PS4 / Xbox One console war

[undamned]

Even if the foul language stories are bullshit

ZING!
-ud

[ZellSF]

Has it been mentioned that the Xbox One supposedly has builtin mandatory artifical sharpening on its upscaler? Quoting Digital Foundry:

Owners of Microsoft's new console aren't treated to the same level of quality in this area. 720p - also featuring the same post-process anti-aliasing - is confirmed, which is then upscaled to 1080p by the console before arriving on your TV screen. On top of that, a strong sharpening filter is also applied over the entire 720p image, encompassing both in-game imagery along with the HUD elements and even the main menu screens. Based on the fact that we're seeing something very similar in Killer Instinct and Dead Rising 3, we have a feeling that this may actually be part of the Microsoft upscaling solution - and we don't like it.

The end result isn't a particularly pretty sight: harsh edges are further accentuated over the additional jaggies created by the upscaling, while fine details, foliage, and the surface of water all appear quite grainy in comparison to the PS4 and PC versions. It's a crushing step down from the PS4's much clearer 1080p presentation, taking away some of the finesse expected from a next-generation product, but thankfully it's also something that you can opt out of.

While there's nothing you can do to increase the native resolution of the Xbox One game, it is possible to disable the sharpening filter by switching the console's output resolution to 720p. With that in mind it's rather baffling as to why Microsoft would choose to bork image quality in such a way by default, especially considering that we actually see more detail resolved when the unmolested 720p output is upscaled by our display - though your screen may (or may not) add a frame or two of processing lag to carry out its own upscaling calculation. Perhaps the team behind the Xbox One hardware thought that the sharpened look might help to hide the deficit in resolution, but in truth it does more harm than good.

[null1024]

fix your boned xbone by smashing it, great engineering

Reminds me of Apple's official instructions on how to fix a faulty Apple III.

That is the most magical thing I've ever heard.
"lift the machine 3 inches (76 mm) and drop it in order to re-seat the chips on the logic board"

Percussive maintenance solves all problems!

[MOSQUITO FIGHTER]

Looks like the microtransactions in Forza 5 got out of hand. $120 just for one car! I was interested in this game but not anymore. No thanks.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/cdp/member-rev ... NM84ZYJ0IM

[Casey120]

Xbone is slow installing games :





Assassin's Creed IV:
Xbox One (offline, no update): 5 minutes 50 seconds
Xbox One (with update, fastest connection): 7 minutes 2 seconds
Xbox One (with update, 10Mbps connection): 10 minutes 32 seconds
PS4: 42 seconds

[Skykid]

Crikey, the Xbone really is junk. Microsoft fucked themselves royally.

Better not have the shmups on it, I don't want one!

[replayme]

Xmas 2014 - PS4
Xmas 2015 - XBone
Xmas 2016 - Wii U

[replayme]

Crikey, the Xbone really is junk. Microsoft fucked themselves royally.

Better not have the shmups on it, I don't want one!

The shmups (and RPGs) should come to Vita... Such a wonderful little machine.

Edit: the XBone will be fine once MS alter the SKU and stop ramming the Kinect home. Although that might change the system's overall message within the marketplace. At this stage, the only real failing the XBone has is its price. But with incredible third party support, its future is all but guaranteed (in 2nd place at least).

Editx2: if the Vita had been released by Nintendo, all the Nintendo fanboys would have creamed their pants by just holding it. Damnit man, it's such a shame that the machine is doing so badly in the marketplace. Taken on its hardware merits alone, it deserves to do iphone and 3DS numbers combined.

[GaijinPunch]

Crikey, the Xbone really is junk. Microsoft fucked themselves royally.

It's b/c Gate isn't in an active role in the cumpany amore. Quality has taken a nose dive.

[replayme]

Crikey, the Xbone really is junk. Microsoft fucked themselves royally.

It's b/c Gate isn't in an active role in the cumpany amore. Quality has taken a nose dive.

Do you think MS has done a Nintendo with its own Wii U, in that the XBone is "shitty" hardware for a shitty price?

[GaijinPunch]

Honestly I couldn't tell you what an Xbone or PS4 looks like... or name a single launch game. I was so unimpressed w/ this past gen I'm not even going to bother. I can still sit back and watch fat Americans trample each other for one on Friday though.

[Skykid]

Crikey, the Xbone really is junk. Microsoft fucked themselves royally.

It's b/c Gate isn't in an active role in the cumpany amore. Quality has taken a nose dive.

