Topic: The future of the gaming industry

@tendonerd
It wasn't just them back in the day. He'll, I remember paying $99AU for Twilight Princess at launch at Target. And that wasn't that bad a price!

https://www.pushsquare.com/news/2019/06/sony_the_world_isnt_r...

So Sony, the only big player to have significant experience with streaming as of yet (see PS Now), reckon the world isn't ready for streaming.

Totally agree. I'm sure there's a very niche market for it - but I can't really tell you who that market's for. As a gaming enthusiast living in London I personally struggle to get streaming to work...how is it going to be accessible to the average casual / on-the-fence gamer?

@MasterJay Hands down, if streaming and subscriptions become the norm, I am probably done with modern gaming. I still stubbornly buy Blue Ray releases of movies I like too.

I am not convinced that streaming is plausible without any input lag. And I flat out do not like renting games and haven't done so in nearly a decade.

I just don't see myself adapting. I have a smartphone and have had one for more than 5 years and I still want physical buttons to come back. I tolerate "touch screen only" because I need a phone and want GPS and there is no quality Smartphone with buttons. But gaming is not a necessity and there are probably hundreds of classic games on systems from this generation and prior I could play and enjoy for years and years to come. If game companies go in the direction I don't like, then I just wont follow. I'll be the grumpy old man filling a basement with outdated technology - just like my father was with record players and 8-track tapes.

@Heavyarms55 For a long time I was done with modern gaming after the SNES and N64.
GameCube was more of the same.
PlayStation was largely a DVD player.
Xbox was at the time a niche and I never experienced Xbox Live despite having the OG Xbox.
Seriously how many franchises let alone award-winning ones that are still around since the PlayStation 1 or 2 days?
It kicked back into gear during the Wii era which I also skipped most of and the Switch is my first full-fledged console in some time.
Meanwhile, PlayStation 4 is mostly a rehash PlayStation 3.
X360 did nothing for me. Xbone is somewhat a failure in the exclusive department.

Edit: The PlayStation Portable was really good. Too bad Sony abandoned it.

@SNES64DD I liked pretty much all of those devices you mentioned there. To different degrees. Xbone is the only one I don't and have no interest in owning because it has nothing unique and all of one exclusive title that interests me. I'm not buying a whole game console for Halo.

@Heavyarms55
LOL
My PS4 Slim will be for Home Builder games
1. Dragon Quest Builders 2
2. The Sims 4
3. Portal Knights

@Anti-Matter I mean, right now my PS4 is a dusty Blue-Ray player. But that's just because I don't have enough time to play all the games I'd like to play on Switch, let alone all the other systems.

@Heavyarms55 Streaming from a PS4/PC/X1 to a laptop over wired lan works really well..........and still has perceptible input lag. I have no idea how they propose to bend physics with "advanced technology" to make electrical and radio signals travel hundreds of miles through dozens of switches faster than electrical signal can travel 75ft in my house through 2 switches...... The whole thing is smoke and mirrors, limited not by technology but by physics until we have faster than light communications which may or may not ever exist (and if we do, that implies time traveling communication is possible which creates a whole lot more problems than solving video game input lag....)

Regarding XBox and PS, I've learned to rethink the "I only buy consoles that have exclusives I like" mentality. In most gaming libraries exclusives make up like 1 out of every 10-15 games (Nintendo being the exception as the primary publisher of their closed platform.) Most of the games you play, no matter PS, PC, or X1 aren't going to be exclusives. Somehow the PS4 just feels remarkably inferior to (current) X1 for the whole experience/library management, online services/features/downloads, etc. For physical media the two draw more even, though the PS4 hardware is just mechanically worse (poor ventilation, cooling, awful disc drive.) Granted in Japan it's not like you could save face if you bought an XBox But otherwise, Sony secured a lot of sales by having their dozen or so "top rated games" requiring the hardware, but after laughing at the X1 for years, myself, after finally getting one I find it's just so much more pleasant to actually use - I ended up moving my library to it, and only use the PS4 for those dozen exclusives and various older Japanese games like the Tales and Danganronpa series (and PSVR on occasion.) But I reach for the X1 first. The great irony is now XBox has the complete FF series and PS4 doesn't (XIII trilogy), and a lot of the gap is covered by Switch.

