Your attitude to the next gen?...

hightower1

After th last few E3's I have been feeling more and more like MS has not only abandoned the hardcore but in fact has betrayed the hardcore with intial promises of being focused on games and the gaming experience. This seems to have been a ploy to get early adopters in with their cash then their focus changed to the casual at the cost of abandoning the hardcore.

Its left me feeling somewhat hard done by tbh, I wouldnt have considered myself a total fanboy buying my first xbox but on getting the 360 I was definitly convinced of its superior status..... these days however, Im not so sure.

I can see the toll their marketing stratagy has had on my opinion of the brand but Id like to know yours?

Do you feel your a hardcore gamer?
Do you feellike MS has lost sight of your wants?
If MS and Sony announce new consoles at the next e3 would you be more open to Sonys proposition or still sticking with MS's offering if or when it comes?

Samich

I just like the xbox interface and the comfiness of the controller. it's the little things :P

NORTH1

I consider myself a causal gamer.

I've been with MS since the beginning, I feel institutionalised, it would be hard for me to change. I have invested to much time in it to consider changing.

I'm definitely the old dog that won't learn a new trick.

Apart from the odd hick up, and avoiding the run of the mill customer support types, they have not given me a reason to change.

Mr Freeze

I'd say I will stick with MS.

Have the windows phone now too, and play games on that, and will hopefully get one of the low end MS Surface tabs when they come out (if I can afford it).

I think North sums it up perfectly though.

I've been with MS since the beginning, I feel institutionalised, it would be hard for me to change. I have invested to much time in it to consider changing.

Not The Real Scarecrow

Price will play a big factor in helping me make my mind up about if I'll get a next gen console. Leaked reports suggest that ms are looking at charging $300 for the next xbox. If thats true , then will probably pick one up.But , I reckon , going on past launch consoles,it'll probably be closer to 500 euro. If this is the case will be throwing the money into a decent gaming pc.

Native 1080p will be the first port of call.
Love the 360 but it is let down by **** scaling and jaggies with hardly any 1080p Native games.

ironictoaster

Will be interested in Sony's new console as I am not interested on MS's direction with the kinect. Also, looking at this years E3, I am liking the look of Sony's exclusives.

I would really miss the xbox controller though.

hightower1

Interesting to see how the poll is going, seems like more are open to change than I thought would be considering this is the xbox (not gaming) section. At least one thing is for sure this E3 should be the most interesting in a LONG long time if some of the fanboys molds are broken and more people are open to each companies sales pitch.

Price for me isnt a big factor (within reason) , I think specs wise the two will be very similar but what would sway it for me will be the extras. Wouldnt be surprised to see modular controllers this gen with replaceable back contours so you can personalize it to your own hand. I just hope they dont go all casual but if any company does my money would be on MS first :mad:

Have never booked days off work for e3 before but I think I can spare a couple in 2013!

PhlegmyMoses

MS aren't stupid. They understand that the hardcore gamers are the early adopters of new hardware. They will cater for this crowd as much as the family crowd for the first couple of years. They will then spend the next couple of years roping in the cash from those who aren't as interested in the gaming end of things.

Captain Chaos

RVP 11 wrote: »

Native 1080p will be the first port of call.
Love the 360 but it is let down by **** scaling and jaggies with hardly any 1080p Native games.

The PS3 is the same, very few native 1080p titles on despite what marketing tells you.

For the next gen though, I am pee'd of with MS since the Kinect BS. This E3 has pushed my more towards Sony and with Sony now giving out free games for the price of XBL, the ball is with MS.

Right now the only thing keeping me on the 360 is the controller. Nintendo have even copied it's shape now but Sony won't budge with their awkward mid '90s design

hightower1

PhlegmyMoses wrote: »

MS aren't stupid. They understand that the hardcore gamers are the early adopters of new hardware. They will cater for this crowd as much as the family crowd for the first couple of years. They will then spend the next couple of years roping in the cash from those who aren't as interested in the gaming end of things.

I think thats what has a seed of doubt in my mind. I have seen how they have treated the hardcore this cycle and as a result I am very sceptical about their showing this E3 even if they claim to be back to the hardcore.

Right now for sony to get my money they simply have to be good as they have proven they still care about the hardcore - more trust for them in my book.
MS on the other hand have to blow me out of the water to get my cash now seeing as they really have burned the hardcore this time round.

chin_grin

So it's basically just brand loyalty at this stage. Unless MS f*ck things up with the next xbox.....8...or infinity or whatever they want to call it.

I'm not really a 'hardcore' gamer (I personally hate that term), but enjoy the moments I game. I'd say it's the quality of the games and a HUGE +1 on the controller. Going back from 360 to ps3 just annoys me.

