It really seems like Microsoft has miscalculated with their next gen. They want a hundred bucks more than the PS4, but you don’t get better graphics (the PS4 actually has the faster RAM) or more hard drive for that. You get like a camera that watches you at all times. And you get Microsoft’s DRM which means you only sort of own your games as you can’t sell them or even lend them to friends. And what’s with how you have to pay a monthly fee to Microsoft to be able to watch Netflix on your XBox, i.e., I have to pay a monthly fee to be able to use my internet I already pay for to use my Netflix service I already pay for on the XBox I already paid for. What am I paying Microsoft to do in this exchange? Seems like it’s more like extortion than a service.
Anyway, I’ve never owned a Playstation or an XBox. I’ve been a Nintendo loyalist and have owned every Nintendo home console. But this time I have no desire to get the Wii U. I mean, they couldn’t even get it powerful enough to match what’s soon going to be known as the “previous gen.” Nintendo makes a lot of fun, exclusive games, but sometimes I want those third party games, but third parties don’t always want to make a neutered, under-powered version of their game for Nintendo’s lagging hardware. I’m really starting to wish Nintendo gave up on the hardware and just made their awesome games for other systems.
So, anyway, with no plans to get the Wii U (well, maybe when it’s discounted and there is a new Zelda for it), I was thinking of finally getting XBox — as XBox seemed to have the better exclusive games versus the Playstation. But now I’m thinking Playstation after E3. They won me over.
Or maybe I should just save the money and get a new gaming laptop. I assume the game companies now targeting the next gen hardware will cause me to finally need to upgrade my computer to keep up. But even though a PC costs more, gaming wise it still seems the better deal with all the $2.50 games I can get off Steam when they’re on sale versus paying $60 (or more) for new games for consoles. I mean, I already have a huge backlog of games on Steam I haven’t even started yet (being a parent leave little time for gaming; can’t wait until the kids are hold enough to play FPSs with me and we can call that quality time).
So, what say the gamers out there?
PC only, been beta testing since ’95 or so and let me tell you – nothing compares truly to a good DESKTOP gaming rig. Desktop is cheaper to run, cheaper to upgrade, easier to work on, and all in all the best bang for your buck if you go through newegg.
I find that the PC is the best gaming platform overall if you’ve got the money to spend on a powerful gaming rig. If you want something to play while on your couch, though, you’ll want a console like the Playstation.
I’ve been something of an Xbox loyalist for years simply because I liked the Halo franchise, but at times regretted it because there are a lot of PS3 exclusives that I wish I was able to play, too. But yeah, after the Xbone reveals and the comparative non-awfulness of the PS4, I think the Master Chief is gonna have to have his next few adventures without me.
PC gaming is too expensive for me, and while Steam does sound great, it also sounds like PSN+ is gonna offer a lot of good deals on games, too, so it may wind up paying for itself in the long run anyway.
What is this “console” of which you speak?
I’m with Inspektor — desktop pc is the best thing for gaming.
With that said, I also have a laptop that I used to use when traveling, but it’s old enough now that it hasn’t kept up with current game requirements. Sure it will run them, but only at the lowest settings and choppy even then 🙁
I had a Playstation back in the day, but never got many games for it, and the ones I did have didn’t ever really draw me in. Played some Halo and a few other things on an Xbox in a company’s break room for a time, but again… nothing made me think I actually wanted to buy an Xbox. I have a Wii, but I can’t recall the last time it was used for anything other than streaming cartoons on Netflix for my 4-yr old daughter.
Yup… pc for me. Don’t see that changing any time soon.
I not only have a backlog of steam games I need to get through, I still have a large backlog of good PS2 games to get through that I bought used over the last 2 years.
I skipped the entire PS3/Wii/Xbox360 generation of consuls and will probably be skipping this one or at least not buying for 3-4 years until my kids are old enough to use it too and the prices have dropped on some of the good games. If I was buying soon, it would be PS4.
“how about a nice game of chess”
One of my biggest regrets in life: Selling my Super Nintendo. Followed closely by selling my Sega Genesis.
Playstation 4. Mircosoft is just rolling around the toliet bowl waiting for the final flush. What tells me this is that their business model is unrealistic, or as I would like to say..”wacked.” Soon they will force people to buy the power supply as an “additional feature.”
@6 – the secret to winning is not to play.
The PS4 isn’t really a hundred bucks less than the Xbox One. You get Kinect and a controller included. PS4 sells those separately for 60 bucks each.
joeschmo1of3,
Both XBox One and PS4 come with one controller as has been standard forever. But with the PS4, you don’t need a camera thingee to play it, so unless that’s a big deal to you it is one hundred bucks cheaper.
Frank, whoops, you’re right about the controllers.
I went back to gaming pc’s last year because load times were just getting too long on the consoles (I own a ps3). My hands and arms had to get used to keyboard and mouse again, but I still have a preference for gamepads. They really are designed to be held for hours on end. Besides, most new laptops and desktops have HDMI outputs these days, so that’s no big deal hooking it up to your big TV. On topdown 3rd person games, the keyboard and mouse still works best, but maybe not from your couch. I go for the gamepad on FPS and 3rd person perspective games like Portal or Skyrim.
You’re getting into the gaming laptop market at just the right time – Haswell i7 plus the GeForce 700 series is a great combination. I’m also in the market, and I think just in the past week or so we’re finally starting to see light, portable systems that can still run all the current games on High.
