Next Gen consoles - PS4/Xbox One

[Dylan]

It's not on for another 35 minutes.....

I just don't get all this faux rage over a piece of electronics.

 

[RFUS]

Laptops have had webcams for yonks, smart phones too. Why are you not worried about them?

People seem to gloss over the fact that Sony are everybit as 'evil' as MS. What about all of their indiscretions over the years? What about the SQL injection attack? The Rootkit shenanigans? Forcing UMDs on the consumer. Using PS3 to push Blu-Ray over HD-DVD. People forget far too quickly for some off reason (and not just this, look at everyone saying Alonso would be a better F1 champ than Vettel, after all the crap he pulled at Renault then at McLaren.........short memories!!!!!!!!!!!)

I disabled my laptop's webcam, to be fair like

Kinect is just a creepy level of invasion though. It's a scarily advanced piece of tech, and the 'always on' element is a bit terrifying. Sony aren't doing that at all.

Sure, all corporations are pretty much sh*thouses, because well, money. Money, money, money. But on that note, I only have so much, and that's why I love pre-owned games -- or more specifically, trading in my games to fund more more new games. That's what's in danger at the moment, and so supporting the Playstation over the Xbox seems a wise choice for someone with those concerns.

Of course, Sony might decide they want to ditch trade-ins too. But that hasn't happened yet, and right now MS played their hand and revealed their intentions, only backing down when it became clear they were going to make huge losses. But MS spokespeople have repeatedly said they've not lost their long term vision since then, and I firmly believe they'll try again. But an all digital future without hardcopies to trade in scares me, because have you seen the price of games on the Xbox/Playstation storefronts? RRP prices for digital content -- zero publishing savings passed onto the consumer. There are no Steam Summer Sale equivalents, only sh*t prices all year long. That's bad for the consumer, and that's why I don't share MS' all digital, no trade-in dream for the future.

 

[Dylan]

I disabled my laptop's webcam, to be fair like

Kinect is just a creepy level of invasion though. It's a scarily advanced piece of tech, and the 'always on' element is a bit terrifying. Sony aren't doing that at all.

Sure, all corporations are pretty much sh*thouses, because well, money. Money, money, money. But on that note, I only have so much, and that's why I love pre-owned games -- or more specifically, trading in my games to fund more more new games. That's what's in danger at the moment, and so supporting the Playstation over the Xbox seems a wise choice for someone with those concerns.

Of course, Sony might decide they want to ditch trade-ins too. But that hasn't happened yet, and right now MS played their hand and revealed their intentions, only backing down when it became clear they were going to make huge losses. But MS spokespeople have repeatedly said they've not lost their long term vision since then, and I firmly believe they'll try again. But an all digital future without hardcopies to trade in scares me, because have you seen the price of games on the Xbox/Playstation storefronts? RRP prices for digital content -- zero publishing savings passed onto the consumer. There are no Steam Summer Sale equivalents, only sh*t prices all year long. That's bad for the consumer, and that's why I don't share MS' all digital, no trade-in dream for the future.

It's a future long predicted, now becoming a reality.

Webcams.......just because you 'disabled' it doesn't mean it is actually disabled.

We weren't allowed to take cell phones into secure areas (ie, the SCIF) because even a cell phone that is off, can actually be powered up remotely, activate it's mic and record conversation.

Malware's great isn't it?

 

[BlueTak]

My Kinect is turned off. When I want to use it, I just switch it on.

 

[RFUS]

It's a future long predicted, now becoming a reality.

Webcams.......just because you 'disabled' it doesn't mean it is actually disabled.

We weren't allowed to take cell phones into secure areas (ie, the SCIF) because even a cell phone that is off, can actually be powered up remotely, activate it's mic and record conversation.

Malware's great isn't it?

Scary stuff.

Might put a bit of blu-tack over it like I did with the last one

 

[dixe]

My friend has just bought a Xbox one

He's not impressed

 

[Jags..class]

Been playing the xbox one today and I'm very impressed. Loved it. No doubt the ps4 will be a fantastic machine but the xbox one is awesome as the ps4 will be.. Love the snap feature on it allowing me to play games on have the tv on at the same time all at the say if a simple voice command.

I like the idea but cant see myself wanting to take any space away from my gaming screen

 

[Gwladys St. Glory]

My friend has just bought a Xbox one

He's not impressed

If you buy a console to spend 90% of your time with it playing games, you done f'ed up buying the XBO...would've known that months ago, though, if he paid attention. But you'll also have people who are attached to their stupid gamer tag/ID and achievements etc/etc, which is why they were introduced in the first place...to engender brand loyalty. Sucka's on every corner.

 

[riddick]

My friend has just bought a Xbox one

He's not impressed

doesnt seem like either party is exactly impressing folks.

 

[potato]

payments been taken for my ps4, everythings ready, pre-ordered fifa 14

lets doooooooooo this

 

[Brennan]

What? I was responding to a post talking directly about that point, so yeah, I'm going to talk about that.

I'm no fanboy though, and yes it's all a business. Sony don't love me, they merely sought to capitalise on MS's failures with used games etc, to make more money for themselves. But I'm not arsed -- I want the console that will give me what I want. Last gen it was the 360, this gen it's the PS4 -- if people want an all in one entertainment system, for example, I won't begrudge them buying the Xbone.

