Jimquisition: Why The PS4 Is Kicking Xbox One's Arse

[Auron225]

Cows go moo, sheep go baa, and the the PS4 kicks Xbox ass. That's all from us here at Obvious News. Stay classy San Diego.

...but it is still nice to hear again Particularly since my older brother thought he knew games consoles and was convinced that the Xbox would come out on top. He has since stopped keeping up with such stuff but it's nice to know that I freaking called it.

 

[geier]

Please Jim, please change the tie! The green colour looks awful in front of the red background.

 

[rasputin0009]

What? Playstation Plus and the PS4's indie library are why Sony is kicking ass? I disagree.

I believe it's the $100 price difference and the "softcore" gamer's conception of the PS4 being more "powerful". Anecdotal evidence; my roommate who plays CoD and only CoD every once in a while plans on buying a PS4. He still thinks PS4's multiplayer is free. I'm not going to correct him because it'll piss him off when he finds out for himself and that'll be funny. It's only funny because we're such good friends and he's poor and going through university. Don't worry, his parents are rich as shit, he just wants to do it on his own.

Anyways, I think Titanfall is THE system seller and THE CoD killer. It's enough of a reason to buy the One over a PS4. Watch One sales increase rapidly over the next couple months.

 

[SinisterGehe]

According to M$, Finland is some wasteland without any market for gaming apparently.

Well, it is compared to all the other territories Xbox One has launched in already. Aside from Austria, Australia, and New Zealand every country it has launched in has a higher population than all Nordic countries combined.

Shouldn't the inhabitants of low-population European countries that don't share an official language with high-population countries just be accustomed to getting consoles later?

WE got PS4 the same day as everyone else.... And no! Xbox360/PS4 came on their release dates. X1 Has been delayed TWICE and apparently will be delayed AGAIN!

And if Nordic countries is such an issue. Then why don't they give us Nordic release. The OS's are primarily in English anyway. Localization shouldn't be an issue. No one localizes any console to Finnish language. It is universally agreed to be waste of time even by Finns.

Xbox has NO right to whine about Bad sales. Release more expensive console LATER. It just wont sell.
I have a mate who works at Anttila department store (One of the official retailers of Xbox products). And since the last delaye notification they received refund demands for ~50% of pre orders from that local store (And that is full refund which they got due to law).

If course you could go and buy them imported version of XboxOne from mainland Europe. English OS everything apparently works fine. Except there is no support or guarantees that the Live service will work.

 

[cdemares]

I don't think either one is pulling ahead. I don't have either and think they're both mediocre for the price right now.
Wow, PS4 has indie games. I totally can't play those on PC.
XBone has a cable box? What a coincidence, I also have one of those.
Exclusives? A bunch of sequels and "new IPs" that seem like sequels to other games.

It's funny, people keep knocking the XBone for pushing the streaming and movies, but most of my Xbox 360 friends are on Netflix all the time. Streaming movies and TV are what people are doing, maybe MS is on to something. Of course, that will never earn you respect on a videogame website, but I wonder how many PS4 owners out there are also just watching Netflix and Hulu most of the time.

 

[Toadfish1]

To prove you're no fanboy, Jim, how about one on why the Xbox One is absolutely crushing the WiiU?

Because many people are unaware it bloody exists, I talked to my aunt about it and she thinks the Wii-U is an expensive peripheral for the Wii, my mother thought the same, many potential buyers are unaware its a whole new console and its lack of marketing is not helping. If the Wii-U had a different name (a reason why many see it as an add-on) and had more solid marketing, it would likely fare much better.

The 3DS is selling well because I see commercials for it and those commercials show off the 3D technology, something the DS didn't have, it shows the distinction between the systems.

Yes, that is one reason that it is a massive failure, but there are a lot of others. It might help to go through all of them. Pissing off all game devs and focusing on an unimpressive gimmick that raises the price too high are also reasons.

 

[RedDeadFred]

I'd say it is kicking the xbox ones ass mostly because it costs less.

We have a winner.

It's basically too expensive, here in the UK the Xbox One has been doing relatively well, at least from the retails taff I've spoken to, and Titanfall has given it a massive push. Sony did lose a lot of good will here with the PS3 though.

Both consoles are decent machines though, I personally could find more use for the X1 at this point that the PS4, since I do most of my gaming on PC and jsut need something lazy as a media hub for the living room. I could build a PC fdor that easily enough but I tinker with them way too much.

