Back to the Current Gen! My Gaming pilgrimage from PS3 to PS2 to PS4 FINALLY!

23 months ago my PS3 suffered a fatal YLOD, two months after the PS4 launch. So while most gamers moved forwards to the next (current) generation of console gaming I actually took a step back and was playing on my PS2.
Not the end of the world I took the opportunity to revisit some PS1 and PS2 titles....ok it was fun for a while but Old School is only fun if it's by choice and you can go back to playing games from this millennium but I couldn't and weeks turned to months, months to years! I felt like I was lost, forgotten in a gaming wasteland that time forgot....

But my time in the wasteland is coming to an end! I finally got a PS4 this Christmas! I got the Uncharted Nathan Drake Collection Bundle for $299.99 which is great as I never bought the Uncharted Games last generation but I always wanted to play them. In my opinion this is an amzing bundle at that price point, I have a feeling PS4 console sales skyrocketed during the window this bundle was selling for $299.99!

So 23 months have passed I wonder how many of my friends deleted me from their friends list thinking I was never returning. 

I will find out when I complete the initial setup on Wednesday.  

My Post E3 Dream....

So E3 has come and gone and I did enjoy watching Microsoft's epic fail and 180. I enjoyed  watching Sony jump on the hater aide bandwagon, those two totally remind me of the good ol day of Nintendo and Sega....but E3 also left me a little uncertain about the industries future.
Part of me wishes we could return to a more innocent time in gaming where a hedgehog  had beef with 2 Italian plumbers, and you're biggest headache with your games was having to blow the dust off em before popping them into the console.....games that still work today! Days before on disk & day 1 DLC, days before having to worry about your banking info being stolen because the console's maker's servers have been hacked, days before politicians blamed every shooting on video games....oh wait never mind that one.
Don't get me wrong, there are some truly remarkable things we gamers have today that was just not possible back then....games like The Last of Us, Red Dead Redemption, Halo, God of War, and services like YouTube, Netflix, Hulu+. Digital movies, music, TV shows available to download...there's so much these consoles offer  on top of just playing video games! But then we see large corporations like Microsoft pull some deceitful shenanigans like we saw at E3 this year that make me wish gaming's founding fathers, Atari, SEGA and Nintendo would rise up, and give the gamers a reason to tell companies like Microsoft to STFU.
If you thing the applause Sony got at E3 was big, imagine if SEGA dropped this bombshell!
I can only speak for myself but if Sega did do this I would have thrown my money at them! And I think many others would have also, just to show Sony and Microsoft the ONLY reason they are where they are IS because of US!
SEGA please come back to consoles!

XBO PS4 comparison chart and deep thoughts about the future of video games and consoles

I am as guilty as the next gamer when it comes to taking sides when new consoles launch....I've been doing it since the Sega/ Nintendo console wars. 

Last Gen I remember being completely turned off when I was in a GS and overheard an employee singing high praise about the Xbox360 to some guy who was obviously a casual gamer, the dude had no clue and took the sales person's word for it. I walked out wondering if Microsoft had made some back room deal with GS to promote the 360. Anyway I held off for the first year and finally bough my PS3 the second holiday season. It was a very rough start for the PS3 as the 360 dominated the market the majority of this generation. But just like the story of the tortoise and the hare the PS3 FINALLY caught up and in my opinion crossed the finish line stronger than the Xbox360.

I've been watching all the announcements from Sony and Microsoft and it appears Sony's price point along with their used game policy has put them in a much more favorable light compared to Microsoft.

Yesterday I watched the Angry Joe interview with Microsoft's Major Nelson....my personal feelings aside, it got me thinking about one thing.....the future. 

The music industry, and to a lesser extent the movie industry has been moving away from the physical and towards a digital format, who buys CD's these days aside from old people? Even my mother has bought music from iTunes! 

So when Major Nelson asked Angry Joe if he wanted to join him in the future it really got me thinking. Blu Ray disks may be the last bastion of physical media, and if that's the case this might be the last generation of video game consoles as we know it. 

