The Official PS4 Thread - Part 1

[hippie_hunter]

I doubt we will ever see Crash again since I believe those rights, along with Spyro and some other characters belong o someone else who has done nothing with them in years, hence why they still haven't appeared in All-Stars.

Universal Interactive Studios owned the rights to the Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon franchises while Naughty Dog and Insomniac developed them, and Sony published the games made by Universal Interactive (same way they published Disney Interactive's games during the PlayStation era). When Naughty Dog and Insomniac were done with their respective franchises and Universal's publishing deal with Sony ended, they decided to give the series to new developers and take it multiplatform.

Universal (a subsidiary of the alcoholic beverage company Seagram) was acquired by Vivendi and merged Universal Interactive with their video games unit Havas Interactive (owner of Sierra and Blizzard) and formed a new company: Vivendi Universal Games and published Crash Bandicoot and Spyro under the Vivendi Universal label. Vivendi sold Universal to General Electric's Sheinhardt Wig Company division (owner of NBC) but opted to keep certain former Universal assets like their games division and the division was renamed to just Vivendi Games, Vivendi decided to move the Crash Bandicoot and Spyro games under the Sierra Games label.

Then Vivendi decided to merge Vivendi Games with Activision, forming Activision Blizzard and the Crash Bandicoot and Spyro franchises moved under the Activision label. That is where they currently belong.

And the current state of such franchises is rather poor. Activision gave up on Crash Bandicoot after the past couple of titles showed that Crash Bandicoot doesn't fit in with Activision's business model: mega-blockbusters like Call of Duty, Guitar Hero, and Skylanders and uber-popular licensed IPs like Family Guy, Walking Dead, Spider-Man, and Transformers. Spyro was slightly revived in Skylander's: Spyro's Adventure, but he was quickly reduced to a mere side-character in the franchise to the point where you can't even consider Skylanders a Spyro game anymore.

 

[Doc Ock]

Spoiler

Yeah yeah. But with PS Plus...I would think tons of people would love the idea and jump onto that.

Why would you not make you console backwards compatible?

If anything, having a much larger library would make you console more desirable.

If the 3DS wasn't backwards compatible, I wouldn't have bought it.

Half the reason I plan on buying a 3DS is because it is indeed backwards compatible. (And my current DS is so old its kinda a piece of junk now)

 

[Iceman]

Sony said this will be"a game console made by game developers for game developers",Does this mean it'll be much easier for third-party developers to make PS4 port versions?

I've read a few times that it's harder for developers&publishers to make PS3 game versions than for 360 and thus many third-party games playing&looking better on 360.

Yeah, Sony should have a much better time next gen with this. In fact it will probably matter less than it did who is the lead platform as they are both going to be a lot more similar to each other as well as pc. Ports in general will be better.

While it started off that way, I really think it's a stretch to call PSN garbage in comparison to Xbox Live at this stage. Asides from cross-game chat, what services does Live offer that PSN doesn't? And at least PSN offers free online gameplay, PlayStation Plus gives you free games galore, and you don't have to subscribe to PlayStation Plus in order to access the content.


I dunno, I really don't see how either Sony or Microsoft can vastly expand their offerings asides from improved social functions that Sony announced with the PlayStation 4. I think that Xbox Live and PSN will pretty much be at parity with the next gen consoles.

Pricing is pricing though, not really a feature. As it stands PSN is getting to be much better value both relative to Live and compared to what it was, but it's still not that near to Live functionality. And as far as XBox Live improvements, if they go with Skype for party chat that would mean you might be able to communicate with your current 360 friends who haven't yet upgraded (massive plus to me) in the same party & maybe even pc friends. Maybe even any Skype user!

 

[hippie_hunter]

Yes you do. Without a subscription, you don't get access to any of those free games

I worded it very poorly, I mean content like Netflix and whatnot.

 

[Solidus]

Why would you not make you console backwards compatible?

If anything, having a much larger library would make you console more desirable.

If the 3DS wasn't backwards compatible, I wouldn't have bought it.

Because of the chip-set required for it. The Cell processor and it's architect is so different from the PS4 which is PC based. It would require pretty much a mini PS3 inside of it. And like last time they don't want to have to jack the price up with something that expensive to put in there. And of course they changed that because of the massive issues devs were having with the cell processor. Like Bethesda.

However the library will be huge anyways. Gaiki will allow streaming/downloading of the PSOne/PS2/PS3 Library.

 

[StrainedEyes]

Plus, if all the rumors about these consoles being subsidized are true then you'll basically be paying a monthly subscription anyway and it won't make a difference what's gated behind it.

