We Really, Really Don't Need New Consoles

[Atmos Duality]

But you don't have the right to receive the things you "demand" unless it's an explicit feature that's not working as promised, or other faulty merchandise covered by consumer protection laws. Companies aren't obliged to give you what you want, just as you are not obliged to give them your money.

While that's completely true, I think the relationship between the consumer and producer is changing.
In the last console generation, game companies have started making demands of the consumer; more than just an exchange of money for a game.

Origin and Steam both request access to your computer (Origin legally demands access to your entire hard drive, since it's so vaguely defined). Targeted advertisements are appearing on Xbox Live. The threat of Always-Online is growing stronger each year, and the biggest companies want to turn gaming into a service.

Some of those demands are getting a bit "personal". If companies want to move closer to consumers (for whatever reason) via their products and services, it's not unreasonable to expect an elevated consumer response; be it "entitled" or otherwise.

 

[Doom972]

The biggest problem, in my opinion, is that in this generation, gamers were introduced into digital content

That's so incredibly wrong. Gamers have always been using digital content. The cartridges on an Atari 2600 were digital.

... and we know that it's only a matter of time (two years is my guess) before Microsoft and Sony will close the current XBL and PSN networks in favor of the new ones that will be used with the new consoles.

How do we know that? What's your source for this information?

How do you know they won't merge the current online systems into the new ones? People have mentioned in this thread that they will lose their trophies, achievements, etc. That seems a little ridiculous - it's a minimal amount of data, why wouldn't they just import this into your new account? It would cost almost nothing, and encourage customer loyalty.

Having a new console doesn't mean they have to shut down their old networks or make the new ones incompatible with older systems.

I was talking about digital copies of games and DLC - not the other stuff you mentioned. As for the current networks being closed in favor of new ones - I might be wrong, but that's not the main issue anyway. If you'd like to think that it won't happen, I won't argue about it.

 

[Triality]

Not sure why the venom not at PS3, just the 360. The PS3 has 256 Meg of RAM. Hey, I love the PS3, and have 2 in two different room (I'm a family man with kids). But its pretty accepted that cross platform game released concurrently on both systems (and that is most games) perform just a little bit better on the 360.

That's a fair point. I didn't say anything about my ps3 because I didn't know the specs and I haven't played enough games to justify the rant, so I picked the easier target (what with it's outdated disc format, it's piss-poor tiny HDD, it's budget PC specs, and low-res crappy graphics-I-don't-care-how-shiny-UT3's-Engine-makes-textures-to-hide-the-imperfections).

If we can just get one more solid console from both parties that does 60 frames at 1080p with thousands of on-screen elements, FXAA, pixel-perfect vanishing-point draw distances, and split second processing there won't be a graphical necessity for 10 years this time, maybe forever.

I have to admit, after going on 8 years, there's nothing they can introduce on the PS3 regarding graphics that is going to excite me. They've pretty much hit the envelope and they've done a great job on both systems.

Agreed. Now that you've exposed those spec elements for the ps3 I've gotta agree it's time they take to this next and hopefully final tier of power specs.

I have plenty to play on the PS3 so, if you want to get my attention about upcoming console games, it's going to have to be on a new console. For me, it is time. But there is more competition than ever before and this really may be their last hurrah. As much was written about the Vita. In a land of Tegra 2 phones and tablets, it is unnecessary, but if Sony is going to take a try at it, they did a pretty good job. And this may be true of consoles. A few nuts like me may move up, but 10 years from now, you'll download better games directly to your TV set. For now, you may forgo improved graphics and do things like build a gaming PC, get the $100 Ouya or Gamestick, heck, phones that connect to a TV and a wireless controller.

Yeah competition is getting more horizontal and going much wider than deeper these past 3 years and onward. Haven't played many tablet games yet, but I hope to change that soon enough. I really wanna expand my horizons beyond "Triple AAA library only."

