PS4 / Xbox One console war

[Formless God]

This really doesn't belong here, but it seems you are not up-to date.

Eh, you're right. I'm looking into that now. It'd be fantastic if they pulled that off.

[Skykid]

Mentioning football (aka soccer) in a UK ad seems like a good idea.

Pretty sure anything Sony do seems like a good idea to you, dude. Including not encrypting your bank details on their servers.

In the UK, FIFA 13 was the second best selling video game of 2012.

Would you kindly dispense with the nonsense? You were on such good behaviour for a few weeks.
We understand you hate Sony, really (super really) do. You feel the need to compensate for the (justified) criticism and laughter currently directed at Microsoft. Unfortunately Sony hasn't supplied much ammo lately. But please don't bring up fascinating new stories of how Sony destroyed poor innocent Lik Sang

Consider the nonsense well and truly dispensed Friendly. I'm in shock. Are you actually accusing me of trying to deflect flak over the Xbox One by citing Sony's own shittiness?
I suppose all those hundreds of Xbox 360 threads I started are encroaching on your territory.

You know me better than that by now. I don't give a toss about either company, unless they do something really good (doubtful) they can both burn for all I care.

You know I don't hate Sony, I just find myself so completely in awe of your display of love for them that I can't help but remind you of their fuck ups. For fun, y'see.

Honestly, if you weren't here with photos of PS4 ads you snapped photos of in the Metro, I'd be totally indifferent, and just as disinterested.

[louisg]

I was actually kind of disappointed the Wii-U doesn't seem to use the Wiimote. I really liked the "hands-open" controller feel when playing traditional games like Galaxy with it (as opposed to both hands gripping a solid controller), and it's great for anything that naturally uses a pointing device for gameplay. I think it still has untapped potential for FPS controls, for instance, though the implementation wasn't always perfect. It got a bad rap because it was shoehorned into so many games in a dumb way, but used in moderation it's a very neat addition that actually addresses some nagging limitations of previous console controllers in certain styles of games.

TBQH I've seen a pretty standard Nintendo backlash since the (poorly-balanced-but-groundbreaking) N64, which I interpret as a bunch of h4rDc0R3 gamers in "throwing away their toys" mode. During the GameCube it was "waaaah it's a kiddie machine!" despite delivering *very* good performance for cheap, something that was apparent even in some of the launch titles. So, Nintendo went and tried something less traditional because they knew they couldn't appeal to Sony/MS fans on the basis of good graphics and a traditional console, and everyone goes, "OMG it's not hardcore, it's casual!". Can't win. It's a branding problem.

Does the Wii have its shortcomings? Sure (graphics being a glaring problem). But it was a pretty neat system IMO. I always like to see companies at least trying something new. There are still a lot of Wii games I haven't tried which are supposed to be good, though I have to say that a lot of current game genres are just not my style anyway.

But Wii-U? Eh. I dunno, man.

[Friendly]

Alright, then let's stop this. Let me just say that I really do not love Sony, they did plenty of stuff in the past that pissed me off, too. If they were to introduce anti-consumer bullshit like Xbone's game ownership management, my interest in PS4 would instantly drop to 0. I really hope they don't fuck this up by doing something stupid now; that's all they need to succeed at this point.

[Friendly]

I think it still has untapped potential for FPS controls

May I suggest you give PS Move along with a navi controller a spin? Playing a FPS with that is really something else. I hope they can further improve Move with PS4eye (which is stereoscopic and has a higher framerate/resolution).

Here's a lengthy video that shows Killzone 3 with Move: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWF0yZCmpNo
And rail shooters: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUQm6eivtqM

That's just something that can never work with Kinect; waving your arms around without holding anything and without pressing buttons just isn't the same.

[Wonderbanana]

I'm waiting till E3 till I make any kind of pre-launch judgement on either.

I don't think the MS reveal was great as an event but actually when you get your head round it what their offering is a solid piece of hardware. Sonys reveal was hardly stellar and in truth showed the square root of fuck all.

I think both will have some pretty cool games at E3 and that's what I'm looking forward to. Until then I don't really give a shit about what either has revealed so far.

[MadScientist]

If they were to introduce anti-consumer bullshit like...