While I don't think this'll change anything (Sony's more or less dominating the current itteration of the Console Wars), it will still be interesting to see how many, if any, customers are gonna jump to the 'bone now that the pisser is closeing the gap in terms of price.

Our dollar is not what it was when the console launched. It annoys me that they're doing this (since I haven't gotten a PS4 yet) but it does make sense. Besides, it's still cheaper than the xbone and, for all the reasons that Jim just listed, it's a much better console.

 

[RavenTail]

What? Playstation Plus and the PS4's indie library are why Sony is kicking ass? I disagree.

I believe it's the $100 price difference and the "softcore" gamer's conception of the PS4 being more "powerful". Anecdotal evidence; my roommate who plays CoD and only CoD every once in a while plans on buying a PS4. He still thinks PS4's multiplayer is free. I'm not going to correct him because it'll piss him off when he finds out for himself and that'll be funny. It's only funny because we're such good friends and he's poor and going through university. Don't worry, his parents are rich as shit, he just wants to do it on his own.

Anyways, I think Titanfall is THE system seller and THE CoD killer. It's enough of a reason to buy the One over a PS4. Watch One sales increase rapidly over the next couple months.

But see, if your friend is poor then he'd be better off with PS+ since it's only $5 a month vs. XBLG's $10 a month.

I mean if your friend is in such a financial predicament that he can't even afford what amounts to a cup of coffee from Starbucks once every 30 days then perhaps spending hundreds of dollars on a new system isn't the wisest thing to do.

If he's looking for a CoD fix he should buy a PS3 since the price for even a new system would save him hundreds compared to a new PS4. Also he'd still be able to play the PS3 versions of CoD online for free.

As a 'good friend' I'd think you'd want to help him with such suggestions instead of letting him spend so much money only to be upset with what he bought.

 

[IamLEAM1983]

Good episode! This just comforts me in my decision to let my Xbox Live subscription fall by the wayside. While the price hike for us Canucks does suck, waiting a couple years should allow me to consider grabbing myself a PS4 at a markdown and with a more furnished selection of AAA games.

Not to mention the fact that I *love* the idea of the PS4 serving as a convenient screening and streaming window for Indie content. My Consoles-or-Die cousin would never have played Outlast if not for the PS4's strategy towards Indies, and I really have to thank Sony for letting me watch my young twentysomething fool of a relative crap his pants in broad daylight.

Knack isn't excusable but, eh. Seems to me like they've got a solid roster ahead of them anyways.

 

[nevarran]

No worries, console fanboys are reasonable people...

 

[Lord Doomhammer]

-snip-

You do know that the internet doesn't run on good vibes generated from the pure flow of information, right? Internet based services are run by servers. Servers cost a lot of money. Good servers cost even more. Enough good servers to run a worldwide multiplayer service costs a large fortune. The console providers have a decision to make: provide a shitty, half-assed multiplayer service and destroy the one thing they have going for them over PC (a relatively hassle free experience) or charge a small monthly fee to provide a useful and good service.

And don't say "but the PC does it for free!" because it does not. PC multiplayer service is a joke. Besides a few highly successful titles PC multiplayer service is generally very poor. Many games, even high profile games, barely even function.

If I could pay $5 a month for greatly improved multiplayer on my PC I would do it today and never look back.

You haven't been to the internet much have you?
I'm not sure where to start with this so I'll just go in order.
You're right about one thing. The internet does not run on 'good vibes.' It does indeed run on money, usually through ads. And if you've ever been to a player hosted dedicated server(remember this word "dedicated server" I'll return to this point later), you'll probably have noticed the ads that play when you enter the server, and their 'perks' for members of the community that contribute. So yea, sometimes its better to pay, but you're paying a trifle of what these giant corporations charge, for none of their bullshit, and a much better and more creative and involving community. Not that xbox live and psn don't have communities, but having grown out of my teens, I find the language and behavior in these communities to be lackluster at best, and a good example for human extinction at worst.

You mentioned 'pc multiplayer service is a joke' and I'd like to know what planet you're living on that you think this is a logical sentence. It is most definitely not a joke. If you look at the steam statistics alone, you'll find evidence contrary. That's not taking Origin, LOL, GOG and Blizzard's services into account. PC multiplayer is not a joke, it crushes the consoles in every event, and in most cases it crushes them while not being a 'pay to play' service with gated content and restrictions on modding (not cheating, i'm talking custom maps, and games revived from the dead by the community), it's a free and open ecosystem, something Microsoft and Sony seem to hate and fear.

