News & Rumours: Playstation 4/ Orbis *spin*

Status
Not open for further replies.
I guess the usefulness of voice (I mean in terms of intuitive interface, not immersion), is mostly where there's a huge number of unstructured choices. I agree MMOs and RPGs could get interesting, because they always struggled to make a good interface for spells and abilities. Since 1999 all MMOs are still using the Everquest-style array of icons mapped to nearly half the keyboard. I don't know if voice is the solution, but someone has to find a way to improve that interface.

There's also games like R&C which have dozens of weapons and tools, it's a mess to map them all on the quick-select wheel, and multiple pages. it would be more intuitive to call the weapon by name, because I'm often too busy not dying. In single player they wouldn't have to pause the game anymore while doing the weapon select, and it would be more consistent in coop and multiplayer (because the game can't pause in these modes).
 
patsu said:
I am wondering if they should just bring mouse and keyboard support over to MMO and RTS. ^_^
Save all the hassle. Plus these folks may be able to cross-play against PC gamers.




Perhaps. I think commands involving search (e.g., song list, dance list, etc.) will be even better.

Quick action can just be 2 clicks (target-verb). And the -- likely default -- touch pad input may be hard to beat here.
Click to expand...

A Kb/M in a loving room is just.... Encouraging bad posture.
 
Yes. If they do that, the users may hook up PS4 like a PC. My PS3 in the office is set up that way. I swivel around and play some games to take a break.
 
Yes. If they do that, the users may hook up PS4 like a PC. My PS3 in the office is set up that way. I swivel around and play some games to take a break.

I am not sure if a lot of people play MMO and RTS on home consoles.
 
patsu said:
Yes. If they do that, the users may hook up PS4 like a PC. My PS3 in the office is set up that way. I swivel around and play some games to take a break.

I am not sure if a lot of people play MMO and RTS on home consoles.
Click to expand...

Perhaps more people would if there were more MMOs and RTS on consoles. Adding in keyboard support would be nice too, instead of trying to cram everything onto the controller. The Logitech FFXI keyboard controller combo for the PS2 was a good example of a practical keyboard controller combo that made couch play possible. There's the obvious concern that console players aren't looking to use a keyboard, but I suspect there's a decent sized market of players on consoles lacking a sufficient gaming PC that would like access to the broader range of PC titles (some of which aren't controller friendly) and don't mind hooking up a keyboard and/or mouse. Not to mention the subset of them who already have their consoles on monitors at a desk, an ideal layout for a KBM. Is another 100,000 to 250,000 sales for a game worth the cost of a console port? I don't know, but I suspect we'll see more PC focused developers asking that question with the coming generation. At least I hope we will, and I hope the answer is yes.
 
What devs will design games around KB+M when the console is sat in front of the TV and not at a desk? How many console gamers are going to buy KB+M when games aren't designed to use it? PS3 was perfectly capable of providing that input this generation but it didn't happen, and it won't happen next gen either. That's where living-room friendly solutions like motion and voice come into their own, and why consoles still remain as a valid entertainment solution.
 
PS3 developers have to fight the limited memory and GPU bottlenecks till the very last moment. It will need to keep up with PC framerate. Think Epic confirmed mouse and keyboard support for UT3 but I am not sure if they follow through.

If they port PC games over to PS4, it might be easy to support mouse and keyboard by default. Planetside would be a good case study since it's an MMOFPS made by Sony.

Playstation Home is also more fun with a full sized keyboard, probably similar to MMOs.

EDIT: At some point I heard Steam was going to add mouse and keyboard support to PS3's CounterStrike but they might have backed away. I am not sure.
 
Shifty Geezer said:
What devs will design games around KB+M when the console is sat in front of the TV and not at a desk? How many console gamers are going to buy KB+M when games aren't designed to use it? PS3 was perfectly capable of providing that input this generation but it didn't happen, and it won't happen next gen either. That's where living-room friendly solutions like motion and voice come into their own, and why consoles still remain as a valid entertainment solution.
Click to expand...

