The generational gap is insane. In Finland a vast majority in the PS3/360 days were in the green team. The next generation? It was rare to see anyone with an Xbox One. The pendulum swang hard.
As a 360 user those days I saw some of the writing on the wall. Xbox E3 events focused hard on American features which turned the Xbox to a smart TV box. Aside from games we gained nothing for most of Europe.
With the upcoming streaming revolution all you really needed was a Netflix app. Not the dozens of TV features made for NA based users. None of these features tied customers in and as soon as PS4 released people just jumped ship. Games rarely worked throughout generations anyway.
So in summary: Xbox Live won over vast numbers of gamers to the new multiplayer console era, but in my geographic location people just jumped back to Playstation because PS Online gained feature parity.
People think backwards compatibility helps keep people on your platform - but it’s often the opposite. You have an Xbox and the next time you buy a PlayStation which you can use to play the games you missed, or vice versa.
I stuck to XB1 for backwards compatibility and Gears of War, but on the other hand I failed to see an obvious advantage to the PS4.
What's the "killer app" of the PS4? Apart from exclusives, both seem similar. Both seem to be considerably worse as a media box compared to the good old 360 with it's magnificent built-in DLNA compatibility and CD-ripping.
PS4 killer app was option to buy bare bones ps4 + gamepad package vs Xbone taking forever to enter some european markets and insisting for so long that I asolutely need to pay much more because only bundle on market is one with Kinect I have zero interest of using.
It also had very strob library of exclusives. If somebody told me I’ll spend 400h in front of TV playing souls game I would’ve laughted them off, but Bloodborne did it. They also had other strong titles like Uncharted, Horizon, Last of Us.
PS4 is a gaming device with similar hardware, the "killer app" is going to be a game.
It seemed to me that Sony invested a lot more than Microsoft in making games during the PS4 era. Microsoft seemed to think Gears of War and Halo were "good enough" while Sony was producing a lot more exclusives. Microsoft must have realized they were getting slaughtered due to lack of games since they started buying gaming studios towards the end of this era.
The killer app was definitely the exclusives, no amount of features would make up for missing out on playing a lot of the best games in that time period.
Killer apps for me: Games was HZD and Spiderman. Hardware was rechargeable controller, and the PS4 itself. All my friends' xboxs would get stuck updating and they would have to force restart several times. Nothing like that has happened to me on my PS4.
Remember that at launch it was $100 cheaper and more powerful. Multi-plats on PS4 outperformed Xbox One almost always. Usually the PS4 version was 1080p native, Xbox One 900p. Plus storage could be easily upgraded with a screwdriver. And you got the exclusives too.
All of the Xbox One's benefits mainly came later when they added backwards compatibility, 4K Blu-ray support, Game Pass etc.
We didn't want those features in NA, either. It was a ton of really bad direction from the top. Execs weren't really sure why they were in the gaming business at all[1], so Matrick tried to branch the division out into other areas: a focus on OTA TV (no one under 40 who games watches OTA TV); bundling Kinect; leaping into the locked in digital-sales-only model way too early. It was really demoralizing for the Xbox team and definitely lost them the generation. They seem to have recovered for the Series generation.
Wasn't Xbox One defined by the massive backlash to its TV features, Kinect etc and Microsoft had to backtrack hard? It's not a Finland only thing you are seeing. Xbox is of course a American favourite but it faced the brunt there as well.
Not to mention that momentum was clearly with Sony towards end of the PS3/360 era and Microsoft killed all their momentum with the reveal. The results that we saw with PS4 and Xbox One are clear.
Xbox stopped focusing on exclusive games (admittedly a benefit to PC players!) and tried to make the Xbox an all-in-one TV box. Honestly, I think the rise of smart TVs with all the same apps did them in the most though. The idea was good at some level, but they didn’t forsee TVs themselves becoming a competitor.
There were plenty of really cheap streaming boxes and sticks even at the time, an HDMI input for cable TV not being the future was very obvious in 2013.
It makes sense looking at the previous generation - I know that I bought a PS3 because it was also a blu-ray player so I can see Xbox wanting to take advantage of that.
They lost a lot of customers on the "you won't own the game on your disc" debacle, too. The idea that the publisher would get a portion of every resale of a game, even on disc, really pissed people off. The publisher was even able to deny the resale!
Who thought that was going to please the end user? It's so customer-hostile that I couldn't believe they said it out loud, let alone at a major conference.
This one is really fascinating. Now, ten years later, physical sales are trending towards nil, and all digital sales are permanent with no resale at all. They had their eye on the future, possibly even a better future than the one we ended up with, but they were too early with it. And the messaging was absolutely godawful, as you say.
While companies are required to report certain financial numbers, they don't necessarily need to break down sales of specific products within subdivisions.
In other words, Microsoft may be required to report revenue from their gaming division, but that doesn't mean they're required to specifically report how many Xbox One consoles were sold.
MS stopped releasing those figures. Their official reasoning was that it doesn't really matter since the money is in the software (true). The real reason IMO was because they were embarrassed.