If you want you can pay 5$ a month, any community server would gladly welcome you and make you a premium member on their DEDICATED SERVERS for that cost. And this is the last and most important thing. DEDICATED SERVERS, something completely alien in the console world. And something that has ruined so many console games. A dedicated computer, just running the game server, consoles rely on Peer to Peer services. These giant servers you mentioned above? DO NOT RUN THE GAMES YOU PLAY. They host content and multiplayer matchmaking. Meanwhile, dedicated servers on the PC side mean that you have a stable connection to every game, and you can filter to find games where you will have very low latency when you play. If someone leaves the game it doesn't kill everyone's fun. And where consoles struggle to coordinate 16 players total, PCs and their dedicated servers have no problem hosting 32 or even 60+ players in the same game, because the machines that are playing the game don't also have to host it, that computational load is taken off of the client machines and put onto one large host machine called the 'dedicated server.' And remember, these are free on the PC side of things, so is everything else these consoles gate off.

 

[The Lunatic]

Whilst, obviously, the PC still does basically everything these consoles do, but, better, it's good to see the PS4 is understanding its role better than the Xbone is.

At this stage, a lot of companies and people are realising that PC hardware is cheap enough to build into a TV, it's cheap enough that practically everyone at least has a laptop, a tablet or some form of device which can connect to the internet.


You don't need a console for Netflix, "TV", or any of that crap. You've already got those on other devices, the idea of paying for it especially on this box you bought to play games is just silly.


So, it seems Sony understands that people turn on their game box to play games, they've engaged with digital downloads on a reasonable level, the indie support is pretty acceptable, whilst only a speck compared to the PC, it's still miles ahead of the Xbone's attempts. And all along, they seem to have marketed themselves as "A box you play games on" rather than "TV, TV, TV, Kinect".


Also, being cheaper helps a lot.

 

[Eldritch Warlord]

WE got PS4 the same day as everyone else.... And no! Xbox360/PS4 came on their release dates. X1 Has been delayed TWICE and apparently will be delayed AGAIN!

And if Nordic countries is such an issue. Then why don't they give us Nordic release. The OS's are primarily in English anyway. Localization shouldn't be an issue. No one localizes any console to Finnish language. It is universally agreed to be waste of time even by Finns.

Xbox has NO right to whine about Bad sales. Release more expensive console LATER. It just wont sell.
I have a mate who works at Anttila department store (One of the official retailers of Xbox products). And since the last delaye notification they received refund demands for ~50% of pre orders from that local store (And that is full refund which they got due to law).

If course you could go and buy them imported version of XboxOne from mainland Europe. English OS everything apparently works fine. Except there is no support or guarantees that the Live service will work.

I don't think Microsoft will be complaining about low sales numbers, lately they're bragging about how Xbox One is their most successful console launch. [http://news.xbox.com/2014/03/xbox-february-npd]

Microsoft claims that localization issues with Kinect are the reason for the delay. [http://www.joystiq.com/2013/08/27/report-xbox-one-regional-delays-due-to-kinect-localization-issu/] They may well give up on that and release without voice support, but I can see why they would want that heavily advertized feature to be usable day one. Likely they think that positive word-of-mouth based on voice controls will generate more sales than those lost by those dissatisfied by delays. Another consideration is negative word-of-mouth from poor voice support.

It's not just a matter of translating things into Finnish by the way, voice recognition is affected by accents. They still need to localize to "English in Finnish Accent" if they decide not to support Finnish language.

Personally I think that launching with an very obvious advisement in the box saying that voice support has not been vetted for the region would be their best option, but I have no expertise in Sales or Marketing. People are largely stupid after all so they may well get angry anyway.

 

[RedDeadFred]

It's enough of a reason to buy the One over a PS4.

One game? One game that's also on PC? One game that will also be coming out on 360? Don't get me wrong, I haven't gotten a PS4 yet because I play a lot of the awesome Indie games Jim was mentioning on my PC. I'm waiting for more of their bigger games to come out. I just don't see why someone would buy a system for one game that they can also get on their old console or PC if it's good enough.

 

[GonzoGamer]

Yes, it's funny to me how people shit on Microsoft for their online paywall (and rightfully so) but give Sony a pass because they were smart enough to get people hooked on PS+ before adding their paywall. There is no doubt in my mind that once they have many more people paying for PS+ they will start dropping some of the sweets.

PS+ operated on the basis that PS+ members were subsidized by people who actually bought the "free" games. That doesn't work when you have many many more gamers not buying games because they are waiting for them to hit PS+.