I just hope they don't screw up with "always online" type stuff. They can scare me away. I'm already discounting the 360 next due to the rumors. I hope they are untrue.

If the negative press was enough to get that small fry Orth fired from Microsoft, there's almost no chance of Always Online.

As for forgoing great graphics and just going for great, innovative games, while I do have an Android phone, I have to admit the 3DS is very tempting.

Especially with the XL's larger screen and the pointless 3D turned off. I've always wanted to play the Phoenix Wright series.

 

[Aardvaarkman]

True, but it is the company's purpose to give it's customers what they want, or else lose sales.

Not really. A company's purpose is to make money. There are plenty of companies that do that by persuading people that they want their product, even if it's not really what they want. There are entire industries built on false wants disguised as needs.

Hell, there are entire companies that aren't even customer-facing. There are companies that make products which are sold because of regulatory requirements, etc., not because they are desired products. Does anybody really want to have their car serviced by a mechanic? No, but it's something that has to be done, or your car will die.

Games on the PS3 already look amazing, the worlds are already massive; there is absolutely nothing a hardware upgrade could do for me

I'd appreciate faster loading times, and would especially appreciate a better use interface than the wretched thing that is currently on the PS3. But, yeah, I'm not running out to buy a PS4 until a compelling reason comes along.

 

[Aardvaarkman]

I was talking about digital copies of games and DLC - not the other stuff you mentioned.

But when have copies of games not been digital? That's my entire point. Why are you talking about "digital games" as something new, when the medium has always been digital?

As for the current networks being closed in favor of new ones - I might be wrong, but that's not the main issue anyway. If you'd like to think that it won't happen, I won't argue about it.

I don't know if it it will or will not happen. But you stated "we all know" as if this was common knowledge, and we have any idea of what the companies plan to do with their online networks.

 

[rob_simple]

True, but it is the company's purpose to give it's customers what they want, or else lose sales.

Not really. A company's purpose is to make money. There are plenty of companies that do that by persuading people that they want their product, even if it's not really what they want. There are entire industries built on false wants disguised as needs.

Hell, there are entire companies that aren't even customer-facing. There are companies that make products which are sold because of regulatory requirements, etc., not because they are desired products. Does anybody really want to have their car serviced by a mechanic? No, but it's something that has to be done, or your car will die.

You can't apply the same psychology to different markets like that. In terms of luxury items, I think there was a time when what you are saying was true, but consumers are becoming more and more informed on their purchasing decisions, and companies aren't doing nearly enough to keep up; especially in the gaming world.

Even as recent as the PS2, they used to get away with releasing games that flat-out didn't work; it was a common occurrence and we just had to roll over and let it happen. Now we're starting to see real shit storms with things like Aliens: Colonial Marines marketing deception, Sim City's busted always-online DRM and the Mass Effect 3 ending scandal. Of course you could argue in some cases that the results we see are only small, and also that the complaints aren't always justified, but as consumers, gamers have made it clear they're not afraid to say what they want and what they don't.

Game companies can continue to ignore that of course, they can continue to do what they want and they'll still manage to wring money out of a good wedge of their customers, but that is only going to work up to a point. You only have to look at the number of publishers/developers declaring losses or shutting down altogether to see that there's a big change coming, and the AAA industry has no one to blame but itself.

It's pretty much exactly the same thing that happened with the music industry: for years stores like HMV charged exorbitant fees for CD's because we had no choice but to pay them for what we wanted. There were no real alternatives until Napster came along and changed everything, because suddenly we didn't have to bend to their whim.

Then, just like with major game companies blaming the used game market today, the music industry blamed a lack of morals in the general public as the reason no one was buying CD's for ridiculously inflated prices anymore, willfully ignoring all the success places like the iTunes store were having by charging reasonable prices for goods.

I can see the same thing happening with AAA gaming: the industry is going to collapse in on itself eventually, and then all the indie developers, the little guys who still remember that gaming is about the games, will pop up and start reaping the benefits held by respecting your customers and giving them what they want at fair prices.