Heading into the next generation, I feel like XBox is the one (maybe the only) one that has the future right with an "open access, lots of options, no one path, all your content is everywhere" type of mentality. Sony's still in the 1990's trying to lock down the industry as their little oyster. Add Epic/Tencent to that camp. And Nintendo just does Nintendo, same as always. Of course these tables turn often. 7 years ago it looked the other way around.

@NEStalgia Thank you for bringing up the physics issues. I feel like a lot of people are deliberately ignoring them due to wishful thinking.

As for the exclusive thing, it's not the only factor I look at when buying a console, just one of them. If we had every game on the market on every current system, I'd only buy a Switch. That's not because I am a Nintendo fan boy - which I suppose I am - it's because I like the Switch as a design far more than the traditional box under my TV. Even if the majority of hours on my Switch are docked, I still regularly play in portable as well and I LOVE having that option. I grew up with 8-Bit graphics, CRT TVs and Game Boy. So while fancy "4k UHD Deep color special potato keyword powers" might be impressive, they're just not that important to me.

In the absence of this world of no exclusive titles however, I will buy other systems if they have games on them I want to play, enough of them. If there are only one or two titles that are only on a system that interest me, when the rest of the library of games that interest me are also on another platform with more games I like - or a platform I already own, I am not going to buy that system. MS's Xbone right now has only one title unique to it that have any interest in: Halo. And not even the newer entries, just Halo 1-3, Reach and ODST. And I hear the Master Chief collection is coming to PC in a few months or something. So even less reason for me to consider an Xbone.

@Heavyarms55 It's not quite that about MCC. PC release isn't in 1 stage, the order of release is:

• Reach
• Combat Evolved
• 2
• 3
• ODST
• 4

Halo Insider flighting for Reach on PC started last weekend and there will be multiple flights before the game launches when it's ready, then the flighting moves onto Combat Evolved and the process repeats until all games are released.

It's very likely that at least some of the games will be released in 2020.

I actually do think exclusives are one of the main reasons to buy a console, but that's because it's one of the only reasons I care about one over the other. I think we've all made fun of the Xbox One for this entire generation, but if we're being honest, it probably has 90% of the same highly rated games PS4 does. If you have one and don't care about PS4's exclusives or PSVR, you probably are missing out on next to nothing. Who cares at that point?

And all the Switch's features are cool, and I would be disappointed if Nintendo just made another console with nothing else going on. But the main thing I care about it specifically is it has Nintendo's games, on top of anything else. Now at least Nintendo has the thing where it's the only handheld, but that wouldn't be enough for me on its own, and I would either get a PS4 or go all in on PC gaming instead, if I didn't care about Nintendo's games. That's just me though.

@Grumblevolcano That's fine, it's still coming. I wasn't planning on Marathoning all of them in one go anyway. It would be nice if at least one of them is out by next month ideally though. Since I plan on getting my new PC then.

"If we had every game on the market on every current system, I'd only buy a Switch."
Well for me it is about the games. All games.
I'm just not that interested in most of what Sony and Microsoft produces and markets.
I'll play some shooters with my bro but I find most of them tedious and boring and the good ones generally die out aka Brute Force was awesome on the Xbox but did we get a sequel to that? Sadly no.
PlayStation seems focused on motion capture gaming like Heavy Rain and Detroit: Becoming Human. Even God of War and The Last of Us has this and while they are fun emotional experience, gameplay and replay value tends to be weak.

Then we get to the third-party. Most of them also don't interest me what so ever.
I'm mostly an underground jRPG guy so PlayStation is my second console for those jRPGs that don't come to the Switch/Nintendo platforms.
Other games like Watch Dogs Legions has some interesting gameplay mechanics but other than that I never enjoyed the series. Beyond Good and Evil 2 and Cyperpunk 2077 are about the only games that remotely peak my interest from third party.

So a PlayStation and Xbox isn't very useful for me.

There's only like 5 games I want on the PlayStation 4 right now.
Persona 5 Royal, Nier: Automata, Code Vein, Judgement, Danganronpa that's about it.

Persona 5, the non-Royal version os available on the PS3.
Platinum is coming out with Astral Chain for the Switch which seems to surpass what Nier was aiming to do.
Code Vein, Judgement and Danganronpa I could live without.

