Are consoles really this bad now?

[Reiper]

Longtime PC ganer here. I have dabbled in consoles in the past, I have always enjoyed the split screen aspect of consoles, as well as the local multiplayer party games and ease of use.

Long story short: WTF happened?

My family got a PS4 for christmas, along with 3 extra controllers. Over the holidays with family over, I was hoping to play it with my cousins for some fun party games and coop.

What ended up happening instead is that we played my old PS2 and on the Wii. The selection of games is abysmal, and I could not find any fun split screen games like timesplitters, or party games like fuzion frenzy on the old xbox.

Where are all the games with local multiplayer? Where is the game selection? I went to EB games and they had nothing I wanted. Have consoles just become shitty PCs?

 

[baddude1337]

Splitscreen seems to have been dropped to the wayside in favour of online for quite some time now. While that was the case last gen, it seems a lot worse now. Even games like Halo whose whole multiplayer was founded on spitscreen dropped it. Ironically, I have more splitscreen games on my PC nowadays than I do 360 games.

On a side note, what is it with developers dropping splitscreen on PC? So many games that support it on consoles completely omit it on PC for no good reason and it's pretty aggravating. For example, my girlfriend and I are playing through Borderlands 2 on 360, but I would much prefer to play it on PC, where it won't look anywhere near as horrible and run a hell of a lot better.

 

[CaitSeith]

Welcome to 8th gen console gaming, where fun local multiplayer games are pretty much Wii U exclusives! You're right. The powers-to-be have decided that local multiplayer is too niche (aka. unprofitable) for games in this gen consoles. It is that bad indeed.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

It seems like if you want the best of what console gaming used to offer you need to go with Nintendo. Their consoles are generally weaker but they still support offline multiplayer, split-screen, and of course the ability to put in a game disc and play that game without going through a lengthy installation process (unless you're talking about Xenoblade Chronicles X...and there are a couple of games with updates too that would need downloading/installations).

I still really want to want a PS4 but since you can't just put a game into the box and play it within minutes that's kinda kept me at bay. If there was more HDD space on the consoles it wouldn't be as much of an issue but it seems like Sony is reluctant to put out a console with more than 1TB of space on it. As for split-screen, I don't know what happened. As others have said, online MP has seemingly killed couch co-op.

 

[DeliveryGodNoah_v1legacy]

The last game I can think of that had really good splitscreen support was...Call of Duty actually. That was on the PS3 though, I don't know if any of them no PS4 still support it.

The only two on PS4 I know I have are Rocket League and The Binding of Isaac

 

[Xprimentyl]

I?ll preface this by saying I?m not a fan of split-screen, but I am curious how this now age-old debate would sound had it gone the other way, online falling by the wayside in lieu of rampant split-screen. I guess at the end of the day it?s the same as those who prefer vinyl over CDs or digital formats; there?s a quaint nostalgia and perhaps unique quality to the older format, but the fact remains that it?ll only ever appeal to a niche slice of the mass market and what they lose out on disappointing that piece of the pie is likely negligible.

I don?t know how easy it is to implement split-screen, but is it possible it?s gone away as (ideally) current games are more technologically demanding? Is there significant processing power required for one machine to take in 4 separate inputs and display as many ?screens? on a single monitor?

 

[Saelune]

I?ll preface this by saying I?m not a fan of split-screen, but I am curious how this now age-old debate would sound had it gone the other way, online falling by the wayside in lieu of rampant split-screen. I guess at the end of the day it?s the same as those who prefer vinyl over CDs or digital formats; there?s a quaint nostalgia and perhaps unique quality to the older format, but the fact remains that it?ll only ever appeal to a niche slice of the mass market and what they lose out on disappointing that piece of the pie is likely negligible.

I don?t know how easy it is to implement split-screen, but is it possible it?s gone away as (ideally) current games are more technologically demanding? Is there significant processing power required for one machine to take in 4 separate inputs and display as many ?screens? on a single monitor?

As long as people have siblings, split-screen has reason to exist.

 

[CaitSeith]

I?ll preface this by saying I?m not a fan of split-screen, but I am curious how this now age-old debate would sound had it gone the other way, online falling by the wayside in lieu of rampant split-screen. I guess at the end of the day it?s the same as those who prefer vinyl over CDs or digital formats; there?s a quaint nostalgia and perhaps unique quality to the older format, but the fact remains that it?ll only ever appeal to a niche slice of the mass market and what they lose out on disappointing that piece of the pie is likely negligible.

I don?t know how easy it is to implement split-screen, but is it possible it?s gone away as (ideally) current games are more technologically demanding? Is there significant processing power required for one machine to take in 4 separate inputs and display as many ?screens? on a single monitor?

Probably the complains would be about pandering to the nostalgia, the developers being stuck in the past and not trying to innovate anymore, or just consoles being left behind by the mighty PC gaming. But on all seriousness, developers don't mind that their games don't run at top performance if they consider the reason for it worth the inconvenience (I'm looking at you, The Last Guardian framerate).