New terms & conditions designed to blocking class-action suits;
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/vi ... n-Lawsuits

"demanding that a federal judge order Google to surrender the IP addresses and other identifying information of those who have viewed or commented about the jailbreak video on a private YouTube page."
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/0 ... t-factory/

Online passes in new game copies that may have expired by the time you buy them (e.g. the 6 month expiry date for two games in the God of War Saga collection)
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=533175

etc...

[louisg]

I think it still has untapped potential for FPS controls

May I suggest you give PS Move along with a navi controller a spin? Playing a FPS with that is really something else. I hope they can further improve Move with PS4eye (which is stereoscopic and has a higher framerate/resolution).

Here's a lengthy video that shows Killzone 3 with Move: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWF0yZCmpNo
And rail shooters: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUQm6eivtqM

That's just something that can never work with Kinect; waving your arms around without holding anything and without pressing buttons just isn't the same.

Yeah, that's why I explicitly mentioned Wii and not Kinect. Move to me seems like a sorta clumsy (camera-based?) implementation of the Wii's controls. Haha I bet it blew Sony fan minds, who were so invested in the idea that the Wiimote was NOT HARDCORE, UNLIKE SONY. Ahahaha. But it's a good direction though, IMO.

[Ganelon]

I`d hazard a guess, and maybe this is just a very gross generalization on my part, that many of the people willing to cough up for XBL probably hadn`t had much exposure to online gaming prior to the emersion of the Xbox brand, otherwise they wouldn`t be so accepting of it.

If you think of Xbox Live as a cross-publisher online gaming platform instead of as a collection of online gaming servers, then you might find it easier to understand where people are coming from. I'm not sure how familiar you are with the US but every major online gaming platform back in the mid-90s that supported titles from multiple publishers was paid in some form. Kali was the major free-to-play platform of its day but you still had to pay to register it. And it was pretty much the lone one-time-fee PC platform up against heavyweight subscription services like TEN, Mplayer, and HEAT.NET. On console, Xband, NetLink, and SegaNet all had subscription or pay-per-play fees.

It was later when Battle.net and numerous other free platforms used by individual games and publishers popularized the concept of network-oriented online play at no added cost. It's possible that the paradigm has shifted by now to the point where free play is expected but when Microsoft first started Xbox Live on the original Xbox with subscription fees, I wouldn't say it was anything out of the ordinary.

And for most games I've played, XBL's online play is much smoother and the arbitration servers for detecting disconnects are much better. Maybe it's Capcom's code but XBL is noticeably less laggy for Capcom fighters. I remember telling Friendly last time that some of us own the games on both platforms and have played each other online on both; nobody has ever commented that XBL felt worse than or even equal to PSN. Of course, GGPO is heads and shoulders above both in terms of lag. Is XBL's extra smoothness worth the subscription cost? Almost certainly not, but XBL also happens to have the better players for these games.

I have no dog in this next gen race (and I'll almost certainly buy all of the consoles, with a Wii U in hand already) but as a consumer, I'd naturally want to pay less. Based on what we know of the 2 consoles so far, if PSN remains free while delivering equal lag regardless of other features, then I hope folks flock to the PS4.

[Friendly]

@MadScientist
None of that is cool. I assume that even Sony saw that the lawfirm representing them at the time was going too far when they requested data on youtube users; as you may remember the case was quickly settled by Sony. And companies adding "no class action" clauses to their terms of service is a problem caused by US-legislation that allows this; naturally all corporations are doing it (Microsoft, too).

However, please remind me how many antitrust suits there were (or are still ongoing) against Microsoft? MS has been convicted several times for abusing its monopoly, both in the USA and in Europe. That's a completely different level, as is the present situation. Microsoft's upcoming Xbone propery rights management is outrageous, and simply unacceptable.

[system11]

The cross game chat actually is a big deal - just see how you feel about it if you ever build up a group of friends online, and then the game you all played together ends - people go their different ways but XBL chat parties and integration with the system at such a base level keep you in touch. It's one of the things Microsoft really did significantly better than Sony (again). I'm hoping Sony adopt the approach for the PS4.

[Friendly]

Move to me seems like a sorta clumsy (camera-based?) implementation of the Wii's controls.

No, that's a common misconception. The camera is only one component. Move is actually much more sophisticated than Wii Remote and allows for precise spatial tracking.
Watch this and you'll understand: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOv6l1inOwM

[Wonderbanana]

The cross game chat actually is a big deal - just see how you feel about it if you ever build up a group of friends online, and then the game you all played together ends - people go their different ways but XBL chat parties and integration with the system at such a base level keep you in touch. It's one of the things Microsoft really did significantly better than Sony (again). I'm hoping Sony adopt the approach for the PS4.

