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

[Jeff Kelly]

Reports coming out of Japan about large PS4 stock on shelves doesnt sound very promisingl

According to the first official sales numbers Sony sold about 350,000 consoles in Japan in the first few days. The only launch that sold better was the launch of the PS2 with about 500,000 units. For a launch in a non-holiday month and with the current lineup (or non-lineup) of games this is quite an achievement, actually.

[Jeff Kelly]

Well for me that kind of sums up the dilemma of japanese developers.

Persona 4 came out in 2008 in the PS2
P 5 will come out at some point this decade (it's Atlus, I couldn't resist) for the PS3.

Generally smaller teams and smaller budgets mean longer development times and an (over)-reliance on existing know-how. Japan also doesn't have many developers with PC-development backgrounds. A US publisher would damn well make sure that a high profile release targets the largest number of systems possible and (barring any sort of exclusivity deals) would also launch it on the next gen systems. A feat made quite a lot easier by the fact, that those systems are now even closer to the PC in terms of development skillsets.

[Margalis]

PS4 hardware sales were pretty decent in Japan, but software sales were abysmal. There was one game at like 70k, one at 50k, and the rest hovering around 20k.

That says to me that people bought the hardware just to own the hardware, rather than because it has games they want to play, which means there will be a huge downturn in hardware sales past the early adopters.

[MrHat]

Sony's VR set:

[Fabricated]

It bums me out this is the new thing since being partially blind all this 3d/VR shit does nothing for me.

[Margalis]

OR has been working on VR for years and still can't demonstrate how it works for games other than spaceship piloting. There are a lot of fundamental problems that nobody has an answer to. Like "how do you control a character in a way that feel natural?"

Spaceship piloting works because as a pilot you can move your head around independently of controls-based steering. FPS games don't work, because you aren't piloting a thing, you are the thing, and all the possible control schemes feel off as they all map poorly to how you operate your own body.

At this point I consider VR a cool sounding gimmick that will quickly die. VR developers run into fundamental problems and instead of solving them just push forward and hope the sparkle of VR promise will carry them.

In may ways it's similar to Kinect. How do you control a character with Kinect? Nobody ever figured that out, and thus Kinect doesn't work for the vast majority of games. I expect VR to be a lot of "you're a spaceship pilot", "you're a tank pilot", "you're a mech pilot", "your a cyclist" games, and I don't think you can sustain a peripheral with that. There will be other types of games, but for say 3rd person games most people are going to try them for 20 minutes, realize the VR adds nothing to the experience and move on.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Skyrim with VR sounds fantastic.

[Cyrrex]

OR has been working on VR for years and still can't demonstrate how it works for games other than spaceship piloting. There are a lot of fundamental problems that nobody has an answer to. Like "how do you control a character in a way that feel natural?"

Spaceship piloting works because as a pilot you can move your head around independently of controls-based steering. FPS games don't work, because you aren't piloting a thing, you are the thing, and all the possible control schemes feel off as they all map poorly to how you operate your own body.

At this point I consider VR a cool sounding gimmick that will quickly die. VR developers run into fundamental problems and instead of solving them just push forward and hope the sparkle of VR promise will carry them.

In may ways it's similar to Kinect. How do you control a character with Kinect? Nobody ever figured that out, and thus Kinect doesn't work for the vast majority of games. I expect VR to be a lot of "you're a spaceship pilot", "you're a tank pilot", "you're a mech pilot", "your a cyclist" games, and I don't think you can sustain a peripheral with that. There will be other types of games, but for say 3rd person games most people are going to try them for 20 minutes, realize the VR adds nothing to the experience and move on.

I don't know much about the technology, but why not couple the VR with some existing ideas to help with the control?  I can easily envision scenarios where VR would work if you had an ordinary controller in your hand, and even something like Playstation's Move technology.  Or shit, give me some VR glasses and a steering wheel and let me play Gran Turismo or something.  That could be mind-blowingly good.

Not that I don't think you are wrong, this will probably end up as gimmicky bullshit, despite me wanting it not to be so.

[Fabricated]

VR would be a big thing for flight sim and racing sim players and that's...about all I can think of really. The hardcore racing sim (F1 20xx series, Project Cars, the two really aspergers-level racing sims I can't remember right now that real racers actually train with) crowd are pretty dedicated and you can buy some pretty crazy prebaked cockpit setups for them. I could see them going nuts over it.

[HaemishM]

VR only works if you can manage total sensory deprivation outside of the VR and as Margalis said, some kind of control scheme that feels as natural as body movements only without body movements. So we're really talking about some kind of thought-based control scheme that doesn't involve an intermediary device. I'm glad companies are still trying to fuck that VR chicken... but I'm not about to blow hundreds/thousands of bucks on a bulky ass set of headache goggles.

