LONG BLOG
For The Most Part, I'm Burned Out
I am not excited about the next generation of consoles. This is not just some Microsoft hate spiel because of their dreadfully boring conference. On the flip side, I will not be licking Sony's boots either because they have just as much crap going for them in my eyes. Nintendo looks nice but their archaic business is beginning to wear more than just a little bit thin. With all of this news of new consoles and games, I'm completely underwhelmed and I hold no enthusiasm towards the immediate future.
The main problem I have right now is the lack of worthwhile games. I've seen hardly anything tangible beyond shiny trailers and a physics demo from either side. Okay that is not entirely fair to Knack, but I really just can't care for what that game showed me. Infamous: Second Son was a CG trailer featuring a character so edgy the video could have cut if I got in too close. First Person Shooters are not exciting, Diablo III is not a very good game, and that's all of what I can remember from the Playstation conference. That is pretty telling of the system and possibly the industry as a whole. There's a lot there, but there is nothing substantial behind it. The "Let's dazzle them and hope for the best" approach, can not be your main tactic when you are dropping a new console you want people to be interested in.
And then there is Microsoft and its complete misunderstanding about how to treat its audience. Sales wise, I can see the potential of casting a wider net, but strictly speaking people who buy consoles out of the gate are those who play games because it is something they love. When you fail to present even an inkling of care for that market, you can not hope to achieve much, if any success. Oh that game they showed, Quantum Break. I don't have much to say about since it was as generic of a trailer as one could produce. The exceptionally part about it though, is that they somehow managed to not say anything about the game at all. This is the problem with all CG trailers, you can not discern anything from them gameplay wise and might just be fancy movies. If you do not have anything nice to show me, then do not show me anything at all. Also, Multi-platform games and timed exclusives are not a reason for someone to buy a console. They're not reasons at all.
And on the Wii U side? All I see before me is an empty ever-spanning desert with mirages dancing in the distance. At least they could be mirages, they could be real. I've given up on this endless trek through this dreadful wasteland and wait only for the pain to stop. I've made this journey, twice before in fact, but never has it felt so lonely. Sure, there are others here despite my outlook, but they are all far more enthusiastic than I. Their hope remains with them, my faded hope goes to them, I shall waste away here.
The unnecessary things about each console are also a major problem, mainly because they treat the basic components of a gaming experience as a problem that needs to be solved. Controllers are the ultimate form of control. They are exceptionally accurate, they are not tiresome, and they are best means to get things done. Taking away the controller or treating it like it is holding gaming back is silly at best. It would be no different if most major PC hardware producers all of sudden ditched keyboards and mice and boasted motion control and speech typing as "superior".
The user interface for both consoles are nothing to write home about and seem cluttered, drowning in social madness. They both also employ the design over practicality way of thinking. "All we have to do is make sure it's a big square with a bunch of little squares and pictures, who cares they can navigate it smoothly or quickly find what they want?" Microsoft has pretty much circumvented this problem by allowing for voice commands to quickly jump to and from various sections. The problem lies in the voice however as nothing can stop your dick of a brother, who sounds just like you, from saying Xbox TV while you are in the middle of a boss fight in a game. They said it can read different voices, but I hold doubts it is as "stable" as they present it to be. All of this mess is just so staggering and off putting that I can't see how anyone could get behind any of the next generation of consoles at this point. But that's not all! There are a host of other concerns including but not necessarily limited to:
Why is there a share button. (So your friends can watch what you're doing.)
Why is there a touch control pad. (Because INNOVATION!!)
Why do you want me to be on Facebook and Twitter so badly. (Word of mouth. Free Advertisement.)
Why is there lag on the main selling point of the system? (What? We fixed that already.)
Why do I need to install games now?(Because we're trying to enhance your experience.)
Can I buy used games without having to worry about additional fees later? (Haha. No.)
Is it backwards compatible? (What? This is our first console!) or (This new console is so advanced, it can't play games from last generation.)
How many exclusives will be on the system? (TONS!!)
Can I at least see some of them? (Not yet, we're working really hard on them, but i promise they're awesome.)
I'm just going to stick to my PC and be done with it. Exclusives that may be good can wait and most are hardly worth being excited for anymore, if they ever were. Multi-platform titles have had far less shit PC ports in recent years. Factoring in the potential cost of the new consoles from Sony and Microsoft, I can get by with my current rig and probably only have to spend two or maybe three hundred dollars to upgrade to surpass a console generation that isn't even wholly publicly available for purchase yet. That is what I call sad.
It's sad for a lot reasons, but mainly because at the end of the day, we as a consumer and we as a game playing culture lose. We lose to charts and graphs, to number projections, and to men in impeccably sharp suits. Nothing was gained, everything was lost.
