Dinosaur’s Guide To Gen 8
I’m a fickle dude, set in my ways, and a late adopter of new technology. With E3 finally in the rear view mirror, I figured I’d take a few minutes to take a look at the 8th generation of consoles and see how they can potentially fit into my living room space.
My home gaming set-up is somewhat limited at the moment. In one corner, I’ve currently got a bloody hefty 27″ Panasonic CRTV that I got for from Craigslist. It has a great picture, great sound, and does justice to my Gamecube, and for some of my PS3 titles. It’s a little disappointing to have parted with all of my NES and SNES systems/titles… as this beast would have been perfect for that era of gaming. Unfortunately modern games are made with HD in mind, and games like Ni No Kuni go unplayed because I can barely read a thing. Trying to navigate the Playstation Store is a nightmare due to how illegible modern text on modern resolution is on an old television. Unfortunately, with my current lack of luxury funds right now, I just don’t see myself parting with this tv for a modern one unless the price is equally as agreeable as the CRTV was: free. So it’s what I have to work with.
In the other corner, is my pc. It’s a Sony Vaio laptop, from 2010 that’s got a decent video card and RAM. It certainly is doing the trick for me right now. Thankfully, I have an external sound card for sound work that makes everything sound great. Especially through headphones. It won’t be playing Crysis 3 on full settings, but it handles Civ5, and the assortment of Sierra Quest games and indie games that I throw at it. It’s primarily my workstation, and as I’m able to use it for any video editing / painting / 3d work that I need it to do, I can’t say that this thing is going to fall out of use in the near future either. The monitor is a newer BENQ LED monitor with hdmi, and the sound is atrocious from it. The one thing that is kind of neat is that my monitor has a headphone jack… so… if there were something that really excited me, I could do some ridiculous set-up where I have a game console plugged into it via hdmi, and then I can use the headphone jack to get some non-heinous sound from a next gen console. So while at first glance the new consoles appeared to be a total write-off for me, maybe they’re worth considering… but they’re a tough sell since it means I’d be sitting at my computer desk playing from something that already has a computer attached to it.
So what does the current line-up of 8th Generation Gaming Platforms look like to me?
Android
Pardon for my need to boil stuff down, but in my eyes we’ve got three consoles there that are really just boxes that let you play Android games. I hate to be a spoiled sport here, but there aren’t many Android games that catch my interest. And besides, I already have an Android tablet… a Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 which Samsung was kind enough to send to me for free after I participated in a Twitter contest. This means the one game that was of interest to me (Super Hexagon), I’ve already played. And in the meantime it’s been ported over to Steam.
I just haven’t bought anything else due to my aversion to puzzle games, endless runners, physics toys, and micro transactions. I tried playing a racing game on a tablet at GDC and wasn’t impressed by the lag.
The GameStick connects to HDMI, so using it with my monitor/headphones should be easy enough… but… well… although it’s built on Android, you can’t install any Google Play games onto the GameStick… and none of the currently advertised titles stand out to me. Sorry, but the unfortunate reality is that it’s the games that draw me to something, and until developers start releasing games that they’ve put serious time and effort into, I’m just not going to be aroused by an Android game. And given that this is a console that’s expecting to drive itself with exclusives, at this point in time, there’s nothing here persuading me to pick up the device other than it’s low price point.
Project Mojo is very newly announced… and if you’re cheap/poor like me you’re probably very familiar with the Mad Catz brand already. I’ve bought their memory cards for the Playstation 1, 2, and Gamecube, and I’ve got some extra controllers from them too. I think their quality has improved over the years, so I’m not particularly turned off of buying something from a company I’ve traditionally considered as “second rate”. Especially if you take a glance at their technical specs. It seems like this could potentially be a great solution for people wanting an Android console, as the hardware looks great, and it will play games that are readily available on Google Play. This however means that you’re probably not going to get the proper console feel when playing games that weren’t developed with a controller in mind. It’s likely too early to get excited about this thing, but it’ll be worth seeing what lessons Mad Catz learns as it watches GameStick and Ouya’s launch.
