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Sony's PS4 To Have Less Stringent DRM Than Microsoft's Xbox One
Tackhead writes "E3 is turning into Bizarro World this year. Sony has not only promised that the PS4 will support used games without an online connection, they trolled the Xbox folks hard with this Official PlayStation Used Game Instructional Video. Compounding the silliness, and hot on the heels of the political firestorm surrounding Donglegate, Microsoft went for rape jokes during their Xbox presentation."
Similarly, onyxruby writes "The Verge covers how Sony has crafted policies explicitly to make the PS4 consumer friendly to the public. They make the case that the PS4 will be superior in nearly every way [to the Xbox Next] by not requiring an Internet connection, not restricting used games, supporting indie developers and selling for $100 cheaper than the Xbox One." And if you're interested in the guts rather than the policies or the politics, Hot Hardware has a comparison of the internals of both of these new offerings.
The real problem is, it can change any time. PS4 can become more stringent, and XBox One could become less (well, in theory).
I'm not sure I trust Sony not to be an asshole regarding DRM. It doesn't have that good a track record. It is a good bet the moment the marketing hype dies down, and the stock holders start pressing, they will tighten their DRM.
morcego
So far, it looks like the PS4 hardware is better, it's got Elder Scrolls Online as an exclusive (a big deal for me), there is less of that authentication/DRM drama (amazing coming from Sony, who have always been the worst control freaks in the past), and it's $100 cheaper too!
I've been a fan of Xbox since the Xbox 1. But MS is making all the wrong moves on the Xbox One. And looks like Sony is making all the right ones on the PS4. I may have to cross the line on this next generation.
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
But they'll just take it all away in a year or two with a mandatory software update, citing fears of piracy.
Again.
When faced with two evils, the best choice is not to play the game.
Until they have milked all the anti-Microsoft publicity they can get out of this and add in some similar DRM in an update 6 months down the line. No doubt blaming "hackers" for it.
For decades now Microsoft has been bizarrely obsessed with being a media distribution company. I can't even count the number of failed "set top" box initiatives and purchased properties (Like webtv) they've made along the way. Also there was that media center thing that sucked.
And now they've got the XBone, where they turn the 'ha ha fuck you consumer' up to 11 in an attempt do do what? Prove that they're the biggest whore so they can strike the best deals with content producers? "Hey look! We've done away with that pesky right of first sale for retail games! What else do you want us to do?"
Sigh. And just today I see that there's a new Panzer Dragon game, and a rogue-like from superbrothers that are XBone console exclusives.
Shit.
It's funny because at launch you could install Linux on the PS3.
ESO as an exclusive? That's not right at all: http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/06/10/the-elder-scrolls-online-is-headed-to-the-playstation-4/ Not to mention the PC...
I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer.
I was going to build a steam box if this didn't happen. I collect consoles and games*, and I'm not sure if I want the Xbox One because it's not guaranteed I'll be able to play my games 10 years down the road.
* Not for the value, but my old games are still fun and if I keep them I don't have to re-buy them or wait for the stars to align for games like Earthbound to come out intact
Twinstiq, game news
Elder Scrolls Online will be available for both PS4 and XB1.
It's funny watching my Xbox fanboy friends making ridiculous apologetic statements for Microsoft.
"You have to pay for online access for the PS4 now as well!" As though that's actually a supportive argument for the Xbox One.
"I'm glad there is always-on DRM so that I can download and play my games on other people's consoles while signed in!" As though MS is incapable of making the 24 connection requirement only necessary for digitally purchased games, and allow you to only play disc-purchased games when you have the disc.
"I always have internet, so this isn't a problem for me!" As though Xbox Live has never been down for several days at a time before (or been weird about not letting large numbers of people sign in while others have no problem)
I've never been a Sony fan, and I still don't know if I can trust the company that pulled the rootkit scandal. What I do know is that I am absolutely not going to a be a Microsoft customer this next generation. I will probably get a Wii U to play 1st party Nintendo games, and do the rest of my gaming on PC. Sony still has a shot at convincing me to get a PS4, but Microsoft has already lost me.
Apparently wizard is not a legitimate career path, so I chose programmer instead.
Microsoft went for rape jokes during their Xbox presentation.
That's what passes for a rape joke nowadays?
"How many feminists does it take to change a light bulb?"
"THAT'S NOT FUNNY"
More Twoson than Cupertino
My next console will be a PS4. Vote with your money, if the Xbox One sells poorly and the PS4 sells record breaking amounts than the point will get across to the middle managers who come up with this junk.
I got an XBox 360 a few months ago. My first one. I also got 7 games from the used/discount bin and paid less than $50 for them, combined. The system has provided me with hundreds of hours of fun so far, and I know there are lots of other great games awaiting me.
You can wait one, two, even three years and see which way the wind blows for the next generation of consoles. Is the PS4 getting better titles? Is the XBox One as prone to hardware failures as the 360? Did Sony remove features or add DRM to used games? Is either console molesting children?
