Poll: PS4 decisively beating Xbone in polls. Will Sony throw away their winning hand?

[wulfy42]

The Xbox and Xbox 360 were always last place for me as far as consoles. Nintendo ruled for along time, then Sony came along and the Playstation and Ps2 both rocked super hard.

The Ps3....well it had it's good points, but it was no Ps2. Also, computers have just gotten better and better...often offering better free flash games then full priced Ps3 games. In the last few years especially my PC has become my primary gaming system, followed by my Ipad 3, then my Ps3, then a tie between my Wii and Xbox360 (both have a few games I play if I ever plug them in).

So for my perspective ALL of the next gen systems (including the Wii U) need to have some really good games (That are exclusive) to have any chance at all of getting me to buy them. Even then, I have such a huge backlog of good games for my current system (decades worth and I'm already 40...so yeah...I don't know if I retired tomorrow and started playing games 24/7 for the rest of my life, if I could finish them all) that buying a new system at this point...especially when I have a PC that can play new games just fine already.....seems like a waste.

Xbox though would need to freaking pull a rabbit out of it's hat, teach the rabbit to program and then have the rabbit create at least 10 GREAT games for me to even consider buying the next gen system. Oh, and that rabbit better be damned cute as well. While I have gotten my money's worth out of all the systems I have bought, The Xbox360 is fairly close to having as few games (that I could only play on it) as my old Jaguar system (Aliens vs predator was great on that system though). Only 1 xbox game really stood out for me, and that was Too human (which wasn't that popular over all).

If that game didn't exist, I would write off my entire xbox360 purchase as a waste pretty much.

Of course many games were available on both systems, but I have always favored the Ps3 when I had a choice between the two. The truth is, without Too Human, I would not have needed to have both systems, and since I bought the Xbox360 back when it first came out, that was a pretty steep price to pay for basically 1 game (Even if I did really enjoy it).

 

[crimson sickle2]

Honestly, I don't have any faith in Sony or Microsoft right now and imagine they're run by chimps with bricks for brains. However, it all depends on Sony's next move. Do they think a safe console is: PS3 with better graphics, or a dedicated game machine? The hardware description makes it sound like the latter, but the share button thing is disturbing. Hopefully we'll actually hear something from e3 in a couple weeks (the last few were just sad). I haven't heard of any games announced for the PS4, so I guess that's the deciding factor?

 

[NoeL]

That being said as far as gamers are concerned Sony would have to work pretty hard to generate the same level of rage that MS has, so its probably safe to say that Sony will be the immediate winner for gamers... though in the non-gaming community MS is pretty much in a race by itself (the PS4 is really just an overpriced Blu-ray and music player if you don't play games) so the Xbox One wins hands down.

This is a good point that I hadn't heard before.

Let's jump back to the announcement of the Wii - what was the gamer reaction? Underpowered, gimmicky, laughably inferior to the competition, dead on arrival. And what happened? The thing started selling like crazy. It wasn't what "gamers" wanted (although I'm a gamer and I wanted it), but it turned out to be exactly what this untapped casual audience wanted.

We all may turn our noses up at its draconian DRM, anti-consumer practices, and primary focus NOT being on games, but if there's a market for an all-in-one home media centre (and let's face it, there most probably is) the thing could still end up selling like hotcakes. Maybe MS realised that dedicated gaming systems are going the way of the dodo since they have less and less benefits over a PC, and rather than dive head-first into a failing market they instead looked for a better opportunity (again, exactly what Nintendo did with the Wii when they thought they couldn't compete in the "hardcore" market).

 

[veloper]

It's still too early to hail the PS4. I wouldn't be surprised if Sony follow M$, but are simply less upfront about it.
"Not always-online" technically applies to the Xbone aswell and "DRM is up to the publishers" sounds more like shifting the blame.

Not that anyone but us cares. Sony and M$ will prolly sell many new DRM consoles and the only losers will be gamers. I hope I will be proven wrong.

 

[lunavixen]

I think they'll lose some lead, because Microsoft has made some major fuck ups, I think as long as Sony doesn't make the same mistakes and keeps the price reasonable, then i think they'll do well. Some of the games lineup for the PS4 looks interesting, but personally i'm going to wait a while on getting any of them to let the first gen bugs get ironed out, and the price to drop some, though i will not get the new Xbone at this rate.

 

[FalloutJack]

I think Sony would have to be EA Stupid and Tom Cruise Crazy to screw this one up.

 

[smithy_2045]

Microsoft have gotten all their blunders out of the way nice and early so that when it comes to release time everyone will have forgotten about it, either naturally because of time or because Sony, Nintendo, Valve, EA, Activision, anyone really, fucks up worse.

