Crowbar Man

European WIi U VC version of F-Zero has a 60Hz option (though some reports show its just the US version), looks like Nintendo took notice of everybody's complaints. Lets hope they continue this for our PAL friends!

Consoles are still the go to for unique control input though. The only reason PC games started supporting controllers last gen was because the cross development tools offered by Microsoft/Sony to both lure PC devs over (and in MS's case, also to lure console devs over to Windows platform). It became cheaper to include controller (well, 360 controller) support in the engine so it didn't need to be retooled. However, without consoles this whole controller support thing would of never caught on. Before last gen, barely any PC games supported controllers. And even still, most of the PC games that support controllers are cross platform console games and not really "PC" games in origin However you still have a wide range of unique inputs you probably wont see supported by many games on PC. Better/more support for controllers/features (ie Touch pads/screens, speaker output, dual screens, companion apps, etc). And even though I don't particular care for either: Motion controls and Kinect style is still pretty exclusive to consoles. These are possible on a PC too but you wont see anybody developing games for the PC like that. Even your example with N64's analog stick: Analog was available on the PC too, the devs there just limited it flight sticks, because flight games sold on PC. Platformers didn't (and still don't). Gyros were in PC controllers years before the motion craze hit consoles, but PC devs didn't do anything with it. The PC has unlimited possibilities, but if nobody DOES anything with it, then whats the use? Any tech can be used on the PC but its usually consoles that make it popular. PC users and devs are too satisfied with KB/Mouse. If a game can't be mapped to a KB/Mouse, it will probably not be ported, and even if it was, probably wouldn't sell. Console devs (especiallly Nintendo) specialize in doing something different in a hardware idea AND having developers to continuously write software to drive it. I've said this before: A lot of PC games now ONLY support the 360 controller (Don't like 360 controller? Have to use emu), or no controller at all (no choice but to use alternate programs like Joy2Key/Xpadder/MotioninJoy). Sometimes this is your only option on the PC. This isn't a problem on consoles. Your computer must be pretty magical to be differentEDIT/Update: Oh no guys, currently it has confirmed that the PS4 will not read CDs might as well forget about it [/sarcasm]

Are we really complaining about not supporting 4K? No console this generation is going to bother with that Consoles barely supported 720p or Anti Aliasing last generation (some of the AAA titles were sub-720p and/or no Anti Aliasing), and still produced some amazing games/visuals. Heck, Wii with 480p produced some amazing games/visuals. You don't need 4K to have a good game. You know what you might need? Lots of RAM. Covered. A powerful easy to develop for CPU. Covered. Multiple types of input for interaction. Covered. This statement is completely false. 360 had a max resolution of 720p when it came out. It was only a firmware update released after the PS3 came out that they added the 1080p option, and that is mostly just to upscale, not native. Only maybe a handful of very low demanding PS3/360 games support 1080p naively (less than 1%). Most of the PS3/360 library are native 720p, with a lot of the AAA titles sub 720p (upscaled to 720/1080). A quarter of 256MB/512MB is still pretty small compared to a PCs OS. And you do realize that shrinks the available RAM they had to work with right? As far as I'm aware, this happened a few generations ago. PCs have been consistently the leading platform for graphics for over a decade now. I'm a big console fan, but anybody who expects consoles to look better than a high end PC has obviously lived under a rock for quite some time (since 3D video cards came out, in fact) They produce amazing things for the money, but high end they are not. Well, exclusives are the number one reason to get a console! If you can play a game elsewhere, why would anybody bother? By the way, neither are exclusive to Sony/PlayStation anymore Well, I'm hoping for good games on ANY platform (and a dev friendly CPU is always great) but just so you know: PS2 was a nightmare to dev for. Sheer brand popularity (both fans and devs) creating a large installed base almost completely uncontested for over a year is the only reason it got good games. Not because it was good hardware or easy to dev for. (It was crap hardware that was hard to work with :/)

Dumping a game yourself you legally own isn't piracy though.

