4129

It is the kinect. This isn’t surprising to me at all. At this point they have two choices, make vague promises (the cloud will make your xbone 3 times more powerful) that are bullshit or present information that is more realistic but more meh (ie shitty gimmick games that are even worse than the wii’s gimmick games).

4130

The cloud could run an awesome Wargame simulation/strategy that you jump into/out of on your console. 24/7/365. Maybe how we envisioned DID’s Wargasm, coupled with EF2000 and F-29s “almost dynamic and emerging” war/scenario (and Falcon 4 I suppose).

4131

I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re deliberately waiting until later to show Kinect stuff since it’s pretty clear initial stock will run out from core gamers who don’t care about Kinect that much. Start showing off Kinect when it’s time to get a new wave of buyers interested.

4132

They should have bought the rights to Happy Action Theatre / Kinect Party, and bundled it. That’s the kind of thing you see a friend’s house and sells you on a system. And even if they didn’t fix the latency and accuracy it works.

4133

Ah, but the problem is that in order for that to happen the PS4 would need to be twice as fast. Never mind the fact that the article is full of caveats that everyone seems to be completely ignoring – nobody ships an unoptimized version of their engine in any game, and comparisons like that are just not useful. On last gen, platform-unoptimized engines would run like total crap on the PS3, due to the underpowered CPU and fewer hardware threads on the PPU. And yet, lo and behold, developers could not only produce entirely competent ports of titles, but also excellent looking and performing ones, over time.

Spec comparisons are just fanboy clickbait (and often hilariously wrong or ill-informed). Wait until they release and we can start comparing games (both exclusive and non-exclusive)…

4134

It’s not like there’s anything in either system that requires the engine level overhaul that PS3’s Cell architecture did. When the guy quoted in the article says “unoptimized” it’s doubtful he meant “this version isn’t using the ESRAM in Xbox One yet”. If that were the case it would probably be running at 720p at 10fps, not 900p at 20+. It’s probably more of a “we haven’t started banging on the art assets and LOD settings to hit our performance targets yet”.

Obviously it’s unlikely that PS4 versions will actually be running at twice the framerate. They will scale resolutions and assets to wherever they need to be for performance to be within acceptable limits. But there is every reason to believe that this will result in PS4 games with better image quality, better effects and/or more stable frame rates.

4135

The ugly possibility is that the XBOX fails so hard that in a couple of years Microsoft decides to produce a beefed up version to replace this one.

The hard rule that the console cycle lasts many years is the one truly at risk in this competition.

4136

The old “hard rule” was 5 years, and that was broken by the original xbox in one direction, and by the 360 and ps3 in the other. Smartphones/tablets have also destroyed that rule if you consider them to be, or eventually become, console competitors. If any console upgrades retained somewhere close to 90% backwards compatibility, I would not mind more frequent updates.

4137

Power between consoles. To follow your argument, none of us would have 360s or PS3s. I do almost all of my gaming on a console for now. And I’m probably one of the last on here to move to/buy a console. But I have them integrated into my home theater/flat panel system and I enjoy the convenience as well as some of the games I can’t play on a PC. Perhaps I could buy a PC the size of PS4 or Xbox1 with a remote controller and keyboard that would be more powerful for the same price? Don’t know.

But the bottom line is the a/v integration of the new Xbox looks really weak and nothing value added to a Dish Hopper system in my house; I love gadgets and really wanted a killer program or 3 to justify buying a Kinect but never could find one (if my kids were little instead of moved out of the house that may have been a different story; ) so for me I just want the console for the same reason I use the ones I have now: to play games. So I just want the console that will be best for games. Just that simple.

4138

Last night, the EVO folks announced a deal with Microsoft.

360s and Xbones will be used if games have those ports. SF/Marvel players are happy (better port) , and Tekken players are miserable. (no dualshocks)

This also I think pretty much guarantees that KI gets a shot at Evo, though I suspect the game will be panned hard. I saw it this weekend and it looked terrible both in artstyle and gameplay.

4139

Weird. KI looked terrific at PAX.

4140

KI’s going to have a very difficult time catching on with the competitive crowd, since many of those players aren’t going to be willing (or able) to spend almost $600 (after tax) on a new console and a single game, particularly when every other major fighting game announcement we’ve gotten recently has been current-gen-only (Ultra Street Fighter IV), PlayStation-exclusive (Guilty Gear Xrd), or both (BlazBlue Chronophantasma). The fact that many of them have already rejected the Xbox One as a viable platform (even though many of the things they rejected it for have since been backpedaled away) certainly isn’t going to help, either.

4141

I’ll take your word for it. I’m not into the competitive scene, so I have no idea what they’re going to do for the next-gen.