Personally, I'm looking forward to it.

 

[gorfias]

I didn't say anything about my ps3 because I didn't know the specs and I haven't played enough games to justify the rant, so I picked the easier target (what with it's outdated disc format, it's piss-poor tiny HDD, it's budget PC specs, and low-res crappy graphics-I-don't-care-how-shiny-UT3's-Engine-makes-textures-to-hide-the-imperfections).

Yikes! My 360 died last fall after over 6 years of service. I forgot so much bad about it! I limped along with a 20 Gig HD that the operating system took about 10 Gig of to start with (I put a non-proprietary 500 Gig in my fat PS3). And Bluray has been terrific vs. 360 DVD. And I paid $100 for a wireless device and $60 a year for onlive. Now that I think of it, I'm glad it's dead!!!! Forces me to focus on things like Uncharted 3.

The tablets have been amazing and cheap. Most of the games are on par with simple 360 arcade stuff. Lot of it is free, a lot of it cost under $5. And some of it looks almost AAA for $5ish.

 

[deadish]

Can't say anything regarding the next Xbox since I haven't been keeping track.

As for the PS4, based on developer quotes, I believe it's fairly well received. Developers will welcome the increase in capabilities - more processing power and a ton more RAM means it's easier on their programmers. Sony also appears to have learned from the PS3. The PS4 will be a lot easier to program for, having a PC-like architecture - if not better as it has unified memory.

As for art, I think that will plateau by itself sooner or later and we don't need to worry too much about it. I mean the movie industry hasn't gone broke now has it. The industry will hit an equilibrium with regards to production cost. The bean counters working for the likes of EA aren't stupid.

 

[Doom972]

I was talking about digital copies of games and DLC - not the other stuff you mentioned.

But when have copies of games not been digital? That's my entire point. Why are you talking about "digital games" as something new, when the medium has always been digital?

By digital, I meant download-only. As in, games that you buy through a service like XBL and PSN and download them to your console. I hope that my point about DLC was obvious.

As for the current networks being closed in favor of new ones - I might be wrong, but that's not the main issue anyway. If you'd like to think that it won't happen, I won't argue about it.

I don't know if it it will or will not happen. But you stated "we all know" as if this was common knowledge, and we have any idea of what the companies plan to do with their online networks.[/quote]

It seems obvious to me. If it doesn't seem obvious to you, I won't argue with you about it.

 

[FlipC]

I do love the constant refrains of "Just keep the old console too" or "No-one's forcing you to buy the new one". Imagine the same situation in the 80's with music.

In the beginning was tape (well okay it wasn't but bear with me) then came CD and now mp3, but imagine if the music you owned on tape couldn't be transferred to CD and was never released in that format. Imagine the jump to mp3 in exactly the same way.

Oh well you just don't buy the new CD/mp3 player. Great except you won't be able to play any new music at all and the only music you can play are your frozen-at-that-point collection.

Well just keep your old tape/CD player and use that for one type. Great until the hardware breaks; oops sorry we don't stock/repair/make those any more.

The new consoles aren't upgrades, they're not additions; they're replacements. Who's asking for a replacement? I'm not; are you?

 

[A Weakgeek]

The real issue the PC platform has is creative bancruptcy. I played PC games when they weren't same-y nonsense, and actually had heart and character. Today, you can only find that in the Indy game scene. Incredipede is a good example.

Years ago, that was PC mainstream :/ Nowadays PC mainsteam is just the same kind of games that look the same, have the same characters and play the same. Diversity in PC gaming has been shot outside of a few indy game studios.

Wat.

Are you arguing that the PC has less diversity? How?

The only genres in my experience the PC doesn't have much games in is fighting games and JRPGs. (And many big fighting games have started to release on PC)

Consoles on the other hand have practically ZERO strategy games, simulator games (Racing/flying games for example are very arcady on consoles, mainly due to lack of buttons.) , MMOs (Those that have tried usually suck), MOBAs etc. The latter two especially are a huge demographic these days.

