Does the PS4 or Xbox One need an internet connection to work?

Solution 1:

The Playstation 4 does not need an internet connection, however the day 1 patch does enable a wide variety of features. If all you want it for is to play games though, it should work entirely internet free I'm fairly sure

Games should come with the system update version they require to play, if any, a la the PS3 I believe, but I haven't encountered this yet since the PS4 updates it self...on the internet, anyway. You should also note a few games require day one patches either for stability or performance tweaks which could be a deal breaker. A couple games require patches for higher resolution, and BF4 at the least requires quite a few patches (but it's not much of an offline game anyway).

The Xbox One needs a patch to be used offline and will be basically dead with no connection or patch of any sort. Again, not sure if you can update the system's OS using game disks like you could with PS3, if someone knows whether you can that'd be great to know. Day one patches are at least as much of an issue on Xbox One though, for example I think Forza adds a notable amount of content with a patch including, I believe, the ability to finish career mode.