Consoles seem like a dumb idea to me. They were great when split screen was the main form of multiplayer. Now multiplayer has largely moved online. Finding local co-op / competitive games is kind of hard, and of the few that still come out, few of them are console specific. If you're colocated with your friends, playing together may not be possible unless you want to bring along another console and hook it up to another tv. The switch being an outlier on multiple points here. Laptops are fine enough to bring along though and laptops are capable of playing pretty much everything.
Paying for the ability to play online sucks.
Controllers are now largely PC compatible.
Lots of games are moving off physical media.
Prices tend to be better for PC games.
Media is transferable to a new PC.
Modding.
Updates are quicker.
People like to talk about how consoles are simpler but... I think that's stupid. People got caught up in dumb PC master race memes about hardware nerds getting the absolute best graphics performance possible and missed the fact that its not that hard to make a competent pc that will do just fine for a very long time for comparable prices to a console. And, it's a computer!
I think there was a big difference between the care and feeding of a Windows system and a console. Not that I really use a Windows machine at this point, but my sense is that there's not a big gap these days.
Driver updates. OS updates. Driver update broke HDMI. OS update broke my controller config. Steam update broke my controller config. Bluetooth controller randomly unpairs every other week. Game picks the wrong sound device so now it's coming out of the TV instead of my wireless headphones. Some game doesn't work with gamepad so I guess I need a wireless kb/m now, too. Oop game lost focus because of a Chrome update dialog, guess I need to alt-tab back into it, shit the keyboard batteries are dead...
There is no fundamental reason why a PC can't be made to be like a console due to the fact that consoles are just PCs. It's pretty darn simple already, but Microsoft could take it one step further by having some kind of boot into gaming mode that does everything for you.
> Oop game lost focus because of a Chrome update dialog
This is particularly irksome on the Macbook when playing Minecraft because you can't just CMD-Tab back in (because Mojang's UI competence is on par with their optimisation competence) - you have to click out of the not-visible Minecraft and then click on it in the dock. (CMD-Tab only works when it's not fullscreen.)
Consoles need updates too. Never had a driver update break HDMI, and I can't see how that is a thing in current year. Steam fixed controllers with their controller API. Changing the sound device is two button clicks.
Consoles have system updates that remove features. Consoles add advertisements to the home screen. They can only play games approved by the hardware manufacturer, from their store, and pay their 30% "subsidize our hardware" tax. You have to pay $60/yr to use your own internet. You have to use their online chat system. You can't host private servers. You can't easily share your screen or have a second display for social features. You have to use a controller for all games, and if a game doesn't support controllers it just never gets ported. You also can't install mods, do any serious creative work, or emulate games from competitor's systems.
For me it's because then I have to go buy and assemble a PC + another monitor and buy another desk and a set of peripherals. Whereas an Xbox Series X I just plug in to my TV and it works great, especially with GamePass, and it's way cheaper.
I'm a working father. I get maybe 20-30 minutes a month where I can play games. Previously, I had a PC that never got turned on except for gaming. When I would sit down to play, I would have to wade through ~30 minutes of OS updates, Steam updates, and then game updates. Every. Single. Time.
I got my son a PS5 for Christmas last year. I was able to play and beat Elden Ring over the course of a few months because I could sit down, open the game within ~30 seconds, and then go back to my responsibilities.
PCs are great, but they'll never compete with the effortless convenience of consoles.
> I get maybe 20-30 minutes a month where I can play games.
> I was able to play and beat Elden Ring over the course of a few months
I congratulate you on beating Elden Ring over a few 20-30 minute sessions.
> Previously, I had a PC that never got turned on except for gaming. When I would sit down to play, I would have to wade through ~30 minutes of OS updates, Steam updates, and then game updates. Every. Single. Time.
Idk man. To me this sounds like nonsense. I've got a big desktop machine I turn on once every couple of months to check out VR stuff and this doesn't resonate with me at all. OS updates, Steam Updates, and Game updates are very negligible to me. 30 minutes sounds very wrong.
You could get the same experience by just setting up a power schedule on your PC so it turns on to update the OS and Steam library once in a while.
If your son wasn't using that PS5 you would have the exact same experience there with first being forced to sit through updates for both the OS and games before you could get into it.
I don't know about OP, but I've got a pretty powerful PC, and Windows loves to suck up unnecessary resources. The Desktop Window Manager (dwm.exe) routinely uses 1 whole GB out of my 8 GB of VRAM. That's not cool. So I have to go through a bunch of settings windows then tell windows to turn off all of it's hardware accelerated graphics rendering features for the OS to get dwm.exe to consume a more reasonable (I guess...) 250 MB of my VRAM.
Not only that, but windows anti-virus scanner runs all the time and routinely consumes about 20% of my CPU for no reason. I have yet to find a way to turn that off for a specified time period.
