I still prefer the original PS/2

Xbox Two? No, the next logical number in sequence is Xbox π. 😉

Anyway, good news! I already bought a Pro, but.. eh.. maybe I'll just keep a Slim. I wonder what the VR situation will be like?

The Xbox 4π steradians will be the fully spherical Xbox we've been waiting for.

But what about the PS5 Pro? 😉

Heheh.. yeah, I dunno how I feel about the ".5" generations of consoles. Fragmentation is no good. OTOH, there's a lot of pressure to keep initial release prices well below equivalent PCs despite being based on the same hardware, while making it viable for ~4-5 years. What to do.

Consoles looking better to me these days for two reasons

1) Physical copies, which are long dead on PCs -- though they probably don't have much longer before they force all-digital/streaming.

2) Ridiculous GPU prices and the revelation that Navi cards aren't, infact, Jesus coming to save us from the insanity of said ridiculous GPU prices. Ridiculous GPU prices to me meaning that $500-600 doesn't get you the very top tier and $350 doesn't get you the upper tier, anymore.

Playing my PS4 I am shocked, however, that console gamers still deal with such atrocious load times. If PS5 is truly fully backwards compatible then there's no reason to get a PS4Pro for me, personally, and I'll look forward to that next-gen. No matter what, though, I can't play FPS games with a controller, I just can't. 🙁 Would be nice if next-gen gave us full mouse and keyboard support.

infiniteclouds wrote:

Consoles looking better to me these days for two reasons

1) Physical copies...

True, at least for now. But speaking as a console owner who has an XBox 360, and a PS3, I'm *really not looking forward to the official XBox 360 or PS3 servers being shut down for good (which is probably next year or the year after), as when that happens then I'll no longer have access to the official patches for any game I then install from the game's disc.

It won't be too bad for some games, as the official patch(es) might only make minor and relatively unimportant changes/fixes to the game, but lots of games' patches fix serious and even fatal bugs and flaws. And I and any other XBox 360/PS3 owners will be left in that position for all Sony and Microsoft seem to care. I wish both companies would release discs containing the official patches for the games, but if they have an plans to do that (or have done so already) then I've not heard of it.

Mind you, it was the same with the original XBox, but if your console was modded (hacked) then you could download all of the patches for it from a (not exactly legal, I'd imagine) web page, as someone had collected all the patches together and made them available to all. Fortunately, my original XBox is hacked (a modded XBox makes an amazing emulation machine, media player, and lots more) so I'm OK as regards the original XBox's games, but even if someone does the same for the XBox 360 and PS3, then I'd have to get my XBox 360 and PS3 modded, as I've never bothered so far, because the homebrew software (emulators, media player, fan-made ports of open source games, etc) for these consoles, didn't attract me particularly.

So basically, when it comes to installing games from the disc on an original XBox or later console, then when the official servers have closed down, you can either stay legal and manage as best you can without the games' patches, or you can mod your console and (hopefully) download the patches from a patch archive that someone might have put up somewhere.

Or you can do what Sony and Microsoft would no doubt much prefer you to do, which is to forget about the old consoles, forget about the old games, and spend money on new machines and games. Even if you believe that (say) modern first person shooters are mostly rubbish, and you much prefer to replay many older examples of the genre.

Sorry for moaning, but it's a situation that really annoys me.

Kerr Avon wrote:

.

Sorry to derail, but I just learned today that Paul Darrow died June 3rd. 🙁

Kerr Avon wrote:

Sorry for moaning, but it's a situation that really annoys me.

Me too, particularly because I haven't even caught up on all the 8-bit era games in my backlog, much less started on PS2, PS3, and PS4. I finally got around to surveying what's out there and spent about two years buying it all up, so now I have a large library of games for everything from the NES to PSVR. But, I haven't run any of it, much less patched it.

I DID jailbreak my PS3, though. You can too -- it's not hard, and doesn't require anything special. IIRC, just a thumb drive. I also went as far as to buy an early (ATAPI) PS3 BD-ROM drive and a compatible USB controller for it, so I could archive all my game discs. Hoping to just play them from a 1TB SSD.

Same for PS4. I originally got a Slim, then decided I wanted to try VR so I grabbed a Pro while they were still shipping with low enough firmware to be hackable. Haven't powered it on since. I'll just let the CFW and tools mature, then try to collect all the patch sets and enjoy offline gaming until the box breaks down permanently.

Yeah, this type of situation also annoys me, too. Not because of what you guys were talking about, but because I kinda like how technology is like now, but I'm sure they won't be changing everything too much. The future is just going to fast if you ask me, LMAO.

infiniteclouds wrote:

Consoles looking better to me these days for two reasons […]
Show full quote

Consoles looking better to me these days for two reasons

1) Physical copies, which are long dead on PCs -- though they probably don't have much longer before they force all-digital/streaming.