 

[VladG]

I think Sony has pretty much won the first bout by clearly mentioning there will be no always online requirement (the Xbone has been dancing around this one) and no disk lock-out. Plus, they might be much closer price-wise this time around.

I think the 2nd bout is going to be release titles, and so far it kinda seems the Xbone has the advantage.


As a PC gamer primarily, this comes to mind:

"The rioting is intensifying to the point where we may not be able to contain it"
"Why contain it? Let it spill over to the schools and churches, let the bodies pile up in the streets. In the end, they'll beg us to save them."

 

[GundamSentinel]

This console generation has hardly started. I wouldn't be surprised if a year from now everything will be forgiven and forgotten and the Xbone will sell like hotcakes. This generation will probably be very similar to the the previous one in terms of sales.

 

[xPixelatedx]

That second option is pretty much on the mark. The thing is, they would be unstoppable if they were competent, but they proved this entire last gen they aren't, at least not fully. The greatest evidence of that is the biggest chunk of good games for the PS3 are just HD collections of PS2 games... And that's the only reason why no BC on the PS4 doesn't sting near as much as on the Xbox one, there just weren't that many PS3 games worth saving. I still use mine to mostly play PS1 games. I can't imagine I will have much if ANY use for a PS4.

 

[The White Hunter]

Can they manage it?

I imagine Sony is gonna just hammer home that the PS4 is much more gaming focused than the Xbone, even the social crap on there is about gaming. They just have to quietly mention their music and movie services on the sly and not make a whole giant-ass press conference about them and ignore the games.

Some more footage of Killzone: Shadow Fall, Infamous, etc will help them a lot. They also need to get on the advertising tihng in a bigger way, all the multi-platform stuff with "Out now on Xbox" at the end of the commerical, they need that to be saying "Out now on PS4". Sadly the kind of people using a forum like this aren't the ones whose money decides these things, the general public who don't think too much about it do.

Incidentally I already have a Wii U, I'm building a monstrous AMD vision system for myself with some beast overclocks, so I'm kind of set for a few years. Will likely snag a PS4 if the price is right or if the price drops to a good level. £300 with Shadow Fall will likely be reasonable to me.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

Well, partially is my conservative answer. They've already announced the console, and with that opportunity, shown that their focus is a bit of mindless social bullshit and some possibly legitimately useful video capture/streaming ability, and have had plenty of time to monitor the internet to know that restricting used games is gon get u rekt. Sony have had an exceptional history of coming out on top thanks to competitors fucking up and Sony flying straight, so I'm predicting they won't be dropping any bombs in regards to restrictive systems or pervasive online shackling.

In terms of used games specifically, Sony's been intentionally vague before, but has recently taken the 'offended' position in regards to them pursuing an agenda of used games limitation, so I expect they'll leave it up to the publisher to have online passes or whatever. I don't think they're legitimately AGAINST used games limitation, but they're not going to be the guy who cuts in on consumer freedom when they'd do so well just by comparison by doing nothing.

Then again, the nebulous masses, of whom one can never really have a good estimate, may be happy with the Xbone. I'm speaking as if every customer were me, someone who resents what the Xbone is trying to do and has no chance of buying one.

 

[wooty]

I can imagine a lot of PR execs and staff at Sony making adjustments to whatever unveiling ceremony they already had planned after the Xbone one. All they need to do is rethink their wording, rethink their approach, rethink what they're going to show and by all means, do NOT, DO NOT mention the word "TV" under any circumstance. Sony will be laughing after that.

 

[Techno Squidgy]

snip

I think we might be seeing a repeat of the 6th generation of consoles. I have a feeling that Sony are going to dominate this generation, as long as they don't make any mistakes from now until well after the PS4's launch.

The Xbone is looking shaky much like when the original xbox tried to break into the market.

The WiiU is looking much like the gamecube, powerful but undersupported (though we'll have to wait and see how it matches up to the technical specs of the Xbone and PS4).

The PS2 was actually the weakest (in terms of hardware) out of the 6th Gen (bar the Dreamcast, but lol, Dreamcast) but sold the most units by a ridiculous margin so power isn't necessary the key part of a console.

If Sony have played it safe and made a less powerful but cheaper console they could steal this generation away, especially if development is easier for the PS4, though considering that both the xbone and PS4 run on the x86-64 architecture the real winner of this console generation is going to be the PC gamers. With a not insignificant portion of console gamers now considering the switch to PC gaming and a fair few having already made the switch the PC market is only going to grow in significance, which might mean we see a lot more PC friendly games! Having the 3 big platforms for the "hardcore" market all on the same architecture is going to MASSIVELY simplify development of cross-platform games, and indeed games in general.

