Is the Playstation 4 About to be announced??

[AlphaMan]

I'm going to leave consoles behind and return to PC gaming. The PS4 doesn't even support PS3 games. Didn't bother me back then with PS2 games since I didn't own any. Now I do, and backwards compatibility should be a given.

So, out I am.

And I probably shouldn't have compared the PC and PS3 graphics of games like Crysis 2, GTA IV or the Assassin's Creed games.

Well, this is obviously speculation at this point... We don't know If the PS4 will be backwards compatible or not. I think there are 2 trains of thought on the matter... The PS3 wasn't PS2 compatible, so why would we expect the PS4 to be PS3 compatible?

On second thought, I totally expect my PSN profile to carry over to the PS4 since the PSN will operate over both PS3 & PS4 consoles. The PSN keeps track of my purchases and I can download them as I need to.

I don't know if disc based PS3 games will work on PS4, but I'll bet that PSN downloads will work on PS4. Now, I've downloaded full retail games over the PSN like Playstation All Stars and DMC... If those work on my PS4, I'll be so happy... but I think that's a long shot.

 

[FPAlpha]

I think online connections have a utilitarian use because videogames can now be updated/fixed whereas you could only do that with computer games in the old days.

As opposed to the good 'ole days where game producers actually had to test their games to death because they knew that once released they couldn't go back and fix things so it should work perfectly right out the box.

Nowadays it seems that producers think "Oh well.. we can patch it later. Just release the damn thing so we can make some money!". Online capability and hard drives to store data on has become a crutch in game development when it comes to technical aspects of the games and i can't shake the feeling that some producers are willingly risking some bad reviews and a tarnished reputation to a degree just so they can finally release a game and make some profits because they now have the option to fix the game later on.

On the plus side it allows them to balance a game further after players around the world get their hands on and give a far better review/feedback and you now have the option to get some additional content such as new game modes, maps, equipment etc. available without actually having to release a physical medium with the updates through retailers (that can be reserved for major expansions).

The PS4 doesn't even support PS3 games.

Yeah, I'm curious about that as well. I don't see why Sony would not make the PS4 backwards compatible. That'd be extremely foolish.

Actually it's not from Sony's perspective. Once a game is sold Sony doesn't make any money off it apart from in game micro payments and stuff like that. Sony (and the game producers) want you to buy new games from the stores and they want to push the new console with their shinier graphics so old games are of no use to them to promote the PS4 so they will make sure everyone focuses on the PS4 instead of the older model.

In their infinite grace and gamer friendliness they may release some very popular PS3 titles and label them as Classic games or something like that because.. you know.. they understand gamers and stuff and empathize with them (and there's the thing with making money.. again.. off some old games where they just did some graphics remodelling to make it look a little better)

Personally i only own a 360 with i bought last year (yeah.. i'm totally up to date with my gaming ) but i'm ready to see what the new generation has to offer.

I still need to buy a BR player and since it's pretty sure the PS4 will have one i'm waiting to see the specs and above all the price.
If they think they can do a PS3 release again with 600+ Euro just because they are Sony and their console is supposed to be the second coming of Christ i'll most likely pass and buy a normal BR player and wait until the successor to the 360 is released to make a comparison and decide who'll provide next generation video gaming.

Maybe Sony will learn something from their mistakes.. it sure cost them a lot with the absolute disaster that was the PS3 release. The only thing that prevented their total annihilation was fanboys who play Playstation out of conviction/habit and the massive technical RROD problems of the earlier 360s.

If they hold back on the price a bit (likely as BR are cheap nowadays) and have good games for the release it might actually be really tempting this time to be an early adopter.. especially if they really announce it in a few weeks and release it sometime this year. Especially if they get a 6 month to 1 year lead over MS's next console which would let people save up some money to buy the 720 (or whatever it will be called).

 

[MacLeod]

^I suspect that the console manufactures expect to make a lose on the console itself, and make a profit from the games. The trick is to minimise that lose.

Is there also areas which favour one console over another as a proportion of overall sales.

 

[AlphaMan]

And here's an article from last month. Sony has lost $4.951 billion on the PS3 and Microsoft has lost $2.996 billion. Yes, both these systems had a fantastic library of games for us gamers, but from a financial point of view they were complete bombs. The hardware issues from the 360 (RROD's) and the overpriced, supercomputer that was the PS3 led to massive losses.

Hmmmm..... Not good indeed.

More than likely, this will be the last generation for home consoles the way we know it.

I'd like to see Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo actually get together, establish a standard and license game players to a number of different manufacturers, much the same way there are different manufacturers of DVD and Blu-Ray players. This game player would play all games regardless of studio and connect to an online service like XBL or PSN.

Pretty much what Steam is doing.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

^I suspect that the console manufactures expect to make a lose on the console itself, and make a profit from the games. The trick is to minimise that lose.

Is there also areas which favour one console over another as a proportion of overall sales.

Selling consoles at a loss, if it is done at all, is generally only expected for the first year or two of the console's lifespan. Beyond that, they do expect there to be a profit on each unit, as the manufacturing becomes more streamlined and components become cheaper.

