PlayStation Meeting Feb. 20: See the future

[Armando]

Re: PlayStation Meeting Feb. 20: See the future

If BBQ can write off the PS4 for not playing games from 4 generations ago to get across a pretty biased viewpoint, then surely I must be allowed to point out the above for the purposes of playing devil's advocate.

I thought you were referring to GameCube compatibility. If you're talking about PS1/PS2 games on PS4, your statement is even more baffling, because the Wii U has the equivalent covered. Wii emulation on the Wii U means you get to play Wii Virtual Console games as well, and the Wii U is getting its own native virtual console on top of that.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: PlayStation Meeting Feb. 20: See the future

If BBQ can write off the PS4 for not playing games from 4 generations ago to get across a pretty biased viewpoint, then surely I must be allowed to point out the above for the purposes of playing devil's advocate.

The problem with your argument here is that is emulation already written and done.

I am not expecting to push a PSX or PS2 disc in there and have PS4 running it - I am expecting the PSOne and PS2 software I bought from PSN to work without contrived bullshit excuses. I'm no technical genius, but I know from the specs I've seen Final Fantasy VII shouldn't be rocking this thing's boat on its worst day.

Nintendo carried all their digital library over with Wii U BC. All the N64, SNES, Sega, NEC, Neo-Geo stuff is still there with no consequence and only a few WiiWare games didn't make the jump, I just have to accept there's no GamaPad support and its all Wii peripherals only, meaning Gamecube controllers are a no-go.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: PlayStation Meeting Feb. 20: See the future

Sony talks about possibly re-releasing PS3 games for PS4 - Destructoid

(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻)

[Icemage]

Re: PlayStation Meeting Feb. 20: See the future

To be fair, from what anyone can tell, Nintendo literally dropped a whole bunch of Wii silicon into the Wii U hardware. This is also why all that stuff gets pushed into the "Wii Channel", even Virtual Console games. There's some really slick engineering in the Wii U that allows the two architectures to exist side-by-side. None of that Wii emulation is being run in software, and the hardware being emulated by the Wii VC is more than two generations behind even the Wii hardware. You'll notice that Nintendo's Wii U VC commentary specifically says that the two Virtual Console shops are different - that's because the Wii U can't run the emulation code written for the Wii natively on its own hardware; it has to switch into "Wii mode" to do so.

Theoretically Sony could have done the same thing and dropped a separate I/O bus to GDDR5 RAM and a Cell + RSX, but it would have cost a lot more and more importantly used up a lot of silicon budget that they would rather spend on making the hardware more robust. If you want one reason why the Wii U hardware is so low powered and technically unimpressive besides cost, this is one factor - the Wii components eat up some silicon/cost/power/heat budget that could have been otherwise devoted to making the system more robust.

I still think BC is nowhere near the worst thing Sony could have slipped on. No used games would have been a much bigger problem by far (fortunately, Shuhei Yoshida has cleared the air on that and stated that used games are playable on PS4).


Icemage

[Malacite]

Re: PlayStation Meeting Feb. 20: See the future

As long as they don't charge to play older games via Gaikai I'm OK with it.

[Icemage]

Re: PlayStation Meeting Feb. 20: See the future

As long as they don't charge to play older games via Gaikai I'm OK with it.

Screw that. Until the majority of Western Civilization gets uncapped, low latency high capacity broadband, I don't want streaming games from the cloud. Too much latency for any action game. Sure you can play Civ, or Myst, or Chess or whatever via cloud streaming, but how many of those games get console releases, and why would you even need to stream most of them?

I'll put up with Gaikai streaming if I buy a game digitally and its streaming to me while I play, so I only have to put up with it for an hour or so. But permanently? Krazy Kaz can bite me if he thinks I'll ever play a title like Street Fighter over the cloud. And that only works for me because I have uncapped downloads. Gaikai streaming is more or less a complete non-starter for anyone who lives in the UK or anywhere else with bandwidth caps.


Icemage

[Armando]

Re: PlayStation Meeting Feb. 20: See the future

What Icemage said. I already get enough latency from TVs.

[Icemage]

Re: PlayStation Meeting Feb. 20: See the future

What Icemage said. I already get enough latency from TVs.

Yup. Most people who haven't played rhythm or fighting games on HDTVs have no clue just how awful some HDTVs are about video lag. There are some seriously terrible TVs out there, and that's before you try to add even more latency via streaming.


Icemage

[Yygdrasil]

Re: PlayStation Meeting Feb. 20: See the future

My TV, awesome as it is... is incapable of playing Guitar hero. I simply cant do it. I've tried the advanced settings to get it to sync up... but there's still about a 1/3 second lag to every button press that makes it terrible to play the game unless you're me... and you're used to it. The same goes for DDR.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: PlayStation Meeting Feb. 20: See the future

To be fair, from what anyone can tell, Nintendo literally dropped a whole bunch of Wii silicon into the Wii U hardware. This is also why all that stuff gets pushed into the "Wii Channel", even Virtual Console games. There's some really slick engineering in the Wii U that allows the two architectures to exist side-by-side. None of that Wii emulation is being run in software, and the hardware being emulated by the Wii VC is more than two generations behind even the Wii hardware. You'll notice that Nintendo's Wii U VC commentary specifically says that the two Virtual Console shops are different - that's because the Wii U can't run the emulation code written for the Wii natively on its own hardware; it has to switch into "Wii mode" to do so.