I had addressed those points and specifically posed the question as to whether an extra 100,000 (speculation based on a user base of 10 million or more) or so sales would be worth the cost of a port. In addition, as patsu has reiterated, this coming generation seems to be closing the gap between console and PC development even further. Which is why I suspect more PC focused developers will be asking themselves if its worth the cost of porting for a small subset of the console market. It should be relatively easy to shoehorn a controller scheme into games in order to pass any TRCs, with the expectation that the target demographic will opt for a keyboard for a better experience.

patsu said:
PS3 developers have to fight the limited memory and GPU bottlenecks to the very last moment. It will need to keep up with PC framerate. Think Epic confirmed mouse and keyboard support for UT3 but I am not sure if they follow through.
Click to expand...

I'd have to fire up UT3 again to double check, but I'm quite sure it had KBM support (and community mod support too, IIRC).
 
Simple question, what person who wants to play a game with KB/M would still buy a console version of the game over the PC (which of course, naturally supports such an input method). It's not as simple as just adding KB/M controls, you have to consider re-balancing the game as well.
 
Dust 514 and UT3 are the only two FPS I know that allow MKB on PS3.
CCP had to handicap M to balance it with DS3 and, if I am not mistaken, there was even a matchmaking filter so that you could only play with players using the same peripheral.
I left Dust 514 beta so I don't' know how things are now but MKB caused more problems than it solved.
 
This isn't a KB+M thread; perhaps best if we leave it at that. The question was what voice chat could bring, if PS4 has voice chat. It'll be interesting to see whether Sony support KB+M again. Without Linux, there's no point beyond games, and as it didn't prove popular on PS3, I doubt they feel motivated, factoring in the alternative input options.
 
the biggest use of my Kinect outside of sports or fitness games are its voice command. So if PS4 support voice command like kinect or better than kinect, it will be nice.

Its nice to use it as a navigation on dashboard or apps. Its also nice to use it to make gameplay simple (forza horizon GPS/Map).
 
dagamer said:
Simple question, what person who wants to play a game with KB/M would still buy a console version of the game over the PC (which of course, naturally supports such an input method). It's not as simple as just adding KB/M controls, you have to consider re-balancing the game as well.
Click to expand...

Cjail said:
Dust 514 and UT3 are the only two FPS I know that allow MKB on PS3.
CCP had to handicap M to balance it with DS3 and, if I am not mistaken, there was even a matchmaking filter so that you could only play with players using the same peripheral.
I left Dust 514 beta so I don't' know how things are now but MKB caused more problems than it solved.
Click to expand...

It depends on what their vision is. If Gaikai always serve out controller-based games, then keyboard and mouse would be a distraction. If they intend to serve out PS and PC games as well, at some point people will ask, "Can I play with my friends on the PC ?".

Some games like DUST514 may be more community centric. Having a full-sized keyboard to talk to their Eve counterparts may be interesting and very useful.

They will certainly need to address balancing issues. Controller-based server filter separates the user base but at least you don't need a new PC to play the game with your PC friends. I think they are experimenting with using the controller code to hook up a mouse. It would cause delays to the mouse input, which confuses traditional MKB users.

Then again, in such a role-playing + FPS game, it may be possible to introduce specialized roles in the game that is optimized for different controllers. Besides MKB, they have also integrated Move controls into the same world.

As much as people experiment with natural input, it is not impossible for people to explore specialized and proven popular controls too. Afterall, they are looking for new, precise mechanics that people feel comfortable with.
 
The other thing I just noticed is that the DS4 has an additional split USB port on the bottom for what I would assume be for a new chat pad that doesn't look so awkward to use.
 
You mean the micro-USB port right beside the headset port or something else ?

They will have chat pad and improved virtual keyboard support no doubt. PS4 games are going social. I bought my USB keyboard + mouse for <$20. In fact I got a BT keyboard for free from someone. Full-sized MKB are everywhere for cheap or free if you look.

Edit: the PS3 chat pad is actually very interesting. It doubles as a touch pad. You can swipe across the small keys to send gestures, but to my knowledge no app uses this feature. Now, a touchpad is built into every DS4.
 
The port next to the headset looks like a standard Sony headset connector that they used on a large number of portable music players in the past, going back at least to their early minidisc days. Admittedly I haven't studied images in detail, but that was my initial reaction anyway.
 
There is a pretty good article with real insider info (who came up with the share button etc) in the latest issue of Edge. Pretty interesting.
 
^^^
Good read.
The other article about the improvements of the DS 4 and the contribution of GG and Evolution Studios is also interesting.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top