Decline PS4 wins the console war against XboxONE, yet it is a hollow victory as Consolesdämmerung is upon us

[Black]

If he didn't seem stupid then how did you explain him being fat?

 

[Cadmus]

If he didn't seem stupid then how did you explain him being fat?

Uh... ? Because fat-> stupid or stupid-> fat or what the fuck is your reasoning here

Let's have a social justice debate on why fat people don't need to be inherently stupid just because they are fat, I can't wait for this gold.

 

[Black]

He's fat and American, put the pieces together.

 

[Necroscope]

I don't understand...

I felt sympathy for that fat fuck, he didn't seem obnoxious or too stupid.

He seems like a decent enough guy, but he has some serious fucking problems. This video, for example, literally made me sick (jump to 4:16):

 

[Morgoth]

Where to put this....

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/218204/Why_are_Nordic_game_developers_so_good.php

TL;DR

Harsh weather conditions in Scandinavia led to a mentality of pragmatism and reliable tools creation. Definitely a cool read.

Now shut up and quickly take the fire out in that diversity school before somebody notices.

 

[deuxhero]

http://ukie.info/content/ukie-week-22-2014-uk-video-games-charts

Wii U sales up 666% with new Mario Kart release in one of Nintendo's worst regions. Depending on how this keeps up, the PS4 might lose its lead. (note: loss to watchdogs is likely because Mario Kart launched latter in the week)

 

[Drew]

http://ukie.info/content/ukie-week-22-2014-uk-video-games-charts

Wii U sales up 666% with new Mario Kart release in one of Nintendo's worst regions. Depending on how this keeps up, the PS4 might lose its lead. (note: loss to watchdogs is likely because it is available on more systems)

More likely.

 

[DalekFlay]

http://ukie.info/content/ukie-week-22-2014-uk-video-games-charts

Wii U sales up 666% with new Mario Kart release in one of Nintendo's worst regions. Depending on how this keeps up, the PS4 might lose its lead. (note: loss to watchdogs is likely because Mario Kart launched latter in the week)

They'll get a boost like that every time they release a core franchise game, but I don't see it remaining steady between them (or even close to it). They'll end up in the hardcore Nintendo fan sweet spot the Gamecube did.

 

[deuxhero]

Fine by me, GCN was great, even if most people never knew some of the best games on the system.

Drew That too

 

[DalekFlay]

Fine by me, GCN was great, even if most people never knew some of the best games on the system.

I don't care about Nintendo games anymore but I like that people who are fans more or less get the games they want, designed for them, with fuck-all cares given by Nintendo about changing things to appeal to phantom demographics. I wish I could say that about PC gaming.

 

[CSM]

Six months later and the Xbox still sucks:

Six months in, the Xbox One still raises as many questions as it answers. What is Microsoft's vision for this thing? Is it about the cloud, or online gaming, or is it about Kinect? Is it for watching TV, or as the company's more recent messaging seems to suggest, is it now all about gamers and games?

...

First things first: I've lost faith in the Kinect camera. I'm sick of hollering orders at my TV, and have been annoyed by the camera far more often than I've been served by it. There are so many small problems, and they add up to become a very big problem. It takes too long to recognize me and sign me in. It can't hear me well enough, and there are few things more annoying than when my girlfriend and I are taking turns shouting "Xbox, Pause" at a movie as the pizza guy knocks on the door. There's a lag between when I say something and when the console acknowledges it, and that lag is long enough that I usually start repeating myself even as it's reporting that it heard me the first time. And while voice control is bad, gestural control is far worse; it's so weird and inconsistent that I can't believe Microsoft even included it.

...

As is usual for the first year (or two) of a console's lifespan, there aren't enough games for the Xbox One. And really, the console's not doing so bad in this regard—there are already a fair number of good games for the system. Launch standout Dead Rising 3 has gotten a substantial amount of post-release downloadable content, and new games like Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare and Super Time Force have been a whole lot of fun.

The not-on-PlayStation Titanfall has certainly been the most successful game on the Xbox One. However, the Xbox One didn't even get the definitive version that game, which ran noticeably more smoothly on PC and without the Xbox One version's ugly screen-tearing. It's still a super fun game—I play more or less exclusively on Xbox One—but it raises an eyebrow to see that the blockbuster game most closely associated with the Xbox One runs noticeably better on another platform.

