The upcoming console generation (2012 onwards)

this is the fun part with all the crazy conjecture before the mundane reality sets in after the reveal. particularly enjoying all the deluded people with the "zomg graffix 5 times better than teh xbawx" after IGN said that the console is "significantly more powerful than the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360". i mean, IGN ffs.

Here's one of the neogaf threads on Nintendo's console: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=427412

i can see a controller based screen working as a surrogate for real world devices - say in GTA, your mobile/pager is ringing in your hand, you see a message saying "get to X as quick as possible" from your boss. you get into a car & the controller screen turns into a satnav, with the route marked out etc etc.

that is awesome

or in Metal Gear Solid it's your map. when you get a call from your 2-way radio it shows a little image of who you're talking to, subtitles of the convo.

I hope that most of the time it gives those schoolmarmy comments the Wii gives from time to time: "shouldn't you take a break from all this gaming, maybe go outside a bit?" and "look, Zelda is fun but 3 hours already? for crying out loud" and "Princess Peach is a cutie, we'll give you that, but call a real girl for once, will you?" and so on.

haha wii does that?? that is awesome.

you know what these controllers will really be doing is giving you some kind of scrolling ticker saying things like "Marty891 is watching 'The Hottie and the Nottie'"

Well that's still better than the 360 and it's stream of <chirp> "pwns_dude is online!" (after a few minutes) <chirp> "pwns_dude went offline!" messages.

better-than-current-gen graphics

my god... this could revolutionize the industry...

laughing out loud

well it's nintendo, the company that was still making gameboy colors in 2003.

anyone who doubts that a screen on your controller could be awesome needs to play Pac Man Vs. on GameCube

fact: apparently people i know may be using the new nintendo dev machines already. will report.

more rumors:
- possible late 2011 release
- retail price of anywhere between $350 and $400 based on manufacturing costs
- the system is likely to resemble a modernized version of the SNES

q. would it ever make sense for a hardware manufacturer to launch a family market and a hardcore-gamer market console at the same time?

otoh i feel like the REAL GAME PLAYING KIDS OF TODAY all already think nintendo is hugely lame, not that i know any

http://www.develop-online.net/news/37618/Develop-source-New-Xbox-console-on-desks-at-EA

Specifications for the device are not available, for now. Develop understands that the hardware will feature enhanced support for Kinect with just a couple of alterations.

Both the next generation PlayStation - and its Xbox competitor - feature eight-core CPUs clocked at 1.6GHz according to sources trusted by Digital Foundry.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/df-hardware-orbis-unmasked-what-to-expect-from-next-gen-console

better-than-current-gen graphics

my god... this could revolutionize the industry...

aaaaand it turned out to be less powerful than 360/ps3

no one ever actually needed more than 320x240

Yeah, I'm way more interested in the games that will turn up on a WiiU than the soldier games in that video, however they look :)

So Feb 20, 2013 is the announce for PS4
March 2X, 2013 for X720?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=re1EatGRV0w

Edge saying PS4 coming out late 2013 in Japan/US, early 2014 EU

http://www.edge-online.com/news/the-next-xbox-always-online-no-second-hand-games-50gb-blu-ray-discs-and-new-kinect/

It is believed that games purchased on disc will ship with activation codes, and will have no value beyond the initial user.

Microsoft reminds me of that Onion article about Marylin Manson going door to door trying to scare people.

ugh, no buy from me if true. there were some rumours a while ago about Sony considering doing the same thing.

tbf half of the PC market already does this via Steam etc - though Steam also has massive everything-must-go firesales three or four times a year.

http://www.destructoid.com/what-the-hell-is-this-the-new-playstation-controller--244985.phtml

blue thing is obv an internalized move controller right

I think you're right jjj - the new sux-axis.

loooooooolstation 4

The final version of the console won't actually look like that, but it'd be funny if it did in fact look like a cheap HTPC.

I'll take the ugly controller over the "everything Kinects & online to play" rumors that are out there for the next xbox.

Honestly, I hope that one of the proposed Steam boxes replaces consoles for me. I'll miss sports games, but that's about it.

but if it does well, they might actually stop gimping the PC versions of sports games!

Isn't there rumours that the Valve layoffs in the last few data were that hardware team?

supposedly neither PS4 or 720 will have backwards compatibility, so what will happen with XBLA & PSN games? Sony bought streaming service Gaikai last year, wonder if that is how they will try to deal with previously bought PS3/PSN/PS+ content?

i never expected backwards compatibility with XBLA games tbh

PSN might, since they're already hip to the multiplatform cross-compability with PS1/3/PSP/Vita that's going on with the PSN store right now, but i still wouldn't bet on it

Not having backwards compatibility for disc games is pretty weak though

welp http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323478004578306663577439962.html

Sony is planning to offer technology to stream games to its next videogame console, people familiar with the company's plans say, alongside other enhancements to bolster its position in the market.

The new technology, to be unveiled Wednesday along with the new console, will allow users to play games delivered over the Internet, these people said. The streaming service, they added, is designed to use current PlayStation 3 titles on the new console; the new device is also expected to play new games stored on optical discs.

games delivered over the internet? wow

I presume they mean actual gameplay streaming, not whole game downloading. Which is a neat way to deliver backwards comparability, if it works.

Comparability u stupid ipad

NOOOO

lol

worst thing about ipads, when you type a word and it throws up something completely dissident

this may be super obvious but i haven't heard it said:
PS1 was a CD player that attached to my TV, so i didn't need to buy a CD player for the living room
PS2 was my first DVD player
PS3 is my BluRay player and where I do most of my Netflix/Hulu streaming
exactly what consumer function other than game playing does the PS4 provide that will motivate people who don't give a shit about streaming gaming or MORE POLYGONS to buy this damn thing

i see the advantage, but the lack of extra capabilities certainly didn't hurt the Wii this gen (or 360 early on). and i don't think that many people bought the PS1 as a music CD to TV device

Wii was the first motion device really and had major cultural importance as a generation bridging system. Can't imagine what PS4 will do to match that.
And yeah, maybe the CD wasn't the most important thing about the PS1 (though it really was to me! and many folks i know!) but the PS1 also was a massive leap forward in quality and capability of games both in size, graphics and complexity. Again, the PS4 is unlikely to make skyrim look like bushido blade.

