How will you choose between MS & Sony's new consoles?

Pushtrak

Grimebox wrote: »

I actually don't think I've ever purchased a single "DLC". Tell them what you think with your wallet

Considering some DLC has had better content than the main game, and you get it for the price of a cinema ticket, I can't see this approach as sensible.

tuxy

Pushtrak wrote: »

Considering some DLC has had better content than the main game, and you get it for the price of a cinema ticket, I can't see this approach as sensible.

This often happens because content is often removed from a game to sell it as DLC. I think it's bad to support this practice.

Beefy78

tuxy wrote: »

This often happens because content is often removed from a game to sell it as DLC. I think it's bad to support this practice.

That's not always the case though. Good DLC should be supported as it is extra content on top of what we'd otherwise be getting and for a reasonable price. The stuff that Rockstar have put out for both GTA IV and Red Dead Redemption, for example.

Captain Chaos

Beefy78 wrote: »

That's not always the case though. Good DLC should be supported as it is extra content on top of what we'd otherwise be getting and for a reasonable price. The stuff that Rockstar have put out for both GTA IV and Red Dead Redemption, for example.

Yeah, and then look at the likes of Capcom. DLC= disc locked content. YOu are paying for the unlock file to access content that is already on what you bought already.

It's like buying a BMW M series with the extra engine power locked out leaving you with a standard BMW performance wise.

hooradiation

tuxy wrote: »

This often happens because content is often removed from a game to sell it as DLC. I think it's bad to support this practice.

Content is always cut from a game, acting like this only started when the DLC model became popular is just silly.


The only real change is when deciding what gets cut that in addition to every other concern thought will have to go into if the cut content could be packaged as DLC at a later date or if it is just to be utterly discarded.

Beefy78

Captain Chaos wrote: »

Yeah, and then look at the likes of Capcom. DLC= disc locked content. YOu are paying for the unlock file to access content that is already on what you bought already.

It's like buying a BMW M series with the extra engine power locked out leaving you with a standard BMW performance wise.

Exactly and that's where buying power comes in. I feel the same way when I look at the Tiger Woods series. I want those extra courses but they're there on day one and no way am I going to pay EA a penny to get them. Whereas I bought Raw vs Smackdown 2011 (for my sins) which had what I felt to be a decent DLC policy and appeared to be providing additional content and support in the months after launch to supplement what was already there and at a decent price and I therefore supported that.

Retr0gamer

Captain Chaos wrote: »

It's like buying a BMW M series with the extra engine power locked out leaving you with a standard BMW performance wise.

Actually don't car manufacturers do that, the CPU that controls the car locks it down and you have to fork out extra money for the extra horses from the same engine?

Grimebox

Pushtrak wrote: »

Considering some DLC has had better content than the main game, and you get it for the price of a cinema ticket, I can't see this approach as sensible.

Can you give me some examples? Usually they are a fraction of the price because they are a fraction of the original content

wnolan1992

Grimebox wrote: »

Can you give me some examples? Usually they are a fraction of the price because they are a fraction of the original content

GTAIV's DLC for starters.

Retr0gamer

Grimebox wrote: »

Can you give me some examples? Usually they are a fraction of the price because they are a fraction of the original content

Fallout 3 had some great DLC particularly the Pitt and the one in the swampy area. I felt GTA4's DLC was more fun than the actual game. Bioshock 2's Minerva's Den is a much better paced and better game than the main game. Some poeple like the Mass Effect 2 DLC, can't say I was a fan of any of it.

Captain Chaos

The Borderlands 1 DLC was very good value for money, most of it anyway.

Not really a fan of it but the multiplayer modes in Mass Effect 3 got a ton of free DLC. The amount for classes, weapons and maps that were released months and months later would put most developers to shame.

The Halo 4 Spartan Ops missions are decent enough and are still being released for free until Season 2.

Grimebox

Actually that was an awful question from me. I can't compare DLC's if I've never touched them myself, especially since this thread is relating to PS/XBOX (I don't have either). Ignore me!

Shiminay

COYVB wrote: »

That should come down ever so slightly in the next few years given the similarities between the two main next gen consoles

I think Yahtzee said that both companies should just stop faffing about and standardise the hardware between the 2 of them and charge based on service which would make all development equal and cost a LOT less money.

altairscreed wrote: »

The reason I personally wont pay full price for a game anymore is that I can't afford too, saying that iv never bought a second hand game in my life either, id just rather get them in sales now.

