PlayStation 4

Looks like that shit is being announced Feb 20th.

I'm happy despite only ever having kinda sorta a PS2 and only playing like 3 games on it ever. A good Playstation console means that Xbox has to step up their game as well.

Seems like the PS4 WILL lose though because it's been reported that a different company is making the PS4 than the PS3 so there will be NO BACKWARDS COMPATIBILITY for PS3 games on the PS4. Stupid as shit move.

Or a smart as shit move as they can make you pay extra to download PS3 games digitally, which was what they were doing for a lot near the end of the PS3 life cycle.

Having that along side the backwards compatibility would be the smart move. Having PS1 and PS2 games only downloadable would be smart, not being able to play your 1 year old game for the reason of "we don't want you to" is going to piss people off.

Without backwards compatibility, though, it may as well be a system by an entirely new company.... well, I guess it is.

Their big incentive for current users is "hey, you can play the same games on a better system and get some newer, even better games to boot". Instead, they're telling everyone "hey, pay us $600 for an entirely new machine with a small selection. Oh, and you have to keep that other machine operational too unless you re-purchase your entire game library (that is, if the game is even available for download)".

Of all the features, backwards compatibility is probably the last one they should drop. It provides a huge incentive for those who already have an older Playstation and it significantly lessens the problem of releasing a new system without enough launch games.

Maybe they'll make some profit back from people buying download versions, but they'll loose much more when a huge chunk of their market doesn't buy the new system.

All the comments on youtube and news articles are full of people saying they won't buy the new system without backwards compatibility.

Now I know most of them are bullshiting and will buy it anyway, but if even a percentage do then Sony is still losing a lot of money and on top of that their consumer base is going to be pretty pissed that Dead Space 3 and Assassins Creed 3 that they just payed 60 bucks for will be useless.

Lord Pheonix wrote:All the comments on youtube and news articles are full of people saying they won't buy the new system without backwards compatibility.

Now I know most of them are bullshiting and will buy it anyway, but if even a percentage do then Sony is still losing a lot of money and on top of that their consumer base is going to be pretty pissed that Dead Space 3 and Assassins Creed 3 that they just payed 60 bucks for will be useless.

The thing is, adding backward compatibility ain't cheap. Why do you think Sony phased it out after the initial line of PS3's?They've pulled this before and it didn't hurt them that badly. Sure it'll cause a lot of aggro for the first 6 months of it's life, much like last time where the PS3 had virtually nothing for a long time which is why every game was pushed so hard at launch.

If Sony are smart though, if they can successfully transfer all your purchases and content from the existing PSN and have it upon the release of the PS4 this problem will become a non issue. Hell, you could even add more incentive to have PlayStation plus and give away some the PS3 lineup for nothing to have something to tide you over, and make the claim it will look and play slightly better on the new console (Which they have all done before I will add.)

Seriously, I do want backwards computability, but I get the real sense both Sony and Microsoft are going to get around the issue this way.

I'm 98% a PC gamer anyway so it doesn't effect me either way in the end lol.


I would just prefer them to have backwards compatibility so that the gamers don't get put over a table and fucked having to either keep their old console in a closet whenever they want to play their favorite games or rebuy all their games for the PS4.


If they had a way to take the discs that the gamer owns for the PS3 and make them digital for the PS4 that would be cool. You can do that with gamecube games and put them on the Wii/Wii U. That is taking the ROMS though and playing them on the new system. Not sure if PlayStation would accept that with all their "OH GAWD NO PIRACY IS RAMPANT IN THE PLAYSTATION WORLD" ideas.

From what I've read, the new system has a completely different (non-retarded) architecture, so backwards compatibility might just not be possible since they would have to emulate a PS3, something I doubt they would be able to do since current pc's can't do it.

Wait, there are games for PS3?

Well now the no backwards compatibility makes sense now.

Rotaretilbo wrote:Wait, there are games for PS3?

It has actually released more exclusives than the 360 recently.

Personally, I think I'll stick to the PC and my 360/PS3. No backwards compatibility will kill the system and it makes me not want to drop money on something I'm probably not going to use.

Nothing is going to kill the system. PlayStation, Xbox and whatever Nintendo makes are pretty much guaranteed to be around all the time. Who's on top is another thing.