I’m looking at the MSI GE40, Maingear Pulse 14, Alienware m14 refresh, and some of the upcoming stuff from Gigabyte. You definitely pay for portability, but in my situation, it’s worth it.
Damn it – don’t know what to do. Just picked and priced all the components for a mid level gaming rig. But I don’t want the xbox one or ps4 to be better than my rig when they’re released…what to do.!?!
PC and Steam – good choice
Back when I was a kid, riding dinosaurs uphill through snowstorms to school, we could actually buy CD’s with PC games on them without having to connect to the internet. You young whippersnappers and your crazy Steam servers.
You will always get more pc comments on the Internet than console comments because they are always scrolling through comments on the Internet
PC is my first and best choice for gaming. Backwards compatibility going back years, crazy awesome Steam sales, and I don’t have to worry about my wife kicking me off because she wants to watch TV.
I already bought a Wii U. The only game I own for it is New Super Mario Bros. U so far, though. The thing about Nintendo is I grew up on the NES and SNES, and I still love a lot of Nintendo’s first-party games. The Wii U is cheap enough and there are enough first-party games to justify it, but I doubt I’ll ever own a third-party game for it.
Oh, and Frank, the Wii U is getting an HD remake of Wind Waker. Does that not count because it’s a remake?
As for the other two, it seems like there are enough games that come out on consoles that don’t come out on PC that I’ll probably want to get one of them, but they don’t really have enough exclusives for me to want both, nor are games the deciding factor between them. So it comes down to features:
PlayStation 4
-Can stream games to the Vita (again, for when the wife is taking over the TV)
-Plays used games
-Is cheaper
Xbox One
-Crazy DRM
-Is always watching you
-Requires a paid Xbox Live account just to watch Netflix
-TV?
Looks like I’ll get a PS4. Eventually.
I’ve been a PC gamer since I’ve had a PC. I also have a PS3 and a Wii. I play games on my PC alot more than the consoles because of what mikeszekely says, I have the PC screen to myself – the consoles share a flatscreen with the TV box.
PC + Steam is a great deal. I’ve bought so many games on Steam because I saw them on super sale 90% off, and I can have them installed on multiple PCs without needing the game disc, and Steam Cloud migrates your preferences…..
By the way, have you heard about Steam Box console in development? Multiple third parties making the hardware for a PC-Game Console running Steam. Sounds like what you wish for Nintendo.
You missed a few things re: PS4 vs Xbone:
Xbone and PS4 both have the same policy regarding used games: if the publisher wants, they can limit them. It’s just that Sony, as a publisher, won’t. (And, considering the internet rage, and the power of Gamestop, most other publishers won’t either.)
Nobody in Japan cares about MS besides a few small, niche-game publishers (shmups and the like) and the big guys that intend from the start to sell outside of Japan, so all the good, smaller (ie, not Square-Enix) publisher/dev RPG’s are going to be PS4, just like with PS3, and PS2, and PS. Also, the PS4 won’t be region-locked, so if you like to import games (Europeans and weeaboos), there you go.
PS+ is required for PS4. Do you seriously think they are going to have the same sort of incentives they have with PS3/Vita with no free alternative? I’d bet there will be, within 2 years (depending on level of adoption over PS3), a new PS++, which will be what PS+ is now compared to PSN, for a few dollars more.
Also, the WiiU is more powerful than any of the other current-gen systems. The excuse that it’s not good enough is because of the tablet – no one wants to deal with it in a multi-platform game, in addition to the other controllers that the WiiU can use. It’s just like with the Gamecube vs. PS2 and XBOX – the GC was the most powerful system of the three, but there was enough of a headache with the other stuff that 3rd party devs didn’t want to deal with it. Heck, the only reason there were a lot of multi-platforms with the Wii was because there were so many Wiis out there it would be stupid to ignore that market, even if it was a pain to work with the controllers.
Regarding PC – if you have a desktop at all, and not a toaster, just get a $150 video card, and you are gaming at a level with PS4/XBone. You’ll even have an HDMI port you can hook up to your big TV, and use Steam Big Picture or whatever it’s called. Most any controller can work with PC; the PC-only ones are cheaper than the official Xbawks/PS ones, and most modern PC games are made with the 360 controller in mind. You can get a tv tray or whatever to use keyboard-and-mouse (for years I played PC games without any sort of desk or table for my keyboard, so you don’t even need that much).
Though if you’re a real gamer, you’ll have PC + 3DS + PS4 + WiiU, in that order of importance.
I’m getting a Wii U is somewhat underpowered, titles like call of duty ghost, Assassins creed and, Final Fantasy 15 have been announced on it. And it does have more RAM then the previous Generation. So I woundn’t count the Wii U out just yet. Plus titles shown on Nintendo direct, Smash Bros, Mario Kart 8, X, and dozen others look really good.
Graphics don’t do much for me as long as I can make out what I’m doing. But Nintendo’s style of graphics translate really well into HD, and are beautiful to look at. It’s cheaper then the competition and doesn’t have any policies against used games, DRM, or fees, before Microsoft made it a problem.
Im getting a wii u because; sure its not as powerful as ps4, but by looking at ps4 and wii u gameplay and graphics, they have the same of both. Second screen so you can play while someone is watching tv. Mario, Zelda, Metroid, etc, nintendos exclusives go on and on and the have the best. FREE ONLINE. Wii u and pc is the vway to go next gen.