ascorbius said:
Even if this always on thing turns out to be a badly managed PR faux pa, I won't be getting a 720 if it's not backwards compatible with my games library.
My games library is not disposable just because my console vendor brings out a new model.
Then you'll unfortunately have to keep playing your old games on the old system while others progress without you. Again, Microsoft invested in the HD-DVD format and lost. All your 360 disc-games are officially in the HD-DVD format which is a dead/dying one. It is a necessary move for the 360 to go to Bluray in the next generation and there's little chance (but not impossible) that they'd include a different media drive just for backwards compatibility. The announcement of the $100 360 machine would confirm no backwards compatibility if true. If the $100 is just a drive with a chip then hopefully it can be plugged into the 720 and played.
That being said, digital titles should be entirely backwards compatible. If 720 tries to prevent those then you should cry foul. Sony screwed that up with the proprietary processor they had in their ps3 and aren't likely to find a way around that. If they do I'll be very surprised and pleased since the bluray tech can still read the disks.
But yes, your library is entirely disposable if your console vendor changes models in an incompatible way. You can feign control over the situation but with no actual success. I don't recall even asking if I could play my Nintendo games in my Snes.
Krantos said:
I've pretty much migrated wholesale to the PC, so I don't really see myself buying any more consoles in the near future.
That said, I'm open to the idea of the upcoming generation surprising me.
I've migrated a lot of my gaming to my powerful pc but consoles meet my living-room entertainment needs in a way my PC can't. From the ease of use as a Bluray and media player to something that can handle four people playing on it at the same time. Consoles also have a large library of truly good exclusive titles. I will admit that this past generation has seen a majority of exclusives solely in the Sony category as most of the 360 titles were available on pc. So this makes me a lot more in the Sony camp for which system to buy first since that's really the only thing that is starting to matter.
That being said, I'm a grown man who has managed my finances well and have a lot of disposable income so cost isn't really a factor here. Gaming is a primary source of entertainment in my house so a console is a good buy. If I had to pick one system it would still probably be a console over my pc because of its group entertainment and ease of media access. At the moment, it'll likely be the ps4. Did you know that almost 1 in every 4 (23.7%) 360's broke witin two years? Compare that to a much more acceptable 10% two-year failure rate for the ps3. At the very least I won't be an early adopter of the 720 and maybe not the ps4 either just because I'm tired of getting burned with early adoption.
ssgt splatter said:
I can't really answer that due to the fact that the XBOX 720 hasn't been announced yet. The PS4 on the other hand looks promising and, if I'm remembering correctly, is not as expensive as a fricking car payment this time around.
No price announcement has been made regarding the ps4. I suspect they'll likely try to land in the $400 range which would be GREAT for what's being offered.
I have the 360 right now and I would like to buy the next Microsoft console due to the fact their online service is exceptional, if a bit expensive, and they didn't have a server crash/cyber attack that resulted in people getting their credit card information stolen.
This was pretty frustrating. I switched cards and had a fraud alert placed on my credit. That being said, the network security failure wasn't on the part of Sony so much as the response to it was. If someone wants to hack any network and has the resources to do so there's little large companies can do. I'm a trained in "hacking and countermeasures" as part of my job and let me tell you that if you have access to any machine on the network (no matter how large the network is) then you can usually get access to anything on that network. It's simply the way things are so most of security specialist's jobs are preventing people from getting any foothold to begin with. I would imagine that the failure has caused them to pump major resources into the issue and it should be better whereas Microsoft is kind of the big dog where software/networking is concerned (and got paid by everyone using the service which pumps a lot of money into it). Having your card information stolen will likely become a much more common practice in the coming years. That doesn't make it ok, but we as consumers need to be aware of this.
