We Really, Really Don't Need New Consoles

[Aardvaarkman]

Sounds like a personal issue. Windows, Linux and Mac OS all are at points where they're wholly stable for even the most casual of users, regardless of which one, two or three of three you might want to go with. Having worked in tech support long enough to know it all too well, anything I see a person with problems with their PC or Mac or whatever these days, it's almost always a problem on the user's end.

Why does it matter whose "end" the problem is on? It's still a problem. And most people don't need to call tech support for their consoles, but their PCs. And if there's anything customers love, it's being told that the problem is their fault.

Do you really expect people to change? There's no way that people are going to go back to PC gaming in significant numbers. It's a niche market because console gaming works better for the average person.

 

[PrototypeC]

I am aware that a lot of people are saying that they won't buy in to the next consoles, but can you honestly say that will be your viewpoint five years after the PS4 etc. have been out? When the only new games on the market are for the next generation consoles eventually some developer will make a game that makes you want to switch.

I can honestly say I will not want a PS4 or new Xbox even when the only new games on the market are for them. Actually, that's not even true. The PC will, if the trend of shutting down indie platforms continues, be the only place to get non-AAA games. If the trend of homogenizing AAA games to acquire bigger audiences and thus (they suppose) more profits continues, there will a tapestry of interesting exclusive experiences on the PC and the new consoles will have... Resident Evil 7? Call of Duty Modern Warfare 4?
Grand Theft Auto VI? New NEW Super Mario Bros. U?

Sorry, started ranting there. I'm very frustrated with triple-A game development at the moment. The point is, if the new consoles are as big of a flop as I expect, time alone will not be enough to mend it. With so many sequels and little room for new IP it will hard for a new, fresh generation to get into the major systems too. I can't decide if I want Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo to learn and improve or crash and burn horribly. I think either result will be good for gaming and gamers in the long run.

 

[MowDownJoe]

Gaming's future lies in non-exclusivity, reasonable costs, unrestricted development and access to games from the entire history of the medium.

Now in all fairness, buying a Wii-U dev kit does give you a free Unity Pro license, making it stupidly easy to port your games to less restricted platforms. I'm not sure what the cost of a dev kit is, but considering that a Unity Pro license is $1500, the remainder of the cost you pay is probably pretty small.

 

[Sniper Team 4]

Holy...I'm at a loss for words. I read Yahtzee's articles and watch his videos, but there are always things I disagree with that he says. Nothing big, just different tastes. But here, for the first time ever, I find myself standing up and shouting, "HELL YEAH!" to everything he's said.

My friend at work is hyped about the new PS4. And he's upset with me because I'm upset about not being able to play my games. I keep telling him that I won't be buying one for a loooooong time because there are no games for the new system that I want. And he tells me I'm being stupid. I want to take this article and shove it in his face.

Sound the horns and call the angels. This entire article is exactly how I feel about this new console generation. I feel nothing but dread for it because I have two and a half crates full of PS2, PS3, and 360 games and the thought of not being able to play them on the new system bothers me to no end.
Has it been confirmed that our stuff won't transfer over--accounts, trophies, personal stuff and whatnot--to the new systems? Because Yahtzee makes it sound like they won't, and if that's the case I'm really going to be pissed. I did not reach level 19 (nearly level 20 now) and get all those platinum trophies only to see them thrown out the window in the next console run.

 

[Blachman201_v1legacy]

Yeah, they learned that their complicated Cell processor was a major pain for developers so they ditched it. The only way to offer backwards compatability would be to include a Cell processor in the PS4 just to support old games. The PS3 launched with the "emotion engine" to do just that, and that was also dropped to lower the price - you know, the PS3's biggest problem on launch.

(...)

In either case the PS4 has to include special hardware to run the old game or the companies that made the games will have to re-program them to work on PS4's architecture.

So, TL;DR version: "Sony shot themselves so thoroughly in the foot with the engineering of the PS3, that they are limping into the next generation."

What you seem to be saying implies a lack of foresight on Sony's behalf that I as both a costumer and aspiring historian find quite worrisome.

 

[Lovely Mixture]

I heard the arguments the last time I brought this up. It's simply not practical to make the new consoles backwards compatible, the hardware's too clumsy, the emulation's too intensive, blah de blah de blah. If that's the case, then don't make a new console. If it can't be done, then you drop the fucking idea right then and there until it can. Full stop. Exclamation mark. The only way a new console is in any way justifiable is as an UPGRADE of the existing generation's console, not a fucking replacement for it. You CANNOT replace a library of hundreds of games with a library of ZERO games and tell us it's an improvement. That is fucking bonkers.

