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Where we landed on the next generation of consoles [Columbia Daily Tribune (MO)](Columbia Daily Tribune (MO) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) A week later and the dust from E3 was starting to settle. It looked like all lines had been drawn, pieces were on the board and the scales of the masses seemed tipped decidedly towards Sony's PlayStation 4. Then Microsoft stirred things up again when they decided to backtrack on their previous policies regarding online connectivity and game sharing for the Xbox One. For more info on that, read Jason's post On Sharing and Schadenfreude. While the fallout of Microsoft's move isn't quite clear, it is probably fair to say that the two juggernauts of gaming, Sony and Microsoft, are more on the same level than they were immediately following E3. I'm sure there a few Xbox deserters who are glancing over their shoulder to see if anyone is watching while they switch back to the Xbox One line. The best we can do for now is offer up which camp we landed in after all the hooplah. Jason: Which console? I've gone back and forth about this one for awhile now, but at the end of the day, I'm going to go with Xbox One. There's a couple reasons I ended up joining forces Microsoft and their legions of darkness. One, have you even seen Star Wars? The bad guys always get the better uniforms and the better ships. Two, as Rick Moranis said: "Evil will always triumph over good, because good is dumb." So, clearly, this is more a life affirmation than a video game console decision. No, not really. The real reasons are that over the last few years, I've watched the alcove under my TV grow more and more cluttered with various boxes. The DirectTV DVR, the wireless router, the cable modem, the Blu-Ray player, the wireless external hard drive I use to store movies and music and the Xbox 360 console itself. All of these have added to a growing clutter that seems to expand with each passing year. (Gadget creep, as my wife as termed it.) Yet, with all the new additions to the home entertainment center, I've also found myself using them less and less. The Blu-Ray player? Haven't used it since Christmas. In fact, I'm pretty sure our copy of "The Muppet Christmas Carole" is still inside. I don't even remember the last time I actually watched a Blu-Ray movie in the thing, but it's probably been at least a year ... maybe even longer. The external hard drive? Hardly ever used now. Oddly, the thing we use the most in the house is, in fact, the Xbox itself. Only, not as a gaming console. Over the last few months, I've noticed myself spending less and less time actually playing games on it, and more and more time using its Netflix and Amazon Instant Video apps. Somewhere along the line, that awkward white box of circuits and processors turned into much more than a super-charged Nintendo. It became the core component of our television and movie watching. So, when I sat down and compared the two consoles side-by-side, I really saw one truly-dedicated gaming system (the Playstation) and one box that was trying to be an all-in-one convergence system for my living room. Now, if I were a hardcore gamer, I would probably have been drawn to the PlayStation. But, the Xbox appears to be making some interesting moves into the home-theater world. Namely, the incorporation of the Kinect camera and allowing audio commands into the channel surfing experience. Personally, I really like the idea of being able to say to the Kinect: "Xbox, turn channel to FoxSports Midwest," and be able to watch the Cardinals game while I'm in the kitchen preparing dinner. In addition, the pass-through integration with the DirectTV box will help to consolidate the umpteen different remotes and user interfaces in my home theater setup into one easy-to-navigate and easy-to-use system. Assuming this works, I'm looking forward to not having to give technology-impaired family members a tutorial just so they can watch TV or change the channel. Instead, hopefully, I can just say: "See that little box? Yeah, just talk to it. Tell it what you want it to do." So, in the end, I guess the decision came down to not which console had the best games or had the more-powerful processor, it really came down to the non-gaming uses. Makes me wonder, am I buying a gaming console? Or a home-theater component that happens to play games? I'm starting to think it's the second one. Matt: When I traded my Xbox 360 in for a PlayStation 3 last week, I knew it wasn't the smartest decision I've ever made. My PS3 won't have the same value when I trade it in to buy a PS4 as what I got for my 360. But then again, by that time, my 360 wouldn't have gotten as much in trade in as it did last week either. My decision wasn't based so much on financial motivations, other than being unable to afford two consoles at a time, as it was my desire for entertainment value. For the most part, the games offered exclusively to the Xbox machines had grown stale for me. Even the Halo universe has lost some of its luster in my eyes. Its all familiar retreads and gameplay that is designed for quick fixes. And over the last few years, I've desired something that carries a little more weight than the standard run and gun fare. Maybe it has to do with my increased attention span, or maybe what I perceive as 'value', but I want a game to last longer than a handful of hours. You could combine the number of hours it would take to complete all the numbered Halo titles' campaigns and fit them into a single playthrough of any of the Mass Effect trilogy. Games like Halo try to up their value with a heavy focus on multiplayer, and that certainly has its place, as my Call of Duty record will attest. But there are very few titles that are exclusive to Xbox that will last longer than four to six hours. While the length of a game certainly doesn't guarantee quality, it's obvious that Sony is ready to invest in games that have both quality and length. If you need proof of that, just take a look at The Last of Us. The game chronicles the journey of Joel and Ellie as they make their way across a post-apocalyptic plague ridden United States. Its fifteen hours of gaming devoid of the usual boss battles and mass genocide and the game is all the better for it. There will still be a sizable body count, but developer Naughty Dog makes each of them hit home, whether it's seeing the emotion on the face of an infected and hearing its desperate gasps for air as Joel chokes it out or Ellie's panicked cries as she lunges at an armed survivor tracking her down with only a knife to defend herself. Every kill carried a meaning in The Last of Us, and that fact alone elevated the already excellently written story. Neither next gen console really has a title quite on par with The Last of Us just yet, but Sony has shown over the last few years that they're not afraid to let developers step away from twitch gaming and give players something cerebral. But games aren't the only note a console can play either and this shift in focus can't go completely ignored. Much like Jason, I spend a solid chunk of time on my console doing things other than playing video games. Netflix and Amazon Instant are pretty much the only way I watch TV shows anymore. But the PS4 comes with those apps available as well. I do admit that I'll mourn the loss of the HBO Go app and that I was foolish enough to trade my Xbox 360 in before I had a chance to watch the last episode of Game of Thrones. So hopefully, bringing that app to the PlayStation masses is in Sony's future plans. But side by side windows, live TV and Direct TV integration and voice commanding just isn't my thing. They're certainly very cool features, but by no means necessary. To me, they just seem distracting. Just do a Google search for Xbox One and see how much talk is directed towards it's policies and features instead of it's games. Do the same for PlayStation and you'll see much less controversy. It is worth pointing out, however, that my flip-flopping ways aren't a recent development. Indeed, you could probably call me the John Kerry of consoles. At different times in my life I've backed the Nintendo Game Cube, the PlayStation 2, the Xbox 360 and now PlayStations 3 and 4. My ever changing allegiance has less to do with indecision and bandwagoning than it does with a desire for variety, though. Each console offers up a unique experience that should be explored and cultivated. I just like to try new things and see where each company is going first person is all. So I shook hands with Microsoft, figuratively of course, and said my good-byes and now I'm walking the path with Sony for a while. Truth is, no matter what console you choose, it looks gamers will certainly have something to do this console cycle. If you are getting this message, it's because your browser is blocking cookies. For free access to this full story, please enable cookies in your web browser. [bold] How do I enable cookies? [/bold] On your computer: * Chrome * Firefox * Internet Explorer * Safari On your mobile devices or tablets * Android devices * iPhone/ iPad * Windows Phone [copyright] 2013 Columbia Daily Tribune . All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. (c) 2013 ProQuest Information and Learning Company; All Rights Reserved. |