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Round XXX - FIGHT! [The Upcoming Console Wars]
ElJeffe
Registered User, ClubPA regular
Registered User, ClubPA regular
This is a thread for discussing the WiiU as it compares to the PS4 (which we know a little about) and the Xbox Infinity/720/whatever-the-fuck (which we don't even have a name for yet). How is Nintendo poised to perform in the face of these new juggernauts that don't actually exist yet but will someday we assume? What are these teams' respective strategies? More like WiiUrine, mirite? (No you are not.)
Discuss!
Discuss!
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I also have no desire to buy a console on the installment plan. If I can't afford what Microsoft wants, I'll pluck down a few hundred for a midline gaming PC and call it a day.
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As long as Steam and GoG exists, I can get games to play that are mine to play.
It's up to them to make a compelling reason as to why I should give up the current gen and get their next box.
It's an intriguing concept and would have just a mountain of games at launch(long as they get ported to linux)
Doesn't matter that consoles have succeeded at that price point before at launch. No developer can make money on a the current going cost of $100+ million per game on a console without selling several million copies, and the base to sell to is going to be small for some time after launch at $400, let alone more.
My 360 doesn't even have wifi at the moment, and I don't have a Blu-ray yet so most things look like an upgrade to me.
all dem high speed rams and shit
we are waiting for dem microsofts
the subscriber model for pricing will become the standard. Its better for the companies anyway. If you're locked into a Live Sub you're more likely to do other things on Live like buy movies of XBLA games all of which make MS cash.
analog placement on the Dual Shock might continue to be a dealbreaker for me.
I'm pretty sure your account, Trophies, Trophy-related-score and games/DLC* you bought will continue onto the PS4. Continuity of account is a great way of encouraging loyalty.
*Not that this does much good right now.
the controllers have always been awful
2 useless vestigial fingers at the back on each hand and the right thumb has to operate an analogue stick and 4 buttons
absolutely terrible
Yeah, Sony's adherence to certain vesitigial notions is bothersome. Of course, Nintendo is guilty of this as well.
I think part of it is I'm spending less and less time on my consoles, and in fact my ps3 just broke and I have no desire to replace it. I still game a lot but it's all on my PC now. I was always PC heavy but now it's becoming PC only. There are so few games that are console exclusives that I'm actually interested in playing. The only console games that get me excited anymore are NHL games, and I don't think I'm going to spend $Texas to get a PS4 just to play NHL15.
The WiiU seems interesting though because it appears to offer a different type of gaming experience with their funny little controller. and at least it will still have access to all the Mario games that are usually pretty great fun. And it's not really all that expensive, so for a sometimes gaming system it doesn't seem so bad of an investment.
Right now I haven't seen anything that convinces me that the PS4 might offer something more or better than what I can get on the PC. The WiiU at least offers something different, and hopefully will be fun if I have people over who want to play some games.
Wait, do you mean just Sony's controllers? Because barring the Wii/WiiU, all controllers on all systems have been conceptually identical since the original DualShock.
Either way, I like them. 2 sticks and 4 buttons works well for most games, with 1 stick and 8 buttons (effectively) for other games. Are you complaining that the controllers don't let you make use of all 10 fingers simultaneously? Because I am skeptical people can realistically keep track of that many simultaneous button pushes at once.
I would be unhappy if consoles started to precisely match the smart phone market, where you can get a console super-cheap but it stops working entirely if you don't pay your monthly fees.
The PS3 controller makes my hands hurt after about half an hour. That isn't true for the XBox controller and wasn't true for the PS2, either. Looking at it, I can't tell what the magic property is that makes it such a carpal tunnel machine. Certainly doesn't look that different, but there's definitely something off about the ergonomics as I know I'm not the only person who complains about it.
At least they seem to have figured out that concave analogue sticks and triggers make a whole lot more sense than convex.
But still... the DS still feels cramped to me (my hands are not large), and the left analogue is going to be in almost constant use - why would you keep putting it in the stretch position?
of course they can
think of a keyboard
or a piano
one finger ---> one button is a far easier map than one finger --> 4 buttons + a stick, all with functions that are often required simultaneously (consider how often camera control seriously hampers 3rd person games).
have you ever seen what is involved in learning to jump cancel in dmc3, which required timed input of the jump and attack commands? you literally had to learn to gallop your thumb from triangle to x because it was all one finger. if you play the game on the pc the same trick is trivial as they are operated by separate fingers.
at the very least adding a couple of extra buttons at the back for the 4th/5th fingers and allowing rebinding would ameliorate it hugely.