But I do feel that with recent updates the xbox is slowly but surely being transformed in to a media centre instead of a gaming console. Sky/Netflix/Youtube and streaming to it.

Chief_Jack

Despite others complaining or disliking Microsoft's new integration of various different media apps, I personally think that is a good thing. With Smart TV's launching now they needed to step up their media inclusion, they want to steer people away from Smart TV's because of the fact that these TV's will be including game streaming services which in theory could essentially make consoles obsolete.

The problem however is their focus on these third party applications they aren't catering for the gamer's who love the exclusive award winning games, It's time that they start a new xbox exclusive franchise. Turn the clock back 3 -4 years and Sony was in Microsofts state of lack of exclusives but they stepped up and have solved the issue. Microsoft have let themselves fall behind, which will effect the gamers who are hardcore or whatever they want to call themselves.

For me, the next gen will need to have a certain amount of media applications and all those bonus features type things that Microsoft are currently providing. But if it is at the expense of the actual games then I am sorry to say that I will be jumping ship and bringing my business elsewhere. I think that the way the next gen is announced will be either make or break the companies image.

ironictoaster

Hopefully they will be released close enough to each in 2013, Sony dropped the ball on release date. At least here, anyways.

the groutch

I think to justify buying any next gen console they would have to break major boundaries, and provide something to "blow me away".
all the great consoles made a groundbreaking move
eg. PS1 - moving from cartidge to disc.
Xbox - Mass Online Gaming, CD Player, Hard drive instead of memory cards.
360 - Dvd Player, Xbla, Achievements system
Wii - Proper Motion sensors (not crap like eyetoy)

Captain Chaos

the groutch wrote: »

I think to justify buying any next gen console they would have to break major boundaries, and provide something to "blow me away".
all the great consoles made a groundbreaking move
eg. PS1 - moving from cartidge to disc.
Xbox - Mass Online Gaming, CD Player, Hard drive instead of memory cards.
360 - Dvd Player, Xbla, Achievements system
Wii - Proper Motion sensors (not crap like eyetoy)

The PS2 and Xbox were playing DVDs, that was not a new feature with the 360. The PS2 was just a more powerful PS1. The Xbox 1 introduced better graphics again and XBL, the start on console online gaming.

The 360 and PS3 just brought HD and later 3D gaming to the masses that don't have PCs.

There was not really any ground breaking jumps.
The PS1 and Sega Saturn were at the time though but since then it's been small increases. All they can do now is make better and better graphics and stop dumbing down games with all the hand holding and simplicity.

Chief_Jack

Captain Chaos wrote: »

The PS2 and Xbox were playing DVDs, that was not a new feature with the 360. The PS2 was just a more powerful PS1. The Xbox 1 introduced better graphics again and XBL, the start on console online gaming.

The 360 and PS3 just brought HD and later 3D gaming to the masses that don't have PCs.

There was not really any ground breaking jumps.
The PS1 and Sega Saturn were at the time though but since then it's been small increases. All they can do now is make better and better graphics and stop dumbing down games with all the hand holding and simplicity.

Actually, the Dreamcast was the first console to have online gaming.

And the current gen does a lot more than just better graphics. Playing videos from a hard drive. Extremely expanded online features. Apps for Sky, 4od etc. Wireless controllers. Social features (friending, messages, chat, video chat, co-op). Also the sheer amount of xbla games is amazing. Also, indie developers have been published their own games on xbl to the indie market (not accessible in Ireland unless you make a english account, easily done) too which was a new feature. Avatars and achievements too. PS3 also has a blu ray player which was new. Motion controls reached a new high and standard with Wii, Kinect and Move. PS3 has a web browser and the 360 is getting one. Voice commands on the XBox work impressively well.

But I digress. In short, there was an exponential jump from Ps2/Xbox to PS3/360, the idea of it just being graphics is pure wrong. The jump was much greater than the jump from the PS1 to PS2 jump.

CMpunked

I think i'll stick with MS.
Overall i feel they are pushing the xbox in a direction which i like. I might be in the minority with that idea, but i like having a central entertainment hub which could take over from existing sky boxes, hdmi link ups from the laptop and the likes.
Not being a 'hardcore' gamer helps, i suppose.

GTR63

I'm much the same as Cmpunked, not a hardcore gamer and 95% of my games are 3rd party. If I don't like kinect or that I just won't buy one or bitch about it, think they only have leaned on it the last few years* cause they needed something to get more people buying xbox's.
*Might be in a minority but I think if the worldwide recession never came we'd be all playing on the Nextbox,720,infinity the last 18 months.

toitle

I'm more causal.I mean casual.
The only reason I got an xbox was I couldn't afford to get a decent gaming pc and I missed playing fps.My g/f got sick of hearing me whinging and got me one for my birthday.
Price would be a big factor for me aswell as the extra functions.
I enjoy watching movies etc
I'm open to switching depending on the platform which offers the most playability.(I play the original mariokart on the snes-one of the best games ever IMO)
I still only really play fps and recently went back to BF:BC2 from BF3 (hugely disappointing)
All the higher specs are impressive and all that but I find that a huge percentage of modern games look amazing but lack any real depth.
Style over substance type thing.

