NEXT GEN CONSOLES

[Sparticus]

If Valve get a Steam-powered console to market - that's it. Game over. They will win. Wherever the hardcore goes, the masses soon follow, and the hardcore will snap up Valve's console in a heartbeat.

I'm inclined to agree, products like ms points are very popular with all audiences, and with regards to festive buying, which accounts for a very large slice of the pie, people are happy to buy gift cards in favour of an actual gift.

As a former employee of Game, I'd be all for it, more money to the people who deserve it and less of the public getting hassled into buying preowned products.

[Uncle Liam]

Cheers Spartacus Mars.

I picked up my first PS3 game today even though Ive agreed I'll wait until Christmas Day to actually have the machine.

I picked up Virtua Fighter 5 as it was only £3.98 from Gamestation and I LOVED Virtua Fighter 2 on Sega Saturn, wondering how Sega Rally plays?

Anyway another question gunna pick up WWE 13, does anyone know if you have to pre order from a certain store to get Mike Tyson or anywhere?

Sega Rally is great. I love it.

As for Tyson, it's pre order DLC. I think you can get it from Amazon. WWE13 will be £20 by Xmas, so I'm going to wait. Not arsed about Tyson as such.

[Spartacus Mars]

If Valve get a Steam-powered console to market - that's it. Game over. They will win. Wherever the hardcore goes, the masses soon follow, and the hardcore will snap up Valve's console in a heartbeat.

I agree but... it's not a slam-dunk yet. A cloud device for legacy PC games would be interesting, and with different product to OnLive (which competed - and failed - against a massive user-base of existing consoles) but who among us has the broadband for it?

And if it's not cloud? No way they're putting a PC-in-a-box at a price that'll beat the big manufacturer's loss-leading hardware.

[Spindles]

Agree with all of the above.

The controller patents are heavy on easy swap modularity (including my old idea about combining a gamepad controller with a trackball to give something workable for fps) so it looks like they are going to do the only sensible thing and do pc in a box, which I reckon you can do for cheaper than a ps3 (I think it can be done for £199/$249).

If console users can be given a box where video cards, hard drives or memory can be upgraded like a super nintendo cart I think it would be a winner. Basic box for netflix, chrome and angry birds, plug in some power for fifa or nfs, sell the basic box cheap and a bundle with some extra ram, beefier chip and a gfx card for the gamers. For it to work it needs to be single platform (android) and support all gamers from casual to hardcore.

Thats my pipe dream future for consoles. As well as the steambox there are several other droid based products coming through which fill the same space, but not x86/x64. With unity and unreal running sweet on droid it is now only a matter of scaling up the hardware (the software is there, with full support for multi threaded, multi core cpu and gpu and the ease of moving your game across the same middleware that it runs on pc/xbox/ps already)

[Spindles]

sorry, 2nd paragraph doesn't explain why it looks like they are going pc in a box after I edited what I had typed about the box maybe modular as well. I haven't seen patents for the box so I am clutching at theoretical straws there, but expect steambox to be modular in a way the xbox hard drive is, but a little more.

[windy_miller]

Is Skyrim worth £20?

Yes. If my xbox was still alive and I had completed ME3, I'd be back playing it.

If console users can be given a box where video cards, hard drives or memory can be upgraded like a super nintendo cart I think it would be a winner. Basic box for netflix, chrome and angry birds, plug in some power for fifa or nfs, sell the basic box cheap and a bundle with some extra ram, beefier chip and a gfx card for the gamers. For it to work it needs to be single platform (android) and support all gamers from casual to hardcore.

God that sounds awful. You may as well stick with a PC. The point of a console is that there is a standard hardware base that all games work with.

[jump]

I've just started plying Resident Evil Revelations and it's probably the most enjoyable Resident Evil game I have ever played. They got the survial horror vibe of the early games with the limited ammo, tight areas etc and has the action controls of the newer ones without it being an actual action game.

[Spindles]

God that sounds awful. You may as well stick with a PC. The point of a console is that there is a standard hardware base that all games work with.

Yeah, I can imagine that from the point of view of a console user that would be the view. I'd just like to see a merging of the PC and the console to make something that works either as a low cost "standard base" or something that has expandability, that the software would be scalable between set top box and high end gaming rig, but the same steam/origin/google/apple account (whichever vendor wins out with a standard platform) be able to easily interact between all of them.

The PC as it is (windows box) is too multi purpose for it's own good. Android looks like it is going to rival windows in the next few years as a platform for hardware that hooks up to a tv/monitor for browsing, playing games and consuming media, whilst being able to handle anything from a phone to a fully fledged PC.