Do you think MS has done a Nintendo with its own Wii U, in that the XBone is "shitty" hardware for a shitty price?

I don't know what the Wii U has done to you man, but it sounds serious!

[replayme]

Nothing really. Just because I mentioned the Wii U on this occasion doesn't mean that I referenced the console with any malice.

Edit: I could just paraphrase what you said earlier to show your bias against MS and towards Nintendo...

Crikey, the Wii U really is junk. Nintendo fucked themselves royally.

Better not have the shmups on it, I don't want one!

But this could be interesting though:

http://www.vg247.com/2013/11/27/xbox-on ... s-spencer/

Hopefully they can rectify their paid DLC model soon... And maybe (if rumours are to be believed), that Itagaki developed Devil's Third might come out of this too. Because I'd like to see as to what he has up his sleeve since the arrival of Bayonetta etc...

[BareKnuckleRoo]

I've no trouble with buying patches or extra downloadables later on to support new stuff the company develops later (see: Strania's DLC which is literally a whole extra game played as the 'enemy', Futari putting BL as DLC or extra characters developed later on), but microtransactions suck. They're more there to milk people who are bad at math by making you pay to unlock game content that's already on your hard drive/disc than they are to actually encourage development of extra content for a game you already own.

120$ just for one car? Fuck, why not just play the game and grind it out at that price. Outrun 2006 had a LOT of stuff to buy in the shop, but buying a car in the upper classes or a new/reversed route was as easy as winning a few races.

[brentsg]

Looks like the microtransactions in Forza 5 got out of hand. $120 just for one car! I was interested in this game but not anymore. No thanks.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/cdp/member-rev ... NM84ZYJ0IM

Logged in today and had been gifted a Lotus E1 and the 2013 LaFerrari. Those are pretty expensive, so a cool thing to do.

[Skykid]

Edit: I could just paraphrase what you said earlier to show your bias against MS and towards Nintendo...

I hope that's not serious.

[replayme]

Edit: I could just paraphrase what you said earlier to show your bias against MS and towards Nintendo...

I hope that's not serious.

No, it's not.

[Ganelon]

My Amazon Xbox One arrived without a hitch (as statistically expected from my analytics). Thoughts about the system:

-Maybe it's the day but downloads and the initial system update are really slow, slower than the notoriously sluggish PS3, which I didn't think was possible. The initial update took over 30 minutes, compared to about 2 minutes on the PS4. Wii U is still slow as ever too but not Xbone awful.
-New controller is an upgrade over the base 360 controller (not sure about the one with the transformable d-pad). The PS4 d-pad definitely feels better although Wii U d-pad is better still. PS4 analog stick is slightly better and both concave tops feel smoother than Wii U's convex stick. PS4 L1/R1 much better (less resistance), about equivalent to the Wii U's. L2/R2 is a draw. Xbone Start/Select is much better than the competitors. Face buttons are equivalent (feels much more durable than Wii U's) although Xbone buttons look a lot cooler. Still no built-in rechargeable battery for the Xbone controller (probably better than Wii U's "lose-all-charge-in-5-days" battery though). Among the PS4/Xbone pads, I'm partial to the DS4. Both are better than before but still not even close to the Sega Saturn pad for 2D games.
-I don't like vents on top of horizontal systems. There's not much space to stack anything except a Wii or Wii U on top without blocking the vents. And Microsoft has warned multiple times against standing the Xbone vertically. I think Microsoft has misinterpreted the cause/effect that so few people position consoles vertically is because of all the disc scratching reports,
-Kinect QR recognition is really handy. XBL codes used to be cumbersome due to length but now it's even more convenient than on PSN.
-Headset is a half-step up in quality from the 360 version (and far better than the cheap PS4's) but it's too small now.
-Interface is still too cluttered with unintuitive tiles. PS4 isn't a lot better. Wii U's grid of boxes is the most ideal for me actually. I miss XMB's simplicity at a glance: breadth and depth makes a lot of sense in organizing system settings, at least for me.

As for Forza 5, I'm disappointed. The graphics do look better overall, especially the cars, but it's not an obvious difference for me. There are still cardboard cutouts of spectators...

The microtransactions that Sony warned about beforehand for GT6 somehow made their way unannounced to Forza 5 on top of probably half the game missing from DLC. Without buying a car in-game, I think I only have 4 cars (Turn 10 ended up gifting the expensive Lotus E21). I can't imagine how many cars a non-LE player starts with. The base car selection seems pretty solid; it's a shame that they all have to be bought first. Most cars aren't close to as expensive as the Lotus example but it's the principle of the matter.