The Times is saying that PS4 is going to cost £300 at launch

i agree with your general point. not sure what will be the new shininess to draw in the general population

4k video output

Agree that the PS4 version of Diablo 3 is good fun, esp if you have someone to play with locally (I prb wouldn't play it on my own though). Mr Salsa Shark has been playing and enjoying Mordor on PS4 - I don't recall him saying anything bad about it. But that's probably one to wait for on PS4... it does some interesting stuff with badguy personalities/AI learning which seems to function pretty well on the current gen but supposedly doesn't work as well on last gen.

Good info, thanks; I'll wait on Mordor too. I'm guessing that will get repackaged with all the DLC by next year anyway by the time I get a PS4

can i just say
http://www.analogueinteractive.com/products/analogue-nt-information

while that does look cool, the thought of explaining to my wife that I just spent five hundred dollars to play old nintendo games is a strong disincentive to purchase.

maybe we need a an 'awesome ludophile snake oil' thread

by gum, i would purchase such a confabulation contraption

arstechnica quote from the reviews section: "...a perfect, no-compromises aftermarket NES...The retro gaming equivalent of a $28,000 turntable."

guess you'll need some insanely expensive top-quality hdmi cable to get the most out of your treasured original bible adventures cart too

ive been playing my snes on a crt television i kept around for jsut this very purpose, and the picture is kind of shit, so i a little bit get the point of this :S

(altho i might just try to buy a used composite out cable on ebay to replace my current RF situation isntead of buying a 500 dollar ninturntable)

$500!? damn. i would love one of these though, no lie

so who is ordering a steam console?

As long as my PS3 controllers keep working with my Mac for Towerfall and eventually Videoball, I won't need one, I don't think.

Yeah if these had appeared six months ago I might have gone for it, but the oculus rift required specs mean that my next purchase is much more likely to be a high end traditional desktop than an overpriced midrange but small form factor, lives-under-the-telly box.

http://www.alanjoelny.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/not.me_.jpg

more srs q: is developing games for this machine going to make them work for the mac as well? like is this going to basically open up all new games to the mac?

i will if the reviews are good

Dunno about "all" but targeting Mac is a lot more like targeting Linux than like Windows (OpenGL instead of DirectX, no XNA, etc.). I think I've seen one Steam offering on Linux but not Mac.

Most indie games nowadays, if they're targeting multi-OS, end up doing Linux/Mac OS together anyway - pretty rare to see a game that's Windows/Mac or Windows/Linux.

i guess i need to buy a PS4 by november so i can play F4. who generally has the best deals on those? should i wait until labor day weekend?

maybe wait to see if there's a post thanksgiving price drop. Otherwise, just amazon. You're not gonna find that hardware on the cheap; sony keeps prices on lock like apple.

Yeah pretty much plan to spend however much it costs now & wait for a dope in-box bundle

Wait until the end of E3 at least, but since Sony's in the lead with MS cutting their price I don't see it happening. If you're going to play your PS4 in the next six months you might as well get one next week.

THAT SAID, since Fallout 4 doesn't come out until November anyway, so you might as well wait until BF, so you can at least get two recent-ish free games with the system, as they do every year with BF bundles. Chances are there might even be a FO4 system bundle, though who knows if it'll be PS4 or X1 yet (we'll probably find out today or tomorrow).

Nice of them to port FO3 to Xbox 1 though, I like this trend (also happened with Bayonetta 2)

Amazon actually has a $400 bundle right now with The Last Of Us Remastered + an extra Dualshock 4, that's a solid deal.

there was a killer bloodbourne deal too iirc

is fo4 coming to pc and is there any way i would be able to play it on the laptop i bought for work this year? who am i kidding, i will never again have the hours to lavish on this game that it did on the last two instalments...

yeah, it's coming out for pc - i suspect it'll need a fair amount of processing grunt, though, so unless your laptop has a decent discrete graphics card it'll probably struggle.

I'm kind of... impressed(?) that the 360 emulation on X1 is supposedly full system/OS emulation, so XBL thinks you're on a 360 too and in theory, all your downloadable games should work. If that's the case, it's actually a HUGE reason for me to get the X1 at some point in the far off future.

I assume this is easy to do since xbox's backbone is basically pc/windows

Yeah whereas PS3 ran on a notoriously goofballs processor architecture

but which makes it bullshit that reverse xbone/360 compatibility wasnt available at launch

I imagine it's more complicated than it seems - Microsoft for some (probably very good) reason went with PowerPC processors for the xbox360, where the XboxOne uses x86 (like a traditional PC). That's more like getting Windows to run on an old Mac (before Apple also took the decision to switch from PowerPC to x86) than getting an older version of Windows to run on a new PC. I expect it's a pretty heavy translation layer to convert between the architectures, as they're so different.

It's part of the reason you often need surprisingly hefty PCs to run console emulators (like, take a look at the requirements to run the PS2 emu PCSX2; just to emulate a 300MHz processor they recommend a 3.2GHz dual core processor). I'm kind of surprised they even bothered to make the effort, but it makes the back catalogue more impressive and sets a big challenge to Sony to perhaps try and get the same running properly on the PS4.

Yeah, it's far from trivial. Good stuff on it here:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2015-vs-backwards-compatibility-on-xbox-one