Now the Ouya is interesting because it was the first crowd funded console. It’s got an attitude that all games need to have a demo, and the system should be hackable. That alone makes me weary of how many good titles will be released for it. Hackable, to me, seems like it will scare off developers as it also means easy piracy. Unfortunately, it’s specs aren’t particularly hot, andit seems like you shouldn’t expect much better than what’s already out there to play on your phone. The cool thing is it will help to encourage people building their own games as it’s a cheap system, and the dev tools are free. If I were a kid again, I’d probably be much more excited to pick this up. But unfortunately as a gamer… I don’t know that I’m too keen for it. This game though, definitely has my interest.
All in all, I’m not excited for Android. I hope that Tower Fall is a very successful game, and that I can end up seeing it released on another platform. But I’m also encouraged that this much interest in Andoird could mean that developers see it as a viable platform. If there were better games being made for Android, I could happily see myself jumping in… but right now it seems like there’s an awful lot of shovelware.
X-Box One
It’s not winning me over with it’s price. at $500, for me, it’s an immediate no-go. Some of the titles I’m looking forward to the most are Metal Gear Solid 5, Kingdom Hearts 3, and Final Fantasy XV. All three of these titles will be available for both the X-Box One and the PS4. That means that neither console is currently winning me over with it’s exclusivity… however the fact that there will 100% be DRM that prevents me from buying or selling these games used means that PS4 has the advantage here. Especially if you consider that games are expected to maintain the $60 RSP .
The other thing to consider here is that I still have an old CRTV… and while I’ve parted ways with my NES and SNES… I was still using them just three years ago. I still use my Gamecube. I use technology for a long time. I don’t really trust Microsoft’s policy that consoles have to check-in every 24 hours. It’s not an issue for me now. I leave my internet on most of the time anyways, and am doomed to city life… so it’s not going to affect me in the near future; however I cannot use this console in an internetless facility in the future, and if Microsoft stops supporting this console in the future, it will not be playable. Again, no points here. As a dinosaur, the console also loses points for not supporting CRTV.
There appears to be very little support for indie development, and so far none of the exclusive titles have won me over.
I barely watch tv, and more than that, I like to consider myself a global citizen. There’s no telling where I’ll live in a year, and it might not be the US of A. Which means that a lot of their non-gaming content just isn’t applicable to me.
$60 a year for Xbox Live? Interesting, but count me out. We’ve already established that I’m cheap. I currently have no subscriptions except for electricity. That’s right kiddies, I don’t even own a phone.
Playstation 4
Well… it’s price is better than X-Box One, I suppose. At least as an introductory price. The thing is, X-Box One (I’m just going to say XBone from here on…) comes with kinect… PS4’s motion controls aren’t included. So At least the cost of entry is lower, but should I want to explore that world later, it will cost me a bit more which means the prices aren’t all that different. There’s no guarantee that there will be DRM in place for games though… it will be up to the developers. So this means that games like MGS5, KH3, FFXV… they’ll likely be the go-to games for me. Maybe Mirror’s Edge 2, and the one exclusive that’s caught my eye (The Order: 1886) might be worth looking into as well, but to date, there’s no gameplay footage available. Cost is cheaper in PS4, and the DRM seems better… so… so far it’s an automatic win for PS4 in comparison to the XBone for me. But let’s continue…
Like the XBone, it has HDMI out only. So, I *could* play this on my monitor. But it’s disappointing to not have it on my CTRV. That said, current gen games are often unplayable on older tech due to their lack of consideration for font sizes… so… it’s probably for the best to avoid giving us luddites an option. On the plus side, there is no checking in with big brother. So the PS4, unlike the XBone, should be usable well into the future. Maybe not the online features… but at least the offline features.
Sony seems to be really trying to work with indies. We haven’t gone through all the steps listed on the site yet… but we’ve initiated contact, and so far the experience seems positive.
