E3 2017: Thoughts, Praises, Whingeings

[JLTucker]

This week is E3 and so far I've been disappointed on what lies ahead for Xbox. I'll be getting the One X for 4K capabilities but not sure if Microsoft can offer any good exclusives for it and/or the One S. As it stands, Anthem is the only title I'm looking forward to.

I've been getting into Destiny so I'm hoping more of Destiny 2 is shown. Not sure on that, though.

[Ace Pace]

You're not happy with the Ori sequel? The first was amazing.

I'm mostly happy that they're continuing with good games and great hardware. Gives later on opportunity.

[Anacronian]

Metro Exodus, Ori, and Southpark are the games I look forward too, The rest seemed kind'a bland.

[TheFeniX]

Looking into the "X," there was another Xbone release (the "S") in between the X? So, a 2-year hardware cycle, then a 1-year?

[Jub]

The S was just a slim model, you really didn't gain much from going from the original to the S.

[Eternal_Freedom]

As a PC user stuff about consoles doesn't bother me at all. What does excite me is Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus coming in October. Sweet! Guess BJ survived that nuke after all.

[AniThyng]

Ace combat delayed till 2018 makes me sad. I don't care how corny it is.

Also, braided Nordic princesses. Cough. I meant FA-18s with lasers. Yes.

[SAMAS]

Mario Odyssey, Breath of the Wild Quest/Story DLC, Xenoblade Chronicles 2, Fire Emblem Warriors, Kirby, Metroid Prime 4, Yoshi, oh, and another Metroid 2 Rema-- No wait, THE Metroid 2 Remake.

Now the hell did Nintendo and Ubisoft win this E3?

[ray245]

Pokemon is going to be on the Switch...

[SAMAS]

Oh yeah, forgot that too!

[TheFeniX]

Metroid Prime 4 ...... oh, and another Metroid 2 Rema-- No wait, THE Metroid 2 Remake.

I'll believe it when I see it. Like, on a pre-order advertisement. Depending on what, if anything, I can see (even leaving aside Retro isn't the developer), I could be persuaded to buy a Switch based on this release.

[ray245]

Oh yeah, forgot that too!

I'm really disliking the fact that I have to buy a whole new Nintendo main console just to play the next Pokemon generation game. It's really not value-for-money.

[Jub]

Oh yeah, forgot that too!

I'm really disliking the fact that I have to buy a whole new Nintendo main console just to play the next Pokemon generation game. It's really not value-for-money.

It might not be a main series game, and I'm sure there are other games for the Switch to increase the value. Heck, a Switch now is only $50 USD more than the 3DS was at launch. It's hard to say that isn't a decent value.

[ray245]

Oh yeah, forgot that too!

I'm really disliking the fact that I have to buy a whole new Nintendo main console just to play the next Pokemon generation game. It's really not value-for-money.

It might not be a main series game, and I'm sure there are other games for the Switch to increase the value. Heck, a Switch now is only $50 USD more than the 3DS was at launch. It's hard to say that isn't a decent value.

I didn't buy the 3DS at launch. And the 3DS series is far cheaper than the main Nintendo console of its time, which was the Wii/Wii-U. My gaming combination is a proper PS/Xbox for all the high-end graphics game, while Nintendo's portable consoles are good for gaming on the go. Other than Pokemon, I hate pretty much all of Nintendo's titles. None of their other games appeal to me.

Buying an entire brand-new mainline console merely for the sake of playing Pokemon is a massive waste of money. I don't want to have to buy a Switch AND a PS4/Xbox One.

[Jub]

I didn't buy the 3DS at launch. And the 3DS series is far cheaper than the main Nintendo console of its time, which was the Wii/Wii-U. My gaming combination is a proper PS/Xbox for all the high-end graphics game, while Nintendo's portable consoles are good for gaming on the go. Other than Pokemon, I hate pretty much all of Nintendo's titles. None of their other games appeal to me.

Buying an entire brand-new mainline console merely for the sake of playing Pokemon is a massive waste of money. I don't want to have to buy a Switch AND a PS4/Xbox One.

