Sheikah

Aww. Yet to watch the (quasi) last episode, but I'm sure it'll be pretty sad.

Ah, I saw it as a funny ribbing of Nintendo to explain why they often don't put voice chat in games. :p

Sony shifted a bucket load of consoles very quickly while it was still £80 cheaper. It was advertised in game shops on the high street and people were hungry for the next gen as the previous gen had gone on too long. Not just core gamers who were incensed with MS, but far more people who probably factored that very little. Remastered games on the new consoles were charting number 1 - people were there! Short story, it was selling to far more people than just those incensed by a (revoked) decision made by Microsoft. That price! £350 was a pretty attractive price point for a new piece of powerful kit that could replace your wheezing old PS3 or 360. £430 was pretty insane! Why pay £80 more for a worse machine?

Bolded part - this has never been a point that has been argued here? I never said all consoles would win out purely because they were cheaper. Rather that in all the other examples you have given, there were significant other reasons why those more expensive consoles did better (out 2 years earlier, better software support, Japanese games, DVD drive). Many reasons and big reasons, too. The main argument here is that those sorts of differences aren't present between the PS4/X1, so now cost really does come into play. The initial huge cost difference for what many perceived to be similar products, as well as the marketing, I think had the biggest effect on what happened. I really don't think the DRM debacle reached Joe Public like it did us. You've got to remember that places like NeoGAF are a small and dedicated base of gamers that don't really speak for all gamers, I really doubt most gamers (who make up the FIFA/COD base) even read gaming blogs!

Yeah, to be honest I wasn't really thinking about that at the time. :p From that GIF alone, the combat looks really cool to me. Like KH mixed with a Bladedancer from Destiny.

Never said it just had to be hardware? I am asking you to produce such a hardware or software support difference between Xbox One and PS4, otherwise these past console battles are bad examples. Because what I'm saying is, the general public view the PS4 and X1 as very similar consoles that will both let them play the vast majority of games that they want to play. Their similarity is boosted by the fact they both need paying accounts and both have a gamerscore system. Neither got a head start, so you can't say one is doing better because of that, either. At the end of the day, I'd say PS4's head start (and continued snowball effect, as friends buy the console their friends have) was mainly influenced by its £80 cheaper price (despite delivering the same games), followed by marketing better (for the gamers/no "TV!"), followed by Microsoft's fuck up. I'd throw PS Plus and better hardware somewhere in there, too. I just don't believe that the DRM issue had anywhere near as much impact on most gamers (especially since it was revoked very quickly!) compared to a considerable difference in the amount of cold, hard cash people had to front, which speaks volumes to literally everyone.

What? PS2 had tons of games that never released on the other consoles! It also had a DVD drive, which was a big bloody deal at the time. Xbox had typically terrible Japanese support, and Japanese gaming was very much still king at the time. Xbox One and PS4 have the same sorts of things going. Neither one has vastly more exclusive games that most people want, nor was one released 2 years before the other! Yeah, so the PS1 had more games/third party support, and it went with CDs so the games were cheaper. There's a substantial reason for success - but can you apply such a difference to the X1/PS4 situation? No offence, but you're basically proving my point here. In each of your examples, you're saying the consoles had something about them that differentiated them (e.g. Wii appealed since it had a novel controller method that lots of people liked, even non-gamers, PS1 and also PS2 had more games/support). Again, let's take this back to the X1 and PS4 - can you claim any such massive advantage one of these consoles has over the other? I can't - we can safely say these machines, at least viewed by the general populace, can substitute each other quite well, and neither got a head start. Like Hero says, outside of the gaming world, the DRM and conference is just a blip that I sincerely doubt most people take anywhere near as seriously as us. It's that £80 difference that is the kicker here. And the reason that matters in this case (unlike in past situations) is because many view the consoles as offering roughly the same experience.

'Weaker spec can win' - only applies if the console has something the others don't. Wii had motion controlswhich whipped up a frenzy, PS2 had the early start, exclusive games, early adopters wanting a DVD drive, etc... What does the Xbox One have versus PS4? Most people on here argue a lot that they are basically the same machine. I don't deny, I'm sure a lot of people view it that way too - most tend to have one or the other, with their own online paid accounts and gamerscore/trophies. They are really both vying for the same space, especially since a lot of the biggest selling games (Assassin's Creed, COD, FIFA, Destiny) release on both systems. Sure exclusives can do something, but they're clearly not as big a deal these days. Or at least not right now, since most of them aren't here yet. So when these similalrly targeting machines release at exactly the same time, same sort of architecture (although one more powerful/pulling off better resolutions)... but one is £80 more expensive. Even if it had bad policies, they were dropped, and no doubt they had an effect but for the general populace I sincerely doubt it had anywhere near the impact as the price difference that remained in effect. Think about the average, less informed gamer (bear in mind that FIFA and COD sell shitloads; think about your average gamer who buys those games). Do you really think the DRM (which had since been dropped) was causing them to froth in disgust, or do you think the £80 difference is going to mean more?

Very poor comparison, there are many reasons why the PS2 took over and none of which really have any bearing on two consoles released simultaneously with similar gaming libraries like in the case here.