Totally agree. I use it all the time and its a great feature.

[system11]

@MadScientist
None of that is cool. I assume that even Sony saw that the lawfirm representing them at the time was going too far when they requested data on youtube users; as you may remember the case was quickly settled by Sony. And companies adding "no class action" clauses to their terms of service is a problem caused by US-legislation that allows this; naturally all corporations are doing it (Microsoft, too).

However, please remind me how many antitrust suits there were (or are still ongoing) against Microsoft? MS has been convicted several times for abusing its monopoly, both in the USA and in Europe. That's a completely different level, as is the present situation. Microsoft's upcoming Xbone propery rights management is outrageous, and simply unacceptable.

Remember everyone's favourite importer?
http://www.lik-sang.com/

Why can't you sell modded consoles on this forum?
http://www.out-law.com/page-4733

Etc. There's little to pick between Sony and MS in terms of evil lawmongering, from a purely games standpoint Sony is probably the worst.

[Friendly]

Yes, I mentioned Lik-Sang a few posts up. Aside from this being ancient, let's remember that ALL companies (Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo) tried to shut them down because they made and sold video game copy devices.

from a purely games standpoint Sony is probably the worst.

The worst? Let's look at the present situation. All of Sony's current systems (PS3, PSP, PSV) are not region-locked and don't make you pay to use your own internet connection when you want to play online. Unlike Microsoft, Sony allows indies to self-publish their games and they recently did away with their strict concept approval system. Unlike XBone, their upcoming PS4 will not require you to register your games online in order to play them and PS4 won't do forced online checks once every 24h.

[Jonathan Ingram]

Gimmicks as opposed to what? Competitive companies doing 100% of zero to offer any kind of innovation to videogaming whatsoever?

I believe the main task and duty of console manufacturers lies in providing developers with hardware that presents a quantitative leap in power over previous consoles, which in its turn allows for software innovation and experiences that would`ve been unrealizable on weaker hardware. That`s how it has been and that`s how it will be. People didn`t get excited for SNES, PSX, Dreamcast and others because of controllers or some gimmicky nonsense. It`s always the generational leap in power that got people excited and helped advance videogames as a medium.

No-one needs reminding Sony can't even muster a new controller after forever in the business.

This has more to do with ergonomics than innovation. A controller is a means of registering a player`s inputs and sending them to the hardware. You can reshape it, change the buttons layout, but the general function will remain the same.

You're looking in hindsight at what the Wii became: a family oriented console - exactly what Nintendo have striven to achieve since the Famicom. You're not paying it any dues for the innovation of the interface from the outset, when it had to take a big risk in an increasingly boring market.

Now why I would I give any credit for something that hindered most games it was forcefully applied to? "Look, we`ve made you shake the Wiimote every time you want to do a roll in Donkey Kong Country Returns to justify the existence of our innovative controller. Don`t you like it?" The history showed this "innovation" to be a fluke and a fad with even Nintendo pretty much giving up on it for their new system.

I have noted you're a fan of JRPG's and the ilk, one of the most hackneyed genres in existence today.

If you`re so observing, you could`ve noted that I don`t have a preference of one genre over another(I`d play a football manager provided it`s a good football manager). I don`t know where you got the impression that I favored RPGs(JRPGs no less) over other genres.

Speaking of RPGs, how many have you actually played to call it a hackneyed genre? Planescape Torment? Vagrant Story? Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter? Shadow Tower: Abyss? Demon`s Souls? The World Ends with You? Dragon`s Dogma? - All couldn`t be any more different from each other.

As a devoted retro gamer...

Perhaps this is not the time and place for this, but it`s something that`s been bothering me for a while... For the life of me I`ll never understand why people take so much pride in labeling themselves "retro". This mentality locks one into a mindset when everything is viewed through the prism of nostalgia and things are dismissed and rejected outright for being new and not conforming to the accepted norms and order of the past. Rose-tinted glasses are permanently on and the result is that one is no longer capable of assessing things critically. Why do that? If you are really passionate about videogames as a form of media, wouldn`t it be better to not limit yourself in such a way?