The PS3 itself began making a profit after 4 years--a bit longer than usual. But I think you can primarily blame that on the initial sluggish sales, and the extra expenses of the proprietary architecture and BR player.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

The PS3 itself began making a profit after 4 years--a bit longer than usual. But I think you can primarily blame that on the initial sluggish sales, and the extra expenses of the proprietary architecture and BR player.

And adding the Emotion Engine and GPU chips needed for backward compatibility with the PS2....

 

[Kelthaz]

You know, despite the success of the PS1 and PS2, I don't think Sony has any idea what they're doing. They only succeeded with the PS1 because Nintendo shot themselves in the foot going with cartridges on the N64 and Sega fired a BFG 9000 at themselves. And with the PS2 they had no competition. I think Sony just got damn lucky and doesn't know how to compete with equals. Think Rocky VI. I'm expecting Microsoft to win the upcoming generation.

 

[AlphaMan]

You know, despite the success of the PS1 and PS2, I don't think Sony has any idea what they're doing. They only succeeded with the PS1 because Nintendo shot themselves in the foot going with cartridges on the N64 and Sega fired a BFG 9000 at themselves. And with the PS2 they had no competition. I think Sony just got damn lucky and doesn't know how to compete with equals. Think Rocky VI. I'm expecting Microsoft to win the upcoming generation.

I think that you will see very little change in who adopts what next generation console. Xbox Live and Playstation Network tracks purchases, achievements and game history. Not to mention, your online friends. Unless you're already on both, these things make it less likely for someone to switch.

So what you say about Microsoft winning next gen may very well be true, but its not like Microsoft's success with Xbox 360 was because they were so awesome. They benefitted mostly from mistakes made by Sony and they only managed to dominate US marketshare while Sony still dominates the rest of the world.

If I were to bet, I'd say Steam has a good chance to win this gen for reasons I've already stated.

 

[Kelthaz]

So what you say about Microsoft winning next gen may very well be true, but its not like Microsoft's success with Xbox 360 was because they were so awesome. They benefitted mostly from mistakes made by Sony and they only managed to dominate US marketshare while Sony still dominates the rest of the world.

Why are you excluding the Wii? Nintendo dominated all three markets.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

You know, despite the success of the PS1 and PS2, I don't think Sony has any idea what they're doing. They only succeeded with the PS1 because Nintendo shot themselves in the foot going with cartridges on the N64 and Sega fired a BFG 9000 at themselves. And with the PS2 they had no competition. I think Sony just got damn lucky and doesn't know how to compete with equals. Think Rocky VI. I'm expecting Microsoft to win the upcoming generation.

Not sure what you mean with the cartridge comment but I think it goes beyond the storage capacity limitation. I think Nintendo burned bridges with third-party publishers with being the source of those cartridges and charging much higher publishing fees just to make a game for their console.

Everyone I knew that bought a PSX was because it was a hot machine at the time. It was the first time that home conversions were getting close to their arcade counterparts.

Were the X-Box and GameCube not competition for the PS2?

 

[Bob The Skutter]

You know, despite the success of the PS1 and PS2, I don't think Sony has any idea what they're doing. They only succeeded with the PS1 because Nintendo shot themselves in the foot going with cartridges on the N64 and Sega fired a BFG 9000 at themselves. And with the PS2 they had no competition. I think Sony just got damn lucky and doesn't know how to compete with equals. Think Rocky VI. I'm expecting Microsoft to win the upcoming generation.

Not sure what you mean with the cartridge comment but I think it goes beyond the storage capacity limitation. I think Nintendo burned bridges with third-party publishers with being the source of those cartridges and charging much higher publishing fees just to make a game for their console.

Everyone I knew that bought a PSX was because it was a hot machine at the time. It was the first time that home conversions were getting close to their arcade counterparts.

Were the X-Box and GameCube not competition for the PS2?

Dreamcast too. They were all the same generation but what happened was Dreamcast came out well in advance and a lot of people were waiting on the PS2 before buying. Also the Dreamcast was very easy to pirate for and lost out very quickly. The Gamecube and Xbox came later, but the Gamecube was hampered by being seen as "Kiddy" and the disc only had 1.2gb compared to 4.5gb on the PS2 and Xbox.

Then we come to the Xbox, well that was starting to do fairly well but launched late, so was only 2/3 years from the launch of the 360 but still managed to sell around 25m, by comparison the Gamecube sold 21m in around the same time frame and the 360 has been out 7 years now and has sold around 75m.

 

[Haggis and tatties]

Its going to be intresting this time round.........i hope Sony and MS allow me to bring my massive digital catalogue of games with me onto the next system....i have far too many digital games to simply dump them all and jump onto a new system.

So whoever allows this will get my money.......plus on a side note the PS4 needs some sort of private chat in and out of games this time round......i dont care if this requires the PSN to become sub like xboxlive, but this time round they really need it.

They could add a private/party-chat into Ps+ subscription, that would be a instant win for me with Sony.

 

[Kelthaz]

Were the X-Box and GameCube not competition for the PS2?

Meh, they were competition for the PS2 like the Game Gear was competition for the Game Boy.