Also, I'm pretty sure the indie scene is alot stronger on PC, seeing as theres not nearly as many hurdles to jump when publishing your game on PC, instead of dedicated services like PSN or Xbox live.

 

[Clovus]

A lack of foresight? So, Sony should have realized that they might lose backwards compatability on a system that is almost 10 years old? So, therefore they shouldn't have bothered trying to engineer a game specific processor? What company do you not find "worrisome"? Did you write off Nintendo when they created the Virtual Boy? Did you given up on Microsoft just because the first XBox wasn't that great? So, yeah, Sony cannot magically see into the future. I don't think you'll be consuming much if you only buy things from companies with psychic ablities.

Spare me the lame facetiousness, please. I find it annoying.

I just happen to consider future-proofing products of culture like games somewhat important. Not only because it is a nice service for a costumer like me to be able get more bang for my buck, but future generations should be able to experience retro gaming too. If the only available substitute is a "sub-par experience" as you called it in your first reply, that might make the enjoyment part kind of hard.

I'm gonna' just keep writing the way I write regardless of you finding it annoying. Sorry.

I don't think there's any problem with "future-proofing" until someone makes a console that cannot be emulated. Do you want all game consoles to somehow have backwards compatability for all previous generations? That just seems untenable. It's not that hard to find the last generations console, and beyound that I think you are asking for too much.

Even if backwards compatability is included, it's often not that great even without the complications of a streamed system like Gaikai. For example, I found playing Gamecube games on the Wii to not be a great experience. It was cool that the Wii could do that, but I wouldn't consider that future proofing.

Anyway, the main reason I replied originally was that I was unsure why you thought Sony specifically was something to be worried about. But, it sounds like you have a general problem with how the console market works. Did you also not want PCs to move from 32 to 64 bit since that would cause some problems with older titles? Technology has to keep moving forward. Backwards compatability and future proofing cannot be the main consideration, which they would have to be to achieve what you seem to want.

 

[AeroZeppelinSevenfold]

I'm just done with the console market. I really thought that having my purchases tied to an account would mean that I would get to keep them until Sony went out of business and shut down their servers.

But no. Not even my downloadable indie titles will work. That is ridiculous. I'm not buying a new console for several hundred dollars when I have plenty of games that I haven't even played yet on my old one.

I'm leaning towards the PC more and more. I'm done with this crap. If I want my JRPG or Nintendo fix I have my 3DS. I don't need a console. I just need someone to loan me $600 so I can build a decent gaming rig.

 

[mike1921]

A lack of foresight? So, Sony should have realized that they might lose backwards compatability on a system that is almost 10 years old? So, therefore they shouldn't have bothered trying to engineer a game specific processor? What company do you not find "worrisome"? Did you write off Nintendo when they created the Virtual Boy? Did you given up on Microsoft just because the first XBox wasn't that great? So, yeah, Sony cannot magically see into the future. I don't think you'll be consuming much if you only buy things from companies with psychic ablities.

Spare me the lame facetiousness, please. I find it annoying.

I just happen to consider future-proofing products of culture like games somewhat important. Not only because it is a nice service for a costumer like me to be able get more bang for my buck, but future generations should be able to experience retro gaming too. If the only available substitute is a "sub-par experience" as you called it in your first reply, that might make the enjoyment part kind of hard.

I'm gonna' just keep writing the way I write regardless of you finding it annoying. Sorry.

I don't think there's any problem with "future-proofing" until someone makes a console that cannot be emulated. Do you want all game consoles to somehow have backwards compatability for all previous generations? That just seems untenable. It's not that hard to find the last generations console, and beyound that I think you are asking for too much.

Even if backwards compatability is included, it's often not that great even without the complications of a streamed system like Gaikai. For example, I found playing Gamecube games on the Wii to not be a great experience. It was cool that the Wii could do that, but I wouldn't consider that future proofing.

