Zero Punctuation: Exclusives Showdown

[let's rock]

Moral of the story: "PC or Console, in next-gen, EVERYONE LOSES!!!"

How exactly is the PC loosing? A whole new set of steal sales just started, were doing better than ever.

 

[Dalisclock]

Enjoyed it, though I'm firmly in the PC gamer catagory because I have tons more games on the PC then I have time for so it makes no sense for me to buy a console.

Except....

I will be picking up a PS3 in the near future because there's a handful of games(God of War 1-3, Silent Hill 1-3 and the ICO games) that only exist on that console that will likely never be ported. And since the PS3 has backwards compartibility, which the PS4 doesn't.....

Not to mention the PS3's are going to be dropping in price soon if they haven't already.

 

[Something Amyss]

Looking at some of the planned features and DLC, does it seem to anyone else that we're just not getting our money's worth? I mean, the comparison between Forza 4 and 5 is a bit of a tip off. It's like half the content for the same price. The graphical upgrade really isn't worth that.

I seriously doubt that's the tradeoff. I doubt they're reducing the cars for graphical sake, when they can dole it out as paid DLC. I'm suspicious as to the nature of that DLC. Will they be real DLC, or will they be ODC like more and more content is?

Frankly, it's in all of our interests for the gaming market to do well, whether it's the console market, the PC market or (preferably) both.

Indeed, I'd hope for success overall.

Moral of the story: "PC or Console, in next-gen, EVERYONE LOSES!!!"

Well, the consumers lose.

 

[FallenMessiah88]

I think it's a bit to early to say that you shouldn't choose consoles if you wan't to play "the best video games". When the WiiU came out, it didn't exactly have a killer line up either, but now a year later that has all changed. I think the same thing will happen with both Xbox One and PS4. Even the PS2 didn't have a whole lot to offer when it first launched.

But the thing is, right now, it's true. Well, okay, maybe not entirely, but people are looking at the new consoles to see which has the best games, and they don't. The last gen still has better games and for the most part, PCs can play both the old games and new games.

It's also ridiculous to champion a system because it might totally have awesome games in the future. I mean, I'm sure there will be good games in the future, but to champion any system as the best one to get at the time because there will probably be good games?

And, I mean, the last gen should indicate something. Microsoft came off strong with exclusives and support, then it tapered off. By the end of the generation, Sony had a lot more exclusives and support, a better (if poorly designed) marketplace, etc. Microsoft only bothered with exclusive displays again when it remembered it had to pitch a new generation.

Any new console is a gamble. Nintendo's just starting to get good.

Unless you want bragging rights, there's no real point to a day one console. Or week one. or month one. Maybe by the end of the first year.

But here we are, here and now. Which new console is better? Depends. Do you need a cable box?

It may be true right now, which is also the reason why I'm going to wait at least a year before getting a new console. However, that's not what I'm hearing from Yahtzee. What I'm hearing is "Don't bother with consoles. At all. Ever.".

It's fine it Yahtzee wants to be a PC gamer now. That's his choice, but this "Glorious PC gaming master race" schtick has already worn out it's welcome.

I'm not championing any system. I'm just asking for a bit more of a respectful tone.

 

[Nazulu]

Wow! Yahtzee has still got it.

I had pretty much the same results when making my own observations, and they just make me want to play more classic games.

 

[Adventurer2626]

Yup...twiddling my thumbs until pcs = consoles. Hopefully this will be the penultimate console war then the gaming singularity will occur and we'll have a single home server that we'll use for everything...oh wait, cloud gaming technology. Yep it'll just be a screen and other peripherals. Bright future.

 

[TheUnbeholden]

You forgot the 4th way, the WiiU!

and he Forgot the 5th way... the Wii.

The most sensible choice for choosing which current console to buy.

 

[VinLAURiA]

I'll stick with PC and Wii U, thanks. A.k.a. the machine that you probably already own and already does everything the PS4 and Xbone does but better, and the actual video game console that still remembers that video games are toys.

 

[slysean]

To be fair I can't think of a single exclusive I want. I loved Infamous as a series, but I can't imagine how they are going to actually design a third game since the second one did completely end, no matter the ending you picked. So I can't help but get a Bioshock 2 flashback.

Isn't it obviously evil ending, war between conduits and non-conduits raging into the second generation.

True, However from the looks of the trailers I've seen Coles existence or any war. Even if there is some recognition of that ending; what made infamous so interesting was that when you played the sequel, it started at a point that allowed for both evil or good options to be taken into account, save for your "Karma" meter being different. If this does just go with the evil ending, then any choice you made in either of the two starting games seems... pointless.

 

[Clunks]

Personally I can't get on board with either XBone or PS4 because of the continued shunting of backward compatability. The WiiU might seem like the better option right now, but I still remember when the flow of Wii games I was interested in suddenly stopped dead and I could easily see that happening again. I'm a complete luddite and I find PCs incredibly daunting. All that is the bad news. The good news is I still have a PS2, a DS, an Xbox 360 and a Wii, a bunch of old games I still love playing and an entire army of undiscovered games from previous eras. I'm still spoilt for choice and I won't be running out of new experiences for a long, long time.

 

[C.S.Strowbridge]

Frankly I think he was too kind to the XBox One. Ryse is loaded with micro-transactions, so fuck it. In my mind, it's a clean sweep for PS4.

Keep in mind, I'm not planning on buying any.

 

[jackpipsam]

Uncharted over Halo?
Well each to their own I guess.

 

[Evonisia]

I liked those lovely transitions, and some of the jokes (like the Killzone Heilgast one brought up in XP). But this just feels like a lazy E3 video to the point where Ryse is almost summarised exactly as it was in the E3 video and Dead Rising 3 has the exact same summary as the E3 video. It also just felt like smug PC supremacy which you could find in abundance (to put it charitably) in the forums, especially because the 7th Gen was completely forgotten in the description of "good games".

