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Rant about the status of consoles

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yankeeDDL

Member
I start this message apologizing for this rant. I post it here because I follow Anandtech regularly and I appreciate the value of comments and commentators that I stumble upon.

So, this holiday season, I thought I'd get a console for my 9 years old. Xbox or PS platform? Xbox, because other family members and friends already have an Xbox 360 and they could play online together.
I did not know much about consoles, so I started to gather info.
So, ok, PS and Xbox platforms are not compatible. Fine: no surprise there.
Neither is compatible with PC ... uff, disappointing but somehow understandable.
Then I see that Xbox 360 games are not compatible with Xbox One. Wait, what? So someone is supposed to spend hundreds of dollars on games and then when he buys a new console with better graphics, with "living room integration" ... an entertainment platform, more than "only" a console, then he cannot use any of the "old" games?
Ok, the 360 has an ... odd architecture while Xbox One is basically a stripped down PC with a x86 CPU and runs, basically, Windows8.
Fine, it's a dramatic cut with the past to have a solution that is much more robust and future proof... but still not sharing with the PC? It's the same architecture! And ... wait a minute: if I run Minecraft on Xbone I cannot play with friends on the 360? It's Xbox live! It is the "same" platform!
And ... no, it cannot be true: the controllers of the Xbox 360, yes, the controller that was considered the "best" controller ever made ... it does not work on the Xbone? Why in the world do I need to buy new controller? What "features" do the new controller have that is absolutely required by the Xbone games? Answer: none; you could play Minecraft exactly with the same controller as always - had Microsoft allowed you to do so.
Wow. Just wow. Rip off comes to mind. Throwing money out of the window, come to mind.
But it's not it: the Kinect. Ok, with the Xbone there's a new version of the Kinect; it's better, higher res, and allow playing in smaller rooms. Great, but if I already have it, why can't I use the "old" kinect? Sure, I won't have the benefits of the new version, but if I want to play exactly the same games, then why do I need to fork more money?

This blew my mind, really. I already had a "low" opinion of consoles, as a pure marketing stunt, basically oriented to suck money to teenagers with parents with a too-fat wallet. I thought this was a result of fundamental ignorance, but the more I learn, the more I confirm I was right.
I don't want to open a discussion about PC vs Console, but it's really hard to argue in favor of consoles. Almost 500usd for an Xbone with Kinect and zero games. Need at least one controller, and 60usd for Xbox live. With that money you get a decent gaming PC which is, well, also a PC. Something that with a little extra investment in a couple of year could have a much better GPU and play newer games with ease. And I can use controllers from 10 years ago without any issue.
I mean, I find it striking that products so blatantly designed to suck money from their customers are so successful.
[/RANT]
 
I wouldn't even call this a rant. It's a blurb of random opinions and thoughts.You're surprised that a nine+ year old console and its peripherals isn't compatible with the latest? Sounds like you should buy a Wii and be done with it.
 
Wow, this takes me back.

I remember back in 1991 I was begging my parents for the new SNES, and my mom was pretty negative about the idea because it "couldn't play my old NES Games."

"But mom, I still have my NES but I want to play new games."

"Seems like a ripoff."

Luckily my dad understood and got me the SNES over her objections for Christmas that year. But her feelings towards backwards compatibility have stuck with me.

Nintendo seems to be the best about it in 2014. The Wii U uses the old remotes, and plays the old games. The Wii was a Gamecube when you flipped the top lid. The 3DS plays DS games, the DS played GBA games, etc.
 
The Xbox 360 controller is excelent. It can do anything you need a controller to do.
Nothing wrong having a new controller, but why FORCIBLY block it on Xbone?
Come on, the Xbone is a "PC": you can have drivers to support different types of controllers. We're talking about 2 types, not 50, and all made and fully controlled by MS.