I think xbl is a bit of a racket but that's probably just showing my age.
I grew up playing CS on a 56k
I do like the way that it's seems more of a level playing field when playing against other console players (connection notwithstanding)
It'd be cool to have a keyboard+mouse type interface.(I know you can get ones but that seems like cheating to me)
My rambling 2¢

Retr0gamer

I usually end up with all the consoles. If you have the money there's no point in limiting yourself to just the one and missing out on some great exclusives. Brand loyalty is just stupidity under a different guise. If you can only afford the one then go for the one that offers the best for you for the money.

Chief_Jack

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I usually end up with all the consoles. If you have the money there's no point in limiting yourself to just the one and missing out on some great exclusives. Brand loyalty is just stupidity under a different guise. If you can only afford the one then go for the one that offers the best for you for the money.

I hate you for having the money abilities to buy all consoles. I love you because your point is bang on and completely right.

Patsy fyre

If the new xbox didn't have the ability to play DVDs or apps such as 4od, sky, netflix, YouTube and could only play games then I would not be buying it. I'm a casual gamer and I love the fact that I can turn off skyrim and turn on the formula one grand prix without having to get out of bed.

Microsoft are moving in the right direction, well for the majority of people anyway.

Shred

I was a Ninty gamer for the guts of 20 years and a staunch fanboy up to probably 4 years ago. But I was also a PC gamer for about 10 years at the same time. Then I bought a 360 2.5 years ago and haven't been too interested in what Ninty have been or are doing tbh. Next gen I'm a bit meh about tbh and I've even been considering going back to PC gaming...but I like the comfort of the couch & don't have a decent seperate room for gaming since my son was born. Then there's the cost and hassle of maintaining and upgrading a gaming rig. I do really like the idea of a console being a fully fledged media centre though and like the direction MS are going in this respect, but I would still like them to continue focusing on quality games also. So you could say I'm a little conflicted!
Having said all of that I'll keep an eye on what's being offered although I've never liked Sony and still don't...but I suppose I wouldn't rule out having a look at the PS4 as I don't particularly subscribe to the futility of brand loyalty anymore.

murphyebass

Had the PS1 and PS2 but made the switch to Xbox 360 because it was out before the PS3.

Love the Halo and Gears and to a lesser extent Forza games way too much to switch back to Sony.
That said I wont be getting a next gen console at launch. I'd say they'll be out a good year or so before I get involved due to price.

I bought a PS2 recently for next to nothing actually as well so playing through a few old favourites on that.

I have an old PSP 3000 for handheld sony gaming.

Also have a DS for Nintendo gaming.

I may not have all the up to date gaming devices like 3DS or Vita but dont feel I need to.

Theres such a huge back catalogue of games for those 2 handhelds I couldnt possibly justify buying the newer ones, yet.....

Tea 1000

the groutch wrote: »

I think to justify buying any next gen console they would have to break major boundaries, and provide something to "blow me away".
all the great consoles made a groundbreaking move
eg. PS1 - moving from cartidge to disc.
Xbox - Mass Online Gaming, CD Player, Hard drive instead of memory cards.
360 - Dvd Player, Xbla, Achievements system
Wii - Proper Motion sensors (not crap like eyetoy)

Games on disk weren't a break through really, they were a step-back for money saving in reality. Nintendo thought of it and worked with Sony to make it happen, but there was a falling out and Sony went their own way, brought out the Playstation, and Nintendo then stuck to Cartridges for the N64 so as not to have to pay the small fee to Sony for using DVD tech. Cartridges were brilliant really, no annoying loading, which still bugs me today. Also moving parts etc in disk drives are noisy and can go wrong. Too costly though to manufacture! Less profit!
I used to be "medium-core", had the original NES and a handful from all manufacturers since (except Sega actually - couldn't afford the Dreamcast!) so I've no real brand loyalty, but I don't have a PS3 for the main two reasons being the crappy controller which was kak even on day one, and driving games being better on the 360.
I actually think Kinect is a fantastic piece of kit. I know it's a novelty item and it's never something I'd use for serious gaming, but it really is a clever piece of technology. And considering the price of around €100, you're getting an Infrared camera and light and a normal camera for depth perception, and a direction sensitive microphone all mounted on a motorised device which has the ability to track your movements, it's brilliant! I must revisit that SDK that I downloaded again and try to get things working on the Laptop! I also love WMC and I regularly enough use the 360 as an extender. Pause, rewind and record Live TV with a better EPG than Sky and a cleverer series link feature and better search options!
(I better stop before I annoy all the hard-core gamers!