It's kinda like with adblock, the majority of people look at ads and subsidize the ad free viewing of those who use adblock but when the majority block ads, things have to change.

Funny you mention that, one of the reasons I was considering ps+ is because I was noticing that by the time I got around to renting some ps3 AAA games, they were already on +.
It really isn't a bad value right now but yes, how long can that last if people are just paying Sony. It's not as bad as adblock because I'm sure sony gives the publishers money but if they're having problems staying afloat selling games for $60 a pop, who knows how long they can last on the trickle down.
For me it's purely the indignant nature of the whole thing. I already pay the cable company more than enough for my internet, if Sony wants a cut, they can bother those pigs.

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

>consoles
>still relevant

Spoiler

Paying to play games on the internet, after paying for internet service is not a justifiable model, no matter how much 'free content' they try to add. Both companies are wrong and pathetic so long as this little thing called THE INTERNET exists.

You do know that the internet doesn't run on good vibes generated from the pure flow of information, right? Internet based services are run by servers. Servers cost a lot of money. Good servers cost even more. Enough good servers to run a worldwide multiplayer service costs a large fortune. The console providers have a decision to make: provide a shitty, half-assed multiplayer service and destroy the one thing they have going for them over PC (a relatively hassle free experience) or charge a small monthly fee to provide a useful and good service.

And don't say "but the PC does it for free!" because it does not. PC multiplayer service is a joke. Besides a few highly successful titles PC multiplayer service is generally very poor. Many games, even high profile games, barely even function.

If I could pay $5 a month for greatly improved multiplayer on my PC I would do it today and never look back.

id like to know in what reality you live, because i cant comprehend how "PC multiplayer service is generally very poor"

there are games that are more than a decade old with working online on PC, such as starcraft and CS 1.6, not only that but PC host some of the biggest multiplayer games ever, games such as world of tanks, dota 2 and of course the most played game on earth, League of Legends

not to mention that as far as online functionality goes Steam provides the entire package for free and it even puts consoles to shame in many aspects such as:

-dedicated hubs for every single game, with forums, guides, screenshots and artwork
-trading cards, along with badges emoticons and profile backgrounds
-community market for selling ingame items and trading cards
-trading of course
-the steam workshop which allows for easy installing of mods

all this for free

 

[Vrach]

Wheter or not it's related to Jim's video (Blessed is the mind too small to doubt the word of Jim!), I still think it's relevant to bring up that, in Canada, Sony is hiking up the price of the PS4 to 449.99$.


While I don't think this'll change anything (Sony's more or less dominating the current itteration of the Console Wars), it will still be interesting to see how many, if any, customers are gonna jump to the 'bone now that the pisser is closeing the gap in terms of price.

Forgive me for not watching the video, but is that 449 Canadian Dollars or 449 USD (because the conversion rate between Canadian and US dollars lines up perfectly for those two figures)? And btw, all them lovely prices stated in USD are simply converted 1:1 to Euros here in Europe, so we get to pay 400 euros (557 USD) if we want a PS4...

 

[Hdawger]

What? Playstation Plus and the PS4's indie library are why Sony is kicking ass? I disagree.

I believe it's the $100 price difference and the "softcore" gamer's conception of the PS4 being more "powerful". Anecdotal evidence; my roommate who plays CoD and only CoD every once in a while plans on buying a PS4. He still thinks PS4's multiplayer is free. I'm not going to correct him because it'll piss him off when he finds out for himself and that'll be funny. It's only funny because we're such good friends and he's poor and going through university. Don't worry, his parents are rich as shit, he just wants to do it on his own.

Anyways, I think Titanfall is THE system seller and THE CoD killer. It's enough of a reason to buy the One over a PS4. Watch One sales increase rapidly over the next couple months.

But see, if your friend is poor then he'd be better off with PS+ since it's only $5 a month vs. XBLG's $15 a month.

I mean if your friend is in such a financial predicament that he can't even afford what amounts to a cup of coffee from Starbucks once every 30 days then perhaps spending hundreds of dollars on a new system isn't the wisest thing to do.

If he's looking for a CoD fix he should buy a PS3 since the price for even a new system would save him hundreds compared to a new PS4. Also he'd still be able to play the PS3 versions of CoD online for free.

As a 'good friend' I'd think you'd want to help him with such suggestions instead of letting him spend so much money only to be upset with what he bought.

Just jumping in to say I have no idea where in the world that you find Xbox Live to be $15 a month. I don't think I've ever paid maybe more than $3.50 a month for the service. Just curious on where it's that crazy expensive.