 

[Havok83]

Plus, if all the rumors about these consoles being subsidized are true then you'll basically be paying a monthly subscription anyway and it won't make a difference what's gated behind it.

Ive never heard that about the PS4 but the next Xbox is pretty much a given considering MS is currently doing that with the 360

Yeah yeah. But with PS Plus...I would think tons of people would love the idea and jump onto that.

I guess it depends on what the numbers are for Plus as we don't know what the attach rate for that is. I do think it would be redundant to charge for PSN AND Plus and considering they added Plus to Vita a few months ago, I don't think its going away

Because of the chip-set required for it. The Cell processor and it's architect is so different from the PS4 which is PC based. It would require pretty much a mini PS3 inside of it. And like last time they don't want to have to jack the price up with something that expensive to put in there. And of course they changed that because of the massive issues devs were having with the cell processor. Like Bethesda..

That's fine and IMO they should do that. That's why there would be two SKUS. The premium, more expensive model had PS3 BC and the base model would not. I honestly wouldn't have any problem paying $100 for the same system if it meant I could play my PS3 games on there

 

[Iceman]

Both consoles should offer those smartphone-style monthly-pay contracts spread over a number of years. At least once the launch momentum has died down a bit.

 

[B]

While it started off that way, I really think it's a stretch to call PSN garbage in comparison to Xbox Live at this stage. Asides from cross-game chat, what services does Live offer that PSN doesn't? And at least PSN offers free online gameplay, PlayStation Plus gives you free games galore, and you don't have to subscribe to PlayStation Plus in order to access the content.

Unless there has been a significant patch that has updated the PSN in the past few months that I've missed because I no longer keep mine connected to the internet, I think the difference between the 2 overall is quite big.

There are a variety of online features that the 360 have that the PS3 doesn't offer, it might not matter so much to Americans, however Microsoft offer Sky Go which allows you to watch TV through your 360 console without the need of having another setup box & the required wires from the satellite dish in the room. You also get access to hundreds of TV shows & films through this service that you may have missed or are currently showing on Sky.

Then there are other things such as the UFC, ESPN, Vevo etc.. I'm sure there are others but that's just off the top of my head as they are ones I'd be interested in.

Also you've things like user reputations, you can choose to avoid a player who example was a teamkiller in a shooter, or did stupid things like drive backwards around a track in a racing game etc.

Free games from the PSN or Live for that matter aren't worth talking about. I mean after Sony was hacked I think as compensation for potentially my credit card, name, address etc all being stole they gave me 30 days of that PSN plus which was pretty useless to me & a choice of 1 of 4, 3/4 year old games. Those games offered were arguably the best games I've ever seen going free on either service & I had no interest in any of them.

It's not 1 big thing that separates the 2, it's alot of small things that Live just does better than the PSN IMO.

 

[MessiahDecoy123]

What? The PS4 looks incredible in its own regard, and if you already have a PS3, just keep the thing... It's a moot point, and I'm glad they're not compromising the potential of the PS4 to include the Cell processor for BC reasons. It's really Sony's own fault for spoiling gamers by including PS1 with PS2, but that was really just a bonus, not a necessity.

Well that's all fine and good for current PS3 owners but what about people who skipped the PS3 for whatever reason. That's an entire library we would have access to if we bought a PS4 that was BC.

I don't understand why the PS3 game library won't be available to download on the PS4 at the very least.

I'm sure many people new to Playstation would be happy to pay for the best PS3 games.

 

[Solidus]

I really recommend this. I don't care for these guys usually because they leaned purley to the 360 at times. But they really have some great thoughts on it:

http://www.gametrailers.com/side-mission/47380/epicbattlecry-skirmish-182-it-requires-a-lot-of-drugs

Around 30 minutes into it they start talking the PS4 event.

To me I loved it for one reason. It was bringing back the culture of the PS1. They focused mainly on developers. Like Sony did back with the PS1. If some remember Nintendo was king back then, and they were being very controlling of devs, saying what they could and could not do. Sony invited all of them to be creative, do what they want with ease and low cost and do what you always wanted to do. And what that does is make happy devs=creative thinking=happy gamers.

That was the focus of this, that they want game developers to focus on making games again and not worry about the tech primarily. One thing that bugged me most about this current generation is that focus was mainly on graphics, and bringing it to the HD world. And not as much time as on innovative gameplay, or making AI better ect. To me this event screamed out to devs saying lets make unique games again, let's break the mold and stop making the same type of games again and again (cough COD).

And that is what these guys saw too. It was really about games, and that is the most important thing. With the PS3 and they got hammered for it and was a terrible flaw) was the fact that Ken came out and just talked primarily about the raw horse power of the PS3 and it's Blu-ray. Not much about games or reminding devs that they have the freedom and power to make what they want.

