Zero Punctuation: Next Gen Buyer's Guide

[TJC]

It's sad and a bit scary when the Vita and 3DS are the best "next-gen console" offerings by virtue of being the least dickish, and it's questionable if they should really count.

They honestly should because my 3DS gave me some of the best gaming experiences of the past two years. It had a hilarious ghostbuster game that could even get yahtzee leave a thumbs up for. It had the best resident evil since 4. It had the slew of Nintendo exclusives Mario Kart, Zelda and (soon enough) pokemon. It gave me a spiritual Diablo 3 (monster Hunter 3) And a pretty nifty array of indie games (if only the eShop UI wasn't so completely SHIT)

and apparently now even the Vita gets some steam and decent games and that powerful bugger looks sexier with every passing day.

So far, these two are the obvious and only winners and don't make me go "NOPE" when thinking about the prospect of buying them (gotta upgrade to the XL sooner or later :C)

 

[PoolCleaningRobot]

I'm still willing to give the PS4 the benefit of the doubt, partially because it's not pulling all of the shit that the Xbone is, and partially because I actually like the concept of a share button, because I'm the type of person who wouldn't mind jumping into a friends game and talking to them while they play, maybe looking away a little to type something up on my lap top. Besides, even if you don't want to do it, it's not like the PS4 holds you hostage and forces you to do it.

But I guess this is one of those moments where me and the general Escapist community just disagree on things.

Also, please guys, don't let this turn into a flame war.

You're too late. It's been flaming for months. And I agree. I don't see how the ps4's features are inherently bad. Just don't use them if you don't like them. I'm not that social but I would like the option of sharing game capture footage with friends. And my friends aren't attention whores who'll be shoving stuff in my face anyway. All else fails, I'll do what I do now and don't sign onto psn/Steam if I don't want to be bothered. Its not like this is a new problem or something. You can still get bothered by people on your Steam account/psn/xbox live by friends asking you to join games and chat with you. I'll just pull the plug

 

[geizr]

Welcome back kids to another edition of "New Generation Hatred", a joyous occasion where the next generation is hated because it seems different than the old one. Then a bunch of people will buy it, it'll slowly faze out the majority of the old consoles, and everyone will get used to it and forget they hated it because there are other things to complain about. Then the next series will be announced and lo the cycle will start anew.

so so true. Why does this have to happen every gen

Believe it or not, there was once a time when people were looking forward to the next generation. It's just that lately, far too much BS has been added to the mix.

And believe it or not there were still false rumors and people yelling at the top of their voices that this would be the end of gaming. Just want everyone to wait and at least check out what the new gen has to offer before yelling that it sucks before knowing it. It's annoying.

Yes, there has always been naysayers in every generation. However, in the past, these dissenting opinions were a much smaller fraction of the total voice of the gaming market. Recently, it seems the dissonance has increased, proportionally, hence the reason for my position that people were more looking forward to the next generation in the past than is apparently true today.

Ah yes but you fail to account for one thing. With more and more people using the internet now a days, We hear more about this and are more likely to hear false rumors. This is doubled when you get on a site with people that are generally on that site for sharing a similar opinion.

Notice the word "proportionally". I'm accounting for the Internet in my statement.

Yes, but the internet was not a large place for opinions back then and thus you were less likely to here as much people complain. Now a days you can hear an overblown opinion on about everything. Lest I remind you of the one games controversy *cough cough*

I'm speaking of a time before the Internet, when writing to a magazine was how you got your opinion published about. I come from a very old-school time, well before the Internet was so prevalent. Yes, there are always overblown opinions, but the question is whether you are just hearing from the same typical loud-mouths or if there is a more general consensus of opinion. To me, it has felt that there is a more general consensus of opinion, but you probably disagree with that.

Ultimately, only time will tell. It could well be that the whole thing will blow over, and gamer's will simply go back to tossing money at companies for the next upgrade of shiny graphics, all the while bitching, as they usually do, about the games being generally crappy. Then again, maybe it won't. You have to admit that the dissent regarding some business practices in the game industry is a fairly new phenomenon (at least, in my memory, I don't remember any such similar complaint, not since the upset over the excess of FMV games on the SEGA CD), not one related to simply the increased communication capability and capacity of the Internet.