A 9 year old mouse is a mouse. Infact, a 20 years old mouse is still a mouse and can probably be used on a modern PC and work just fine.
Same, and even more so, for the Kinect, for which there are no "compatible" versions: only one version, made by MS.
 
poofyhairguy, I went to buy an Xbone, because I wanted a "future proof" console that wouldn't be obsoleted in a couple of years.
But since "everyone" else is still on Xbox 360, if I want to play online with any other member of the family I have to buy a 9+ year old console. I am forced to do so, because not even online games are shared between the two Xboxes. I suppose this was not an issue with your SNES, was it?
And the SNES did not cost 500usd, did it?
 
mmntech said:
Yeah, well, welcome to modern gaming.

Also, free iPod?
Click to expand...

It's not a surprise that MS (and Sony) want to push this kind of model. What surprises me is such a widespread adoption.
I am not expecting freebies, but I see a PC a much more reasonable investment.
Second life exists since, what 2003? 12 years and running.
*any* PC game can be used pretty much forever (in practical term, for years) and when you buy a new PC practically all your games, peripherals and what not are reusable.
And you can do "modern gaming" on PC just fine. Or am I wrong?
 
A 20-year-old mouse won't work on a modern PC by itself. You'd need a converter of some kind, if not multiple. As someone who had to just experience a serial port for a mouse on his aunt's 20-year-old computer, that's not plugging into the USB port on my computer. In the same vein, you can buy a converter for controllers with the new consoles, I saw one that I think was the Titan One, but it's about $60.


The 360's controller was and is good. I'll take the One's controller every day though, as I find it an overall improvement. Sure, it's not a new set of features, but it's probably a different wireless frequency, and building in legacy support for everything isn't exactly a cheap fix. When the consoles are basically break-even machines because of the hardware costs, throwing in wireless receivers for old stuff, let alone going with something like Sony's Emotion Engine, it's financially irresponsible for them.

What you're basically wanting is to not treat games like the business that they are. You're saying that you'd essentially want Microsoft to spend more money on hardware and software so they could make less on games and accessories. While that's great for the gamers, it's bad for the console makers' financials. These companies are into this for the money, at the end of the day, just as customers are in it to spend as little as possible.
 
yankeeDDL said:
poofyhairguy, I went to buy an Xbone, because I wanted a "future proof" console that wouldn't be obsoleted in a couple of years.
Click to expand...

Out of the two I think that is the PS4. But I honestly don't follow this gen.

But since "everyone" else is still on Xbox 360, if I want to play online with any other member of the family I have to buy a 9+ year old console. I am forced to do so, because not even online games are shared between the two Xboxes. I suppose this was not an issue with your SNES, was it?
Click to expand...

No, then and today I don't care about playing with other people online.

And the SNES did not cost 500usd, did it?
Click to expand...

Adjusted for inflation it was probably close.

yankeeDDL said:
.
Nothing wrong having a new controller, but why FORCIBLY block it on Xbone?
Click to expand...

Because they want developers to be able to assume what type of controller every user is using. Otherwise the new features of a new controller get wasted because no one developes for those features.

Infact, a 20 years old mouse is still a mouse and can probably be used on a modern PC and work just fine.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't do that. A 20 year old mouse probably still has a ball, yuck.

Same, and even more so, for the Kinect, for which there are no "compatible" versions: only one version, made by MS.
Click to expand...

It is a little different for the Kinnect. The new one is completely different hardware- higher res cameras, etc.


It comes down to this- hardware needs to made obsolete because otherwise no one will develop/buy new hardware. That is life on consoles, has been that way for decades.

No one here will be sympathetic to your plight because honestly 9 years is a LONG time for a console to survive. Any other generation and that 360 stuff would have been obsolete 5 years in.

You see computer gaming as a savior, but it is worse. There is NO PC as old as the 360 that can handle modern games. NONE. With most PCs instead of a 9 year cycle to throw everything out it is a 3 or four year cycle. Just because the mouse works and you can play old games doesn't mean you can play new games.
 
It's a hardware thing. Sony and MS are not being lazy or evil, it's that the X1 / PS4 use PC-type hardware while the 360 / PS3 used PowerPC chips.

The X1 / PS4 would have cost ~$100 extra if they had tried to build in the hardware for the 360 / PS3 to be backwards compatible.

