How Consoles Broke The 'Play Now' Promise (The Jimquisition) - General

Once consoles become PC's minus the bonus PC's have, there won't really have a point in even owning one, will there? [editline]18th October 2016[/editline] [QUOTE=ashxu;51219370]holy shit i hate this so much. PS4 is so inconvenient compared to PC yet PS+ costs $70 a month, Jim is totally right. the only advantage i would even say now is short term price and exclusives, nothing else is better on consoles.[/QUOTE] tbh without exclusives I just don't see consoles working like I have an Xbone and its' not even worth it because the exclusives are of no quality to me and 99% of the games I already can play on PC.

[QUOTE=elixwhitetail;51220497]PC certainly has the edge in actually giving you options and flexibility for dealing with the updates, rather than a "UPDATE AND OBEY, CONSUMER" screen like you get on consoles, sure, no argument there. But PC also allows you to [I]ignore[/I] those updates even when ignoring the install prompt will be detrimental to your gaming/stability/security experience. I mean ultimately the argument I'm making is that consoles baby the user in terms of maintaining the system underneath the games, and when it comes to a complex computer that the average consumer is going to tend to regard as an appliance with the same care and attention paid as the toaster, this is sort of a good thing. It could certainly be improved, [I]especially[/I] in terms of how fast and convenient the download is presented to the user (making automatic updates a PS+ feature is a shit move, period, and Nintendo's digital downloads have always been frustratingly slow too), but it's serving a fairly specific purpose. I'm a power user and it's not what I want; it's pretty clearly not what you want; but we're both posting from PCs, so we're clearly well-off enough to have the choice of platform.[/QUOTE] Ok yeah I see what you mean now, fair enough.

[QUOTE=Robber;51217464]I think Steam had a play-while-you-download feature too. The only time I saw it working was with Half Life 1. It did work very well though.[/QUOTE] Mortal Kombat X also had that afaik and well, it was terrible. Ya run the game when it's ready to play and suddenly, most of the menus were disabled along with characters.

Consoles have just become such a fucking joke that I honestly can't believe anyone still uses them. It blows my mind how little they respect their userbase and still manage to be worse on all fronts (hell I don't even care about graphics myself and PC is still massively kicking console ass) Why does console not fucking tank? who is propping this up? Why don't people start thinking critically, we don't need this fucking trash.

Doesn't the playstation also suffer from constant network outages? From DDoS and stuff? And the seriously slow download speed?

[QUOTE=Empty_Shadow;51220639]Consoles have just become such a fucking joke that I honestly can't believe anyone still uses them. It blows my mind how little they respect their userbase and still manage to be worse on all fronts (hell I don't even care about graphics myself and PC is still massively kicking console ass) Why does console not fucking tank? who is propping this up? Why don't people start thinking critically, we don't need this fucking trash.[/QUOTE] Because the average consumer doesn't have the time, nor the funds, nor the willpower to put together an entire PC setup just to play games on a semi-regular basis. It is undeniable that the market for consoles has been reduced over the years - more people who used to play on consoles can afford a beefy PC and have the know-how to build one without tearing their hair out, the general skill needed to make one is not as stringent as it used to be, and the ultra-casual audience just switched over to their phones purely. However, there's [I]still[/I] a market for people with limited space, so limited they can afford a console underneath their TV but not a full desktop with a PC on top of it.

[QUOTE=Empty_Shadow;51220639]Consoles have just become such a fucking joke that I honestly can't believe anyone still uses them. It blows my mind how little they respect their userbase and still manage to be worse on all fronts (hell I don't even care about graphics myself and PC is still massively kicking console ass) Why does console not fucking tank? who is propping this up? Why don't people start thinking critically, we don't need this fucking trash.[/QUOTE] Exclusives. I would love to be able to buy these games on PC and not have to worry about buying new consoles. I can deal without PS and Xbox but I don't want to miss out on Nintendo games.

[QUOTE=Ganerumo;51220723]Because the average consumer doesn't have the time, nor the funds, nor the willpower to put together an entire PC setup just to play games on a semi-regular basis. It is undeniable that the market for consoles has been reduced over the years - more people who used to play on consoles can afford a beefy PC and have the know-how to build one without tearing their hair out, the general skill needed to make one is not as stringent as it used to be, and the ultra-casual audience just switched over to their phones purely. However, there's [I]still[/I] a market for people with limited space, so limited they can afford a console underneath their TV but not a full desktop with a PC on top of it.[/QUOTE] But you can buy prebuilt PCs? [editline]18th October 2016[/editline] [QUOTE=Hanso;51220727]Exclusives. I would love to be able to buy these games on PC and not have to worry about buying new consoles. I can deal without PS and Xbox but I don't want to miss out on Nintendo games.[/QUOTE] Exclusives are just a marketing ploy to force consumers to use their products. If people stopped supporting exclusives (painful as it is) they'd stop doing it.

This console generation is the worst. Even with the 360 and PS3 you at least had some merits in the early days (PS3's online service was FREE for christ's sake, PS+ was just a bonus that got you free games) but this just seems like an excuse to fish money out of people's pockets. I can't wait for console emulation to catch up so running 360 and PS3 games on PC can become the norm.