I (personally) think that we are heading towards the death of the pc and the console as we know it. Like everyone else I can only guess and look forward to whatever comes.

[windy_miller]

Loving Cut The Rope on my phone at the moment. Best 69p I have ever spent. Will be picking up Cut The Rope Experiments as soon as I have completed it.

[Spindles]

I've recently purchased great little war game and was so impressed I purchased Great big war game as well.

69p is a great price to pay for a game, £1.99 for something a bit more powerful/involved and £3.99 for something really balls out special. I'd rather that than everything, regardless of quality coming in a box that costs £39.99

For those who were around in the 8 bit days, it all started (I seem to recall) with Ultimate packaging their cassettes in posh boxes and charging £9.99. Before that it was a standard cassette case and prices between £3.99 and £6.99. Ultimate made the BEST games for the spectrum at that point in time and other companies began to follow suit, with posh packaging and a price premium, with some games being all box and no real game - the worst example that springs to mind was a game based around Frankie goes to hollywood, which was all packaging and a collection of really dire minigames that made no sense.

[Spartacus Mars]

Yes (Skyrim is worth £20). If my xbox was still alive and I had completed ME3, I'd be back playing it.

Ah, Skyrim. As wide and as beautiful as the ocean, as deep as a puddle.

Living in Scotland I can confirm is the closest thing to a hiking-in-Scotland simulator you'll ever get. Bewilderingly beautiful and varied landscape.

Also, things like the giants and mammoths are wonderful, eerie and maudlin, your first few dragons gob-smackingly impressive. And unlike Oblivion when you enter a dungeon it's hand-crafted rather than generic (although there are generic elements), and some of the dungeons are beauties to behold.

But the further you go into the game the thinner and thinner it gets. The guilds are rubbish, one of the main quest lines just FIZZLES OUT and doesn't resolve, and once you've ground your character up a few levels they're the mirror of all Skyrim characters. But it took me 360 hours to get bored of it so it did something right. And your followers have perhaps two stock phrases.

One day Bethesda and Bioware are going to merge. Bethesda are going to do the open-world, the detail, the design, and Bioware are going to write stories and characters... and will be good.

Edited September 17, 2012 by Spartacus Mars

[5co77ie]

Can anyone help? I was playing Rocksmith whilst ill over the weekend and the chords have regressed to notes - much to my daughter's annoyance after we'd been shredding through Born On The Bayou - is there anyway to go back to when I didn't try playing badly for 12 hours? She's not best pleased....

[luckysalt]

Sega Rally is great. I love it.

As for Tyson, it's pre order DLC. I think you can get it from Amazon. WWE13 will be £20 by Xmas, so I'm going to wait. Not arsed about Tyson as such.

Cool, I'll pick up Sega Rally too, is Virtua Cop available on PS Network by any chance? I know Daytona USA is, any other Sega classics?

And on WWE 13, Sainsburys were selling it £23.99 earlier but by the time I got home they must have sold loads and they put it back up I'll wait until it goes cheap again.

[When Jokers Attack]

Rarely in this thread but I'm a PS3 user. Just play it a couple of times a week. Not an extreme gamer by any means but just bought myself a copy of the first Uncharted game. Never played any of them so think I am in for a treat!

[Purple Monkey]

Dark Souls is bloody good.

[t8yman]

superslim ps3 announced today at tokyo game show

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-09-19-sony-shocks-world-and-announces-ps3-super-duper-slim

[Spindles]

Fancy. Looks like Sony are happy to keep the long lifespan of the platform going, better news for gamers, imo, than dropping a new console every 3 or 4 years as some people seem to clamour for. A PS3 or X360 are both perfectly capable machines with a couple of years left in them, I think (I just wish MS had built x boxes to last, rather than having a habit of dying just outside of the warranty period - I would certainly take that into consideration before any future console purchase).

[t8yman]

Fancy. Looks like Sony are happy to keep the long lifespan of the platform going, better news for gamers, imo, than dropping a new console every 3 or 4 years as some people seem to clamour for. A PS3 or X360 are both perfectly capable machines with a couple of years left in them, I think (I just wish MS had built x boxes to last, rather than having a habit of dying just outside of the warranty period - I would certainly take that into consideration before any future console purchase).

ps3's die just as commonly as xboxes afaik.

and, have you seen how far behind PC's the current gen are? yeah, the long lifespan of the current 2 big boys is nice, but new updates from both of them would sell like hot cakes. the gaming public have been ready for new stuff for at least a year.