 

[Mr.Mattress]

If the WiiU had games, no one would buy it. If the WiiU had a fancy new gimmick that's not like the tablet that everyone already owns, then N would cruise along to another victory on the USS Casual, but...that ship has sailed. Oh, and what happens when the WiiU does get games. Well, good luck downloading a game on your 8 gig hdd. A tablet controller and an 8 gig hdd....very innovative.

So, I suppose you don't know about external hdd's? You know, the ones you can attach to the WiiU, thus giving it TB's of hdd instead of only 8 GB's? Yeah...

OT: I agree with everything Yatzee has said in this video. This generation is really gonna be a Nintendo v. Sony contest again. It'll be interesting to see how it plays out. My money's on Nintendo barely dominating the Market with Sony at a very, very close second and Microsoft at a distant thrid.

 

[Erttheking]

I'm still willing to give the PS4 the benefit of the doubt, partially because it's not pulling all of the shit that the Xbone is, and partially because I actually like the concept of a share button, because I'm the type of person who wouldn't mind jumping into a friends game and talking to them while they play, maybe looking away a little to type something up on my lap top. Besides, even if you don't want to do it, it's not like the PS4 holds you hostage and forces you to do it.

But I guess this is one of those moments where me and the general Escapist community just disagree on things.

Also, please guys, don't let this turn into a flame war.

You're too late. It's been flaming for months. And I agree. I don't see how the ps4's features are inherently bad. Just don't use them if you don't like them. I'm not that social but I would like the option of sharing game capture footage with friends. And my friends aren't attention whores who'll be shoving stuff in my face anyway. All else fails, I'll do what I do now and don't sign onto psn/Steam if I don't want to be bothered. Its not like this is a new problem or something. You can still get bothered by people on your Steam account/psn/xbox live by friends asking you to join games and chat with you. I'll just pull the plug

Well, E3 starts tomorrow. I guess it'll be judgement day then.

 

[Baresark]

Haha, Yahtzee has hit the nail on the head. What to buy? Nothing, it all looks like shit.

 

[Shaidz]

Ah Yahtzee, you never fail to bring a smile to my face every Thursday Morning.

 

[Cecilthedarkknight_234]

Hmm I get what Yahtzee is saying however I still have some faith left in nintendo's wii-u. Out of all the next gen consoles right now it has the most promise by not making you bed over and take a huge online drm shaft.

 

[Albert Belle]

No offense Yathzee but this is your worst rant ever.I mean I mostly agree with what you say and I admire your honesty but you constant griping about consoles you haven't played or know anything about talking about how they will have no games is starting t6o sound like some ignorant fanboy.In fact you are starting to sound like some annoying PC fanboy as well.I don't know where you are getting that the next gen consoles are not going to have any games and that Nintendo is the only one who knows how to make 'games'.I don't know what you call the things Sony showed for the PS4. Potatoes? My advice? If you have nothing to review don't make premature reviews about things you barely know anything about.

Talk about the Wii U because that is already out but if you have no actual consoles or games to review don't bother.That Duke Nukem thing you did before the game actually came out was more annoying then insightful.Same with this.I prefer you when you are not using premature negativity like many stupid gamers are doing these days. It's not insightful and not very clever at all.You just sound ignorant and I know you don't want that.If you are bored and have nothing to review next time wait until you actually do.You just sound like you needed a topic to rant about and you scraped the bottom of the barrel for this one.I mean your biggest problem with the PS4 is that it has a 'share button' and you don't want to share? Then don't.They are not forcing you to.I admire you as a reviewer because you say the things that others are afraid to say and I admire it even if you are tearing down my favorite game.But you are veering very close to ignorant fanboy town when you start the premature judgement and extremely petty things that shouldn't matter.

 

[DanHibiki]

Well, I know what next gen console I'm going to buy.
A new PC!

 

[PoolCleaningRobot]

Welcome back kids to another edition of "New Generation Hatred", a joyous occasion where the next generation is hated because it seems different than the old one. Then a bunch of people will buy it, it'll slowly faze out the majority of the old consoles, and everyone will get used to it and forget they hated it because there are other things to complain about. Then the next series will be announced and lo the cycle will start anew.

Pretty much. I truly wish I spent more time on the Internet as kid so I could see the previous versions of the same old shit.

