Well, my dad works at Nintendo and~: Console Wars Horseshit Megathread

[Maledict]

Anyone who buys an XBox on release day deserves what they get.

People seem to be shitting themselves over Titanfall, I think it is going to sell fine.

That's going to be on PC too.

While true, there's a large segment of market that only games on consoles, and it won't be on the PS4. I think it doesn't sell as well as Sony's this time around probably overall, but it isn't going to be a disaster, it will do fine.

It's a timed exclusive - it will be on the ps4 at some point.

[Fabricated]

Look at the size of that power brick.

[Jeff Kelly]

Oh no! They still cling to that inane power brick with the shitty noisy, annoying little fan? The power brick that has spawned a whole accessory sector selling you less shitty replacement power bricks where the fan inside doesn't sound like a chainsaw attached to a dentist's drill.

The 360 is a decent console at least in the second to last hardware revision which I own but that power brick is the thing that annoys me the most about the whole product. The power brick and that shittastic huge ass proprietary plug they use to connect it to the console. The power brick that fucks up your whole idea of hiding and managing your cables to not have your living room look like the bargain bin of a best buy with cables hanging everywhere and which is in most often louder than the rest of the console because of the tiny, tiny fan.

This thing has been a shitty idea for the 360 and it will still be shitty for the Xbone.

[Yegolev]

It gets quiet when you wrap it in a towel.

[UnSub]

It gets quiet when you wrap it in a towel.

Many things do.

[Paelos]

Not cats.

[shiznitz]

Not at first anyway.

[Fabricated]

Video Games.

[Merusk]

Either way you go, PepsiCo wins.

[Stormwaltz]

Video Games.

THIS IS WHY WE VIDEO GAMING.

[Yegolev]

Obviously forty-year-olds with IBS don't play games.

[rk47]

IF I Buy DORITO I GET XBONE FOR FREE? 

[sickrubik]

Either way you go, PepsiCo wins.

PepsiCo doesn't own Taco Bell anymore. They spun that out awhile back, late 90s as I recall.

[Teleku]

True, but as part of the spin-out, YUM! Brands owned chains only carry Pepsi products.  So they still win, heh.

[Merusk]

I also thought their shares were still majority owned by Pepsico, but could be totally wrong.

[Yegolev]

Legally separate corps can have the same meat-based owners.

[Soulflame]

Wait.  If corporations are people, and people own corporations, isn't that a violation of the 13th amendment?

[HaemishM]

True, but as part of the spin-out, YUM! Brands owned chains only carry Pepsi products.  So they still win, heh.

That must be why all Taco Bell sodas are utter, vile pisswater.

[Fabricated]

Ipsos and Reuters commission a poll (online, so take with a grain of salt even if it's from a proper polling firm) and the Xbone might be in a bit of trouble.

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/09/survey-on-next-gen-console-purchases-may-spell-trouble-for-xbox-one/

While many hardcore console gamers have already preordered a PlayStation 4 or Xbox One, more casual gamers and eventual holiday shoppers are still making up their minds which next-generation console (if any) they'll buy. The two consoles will be released one week apart in November, and a poll commissioned by research firm Ipsos and Reuters is a bit of unwelcome news for Microsoft.

Just 15 percent of survey respondents said they were going to snap up an Xbox One, compared to the 26 percent who said they were planning to buy a PS4. And when it comes to the younger crowd, the news gets worse for Microsoft. Only 27 percent of survey respondents under the age of 40 anticipate getting an Xbox One, compared to the 41 percent planning to buy a PS4. Both consoles have seen strong preorder interest in the US since their unveiling.

[Ingmar]

To put that in perspective, 27% is over double Apple's global market share of the smartphone market (13% last I looked) and I don't think there's a lot of hand-wringing about Apple being doomed yet. I'm not sure the sky is exactly falling here, especially since the article also states there's 'strong' preorder interest.

[Teleku]

But that's a different business model.  Apple makes a bunch of money on each phone it sells.  It marks that shit way the hell up for a hefty profit margin, and make a lot of money selling the phones.  Xbox machines themselves have had slim to no profit margins for the last two gens as I recall.  They make the money off of selling games and services.  Which requires you have a large user base to make money.

I still think the reports of the death of Xbox are highly exaggerated, but I don't think Apple is the best comparison.  However, unless they found a way to increase the profit margin of the systems themselves quite a bit, MS needs to have a significant user base to make money.

[Nightblade]

Holy shit, it took them $100 million but they finally figured out that making an 8-directional pad be circular makes not a lick of sense.

I still don't like it:

I happen to like/don't know what's wrong with the PS3 d-pad.  Seems pretty similar to the NES one on the surface.  I didn't see any PS4 controller pictures that didn't come from Destructoid or Polygon so I'll let that lie for now.