 

[AlphaMan]

Video Game Industry Can't Catch a Break, Still Struggling
CNBC.com | February 03, 2013 | 03:07 PM EST
January was not kind to the video game industry.

One major publisher was split into pieces. One high profile development studio was shut down and another seems likely to be headed in that direction. And another publisher is trading in the Nasdaq red zone. What's going on?

Very interesting read.


Mod Edit: As a general rule we don't post entire articles. A link for others to click and brief snippet on what it's about will work. And it is an interesting read. Thanks. -Akiraprise

 

[AlphaMan]

So what you say about Microsoft winning next gen may very well be true, but its not like Microsoft's success with Xbox 360 was because they were so awesome. They benefitted mostly from mistakes made by Sony and they only managed to dominate US marketshare while Sony still dominates the rest of the world.

Why are you excluding the Wii? Nintendo dominated all three markets.

They did indeed and may very well again... but the success of the Wii was based in the gimmick of motion gaming. Unless some similar killer software comes out to help the second screen experience gaming, I don't see them doing it again with hardware that's basically an entire generation behind.

 

[MacLeod]

You know, despite the success of the PS1 and PS2, I don't think Sony has any idea what they're doing. They only succeeded with the PS1 because Nintendo shot themselves in the foot going with cartridges on the N64 and Sega fired a BFG 9000 at themselves. And with the PS2 they had no competition. I think Sony just got damn lucky and doesn't know how to compete with equals. Think Rocky VI. I'm expecting Microsoft to win the upcoming generation.

I think that you will see very little change in who adopts what next generation console. Xbox Live and Playstation Network tracks purchases, achievements and game history. Not to mention, your online friends. Unless you're already on both, these things make it less likely for someone to switch.

So what you say about Microsoft winning next gen may very well be true, but its not like Microsoft's success with Xbox 360 was because they were so awesome. They benefitted mostly from mistakes made by Sony and they only managed to dominate US marketshare while Sony still dominates the rest of the world.

If I were to bet, I'd say Steam has a good chance to win this gen for reasons I've already stated.

No Sony does not dominate the rest of the world, it dominates in some areas of the world.

In the UK the Xbox 360 is the best selling console with some 29% of the market whilst the PS3 has around 23% of the market.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/console-sales-plunge-app-gaming-takes-off-192503187.html#wSNi7eo

Europe as a whole may favour the PS3, but Europe is made up of dozens of countries, and is some of those the Xbox will be favoured.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

So what you say about Microsoft winning next gen may very well be true, but its not like Microsoft's success with Xbox 360 was because they were so awesome. They benefitted mostly from mistakes made by Sony and they only managed to dominate US marketshare while Sony still dominates the rest of the world.

Why are you excluding the Wii? Nintendo dominated all three markets.

They did indeed and may very well again... but the success of the Wii was based in the gimmick of motion gaming. Unless some similar killer software comes out to help the second screen experience gaming, I don't see them doing it again with hardware that's basically an entire generation behind.

That's not really true. The gimmick helped, but the Wii's success wasn't based solely or even mostly on that. Instead, it succeeded largely due to price and appeal to more casual gamers. It's the "family console," and had a lot of games designed to be played by up to four people. Sony and Microsoft had the hardcore market locked up between them, so Nintendo wisely went after an entirely different demographic. It paid off big time for them.

They don't seem to be modifying that strategy substantially this generation, either, they've just added some more social features, new peripherals, and somewhat better graphics hardware. They're still going after the cost-conscious casual market.

 

[Sheep]

That's not really true. The gimmick helped, but the Wii's success wasn't based solely or even mostly on that. Instead, it succeeded largely due to price and appeal to more casual gamers. It's the "family console," and had a lot of games designed to be played by up to four people. Sony and Microsoft had the hardcore market locked up between them, so Nintendo wisely went after an entirely different demographic. It paid off big time for them.

They don't seem to be modifying that strategy substantially this generation, either, they've just added some more social features, new peripherals, and somewhat better graphics hardware. They're still going after the cost-conscious casual market.

The Wii sold like gangbusters (and then proceeded to collect dust in most people's closets once the novelty wore off) due to motion controls that appeal to those who are intimidated by a controller with a dozen buttons. So what does Nintendo do for a sequel? Release a system that features a controller with a dozen buttons and a screen and barely even advertise the fact that this is an entirely new system and not an add-on for the Wii. I don't have much faith in the WiiU garnering anywhere near the level of sales that the Wii did just because it's not as accessible to casuals.

As for handhelds, even though I absolutely loathe touchscreen gaming with the fire of a thousand suns, I think the Vita and the 3DS are in for a world of hurt from iOS and Android devices in the next few years.

 

[Ood Sigma]

I use my Wii a lot more than I use Kinect. Actually the only thing I really like about Kinect is the voice commands. The games I have for Kinect are either boring, repetitive, or suffer from poor detection of my movements.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

Were the X-Box and GameCube not competition for the PS2?

Meh, they were competition for the PS2 like the Game Gear was competition for the Game Boy.

All because of luck? I don't think that's entirely fair.