“So, to summarise this buyer’s guide to next gen consoles: don’t.” Yahtzee, as usual, nails it. I particularly like the apt description of how you used to buy a console because it had the specific games you wanted, whereas now it feels like you’re buying a console because it’s holding the games you want hostage.
I like the idea of being under “protection” of the mighty entertainment industry. For my own good, of course. Provided I pay. And pay. And p(r)ay…
Kochise
Here is a next gen console that respects both players and developers:
http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2013/05/ouya-impressions/
The devs are already there, we just need as large a player population as possible for it to be sustainable.
Mine should be arriving any day now.
Ouya was a nice idea. However with the delays, lack of top games, etc. I don’t think it will be commercially successful.
Edited 2013-06-05 19:35 UTC
That is not a next-gen console. It’s mobile device hardware shoved into a box with an HDMI port.
Edited 2013-06-05 21:43 UTC
I don’t know if I am all that interested in the Android games for it, however, the Ouya will allow me to get rid of a few devices and consolidate things.
I can use my soon to arrive Ouya as my XMBC media front end. I can play some Android games. I can use it for SmartTV apps. And for me, the biggest plus will be using it to create an emulation machine with an HDMI port. I can run old Sega, Nintendo, and MAME emulators ported to Android on it, with a nice set of controllers, and really enjoy those old systems.
I think I’m ordering mine pretty soon.
What about Steam Box? It’s been quite some time since the last rumours. Any news?
Right, you want to be able to sell used games or play at your friends house, or you know… actually own your games, Steam is the perfect solution
What about Half-Life 2 Episode 3? Baby steps, Valve.
Zing! Hehe.
Seriously though, what the heck happened to Ep3? I just recently played Ep2 for the first time (slowpoke, I know) and I was rather surprised Ep3 wasn’t out yet.
They’re now calling Half Life 3. Although it continues to be vapourware as before.
If you decide to pass on next gen (as many people are threatening to do), look at it this way… there’s probably hundreds, if not thousands of great games out there you’ve never played. And as for the great ones you have played, how many of them have you truly MASTERED? I’m going back to try a no-death run in Castlevania 1 on the NES
Edited 2013-06-05 18:26 UTC
You’re right. I recently discovered gog.com (not affiliated, just enamoured with the LOAD of cheap, drm free games I just can’t resist scooping up even though I probably won’t ever get around to playing them…)
A word to the wise – I only buy when there’s an action… then the games are really dirt cheap.
Let’s see what I have in my cabinet… Unreal and Return to Napali, Battlezone 1 and 2, Black and White, Elite 2 Frontier, Day of the Tentacle, Loom, Comanche, Syndicate. How long will it takes to redo these games from the beginning, and exploring EVERY corner ?
Kochise
That sounds like an Amiga cabinet.
Amiga games were some of the most enjoyable to play. Cadaver, Alien Breed, Space Marines, Turrican, Micro Machines, Flood, Populous, Gods, …
Now games are mostly just tech demonstrations of game engines. Yup, fantastic, graphically intense, surround sound, but you already pay for the machine a great bill (PC or PS) and then games. I hope you get something in return for the price paid.
Retro gaming through Mame and emulators is fantastic. Get second hand games for 1$ of nothing, grab the ROM/disc image, launch the emulator, procrastinate.
Kochise
I think Commodore 64 were more magical, but Amiga certainly had some magic too and were better.
Personally I’m not very found of emulators. They are not the real thing and the keyboard is always an annoyance.
I’ve got an Amiga 1200 with a CF card containing the OS and tons of games. Boot in 2 seconds, games fly in to memory.
My Commodore 128 has a cartridge in which you can put an SD card containing software. Singe file programs/games can be run just like that. Disk images can be written to real disks. It’s a great and easy to download stuff from the Internet and get it on your C64/128.
I think there is a project to run stuff from disk images directly. If that works they can lock me up with my C128 and I’ll be fine for a long time.
I couldn’t even get past the 2nd level of Black And White. Very tough game that one. There’s little chance of my replaying that though as I’ve since sold it.
I do keep meaning to replay Unreal. Sadly I don’t have another 6 months of my life to dedicate to that game (from what I recall – it was /epic/)
Unreal is a piece of art. While it looks really cubic by nowadays standard, the spirit is still there : narration, crispy sounds and screaming birds, music going with the pace, fantastic visual transitions. This is one of the most brilliant game ever made, period. And they reiterated with Return to Napali : Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger !
6 months worth of every minute spent on this game.
Kochise
Edited 2013-06-06 18:44 UTC
And Unreal still looks pretty good in some aspects, with its detail textures and water effects.
Too bad audio is hard to run properly – newer OS don’t support A3D.
Sadly, I never finished it …maybe one day.
Edited 2013-06-12 22:53 UTC
I agree. I have really been enjoying getting older games from GOG, DRM free, ready for Windows 7 x64 installation, and fully supportive of modding.
I am modding Torchlight and Bloodrayne 2 right now. It has been awhile since I played a good session of Doom, and with all the new game engines for it, why not, eh? Plus, I recently discovered Pinnacle Game Profiler which is allowing me to use my Xbox 360 controller for games that didn’t normally support it like Blood, Diablo 1, Doom, KOTOR, etc.
Between these older PC games and tons of retro consoles, I literally have no need and little desire for the 8th generation game consoles about to descend upon us.
Good idea. Going back to play Snake on my 6110 now.
