Decline PS4 wins the console war against XboxONE, yet it is a hollow victory as Consolesdämmerung is upon us

[MaskedMan]

Well for one we're in 2014 now.

 

[evdk]

Jesus Christ how did this thread get 166 pages and 185k views in a month and a half? Did something interesting happen? Surely something interesting must have happened. Someone summarise.

The first post is from Jan 2013, so..?

 

[Admiral jimbob]

the title change confused me

I was hoping we'd had another Eidos forum invasion or something.

 

[Cowboy Moment]

the title change confused me

I was hoping we'd had another Eidos forum invasion or something.

Secretly yearning for a neogaf invasion, aren't we? Such perverse desires.

 

[Redlands]

Microsoft deserve to be hated on, but I do think that in a way the Xbox360 was a blessing in disguise, combined with the botched launch of the PS3.

Imagine if the PS3 was as dominant as the PS2 was.

Forget multiplatform games and bad console ports, man. If Sony had ruled the roost for another seven years, PC gaming would have been truly dead because every game would have been a fucking PS3-exclusive.

Why?

I disagree, but I have no idea what you mean by "dead" in this instance, as the only thing I can think of wouldn't happen, even under this scenario.

 

[Servo]

Infini trollin bro. PC gaming cannot die.

 

[Spectacle]

Microsoft deserve to be hated on, but I do think that in a way the Xbox360 was a blessing in disguise, combined with the botched launch of the PS3.

Imagine if the PS3 was as dominant as the PS2 was.

Forget multiplatform games and bad console ports, man. If Sony had ruled the roost for another seven years, PC gaming would have been truly dead because every game would have been a fucking PS3-exclusive.

We'd probably have been better off actually, as there would have been 2 distinct markets; console games and PC games, like it was in the days of the Playstation 1 and earlier. The Great Decline started pretty much on the day the original XBox was released, up un til then PC games had been on a long incline along improving computer technology.

 

[Infinitron]

Microsoft deserve to be hated on, but I do think that in a way the Xbox360 was a blessing in disguise, combined with the botched launch of the PS3.

Imagine if the PS3 was as dominant as the PS2 was.

Forget multiplatform games and bad console ports, man. If Sony had ruled the roost for another seven years, PC gaming would have been truly dead because every game would have been a fucking PS3-exclusive.

We'd probably have been better off actually, as there would have been 2 distinct markets; console games and PC games, like it was in the days of the Playstation 1 and earlier. The Great Decline started pretty much on the day the original XBox was released, up un til then PC games had been on a long incline along improving computer technology.

Sure, except I'm not sure that RPGs would have remained in the family of "PC games" in this scenario.

Or rather, PC RPGs would have slowly dwindled while Playstation-exclusive RPGs (inspired by JRPGs?) would have thrived in their place.

 

[Spectacle]

It couldn't possibly have been worse than the near complete replacement of RPGs with xbox centric Action "RPGs" we saw in the late 00s.

 

[Turjan]

It couldn't possibly have been worse than the near complete replacement of RPGs with xbox centric Action "RPGs" we saw in the late 00s.

On the plus side, it removed the need to update computer components every 18 months or so.

 

[sexbad?]

It couldn't possibly have been worse than the near complete replacement of RPGs with xbox centric Action "RPGs" we saw in the late 00s.

On the plus side, it removed the need to update computer components every 18 months or so.

No it didn't. Nobody knows how to optimize anymore.

 

[Turjan]

No it didn't. Nobody knows how to optimize anymore.

I used pretty much the same computer from 2006 to 2012, until the MB failed. I had to replace the graphics card once due to hardware failure, and I'm still using the "new" one (from 2010 I think) with my current 2012 computer. I'm thinking of replacing the graphics card, but the pressure to do so is simply not there. So I'm talking from practical experience.

 

[DalekFlay]

No it didn't. Nobody knows how bothers to optimize anymore.

Fixed.

 

[Machocruz]

The Japanese understand console games and the purpose they should serve. Gaijin thought it a good idea to take PC games and strip them of everything that makes them interesting and different so they can fit it onto a console and its audience. I would have been fine with PS3 dominance, just like I was fine with PS2 dominance while playing PC masterpieces like Deus Ex and The Metal Age. Then Xbox happened and we got Invisible War and Thief 3 (was actually good compared to IW, but still not a patch on TDP or TMA).

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Infini trollin bro. PC gaming cannot die.

It sure can fall into a coma, though. If the current publisher mindset (BWAAAAAAAH PIRATES) keeps moving in the current direction...well, I hope you like indies.