That may just be the smartest thing about gaming I have ever read and I feel like a jackass for not thinking of it myself. I was always pissed off at a lack of backwards compatibility but I was never able to think of it in those terms.

I myself only realized it myself last week when I was arguing in a thread. But I only realized it after listening to the Rhymedown.

PS1 to PS2 - had better graphics, but could run PS1 games, and could play DVDs. Good step upward.
PS2 to PS3 - only had some models that played PS2 and PS1 titles. But it had, better graphics, a Blu-Ray player (which could also play DVDs), internal hard drive, and built-in wireless controllers (that could charge from being plugged into the console). Less than perfect, but still and upgrade at least.
PS3 to PS4 - brings us.....better graphics and social integration and it can't play the games of any of the previous ones.

 

[Weaver]

The more I hear about the new consoles the less I like them. I'm starting to think I should switch to PC.

Well, you're on a good site for it! Lots of people here will answer any questions you have about getting into PC gaming and building a computer.

OT: Really, I do think we need new consoles. The insane things devs are doing to work with the memory constraints on current devices are absolutely part of the reason games are costing so much to make. When you have the engine team doing 4 months+ of optimization because the fucking machine is too slow to even run at 30fps you're wasting a ton of money.

To me, the rub is that the person setting the budget are the publishers and the studios, not me. Having a super fancy new machine doesn't mean you need to increase the budget to an unsustainable level, make games you can afford to make. Why is that so difficult?

 

[monkeymo4d]

We certainly dont need new consoles, infact I would argue that depending on your taste in games you really dont need a console or a gaming rig and that is the beauty of a huge gaming market . People will naturally gravitate towards their preferred gaming method.

As for Pc gaming in general , I think I may buy a pc after a couple of years but for now there simply is no reason that appeals to me:
. I work and study most of the time so I usually buy 3 new games year so while cheaper games are appealing they arent that essential for me.
. Most of the games which were persuading me to buy a pc are coming to the ps4 anyway(witcher 3, cyberpunk 2077) so for the mean time a ps4 suits me just fine(well until the new elder scroll game comes out )
.I could buy 3+ xbox 360 consoles with the money that I would need to buy a good gaming rig and play my current library of 360 games so backward compatibility isnt as important however I am still disappointed that the ps4 wont be backward compatible.
.Because I travel a lot and rarely stay in one place for more than a year I need a quick convenient gaming console which wont require lots of downloading as most of my gaming will be off-line.The less I have to carry the better.

 

[deathzero021]

i agree almost 100% especially with this:

"The only way a new console is in any way justifiable is as an UPGRADE of the existing generation's console, not a fucking replacement for it. You CANNOT replace a library of hundreds of games with a library of ZERO games and tell us it's an improvement. That is fucking bonkers."

 

[LordFish]

The Master Race RISES!

But seriously (IMO) PC gaming is cheaper and better, nice to see someone on my beloved Escapist recognizing that the PC is in fact a gaming platform. It seems like all the articles are console-centric, even though the Escapist staff know that the readership is mostly PC gamers. When was the last time they ran a story about a hot new graphics card or reviewed a DX update.

That's something that's genuinely always puzzled me and I've been meaning to ask Susan and the gang for some time

 

[Megacherv]

Ehhh, I'm sorry to say that I disagree. I think your points are valid and reasonable and I totally see where you're coming from, but (and as a great man once said, 'and this is a big stinky but') the changes that are happening to the PS4 and Xbox 2PiRadians or whatever it'll be called are positive for the industry. Yes, it's sad that the PS4 won't be backwards compatible and that I'll have to get a PS3 separately to continue playing Castlevania HD or Ratchet & Clank, but then again I have to hook up a separate console when I want to play Sonic Colours or Wind Waker, or I have to go to my Vita to play Gravity Rush. Console switching is something I'm used to now, and that won't really bother me.

Now, the hardware changes in the PS4 and the Xbox MoneyHoover make it easier for a programmer to jump onto the platform because they use PC hardware (the PS4 uses AMD Jaguar which they use in notebooks, albeit they're using about 4 times as many cores. I believe the Xbox will use the same). They make it easy for indie devs to put a game that they may have released on Steam onto another platform with a fuckton of money behind it. Sony have been dragging indie devs to the PS4 (a fellow coursemate of mine who is opening up an indie studio went to GDC and was told that they'd be willing to organise giving his studio PS4 dev kits by one of the technical developers), and if you've been keeping up with Vita news you'll see that these aren't empty promises. I think that Sony might even change the console industry into a more indie driven environment with the PS4 and Vita together, which I think deserves a new generation.

