Sessler & co. tweet about "bad news" concerning the industry

i just have to say i'm loving the buildup to and the whirlwind of drama surrounding these consoles, even if the consoles themselves turn out to be less entertaining in comparison (they almost surely will)

I thought it was safe to assume that they were just using the XMB again.

Okay, 450 posts since I was in here last, is it still wild speculation and Dark Souls II beta talk or has there actually been some solid information?

@hailinel: its kind of been shown over and over again that the PS4 has abandoned the XMB. Even the Vita doesn't use the XMB.

Huh. All right, then.

Man, it would be weird if both the X1 and PS4 had shit interfaces out of the gate.

"To be fair, I could easily imagine the touring Ones are running gimped OS' similar to the demo PS4s. And Jeff responded to a similar question on his tumblr just a few minutes ago."

And I said as much. My point was, as with this whole Twitter thing, there's no point being worried about the operating systems right now. They're both receiving day one patches and they're both a little under a month away. That they'd be anything other than broken right now would honestly be a surprise.

Whoa! Didn't know he started up another project. Figured he was gonna take a bit of a longer break due to the baby, but that's awesome! Definitely pays off to read each comment in a thread as crazy as this.

This, please.

This is some straight Console Warz return to form for the video game internet.

Why has this become a discussion about Sony? When did anybody mention anything about Sony? When did Adam Sessler mention anything about Sony? I'm so confused about the whole thing.

I never thought you could sell your soul to Satan for Youtube fame.

I think part of the reason this thread is so confusing is it is leaching off NeoGAF hysteria on a whole range of topics.

Guys, just go watch the Alexis and Drew portion of the Octoberkast instead of staying here. It's really, really great. With a big finish!

All this vague bullshit by "journalists" is why people don't respect the coverage of games. The good ones like Shaun Elliott or Jeff Green wind up leaving... and sadly the remainder are guys like Arthur Gies complaining that people are reading his Tweets about consoles they're about to spend hundreds of dollars on, then claiming it's like we're reading his fucking personal emails.

Here's some news hot off the bullshit press -- new consoles will be buggy. Give us facts or shut the fuck up. /rant

Out of all the rumor I have heard up to this point, this is probably the least likely of them all. You guys may have notice that hardware leak/problem are no longer getting leak from trusted sources. The reason being that both products have gone gold and I do not know about you but a man of Mark Cerney's ability would not overlook overheating issues. Not to say both console will be infallible but if either company launch a system with hardware system on the scale of RROD in 2013, they are done. Sony will probably not recover from ps4 failure and the Xbox division will probably be sold off like investor wanted.

Hardware problem WILL NOT happen for either side. It is company/division suicide. Still I am of a mind that most "Core Gamers" should be wise enough to hold off until next year to buy any console, maybe Wiiu to hold you over this holiday.

Even if this were true, what's the point of crying about it all over the internet. Oh no, the publishers won't send me the game for free unless I submit my review for their approval. Boo hoo. Just go out and buy the game on your own dime and don't submit shit to anyone. What are they gonna do, stop making games?

This thread has over 30,000 views. What the fuck?

this will be a hot twiter November^^

The forums have been running slow for me tonight. I wonder if this thread is to blame.

Oh good thanks for bringing an annoyed gamer into this. Needed more annoyance in this thread.

So what's the bad news? I'm confused

The more posts/views this thread gets, the more excited/scared I am for this hardware launch in 2.5 weeks (even though I'm still not 100% sure what this is about; just know a shitstorm is incoming). Gonna be a fun time.

I don't even know what's going on and whether it's a big deal or not.

Carry on.

Since Rev3 seems to be video driven (like popular streamers and Giantbomb), I am kind of surprised that this sort of change would really impact Sessler. It could just be a de-emphasis on having games reviewed prior to release, and a greater focus on more in the moment content.

But it somewhat seems like a lot of people are finding that their position on the totem pole is a bit lower than they had previously envisioned. Or maybe it was reduced as other types of coverage become the more important part of marketing. I have wondered why publishers don't try to control the message more, especially as game reviews have been pushed toward being more opinion driven (which has generally been seen as a good thing). Once you embrace scoring purely on personal enjoyment, you do get to focus on the things that are important to you. But than as a publisher I would be upset that my major title launched with a prominent 0-20% of w/e scale if I thought the larger ("casual" I guess) audience would not really understand how reviews have changed (e.g my games is going to pull a 80+%ish metacritic after 50+ reviews, but I know certain number of review sources are going to put out some very negative one-liners that might catch on).

Maybe Xbobr had been delayed to 2014 but the games press's prohibited from revealing it until Microminey does they're own press release later in November

@nasar7: If they had to buy the games themselves I think they might be more critical of the games, considering it's money from their pocket. On the other hand, if they have to wait until release to get a copy, then their review is going to be too late to really matter to anyone.

@darji said:

this will be a hot twiter November^^

he's making a joke about the big storm hitting britain.

as in a literal storm, with rain and everything

@animasta: Not really. He said interesting November. The storm right now which is going on is now not in the near future. Or did he say something about that later?

So is any of this stuff confirmed yet? I mean obviously it sounds like something bad is coming but have they said what it actually is yet or is it still in the rumor phase?