Consoles are built for games, so you can safely assume they're not going to consume unnecessary resources and tank your games performance. Games are (usually) built for consoles, so you can safely assume the game will be able to utilize the hardware much more efficiently than your PC that it has no clue about all the hardware/system specs.
That's just a couple reasons I can think of for not being able to just play a game on your PC, and I'm sure other people have more examples.
Not sure why are getting dowvoted. Honestly every MS thread here on HN is a shit show. Maybe I live in a fairy land but I never ever had a problem. Cold boot Windows 10 + launching any game and I'm in the main menu in 50s (and I only have an i7-7700 + GTX 1070). Have a PS5 right next to me and I can't start games faster at all. The claims here in the comments are especially baffling when I assume HN is a very technically capable audience. Maybe I was wrong.
> The claims here in the comments are especially baffling when I assume HN is a very technically capable audience.
It seems like all the comments are from technically competent people. They seem to indicate that they know exactly what causes the issues and they know how to solve them.
Just because you're technically capable doesn't mean you want to deal with Windows BS everytime you want to game, and this is coming from a primarily MS centered developer.
I don't own any apple products and I only have Linux installed on a laptop I never use anymore. My desktop and work laptop are Windows. And windows still annoys me to no end when it sucks unnecessary resources, forces updates, makes connecting any Bluetooth devices a major PITA, can screw up your performance if you installed the wrong drivers, and everything else the other comments mentioned.
>doesn't mean you want to deal with Windows BS everytime you want to game
See this is what I don't get maybe that's where I'm an exception and in the extreme minority. But everytime? Maybe you need 30-40 mins to setup a Windows 10 PC "properly" to your taste but after that you barely need to touch anything and it will just work.
If anything I do agree that Windows has _too many options_ and some of them are overlapping with each other + confusing the user. See the Windows 10 System Settings window when the classic (Win 7) Control Panel also exist AND on top of that you can override all of them with the Group Policy Editor (which imo the best way to handle the system)
From turning on my PC to being able to play is 1) 2 minutes to get to a Windows login; 2) 1-3 minutes to get to a desktop; 3) 10-20 minutes whilst {Steam updates, GOG updates, Oculus starts, GeForce desktop deigns to launch, etc.} making everything else unresponsive; 4) 2-5 minutes for a game to start - assuming it does, I think I'm currently running 50-50 on Binding of Isaac launching correctly vs just hanging.
Minecraft is even worse - starting ManyMC is under a minute (good) but then launching (a medium-ly modded) Minecraft is sometimes 15 minutes of wait. In contrast, the same version with the same mods on my M1 Macbook Pro is under a minute (including starting the launcher.)
> Even on hdd it doesn't take 5 minutes to get to desktop.
FOR YOU. For me, it can (and I am on hdd.) Don't presume that your experience is the experience of everyone - there's literally no way that can be true.
Windows reports (as of yesterday afternoon) no problems with any of my drives.
> That means that something is wrong with your setup.
Sure, possibly, but I installed Windows 10 on a clean drive in a new PC a couple of years back and if that's "setup wrong", how the hell is anyone supposed to get it right?
Valve is underway to change this common misconception. I got a Steam Deck last month and can't remember the last time I had this fluid experience with gaming, especially since I can bring it anywhere (in the house, and elsewhere). And the Steam Deck is a PC with embedded controllers (that by default runs Linux as it's main OS). Last night I hooked it up to my monitor, keyboard and mouse, downloaded Rust and used it for programming as well, without issues.
I have a gaming PC, a couple of consoles, both stationary and handheld but the Steam Deck quickly became the main device for gaming for me.
Ohh I know all about the Steam Deck ;) It's a promising device and I've got high hopes for it. I haven't tried hooking mine up to a TV in a long while, I wonder if that's working well yet. It's my device for playing Guilty Gear Strive, but I prefer to play on a TV, so I haven't actually been using it much.
The times I've used it with a TV or monitor it worked fine (but haven't used it extensively, just a couple of times), having more issues with latency when connecting Xbox controller via Bluetooth.
That was true pre this current generation of consoles. It was damned hard to get a PC comparable to a PS5 or Xbox SX for the past 2-3 years, because the hardware in those consoles is very capable and graphics cards were unobtainium at MSRP.
Even now, I think getting PC hardware for the same retail costs as the consoles would be tough.
I don't buy it. These things have been way more accessible than people thought. Building your own PC has been stupidly expensive due the crypto crunch. Buying a midrange prebuilt has been fine. Play a console for several years and you'll also see several hundred dollars disappear to online subscriptions and controllers and what not.
I don't believe you can get a "mid-range" prebuilt for $500 that compares to one of the consoles in raw horse power. I don't think you could do it now, let alone over the past 2 years.
Certainly at launch of those consoles, there was no chance.
A $500 console that requires $60/year to play online over a short 5 year lifespan costs $800. The premium service on PS5 costs $120/year if that's what you want.
