Which console are you most interested in getting?

[Scott_Arm]

ill wait for E3 to make decission.

i'll buy the console that have the most game that i like.

Shooters wont sway me, already have a laptop or PC that good for shooters. i always play FPS in lowest setting so graphic quality wont matter, its the performance that matter.

Unacceptable. You must decide now, and make sure to consider the brand above all else.

A lot hinges on Battlefield 4 for me. Not the graphics in particular, but gameplay additions, like one version supports more players than the other, larger maps or more vehicles. The online system that surrounds it will be important as well, in terms of voice chat, matchmaking and parties etc. I could see each console having strengths in different areas.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

PS4 because I'll want a gaming console and not just a glorified tv-tuner marketed for americans that just happens to play games as a secondary hobby.




Besides, even though I'm usually critical of conspiracy theorists, having to keep a friggin camera+mic that must always be turned on in my living room creeps me out completely.

I do stuff in my living room that could completely destroy my (and/or my girlfriend's) social and/or professional life if it got out to the world through the wrong hands.
And no, I don't trust Microsoft on their perfectly safe encryption.

And as a word of advice, I believe this always-on kinect will quickly become the nº1 hacking priority for hackers throughout the world, and it'll be a matter of months before there are thousands of people constantly sniffing on kinects through the xbone.

 

[upnorthsox]

A little ot, but Battlefield 4 is in an interesting position. COD is going into next gen with a fairly unimpressive offering and while certainly the go to game of this gen, it has no free pass and could be the next MoH. BF on the otherhand is in a similar position heading into next gen as COD going into this gen. If they can capture then next gen feel, they could steal the next gen crown.

I hope they realize this and really make a play for it and not bog themselves down with the last gen (PS360) offerings.

 

[Persistantthug]

But Microsoft is getting your money anyway (PC)...

Maybe he decides to go Open Source.

 

[Silenti]

I have been letting what we know so far wash about in my mind for a bit before simply picking "at least post E3". I am far from impressed be either to date. While that is not entirely unexpected given the leak info posted prior to the conferences, it is still somewhat disappointing.

I have a kind of mental checklist, for me and for the potential of each console as a whole. I have no interest in Nintendo's offerings so they are omitted. Overall, it seems the way the business has worked in the past, and the customers they targeted and how, are dead. Here is the nice version (sans vulgar language and spitting).

A lot of this kind of comes down to trust. Who do I trust to deliver what I want, at a price I consider reasonable, in a timely and consistent fashion. MS is losing my trust and Sony has never had it and has done nothing so far to gain it.

Power - raw, unadulterated horsepower. They both fail somewhat spectacularly from my point of view. My expectations, prior to good leaks becoming available, (taking into consideration it will have been 8 years in the making and not the usual 5 or so) were for something around 200-250 watts, 8gb+ of RAM, say 4tf, nice chunky hdd, etc, maybe something more exotic like a TBDR box, etc. What we get instead is around 1.8 and 1.2 of bog standard existing architecture. They both feel miss-timed and undercooked. A minus overall for both.

Price - While we do not yet know price, the only rumors we do have place them at around 400 for a base and 500 for an "elite" model. That just makes me chuckle. Here's to hoping those numbers are either wrong, or are only initial numbers which will quickly fall after the "buy it at launch period" crowd is gone through.

Exclusives - Hard to say, thus the "after E3" choice. I only have a minor attachment to HALO, and none to any other exclusive. Always wanted to play Uncharted, but I cannot have everything.

3rd Party - timed exclusives, special content and quality. Big fat, eh. How many games did you buy late this gen that had various "exclusive" content attached to Walmart, Best Buy or Burger King? I hardly noticed, and when I did find out, didn't care in the slightest. The same for timed exclusivity. The only one that would have mattered to me was Mass Effect and I had a 360. So other than watching for a situation like that to arise again, why should I care? As to quality - the boards here run to the PS4 being a bit more powerful (33 or 50% depending on your direction of measurement), but not enough to have 720p vs 1080p. Nor enough to go from 30 to 60fps. Even if the difference was that great, I don't think I would care very much. The "bells and whistles" matter far more to me than higher frame rates or higher resolutions.

Extra services - Kinect / Eye-Motion. Yay! I can talk to my tv, and it will search Netflix or the cable guide for my show. Handy, given how crappy the Blu-Ray player Netflix app is and how terrible the search function on the cable box and the Netflix app are. Nice added feature. As a center piece? well, I promised not to swear in this post. Oh wait, Netflix is still behind a paywall? Well, there goes the usefulness of that feature. Cloud/ Gakai - I will believe it when I see it and not until. Vaporware until proven otherwise.

NFL issue - I was given a very blunt demonstration of the power of the NFL and fantasy football last year. 3 people who had little to no interest in the sport went from mild confusion and sleeping while it was on tv, to spending hours pouring over stats, drafting, setting lineups, fluently using the terminology of the sport and individual player nicknames, and watching the games and tracking their stats however they could on Sunday. I would not underestimate that power when fall comes around in the US.

