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Post by Juliett. Bravo. Alfa. on May 22, 2013 7:17:20 GMT
Nope just nope.
Ugly as sin. And about as dodgy as a new tax. The Sony share price rose.
BUT The dog in Call of Duty Ghosts looks awesome.
Halo 5 might need to come with a flexible Cortana cosplayer for me to get it.
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Post by Badly-Drawn Manchild on May 22, 2013 8:58:14 GMT
Yeah, from what I'm hearing the whole thing was an hour of nothing but [censored]ing [censored], with absolutely no effort made to clarify on the important issues; whether or not we can play used or borrowed copies, whether or not it requires a constant internet connection, how much it'll cost or when it's out. Instead just a load of waffle about social integration and TV and, well, anything but games.
Now I'm wondering what I can get with the money I'll save from not bothering to invest in a next generation that will have the same old bull[censored].
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Post by L. T. Dangerous on May 22, 2013 9:23:19 GMT
I still maintain it's too early for a new PlayStation or Xbox. So far I've seen very little that couldn't be achieved with what we already have. Quite frankly, it was too early for the new Wii and Sony and MS have obviously panicked a bit even though the Wii U is underperforming massively.
That said, unless they drop the no pre-owned games thing (which they won't) , I can't promise MS will get a penny out of me because I'm poor and can't afford many games at £40 a pop.
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Post by ShayMay on May 22, 2013 9:34:10 GMT
Quite frankly, it was too early for the new Wii Disagree with this part. The original Wii was basically a noose around Nintendo's neck at that point: their fans didn't want it, the casual crowd were no longer interested, and they couldn't release any new games to reel customers in without renouncing motion controls - why d'you think most of the games in its library are 2D platformers? In fact, the Xbox and the PS4 announcements made me kinda glad I'm getting a Wii U (eventually). Say what you like about Nintendo, but at least their reveal focused on the games. As for the Xbox One: let's just say I'm glad I have a PC going into this generation. Skype and movies are fine, don't get me wrong, but I have a computer for those. It doesn't have to be ALWAYS on, but it does at least once a day, apparently. So if you don't have an internet connection at least once every 24 hours, the console won't function. Controller looks nice though. |
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Post by Hevs on May 22, 2013 9:35:05 GMT
There was more to see at that reveal if you were a freakin sports fan. A good 50% was whoring out sports personalities, aside from that there was a really flashy and interesting presentation of how to watch TV on your Xbox, which would maybe impress if you didn't already, yunno, have a TV and were able to watch it anyway.
I don't consider the ability to talk to my TV and make fantasy football leagues (Yes, that was another thing talked about) worth the price of what will likely be an expensive non-backwards compatible THING that looks older than the VHS player we had when I was a kid. Nope nope nope indeed. Going to need to see a lot more in order to be impressed, half of the functions shown off are going to completely be at the mercy of your Internet provider anyway, and furthermore most will undoubtedly come with additional external subscription fees. If Sky TV can't sell itself to me, Sky TV on an Xbox won't do either.
Only saving grace of the show was the reveal of Quantum Break, a new game from Remedy (Although I was desperately hoping to see Alan Wake 2). From a short teaser you meet an odd girl and see a huge tanker warping/crashing into a massive bridge. Looks interesting at least.
Xbox One - One reason to buy a Wii U.
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Post by Juliett. Bravo. Alfa. on May 22, 2013 12:23:02 GMT
Controller looks nice though. Thats about it. Apparently the triggers rumble. Which thinking about it adds a bit for Forza and Call of Duty. They need to drop paid subscriptions really. I mean to take advantage of the SWITCH: Sky - £20 a month Sky Sports - £20 a month on top at least Internet - £25+ a month (actually anyone got any suggestions for no limits broadband? Virgin slowly taking the piss) Xbox Live - £5.99 a month Plus a suspected fee to install second hand games to the Xbone. |
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Post by Alex on May 22, 2013 17:23:18 GMT
All the Xbox One has to do to have an edge over the PS4 is to actually be available (the PS4 won't be in Europe this year unless anything changes between now and the end of the year) and to be cheaper. The two are practically identical otherwise through deliberate design - so that multi-platform development between Xbox, Playstation and PC will be cheaper and easier.
