The Big Bad Console Thread - Sway your Station with an Xboner !

cinge_sl said:

Lol nope on the first and I can play on my PC from my couch if I so desired.

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Conveniently for most people? Amongst other things keeping a keyboard for use while on the couch is a royal pain in the ass to most people (and not even an option for people that use gaming keyboards since they're all wired).

I understand you can put together a convenient means to do it, but do most people with the "standard living room" have that capability without a ton of time/effort/money? No. There's a world of difference in "hook up/go" like you can do with a console to an entertainment center and getting a PC integrated. Especially with many receiver sets in my own experience (or perhaps I just have bought and inherited unfriendly ones).

Some things are possible but are much more difficult to pull off well.

cinge_sl said:

Lol nope on the first and I can play on my PC from my couch if I so desired.

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Using kbm on the couch is fucking terrible. And if you aren't using kbm you are at an impossible disadvantage against everyone else. That's the biggest reason I hope there is no kbm support for games in the coming gen.

Chanur_sl said:

I play Skyrim on PC with high res texture packs and maximum graphics. I went to my brothers house and he had it on X360. It didn't even look like the same game hardly. I could never play that on the Xbox. Part of the games appeal was how amazing it looks. Graphics do matter to gamers and they are the early adopters.

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Next gen will make hi-res packs obsolete though, they'll actually be exceeding the average PC specs for such - so that will cease to be a difference now. And I wouldn't call HiRes packs as an "early adopter" thing - they weren't out for something like two months.

The past few pages of this thread have been like a bad 'Clash of the Fanboys, HD edition' movie script.

It's pretty easy to placate mainstream console gamers because they majority have never experienced high res 1080p graphics. Once they see the difference with the new gen, they will will never want to go back to shitty 720p screen resolutions. This is something that anyone who has gamed on the PC knows all too well.

Mixtilplix_sl said:

It's pretty easy to placate mainstream console gamers because they majority have never experienced high res 1080p graphics. Once they see the difference with the new gen, they will will never want to go back to shitty 720p screen resolutions. This is something that anyone who has gamed on the PC knows all too well.

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Some replays on PS3 to get platinum trophies on things I own on both can certainly hurt for sure. (XCOM:EU most recently)

Tuco_sl said:

They were out within days of Skyrim's release... And his original point is correct.

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Nov 10 -> Feb 7 according to Steam's dates. I thought they were closer than that though - but not sure there's any reason the Steam dates would be off. (Note referencing OFFICIAL ones, not playermade mods - I know those were out quickly - but I found their quality a tad random)

Gaige_sl said:

The conclusions they draw are the same that I've been talking about. You get better shadows and extra shrubs. Nothing that is particularly noticeable and nothing that makes the Xbone version shittier to play.

My contention has always been that gamers don't care about those differences. They're not meaningful enough to affect a purchasing decision.

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I completely disagree. Casual gamers may not notice the difference but if Sony market the fact that the PS 4 is a stronger system casual gamers will choose that BECAUSE they don't know the difference. Their lack of knowledge actually works for Sony not against. The casual gamer only see's the bullet point

- Playstation 4 is faster and a more powerful machine.

They don't know the difference may only be minimal all they know is that the PS 4 is a more powerful machine therefore they wan't the machine that is 'better'. Being an Xbox 360 fan last generation I would constantly have arguements with my casual gamer mates and EVERY time without a doubt they would bring up "PS 3 is more powerful therefore it's better" and I would try to explain to them that most games actually don't run that much better on PS 3 and they would simply refuse to understand and be like "It's a fact the hardware is more powerful"

TL DR The fact that they don't know how small the difference is makes it an even bigger selling point that technically the PS 4 is more powerful. When people don't understand something deeply enough they will choose black and white facts over any grey area.

I would probably argue that the average consumer will choose more based on which machine is "cheaper" rather than "better"(more powerful). Luckily Sony has both in it's corner this generation, so we may never know which of the 2 reasons led to the beat-down of the XB1. Last time around they chose "better" over "cheaper" and lost(in North America)

Yeah, when it comes Down to it I think that $100.00 bucks is going to matter much more than specs.

Thorne_sl said:

Yeah, when it comes Down to it I think that $100.00 bucks is going to matter much more than specs.

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Definitely, $100 is the #1 most important factor for the general market.

#2 will probably be marketing, and specs play into that. Sony will definitely push that it's the most powerful system and cheaper and their PR has been a lot more competent so far.

#3 will likely be supply. I think the Xbone will sell out, but their supply is very limited. Meanwhile the PS4 is allocating 7-8 times as many units to retailers. People are going to be able to easily get a PS4 and not have to worry about scalpers (hopefully).

I think if Sony manages to sell out their massively higher production of units then it is going to drastically affect the start of this generation. If there's 500k Xbones sold this holiday season, but potentially4 million PS4simmediately out there then that's going to cause a stir. Typically consoles have sold out on launch. The WiiU even sold out with 890k units over the holiday season. I don't think anyone's ever managed to manufacture more than launch demand and if Sony does then they're going to trumpet out that they are the best selling console launch of all time.

If they start out with those numbers it's going to have a huge influence on how online communities for the next generation start up and where they play, further pushing PS4 sales.

Yep, they're positioned well in all sorts of ways - and developers tend to follow momentum as well - so likely with how things are shaping up in the longrun we'll see preference on PS4 over X1 for developers once initial sales show that it's the larger installed playerbase which should keep everything up across the board. Like PS2 era.

The "Time to Triangle" stuff from the Cerny talk today was pretty interesting too I think:

http://www.computerandvideogames.com...-claims-cerny/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJW5O...ature=youtu.be

1-2 months to getting a PS4 game build running Vs 6-12 for the PS3. That's got to behugefor developer costs. I've said this before and I honestly think developer costs are going to go down with this next generation, not up, due to everyone being on X86 architecture. I have really high hopes for this generation with everyone having to do a lot less work than before to get shit running and having more portable and scaleable engines. This is also a huuuuge boon to Indie developers.

I think there's a blindingly bright future ahead for games and there will have never been as good of a time to be a gamer than the next few years (regardless of what platform you choose).

Great great link Sean. That video is great and really has me pumped for this generation.

It's too late for me to watch the video (and frankly for tech stuff I tend to zone out after a bit) - how does that compare to PC's "time to triangle"? Was that ever covered?

The new consoles are pretty much PCs anyway, right? Should be comparable.