Anyway, the main reason I replied originally was that I was unsure why you thought Sony specifically was something to be worried about. But, it sounds like you have a general problem with how the console market works. Did you also not want PCs to move from 32 to 64 bit since that would cause some problems with older titles? Technology has to keep moving forward. Backwards compatability and future proofing cannot be the main consideration, which they would have to be to achieve what you seem to want.

Why the hell would a console not be able to be emulated. Also, it doesn't seem untenable to me for one console to be able to emulate the others. I can emulate the PS1 on a 2 MB program, why the hell can't the PS4 at least do that?

You found playing gamecube games on wii not to be a great experience? What the hell does that even mean? Why would something like gaikai make it better?

It's future-proofing by increasing the amount of machines which can play a given game, since hardware dies eventually and any console has a limited supply. Quite frankly I think it's a moot point because consoles can be emulated eventually and digitally seems to be the only way to hold them from the abyss forever though.

Backwards compatibility isn't really about future-proofing though it's about a smooth transition and making one console an absolute upgrade of the previous one.I have used my own PS2 more times while owning a PS3 than I have used the PS3 in that same time period, and every time I used the PS2 I was frustrated. It has a broken disk drive that works on start-up like 1/15 times, and there was the hastle of moving it around every time I wanted to play a game. Normally if an appliance breaks and there's an upgraded version of it (and new consoles should be upgrades) I should be able to just buy/use the upgrade. Using your 64-32 bit example: In what scenario should I go out and buy a computer/OS that uses 32-bit (barring me being poor), because if I had neither the PS2 would just be a better buy than the PS3, even after it's been out for 8 years and even if they were the same price. Also: How much harder would the transition to 64-bit have been if every game made before the transition was now unplayable on any modern day PC? Don't act like this is just "some problems with older titles", that's absolutely ridiculous.

 

[tangoprime]

In the past year, I don't know if I've turned on my 360 more than 2 times, my PS3 is used exclusively as a Blu Ray player.

Also, and this is a bit off-topic, I know, but the other answer is tabletop gaming. Many board/card games are just more fan-friendly and more fun than video games right now.

I agree with every single thing you've said, but definitely had to single out these two bits to share my current situation. My PS3 is now solely used as a blu-ray player / netflix box to play stuff in the background of our gameroom while me and my family, or group of friends, play Arkham Horror + expansions. Way more fun than any mutiplayer video game I've played in a long freaking time.

As the first poster on this mentioned, it's come full circle for me, my intro to video gaming came with a Magnavox Odyssey system and a bit later an NES, but I first really got into gaming when I built a 486DX2 PC (god I used to love me some TIE Fighter). For years, despite owning and playing SNES/Genesis/PS1/PS2/Xbox they were second-string to the PC gaming scene for me. At somepoint during the life cycle of the PS2 though, when they were really hitting their stride, at about the same point PC hardware seemed be taking a great leap forward and invalidating most of my current setup, I switched to consoles, and had fun with it for a bit- until the introduction of the ship-now-patch-later model to console games. Once you didn't have to ship a complete, tested, approved product- I saw a shit storm a' blowing. At that point, some of the small frustrations of PC gaming that had built up over the years didn't look that much different than what was going on in the console world. And then my Xbox red-ringed. Then my PS3 YLOD'ed. Then my current PC had a motherboard failure.

Guess which one of them I bothered fixing, because it was cheap and I could do it myself, and could be reasonably assured that it was really fixed?

*This Post now enchanted with Resist Fire* ...then again it was just after that when I realized I was getting a bit older and had enough things around the house to be constantly tinkering with and I deal with computer/server problems all day, so I just bought an Alienware Aurora R3 with an outstanding warranty and discount from dell through work, lol. Couldn't be happier, does what I want, and at least one of my consoles can be used as a netflix box without having to renew a paywall.