Lord Pheonix wrote:Nothing is going to kill the system. PlayStation, Xbox and whatever Nintendo makes are pretty much guaranteed to be around all the time. Who's on top is another thing.

I wouldn't so hasty to say things like that. Nintendo is selling Wii U's at a manufacturing loss right now, so they're riding a lot more than usual on it selling well, which is why they recently said they aren't lowering the price.

The other two aren't doing the best financially (Granted, that's in respect to the overall company, both game departments are making decent profits.) so if it bombs they might be forced sit it out.

An Analyst (a particularly crazy one mind you) said that this generation would mean absolute doom to Microsoft and the entire games division would be shut down.

So while it's okay for now, if one of them really mess it up this generation, they may not be there for the one after.

They make way to much of a crazy amount of money from Call of Duty, Halo, Gears of War, and other AAA franchises to ever die. The worst that could happen is that their console would bomb and they would have to sit it out for a while while they make a new console.

I mean fuck, Nintendo has the WiiU and two or three handheld devices.

Sony has the PS3/4 and the PSP

Microsoft has the Xbox360 and FUCKING COMPUTERS.


None of these companies are going to full out fail.



WiiU's problem is they didn't market the WiiU at all. The casual gamer (you know, their entire fucking audience) don't even know it exists!!!. Those that did know along with a good number of us actual gamers thought it was just a peripheral add on until they came out saying "no no, it's an actual console". They messed up on marketing rather bad. Sony and Microsoft don't have to market as much because their gamers are more hardcore. They look for the information and hunt it down knowing it before announcements. The majority of Nintendo's crowd are the casuals that see a new mario game is out while in gamestop and say "oh cool, ima buy this". That is not the mindset people have when seeing a $350 console on the shelf.

Most consoles are sold at a loss when they start making them, it takes a few years for them to actually start making money on selling the console itself (Microsoft was losing about $126 per 360 when they started selling it). They make their money from the fees they charge devs (both upfront and for copies sold).

A decade ago, if you'd said Sega would be knocked out of the console business because the Dreamcast didn't sell well, I'd have said you were crazy. Two decades ago, if you'd said Atari would go under because one game sold poorly, someone would have said you were crazy. Shit happens. Sony and Microsoft have other industries to keep them up, but that doesn't automatically mean that a particularly ill received console wouldn't result in them pulling out of the console industry.

Gaming has evolved since then though and so has the money income.


The Highest selling dreamcast game (Sonic Adventure) sold 2.5 million copies

Highest selling Atari game (Pacman) sold 7 Million (with runner up being 4 million)


Highest selling 360 outside of Kinect Adventure (which I assume it's 18 MILLION units sold is inflated due to being sold with the Kinect/360 and Kinect bundle) is Modern Warfare 3 which sold 14.23 Million units.


PS3 has Gran Turismo at 9.19 Million

Wii has Wii Sports at.....Jesus Christ 81.64 Million Copies sold.

Next wii being Mario Cart at 34 Million and Wii Sports Resort at 31.4 Million.


I haven't even taken into account all the hundreds of millions of copies of fucking POKEMON they've sold since the 90's in both Japan AND America. They could probably BUY JAPAN with how much they make off of that.


There is no way in hell that Nintendo is going to look at the WiiU if it tanks and say "well I guess we should pull out of the console industry and say fuck it to those hundreds of millions of dollars"

You do realise that Triple AAA games almost cost as much as they make to produce? It's why the B-tier games have been slowly disappearing since the PS2-era.

And the 3DS has been such a commercial success hasn't it? Or the PSP Vita? Or PSP? Yeah....

And we all know this sites feeling on Windows 8. Surface is still a wait and see.

Yeah, that was a massive issue, mainly breaking down into their marketing not really explaining that the Wii U was a new console, and since release the advertisements haven't been the greatest. (Their is advert played over here which is could be pulled because they forgot to mention that the option to play on the controller screen doesn't apply to most of the launch games.)

Another thing is it's no where near as accessible as the Wii was. It sits in this weird middle ground trying to appeal to casual gamers and the more hardcore and ending up not really doing it for either. The controller is way too complex for the casual gamer to really get behind and it doesn't apply to well to the hardcore because they don't like the screen and see it as a gimmick.