The Genesis/Mega Drive was backward compatible, but did require an adapter to switch it into Master System mode (the hardware for compatibility was built into the Genesis' design ie: Master System's Z80 was the sound CPU of the Genesis, the adapter itself didn't do much). It was sold Separately though, quickly discontinued and forgotten in time. Interestingly enough, it looks like the Saturn could of been backwards compatible at some point in its design, with the Genesis' Motorola 68000 being used as a sound CPU in the Saturn, and a largely unused cartridge slot, but for some reason they never pursued this. The Atari 7800 did offer compatibility with the 2600 (not the 5200 though, so not really backwards) but that was mostly because all its major competitors were ALSO offering compatibility with the 2600. That is a very unique situation Either way I wouldn't consider the Atari 7800 or the Genesis "modern" consoles. But no, Sony wasn't technically the first, just the most popular to do it.

The DS has had a terrible time fighting off moddding/piracy and Nintendo has been actively shutting down and getting goverment involvment with shutting down sellers of the flash cards. They've also modified their firmware/games/hardware here and there to try to be incompatible with flash cards, while the flash card manufacturers have to release firmware / hardware updates to bypass these In the end, its still pretty easy to just buy a flash card and homebrew/pirate away. Yet, DS remained the popular system. Piracy is just an easy scapegoat, it never effects sales in reality. People who buy games buy them. People who don't, wont. Nintendo has attempted to patch out exploits (but doing a bad job) multiple times on the Wii. They've actively warned users against modding the Wii in the message board during updates. They also patched out the one exploit on the DSi (which now remains unexploited,). 3DS has yet to be hacked, but if/when it is you can be sure they will actively patch it. Since the Xbox 1 was hacked to the moon and back (which MS tried to fight with patches), the Xbox 360 was built completely secure both in hardware and in software to prevent it from being exploited. It has had only had one software exploit early in its life cycle which was patched out. Nobody has been able to hack it outside of hardware modifications or DVD firmware hacks, which even that is a constant battle with patches and firmware updates. Any of this will get your console banned if detected, and getting banned even temporarily removed features from the console at one point (MS has since given these features back in a firmware update) and leaves your HDD's save files in an unusable state on any other console. Seems odd to just single Sony out in the cat and mouse patching game to me. Sony's huge mistake was trying to sue one of the popular homebrew modders that released some of their keys on the PS3. THAT was definately not a good PR move (and caused the whole hacking fiasco). You should never take Linux away from people who are way better at writing software than you are But either way, none of the big three embrace the homebrew community or the modding/pirate community (for obvious reasons). All of them have, and will continue to try to fight it off. Sony is just both arrogant and incompetent about it Now, why did the PSP have a rough time starting? Battery Life. Hardware Cost. Slow loading times. Developers didn't want to spend money making a console quality game if they couldn't charge console quality premium, so the library was pretty small Reliance on 3rd party software when they don't have a large audience to lure 3rd parties in. The DS had a familiar architecture shared with the GBA, where PSP you had to start from scratch with dev tools. The DS brought new things to the table (touch screen, mic, even the folding of the system was used in games), where the PSP was just "Woah Graphics!" Nintendo was also still the undisputed king of handhelds at the time, and typically took down any competitors with ease. The fact Sony didn't drop out of the race INSTANTLY is still amazing. Its silly to just go "OH IT WAS MODDERS/PIRACY!" when they all have that issue. When did the PSP start picking up? Sony kept pushing it. Price started dropping. Cost of game development for a PS2-level quality game was becoming less and less expensive. Sony started releasing PSP<->PS2 tools so hey if all else fails you can port your PSP game to PS2. And now to even PS3. DS started showing its limitations more and more and people wanted something more after a while. 3rd party companies started making games worth while to play on it. etc etc