However, I think my hopes for a resurgence of PC gaming are just that, hopes.

Something I've just thought of. Exclusives no longer make sense. If all 3 are on the same architecture it makes no sense for a publisher to restrict their avenue of sales barring a very expensive deal for Microsoft or Sony, so good news there! or more wishful thinking.

 

[VladG]

The WiiU is looking much like the gamecube, powerful but undersupported (though we'll have to wait and see how it matches up to the technical specs of the Xbone and PS4).

The WiiU is what now? It's underpowered even by current gen standards, let alone PS4/Xbone standards. The WiiU will not match the sales it's predecessor achieved. Most of the Wii's sales came from non-gamers which enjoyed the gimmicky motion controller. Sadly, the more core-focused WiiU will fail miserably in comparison unless there are a BUNCH of amazing games for it (and there very likely will not be since so few people actually bothered with the thing)

The PS2 was actually the weakest (in terms of hardware) out of the 6th Gen (bar the Dreamcast, but lol, Dreamcast) but sold the most units by a ridiculous margin so power isn't necessary the key part of a console.

But funnily enough, the PS2 sold a ton of units on the strength of it's DVD player, not it's gaming capabilities, especially early on, creating the critical mass which in turn encouraged game development, which kept snowballing the initial success.


Now the multimedia aspects of the PS4 and Xbone are mostly redundant. Pretty much everything the Xbone can do media wise, you get with a Smart Tv. And Blu-Ray players are cheap and common.

I actually think the PS4 is heading in a better direction than the Xbone, with the share button and related functionality. I'm actually pretty certain that a large number of core gamers will eventually use the function, even if just rarely, to record and share some outstanding moment.

However, I think my hopes for a resurgence of PC gaming are just that, hopes.

Something I've just thought of. Exclusives no longer make sense. If all 3 are on the same architecture it makes no sense for a publisher to restrict their avenue of sales barring a very expensive deal for Microsoft or Sony, so good news there! or more wishful thinking.

We can only hope. On the one hand, everything is pointing in the favour of at least a partial PC resurgence. Consoles with x86 architecture, this pre-launch mess, much awaited PC exclusive revivals like StarCitizen, Torment, Project Eternity and DoubleFine Adventure and the cheaper gaming hardware (a decent gaming rig nowadays is really not that expensive).

On the other hand, major game developers are notorious for resisting change. Console dev is clearly still much more profitable than PCs. Leaving the piracy issue aside, console games tend to be more expensive, sell more units, require less support (no having to deal with five thousand different hardware configurations). I guess it all hinges on how many units the next gen will be able to sell early on.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

Remember, Sony have yet to say anything about the same issues people are hating MS for. If at E3 Sony start stating there used games stance among other things, and MS just show off a load of amazing games. Then Sony will look terrible in comparison. MS has shown all its bad laundry. Sony has yet to. But how quick people forget all the bitching and moaning after Sony's PS4 reveal?lol.

E3 here we come.

 

[Genocidicles]

Remember, Sony have yet to say anything about the same issues people are hating MS for. If at E3 Sony start stating there used games stance among other things, and MS just show off a load of amazing games. Then Sony will look terrible in comparison. MS has shown all its bad laundry. Sony has yet to. But how quick people forget all the bitching and moaning after Sony's PS4 reveal?lol.

E3 here we come.

Sony has at least confirmed that the PS4 isn't going to have any online DRM.

 

[Techno Squidgy]

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To save space, I've snipped the entire conversation but will reply to each point separately.

1) Just checked the specs again, I must have been reading from the wrong page when I typed that because the actual specs are laughable. my apologies for the misinformation and failure to fact check!

2) That is something I neglected to think about. You do have an extremely good point regarding the DVD player, that did give the PS2 a massive advantage over the other consoles which helped encourage development.

3) I think you're right on this, the next period of gaming will be shaped massively by early unit sales. If the consoles don't sell well enough the industry is going to choke and will NEED to expand into the PC market. Hopefully this should shift the relationship in favour of the consumer as the PC market is a lot more varied. The game devs and publishers will have to provide the gamers with what they want to continue getting the sales they need. There could be a change in the way games are made, with smaller teams and/or budgets for games in order to create more games, faster, to satisfy the various sections of the market.

Alternatively we could see the new consoles tank and development continue for the 360 and PS3, which would be... interesting.

DISCLAIMER:
However, I'd like you to bear in mind that most of this is just me chasing thoughts in my head to see where they end up. Actual relation of what I'm saying to reality may vary.

EDIT:
Now I've snipped it to save space. fail.