@Heavyarms55 yeah, everybody ignores the physics of it. It's funny.... Gamers obcess over monitors with zero input lag. >2ms latency! Mice with high resolution and 2khz polling rates! Yet mention streaming and 15-100ms latency is suddenly perfectly workable...

Then everyone talks about 5g...... I wish i had the magic power of influence these marketers have. They've convinced people radio of all things is fast for real time applications. I'd say "let me know when we have xray based we wifi", but then we'd all glow in the dark.

With platforms, i think it's too easy to overlook, and to hard to advertise the "user experience". For different reasons, just like how switch is just a better experience to use than the others, it wasn't until after i owned the x1 i realized the whole experience of using it is just better somehow than ps4 (this from someone who had 360 and ps3, was glad to go ps only, and laughed at x1). It's hard to explain why... Just the whole experience of using it to play/find/search content is smoother and more pleasant. Ps4 feels clunky in contrast. But there's no way to describe why. I can't do it. MS certainly can't do it. I didn't get it either until i owned it. I need the PS for the various exclusives.... But in that world without exclusives, the ps4 world easily be the first eliminated console. Though switch remains the clear winner there.

@NEStalgia I do think 5G will be a little better than 4G. It will probably be a little more reliable and have more bandwidth to allow you to do more things at once, but some people act like it'll be the Star Wars Hyperspace of internet connectivity and everything will be near instantaneous and it'll blow 4G out of the water. But ten bucks says it will be like going from 1080p to 4K. Only a mild improvement and even then, only even useful with content designed to take advantage of it.

In the magic world of no exclusives, between Xbone and PS4, PS4 is still the easy choice. PS4 supports VR, Xbone does not. I don't even like VR very much but the user interface on Xbone and PS4 really don't appeal to or bother me at all. I'm largely indifferent. But the Switch blows them both out of the water for its versatility. But again, that's just for me. I'm not of the type that treats his own preferences as fact. Usually.

@NEStalgia I would agree with you that UI design is very important. I think beyond that though, most people just judge a platform from games or exclusives because suitable content is what they came for and paid money for. One generally adapts around the subtle failings of a certain UI design.

"But in that world without exclusives, the ps4 world easily be the first eliminated console."
I totally agree with this. Despite my love for jRPGs which tends to come first to PlayStation, I have since the PS3 become accustomed to getting the Sony platform second.

My PS2 machine is basically for Rhythm games arcade at home (Dance Dance Revolution, Para Para Paradise, Beatmania IIDX, Guitar Freaks & DrumMania, Pop'n Music, KeyboardMania), K-1 games and some quirky games.

While my PS4 Slim is just for Home Builder games (The Sims 4, Portal Knights & Dragon Quest Builders 2)

I do like both PS4 & Switch U/I.
Both of them are simple and clean.

@Heavyarms55 reliability is the worst part of 5g. It's all uhf. It works great on top of the box, and has DISASTROUS penetration of even foliage, let alone walls. The dirty little secret of 5g of that part of its rollout depends on more than doubling the 4g coverage. Think about that - a critical part of 5g is just doubling 4g coverage because of all the places 5g won't even reach. Now imagine streaming bayonetta while ping ponging between the two protocols?

If only since company could roll out gigabit fiber everywhere, stadia would be wonderful.... Ok, Google.......

True about psvr, i do like mine, though i don't use it too often... It's such a pain to set up the camera every time, calibrate, etc. Again it's hard to quantify. I rebought a number of games on the x1 that i already had on the ps4... And given a choice which to boot to play them, it's just more pleasant on x1. Except ff.... Somehow that feels weird not on a PlayStation or Nintendo

@SNES64DD well, to a point that's true, but when i look at my library on x1 and ps4, there's a similar number of exclusives on each.... But the striking reality is there's really only a handful of exclusives compared to the massive library that's on both. Nintendo is Nintendo, but i think the exclusives thing for ps gets overblown. I have my ps4 for those games... But if i were to have only one, with a library of 300+ games, does that extra 10 exclusives really tip me towards buying a console that's less utilitarian for all the others?

I will add though that the differences are most apparent if you buy digitally. EVERYTHING is handled much more sane on x1. Ps4 feels backwards with storage, store, updates, dlc, library management, everything. Ps make digital feel as much a gamble as Nintendo. X1 makes it feel as "reliable" as steam, and it made me go all digital on it while feeling like it's still a long term purchase.