 

[jowell24]

I think a lot of people here are missing the point of Yahtzee's article - "The main problem has been the old classic: not enough games"

The Wii U isn't selling well mainly because there aren't enough good games for it. In my opinion the Wii U didn't have attractive enough features in order for developers to want to make games for it and as a result the console has not met sales expectations. It's a circle of life between the console, developers and consumers. Unpopular/bad console means less games developed for the platform and less consumer interest.

Now leaving the Xbox 720 out of my discussion and instead talking about the PS4 since it's official and we know its features. It's not whether we need another generation of consoles or not, I'm just saying that we're about that point in time where there CAN be a natural transition (doesn't have to be immediately) of the console generation.

Some people are jumping straight a point that they'd be happy to see the console market die and that PC gaming is superior to console gaming without really considering these reasons. It's not appropriate to put down a console that hasn't been released yet in argument when talking about features such as graphics, selection of games and pricing.
Talking about graphics, someone earlier mentioned a good point that a PC with the equivalent specs of a PS3 would not compare in graphical fidelity and performance because of the high level of optimisation that developers have achieved with the console. The same approach must be taken with the PS4 even though it is of PC-architecture that the level of performance and graphics will increase as developers become more experienced and can improve optimisation of the closed-hardware. Developing for PC can have the problem of under-optimisation of people's hardware because of the wide variety of rigs and this is how the consoles have just managed to keep up with PCs after PCs surpassed them many years ago. I'm sure that the next-gen consoles will be able to provide a gaming experience that will keep the market with PCs competitive. Without consoles or some form of competition, innovation and improvement will retard eventually.

Right now Sony are headed in the right direction, making the PS4 more developer friendly (meaning more games) and have learnt from a lot of their mistakes. Backwards compatibility is not a viable business option for Sony at the moment and the reasons are self-explantory. Go buy a PS3 super slim after the PS4 comes out and the price will likely be sub £100 or at least that number which would be less than the amount Sony would likely have you pay for a PS4 with backwards compatibility or even better, just keep your current PS3 (It's not that hard)


Honestly the REAL problem here is the current production, development and management of what are considered AAA games. To keep it short since I've gone on a bit, The structure with developers and publishers should change, possibly back to what it was originally like where publishers would simply handle the marketing and not have direct control over the development process and funding of games.

Never like to get involved in gaming politics but I didn't like the way some people are just arguing without fair judgement or proper consideration of information.


tl;dr - People are missing the point of the article: lack of games for a console. Some tend to also jump to conclusions, turn to the elitist type reasoning without providing sensible reasoning and are quick to put down next-gen and current-gen console platforms.

For the record I'm a PC and PS3 gamer for anyone thinking I'm a "console peasant".

 

[Colt47]

Welcome to the glorious PC master race, Yahtzee. We saved a chair for you.

Forget the allusions to eugenics and Nazis, welcome to sensibility.

It's kind of sad seeing the consoles go to the wayside just to pull lame money-making stunts out of their ass.
I get that companies exist to make money, but contrary to what some people say, not all greed is good.
When mindless greed overtakes practicality, it's time to reject the product. (where possible anyway *grumbles about gas prices*)

Yeah it's kind of annoying, actually. The companies that are running the console market into the ground are the ones actually making the consoles and not keeping up with how the development environment has changed. Exclusivity is starting to keep people away from certain titles just because the cost of buying a console for one or two unique games isn't financially sound. Not to mention the pricing on console versions of games is outrageous when someone can buy the same title on the PC for less.

 

[Dragonpit]

At this point, getting a new console just doesn't seem worth it. Not for graphics, not of hard drive space, and certainly not for a library reset. Right now, I haven't even filled up my current hard drive of 200-something gigs, going for a new drive of over 300 is excessive. Plus the PS4 has proven the futility of further "improving" graphics with a higher polygon count. So you know what? I hope as many people as possible avoid getting these new consoles, because, and let's be honest here, if the PS3 could have such a bad start that they forced to further support the out-dated PS2 even longer, who's to say it can't happen again, with other systems?