[MrHat]

VR only works if you can manage total sensory deprivation outside of the VR and as Margalis said, some kind of control scheme that feels as natural as body movements only without body movements.

I think that statement is really limiting.  Keyboards aren't natural but feel that way after practice.

Also, Oculus just announced their new dev kit 2 is $350.

Madness. Can't wait until these toys hit <$200.

[Margalis]

I don't know much about the technology, but why not couple the VR with some existing ideas to help with the control?  I can easily envision scenarios where VR would work if you had an ordinary controller in your hand, and even something like Playstation's Move technology.  Or shit, give me some VR glasses and a steering wheel and let me play Gran Turismo or something.  That could be mind-blowingly good.

If you are a pilot for a thing it maps perfectly to VR - you are sitting in a cockpit, you can move your head around, you steer with controls. Questions like "how do you turn" and "how do you aim" map exactly to how you do those things in real life.

The problem is much more complicated for an FPS game. Typically in an FPS game you move in the direction you are looking, or relative to that direction. If you look straight ahead and hold "W" then look left and hold "W" you turn 90 degrees to the left. But with a human body if you run forward then look left while still running forward you don't change direction.

Basically the issue is that the VR goggles map to the human head, not the human body. And the human head moves pretty independently of the body.

If you try to solve this problem by making the body always rotate with the head it feels really off, because you can't look, you can only do a full body turn. If you try to solve this problem by separating out body control from head control it's awkward because you have no feedback on how your video-game body is positioned.

I don't know that these problems are unsolvable but so far nobody has a great solution. Maybe they'll hit on one, maybe they won't. I suspect that they won't get solved, a lot of games will feel slightly off, and people will stop using VR for them. And that's for first person shooters, a genre you think would map to VR perfectly.

With third person games your head is just a glorified right-stick camera and you're explicitly an observer so there's not much sense of immersion.

I can definitely see a sweet Gran Turismo setup working great with it, I just think the range of games that support more than short-lived gimmicks will be pretty narrow. You're going to see like 500 different "you're an astronaut riding around in a mars rover" games, at least for OR and PC. 

[Khaldun]

It's the same basic problem as with Kinect-style controllers, though.

You can't just control a game from natural movements that are intuitive, because the action in the game almost always needs to be a hyperexaggerated version of that real movement. If I swing as if I'm holding a real sword, either the game shows me as I really am, a slow middle-aged derpy-derp fumbling away with an imaginary sword or it makes me look like a fast, skilled warrior. But if I look in my movements in the game environment as if I'm fast and skilled, the action of my avatar in game has to be badly out of synch with my real-world movements. So instead I have to be taught a kind of kinetic, physical language in which small movements of my hands, arms and body "represent" or stand in for game movements. At which point you have to ask, "So how is that better than pressing four buttons and a thumbstick, or wasd on a keyboard?" It's not more intuitive at that point, it is at best no more or less intuitive than any other controller scheme. The VR doesn't ever solve the control/interaction problem, it's just something that might help with a feeling of immersion or give you a new kind of visual wow-factor.

It only helps with control/immersion if it's working straight from some kind of neural input, e.g., it's genuine Metaverse kind of shit. Which is not coming any time soon, assuming we even want it to come.

[KallDrexx]

Well, for movement there is the Omni but thats a lot more effort than I want to put into gaming.

[Falconeer]

If you try to solve this problem by separating out body control from head control it's awkward because you have no feedback on how your video-game body is positioned.

I am not saying you are wrong, because neither me or you tested this long enough I'd assume (scratch that if you did), but the part I quoted is exactly how 'mechs and tanks game work, and that becomes second nature pretty soon. I am sure it's totally different in a VR environment, but I think there's a fair chance it would become equally natural after a while. Problem is, perfect the technology to the point it doesn't give you headaches and reacts fast enough so that we can focus on that re-learning part without having to struggle to survive the goofy symbiosis/adjusting process.

[Yegolev]

I do not want to put myself in the game, I want to be the guy in the game.  I play as myself all day long.  Some game/hardware devs are way out in left field.

[Merusk]

Some game/hardware devs are way out in left field. overestimating the prowess of their central market.

Really, though, what Yeg said.  Even if it were perfectly translating my movements right down to eye twitches, Kinect would still be a gimmick for this exact reason.  "Perfect simulation of everything" means you have a bunch of awkward kids and fat 30+ males trying to be Link or Conan or Mario.  .