I compleatly understand the cost and hard work that goes into game development but if I had to pay full price I couldn't justify it when im trying to pay a mortgage and provide for two kids.

Yea, it's a tough position to be in. My problem is that of time. I have no where near enough time to play the games I have so I'm finding myself waiting to get new releases and as a result am picking some of them up at a much better price.

gizmo

DLC, F2P, multiplayer and Co-Op modes are, in themselves, fine. There are plenty of games out there which have implemented them fantastically.

Their application, however, can often be completely inappropriate. There are also plenty of games which demonstrate this perfectly.

None of these are going to disappear in the next generation of consoles for this very reason.

The best solution is to support those games that do it right and flat out ignore those that don't. What will certainly not work is the continued push towards second hand sales (specifically the Steam/digital one), knowingly buying games which contain content which one finds abhorrent because we love the franchise (sup, Diablo 3) or waiting till the price drops either naturally over time or via larger seasonal sales. It's obvious that not everyone can afford every game for full price on release but the danger comes from those who can afford them but make a concious decision to wait. The ball, as they say, is and has always been, in our court.

Pushtrak

tuxy wrote: »

This often happens because content is often removed from a game to sell it as DLC. I think it's bad to support this practice.

People buy the DLC that they think they will enjoy or they buy it because they are stupid. We can't do much to help the latter, and the former have no need of help.

Grimebox wrote: »

Can you give me some examples? Usually they are a fraction of the price because they are a fraction of the original content

BioShock 2 Minerva's Den has been mentioned already. There are also expansion packs which can get released which are pricier, but definitely worth it. For instance, Shivering Isles for Oblivion and Awakening for Dragon Age Origins. In the case of Awakening, I'd even go as far as to say it has a better story and is a better game generally than the main game.

BioWare are very much a hit and miss sort of thing with DLC. Look at the first Mass Effect, with two DLCs. Bring Down the Sky was a solid DLC, whereas the otherr one with a name I can't remember and don't even care about enough to look up was terrible. Dragon Age as well as having Awakening has some terrible DLC. In the case of Dragon Age Origins, it would be best to get the GOTY editiion.

I'm actually waiting for the GOTY of Borderlands 2. It is a sensible approach to take for some games, to wait for the GOtY.

Gears of War has had some great DLC in its time. There are lots of games with great DLC. Whether we are talking about games that only came to consoles or ones available to PC users only.

Icyseanfitz

If you dont think that certain publishers are abusing the dlc model to make more cash your just naive, theres a lot more crappy day 1 dlc out there than actual good dlc and unfortunatly theres idiots who will buy it, gta iv's dlc was very very good i just wish we would see more of that kind of dlc next gen as opposed to most of the crap we got this gen

Azza

Captain Chaos wrote:

Yeah, and then look at the likes of Capcom. DLC= disc locked content. YOu are paying for the unlock file to access content that is already on what you bought already.

It's like buying a BMW M series with the extra engine power locked out leaving you with a standard BMW performance wise.

As far as I'm aware from a legal standpoint, consumers don't own any content on the disc locked or otherwise, you just have a limited license to play the game. They are legally entitled to sell the content to you whatever way they want, be it disc locked or downloadable.

As for your second point. That's what graphics card manufacturers do. The difference between some mid range and high end graphics cards sometimes is little more than a few pipelines being disabled (which can be re-enabled by modding the hardware).

Disc Locked Content does offer some benefits. The first is to the developer. It means they don't have to pay MS/Sony money for users downloading the content from them. Every MB downloaded on console of DLC or patches costs the developers money.

But it also benefits the players too. An example would be Mortal Kombat. Characters where made available as DLC a few months after release. To use them online required your opponent to have them as well. The developers released free compatibility patches for each of the 4 DLC characters that allowed people to play against the DLC characters while not actually buying them and offered free bonus costumes with them to encourage people to download them, I think the patches where each between 100-200MB. However many players simply did not bother, and so people who purchased the DLC characters found far more often than not they could not use the characters they payed for online.

On disc content prevents such a scenario from happening. It also has the benefit in Street Fighter x Tekken's case of not requiring a 860MB download.

In fighting games it also offers benefits too tournament players, there not required to own DLC characters but they can still practice against them.

hooradiation

Azza wrote: »

As far as I'm aware from a legal standpoint, consumers don't own any content on the disc locked or otherwise, you just have a limited license to play the game. They are legally entitled to sell the content to you whatever way they want, be it disc locked or downloadable.

pretty much entirely true. If you ever look at how steam tends to have separate entries for the main game and DLC you'll see how this works.

