Fadaar
That guy
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Correct, but CS retail came out in 2003 and HL2 was fall 2004. I remember trying and failing miserably to get HL2/Steam to work on my university's internet connection.
The Big Bad Console Thread - Sway your Station with an Xboner !
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hodj
Vox Populi Jihadi
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That was pretty much how they got everyone on board. You bought Half Life 2 on disc, but it just had a steam installer and a game code in it. Then you installed steam and activated the game code
What was great about it was that all the old codes for all old Valve games worked as well, so I had the Valve collection box they sold back in the day and attached every single one of those games to my Steam account, and they're still there today. 9 years later. Can install them and play them any time I want
What was great about it was that all the old codes for all old Valve games worked as well, so I had the Valve collection box they sold back in the day and attached every single one of those games to my Steam account, and they're still there today. 9 years later. Can install them and play them any time I want
Big Phoenix
Pronouns: zie/zhem/zer
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Not gonna lie, steam was shit when it was first released and bundling it and requiring activation via steam was a cluster fuck as well.
Big Phoenix
Pronouns: zie/zhem/zer
- 48,027
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Tuco
I got Tuco'd!
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I'd love to see a graph showing the prices of the popular games on steam, psn and xbox's store.
Braen
<Medals Crew>
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If anyone thinks that MS is going to give Steam-Like deals they are sadly mistaken.
I just picked up Alan Wake/American Nightmare and all the DLC for 4 bucks on Steam.
To get all that from MS, I would ahve to pay $40. $29.99 for the game, 800 MS points for American Nightmare and 560 points for each piece of DLC.
I have a friend that truly believes MS will be the next Steam, but they won't be offering 90% off games like Steam does because they CURRENTLY don't do it.
I just picked up Alan Wake/American Nightmare and all the DLC for 4 bucks on Steam.
To get all that from MS, I would ahve to pay $40. $29.99 for the game, 800 MS points for American Nightmare and 560 points for each piece of DLC.
I have a friend that truly believes MS will be the next Steam, but they won't be offering 90% off games like Steam does because they CURRENTLY don't do it.
Joeboo
Molten Core Raider
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Absolutely. And I still believe that no matter how much you increase texture resolution on a console, there's a pretty noticeable limit on how good you can make it look when you're dealing with a 50+ inch 1080p TV. That is a drastically low PPI. That 1080p big-screen TV will never look as sharp and crisp as the 24-30" 1080p(or higher) monitor that you are sitting 2 feet in front of. I never said there wasn't room for improvement over the 360/PS3, there definitely is. I just don't think your average gamer is going to be blown away by higher resolution textures on a TV, that will be a more subtle change. The big noticeable night and day differences will be in things like physics, lighting, AA, post-processing, and all of the other effects that will now be easily possible on the new consoles while still maintaining high frame rates at that 1080p resolution.
Really though, we can all keep arguing until we are blue in the face, but none of us know for certain. It's all just speculation at this point. None of us have had our hands on a PS4 yet to actually see the games in person. I'm just forming a prediction based on my 30+ years as a console and computer gamer.
Lenas
Trump's Staff
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1080p on a 50" screen from 6 feet away is literally the same exact thing as 1080p on a 24" screen from 2.5ft away. You keep saying this stuff, but you don't know what you're talking about. Just because you've been playing games for 30 years doesn't mean you understand anything about the technicalities behind them. This is more an issue of how the human eye functions.
Joeboo
Molten Core Raider
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Except almost no one sits 6 feet in front of their 50+ inch screen. We're talking about living rooms here. Almost no one has a couch that's less than 6 feet from a 50+ inch TV, unless you live in a tiny studio apartment, maybe. My couch in my finished basement is about 9 feet from my 50" plasma, and that's pretty typical for most of the people I know that game in their living/family rooms. At 9-10 feet away, 1080p barely looks any different than 720p, therefore my conclusion that most people won't notice a texture difference in getting them completely up to 1080p resolutions. Hell, the original instructions that came with the Kinect for the 360 recommended clearing out 8 feet of empty space in front of your TV to use it, I have quite a few friends that have couches/chairs sitting beyond that 8-foot range just because of their kinect. So when you're sitting on the couch playing a game with a controller(most games), you're easily 9-10 feet away. I think that distance is pretty typical for most people, especially those of us with families, kids, etc. We don't all live in bachelor pads anymore with a single lazy boy pulled up right in front of the TV, that's not your average gamer anymore.
I think most people don't have a feel for distances. Is your TV only the width of your armspan away from where you sit on your couch? I bet not, It's much further.
Hell, your average living room where people are sitting 8, 9, 10 feet away, you really need something like a 60-70 inch 4K TV to get the benefit of the full resolution. I can't wait until large 4K TVs become reasonably priced sometime in the next decade.
I think most people don't have a feel for distances. Is your TV only the width of your armspan away from where you sit on your couch? I bet not, It's much further.