I updated the first post with a few tidbits: It is confirmed it does use BluRay (X6) and DVD (X8 ) as forms of media. It is confirmed it does support PS Move It is confirmed it does NOT support DS3 :/ The 3D Camera Sensor has been named PlayStation 4 Eye, twin 1280×800px cameras that can either be used together for depth sensing (Kinect style) or one for video recording while the other is used for motion tracking (Eye/Move style). Some of my ramblings, can probably be ignored: The PS3 ran for 6+ years on 256MB RAM (and 256MB Video). This ram is also GDDR5, which is not exactly cheap. a 16x-32x increase in RAM is pretty significant. These models were not 100% software, only the EE was emulated the european models. The GS was still included in the hardware. Even trying to emulate the EE caused a drop in compatibility, emulating the GS too would of simply not been possible without doing it on a per game basis like 360, and Sony didn't want to bother without compensation. Hence the HD rereleases and the new PS2 PSN releases! PC is just one venue for those who play videogames. It is a very good avenue admittedly and one I take if a game is on it, but it is not for everybody and some people don't like limiting themselves to a single venue of gaming Every company (Nintendo, Microsoft) prevents modding. Not just Sony. Don't act like this is a Sony exclusive thing. And modding didn't kill off the PSP. The Nintendo DS was just as pirateable/modable, and it still sold software like hotcakes. Uhhh I dont think anything is going to really handle fan PS3 emulation anytime soon. Not even the highest end PCs (which can barely handle PS2/GC/Wii), and definately not a PS4. Only early models (included in the hardware). It was removed in later models for cost saving measure. See my previous posts. 360 did have BC. High Level Emulation, where they tweaked emulation on a per game basis since there was no way to really fully emulate the Xbox 1 on the 360. It was a very small library that grew, but never completed, and a lot of it was buggy. They still sell the ones that worked the best digitally on Xbox Live. Keep in mind, Sony last gen touted backwards compatibility as a part of the PlayStation heritage, since they were the first major modern console (not handheld) vendor to do it. Then when it didn't suit them anymore, they've pulled the plug. Repeating: I do not expect the next Xbox to be BC either. It is just something to get over at this point. Keep your PS3, unless you want to do that PlayStation Cloud streaming nonsense.

I was a little miffed they didn't show the unit actually. This whole "Conference to just talk about what might be on the system and just show the controller" is also a strange Wii U parallel ha!

Er no. Dreamcast was great from the get go from a gaming standpoint, then died because Sega bailed out due to financial issues and the insanely stupid popularity of PS2. I don't see the parallel. PSP/PS3 started out abysmal then improved dramatically over the years. They are selling now more than ever, and have lots of games actually worth playing now. Also FYI: PS2 was a terrible console design wise. Impossible to develop for, Sony lied about the specs, etc. (Sound familiar?) The only reason it had good games was because the PlayStation brand was so popular, you kind of HAD to make games on it. (Dreamcast's low adoption rate/death, GC/Xbox were a few years late) PS4 is breaking the tradition of "Badly designed console" Sony started with PS2, at least on paper. We will have to see what devs say. Its hard to imagine basically common PC parts giving anybody issues though If you want something thats "Good from the start", most consoles start off kinda iffy. Its good to wait a year or so before their library turns up anything worth buying. Early adopting will usually leave you with crap You have no idea how PS4 will be at launch, so I'm not sure what your going on about. Wii U is the ONLY "next gen" sytem out, and its unfortunately having its own share of issues.

Or you could just you know... not invite people to spectate. PS3 had a custom architecture (Cell processor) that was notorious for being hard to develop for, along with a split RAM setup with only 256MB for main/system. PS4 has x86-64 processor (which people have been developing on x86 for decades), and 8GB of Unified RAM. You have to see the major difference between those. Its pretty huge Both MS and Sony have anti-consumer patents on blocking used games, doesn't mean either will use them this gen. Unless they officially state that, there is no reason to get upset about something that isn't factual. From your whole Master PC Race spiel you usually go off into, this is no surprise. Zircon: I can agree with most of what you said but this sticks out: 95% of the time if the game is on both consoles, the 360 version runs better. The 360 also generally had a far superior system software and online setup. Sony has graduatlly improved to the point where things are much more usable now, and continue to improve (PS Plus also is really great) but I wouldn't say their online offering is still quite as good as 360. I do think its incredibly idiotic that you can't use pay for services on Silver though Over 360 started out fantastic and booming. MS has just kinda left it stagnate and stopped caring about exclusives for some reason. It is rather odd, but that is what competition is all about.