My friend Krogenar has mentioned this exact scenario with me and it looks like the XBone might be offering us a glimpse of gaming's future...

I've purchased games via the PS Store, for example Okami HD, so I've platinum'd the game, it has no multiplayer and there's really no incentive for me to replay it.....what now?

I can't give it to my friends, I can't trade it in to the PS Store for credit....but at least I know that if nostalgia kicks in or if my son wants to play it when he's old enough that I'll still have it sitting there on my BC PS3 500GB HDD.

Food for thought gamers.....

E3 Microsoft XBox One & Sony PlayStation Conference....the ecosystem...the games...the network....the price!

So yesterday Microsoft and Sony had their E3 pressers, I watched the Microsoft conference just to see how they would recover from their Xbox One reveal event which sent the interwebs into a frenzy with the DRM and always on info.

They started with Hideo Kojima presenting MGS V: The Phantom Pain for XBoxOne....I think we all know MGS V TPP will sell better on the PS3/4...a noble effort to woo the Japanese gamers, by in my opinion pointless.



They did however focus on games....good move Microsoft:

Halo,
 

Quantum Break,
 

D4,



Killer Instinct,

Forza Motorsport 5,

Project Spark,


Titan Fall,

Crimson Dragon,


MS did clarify the DRM/always on fiasco....although a bit clearer I still don't like the policy at all. I trade games with my friends and if the game is good enough....RDR for example I'll buy it. Microsoft revealed the MSRP for the XBoxOne will be $499.99


.....the silence was deafening, ouch! Brings back memories of Sony's 2006 E3 presser with Kaz revealing the PS3 MSRP...



At the end of the day Sony had their E3 presser, there were still a few lingering questions in my mind. The two most critical for me were how much will the console cost and will the PSN service still offer online gaming for free....oh and would Sony have some sort of DRM policy like Microsoft?
After the traditional game montage Sony kicked things off with a little news on the Vita front...news titles and cross play with the PS4, then we moved straight into the current with the PS3 and showed the strong line up that's still to come begining with GoTY contender The last of Us, then we got some new vids for
Rain




Beyond Two Souls



Gran Turismo 6


Batman Arkham Origins


Sony also mentioned a GT5 GTAV/PS3 bundle, after that we segwayed into the PS4 and a "World without bounds". I got a bit nervous at this point....if they are saying a world without bounds they better not have any stupid restrictions on sharing/trading games! Then they revealed the PS4! O.O the moment we've all been waiting 4....see what I did there?
Annd meh...it's not that sexy, in fact it looks ALOT like a PS2!

There was a noticeable silence and my first reaction was not like OMFG it's gorgeous! The first thought in my head was this is what I waited 4 months for!?
So Sony briskly moved on to the new additions to the PSN, Red Box Instant and Flixter...mmmmkaaay.....
then they brought out the CEO of Sony pictures....this guy was obviously out of his element and it showed! He talked about how Sony pictures is commited to bringing the best movies to the PSN....for the gamers....ok ok I get it! It's all about the gamers, please the horse is dead, stop beating it!
I was getting a little nervous....we haven't heard the MSRP yet, no word on sharing games, nadda on the PSN of tomorrow...
Then Shuhei comes on stage and gets the wheels rolling again talking about a bunch of new IP's (intellectual properties) like

The Order 1886



Then we got some new trailers for previously confirmed PS4 launch titles, unfortunately InFamous Second Son is slated for Q1 2014 :(

Killzone: Shadow Fall



Drive Club


InFamous Second Son


 After the Infamous Second Son trailer Sony had regained their momentum and Shuhei started talking how the Power of the PS4 will take story telling to the next level with advanced facial mapping setting new levels of emotional expression and who better to demonstrate this than.....da da daaaaa The Dark Sorcerer!



