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

[Mrbloodworth]

Why is the (so we're calling it the XO now?) so much darker in both videos?

Difference in configuration and full/limited range HDMI output.

They also, by default, adjusted the contrast to hide some things.

[MrHat]

If people wanted to get Wii U for the holidays, I can't figure it out but this seems like a good deal:

http://www.rakuten.com/prod/wii-u-32gb-black-deluxe-set-w-super-mario-u-super-luigi-u/256845224.html

Basically WiiU Bundle+2 games for $260.

[Trippy]

That's just the standard Wii U Delxue Set for $39 off the regular price:

http://www.nintendo.com/wiiu/buynow/

[Jeff Kelly]

They have offered those bundles for quite some time now.

There's the Zelda WW HD branded deluxe Wii U with a Wind Waker styled gamepad and a download code for Zelda:WW HD in the box, the Mario/Luigi branded deluxe version that contains copies of Super Mario Brothers U and Super Mario BrothersLuigi U (part of Nintendo's 'year of Luigi', yes that's a thing) and also a Monster Hunter branded Wii U that contains - you guessed it - a copy of Monster Hunter.

As far as I know the differences between a normal Wii U and the deluxe version are:

white (normal) vs. black (deluxe)
8GB (normal) vs 32 GB of storage (deluxe)

deluxe version contains a Wii sensor bar, a console stand and a gamepad stand in addition to the power brick and charger
normal version only contains power brick and charger.

[MrHat]

That's just the standard Wii U Delxue Set for $39 off the regular price:

http://www.nintendo.com/wiiu/buynow/

Still, that's like 15% off.

Edit: Aaaand it's gone.

[Jeff Kelly]

It's pretty astonishing just how much PR effort is spent at the moment decrying the notion that the PS4's clear psrformance advantage matters. Gaming sites and mags are running whole interview features about 'why game devs stopped worrying and loved the XBox One'. A significant portion of the games media is basically trashing the PS 4  by presenting the issue as if performance doesn't matter. Only featuring studios that develop XBone exclusives.

I can't remember when mags have been that partisan even going so far as to defend MS for issues the PS3 got criticized for at launch.

What's happening here?

[Margalis]

The Wii U deluxe also comes with a Pro Controller IIRC and a 10% credit back program on digital purchases for a year I think.

[Merusk]

What's happening here?

MS has lots and lots and lots more money than Sony, along with the usual "gaming journalism" payola.

[Fabricated]

In the end the PS4 will likely end up getting a reputation as having the superior versions of multi-platform ports among the consoles due to hardware superiority and more importantly having better tools (which devs have openly said are better) and that'll be that.

[Jeff Kelly]

Well apparently Microsofts entertainment division is still bleeding cash so I guess that the XBone has to be a success.

http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-earns-2-billion-per-year-from-android-patent-royalties-2013-11 (conjecture but interesting nonetheless)

Choice quote: "Sherlund says that if you back out the Android profits, Microsoft is probably losing $2.5 billion on Skype, Xbox, and Windows Phone. Of that, $2 billion in losses are attributable to the Xbox platform."

Also: "For the past few years, Microsoft reported the revenue and operating losses of Entertainment and Devices, which was the group that housed Xbox, Windows Phone, and those Android royalty payments. That group always seemed to be profitable, but Sherlund says it's largely because of the Android money."

If that's true then 

[dusematic]

The Wii U deluxe also comes with a Pro Controller IIRC and a 10% credit back program on digital purchases for a year I think.

Wii U Deluxe does not include a Wii U Pro controller.  It does have a 10% cash back program for digital purchases, or at least it did before the price drop.

[Trippy]

Some of the original Wii U Deluxe bundles, like the one with ZombieU, did include the Pro controller. The current Deluxe bundles do not.

[Fabricated]

lol

If you unbox and turn on an Xbox One on November 22nd, make sure you have an internet connection nearby. Microsoft has revealed that a day one patch for its upcoming next-gen console will be a requirement to play games and access basic apps on the console. "Functionally, you will be able to do very little without taking the day one update," said Microsoft’s senior director of Xbox product management Albert Penello in an interview with Engadget recently. Out of the box you can do “nothing” according to Penello. “You need the Day One update.” Microsoft confirmed Penello's comments to The Verge. "An initial, one-time system update is required for your Xbox One to function," says a Microsoft spokesperson.

The day one patch, expected to take around 15 or 20 minutes to download, will update the Xbox One to the latest dashboard operating system.

Just fyi the PS4 can play single-player disc-based games on day one with no update, and if you don't have an internet connection where the console is the PS4 has the same feature the PS3 did where you can download the update from their website, put it on a USB thumbdrive, and install it that way.

[HaemishM]

 

[jakonovski]

Launch day patch mandatory --> server crash --> nobody can play

Perfect!