Wait and see, and your decision will be much easier. Your wallet will also thank you.
In the meantime, play on the current systems.
As a casual gamer, the 360 will be my last console...I will not ask the mothership for permission to use a friends game, sell or buy a used game or whatever...
both platforms go way too far, I kinda enjoy games but I can live without them...
But they'll just take it all away in a year or two with a mandatory software update, citing fears of piracy.
Again.
This is exactly what is going to happen.
For those unfamiliar with the "again" comment; Sony use to have a feature called open platform for PS3. It was a major selling feature when the PS3 came out. But Sony removed the feature and blocked the ability to install alternative OSes on the PS3.
Remember, we are talking about Sony, FAMOUS for DRM, removing paid for features, blocking access, DMCA lawsuits...
But as far as I'm aware there's still another platform that offers far higher technical capability, zero DRM, much more flexibility as a media center if that's your thing, and can even be upgraded when parts break or become obsolete. Call me back when the PS4 gets all that, too.
Microsoft has stated that it will be "up to the publisher" whether the titles will support used sales. Sony obviously hasn't built it in to their end, but what about publishers? Ultimately I wouldn't be surprised to see EA, Activision, etc. including serial numbers and on-line activation schemes with their PS4 titles. I like the pro-consumer stance Sony is taking, and it's good to see them turn it around at some level, but that is a hanging question - have they come out and stated that they won't support publisher-based used sale restrictions? I don't fully trust them - their history with proprietary formats and DRM says more about their stance than a single press event.
Uh the info was in the presentation. On giant slides. And in the words that were spoken. Not sure how much more clear you want it. Sony specifically said "does not need to check in every 24 hours" "you can play offline" "eye camera is $59" The details are there clear as day check any gaming news site. Want examples of those? Joystiq and Kotaku are two big ones.
Did you even try? It was in the E3 presentation. There is a link in the summary that talks about some of it. Don't act like you can't find the info, when the info is there to find.... easily.
...there is less of that authentication/DRM drama
Out of the frying pan and into the fire. After Sony updated the PS3 so that is won't play video files it suspects are pirated, it would be foolish to buy more from them thinking they have better DRM policy. Remember, they can update the PS4 ANYTIME to withdraw anything they say now, and you know they will.
That's "how many feminists does it take to screw in a light bulb"
Gee, way to butcher a joke.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The problem is I still can't trust them (nor Microsoft for that matter). Removal of OtherOS, the response to their servers being infiltrated was shocking, it also wasn't so long ago they were selling CD's with rootkits too. What fiasco is next around the corner? The ecosystem seems to be just as locked down as it was on the PS3, which is also very disappointing (albeit indie publishers are being welcomed back through the store which is great), still expect a crippled web browser though.
It would be foolish not to consider the possibility of this only just lip service.
The Wii U is pretty good =) Besides the region lock Nintendo doesn't have any of the restrictions the 360 have and free online multiplayer.
Give 'em a year or two, they' eventually come to their senses.
They always did.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
All I seem to find on this PS4 DRM, is vague hints that it is better... Where are the specifics? Xbox said it will need to phone home every 24 hours, Sony? Who knows. How hard is it to give us details that we can come after them when the whole hype of DRM is over?
they gave all the details: there is no drm. there is no region locking. there is no internet connection requirement.
And $100 cheaper? How much will the Eye cost if one wants it?
$60, they detailed everything.
you'd do much better by trying to actually read the stuff sony has given out and then complain.
Wealth is the gift that keeps on giving.
I had to look at it this way: With the PS4, you get one more. With the Xbox One, you get 359 less. It's a no-brainer!
As a user of Xbox for the last 12 years, I can't back up Microsoft on this one. They really blew it. I might have to pick up a Sony product for the first time ever.
Though it doesn't really mean much cause in the end I prefer PC gaming over either...
I hate to be that guy, but join the PC master race. Steam has a better track record than either sony or MS, you'll save money on hardware, you'll have more control over your property, and you'll get better graphics.
There are some AAA titles that won't come to PC for a while, but you can console yourself with slightly older good games that are a fraction of the price that you'd pay for consoles.
I expect gaming on cheaper android based devices to catch up and even take over within this generation.
I've been making that prediction as well.
There is no -1 Disagree mod. Slashdot.org/faq defines mod options. USE IT.
Sony appears to be making user friendly decisions. This just doesn't feel right. Is there some non-standard expensive proprietary hardware we have to use?
My reality check alarm is going off.
Come on. Only card carrying Womyn think that was a real rape joke, or care.
Chalk it up to people being outraged because they want to be outraged. Personally, it reminded me of a trip to the dentist. "It'll all be over soon," they say, while gouging my teeth and gums.
Of course, now I can't stop thinking of how that can be a metaphor.
If you can't convince them, convict them.
Console exclusive.