I do care about the industry though, as someone hoping to eventually work in it, and so indie games are something I take great interest in. The more ways smaller developers can get their titles out the better. Of course some indie games are sh*te, but so what? They'll fail to do well, and that has zero impact on my ability to buy and play the good ones. In fact, sh*te indie games are going to be punished more harshly than sh*te AAA games, because the former titles won't have huge ad budgets.

The funny thing is, I'll probably end up buying a second hand Xbone in 2-4 years. I'm buying a Wii U too. I just love games, and I find it hard to resist anything that offers games that interest me. My only issue with people funding MS at the moment is the potential implications of their console coming out on top. I don't like their stances on privacy, data mining (the Kinect worries me terribly) and the used game industry, and so naturally if their console doesn't do as well as a rival console -- which supports (or rather, doesn't oppress) things like used games then that's good for me, and in my opinion, a lot of consumers. Money talks, and hypothetically, if the Xbone outsold the PS4 10 to 1 then used games would likely die and mandatory super cameras in the middle of the living room would be an acceptable standard. I think that benefits fat cats more than the average consumer, and so that's why I'm against it.

Personally i don't see the issue with paying £45 for a game of real quality and i think Steam is continually devaluing PC gaming and gamers perceptions of what games are 'worth' in general.

People pay £8 to watch a 2 hour film but they won't pay £45 for a game that they'll get dozens of hours out of. Wrong.

Most PC gamers i know have a backlog of games that they'll realistically never finish because more cheap games always come out and they just keep buying more and more, because they're cheap, not because they're good or a worthwhile purchase.

 

[RFUS]

Personally i don't see the issue with paying £45 for a game of real quality and i think Steam is continually devaluing PC gaming and gamers perceptions of what games are 'worth' in general.

People pay £8 to watch a 2 hour film but they won't pay £45 for a game that they'll get dozens of hours out of. Wrong.

Most PC gamers i know have a backlog of games that they'll realistically never finish because more cheap games always come out and they just keep buying more and more, because they're cheap, not because they're good or a worthwhile purchase.

You're missing the point though -- with a digitally distributed game, you can have these sales because there are none of the usual overheads (manufacturing, shipping). Game devs love Steam's mad sales because they can revitalise old games, or give exposure to low key ones.

The other issue is the mandatory £40 price tag (now £45-£50 for as long as it lasts with new gen games). Are all games worth the same about? I remember beating the likes of Vanquish and the Darkness II in under 4-5 hours, whilst also spending 110 hours on Skyrim or 200 hours on Dragon Age. Can you justify those titles having the same RRP? From a dev perspective maybe, often game run time isn't at all related to development time, but from a user perspective? It kind of invalidates your film value point -- films are all of a similar length, games vary greatly.

What a lot of publishers do forget is that gamers will always buy games. If a gamer has £40, they might buy a £40 game. If games were £20 though, they'd probably buy 2. That kind of logic makes the Steam sales successful for all parties. But if the £40+ price point remains -- and I think for now it will -- then trade-ins become important. Pre-owned games and selling your old games both make the hobby more affordable -- the customer won't shield their savings, they'll just spend them on more games. Digital downloads on the Xbox/PS storefronts need to realise this. If a game cost £40 on disc, it has to cost less digitally, because you have nothing to swap or trade when you're done with the game.

 

[Mogsy_Efc]

Just a small point, steam and PC gaming helps the smaller devs get more light. You've got to look at the amount of non-maintstream games on steam that don't sell for much, but get attention. In console gaming, i feel its sort of the rich get richer. The big companies succeed, but the smaller games don't get the chance to show what they actually are. Thats just an observation from my perspective.

 

[carlos21]

Just a small point, steam and PC gaming helps the smaller devs get more light. You've got to look at the amount of non-maintstream games on steam that don't sell for much, but get attention. In console gaming, i feel its sort of the rich get richer. The big companies succeed, but the smaller games don't get the chance to show what they actually are. Thats just an observation from my perspective.

morning mogsy how are you today.

 

[Brennan]

You're missing the point though -- with a digitally distributed game, you can have these sales because there are none of the usual overheads (manufacturing, shipping). Game devs love Steam's mad sales because they can revitalise old games, or give exposure to low key ones.

The other issue is the mandatory £40 price tag (now £45-£50 for as long as it lasts with new gen games). Are all games worth the same about? I remember beating the likes of Vanquish and the Darkness II in under 4-5 hours, whilst also spending 110 hours on Skyrim or 200 hours on Dragon Age. Can you justify those titles having the same RRP? From a dev perspective maybe, often game run time isn't at all related to development time, but from a user perspective? It kind of invalidates your film value point -- films are all of a similar length, games vary greatly.

What a lot of publishers do forget is that gamers will always buy games. If a gamer has £40, they might buy a £40 game. If games were £20 though, they'd probably buy 2. That kind of logic makes the Steam sales successful for all parties. But if the £40+ price point remains -- and I think for now it will -- then trade-ins become important. Pre-owned games and selling your old games both make the hobby more affordable -- the customer won't shield their savings, they'll just spend them on more games. Digital downloads on the Xbox/PS storefronts need to realise this. If a game cost £40 on disc, it has to cost less digitally, because you have nothing to swap or trade when you're done with the game.

Don't think it invalidates the point at all. Films may all be a similar length but their quality can also vary greatly. You would read reviews before going to see a film and probably do the same for games. Taking inflation into account games are a lot cheaper now than they were during the SNES era, yet people still think £40 is too much for a title which may have cost tens of millions of pounds to develop.

Gamers love Steam because they can get games for cheap, doesn't mean it's good for the industry in the long run.