How has the system stacked up? Last I heard they’re losing to the PS4. Microsoft recently dropped the price to 350. I have a PS3 I use for nothing more than watching movies that I could get a 100 dollar credit for, putting the new device at 250.
I’m thinking of picking one up. I have the Surface Pro 3, which I love, so I like the idea of it being the same ecosystem. I really want Assassin’s Creed: Unity (I’ve wanted the French Revolution since the first game was released). I have a sexy PC (thanks partly to SenorBeef’s help in building) that I know I could play the game on, but I want a console for what I call “faffing about” games, such as AC, GTA, Far Cry, etc. FPSs are played solely on the PC.
I’ve wanted to buy one for a while but I just can’t justify it, even with my low threshold of justification-to-buy-videogames. There is just NOTHING on there right now that’s compelling. I have a PS4 though and I barely play that (for many of the same reasons) but at least I get free games every month from PS+. May try the new CoD. I dunno.
Xbone/PS4 crossplatform releases PS4 always “has the edge” in reviews, so why bother with the Xbone right now I guess.
I’m tempted to get a Wii U just to play some of the Wii games I actually liked again.
I don’t play any game son it. I use it solely as a media center device. For which is pretty damn great, thanks to the Plex app - but I wouldn’t recommend it for just that either, it’s too much money for a plain old media device, and a day doesn’t go buy that I don’t regret the purchase, specially right after Amazon announces some cool, new, sub $100 home theater device (which is like every other month!).
I play most of my games on PC, and I’m just not going to go back to 30 FPS sub HD resolutions. NEVAH!!! So nothing outside of a couple of exclusives interest me.
You might be better off picking up one of those cheap $100 micro PC’s the size of a deck of cards and just use Steam to stream your PC games to your TV that way. The Nvidia shield an tablet can also do that, as can any old laptop or netbook you might have laying around. The experience is fantastic and near latency free on a wired network.
This way you can faff about with a gamepad on your TV without sinking money into a console.
If you DO want to go console, I would recommend the PS4 over the Xbone. Better games library (IMHO), better performance.
So it’s pretty cool and I’m using an old netbook I had lying around for this that is hidden behind my xbone.
I have an xbox 360 wireless adapter hooked up to it and I have it’s HDMI out plugged into a port on my TV. I also have a Cat 5e wire running to my router elsewhere in the room. I’ve seen people also use their electricity plugs as in-house network extenders but I don’t know much about how that works, but it’s another option in case running a network wire to your TV setup is not ideal. You CAN also do this using your wireless network, but you need a decent wireless router to pull this off with similar results to what you’d get when wired.
On the laptop I have Steam installed and I’m logged in using my credentials. In Steam settings I have it setup so that it autoloads on startup and goes straight into big picture mode too. So the moment I turn it on and switch my TV input it’s very much a console-like experience.
And that’s it. Steam will automagically show you the games installed locally on the device you are using (if any) and any other games installed on other machines you have running. Navigate to your games using the gamepad and click play and Steam runs the game on your remote PC and streams the video to your TV, while sending input commands back to the remote PC.
Yep, anything that runs Windows or Linux where oyu can also install Steam will work. You can also install Steam OS if you’re feeling adventurous
If you do use your surface, obviously the only down side is that when you want to use it for something else you’ll need ot unplug it form your TV. Which is why I relegated a netbook I no longer use for this purpose.
You don’t need anything powerful at all. It needs only to be powerful enough to run steam and stream 1080p (or whatever rez you choose) video. So a very small/quite/low end machine is good enough to stream a game at 60 FPS 1080p.
I have one and love it. I waited a while to buy mine but am really enjoying the games. I think a lot of the PS4 vs XBox on cross platform games is either fanboying or people w3ho are just gearheads. I had both a 360 and a PS3 and ended up preferring the 360.
I have had fine performance with Destiny, Diablo 3, and Battlefield 4. I am really enjoying Sunset Overdrive which is an exclusive and will be getting the Halo Master Chief collection. As for the free games argument, you get a free game download monthly from XBox Live as well.
I enjoyed the first game, loved the next two, and then played part of the last one with Enzio, didn’t play 3 (colonial America? That’s stupid), and played part of IV. But damnit, the moment I found out they’re doing sequels I wanted them to do Revolutionary France. It’s the perfect set up. It’s my favorite European historical period, it’s consistently ignored by games, and I want to climb on top of Notre Dame then stab someone in the face!
