[:plant:] E3 2013: "Xbox, turn on PS4 so I can actually play games"

The head guy responsible for the story and direction of the Suikoden games left partway through development on Suikoden 3; it's why everything after that was either a prequel or other dimension bullshit. Unless they get him back I don't want a Suikoden 6, because I'm confident they'll fuck it up. Hell, they'd probably fuck it up anyway, but I'd at least be willing to give it a shot if he came back I guess.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

I still have little to no confidence in 343 as far as the gameplay/MP goes, but they HAVE said that Halo 5 will be 60 fps and have dedicated servers which I have to say is fucking crazy, so I'm curious how that will work out.

My thoughts on the Microsoft event:

-MGSV: typical Kojima madness.

-Xbox Mini: Given that this isn't the rumored cheap add-on to the X1 to play 360 games, I have zero idea why this exists as it's only a bit smaller, and IS THE SAME GODDAMN PRICE. Baffling.

-Ryse: Saving Private Ryan in Rome. Looked good graphically, but QTE as hell, and the violence I think was actually too over the top. Most of the chatter I've seen about the game was people remarking on how it was actually too violent for them.

-Battlefield 4: Looked good, although I like how the back button on a keyboard was in the top corner the whole time, good job guys. Also no one cares about your single-player campaign in Battlfield, pls stop trying.

-Dark Souls II: FUCK YES. But a 360/PS3 game anyway.

-Witcher 3: ALSO FUCK YES. But getting on PS4, or hopefully/maybe PC if we have a better one at that point anyway.

-Forza 5, Quantum Break, Project Spark, World of Tanks: Don't care.

-Below: Potentially neat, need more info.

-Crimson Dragon: WHERE'S THE AUDIO? Also looks neat, but I have zero nostalgia or history with Panzer Dragoon, so this doesn't really do anything for me at this point.

-D4: I'm not gonna lie, it's Swery65 so I am excited.

-Dead Rising 3: Looks good, but also don't have any fondness for the previous games. Also seems like a bit of a departure from the previous games (not as "goofy").

-Titanfall: I'm not gonna lie, this looks like the only thing that even has me remotely considering an X1 in the first year or two. The people behind MW1/2 + scifi + fast paced mech gameplay = FUCK YES. My only concern right now is that the 360 version is being done by someone else, which I respect from the developer perspective on focusing on the primary (X1) version, but has me a bit worried about the 360 port. If the 360 port is good though then that's a moot point and the X1 can continue to fuck itself.

-Halo 5: YO WHY DO YOU HAVE A CLOAK ON YOU'RE IN FUCKING ARMOR. Also Halo 4 was a shitshow campaign and multiplayer-wise, and continues to be so. I have zero faith in 343 at this point, but I want to believe so if the game actually comes out and is received well I'm on board. I will not buy any pre-release bullshit they try to sell though, and since Halo 4 reviewed well I can't trust those either, so I'll have to see how it turns out. It's not like I want Halo to be shit now, so holding out a bit of hope here. They did say that will be 60 FPS (I'm assuming this is Campaign?) and have dedicated servers, both of which are insane so I am curious how that turns out.

-Killer Instict: "We listened!" TO WHO? I have to admit the announcer made me laugh out loud, but I have no nostalgia for KI really. Also it's being made by Double Helix, every game they have ever developed has sucked ass. Literally the best thing I can say about their game history is Silent Hill Homecoming, ponder that.

-Minecraft: I like how their fix to address the ridiculously small 360 version worlds was to port it to next gen.