 

[Clovus]

Why the hell would a console not be able to be emulated. Also, it doesn't seem untenable to me for one console to be able to emulate the others. I can emulate the PS1 on a 2 MB program, why the hell can't the PS4 at least do that?

That as my point. We don't need "future proofing" since consoles can be emulated. There's not much of a chance for a game to simply become unplayable just because a current console won't play it.

Yeah, I don't see any reason a PS4 can't emulate a PS1. I guess they don't build that in because they'd rather sell you a version of the game on PSN. Now, the PS4 probably has zero chance of emulating the PS3.

You found playing gamecube games on wii not to be a great experience? What the hell does that even mean? Why would something like gaikai make it better?

I should have left that out. I just didn't enjoy it. I don't think Gaikai would make things better really. Maybe it's just because the built in emulation of the Wii was a bit off sometimes. I remember enjoying NES emulators. I'll admit that I didn't make much sense here.

It's future-proofing by increasing the amount of machines which can play a given game, since hardware dies eventually and any console has a limited supply. Quite frankly I think it's a moot point because consoles can be emulated eventually and digitally seems to be the only way to hold them from the abyss forever though.

Yeah, I agree with this.

Backwards compatibility isn't really about future-proofing though it's about a smooth transition and making one console an absolute upgrade of the previous one.

Yeah, I agree with this. I was only talking about future proofing because the other guy mentioned it.

I have used my own PS2 more times while owning a PS3 than I have used the PS3 in that same time period, and every time I used the PS2 I was frustrated. It has a broken disk drive that works on start-up like 1/15 times, and there was the hastle of moving it around every time I wanted to play a game. Normally if an appliance breaks and there's an upgraded version of it (and new consoles should be upgrades) I should be able to just buy/use the upgrade. Using your 64-32 bit example: In what scenario should I go out and buy a computer/OS that uses 32-bit (barring me being poor), because if I had neither the PS2 would just be a better buy than the PS3, even after it's been out for 8 years and even if they were the same price. Also: How much harder would the transition to 64-bit have been if every game made before the transition was now unplayable on any modern day PC? Don't act like this is just "some problems with older titles", that's absolutely ridiculous.

I'm pretty sure the 32-bit to 64-bit (and some of the OS upgrades) made a few older PC titles harder to play.

I'm not saying that this just has to do with older titles - why the quotation marks? If backwards compatability can be achieved, I think that's absolutely fantastic. But, wouldn't you agree that especially with the PS4, it would be very difficult to achieve it since the architecture is comletely different? They'd pretty much have to include a Cell processor in the PS4. That's a pretty signficant extra cost to just achieve backwards compatability.

Lots of people enjoy playing older games (I just bought KOTOR II, for example), but they aren't in the majority. You will still be able to get a PS3 with little difficulty for years to play those titles. After that, you'll be able to emulate them. That's not an ideal solution - an ideal solution would be using the PS4 to play them. But, achieving that particular solution has little chance of being a good return on investment for Sony. Clearly that was the case with the Emotion engine. Sony dropped that, and apparently have learned from that experience that it's not worth the extra cost. Every extra cost drives the product's price up - and pricing was a huge problem for Sony last time. I don't think it's crazy for them to try and avoid that this time around.

 

[mike1921]

I'm pretty sure the 32-bit to 64-bit (and some of the OS upgrades) made a few older PC titles harder to play.

Yes but not unplayable generally and not the whole-pc back-catalog. If PS4 emulation of earlier hardware just made a few games harder to play than I would have no issue

I'm not saying that this just has to do with older titles - why the quotation marks? If backwards compatability can be achieved, I think that's absolutely fantastic. But, wouldn't you agree that especially with the PS4, it would be very difficult to achieve it since the architecture is comletely different? They'd pretty much have to include a Cell processor in the PS4. That's a pretty signficant extra cost to just achieve backwards compatability.

because word for word that's what you said and there's a difference between "some problems" and "they're all unplayable". Also, I remember thinking at the release of the PS4 that I would be fine with it as long as they had PS2 and PS1 backwards compatibility. If PS3 backwards-compatibility has to be sacrificed because of processor architecture than fine but a lack of PS2 backwards-compatibility is the outrage to me. As yahtzee said

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.