[Nightblade]

Launch day patch mandatory --> server crash --> nobody can play

Perfect!

Demand far exceeded our expectations. Thank you for your patience, or:

bend over just a little bit farther...

[Yegolev]

"We don't know how the servers crashed and the hackers got your CC info... I mean, it was all encrypted so please settle down and buy a Zune."

[Rendakor]

Download in progress, 1% complete. Estimated time remaining: 15 minutes.
8 hours later...
Download in progress, 3% complete. Estimated time remaining: 4 days.

[Miasma]

I'd like to hope it crashes their cloud and brings down everything but they routinely push out Windows updates to eleven jazillion computers so it will be fine.  Especially considering how few machines they were able to build and put on sale for launch day.

[jakonovski]

So some retailer accidentally shipped a bunch of XBones early and MS promptly started bricking consoles with permabans. An unboxing video got DMCA'd. Their PR only just wised up and Major Nelson is now doing damage control on Neogaf and trying to get the bans reversed.

 

http://kotaku.com/and-heres-another-guy-who-seems-to-have-an-xbox-one-a-1461279632

[KallDrexx]

The day one patch shouldn't be a surprise to anyone.  They announced a day one patch would be required way back when they announced they were stripping out the DRM.

*edit* IGN has a 17 minute dashboard walkthrough if anyone is interested: http://www.ign.com/videos/2013/11/08/xbox-one-dashboard-walkthrough and a 12 minute demonstration by microsoft

[Miasma]

We knew there would be a day one patch, we didn't know that the system was unusable in any way until it was over.  You can't bring it home, put a disk in it and start playing, video games don't work.

[schild]

The Xbox One is out soon?

meh

whatever

[MrHat]

Actually canceled my PS4 preorder too.

Just couldn't get excited about this stuff.  Maybe next year.

[Nightblade]

Actually canceled my PS4 preorder too.

Just couldn't get excited about this stuff.  Maybe next year.

Come on dude don't you want to play ...

... ... ... ... ...

... ... ... ... ...

... ... ... ... ...

...Knack............?

[MrHat]

Actually canceled my PS4 preorder too.

Just couldn't get excited about this stuff.  Maybe next year.

Come on dude don't you want to play ...

... ... ... ... ...

... ... ... ... ...

... ... ... ... ...

...Knack............?

Basically.

I was trying to psych myself up to Killzone but I'm a FPS-PC guy first, so FPS on consoles generally resound in a meh from me.

So it was a few indie games that sounded interesting and that was it until the Japanese PS4 release, when there's a bunch of games that looked interesting.

Shit, I might buy a WiiU.

[Job601]

I have a three-year old, a beefy pc and no interest in ps4 exclusives.  I'm hoping there will be a good deal for a Wii U on black friday.

[Nightblade]

There is literally one (maybe 2) launch/launch window titles I'm interested in playing, and unfortunately I'm not shelling out 500 dollars for a box to play Killer Instinct and Dead Rising 3 (The latter of which has adopted the "everything is brown" approach to visual design).

Jesus, when was the last time a console release was actually exciting? N64? PS2?

[Miasma]

If you had signed up early enough to get a launch day unit you could have resold it for one or two extra hundred bucks.

I put my name on the ps4 wait list thinking I'd buy Assassin's Creed for it and maybe Knack.  But now I've seen a side by side ps3/ps4 comparison video of AC4 and they look the same to me so I don't know.  I'm sure I'll buy one eventually so I may as well get it now I guess.

[Falconeer]

Is that true Miasma? I definitely will have a day 1 PS4 (preordered it like 5 minutes after preorders were available), but the more I think about it the more I know there will be literally NOTHING I will want to play on it for a good 6 months, so I was wondering "what's the point?". At the same time, since I will certainly buy a PS4 later (and not so late) I thought "why should I cancel since I am getting it anyway?". So I started wondering if I should wait cause launch units are certainly gonna have more issues then the ones coming a few months later, and then again "but maybe my older unit will have some cool features that will get stripped off later ones", so I really can't decide.

But of course, if I can make money out of the preorder I should totally go for it.

[Miasma]

They're going for between five and six hundred on ebay now, many of those people bought it online and will just change the shipping info so they don't have to pay for that either.  Not much time before stuff starts shipping so it could be risky.  I have no idea what will happen to the prices once they ship.

It's not like you can get crazy money for a console like launch day for xbox 360 and ps3 because the most hardcore were able to preorder this time.

Edit:  Don't make any financial decisions based on my half assed research.
Edit2:  There is a fair bit available on PS+ that aren't actual boxed games.

[Quinton]

What I've seen of the ps4 launch titles has not excited me so far, but I haven't canceled my pre-order, figuring it'll replace my ps3 as bluray/dvd/netflix/amazonvideo box and as with last generation, the playstation exclusive stuff will be more interesting to me than the xbox exclusives.  On the other hand there were fewer games I bought and played on ps3 than ps2, and that may shrink further on ps4...