Mums playing tennis, hardcore gamers playing Sin & Punishment 2, and everyone enjoying the Galaxy series, surely one of the highest points of the last decade.

I guess it wasn`t completely worthless, yes. If that`s what you`re trying to say, I agree.

For want of a better explanation, the sensor may not have revolutionised gaming as we know it, but it dared to be different, and it worked.

If it had worked, it would be the default method of input in home consoles now. It isn`t.

Honestly, Nintendo are the only innovators left in the industry.

Couldn`t be any further from the truth. But if you mostly stick to Nintendo`s stuff for your modern gaming fix and avoid everything else, eventually you start believing they are the best in the business, yeah.

Yes, online has become a part of modern gaming, no it's not an innovation

The way online has been seamlessly integrated into the already excellent single-player experience of Demon`s Souls and Dark Souls and managed to enhance it in the process is the one true innovation of this console generation.

and outside of XBL I've never seen it done well on a console apart from the DS line

You wouldn`t know if you don`t play.

And DS online is one of the worst things in existence. With no support for WAP security protocol it`s practically useless(who the hell has their routers on WEP?).

The fact is the franchise might be fucking old, but the quality of some of those games pretty much carpet bombs everything else in the known vicinity. For that, franchise whoring can have a pass.

Cool. I personally can`t stand the sight of the plumber anymore.

[MadScientist]

And companies adding "no class action" clauses to their terms of service is a problem caused by US-legislation that allows this; naturally all corporations are doing it (Microsoft, too).

I'm aware of who else is doing it. I believe Sony were the first to bring it to the gaming industry though - their timing looked especially dodgy coming shortly after the hacking scandal.

Please don't assume my criticism of Sony hides some implicit support of Microsoft though. I've never bought a Microsoft console and have no plans to do so in the foreseeable future.

[Lord Satori]

The only reason I'd get a PS4 any time soon is if it has more data capability. My PS3 is one of the older ones so it has less than 80 gigs of storage space. I own more virtual games than my PS3 can store.

[Jonathan Ingram]

If you think of Xbox Live as a cross-publisher online gaming platform instead of as a collection of online gaming servers, then you might find it easier to understand where people are coming from. I'm not sure how familiar you are with the US but every major online gaming platform back in the mid-90s that supported titles from multiple publishers was paid in some form. Kali was the major free-to-play platform of its day but you still had to pay to register it. And it was pretty much the lone one-time-fee PC platform up against heavyweight subscription services like TEN, Mplayer, and HEAT.NET. On console, Xband, NetLink, and SegaNet all had subscription or pay-per-play fees.

It was later when Battle.net and numerous other free platforms used by individual games and publishers popularized the concept of network-oriented online play at no added cost. It's possible that the paradigm has shifted by now to the point where free play is expected but when Microsoft first started Xbox Live on the original Xbox with subscription fees, I wouldn't say it was anything out of the ordinary.

My experience with early 90s online gaming is limited to a few Doom deathmatches that I played at an event hosted by some company, so I can`t speak much about that era. I only seriously got into it with the release of Quake II and continued into Warcraft II, Quake III, Unreal Tournament, Starcraft, KKND and some others. It was free and, as long as you had a good connection, fast. I would definitely say that by the time Microsoft rolled in its Live service, free online MP was something most people took for granted.

And for most games I've played, XBL's online play is much smoother and the arbitration servers for detecting disconnects are much better. Maybe it's Capcom's code but XBL is noticeably less laggy for Capcom fighters. I remember telling Friendly last time that some of us own the games on both platforms and have played each other online on both; nobody has ever commented that XBL felt worse than or even equal to PSN. Of course, GGPO is heads and shoulders above both in terms of lag. Is XBL's extra smoothness worth the subscription cost? Almost certainly not, but XBL also happens to have the better players for these games.

From my experience, if a game suffers from a poor netcode, it happens on both platforms. I can`t speak for Capcom`s fighters, but King of Fighters XIII is unplayable on both the PS3 and the 360. VF5: Final Showdown, on the other hand, is excellent on both. Very little lag even when playing with Japanese players. Very few disconnects too.

Almost certainly not, but XBL also happens to have the better players for these games.

Depends on the game. Most of VF5:FS`s player base is on PS3(and in Japan). The 360 version is quite deserted.