So having said that I think them focusing on games was just great. Ya I would have loved to see the console, but they really needed to show me why I buy these things in the first place, it's because of games.

 

[Soapy]

I'm only going to post this one more time and I'm going to make it big and bold and colorful so everyone reads it. The reason the PS4 is not backwards compatible in the traditional sense is because emulating current gen games would be virtually impossible. Emulation doesn't happen by magic. The necessary specs to accomplish PS3 emulation would simply be way too high and way, way too costly for a mass market consumer electronics device. The other option, in layman's terms, would be to put a PS3 inside of the PS4. This would also be very costly, and it would drastically increase the size, noise level, and heat output of the PS4. None of these negatives are worth the positives of being able to play old games. If you want to continue to play PS3 games, then I would highly suggest you keep your PS3.

 

[Solidus]

Well that's all fine and good for current PS3 owners but what about people who skipped the PS3 for whatever reason. That's an entire library we would have access to if we bought a PS4 that was BC.

I don't understand why the PS3 game library won't be available to download on the PS4 at the very least.

I'm sure many people new to Playstation would be happy to pay for the best PS3 games.

What the hell are you talking about? They said the entire PS1/PS2/PS3 library is going to be available for download through Gaiki with the PS4. That is the huge feature of it!

Just no BC with physical copies of your games.

 

[Nathan]

Well that's all fine and good for current PS3 owners but what about people who skipped the PS3 for whatever reason. That's an entire library we would have access to if we bought a PS4 that was BC.

I don't understand why the PS3 game library won't be available to download on the PS4 at the very least.

I'm sure many people new to Playstation would be happy to pay for the best PS3 games.

That's what Streaming will be for. You get access to the entire library from PS1-3. If someone skipped the PS3, missing out should bother them the least. At least they don't have physical copies or saves that suddenly can't be used on the PS4 anymore.

 

[Solidus]

I'm only going to post this one more time and I'm going to make it big and bold and colorful so everyone reads it. The reason the PS4 is not backwards compatible in the traditional sense is because emulating current gen games would be virtually impossible. Emulation doesn't happen by magic. The necessary specs to accomplish PS3 emulation would simply be way too high and way, way too costly for a mass market consumer electronics device. The other option, in layman's terms, would be to put a PS3 inside of the PS4. This would also be very costly, and it would drastically increase the size, noise level, and heat output of the PS4. None of these negatives are worth the positives of being able to play old games. If you want to continue to play PS3 games, then I would highly suggest you keep your PS3.

Agreed. And or just download the games you want again on Gaiki lol.

 

[StrainedEyes]

Keep in mind they threw in some huge caveats during the conference about if/when PS3 games would be available to stream. It didn't sound like it would be easy or soon.

 

[TX85]

Keep in mind they threw in some huge caveats during the conference about if/when PS3 games would be available to stream. It didn't sound like it would be easy or soon.

Won't they be on cloud?Sounds easy to me perhaps not all games at launch But few selections at first and over the years it be omens the full library from PS1-3

 

[Doc Ock]

Because building and maintaining a faster, more stable, online ecosystem costs money. MS doesn't just charge for the hell of it, and XBL is a better experience as a result.

Also, Sony has seen the kind of cash-flow that MS has been enjoying this entire generation.

There is no guarantee that online play will be free until they say it is.

Yeah, well if both online services are going to cost I may go to the PC...

I'm only going to post this one more time and I'm going to make it big and bold and colorful so everyone reads it. The reason the PS4 is not backwards compatible in the traditional sense is because emulating current gen games would be virtually impossible. Emulation doesn't happen by magic. The necessary specs to accomplish PS3 emulation would simply be way too high and way, way too costly for a mass market consumer electronics device. The other option, in layman's terms, would be to put a PS3 inside of the PS4. This would also be very costly, and it would drastically increase the size, noise level, and heat output of the PS4. None of these negatives are worth the positives of being able to play old games. If you want to continue to play PS3 games, then I would highly suggest you keep your PS3.

I can sense your frustration oozing through!

What the hell are you talking about? They said the entire PS1/PS2/PS3 library is going to be available for download through Gaiki with the PS4. That is the huge feature of it!

Just no BC with physical copies of your games.

Wait? Gaiki can actually download and not just stream? I must of missed that? I don't want to stream games but having the download option would be nice.

 

[B]

First the menu is changing for the PSN, and that is just the case. Additional the "performance" for the PS4 is different now, because the architectural structure is based off of PC no longer the Cell processor which is why there was such problems with transfer of third party games. So the PS4 and the XBOX 3 speak the same language. Second, from the source that has been right about everything so far, the PS4 also is faster, it runs at 1.84 terrabytes while the Xbox 3 only runs at 1.48. So now the graphical difference between them will be none at all, or the PS4 runs slightly faster.

