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regift_of_the_gods writes:
"The results from the 2013 holiday season through January are leaking in, and they look grim: not great for Sony, bad for Microsoft, terrible for Nintendo. The PS4 seems to be outselling the Xbox One but both are far behind their respective sales totals of 2006/2007, when they faced off with the previous generation of consoles. An anonymous developer quoted in the TechCrunch piece notes: 'There are 2+ year old GPUs that outperform these boxes, and even budget GPUs releasing now in the $150 range outclass these machines... This means whilst the casuals are moving to mobile/web, the high end enthusiasts are moving to PC where games are better looking. The traditional consoles are caught in a pincer movement.'
Sony has just completed a round of layoffs at its Santa Monica game studio. Meanwhile, the future of Xbox within Microsoft remains cloudy, with the departure of CEO Steve Ballmer and the ascension of Stephen Elop as head of the Devices and Services group, which includes the Nokia/Lumia handsets and the Surface tablet as well as Xbox. There are rumors that Microsoft is negotiating to sell the Xbox division to Amazon, which seems to be trying to enter the game platform industry. Elop wrote the (in)famous 'burning platform' memo when he was CEO at Nokia, as a prelude to abandoning the Symbian and MeeGo operating systems in favor of Windows Phone; he also stated last year that he would consider divesting Xbox and Bing if he was named CEO."
(Score: 5, Insightful) by c0lo on Monday March 10 2014, @06:26AM
Why don't they just switch to making USB/Bluetooth game controllers: gaming always was and is better on PCes?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2, Informative) by chromas on Monday March 10 2014, @06:40AM
PS3 controllers use Bluetooth but it takes an extra driver to run them on PC. Connecting by USB, though, only requires the default gamepad driver in your OS. Of course, thumbsticks are only good for moving players around; aiming sucks donkey balls.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by monster on Monday March 10 2014, @08:44AM
This is something I really don't understand of so-called "hardcore players".
In the previous generation, FPS players were drooling over XBox360 and PS3 because of their graphics, but it was the Wii the one with the most inmersive controls for this kind of games. Aiming with your "gun" (the wiimote) to your enemy on the screen beats moving a cross with a pad hands down. You may argue about power or graphics (the Wii was indeed underpowered to extract really good graphics) but "fun" in the sense of actually feeling the game was in its favor.
I don't know, maybe I am too conditioned about it by playing Operation Wolf with a light gun in my Spectrum [clive.nl] so many years ago to actually understand the appeal of cursor-based aiming, but I thought that "hardcore" was about the gaming experience and not about the score.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @11:46AM
Besides that, by the time a console gets released its specs aren't so great anymore. A lot of modern games have ridiculously sluggish controls, too. Or in the case of every Resident Evil game, the controls are just stupid.
I only have a PS3 because someone gave it to me when it 'broke'. Turns out a lot of the older PS3s just had bad HDDs. I never got the urge to spend money on the light sticks so I don't know how well they work but the motion sensor in the basic gamepads are pretty much exclusively used as a gimmick, like shake-to-reload or tilt-to-rotate-car-in-midair.
Yet not one of their fancy-graphics games even bothers to do full HD (the ones that say they do are lying).
Speaking of 'old' games, are there any PS3/PC games in the vein of Mario 64? Or even a sequel to Mario? Sunshine doesn't count because it has that stupid water jetpac when wall jumping is clearly superior.
(Score: 2) by hatta on Monday March 10 2014, @02:47PM
In the previous generation, FPS players were drooling over XBox360 and PS3 because of their graphics, but it was the Wii the one with the most inmersive controls for this kind of games. Aiming with your "gun" (the wiimote) to your enemy on the screen beats moving a cross with a pad hands down.
Have you played a console FPS? You don't "move the cross with a pad", your crosshair is always in the center. Moving the pad moves the world around you. Moving the reticle is great for rail shooters, but not so much for FPSs.
The problem with Wii controls and FPSs is that with an FPS you have to be able to turn freely in any direction. With a gamepad, to do that you just hold left or right. With a mouse, when you get to the end of the pad you quickly pick it up and move it to the other end of the pad. This is easy because it can all be done tactilely. With a Wii control, you have to visually confirm that your pointing at the edge of the screen, and not so far off the screen that it just doesn't register. That's less immersive than either the mouse/keyboard, or the gamepad. Both of which provide tactile feedback.
(Score: 1) by monster on Monday March 10 2014, @04:49PM
I have played console FPS. I own a Wii and have played several CoD, MoH and Metroid Prime many times. You are right that turning is a issue (should be more smooth), but what I found was that the main thing I missed (specially in the CoD series) was quick turning (180 degrees). That, and a tendency to make you use a lot of controls that make using the "gun mounts" for the Wii quite cumbersome. Other than those, it is bearable and quite fun.
I have no direct experience with other consoles, but I have also played some PC FPS and, unless you have some kind of auto-aim like in classic Doom, going keyboard+mouse is awkward and keyboard only is really infuriating. Also, moving freely means you need two keys for left/right, two for up/down and maybe even one for "center" like in the old "Jedi Knight" games. Getting all of them, the usual strafing controls and some helpers (run, crouch, jump) plus firing makes it really complex. Even with the mentioned drawbacks, I still prefer Wii's controls everytime.