Now here's the thing. I don't care about "horse power". It really does not matter. This time I get to say, "I just want to play". And that's what I do. I don't think about the graphics, and they're fine. Tbh, on my $800 black friday from four years ago RTX 2080 LAPTOP, that's meant max graphics settings + raytracing on every title I've tried. But I also wouldn't care if I needed to set them to Low.
Being able to run a game on lower graphical settings if it's a bit above your paygrade is a lot better than not being able to run it at all.
This is why I like Nintendo's hardware – it tends to be different, in a creative and interesting way, rather than just being "cheaper than a gaming PC in upfront cost but more rent-seeking and DRM'd down to the nines". The 3DS – love it or loathe it – was different. The Wii, awfully-named and somewhat unfortunately DOA Wii-U, and the Switch were generationally different changed the direction (IMO) of the whole industry. The charm of a console lies in the works that can be created with it that cannot easily be created on the diaspora of PCs out in the wild.
I've never been a big gamer but I was really into the Wii (mostly for sports-related titles) for a time. Pretty sure I used it a lot more than my Xbox 360.
The Wii was fun when it first came out. Unfortunately it seemed that all the games that came subsequently focused on the gimmicky nature of the Wii. Or maybe it was just a fad.
Either way, got a lot more value from the Wii for the year or so I used it religiously than the many years I've had my XBone.
Imo, nintendo suffers this curse where they make great hardware, but then for reasons unclear, nobody except Nintendo is able to leverage it. I'm willing to believe it's nintendo's fault in sharing dev resources but idk.
The wii was great. Wii sports was amazing. The Wii U was also really awesome and the wii sports equivalent, nintendo land, was really good. the asymmetric screens for multiplayer were super fun. Nobody else used it really.
I think both you and the parent probably hit on the main points. I think it was something of a fad and after the novelty wore off, some of the limitations became more apparent over time. And, while I played a few games quite a bit (Wii Sports, a couple of different tennis games, snowboarding) over probably about a year, the only other game I played through was World of Goo and it would probably have been just as good on my PC. Certainly after the original sports games, nothing new came along from either Nintendo or a third party that really grabbed my attention.
I set it back up at one point but it never grabbed me again.
It's much simpler. You turn on the console and go to the game you want, opening it. There might be an update, but nothing close to the annoyance of using a windows PC and custom launchers (linux is slightly better in this regard, but requires a lot more fiddling to get started & compatability). There are no launchers, no multiple stores, just a single, integrated UI that works great on a big screen with a controller. There are even physical media, if one so desires, and even better, most of it works offline (after getting the day one patch with fixes and blah-blah-blah).
There are efforts to replicate that experience on a PC (mostly SteamOS) but they still have a lot of issues. I like my Deck and have used other consoles way less after getting it, but it's not for everyone. It still requires fiddling to get "all the current games" and a lot of launchers don't work when offline without some extra care [1]. Regularly launchers want the password again, which is horrible to type in with gamepad-like controls. You also need to configure the games to work properly.
I don't want to configure the game so it looks alright at 30/40/60 fps, I want it to be done already.
It's like people preferring iOS for having less options, choices and being simpler in comparison to Android, but way more extreme.
[1]: How can it be so bad? Almost nothing with a launcher works right away, especially since there are separate launcher installations per game that need to be started regularly and have their own offline-mode settings
>There might be an update, but nothing close to the annoyance of using a windows PC
I generally can just come home, turn on my PC, and double-click the shortcut for my game.
I have hundreds of games in my Steam library and maybe 4 have a custom launcher, which I agree can be a bit annoying but in 90% of cases just means I am clicking 2-3 more times before the game starts (adding ~10 seconds, maybe).
Regarding multiple stores... What's that matter? Once I buy the game, I'm clicking the icon or start menu entry. Multiple stores does not matter at all once the game is purchased. From the purchasing side, I'm fine with looking on GOG first and then heading to Steam if the game I want isn't on GOG -- not really seen as an annoyance for me.
To each their own, but I feel like your trying to make it out to be much more annoying than it actually is.
Depends on the game, but for a quick play it's nice to just sit down on the sofa, turn the controller on which turns on the console & screen and you're playing in 15 seconds.
I think it depends on what people find comfortable. Sitting on a sofa after a long day at work vs. sitting at a PC desk (with probably a decent chair but still not as comfy as a couch) and keeping the same posture that you had at work.
I still think that mouse and keyboard gives me better control on the game, and I don’t like the stuttering that happens when using a controller to look around in an RPG. Compare that to a 144Hz mouse and monitor.
If it's within steam (IMHO the best option for a big-screen experience), it takes ~30 sec to start the launcher, connecting to the server, wait for it to update itself, logging the user in (sometimes needing the password) and then splashing an additional screen while the saves are synchronized after starting the game.
It's also only in a single place in the start menu. But the start menu isn't a great place for big-screen gaming. It doesn't have the sorting features, metadata (play time, friend are playing, screenshots, ..) and is not usable with a controller. It just isn't intended as a game library selector. If you want to integrate them into a single place with at least some of the features (like Steam) it's additional effort (in the worst case, per game).
