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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: 4, Insightful) by naff89 on Monday March 10 2014, @07:19AM
One of the biggest things stopping me from getting a PS4 is the fact that I'd be forced to keep my PS3 around to play my current bookshelf of games.
Backwards compatibility with the Wii is pretty much the only reason I bought a Wii U as early as I did. (the pretty Zelda inlay may have also been a factor!)
(Score: 1) by Katastic on Monday March 10 2014, @10:19AM
You realize the Wii U doesn't keep backwards compatibility, right? Gamecube discs don't work, nor are their controllers supported. And all of those games you purchased in Virtual Console for the Wii? You have to repurchase them for the Wii U.
Nintendo has straight up pissed on their most dedicated fans. I grew up a Nintendo kid from the beginning. Nowadays, I might as well start submitting code patches to the Dolphin Project, because Nintendo certainly doesn't care about good games anymore.
(Score: 2, Informative) by tempest on Monday March 10 2014, @02:28PM
If you purchased games for the virtual console on the Wii, you can still play them using the Wii compatibility mode on Wii-U. But they do try to gouge you for upgrading to the native Wii-U version which is BS.
(Score: 1) by Rivenaleem on Monday March 10 2014, @01:29PM
My PC also has great backwards compatibility. Say what you like about MS and Windows, but I can still play the original UFO: Enemy Unknown on the same PC that plays the latest Witcher or Far Cry game. If it doesn't run natively, I have DOSBOX (which thanks to the guys at either GOG or Steam comes packaged and pre-configured for the games I buy) to do the job.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by len_harms on Monday March 10 2014, @01:38PM
This is the only reason I did not buy one yet. There are maybe about 20 games worth looking at. Of those 20 none interest me. I could usually find 1-2 games out of a launch list that I would buy.
Pretty much when uncharted 4 comes out I will probably buy one. At that point the infant mortality issues should be worked out. There should also be a couple of interesting bundles. Till then I am coasting on my current library.
Of the two boxes the ps4 seems to be the one to get. It is *slightly* better than the xbox spec wise. However, my 2 year old laptop blows both of them away in performance. It should be *very* interesting in the steam world :)
(Score: 2, Insightful) by tempest on Monday March 10 2014, @02:42PM
You only have to keep your PS3 on the shelf. I still have a PS2 too. Looking at my catalog of games of ones I absolutely love, I have a few PS1, a fair number of PS2 and ONE PS3 game. I came to the conclusion I should buy a spare PS2 to hold me over in case my current one dies. I'd love a PS4 if I could play my current games, or if they released that one game on PS4 or made it compatible. The reality is that Sony won't do that. Instead they want to make you play that shit in their cloud and I'm not going for that.
I'm really surprised Microsoft didn't do backwards compatibility. This has been a huge key factor in Windows dominance, so you'd think he company would be keen to repeat that on the Xbox.