It'll be tough to come up with a PC rig that can match or exceed the Xbox One or PS4 at launch for a better price, so they'll definitely have their place in the sun for a while, but the three platforms are very deliberately moving to a more united future.
Because the games in that future don't really matter to the platform itself (afterall, the biggest titles this past generation, and going forward, will be third party multiplatforms - not exclusives), as there's not much that Microsoft could have shown off last night that Sony couldn't turn around tomorrow and say "well, we've got that too". So, they (rightly) focused on what was actually new about the system, to sell it to the people that it needs sold to the most (the 'expanded audience' that's looking for more media functions than just the latest Call of Duty and Fifa game they'll buy every year and more or less leave their gaming at that).
With E3 just around the corner, we're not going to be short on 'next-gen' games to drool over, so I really don't see why it would make sense for Microsoft to try cramming them into the reveal last night. Afterall, it's no secret that it plays games, why work so hard to sell that fact when it's the other features they need to get across for the mainstream media?
There's literally no denying that all the new Xbox and Playstation are about is more power, and more general media consumption. The former, because it makes for shinier games, the latter, because it makes for a better sales pitch and was a great contributor to the sales force of both the 360 and the PS3. Neither are setting out to be ground-breakingly new machines, they're evolutions of the existing platforms out there.
If you want to play the latest games, looking their best, for a more cost effective solution than putting together a comparable PC, one of these consoles is going to be what you need. That is all the sales pitch either console needs for the gamers, and as I said, all the Xbox needs to do to beat the PS4 in those conditions is be cheaper and actually available to buy - something I genuinely expect to see play out at the end of this year. We're the easy sell, and last night was for the hard sell. They didn't deliberately separate the reveal from the E3 press conference for nothing. They're getting their mass media coverage now for those that will follow it, and going for what the gamers care about when they're the only ones that'll actually focus on that between the loud background noise of E3 itself.
All of this makes complete and perfect sense to me. Not sure why it's getting other people's panties in a twist.
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Post by Mambo's Here! Look Busy! on May 22, 2013 21:22:05 GMT
I was at home sick so I watched the launch as it aired. I have to say I was rather Meh about the whole thing. I'm not interested in sports games, live sport TV (or much at all on TV these days!) or Call of Duty nor do I use my current XBox for all the extra media or online stuff... but then again, I don't really know what I was expecting them to show. I guess seeing Prague in the Forza trailer was nice, even though no-one would drive like that over the cobbled streets of Old Town, or across the Charles Bridge for that matter but that's a very minor point!  The controller looks nice, too... but the console itself looks massive. I'd expect them to make a "slim" version by the time they're affordable enough for me to buy one! Having said that, none of the new gen consoles have really grabbed my attention. Not even the WiiU and it's three exclusive Sonic games (I probably wouldn't get anything else!! XD) So yeah, I'm sitting on the fence for now. Until I see anything which piques my interests... I'm happy with the few Steam games I've got and my 360.  Oh yeah and the always online and used games thing... ugh. I can't believe that all the information on this is is based on rumours, and that Microsoft didn't even take the time to quell or confirm them. They should have at least done some damage control in regard to these rumours. |
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Post by Devo DrakeFox on May 22, 2013 21:30:15 GMT
I'm not really fussed about the next generation of consoles right now. I'll save my judgement for when they are actually ready and available.
