Slashdot Mirror
Next-Gen Game Consoles Still Years Off
jfruhlinger writes "Gamers who have grown bored with the current generation of game hardware will have to sit tight a bit longer. Word on the street has it that the next PlayStation won't be ready until 2014, and the next Xbox won't appear until Christmas 2013 at the earliest."
unless I can install an alternate OS and have hardware level access.
>bored with the current generation of game hardware
If the gamers are bored with the game hardware, they may find it immensely more interesting to start playing games on it.
We started work on the 360 in the 2002 time frame i think. That'll put it at almost 10 years between generations. This was with 90nm processes.
In 2013/2014 time-frame, 15nm processes should be coming online. That'll already lets you put 27x more stuff on chip at the same die size, in addition to clock speed increases.
I'm hoping they ramp up system memory to 16GB and video memory to 2GB. Maybe 4K resolution gaming. They better get rid of any physical media, and make it download only.
This next generation is going to last for 15 years.
More polygons means more work for artists which means higher budgets and more risk. What's the incentive for a new console when current gen consoles can do anything one could actually want to do?
The question is, what sort of game are people going to want to play that will require new hardware? If you're just throwing a new coat of paint on the same old game designs, what's the point?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
I know they claimed at launch (PS3, XBOX) that this would be a ten year generation cycle but damn it feels a lot longer than it sounds. I'm happy to not shell out several hundred dollars per console every five or so years but I also don't want to buy the same gen console as my next console when this one dies.
Life==Jeopardy. All the answers are right in front us - the hard part is coming up with the correct question.
I am not a huge gamer and don't own the new ones(360 or PS3) so I might be off by a bit...or a lot.
I'll use Nintendo since I did grow up with them. The 16bit SNES saw a big jump from the original 8bit NES. The SNES advancements were multiple layers(background moving slower than the foreground). The N64 showed true advancements in 3D rather than just sprites, but what is the difference from the N64, to GameCube, to Wii? The only thing I noticed is that the polygon count became slightly increased and since hardware was becoming better to make the games run smoother.
The only thing I could see them doing is waiting for big advancements in hardware so they can then increase the polygons once again to have more detail at smother movement(more FPS).
Anyone else agree or am I completely off?
"That's right...I said it."
They're already past the 5-year traditional console lifespan (a tradition that's been sacrosanct since the Atari days). And with Playstation gaining ground every day, they're looking real long-in-the-tooth of late. PS3 has MMO's now, user-created content, games that don't have to span several discs (because of the blu-ray drive), blu-ray movie playing capability, etc. The 360 was in the lead for a long time (in the U.S. at least) and MS could have easily secured that lead if they had followed the 5-year lifecyle and bitch-slapped Sony with a next-gen console in Christmas 2010. Instead we got the Kinect, their Wii knockoff that came years after the Wii novelty had worn off (my Wii is sitting in my closet if anyone wants to buy it).
It's a real shame too. Call me a nationalist if you like, but MS was the first American company to compete in the console industry since Atari. And it was nice to not have to wait until a title had been released in Japan for several months to finally get it in the U.S. Sony and Nintendo always treated the west like they were doing us a favor by lowering themselves to even release a game outside of Japan. MS was the first company in a long time to treat the U.S. and Europe as a first-class market instead of an afterthought. And they actually gave us Western-centric games instead of just poorly-translated JRPG's to boot.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
The Wii-U is due out next year.
I know there'll be people saying it's not a next-gen console because it's graphics aren't much if any better than a PS3, but I would say it is, because it is one that has been designed after seeing the results of the current gen. Like the Wii, Nintendo decided the key to advancement was not pushing graphics, but other aspects of the user experience.
...when you can add a stick / camera for more money?
Personally, if I want to play tennis or go bowling, I go out and play tennis or go bowling
The next generation of consoles are the PS3 with Move and the XBOX360 with Kinect. Both the 360 and the PS3 still aren't being completely utilized to their full processing potential, the move/kinect just opened up a whole bunch of new gameplay options, and NOBODY wants to drop $400 on a brand new console when their current one isn't being utilized enough. The market isn't ready at all for a new generation of consoles, and Microsoft & Sony realize this. They've been planning for it.
GCS/MU/P d- s:- a-- C++++$ UL++ P+ L++ E+ W++ N o K- w--- O M+ V- PS+++ PE Y+ PGP t+ 5- X R++ tv+ b++ DI++ D++ G+ e++ h-
Computer hardware is ever changing. Game on your computer, not some shitty console.
