zombie84 said:
Also--surprising no one has mentioned this yet--what do people think of the PS4 announcement? Not a fan of the controller re-design from the looks of it, but otherwise pretty excited. Don't give a shit about the Vita connectivity and other gimmicks like uploading game footage but the internal specs seem pretty good. I think it will be very, very interesting how Microsoft responds to all this, since they will have the benefit of being last out of the gate. IMO it's always a mistake to buy on launch day--let alone launch year--but this is a system I am looking to watch and see for a purchase, hopefully picks up faster than PS3 (which I was going to buy last year but then held off knowing PS4 would be out so soon). I haven't bought a console when it was still current since 1996--I have the benefit of friends who are big into current-gen gaming--but I want to own this so I hope they don't drop the ball.
The past 8 years have proved that we don't need new hardware for new functionality, we just need new hardware when we need more raw power.
We are at the point where we need more raw power.
The PS4 certainly has more raw power, but still it was a pretty unexciting (to me) announcement. The share and online stuff doesn't appeal to me... so that's pretty much it. The announcement was lacking a "yes, we have more power AND LOOK AT WHAT WE CAN DO WITH IT!!!" moment.
I went and watched a few somewhat dry Unreal 4 demos that I thought might provide that WOW factor. They certainly look more impressive, but it's fairly geeky stuff. Still, I suspect this fall we will see some launch titles for both the Sony and MS machines that will convince (some of) us to buy the hardware. I just don't see it yet.
I'm hoping MS will announce some things that will be more surprising and exciting. I'm hoping that somehow MS can design a more technically impressive hardware platform and deviler it at a lower price, which is tough to pull off. I'd really like to see the next Xbox have an SSD, but I know that will jack the cost significantly. I'm really curious what MS is going to do about disc storage this gen. HVD, anyone?