I wasn't comparing the performance between the PS4 & the 720, because it's impossible given that there are no concrete details or comparisons between the 2. You asked me why the 360 was better than the PS3 & performance is one area in which the 360 surpasses the PS3.

In terms of those exclusives you are talking about have nothing to do with games, and if that is important fine, but I buy my console for GAMES, and Sony does much better with that.

I didn't say it had nothing to do with games, but besides the exclusive games that Microsoft has access to it also has access to other exclusive features & things that make it more of an entertainment system than the PS3.

These can no longer be looked at as simply gaming consoles, they are designed to be home entertainment stations.

The current PSN is not "quite" as good as Live, but close. However the new PSN shown with the PS4 is better then the current Live, so many more features, and the cloud technology of Gaiki is just stunning. That and I love I can turn off my console, leave turn it back on and it goes right to the game I was playing and right at the moment I left. With the new designed PSN and all those features, the XBOX Live really does not have much to brag about "right now". They very well may show many more features. PSN as Hippie said does a lot, PSPlus does even more with it just in terms of service. You can say you don't prefer the menu, but it clearly is changing with the PS4. However the PSN ha become much more user friendly over the years. It started out bad, but except for Cross Chat there is not much more that Live does above and beyond. But the New PSN really in terms of features blows it out of the water currently.

Hold on though, you are comparing the PS4's PSN features to the 360's Live features, something I wasn't talking about because it's silly to compare the 2. It's like comparing the 360's Live to the PS2's PSN.

Where they are both at now the PSN for the PS3 & Live for the 360, Live is currently the better service. Anything the PSN does, Live does the exact same thing better & more. As I said in my previous post, it isn't 1 big thing that makes the current Live better than the current PSN, it's alot of small things.

Out of curiosity, do you own a 360 & PS3?

 

[Havok83]

Well that's all fine and good for current PS3 owners but what about people who skipped the PS3 for whatever reason. That's an entire library we would have access to if we bought a PS4 that was BC.

I don't understand why the PS3 game library won't be available to download on the PS4 at the very least.

I'm sure many people new to Playstation would be happy to pay for the best PS3 games.

Those are the type of person that doesn't really matter in this situation. Those people would be happy to pay for the best PS3 games? Luckily those that skipped out on the PS3 this gen will get that opportunity to purchase them for the first time when Sony resells them on PSN (and that's likely going to happen). You aren't missing out on anything. Its those that already have PS3 and built up quite a library who have the most to worry about this as they will likely have to repurchase everything to be able to use them on the system, much like what was done with the PS2 games in the latter half of this gen

What the hell are you talking about? They said the entire PS1/PS2/PS3 library is going to be available for download through Gaiki with the PS4. That is the huge feature of it!

Just no BC with physical copies of your games.

That makes no sense IMO. If the games are downloadable, then why cant physical copies work? I don't see the difference

 

[Solidus]

I'm only going to post this one more time and I'm going to make it big and bold and colorful so everyone reads it. The reason the PS4 is not backwards compatible in the traditional sense is because emulating current gen games would be virtually impossible. Emulation doesn't happen by magic. The necessary specs to accomplish PS3 emulation would simply be way too high and way, way too costly for a mass market consumer electronics device. The other option, in layman's terms, would be to put a PS3 inside of the PS4. This would also be very costly, and it would drastically increase the size, noise level, and heat output of the PS4. None of these negatives are worth the positives of being able to play old games. If you want to continue to play PS3 games, then I would highly suggest you keep your PS3.

To re quote this again I have to say I find it kind of like "wanting your cake and eating it too".

People for years did nothing but complain about the price of the PS3. Now I never minded it because of the factors:

-It had a blu-ray player (by themselves at launch they cost 800 bucks)
-It had wi-fi (which again to buy on the 360 in the first few years cost 150 bucks)
-It had BC pretty much a PS2 and PS1 in it, which again cost quite a bit of money.

Now people say make multiple SKU's and have one with BC? Really that is what made people freak out to begin with. It won't matter about multiple SKU's people will look at the most expensive one and go "no way".

I see now why almost all the critics/podcasts I've listened to say BC is really not that important.

 

[misjuevos]

and you think that stream of old games is gonna be free? probably not. so games i already own i now have to pay for to play them on a ps4. the best part of a new system meant i could "hand me down" my old one to a relative now they are screwed.

the whole hd collections they were selling are gonna come to an end once people hear about this no native support for ps3 games on ps4. we will now be getting ps4 hd collections so save your money and wait for them.