Your first point is an argument against your second point.
We're miles ahead in every category.
Except in number of players per machine. Very few PC games support split- or otherwise shared-screen co-op using one TV and two to four USB gamepads. One reason is that apart from a few geeks, almost nobody is willing to hook a PC up to a TV or a TV-sized monitor. But perhaps Cracked columnist David Wong is on to the real reason, calling the requirement of a separate PC and copy of the game per player a cheap revenue-enhancing scheme for game publishers in his article.
They better get rid of any physical media, and make it download only.
Good luck downloading even a single-layer BD-ROM's worth of data over a 5 GB per month satellite link; it'll take you five months. As long as there are still areas unserved by fast broadband without obnoxiously low caps, consoles will still need to use physical media. Even the PSVita will use cartridges.
I think you give them too much credit. Personally, I can't wait to hear the talking heads talk about the time-tables for the next-next-gen consoles and how much better they are than the next-gen consoles.
Rage actually looks better on 360 than PS3, purely because the PS3 just doesn't have enough RAM to hold the art assets to render a single scene at a time
Xbox 360 has 512 MB of RAM and integrated graphics. PS3 has 256 MB of RAM and 256 MB of dedicated VRAM. Why again doesn't the PS3 have enough RAM?
Games usually try to target console first, and then just port to PC
Why is this the case, as opposed to aiming higher with PC exclusives?
and they're not about to redo the entire game's graphic design for a port.
They already do for ports to Wii and ports to DS.
The Wii-U has a high chance of being another Dreamcast, essentially being "in-between" generations and altogether dropped from the public eye not before long. Which is sad, because it does a couple of things really well (both primary sticks in the raised/upper/primary position, with proper controller weighting, for instance).
Except in having games that are actually fun.
I'm so backlogged on all of the awesome games out and due to come out for the Playstation 3 that I would be fine into 2020 without a new system.
Not really, it is more complimentary. When was the last time you were able to upgrade a few parts in your console to add a nice boost to its capabilities? I added a new video card, proc and some RAM to my gaming comp and now it is capable of playing Fable III.
"That's right...I said it."
Computer hardware is ever changing. Game on your computer, not some shitty console. Your first point is an argument against your second point.
I don't think so. I'm guessing his point was that console hardware is static over the course of many years, whereas updating/upgrading computer hardware is merely a matter of swapping out a single piece. Since it is so much easier to keep computer hardware up to date, then computer gaming is the way to go.
Personally, I don't own a console and am an avid computer gamer - I'd have to agree (with what I suppose is his point).
The cake is a lie.
The Wii-U has a high chance of being another Dreamcast
Especially with that overgrown Visual Memory Unit-looking thing between the buttons and the left stick. But I bet it'll be the opposite of the Dreamcast in terms of friendliness to home developers.
The next generation of game consoles is in your hand. It's running either iOS 5, Ice Cream Sandwich or Mango, depending on why your interest lies (sorry, Android is the closest you're going to get to Linux).
The phones are selling such high volumes and adding capabilities so fast that any new hardware console, ostensibly designed for games only, will have a problem getting to critical mass. Not only are we in a post-PC world, we're in a post-game-console world as well.
If I used a sig over again, would anyone notice?
With the cell processor design of the PS3, increasing performance should be easy and it should be able to retain backward compatibility w/o much if any trouble. With as inexpensive as ram is now , hopefully there will be no reason to skimp there.
If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people
The PS3 reserves RAM for it's OS stuff.
And the Xbox 360 doesn't? What's that dashboard I see when I press the home button during a game?
John Carmack has tweeted about this in the past.
It appears I can't search Twitter without having a Twitter account. Would you share some links?
Smart phones screens are to small and touch screens only work for some kinds of games and for others they suck big time.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13506_3-20080659-17/next-xbox-to-feature-avatar-like-graphics/
When was the last time you were able to upgrade a few parts in your console to add a nice boost to its capabilities?
Nintendo 64 Expansion Pak. Some games required it (Perfect Dark; Majora's Mask); other games used it for more detailed lighting and even 480i graphics (as opposed to the typical 240p). Also Kinect for Xbox 360.
updating/upgrading computer hardware is merely a matter of swapping out a single piece.