Not much to do other than sucking it up then. Either you pay the tax and get the game, or you don't, or you wait for a price cut and then go in. That's just how it is when you only value a system for a single series.

[Zixinus]

We saw a new trailer for Beyond Good & Evil 2. It seems to show no gameplay, only vague artistic touches from the previous game and pretty much nothing to do with the previous game (as well as showing no actual gameplay). Which is a shame because there WAS a trailer a few years ago showing something that indicated a proper sequel.

[Vendetta]

Buying an entire brand-new mainline console merely for the sake of playing Pokemon is a massive waste of money. I don't want to have to buy a Switch AND a PS4/Xbox One.

Much as they keep saying it's not going to, the Switch is going to be the replacement for the 3DS in the portable market.

It's generally pretty well regarded as a portable console (mine stays docked), and has a fair few games that work well as portable titles (Mario Kart, Disgaea, Monster Hunter on the way, etc).

We saw a new trailer for Beyond Good & Evil 2. It seems to show no gameplay, only vague artistic touches from the previous game and pretty much nothing to do with the previous game (as well as showing no actual gameplay). Which is a shame because there WAS a trailer a few years ago showing something that indicated a proper sequel.

It's a prequel, apparently. And yeah, couldn't be more tonally different from the first one. The 1990s called and they want their edginess back from all that dialogue.

[JLTucker]

You're not happy with the Ori sequel? The first was amazing.

I'm mostly happy that they're continuing with good games and great hardware. Gives later on opportunity.

I just bought the first one. $10 for the definitive edition. It looks amazing.

I completely forgot about South Park, Wolfenstein, Battlefront II, and CoD WW2. I'm looking forward to South Park the most. I've never had as much fun with an RPG like I did with Stick of Truth.

I have no idea why there's an Evil Within 2. RE7 schooled that developer on survival horror. It seems redundant, I think.

[ray245]

Not much to do other than sucking it up then. Either you pay the tax and get the game, or you don't, or you wait for a price cut and then go in. That's just how it is when you only value a system for a single series.

My issue is with Nintendo's poor record with third-party developers, and reluctance to build a mainline console with graphics somewhat on par with its main competitors. I can forgive the poor graphics on a handheld console because it's a handheld device. But I do want to play a decent football, racing games with good graphics on the console

Much as they keep saying it's not going to, the Switch is going to be the replacement for the 3DS in the portable market.

It's generally pretty well regarded as a portable console (mine stays docked), and has a fair few games that work well as portable titles (Mario Kart, Disgaea, Monster Hunter on the way, etc).

I don't like Mario Kart style of racing game. Those kinds of graphics design simply do not appeal to me. Sure, if the Nintendo switch can render games like Gran Turismo on PS3 level graphics, I don't mind. But from what I understand, there is still severe reluctance by triple A third party developers to develop games on the Switch. FIFA on Switch is going to be an inferior version compared to FIFA 18.

Graphics is important for me if I want to play games on a big TV-screen. I am extremely reluctant to spend money on the Switch as long as Nintendo has a "Fuck-high end Graphics" mentality.

[TheFeniX]

You ain't gettin' no Pokemans then. I can understand your frustration. I wanted to try out a few titles on the PSWhatever over the years, but thems the breaks. That said, I have always liked the idea that Nintendo went their own route and decided to make something besides a cheap-gaming rig/Blu-Ray player.

Though, in the event I buy my kid a console when he gets to that age to keep him from destroying my computer, it would definitely be a Switch over the XboxStation. Because at the least, Nintendo still understands "fun."

[JLTucker]

yeah, but Nintendo has some Apple-ish bullshit going on. Voice chat? use our phone's app. You'll love it. Can't backup saves? We hear those concerns but we ain't addressing them. Fuck Nintendo. And they continue to create hardware that isn't disability friendly. Three generations of that bullshit. Microsoft and Sony have succeeded in that regard in some ways. Without the Xbox Elite Controller I wouldn't be able to adequately play shooters.