I don't understand why the PS4 ads don't mention anything about the fact MS has a lot of media/analysis around whether or not MS should simply drop or sell their gaming division, specifically the XBOX division. I would imagine this would be a HUGE if not the biggest point to make. Nobody wants to buy into a product that they know has a high potential to disappear or take the risk of being put under an unknown owner, with unknown risks. Why is this completely left out? That'd be my #1 point. If they're thinking about getting rid of the product line do you seriously want to buy one?
Until we reach a saturation level and high speed internet for everyone, requiring a machine to be connected to the internet makes no sense even if it is just to check in with it's mommy.
Came from a dude named "Jonathan Blow", that HAS to be an intentional selection on the editorial's part!
All I seem to find on this PS4 DRM, is vague hints that it is better... Where are the specifics? Xbox said it will need to phone home every 24 hours, Sony? Who knows. How hard is it to give us details that we can come after them when the whole hype of DRM is over?
And $100 cheaper? How much will the Eye cost if one wants it?
To me it seems they have the same exact price point and NO details on how their DRM will work, none.
In this age of information, it ticks me off when they purposefully withhold this kind of stuff.
Explicitly stated no connection is required, $60 for the Eye, and as far as used games goes... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWSIFh8ICaA
Sony exclusives were not really exclusives. Except for first party games they were mostly items or character skins. Things you might get with a pre-order.
and I'll probably skip this generation too. I don't have a couple of hours to sit down and play anymore. I haven't even finish MW2 (on Steam) or even Bioshock (the original).
No. You really didn't. Let's not exaggerate.
True, but the only reason they removed it is because people used it to pirate games.
Not really. They stopped supporting it because they couldn't get the tax breaks they wanted. They initially hoped that if the console had Linux on it it would qualify as a personal computer for tax purposes. This would get them a lower VAT in some parts of Europe. Without the tax breaks they couldn't justify the losses they were receiving when PS3s were used as components in super computers. They only made money on PS3s when users purchased games. No games were purchased by the super computer people so they were losing lots of money. The Slim PS3 that never had Linux was hacked so these super computers could continue to expand. Piracy was just PR.
Microsoft: Surprisingly good on the games front, with Forza looking fairly neat and a good number of titles to announce. Elsewhere it felt like damage limitation. They'd realised by now that people hate the call-home and used-game restrictions and were desperately trying to show that it wasn't as bad as people had assumed. Might have been more convincing if it felt like they even understood it themselves.
Sony: Actually, a surprisingly glitchy presentation in many ways. Some of the game demonstrations were pretty poor and unpolished. However, none of that matters. They picked the wrong music for the section of their presentation that talked about the PS4 itself; they should have gone with The Rains of Castamere. Sony's presentation was the Red Wedding with Microsoft as the Starks. And oh my word it worked. They've been trolling Microsoft into going down the anti-consumer route for more than a year, hinting that they were going to do the same. Yesterday, they sprang the trap. They clearly enjoyed their own presentation and, to be fair, they deserved to.
Nintendo: The weakest of the three. Their big announcement was... delays! Lots of delays. A very thin holiday season, supported by a 3d Mario Game that looks like a rushed, resolution upscaled DS game, a remake of a decade-old Zelda game and a Donkey Kong that nobody seemed to be particularly excited about. Things are a little better over on the 3DS front, but Nintendo were sending off a definite message that they're struggling to keep up.
And predictions based on that?
Sony probably have the Christmas season sewn up. Barring an RROD-level fiasco, they'll go into the first few weeks of sales with a massive stock of consumer enthusiasm. This is a very different Sony to the one that did the cack-handed launch of the PS3.
Microsoft need an urgent rethink. Their current strategy looks set to see them take a significant but nevertheless declining share of the US market (consumer loyalty being a significant factor), but completely abandon Asia and - more shockingly - probably get annihilated in Europe and the emerging markets as well. They've invested a shitload of money to get the marketshare they currently have in the home console market, so don't rule them out yet, but unless they revisit some of their fundamentals over the next 6 months, they could face disaster.
And I suspect Nintendo may already be starting to plan for a post-Wii-U world, where they focus on the handheld business going forward while they decide whether to have another throw of the dice in the home console market or go another direction. The speculation had been that Nintendo's big throw of the dice would be this Christmas, when they'd throw game releases and massive price cuts at the Wii-U to snatch the rug out from under the XB-One and the PS4. In theory they could still do the price cuts, but it's clear now that they don't have the games lineup in position to make that strategy work.
I beat my wife with less force than my neighbor, so I'm all good.
Nvidia 6800 GT could run game at 1600x1200@60FPS (fov 75) in 2004.
The current consoles can't do that (PS3), will the next generation finally be able to do that?
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
Lol, yes. The next generation will be able to do that and with much more detail and higher quality textures. Let's also not neglect price. It's not really cool to compare a $1000 gaming PC with a $500 graphics card to a $399 or $499 console.
