1601

Launch titles matter at launch, obviously. And Titanfall comes in March.

The xbone had terrible marketing, but ultimately exclusives really matter. Everybody acts like MS already lost this console generation, but it’s not a foregone conclusion.

1602

No, it’s not a foregone conclusion by any means. But I think there is going to be a HUGE backlash against blatant marketing and marketing driven UI this gen. My confidence in Microsoft messing up is much greater than my confidence in Sony messing up. Microsoft has a better marketing team/movement, but that can work against them. Look how much backlash they suffered over the “always on, no used games” debacle. They handled it so poorly I’m STILL not sure if both of those or one of them is still true. But my impression frm the press flurry is that they both are.

So in effect, Microsoft flubbed this launch so bad I’m buying a PS4 mostly becuase I want to buy used games and use my console offline. It doesn’t even matter if it’s true anymore, or if it was ever true. That’s what the marketing told me.

1603

It’s true they could recover, but man did they generate a lot of prelaunch hostility. Right now it would take a lot of convincing to get me to buy a XBone, even though they reversed on every nasty negative decision I can think of right now.

Now, granted, I’m not going to order a PS4 instead. I have a large PC backlog to get through, and I’d need to hear about a PS4 title I really, really wanted first. But if said “must buy” title wasn’t exclusive, I’d go PS4 instead of XBone just because of the residual bad feeling.

1604

The Dreamcast launched well ahead of the PS2 and got smoked (yes, I know there were several factors that caused this), and going from hardware sales numbers alone, the Xbox 360 seems to have ended up in third place thanks to its relative nonexistence outside of the US and UK, the Wii’s casual appeal, and the PS3’s Blu-Ray and non-paywalled Netflix capabilities.

1605

Titanfall does give MS the chance to deal a devastating blow to Sony, provided the following happens:

  1. Titanfall is awesome as eveyone thinks it is.
  2. They can ship in that March-April 2014 timeframe.
  3. MS is prepared to pay-to-win by offering a Xbox One bundle with Titanfall for $450 bucks.

Sony has nothing that can counter this. After 4-6 months of buying a launch console buyer’s remose is in full effect, why did I pay x hundred dollars for this thing are there are no games. I spend more time playing my last gen consoles. If MS can give PS4 a reason to put their systems up on ebay and get the new hotness for another $100-$150 out of pocket, Sony has no games in their stable that can counter that.

1606

Infamous, which looks awesome, is due out Feb/March.

1607

Polygon has a long, interesting overview of the PS4. Conclusion:

1608

No 3D BD playback, YHGTBFKM…

1609

That was my problem with the PS3 as well, that the library was underwhelming. I only have a handful of games for it. Since the PS2 did have a big library, I figured it wasn’t something intrinsic to Sony.

1610

PS4 has ads, too,according to Jeff Gerstmann. It looks like you can avoid them if you never look at your friends list feed.

1611

The OS appears to be far inferior to the XB1 from what I’ve read/seen. Interesting. A few months ago I would have picked the PS4, now my thoughts are that if I were to pick a console right now, it might be the XB1. Will be interesting to see this play out for a few months from the sidelines.

1612

Yeah, that’ll be the big post-launch exclusive cage battle. Infamous is kind of a known quantity, while Titanfall may be this generation’s Halo. Or it may not, who knows?

1613

A few people streaming on Twitch already. Seems to work pretty well.

1614

It’s slick as hell. Very fucking cool.

I love that it automatically blurs out friend request pop-ups during the game stream.

1615

Whaaaaat?

The PSX launch was not lousy by any stretch of the imagination. It’s hard to think back that far, but those games up there were marvelous, paradigm changing games (well, okay, not Rayman… but Ridge Racer and BAT really showed what a real, honest-to-goodness 3D console could do to bring previously arcade-only type experiences to the home player).

Compare that to what either console is launching with, which is largely the Xth generation take on a known franchise. There’s nothing revolutionary about either current gen’s launch titles. There was something revolutionary about the PSX launch lineup (at least for a home console).

1616

Isn’t this par for the course? The Vita is a sweet, sweet piece of hardware that’s still looking for a killer app. (Of course, I don’t see the XB1 as being in any different shape…)

1617

I won’t know until Friday for sure, but it is looking like the PS4 is Vita’s killer “app.”

1618

I don’t know. Being able to stream games I’m totally unenthused about from one console to the other doesn’t strike me as tremendously more exciting than being able to play games I’m totally unenthused about directly on that console.

In the long run though, as a Vita owner already, I’m definitely all about required remote play capability for every game. I just, y’know, need there to be a game I want to play (regardless of where I want to play it.)

1619

I guess that depends on what your definition of “lose” is. Last gen the PS3 managed to sell as many units worldwide as MS despite the year headstart for the 360 and bungled start by Sony. I don’t see Europe or Japan flipping to the xbone at all and Microsoft has almost certainly lost ground in the USA. The xbone may indeed provide a better experience than the PS4 in terms of an all round console but if you really believe that providing an all round experience gets more sales than being $100 cheaper then I would suggest taking a look at the iOS/Android trend for the past 3 years.

1620

What gives you the impression that’s the argument I was making? Did you quote me by accident?