Skype may factor in here as well. Grandchildren for the grandparents and the wife to see nieces and nephews. That is a serious draw for members of various households I know. Also not to be underestimated.

 

[Phil]

To be really honest, I don't care much about them being under-powered. I actually like that.

The PS3 for the most part has just been running too hot and too noisy. Even the Slim is very noisy for normal gaming IMO. I think I'd be more worried about the power deficit if one of the consoles offered substantially more performance than the other. Given that they are both more or less on equal grounds - or the fact that I'm pretty much settled in the PS4 camp which on paper should be better, I can live with that happily.

I don't care much that the PC will have better looking games. Besides here on this forum, I don't get to see that difference anyway and when I'm sitting on a couch at a fair distance to the screen, I'd rather have fun and entertaining gameplay than simply stunning visuals.

 

[ERP]

Lol at least rpgs have an element you can control.

In fantasy football it's your lineup for a given week, you have a roster larger than your team and you look at match ups and assign players to play in the game.
Having said that there is an enormous amount of luck involved.

 

[RudeCurve]

Ive been thinking about this question now as im bored at work and have come to the conclusion that if xbox had a full windows 8 mode and I could plug in a keyboard and mouse I would probably buy it. My pc is no beast certainly bettered by xbox one so it would be a nice upgrade for that. For my gaming I would use my ps4 but then at least I would have rhe option of playing forza until gran turismo came out.

It would definitely be cool if you could also use it as a PC in addition to all the other things it could already do but I don't think that will happen just yet. No doubt it would be very easy to do since the underlying hardware is already there. Ultimately in order for this to actually happen they can't sell the hardware at a loss. At the minimum the BOM has to break even. I think if they bundled a full blown Win8 OS with it they would need to sell it for $500 minimum which I think is reasonable for a PC that can also play "console games"...

 

[dagamer]

It would definitely be cool if you could also use it as a PC in addition to all the other things it could already do but I don't think that will happen just yet. No doubt it would be very easy to do since the underlying hardware is already there. Ultimately in order for this to actually happen they can't sell the hardware at a loss. At the minimum the BOM has to break even. I think if they bundled a full blown Win8 OS with it they would need to sell it for $500 minimum which I think is reasonable for a PC that can also play "console games"...

Question, what Windows 8 apps would make sense on an Xbox (or really a 60" HDTV instead of a 22" monitor)?

Unless it's audio/video, I can't really think of any. It'll certainly act as a receiver of content from Windows 8 apps so you can easily run a PowerPoint presentation, but you don't need a special app to do that. That's all DLNA.

 

[DuckThor Evil]

Up until few weeks ago my 60" TV was my PC-monitor.

 

[RudeCurve]

Well I don't have a 60" TV either. I have a 22" "PC monitor" that I also use for my X360. I can certainly afford a large TV since they're dirt cheap nowadays but it would be too big for my bedroom. I don't game in the living room. I game in the bedroom which is also where my PC is. I've been thinking about buying a 40" TV but it seems my PC monitor is good enough since I sit close to it when gaming, watching Blu-rays etc. so it's equivalent to a "big" TV.

 

[Archgamer]

I'm getting a PS4. This seems like almost a complete role reversal from last gen. Sony put games to the center stage while MS went with television..

MS still can wow me at e3 but I'm not expect much. Kinect might be something bigger going forward, but for me a gaming centric platform that's tech savvy is what I buy.

Also the situations with used games and needing online annoys me. MS keeps flip flopping their plans with used games plans that it has become a big mess. I'm sure Sony will end up having similar policies, but my gut feeling is that their approach to it is less prohibited then MS.

 

[BRiT]

What you're seeing as flip-flopping is the internet forum warriors getting it wrong and jumping to conclusions such that it looks like that once MS comes out and corrects all of the wrong rumors.

Why jump to conclusions before all the facts and policies are available?

If you want a gaming centric platform that's tech savy, why not go with PC gaming? With the consoles using such a PC-ish architecture, the PC should receive some excellent games, and should offer significant visual upgrades.

 

[Bagel seed]

If you want a gaming centric platform that's tech savy, why not go with PC gaming? With the consoles using such a PC-ish architecture, the PC should receive some excellent games, and should offer significant visual upgrades.

Exclusive first party games, non-delayed multiplatform releases, graphics upgrade not being very significant due to most games being targeted for consoles (subjective), larger online community for most games, better, smoother UI or experience (subjective), play the game while being downloaded, quick game standby/startup mode, VM save states for multiple games (Xbone), etc.

That said, I will always have a gaming PC. Just by the wayside and upgraded only when something interesting appears.

 

[Blazkowicz]

No Ouya in the list. It's pretty interesting, for the cheapness, low power, just a regular controller (but with a touchpad on it) and you don't even need to hack it to run arbitraty apps and get a command prompt (I like command prompts, they allow you to do stuff like chat on IRC and not being disconnected if you pull the electrical cord)

The downside is I would have to buy a TV. (one of those newfangled flat screens with a hdmi port). And if the controller sucks it's not very desirable.
The upside is it's like a console, a raspberry pi and a tablet (without the tablet part) in one. It can even end up as a Ubuntu headless server if it proves useless.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Interesting. Am I right in assuming "fantasy football" is like a fantasy league where the stats of a player played in real is matched up against others on paper? Wouldn't this be like effectively turning what's essentially a "team sport" into a solo sport? How do you quantify the performance of an individual when it's a team sport?