In addition, console game developers can usually get more out of the hardware. So yes PC hardware is ahead of console hardware in terms of performance, but way behind in price performance and it will be for a while.
In addition, the couch gaming appeal of a PC sucks balls.
Why buy consoles, when PC does it better?
PS4 has DRM. Just try to use the PS4 game on a PC. Or try to make a backup. It just doesn't have new DRM.
Actually, from what they said, it's going to have exclusive access for the beta, not necessarily the final release. It probably will be on Xbox One as well, but who knows at this point?
The sharpest blade is no match for the sharpest mind.
Lots of GIs like to take their gaming box with them to the desert. Not always an Internet connection for them to use there. That XBox Next is gonna be pretty useless if it has to connect once a day.
Choosing what products to buy based on which one has the fewest deplorable anti-features rather than best actual features. Great.
I don't talk with lunatics, so I rarely notice.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I remember when gaming used to be a lot of fun. 2013 marks at least the third year straight where you can't fucking blink without someone screeching in your face about "gender issues". Note, it's only EVER about gender issues. I think gaming should work to be more inclusive, but it's just working to be more PC, instead. Worse, it's really NOT working to be more inclusive. Again, the only topic EVER discussed is "sexism". There is nearly never much discussion about homophobia, xenophobia, or race. Maybe for every fifty stories about how "mysoginyst" (used incorrectly, almost always) gamers and developers and publishers are, there *might* be one story that just briefly mentions race, xenophobia, or homophobia -- which I would suggest are actually far more frequently encountered in gaming than anything else. I can go for days playing online without hearing something about a woman in the kitchen, but I can't be in a game online for two minutes without hearing the N-word thrown around or gay slurs hurled around.
I got that from the PC Magazine article which said:
Other games of note include Bungie and Activision's Destiny, Ubisoft's Watch Dogs and Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, 2K Games's NBA 2K14 (complete with video appearance by Lebron James and Lebron James's PS4-rendered digital simulacra), and Bethesda Softworks and Zenimax Online Studios' The Elder Scrolls Online, which will get a PS4-exclusive console port.
But it looks like they may have meant an exclusive ESO beta, from subsequent reports.
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
Oh yes, Pc costs much more, no denying here, and after 10 min of google, the PS4/XBOX is more like 5 years behind and not 10 like I said. But that was not my point, I was just commenting on the technology.
And you can use the PC from the couch, there are no technical limitation.
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
I have a gaming rig I use to play MMO's. But I prefer a console for the lack of hassle, and the fact that I can sit down with a controller and play it anywhere. With a new generation of consoles coming out, and with Elder Scrolls Online coming to them, I imagine my PC will end up neglected for a while.
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
Microsoft has accomplished something that I never thought possible: They have gotten me to hate a company more than I hate Sony.
That is rather remarkable.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Then you have things weirdly muddled like when you have a transgendered person standing up at a developer's conference reading a poem someone wrote, basically "smashing the patriarchy", about how women (including the reader on stage) are so poorly treated in the gaming world. Which, yes, I agree that it would be a good thing to be more considerate of gender issues and all sorts of other issues that help make gaming more welcoming and rewarding to *everyone* . . . but when you have a man living as a woman reading a poem to rally against sexism towards women that this man is experiencing . . then . . . it just becomes all too fucking surreal. That was actually sort of where I lost the plot, this year, and decided that I actually didn't care anymore.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4t_0sTq1hIo
In that video, Anna Anthropy (a transgendered man -- man==>woman) reads a poem written by Cara Ellison (a game reviewer), that is just a re-write of Ginsberg's Hadda Be Playin' on the Jukebox, but just line after line about things about how men in the gaming industry and circles oppress women. Because, you know, who better to rally for that cause than . . . . a man.
No, I don't have a problem with LGBTQ in any way at all. I just find it ridiculous as shit when a transgender man is standing up to complain about how horrible sexism is.
Lol, yes. The next generation will be able to do that and with much more detail and higher quality textures. Let's also not neglect price. It's not really cool to compare a $1000 gaming PC with a $500 graphics card to a $399 or $499 console.
In addition, console game developers can usually get more out of the hardware. So yes PC hardware is ahead of console hardware in terms of performance, but way behind in price performance and it will be for a while.
In addition, the couch gaming appeal of a PC sucks balls.
why don't we just compare 500 bucks pc with 500 bucks console.