Unless that piece is your PC's motherboard, at which point you'll also need to swap out the CPU and RAM. You may also need to swap out more of your expansion cards if your new motherboard doesn't have slots for your old cards (e.g. PCI to PCIe, AGP to PCIe, ATA to SATA). About once a console generation, you might as well buy or build a new PC because motherboards will have changed so much.
It really isn't "between" generations. We are already due for refreshes from ALL the companies. People are clamoring for new systems right now. Nintendo will be the first to capitalize on it.
OK, I will go with you halfway on this one, but I don't think the Kinect changed anything with the console as far as making the system more capable, but changed the way a game was played.
N64 is only console I know that was able to -add in- a piece of hardware and it was only memory. a comp can swap out multiple items and is upgradable over time(to a point) when it's more beneficial to buy a new system. Which I do every 2 yrs regardless of my old systems capabilities of running anything it needs.
"That's right...I said it."
The Wii-U is Nintendo's PS3/360. The Wii is the same generation as the original XBOX.
You could argue that console generations are split solely by years, and not by console power, but if you do make that argument you will have to also agree that there have been a ton of different console generations, since the consoles often release one or two years apart.
If you claim that time is the only determining factor for console generation then the PS2 would be part of generation x, and the gamecube and XBOX would be generation x+1, since they came out a year after the PS2.
That was true for maybe a total of 2 years around 2003-ish. Mostly it's overblown. I've been playing PC games since the early 90s and I've never had hardware go totally out of date in less than 3 years. A few highly visible outliers in PC gaming targeted hardware well beyond what was even currently available (Oblivion, Crysis), but PC hardware holds up a lot longer than people assume. And it's gotten much better than that in the past few years. GPUs are cheaper than they've ever been and more powerful than most devs currently know what to do with. PC gaming isn't nearly as expensive of a hobby as it used to be. Considering you can get a very good graphics card for around $150 to $200 and that PC games tend to be cheaper (usually $10 less at release and discounted much sooner than console games after that) I'm not even sure that console gaming isn't more expensive in total now a days (buy a couple $50 dualshock 3's and a couple $60 Move controllers and check what's more expensive after that).
It really isn't a lot different than what happened with the cable/phone/internet companies.
After a lot of hemming and hawing they all provide essentially the same service now.
So Microsoft adds non-game functions to their living room device, and Apple puts their general purpose device into the living room.
That is a far cry from "consoles are dying!"
Hardware doesn't matter when all the games are SHIT.
Excellent point, one that Yahtzee Croshaw has been making quite a bit recently; AAA game publishers have, for years, been laser-focused on graphics, while game content has steadily declined.
Think of it this way: How many hours of content did Final Fantasy VII contain? I remember playing that game for 20, 30, even 50 hours, and still not doing everything (Damn Ruby Weapon...); which is why it required 3 disks.
RAGE is also a 3-disk game, but it doesn't even come close to FFVII in regards to content, or replay value...
Here's hoping the next generation of game consoles (and by extension, game development) can keep their framerate boners in check, at least enough to deliver games that are worth playing.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
They'll be shown off in 7 months at next year's E3.
The next X-Box will have a launch date before the end of the year, and it will be bungled.
The next Playstation will have a launch date by the end of the year in Japan, and early 2013 in the US, but both dates will be pushed back a bit.
The Wii U has already been shown, and it too will target a release before the end of 2012, but Nintendo never makes their dates for home consoles.
phones don't have the battery life to play high end games for a long time and if you need to be on AC why not just use a PC / Console then?
For those saying that there is no need for a new generation of hardware, realize that most AAA console titles can't even hit 720p at 30FPS on the 360 (See Halo), let alone 1080p30 or better yet, 1080p60. With the same assets and amount of effort on the developer's part, a new hardware generation would easily allow for 1080p60 as the default, with anti-aliasing. That's aside from much more robust programmable shaders, faster Blu-ray drives, hopefully 16-32GB of solid state storage for texture/asset caching, and in the case of MS, integrated 802.11N and finally eliminating their "core" version from the marketplace so that developers will be able to rely on all users having secondary storage, expanding the market for DLC and on-line features significantly. 6 years ago very few consumers could afford HD screens, certainly not above 42",and 1080p wasn't yet ubiquitous. Today we can buy 50+ inch 1080p 120hz LCDs or Plasmas for well under $2k USD. I think it's definitely time for a new cycle.
