PixlBit

Let's not forget what Sony did to consumers with the PS3 at launch. They literally said in their press conference that you should go get two jobs to get this console. I bet you forgave them for that insulting anti-consumer statement right? This seems a little Sony biased and spiteful but altogether your thoughts aren't irrelevant obviously, we need to keep in mind what these companies do.

You're giving Sony more credit than they're worth too. It's likely the only reason they went against Microsoft's stances was because they saw the backlash they were getting. If Xbox One's policies went over smoothely you can bet thay Sony would've ponied up right along side them so they could make as much money as possible by cutting out used games and physical media. These companies WANT physical media to become the secondary method of consumption and over time it'll likely end up that way regardless. Another reason you shouldn't get ahead of yourself is because I think the reason Microsoft changed their policies is simply because Sony forced their hand, not consumer outcrying unfortunately. Sony's policies and price likely weren't solid until right after the Microsoft press conference. They were keeping their cards hidden and waiting to see what they could capitialize on the most. MS was pretty cowardly and didn't mention the unpopular policies so Sony went ahead and put them right up in the forefront of the conference. MS announced a $500 price, so Sony went with the $400 one to capitalize and it worked out beautifully. At the end of the day both of these companies have boned consumers before and developers as well.

I'm happy both companies are on the same page now at least, it makes for a better console war and better competition I'd think. I'm leaning towards the PS4 still but now that the Xbox One doesn't require always-online I think that it's a much more appealing product than it used to be.

The Kinect is already optional in funtionality, you can use the controller for anything that's controller-or-Kinect. Pretty much every game we saw at E3 was Kinect optional, they're no longer using the philosophy of forcing Kinect into everything. They learned their lesson, just like Sony learned it wasn't a good idea to force six-axis functionality into all PS3 games being developed for it early on. They could sell some without the Kinect but it would probably be a better idea to subsidize the console and sell it at $200 or $300 but sign people up for 2 years of Live in order to make up the costs over the long term in smaller digestible payments. Consoles aren't phones, having a contract won't be a big deal because people don't get rid of consoles like they do phones. People will buy a console and stick with it for a very long time if it's an appealing product. Kinect is a really impressive piece of tech and they want people to have a chance to play with it, it's part of the new experience so they need to find a way to include it in the console but make the purchase more digestible for people.

There's virtually no difference between the two systems now, they were already very similar and now they're near identicale. Fanboys on either side won't let you say that but it's true. Now it's all just about which one has games you want more. Both are multimedia devices. Both do games, bluray, dvd, music, tv, internet, used games, no drm, both have share features, background downloads, and streaming, etc. It's basically the current generation with 360 and PS4 except both systems are more powerful and have gameplay streaming and recording.

The console war just got more competitive and bloody than ever, and it's more satisfying than ever. Microsoft listened to consumers and responded in a massive way to community feedback. It kind of requires people (at least rational people) to rethink the whole "M$ is evil and anti-consumer and doesn't listen to anybody but the illuminati and the NSA" nonsense. Microsoft is a business and they will do whatever it takes to win hearts and minds in order to make as much money as possible from consumers, just like Sony is doing, just like Steam has been doing, and any company in the gaming world that can create a positive image while making profits. The biggest thing making me want a PS4 was Xbox One's internet requirement, now that's not an issue. I now have more options as a consumer and I'm happy, which console I buy will be up in the air now. I haven't decided.

It's been an interesting week, Microsoft is changing unpopular policies 180 degrees meanwhile the new PS3 firmware update is bricking a lot of consoles and boning Sony fans. The tone of this console war will be changing back and forth and inbetween all throughout this post-E3 period just like I anticipated. The real war is finally on and both companies are on the same wavelength and fighting for the same core gamers to early-adopt their systems at launch as well as support all the launch titles coming for each system.

There's some hilarious irony in all this on the gamers side. All the people here in the Pixlbit community who were once saying "I hope Xbone fails and greedy M$ burns to the ground with their illuminati NSA spying conspiracy!" are all now saying "Yay for competition guys! Nice to see Mircosoft back in the fold!"

What now?