I mean, wft, it's pc hardware in both of them. come next spring you can pick up hw that destroys both of them for the 500 bucks. neither of the consoles announced offer really anything must have except for exclusive titling. technologically they're both boring(comparatevely to both xbox360 and ps3 which at least did have some unique angles in consumer space to their hw).
the only good thing is that because of the upgraded memory, game developers could finally start creating games that don't have to be conceptually limited by the fucking 512megabyte limits of current generation consoles. couch gaming with pc is the way to go, I got a couch and a 55". I use it exclusively with my pc hooked up to it. skyrim etc at 1920x1080 the way it's meant to be. just get a kb that stays put on the lap and touchtype away. if you got a beer belly this is going to be hard to do though.. you also need a mouse that's fine to use on the sofa - because even if one could get a dualstick type controller we all know that they suck for fps's.
however, once the next generation oculus hits the store.. that's the way to go for gaming. and movies. and everything. the current sdk kit is a bit too low resolution but damn, that is the way to go(so much superior to any vr systems before). doesn't matter much then what box it is you're playing with.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Well, just like the Windows 8 architect, M$ will soon be getting rid of their Xbox One architect... Another failure under M$'s belt..
they're a different person??
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Someone's got their Microsoft hate-on with this "rape joke" insinuation. They should be sued for slander and/or defamation of character.
I've got Steam installed on Ubuntu but it's a long way from being a console replacement just yet, and I'm not switching my perfectly functional PC to Windows.
We don't want any of these abominations. Buy PCs and buy the Ouya, support the Ouya for the love of god.
These are our game consoles. We bought our NES's and SNES's for ability to sit down and quickly, easily play our games. We didn't complicate life with connectivity requirements, we just bought our games, stuck them in and played. The only hope moving forward is to support the truly open platforms such as PC and OUYA.
Guys, I think I need to re-think my user name...Microsoft is just doing such a terrible job.
lik-sang.com
"I think the locked-down PC-in-a-box on the left is my favourite"
"No, the locked-down PC-in-a-box on the right is obviously superior!"
And to many of the rest of us, these nearly identical (both inside and out) boxes look to have the same sort of power as the gaming rigs we built two years ago. A lot of people still haven't gone HD, and only a small fraction of gamers have gone much beyond 1080p. 1080p looks pretty good on most screen sizes, but for 99% of the consumer market, there's no point going past that because the display hardware in people's houses can't display it. So once you've got hardware that'll do 1080p, you'd better have something much cleverer as a selling-point in your game, because the last gasp of "Ooh, teh shiniez!" as a major selling point was probably about three years ago.
And so far, all they seem to have are pre-rendered demos that show off the shiniez, and Sony claiming to suck slightly less terribly than Microsoft.
Really? Is that it? You want $500 out of me in the middle of a recession, when I already have a 360, PS3 and a gaming PC? You're really going to have to try a lot harder than that.
Still a long way before that much computing power is packed into a tiny cell phone (or the battery lasts more than 15 seconds).
none
Please explain us how they can do that, without bricking the PS4 for people without entwork for it, in country where consumer protection exists, without getting an huge backlash from the law and consumer protection agencies. Please do it. This is not like PS2 emulation loss or other OS , it is downright bricking the machine for its MAIN usage. Note that I am not speaking of multiplayer game or buying digital which would mean anyway you have a connection, I am speaking of single palyer game, people like me, which do not have their PS3 (and almost certainly PS4) connected at all. PS: I am not an exception, in fact from all people I know with various dining room TV console, only 2 have it connected.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Is Donglegate wedged into this description? It's completely irrelevant to the rest of the Article, not to mention it wasn't some Political storm, it was an in-group whine-fest of bitchy, epic proportions. Even if Microsoft was making Rape Jokes, it's completely irrelevant to the rest of the article description.
If you look at some of the video from Sony, there are multiple times it pops up that there is a required PSN account with PlayStation PLUS required to play online games. They say "Hey look, no DRM..." then mumble under their breath "as long as you pay us a bunch of money per month for nothing whatsoever".
If you ask me, the right choice for a console is none of the above. PC + TV = much better experience.
If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits
Ultimately they are the ones who want used game protection. They may try and bury the PS4 with Xbone exclusives.
what they mean is no Ubisoft/EA style DRM, just the normal PS3/PS2 style where it won't play a burned pirated ISO because it doesn't have the right whatever on it.
Don't be "that guy" and might want to stop using the term "Master Race", buddy.
Consoles are computers too, sure they're a specialized computer, but a computer nonetheless.. There was a time I could give you the "uname -a" info of my PS2 or PS3.
There are some AAA titles that won't come to PC for a while, but you can console yourself with slightly older good games that are a fraction of the price that you'd pay for consoles.
There is this thing called PSN, perhaps you've heard of it, it has older games, and games from small studios that are cheap.
1) The recession ended in 2009.
2) Consoles are far simpler to setup and use, and will look nicer than nearly any build.
3) There are unique functions to each of the input devices on these consoles.
4) There are unique sharing/community functions that will operate across every game on the platform.
PCs do have their advantages (upgradeable power/mods), but consoles also have theirs. Pretending they don't is fanboi-ism.
Egosoft, how appropriate.
Well, first 399$ (not 500) is MSRP for PS4.
