Hello again! How long has it been, four months? I’ve been very busy recently with barely any spare time, so I’ve seriously been neglected my blog. It’s difficult for me to get online, and when I do I either forget about this or end up in front of a blank page with no inspiration.
To celebrate my first post in four months, I’ve messed around with the design. I’ve chosen a much cleaner, easy-to-read theme, because the old “Monochrome” theme was just dark and not very pleasant to look at. I rather this one more, even though the header is a bit of a pain to work with.
Just look at it. Glorious, right?
Speaking of headers, I’ve got a new one of those too. When I say new, I mean I’ve actually got one now. I had a pretty cool header created and all, but the full header wouldn’t actually display. That’s why there isn’t really much to see in the new header, so at least everyone sees the same thing.
The widgets are also cleared up a bit too, with my Twitter feed up near the top. I might get rid off the sidebar altogether, but it will stay for now.
Anyway, that’s pretty much it. I hope to post in the not-so-distant future, so keep an eye out for that. And yes, there will actually be a topic this time. Probably.
See, there was a special #PlayStation2013 meeting back on Wednesday, when Sony was like “YO, HOMIES, WE GOT THAT PS4! ONLY WE DON’T ACTUALLY HAVE THE CONSOLE FOR ANYONE TO SEE, BUT… THE CONTROLLER HAS A TOUCHPAD!” As you might assume, I wasn’t entirely impressed. Maybe it’s just because I’m fanboy, but I didn’t find out exciting at all.
Well, let’s start from the beginning of the conference. One of the first things that Sony announced was that it has a PC-like architecture. That’s great for developers, as they will easily be able to design games for PS4 and PC at the same time. It’s a big difference from the PS3, that made developing games quite difficult. It’s also got 8GB of RAM, which is like sixteen times more than the PS3/Xbox 360. It’s also four times more than the Wii U, which isn’t really TOO bad. This difference (which isn’t too massive) will probably make ports possible, at least.
Then the controller.
My opinion is that there’s something about it that looks a bit meh. I don’t like the darker circles around the d-pad and face buttons. I’m not sure about the analog sticks, but I’m sure they’ll be more comfortable than the current PlayStation analog sticks. The Share button seems like it could work out well (even though I’m not really sure what they’ll use it for) and the touchpad seems entirely useless at the moment, if I be completely honest.
Some of the other stuff is cool. I like how you can play games instantly before they download, and I’m interested in how Gaikai will work with it. The video sharing seems cool, but limited to 10 seconds. Video streaming seems great, especially how others can control your controller. I’m not a fan of the integration with Facebook, as I like to keep gaming separate from real life stuff. That’s why I’m such a big fan of Twitter and Miiverse.
Then they announced that there’s no backwards compatibility. All those PS3 games can’t be played, disc or download. It’s the same for downloadable Minis. This disappointed me, as when Sony has a big catalog of PS3 games, people who don’t own a PS4 might be more likely to buy a much cheaper PS3 with lots of cheap games, as well as PlayStation Plus. That’s probably what I’m going to do, to be honest. You will be able to stream PlayStation games from the past, but it’s likely that you’ll have to buy all the games again.
Speaking of games, we got to see a handful of them. (I might have missed some features, but I’ve got the main ones, I think.)
First of all, new Killzone. Hooray for more first person shooters! The graphics were pretty great, but it seems like pretty standard FPS stuff. Never played the Killzone games so I can’t really talk. They did decide to put footage up for what seemed to last half an hour. It was just quite boring.
There were some other games, like inFamous, Knack, DriveClub, but they only thing that really interested me was Watch_Dogs, a game that’s coming to PS3, Xbox 360, PC and Wii U already. Not a great sign!
Anyway, that was pretty much it. While I’m sure (and I hope) Sony have some secrets up their sleeve, the conference was quite underwhelming overall. Sony hyped up the whole announcement with some teaser videos and even a (pretty cool) documentary talking about the past consoles, but it wasn’t that great overall.
Anyway, hope you enjoyed the post and can see how I feel about Sony’s next gen console. Check out some of my other posts, if you’re irking for more!
This post as only my opinion on a quite likely rumour. None of this information has been confirmed by Microsoft or Sony.
With the announcement of the future consoles coming from Sony and Microsoft only around the corner, the rumour mill has been churning out buckets full of unverified goodness. One of the most striking rumours, however, was the addition of measures to prevent the use of pre-owned games.
For those not informed yet, the rumour suggests that all new games are associated with the online account of the person who first plays the game. If you try to play the game on a different console, you’ll most likely just be greeted with a pleasant error code. What does this mean? Basically, the end of the pre-owned video games market and possibly the end of the road for brick-and-mortar gaming stores around the world.