Not quite. Let's substitute world Football instead of American Football.

It would go something like this.

At the start of a given season, you form a fantasy league with X number of players. Then you hold a draft in which each player in turn picks a real world football player for their team. Before and during the season the people in the fantasy league can trade players much like real teams do.

During the course of the season the actual performance in real life of the players you have chosen for your team determine how your team has done. This would be done by giving points to things like goals scored, assists, goals saved (for the goalie), etc. Depending on the rules of your fantasy league the points can be purely based on offensive stats or a combination of offensive and defensive stats.

And when it comes to rules they can becomes quite extensive depending on the league. Some leagues you get points for all of your players. Some leagues you don't get points for reserve players. Points calculations can vary wildly.

And thus you get another facet of strategy that people find intriguing. Since there is no real emphasis on coaching or team chemistry, etc. You have to be careful to not just pick the best players but players that are on well coached teams who might perform well despite being a technically worse player than a player on a worse team.

Hence, you are always in competition with other people in your fantasy league. This is so popular because while there is an element of luck involved (how players perform, whether they get injured, whether they get played, etc.) there's also a lot of research and strategy involved.

Basically, for all the people that think they can run a sports team better than the people that actually own those sports teams, they find this absolutely irresistible and addictive. Same goes for people that love stats. For people that love management. For people that like gambling. For people that love the sport or sports in general.

Basically for people that are just plain competitive.

And you can do this basically for any sport that is a team sport. Cricket, Football, Rugby, Volleyball, Baseball, Basketball, Hockey, etc. It just tends to only be done for sports that are popular, however.

Regards,
SB

 

[dagamer]

I'm getting a PS4. This seems like almost a complete role reversal from last gen. Sony put games to the center stage while MS went with television..

MS still can wow me at e3 but I'm not expect much. Kinect might be something bigger going forward, but for me a gaming centric platform that's tech savvy is what I buy.

Also the situations with used games and needing online annoys me. MS keeps flip flopping their plans with used games plans that it has become a big mess. I'm sure Sony will end up having similar policies, but my gut feeling is that their approach to it is less prohibited then MS.

Are we really to believe that you are going to judge an entire console based on what they showed off in the first hour?

Someone needs to tell me how the ability to watch TV impacts your ability to play games on the box. That's like saying the lack of a start menu in Windows 8 makes it piss poor for PC gaming.

 

[Brad Grenz]

Basically, for all the people that think they can run a sports team better than the people that actually own those sports teams, they find this absolutely irresistible and addictive. Same goes for people that love stats. For people that love management. For people that like gambling. For people that love the sport or sports in general.

Basically for people that are just plain competitive.

And you can do this basically for any sport that is a team sport. Cricket, Football, Rugby, Volleyball, Baseball, Basketball, Hockey, etc. It just tends to only be done for sports that are popular, however.

And the leagues themselves love it, and the sports media love it, because it gets people interested in more than just the games played by their home team. I live in a state without an NFL team and so I've never really been interested in professional football, preferring the college game. But a few years back I got roped into a Fantasy League with my Brother in Law and suddenly I had a reason to watch Football on Sundays, too. And not just the big games, but games all day long. Setting your team, making trades, reading up on who is injured or what the match-ups will be all make it pretty fun. It's always awesome when one of your players has a huge day, or your fantasy game score is really tight so you're holding out hope that your last player to go in the night game can eek you out just enough points for a win.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

And the leagues themselves love it, and the sports media love it, because it gets people interested in more than just the games played by their home team. I live in a state without an NFL team and so I've never really been interested in professional football, preferring the college game. But a few years back I got roped into a Fantasy League with my Brother in Law and suddenly I had a reason to watch Football on Sundays, too. And not just the big games, but games all day long. Setting your team, making trades, reading up on who is injured or what the match-ups will be all make it pretty fun. It's always awesome when one of your players has a huge day, or your fantasy game score is really tight so you're holding out hope that your last player to go in the night game can eek you out just enough points for a win.

Yup, it really digs into the competitive nature of human personality. The internet which allow for stats to be accessed immediately after the game (versus the Newspaper sports section) as well as the easy formation of leagues with people that are non-local has really allowed fantasy leagues to just explode in popularity. As well as providing more stats that Newspapers can give. Although there were also fantasy league dedicated magazines, but those could lag behind games played by up to a week or more.

Just think, there are far more people in fantasy leagues than there are people playing games on X360 and PS3 combined.

Regards,
SB

 

[liolio]

I voted for the PS4 but to say the truth looking at the size of the Xbox one (I would be surprised if the ps4 is tinier, significantly at least) and contemplating the silence around the price of both systems...
I really regret that Nintendo did not delivered a proper gaming device in the 300$ range.