Can someone just attach a pair of analog sticks to a freaking Saturn controller, please?

Please?

[Merusk]

Saturn is a failed console. Why would we ever copy things from it?! 

[Jeff Kelly]

The PS3 d-pad is certainly better than the 360 one but the directional buttons are too small (as is the whole controller actually). I used it recently for Rayman Origins and while it is rather precise it made my fingers hurt after only a short time of play because the pressure of your finger is applied to such a small area. I never owned a Saturn (or any Sega console) so for me the best d-pad will probably always be the one of the Super Nintendo controller.

My all time favorite controller would be one where you have the bumpers and triggers of the 360 Controller, the analog stick of the Nintendo 64 (which I remember being better even than the 360 one but that can just be nostalgia) and the d-pad and buttons from a Super Nintendo controller. As much as I like what Sony has achieved with the Playstation brand, I never liked the PS2/PS3 controller very much.

[Fabricated]

Oh yeah the current thing that gamers are arguing over is a NeoGAF topic where some "industry insiders" basically said that the Xbone version of the new Call of Duty runs at 720p while the PS4's version runs at 1080p. Scandal!

[jakonovski]

Well, to be fair it is fairly scandalous. Cod is not exactly a graphical powerhouse and you could buy an actual pc for the price of an xbone. I think the latest scuttlebutt is that their engine is unable to use the special RAM thingy on the xbone.

edit: actually the really sad part is that there are legions of supposed games journos who know all this stuff but are hamstrung by NDAs because they can't think of any other way to survive than being an extension of corporate marketing strategy. Caveat emptor as always.

edit2: on the bright side, I'm feeling really good about my decision to pass on both consoles for now. I have a backlog a mile long and if anything new and incredibly good comes out, it's guaranteed to be the best on PC.

[Maledict]

Oh yeah the current thing that gamers are arguing over is a NeoGAF topic where some "industry insiders" basically said that the Xbone version of the new Call of Duty runs at 720p while the PS4's version runs at 1080p. Scandal!

Um, I'm not sure why you think this is silly. There is a solid point behind this.

COD is, after GTA, the biggest gaming release of the year. It's an absolutely massive, massive game that will drive sales.

For one of the supposed next gen consoles to be running in the same resolution as the last gen is significant. It shows something is fairly fucked up with the xbone development environment or the power of the console, but either way we shouldn't be seeing differences like this in multi-platform launch titles and it can very easily harm the xbones potential sales - it costs more and delivers less is hardly a winning campaign.

The fact all journalists seem to be gagged from talking about this, or even reviewing the Xbone version of games does seem to be quite ridiculous.

[Fabricated]

For hardcore gamers it's an issue; particularly if you play competitively (okay yeah stop laughing I think it's funny to play console FPS titles "competitively" too) since FPS/resolution actually have a pretty distinct effect on how well you can play.

I just wonder if the general gaming public would even notice. I'd notice for sure, and I think THE big ticket/marquee title of the new generation basically running like shit on the Xbone pretty clearly underlines what I've said about the hardware differences mattering...

...but will most people even give a shit?

[Fabricated]

also what the fuck is this about



I guess this is some dude from Polygon and I guess the issue is supposedly that publishers are flying reviewers in to review their games now instead of mailing out review copies?

[HaemishM]

Sessler used to be on the G4 video game review shows. Not sure what the fuck he is on about, but I don't really give two shits about his opinion anyway.

[jakonovski]

For hardcore gamers it's an issue; particularly if you play competitively (okay yeah stop laughing I think it's funny to play console FPS titles "competitively" too) since FPS/resolution actually have a pretty distinct effect on how well you can play.

I just wonder if the general gaming public would even notice. I'd notice for sure, and I think THE big ticket/marquee title of the new generation basically running like shit on the Xbone pretty clearly underlines what I've said about the hardware differences mattering...

...but will most people even give a shit?

The masses did buy 1080p TVs to replace their perfectly good 720p ones. It's pretty tragic if they don't even know why they got 'em.

[Miasma]

I'm willing to bet that in a blind test 90% of people wouldn't be able to tell the difference between 720p and 1080p unless there was some weird anti aliasing that only occured due to up/down scaling.

It's almost as bad as this utter bullshit 240 hertz nonsense.

[jakonovski]

I'm willing to bet that in a blind test 90% of people wouldn't be able to tell the difference between 720p and 1080p unless there was some weird anti aliasing that only occured due to up/down scaling.

It's almost as bad as this utter bullshit 240 hertz nonsense.

[calapine]

I'm willing to bet that in a blind test 90% of people wouldn't be able to tell the difference between 720p and 1080p unless there was some weird anti aliasing that only occured due to up/down scaling.

It's almost as bad as this utter bullshit 240 hertz nonsense.

I don't think these two examples are really comparable.

[Miasma]

ALMOST