I've been pretty happy with the 360, which I bought simply because most people in my gaming circle had it and I wanted to share their multiplayers.
The PS3 and 360 have been, for all I've been able to see, functionally identical, except for which app market and online gaming market you get access to. Since the 360 has had significantly better market penetration, that's made the 360 seem stronger. I'm curious whether Sony has a plan for disrupting this. I guess launching first might help.
I doubt we'll ever see that kind of thing. It just doesn't make sense from a marketing perspective.
I think the interesting thing with the subscription model is what it says about how marked up Live pricing must be. If they can sell the console for like half-price and still be ok because of a few years of Live, that service must be making bank.
Seriously, fuck the dual shock and it's stupid d-pad placement.
At least DS4 looks more ergonomic.
The issue is a controller is meant to be held. Without a flat surface to lay the thing on, you need to sacrifice alot of hand-realestate just to keeping the thing gripped.
edit: And it'll mean the subsidized console ends up $100 - $200 more than if you just bought live and the console on their own.
you have the fingers pressing the back of the controller already
just stick them there a la extra triggers
you dont support the controller with the ends of your fingers anyway
You do though. You use your fingers to position the controller comfortably in your hand. Pressing buttons back there can be kinda awkward. Especially if you are also trying to press buttons on the front.
it is entirely possible this is reflective of how i hold a controller
of course, it also indicates that everybody else is bad and wrong and must adapt
I like it except by squeezing with the ends of your fingers, you're squeezing your hand, which means your thumbs might trigger something on the front. For example, imagine using the l-stick to move around but then need to press a button with your middle finger on the left hand. it might be hard to control your thumb on the l-stick at the same time. The solution would be to make little divots that your fingers rest in, and to push them you move your finger towards your opposite hand. ie: if I want to use the middle finger button on the left hand, I'd be pushing towards my right hand, not towards my body. That way the counter pressure is from my right palm, and not my left-thumb.
It could work. Although accounting for hand sizes/types would be tough. Anyone with missing/extra fingers would have a harder time of it as well.
It's probably more, imo, that you aren't realising you are doing it. Unless you hold the controller without touching it with your fingers, you are unconsciously balancing the controller in your hand with your fingers.
no, i've actually tried it
blu tacked the spots with blobs, blu tack didnt get squished while playing tha vidya
no pressure on them
Aside from cost, I'm really not sure what the draw will be for me. I have no interest in the social aspects, and I'm very skeptical about our ability to get broadband of a quality that would make the streaming options feasable.
Most games are cross platform, so I'm just not seeing the hook.
I'll wait and see. As with last gen, I dont think hardware specs will be the deciding factor.
I almost specifically invoked a keyboard and why I didn't think it counted, and then I didn't.
I think the mechanics of a keyboard are different because you're not hitting potentially 10 keys at once in arbitrary patterns, you're just putting your fingers into certain shapes such that when you depress them, it makes a pleasing chord. A big challenge in learning to play a keyboard is learning the chord shapes. Once you learn them, you can play them wherever on the keyboard, but that doesn't mean you necessarily keep track of all 10 fingers at once and have them independently seeking out keys, in the same way you seem to be imagining using a controller.
Most games I've played - and I can't think of any counter examples - have you pressing 2-3 buttons at once, at the most, maybe sometimes 4, but that's uncommon. And controllers are designed to facilitate that - it's not hard to use, say, both trigger buttons and one or two face buttons at a time. There's no reason to map each finger to its own dedicated button when each finger can easily manage 2 or more by itself.
Also - and here we're getting into philosophy of gameplay more than ergonomics - there's a certain pleasure to pulling off complicated button presses, and getting the timings and button presses right. Think of most fighting games - is it more satisfying to do a F-D-DF+X sequence and pull off that Dragon Punch, or to hit the Dragon Punch button and have the game do it for you? Some games certainly have excessively difficult controls, but in a lot of games the difficulty is kind of the point.
Basically, I think the inherent limitations in current controllers are more a feature than a bug.