There are many reasons why the companies are adding these extra measures. Whenever you buy a pre-owned game, none of the money used to buy the game goes to Microsoft/Sony or the game developers. All of the money goes directly to the retailer (GameStop, GAME, etc.). If Sony or Microsoft could prevent pre-owned games, they would receive a lot more money, and the developers would also receive money, which turns out to be necessary to make games.
I think it’s great that the developers of a game are now guaranteed money for each game sold, but it does come with some consequences.
Think about the retailer. Less and less people rely on shops such as GameStop to buy the latest games these days. It is much cheaper to buy off of Amazon or another website, and you also have a chance of receiving the games early. The only reason I would go into GameStop would be to look through the pre-owned games to see if I can find any games I missed out on for a good price. The majority of people in the store are buying pre-owned content, and is quite likely the largest source of income for the company.
What happens if you take the vital source of income off of a company? Millions of potential income is prevented by the console makers, with pre-owned content only available for the Wii U, 3DS, PS Vita, etc. When a company isn’t making as much money, it has to close down stores. GameStop has stores all over America and Europe, and store closures would cause thousands to lose jobs. All of this could have been prevented (or at least delayed, as after GAME and HMV went into administration, the end of GameStop is inevitable) with less strict rules on pre-owned games.
Let’s look past the retail problem. There are also many practical problems. You’re going to your friend’s house and want him to have a go at the latest Call of Duty game that you have. That’s no longer possible, as the game is locked to your own account. What about if you have a roommate who wants to play one of your games on his/her PlayStation? Impossible. What if you want your friend to try out Borderlands 2 to get him interested in the series, and you decide to let him borrow your game? Nope, that’s not allowed. As you can see, it makes a lot of common practices today quite awkward or even impossible.
For one of the worst consequences, we have to look to the future. It’s the year 2030, and you’re dying to play the classic game Battleduty: Modern Field Ops from the year 2014 on your now ancient Xbox 720. How difficult will it be to get a sixteen year old game that has never been used? It’s hard to find a three year old game that is new. And how expensive would such a game be? Game collecting would be brought to a new level, as when you finally find the game you were looking for, it has been already registered.
As you might be able to tell, I don’t agree with the proposed ban. They could lessen the burn by having the pre-owned ban being set for a few years after the game is released, but I don’t know how likely it is for Microsoft and Sony to announce these adjustments. I think we just have to wait and see what these companies have up their sleeves.
I know I start pretty much every post like this, but it’s been a while since I’ve posted. The school blog seems to be at a sort of standstill at the moment, since nobody seems to be posting. I’ve been busy as well, with the Mocks coming up in January. I haven’t really had much of chance to post, and I also don’t have any subject to post about.
Anyway, I got off school on the 21st. I’m pretty relieved that I’m on my break, and that Christmas is on Tuesday! I’m not really in a festive mood, due to the fact I’ve been so busy. Maybe it’s just because I’m getting older, but it doesn’t seem like as big of a deal as it used to be.
As I mentioned earlier, the Mocks are on sometime in January. The Mocks are basically a practice of the Junior Cert; everything is treated like it’s the real thing. We have two papers in some subjects, like English, Maths, Business and Irish. I know that it doesn’t have any meaning whatsoever, but I’d like to have a bit prepared for it, and that’ll help me with the Junior Cert as well. I plan in spending a good bit of time studying over the break, since I’m not going to get a chance like this until Easter!
In non-school related news, I’ve found a band that I’m starting to like. They’re called Kodaline, and are a band from Dublin. I’ve listened to a few of their songs, and I love the way their music videos always seem to tell a story. The vocals also have a really unique sound that I really love. They remind me a bit of Mumford and Sons, but only a little. By far my favourite song of theirs is All I Want. It actually was the song played during the Google Zeitgeist 2012 video on YouTube. It’s a really good song and I love the music video.
I’ve been off school since Friday, and I still haven’t posted. This is half due to my sister spending the whole week playing The Sims 3, which she got at the weekend, and my own laziness. But, don’t fret, I have an amazing lazy post for you.
I noticed this video when my favourite gaming journalist of all time, Matthew Castle, tweeted a link to the the “best game trailer ever”. Everyone should six minutes out of their life and watch this video. It has changed my life so much.
Note the bear playing the electric guitar, while he’s actually just playing an acoustic guitar. SCANDAL! MYSTERY! There
Anyway, I hope this lightened up your mood. And I’ll have a decent post (decency not guaranteed) very soon. Maybe.
Oisin, huh? 