Playstation 4 exclusives getting poor to average reviews

[FA_Q2]

Hijack away, these threads get no traffic anyhow.

Personally I doubt I get a steam machine. I got 2 pc's, one for work in the den and one on the tv for gaming. I prrfer to be able to upgrade my pc than to be locked into a box that isn't upgradeable.

Steam machines can be upgraded.
Just gotta e careful about which one and what you do to upgrade it with.

Most of the ones I've seen are too small for serious upgrades to fit. Besides building a rig from scratch with tons of upgrade space is more appealing to me. I upgraded a commercial pc last year and enjoyed it so much I want to build one from scratch.

What would be the draw anyway? Truth be told, I don’t see any reason to buy a machine centered around steam anyway when the PC gaming industry is MUCH larger than that single outlet. It is essentially (if I am not mistaken) a box with their OS on it – something that is simply going to be limited until you get another OS.

Really, I can’t think of a single advantage that it would have over just getting a normal computer…

 

[Mr. H.]

Don't grampas have better things to do than diddle on a PS4?

 

[theDoctorisIn]

Steam machines can be upgraded.
Just gotta e careful about which one and what you do to upgrade it with.

Most of the ones I've seen are too small for serious upgrades to fit. Besides building a rig from scratch with tons of upgrade space is more appealing to me. I upgraded a commercial pc last year and enjoyed it so much I want to build one from scratch.

What would be the draw anyway? Truth be told, I don’t see any reason to buy a machine centered around steam anyway when the PC gaming industry is MUCH larger than that single outlet. It is essentially (if I am not mistaken) a box with their OS on it – something that is simply going to be limited until you get another OS.

Really, I can’t think of a single advantage that it would have over just getting a normal computer…

At this point, Steam has pretty much cornered the market on PC game distribution - and the big "advantage" of the Steam Machine (I thought it was gonna be called the Steam Box) is price and simplicity.

Although I do agree with you that a PC is better in every other way.

 

[Remodeling Maidiac]

Except Microsoft was doing something different till the public outrage made them reverse their plan. That reversal was the very cause of my system beginning to fail.

 

[Remodeling Maidiac]

Don't grampas have better things to do than diddle on a PS4?

Today I do. Near two feet of damn snow to shovel

 

[TakeAStepBack]

This is what happens when competition thins out (as in sooooooo many industries)
We are down to two real players...XBox and Playstation.
What incentive is there for either one to go through significant R&D and retooling expenses to produce a REAL upgrade..when they can simply repackage an existing one and sucker in 1,000,000's of unit sales???
This is Microsoft's business plan 101 for everything they do, and have been doing for 18 years.
In all if these years they have had only two significant upgrade roll outs in their operating system for the PC...but have had 9 "new" OS "upgrades"....and then there is Microsoft Office...

Exactly. Right now we're seeing the big consoles slowly die off to indie gaming. Some of the best games I've played (minus being visually stunning, which is all the movies have turned into as well) have been indies and mods. Thats two years running now. Even Microsoft got smart and started funding indie projects that aren't built out of the same giant labs that big name games come from. State of Decay, although being very indie and coming off as a slightly upgraded PS1 game, is one of the best games to come out silently in years. Millions of copies sold, etc...

The new wave is PC indie gaming. People are tired of the big letdowns associated with larger console titles. Look at GTA 5. All that build up for it, and while it is a pretty decent game, the online play is atrocious.

 

[FA_Q2]

Most of the ones I've seen are too small for serious upgrades to fit. Besides building a rig from scratch with tons of upgrade space is more appealing to me. I upgraded a commercial pc last year and enjoyed it so much I want to build one from scratch.

What would be the draw anyway? Truth be told, I don’t see any reason to buy a machine centered around steam anyway when the PC gaming industry is MUCH larger than that single outlet. It is essentially (if I am not mistaken) a box with their OS on it – something that is simply going to be limited until you get another OS.

Really, I can’t think of a single advantage that it would have over just getting a normal computer…

At this point, Steam has pretty much cornered the market on PC game distribution - and the big "advantage" of the Steam Machine (I thought it was gonna be called the Steam Box) is price and simplicity.

Although I do agree with you that a PC is better in every other way.

Well, no they have not. Steam USED to actually have a much larger market share (around 80% if I am not mistaken) of downloaded games but that simply is not true anymore.
Digital distribution giant Steam loses market share to Amazon, GameStop and Microsoft.

While Valve's digital distribution platform still holds a comfortable 55% of the market Amazon, GameStop and Microsoft grabbed 10% each on market entry, trailed by EA with 5%.

(not sure why they state 55% and the graph shows 51% though)
Steam has a strong lead due to being the first in the market but as an avid use of downloadable content I buy almost nothing from them. They are overpriced compared to GameStop’s app (though I liked it better as impulse) and the big contenders will sell direct. I got all my big box games direct from the producers as the third party software drags down the overall quality.

That is only the digital download portion of game sales as well and while that may be the wave of the future physical copies are still a major player. That is something that steam has almost no part in. Saying that they have cornered the market is not really accurate.

Price and simplicity might be a big selling point for those that are looking for it though. IMHO, that is a terrible marketing decision to make though. Consoles have that concept cornered. In general I find that PC gamers are not looking for simplicity – that’s why they are PC gamers and PC’s, no matter what steam does to them, are not going to be as simple or plug and play as consoles are.

 

[FA_Q2]

This is what happens when competition thins out (as in sooooooo many industries)
We are down to two real players...XBox and Playstation.
What incentive is there for either one to go through significant R&D and retooling expenses to produce a REAL upgrade..when they can simply repackage an existing one and sucker in 1,000,000's of unit sales???
This is Microsoft's business plan 101 for everything they do, and have been doing for 18 years.
In all if these years they have had only two significant upgrade roll outs in their operating system for the PC...but have had 9 "new" OS "upgrades"....and then there is Microsoft Office...

Exactly. Right now we're seeing the big consoles slowly die off to indie gaming. Some of the best games I've played (minus being visually stunning, which is all the movies have turned into as well) have been indies and mods. Thats two years running now. Even Microsoft got smart and started funding indie projects that aren't built out of the same giant labs that big name games come from. State of Decay, although being very indie and coming off as a slightly upgraded PS1 game, is one of the best games to come out silently in years. Millions of copies sold, etc...

The new wave is PC indie gaming. People are tired of the big letdowns associated with larger console titles. Look at GTA 5. All that build up for it, and while it is a pretty decent game, the online play is atrocious.

Gotta agree. I was really looking forward to GTA and I wouldn’t call that game passable. Still have to give it a few more tries though. The fact that they are splitting you up into multiple characters though is killing it and my connection with the character I play. Really does not appeal to me at all. They keep messing with the tried and true.

I think that the major studios are losing something intrinsic as they (and the budgets) grow ever larger. Games titles are now EXCEEDING production costs of major Hollywood movie releases with ever increasing graphics and specs. Good gameplay is lost in all that though and that is the core of a good game. Consoles being capable of getting patches, computers having common access to always on and fast internet connections and competition is causing these major titles to release before they are complete as well.

I think a lot of the indie projects focus on simply creating a quality product whereas the major companies are more interested in the flash and glitz.