The Big Bad Console Thread - Sway your Station with an Xboner !

An interview with the PS4's lead architect. Interesting read.

http://gamasutra.com/view/feature/19...rk_.php?page=1

Tuco_sl said:

I prefer tactile controls but yeah, kids are growing up playing games on their parents smartphones and I can easily see smartphones supplanting the handheld gaming market.

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Wrong tense. It happened about two or three years ago.

Instead of saying "Nintendo makes awesome games! People will love them!", look at the sales data. The 3ds is down in sales in the US year on year for 8 months running. It showed very little growth in sales over the past 12 months worldwide according to the data released by Nintendo today during its end of year financial report (it sold 450,000 more units this year than last). It failed to meet Nintendo's original sales targets, and then it failed to meet their revised sales targets. Whichever way you look at it, the 3ds is underperforming sales wise.

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Except they have sold more 3DS than they did DS in the same amount of time.

Looking at their revenue doesn't tell the whole tale. There are other factors affecting it - like the problems with the Yen and costs of development now vs what they were even 3 years ago.

You know, at one time handhelds were roundly dismissed and home consoles were thought to be unassailable. Personally I think that it would be insane to think that smartphones and other alternatives to traditional handhelds such as tablets are, and will always be, incapable of competing. And sure, their offerings may be a joke today as compared to what Nintendo offers - but we did just have a debate over Jaguar in regards to PS4 a page or two ago, but Jaguar is already slated to be used in APUs for all kinds of other hardware. So in a sense, it seems bizarre to have people defend the PS4 and its APU's capability, then only a couple pages later have people roundly dismiss other alternatives to handhelds when many tablets will have similar AMD architecture (and I would bet that phones will have a precipitous power boost as well in the near future).

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I have no doubt Smartphones will continue to become more graphically powerful. I have no doubts they will be able to run all sorts of graphics engines and have a lot of processing power.

That's not really the issue though - what makes my smartphone awesome and handy is it's small form factor, touchscreen, and no buttons or shit sticking out of it like old phones. Emailing, web browsing, texting, etc are all not heavily affected by having to use a touch screen over tactile buttons. That's not the case for the types of games I see myself playing - if I want to play an RPG on my phone I either have to use half the screen clicking on the controls on the screen or buy and carry around a plug in adapter that adds the same controls I have on a handheld gaming device.

Games built around being touchscreen only that just require a couple clicks or screen swipes are perfectly fine on a touchscreen-only phone (Bejeweled, Solitaire, Angry Birds, etc). Trying to play the iOS version of Secret of Mana or one of the several Diablo-esque shovelware games just using touchscreen controls is a huge chore and just make me not want to play the game.

As long as my smartphone is a small form factor touchscreen (which is what the entire mobile phone industry has evolved into), I don't see it ever being a serious gaming device. My phone is a multipurpose machine that just happens to let me kill a few minutes with some Bejeweled Blitz during lunch - my 3DS is a dedicated gaming machine that is really only "mobile" when I take it on car trips or vacations, otherwise I'm playing it laying on my couch.

I know they have lost some of their market to phones and tablets, to the little kids and moms who were only had a DS for Nintendogs and other simple games easily emulated on a non-DS.

But it's not a big enough share to kill off Nintendo as a handheld maker. They have billions of cash saved up, they aren't in any danger of going bankrupt or any such nonsense. As long as their software quality and IPs stay around, they will have a device around to play them on.

Nintendo only making a ton of money instead of a fuckton of money is clearly the end of times for them.

Oh no, they didn't make as much money as last year, FUCKING PANIC. The whole sky is falling shit in the game industry is gettingold.

The 3DS is doing quite well and Nintendo's real fuck up here is the WiiU.

I have now set my expectations so low that I'm pretty sure it's nearly impossible for them to disappoint me. If they manage to do so I will be fucking amazed.

Mixtilplix_sl said:

An interview with the PS4's lead architect. Interesting read.

http://gamasutra.com/view/feature/19...rk_.php?page=1

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This needs to not get lost in the shuffle here. There's a lot of detail on the PS4's hardware and it's an interesting read into how they've customized it. It's definitely going to be a lot more than just the sum of its parts.

Sean_sl said:

This needs to not get lost in the shuffle here. There's a lot of detail on the PS4's hardware and it's an interesting read into how they've customized it. It's definitely going to be a lot more than just the sum of its parts.

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What I find more interesting is the emphasis Sony is placing on software/game development, even from the top execs. Cerny has been a game developer since the 80's.

Mixtilplix_sl said:

What I find more interesting is the emphasis Sony is placing on software/game development, even from the top execs. Cerny has been a game developer since the 80's.

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Yeah, them being so Game focused is what has me excited. Also I really can't wait to see what Sony's first-party studios can do with this thing in a couple years.

Tuco_sl said:

Maybe where you live, but the 7-12 year olds I see gaming on handheld devices aren't using smartphones.

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Ihonestlydon't remember the last time I saw anyone using a handheld console.

It's an age thing really. Handhelds seem pretty popular in the late teens to early 20s crowd, while anyone in the "kids" bracket is all over ipod/ipad stuff these days.

Watching 6 year old kids play Minecraft on an iPad makes me feel like such an old man. The touch controls really don't impede them at all.

Who has time to play a handheld in public if you aren't a kid? If I'm outside my place I'm 1) Working 2) With Friends 3) Shopping

Unless I'm on a plane or car ride, I'm playing my handheld on my couch while watching sports. Handheld =/= I take it everywhere I go, I imagine the same is true for most teens/adults who play handheld games.

Also, supposed name:

You probably don't see anyone outside with a 3DS because the battery life is abysmal.

Man0warr_sl said:

Also, supposed name:

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Man I hope it's not that. There's no acronym that's easy to type or rolls off the tongue that I can think of from that name, besides Xfinity.

I'll just call it the xbox as I imagine everyone else will.

Sean_sl said:

Man I hope it's not that. There's no acronym that's easy to type or rolls off the tongue that I can think of from that name, besides Xfinity.

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You know why they call it Xbox Infinity right? Because when you see it you do a figure 8 and walk away.