Purchasing the game isn't always possible on GOG or Steam. EA didn't have all their games on Steam for a long time, Epic has their exclusives and probably some others I'm forgetting. You also always have to interact with stores from other companies, even if you buy within steam. I have 7 accounts only for PC gaming that I'd still need even if I didn't chase lower prices. That's one on consoles.
Windows also has popups on startup, trying to get you to do something and updates take much longer than on console (and can also delay startup after the last shutdown), sometimes driver issues. A couple of launchers start in the background, popping up because they want an update, some special one-time event and so on .
To get it all running while using a gamepad on a TV, without needing a wireless keyboard during a typical gaming session, is a lot of tinkering that many would like to avoid.
If I just want to play a game for 20-30 minutes, that's a lot of friction and annoyance.
Playing older games often requires a separate console (increasing cost) but generally works. On PC it's often pretty painful (controller config doesn't match up with DirectInput vs XInput, compatibility patches needed, other weird issues).
I almost exclusively play steam games and I couldn’t imagine a more seamless experience. You go from buying a game to playing it in a matter of a few minutes to hours. There are rarely any surprises if you use current gen or slightly older hardware.
If you're gaming in a living room there's something to be said for consoles just working. Steam's controller support seems to have gotten worse and worse over the years. I keep a wireless mini keyboard/touchpad on my end table just because Big Picture Mode is a load of suck. PC goes to sleep, controller never comes back. Controller goes to sleep without a game running, never comes back without closing Steam and opening it again. I don't understand how one PC game can be using it fine, then when you close that game and open another it won't pick up the controller even though it worked fine yesterday.
With the console you just push the button and it turns on and your games are right there.
PCs are still way more expensive. Especially lately. Compare what you can get for $500. You just can't get a PS5 or Xbox Series X level system for that much. It will barely cover a similar level GPU and then you still need to add all the other crap.
And they are simpler and just straight up better to use on TVs. You're never forced back into an interface designed to be viewed 20" away to log into some launcher or install some crap. You know the game is just gonna work with your controller and you don't have to tweak settings or diddle with Steam to make it work. And it also has nice integrated things like a Blu-ray app and a Netflix app with a sensible TV interface and 4K playback.
Prices aren't even really better on PC. I find it's either the same or like a dollar or two off.
Plus you can just suspend the game and do something else and come back to it reliably. I've never found that to be the case with PC gaming except on the Steam Deck and that's one of favorite features. It actually makes PC gaming viable for me now.
> PCs are still way more expensive. Especially lately. Compare what you can get for $500. You just can't get a PS5 or Xbox Series X level system for that much.
On the other hand: currently, you can hardly get a PS5 or Xbox Series X for this price (because of chip shortages and scalpers). ;-)
A PS5 costs $500 for an offline unit. Play your PS5 online for a year and you've just racked up $60-$120 extra. Play it online for 5 years and you've paid $300-$600 extra.
Xbox sweetens the deal even further with Xbox All Access.
For $40CAD/month, I got an Xbox Series X and Game Pass. I pay off the console in 2 years with no additional interest, and I immediately had access to a library of great games when I first turned it on.
I also have a $3000 240fps Fortnite gaming machine (Ryzen 5900x, RTX 3090) because I'm serious about competitive Fortnite. But I acknowledge the absurdity of that.
Also despite all my PC parts being made in the last two years, it still takes approximately 20 seconds to get to the desktop, I have to wait on the Epic launcher to do whatever it does, or Steam takes 5-10 seconds to load/update, and launching a game like Fortnite takes another 10-20 seconds.
If I want to play a game on the Xbox, all that time waiting for boot+desktop+Epic/Steam launcher is simply removed.
A PS5 or XSX costs noticeably less than a mid-high GPU and offers effectively the same performance for most people. And is almost literally plug and play - whereas troubleshooting driver versions and weird developer implementation details (e.g. shader recompilation stutters in dx12 games) is still a problem these days!
The flexibility and customizability and open nature of PCs is a double edged sword.
I’m almost 50 and my kids are over 18. I don’t multiplayer game. I can tell you why I exclusively console game and don’t build pcs anymore: time.
I do enough computer work at work. When I get home I want to sit in my recliner and play games. I don’t want to get the thing to work. I never want to fix it. I never want to find an unofficial patch. I just want to play some games.
Every second I spend on the hobby not doing the hobby is wasted.
Bloodborne became the reason for me to get a ps4 (albeit a bit late). For new-gen though, I'm less persuaded so far, particularly when many titles are still available on the previous (e.g. Elden Ring). The next batch of exclusives will be a more decisive factor.
This mostly tracks with my experience. We have a PS4 and XB1. Except for a few exclusive titles (ie Cuphead) the XB1 just sat on our shelf collecting dust. The experience between the 2 just didn't seem compelling enough to play on the XB1 that often.
The 2 consoles are probably my last. I'm all in on XGPU. It finally gave me a reason to plug the XB1 in again. Now I can play current gen games on a 7yo XB1. And on my Macbook. And hopefully on my iPhone. I'm no longer tied to a TV at home. I also don't need to purchase more gaming hardware.