The biggest issue was the price, without doubt, which was all down to the Kinect. At £80 more than the technically superior PS4, it was borderline ridiculous pricing considering most people didn't really care much for Kinect anymore. Most people aren't going to pay £80 more for a lower spec console that plays many of the same games the other one does. As shown by what they actually did, they could drop the DRM policies in a heartbeat. It definitely hurt their image, but at least they could turn that around easily (plus there are many people who, unlike us forumers, just aren't as aware of bothered about DRM stuff). Not so with the price - they either couldn't or just didn't drop the Kinect when it released, meaning the console was £80 more expensive, meaning it was a bit of a no brainer for many really.

It's odd, both the Wii U and X1 have a lot to blame on a peripheral here. Hopefully this is a message to console developers to make these sort of gimmicky peripherals optional in future...and stick to quality gaming.

Sorry, I don't think I did the best job explaining it. You probably know some of this already, but I'll put it all down for whoever else it might help. There are 2 main things you earn points towards regarding factions (including Vanguard/Crucible) - reputation and marks. Normally doing Vanguard bounties and patrol missions gives you Vanguard reputation. Vanguard strikes and public events give you Vanguard marks, as does turning in materials like spinmetals to the Vanguard vendor. Doing Crucible bounties gives you crucible reputation, and playing Crucible gives you Crucible marks, as does turning in materials like spinmetals to the Crucible vendor. If you purchase a faction class item and equip it, all reputation (and only reputation) earned will go to ranking up that particular faction. So Vanguard reputation becomes faction reputation, and so does Crucible reputation. There's good and bad to this. The good is that you can rank up the faction's reputation quicker since you're pooling both Vanguard and Crucible reputation into one thing. The other good thing is that you can pick the faction that has the gear and weapons you want (with the stats you want, too, e.g. Discipline/INT). The bad is that the faction vendors deal ONLY in Crucible marks. So any Vanguard marks you get from doing Vanguard strikes, public events, and material turn ins (to the Vanguard vendor) still accumulate Vanguard marks but have no use in purchasing faction gear; the only thing you can use to buy faction gear is Crucible marks. The vendors also have less stuff for sale than you could get from the couple of vendors that deal with both Crucible and Vanguard weapons/armour. So to summarise: Pros of factions - Pick the gear with stats you want - Rank up quicker to get access to gear/weapons quicker Cons of factions - More limited selection - Can only spend Crucible marks - if you want Faction only gear, you're not going to get it all in a week. I would be up for starting the Raid today. Might be going out later for a meal between maybe 6:30 - 7:30 or so, but should be free after that.

To be fair, I think that's kind of what it should have released at (and not have gone with Kinect). I think they would have done well to sell it for that. Hopefully the bundles will update since quite a few deals are selling consoles for around 330-350 with a game already.

So I just found out from reviews of the tech demo that there's a lot more buttons involved: The access to one spell is just in the demo.

The gameplay in traditional KH is mostly one button, anyway, with occasional D pad use to move through a menu and X to select something like a healing item. The actual combat is pretty much one button, aside from shortcuts you can assign later, but it's by no means boring. There's obviously going to be deep levels of customisation involved - a single button can't differentiate between every type of spell there is in the game. Technically, once you'd set FFXII up, there was no need to press any buttons at all, but the gambit customisation was a wet dream for those into strategy and customisation.

Yup, loot drops are a bonus, factions are the main means of getting gear.

Goodbye then. Genuinely amused how someone can play through the mindless gameplay of a Dynasty Warriors reskin yet dismiss this, despite it looking very much awesome so far. Then again, it's not on a Nintendo console...

It's funny, you have to make up events that haven't happened to insult me. To insult yourself, all you have to do is post.

They definitely need more variation in bounties, I keep seeing the same ones or the same sort of ones. The kill 2 enemies with one round of the fusion rifle 20 times is a particularly boring one, as is killing 3 enemies with a super 20 times. Some of the levels like Mars are really boring for doing patrol bounties, too.

Thing is, most of the good Indie titles on Vita are also available on Sony's other consoles at a higher quality (or soon to be for other exclusive titles like Tearaway). Just seems a bit pointless for that price, really. There's just very little exclusive must have stuff coming to Vita these days.

Funny, 'get down on your knees and pray' was pretty much the advice I was going to proffer, too. :p

Yeah I meant more that I spent the time getting that faction to rank 2 and blowing a load of marks on their armour. Not eager to do that again with another faction. They're apparently fixing it though, so hopefully a patch will be on the way before too long (think Tuesday might be their patch day).

Interesting small study on what comes out of each kind of engram (290 green engrams, 250 blue engrams and 55 purple engrams assessed): Green Engrams White/Basic: 68 (23.45%) Green/Uncommon: 201 (69.31%) Blue/Rare: 21 (7.24%) Purple/Legendary: 0 Yellow/Exotic: 0 Blue Engrams White: 0 Green: 53 (21.2%) Blue: 186 (74.4%) Purple: 11 (4.4%) Yellow: 0 Purple Engrams White: 0 Green: 2 (3.64%) Blue: 33 (60%) Purple: 19 (34.55%) Yellow: 1 (1.82%) Seems like they were just unlucky with getting exotics out of purples, maybe.

£84.99? Bit of a rip off, there.

It seems anyone accompanying me, however brief, will stumble upon a legendary sniper rifle. *pats warlock helmets*