	RAM size: 2 GB
Storage	Internal size: 32 GB External: No	Internal size: 16 GB External: Yes Max external size: 64 GB External type: microSD
Front Camera	Video resolution: 1080p	Resolution: 2 megapixels Video resolution: 1080p
Rear Camera	Resolution: 4 megapixels Flash: LED Video resolution: 1080p	Resolution: 13 megapixels Flash: LED Focus type: Autofocus Video resolution: 1080p
Software	Operating system: Android Launch OS version: 4.2	Operating system: Android Launch OS version: 4.2.2
Interface	Video out: Yes Headphone jack: 3.5mm Other ports: Micro USB, MHL	Video out: Yes Headphone jack: 3.5mm Other ports: Micro USB, MHL
Sensors	Compass (Magnetometer), Proximity, Ambient light, Gyroscope, Accelerometer, Infrared	Compass (Magnetometer), Proximity, Ambient light, Gyroscope, Accelerometer, Barometer, Temperature, Humidity, Infrared
Battery	Capacity: 2300 mAh Removable: No	Capacity: 2600 mAh Removable: Yes Wireless charging: Yes

PS4 Vs. Xbox One

Everything that we know about the PS4 and the Xbox One

 

Hardware
The Xbox One and PlayStation 4 house very similar silicon inside their respective bodies, with a few key differences.

According to an exhaustive analysis by Digital Foundry, the biggest difference between the two systems' hardware is the type of RAM each uses. The PlayStation 4 uses 8GB GDDR5 RAM, while all signs point to the Xbox One using 8GB of DDR3 RAM. The GDDR5 RAM used in the PlayStation 4 is the same type of RAM used by most PC video cards and is optimized for graphical throughput. 

The PlayStation 4's Killzone: Shadow Fall is one impressive-looking game

 

Richard Leadbetter at Digital Foundry speculates that the PS4's GPU could have as much as 50 percent more raw graphical computational power than the one in the Xbox One. That, coupled with its faster graphics memory, may translate into prettier games on the PS4.

Judging from the demos shown at both Microsoft's and Sony's press conferences, it's difficult to say which system displayed more impressive real-time graphics. Both Final Fantasy XV (or is it Final Fantasy Versus XIII?) and The Order displayed incredibly impressive real-time cut-scenes on the PS4.

Possibly better than anything I saw on the Xbox One during Microsoft's press conference, but it's hard to say for sure having not actually played any of the games and having so far only seen them from hundreds of feet away on giant, but not nearly giant enough, screens.

Once I've had some hands-on time with plenty of games this week, I'll do another update on this post.

 

Check out the chart below for more details on the consoles' hardware.

	Xbox One	PlayStation 4
Price	$499	$399
Availability	November 2013	Holiday 2013
Blu-ray	Yes	Yes
Hard drive	Built-in (500GB)	Built-in (500GB)
Motion control	New Kinect (bundled)	Move controller
CPU	8-core x86 AMD	8-core x86 AMD
RAM	8GB DDR3	8GB GDDR5
USB 3.0	Yes	Yes
Wireless	Yes (802.11n w/Wi-Fi Direct)	Yes (802.11n)
Gigabit Ethernet	Yes	Yes
HDMI	Yes (in and out)	Yes
Suspend/resume game support	Yes	Yes
Background downloading	Yes	Yes
Native gameplay sharing (video)	Yes	Yes
Real-time gameplay steaming	Yes (Twitch)	Yes (Ustream)

Exclusives
To state the obvious: each company's lineup of first-party (self-published) games will be exclusive to its own console. So, as usual, any new Halo, Gears of War, or Fable titles will remain Xbox only, while future Uncharted, Killzone, or Ratchet and Clank games will only appear on PlayStation.

At its E3 press conference, Microsoft showed many exclusive first-party titles. Key games included Dead Rising 3, Ryse: Son of Rome, Killer Instinct, Quantum Break, Project Spark, Titanfall, and Forza 5. The company also pledged that all DLC (add-on downloadable content) for Activision's Call of Duty: Ghosts would debut first on the Xbox One.