Current consoles are good enough for pushing pixels on to 2d planes with a limited rectangular window. What we really need is a real innovation in display technology, and I'm not talking this stereoscopic, trick of the eyes gimmick. I'm talking the 3d holographic displays you see in science fiction. The ability to project any object anywhere into mid air. Make this possible and then you'll see a real need for better processing power.
I think PC games and console games are just different, although there's lots of overlap.
An "Open" game platform and standards would kick PS3...XBox to the curb of ancient technology history, and finally allow global "Open" game platform innovation.
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
When was the last time you were able to upgrade a few parts in your console to add a nice boost to its capabilities?
The better question is: when was the last time you needed to upgrade a few parts on your console to play the latest game?
--Jeremy
Jesus was a liberal
I was not aware that we were talking about "history". It sure sounded to me like we were bragging about the latest and greatest.
Oh my! You said "You sir"! What ever shall I do! I am crushed by your witty retort!
N64 is only console I know that was able to -add in- a piece of hardware and it was only memory. a comp can swap out multiple items and is upgradable over time(to a point) when it's more beneficial to buy a new system.
The other one was the Sega Saturn. There was a VCD playing module which was almost never produced, which went into a dedicated slot. There was also a memory slot on the top, which was used for RAM, ROM, RAM+ROM, and of course for the Game Shark, which would let you play imports but not backups, and which also had RAM in it. Other cheat devices exist too but I don't think they have RAM. N64 and Saturn were both flops, and even for similar reasons, and I don't think I'm off base saying that the expansion modules required for some games were part of that, though only a small part. I do see a lot of N64s at flea markets without the RAM expansion, which suggests to me that a lot of people did have to consider the issue of whether they could run a game when it required 8MB, because a lot of them didn't have the pak.
ISTR there was at least one major official peripheral for the Famicom as well, for telecom... which went into the expansion slot on the bottom, which was present but unused on the US version.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
AFAICT FFVII is the peak of RPGs... assuming you can handle superdeformed characters. There's just no other RPG with so much going on. That it was back in the Playstation era is astounding. That the PC port was so ham-handed is depressing. I played it with some janky video card back in the day, must have been PowerVR or Mystique or something.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I have a PC I built for Battlefield 2 which was top of the line at the time. BF2 came out around the same time as the 360 launch. I can get Battlefield 3 for the 360 if I want, but that PC is never going to be able to run it without dumping hundreds of dollars into it.
Ran Oblivion fine, never going to run Skyrim.
Which is basically my point.
Only if you are a game developer. It is the opposite for a gamer.
Slow Down Cowboy! It's been 1 hour, 47 minutes since you last successfully posted a comment
If I'm going to play for 4 or more hours on single player or with other gamers I'll hop on my PC and play a bit of CIV or Battlefield, if I'm going to play with non-gamer friends, I'll get the Wii out
So what do you get out if you want to play an indie game with non-gamer friends? Or does that situation happen never to arise?
My real complaint is that small companies with a working PC game supporting local multiplayer can't sell it, "because the market is virtually non-existent" as you point out, nor can they get a license to port it to a console, because they're too small. It appears development of video games supporting local multiplayer is for large, established companies only. Why should this continue to be the case?
PC gaming is the Porsche level experience of gaming. The consoles are Chevy Malibus and Ford Fusions.
To continue your analogy, Chevy Malibus and Ford Fusions can travel only to big-box hypermarkets, not to local grocery stores, and definitely not to a local farmer's market, according to restrictions published by the automaker. What's the entry-level configuration that still allows playing indie games?
You could ask the same thing about computers. When's the last time you NEEDED to upgrade your computer to play a game? Lets say the PS3 lasts 6-7 years. A gaming PC made 6 years ago can still play all the latest games, at least on the low setting, which is equivalent to playing the game on a console.
The great thing about PC's is that you have the option to upgrade in order to get better graphics, but you are not required to upgrade. You can always play on the lower settings if you want.
On a console you are forced to play on low settings, whether you can afford to upgrade or not.
This is a very good point. If Apple were to somehow convince the telecom companies to bundle an Apple TV box with iPhones, we'd see the start of something big.
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
Xbox 720? It's bad enough that Microsoft skipped 359 numbers to "360". The next Xbox will be the 361. Bank on it!