If Microsoft can leverage their cloud products even more they may lose the console war and win online and cloud gaming.
That made me switch to the XBox One, and I was quite happy with it.
I've not knowingly paid directly for anything Sony. Indirectly, I've watched Spiderman on cable, so I expect my cable provider paid them pennies out of my monthly fee.
Cinavia was stuffed into the PS2 (or PS3?) with no publicity, as part of the increasing blu-ray DRM and advertised as as blu-ray player that actually wouldn't play some legitimate blu-rays.
The 360 had the best user interface. The jump to metro+Kinect was a bozo move. Sticking with Metro still pisses me off anytime I play Xbox. The reason I play Xbox is to escape my day to day work, and now it just feels like I’m a Windows admin. When I play Halo once a month, the thing still needs to update, even though I’ve told it to automatically update in the background - wth? That’s not the experience I want. Don’t get my started on how difficult it is to get multiplayer working, and then we screw around for 10 minutes because someone’s headphones or microphone isn’t working, because Microsoft decided to force non standard hardware. The Microsoft headsets are great, but you always have one friend whose wife bought them some buggy turtle beach headset for Xmas. Literally Halo and my friend network are the only thing keeping me on the Xbox platform, and they can’t even get Halo online coop multiplayer working - ? 8 months ?
Microsoft should just make their in house developed games free at this point. I’m not paying for gamepass. Their games should be included in Xbox live.
107 comments
[ 3.6 ms ] story [ 187 ms ] threadAs a 360 user those days I saw some of the writing on the wall. Xbox E3 events focused hard on American features which turned the Xbox to a smart TV box. Aside from games we gained nothing for most of Europe.
With the upcoming streaming revolution all you really needed was a Netflix app. Not the dozens of TV features made for NA based users. None of these features tied customers in and as soon as PS4 released people just jumped ship. Games rarely worked throughout generations anyway.
So in summary: Xbox Live won over vast numbers of gamers to the new multiplayer console era, but in my geographic location people just jumped back to Playstation because PS Online gained feature parity.
What's the "killer app" of the PS4? Apart from exclusives, both seem similar. Both seem to be considerably worse as a media box compared to the good old 360 with it's magnificent built-in DLNA compatibility and CD-ripping.
It also had very strob library of exclusives. If somebody told me I’ll spend 400h in front of TV playing souls game I would’ve laughted them off, but Bloodborne did it. They also had other strong titles like Uncharted, Horizon, Last of Us.
It seemed to me that Sony invested a lot more than Microsoft in making games during the PS4 era. Microsoft seemed to think Gears of War and Halo were "good enough" while Sony was producing a lot more exclusives. Microsoft must have realized they were getting slaughtered due to lack of games since they started buying gaming studios towards the end of this era.
All of the Xbox One's benefits mainly came later when they added backwards compatibility, 4K Blu-ray support, Game Pass etc.
At least for some gamers that I know: PlayStation VR
[1] https://www.gamespot.com/articles/phil-spencer-is-exactly-wh...
Not to mention that momentum was clearly with Sony towards end of the PS3/360 era and Microsoft killed all their momentum with the reveal. The results that we saw with PS4 and Xbox One are clear.
Who thought that was going to please the end user? It's so customer-hostile that I couldn't believe they said it out loud, let alone at a major conference.
https://gamingbolt.com/xbox-one-publishers-will-decide-on-re...
In other words, Microsoft may be required to report revenue from their gaming division, but that doesn't mean they're required to specifically report how many Xbox One consoles were sold.
PS4 was double of Xbox active users for the division.
PC was more inline with Xbox, and a lot different from what Steam said it was..
Paying for the ability to play online sucks.
Controllers are now largely PC compatible.
Lots of games are moving off physical media.
Prices tend to be better for PC games.
Media is transferable to a new PC.
Modding.
Updates are quicker.
People like to talk about how consoles are simpler but... I think that's stupid. People got caught up in dumb PC master race memes about hardware nerds getting the absolute best graphics performance possible and missed the fact that its not that hard to make a competent pc that will do just fine for a very long time for comparable prices to a console. And, it's a computer!
PC gaming sucks.
This is particularly irksome on the Macbook when playing Minecraft because you can't just CMD-Tab back in (because Mojang's UI competence is on par with their optimisation competence) - you have to click out of the not-visible Minecraft and then click on it in the dock. (CMD-Tab only works when it's not fullscreen.)
Consoles have system updates that remove features. Consoles add advertisements to the home screen. They can only play games approved by the hardware manufacturer, from their store, and pay their 30% "subsidize our hardware" tax. You have to pay $60/yr to use your own internet. You have to use their online chat system. You can't host private servers. You can't easily share your screen or have a second display for social features. You have to use a controller for all games, and if a game doesn't support controllers it just never gets ported. You also can't install mods, do any serious creative work, or emulate games from competitor's systems.