Disc Locked Content does offer some benefits. The first is to the developer. It means they don't have to pay MS/Sony money for users downloading the content from them. Every MB downloaded on console of DLC or patches costs the developers money.

But it also benefits the players too. An example would be Mortal Kombat. Characters where made available as DLC a few months after release. To use them online required your opponent to have them as well. The developers released free compatibility patches for each of the 4 DLC characters that allowed people to play against the DLC characters while not actually buying them and offered free bonus costumes with them to encourage people to download them, I think the patches where each between 100-200MB. However many players simply did not bother, and so people who purchased the DLC characters found far more often than not they could not use the characters they payed for online.

On disc content prevents such a scenario from happening. It also has the benefit in Street Fighter x Tekken's case of not requiring a 860MB download.

In fighting games it also offers benefits too tournament players, there not required to own DLC characters but they can still practice against them.

This is pretty much the big technical reason for having day one stuff on disc, if you can plan it that way. Having the content there to be loaded if in a multiplayer scenario one person has the DLC and the other doesn't prevents splitting the player base and having to transfer data from host to client (and if you think a 1v1 fighting game would be bad for this, imagine the headache of getting a 16 person game working if this kind of transfer had to take place)

You could put them in a title update/patch or whatever, but then you have loads of people during the time your game is being bought and played the most hammering servers trying to download the TU. Pretty bad idea, people may baulk at the existence of on disc DLC but they'll really go ballistic if they can't play the game on day one because everyone is trying to download the same patch/update/TU/whatever.

Once you've committed to putting small day one DLC out there, if at all possible you should put it on the disc, it saves a tonne of technical headaches.

When it comes to day one DLC haters gonna hate no matter what, so what have you got to lose?

Magill

CastorTroy wrote: »

You mean will they also port to PC? was there a reason given for that not happening for Red Dead?

I remember reading the reason Gears of War 2 never got ported to PC, even though Gears 1 was, was due to fear of piracy. So this may be a reason for some games staying on console only.

Then there are games from companies like Platinum Games which aren't ported, but I just assumed this was due to them being Japanese and PC gaming not being as big there. Or is it big there?

Ya, it wasn't released on PC because rockstar believed it wasn't viable. If it was easier to port games to PC maybe we'd have less console exclusives. Not sure about the Japanese thing, but thats not really a proper reason not to port to PC since im sure Platinum's games do better in EU/NA than in Asia anyway, i'd have thought it would have been similar to the Demon/Darksouls situation, where they just didn't have the experience in PC development.. but im sure From Software isn't regretting the decision to port darksouls now, even if they did a poor job of it.

Honestly i've no idea what is involved in porting a game, but hopefully it'll be easier with next gen games.

ShooterSF

Day1 dlc is no issue to me. It's similar to providing a standard version of a game at X price or a special edition at X+Y price but with the option to upgrade your standard version at any time. As long as reviews are clear on scoring games with and without the DLC you can decide what version you want and if it is worth the price or should you wait for a price drop.

My bigger issue with DLC is from a retro gamer standpoint and what happens 10 or 15 years down the line and I pick up some 360/PS3 games I never got round to and want to try out the DLC will I be able to?

NTMK

CastorTroy wrote: »

You mean will they also port to PC? was there a reason given for that not happening for Red Dead?

I remember reading the reason Gears of War 2 never got ported to PC, even though Gears 1 was, was due to fear of piracy. So this may be a reason for some games staying on console only.

Then there are games from companies like Platinum Games which aren't ported, but I just assumed this was due to them being Japanese and PC gaming not being as big there. Or is it big there?

RDR wasnt ported because the Xbox code (the code used to port to pc) was an absolute mess for the devs to port. It would have required the devs to rewrite almost the entire game and was deemed not worth it

Gears 2 was not ported due to MS's changing the way they deal with their IP's and probably a little to due Epics love/hate relationship with pc

Japanese Devs never ported to pc as its not as big in japan but as need they need to sell games in the west more and more will port

NTMK

Magill wrote: »

but im sure From Software isn't regretting the decision to port darksouls now, even if they did a poor job of it.

In fairness From Software were completely honest about the port being exactly the same as the xbox ver. and they didnt have to do it. and combined with the fact the devs had zero experience porting to pc they didnt do an awful job (prototype 2 was way worse)

Captain Chaos

Azza wrote: »

As far as I'm aware from a legal standpoint, consumers don't own any content on the disc locked or otherwise, you just have a limited license to play the game. They are legally entitled to sell the content to you whatever way they want, be it disc locked or downloadable.