Even today the manufacturers of the consoles make losses on the hardware. There is simply
no incentive to have a fast hardware cycle time. The longer you can make games (where the profit
is raked in) on the same platform (console) the better.
Wrong.
Nintendo didn't sell at a loss.
Be seeing you...
The graphic chip in the Wii U is 2 generations ahead of the competition. So they should be able to produce nicer looking games on it.
The average Joe is satisfied with the current consoles, and therefore Microsoft/Sony/Nintendo doesn't see why they should invest in new technology.
PC gamers, which are not average Joes, are not to buy a console anyway.
Because a PC (clue is in the title) is designed to have only one person interacting with it
So you're stressing the "personal" in "personal computer". So let's build a family computer. Oh wait, Nintendo already stole that name in Asia for a game console.
There's no reason you couldn't have more local multiplayer on PCs but virtually no-one is interested in that.
Then on which platform are people interested in playing multiplayer games in the lounge, around the TV, from indie developers?
Typically one
Can you play all games on a console with 4 players? No.
Can you play some games on a PC with 4 players? Yes.
Is it much harder to find games that can be played with 4 players on a PC than on a console? Yes.
Is it much harder to sell games that can be played with 4 players on a PC than on a console? Yes.
This is the sentiment that I was trying to capture with "Typically one." I understand that there exist exceptions to absolute statements, but compared to the consoles, local multiplayer on PC remains a rounding error.
Or what, did you want your PC version of CoD to offer split-screen support?
Yes. I want two-player split screen, just like the Xbox 360 version has. I also want more fighting games, which don't even need to split the screen, to get ported to PC. Right now it's Street Fighter IV and not much else.
There was only 2 or 3 games that required the expansion pack. Other games had limited features available when you didn't have it installed. Perfect Dark was not one that required it.
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
Not entirely true. 6 years ago would be October '05.
Windows Vista started popping up around November 2007.
You would have to upgrade at LEAST the operating system to play Battlefield 3 since it requires DX11 which requires at least Vista or Win7.
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
Nintendo has been absolutely staunch in their opinion that amateur and non-big-studio developers have little home on their systems without being vetted by a highly regarded professional or at least a middleware studio. There are exceptions but for the most part you need a finished and polished product before they'll consider it for review for the possibility of being considered to be put on Wiiware or DSiware or similar. It's one of the big things Sony was harping on about when they detailed the costs of making indie titles on the Vita.
What? never added a Network adapter or HDD to your PS2, or upgrade your hard drive on your PS3?
It's between in that we're still going to be getting PS3/360 generation centric releases, due to install base and other reasons. After that, Sony and Microsoft's next consoles will be coming out a few years later - and likely with far better specs. It's between like the Dreamcast was. You can consider the DC to have been part of the PS2/GC/Xbox generation but all you end up with is a very bad light cas upon it.
Here is some thinking for you:
Atari 2600 1977
Atari 5200 1982
NES 1985
SNES 1991
N64 1996
Gamecube 2001
Wii 2006
PS1 1995
PS2 2000
PS3 2006
Xbox1 2001
Xbox360 2005
Okay, there are a couple of six's and one four in there. But that's a pretty damn consistent 5-year lifespan average.
Now, tell me again about that 5-year lifespan "myth"?
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Heck, the Atari VCS had StarPath, extra RAM and a cassette adaptor to increase its power. Their 5200 or 7800 had game carts with extra RAM and/or sound chips in them to boost the capabilities. The Intellivision had the voice add on. Go faster stripes on consoles are far from new.
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
Perfect Dark was not one that required it.
I thought the single-player campaign of Perfect Dark required it.
So for what platform should one make the "finished and polished product", and how should one find "a highly regarded professional" to vet it? If the game is designed for two to four players and one screen, it can't be for PC because almost nobody connects PCs to TVs.
You can see it best when you run a console game on a PC, the only taxing thing is when you turn all the options on (in your graphics driver) and raise the resolution because on the same resolution and same options as a console, your PC will fall asleep.
It ain't just GPU or even memory. It is even such a simple thing as HD speed. What game developer would code for the slowest laptop HD out there? A console developer.
Put all the limitations together and you can see why some of the biggest money earners in gaming history have not made their way on to the console. The Sims and WoW. None of the games are visually immidiately impressive but they simply take a LOT of memory and a LOT of random disk access.
