Thoughts on new consoles?

[Timman_24]

I picked up a PS4 at launch, but haven't bought any games for it yet. I've been playing the "free" PS+ games and mostly watching netflix. I didn't even consider the Xbox One due to the higher price and bottlenecked memory. I figure that most of the big games coming out will be multiplat, so I'd rather have the more powerful system. Also since I use netflix, I'd have to carry a gold sub (not anymore though, MS changed their policy finally.)

I'll most likely get an Xbox One eventually once there is another price drop and some more games. Forza 5 looked like a let down with all the micro transactions, no auction house, and terrible wheel support.

Have you guys picked up a new console yet? MS or Sony for you?

[taggart6]

None for me. I upgraded my PC and have been super happy with that. I still have a backlog of 360 and PS3 games to beat and I'm in no rush to upgrade.

honestly, I haven't even felt the need by any of the newer system to upgrade. If I do, I'll mostly likely grab a WiiU when Project X and the new Zelda drop.

I might eventually get a PS4 if the library improves. My PC is already playing the MS exclusives so I see no need for a Xbone.

[Kamakazie]

I have a Wii U and I don't plan on buying a XBO or PS4 any time soon. I predict that Halo 5 and Forza Horizon 2 will be the catalysts for me.

[ImaNihilist]

Next gen consoles have been, more or less, a complete failure. The PS4 is outselling the XBO, but the volume on both is so low it's not really worth talking about. Sales are so bad that Sony lumped PS3 and PS4 sales together in their last report to make it seem less apocalyptic.

SNES - 50 million
PS1 - 100 million
PS2 - 155 million
PS3 - 80 million
PS4 - 7 million

Yeah, it's only been around a few months. But it's already sort of peaked. Volume isn't exactly picking up. The hype train is over. Even internally Sony made the decision to allocate only minimal advertising dollars to the PS4 launch (Microsoft, on the other hand, went wild — and it didn't pay off).

Could a killer game switch things up? Maybe. But I think the days of killer exclusive AAA titles that sell systems are over. I just went through the Titanfall launch and saw how that played out, and it did not play out as well as anyone had hoped.
I'd be impressed if lifetime sales of the PS4 ever reach 40 million units.

The reality is that 7 million units globally, spread over two quarters, is abysmal for a consumer electronics device today (in a category that used to see serious growth). A smartphone can easily do 30 million units in a single quarter. The DS is the only console holding on at this point, partially because it's cheap to produce and evolves slowly over time. It's a smarter strategy, and really the only thing that can survive in this market.

You have to ask yourself, as many developers today are: If you are going to make a game, does it really make any sense to make a PS4 or XBO exclusive? The answer is a resounding, "No." The only reason anything at all is being made for next-gen consoles is because Microsoft and Sony are paying out the *** to make it happen. Microsoft in particular is basically saying, "Hey, we'll literally give you a gift basket of tens of millions in media dollars to make this happen. Please make a game for us. Please?"

[Skywize]

Quick google shows XBOX one sold 5 million units since launch (dated April 17th).
And they predicted a PC gaming death a few years ago...

I used to see the Rome ads on TV and thought "damn that looks good" and then i found out
it was an XBOX exclusive title. So i went to youtube and watched an entire playthrough, and
the urge to play Rome disappeared. Looks good but is so linear that once you've seen it...
well you've seen it all.

Just buy a PC, backwards compatible all the way to 286

[Timman_24]

Next gen consoles have been, more or less, a complete failure. The PS4 is outselling the XBO, but the volume on both is so low it's not really worth talking about. Sales are so bad that Sony lumped PS3 and PS4 sales together in their last report to make it seem less apocalyptic.

SNES - 50 million
PS1 - 100 million
PS2 - 155 million
PS3 - 80 million
PS4 - 7 million

Yeah, it's only been around a few months. But it's already sort of peaked. Volume isn't exactly picking up. The hype train is over. Even internally Sony made the decision to allocate only minimal advertising dollars to the PS4 launch (Microsoft, on the other hand, went wild — and it didn't pay off).