Until some new media format comes out and along with it, a better way to read the data, you're never again going to be able to just pop in the disc and play from the disc unless it's a game that hardware from 10+ years ago could play. Something like Tetris (Which Ubisoft even fucked up, and you still had to install it anyway) Wouldn't it be nice for something like NVRAM to become dirt fucking cheap so console games could be written to it just like the old cartridge age. No more installing, fast load times, right from the cartridge. Installing to (And playing from) HDD optional

[QUOTE=elixwhitetail;51219693]"The PS2 generation was the last where you could just plop the disc in and play, since then it's been downhill"[/QUOTE] And there were murmurs of it in the N64 era, brother bought home Donkey Kong 64 for me to enjoy, plopped it into the console and was greeted by an screen saying I needed the expansion pak and by this time it was long since discontinued.

Installations are made even more annoying by a lack of memory cards. When I was a kid, if I wanted to play my game at a friend's house I just needed to insert the disc and put in the card. Now there's so much hassle that it's easier to just take the whole console.

[QUOTE=elixwhitetail;51219693]"The PS2 generation was the last where you could just plop the disc in and play, since then it's been downhill"[/QUOTE] the 360 and PS3s you could just plop in and play for most games. It wasn't until late in the generation did they start doing mandatory day one patches and that. I don't think the Wii ever had it.

[QUOTE=Genericenemy;51220849]And there were murmurs of it in the N64 era, brother bought home Donkey Kong 64 for me to enjoy, plopped it into the console and was greeted by an screen saying I needed the expansion pak and by this time it was long since discontinued.[/QUOTE] To be fair in that case, the expansion pak was bundled with the game when it was new. And once you put it in your console (which took all of a minute), you never had to take it out again or mess with anything.

[QUOTE=Bread_Baron;51220861]Installations are made even more annoying by a lack of memory cards. When I was a kid, if I wanted to play my game at a friend's house I just needed to insert the disc and put in the card. Now there's so much hassle that it's easier to just take the whole console.[/QUOTE] They could probably streamline the USB process, maybe make it so that any save games are written on this USB you gave a name, then when you plug into another PS3 it loads any save games you have on it as long as it's plugged in. I don't know, the PS3 lacks a lot of features in my mind.

[QUOTE=Tuskin;51220866]the 360 and PS3s you could just plop in and play for most games. It wasn't until late in the generation did they start doing mandatory day one patches and that. I don't think the Wii ever had it.[/QUOTE] Very rarely would Nintendo release patches for DS and Wii. Usually only to fix exploits in multiplayer. They still maintain that credit for the most part. Splatoon is an exception worth making since it is an online multiplayer game and even then its content patches, not so much bug fixing. It was never a broken mess. That said their online features are sparse to put it kindly.

[QUOTE=Empty_Shadow;51220760]But you can buy prebuilt PCs?[/QUOTE] Average good prebuilt PC costs considerably more than a console if you want to play the same games. And as I've mentioned, you need dedicated space for a PC - a somewhat sturdy desk with enough room for a comfy chair and a lot of cables going in and out. If you live in a somewhat limited space apartment then having a console that requires two to three cables and that works with your already existing TV, plus any small laptop, is still the most convenient solution.

[QUOTE=elixwhitetail;51219693]"The PS2 generation was the last where you could just plop the disc in and play, since then it's been downhill"[/QUOTE] Wii had that, too. In fact, even Wii U is still relatively painless compared to the other two and its online is the only one that's still [i]free.[/i] Said online isn't very feature-rich, granted, but it's actually really friggin' reliable and has been even as far back as the Wii days (barring Brawl.) Outages are almost unheard-of outside of scheduled maintenance times (which you can find on their site) and the netplay is buttery-smooth.

[QUOTE=TacticalBacon;51219564]I dunno man I get that all the time. Put in game, "This game needs to update!", ok then update it, "Cannot update game until console is updated!", fine, exit game, go all the way to system update, wait for it to do all that and restart before I can then update the game and finally play it close to an hour later. This is something I've experienced on PS3, PS4, PS Vita and the Xbox One.[/QUOTE] The PS4 has this nice feature where it downloads and installs updates while in standby. It's very rare that I come across delays in getting into the game on PS4. [editline]18th October 2016[/editline] [QUOTE=Empty_Shadow;51220639]Consoles have just become such a fucking joke that I honestly can't believe anyone still uses them. It blows my mind how little they respect their userbase and still manage to be worse on all fronts (hell I don't even care about graphics myself and PC is still massively kicking console ass) Why does console not fucking tank? who is propping this up? Why don't people start thinking critically, we don't need this fucking trash.[/QUOTE] The answer to this is "you're overreacting" Consoles are fine :v:

[QUOTE=TacticalBacon;51220937]To be fair in that case, the expansion pak was bundled with the game when it was new. And once you put it in your console (which took all of a minute), you never had to take it out again or mess with anything.[/QUOTE] Oh fair enough then, I take it back.