BPX033: Gotta Have Faith

[Junko]

Blind faith in PS5 for sure , wavering on the switch 2 but let’s wait and see what happens . Microsoft are all but dead in the water as far as I’m concerned , if it wasn’t for backwards compatibility the one X would be sold by now

[Colin]

@Colin Would you really swear off Naughty Dog forever if you couldn't get a disc and a box?

That is indeed the big question. I've justified music downloads now as I have Apple music, perhaps if a similar service were available for games I could accept it. Judging by the prices Sony charge for games on the store now though, I'd have to say that for me it's not acceptable. We'll see how it unfolds!

[dvdx2]

https://segmentnext.com/2018/10/12/black-ops-4-disc-has-nothing/

Only a matter of time; I think, It’s definetly moving toward digital only. All it would take is one next gen console to take the leap and I think they all would follow - digital ‘trade ins’ would be the way to go, with the value of the trade being more for a newer game, just like cex. Or if it’s traded in xx weeks you get more credit. Personally I can’t be arsed with discs now, and would love to see a fair system of trade in put in place.

[Colin]

Yes, that could certainly take the sting out of it all if they implemented some of those ideas. And I am open to the idea of not owning physical copies as long as I felt I wasn't being ripped off. Sadly though I can't see the big three playing that game.

[teddymeow]

PlayStation Next is the one I'd buy straight off the bat.

I have done for every Sony console since PS2.

MS, well, let's see what other Devs they buy and if they actually make decent games and not become another Rare.

Nintendo...tough one. Switch is great and all that but I've barely used mine in months. There's a guarantee that there'll be a stunning games on whatever hardware they out out but one stunner a year (Zelda & Odyssey was a fluke) isn't enough to force an outlay.

[Neon Ignition]

We're six or seven years on from the initial PS4/XBO rumour mill and I'd still bite the bullet and say Playstation 6 will support physical media. The shift is there but the bell curve to it is far too slow to make the jump anytime on the nearby horizon.

If they went fully digital as well I'd 100% be buying a lot less games for the platform. Frankly, once consoles go fully digital common sense falls entirely towards having a gaming capable PC. I enjoy ND's games for example but shelling out £50-60? Not a chance. I doubt digital trading will ever take off either, more the Game Pass type stuff but I'm doubtful as to how profitable that is without massively ramping up the sub-fee because they need vastly more content than is currently available and at that point users are effectively paying £1 a release vs £50 currently

[Colin]

[MENTION=345]Superman Falls[/MENTION] makes a lot of posts. Sometimes to the extent I can't keep up. But this, this is the best post. It's my favourite post. Because it's right.

[Asura]

Based on your current and past generation experiences, next time around would you buy any of the above next generation consoles without needing to know anything about it due to sheer blind faith in the platform?

No.

Hardware, or in this case the vague promise of hardware rarely sells me a machine. I tend to evaluate them purely on the presence of games I want to play.

By that reckoning, the Switch 2 is the closest to a "yes", because being a Nintendo machine, you can have reasonable expectations of what will be on it. Even so, I would need to see those games first (I'm a Nintendo fan, but not to the level where I blindly buy their stuff). The Switch was actually unusual in this regard because it was one of the few machines that did sell to me based upon the hardware's features - but that's because I loved the combo of the Vita/Vita TV, imperfect though it was, and I kinda see the Switch as the next evolution of that concept (plus I was happy that a company was willing to give that a try; I didn't think people would go for it but it seems they really have).

This generation has been a funny one for me. I bought nothing in the first year or so, and in the second year, I made a conscious decision to buy a new PC instead of a console. I only got a PS4 about two months ago, mainly for PSVR.

I'll be quite frank; part of this is because I haven't really favoured the direction in which the big companies have moved, and the game which demonstrates this better than any other is Uncharted. The Uncharted games are visually stunning, well-directed and extremely well-made... But they're still kinda the same; platform-y Gears of War in prettier and prettier corridors, with largely static environments, dumb enemies... People were really disappointed when Star Wars 1313 was cancelled, which is fair enough if you like these games, but I despaired a bit when I saw it. Then on the other hand you have games like Battlefront, which are both a nightmare in terms of their monetisation, but also how the first title had an insultingly small amount of content compared to the previous ones (by a different developer, given).

And I totally understand why this is. Publishers are looking for workable, repeatable formulas that they can hone and hone like hacking away at a sculpture until they can create a mould and stamp out copies. Ubisoft are the closest to perfecting this with their open-world titles. It's easier, then, to taper down and really focus on the visuals, instead of increasing the scope.

Whereas I would be happier with a title which looks like a good-looking PS3 game, but with more expansive locations, or fully destructible buildings and scenery, or genuinely intelligent and communicative AI, or hundreds of simultaneous online players.

In a sense, the Souls series are among my favourite titles that have been prominent in recent years despite the fact that I don't play them all that much, because they were disruptive. I still remember playing Demons' and getting killed because I tried using a polearm in a corridor, and instead of my weapon just passing through the walls, it clattered against them, my character couldn't swing it, and the enemy killed me while I was figuring out what to do! This interaction of animation and physics was really cool; it was different.

The reason I'm mentioning all this is because of how console hardware and game development has changed over the last 5-10 years. All three of the major consoles essentially use PC hardware now, while the majority of developers use one of a handful of engines which are optimised for that hardware. This means that the next consoles will almost certainly use the same base hardware (it'd be madness for them not to), which means that while the software might change, the PS5/Xbox4 will be a pretty seamless transition. You know how the last transition saw quite a few titles which straddled the boundary? I suspect every major title will do that this time around, because it'll be easy to do.

That just leads me to believe that, again, I'll buy a new PC or upgrade my existing one rather than go down the console route, because the PC indies on Steam throws up the occasional gem that might be rough around the edges, but really tries to do something bold. Titles like Empyrion, Kerbal Space Program, Blade Symphony... They're far from perfect but I think they're fantastic in their own way. This has a much stronger appeal to me than Uncharted 2: The Specialer Edition in 4k.