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

With online, splitscreen co-op has mainly disappeared. From a technical standpoint, it isn't nearly that easy and never was (it was merely the only way to play with friends thus it was used out of necessity). I personally never really cared for splitscreen MP and having to pay attention to a small corner of the TV. The best co-op games to me are those that don't need to split the screen like Smash Bros or LittleBigPlanet (on PS4 obviously). One of the most fun nights of co-op gaming I ever had was actually on LittleBigPlanet, trying to rob this bank without getting blown up was so much fun.

Here's a list of games on PS4 with local co-op:
http://screenrant.com/best-playstation-3-4-coop-games/?view=all

There's some great games on that list. And, the remaster of Borderlands added in splitscreen co-op.

Lastly, consoles are still far more convenient and easier to use. You pop in a disc on PS4 and you're playing within 2 minutes. Last-gen consoles made the transition to having hard drives and updates and they stumbled mightily. On PS3, you can't even download patches in the background, you can't even play a MP3 as an update downloads. Then, you had the mandatory installs. Whereas PS4, the game installs as you play and downloads any patches.

 

[sXeth]

Here's a list of games on PS4 with local co-op:
http://screenrant.com/best-playstation-3-4-coop-games/?view=all

There's some great games on that list. And, the remaster of Borderlands added in splitscreen co-op.

Lastly, consoles are still far more convenient and easier to use. You pop in a disc on PS4 and you're playing within 2 minutes. Last-gen consoles made the transition to having hard drives and updates and they stumbled mightily. On PS3, you can't even download patches in the background, you can't even play a MP3 as an update downloads. Then, you had the mandatory installs. Whereas PS4, the game installs as you play and downloads any patches.

Yeah, my reply was going to be "What game did you want splitscreen in?". Since they do mention "Party Games", you probably want to look at the PSN store. A lot of party game fare just doesn't bother with disc release anymore. Though for Timesplitters-esque fare we're all just out of luck.

Connections vary of course, but I can't say the whole install/patch as you play has ever really worked out in my experience. Yeah, you can play a tutorial or first level, then you get booted out until it finishes. And the PS4 will throttle the downloads out if you're doing anything flagged as Online (including Party Chat and the built-in Spotify on PSPlus), even including if you're playing something in an Offline mode that has Online capability (like Terraria single player or Titanfalls Campaign)

 

[Casual Shinji]

No, they're not this bad.

The game selection is more than adaquate, and there are plenty of local co-op games for the system.

If you happen not to like any of them then I don't know what else to say.

 

[DOOM GUY]

I dunno, I have a Wii U and an Xbox One and they both seem to have some pretty good choices concerning multiplayer gaming.

Still primarily into PC gaming, but consoles still provide a lot of fun.

 

[Cold Shiny]

The PS4s ENTIRE library of games consists of several amazing SINGLE PLAYER masterpieces. So, it makes sense that it would be a joke at a party, I would never even try that. All of the great games on PS4 are single player. This is why Wii and WiiU will always have a place, their party games are unmatched.

 

[Yoshi178]

Wii U has tonnes of splitscreen multiplayer games

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Co-Optimus tells me there're 155 couch co-op games on PS4, of which at least 37 are splitscreen.

http://www.co-optimus.com/games.php

 

[Mcgeezaks]

Co-Optimus tells me there're 155 couch co-op games on PS4, of which at least 37 are splitscreen.

http://www.co-optimus.com/games.php

While PS3 had around 140. PS4 has alot of catching up to do.

Split-screen is dying and anyone saying otherwise is lying to themselves.

 

[Arnoxthe1]

I don?t know how easy it is to implement split-screen, but is it possible it?s gone away as (ideally) current games are more technologically demanding? Is there significant processing power required for one machine to take in 4 separate inputs and display as many ?screens? on a single monitor?

No. It's just devs/publishers being lazy and/or greedy. Really fucking lazy and greedy.

Remember this game?

This game had co-op AND counter-op AND full 4-player splitscreen with a multiplayer suite AND a full well-done campaign plus bonus missions, cheat codes, tons of weapons, more than 5 different kinds of bots, and the fucking kitchen sink. And it did it on, by today's standards, totally SHIT hardware.

Remember this game?

Co-op up to four players, 4-player splitscreen, Theater Mode (totally new at the time), Forge Mode, a full campaign, a huge list of custom games options, a huge list of gametypes, a huge list of maps, a huge list of weapons and equipment, armor customization with two different species, achievements, and Skulls.

So what did Halo 5 have by comparison at launch?

A campaign, Theater Mode (which I think was sorta broken at launch), Warzone Mode, 3 or 4 gametypes, a few custom games options, some maps, and weapons carried over from Halo 4 with one or two taken away I think, one species available, microtransactions, achievements, and Skulls. That's it. On a system that's supposed to be 8 TIMES more powerful than a 360.

There is NO EXCUSE for this incompetence.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Co-Optimus tells me there're 155 couch co-op games on PS4, of which at least 37 are splitscreen.

http://www.co-optimus.com/games.php

While PS3 had around 140. PS4 has alot of catching up to do.

I would imagine, it's only been around 3 years compared to PS3's 10.