Second, my personal attempts to combine PC, 46" TV and sofa into comfortable gaming failed miserably because of the following reasons:
a) most PC games assume you sit next to the monitor, so fonts they used are very hard to read on TV
b) PC/Mouse are hard to use in a sofa
Last, but not least, it's not about graphics and also remember that in case of consoles games are using hardware capabilities much more effectively (it's easier than with PCs where you have to support gazillion of hardware configs)
It was definitely a rape joke. It also isn't a big deal except to the "ALL THE SENSITIVE" crowd who are looking for any reason to be angry.
Seriously the constant push to have the thinnest skin possible is getting extremely annoying.
In the video, note that the "sharer" never let go of the game.
None. The OUYA is not competition for the Big 3 (PS4, XBone and PC), it competition for the stragglers maybe, the Wii U, Gamestick and current-gen consoles, but it isn't even a blip on the core gaming market.
They were initially the cheap and inexpensive alternative that you gave to the kids, it attached to the TV only
The low-def consoles (NES through PS1/N64) and the standard-def consoles (Dreamcast, PS2, original Xbox, and GameCube/Wii) attach to any monitor with a composite video input. A Commodore 1902A or AppleColor composite monitor makes even NES and Super NES games look razor sharp. And the high-def consoles attach to any monitor with an HDMI input. It's PCs that have been historically video output limited; VGA was pushing out EDTV, and XGA was pushing out HDTV, when very few living-room-sized monitors accepted anything higher than SDTV until around 2007 when LCD HDTV monitors finally pushed CRT SDTV monitors out of Best Buy and Walmart.
you had an incredibly clumsy controller to use,
Whether a gamepad is clumsier than a mouse depends on the genre. RTS and single-player or online FPS I'll give you; mouse + keyboard beats a gamepad for those. But how would you have played Super Mario Bros. or Castlevania or Mega Man with a mouse? Even for games that work well with a keyboard, it's hard for two players who live in the same one-PC household to share a keyboard. One console and one copy of the game is cheaper than four PCs.
Now they're essentially full blown PCs, so why not just use a PC?
Because of ease of use. For one thing, consoles usually don't have to deal with antivirus. Nor do console gamers have to futz around with installing a video card and updating drivers. Also because consoles get exclusive games, and often entire exclusive genres, such as platformers and fighters. And this is in turn because not all games benefit from a separate computer and monitor per player, and apart from hairyfeet and his disciples, nobody wants to connect a PC to a TV.
No, we don't "know they will". We know that MS is using restrictive DRM in the XB1. We know that Sony is not using restrictive DRM in the PS4. The insinuations that they might add it later are nothing but FUD.
"Sure, your OS isn't going to steal your credit card information right now, but they might patch that in later!! Be afraid! Be angry!!!!"
And don't go accusing me of fanboyism. I'm not buying any next gen console -- I'm quite happy with PC gaming, thank you very much.
Meanwhile iOS games keep getting better
I don't own an iOS device quite yet. Have controls in platformers for iOS become as responsive as controls in platformers for even the almost 30-year-old NES? Is it even possible to make a responsive virtual gamepad on a flat sheet of glass? Or are platformers themselves passé?
I bet what spire3661 meant was "indie" as in companies formed by industry alumni, not real indie as in companies formed by people who happen not to have had a chance to move the whole family to an industry hotbed. There's a difference, as you pointed out a year ago.
But I'm still glad that Sony Computer Entertainment has taken a step away from the console makers' fallacy and toward the model of allowing review sites and free demos to speak for a game's quality, even if it may have taken competition from Apple's App Store, Google Play, and the forthcoming Ouya console to get SCE to do it. Microsoft, which appeared the most progressive of the seventh generation with XNA, appears to have fallen behind in the eighth by continuing to require indie developers to partner with an established disc game publisher to get a "slot".
Many times the whole point of using a console over a real PC is because the console is in the living room attached to the TV for the kids to play on. Ie, no internet access anyway. If we're at the point where consoles are essentially just PCs but with massive restrictions then why not just go ahead and use a PC instead?
You answered your own question: the PC isn't already in the living room. If you keep a console next to the TV, there's no need to shut down the PC, unplug cables, carry it from the computer desk to the TV, and plug in cables, and then do the reverse once gaming is done. Or were you referring to buying one PC for the living room and one PC for the computer desk?
my personal attempts to combine PC, 46" TV and sofa into comfortable gaming failed miserably because of the following reasons:
a) most PC games assume you sit next to the monitor, so fonts they used are very hard to read on TV
b) PC/Mouse are hard to use in a sofa
Let me guess: That was prior to the proliferation of controller-friendly PC titles that followed the release of Steam Big Picture. These games use bigger fonts because they know the player will be sitting farther away, and they include presets for the Xbox 360 controller and maybe even some popular HID joysticks.
Why game in the living room, if you've already got a pc? Well, I guess if you have kids.