Change to a different arena, like sports, and what's the benefit vs. actually playing?  Compensation for your own inability? That worked well for a while with Guitar Hero but died out.  Safety of VR vs. actual reality?  Well, then it's not going to be the exact movements translating to the game. (Which it can't be because you won't get hit or have a ball to kick/ hit)

Hm.

[Jeff Kelly]

Yeah but even GH made it easier/more accessible by giving you five buttons and song notations that are easier instead of a real guitar.

[Miasma]

The new titanfall bundle doesn't seem to be selling well enough for Wal-Mart's liking, they have dropped it to $450:

[Lakov_Sanite]

Has anyone yet mentioned walmart is going to start accepting game trade-ins for store credit on anything? Goodbye gamestop.

[calapine]

That "mystery price" thing is hilarious retarted.   

[Trippy]

Welcome to the wonderful world of price fixing

[Merusk]

Has anyone yet mentioned walmart is going to start accepting game trade-ins for store credit on anything? Goodbye gamestop.

There was some discussion on Marketplace about this earlier in the week.  The general sentiment from everyone is that GameStop still has the advantage in the quantity of games they have, but it'll be a question of how much people really care about that store credit.  If the answer is, "not at all" walmart isn't going to do much with it.

[Miasma]

I have to imagine walmart would be as stingy with their trade-in prices as they are with their real suppliers.

And if you bought an xbox one before the price cuts and free games here is something I don't really understand that might work for you but it seems kinda iffy so be careful.

[Margalis]

I don't think Walmart and Gamestop have a lot of crossover or are really in direct competition. By that I mean their customer bases are fairly different.

[Lakov_Sanite]

If walmart undercuts gamestop by even $5 a game which they can do easily, it's going to be slaughter.  Yes they don't carry as much variety as gamestop but that hardly matters.  They carry the big $60 new titles and gaming systems and if your used game money goes farther at walmart towards the next titanfall or going to a new system it's a no brainer.

Or hell, I have some games I don't want anymore, maybe I'll get a new coffee maker/keyboard/six pack of guinness.

[carnifex27]

Part of why Gamestop has that variety is their trade-ins though. If this takes off, and I think it has the potential to, suddenly there well be bins full of $5 dollar used games next to the movies. Not to mention wally world can afford to lose money on trade-ins for a few years until gamestop goes under. Don't worry though, I'm sure wal-mart will still have reasonable prices after they've cornered the market 

[schild]

Fuck Gamestop, I hope Walmart crushes them.

[Rendakor]

I buy most of my (console) games at GS because I like buying the CEs for JRPGs, and Walmart doesn't stock those games at all usually (and when they do it's never the CE). I could probably get them on Amazon if Gamestop stopped being a thing or direct from NISA/Atlus/Whoever, but I wouldn't go to Walmart instead.

[Miasma]

Best buy and amazon have matched walmart's $50 under msrp for the titanfall bundle.  Another "see the special price at checkout" for bestbuy and amazon tells you to use a code to lower the price.  The standard version is now getting Forza 5 bundled in.  Some people who bought the titanfall bundle at $499 have complained and managed to get the difference back.

[Maledict]

I was weak and got a PS4 for infamous, because I love those games.

Infamous Second Son is easily the prettiest computer game I've player, even on my rigged out PC. I don't really understand ow it can look s pretty *and* be an open world game and not suffer horrendous frame rate drops, but it does. Graphically it's spectacular.

(the game itself is the usual combo of super powers, jumping over buildings, taking down mooks with hilarity and running across a city - ie. brilliant fun)

[Margalis]

Infamous is the game at E3 last year that I thought looked most "next gen." (Really the only game that qualified as such) I don't know why I didn't put that in my E3 writeup, I could swear I wrote that somewhere.

Not just the graphics but also the total package of image quality, animation quality and variety, etc. I'm sure the delay helped (it was originally supposed to be a launch title) but even at E3 then it looked vastly superior to other games.

[Soulflame]

I watched someone streaming Second Son for a bit during the weekend.  I can feel a PS4 purchase in my future now.

 

[Yegolev]

I buy most of my (console) games at GS because I like buying the CEs for JRPGs, and Walmart doesn't stock those games at all usually (and when they do it's never the CE). I could probably get them on Amazon if Gamestop stopped being a thing or direct from NISA/Atlus/Whoever, but I wouldn't go to Walmart instead.

http://www.play-asia.com/  ?

[HaemishM]

I don't think Walmart and Gamestop have a lot of crossover or are really in direct competition. By that I mean their customer bases are fairly different.

You must not have been in either of these stores recently because yes... their customer base absolutely dovetails, especially when you are talking about video games. Gamestop has become a wretched hive of shit-eating twats every bit as horrible to look at as the People of Wal-Mart.

And that's just the employees.