Dude, don’t you now? Playing old games and buying used or bargain games is like stealing from the developers. Every time you do that a developer goes without food on the table and God also kills a kitten.
I think that buying a game from a publisher is already like stealing from a dev.
My (just over) two-year-old cat, Leviathan, had to be put to sleep just a couple days ago (on the fourth of this month) so I can’t exactly ‘get’ the whole “God killed a kitten” part right now (never mind the fact that I don’t believe in a god or any other kind of diety or religious figure), but as for the rest of what you said… I agree with you. It’s stupid how these companies are. Pathetic, really.
Edited 2013-06-06 07:36 UTC
The god/kitten thing is reference to one of the earliest photoshop memes. The former poster wouldn’t have meant it literally.
Sorry to hear about your loss though. My 2yr old cat has been in and out of the vets all month so I can especially sympathize with you.
I already did that for the current generation, the PS2 was my last console.
Already the idea of having to buy a HDTV due to the way the current crop of games is designed has put me off to buy one.
Still Linux on PS3 or XNA on XBox 360 could have changed my mind, but Sony never offer the same HW features as they did for PS2Linux and Microsoft only made XNA available in certain countries.
So I am more than happy with PC and mobile games.
Still though, HDTVs are nice, and cheap now days. I picked up a 39″ one from Wal-mart for $300, and works great
They’re also a hell of a lot lighter than CRTs.
Indeed, the wife and I discovered a small used movie/CD/game store one town over yesterday. It has the largest collection of retro game cartridges and discs I’ve ever seen, especially since the local GameStop quit buying used games.
We didn’t have a lot of time to browse, but I saw quite a few titles I’m going to have to get later on for my GBA and DS. I might even be tempted to pick up one of the Atari or Intellivision consoles he has behind the glass…
Seriously, video reviews of anything suck. Just write an article.
+1,000,000 to this! 😉
Also, a warning that the link leads to a video review (plus a lot more garbage on the very same page) would have been nice, actually.
RT.
The guy has made his name doing his video reviews which are pretty hilarious.
I don’t think his rants would translate very well into print.
Edited 2013-06-06 06:06 UTC
Of course, just because it’s not in the medium you prefer, it must obviously suck.
Nevertheless, you’re in luck and he does write articles too, to increase the discussion mentioned in the video:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/extra-punctua…
No, it has nothing to do with my preference, its an obvious objective fact.
Just sat through it. Yup, it sucks. The easiest way to convey information is through text. Its easily searchable, scan-able and parsed. It requires a minimum of skill necessary to convey information to another person. If you’re trying to write something technical, its easy to skip back and forth between a chart of stats and text explaining the stats. if you’re writing something humorous, its easier to deliver the jokes on paper than putting it into words and having a comedian deliver them with the appropriate intonation, timing, and body movements. Not to mention the video filming, editing and production work that has to go into it. Most people suck at it. Its rare to find someone who is good enough to actually sit through a review before becoming annoyed enough to go somewhere else to find the information.
IMHO the PS4 preview video where they interview the console designers and game developers makes it seem like Sony actually has a serious clue about what consumers want in a game console this time around. Social gaming is take it or leave it perhaps, but they are promising to significantly improve the user experience overall as well as cater to indie developers, plus the price will be reasonable at launch, all of which promise to make this a great console. As long as they manage to avoid the DRM issues that MS is dealing with, which really isn’t hard to do if they just keep things as they were on the PS3…
With sony you can never believe anything they say. I think people have figured this out and are waiting for it to release and suckers to buy it before they actually take the dive.
So MS has already torpedo’d their own new gaming console and sony’s is shrouded in the mystery of distrust.
I’ll bet that sony is going to do most everything MS does on used game lockdown, possibly thinking their lip service to indies will take them over the top. I’d be utterly shocked if sony goes the consumer friendly route (which would definitely lead to ultimate domination next cycle).
I agree. If Microsoft is successful in making money from used games, what’s there to stop Sony from doing the same? Their Term of Services could change in an instant. Remember originally PS3 was able to play PS2 games and it was able to have “Other OS”.
My original Phat version still does play PS2 games, I just tried it! I take your point about the Other OS, although with the original 40Gb HDD there wasn’t a lot of room for media storage, never mind an install of Linux as well!
You could always just swap the HDD out to a bigger one. It’s a standard SATA-I interface and if you leave the metallic caddy out and just stuff the HDD as-is in there you can fit a 2.5″ one just fine there. I’ve got a 750GB one on mine.
Sony and consumer-friendly have been mutually exclusive terms for a while.
In any case, most users of these systems care about whichever AAA games they can play on them, with ideological/common sense considerations for their interests as consumers rarely coming into play as purchasing decisions.
I would assume for a lot of people and I know for me console won over PC on cost and convenience. It seems to me the next gen consoles may actually kill console gaming for quite a few people.
If you think about buying next-gen XBOX… DON’T
If you want to get yourself next-gen PlayStation… DON’T
If you’re about to buy something less of a 4K display in the year of our Lord 2013… DON’T
DON’T DON’T DON’T DON’T
If you’re thinking about buying anything like a 4k display on a panel less than 50″ & you think you’re likely to be sitting more than eight feet away most of the time… DON’T
I really like the idea of the share/screen control of the PS4. If done right it could potentially be great. But i will not be buying a console this generation either. My last console was the Sega Saturn and whilst great in some ways, the experience of being obsoleted and abandoned just a few months after launch put me off consoles. Perhaps forever.