Either kids, or a grown-up and his girlfriend, or a grown-up who has grown-up friends over for some other reason and they get an itch to play a video game together. PC multiplayer has historically required a separate PC and a separate copy of the game for each player because PC monitors have historically been physically much smaller than TV monitors. This size disparity began to change in 2007 once TVs gained PC video inputs and PC monitors shot up toward 23" to use cheap mass-produced TV panels, but there's still been enough inertia and enough ease-of-use advantage for consoles to keep their hold on the living room.
*checking out the Steam sales*
I hear what you are saying. I truly do. "Cause I don't want to" is perfectly valid answer and your right. I get that. But why is it such a big deal for you and others like you that your gaming system has to be connected to the internet? Do you not have internet? Are you going to take it to a buddies house who doesn't have internet? This is 2013 and you actually are gonna have some sudden need to do some gaming but there will no internet for miles around? THIS is the stuff I don't get. If you have enough money for an XBOX/PS/etc then you can get some internet. Hell your phone probably has it too so the mobile aspect is taken care of. I know you have internet, you're posting here on /. so please enlighten me why you hate being hooked up to the internet?
This kind of argument strikes me of being a Luddite. You (in general, not you personally) want things just like they were in 1999 when we had 40 person live LAN parties and exclusive clubs where every little Jimmy down the street couldn't play with you guys. Well guess what? Technology and society changes. You have to keep up or you end up a crotchety old bastard that is bitter that the world left him behind when he hit 30. I've heard people like you (and I think I actually heard you yourself) tell people bitching in the threads about IT discriminating against old folks and people who are mediocre at best that you guys never have a problem finding or keeping a job because you keep your skillset fresh. Now the electronics industry and IT in general has changed and you need to get with the times. Update your skillset. I know you have good memories of playing 16 hours straight of the ORIGINAL Call of Duty at your buddies' house. You guys had your 100BaseT switch all tweaked out with the blinken lights and the times were never better, especially now that you learned to sniper people at 200 yards with the bazooka. But that was then and this is now. Make new nostalgia if you must.
There is but ONE truly compelling reason why someone wouldn't want their console to ever touch the internet and that would be piracy. I'm not saying you pirate your games, I don't know you, but I do know some pirates who's Xbox might get bricked if it touched the web. If that is your reason, that's fine. I get that as well (I only pirate PC titles!). I also get that you can't really just come out and say that since people would immediately stop listening to you.
Again, I just want to know what is your line of thinking in being so unacceptable of the evolving system.
I play WoW. I play WoW on Proudmoore which has a long tradition of being LGBT friendly. I can't spent 10 minutes in Tradechat without there being a homophobic OR sexist OR racist remark being made. Often by the same trolls day in, day out. I wish the temp ban from reporting them lasted longer than the next time you log out.
Sara
Designer, Gamer, Macgrrl in an XP World
A couple of friends of ours are currently transitioning from male to female, from speaking to them they experience sexism against both their genders (birth and identify) on a regular basis.
I rather imagine a transgender woman would be in the unique position of experiencing both the unrecognised privilege of being male in the gaming community and to be able to directly compare that to the discrimination against female gamers.
Sara
Designer, Gamer, Macgrrl in an XP World
One of the things that "ALL THE SENSITIVE" crowd are trying to tell you is that rape jokes are almost never OK because they trivialise the reality of rape.
Think about 5 women you know, the odds are at least one of them has been sexually assaulted at some point in their lives. The odds are also that the person that assaulted them was known to them and someone they felt safe with prior to the assault.
Now imagine standing in front of those same 5 women, knowing one of them has most likely been raped and picture yourself telling a rape joke. Do you still think they are being over sensitive?
Sara
Designer, Gamer, Macgrrl in an XP World
Did you seriously just rephrase some Martin Niemoller and apply it to Sony? That is some stealthy Godwinning ya got going there dude.
Re-read this post in Yoda voice you should. Much wisdom Cronocloud has. Mod points, I do not.
The head of Civil Liberties Australia, Tim Vines, has said that users should be wary of what the XBox One is capable of:
Microsoft’s new Xbox meets the definition of a surveillance device under some Australian laws, so they need to be upfront and tell customers whether anyone else can intercept their information or remotely access their device. The Xbox One continuously records all sorts of personal information about me. My reaction rates, my learning or emotional states. These are then processed on an external server, and possibly even passed on to third parties. The fact that Microsoft could potentially spy on my living room is merely a twisted nightmare.
Given Microsoft's complicity and agreement with the NSA, I have no doubt that Tim is correct. The XBox One should be banned in Australia as a surveillance device.
Just like the PS3 it has a removable and upgradable standard 2.5" HDD(confirmed you can easily google for the source). No complaints at all but that just makes me wish for an SD card compatible PS Vita.
That and the fact you have to subscribe to PSN+ for online multiplayer. I'm a PSN+ subscriber, it's an excellent service that pays for itself with the great discounts and free games(plus I like the cloud saves) but forcing it on everyone is a dick move. They don't need to do that given the current success of the product and the apparent bright future, I'm sure PSN+ will be even more profitable and successful in the future without having to handicap standard PSN members
Yes.
do this,
combine an intel atom mobile cpu with nvidia tegra with compatibility added to the level of xbox1 chipset, or emulate it + wmobile8.