Console gaming sucks
I got my son a PS5 for Christmas last year. I was able to play and beat Elden Ring over the course of a few months because I could sit down, open the game within ~30 seconds, and then go back to my responsibilities.
PCs are great, but they'll never compete with the effortless convenience of consoles.
> I was able to play and beat Elden Ring over the course of a few months
I congratulate you on beating Elden Ring over a few 20-30 minute sessions.
> Previously, I had a PC that never got turned on except for gaming. When I would sit down to play, I would have to wade through ~30 minutes of OS updates, Steam updates, and then game updates. Every. Single. Time.
Idk man. To me this sounds like nonsense. I've got a big desktop machine I turn on once every couple of months to check out VR stuff and this doesn't resonate with me at all. OS updates, Steam Updates, and Game updates are very negligible to me. 30 minutes sounds very wrong.
At least PC updates let you choose when to update, which could be right after you finish gaming that day.
Assuming they are singleplayer games of course.
Not only that, but windows anti-virus scanner runs all the time and routinely consumes about 20% of my CPU for no reason. I have yet to find a way to turn that off for a specified time period.
Consoles are built for games, so you can safely assume they're not going to consume unnecessary resources and tank your games performance. Games are (usually) built for consoles, so you can safely assume the game will be able to utilize the hardware much more efficiently than your PC that it has no clue about all the hardware/system specs.
That's just a couple reasons I can think of for not being able to just play a game on your PC, and I'm sure other people have more examples.
I really don't think there's any overhead with running a windows PC...
It seems like all the comments are from technically competent people. They seem to indicate that they know exactly what causes the issues and they know how to solve them.
Just because you're technically capable doesn't mean you want to deal with Windows BS everytime you want to game, and this is coming from a primarily MS centered developer.
I don't own any apple products and I only have Linux installed on a laptop I never use anymore. My desktop and work laptop are Windows. And windows still annoys me to no end when it sucks unnecessary resources, forces updates, makes connecting any Bluetooth devices a major PITA, can screw up your performance if you installed the wrong drivers, and everything else the other comments mentioned.
See this is what I don't get maybe that's where I'm an exception and in the extreme minority. But everytime? Maybe you need 30-40 mins to setup a Windows 10 PC "properly" to your taste but after that you barely need to touch anything and it will just work.
If anything I do agree that Windows has _too many options_ and some of them are overlapping with each other + confusing the user. See the Windows 10 System Settings window when the classic (Win 7) Control Panel also exist AND on top of that you can override all of them with the Group Policy Editor (which imo the best way to handle the system)
Minecraft is even worse - starting ManyMC is under a minute (good) but then launching (a medium-ly modded) Minecraft is sometimes 15 minutes of wait. In contrast, the same version with the same mods on my M1 Macbook Pro is under a minute (including starting the launcher.)
FOR YOU. For me, it can (and I am on hdd.) Don't presume that your experience is the experience of everyone - there's literally no way that can be true.
Windows reports (as of yesterday afternoon) no problems with any of my drives.
> That means that something is wrong with your setup.
Sure, possibly, but I installed Windows 10 on a clean drive in a new PC a couple of years back and if that's "setup wrong", how the hell is anyone supposed to get it right?
I have a gaming PC, a couple of consoles, both stationary and handheld but the Steam Deck quickly became the main device for gaming for me.
Even now, I think getting PC hardware for the same retail costs as the consoles would be tough.
Certainly at launch of those consoles, there was no chance.
Now here's the thing. I don't care about "horse power". It really does not matter. This time I get to say, "I just want to play". And that's what I do. I don't think about the graphics, and they're fine. Tbh, on my $800 black friday from four years ago RTX 2080 LAPTOP, that's meant max graphics settings + raytracing on every title I've tried. But I also wouldn't care if I needed to set them to Low.
Being able to run a game on lower graphical settings if it's a bit above your paygrade is a lot better than not being able to run it at all.
Either way, got a lot more value from the Wii for the year or so I used it religiously than the many years I've had my XBone.
The wii was great. Wii sports was amazing. The Wii U was also really awesome and the wii sports equivalent, nintendo land, was really good. the asymmetric screens for multiplayer were super fun. Nobody else used it really.
I set it back up at one point but it never grabbed me again.
There are efforts to replicate that experience on a PC (mostly SteamOS) but they still have a lot of issues. I like my Deck and have used other consoles way less after getting it, but it's not for everyone. It still requires fiddling to get "all the current games" and a lot of launchers don't work when offline without some extra care [1]. Regularly launchers want the password again, which is horrible to type in with gamepad-like controls. You also need to configure the games to work properly. I don't want to configure the game so it looks alright at 30/40/60 fps, I want it to be done already.
It's like people preferring iOS for having less options, choices and being simpler in comparison to Android, but way more extreme.
[1]: How can it be so bad? Almost nothing with a launcher works right away, especially since there are separate launcher installations per game that need to be started regularly and have their own offline-mode settings
I generally can just come home, turn on my PC, and double-click the shortcut for my game.