No one has confirmed anything. Everything is contradictory rumor.

From lookin around some tweets, it sounds like the issue might be with review copy timing for the launch.

And it sounds like Adam is pissed about it, assuming that there is early exclusivity to certain sites or that review copies are coming in super late, which then makes Adam's reaction seem completely understandable.

The Bombsquad doesn't seem to care so much as they don't exactly do traditional reviews all the time, and in general they seem kinda jaded and "meh" on the whole new console thing. For places like Rev3 Games, IGN, and other more traditional review sites, being the first site to have a review up for a popular game, especially launch games for new consoles when everyone is watering at the mouth for any sort of coverage, will make a HUGE difference for view counts i.e. revenue.

There's also the fact that the Bombsquad have connections to Adam Boyes and have been saying for awhile now that this stuff would be coming in "hot". So they may have already known this crap wasn't going to reach their hands until like a few days or a week before launch. Adam Sessler may not have been as aware and just now is realizing how "hot" it really is. This also makes sense alongside what Jeff touched on earlier about "This would maybe bother people who were planning to review every launch game" or something along those lines. Again, more traditional sites will want as many reviews up ASAP. Giantbomb doesn't roll that way, picking and choosing to cover what they want, thus not really affecting them.

Video Games are over, shut it down.

@seikenfreak: according to Arthur Gies, the first next gen (PS4) review (Assassin's Creed 4) hits Monday (Oct 28).

Oh god no. Anthony is a big emo man child. Matt has some of the most stupid complaints I've ever heard. Arthur says some dumb shit, but somehow he's not the worst thing on that show.

I'd expect any game journalist/critic/commentator/whatsit to realize that consoles are always going to have a bumpy launch in this day and age. The Wii U had one in the form of that massive multi-GB Day 1 patch. And that system has a comparatively simple online architecture next to the PS4 and X1. Both consoles were under the gun to make it out in time for the holiday season, and Microsoft had the extra problem of reversing course on nearly every single online policy that they had planned to institute, which required even more work than they were planning for. If either console somehow manages to have a completely smooth launch with no technical hiccups whatsoever, I will be shocked.

All of this is so vague and stupid. This is a handful of people complaining about how the decisions of multi-million, if not billion, dollar companies with thousands of employees looking to create the maximum amount of profits to keep those people employed and earning more money effect them. When these companies are making these decisions I highly doubt that one of the bullet points on their whiteboard is "what will Adam Sessler's fucking wife think of this".

The job of a critic, regardless of what medium they work in, is to be adaptive to the changes that the medium takes. If you expect the thing you are critiquing to cater for you specifically there is a very good chance you are placing way too much importance on the thing that you do. If you have something worthwhile to say then you will always find a way to say it.

The only thing dumber than this hissy fit thrown by some video game "journalists" is the discussion around their comments.

GUYS THEY'RE VIDEO GAMES WE'RE ALL SUPPOSED TO HANG OUT AND HAVE A GOOD TIME PLAYING THEM IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK?

Oh wait, I forgot this is the internet. Of course it is.

What a drama queen/attention whore; "OMG SOMETHING TERRIBLE IS HAPPENING BUT I WONT TELL YOU, INSTEAD MORE VAGUE TWEETS!".

@choffy: Haha! +1 Man, agreed.

Wow, this thread's gotten over 30,000 views. This is the longest speculative discussion of an unknown factor I think I've ever seen. From what I've scimmed through over the past day, (though not necessarily in chronological order) we've gone from,

• Wondering what exactly Sessler was talking about in his cryptic tweets
• Dark Souls 2 beta talk
• Sony possibly restricting independent access and coverage of their hardware/games to various media outlets
• Why we don't trust gaming "journalists"
• The irresponsible nature of hinting at possibly dire circumstances, but not giving complete clarification
• Why Arthur Gies is an asshole
• The Ps4's rumored Red line of death
• A little Gaming is Dead sarcastically mixed in for fun

I'm sure there's been other tangentially related topics I didn't notice, but enough from me. I'm going to bed.

Oh man, this is still going? I guess video games truly are over then, somebody please call me when everybody calmed down and we can just enjoy playing video games again.

Oh man and I was enjoying video games so much... I shall mourn their death.

Why do people want this thread locked? It's not doing any harm and it's been fun to speculate on what's going on.

Because people with far too many posts next to their name think they run the forums and when a thread is no longer of interest to them or someone within the thread has annoyed them they start screaming "LOCK IT!" to show how above all this shit they are.

I'm tweeting into a whole new era, @gfunk cracking wise I dare ya, @funk on a whole new level, the Twitter is a blog if the blog was a scribble.

People still think it's a red line of death when it in fact is a red line of "I'm getting too hot because I'm stored in an absolutely fucking retarded position with regards to ventilation, even a NES would cook here, I'm putting on a red line of warning fuck you"?

People still think debug and demo units have something besides a stable version of the OS with the basics required for their jobs, when the PS4 final XMB just went gold and the Xbone one is still getting worked on?

Man this went into some weird places since i last cheeked in

as someone with 10 times as many posts as you have, you are a dumb face!

that's really not the reason, some people just think it's a worthless thread? it has nothing to do with numbers of posts.

Sessler's mad that the dark souls 2 beta got pushed back. That's all.