I think this type of double-paying model is going to leave a black mark on the Forza franchise. I'm annoyed that I'm paying for a full game and receiving a F2P, but more so that this may be the future of racing games if people accept this type of sales strategy. I have a suspicion DriveClub will be pretty similar if folks accept Forza 5 and GT6's microtransaction systems.

Considering how poorly JoJo's Bizarre Adventure All Star Battle was received in Japan due to its F2P-style campaign mode, I'm morbidly curious how badly the reviewers there will trash Forza 5 once it's released (assuming nothing is changed). If it's more than 1.5 stars on Amazon Japan, I'd be very surprised. On that note, I'm all for the 1-star reviews on Amazon US; if I cared more, I'd give it 1 star as well to dissuade future publishers from pulling this stunt.

That said, this style of buying a car with real money and then paying a lot for it in-game isn't all that different from Test Drive Unlimited 2. Even DLC cars there still needed to be purchased in-game and were crazy expensive. In-game money wasn't easy to find and, more interestingly, there was never even an IAP way to pay real life money for in-game credits. But at least TDU2 had plenty of other content. Forza doesn't seem to have nearly enough other options.

Speaking of needless grinding, Killer Instinct's unlockables focus a lot on that despite the lack of content. The game is fun though, and the training mode is the best I've ever seen (minus an annoying final trial). But it's yet another example of a not-so-finished game.

[Ed Oscuro]

Crikey, the Xbone really is junk. Microsoft fucked themselves royally.

It's b/c Gate isn't in an active role in the cumpany amore. Quality has taken a nose dive.

"Quality" comes second to actually seeing markets coming and trying to get around them before the competition - you can make quality pencil shavers but nobody cares about that anymore. The same goes for making a competent desktop OS - that's not where they needed to be going 10 years ago, and yet here they are still trying to break away from that mold. So all their famous vaporware, FUD, and buyout strategies have resulted in the whole tech world has come to essentially nothing good. Their flagship big bright ideas, Bing and Xbox, are money sinks for the company.

Gates is the reason Microsoft didn't launch their own iPhone when they were years ahead of the competition. That product alone has been making Apple more money than everything Microsoft does. And he saw a product demo; reportedly he just couldn't get over a phone having an interface tailored for a phone, and not Windows - seriously. Being myopic and throwing away a huge opportunity for the company like that knocks over the whole "Gates as tech business genius" story.

Gates has done a lot of things right, but trying to see everything the company does as another way to flog Windows (the desktop version)/Office was not helpful for the company. And even as far back as his 1996 book The Road Ahead, he (and the company) failed to see the importance of the Internet, so much that later editions were edited to make the book seem more visionary instead of as missing the boat.

Ballmer's been more of the same, and he just had the misfortune of being at the helm when many of the bad ideas and practices of years past started to really haunt the company (although I think the company switched to stack ranking during his tenure, on the negative side; on the positive side, he's tried to turn things around and get into new markets).

[BulletMagnet]

And even as far back as his 1996 book The Road Ahead, he (and the company) failed to see the importance of the Internet, so much that later editions were edited to make the book seem more visionary instead of as missing the boat.

Nothing can set me all a-quiver like good ol' plutocratic revisionism.

[ACSeraph]

Still no built-in rechargeable battery for the Xbone controller

Seriously!? What the hell... Hopefully at least the rechargeable battery packs actually work. Every 360 one I ever bought stropped
holding a charge within the first few months.

Considering how poorly JoJo's Bizarre Adventure All Star Battle was received in Japan due to its F2P-style campaign mode, I'm morbidly curious how badly the reviewers there will trash Forza 5 once it's released (assuming nothing is changed). If it's more than 1.5 stars on Amazon Japan, I'd be very surprised. On that note, I'm all for the 1-star reviews on Amazon US; if I cared more, I'd give it 1 star as well to dissuade future publishers from pulling this stunt.

I hope you are right about that being the reason, but it's important to note that the new JoJo was also just genuinely a shitty fighting game. Most of my Japanese friends who bought it quoted that as the reason it was a kusoge, not the microtransactions.

[R79]

Both of them look awful right now, with serious privacy concerns (X1) and atrocious online lag (PSN), and a severe lack of any exciting Japanese software on either machine.
Bayonetta 2 and the sequel to Xenoblade Chronicles both on Wii U are really the only things that catch my eye so far. Good to see Nintendo back on form (really nice Zelda 3DS XL bundle out for Christmas too) after some wobbly years in this rapidly evolving sector.