I wonder whether any of these games will be given a full review.

*dismissive hand way* its only smug if you ignore facts

Yeah if only smug meant that.

 

[FieryTrainwreck]

Well imagine that. Yahtzee buys himself a gaming PC and almost immediately realizes that consoles are pointless closed gardens designed to screw people out of money for the benefit of massive corporations who add almost nothing to gaming at large. Stranger still, a very similar epiphany befalls almost everyone who buys a gaming PC.

Also, accusations of elitism don't really amount to much when the product is just plain better in almost every conceivable way. I mean I watched a friend play AC4 on PS4 a few days ago, and it looked roughly like my PC games have looked for 2+ years. The PC games I play on my HD TV from my couch. With a controller. Without paying for multiplayer.

 

[Insideout Ink Demon]

i'm getting more and more tempted by the WiiU
I must be strong

Join us, it is your destiny.

maybe. I'm putting some serious thought into convincing myself. its looking like the only one of the big 3, thats truely focused on gaming

 

[Battenberg]

Best. ZP. ever.

Loved the singing as well, Yahtzee should consider trying to win one of those reality singine competitions, the Ex-pat Factor or something like that.

Also the PS4 is definitely looking like the shinier of two turds at the moment but compared to the sans-faeces PC it's still a long way behind. Now if only I could afford to build one.

 

[LazyAza]

I feel sorry for everyone who rushed out to buy these damn consoles. Then again I felt the same way with the last three generations as well. I mean neither has any game that is actually worth playing yet so you're paying for a big shiny plastic brick to sit in your house for god knows how many months until a game comes along worth playing on the bloody thing. In the mean time your only option is waste money on crap games or not. Never mind the first wave of these machines always tend to be the ones most prone to breaking. Just no logic to the whole thing at all.

I'm having quite a time playing Battlefield 4 thank you very much. In addition to that I have Killzone, an admittedly generic shooter, but one that is beautiful and fun to play. PS4 also gave me Resogun, Super Motherload, Contrast, Warframe, and Blacklight Retribution. There is plenty to play, especially for a system that has been out a week and a half.

If it weren't for people rushing out to grab consoles on day one we would see more situations with the Wii U, where 3rd party developers are nervous to support it. Malfunctioning consoles are covered by warranties, so if my PS4 bricks it will either be repaired or replaced. There is no logic in preaching "wait and see" because if everyone did it, new games wouldn't be released at all and hardware revisions wouldn't happen.

Love how you listed three incredibly bland shooters none of which have anything new or interesting to offer to the genre and thus serve only to prove my point of why buying a console day 1 is silly.

I'm well aware of all the business nonsense behind things needing to sell well upfront but that still doesn't stop the whole situation from being incredibly stupid. At least with the PS3 and 360 their were some ok games that did something new and different, janky and broken many were, but at least they were trying.

This gen its been a whole launch of nothing but bland this and pointless sequel that. And no downloadable games don't count, big budget games are what matter with a console launch and both of them this gen failed to be compelling in that regard and from the looks of the release schedule will continue to be for a while still.

 

[Aardvaarkman]

To be fair, just because PC sales are dropping doesn't mean PC gaming is dying.

This is true, but I didn't say PC gaming is dying. I was mainly refuting the argument that console gaming is dying.

The reason PC sales are in decline are because non-gamers are moving to tablet devices which fit their needs better.

You don't think any gamers are also switching? That it's just non-gamers? It hardly even seems to be a matter of switching. Young children practically live and breathe tablets these days, and they play games on them all the time. I'm not so sure when they grow up they are going to switch to PCs when they've played with tablets and phones all their lives.

There's a huge market for games on phones and tablets, this indicates a significant number of gamers are using them.

PC as a gaming platform is actually rising. The total number of Steam accounts grew by 30% up to 65 million this year, and doesn't show any sign of slowing.

I don't think that's significant evidence on its own of a growing PC game market. The growth in Steam users could possibly be accounted for gamers who previously bought boxed games at retail switching to Steam for the convenience and price savings. It doesn't necessarily reflect overall growth of the market.

Part of it could also be accounted for by Steam adding support for the Mac and Linux platforms - which have historically not been as well-served in gaming as Windows was. And yes, I know that Mac OS and Linux technically also run on "PCs" in the general term of "Personal Computer" - but "PC" in the gaming context typically refers to Windows specifically.

Thanks to the other people who have made similar replies on this topic - I don't have time to reply to you all individually, and I hope this post addresses your points. I really don't think we have adequate data on PC gaming to determine if game sales as a whole are following the overall trend of PC sales. But lacking better data, I think we can see what the broad trends are, and at the moment it is not trending away from consoles and mobile devices.

 

[Enizer]

Alas, there is a tragedy mixed in with Titanfall's PC release...

It's on Origin, which to many gamers (me inclusive) means it may as well be console exclusive; because it's dead to me, and it'll be a cold day in hell before I sign up to EA's plans to RFID chip/barcode/track all PC gamers on the off chance they so much as glance at the word "piracy"

Same for me, i'm still hoping for mass effect 3 to be released soon on pc.
I remember bullfrog EA, I REMEMBER BULLFROG!
..
ahem..

Oh well, mabey i'll eventually buy one of the last gen consoles and pick it up used.

 

[vercardo]

Did the basement thing at the end remind anyone else of Plato's cave analogy?
If so, then you like over-interpreting video game criticism as well.
We should hang out.

I thought I was the only one...
Let's go look for the Fibonacci sequence in Gavin's videos!

And I'm pretty sure that Plato reference was deliberate, 'feel the rays of the sun' and going back down into the basement /cave... That just fits way too nicely.