 

[Atmos Duality]

Yeah it's kind of annoying, actually. The companies that are running the console market into the ground are the ones actually making the consoles and not keeping up with how the development environment has changed. Exclusivity is starting to keep people away from certain titles just because the cost of buying a console for one or two unique games isn't financially sound. Not to mention the pricing on console versions of games is outrageous when someone can buy the same title on the PC for less.

Well, exclusivity has been evaporating since the end of the PS2 generation.
It hasn't completely disappeared of course, but I don't think it's nearly the same barrier to entry as it used to be.
...And maybe because it has been disappearing, people have finally had a taste of the proverbial Forbidden Fruit, and are rejecting it outlike.

I think more than the Big Three (well, Sony and Microsoft really) it has been the AAA game publishers who are dragging everyone down with them.

AAA publishers are heavily reliant on consoles and historically, fully in bed with the Big Three. (today, again, Sony and M$)
They're outright addicted to the proprietary security they offer. DLC, online passes, market funneling, reduces rates of piracy (it takes far more effort to pirate a console game than a PC game)...they're addicted to it, but now that this generation is winding down, they've turned more of their attention towards the growing PC market, and they're trying to force more and more of those same "features" it.

Growing costs have forced them to cut mid-grade titles entirely, leading to a shrinking variety in game genre.
They're betting more of their company on broadest-appeal blockbusters, and have consequentially flooded the market with homogenized games; which in turn, has devalued each game except the biggest winners in their category.

So, now we're seeing blockbusters fail to meet their extraordinary quotas to cover their costs.
And when THAT happens, the publisher starts pushing for more and more Get-Rich-Quick Schemes ("Social" functions, Always-Online DRM,product placement, microtransactions) and you can bet anything that they have been pressuring Sony and Microsoft to provide the means of enforcing those schemes in their next consoles.

Result: Fewer games with greater homogeneity between them across the board. Independent games are increasing in appeal to fill the void, and while both Sony and M$ have platforms for indies in place, they are nowhere near as open and appealing as PC right now.

 

[5mj7R7yf4Dwr3gdZyyu9PeGNwYjlNrjzuh3iTXQG]

Speak for your self. My PC keeps crashing and blue screening when I play games. So, yeah, consoles are my method of gaming that works 100% of the time.

The magic of this is that it's a problem for that one PC, probably something that can be fixed. When a game crashes a console, then it has a tendency to crash all the consoles, or at least all the consoles with dying GPUs or whatever.

238U

 

[sethisjimmy]

I definitely have to agree. I recently bought a PS3 for the first time. Why? Because over the years, it has built up an extremely solid library.

I would have considered waiting and getting a PS4 instead, except it isn't backwards compatible. So that library that Sony spend so many years cultivating is now irrelevant and unavailable to consumers like me looking to get in on the Sony action.

A console is only as good as its software, and when looking at new consoles, they have very little software, and no promise that the console will succeed, and therefore reap more and better software. There's very little incentive to buy right now. You're essentially gambling to see whether or not the console will have the kind of library you want it to, when there's no assurance it ever will.

Speaking of which, this is something that makes PC gaming so attractive. As soon as you set up your PC you have easy access to pretty much every title its ever had in the history of PCs.

Captch: Jump Higher

Run Faster? Pump that garbage in another man's veins!

 

[Terramax]

This has got to be the first time I've genuinely disagree with Yahtzee here. Backwards compatibility is NOT a must. New consoles are NOT extensions of previous ones. Or at least, if they're worth buying, they shouldn't be. They should be machines that integrate new ideas that were not previously possible, or thought of. CONSOLES ARE NOT PCS! Backwards compatibility is just an added sweetener.

And anyways, with games available for download these days, it's highly unlikely that Sony (and MS) are NOT going to find a way of bringing previous console's games to their latest hardware at some point.

Seriously, my last glimmer of hope was that at least Yahtzee was clever than this. Obviously I can't even rely on him anymore.

 

[FallenMessiah88]

Meh, the new console generation looks fine.

 

[5mj7R7yf4Dwr3gdZyyu9PeGNwYjlNrjzuh3iTXQG]

They didn't say it as clearly as when regarding the Xbox development, but Microsoft's deal with it sentiment rings loud and clear all over Windows 8 [https://static.fsf.org/fsforg/graphics/win8_infographic_final.png] (which is killing the computer market, and downgrades back to win7 are flying off the shelves.)

Personally, I'd love to see a caged-up Xbox720 and Windows 8 be the dual blows that usher an era where linux is taken seriously as a game platform, since as it is, Microsoft is obviously content to rest on its laurels and use its monopoly assets to hammer away at consumer rights.

238U