That had me laughing!
With all the hater aid that recently came from a bunch of indie devs regarding their relationship with Microsoft, Sony has opened the gates to work on indie games for the PS4, they showed at least 6 on stage including Don't Starve, Transistor, Secret Ponchos and many more!
Then Sony "released the Kraken!!!!" and announced via video conference that Final Fantasy Vs XIII was ALIVE!!! Millions of Final Fantasy Fans rejoiced!
Final Fantasy Vs XIII now Final Fantasy XV


and...

Kingdom Hearts III



Oh yeah and for those who still have a shred of faith left, FFXIV will be exclusive to PS3/4



With the Kracken released Sony showed no mercy as they unveiled their used game policy....you hear the applause??? The media is chanting Sony Sony Sony...



And then Sony detailed the updated PSN + program....it's interesting to note how they breezed right through the fact that online multiplayer now requires a PSN+ subscription...no matter, from what I've from many peeps on my PSN friends list the service is worth more than gold ;)



And here is Sony's KO punch to the competition!
$399 dollars for PS4 or $499  for XBox One the choice is your's. Persoally I think this console war is over...
I'll be a 4th generation Sony gamer.

Sony's PS4 Announcement

Interesting show last night....
What I found more interesting than what was shown and said was what wasn't. I understand they need to keep the certain things under wraps like the price point, which will probably be one of the largest factors in this upcoming console war.
I loved the intro, sony came out guns blazing and when I saw Nariko I thought maybe just maybe she'd be getting a new game for the PS4 launch....there are many who would love to see her get a sequel! There were some obvious digs thrown at Microsoft best one being "We didn't build a box".  LMAO!



Surprisingly Sony actually dropped the specs of the PS4, I thought for sure they would keep that under wraps till E3 but I guess not.
PS4 specs:
AMD 8-core 64-bit x86 "Jaguar" CPU  with a 
Radeon GPU comprised of 18 "compute units" capable of cranking out 1.84 TFLOPS  
Blu-ray drive 
8GB of unified GDDR5 RAM capable of 176GB/sec of bandwidth. 
802.11n WiFi, 
USB 3.0, 
Bluetooth 2.1, 
HDMI, Optical Out and Analog AV Out

We saw a demo of Unreal Engine 4 supposedly running on a PS4....but since we never peeped the console we gotta take their word for it.

After all the tech talk we finally were shown the DS4, which looked ALOT nicer than the leaked pic from last week....the touch pad looks good not like an after thought and the controller retain the iconic DS style, the L2 and R2 buttons look kinda small and I can totally see them breaking if the contoller slips and falls on the floor. The share button and it's application was a big aspect of the conference that feeds into the social mantra Sony was promoting. I do like how they have integrated the PS move tech into the DS4, it looks clean and well designed.



After the DS4 reveal we got a brief demo of the Unreal Engine 4 running on a PS4 demo kit...



This short little demo in my opinion was to show PC gamers, hey look what the PS4 can do
Afterwards we were shown a demo of Knack....the kids will love it, it had a Disney Pixar look to it.

Next up we got to hear how Sony's 380M dollar "investment" in Gaikai cloud gaming will work with the PSN, how Sony is striving to get their entire library of games from PS1 to PS4 games up in the cloud, how the PS4 will act as a type of server to allow gamers to play anywhere/anytime on a multitude of devices like the PS Vita....any PS4 title purchased able to be played on the PS Vita via cross play....enticing...might boost Vita sales also! What they didn't mention here is will the service be free or subscription based. I have to believe something of this magnitude will NOT be free...but will it become part of the PS+ service?
During this part of the conference the bomb was dropped that and I quote "PS3 games are not native on the PS4" in layman's terms no backwards compatibility, but isn't that part of the reason Sony bought Gaikai in the first place? In a way with Gaikai the PS4 will be backswards compatible with PS1, PS2 and PS3....you just can't play the games you already own for those consoles >O.o<

After the Gaikai announcement we get a beetles-esqe video montage of different developers telling us how Sony went to them and basically pulled a Jerry Macguire "Help Us, Help You!"