Sony tried that with the PS3 at first, but lost badly against the cheaper 360. Both companies learned that while customers claim to want compatibility, they are not willing to pay for it.
 
It's funny that this guy wrote this loooooong post without knowing that all his points and arguments have loooooooong been made ever since the PC vs. console debate existed.

We could probably dig up an archive of a 90's BBS and find a strikingly similar rant from someone who just bought an SNES and found out he couldn't play NES games or use NES accessories with it.
 
Let's put the whole backwards compatibility issue into perspective, because there's a reason why the XB1 and PS4 don't have it, and the Wii U does.

Last console generations, both the 360 and PS3 had backwards compatibility.

The 360 used emulation to get games designed for an x86 system to work on PPC hardware. The downside was it had a rather low compatibility rate. Only about half of the Xbox's original library can run on the 360. The problem is emulation requires a lot of processing power.

Sony went another route with the PS3. PS2 games are not that easy to emulate. So the two launch models actually have a PS2 built right inside. They use the same SoC from the PS2 Slim. The Emotion Engine CPU and Graphics Synthesizer GPU are combined on to the same die. This game the console near perfect backwards compatibility.

Of course, this what a big part of why the PS3 cost $600 at launch. Sony stripped things back by removing the Emotion Engine, pushing off CPU emulation to the Cell while retaining the GS. That lowered compatibility rate to 80%. It was eventually eliminated entirely to cut costs even further. At the time, the PS3 was really struggling against the 360. At that point, they began releasing some PS2 games on the store with recompiled code to run on the newer hardware. Some companies released HD remakes of more popular/iconic games for both platforms.

Moving on to this generation, the reason why the XB1 and PS4 don't have backwards compatibility all boils down to their CPUs. Modern consoles do a lot of their processing on the GPU, so they don't need a very powerful central processor. AMD's Jaguar was originally intended for embedded systems and tablets, so it's not a beefy chip. Last gen consoles on the other hand were still very CPU bound. So they require a lot of horsepower. Even the PC emulation scene hasn't come close to getting working emulators for the 360 and PS3. That's why Sony has opted for streaming instead. Microsoft will likely follow suit.


The Wii U is a bit different. It's fully hardware backwards compatible with the Wii. That's because they both use essentially the same processor: the PowerPC 750. Same chip they've used dating back to the GameCube. It's just been tweaked over the years. In fact the only reason the Wii U doesn't support GCN games is probably because the optical drive doesn't take 8cm discs.
 
Lotta hate here for somebody who doesn't like consoles (console forum, who would have guessed). A few decent post on reasons, but most are just hate with no reasons. he did give reasons, good or bad, he had some.

COST its the key to it all, the post about the PS3 backwards model that sold poorly is the best example, its not that they cant do it, they can, but it hurts the bottom line, plain and simple.
 
Lil Frier said:
A 20-year-old mouse won't work on a modern PC by itself. You'd need a converter of some kind, if not multiple. As someone who had to just experience a serial port for a mouse on his aunt's 20-year-old computer, that's not plugging into the USB port on my computer. In the same vein, you can buy a converter for controllers with the new consoles, I saw one that I think was the Titan One, but it's about $60.


The 360's controller was and is good. I'll take the One's controller every day though, as I find it an overall improvement. Sure, it's not a new set of features, but it's probably a different wireless frequency, and building in legacy support for everything isn't exactly a cheap fix. When the consoles are basically break-even machines because of the hardware costs, throwing in wireless receivers for old stuff, let alone going with something like Sony's Emotion Engine, it's financially irresponsible for them.

What you're basically wanting is to not treat games like the business that they are. You're saying that you'd essentially want Microsoft to spend more money on hardware and software so they could make less on games and accessories. While that's great for the gamers, it's bad for the console makers' financials. These companies are into this for the money, at the end of the day, just as customers are in it to spend as little as possible.
Click to expand...

Not to be picky, but USB mouse were introduced in 1996 or so. Ok, not 20 years, 18. You get my point.

