Well, the key difference between this generation and last is that BOTH the Xbox One and the PS4 are x86 based. They are basically both PCs. There won’t be a difference
And I should add, I understand that this did apply last generation but that’s because the systems were so different.
So again, my two cents, make your decision on features, price and exclusives. I think your implicit point - weighing which system your friends pick also - makes sense if playing with your buddies is a big deal for third party games (like Assassin’s Creed, Fallout, Call of Duty, etc.). Both will do whatever they can to push their systems for their exclusives.
Really? What Bioware games are you talking about? They have not released any stand-alone games (just a SWTOR xpack) since ME3, so we can’t judge sales.
DA3 is certainly not an automatic buy for me, based on DA2 alone, and the ME3 idiocy is a strong turn-off for me too.
All reports we have are that the PS4 is more powerful than the XB1. Faster RAM, and better GPU, and potentially more available RAM for games. So while they may both be PCs this time around, they are PCs with different memory, and video cards. How much of a difference it will be we don’t know yet. There are a lot of PCs with AMD cards in them, but the experience across them is not universal.
stusser
2810
Hilarious. He says he doesn’t want to compete with the iOS appstore, or the analogues on Playstation and Xbox. But, of course he does, just like he wants to compete with Steam. Since iOS and the consoles are closed ecosystems, he cannot compete.
As for the rest of it, he kills a lot of electrons saying literally nothing at all.
Yeah, his whole statement is dumb. It’s obvious the EA gives less than two shits about building value unless you mean building value for stockholders.
I’m betting that Origin on consoles will be more or less like Ubisoft’s Uplay, but with some kind of janky disincentive for used games.
But what we do know is this: there are real world costs involved here and developers are going to go with the lowest common denominator. They are not going to make games that sing on one platform but stutter on the other. They will instead go for singing on both, even if that means not tapping one system to its utmost potential.
Again, I’m not saying this systems are identical; they are not. But when it comes to third party games, the different specs won’t matter for third party games. Which again means… pick your system on exclusives, features and price, not specs.
And that’s why we don’t have high quality settings on PC games…oh, hmm.
I’m all for wishful thinking but for consoles, companies will develop a game for one console that works for both because that is the most profitable thing for these companies to do. If anyone here thinks that Activision or Ubisoft will invest real world dollars to make both a Call of Duty and Call of Duty + game or a Splinter Cell and a Splinter Cell + game… they will be disappointed.
But if they say: I am buying a PS4 or Xbox One because I want to play Killzone or Halo. Or I am buying a PS4 or Xbox One because I want to play games on my video or use voice commands and smartglass… then they will be informed consumers.
I’ve repeated this a thousand times here, but I think the fact that the systems are so similar and so much like the PC actually increases the chances developers will make the PS4 versions look better. This will come in the form of higher res textures or more shader passes or bigger internal framebuffer rendering area, and the differences won’t be huge, but I’d bet serious money that the default for cross platform games is the PS4 version looks noticeably better when screen captures are A/B compared. Basically just like the way a PC game running on High looks better than on Medium, except the difference will be more like a half-step in that range instead of a full-step.
And PC versions already support additional features today. You will absolutely see differences between the two consoles on multi-platform games. Maybe not out of the gate, since most stuff is going to be crossgen and that alone is going to hold these games back a bit. But two years from now, for sure.
wumpus
2817
the default for cross platform games is the PS4 version looks noticeably better when screen captures are A/B compared
We already have that status quo for PS3 and Xbox 360 – the 360 always looks slightly better in A/B comparisons of cross-platform games – and nobody really cares, nor does it materially affect the cross-platform games.
I’d expect that to continue.
It isn’t so much that they invest a bunch to make some versions better as it is that the common practice is to start with data a bit on the high side and then smash it down to fit the platforms you want to hit.
For a real-world example incorporating one of the franchises you mentioned, the Call of Duty games get PC releases. The PC releases look noticeably better than the Xbox 360 or PS3 releases just by virtue of increased visible geometry, increased texture resolution, better AA, etc. There’s no reason the same wouldn’t hold true for PS4 vs Xbox One short of Microsoft paying developers off not to use the extra horsepower in the PS4.
Yeah, like I said, the differences aren’t likely to be huge, but they will be there. I’m not so sure that nobody cares in that I know quite a few people who have owned both Xbox 360s and PS3s throughout the lifetime of the consoles and always defaulted to the Xbox 360 version of cross-platform games. That translates directly into money in Microsoft’s pocket instead of Sony’s. It is looking very likely these same people, if they even bother to buy Xbox Ones, will do the same thing in reverse next generation, which isn’t great for Microsoft’s bottom line.
And I’ve said this a few times here: I hope that’s true (I’m getting both so it frankly doesn’t matter to me).
But my point is that this is still a HOPE. One that people THINK will come YEARS from now. For those who are trying to decide which console to buy today, my advice remains the same: specs don’t matter. Consider price versus game exclusive and features. Those are REAL differences TODAY.
Yes, let’s all be short sighted!
Or how about this: let’s base decision on facts not conjecture.
Look, when the Xbox was announced, developers flat out said that games on the Xbox would look better and load faster. We saw Ubisoft say that about Splinter Cell for example. Does anyone have any quotes from any developers saying the same for these consoles? If so, great. Then that should be a factor. But if not, you are arguing what you hope will happen not what you know will happen. And until or if that changes, a rationale consumer will look at the facts that are differentiators… and in this case, for this industry, for these consoles, the differences come down to price, exclusives and features.
I keep expecting Jake to say “Have you seen Titan Fall?”
stusser
2824
That was a different scenario, too. The PS3 was a difficult platform to develop on. Devs hated it. And even so, cross-platform games still worked fine.
Next gen isn’t like that. It’s nearly identical hardware, same capabilities, but one is 35% or so slower than the other. That’s it. So the Xbone version might natively render to 900p rather than 1080p or use lower resolution textures, etc. No biggie.
ha! it does indeed look good. Jokes aside, I’d rather make my buying decision based on Titan fall versus Killzone; Halo vs. Infamous; Forza 5 vs. MLB the Show; Vita Support vs. Kinect/Smartglass support than… well, we’ve beat a dead horse. I mean… it was dead before, but now it just looks like hamburger.
One last thing: IF PS4 games are going to get this kind of treatment, Sony should do everything in their power to get the developers out there talking about that. Consumers are not only making up their minds now, they are actually buying. The preorders for these consoles are impressive.
Moore
2826
my ~$800ish pc and a ~$2000 pc have differences running the same games - I CAN run most things on ultra, but they WILL run nicer on that 2k PC and there are usually quite a few extra settings I can’t use at full quality (ultra shadows, full quality SSAO, etc…) since those are trivial to implement I do not quite understand why ps4 would not have more bells and whistles. If anything, to me, the similar systems seems like it would mean it is EASIER to have higher fidelity on the more powerful console, just like a 660 vs. a titan. Those high end options on many games for PC exist even though most customers cannot use them all, they cannot have a significant cost to implement or they would not implement them.
I do NOT expect devs to talk about it - they would not deploy on both and shittalk one of their releases. Nobody at capcom said Dead Rising on wii was going to be a pile of assholes. But it was.
EDIT: (And to be clear, I’m not considering either for a launch buy anymore. Most likely fall '14)