I'm already tired of this console war and of the internet, and it's barely even started. I was one of the people that agreed with Julian in that I wanted to see this one be a bloodbath and be highly competitive. On all fronts it's certainly panning out that way, but the part about console wars that I hate is hearing gamers talk about them lol. It's been so long, I forgot that I hated that part. During the Sony press conference I was one of the people happily and joyously being hyperbolic and praising Sony and spelling doom for Microsoft. But I knew I was joking around and by the next day I had come back down to reality after the fun was over and we had to go back to the real world.

Most of the net including a lot of the community here is still in that mode and this console war has turned into a presidential election of the video game variety as console wars tend to end up. It's like 2012 all over again with people yelling at each other and pointing fingers at whomever will destroy the middle class the most. Anytime now I bet somebody will claim that Xbox One is anti-America and anti-democracy. The legitimate concerns people have are drowned out by "LOLs", hyperbole, and hastily written rage blogs.

I'm already not buying an Xbox One, but I can't stand to be around the hate for the remainder of the hype cycle so I'll probably have to stay away from the communities console war talk here until things start to pan out, we get better knowledge of the consoles, bugs, games, and eventually people find more substantive and concrete stuff to talk about. The more I read about the console war the less I gain from it at this point because nobody has anything to say. We don't know very much about either system other than some rhetoric and slideshows. People who are praising one side, condemning the other, and prancing out into pre-order-land are actually buying ideas and stories at this point, not consoles. It's a long time till launch day for both systems and things are free to change plenty.

My plan right now is to buy a PS3 and play all the games I missed, and then I'm going to wait a year or two to see how the PS4 shakes out and I will probably get one after all the early adopters have bitten the bullet, dealt with all the bugs, and taken the fall for me so that the PS4 2.0 will be the one I'll get. I'll have plenty of PS3 games to catch up on until the PS4 shakes out. Until then for me personally it's miserable to hear people go about the to-be-expected console war rhetoric, bashing, praising, and hyperbole all over the net. I wanted a bloodbath console war and we are getting one, and now I'm tuning out until it's all over lol. I'll see you sporadically, internet!

I remember having a similar conversation with somebody before on the topic, in regards to everybody continuing to do physical copies at a premium. They will certainly continue to do it, but it'll be in the minority like how vinyls are. If they can make money off it they'll always continue to do it, and there's some people out there who will always want physical copies and they'll be willing to pay a premium for them. Especially collectors editions. Physical copies of games won't be the status quo anymore, but instead just one premium option in the larger picture where digital games are the main method and the cheaper faster easier method that most consumers will end up warming up to I'd think.

Thief 4 looks really good. I saw a demo today on Revision3 with Adam Sessler and he's a huge Thief fan from back on the PC so he was asking all the right questions and getting good info out of the creative director. The game will have a lot of the qualities that made the old PC games great, but will get rid of the things that make them unfun to play now, and add features that help support the Thief ghost playstyles where hardcore players would want to go through the whole level without being noticed and without killing anybody.

Theif games always had interesting settings and art designs, so I'm excited to see if this game continues that tradition, and I love the focus on being a thief and not an assassin. It's like the Theives Guild missions from Skyrim turned into an entire game lol. Whereas Dishonored was like the Dark Brotherhood but a full game.

These trends come and go and over time they will eventually get overused, but people who enjoy these settings should enjoy them while they're the big new thing. World War 2 got overused in the 5th and 6th generations and went out of style, Jrpgs were overused in the 6th and went out of style, now in the 7th gen modern desert shooters were overused and will start to go out of style in the coming gen.

@Snee The good thing about these coming games is that a lot of them are trying to add more of what you want into the designs. There's more natural environments, just look at Killzone of all things. You'd never expect natural environments to be abound or greenery available that one of the places they're allowing you to go in the game. In one their demos you're exploring a forest on Vekta on the Helgan side of the great dividing wall and you're ziplining between trees to platforms and taking out Helghast as you go and sniping people from above.

I'm over the desert setting for these types of games. We will surely see it from time to time I can bet, because there are some interesting things you can do in a desert setting as long as you don't keep the player there for way too long, and as long as you do something interesting with it. I loved what Spec Ops The Line did with its desert setting, and what Journey did when the player was in a desert setting. But having an entire game placed in the desert in a gritty modern war tone is something I will be happy to see go by the wayside.

That's not good, I hope the best for Bandit and yourself Tami.