2) Ridiculous GPU prices and the revelation that Navi cards aren't, infact, Jesus coming to save us from the insanity of said ridiculous GPU prices. Ridiculous GPU prices to me meaning that $500-600 doesn't get you the very top tier and $350 doesn't get you the upper tier, anymore.

Playing my PS4 I am shocked, however, that console gamers still deal with such atrocious load times. If PS5 is truly fully backwards compatible then there's no reason to get a PS4Pro for me, personally, and I'll look forward to that next-gen. No matter what, though, I can't play FPS games with a controller, I just can't. 🙁 Would be nice if next-gen gave us full mouse and keyboard support.

if you are happy with a PS4 base model complaining about GPU prices doesn't really make a lot of sense, entry level cards for years now could match/outperform the PS4.
same for the load times.

there is a short window period around the launch time of the new consoles where they look unbeatable in terms of "value" vs performance, but soon it goes away, since PC hardware is constantly improving.

the advantages of the consoles would be more to do with having less technical barriers; the more plug and play nature, the cost angle is not all that clear as an advantage when you have to pay for "PSN", accessories cost more, games can cost more, and so on.

I don't dislike consoles, but I do prefer a less locked platform, and over time I think my gaming is cheaper on PC than it would be on consoles.

as for PS5 running PS4 games, it makes sense, the hardware is more of an evolution of the previous one, not requiring too much in terms of specific hardware to run the old games, it's not like PS2 to PS3 and PS3 to PS4 when pretty much everything changed...
and they have the experience of PS4 Pro to apply to another higher spec machine...
also, Microsoft is doing great in this regard so if Sony didn't do it that would be a clear disadvantage.. not only I expect PS5 to run PS4 games out of the box, but also for a while (longer than previous gens) games that will focus more on PS5 still delivering a PS4 version.

SPBHM wrote:

if you are happy with a PS4 base model complaining about GPU prices doesn't really make a lot of sense, entry level cards for years now could match/outperform the PS4.
same for the load times.

I've had it for several years already and never really played it or bought many games on until recently (I think I had like 3 games) and I'm not happy with it to the extent that sub-60 FPS is more of a drag on me than it is for someone who never was a PC gamer and that I like my mouse and keyboard, mods -- everything that makes PC gaming better, to me.

That doesn't change the fact that ..

1) GPU chip makers have almost doubled their prices in less than 5 years -- cryptocurrency craze being the trojan.
2) Outside of GOG any games you purchase on PC are basically rentals that are tied to mandatory online-connection launchers.

infiniteclouds wrote:

I've had it for several years already and never really played it or bought many games on until recently (I think I had like 3 ga […]
Show full quote

SPBHM wrote:

if you are happy with a PS4 base model complaining about GPU prices doesn't really make a lot of sense, entry level cards for years now could match/outperform the PS4.
same for the load times.

I've had it for several years already and never really played it or bought many games on until recently (I think I had like 3 games) and I'm not happy with it to the extent that sub-60 FPS is more of a drag on me than it is for someone who never was a PC gamer and that I like my mouse and keyboard, mods -- everything that makes PC gaming better, to me.

That doesn't change the fact that ..

1) GPU chip makers have almost doubled their prices in less than 5 years -- cryptocurrency craze being the trojan.
2) Outside of GOG any games you purchase on PC are basically rentals that are tied to mandatory online-connection launchers.

as much as I agree that prices have increased far too much, there are still options that are good enough,
RX 570 is very affordable and can deliver 1080P60 in games that are 1080P30 (or less) on base PS4
the 1660 and 1660 ti are also pretty OK, and likely superior to playing on PS4 Pro

consoles are also very dependent on online functionality, some games are not good without large updates you have to download, so even a physical copy is not 100% safe,

My hope -- and I don't think it is farfetched -- is that in the future most of the patches for games will find their way online downloads on PC where they can be saved and installed from thumb drives for offline installation. I think particularly as online services are shut down for older consoles you may see this.

On the PC gaming side of things, ALL of these releases from nVidia are 6GB cards which is unacceptable to me in 2019 -- DDR5 vs 6 be damned, there shouldn't be less than 8GB as newer games can eat up VRAM very quickly. People can say how more than 6GB isn't necessary and these are the same people who told me that going with the 4GB version of my 760GTX was a waste over the 2GB version and not even a year later was I taking advantage of having more then 2GB. The RX cards are great if you don't care about older games. I could be wrong but I expect that with the newest series of nVidia cards even the earliest Windows 7 games (2009/2010) just work whereas this is not the case with RX cards/drivers.