Hell, your average living room where people are sitting 8, 9, 10 feet away, you really need something like a 60-70 inch 4K TV to get the benefit of the full resolution. I can't wait until large 4K TVs become reasonably priced sometime in the next decade.
Lithose
Buzzfeed Editor
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True, forgot about that. But even then, it's a very small aspect of it--and the initial risk for the average user was tiny. Steam was asking that your 9.99? (I remember the initial price being really low) game might suck. MS is asking that your 500$ system, and hundreds of dollars of games, might become paper weights.
All in all, Steam didn't get commitment until it proved the benefits behind it's service (Notably huge, ridiculous sales.)--and I'll bet any amount of money if MS had released Xbone as a normal system first, and then offered deals like steam did, for people to "buy DRM"--people would have bought the DRM products because it was being sold with it's benefit first. So for example, if they gave people the choice between buying a non-DRM 59.99 game, and a 39.99 DRM/Digital version, I'm willing to bet, overtime, they could win most people who aren't Sean/collectors over to the digital side. (Hell, if MS proved it's service, I'd buy digital/DRM versions if I could SEE they were significantly cheaper.)
But MS is so insulated and disconnected that they simply assumed the consumer would trust them to bring the benefit after accepting the risk. And the thing is, human rationality just doesn't work like that--risk aversion is a huge aspect of market sales.
You're still not getting it dude. You really aren't. There's the internal resolution of the renderer, which 540p half the time right now, and then there's also the resolution of all the texture maps they use - which are currently absurdly low, shitty garbage. The difference between real high resolution textures that can be used on 8GB of GDDR5 and the shitty crap they're barely squeezing through 512mb of ram right now is GARGANTUAN.
It doesn't matter if you're 9 feet away from a 50 inch TV when you're dealing with a leap from the insanely awful crap the use now to high quality stuff. You will see it and it's about far, far fucking more than just 720p/1080p and how far away you are. You clearly have not ever actually installed a real texture pack on games or played any games on a PC hooked up to a TV with them or this conversation wouldn't even be happening.
It doesn't matter if you're 9 feet away from a 50 inch TV when you're dealing with a leap from the insanely awful crap the use now to high quality stuff. You will see it and it's about far, far fucking more than just 720p/1080p and how far away you are. You clearly have not ever actually installed a real texture pack on games or played any games on a PC hooked up to a TV with them or this conversation wouldn't even be happening.
Tuco
I got Tuco'd!
- 49,743
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Yep. MS is trying to score with their date before they take them out to dinner and the movies.
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I can tell how shitty the textures are on current gen systems sitting 8-10 ft away from my tv. I dunno what the fuck this dude is going on about. I've watched my friend play skyrim on his 360 and then hooked my pc up to his tv through hdmi and played my modded out skyrim and the difference is night and fucking day man. The textures on next gen systems will make an obvious difference regardless of your viewing distance.
Joeboo
Molten Core Raider
- 8,157
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If you are sitting 10 feet away from a 1080p TV you will literally see NO difference between something in 1080p resolution and 720p. That's my point. I'm not saying the graphics can't be improved, they can. I'm just saying you're average person sitting 10 feet away won't see any goddamn difference between something in a lower 720p-ish resolution, or a higher 1080p resolution. Sure, pull your chair up and sit right in front of the TV and you'll see it. Your average person sitting 10 feet back won't. Not even taking into consideration that your average person doesn't have 20/20 or better vision.
This forum is full of people who are not your average, casual gamer. Your average gamer has a TV in his living room or family room, it's probably between 42-55 inches, TV on one wall, couch on the opposing wall, room to walk and a coffee table in-between. Maybe even extra floor space for the kids to play. Even your shittiest, tiny room will have walls that are 10' apart from each other, more typical would be 12-14 feet for a living/family room. Those people will notice anywhere from very little difference, to no difference in higher textures. And that is the vast majority of the customer base for these new systems. Maybe not you specifically, but that is your typical, adult gamer experience.
edit - if current gen games are putting out texture resolutions more in the 240-480p range, then yeah, we'll see improvement, I just don't know that I believe that all games on current consoles have been that shitty. I mostly game on my PC, and only use my consoles for sports & driving games, those always seem to have relatively decent texture resolutions.
This forum is full of people who are not your average, casual gamer. Your average gamer has a TV in his living room or family room, it's probably between 42-55 inches, TV on one wall, couch on the opposing wall, room to walk and a coffee table in-between. Maybe even extra floor space for the kids to play. Even your shittiest, tiny room will have walls that are 10' apart from each other, more typical would be 12-14 feet for a living/family room. Those people will notice anywhere from very little difference, to no difference in higher textures. And that is the vast majority of the customer base for these new systems. Maybe not you specifically, but that is your typical, adult gamer experience.
edit - if current gen games are putting out texture resolutions more in the 240-480p range, then yeah, we'll see improvement, I just don't know that I believe that all games on current consoles have been that shitty. I mostly game on my PC, and only use my consoles for sports & driving games, those always seem to have relatively decent texture resolutions.