[Spindles]

I don't have any experience with the ps3 myself, I had always thought they would be better built with the higher price tag. My xbox died a death a while back, much like many of my friends had previously (I know quite a few people who have warrantied, then paid for repair through MS, then eventually just bought a new console) so I always look at it as being too many cheap components with inadequate cooling in too small a box.

I was really considering it from the point of view that popular franchise like fifa, cod, nfs and so on are running quite happily on current gen hardware, I have to admit. I'm a PC gamer and have kept up to date with my hardware on the whole, but as I am mostly running indie games and TF2 it isn't really being taxed. I was really pleased with how well BF3 ran, considering that the BF games have previously been poor performers seemingly written for next years hardware rather than the average midrange gaming rig.

I try not too be too much of a PC gaming snob (can't help it sometimes) with regard to consoles, so I always take it as a given that textures will be lower resolution and multiplayer servers allow less players, etc. Because my xbox died I'm not really seeing the difference between games on the 2 platforms any more (I remember that NFS:HP was quite a bit sharper/smoother on PC, but that was nearly 2 years ago)

[eFestivals]

... was quite a bit sharper/smoother on PC ....

It of course depends on the spec of the PC.

My take on why the likes of the XBox took off is that - along with it being a "front room" thing (which PCs tended to not be at the time) - most PCs are too low spec for decent gaming, so that people ended up thinking that spending more on an xbox than it would cost to get a PC that was up to the job was the way to go.

[lost]

the age of this generation of consoles is definitely having an effect on PCs. I built my current system for GTA 4 in 2008. Still happily runs what games I've bought. Doesn't seem too long ago to when upgrading every 18 months seemed a must.

[Spindles]

It of course depends on the spec of the PC.

My take on why the likes of the XBox took off is that - along with it being a "front room" thing (which PCs tended to not be at the time) - most PCs are too low spec for decent gaming, so that people ended up thinking that spending more on an xbox than it would cost to get a PC that was up to the job was the way to go.

Exactly that.

My gaming/media/main pc is hooked up to my TV, I have a wired xbox controller and when the xbox died I realised it was only the kids borrowing it to take it to their mum's house that ever saw it being used.

the age of this generation of consoles is definitely having an effect on PCs. I built my current system for GTA 4 in 2008. Still happily runs what games I've bought. Doesn't seem too long ago to when upgrading every 18 months seemed a must.

..and that too. I am currently running a q6600, 8gb DDR2 with a Ti550, the chip is now years old and I only changed the video card because the previous GTX260 used more power than my kettle and was able to heat my front room. I don't see the need to buy into the i3/5/7 generation and get no improved performance, no games I play are pushing any of that beyond it's capability, I am confident that I can get another year or more at least without needing to replace any major components.

[LondonTom]

My PC is bang up to date for gaming ...but mainly cos I brought it last year I went for an i7 ..just cos but to be fair most games I play barely get 50% load ... My GTX 560Ti gets a bit hot but with only one 27" screen to power, nothing troubles it that much really! So i don't even see the need to go for super duper graphics card.

I am thinking of going back to 360, I've been wanting to play FIFA at home and I know its on PC but most people seem to have consoles so I am thinking of either getting out my 1st generation 360 with a new controller (old controller lost sometime between moving at uni ), VGA cable and maybe a wireless adapter(could just ICS it via PC which uses a homeplug atm)...but I am not sure if the 20GB hard drive is enough these days for consoles?

Or should I wait for a decent FIFA13 Bundle and upgrade the 360 completely? Been debating it's worth but it seems the consoles are going go on for a while yet!

[eFestivals]

my kid is determined to spunk nearly £1k on a PC for gaming .... yet he's yet to start playing PC games and doesn't have much of an idea about them, and in two years will be begging for a laptop for Uni.

I keep trying to tell him he's being foolish, but he won't have it. I guess that's the result of money falling into his lap at his age, rather than him having earnt it.

[Spartacus Mars]

The Xbox 360 definitely got improved, but took three years to sort out. Three years!! The initial PS/3 units also suffered high mortality rates too, though not as high as the Xbox début.

The Xbox got the improved motherboard revision (Jasper) from 2008 onwards. Though revisions are not printed on the packaging actually quite easy to tell by the power consumption... you want a unit that says it consume 150W of power (or less), information that's on the packaging of the box.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_360_hardware#List_of_revisions

I bought my Xbox early 2009 and it's still going, and has been used for thousands of hours. One tip is to install games to the HDD. It'll lengthen the your disk life and Xbox life.