Are the 8th generation gaming consoles really much better than 7th generation consoles

[Atamasama]

@Airk

I disagree that this is a major factor for most people, because if they really wanted to play those old games, they probably have an old console. I have lots of old consoles. I don’t play the games on them very often. And having those games on newer consoles doesn’t help.

I have old consoles; 3 of them in fact. The original Wii, original Xbox, and Xbox 360. All boxed up in my garage because I have no use or room for them.

Backwards compatibility for the Xbox One is very nice and about half my games are 360 titles. But many (most, I’m sure) 360 games aren’t compatible. In some cases this is deliberate. I was a Destiny fan (until they removed the ability to install the Taken King update and forced people to re-buy the whole game, no thanks). When I bought the Xbox One I needed to buy another copy of the game because 360 and One players weren’t meant to mingle (presumably because Xbox One players may have a multiplayer advantage).

As for what spurs purchasing, honestly I’ve only ever bought two consoles in my entire life. One was the Nintendo 64, the other was the Nintendo Wii. Every other console I’ve ever owned was a gift. I consider myself a PC gamer primarily.

I will say, though, that every Xbox I’ve owned (which again were gifts) has doubled as a DVD player (and in the case of the Xbox One and 360 a general entertainment device) which has made them more valuable to me. Though I assume the PlayStation consoles can serve in the same capacity.

[Airk]

@Atamasama

As for what spurs purchasing, honestly I’ve only ever bought two consoles in my entire life. One was the Nintendo 64, the other was the Nintendo Wii. Every other console I’ve ever owned was a gift. I consider myself a PC gamer primarily.

Yeah, so basically, you’re not a good example.

I will say, though, that every Xbox I’ve owned (which again were gifts) has doubled as a DVD player (and in the case of the Xbox One and 360 a general entertainment device) which has made them more valuable to me. Though I assume the PlayStation consoles can serve in the same capacity.

I don’t know what format the Xbox 1 uses, but the PS3 and PS4 do Bluray, rather than just DVD.

[Johnny_Bravo]

The XBone plays Blu-Ray. The 360 doesn’t; Microsoft backed HD-DVD during that particular format war.

[Wesley_Clark]

@Airk

I don’t know what format the Xbox 1 uses, but the PS3 and PS4 do Bluray, rather than just DVD.

The Xbox one is supposed to do blu ray and I think 4k blu ray.

[Hoopy_Frood]

@Johnny_Bravo

The XBone plays Blu-Ray. The 360 doesn’t; Microsoft backed HD-DVD during that particular format war.

What I always found amusing about that was Sony was one of the founders of the original DVD consortium, of which Microsoft signed on later. When the next generation was being debated, Sony wanted the more expensive but better quality and higher data storage blue-laser based version. Microsoft backed the HD-DVD format which was cheaper and less risky.

So the consortium split. And Sony ended up winning the battle. Though by the time Blu-Ray came out on top, streaming was taking off. So the whole exercise was kind of futile anyway.

An interesting problem MS has with XBone, is every blu-ray based player sold gives royalties to Sony. So they had to charge more to pay off the fees.

[BigT]

@Kinthalis

But lighting is still something that even a 1990’s rendering farm could apparently do better than at least Kingdom Hearts can do in real time today.

I agree the lighting is worse (or, at least, not better), but the other stuff is so much better I think it’s better overall.

The actual underlying animation techniques are fundamentally different, from what I understand from watching stuff on Pixar. The process they showed even then didn’t look polygonal at all, and they described a lot of stuff working with curves, not triangles.