[Fabricated]

The Xbox One is out soon?

meh

whatever

The PS4 unboxing video is a recreation of the unboxing vid for Random Access Memories. Heh.

[Margalis]

Console launches are almost always terrible. If you're buying a system on day 1 it's mostly likely it's because you like the concept of being a day 1 owner. With Sony and MS I'd be weary just for hardware reliability issues. You know there is going to be a hardware revision that is some combination of quieter, smaller and less prone to breakage in the not too distant future.

It's amazing that Mario 64 was a launch game. It was one of the first 3D platforming games, one of the first games to use an analog stick, and still one of the best 3D platformers of all time. Nailing it that well right out of the gate was insane. Meanwhile Knack probably isn't as good as Mario 64.

[Jeff Kelly]

Firstly I'd like to say that MS's PR department seems to be in full on containment mode and seems to be hellbent on fixing some of the initial PR clusterfuck. Everywhere op-eds are popping up being apologetic about MS's efforts. They either offer a 'comparison' of the PS4's and XB1's specs with the focus being heavily on the XB1, exclusively showing XB1 footage and only quoting MS executives (just look at the most recent Ars Technica op-ed http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/11/the-xbox-one-and-ps4-share-similar-specs-but-the-devils-in-the-details/ to see an example of what I mean) or they outright dismiss the powerformance difference as being not noticeable.

Lastly for a sector that obsesses about graphics and system performance and that outright dismissed the Wii and Wii U for being sub par and 'not next gen' it's actually beyond ridiculous. It's silly that they now adopt the talking points of a vocal fraction of gamers who've always said that gameplay > graphics and that have been largely maginalized by the press just because their favourity console hasn't the upper hand. You usually only see that amount of cognitive dissonance with full blown schizophrenics.

I've finished WW HD yesterday and I still have access to a Gamecube and the original version of Wind Waker so I thought I'd do a little experiment of my own. Since most of our gaming media are suddenly of the opinion that a 50% performance advantage of the PS4 over the XB1 doesn't matter, that a resolution increase from 720p to 1080p is 'not really noticeable' and that gamers shouldn't be too focused on the graphics because 'it's the game that matters not the graphics' I thought I'd compare WW classic and WW HD on the same TV at the same viewing distance.

Yeah the comparison is ridiculous but what the hell. Also according to our gaming media pundits the WiiU is just a 'cranked up Gamecube' anyway so probably not that much more powerful and 'resolution doesn't matter', so there really should be no difference between the GC and WiiU version of that game, right? Unsurprisingly though the game is so much better looking on the WiiU that it's not even funny anymore. Well, duh! Everyone except the gaming media is inclined to expect that anyway, so what's the deal? After all if you compare a VW beetle to a BMW 3-series you tend to notice the difference.

The deal is that not only are the graphics significantly improved, so much in fact that the game looks more like a real cartoon than a computer game (I mean that as a compliment) and not only that the game runs at 1080p which is 7 times the number of pixel of the original 480p/i GC version because that's pretty much expected and obvious. It's the improvement in fidelity and clarity of the picture that is most noticeable. As a person that has bad vision and is far from the perfect 20/20 vision most game developers obviously assume people have I struggle with many current gen games if I have to play them at the normal viewing distance from couch to TV in my living room.  Even though I own a 46'' TV and I'm only sitting 3m/10 ft. from the TV. I should notice the graphical improvements even less because at my vision and at that distance, at least according to general consensus, the added resolution shouldn't matter. (According to the lit. you'd need a 50'' screen to actually notice the resolution increase from 720p to 1080p at distances of 3m or more)

That's where for me the updated graphics really shine though. The picture clarity and fidelity is so much bettter on the WW HD version that I actually can play it while sitting on the couch instead, in contrast to of a lot of 360/PS3 games where I have to inch closer to the TV to be able to make out everything.

Well irrespective of the obvious point that the added performance could also be put into other gameplay elements like improved AI etc. you could do a lot of things on a graphical level that would make things better for the player even for multiplatform titles that usually are the same games on all platforms and even if you stayed at the same resolution the XB1 version does. You could add more effects, you could increase the detail level of models and textures, you could use additional shaders, increase the viewing distance, add FSAA and anisotropic filtering etc. or you could up the resolutio and still offerthe same graphics as the XB1 at 720p.

All of these things will be noticeable. You might not actually 'see' the pixels of a 720p version at your viewing distance (btw that's the ONLY thing about the'resolution increase isn't noticeable' that's actually true) but the added fidelity and clarity of the picture and the better overview an increased res might give you will be. Even on multiplatform titles that usually only vary in the graphics feature sets among platforms and keep the gameplay the same.