"XBox has no games!"
"The ps2 is completely under powered!"
"Gamecube was way too late to the console race!"
"Why are they adding these stupid new Internet features to the consoles! If I wanted that stuff I'd use a pc!"

Some people will never understand that there is a huge percentage of gamers for whom consoles will be their only avenue for video games. They're the same people who's hands you swat away from the keyboard when they try to do something on a computer more complicated than facebook creeping

 

[Lunar Templar]

heh, wasn't gonna Yahtzee, though if i was gonna get one, it'd be a WiiU, but it'd need a Metriod game, one I don't have to make excuses for -.-

 

[CrystalShadow]

XD. What gets me about the lack of games on the Wii U is... Context.

OK, admittedly, it's now 5-6 months after launch, and very little new content has shown up.

But... The Wii U launch lineup was 20 games!

Do you know what the N64 launched with? 4 games. The gamecube wasn't much better. Nor was the Wii.
The same can be said about the 3ds too, although that was more of an obvious problem. (But the 3ds has recovered from that pretty well so...)

For that matter, at this point I doubt either the PS4 and Xbox One will have all that many games at launch...

It just seems like an odd thing to pick on, all things considered.

 

[itsthesheppy]

Don't worry, yahtzee. I won't.

 

[LetalisK]

Not that I'm terribly invested in the next console cycle, but I'm still withholding judgement until the entire picture is available. Not saying it gets much better from here, but I think they're going to do a lot of backtracking and re-marketing. I wonder if their marketing departments got any pink slips lately.

Are you ready?
Yeah, you think you can tell us what to do (with a console)?
You think you can tell us what to play?
You think that your better (then what we have now)?
Well you better get ready
To bow to the master (race)
Break it down!

If Microsoft and Sony aren't down with that, I got two words for 'em.

 

[CrystalShadow]

If the WiiU had games, no one would buy it. If the WiiU had a fancy new gimmick that's not like the tablet that everyone already owns, then N would cruise along to another victory on the USS Casual, but...that ship has sailed. Oh, and what happens when the WiiU does get games. Well, good luck downloading a game on your 8 gig hdd. A tablet controller and an 8 gig hdd....very innovative.

Um... 8gb? You'd have to be insane to buy the 8gb model if you intend to download a lot. I have a 32 GB model.
Besides which, I can plug in an external hard drive if it becomes an actual issue.

What's the difference between buying a hard drive to upgrade the internal storage, and plugging in an external hard drive anyway?
The end result is about the same.

The 360 didn't even ship with a hard drive originally, so don't tell me needing an external upgrade is out of the question.

(But as I said... 32 gb. NOT 8... The 8gb model was pretty explicitly meant for people that don't download things in the first place.)

 

[Canadamus Prime]

I already plan to completely skip this console generation.

 

[Something Amyss]

Oh and The Xbox and its... entire console...

Or at least their marketing SNAFU that makes the best announcements about it "hey guys, it's not QUITE as bad as Big Brother from 1984."

 

[Erttheking]

Hey Yahtzee, you know why EA said they were dropping support for the WiiU? Because Nintendo wouldn't use Origin. Y'know, that crappy ass EA attempt at Steam that you ragged on in your own review of SimCity? Double standards much?!

This is the third time he's made it clear that he's an elitist PC asskisser and if anything, he's turned me away from PC gaming even more now. Here's a tip Yahtzee. Take that "don't" and use it to dig the sand out of your vagina.

IT suck that I already bought a Wii U, it's just that Wind Waker HD is that one game I really really want to play. Why not just play the original Wind Waker you ask? Because my GameCube is breaking and my copy of Wind Waker is already broken.

For god's sake, Nintendo has already revealed stuff coming to the WiiU but if that's not enough, they're revealing more next Tuesday! And if that's still not enough for you people, then get the hell out of my game industry because it's people like that that have ruined gaming for me. And Yahtzee is the king of them all!

Not exactly coming across as the bigger person here.

 

[bladester1]

Are you ready?
Yeah, you think you can tell us what to do (with a console)?
You think you can tell us what to play?
You think that your better (then what we have now)?
Well you better get ready
To bow to the master (race)
Break it down!

It is (than what we have now) not then....