As previously stated. I barely watch tv… but on the plus side, Netflix and Hulu are usable natively on the PS4. Playstation will be charging $50 a year to be able to do anything online with your PlayStation. This is very disappointing to people like me who are accustomed to the free services that come with the PlayStation 3, PSP, NDS, and PC. I am perplexed why free-to-play (aka microtransaction hell) games will be excluded from PS Plus requirements… and games that you pay for will require a subscription… but… well… to each their own.
All in all… the console isn’t exciting me so far with it’s DRM potential, and the PS Plus requirement. With it’s lower cost of entry though I guess that’s the only benefit it really needs to ensure that it’s the winner for people like me that would like to play Metal Gears, Final Fantasys, and Kingdom Heartses. And with the benefit of indies being able to self-publish, hopefully this becomes the place that really fosters that community and it ends up as the exciting haven I would like it to be.
Wii-U
So I didn’t really give Wii a chance. I picked up the Gamecube primarily for Smash Bros, and have pretty much only used it for that, Mario Kart, and the Gameboy player. It’s seen some use, but not as much as I would have liked. When the Wii came out, it really felt gimmicky to me. Honestly, I’m snobby and the name turned me off. The motion controls didn’t do it for me, and I felt like the Smash Bros and the Mario Karts I already owned were good enough. I had Twilight Princess for the Gamecube… so… really what more is there for it to offer me? Virtual Console had no appeal as I had an NES and SNES already. Well, now the Wii U is out, so let’s examine what it offers that the other to big ones don’t.
$350 for the Wii-U… which comes with 468GB less storage, but it does recognize external drives. So maybe that’s a non-issue? I’ve already got some hard drives kicking around, so it’s not the end of the world if I use up all the space on the Wii. At $50 cheaper than a PS4… I suppose it’s winning so far by price alone. $300 for a Wii U basic… but it also looks like that thing’s just been discontinued. Get it while it’s hot.
Wii-U seems to be good with it’s eShop carrying titles the same day as they’re sold in stores. So there’s a plus, but I remember seeing some headaches with it’s DRM that made it bad for people upgrading from a wii to a wii-u. That won’t affect me, but it makes me cautious of getting it as it could affect me down the road with some random future iteration of Wii.
On the plus side, it’s backwards compatible.. and seeing as I didn’t get in on the previous generation, that means there’s a lot of titles already available that I could jump in with. You can also download N64, NES, and SNES games…. which might be a nice way to make up for my dear departed (S)NES consoles. I never got around to getting Wind Waker on Game Cube, so picking up the new HD version might be nice too.
As for exclusives, we’ve got the new Smash Bros, Mario Kart, Donkey Kong, Shin Megami Tensei X Fire Emblem, Wind Waker + Another Upcoming Zelda.. so lots of great looking titles that could be fun to get into considering . I could catch up on the Metroids, The Fire Emblem, Skyward Sword, Okami, and most importantly The Last Story. Actually, given that I wasn’t into the Wii originally… this really could be the best source for me to go for new games. It’s a shame that those 5 games that have my interest in the PS4 and Xbone aren’t available on Wii-U… but maybe that’s not so bad given the number of other doors this would open up for me?
The offscreen gaming could be nice given my tight living quarters at the moment… but aside from that I’m pretty happy that it offers both the traditional connection to a CRT and the HDMI connection. Means I can enjoy it on my current tv, and it will still work down the road if I can upgrade to a new TV. It’s got the same connectivity to Hulu/Netflix that the rest do, but without the subscription.
Guess it’s biggest negative is the battery life of it’s controllers… but it seems like that’s getting an improvement in the near future too.
As It Stands
I think I’m interested in getting a Wii-U for myself… but as it stands I’ve currently got a library of almost 90 games that I own and haven’t played. So maybe I’ll sit this one out a while longer. If I’m lucky, the PS4/Xbone titles I’m interested in will find their way to PC, and it will be an even easier choice. I sincerely doubt I’ll be getting an Android based console.
This was a damned long blog entry. What consoles are you interested in?