On the whole I actually don't think it was as bad as I was expecting, but honestly my expectations were already SO LOW that I guess that wasn't hard. They showed a lot more games than I actually would have guessed, but my personal interest and/or quality of the games was lacking overall. Unless PS4 winds up going virtually the same route as the X1 regarding DRM/used games/etc I will admit that I DO see myself getting an X1 for purely certain online games at some point down the line. For exclusive experiences that I'm not going to care about carrying with me forward (like Titanfall/Halo multiplayer) it might be worth it, but they didn't do anything here to convince me that I need to have this over a PS4. At this point even if the PS4 is identical to the X1 in terms of the DRM mess I'm going PS4 because they seem to at least give a shit about games, whereas Microsoft's messaging has been either non-existent, contradictory, or involves directly fucking you in the ass.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

I'm not gonna lie, I screamed like a girl at the FFXV gameplay and KH3 reveal. Nomura can still die in a fire, but HOLY GODDAMN FUCK AT THAT FFXV GAMEPLAY I DON'T EVEN

Sony is in straight beast mode right now. Even if this thing is identical to the Xbone DRM-wise, these exclusives and timed exclusives (like Transistor!) at least indicates they care about games. When they had like 6 different indie devs all on stage playing and showing their games I was just like holy shit what are you even doing MS.

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This is the most amazing thing I have ever seen.

YouTube Video

I just pre-ordered a PS4 on Amazon. MS is so, so, so fucked. They can't spin this, they just can't. $100 cheaper, and no restrictions. 3rd console curse continues.

Edit: Oh to be fair the minor downside that they snuck into all of this was that Plus is going to be required for multiplayer online games which is shit, but considering everything else as well as the crazy benefits you get from Plus I can't be THAT upset about it.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Everyone already knew that FF XV and KH3 weren't going to be exclusive, if so they would have touted that at the PS conference. Honestly it kinda doesn't matter, those games will obviously lead on PS4 (see FF13 and FF13-2 and the performance on PS3 versus 360 there), and even if they're equal who cares?

Also yeah, I think my XBL expires next month or something, Angel is definitely letting hers drop, I'll probably either go Silver or just maintain monthly or 3 month passes until PS4 hits maybe.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by Tails

So I missed the entirety of this due to deployment shit, anybody wanna give a quick rundown on how things are looking?

You're buying a PS4.

Xbone is pretty much literally DOA. They couldn't even pay me to take one, and you know I was pretty much all 360 this gen.

Nintendo has solidified the Wii U as a Gamecube 2 - they have a small selection of titles that look great, but that's pretty much it. We're nearly a year out and "launch window" titles like Wonderful 101 and Pikmin still aren't out. I will get one for Bayonetta 2 because it looks fucking ridiculous, and there are some other must haves, but it's clearly not going to approach Wii levels of success.


Also did anyone see Sony is actually NOT ALLOWING publishers to have online passes? Like, holy shit. At this point I think we can all but confirm that the move to charge for PS+ for multiplayer was done largely to give Sony money to probably give publishers a cut in lieu of online passes and DRM. They take the (relatively) small hit of charging for online multiplayer, but they get the benefit of coming out and saying no DRM, no used game restrictions, no online passes, a cheaper price point, and all on top of the already pretty impressive value PS+ is.

Also Tails add me back on your 3DS dawg

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Bought a 3-month PS+ pass yesterday for $18.

Bought Unfinished Swan (Angel wanted it) and Sound Shapes (I wanted) for the Plus discounted rate of 75% off for $3.75 each. Paid for it right there.

Then tonight I got home and downloaded free copies of Vanquish, Uncharted 3, XCOM, Deus Ex, The Cave, Machinarium, and some other free games (a couple of which actually seem cool). Also even though we don't have a Vita, we now also have Wipeout 2048, Uncharted Golden Abyss and Gravity Rush, and later this month are getting God Eater and VLR, which gives us just about every title on the system worth owning except Persona 4.

Goddamn.

FELIPE NO

I can't imagine it'll be free, but they seem to usually offer Plus discounts on new games a lot of the time it seems like? And yeah, that might be my first new PSN over XBLA purchase as well, not sure yet.

How ya doing, buddy?