Given how THQ just went under for only making two big fuck ups in the last couple of years, I wouldn't place the consoles as rock solid as you claim.

Vigil wrote:Given how THQ just went under for only making two big fuck ups in the last couple of years, I wouldn't place the consoles as rock solid as you claim.

A company that makes video games and the console are two completely entirely different things and are not on the same level at all.

The console has HUNDREDS of games that tank and don't sell shit (I.E all the new Silent Hills, ever single Block Bluster movie to console game ever made, and all the fully Kinect games that no one buys) but the 360 isn't going to die because it still produces the AAA games that float it along plus the memberships of all the Hundred million players and the DLC they buy.

Lord Pheonix wrote:

Vigil wrote:Given how THQ just went under for only making two big fuck ups in the last couple of years, I wouldn't place the consoles as rock solid as you claim.

A company that makes video games and the console are two completely entirely different things and are not on the same level at all.

The console has HUNDREDS of games that tank and don't sell shit (I.E all the new Silent Hills, ever single Block Bluster movie to console game ever made, and all the fully Kinect games that no one buys) but the 360 isn't going to die because it still produces the AAA games that float it along with the memberships of all the Hundred million players and the DLC they buy.

Not really, I used THQ as an example and the UDraw WAS a piece of technological equipment that worked on multiple platforms. Tech like that and Consoles are notoriously expensive to build and manufacture initially, which is why they try and recoup any loss on production by either selling it at a high price or selling it in bulk.

UDraw failed because it costed a lot of money to produce and it didn't sell at all, which left THQ with a massive financial hole. Same thing happy to the Dreamcast. Had plenty of triple AAA games, but they were undercut by the other consoles because they were cheaper. Why the fuck do you think Steam survives? Because it can undercut the consoles and retailers by charging almost nothing for games released a couple of months ago.

360 and PS3 make their money on Subscriptions and console sales mainly. Online sales have certainly boosted that. Triple AAA games were a draw, but ever since the PS2, consoles have been trying to sell themselves as a multimedia device. Why do you think they always push those features every time E3 rolls in? They are plenty of PS3 that were bought solely because it was a blue-ray player, and 360 tried the same thing with the HD DVD player which bombed. It's why they have Netflick, and twitter and all those apps now, to try and appeal to a bigger audience so they can maximise the amount of money they make on it.

Triple AAA games take so long and so much money to produce we only see about 10 a year, and most of them come out just before Christmas for obvious reasons. That model realistically cannot support a console anymore. Sure Call of Duty sells millions, but how much of that goes to Microsoft and Sony? Very little. Most goes to Activision. It why we've seen such a push over the last decade towards non-gamers, as otherwise the console market would die.

The only good thing left in console gaming is the limits.

The limits on technology push the developers to make a better game, stretching what they have to go a little bit further. This is what enables PC gaming to actually survive; the console variants are good, sure, but if they could many developers would use whatever high-end technology that was available, making PC gaming harder, because then people WOULD have to upgrade every year.

You could say that co-op and splitscreen on one device is good, and it is. But really, people can just stretch an HDMI from their one desktop to the flatscreen TV. It wouldn't really be so much of a technological leap to design splitscreen for PC gamers. Wired controllers might be a part of it, but you'd still have it.

Consoles are inferior tech wise to most people's basic desktops. Again, there are party games (and racing games, I guess) that would benefit from a console environment. In that case, only casual gamers really benefit from using a console. The graphics and processing capabilities of even middle ground PCs are just too good compared to a console where you pay $60 a year to play your games.

A modular console/PC hybrid, i.e. Piston, would be a step in the right direction. Maintaining a single operating system and set up while still having the capability to perform DIY upgrades is a good thing.

Outside of Steam PC gaming is literally hit or Miss, on just that i'd hardly call it superior to console gaming where the main Appeal is all you need is a disc and you are guaranteed to be able to play the game, No download, no Install time (And so long as Microsoft/Sony keep telling Ubisoft to shove it no DRM), just pop it in and play it.