I personally think some of the ideas of video sharing are kinda neat. Overall the only super interesting thing really shown off to me was whatever the heck Media Molecule made. That looks crazy. Without a price though, it is hard to judge. Since Wii U is crazy expensive, I doubt we are getting away anything less than around $450 for a basic model. I doubt we will get that lucky too Also hard to get excited for anything Sony claims is "real time", because they are classic liars about everything, every time they get ready to release a new console. Lack of BC: When the architecture is completely changed, you only have two choices: Put some of the old hardware in (Expensive, Sony cut the PS2 chips out of PS3 because of this, I doubt PS3 chips are cheap) Emulate (Takes ton of effort, lots of horse power, can get mixed results, see Xbox 1 games on 360 (small library that slowly expanded, never got the full library, lots of bugs, etc)) If the rumors about Xbox 8/Infinity/720/Durango specs are true, Microsoft is also taking the x86-64 route instead of PPC. Which means 720/Durango will either not have any BC, or have to go the emu route like Xbox -> 360, meaning small library and possibly poor results. I doubt they will do that if Sony isn't bothering at all. The only reason they did it on the 360 is because Sony always used BC as a selling point Wii U will probably be the only BC compatible console this gen On the flip side, PS5 and Xbox 1080/9/Infinity+1/"Whatever" will possibly be easily BC if they keep the x86-64 + common PC GPU thing going. NEXT NEXT GEN!!!111 The Damned: They did not mention used games. They didn't mention anything about its Media format at all for the matter, which is curious. Maybe since there is no brand new media format to sell they are down playing its importance. Or worse: There isn't any :/ I doubt that though

Yeah I'm not too crazy about cloud streaming services. Theres no way its lagless and its never "yours" in any stretch of imagination. Gotta keep your PS3 around I guess. They didn't mention anything about pricing on this cloud service, whether it be a per title thing or an "all you can eat" type subscription thing.

**8/22** I'll update this sometime but for now I'll just use the image Brandon posted: ** UPDATED 2/21 ** Sony had a giant press conference today, where their next gen console has been officially announced as "PlayStation 4". Honestly, not a lot of stuff was shown off of the hardware, mostly talks about services and functionality, and some previews of upcoming games/tech demos This is what has been said so far: Known Specs: Designed to be completely developer friendly AMD 8 Core "Jaguar" x86-64 CPU 8GB GDDR5 RAM Custom AMD Radeon "Enhanced PC GPU" Internal Hard Drive *Rumored to both be provided by AMD, but not officially revealed Controller: Dual Shock 4 Same features as DS3 plus: Redesigned Dpad/Analog Sticks Touch pad (like the Vita's underside) on the front of the controller Headphone Communication Jack on the bottom (think WiiU/360) Dedicated "Share" Button Light Strip (like the Move bulb, for both player identification and motion tracking) There appears to be a speaker on the controller too but I don't think Sony mentioned much of it Triggers are proper triggers PlayStation 4 Eye Twin 1280×800 camera sensors, used together for depth sensing (like the Kinect) or one for video recording while the other one does motion tracking (PlayStation Eye style) Live Video Streaming Services: The console has dedicated hardware for live video streaming. You can hit the share button and stream your experiences to your friends or the entire world (Ustream). Spectate: Along with being able to watch you play games, you can have the audience interact with you, from cheering you on, dropping items, to even switching places if your stuck in a part and giving them control No PS3 Compatibility: Sadly PS4 will not offer BC for PS3 in any physical form. However, instead: PlayStation Cloud: Sony is planning on offering, somehow, some portion of the PlayStation library past (all the way to PS1) and present in a streaming service they are calling PlayStation Cloud (Powered by GaiKai). This service will be offered on PS4, but will spread to other devices as well. No details given yet Social Gaming: Sony will have a dedicated social gaming networking service (similar to what Nintendo is doing with Wii U). Share your screenshots, videos, etc. Also interacts with other social media. They are planning on having mobile apps to interact with this service PS4 Remote Play: You can use the Vita to play PS4 games anywhere in your household (Similar to Wii U Off TV mode) Suspend Mode: PS4 can go into low power suspend mode instead of shutting off completely, letting you instantly resume your game instead of booting the console from scratch Preview Games: Powerd by GaiKai, you can preview games before you buy them Background Downloading Service / Download While You Play: PS4 has dedicated hardware to handle downloading software in the background, this includes even downloading a portion of a new game and being able to play it while it is still downloading Move Compatibility: Confirmed that PS Move is compatible on the PS4, much like Wiimotes work on the Wii U (HMMMM) It is confirmed that Dual Shock 3 is NOT compatible with PS4 :/ CONSOLE: NOT SHOWN MEDIA: 6X BluRay, 8X DVD. (Apparently no CD) Connectivity: 10/100/1000 Ethernet, 802.11 b/g/n Wireless, Bluetooth 2.1, USB 3.0 Output: HDMI AV-Out Optical Resolution: Supports up to 4K resolution (Games will not be native 4K, only pictures/video.) PRICE: ?????? RELEASE: TBA HOLIDAY 2013 GAMES/TECH DEMO: Unreal Engine 4 Tech Demo (claimed it was in real time, but looks exactly like the trailer we've seen, and no interaction done) Evolution Studio - Drive Club Suckerpunch - inFamous Second Son Johnathan Blow (Braid) - The Witness Capcom - Deep Down - Running on their new Panta Rhei Engine, looks kinda like Monster Hunter + Dark/Demon Souls Media Molecule - Unnamed Project.. some 3D sculpting / animation / "Dream Making" thing. Looks interesting! Quantic Dreams - uhhh old man head tech demo (There is always one of these!) Square Enix - "Will have news of a Final Fantasy announcement later this year" showed off their new engine again (old trailer) Ubisoft - Watch Dogs Blizzard - Diablo III ( ... ) Bungie - Destiny (MMO FPS) More TBA