D&D wasn't even mentioned in the releases for this upcoming week on the PS Blog, which is concerning.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

It's been confirmed by MS: Your Feedback Matters – Update on Xbox One

I'm just gonna copy my FB post about it:

Quote:

Hilarious how some people were saying it was just hardcore gaming nerds bitching about it; one of the biggest companies in the world doesn't do a complete 180 on their policies when nerds on the internet complain. They do a 180 when:

-Your console and DRM policy is getting huge and widespread scorn in every major news and media outlet like the WSJ, Time, Rolling Stone, NPR, etc.
-You have extremely confusing and offputting messaging, like "if you don't have an internet connection you can just buy a 360" and "we're overdelivering value" (WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN)
-Your competitor announces that they're not doing DRM and just are doing what they're doing today and everyone loses their goddamn minds. Then your competitor releases a 30 second video basically mocking you that currently has over 12 MILLION VIEWS.
-Jimmy Fallon has both the Xbone and PS4 on, and he actually says on the show that the PS4 supports used games and the Xbone doesn't AND THE CROWD GOES NUTS.
-The Navy Times publicly condemns the system as Microsoft outright disregarding all US Military troops.
-Your console is getting absolutely destroyed in pre-orders by the PS4. As of right now the PS4 is the second highest selling item of the YEAR in games, followed in 1st place by a PSN card. And that's only for the launch day standalone version; currently Xbone is #1, but that's because there's 4 separate PS4 bundles that are all right behind it which are collectively shitting on it. Also getting destroyed in preorder listings at every other retailer of note worldwide including Gamestop and Best Buy.
-Congress introduces a bill that would force the Kinect to be optional, require an explict opt-in process, and would state on screen all times WE ARE WATCHING YOU when it is on (this is actually 100% real and hilarious).


Even my 40+ year old coworkers who don't play games have been talking about this because their kids buy games, and they "heard on NPR" the Xbox doesn't allow used games and has the online connection which they don't have in the kids room. Anyone saying that this was just people on the internet making a fuss just got fucking told hard.

I will also give them credit for removing region locks. The problem for me personally is that techwise the PS4 is superior, it's literally inarguable unless you want to argue then nebulous "power of the cloud" which literally means nothing right now. Also this throws all of the statements from developers about how they can do all of this supposedly crazy shit BECAUSE OF THE POWER OF THE CLOUD totally under the bus, since if you don't have to be online you either have to program you games without this amazing power, or anyone who isn't online is fucked.

Also you have Kinect always on as well as it being $100 more expensive on top of that. So while I am actually genuinely impressed (and amused) that they backpeddled on this, they've already kinda shot themselves in the foot for me personally; this gen I was 360 first and PS3 only for exclusives, gonna be the other way around nextgen. But this announcement will at least be getting me to get an Xbone at some point, but it'll be a secondary purchase and not a primary one. They'll also be digging themselves out of a PR hole for years; you only get one first impression, and casuals/mainstream may not even realize that they've changed their policy on this for a long time. There are still people who think the Wii U is an add-on for the Wii.

Is this the biggest gaming megaton that's ever happened? The only thing I can think of that's maybe comparable is Sega backing out of hardware.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Also it turns out that from multiple reliable sources (MS will never verify either way, because they have no reason to) that the 10 person family game sharing thing was only for 60 minute demos and not the full game. It's been hilarious how for a day or so there was this subset of the internet and press (Gizmondo I think in particular) that was blaming everyone saying that we destroyed the best feature of the system and were holding back innovation...and it turns out all that we were holding back was demos. This continues to be good times.

This still earns MS back a lot of credibility to the general masses, but those people also probably don't care too much about the difference between the Xbone and PS4, and they're going to see the PS4 is $100 cheaper. Everything's going to sell out initially, but unless Sony either super fucks up or MS does a $100 price drop before launch, MS is going to get destroyed after the holidays. Casuals care about CoD, but not enough to spend $100 more to get a X1 to get DLC a month early.

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