While I prefer a disc any day, downloads remove the entire cost of manufacturing extra discs.

DRM is a problem (or would become one) I guess.

LP wrote:Nothing is going to kill the system. PlayStation, Xbox and whatever Nintendo makes are pretty much guaranteed to be around all the time. Who's on top is another thing.

I wouldn't be so sure. Nintendo is on the verge of irrelevance as it is. They outsold Sony and Microsoft by pursuing an audience that couldn't care less about keeping up to date with newer hardware. They're already floundering, even as the only "next generation" console in an environment where its competitors have yet to even ANNOUNCE new systems.

Microsoft usurped King Sony by focusing on moulteeplayir and building a working, (mostly) user-friendly online ecosystem. (coming out a year early and having a more development-friendly environment helped a lot, but it's not what kept them dominant for the entire generation).

Nintendo is directionless. They're going for a repeat on the last generation, and it's not going to happen. The 'casual' base they put all their resources into capturing has moved on to smart phones and browser games. There's still a small category of children, maybe aged 5-11, who don't have cell phones and whose parents don't want them anywhere near a computer... but that won't be around another generation from now. Nintendo's fucked.

Sony is an obese and decrepit Japanese company, and is marching oh so slowly to its grave. Read what Steve Jobs had to say about it in the early 2000's. Sony had all the resources to create a revolutionary portable music player. They had FireWire, artist licensing, a recognizable brand (the walkman), and enormous financial/productive capabilities... but being a massive, lumbering mess, they let Apple, a computer company with no experience whatsoever in music licensing (or anything having to do with music whatsoever) create a new industry.

Sony's two biggest and most important divisions are Televisions and PlayStation. They're losing money on both. Did anyone on here see a single advertisement for the PSVITA? Does anyone know anybody who OWNES a PSVITA!? For all I know, it doesn't even exist. The PS3 basically failed. The PSP basically failed. And the PSVITA absolutely failed. Do you see Sony recovering?

Now onto Microsoft....

Microsoft couldn't possibly give less of a shit about games. From the very beginning, they got into consoles as a means of getting onto TVs. Microsoft wants to be the Set Top Box King. They want everything you do on your TV to go through them, and knowing that would take a lot of slow, patient coaxing, they (wisely) used video games as a means of grabbing market share and a nice, comfortable install base.

I'm betting the next Xbox will be all about this shit. Obviously it'll be a more powerful system, but I think Microsoft is going to come right out and try to make their system an alternative to cable.

Thing is, I don't think they'll last very long on their own in that regard. Google and Apple will jump on them fast, and I'm not so sure the cable companies will let one company have all the (licensing) marbles this time around. What we'll get is a few years of nasty, partitioned media... until the cable companies eventually swallow their pride and give way to the future.

At that point, Microsoft will still reign supreme on games... but I REALLY doubt that will last long. Someone will come up with a better, more open software environment (as android is to phones), and Microsoft will begin to flop.

I think this coming generation of consoles will be the last as we know them. By the end of it, Nintendo will be almost completely irrelevant, Microsoft will have been defeated (in that realm), and Sony will perhaps stick around with some half-decent hardware, running whatever turns out to be the new standard.

I think set top boxes / game consoles will become specialized, semi-standardized, cheaper, open source PCs. The same is already happening with cell phones (though it happened much faster, since cellphones were a newer market with a whole lot less baggage). Eventually it'll all come reverberating back through the world of personal computers, and open source will reign supreme throughout the land. (okay, maybe not open source, but certainly a non-hardware-specific OS that will have nothing to do with Microsoft)

I also wouldn't be too quick to dismiss the possibility that Valve might get involved in all of this. Trust me, it makes me roll my eyes a bit too, but they are a private company that is more profitable (per employee) than Microsoft or Apple, and they are the 3rd largest bandwidth user in the world. And Gabe Newell knows his shit.

Speaking of Mr Newell, he brought up an interesting view to this issue at the University of Texas a few days ago.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57566911-37/valves-newell-apple-is-the-console-markets-biggest-threat/

Seriously he has a point, with IOS games and apps becoming so universal, all Apple would need to do is get that on a family TV screen and then the big three would be in some dire trouble.

This time it would't be no Apple Pippin.