God, I miss cartridges

[Anarchist420]

SSDs suck unless they're SLC and then theyre so expensive they arent worthwhile in my opinion. and then the more that is loaded on them, the slower they will be.

the latest WD raptor seems the "cream of the crop" in terms of speed and reliability although not as compact, more power hungry, and more expensive.

 

[cmdrdredd]

redbox always has stuff in stock. i rented many games from them and finished them. i just wish i had done that earlier to save some money.

oh, and...

http://www.redbox.com/ps4

http://www.redbox.com/xboxone

Useless when the disclaimer says it's not at every location and you can't search online. So yeah...drive around town to check every one. No thanks. I checked the couple closest locations to me before, nothing. I'm not in some hickville in the middle of nowhere either.

Having read your posts in the Steam thread in PC gaming, I'm just going to assume you're another one of those that simply does not grasp the concept and difference in what you stated above, verses consoles games.

All of the above have MUCH cheaper games and quicker price declines than console games on average. There is a trade off involved where "resale" is expendable. Paying $60 for a game for many people is a price point where the potential resale is almost a necessity. Paying $5-20 usually isn't. This number will vary from person to person, but I'm assuming there is an average somewhere.

Also a huge key difference is competition. Steam has plenty of it (as you noted above). If MS or PS were to exclusively have an online only distribution system, there is no direct competition at all on exclusive games, and very little (just between MS and Sony) on multiplatform games.

A good example of this is Nintendos digital distribution. Many of their games are overpriced and stay that way. (Even when they are hurting for sales). While they tend to just do their own thing, over time I've chalked it up to no direct competition. They themselves even say they aren't trying to compete.

All true and I would also add that many games on steam are discounted before they are released. Some games are 10% off if you pre-order. Then you can often times pre-load the game and it'll simply unlock at midnight the day of release. That goes a long way toward encouraging a purchase.

SSDs suck unless they're SLC and then theyre so expensive they arent worthwhile in my opinion. and then the more that is loaded on them, the slower they will be.

the latest WD raptor seems the "cream of the crop" in terms of speed and reliability although not as compact, more power hungry, and more expensive.

The slowest SSD, is faster than any mechanical drive. The only ones that come close are the SAS 15k RPM Cheetas but they cannot sustain their max thoroughput and the averages are in favor of SSD. Then you have the fact that SAS drives don't work in consoles and your average PC.

 

[ImpulsE69]

SSDs suck unless they're SLC and then theyre so expensive they arent worthwhile in my opinion. and then the more that is loaded on them, the slower they will be.

the latest WD raptor seems the "cream of the crop" in terms of speed and reliability although not as compact, more power hungry, and more expensive.

Not really sure where you are going with this....SSD's would be ideal for consoles due to once you've installed the game it's said and done and would be much faster than optical or mechanical drives, perfect for games that stream off the drive and their durability if moving your console around or taking it to friends etc all the time. Price is still an issue at this point, but they are quickly coming down.

 

[Lil Frier]

You don't think there would be any issues with longevity/durability, due to incessantly saving games? Like with Skyrim, I think I had 160 game saves on my HDD when I finished it, and that doesn't include the constant auto-saves. Would frequently writing to the SSD because of autosaving cause any issues?

 

[ImpulsE69]

You don't think there would be any issues with longevity/durability, due to incessantly saving games? Like with Skyrim, I think I had 160 game saves on my HDD when I finished it, and that doesn't include the constant auto-saves. Would frequently writing to the SSD because of autosaving cause any issues?

It shouldn't as most of the old issues of SSD have been fixed with FW updates. Most of the "issues" referred to now revolve around writing-->erasing-->writing new repeatedly. Windows makes changes all the time and the vast majority do not have issues. SSD's aren't as fragile as people try to make them out to be. There could be some slowness/perf drops when writing a nearly full drive, but that is with any drive, not just SSD.

There is minimal chance a console would do more work to an SSD than Windows does. Most all games write a secondary copy of your save files to C: anyway regardless of where you installed it..so it's really no different.