COnsoles are break even at launch.
The Xbox 360 is not very powerful, by today's standard, and the yield of current systems must be stellar, which means that MS is making good moneys with any machine.

As I have already replied, I am not surprised about MS policy on Xbox (and, I presume similarly on the PS): what I am surprised is that this hasn't pushed many people to game on PCs.
I was expecting to see more reaction of "frustrated" gamers, but, clearly, that's not teh case. I'm happy to see that are people that enjoy teh current status of consoles. Me, I'll wait till Xbone or PS4 will be more mainstream and then, maybe, I'll think about it again. For now, I'll show my kid some PC games. I have a few "ancient" ones which I'm sure he'll enjoy at his age.
 
We probably would've had Xbox and PC integration (in multiplayer) if Microsoft didn't screw up with Games for Windows Live. I know they tried with one game (Shadowrun), but it's safe to say that their debut game choice was pretty bad. The game wasn't popular, but it was also a FPS... arguably one of the worst genres to pit PC players against console players. The only worse genre would probably be RTS (or even worse, 4X!).

As for the controllers, they use a different wireless protocol. Sure, you could argue that they could still be hooked up via USB, but then you start initiating peripheral hell. Want to get an idea of what that's like? Look at the back of a Wii U game box. Near the bottom, they detail every controller (or controller combination) that works with the game. In other words, you can't just pick up a controller and go... you need to make sure you have the correct setup to handle the game. Not only that, while you can attach a Wiimote, if it's not Wiimotion Plus, it won't work in some games.

Ultimately, I think the biggest problem is that you're jumping into a well-established yet obsolete console. You're spending a modest sum that could be used to buy newer hardware that will be supported for longer because people you know bought that older hardware a long time ago.

EDIT:

yankeeDDL said:
As I have already replied, I am not surprised about MS policy on Xbox (and, I presume similarly on the PS): what I am surprised is that this hasn't pushed many people to game on PCs.
Click to expand...

Regardless of the nickel and diming that goes on with the consoles, they still present a far more streamlined approach than on a PC. It's sort of like how it is with my HTPCs. My HTPCs may be far more powerful than an Amazon Fire TV, but if I want to switch from Netflix to Plex to Amazon Instant Streaming, it's far, far, far more cumbersome on my HTPC than it would be on a set-top box like the Fire TV.
 
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mmntech said:
Let's put the whole backwards compatibility issue into perspective, because there's a reason why the XB1 and PS4 don't have it, and the Wii U does.
...
Click to expand...

Thank you: this was very useful and clear explanation for me.

I did not mean to upset anyone, altough it seems that many feel quite fondly of their consoles.
Again, as an outsider, looking for the first time in teh console's world, I found something that, personally, I consider not aceptable on multiple levels.

Many of the arguments being made, frankly, make little sense to me: PC games run pretty much on million of different hardware (look at the number of steering wheels for racing games) and yet they work.
PC used to become obsolete every 3 years, but nowadays even a 7~8 years CPU (Phenom X4 anyone?), paired with a decent GPU makes it for a good gaming rig, which probably blows teh Xbox 360 (and XB1) power out of the water. (some interesting reading: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2030005/why-moores-law-not-mobility-is-killing-the-pc.html)

Like I said, I don't want to make this a PC vs console discussion: my point was on how new console releases are planned/defined. I can see how beneficial it is to drop completely (for the manufacturer) any form of compatibility and start with a blank sheet.
For me, playing with family which is abroad is a huge plus, but committing into a 9-years old console seems futile. I guess I picked the wrong time to look into this.
 
yankeeDDL said:
For me, playing with family which is abroad is a huge plus, but committing into a 9-years old console seems futile.
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I wouldn't say that. The 360 has at least two or three more years given its momentum. For that 9 years of waiting you can get everything for VERY cheap- I see sub-$100 360s on Cowboom all the time.

It all comes down to value. When you take a $100 360 plus some cheap used games, and compare it to a brand new Xbox One with brand new $60 games, you will find that the gaming cost per month over the effective life of your purchase is very similar.
 
yankeeDDL said:
Not to be picky, but USB mouse were introduced in 1996 or so. Ok, not 20 years, 18. You get my point.