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Post by Alex on May 22, 2013 22:28:37 GMT
They should have at least done some damage control in regard to these rumours. They have, but it hasn't been very good. Essentially, Phil Harrison just needs to never talk again (either that, or he's actively trying to ruin the console so he can go back to Sony a hairless God amongst men). They've basically backtracked everything that's been said about this stuff as being ideas they're working on. And that is essentially true, as there's months before any of this becomes even close to concrete. That said, what has been (re-)explained so far hasn't exactly been terrible. Firstly, the 'always online' thing. Right now, what they're saying is that their idea is that the Xbox will only require an active Internet connection once per day to call home and check that everything's frosty. So it would require an Internet connection, but if it went down for a few hours, it wouldn't be the end of the world. However, they're also saying that if it can't or doesn't connect, certain system features and games will still work. But there's no really telling for now what that really means. It seems to mean that if your game has a completely single-player mode that doesn't use Microsoft's Azure cloud service for offloading some processing grunt/general synchronisation (which is a cool feature I'm eager to see used well, incidentally), then you can play it whether your Xbox has called home or not. But, nothing is concrete, everything is in flux. It may be months before there's actually a clear answer for this. Secondly, used game/game ownership. The best explanation I've seen of the otherwise contradictory mess that's come out of this one is that it is essentially exactly the same as normal disc ownership - except that, as long since theorised, the Xbox One no longer actually requires the disc once you've finished installing it to the system (except to reinstall it when you've hit that 500GB limit...). To stop people just installing the game and selling on the disc, the unique ID of that disc is assigned to your account when installed. This allows anyone with an account on your system to play the game, and allows you to take the disc to a friend's system, sign in to their console and then play there (no indication for now whether or not being signed into another system gives them full access to play the game while your account is on it, but probably not). If your friend wants to continue playing the game after you've gone, they have to pay a license fee to do so (it's interesting that they've said it that way, rather than say outright buy the game at full price). This seems to essentially mean you can't just lend your game out, but I have to say I could get behind the idea of your friend being able to buy the game at a discounted rate because you already brought it round, set it up on their system and let them have a go. But maybe that's just pushing it too far. For used games, they've said that there will be a system to be able to trade games in that you no longer want - but they're going to announce it properly later on. At its most basic level, it indicates that you will somehow deactivate the game on your system, and the next person can activate it on theirs... which would likely indicate that that person (ie: you, if you're buying a pre-owned game) would have to pay a license fee to do so. But, the language they've been using about announcing more about this is more in keeping with working with a partner for a service and keeping schtum about it for the sake of the partnership - which may mean they have a slightly better system in mind. In any case, none of that stuff is set in stone yet, either, which is probably why there have been so many conflicting reports. And if you think that Microsoft is pulling this [censored] out of their arse just to screw you over, and Sony is the White Knight waiting in the wings to save you from the big bad corporate mans, think again. The PS4 features a similar game installation system, and will come with the exact same concerns. It's just that Sony have stayed deliberately vague about the entire thing and managed to have it not be brought up under any real scrutiny. Microsoft, however, has had Phil Harrison... Neither of them are deal-breakers for me, as I have no issues with having my console hooked up to the Internet and I don't really bother with used games anyway. But it would be nice to see clarification on these points from both parties. So don't expect it until just before launch. |
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Pinchetel
Big Time Boomer
...And together in failure.
Posts: 212
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Post by Pinchetel on Jun 17, 2013 16:53:14 GMT
All the Xbox One has to do to have an edge over the PS4 is to actually be available (the PS4 won't be in Europe this year unless anything changes between now and the end of the year) and to be cheaper. Soooo, nearly a month later, this is hilarious in hindsight. |
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Post by Alex on Jun 17, 2013 20:44:46 GMT
Not really, nothing has really changed since my post. Sony still won't even confirm whether or not the PS4 will make it into Europe this year, or whether we'll get it during the vague window of 'winter' - which is to say, some point in January/February.
The PS4 is cheaper, but they changed tack on bundling the PS Eye with it to achieve it. If you buy the full set, you're only saving £20 (and if you buy the Xbox at launch, you can save more than that in a free year of Gold), so it all still balances out in a way that doesn't swing it significantly one way or another unless you're vehemently against the idea that Kinect-like technology can work with traditional controls to enhance the user interface as a whole - to which exploring this territory is the entire point of making the Kinect a core available feature of the Xbox One.