Ubisoft Delay: This is really stupid to delay the Wii U version to finish the 360/PS3 version, and as everybody pointed out it pushes it into a poor time slot where there are other popular games coming out. However, I'm not really bothered by the fact it IS on 360/PS3. In fact, they were kinda shy to call it a Wii U exclusive in the first place, stating a few times they were considering it on multiple platforms, before stupidly saying later it was a Wii U exclusive (clearly they changed their minds again). But regarless of that, the Wii U version is going to be the only version with the screen support obviously. There is still reason to get the Wii U version over the others. (Unless they add SmartGlass/Vita support? I doubt it). Brandon: Sadly, we will probably never see a Mother/Earthbound product released/rereleased outside of Japan.

Also I'd like to throw in that Steam does have an Offline mode that supports a large amount of their library. Steam does not require an internet connection to stay active to continue playing ANY games that I am aware of. Steam is also not the only way to get games on the PC, where consoles have pretty much only one (approved) way to get content to them. This is the same rumor that PS4/"Orbis" has too keep in mind, so its not just a 720/8/Infinity/"Durango" issue. I'd take these rumors with a grain of salt. I do not think this generation is ready for quite such a leap, but this is definitely the direction to expect consoles to go in the future unfortunately if big corporations get their way as usual I do however think we will definitely see more DLC/Online Mode one time vouchers included in games that make used games less attractive for customers, to get people used to the notion that used games aren't worth it. GameStop just needs to stop their highway robbery with used game prices and set them at a respectable price and it will all work out.

Happy Birthday!

Interesting instead of doing the lazy HD update thing everybody does, Nintendo is going a little further. Wonder if any other games will get this treatment? I'm excited to see how the Wind Waker remake turns out. The only thing I think that kinda is a bummer is it looks less cel shaded than the original rather than improved cel shading. The whole "out of order dungeon" thing ironically sounds like the very first Zelda, which could make an interesting modern 3D remake. Wonder if they going to go that route at all, or if they are leaning more towards the "open world" style that is all the rage these days Looks like this years E3 will be rather interesting, with Nintendo showing off lots of Wii U games, and possible PS4/Orbis and Xbox 720/Infinity/8/Durango rumored to be popping their heads up.

