GSZX1337 wrote:Before I go on my long spiel I'll just say that I'm mostly talking about keeping current. There might be something that'll tip me over into buying an Xbox One or a PlayStation 4. However, I'll be definitely be waiting a looooooooong time before I buy either one. Also, I
might buy a Wii-U. It depends on if there's any sort of connectivity features with the 3DS that interest me or if I feel that the Nintendo franchises I grew up are worth revisiting yet again. I'm kind of committed to the 3DS since I bought three games for it before I came to this decision. Lastly, I'm mostly going to talk about the hardware/user experience and no so much about the games.
I purchased a PS3 sometime in June of 2007, received a Wii as a gift in August of 2008, and an Xbox 360.. eh, I don't remember. Until the Wii-U came out, I was pretty current on the game consoles. I had a lot of fun with them, but I think it's time for me to leave. Why? Because it's not the console gaming I grew up with. It used to be that when you played a game on a console, you put the cartridge/disc in and started playing. Additional features such as CD playback were easy to use and didn't get in the way. I'm not just being some nostalgic old man in his twenties, I'm describing consoles as recent as the PlayStation 2 and Dreamcast. When you put a game in a Dreamcast or PS2, the console goes straight to the game. If you want to play a CD, you put a CD in in place of a game. Now, the PS3 and X360 are much more advanced and can do much more, so some simplicity has to go away, but it's just too much. I have to update my PS3's firmware to play some Blu-Rays and I'm forced to update my firmware if I want to watch something on Netflix. Games have to sync with a server to tell me what trophies I've acquired, games sometimes need to be patched, some games even need to be installed before I can do jack shit.
This leads me to my main criticism of modern consoles: All of the installing, patching, syncing, and firmware updates remind me of PC gaming. I feel like I'm getting almost all of the downsides of PC gaming with none of the benefits. I have to worry about DRM, the future of my download purchases, whether I should bother purchasing a certain game used, if features will be taken away, if an update will change/ruin everything, a bunch of stupid bullshit that I didn't have to worry about last generation. That was shit that I associated with PC Gaming, not with consoles. With consoles, it was a matter of simplicity and stability over capability. Now, I just feel a bunch of restrictions and limitations with no sort of benefit in exchange.
Now, I may be mainly focusing on Microsoft and Sony, but you bet your ass that I have some real gripes with Nintendo. Mainly with their Virtual Console. The limitations on Wii Ware are pretty frustrating too. I'll list my main gripes with each of the big three:
Microsoft:
Xbox Live, fuck this. Not only do I have to pay for online play but I have to pay to use Netflix and Spotify on my console even if I already pay for those services?
I've never had mine die on me, but I've had more than a few people tell me how they've purchased at least one replacement console.
The Kinect feels like an addition that should've been part of a new console instead of a later-in-life addition.
The ads on the home screens really piss me off. I'd understand ads in XBL, since I'm going there to download shit, but not on the homescreen of a console I payed for.
Sony (a.k.a. the easy target):
The whole Linux debacle is bullshit and I'm sure we all know about that.
It's not as bad now, but for a while it felt like I had to update my firmware every other time I turned on my console.
I have to wait for a sync operation every time I want to see my trophies. To compare, I can find my Xbox and Steam achievements almost as soon as I earn them. Having to wait gets pretty old.
Of course everyone remembers the whole Sony security breach thing.
The PS3 has the most significant differences between hardware revisions. And by significant, I mean frustrating as we were seeing backwards compatibility being slowly removed between versions.
Nintendo:
Like I said above, the Virtual Console is a joke. To put things in perspective, read this
Vintage Computing article.
This goes with the previous gripe, Nintendo's download/backup limitations are infuriating. Sony, Microsoft, and Valve give you backup options and the ability to transfer your games to alternate devices.
The Wii is weak sauce. Most of the games are an eyesore to look at. The games that do look good on the console just have me wishing that they can be ran in HD.
Those are the major gripes. I have a bunch of other smaller complaints towards the big three. It just seems that over the past few years, the negatives have kept building and building with the positives being nearly phased out. With this Xbox One announcement, I think the positives will be completely phased out. I just said "Fuck it!" and am going to setup my media center PC as a Steam Box and play my "TV Games" that way. Most of the games I liked in this generation were sequels of games that have started the generation prior. I don't think I really need to play a tenth Ratchet and Clank game. For the most part, the games that weren't sequels either had PC versions or were game genres that I'd rather play on PC.
I'm not saying that if you buy the Xbox One or the PS4 that you're stupid or even making the wrong decision. I just think that console gaming has finally lost me. I don't need my console to use a printer, to order HBO, or to check the weather. I have a computer, a tablet, and a cell phone to do that. I need my console to be simple, stable, fast, and worry-free. So in conclusion, I think that I'm going to be PC only this generation.