Could a killer game switch things up? Maybe. But I think the days of killer exclusive AAA titles that sell systems are over. I just went through the Titanfall launch and saw how that played out, and it did not play out as well as anyone had hoped.
I'd be impressed if lifetime sales of the PS4 ever reach 40 million units.

The reality is that 7 million units globally, spread over two quarters, is abysmal for a consumer electronics device today (in a category that used to see serious growth). A smartphone can easily do 30 million units in a single quarter. The DS is the only console holding on at this point, partially because it's cheap to produce and evolves slowly over time. It's a smarter strategy, and really the only thing that can survive in this market.

You have to ask yourself, as many developers today are: If you are going to make a game, does it really make any sense to make a PS4 or XBO exclusive? The answer is a resounding, "No." The only reason anything at all is being made for next-gen consoles is because Microsoft and Sony are paying out the *** to make it happen. Microsoft in particular is basically saying, "Hey, we'll literally give you a gift basket of tens of millions in media dollars to make this happen. Please make a game for us. Please?"

Love to read your insight on the situation. My take is that people do_not value entertainment nearly as much as they used to. $60 for a video game seems asinine these days (not to me, although I haven't purchased a full priced game in probably a year, but to most people.) Can you imagine a 13yo (or their parent) that is used to free/99c games on a "free" subsidized phone looking at a $399 console + $60 games? When I was younger we bought consoles no-questions-asked, but with all the awesome cheap PC games and mobile games now, I probably wouldn't bother if I was younger or had kids. Slap a $99 GPU in your PC and let your kids have fun with Minecraft/Rust/F2P or just let them text and play mobile games. Easy, cheap.

I don't know what MS and Sony can do. I assume their major demographic is 22-40 and will directly shift upwards each year. I think Sony has the best idea. Get people on a sub and trickle out content to them with their "free" games and eventually whatever Gaiki ends up looking like. The days of back to back AAA games at $60 seems almost dead, especially exclusives. They also seem to be focusing on smaller and cheaper games.

I think Sony and MS need to get down to the $299 price point WITH a game to get the normal gamer interested.

Where that leaves places like EA is interesting. Perhaps spreading the load over smaller games is the way to go. Instead of spending an idiotic amount of money on an MMO or sprawling FPS, maybe they should focus on small teams like Double Fine has found success in. Trickle out a lot of polished 4-5 games and let your teams experiment. I'd love to see that done on a large scale with a lot of money behind it.

[Timman_24]

None for me. I upgraded my PC and have been super happy with that. I still have a backlog of 360 and PS3 games to beat and I'm in no rush to upgrade.

honestly, I haven't even felt the need by any of the newer system to upgrade. If I do, I'll mostly likely grab a WiiU when Project X and the new Zelda drop.

I might eventually get a PS4 if the library improves. My PC is already playing the MS exclusives so I see no need for a Xbone.

What did you go with? I recently upgraded to a 780 and 4820k. With water-cooling, the GPU over clocks really well. I don't see needing to upgrade for a long time unless I do something stupid like buy a 4k monitor.

[taggart6]

I went with 4770K and a 780 windforce. Its the newer 780 stepping that out-preforms there older 780 model. I haven't had any need to overlock anything.

[James]

I'm going to go with a Silverstone Milo ML07 to house my new Haswell "Steam box/HTPC" for the living room (mini-ITX with the mini-ITX MSI 760). Combined with a wireless Xbox controller adapter, it makes a wonderful living room "gaming" console, with a hell of a lot more functionality.

[fastitocalon]

I bought both the PS4 and Xbox One and they have been underwhelming at best. I played Infamous and Ryse ( the best looking "next gen" games ) and they were not good though Ryse was much better than Infamous imo. Anyone who asks me I tell them to just stick with PC.