At the hand held size, xbox 1 (intel games) if MS tried could be made to boot and look great.
Update the API from its 2010 expired roots, and call it xbox-portable (compatible with xb1 games) and runs Wmob8.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
"Our console sucks less" - Sony
I mean, how could Kim not afford to do this, you can spy and play against your army.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
got an amazon account, well, make a VM on ec2, its free for 12 months, and runs 24/7 using zero watts, always up!
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
You know what, I've used my PC to buy a game from Activision Blizzard, it was Starcraft.
To install it, you need to register on battle.net and add the game to your account.
You can't officially re-sell it and unofficially you could ship it with your own account.
You need to get online every couple of weeks or it will stop working (SINGLE PLAYER MISSIONS!!!)
Tell me how I have more freedom with PC, than with PS3/PS4.
Remember the PS3 being advertised and sold as being open and able to run Linux?
Then later throw a switch to OFF.
No apologies.
Sorry, I don't believe a word they say. This is all hype, they might stick to it for a year or two, then when the have a market base etc... OFF.
Will be a computer. I would never buy anything from Sony given their history. Microsoft seems to want to alienate the gaming market for some reason.
Sure I will spend a bit more, mostly because I can. However given that console games are at best 1080P, building a basic system than can handle most games at that resolution (which is peanuts for any modern computer) wouldn't be all that expensive.
Besides I have a Xbox360 already that seems to work well, and my Core2Duo is getting a bit long in the tooth now. That said, when Fallout 4 comes out, I would be tempted. However I have no doubt it will be for the PC as well. I mean some people talk about the console "exclusives", but realistically if you look at it there are way more "exclusives" for the PC than both those consoles combined.
What keeps Sony from changing that in a few years? I mean, does anyone remember the "Other OS" feature?
Well lemme set ya straight there buddy. I am not a 19yo ADHD or Asperger's sufferer but I think you might be. You are getting way too damned worked up over this shit. CALM THE FUCK DOWN. I told you in the first sentence that "none of your fucking business" was within your rights but "cause I said so, I don't want to, I don't feel like it" aren't GOOD reasons. They are general statements that are deflecting the question asked because you might be embarrassed or have to change your position should people really know what you're going on about. I asked for you to clarify that statement and you did. You also don't actually know what my position on this matter is.
Firstly I have not liked how the corporations have been raping us over and over again nor pretty much the entire country has been moving along since Bush Jr took over. I don't like MS & haven't since WFW 3.11. I chalk up liking them back then cause I was a teen and didn't know better. You know what though, I have to use MS products every single day whether I want to or not. Ya know why? Cause my work says so and I gotta feed the family and make the money so I can buy all my toys and pay my bills. I could take a position similar to yours though if I did, I'd be out of this sweet ass job I have that I worked my ass off in the 90s to get. This is what I told you to start with, you have to adapt and overcome the changing world because if you don't you get left behind and get to do without. It also makes you a bitter old man when you sit there in your retirement years lamenting all that you have lost over the years. However awesome things used to be back in the day, they are gone and you aren't getting them back. So you adapt and make new memories that will ultimately change and you get to start right the fuck back over. Refusing the accept and adapt to the world around you is what makes you a Luddite, not just this XBoner controversy. So let's visit those points you made about that, shall we?
I am drowning in the hypocrisy and it smells like bullshit! From your self righteous tone, you imply that you are an old fuck (and I am not). I mention this because if that is correct, then you've been around computers since they became common place items found in the general population. Please tell me a time when you actually owned the software you "bought?" Maybe before about 1985 but you should know, I know, and every person on slashdot knows, that software is a license. It has an absurd EULA that hasn't really ever been challenged that does indeed say they can change the software and the terms of use whenever they fucking feel like it. You so proudly claimed that you aren't a software pirate so then that means you have legally purchased and installed your software, correct? If so then you most assuredly clicked yes to that EULA saying you agree to those terms. Your other choice was to disagree and return that product. But then you'll retort that there's no way to not agree to it because then you can't return it cause you opened it so you might as well just click past it and use it anyway. You only get to use that excuse ONCE. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. You know they fucked you the first time but did that stop you from buying more? Probably not. You probably have a dozen XBox games alone since you seem so torn up by this decision. So instead of fighting the system to change it, you just accepted it and so now that is one of the reasons why software is as fucked up as it is. We, as a geek community, did not fight hard enough to overturn what was happening and so now we must deal with a system that is different than it used to be. Again, I don't like it, you don't like it, and many slashdotters don't like it but this is what we have so either we twist it to our advantage or we can let it go and do without. So you, I, and everyone else clicked that I agree/OK button and started using that software but the difference between you and I is that I accepted that I am just renting it but you still kee