 

[StrainedEyes]

Yeah, Gaiki is specifically for streaming. Which is why they will be able to put older games on it, because it won't matter what hardware you use.

 

[Solidus]

I wasn't comparing the performance between the PS4 & the 720, because it's impossible given that there are no concrete details or comparisons between the 2. You asked me why the 360 was better than the PS3 & performance is one area in which the 360 surpasses the PS3.



I didn't say it had nothing to do with games, but besides the exclusive games that Microsoft has access to it also has access to other exclusive features & things that make it more of an entertainment system than the PS3.

These can no longer be looked at as simply gaming consoles, they are designed to be home entertainment stations.



Hold on though, you are comparing the PS4's PSN features to the 360's Live features, something I wasn't talking about because it's silly to compare the 2. It's like comparing the 360's Live to the PS2's PSN.

Where they are both at now the PSN for the PS3 & Live for the 360, Live is currently the better service. Anything the PSN does, Live does the exact same thing better & more. As I said in my previous post, it isn't 1 big thing that makes the current Live better than the current PSN, it's alot of small things.

Out of curiosity, do you own a 360 & PS3?

Sigh. Again, the source that was 100% right a month before this entire thing and had all the specs for the PS4 has them for the XBOX 3 and those are the specs. Maybe (just maybe) there may be some wrong with it, but very very doubtful, IGN/Kotoku said it is a very very reliable source. So no I will bet that the X3 will be less powerful then the PS4.

But the thing is you said you are going with XBOX 3 again.....well you don't even know if Live 2.0 will be better then PSN 2.0. That is what sparked this whole debate. Right now Sony is showing way way way more it can do with PSN. Maybe Live can match it....maybe surpass it (doubtful without a cloud service) but that's the point. You compared it first to the PS3. You acted like the PSN of hte PS4 was going to be the same as the PS3's so that means you will by an X3 instead.....that is how this got started to to me I'm saying with the facts we have now, that is not a decision you should make right off the bat. You have no idea if Live will be better then PSN 2.0 so that's my whole point.

Do I own an 360/PS3....yes.

I have owned :

NES
SNES
Sega Gensis
Sega Gamegear
Gameboy
PS1
PS2
PS3
Xbox
Xbox 360
Gameboy Color
GBA Advanced
PSP
Gamecube
N64
Wii
WiiU
Sega Dreamcast

And many PC's including some Alienware's back in the day.

I bought all these at launch minus the Gameboy/NES.

So ya....lol I've played a lot. in the past 24 years.

 

[hippie_hunter]

Unless there has been a significant patch that has updated the PSN in the past few months that I've missed because I no longer keep mine connected to the internet, I think the difference between the 2 overall is quite big.

There are a variety of online features that the 360 have that the PS3 doesn't offer, it might not matter so much to Americans, however Microsoft offer Sky Go which allows you to watch TV through your 360 console without the need of having another setup box & the required wires from the satellite dish in the room. You also get access to hundreds of TV shows & films through this service that you may have missed or are currently showing on Sky.

Then there are other things such as the UFC, ESPN, Vevo etc.. I'm sure there are others but that's just off the top of my head as they are ones I'd be interested in.

Also you've things like user reputations, you can choose to avoid a player who example was a teamkiller in a shooter, or did stupid things like drive backwards around a track in a racing game etc.

Half the crap you mentioned doesn't even deal with online gaming. Do you really think that Sony isn't going to try and not get ESPN, Vevo, etc? Already they're expanding with the PS4 with Epix confirmed. I would be shocked and astonished not to see the offerings expand tremendously.

As for the gaming stuff you mention, Sony is already rectifying it with the PS4's PSN.

Free games from the PSN or Live for that matter aren't worth talking about. I mean after Sony was hacked I think as compensation for potentially my credit card, name, address etc all being stole they gave me 30 days of that PSN plus which was pretty useless to me & a choice of 1 of 4, 3/4 year old games. Those games offered were arguably the best games I've ever seen going free on either service & I had no interest in any of them.

It's not 1 big thing that separates the 2, it's alot of small things that Live just does better than the PSN IMO.

They offered a hell of a lot more dude. They also offered up to $1 million in identity theft protection and subscribed services were compensated as well. And do you think that Microsoft is hack proof? No they aren't. Xbox Live has been hacked as well, but unlike Sony, Microsoft refuses to acknowledge it. And unlike the Sony hack, Xbox Live users were affected financially by their accounts getting hacked.

And the free games that PlayStation Plus offers beyond the Welcome Back program have been pretty damn good selections.