 

 

 

Key exclusive PlayStation 4 titles shown include Killzone: Shadow Fall, Infamous: Second Son, Knack, The Order, The Dark Sorcerer, and 10 new indie titles.

If I had to pick which console has the strongest lineup of exclusive games, the Xbox One would be my choice. The exclusive games shown just felt more exciting than what Sony demoed.

However, the true value of these exclusive titles will depend on how well each plays, so look for further impressions later this week. We'll try to spend as much one-on-one time as possible with each game.

 

Controllers
The handheld controllers of the PS4 and the Xbox One are evolutionary descendants of the versions found on each respective platform.

The Sony DualShock 4 differentiates itself with a clickable touch pad on the front -- giving developers an additional option when designing games, although we've yet to see it in actual application.

  

 

The DualShock 4's body includes a "light bar" in the front that enables motion control functionality with the PS4's Eye camera to track the position and identify where the controller is and, if need be, actually adjust the split-screen orientation during multiplayer couch gaming. The Xbox One will accomplish this with assistance from Kinect, as it automatically tracks who's holding which controller. The DualShock 4 also includes the social-focused Share button, a built-in speaker, and a headphone jack.

 

 

 

The Xbox One uses Wi-Fi Direct to connect its controller, whereas the PlayStation 4 relies on Bluetooth 2.1+EDR. On paper, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR's theoretical 3Mbps maximum speed is clearly outclassed by Wi-Fi Direct's 250Mbps theoretical throughput. However, whether this will result in any tangible difference remains to be seen. In the Xbox One's case, the extra bandwidth could end up being important if Microsoft chooses to release add-ons, like a microphone for voice chat, and an updated version of its keyboard pad. It will be interesting to see which wireless standard delivers more efficient battery life.

 

 

Motion and voice controlEvery Xbox One unit will come bundled with a second-generation Kinect. While the PS4 will be compatible with Sony's Move controller and new stereo camera, it has yet to announce any plans to bundle them with the system.

The new version of Kinect will offer a wider field of view, better tracking of individuals (limited finger tracking is now included), and the ability to track more overall bodies. And (frighteningly!) also determine your current heart rate.

 

Kinect 2.0 is watching you.

 

The first Kinect never really made a strong impression with hard-core gamers, and it's too early to tell just how developers will make use of the second generation's upgraded features, but since every Xbox One owner will have one, its functionality advantages will be much more integrated into your overall Xbox experience.

The device will always be on and simply stating "Xbox on" will power up your entire system and sign you into your account based on facial recognition. Not to be outdone, Sony says its camera will have similar facial recognition functionality.

 

Sony's PS4 camera will include some of the same functionality as Kinect 2.0, but probably not all

 

More than any other next-generation feature, it's the ability to navigate your entire interface simply with the sound of your voice that feels the most futuristic to me. And by "futuristic" I mean, this is the kind of stuff I envisioned we'd see by this time when I was a kid. Interfaces that bring us one step closer to a holodeck.

Right now it's too early to tell which motion/camera solution will be best, but Kinect may at least be the most ubiquitous. That may inspire more developers to utilize more of its enticing offerings in games.

 

Nongaming entertainment
Microsoft's first Xbox One event in May was clearly focused on communicating that the Xbox One would be much more than simply a box to play video games on, and began its presentation demoing how the system would integrate with your television.

The Xbox One will allow you to switch from game to TV show, to the Web, to a movie, to Skype, easily and smoothly (without switching inputs), with just the sound of your voice. You'll also have the ability to multitask, running games and other apps simultaneously.

The Xbox One will not replace your cable box, but will instead allow you to plug your cable box into it, bypassing your cable company's interface, giving you control of live TV through your Xbox One. You'll even be able to create your own personalized "channel" with the shows and services you choose.

 

Your TV show guide: Xboxed!

 

Football fans will see deeper integration with NFL on the Xbox One; however, details on how exactly this will work are few. Look for Netflix, Amazon Instant Video, and other streaming services to make a return from the 360; whether they remain behind Xbox Gold's pay wall has yet to be addressed by Microsoft.