Nintendo i go mostly physical. I know they'll screw digital buyers

@NEStalgia Is it bad that I look forward to 5G stumbling hard core just to shut up all the die hards? lol

Anyway, sounds to me like you just prefer the Xbox controller style.

@Heavyarms55 Haha, I'm in the exact same camp with that! Not just the consumer die-hards. It's the whole industry that things 5g is some tech revolution "that will enable the internet of things!" (Actual corporate quote!) It's like a billboard that says "I understand nothing, but my broker said it's a go!" The part I'm not looking forward to is everyone insisting "it's so much faster!", while you know they're still on 4G, but they think it's 5G because it shows a "5G enabled" icon on their phone (see also, AT&T, they no longer show 4G icons, they show a 5G icon for "5G enabled", so their customers generally think they already have 5G...)

It's like the 1990s Dot-Com all over again, except not many are even making money on it this time. I'm convinced "streaming is the future" is based largely on 5G though. I think the gaming companies believe way too much of what telecom tells them.

I do have another fear with streaming though: That the games will feel like they have no input lag, because games will be designed with streaming lag in mind, and they'll have hit windows the size of cruise ships. "If you press X sometime in the next 1.5 seconds it counts as a perfect-guard!"

As for controllers, I do happen to specifically dislike the DualShock controllers (not even just the parallel sticks, I have a Razer Raiju for PS4 that is still parallel but feels much better), but I wasn't factoring that into the user experience, I purely meant what was on the screen, navigation, checking on DLC, managing digital content, etc, etc. I wouldn't include controller preference in this debate.

For background reference, I was Nintendo + Sega in the 80s & 90's, never had a PS, and was barely aware of their existence...to me Nintendo & Sega were "real" gaming. Switched to PC in the mid-90s and didn't get any consoles again until the Wii. I was getting tired of the endless nightmare that was PC so I decided I'd get a console other than Wii.....decided to go for PS...the games, and the fact that I was familiar with it, and generally dislike(d) Microsoft. And definitely didn't like them intruding into console gaming. After living with PS3 for a year or so and it's dismal performance on multiplats I finally broke down and got a 360. I ended up using the PS3 as an exclusives machine. I didn't like the 360 interface much though (I liked the controller much more, but they also broke non-stop...so a wash there.) Going into the 8th gen, I was on the fence, waiting for either company to sway me. Like most other's that became an easy choice....PS4 on launch day. It collected dust for a year and a half or so....won't buy Sony on launch again It wasn't until a year ago I finally decided to add an X1X....I didn't care about the exclusives at the time at all, I just wanted a more PC-like console for multiplats, and actually just wanted one to be "the digital" console - experiment with it. After living with it for a few months I ended up rebuying my PS4 library on it.

I think its greatest failure is that you can't explain the little details that make it a pleasant experience. You need to own it for a while and use it before you get used to it...then go back to a PS4 and realize "wow, this is just worse!" For a digital ecosystem it's the little things. Freely copying things between drives - PS makes you move things never to return again unless you download it without the other drives with it connected. The way cloud saves "just work" (and the fact they don't delete them on you. I hadn't paid for Gold for 7 years, bought Deus Ex: Human Revolution (360 back compat) digitally (I'd played most of it from the disc version on the 360 7, 8 years ago.) Started it up, and it put me right back where I was December 23rd, 2011. It's all these little things that don't show up on a list when shopping consoles, but they're things that matter a lot when you actually encounter them. The folders are better, but to be fair, they just added that last year...so they're pretty late to the party and OUGHT to be better. l

Ironically in the past 8 months or so, my PS4 has gotten much more use than the X1, despite me preferring the X1 overall, simply because I've been playing games like KH Story So far, that's, of course, only on the PS. And VR. I do love both systems which is going to be very frustrating with the rumored price points of the new gen. But when it comes to "PC clone" consoles, I cringe whenever I hear the "exclusives" argument. Because 90% of everyone's library is going to be multiplats....the better experience for those games really ought to matter more. Though Sony's doubling down on locking down content even from third parties next time, if we trust the rumors (and history). That's very not cool.