[Ed Oscuro]

And even as far back as his 1996 book The Road Ahead, he (and the company) failed to see the importance of the Internet, so much that later editions were edited to make the book seem more visionary instead of as missing the boat.

Nothing can set me all a-quiver like good ol' plutocratic revisionism.

Ah, there's nothing like a knee-jerk BulletMagnet anti-capitalism post to make me uncomfortable with my sources.

Blah, I just looked it up again - the edit wasn't as dramatic or as late as I had remembered: link

Of course, it's arguable that directing "Microsoft to become an Internet-focused company. [CITATION NEEDED]" means diddly squat when you're constantly playing catchup with the next twenty years' worth of trends, and willfully blowing your chances in the areas you actually get ahead in. Phones? How prosaic!

Microsoft encompasses two trends in a disturbing way - on the one hand it's tried to be all-encompassing so that it has ideas and research in all available areas. On the other, it's often been quite bad about bringing those ideas together. But that's true of many endeavors. I'm not sure Microsoft would be "better" if they tried to pare down, but that would probably be the easiest way to get back on track. However, I think the bigger point is not missing the next big thing that's happening (down the hall). Well, if they still have any exciting research projects after cost-cutting and stack ranking, that is.

[GaijinPunch]

Crikey, the Xbone really is junk. Microsoft fucked themselves royally.

It's b/c Gate isn't in an active role in the cumpany amore. Quality has taken a nose dive.

"Quality" comes second to actually seeing markets coming and trying to get around them before the competition - you can make quality pencil shavers but nobody cares about that anymore. The same goes for making a competent desktop OS - that's not where they needed to be going 10 years ago, and yet here they are still trying to break away from that mold. So all their famous vaporware, FUD, and buyout strategies have resulted in the whole tech world has come to essentially nothing good. Their flagship big bright ideas, Bing and Xbox, are money sinks for the company.

Gates is the reason Microsoft didn't launch their own iPhone when they were years ahead of the competition. That product alone has been making Apple more money than everything Microsoft does. And he saw a product demo; reportedly he just couldn't get over a phone having an interface tailored for a phone, and not Windows - seriously. Being myopic and throwing away a huge opportunity for the company like that knocks over the whole "Gates as tech business genius" story.

Gates has done a lot of things right, but trying to see everything the company does as another way to flog Windows (the desktop version)/Office was not helpful for the company. And even as far back as his 1996 book The Road Ahead, he (and the company) failed to see the importance of the Internet, so much that later editions were edited to make the book seem more visionary instead of as missing the boat.

Ballmer's been more of the same, and he just had the misfortune of being at the helm when many of the bad ideas and practices of years past started to really haunt the company (although I think the company switched to stack ranking during his tenure, on the negative side; on the positive side, he's tried to turn things around and get into new markets).

I was being facetious actually.

[system11]

Crikey, the Xbone really is junk. Microsoft fucked themselves royally.

Better not have the shmups on it, I don't want one!

The shmups (and RPGs) should come to Vita... Such a wonderful little machine.

NO!!!!!!!

Please god no - I don't want stuff I want to play stuck on on a tiny screen with bad controls. I hate the 'arcade = handheld' mantra.

[Ed Oscuro]

I was being facetious actually.

And I was just adding some content.

[ACSeraph]

NO!!!!!!!

Please god no - I don't want stuff I want to play stuck on on a tiny screen with bad controls. I hate the 'arcade = handheld' mantra.

Actually if they were supported by the Vita TV it could work out pretty well. The PSP stuff works great on it.

It would be nice if they continued making full on console shmups well into the future, but I'm not sure how financially realistic that is.

[replayme]

PS4 comes out today. Will be interesting to see what the numbers are like after the weekend. Thinking worldwide sales of 4+ million by Xmas will be pretty doable, and if Sony can meet demand, maybe closer to 6.

PS4 = the VHS/DVD standard of gaming?

[replayme]

Crikey, the Xbone really is junk. Microsoft fucked themselves royally.

Better not have the shmups on it, I don't want one!

The shmups (and RPGs) should come to Vita... Such a wonderful little machine.

NO!!!!!!!

Please god no - I don't want stuff I want to play stuck on on a tiny screen with bad controls. I hate the 'arcade = handheld' mantra.

I think you might be getting confused with IOS devices or the 3DS. The Vita machine is beautiful.

[Skykid]

I really want the Vita hacked with a PS2 emu so I can play Gradius V on it. That would be creamy.