E3’s a most beautiful thing, but it also brings out a rather frantic kind of reporting. Rumours, personal conjecture, flippant daydreaming: apparently the PS4 will be a million times more powerful than the sun and the Xbox Next 720 Core will butter your bread on both fecking sides.
You know what? I’m bored of it all, already, and there’s still six months of this to wade through before Los Angeles actually tells us what’s happening and we can all forget about this nonsense.
[drop2]Except, of course, it’s all probably true.I mean, sure, some of the words put down on screen about the next generation of consoles recently appear to have emerged from latent New Year’s hangovers, but there are elements of reality in amongst the fluff that tell parts of an emerging consistent story: whatever’s coming from Sony and Microsoft (whenever that might be) won’t be all about games, even more so than what’s currently on the shelves.
I remember unboxing a Megadrive, a PlayStation, an N64, they all played games and – mostly – that’s all they did. And I seem to remember loving them.
We’ve been here before, of course, it wasn’t long ago that I was writing about the Metro interface on the 360, but things are already moving on since then and even if half the rumours that are being banded around come true, I’m left wondering what the focus of the new machines will actually end up being because I’m starting to think it won’t actually be games.
When did all this start to change? When did a games console only end up being about 25% games?
Of course, you can forgo all the streaming, the live TV, the dodgy substandard web browsers and the crippled YouTube interfaces, but that doesn’t mean the manufacturers will do – especially when they (I’m looking at you, Microsoft) are happy enough to wrap all this inside a pay wall carefully (but increasingly vaguely) called Xbox Live Gold.
It’s big money, all this, and it’s going to continue.
[drop]But even all that aside, there’s still this insistence on gesture control, on haptic connections and floaty, wavy lines and boxes big enough to eat your Corn Flakes off.And if, like the most current playground talk suggests, the new Xbox will be more like the Wii U than anything else we can probably kiss goodbye to what we’d consider a ‘traditional’ console and controller setup for evermore. At least they won’t need to create something to run alongside the Vita, but I prefer my portables portable and my consoles to – you know – connect to my TV.
All the next gen needs to do is up the frame rate (seriously, thirty was never the new sixty, guys), make sure HD games actually run in HD and give them enough grunt so that 3D games don’t end up being crappy blurry messes that make your eyeballs bleed alongside your freshly empty wallet.
I don’t want to have to navigate through five menus before I can browse your online store, I don’t want to have to wave at something to make it happen and I certainly don’t want to buy hugely expensive controllers with fancy glass touchscreens on them.
Just bring me games, and I’m in.
Narayan11
I agree. I just need games nothing more. I have other devices that do the rest very well.
ron_mcphatty
For me, PlayStations’ extra features have always been a welcome addition. Me and my sister used to listen to CDs on our old PS1, me and my house mates wore a PS2 out at uni watching DVDs. My PS3 gets plenty of use but only for the media side of things, not social networking. The machine sits under the TV and not on my lap, I really think media is where the focus should remain.
Sab7786
Totally agree with all of this, well said. I have a smartphone and a decent laptop i dont need my next console to be taking over and doing everything they already can do, lets just have a console for gaming.
JBoo
I think SONY have got it right this Gen;) I got loads of ‘Normal’ games(PS3 Exclusives + Multi-format games)to keep me happy & then you got MOVE ‘if’ you want it or 3D ‘if’ you want it + all the other stuff(TV,Music,Blu-rays etc etc) ‘if’ you want it. If you don’t want all the other stuff then you can just stick to PURE-GAMING like i do:P + I never see PS3 owners moaning about the lack of quality games now. Well done SONY;) And hopefully they will be the same next Gen to;)
Falconer
While I don’t think Sony are entirely not-guilty of pushing non game related rubbish on the PS3, I do think they are alot better than MS, they just don’t seem to be anywhere near as in-your-face about apps, motion sensing etc as microsoft are.
Falconer
What I’m trying to say is like Sony mostly seem to let you not have it shoved in your face and you can stick to just normal games and that and keep it separate, for example if you WANT to play KZ3, R3, LBP etc with move, you can toggle the option on and off, if you WANT to use PS Home you can either install it or not install it.
Whereas MS really try to force it down our throats, for example how they have ruined the dashboard with the latest update, hijacking game series and making them kinect only titles, having to have the avatars all over the dashboard and more.
skibadee
happy with the PS3 the way it is it plays games & does other things great imo.
Falconer
I agree with you, I hate all the pointless crap like apps, rubbish web browsers, facebook, twitter, motion controllers, kinect etc. The only non gaming thing consoles should have are being able to play CDs, DVDs and Blu-rays coz they are actually convenient and aren’t useless features and they save you buying a standalone DVD/BD player.
However, I don’t agree with all this frame-rate crap. since in the real world there is absolutely NO visible difference WHATSOEVER, It’s just some imaginary crap that annoying internet nerds bang on about all the time.
I think the PS2 was about as close to the perfect console we’ll ever see. Brilliant amazing classic games and played CDs and movies and that was it and that was all you ever needed. no online shit, no achivements, no hard drives, no installs, no RROD/YLOD, no stupid firmware updates, no rip off on-disc dlc, just none of the crap which has all but ruined gaming for me. The day consoles are digital download, online only, motion sensing unreliable things is the day I stop gaming.
Hrumph >:(
Falconer
When a consoles successor comes out it should just be more powerful, and play up to date media (blu rays/ HD DVDs) and just more convinient things like wireless controllers and that. that’s it.
Deathbrin
What the hell? Haven’t you played Bayonetta or something?
Deathbrin
Although that was really actually lag… Umm oh well
bacon_nuts
I’m sure the extra stuff is great, but i still use my PS3 for probably 90% games, the rest is probably dvd/blu ray, never internet, stream or any nonsense. Occasionally use inlayer. I just hope the PS4 isn’t nonsense tablet based stuff. I’d be incredibly disappointed.
Falconer
same here, my PS3 and 360 are just for games and dvds really
heedbaw
I’m just curious to see if they’ll start using tesselation, ray tracing, ray casting, and various other rendering techniques in real time rather than just upping the poly count, frame rate, and resolution.
Not too bothered about all the bells and whistles that have slowly been added as I have other stuff for that, though generally does it better. Still won’t convince me to buy unless developers start to work on new types of play rather than rehashing all the usual stuff with improved graphics or some added gimmick.
skibadee
hope they keep filling consoles with more stuff love it.
ron_mcphatty
Off topic, did anyone else think the title picture for this story looked like a giant N64 cartridge?