...

http://kotaku.com/xbox-one-review-update-six-months-later-1582733858

 

[Infinitron]

After EA bought Origin, authority for the new division fell to the president of EA Worldwide Studios, Don Mattrick. Once EA started exerting a tighter grip on Origin, Mattrick pushed teams to stay on schedule (an insistence that badly damaged Ultima VIII, according to Garriott). Mattrick killed many projects because they had spun out of control, and cancelled other projects for reasons staffers still consider mysterious. Some staffers believe (though not for attribution) Mattrick undermined Origin because it competed for resources with Distinctive's new incarnation, EA Canada. This view arose particularly because of the way Mattrick managed Origin's late-'90s move into online games.

It was HIM?! Hooooly fuck. That's one hell of a career this guy has had.

 

[Morgoth]

Fuck you Mattrick.

 

[DalekFlay]

Mattrick is a businessman, not a creative. He couldn't give two fucks about your precious Origin and classic games, he's there to create dollar signs and be the bad guy.

 

[BlackAdderBG]

Yea ,but he sucks at that

 

[DragoFireheart]

Yea ,but he sucks at that

So not only does he suck at being creative, he sucks at being a business man.

tl;dr a failure at life.

 

[DalekFlay]

tl;dr a failure at life.

And billionaire.

 

[Morgoth]

And a shitty businessman.

 

[Morgoth]

Speaking of lousy business practices:
http://kotaku.com/why-game-developers-keep-getting-laid-off-1583192249

TL;DR

Routine layoffs is why good talent is shied out of this industry permanently, leaving only robots and hacks behind. Enjoy your shitty games. For operational cost efficiency!

Wir müssen alle Roboter werden.

 

[DeepOcean]

leaving only robots and hacks behind.

You didn't understand Morgoth-San, that was the objective all along. Do you think that to make all that recycled AAA garbage they really need talented and experienced people? You don't need to be an amazing artist if you are the barrel guy or a talented programmer if you are going to do repetitive work for the most part that rarely challenge your skills. Hacks and robots are more than enough for that. When people start buying games that require more than the lowest mental effort possible we might see the situation change.

 

[abija]

Speaking of lousy business practices:
http://kotaku.com/why-game-developers-keep-getting-laid-off-1583192249

TL;DR

Routine layoffs is why good talent is shied out of this industry permanently, leaving only robots and hacks behind. Enjoy your shitty games. For operational cost efficiency!

Wir müssen alle Roboter werden.

Oh buhuhu...

Over the past few weeks, I've been in touch with some 50 people who have worked in various fields of game development, from QA to publishing.

What talent are you talking about? I skimmed through the article and didn't notice any.

But I did notice shit like:

Over the past few years, some game companies have figured out how to avoid layoff cycles. One Ubisoft Montreal employee reached out to assure me that in ten years at the studio, he's never seen layoffs.

Quality journalism right there...

UPDATE (6/6/2014): Sadly, just one day after we published this article, Nintendo announced that they'd laid off 130 people and shut down one of their offices in Germany.

Nintendo closed a warehouse in germany, THE DRAMA, no TALENT will ever go work for nintendo now...

 

[Morgoth]

Do you feel better now abija? What was even the point of that little angry outburst?

 

[abija]

What was the point of linking a kotaku article and TLDRing shit?

 

[Morgoth]

Don't avoid my question. Tell us about your butthurt.

 

[Morgoth]

leaving only robots and hacks behind.

You didn't understand Morgoth-San, that was the objective all along. Do you think that to make all that recycled AAA garbage they really need talented and experienced people? You don't need to be an amazing artist if you are the barrel guy or a talented programmer if you are going to do repetitive work for the most part that rarely challenge your skills. Hacks and robots are more than enough for that. When people start buying games that require more than the lowest mental effort possible we might see the situation change.

I think the point is that only hacks & robots are capable of working in bloated, Hollywood schedule type assembly-line productions and stay sane. EA would probably like to have that talent back, but talent doesn't like EA.

Making indie Untermensch trash isn't exciting either for an ambitious, imaginative human being. The middle-ground of game development, kinda like the middle-class, has almost vanished. That's a shame, but it also speaks to a larger extend to the trend of continued consolidation processes of business in general ("for efficiency purposes"), when in reality it only creates more redundance, stress and failure. Fascism in the making.