[Timman_24]

I bought both the PS4 and Xbox One and they have been underwhelming at best. I played Infamous and Ryse ( the best looking "next gen" games ) and they were not good though Ryse was much better than Infamous imo. Anyone who asks me I tell them to just stick with PC.

I never got the hype of the Infamous games. The controls and animations were really bad and the dialog/characterization felt like something a high school boy would write. The difference in writing quality between games like Gone Home and games like Infamous with their multi-million dollar budgets is inexcusable. I felt like I was playing a PS2 game with high res graphics.

[Timman_24]

I went with 4770K and a 780 windforce. Its the newer 780 stepping that out-preforms there older 780 model. I haven't had any need to overlock anything.

The only reason I went with the 4820k is because I found a great open-box deal on the Asus Rampage motherboard for it and the chip wasn't any more expensive than the 4770k at the time. I over clocked the CPU a bit, but not much. I did my usual run up to see how high I could go and then set it on something modest like 4.2Ghz on turbo. As for the 780, I bought a reference model and strapped an EK water block on it. I got spoiled with 30C idle and 40C gaming with low speed fans. I did all the tweaks to it such as modified bios and got it over 1300mhz on the core. I haven't needed to OC it for anything I really play though. That was just for fun. I was planing on adding another for SLI but then had a moment on clarity and asked why? haha Day to day, I use my 5.1 Mac Pro mostly. I've really taken to OSX for work and casual use. I only use Windows for gaming now.

I'm going to go with a Silverstone Milo ML07 to house my new Haswell "Steam box/HTPC" for the living room (mini-ITX with the mini-ITX MSI 760). Combined with a wireless Xbox controller adapter, it makes a wonderful living room "gaming" console, with a hell of a lot more functionality.

That Silverstone case looks good. I'm liking all the new ITX options we have. I almost bought the NCase M1 before I decided to go back to mATX. I'll probably build a small ITX case to stream steam games to my living room. I've heard the Windows -> steamOS works really well for most games.

[ImaNihilist]

Microsoft is in a much better position to weather the storm than Sony. Sony must sell consoles. Microsoft is trying to sell people on a new ecosystem of which Xbox is just one part. It's a slow transition, but we are already starting to see some great things from Microsoft as Windows 8, Windows Phone, Skype, Azure, Surface, and Xbox One start to merge into a holistic ecosystem of services like Apple has created. This is why Microsoft is spending like crazy against Xbox One. Even if Xbox One only sells 20 million units over its entire lifespan, it's still a win from a brand perspective.

I don't know what Sony is going to do. They are in a pretty rough spot.

EA is the in the worst position of all. Trying to sell $60 versions of the same game over and over again. Riot is one of the only ones that has adapted well to the new world. League of Legends is the model for the next 3-4 years. How IP like Battlefield, CoD, WoW or Halo adapt to that new reality I have no idea, but no one is even trying, and that's what's troubling.

We almost had a changing of the guards with Zynga, but that never happened. But this time it might.

[Snakespy]

I bought an xbox one in mid February. I played the crap out of Titanfall for a few weeks but haven't played much more than that. There just isn't enough games out yet to make it worth buying. I say wait till a price drop, even if it is over a year away. There is also a version of the ONE coming out in June with NO kinect. I wish I waited till then to buy it.

Halo 5 just got announced for 2015 btw.

[ImaNihilist]

I bought an xbox one in mid February. I played the crap out of Titanfall for a few weeks but haven't played much more than that. There just isn't enough games out yet to make it worth buying. I say wait till a price drop, even if it is over a year away. There is also a version of the ONE coming out in June with NO kinect. I wish I waited till then to buy it.

Halo 5 just got announced for 2015 btw.

I suspect that Xbox One, and Xbox in general, is a long term play. It's not about the $499 console today it's about the $99 console tomorrow, and managing the transition towards that while maintaining the brand. You can even see some of that with the architecture decisions they've made.