Instead of just buying into Internet rabble-rousing, try reading my posts in the other console topic, coming at the entire business in a rational manner and discussing it properly.
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Pinchetel
Big Time Boomer
...And together in failure.
Posts: 212
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Post by Pinchetel on Jun 17, 2013 21:10:18 GMT
There have been newspaper ads in British papers that confirm a release date of 2013 here, so it's likely going to be the same across Europe. And the functionality of a peripheral is likely not a concern to a lot of people buying the consoles, hence why it's still optional for PS4.
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Post by Alex on Jun 17, 2013 21:38:35 GMT
And the functionality of a peripheral is likely not a concern to a lot of people buying the consoles, hence why it's still optional for PS4. And yet, the PS4 controller is still specifically designed to work with the PS Eye, and the PS Eye is still specifically designed to replicate the most basic features of the Kinect with the explicit intention from developers to begin including that functionality in more and more games. I think it will become interesting to see just how optional the PS Eye becomes as developers take more advantage of the Kinect's presence. Being able to include that kind of input in a more subtle way than just waving your arms around like a knob because you don't feel you need to justify people's purchases of an expensive peripheral with obvious, over the top uses of it is something that interests me greatly about both the PS Eye and Kinect over the course of the next gen. We saw them try this a bit in the past year or so with the 360 - but the fact is, no-one really owned a Kinect other than the knobs waving their arms around. It'll be good to see where this goes in terms of subtleties like voice commands, head tracking in FPS games, or the infra-red sensor being able to detect your heartbeat in survival horror games. I'd honestly rather pay my dues up front and just have those options available than begrudgingly buy an accessory down the line for them - or just ignore the potential of those features altogether because of that extra cost. When I get a PS4, I'll be getting a PS Eye with it. I kind of feel that the PS Eye taken out of the PS4 core (despite their words at the original reveal that they'd sell it all together as a complete package) is a bit similar to the Xbox 360 Arcade versions as a decision. Yes, you save money up front, and no, you don't need that disk space/peripheral now... but you can very quickly end up regretting it when you're paying more in the end either way. More power to anyone that makes their decision based on the upfront price, though. If that £80 difference was a bigger problem for me than it is, I'd probably consider going that direction too. |
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Post by Juliett. Bravo. Alfa. on Jun 19, 2013 23:32:43 GMT
So. They've backtracked.
Bit more of a race now.
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Post by Badly-Drawn Manchild on Jun 20, 2013 7:04:20 GMT
So. They've backtracked. Bit more of a race now. So it seems Microsoft can recognise an approaching iceberg after all. If they did something about the price and the Kinect requirements I'd consider it. It's a step up - I would never have even considered the thing before. Now my chances of getting it have gone up from "non-existent" to just "very unlikely". |
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Post by RedDevilDazzy on Jun 20, 2013 11:47:12 GMT
I think it's all thanks to Sony that Microsoft sorted out their screw up.
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Post by Juliett. Bravo. Alfa. on Jun 20, 2013 15:43:59 GMT
No its all Jim Sterling. And Francis.
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Post by Alex on Jun 20, 2013 17:26:31 GMT
More like the pre-order numbers.
It is somewhat of a pity, though. Microsoft were focusing on bringing digital ownership into the 21st Century in a way that NO-ONE does right now. The fact is, all of that was a great step forward and it is disappointing that we’ve thrown the baby out with the bathwater.
The limitations that people riled on about with the Xbox One were specific to disc-based media, which, I can guarantee you, is going away either way, and the system would have been -great- if it didn’t have to support the discs because of how embedded the bricks and mortar retailers are in the industry right now – though GAME and HMV’s dances with death over the past year are a clear sign that this is already on the way out.