The PS4 would have a stronger library at launch than the PS3 does currently if it had PS2-compatibility.

 

[Olas]

Have you seen his Witcher 2 review? Or his review of the original Witcher (the one that coined the phrase)? I'm pretty sure 'PC master race' is meant to be ironic, since he seemed pretty contemptful of the elitist PC gaming mindset in those. Or at least he used to, it's pretty clear times are a-changing.

Really? You think he was being ironic about PC gamers being a whole nother race of human? I just assumed he was being totally serious. You know how down to earth Yahtzee is. Okay sorry, that was a bit rude.

I think in those reviews he was being more critical of certain types of RPGs than PC gaming elitism, or perhaps more specifically how some PC gamers would prefer a game that's complex purely for complexities and not because it's more fun. However it has nothing to do with console gaming as a platform.

 

[tangoprime]

snip

I'm not sure why that quote was attributed to me... I think an edit may be in order?

 

[Clovus]

I'm pretty sure the 32-bit to 64-bit (and some of the OS upgrades) made a few older PC titles harder to play.

Yes but not unplayable generally and not the whole-pc back-catalog. If PS4 emulation of earlier hardware just made a few games harder to play than I would have no issue

Oh boy, this is getting confusing. I wasn't trying to make the point you think I was or something. I'm just saying that you sometimes have to make changes and then stuff becomes unplayable. You don't want to avoid moving forward with tech just because it breaks compatability. I think we agree on that. Yeah, it'd be cool if the PS4 played PS2 and PS1 games. Like I said, I think Sony wants to charge for that through PSN though, just like the Wii and probably XBox does (I don't own an XBox). Just like buying stuff on GOG on PC so that it works on a modern PC. Maybe Sony should consider going the other route and writing emulators so that people can use their super old disks. That sounds a bit crazy actually ...

I'm not saying that this just has to do with older titles - why the quotation marks? If backwards compatability can be achieved, I think that's absolutely fantastic. But, wouldn't you agree that especially with the PS4, it would be very difficult to achieve it since the architecture is comletely different? They'd pretty much have to include a Cell processor in the PS4. That's a pretty signficant extra cost to just achieve backwards compatability.

because word for word that's what you said and there's a difference between "some problems" and "they're all unplayable". Also, I remember thinking at the release of the PS4 that I would be fine with it as long as they had PS2 and PS1 backwards compatibility. If PS3 backwards-compatibility has to be sacrificed because of processor architecture than fine but a lack of PS2 backwards-compatibility is the outrage to me. As yahtzee said

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.

The PS4 would have a stronger library at launch than the PS3 does currently if it had PS2-compatibility.

Yeah, I still agree with you. I was confused about the quotes since I was saying that only old titles were affected *on PC*. I agree that with the PS4 it is very important to people to want to play PS3 titles that, like, came out this year. So, yes, the issue of backwards compatability is something that affects old and recent titles. I never said otherwise.

So, yeah, it would be awesome for the PS4 to have tons of old games available. But consoles are a mass market. The super-super-majority of people who buy a PS4 aren't going to care about PS2 and PS1 titles. You can just emulate those on a PC if you really want. It's the hundreds of PS3 titles that could make an actual difference. I just don't think that difference is worth the cost of including a Cell processor. So ... I think we mostly agree on this.

Out of curiosity, why would you possibly think PS2 and PS1 titles would be backwards compatable? Has any console every allowed you to put a disc/cartridge in from a sytem 2 generations ago? Especially when the previous system didn't handle old tiles for most of it's life? That seems like an odd thing to be "outraged" at. I can understand being a little let down if you really were hoping for this unprecedented thing to happen, but outraged?

(Sorry to tango for the misquote. I'm not sure how that happened. I edited it.)