I’m just saying that Killer Instinct looked damn good at PAX and it played very smoothly. Personally, I’m not a fan of KI, but the people playing it seemed jazzed. <shrug> It was getting more positive comments than Ryse anyway.

4142

The Ryse multiplayer demo at PAX is a pretty low bar to clear.

Anyway, making deals with Evo and what appears to be a deal with MLG to transition competitive CoD to Xbox One for next gen seems like a very cart before the horse situation, but MS is doing whatever they can to avoid becoming irrelevant.

4143

Personally, I don’t think next-gen starts for fighting games until a Street Fighter game comes out , and no next-gen SF is currently in development (the next iteration is current-gen+ PC)

I suspect the EVO deal was the EVO folks offering and MSFT accepting for some free 360’s. The reason is tourney players complain hard about the PS3 versions of AE and Marvel, which are inferior ports on the PS3 (1f extra input lag+ some stage slowdown). Most major East Coast tournies already run 360 for Capcom games.

As for KI, to get the nostalgia factor, your game had to be popular in the past. The old folks who still play fighting games, most of them remember KI as a bad series. To the younger crowd, the name means about as much as say Samurai Shodown does (I would do all sorts of unsavory things for a good new SamSho game) . Also, early expectations of the game have been pretty low in terms of quality. Throw in the fact you have to buy an unpopular, $100 more expensive system- and I don’t think the game takes off. They did get MikeZ to work on the game, but according to MikeZ’s stream, they didn’t really listen to him, and he is a much better game designer than anyone with Double Helix. It would be like having Derek Paxton on your team, and ignoring him in favor of Derek Smart.

One thing I did hear this weekend is many folks were really happy about Arc’s announce that Xrd will also be on PS3, and many of them were going to wait on PS4 now. That said, I spend most of my time at these events in the poverty room, and poverty folks have much to be excited about on the PS3 next year.

4144

Considering Mike’s level of experience with the older Killer Instinct games, I think it’d be more like having Evo 2013’s AE top 8 advising development of a new SF4 revision and ignoring them in favor of my casual friends who don’t play fighting games.

Poverty chat was pretty unanimous on sticking with the PS3 version of Guilty Gear Xrd; the only way I see most of them moving to PS4 any time soon would be if the difference between the two versions ended up being significant enough to make it worth the extra hundreds of dollars. (Or if PS4-exclusive Arcana Heart 4 and Melty Blood HD get announced.)

4145

It’s usually not a big deal at launch. It’s a big deal a few years from now when one console is dragging the other one down and the PC starts getting screwed so the babies can catch up. Power matters, but it’s not the only thing that matters… otherwise everyone would play PCs.

4146

The PS3 is SIGNIFICANTLY less powerful than the 360, I would argue somewhat seriously so, and it hasn’t been a huge issue even for modern games. For example Battlefield 3 and Battlefield 4 are roughly similar on the PS3 and X360, no giant gap where they cut a bunch of features out of the PS3 version or anything.

Though cross-platform games do frequently look worse on PS3 – but that’s mostly due to lack of working memory for textures and such. I don’t think that’ll be a problem since the Xbone and PS4 both have 8GB.

Also lower framerate on PS3 but gamers don’t seem to care, except in rare niches (fighting games?).

In summary, if PS3 and X360 are any indication of what a modest disparity in overall power means, it’s not that big a deal, even long term.

4147

Actually I always heard PS3 has better hardware, but much harder as well to squeeze out the best of it.

That’s why the best games from the technical level, superior to the X360, are coming out now, like GTA5 and Last of Us.

Also lower framerate on PS3 but gamers don’t seem to care, except in rare niches (fighting games?).

For example GTA5 has slightly better FPS during cutscenes on XBOX, but the PS3 keeps a steadier framerate during busy action scenes.

So, IT IS a big deal. The Last of Us and GTA5 confirm that excellent games from the technical point are possible on PS3, but they are a pain in the ass to develop. And this is a hurdle not present in the new generation, so the PS4 can have an even bigger advantage than xbox over PS3 this generation.

4148

The PS3 and X360 are not a good indication. They were closer to eachother in potential performance, and way more different in architecture. It is not at all an easy question to answer what console was “more powerful” – the 360 was more powerful in practice, easier to exploit; the PS3 had more potential flops if you were willing to sweat blood to get them and is evidenced by some incredible Sony first party stuff.

Contrast with this gen. This time the console that is easier to program for is also the one that has much higher theoretically flops. And the architectures are so similar so there’s little benefit to building something entirely around just one of them.

Long term, the differences will decrease some as people learn how to use the EDRAM to save memory bandwidth. But at best it will achieve parity, and still be missing tons of shaders.

From Anand of AnandTech:

I can’t stress enough that this isn’t the 360 vs PS3 debate all over again. Sony’s hardware advantage is easily exploitable this round.