I think you're grossly overestimating the power of dated hardware. The PS4/ONE will not be able to emulate 360/PS3 architecture. Modern PCs can only emulate PS2 "favorably" these days, and there's a lot of overhead to consider too - the PS4/ONE have their own OS running in the background, taking up other resources. It'd be expensive for M$/Sony to develop the code to emulate and get it running 100% for all games.

Emulating Cell on an X86 is nothing like XP compatabilty mode and it's far and away from emulating ancient hardware that doesn't do that many instructions/sec. The Cell (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_(microprocessor) is notoriously difficult to program on, I can't even fathom how difficult it would be to emulate. You'd need something better than an i7 at least.

 

Because the PS3 did that at first but it apparently wasn't that big a selling point so they took it out. The console industry is one big game of follow the goddamn leader.

What gobsmacks me is that XBLA games for the 360 won't be playable on the 1. It's like they want to highlight the eternal superiority of the PC as a platform and Steam as a delivery mechanism.

 

I was completely unimpressed. Here's the thing. I bought a used 360 when I was in college, and was extremely lucky in that I never had any problems. But I did that because I vastly, vastly prefer playing on a console. I sit on the couch, and waste a weekend in front of my television. But I don't, nor do I have any inclination to, want to do anything with a gaming console beyond playing games. And if this next one comes out and is priced up at 500 dollars? Yeah, now that I have a job, I'm just gonna bite the bullet, spend an extra two hundred, and build a gaming pc.

Which really pisses me off. I don't want to have to tweak settings to get games to play. I don't want to have to fucking enter a key to install it. I want to put a disc in the tray, and fucking play a game. That's it. Power button, disc, boom. Game on. That's literally all it would take to satisfy me. Do that, don't charge out the ass for it, and I'd be a loyal customer for life. But as of now, unless Sony just absolutely knocks it out of the park, it looks like I'll be switching to PC later this year.

I will say I'm looking forward to modding the shit out of Skyrim.

 

With PC games 99% of the time you don't even need a code anymore. You just buy it direct from Steam (which you're doing because it's 75%+ off in the middle of one of their random sales), wait for it to download and install, and in MOST cases just loading up like you would from a console. It's not quite as easy as putting a disc in a tray and playing, but it's not a whole lot more complicated, either.

EDIT: Sony already had their conference. There's going to be E3 in a few weeks and will illuminate things further, but their unveiling conference was weeks ago, and it was miles upon miles better than this conference was.

 

One thing pc can never replicate favourably is sitting in front of a large screen playing 4-way nba jam with your friends.

I imagine same screen multiplayer for diablo 3 on ps4 will be awesome too.

This, coming from someone who has spent thousands of dollars on his PC, and yes, there is a difference.

That being said, those prices will sound inflated to you, but I'm Australian, the prices we have to pay for electronics are virtually extortion.

Basically, my console is a media centre and a gaming console only for games not on PC or better / more fun on console.

And $400-600 sounds brilliant assuming we get it for that price. Ps3 was around a grand when i bought it and it was that price for a long time.

 

There's a growing suspicion that that lovely little feature will be coming to the Xbox 1...

And as Solomon said, Steam is pretty much the most popular form of copy protection out there, and when it's used with CD keys all you have to do is press shift-tab to bring up the Steam overlay, press the CD Key button, press copy, and paste it into the CD Key window.

Graphics tweaking? Everything has autodetect these days, it means waiting two seconds the first time you run the game. Beyond that tweaking is entirely optional, and in most cases a feature. Console FOV is a crime against humanity.

As for price, my $500 PC has yet to encounter a game it can't run. Far Cry 3 was at medium-low settings, everything else has been at medium at the very least. And that's $500 at Australian prices, bought a year ago.

 

I do find it funny ONE is always online.

Did they not realize what damage the PSN meltdown did to Sony? And they are going to subject their customers to not being able to play their single player games too?

 

No, but smashing your head repeatedly into a brick wall might reproduce that experience well enough. It might actually be more fun.

