One thing you might not know about hard drives is that there’s a price sweet spot. 15 years ago, when I worked on a consumer electronics product that had a built-in hard drive, $50 was about the cheapest you could find new hard drives in bulk. This resulted in a 2GB hard drive being built into the device and it was spec’d that way. In the next couple of years, 2GB drives actually got more expensive due to lower production, so we started including the cheapest hard drive we could find again, which turned out to be 8GB for about $50. Even though the specs only called for 2GB. There really wasn’t much the software would do with all that space, so the extra 6GB was more or less wasted until we added new features to use it, but it was actually cheaper to manufacture a box with an 8GB hard drive than a 2GB one. It may well be that the sweet spot is around 500GB these days.
I totally forgot that the Blu-Ray/DVD thing was a significant factor in my decision. Before the PS4, I haven’t really had a video disc player that could be hooked up to my TV, since my old DVD player broke a few years ago.
True, I never thought of this, and it’s a good point. However, my original question–before I knew that these systems install the full game to the hard disk just like a PC–was not “why a 500 GB hard disk instead of, say, a 250 GB or 100 GB?” It was “why do they need significant hard disk space at all, instead of, say, just a little memory card to store saved games like the original Playstation?”
Ok, you answered my questions. I would have recommended a Wii U without further information, based on your situation, but if you wanted a Blu-Ray player and care deeply about the graphical capabilities, then the PS4 is the correct choice.
I’m mainly a PC gamer myself, but recently got a Wii U, and I play my 3DS regularly. I see a lot more “old fashioned” gaming in my Wii U than I do the other consoles, so if you were looking for a modern console that’s more like the SNES, the Wii U would have been that console. However, glad you’re happy with the PS4. Welcome back to the fantastic hobby of video gaming!
What do you mean by that? I wonder if there’s something about an old-fashioned look and feel that can be identified. One reason I lost interest in video games in the first place is that I’m not a big fan of first-person shooters, and they seem to have become the dominant genre around the late nineties.
There are more platformers in the Wii U. Games where you need to get from point A to point B in an enclosed level in a certain amount of time. Also some more simple action games (in terms of controls). MarioKart for one, though not strictly speaking an action game, has ridiculously simple controls - the vast majority of time all you need to know are 2 buttons.
But yeah, the Wii U does have a dearth of first person shooters. I tend not to care too much for them, so getting a Wii U was a decent option for me (I also already have a Blu-ray player).
In addition, I think the death of optical media is way too early to be proclaimed. I feel that I’ve been hearing it for years now. It’s not feasible quite now, I feel. Though I’m sure the game makers would love it (would significantly slash the used game market). I mean people have been saying that optical media is dead, but folks still buy plenty of Blu-ray movies.
Yeah there aren’t many first person shooters or realistic racers or western RPGs on the Wii U, which are all categories that are more modern and I wouldn’t consider “old fashioned.”
A stronger focus on local multiplayer, platforming, adventure, simplistic games, is what I would define more as “old fashioned.” The PS4 and XBOX ONE are all about online play. The Wii U has very little of that. It’s more about playing platformers and party games with your friends who are all in the same room with you. The modern Nintendo games like Mario, Donkey Kong, etc are similar to how they’ve always been, whereas XBOX and Playstation really don’t have any old-fashioned platforming/adventure franchises. They have a lot of FPS and action games.
Thanks to the online services, there are more old-school games coming to the PS4 now. The games I’ve spent the most time on this year are The Binding of Isaac and Rogue Legacy, two games with a very old-school feel.
But as you said, the way games are growing in size will push the “download-only” date quite a bit further into the future. Steam works as well as it does because the majority of console games are still retail titles. As soon as everything goes download only, bandwidth in this country is going to have to increase substantially or gamers are going to feel the pinch of vastly slower speeds.
What do you consider the difference between western RPGs and non-western RPGs? Two of my favorite games of all time were Final Fantasy II and III on SNES (yes, I know they were really IV and VI) and those are Japanese. I’m just wondering what a Western RPG is.
A very popular western RPG out right now would be Dragon Age: Origins. There are, of course, many older western RPGs, but they lived pretty much entirely on PC.
Basically, think of any game made by Bioware or Bethesda as your stereotypical RPG. Skyrim, Fallout 3, etc.
JRPGs are usually random encounter, linear (very little choice in how the story unfolds), and often involve full parties that you control in some fashion. WRPGs, typically, the player chooses one character that they can fully customize, and the game will unfold very differently depending on what actions they take as they play. The action/combat is hardly ever based on random encounters.
Western RGP’s tend to emphasize player agency in the narrative, while Japanese ones tend to be very linear in their story telling:
In a western RPG x might happen first (but it doesn’t always have to), and then because of how x happened y might or might not happen, or it might happen differently for z player than (I’m out of letters!) some other player. In most Japanese RPG’s a happens, then b happens, then c happens (smarter letter choice for the win!), and it always happens the same, and usually even in the same order.
Western RPG’s tend to do most of their storytelling through game mechanics, character and world development etc, while Japanese ones tend to focus entirely on movie-like expository story telling - mainly cutscenes. Tons and tons of cutscenes. This tends to put a limit on the player agency in the narrative.
Artistically they are all over the place, but western RPG’s tend to go for a more realistic look, while JRPG’s tend to feature huge spiky hair, 20 foot swords, etc.
Of course there are exceptions here and there, these are purely generalities.
Western RGP’s tend to emphasize player agency in the narrative, while Japanese ones tend to be very linear in their story telling:
In a western RPG x might happen first (but it doesn’t always have to), and then because of how x happened y might or might not happen, or it might happen differently for z player than (I’m out of letters!) some other player. In most Japanese RPG’s a happens, then b happens, then c happens (smarter letter choice for the win!), and it always happens the same, and usually even in the same order.
Western RPG’s tend to do most of their storytelling through game mechanics, character and world development etc, while Japanese ones tend to focus entirely on movie-like expository story telling - mainly cutscenes. Tons and tons of cutscenes. This tends to put a limit on the player agency in the narrative.
Artistically they are all over the place, but western RPG’s tend to go for a more realistic look, while JRPG’s tend to feature huge spiky hair, 20 foot swords, etc.
Also, the act of making the lead character (or some times lead characters) an avatar of your own design is usually a BIG part of Western RPG’s, where as in JRPG’s the main character is usually a very specific individual, often times with a predetermined character progression even. In Baldur’s Gate for example your main character can be an apprentice wizard, a sneaky rogue, a silver tongued bard, or a tough as nails warrior, his role in combat, outside combat, and in various regards to the game, can be drastically different. Makes for great replayability, IMHO!
Of course there are exceptions here and there, these are purely generalities.
Some good examples of Western RPGs: Baldur’s Gate games, Planescape torment, the upcoming Pillars of eternity, Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Knights of the Old Republic, Fallout series, Divinity: Original sin, The elder scrolls series, Might and Magic series.
Wasteland 2 is VERY heavily derived from Wasteland; it’s essentially a late 80’s RPG wearing 2014 clothing. I’d hardly call it typical for these purposes.
No disagreement! It’s definitely an old-school game with modern graphics and other flourishes. Just noting an exception to the rule. Overmaps in general (a necessary condition for random encounters) are almost nonexistent.
I don’t remember how we worded it, but EA just announced their quarterly financials a few days ago. Their revenues were $1.43 billion, but only 10% of that ($140 million) came from full game downloads on consoles and the PC. Though a good chunk of it ($314 million) did come from downloadable expansions and mobile free-to-play add-ons.
I might not last ten years, but it’s not going to be tomorrow either.
