As a console collector, I have to say this is where I'm drawing the line. There are so many small minor consoles coming out lately that it's impossible to keep track of them all and that $1000 price tag screams ripoff. I just got my Ouya, intend on having the nVidia shield here shortly, and looking forward to getting XB1 and PS4 in November, so I don't think I need anything else right now.
@JLCrogue I don't think 1313 is a reality anymore. Honestly, though, it sound like Star Wars: Bounty Hunter mixed with a little L.A Noire. Didn't sound that great to me. I personally would like to see Visceral take on a grittier series franchise like Republic Commandos was. Maybe focus it on the Yuzhan Vong from the novels. That's easily the most gruesome and death-laden event in the SW universe. It would suit visceral perfectly.
Moments like this make me glad Disney got Star Wars away from LucasArts. Seriously, WTF is wrong with those people. Rogue Squadron, KOTOR, Republic Commandos, Jedi Knight, Battlefront. They have a ton of Star Wars franchises just begging to be revisited. I'm not usually one to demand sequels, but in the case of SW, make some damn sequels already. KOTOR 3 and Battlefront 3 and I'd be happy. Period. With EA in charge, I say keep Battlefront with DICE and track down Obsidian for a KOTOR 3. Republic Commandos would be perfect for Visceral as well. I'd love to see the Dead Space team take on a gritty Star Wars title like that. Maybe give them a new plotline involving the gruesome Yuzhan Vong.
If the Kinect can actually track my activity and relay important information about my workout, I might just be willing to give this exercise concept a shot. I'm not one for physical activity, but I feel a large part of that is not seeing quick results and giving up quickly as a result. It just showing me a number like how many calories I've burned and how much weight I stand to lose in a few days would certainly be better incentive.
Tocuh-pads in place of analog sticks... why don't we all just use our smartphones as controllers too?! Touch-sensitive "Analog" controls up to this point have been 100% garbage. I'll keep an eye out an see if Valve can pull it off, but I'm not hold my breath. If it's good, just maybe I'll get a couple for my Ouya.
I think you guys are missing something important here. You're focusing too much on the musical aspect. Watch the ending again. Put it on mute and watch the top right with the "in-game" feed of Joel and Marlene. Look at their movements. They're sharper; more erratic; more intense. Because of this unexpected improv, the actors, particularly Troy, were very self-aware of everything they did and their performance was more in line with what we got in the final product. There was no intention of ever using the musical bit. That was visibly bad from miles away, but the results from it were perfection.
I don't think anybody ever said Activision was Risk-averse. We said they were greedy money-grubbing assholes. The Call of Duty franchise, on the other hand, is risk-averse, repetitive, stale, and detrimental to the entire videogame industry as a whole. It's an annually-released game that offers no viable changes, instead relying on the same formula and effectively charging people $60 repeatedly for the same product with a slightly different paint job and it's catering to an entire community of non-gamers that will buy that one single title and nothing else all year. Than when you look at sales charts, other developers see sales figures like 4-6 million as a failure (Tomb Raider anyone?) because they're actively attempting to breach a non-existent market. Meanwhile, many established franchises like Crysis and Halo are attempting to emulate the CoD franchise, further deteriorating the quality and innovation of the game industry.
Eventually this will come back to bite us in the ass. Too many games will be repetitive, non-innovative, and people are going to get sick of them. The non-gamers are going to quit and likely leave the industry all together and the rest of us are going to be saddled with an enormous depression because the amount of money they're putting into game development simply won't match what we as consumers give back in profit. A few companies like Rockstar North are fine as they have a firm grip on the market as a whole and continue to innovate, but most companies won't do so hot. Capcom only has $150 Million in the bank. They're 3 AAA flops away from being broke. Square-Enix puts more money into it's games than there are fans to support it, so they're games are barely getting by with a profit. Overall, the industry is not in a good state right now. It's going to take a miracle to pull us out, but I think we may have to have a second depression and start over at ground zero before that happens.
The fortunate difference between this and the depression of '83 is the internet and widespread support of Indie and Flash games. Even with the developers and publishers going under, independent companies will at least continue to provide us with... something. That's more than what they had back in the day.
Money is quite naturally the biggest reason why we do or don't get BC in any console. If I remember correctly from an old article I read a while back, I believe the price of adding true BC support to a 7th gen console was upward of $150, which largely reflected on the cost of the console itself. It's a big reason why the PS3 was so expensive right out the door, hence why they dropped BC support in later models and the price came down instantly.
It would be nice if they found a cost-effective way of doing this through something like cloud and Gaikai, but when it comes down to cost, I'd rather have a cheaper console than pay more to play games that I can play on another console already.
Glad to know it's still early in it's pre-development stage. As excited as I am to play their new game, I want them to take their time with it after Beyond is out of the way. This also means it'll give them a couple years to get the hang of programming for the PS4 to take better advantage of it and it will give the PS4 time to iron out any overheating or disc read errors that it's likely to have and come down in price as well. It'd be cool if a used PS4 is around $200 when this comes out so I can go ahead and add it to my console collection.
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