I have hundreds of games in my Steam library and maybe 4 have a custom launcher, which I agree can be a bit annoying but in 90% of cases just means I am clicking 2-3 more times before the game starts (adding ~10 seconds, maybe).
Regarding multiple stores... What's that matter? Once I buy the game, I'm clicking the icon or start menu entry. Multiple stores does not matter at all once the game is purchased. From the purchasing side, I'm fine with looking on GOG first and then heading to Steam if the game I want isn't on GOG -- not really seen as an annoyance for me.
To each their own, but I feel like your trying to make it out to be much more annoying than it actually is.
I still think that mouse and keyboard gives me better control on the game, and I don’t like the stuttering that happens when using a controller to look around in an RPG. Compare that to a 144Hz mouse and monitor.
It's also only in a single place in the start menu. But the start menu isn't a great place for big-screen gaming. It doesn't have the sorting features, metadata (play time, friend are playing, screenshots, ..) and is not usable with a controller. It just isn't intended as a game library selector. If you want to integrate them into a single place with at least some of the features (like Steam) it's additional effort (in the worst case, per game).
Purchasing the game isn't always possible on GOG or Steam. EA didn't have all their games on Steam for a long time, Epic has their exclusives and probably some others I'm forgetting. You also always have to interact with stores from other companies, even if you buy within steam. I have 7 accounts only for PC gaming that I'd still need even if I didn't chase lower prices. That's one on consoles.
Windows also has popups on startup, trying to get you to do something and updates take much longer than on console (and can also delay startup after the last shutdown), sometimes driver issues. A couple of launchers start in the background, popping up because they want an update, some special one-time event and so on .
To get it all running while using a gamepad on a TV, without needing a wireless keyboard during a typical gaming session, is a lot of tinkering that many would like to avoid.
If I just want to play a game for 20-30 minutes, that's a lot of friction and annoyance.
Playing older games often requires a separate console (increasing cost) but generally works. On PC it's often pretty painful (controller config doesn't match up with DirectInput vs XInput, compatibility patches needed, other weird issues).
With the console you just push the button and it turns on and your games are right there.
And they are simpler and just straight up better to use on TVs. You're never forced back into an interface designed to be viewed 20" away to log into some launcher or install some crap. You know the game is just gonna work with your controller and you don't have to tweak settings or diddle with Steam to make it work. And it also has nice integrated things like a Blu-ray app and a Netflix app with a sensible TV interface and 4K playback.
Prices aren't even really better on PC. I find it's either the same or like a dollar or two off.
Plus you can just suspend the game and do something else and come back to it reliably. I've never found that to be the case with PC gaming except on the Steam Deck and that's one of favorite features. It actually makes PC gaming viable for me now.
On the other hand: currently, you can hardly get a PS5 or Xbox Series X for this price (because of chip shortages and scalpers). ;-)
For $40CAD/month, I got an Xbox Series X and Game Pass. I pay off the console in 2 years with no additional interest, and I immediately had access to a library of great games when I first turned it on.
I also have a $3000 240fps Fortnite gaming machine (Ryzen 5900x, RTX 3090) because I'm serious about competitive Fortnite. But I acknowledge the absurdity of that.
Also despite all my PC parts being made in the last two years, it still takes approximately 20 seconds to get to the desktop, I have to wait on the Epic launcher to do whatever it does, or Steam takes 5-10 seconds to load/update, and launching a game like Fortnite takes another 10-20 seconds.
If I want to play a game on the Xbox, all that time waiting for boot+desktop+Epic/Steam launcher is simply removed.
The flexibility and customizability and open nature of PCs is a double edged sword.
I do enough computer work at work. When I get home I want to sit in my recliner and play games. I don’t want to get the thing to work. I never want to fix it. I never want to find an unofficial patch. I just want to play some games.
Every second I spend on the hobby not doing the hobby is wasted.
The 2 consoles are probably my last. I'm all in on XGPU. It finally gave me a reason to plug the XB1 in again. Now I can play current gen games on a 7yo XB1. And on my Macbook. And hopefully on my iPhone. I'm no longer tied to a TV at home. I also don't need to purchase more gaming hardware.
If Microsoft can leverage their cloud products even more they may lose the console war and win online and cloud gaming.
The main gripe for XBone was half the features didn’t work in Europe and for some reason the UI was terribly sluggish.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinavia
and this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootk...
That made me switch to the XBox One, and I was quite happy with it.
I've not knowingly paid directly for anything Sony. Indirectly, I've watched Spiderman on cable, so I expect my cable provider paid them pennies out of my monthly fee.
Xbox also does DRM, is there a reason why you are okay with that DRM?
(and blu-ray was a Sony invention - https://www.sony.com/electronics/support/articles/00017948)
also PS5 related—I'm still appalled that a proper web browser was not included.
Microsoft should just make their in house developed games free at this point. I’m not paying for gamepass. Their games should be included in Xbox live.