As for your second point. That's what graphics card manufacturers do. The difference between some mid range and high end graphics cards sometimes is little more than a few pipelines being disabled (which can be re-enabled by modding the hardware).

Disc Locked Content does offer some benefits. The first is to the developer. It means they don't have to pay MS/Sony money for users downloading the content from them. Every MB downloaded on console of DLC or patches costs the developers money.

Bad example using a car alright. Only after I typed it I thought about GFX cards as you said and how people save hundreds by getting the mid to high end card and then OC'ing it to the highest end clocks. Even Intel's CPUs OC like little sparklers, it's great.

What annoys me about Capcom is that years ago, say Res 2. You unlocked extra stuff by completing tasks in the game in a set time and or conditions. Now in Res 5 it's on the disc and you have to pay for it. I don't agree with that even though it saves them money not having to upload it to Live or PSN. That's their choice, but the cheek to get around a fee and then charge for the DLC unlock file of a few kbs is pure cheek.

Magill

NTMK wrote: »

In fairness From Software were completely honest about the port being exactly the same as the xbox ver. and they didnt have to do it. and combined with the fact the devs had zero experience porting to pc they didnt do an awful job (prototype 2 was way worse)

Yeah im not disagreeing with that, but like you said they had no experience, so im guessing that is the same with a lot of jap developers and why they don't do PC games, if it was a lot easier (And therefore cheaper) maybe we'd get more of their games on steam etc would be really sweet. Im sure darksouls 2 will be a much better port now that they've got that bit of experience aswel.

NTMK

Magill wrote: »

Yeah im not disagreeing with that, but like you said they had no experience, so im guessing that is the same with a lot of jap developers and why they don't do PC games, if it was a lot easier (And therefore cheaper) maybe we'd get more of their games on steam etc would be really sweet. Im sure darksouls 2 will be a much better port now that they've got that bit of experience aswel.

Sorry its just that ive read a lot of hate towards the Darksouls port

I hope DS has shown a lot of Japanese devs PC is a viable platform and start to port games (even ****ty ports :pac:)

Azza

Captain Chaos wrote:

What annoys me about Capcom is that years ago, say Res 2. You unlocked extra stuff by completing tasks in the game in a set time and or conditions. Now in Res 5 it's on the disc and you have to pay for it. I don't agree with that even though it saves them money not having to upload it to Live or PSN. That's their choice, but the cheek to get around a fee and then charge for the DLC unlock file of a few kbs is pure cheek.

Incorrect. Resident Evil 5 has plenty of unlockable rewards.

The following can be unlocked.
History of Resident Evil
Mercenary Mode
New Game Plus
Play as Sheva
Professional Difficulty
Unlimited Ammo
Gatling Gun
Hydra Triple Barrel Shotgun
Longbow
M93R Pistol Samurai Edge Custom
Smith and Wesson M500 Hand Cannon
Mercenary mode has 8 unlockable characters with different load outs.

So they have not abandoned unlockables at all. Now they do both unlockables and DLC. Capcom have every right to sell content however they see fit, and there is nothing cheeky about that. It doesn't matter what size the unlock file is, its unlocking content they developed at additional cost to themselves that wasn't budgeted for when they made the main game. If they where not intending to sell it, the content would never have been made. Its up to you as a consumer to decide if you value this additional content enough to purchase it. But just because its on the disc does not mean your entitled to it for free.

Magill

NTMK wrote: »

Sorry its just that ive read a lot of hate towards the Darksouls port

I hope DS has shown a lot of Japanese devs PC is a viable platform and start to port games (even ****ty ports :pac:)

Ya, ****ty ports of great games like darksouls is better than no port at all. The community can always fix them after release !

GavRedKing

Built a gaming PC a few months ago and the PS3 hasnt been used much except for Blu Rays really.

I'll probably wait a year or 18 months before picking up the new Sony console though for prices to come down and a better choice of games to be available.

Vyse

Xbox Live vs PS+ has made the decision very easy for me. Have got the last 2 Xboxs on launch day but have grown more and more pissed off with having to pay for Gold. It was fine back when halo 2 was out and nobody else (console wise) was offering a decent online experience. Now it's simply taking the piss. And the amount of adverts that I get hit with as soon as I log onto Xbox Live is another thing turning me off the machine.

CastorTroy

Do you think MS will try and compete more with Plus this time or will they go with a "better service" sales pitch?
If Sony improve their online presence(PSN, store, Home(?)) and keep the Plus Instant Games then MS will really need to step up.