 

Really? I've been swamped lately and I completely missed it. For some reason I thought they were waiting until E3 for everything. Excuse me while I run off and look at shit.

And yeah, that associating the game with the user account thing that ONE is doing irritates me. Me and a few friends swap games all the time. If I'm not sure about a game that costs 25 new, and five bucks used, I'll pick up the used so if I hate it, I'm not out much. I get the business side behind it, I really do. Still pisses me off though.

Quick question for you PC gamers out there. I know you can hook a controller up to play with instead of mouse and keyboard. How is it? Seamless, or is there a noticeable lag? Controller's are a big reason why I enjoy consoles so much.

 

I don't notice any lag for wireless controllers.

 

I have a Logitech USB controller I use for racing/sports games, and it seems to work just fine. Wired Xbox 360 controllers are also plug-and-play, apparently, though I've never tried it. I know quite a few people who use them for flying in BF3.

 

All this grousing! I thought that aside from no BC, which is annoying but understandable given the changes in OS, etc., it looked like a sleek, nice piece of machinery. I like the updates to the OS, the functionality, the integration...I want a machine that plays good games on a stable platform, and I see no reason why the development for X1 won't be as strong as it has been for the 360 for the games I like to play. Xbox Live will keep going, and I like it much more than I ever did the weak-ass attempts by Nintendo or the stupid junk that Sony has tried to throw out to compete, only to be plagued by security issues.

At the same time, I've always wanted to get rid of as many things from the TV cabinet as possible. Maybe now I can ditch some of it.

I game on PC sometimes as well, and I like some of those games, but I've always been more comfortable on the couch playing on my console. I think it'll stay that way. And I see no reason why I would change that for the PS4, because it doesn't offer me what I want, even if it is a nice piece of tech, and I wouldn't touch anything made by Nintendo these days with the butt end of a barge pole.

 

On another note, the name is stupid as fuck. I tried googling for the stats on the thing and it kept telling me about the original, because people have been calling it Xbox 1 since the 360 was announced.

 

http://imgur.com/lgOwhVX

And a highlights vid:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbWgUO-Rqcw&feature=youtu.be

 

Yes, for example that the emulators are not made by the companies that build the consoles, but mostly by fans who may have good understanding of the architecture, but in the end, I think that the people who developed it would still be able to bring better optimized emulators. And optimization is the second thing to consider. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think emulators use the hardware as efficient as possible, since that would, in the case of GPU's, most likely require drivers that would help with that, and I don't think that AMD/Nvidia will ever bring out drivers to optimize the performance of emulators.

And in the case of CPU's, I don't think that some guys working on an emulator in their free time can do it, since there are so many different rigs out there. I mean, even some game developers are unable (or too stupid) to get their engines properly optimized, so what are the chances that some guys, who likely only work on it in their free time, are able to do it? Pretty slim I would say.

To get back on topic, I would say that Microsoft is making a pretty big mistake with the used games thing. Not only will that turn Gamestop against them, but according to EU law it's forbidden. If the EU now decides to actually enforce this, it's possible that the Xbox One could be banned in all countries that are part of the EU, and that would be a pretty big market loss. Of course the chances of that happening are pretty slim.

 

I found this hilarious.

Kinect issues during live stream.

 

Dear Microsoft: Thank you for so thoroughly informing me that I shouldn't bother with your console this next generation.

 

I just saw the whole stream. I'm fucking dying. Nobody took the WiiU seriously in the slightest when it came out, and now it's going to run away with the Nextgen because it's a normal person competing in the Special Olympics.

I've never felt more vindicated for my decision to start saving up for a decent desktop. I've got enough now that I'm fully prepared to drop 4,000 on it and build it myself, and I don't intend to look back.

Goddamn, this is sad.

 

Xbox One and the PS4 are just bloody PCs with a crap ton of DRM.

The Wii U is at least what a console should be, even with whatever issues they have.

Also 4k is a stupid amount to spend on a desktop.