...Okay it's not that bad, but it's still pretty disheartening to see the industry making moves like this.
elric6 
Asterion 1
The main problem I have right now is the lack of worthwhile games. I've seen hardly anything tangible beyond shiny trailers and a physics demo from either side. Okay that is not entirely fair to Knack, but I really just can't care for what that game showed me. Infamous: Second Son was a CG trailer featuring a character so edgy the video could have cut if I got in too close. First Person Shooters are not exciting, Diablo III is not a very good game, and that's all of what I can remember from the Playstation conference. That is pretty telling of the system and possibly the industry as a whole. There's a lot there, but there is nothing substantial behind it. The "Let's dazzle them and hope for the best" approach, can not be your main tactic when you are dropping a new console you want people to be interested in.
And then there is Microsoft and its complete misunderstanding about how to treat its audience. Sales wise, I can see the potential of casting a wider net, but strictly speaking people who buy consoles out of the gate are those who play games because it is something they love. When you fail to present even an inkling of care for that market, you can not hope to achieve much, if any success. Oh that game they showed, Quantum Break. I don't have much to say about since it was as generic of a trailer as one could produce. The exceptionally part about it though, is that they somehow managed to not say anything about the game at all. This is the problem with all CG trailers, you can not discern anything from them gameplay wise and might just be fancy movies. If you do not have anything nice to show me, then do not show me anything at all. Also, Multi-platform games and timed exclusives are not a reason for someone to buy a console. They're not reasons at all.
And on the Wii U side? All I see before me is an empty ever-spanning desert with mirages dancing in the distance. At least they could be mirages, they could be real. I've given up on this endless trek through this dreadful wasteland and wait only for the pain to stop. I've made this journey, twice before in fact, but never has it felt so lonely. Sure, there are others here despite my outlook, but they are all far more enthusiastic than I. Their hope remains with them, my faded hope goes to them, I shall waste away here.
The unnecessary things about each console are also a major problem, mainly because they treat the basic components of a gaming experience as a problem that needs to be solved. Controllers are the ultimate form of control. They are exceptionally accurate, they are not tiresome, and they are best means to get things done. Taking away the controller or treating it like it is holding gaming back is silly at best. It would be no different if most major PC hardware producers all of sudden ditched keyboards and mice and boasted motion control and speech typing as "superior".
The user interface for both consoles are nothing to write home about and seem cluttered, drowning in social madness. They both also employ the design over practicality way of thinking. "All we have to do is make sure it's a big square with a bunch of little squares and pictures, who cares they can navigate it smoothly or quickly find what they want?" Microsoft has pretty much circumvented this problem by allowing for voice commands to quickly jump to and from various sections. The problem lies in the voice however as nothing can stop your dick of a brother, who sounds just like you, from saying Xbox TV while you are in the middle of a boss fight in a game. They said it can read different voices, but I hold doubts it is as "stable" as they present it to be. All of this mess is just so staggering and off putting that I can't see how anyone could get behind any of the next generation of consoles at this point. But that's not all! There are a host of other concerns including but not necessarily limited to:
Why is there a share button. (So your friends can watch what you're doing.)
Why is there a touch control pad. (Because INNOVATION!!)
Why do you want me to be on Facebook and Twitter so badly. (Word of mouth. Free Advertisement.)
Why is there lag on the main selling point of the system? (What? We fixed that already.)
Why do I need to install games now?(Because we're trying to enhance your experience.)
Can I buy used games without having to worry about additional fees later? (Haha. No.)
Is it backwards compatible? (What? This is our first console!) or (This new console is so advanced, it can't play games from last generation.)
How many exclusives will be on the system? (TONS!!)
Can I at least see some of them? (Not yet, we're working really hard on them, but i promise they're awesome.)
I'm just going to stick to my PC and be done with it. Exclusives that may be good can wait and most are hardly worth being excited for anymore, if they ever were. Multi-platform titles have had far less shit PC ports in recent years. Factoring in the potential cost of the new consoles from Sony and Microsoft, I can get by with my current rig and probably only have to spend two or maybe three hundred dollars to upgrade to surpass a console generation that isn't even wholly publicly available for purchase yet. That is what I call sad.
It's sad for a lot reasons, but mainly because at the end of the day, we as a consumer and we as a game playing culture lose. We lose to charts and graphs, to number projections, and to men in impeccably sharp suits. Nothing was gained, everything was lost.
...Okay it's not that bad, but it's still pretty disheartening to see the industry making moves like this.
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About elric6one of us since 10:19 PM on 05.17.2012
Games are fun.