(Score: 2) by hatta on Monday March 10 2014, @05:32PM
There wasn't actually auto-aiming in DOOM. It seemed like it because you could hit enemies on
Do you mean left/right/forward/back? ADWS? That's just 3 fingers. With mouselook on, you never need a "center" key. Just point the mouse where you want to look.
Not really. You never need strafing controls. Looking left and right is on the mouse. A and D are always strafe left and right. No reason to toggle strafing ever.
Auto-run should almost always be on, and hey when you need to slow down the shift button is right there and you're not using your pinky for anything else anyway. Same with crouch and control.
Space bar for jumping, you're not using your thumb for anything else and that's what you usually hit with your thumb anyway.
So that's all the buttons you need with 5 fingers on your left hand, and 10 buttons around those completely unused to allow you to bind them to anything you want. Plus all the number keys for weapon selection.
This key layout has been standard for PC FPSs since Half-Life. It's intuitive and it works better than anything else that's been designed since. We know this, because we can network PC and console games and PC gamers always, always, always destroy the console gamers.
(Score: 1) by monster on Monday March 10 2014, @06:05PM
I'm not saying that it isn't efective. I'm saying that it is less inmersive. When I play a FPS I prefer to enjoy the experience, even if it means being less efective overall or not rushing through the levels.
Also, for a left handed player like me, that key layout is a bitch on its own.
(Score: 2) by hatta on Monday March 10 2014, @10:36PM
It's every bit as immersive once you learn. You never think "I need to jump forward, I'll press space", you just think "jump" and your thumb hits space all by itself. It's as natural as actual movement.
And you can easily adapt WASD for leftys. What's wrong with OJKL?
(Score: 1) by citizenr on Monday March 10 2014, @02:48PM
Im sorry, but you are confusing "hardcore players" with handicapped people using joypads to play fps games on consoles.
(Score: 3, Informative) by naff89 on Monday March 10 2014, @07:15AM
PlayStation 3/4 and Xbox 360 controllers can already be used on PC's via USB/Bluetooth. Microsoft will also be releasing a PC version of the Xbox One controller.
So for a lot of games you can have your cake and use a potentially superior input method for it, too.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Rivenaleem on Monday March 10 2014, @01:17PM
"So for a lot of games you can have your cake and use a potentially superior input method for it, too."
It really depends on the game, unfortunately. Some games you have a clear winner on the input selection, FPS games as we all know favor the mouse, while hack'n'slash favor the controller.
2 games annoyed me no end though. GTAV and Far Cry 3. The shooting bits are better with mouse, while the driving bits are better with controller. This wouldn't be so bad if either game operated somewhat like Kingdom's of Amalur (great game) whereby it was always waiting for input on either device, so you could switch inputs quickly and easily. In Far Cry 3 you had to pause the game and navigate the menus to change input mode if you wanted to swap. I would swap between modes when I had to do one of the 'races' because I just terrible at controlling the vehicles with keyboard (Nostromo actually). In GTAV (at this point I'll point out I played it on XBOX360 using controller only) I cannot imagine trying to swap controls when you have to jump out of a car and be expected to start shooting right away, or be in a firefight and then try to escape in a car.
I would like to see if the Steam Controller solves this, I've heard reports that the touchpad interfaces are a great compromise between mouse and stick controls.
(Score: 2) by Pslytely Psycho on Tuesday March 11 2014, @03:56AM
"GTAV (at this point I'll point out I played it on XBOX360 using controller only) "
Just a Question, I have never played GTA V, (Waiting for PC port) and only GTA IV on a computer with an Xbox controller. (Never played it on a console) If you hold down the left trigger you auto aim. Is this different with V? Or is it a computer/console thing?
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(Score: 1) by Rivenaleem on Wednesday March 12 2014, @08:49AM
Yes, you have the option of auto-aiming/tracking targets using the left trigger (aim assist). But I might as well not play the game if I don't have to aim whatsoever.
(Score: 2) by Pslytely Psycho on Thursday March 13 2014, @05:53PM
I agree, I use KB/trackball for movement and aiming on the computer, and the 360 pad for driving. Somewhat inconvenient, but I used to play Mafia I with my steering wheel for driving and KB/Trackball for foot.
I wish I could use my wheel in Mafia II and GTA IV. The 360 emulators don't seem to work with my Thrustmaster Skuderia 430 cockpit wheel....(can't seem to make it controller 1)
I was just curious about V, since you're limited to the controller that can't aim worth a shit...and I haven't owned a system since the Sega Genesis.
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(Score: 1) by Geezer on Monday March 10 2014, @10:13AM
I use a wireless XB360 on my game box every day. With a custom keymapper (I recommend Xpadder for quick and easy 360 customization) you can use almost any console controller on a PC.
I use this setup to main tank for guild raids on EQII. It works great.
(Score: 1) by fadrian on Monday March 10 2014, @02:53PM
Well, if they really want to be smart, they should just switch to crappy Bejeweled clones on smart phones - it's what all the cool kids are doing. Besides, game consoles are for old people (along with desktop systems). And a laptop is jut an overgrown, clunky tablet for old people, too. So, yeah, it's cell phone games or taking your piece of a dying market. Have fun!
That is all.