Sony spent a great deal of time discussing the "5 pillars" of PS4
Simple: simplicity for developers= come build your games on us and port to other instead of what happened to PS3
Personalized: the system will begin to recognize your gaming preferences based on what you buy from the network and play....scary! Cyberdyne systems model 101!
Immediate: no more "quit game X" and "the system was not turned off properly the last time, pls standby while we fix yo shit". no waiting for firmware updates to complete, play your game while it's DLing....impressive if true.
Integrated: the PS ecosystem PS4-Vita-mobile Gaming everywhere anytime!! Do all the gaming!!!
Social: Sony is gonna try and merge the Play Station Lifestyle with social media ie FB/ YT etc. I hope they have a G+ option.! Do I get to upload directly to my YouTube account?
They showed how people can "chat" with each other and ask for help I wonder how that would work in a shooter like Socom (RIP) where there's one person left on each side and one's camping and the other is trying to find the camper before time expires....

I got to see Ono come on stage and show us Capcom's launch game Down Deep using the Panta Rhei engine...I was impressed with what Ono showed us....wished they dropped a hint about SFV!



Killzone: Shadow Fall, the game looks good So now the Helghast are using terrorist tactics to fight back against humanity...ok.



Watch Dogs: Sandbox meets GitS meets MMO...looks interesting


Drive Club....first rule of Drive Club, you don't talk about drive club! Nice going Sony!



inFamous: Second Son

  

Bungie announces Destiny for the PS4!



After all the trailers I was ready to finally see the console!
But alas Sony didn't reveal it!
What the deuce! So now the long wait till E3 in June to see the PS4 console, and find out if the rumored price points are true. And how much of the PSN will remain free....

For those who missed the conference here it is in it's entirety

 

Our thoughts on the Ouya System

Krogenar and I had a little discussion regarding the Ouya System. Here's what we had to say about the little kick starter project that might...

K: What do you think if the Ouya system? 

W: Normally I would say the industry doesn't need another console, but in this case the Ouya might be just what the industry needs. I like the idea for a 90% open end console...true power to the players! I've read the info on the kick starter home page and I actually hope this little box can get some more support from third party devs. And the controller is pretty sexy...so is the price point. What about you? What are you're thoughts about Ouya?

K: I'm waiting to hear of a kickstarter project that actually worked. Someone in industry pointed out that tv makers could internalize something like it much more cheaply. I think age of console coming to an end. I don't think of Android games as very good... I think gaming will go SaaS route within our lifetimes. 

W: Saas? 

K: Software as a service. No software on user end. Just log into the system from anywhere. Lots of software companies planning on this. Gmail best example of SaaS. 

W: With Sony's purchase gaikai cloud services that is most likely going to happen eventually but I don't think the next gen consoles will go full Saas. Surprisingly many people still want the tangible....myself included. 

K: Might mean segmentation of market... Casual handed go SaaS route... Old slippers keep console. But lots of benefits to SaaS route. 

W: Most likely all old PS games will be avail. via the cloud But getting back to the Ouya, from what I've read it works on the android OS but the system will support more than just mobile games, in fact Jenova Chen (that game company) apparently will be developing games for the Ouya.

But getting back to the Ouya, from what I've read it works on the android OS but the system will support more than just mobile games, in fact Jenova Chen (that game company) apparently will be developing games for the Ouya. 

K: They won't be able to compete in longterm versus major manufacturers. And any games created for ouya would be available to competitors.... 

W:That's a good point...whatever the company that's building the ouya they probably don't have any in house studios, thus the need to make the system open to hackers And user generated content. But I just realized the ouya specs are no where near as powerful as what Nintendo Sony and Microsoft have coming. So games made for ouya may not show up on Wii U, PS4 and Xbox 720... Perhaps Ouya will find a new niche market that the other 3 haven't. One of the biggest reasons I want the Ouya to succeed is I haven't seen many new original IP's from the major game studios this generation! So many sequels and abuse of DLC. The creative juices are being damned due to the skyrocketing costs of game development! And in the end it's us that have to pay

K:If the licensing for games is truly 'open' then games might be free to everyone ... Including competitors! Future will be steamlike SaaS with widest available g ame library. Like instant watch for netflix... But games! Plus how many game developers will work for free? 