Why? Because they are non-linear games. The next time you wonder at the marvel of the graphical complexity of a BF3 or even a Rage, ask yourself this... how much am I seeing at a time? Randomly? The games are on rails, with very old style dark corridors between areas to allow the swapping of areas. They remind me a LOT of theme park rides. Where you have large rooms seperated for sound and sight with dark corners.
The real way to tax a PC is to load up the Sims or Operation Flashpoint and to load up the scene with different models. The makers of F.E.A.R. talked about this, they could choose either to have a room impress with lights or with monsters but not both. Next time you see a "big" area on a console, ask yourself, what is missing. What did they have to cut in Y to make X happen.
With a PC, you can simply do both. That is why custom maps, mods and whatever are often so much more impressive to what the original game developers can do. Because anyone that uses mods KNOWS their PC must exceed the recommended spec, not just meet minimum. But on the console, it is all the same absolute minimum approach.
Remember all those people that thought a PS3 would make a good linux machine? They probably never tried it. When was the last time you where happy with a PC with 256mb memory, the smallest and slowest laptop HD they could find and a power consumption that would make Nvidia blush?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
16GB system memory PLUS 2GB video memory. That is a decent spec for a modern game PC. Consoles NEVER in their entire history have been up to spec to even a budget game PC. Considering the history I think you will be lucky with 2GB total memory.
And as for no-physical media. That would rob them of endless miles of advertising space in the shops. It would ALSO require them to add a HD that is NOT sold as dump ware because absolutely nobody else is willing to buy them anymore. Have you noticed that console HD space has been running just behind Netbook HD space? The netbooks go up a notch, the consoles take the old notch? Netbooks go 600, consoles take 320. (Budget PC's for earlier in history)
That is because while HD's are dirt cheap by PC buyers standards, they are a massive chunk out of the budget of a console.
As for 4k resolution... yes, same as consoles are now HD right? Well, I played Red Dead Redemption. Nice game but no way in HELL that was true HD. I played lego games with smaller pixels. It was called Duplo!
Your post reminds me a bit of the mockups people do for new handheld consoles. There are some to drool over DS renderings out there... then what do we get? A piece of plastic with an eye watering 3D display... I want my fans vision! Not reality!
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
What? I'm just saying that Nintendo basically abhors indie devs. Or rather, ones that haven't gotten in bed with them. They do have reasons for their policies, which Reggie has been kind enough to explain to reporters, but I think it's naive compared to XBLA and PSN which allow indie devs to at least reach a market on the cheap and be encouraged to stick with the platform.
I'm just saying that Nintendo basically abhors indie devs.
I agree. I'm just trying to find the most effective way to work around this fact. If XBLIG is it, so be it.
I have my next gen console in my pocket and on my coffee table. My iPhone 4S and iPad 2 are my next gen game consoles. If I want to use my TV I can link it up to Apple TV and take advantage of gyros and accelerometers and touch inputs for my controller.
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
It did, as did some multiplayer features if I recall correctly. However the expansion pack was not required to play the game. There were 2 or 3 games that would refuse to load without the expansion pack rather than having features stripped out without its presence.
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
Final Fantasy VII required multiple discs because of all the FMV, not because of the hours of gameplay.
--Jeremy
Jesus was a liberal
I've been playing PC games since the early 90s and I've never had hardware go totally out of date in less than 3 years.
Well I've been playing PC and console games since the mid 80s and I've never had a console go out of date until the console that's built to replace it comes out, which is typically 5-6 years. Any PC I've built will be lucky to support the latest graphics cards to come out in 2-3 years (VLB->PCI->AGP->AGP2X->AGP4X->PCIE), let alone a processor or RAM upgrade to something current.
Of course, I also didn't buy a Dreamcast until they went into fire sale mode and never bought a Jaguar or any other failed console, so my results may not be typical. However, in my experience as somebody who doesn't give a shit about polygon counts, PC gaming is decent despite its flaws, whereas console gaming is a generally more pleasant experience.
--Jeremy
Jesus was a liberal
No, but running the game at full settings and not meeting the minimum system requirements is, which is the case here.
I had a StarPath, which wasn't made by Atari. You're right about the Intellivision voice add-on though, that was big and expensive.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Fair point, the StarPath was 3rd party but it was still one heck of a boost to the VCS's capabilities. Probably also proves the point about what a huge dfference a little more RAM makes.
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil