14 years, co-founded the site, and you guys managed to give him one PR-spun paragraph, followed by a sales pitch that only vaguely describes how great the site will be when Jeff is gone. You say you're not going to gloss over this kind of heavy-hitting news, but you certainly did. Absolutely horrible sendoff for one of the best in the biz.
Happy to see you giving a shout out to DreadXP and Haunted PS1. Love all the indie devs who contribute to each of those collections and there's always a wide variety of really creative concepts.
@henchman_72: Agreed. Their pricing for VR is already more than reasonable too. I'd be pumping way more money into upgrading the mobo/CPU and GPU in my current PC build than to go in on PS VR. I suspect the software support will be on par with the PC VR launch lineups, but I do hope they continue the support, as Sony has a track record of just kind of throwing their peripherals/second pillar systems out to rot (Move, PS Camera, Vita, PSP, etc.)
I really don't see the big deal with this. On one hand, yes, it's a departure from what we're used to with consoles, but on the other hand, it's not much different from where other tech companies are at these days with yearly release cycles. Tech moves forward really fast. The biggest issue with consoles has always been that it takes them so long to do the R&D, that by the time they're released, they're still lagging behind what even a moderate PC build is capable of. As the years go on, you're still spending $60+ on the games being released, and it would be nice to have the option to scale those games up to the current technology instead of playing them on 5+ year old hardware.
Unfortunately, there's no easy way to get people on board with this idea. There just has to be a company that risks it all and takes the jump first, and it looks like Sony is going to be the company that does it. You can bet that the rest will follow once it's out there though, especially Microsoft who is already trying to prep everyone with careful wording in their interviews and press releases.
If the price point is at $399, that's still less than even the entry level iPad Air 2. Apple and developers in the iOS ecosystem have also pulled off supporting devices that are 4-5 years old by optimizing their games on the fly based on the device you have. I trust that Sony and the developers could do something similar. As long as the games remain stable, playable, and don't crash like games do on older iOS devices, I think it's a fair trade. If the features are important to you (i.e. you have a 4K television), go for the upgrade, if not, you should be comfortable on the setup you have currently, just like in iOS land. I've had to get smarter and more cognizant of my electronic purchases, and the market will just have to learn to do the same.
My only real fears with this proposition is that A) Developers will take advantage of re-selling upscaled packages or title updates (which has already been a nightmarish trend) and B) It's already not as easy to resell video game hardware and make your money back as it is for a portable device (tablet, phone, etc.) - this would certainly lower resale value on your console.
I kind of wonder if this will just be more like the equivalent of the 360's "Kinect Ready" console. Or remember when the 360 originally shipped without an HDMI port? Somehow we all still ended up with newer iterations of the hardware due to red rings and the like. Obviously this will have more horsepower under the hood, but I don't think they will split the user base - I don't think developers can afford to do that anyways, so it will ultimately be up to them.
Also, I don't see it being physically possible to keep the ps4 the same size and be able to output full 4K on AAA titles and even maintain 30fps. I'd say my launch PS4 is already louder than my launch PS3 due to the fans kicking up constantly. This is one area where I actually commend Microsoft for sacrificing the thinness/tech sex-appeal of their console to make a quieter experience in the living room. Overall we'll just have to wait and see how they roll this out. I'm hopefully optimistic.
This looks pretty cool. I like when Assassin's Creed does these weird side stories. It helps kind of fill the gaping hole where the modern time sections used to be in these games. The Charles Dickens memories in Syndicate gave me a similar feeling. I liked investigating ghost stories and other paranormal stuff. It was like having a few Scooby Doo episodes in video game form. It's a nice distraction from the usual "Go here and kill this guy", "Follow this guy", "Protect this guy"
The DLC in Unity was decent also. I think I actually prefer a smaller scale Assassin's Creed experience like that. It makes finding the collectibles a little more tolerable and less overwhelming as well since the map is much smaller and more focused.
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