 

[cmdrdredd]

You don't think there would be any issues with longevity/durability, due to incessantly saving games? Like with Skyrim, I think I had 160 game saves on my HDD when I finished it, and that doesn't include the constant auto-saves. Would frequently writing to the SSD because of autosaving cause any issues?

I played Skyrim off my PC SSD and have installed and deleted games on it for over 2 years. It's still fine and I expect it would last longer than I intend to keep this PC as it is configured today. For a console, it would last longer than the console lifespan I'm sure.

 

[zerocool84]

No, I'm actually speaking of having actual cartridges hold games. Not nostalgia for those games...which I'm actually not all that nostalgic for.

Like, there's a sense with cartridge games that the games are almost...etched...hardwired...almost like fine artisan metalworking.

And honestly, game graphics might be technically better, but they aren't really any better in effect. They just take a lot of resources and have long loading times, just so you can have this little bit of shiny effect on a surface while you're like zooming by really fast in the game.

So yeah, I'm willing to give up some high resolution graphics for this. heck, recently in a game I actually lowered resolution from the optimal 1920x1080 to like 1280x720 and it increased my enjoyment of the game.

So you don't have a powerful enough computer to run a game at 1080p so you dropped it down to 720p and it was more enjoyable? Well no duh and saying better graphics aren't better makes no sense.

 

[HeXen]

Not really sure where you are going with this....SSD's would be ideal for consoles due to once you've installed the game it's said and done and would be much faster than optical or mechanical drives, perfect for games that stream off the drive and their durability if moving your console around or taking it to friends etc all the time. Price is still an issue at this point, but they are quickly coming down.

I tried my $800 SLC ssd in my Playstation 3. Honestly it's not a huge difference at all. Installs are still limited by the speed of the Blue Ray drive, in reality installs, streaming and loading levels were not worthwhile. Usually only a few seconds faster with loading times but everything else was not noticeable at all.

I'm sure PS4 has more bandwidth to make better use of it but I have serious doubts it's worth the price of admission.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Even the ps4 doesn't have sata3 I dont believe

 

[ImpulsE69]

Then the issue isn't SSD's, it's the ancient architecture they used.

I put a hybrid in my PS3. I definitely see faster load and download (prep) times vs the stock.

 

[desura]

So you don't have a powerful enough computer to run a game at 1080p so you dropped it down to 720p and it was more enjoyable? Well no duh and saying better graphics aren't better makes no sense.

no, my computer could run it at 1080p fine, but then the UI would be tiny and everything in the game was really precise.

dropping it to that resolution made the UI bigger and the graphics were a little more jaggy, but more enjoyable.

 

[exdeath]

SSDs suck unless they're SLC and then theyre so expensive they arent worthwhile in my opinion. and then the more that is loaded on them, the slower they will be.

the latest WD raptor seems the "cream of the crop" in terms of speed and reliability although not as compact, more power hungry, and more expensive.

False.

 

[Lil Frier]

I tried my $800 SLC ssd in my Playstation 3. Honestly it's not a huge difference at all. Installs are still limited by the speed of the Blue Ray drive, in reality installs, streaming and loading levels were not worthwhile. Usually only a few seconds faster with loading times but everything else was not noticeable at all.

I'm sure PS4 has more bandwidth to make better use of it but I have serious doubts it's worth the price of admission.

As was correctly stated, the PS4 is SATA 2.0, not 3.0. It's what is throttling the SSD over anything.

 

[circusslaughter]

Cartridges are better. They don't break. Blow and go. With a disk, you scratch it and hope you can repair it or you have to buy a new disk.

I think cartridges are way cooler and they last a lifetime...

 

[Sulaco]

I never understood the "but discs break so easily" stuff.

Sure, accidents happen, but out of the hundreds (thousands?) of games I've owned and played since the Sega CD/Windows 95 days, across all platforms, maybe a handful have been damaged or scratched enough to not play or need repair, and most of those were because of freak accidents or childish oversight.

As long as you didn't hold your discs like a hamburger, actually put them back in their cases (which I always failed to understand how that was such a chore), and weren't juggling steak knives at the same time, it seemed rather easy to keep them in working condition...

 

[Lil Frier]

Agreed.

I don't know how long it's been since I personally ruined a game disc, and by "personally," I mean "the Xbox, while in my use." The last game of mine I recall getting broken was in, like, 2012 (cousin who borrowed my no-longer-played Modern Warfare 2). The two incidents before that, I think the game still worked, but they were both 5+ years ago.

People who think discs are fragile initially thought that discs were indestructible and made no effort to take care of them. You have to be very irresponsible or have the worst disc drive ever made.

 

[HeXen]

I never understood the "but discs break so easily" stuff.

Sure, accidents happen, but out of the hundreds (thousands?) of games I've owned and played since the Sega CD/Windows 95 days, across all platforms, maybe a handful have been damaged or scratched enough to not play or need repair, and most of those were because of freak accidents or childish oversight.

As long as you didn't hold your discs like a hamburger, actually put them back in their cases (which I always failed to understand how that was such a chore), and weren't juggling steak knives at the same time, it seemed rather easy to keep them in working condition...

I had quite a few CD's get scratched up with that POS SegaCD, it was like it held the disc too low and would occasionally catch the bottom where it eventually wore out a circle area on the disc.
Dust alone eventually scratches CD's but the most common culprit was people wiping off the disc, even with soft tissue puts scratches on it.
Either way, don't expect most kids to really give a damn about being super tender with their games. It's a poor medium really, Sony had a good idea with the casing of the mini CD's.

 

[Rakehellion]

You don't think there would be any issues with longevity/durability, due to incessantly saving games? Like with Skyrim, I think I had 160 game saves on my HDD when I finished it, and that doesn't include the constant auto-saves. Would frequently writing to the SSD because of autosaving cause any issues?

Nope. You'd have to write billions of save games before the drive neared its end of life.

 

[15fgdean64]

Me too.

 

[Doppel]

no, my computer could run it at 1080p fine, but then the UI would be tiny and everything in the game was really precise.

dropping it to that resolution made the UI bigger and the graphics were a little more jaggy, but more enjoyable.

That is just strange. Also, the UI shouldn't shrink as you increase resolution. I don't think I've ever seen a game that didn't have the UI scale with higher res to maintain its size.

 

[Golgatha]

Yeah, I couldn't help but think about where a place like GameStop would be around that time. What if "physical distribution" meant going to a place like Best Buy or GameStop with a large, USB 3.0 (maybe 4.0 by then) during the next generation (or maybe even in the second-half of THIS generation), plugging into their on-site servers, and getting a game transferred to your USB drive, then taking it home and transferring?

That would get around the fears of data caps, but I imagine it would be EXTREMELY expensive for companies to implement. I don't buy that a place like GameStop will just die out in 5-10 years. They'll probably find a way to survive, and having a limitless, high-speed means of transferring a game to a user is the only way I could think of those places staying useful long-term.

Frankly you don't need Gamestop for that distribution model. You need RedBox type kiosks to maximize profits. You could also use this type of system to rent games. I'm really not sure why there are no game rentals during this generation if you have broadband. I would assume some money is better than no money, and you could even dangle the carrot of deducting the rental price from the purchase of the game if the consumer decides they want permanent access to the game.

 

[desura]

Okay, so what I am curious about is...

If Nintendo put the SNES back on retail shelves, for cheap, and sold it as a nostalgia play--

would it sell? would it sell well?

That would be pretty cool. If you could buy a SNES for like $80, and games were like $20.

 

[007ELmO]

$80 is way too high! Would sell at $50, with $10-15 games each. SNES with built in Netplay.

If you want an SNES now, you just go on Ebay.

Nintendo tries to do this with their stupid store (downloading old games for $10).

 

[desura]

I mean, as a business sense, start up production again, it could probably be profitable.

Nintendo will never be able to compete on pure horsepower. Might as well go back to its roots as a children's toy manufacturer.

 

[zerocool84]

Okay, so what I am curious about is...

If Nintendo put the SNES back on retail shelves, for cheap, and sold it as a nostalgia play--

would it sell? would it sell well?

That would be pretty cool. If you could buy a SNES for like $80, and games were like $20.

No, it would not widely sell. Of course some people will buy it but not enough for it to be a success for them. There are more than enough out there already if someone wants to buy it.