 

[sea]

I have no doubt the PC platform as it is today will die. I think the idea of a non-portable computer with dedicated hot-swappable hardware, large motherboards with expansion slots, etc. will eventually go away to the point where it is no longer sustainable (though it will probably still exist for servers etc.). However, the desktop platform itself will not go away. The keyboard and mouse are too cemented and work too well to give up, and most people do not want to do serious work on touchscreens etc.

With that in mind, I think we'll see ultra-portable consumer-grade computers (i.e. smartphones more powerful than what we have now) that can wirelessly sync to external devices like displays and keyboards... at which point the distinction between "console gaming", "mobile gaming" and "PC gaming" will become so blurred as to effectively become meaningless. But we're probably talking decades away, here.

 

[DalekFlay]

Hybrids are surely the future, machines that do the casual tablet shit alongside the mouse and keyboard "real" PC shit. That's Microsoft's goal with Surface, they just suck at implementing it.

And hopefully by the time playing 90's PC games is roughly impossible natively we have some real Windows emulators.

 

[Cowboy Moment]

I have no doubt the PC platform as it is today will die. I think the idea of a non-portable computer with dedicated hot-swappable hardware, large motherboards with expansion slots, etc. will eventually go away to the point where it is no longer sustainable (though it will probably still exist for servers etc.). However, the desktop platform itself will not go away. The keyboard and mouse are too cemented and work too well to give up, and most people do not want to do serious work on touchscreens etc.

With that in mind, I think we'll see ultra-portable consumer-grade computers (i.e. smartphones more powerful than what we have now) that can wirelessly sync to external devices like displays and keyboards... at which point the distinction between "console gaming", "mobile gaming" and "PC gaming" will become so blurred as to effectively become meaningless. But we're probably talking decades away, here.

I doubt it. Maybe for your typical office productivity tasks, although I question the advantage of such a contraption over a plain laptop (which also provides superior performance for the same price), and on a technical level, I don't really believe in the universal robustness of wireless screens, but that's a separate problem. For gaming, though, which thus far has always demanded high performance hardware, a box in a case with active cooling and a power draw of 200+ Watts will always beat a mobile device, that's just the physics of silicon, and I don't expect this to change with different materials either. Bottom line, doing more work produces more heat and draws more power.

It's an open question whether the box will be a closed, fixed-hardware console, or a modular architecture similar to present day PCs, but I doubt it will go away unless the graphics arms race stops completely.

 

[ghostdog]

I am a man. I want my cases spacey and angular, my boards big-ass mamas with many slots for expansions and my GPUs behemoths with pipes like a Harley Davidson.


What's next, glorified desktop tablets ?

Spoiler

 

[taxalot]

If the only desktop computers available are servers, then I will fucking buy servers.

 

[Servo]

Hybrids are surely the future, machines that do the casual tablet shit alongside the mouse and keyboard "real" PC shit. That's Microsoft's goal with Surface, they just suck at implementing it.

We must stop this from happening. To arms!



For the glory of Codexia.

 

[deuxhero]

http://www.zatznotfunny.com/2014-03/amazon-streamer-feature-bluetooth-gaming-controller/

(As far as I can tell, this is the original discoverer of the leak, will change if it isn't. Didn't want to link to shitaku or IGN)

Regulatory agency (which means this is prob legit.) has leaked an Amazon controller supposedly for their Roku clone. Looks cheep as shit, but the kindle is really bare bones itself, and it could just be a prototype, plus how it looks means little compared to build quality (which the official 360 controllers were horrible with).

 

[Drax]

If the only desktop computers available are servers, then I will fucking buy servers.

 

[bert]

http://www.vg247.com/2014/03/15/son...ease-for-ps4-dualshock-4-games-in-the-region/

Speaking with the Toronto Sun, Sony said the price of PS4 would increase by $50 effective March 15. Formerly, the console’s price was $399.99; as of today, it will run Canadians $449.99.

The price of DualShock 4 and PS Camera will go up by $5 to $64.99, while the aforementioned videogame titles have jumped by $10 to $69.99.

Sony said in a statement the price increase was in response to “changes in the market environment,” but the firm didn’t reference the decline of the Canadian dollar against the US dollar as the culprit.

Microsoft said in a statement to the Toronto Sun it does not not plan to implement a similar console price hike.

Sony’s PS4 has remained relatively sold-out in most Canadian stores, despite regular shipments of stock coming in from Sony. The report stated that while PS4 is scarce, Xbox One “readily available”.

Many new game releases in the region, on both PS4 and Xbox One, jumped by $5 as of January 2014.

 

[Bubbles]

The problem is that it's far too easy for American consumers to get into Canada and exploit the local markets for their personal gain, which leads to stuff like this happening. 97% of Canadians would support a total and permanent closure of their southern border.