[TheFeniX]

Nah, if it was Apple it would have moderately better hardware than the competition and sold for at least double the price. And whereas they lock a lot into first-party, since even before the original Xbox was a thing, their first-party hardware has been consistently cheaper than the competition with the exception possibly being SEGA.

While the disability problems are less forgivable, I find it hard to give MS too much credit for selling a $150 controller to solve the issue for some people when PC has much cheaper and more numerous options available.

Nintendo seems to have permanently "broke" after their blow-out with Sony and Squeenix (could have just been Square at the time, it's been years). They pushed first-party harder than they ever had, made tons of money doing so with some of the most bizarre hardware out there, and never looked back. Their success has been so crazy people immediately assumed them posting a loss was going to kill the company outright.

And to throw more crap at MS and Sony, they basically became what they talked shit about years ago: multimedia boxes that you can also buy games for (READ: PC). While having less overhead, they are consistently marketed as home entertainment devices pushing things like 4K, "integration," etc while third party developers are the ones actually advertising and selling video games. When Nintendo takes the stages, at least I get something about video games.

To go back to Apple: I got beef with Apple for selling what they sell for how much they sell it for considering the direct competition offers much more for less. But with Nintendo, they haven't attempted to directly compete with either Sony or Microsoft for years and no one ever got the message. You either hate them or love them for this.

Though that makes me a hypocrite as I've been "meh" but that's only because at the point in time I left Nintendo behind (and console gaming) their treatment of the Metroid series after Other M is what did it. While Other M was bad enough on it's own, their decision to ignore a profitable yet "American" title due to some blowback soured me on the company. For the record, by "American" I mean "Much more popular among U.S. and European audiences than the Japanese."

[JLTucker]

I just can't do PC gaming. I used to back in the day but I'm so used to these all-in-ones given to us by MS and Sony, particularly the entertainment apps and BD playback (lol at PS4 and PS4 Pro not supporting 4K BD). Now, if there was pure cross platform multiplayer maybe I'd bite the bullet and get a gaming rig. But even then I'd be hesitant because I like gaming on a 55" and 70" TV.

[JLTucker]

How does Microsoft use GDDR for gfx and system memory?

[TheFeniX]

I just can't do PC gaming. I used to back in the day but I'm so used to these all-in-ones given to us by MS and Sony, particularly the entertainment apps and BD playback (lol at PS4 and PS4 Pro not supporting 4K BD). Now, if there was pure cross platform multiplayer maybe I'd bite the bullet and get a gaming rig. But even then I'd be hesitant because I like gaming on a 55" and 70" TV.

I have an old 55" Sony 1080p TV mounted to the wall next to my PC and connected via HDMI. I sometimes watch movies and just output the audio to the TV. The Xbone runs W10 AFAIK. It's just a more cutdown version.

Shadowrun basically killed cross-plat MP for PvP games, at least in the shooter area. A gamepad cannot compete with a KB/M is this area. Certain games, such as FFXIV do crossplat PvE / PvP, but that's because Squeenix worked out a sweet deal with Sony and the game isn't "twitch" based. That said, patch schedules are also a big deal as Sony and MS require you to use their schedule. Warframe for console is usually more than a few weeks behind the PC version. Also, they like to control their closed system along with integration with their friends/VoiP systems.

However, setting everything up and swapping between tasks can be annoying, even if W10 (and Steam with Big Picture mode and Streaming) do alleviate a lot of issues you had with older OSs. So, it doesn't surprise me a lot of people don't want to fuck with it and instead drop X bucks on a box that does 99% of the setup for them.

How does Microsoft use GDDR for gfx and system memory?

From a technical standpoint? From what I know, there's no "real" difference between GDDR and DDR except speed and bandwidth. You could use GDDR as system memory on a PC, it's just more expensive, requires more voltage, and runs hotter. Might have an actual tech head take a read at that.

How it works from an addressing standpoint? I would assume just like regular RAM works for Intel Integrated GPUs.