Retr0gamer

Tea 1000 wrote: »

Games on disk weren't a break through really, they were a step-back for money saving in reality. Nintendo thought of it and worked with Sony to make it happen, but there was a falling out and Sony went their own way, brought out the Playstation, and Nintendo then stuck to Cartridges for the N64 so as not to have to pay the small fee to Sony for using DVD tech. Cartridges were brilliant really, no annoying loading, which still bugs me today. Also moving parts etc in disk drives are noisy and can go wrong. Too costly though to manufacture! Less profit!

That's not really what happened at all. Sony was collaborating with Nintendo on a SNES add-on then Nintendo completely dicked over Sony by announcing they were developing a add-on with Philips, which never came out. Sony then developed the Playstation by themselves. Nintendo didn't stick with cartridges because of less loading times and licensing fees (which wouldn't have went to Sony). Nintendo stayed with cartridges so they could control production over the carts and impose the same terrible restrictions on publishers that they had in effect since the NES period. It totally backfired on them since Sony offered a cheaper medium to manufacture their games on and more linient restrictions of publishers making it a far more attractive platform to develop for big and small developers not to mention the advantages the larger memory size gave.

ROM chips have always been very expensive and it's only the advent of cheap flash memory that has seen them return. The disc drives may be more expensive but it's far outweighed by the advantages of disc media in cost and capacity. Also as long as you don't cheap out on your discs drives like Sony always do then they should last a good while, my Sega Saturn is still going strong while I've gone through 2 PS1's, 2 PS2's and have my fingers crossed I get lucky with my PS3 and PSP.

hightower1

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I usually end up with all the consoles. If you have the money there's no point in limiting yourself to just the one and missing out on some great exclusives. Brand loyalty is just stupidity under a different guise. If you can only afford the one then go for the one that offers the best for you for the money.

I could afford both but the big catch for me is time, I already spend 3hours a night gaming on average and I just dont have the spare time to put in anymore tbh.


I think some people mistake consumer expectations for brand loyalty. For me when I looked at MS in the first few years I felt they were the gamers choice, it was the message they wanted to give. It was my expectation and thats what I got but in recent years my expectation hasnt changed but the companies strategy has. Im not a fanboi of any one brand but I do have certain expectations of each brand based on their views and history and its those expectations that will guide my next gen console purchase. Right now MS track record is not great (sacrifice hardcore games to multimedia add ons) so their business plan will be very interesting to me but one things for sure they will want to bring something huge to change my current opinion of them. Sony right now have a track record of falling into the multimedia fad but not at the cost of the gaming side so IMO they have less of a battle to get my cash come june 2013

o1s1n

I love when a new generation comes along. It means people start off loading the current gen and I get to add to collections for literally next to nothing.

Patsy fyre

hightower1 wrote: »

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I usually end up with all the consoles. If you have the money there's no point in limiting yourself to just the one and missing out on some great exclusives. Brand loyalty is just stupidity under a different guise. If you can only afford the one then go for the one that offers the best for you for the money.

I could afford both but the big catch for me is time, I already spend 3hours a night gaming on average and I just dont have the spare time to put in anymore tbh.


I think some people mistake consumer expectations for brand loyalty. For me when I looked at MS in the first few years I felt they were the gamers choice, it was the message they wanted to give. It was my expectation and thats what I got but in recent years my expectation hasnt changed but the companies strategy has. Im not a fanboi of any one brand but I do have certain expectations of each brand based on their views and history and its those expectations that will guide my next gen console purchase. Right now MS track record is not great (sacrifice hardcore games to multimedia add ons) so their business plan will be very interesting to me but one things for sure they will want to bring something huge to change my current opinion of them. Sony right now have a track record of falling into the multimedia fad but not at the cost of the gaming side so IMO they have less of a battle to get my cash come june 2013

Why do you feel Microsoft are sacrificing hardcore games for multimedia ad ons? Isn't it up to game developers to develop new games? Microsoft are simply increasing the reasons for someone to buy the console. Eg my sister bought this more for sky go, netflix and other apps rather than the games. When you examine the product life cycle of products this is normal practice.

Azure_sky

Will definitely get a WiiU because of the first party titles, and the fact that Nintendo consoles are pretty reliable, but I'm in no rush for the next xbox or PS3.

o1s1n wrote: »

I love when a new generation comes along. It means people start off loading the current gen and I get to add to collections for literally next to nothing.

Yep, I'm looking forward to getting a PS3 for a hundred Euro. Lots of JRPGs and a Blu ray as a bonus.