Oh my GOD. I was very possibly right!
It looks like Xbox is an always online machine and will block used games.
Your turn Sony.
That rumor also says a 1.6 Ghz CPu and a DX 11 800 Mhz GPU. for the Xbox Which doesn’t really mean anything, unfortunately. 8 Gigs of RAM though, which sounds good.
As for the A10 on the PS4, I’m pretty sure they would pair that with a discreet card.
So my % chance of no used games on consoles has now gone from 60% to 80% thanks to that last report. Still not 100% convinced though.
I will be utterly shocked if either one actually goes through with it.
If they do, will Nintendo rub their hands with glee?
I think Nintendo has long lost the kind of audience that comes to the Xbox and PS.
The Wii U is already loaded up with the “hardcore” content typically associated with the PS3/Xbox 360:
Black Ops II, Darksiders, Batman: Arkham City, Mass Effect 3, ZombiU (a Wii U exclusive), Assassin’s Creed III, Ninja Gaiden 3, and Tekken Tag Tournament 2. And more is coming this year.
If Sony and MS both announce used game lockout systems, Japan may undergo a shortage of champagne because it’ll all be diverted to Nintendo HQ.
Well, yes… but who’s playing them on the WiiU?
I think most of that core audience will purchase a locked out (well, even MORE locked out) xbox/PS before they consider a WiiU.
That’s just my gut telling me this, obviously I’ve gots no evidence.
If I can get to my Wii U on my lunch hour (because OF COURSE I have a Wii U), I’ll see what the Miiverse communities for those games are like.
After THISI have very little confidence in these “a source that claims have had hands on experience with the <blah> says…” articles.
Also, did I miss something, or was there absolutely no explanation of why “requiring an always on internet connection” necessarily equates to “ruling out a 2nd hand game market”? Those aren’t remotely the same thing.
I assume the implication is that any time you pop a disc in, it validates the disc’s key against the user account. Which they’d probably want to do via online connection.
As for being shocked, I’d be shocked if one of them went through with it. I wouldn’t be shocked at all if both Sony & Microsoft went through with it together.
I don’t normally like Destructoid, but their takedown of the X-Surface guy’s self-righteous attitude is awesome and worth a read: http://www.destructoid.com/why-we-run-rumors-and-the-curse-of-the-hoax--243375.phtml
Well, I said earlier that I don’t think Sony and MS are basing their decisions about used games on the Wii U, because they’re trying to appeal to a different tier of gamer, but after these rumors about how underpowered these systems will be, I wonder if their performance over the Wii-U would even be great enough to justify having an entirely different game catalog and trying to appeal to a diffent audience. Low power system not much more powerful than the Wii U plus used game lock might actually seriosly lose a lot of customers to the Wii in a way that high power system/exclusive games probably wouldn’t.
So their defense is “we told you it was a rumor”?
That’s the point of what I’m saying; Anyone can make up a rumor, and these sites may very well decide to print it. Yeah, great, they’ll say “rumor” and then people will run with it.
I’m just saying: Don’t run with it, it’s a rumor.
That’s the Destructoid guy’s point though. The rumor creator tut-tutted game journalists for running with the rumor because “The games industry is the only one I can think of that will quite happily publish guesswork as news.”
That’s bullshit.
Rumors get published for everything. There are entire websites devoted to gadget rumors and Harry Knowles built his Cheeto-fueled empire on posting movie rumors that were most likely made up. You can complain and say, “You shouldn’t have,” but the rumor is such an ingrained part of the news that it’s not going away.
I’m not even complaining, I’m just saying “I don’t think we should give any credence to yet another anonymous source posting” that says “Ooooh, always on internet required!”
Some parts of that article were low-hanging fruit - no duh the new console will use some variant of BluRay and have Kinect. That’s not news because we already pretty much knew that. But that’s no reason to give them any undue credence on the “always on internet required” line, for example.
Something I was thinking of - if this gen of consoles are significantly behind the technology curve, I have to wonder if tablets will cut into their market share. It’s hard to compare, but I would say that current high end tablets are the equals of ps3/x360 gen consoles, and unlike consoles, they’re in a cut throat competitive environment that pushes them to dramatically increase their performance regularly. That could mean that tablets could overtake the next generation of consoles fairly quickly. Tablets also generally have better screens than TVs too by a good margin.
Where they’d suffer, of course, is local co-op, and the control schemes would be different. But I wonder if a tablet would try to appeal to console gamers by allowing you to plug in gamepads to the unit.
It could be that in a few years, tablets will dominate consoles both in total cost (tablet games are way cheaper) and single player experience within a few years. People still have an irrational attachment to large TVs, and local co-op is a factor, so it wouldn’t take over, but if the console market aims low I wonder how much tablets will fill in the gap.
By “local coop” I meant all sorts of gaming where you’re all sitting around a TV, not just co-op. That’s a big factor for consoles. But tablets with wifi multiplayer could make inroads into that too.
This generation of consoles will have a LOT more competition from tablets, phones, and the like. I hope I don’t fall into the pc+keyboard+mouse is better than the console+control trope to say that tablets WON’T afford the precision a dedicated controller will, and nobody will carry around a Bluetooth controller everywhere so that they can play games on their tablet. At best, games on the tablet will be -different-, and if someone already has a tablet, they might be more willing to spend $6 on a tablet game (that works on all iOS devices in the family) than $60+DLC for a console game (that only works in the living room).
I’m not sure folks would notice, but the apparent resolution of my iPad 3 on my lap is better than my 50" television, parked 12 feet away. I have noticed that “folks” with “money” typically don’t like a great big sheet of glass hanging out in the middle of the room. I could see the future being made up of devices that disappear when not in use, or are small enough to stash away when not in use.
But here’s the thing: when you play a game on a tablet, you don’t need anything else, there are no cables, additional boxes, controllers to charge, media to find. When you have either a console or pc, you have the cruft that comes along with them.
Yeah, I realize I’m speaking to both sides of the argument, but only to say: this generation of console has it’s work cut out for it…last gen didn’t really have as many alternative gaming platforms to contend with.
I’m utterly convinced that this will be the last generation of consoles.
Games as a service will be the next thing, and hardware will matter a lot less.
But there is still a need/want for a focused device (not general purpose computer) that can be hooked up to the TV, operated simply and easily without failure, and used for entertainment (games, movies, music).