COnsoles are break even at launch.
The Xbox 360 is not very powerful, by today's standard, and the yield of current systems must be stellar, which means that MS is making good moneys with any machine.

As I have already replied, I am not surprised about MS policy on Xbox (and, I presume similarly on the PS): what I am surprised is that this hasn't pushed many people to game on PCs.
I was expecting to see more reaction of "frustrated" gamers, but, clearly, that's not teh case. I'm happy to see that are people that enjoy teh current status of consoles. Me, I'll wait till Xbone or PS4 will be more mainstream and then, maybe, I'll think about it again. For now, I'll show my kid some PC games. I have a few "ancient" ones which I'm sure he'll enjoy at his age.
Click to expand...

Imagine being a parent who doesn't know computers, trying to get your 10-year-old a PC, rather than a console. You're going to put up $1,000+ to have a computer that will run new games well without issue. Basically, you're buying into gaming for twice the price of a console, and while you'll save good money over time due to lower game prices, and you'll have a larger library, there are problems.

Like I said, I've got a PC and a One (and a Wii U, but that's not really related here), with different purposes. The biggest 2015 game I want to play is The Division. When that finally launches, I'm not going to be able to play it on my PC, as I've still got a Radeon HD 5850. Unless I obliterate the visual settings on The Division, I'm not going to be able to play it, and it might be rough at its lowest settings as well. So, I can opt to spend $50 (thanks to Best Buy's GCU program) on a new copy of The Division for my One, or I can go dump a couple hundred bucks into a GPU, to both make The Division playable and avoid another upgrade in the near-future.

So, I'll opt to get The Division on my One, and continue to have a sizable library of older games on my PC, as I get the best of both worlds--cheap games to enjoy en-masse on the PC, and no immediate need to spend money I don't have on hardware to play newer games.

Now, that's just from the perspective of someone who knows computers, but doesn't want to pony up money for hardware. Imagine being the parents of that kid, and trying to figure out why a game's choppy. Then, learn it's because you need a new GPU, more RAM, or a new CPU and board. Kids and unknowledgeable parents don't want to deal with that.

There's also the matter of exclusives (like how kids want Halo, as do I), but that's beside the point if Microsoft ever makes good on its promise to refocus its efforts on PC gaming, hopefully.
 
yankeeDDL said:
Many of the arguments being made, frankly, make little sense to me: PC games run pretty much on million of different hardware (look at the number of steering wheels for racing games) and yet they work.
PC used to become obsolete every 3 years, but nowadays even a 7~8 years CPU (Phenom X4 anyone?), paired with a decent GPU makes it for a good gaming rig, which probably blows teh Xbox 360 (and XB1) power out of the water. (some interesting reading: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2030005/why-moores-law-not-mobility-is-killing-the-pc.html)
Click to expand...

That's because DOS / Windows PCs have used intel-compatible x86 family processors since day one. And there are exceptions -- I've never gotten Blood 2 to run properly on anything newer than my long-gone Windows 98 / Voodoo3 system. Even the GoG.com version crashes like crazy for me.

X1 / PS4 do this now (use almost-standard PC-like hardware). So X2 / PS5 backwards compatibility will be easy. 360 / PS3 use completely different processors and customized video hardware.

Windows PCs can't natively run games from my Commodore 64 or Atari 800, because the hardware changed. Emulation works, but that is easy for C=64 / Atari because the processor speed was 1 MHz / 1.77 MHz, so 1 : 1,000 the speed of PCs today.

Even a high-end PC struggles to emulate a PS2 properly. A 360 or PS3 is out of the question, the hardware is too complicated to emulate at full speed.
 
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You mean I can't use my NES controllers on the WiiU and my PS4 won't play Japanese Import PS1 games?

On the PC argument imagine you buy a PC for your kid and he goes to school talking about how he plays games at home and it's awesome. Imagine the shock when all his friends got a console and he has a Windows PC.
 
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