The PS4 will not want for services like streaming video, but live TV integration is not currently on the table. You will see streaming video through Netflix, Amazon, Hulu Plus, Redbox Instant, MLB.TV, and Sony's own Video Unlimited Service, which hosts more than 150,000 movies and TV shows to rent or own. Other services like Music Unlimited, Crackle, and Flixster will also be available on the the PS4.

Sony also announced that it's currently working on "cutting-edge," exclusive PS4 programming "developed with gamers in mind." But the company didn't provide much more detail than that.

 

Community and social
During the PS4 reveal back in February, Sony was clearly putting out different messaging compared with what had come before. While PSN has seen vast improvements (especially if you're a Plus member) in its offerings as of late, you'd be hard-pressed to compare it favorably with the Xbox Live community experience.

For PS4, Sony is targeting deep integration into its service. It wants you connected all the time (though neither console-maker requires it; see below). Things like live video chat and Facebook will be natively integrated. When your friends purchase a new game, you'll know, and you'll be able to play new games before they've even finished downloading.

However, the biggest change is the addition of the Share button on the PS4's controller.

 

 

Sony will double down on social for the PS4.

Through this button, gamers can broadcast live gameplay, take screenshots, or share videos of their latest gaming triumphs. Your friends will post comments to your screen while they watch you play. If a player is stuck in a particularly difficult section of a game, he can call in an online friend to literally take over his controls. Frustration successfully circumvented, despite a possible bruised ego on the sharer's part.

That's a feature I'll probably never use (see aforementioned tender ego), but I can easily recognize how incredibly cool and useful this could be for many players out there.

With Remote Play you can stream your PS4 game onto a PlayStation Vita. I'm unsure if this will be available for every game, but it does make the PS Vita much more enticing. To me, at least.

The Xbox One's dashboard. A lot like the Xbox 360's.

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Microsoft for its part, has increased its Xbox Live friends list limit from 100 to "all" of them, and achievements are getting a big overhaul. It writes on its Xbox One site that the new achievement system will have "richer detail and span across your games and experiences."

Other Xbox One social features include built-in Skype, the ability to track Xbox Live trends, and see what your friends are playing or watching most. With Smart Match you can look for multiplayer games while spending your time in other apps.

Game DVR automatically records the last few seconds of your gameplay and allows you to upload video of your latest triumph for others to see. The Xbox One fully integrates Twitch's live-streaming capabilities. Xbox Live Gold subscribers will be able to not only live stream their own gameplay -- with the option to add voice or video to the stream with Kinect -- but also watch streams of others as well.

SmartGlass will also be more tightly integrated into the Xbox One.

 

How much?The Xbox One will launch in November for $499 and the PS4 is coming before the holidays for $399. That's a pretty substantial difference, especially given that each system comes with a full 500GB hard drive.

Spec-for-spec, it would appear that the PS4 clearly offers more value, but that's before taking Xbox One's bundled Kinect sensor into account. However, if you couldn't give a Kinectimal's butt about Microsoft's all-seeing eye, then I'd imagine that if the choice were strictly price-based, then it's probably not a difficult one to make.

Finally getting our hands on the PlayStation 4

As for backward compatibility, Microsoft says no, Sony says not immediately, but in 2014, it plans to launch its cloud gaming service. This will allow PS4 owners to access "a catalog" of "critically acclaimed" PS3 games. So, not truly backward compatible, but more than what Microsoft is currently planning, which is nothing.

Used games and 'always on'
Thanks to a recent decision by Microsoft, the Xbox One will no longer require periodic online check-ins in order to play games. Microsoft says that a one-time connection will be required during the Xbox One's initial setup, however.

Sony had previously announced at E3 that the PS4 would also not require an Internet connection to play games, but hasn't yet commented on whether a connection would be required for its initial setup.

So yes, users of both systems will be able to play games for as long as the user likes without connecting to the Internet; however, with plenty of games like The Division, Titanfall, and Destiny including deeply-rooted Internet features or being multiplayer-only, many of the most sought-after experiences on these consoles will at the very least be suitably enhanced with an Internet connection.

Neither Sony nor Microsoft will restrict game lending, trade-ins, renting, selling, or any action that mirrors what you can currently do with your PS3 and Xbox 360 games. However, third-party publishers can still choose to restrict these actions as they choose.