[Specineff]

The only reason I'd get a PS4 any time soon is if it has more data capability. My PS3 is one of the older ones so it has less than 80 gigs of storage space. I own more virtual games than my PS3 can store.

Uh, you know the HDD is user-replaceable, right?

[ACSeraph]

Move to me seems like a sorta clumsy (camera-based?) implementation of the Wii's controls.

No, that's a common misconception. The camera is only one component. Move is actually much more sophisticated than Wii Remote and allows for precise spatial tracking.
Watch this and you'll understand: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOv6l1inOwM

I have a Move primarily for rail shooters and I think it is a total piece of shit. It will not stay calibrated at all! It seriously loses its calibration within 30 seconds of gameplay. That is a fucking joke after all the hype Sony put behind the technology. I never had an issue like that with my Wii. The only games that work well on it are games that regularly reset the cursor like RE5.

On the topic of revolutionary FPS controls using the Wii-mote and Move I think it really only needs one thing to be awesome. It needs an analogue stick on the remote itself for camera movement (and move needs to stay fucking calibrated). If they did that they would essentially be ripping rail shooters off the rails and it would be amazing.

Sorry for straying off topic, Xbox One sucks and stuff - there ya go.

[t0yrobo]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013- ... apparently
If this answer is how used games will really work Gamestop is going to hate it, could interesting though I guess.

[CMoon]

Hope Microsoft loses their ass in this. Is it within the power of companies like Gamestop to simply refuse to carry or advertise anything involving the Xbox One? Pretend like it doesn't exist? I imagine while there is still any profit to be made they can't say no, but if enough game stores basically gave Microsoft the finger, and the only place you could find the console and games was through online vendors or best buy, it might force Microsoft to reconsider.

Thing is, if the used game stores don't fight it, I don't think they're gonna be around much longer. If M$ is successful with this, the others will follow suit, squeezing every last bit of profit from the game shops until they can't survive anymore.

[CIT]

Microsoft aims for 1 billion lifetime Xbox One sales



I guess they really have gone mad...

[BulletMagnet]

“To sell another 25 million, half of those will probably come from replacements, but half will come from new buyers."

Easy: to sell ten times as many, just have the thing die ten times as often.

[BryanM]

jeezurs, that's like the entire population of the USA+Europe+Japan combined. Maybe a little unrealistic there, pr flack guy.

There's barely that many youtube views for Gangnam Style, the most popular rap phenomenon in the history of mankind...

Is it within the power of companies like Gamestop to simply refuse to carry or advertise anything involving the Xbox One? Pretend like it doesn't exist?

They sell whatever they want to sell.

Of course the entire point of this is to kill Gamestop's second hand selection. They'll only sell new Turd Box games, the market will decide if all the weaknesses of a pc and console in one is really worth it, and that's that.

[Udderdude]

Microsoft aims for 1 billion lifetime Xbox One sales

Good fucking luck.

[AntiFritz]

Actually I think they were talking about 1 Billion total next gen sales. Which still means like 300 million xbox one sales.

[Ed Oscuro]

I wouldn't be surprised if GameStop would be happy to not have to deal with the secondhand market anymore. Didn't they throw their support behind the system?

Also: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/ ... KX20130523

Edit: Some more on the used game situation: http://www.egmnow.com/articles/news/rum ... ame-sales/

What's this about "Nintendo dropping support for the GameCube after 2002?" F-Zero GX, 2/3 of the Metroid Prime games, a variety of Pokemon games, Paper Mario: 1000 Year Door, almost all the games with titles starting in Mario (Mario Tennis, all of the Mario Party games except for MP4, Mario Kart games), the post-Wind Waker and bonus disc releases (and Wind Waker and the bonus discs were released in '03 outside Japan), a Fire Emblem game, the real Star Fox game out of the two released on GameCube - the 2002 release was Adventures - and some other stuff. All are either developed or published by Nintendo. If anything they had releases quite nicely spaced from 2003-2005, and a lot of these titles are stronger than the few pre-2003 releases, from Nintendo or others. Of course other developers stepped in to release many games - Capcom being the obvious most notable example.

[Cuilan]

I wouldn't be surprised if GameStop would be happy to not have to deal with the secondhand market anymore. Didn't they throw their support behind the system?

On the contrary, GameStop makes a good chunk of their profit from used game sales. Speaking of which...

http://www.joystiq.com/2013/05/24/games ... e_facebook

At least something good has come from all this.