I could be very wrong, but I think a goal here is to have a "hardware specification" that developers can expect to develop on and optimize for, much like a console. With "PC" (Windows/Mac/Linux) you have a wide variety of variables when it comes to hardware configurations and an OS (which can range in size/power) to get in the way, along with other programs (or worse, malware) in user space competing for shared power. This is just a box / OS that plays games (like a console!). Unfortunately, using PC components is still going to create a bottleneck compared to dedicated hardware that can be put in a console. But given the power of even your lowest end PC hardware has these days that bottleneck isn't as large as it used to be once upon a time, and console manufacturers are starting to use more "PC-like" components anyways

Well unfortunately it looks like we shouldn't expect this device to be in a lower price range. nVidia have said they plan on selling this at decent profit, which makes sense since it is not going to be making nVidia any money through game sales (Google Play / Steam doesn't make them any money, I doubt Tegra Zone is a big income earner, and they don't make games themselves). If it is really expensive though, it wont really have too much of an audience. We'll see when the final price is revealed

So, nVidia just announced a portable kinda all in one gaming device they are calling "nVidia Sheild" The device itself is an Android powered device with their brand new next generation mobile SoC: Tegra 4 (4 CPU cores, 72 GPU cores. This is 6x the GPU cores that Tegra 3 had). As pictured, its basically a controller with a foldable 5 inch 720p multitouch screen attached as well. It can play games on both the screen itself and on your television set via multiple planned methods (wired/wireless) Another feature is the ability to locally stream PC games to it (if you have a compatible GeForce video card in your PC). Kind of like a Wii U GamePad for your PC, you can play your PC games anywhere in your house. As an extra bonus, you can even stream them to your TV! It can play any game from Google Play, nVidia's own Tegra Zone, and even has Steam support! Seems pretty spiffy, but no information on price or release

Alright so progress report on the Wii U: Apparently worse off then originally anticipated. Black Ops 2 and Darksiders 2 are doing the same "less than 720p but upscaled to HD" as the other versions. Worse the Wii U version of BO2 has terrible FPS issues instead of increased FPS as expected for new hardware even if they kept the resolution tricks the same. Mass Effect 3 (native 720p on all consoles) performs much better than the PS3 version but sometimes hiccups compared to the 360 version. Batman AC is the only ported game to improve visuals (native 720p on all consoles, but Wii U has FXAA, 360/PS3 have none) but has some strange performance issues and seems very unpolished. One of the main issues it seems is the Wii U's CPU looks like it is basically an overclocked (1.25 Ghz) / modified Wii CPU turned triple core (which the Wii's CPU was an over clocked / modified GameCube CPU) . Its GPU seems just fine for current gen games (and has enough left over to handle the 2nd screen) but the CPU seems to be a bottleneck. Now these are all probably very quick ports for a quick cash grab on the Wii U launch, and situation could improve later. But its never fun to see something stumble out of the gate. This happened with PS3, and PS3 ports on average still under perform visually and performance wise. So the whole "Well 3rd party games will look better on Wii U" seems like that is out the window until devs get more familiar with it the hardware. (If they bother :/) Now on the flip side: Nintendo's games look great! I can't wait until they make more of them, as that is the real reason to buy any Nintendo console anyways. I'd like to see something use the style used in Nintendo Land as a full game instead of a minigame collection. Also, while it doesn't change the Wii's native resolution, the Wii U does apparently upscale Wii games to 720p/1080p (on top of the option benefit of running Wii games though HDMI) giving slightly sharper image than most HDTVs can give trying to do the upscale themselves.

Sync ASAP if you haven't already!

A colored port/remake of the Virtual Boy Wario Land would make a lot of sense for the 3DS. That game is awesome, but .. its on the VB. I'd settle for a Virtual Console release but remake would be nicer /offtopic One of those were made recently. Unfortunately. Hopefully better luck next time :/ A new Prime on the U should look rather nice if they decide to get Retro back involved. They could do it dual stick or wiimote style (like the 3 or the trilogy ports). Id imagine they'd come up with stuff easily to do with the GamePad A new 2D or 2.5D Metroid game would be even better but I don't see that happening.

lol, I thought about posting that comic, Thanks!