We wouldn’t have needed the once-a-day check-in if it were just digital titles – that was a specific requirement to avoid people just sticking the game in their system, installing it and then selling it off and keeping the game because they never checked in with the auth servers ever again. With digital only, they could have easily implemented the exact same system as Steam and been a LOT more lenient.
But, as much as Microsoft are NOT wrong that digital distribution is going to overtake physical sales (almost certainly within this generation one way or another) and were definitely being PRO-consumer in giving us rights over digital content that was actually pretty similar to our rights with physical goods – and even better through the nature of the beast being digital and unlimited in supply – (again, no-one else does this AT ALL yet, so it’s disheartening to see the first movements towards this being shouted down)… the fact is, they were skipping ahead to the end of the book.
Physical sales are here for now, and they’re going to be pretty important over the first half of the Xbox One and PS4′s life, at the very least. Microsoft were trying to just jump to the end of the book where physical sales are already an irrelevance and to build a digital ecosystem the same way as Apple and Google have done during the 360′s life. Evidently, they misjudged it entirely and we’re just not at that place yet.
I hope that Microsoft do still continue down their path of building their digital platform. Digital sales on consoles -suck- right now because they’re just not competitive. They’re not competitive because no-one wanted the retailers to kick off about it and the publishers didn’t want to ‘lose money’ on paper in what, to them, is essentially a way of recouping costs of losing out on the used trade that’s keeping retailers like GAME alive on life-support. I’d rather not have to wait for the physical media to drop off before we got Steam-like competitive pricing on the digital front, though (on both systems – this is a cross-platform problem).
In the end, we’re back where we started – instead of forging off on a new path. Maybe that new path would have worked, maybe it wouldn’t. I’d rather have been in the position of Microsoft trying something new and failing than just continuing the status quo, but I guess I am the minority.
Ultimately, I stand by the fact that this would have all blown over entirely relatively quickly after release, so this was never going to be that big an impact on the system's eventual success. However, Microsoft can swing public opinion back towards them with this step back and that's definitely going to help them at launch (especially since the launch period is when price matters the least).
Instead of 'getting rid of Kinect', Microsoft's next objective should be in piling the One's first year with a great selection of good games that make subtle, but elegant and innovative use, of the fact the Kinect is part of the system.
Kinect being a core feature of the system allows developers to do what they couldn’t before – exploit it in more subtle ways of enhancing the user input. We only got crap “wave your arms around like a [censored]” games before because it’s impossible to sell in a £150 peripheral for the idea of some extremely subtle enhancements like head-tracking, voice commands, infra-red sensors, etc, etc.
The PS4 is cheaper (without its camera, designed to match the Kinect on its key functions because Sony completely acknowledges that this is something that developers are now building in), so if it’s -really- that big a deal, get the PS4 because it’s cheaper. In no way is Microsoft’s decision a bad one, though.
The only reason Sony aren’t following suit is because Microsoft are doing the hard work of including the hardware for them and they wanted to undercut Microsoft – a move that makes a massive amount of sense given the initial advantage the cheaper 360 had over the expensive PS3.
However, you shouldn’t rule out the Kinect 2 based on prior performance of games on the last one – not only an inferior model, but a model that was exclusively bought by people that WANTED the arms-waving nonsense, not the people that would like to see it used in actually game-enhancing innovative ways (a movement towards which we saw at the end of the 360′s life, but which was still ignored because, as I said, they’re just not worth going out and buying a £150 accessory, half a decade into a system’s life, for). If you can’t think of anything that’d interest you using it, I guarantee you’ll have changed your mind by the end of the One’s lifespan with at least -one- game.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see the omission of the PS Eye from the PS4 console to be a similar omission to the dual-shock from the original PS1, or the omission of a hard drive from the Xbox 360 Arcade versions. It’s easy to say it’s worth saving the money on a feature that we can’t see the benefits from at this distance from them being put to good use – but that can definitely end up coming back on you.
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