W:Maybe they'll be paid less but perhaps get a larger percentage of the sales, so the incentive to make great games is in their hands vs cookie cutter shooters and sequels.

So what's your feelings on the Ouya? Will it change the course of the games industry or just be another vaporware console?

TGS11 PSP Vita Trailer

Gamescom 2011: PSP Vita Trailer

PSVita had a strong showing at this years Gamescom,
Below is the trailer for PS Vita, it emphasizes the hardware which, in my opinion, decimates the 3DS.
The dual analog sticks is huge and one of the biggest design flaws of the PSP, the 5 inch touch screen is fantastic and with today's smart phones and tablets this keeps the Vita on the level with that growing market, the rear touch pad is a unique addition which adds another level of control to future games....makes me wonder if this will be incorporated into future Dual Shock controllers, Six Axis motion sensors and Cross Play! PS3 <---->PSVita...if Cross Play works well I think Sony will finally overthrow Nintendo in the hand held market.

E3 PS Vita Reveal!

Kaz Hirai unveils the real name of the NGP...henceforth it shall be known as PS Vita... :/
Kaz touches on the awesome features of the Vita like Dual Analog sticks, front and rear cameras, 5" OLED screen the partnership with AT&T, and Near...I'm not too clear what Near is but I assume it magically finds other PS Vita's in range.

Get More: GameTrailers.com, PlayStation Vita - E3 2011: Features Walkthrough, PC Games, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360

NGP or PSP2 commercial

I've never owned a portable gaming system but the PSP was one I would've probably dropped the cash on...it was a sweet looking device! But there was always something that stayed my hand from pulling out the wallet...one analog stick! Then the PSPgo was revealed and again one analog stick...WTF. The games were gorgeous, it played movies and had PS store integration....nice, but I never did get one. Now Sony reveals the NGP (PSP2)...Just watching the commercial I'm happy to see Sony has listened to the community and added the second analog stick, a touch screen, motion control and some sorta touch pad on the flip side. The PSP2 looks slightly more ergonogically comfortable than it's forefather. All in all the PSP2 looks fantastic and did you see some of the franchises the PSP2 was running? Uncharted, Resistance...those games are graphics monsters!
Looks like next holiday season Sony is gonna face off against the Nintendo's 3DS, I hope the PSP2 competes better against Nintendo's next handheld than the PSP did.

RetroN3 console

Introducing the RetroN3 game console from Hyperkin. For little more than the cost of a PS3/Xbox360 game you can relive your 8/16 bit glory days!

The RetroN3 supports many NES, SNES and Genesis games, has 2 controller ports for each of the 3 systems and comes with 2 wireless controllers designed after the Genesis controller.

I hope this console does well, the design alone shows that some thought was put into it and that there are people out there who still play these games. In todays day and age though this console will have a difficult time selling because it really caters to a small niche market, the retro gamer that has their entire library of NES, SNES and Genesis cartridges. Most people have emulators of these games. The other issue is where are consumers going to be able to find the games if they wanted to play them? Since Funcoland was merged into Gamestop back in 2000 I really have no idea where to find retro games anymore. Regrettibly your best bet to find retro games is the interbebs like craigslist or ebay. I did find one site online that looks promising: http://www.consolepassion.co.uk/ but it's from the UK so you're gonna have to pay S&H on top of the cost of the game cart.
The RetroN3 is a terrific gift for that retro gamer or any gamer that wants to go old school but can't DL the game onPSN, XBL or Wii marketplace.

Hyperkin website: http://hyperkin.com/index.php/retro-system-retron-3.html/