Theoretically Sony could have done the same thing and dropped a separate I/O bus to GDDR5 RAM and a Cell + RSX, but it would have cost a lot more and more importantly used up a lot of silicon budget that they would rather spend on making the hardware more robust. If you want one reason why the Wii U hardware is so low powered and technically unimpressive besides cost, this is one factor - the Wii components eat up some silicon/cost/power/heat budget that could have been otherwise devoted to making the system more robust.

I still think BC is nowhere near the worst thing Sony could have slipped on. No used games would have been a much bigger problem by far (fortunately, Shuhei Yoshida has cleared the air on that and stated that used games are playable on PS4).


Icemage

I understand it would have cost Sony money to make it happen. It falls flat on its face when Yoshida starts talking up re-releasing PS3 games on the PS4.

Sony avoids PS3 BC because of cost then spends hundreds of millions of dollars on a cloud steaming service that's doomed to fail and wants to reissue PS3 games for PS4.

Why not just have the physical BC option at that point? I know its too late now to shift course now because they've placed their wager - but Youshida blew the poker face they had on last night.

[Icemage]

Re: PlayStation Meeting Feb. 20: See the future

I understand it would have cost Sony money to make it happen.

It's not a money issue. It's a performance issue. As in "add in too much stuff and your box overheats and you have RRoD version 2.0" or "add in these parts, but subtract these OTHER parts".

It falls flat on its face when Yoshida starts talking up re-releasing PS3 games on the PS4.

This is a consequence, not a cause. He's trying to make lemonade out of lemons. The real problem is that Cell processor is a pain in the ass; including it would have crippled the power of the machine

Sony avoids PS3 BC because of cost then spends hundreds of millions of dollars on a cloud steaming service that's doomed to fail and wants to reissue PS3 games for PS4.

I still don't understand why Sony bought Gaikai, except maybe as a "well cloud computing is a thing and we might as well get some patents in the process". Now they're trying to find ways to make it work. The backward compatibility thing was not (or at least "should not") have been caused by Gaikai's purchase. My only guess is that this is a really long play for them, looking over a decade into the future.

Why not just have the physical BC option at that point? This seems like one expensive circle jerk for themselves and consumers.

Because you can't explain to consumers that adding PS3 backward compatibility directly to the hardware will cause too many trade-offs elsewhere.

Case in point: Your current level of misunderstanding.


Icemage

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: PlayStation Meeting Feb. 20: See the future

My current level of understanding is this:

Sony, MS and Nintendo are to me what Scotty, Geordi Laforge and Miles O'Brien are to their respective captians.

I don't give a damn how it works, its not my problem to solve - I'm just the customer and i know what I want. Find the solution or get the hell out of Engineering. You don't see Kirk, Picard or Sisko playing nice with Engineering when they need the shields back up or the replicators don't work.

This generation has gone out of its way to debunk the idea that the customer is king and has tried to reduce them to a peasant that should obey the will of the king publishers and platform holders. I guess I find it frustrating that people are willing to just accept less each generation.

That's really what's driving me to PC.

[Icemage]

Re: PlayStation Meeting Feb. 20: See the future

^ Attitudes like this are why so many IT techs hate end users. You'd rather just stamp your feet and pout instead of understanding that life is all about trade-offs.

You don't have to take my word for it, though. Just wait until Microsoft announces their plans; they're going to have some cock-eyed excuse about not being able to run emulation, too (or maybe they'll just charge you for each game you want to emulate - wouldn't THAT be fun?).

Nintendo's already paying the price for their decision, sad to say.


Icemage

[Malacite]

Re: PlayStation Meeting Feb. 20: See the future

^ Attitudes like this are why so many IT techs hate end users. You'd rather just stamp your feet and pout instead of understanding that life is all about trade-offs.

You don't have to take my word for it, though. Just wait until Microsoft announces their plans; they're going to have some cock-eyed excuse about not being able to run emulation, too (or maybe they'll just charge you for each game you want to emulate - wouldn't THAT be fun?).

Nintendo's already paying the price for their decision, sad to say.


Icemage

Exactly, because the customer isn't always right - far from it a lot of the time quite frankly. At least they're trying something as opposed to just outright telling us we're up shit creek. Still, I agree with you IM about the internet access - the prices we pay in Canada, for the service we get, amount to legalized, government-sanctioned extortion and I am *not* exaggerating. Fuck Rogers, Fuck Bell, and FUCK THE CRTC!

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: PlayStation Meeting Feb. 20: See the future

The customer is never wrong to expect consistency or better in service, though.

Case in point - It has been clarified by Sony that your PSN purchases may be honored in relation to the Gaikai service. They didn't say it as a promise, but a possibility. By Mal's standard that might be satisfactory, but in the view of others that's a major downgrade.

If Sony were a doctor they'd now be treating a broken arm with a band-aid and then they'd try to tell the patient the band-aid better and cheaper than the cast the patient needed and was expecting.