yukoasho

I think this is more a question of "what the fuck does AAA even mean?" It's obvious that a lot of time, effort and money went into Dark Souls 2, but there are as many people who will or won't call it "AAA." Honestly, I think the phrase is loaded, and I grow more and more loathe to use it, as it doesn't seem to have a meaning to anyone anymore, other than "games the hipsters like to bash."

@brendan: Well, changing the internals happens all the time. Even with the OG Xbox, the inner board got smaller and more efficient than earlier models, even without a shell redesign. I can totally see both boxes being lighter as components shrink, but keeping their case design for a long while, as redesigning the case is more for commercial reasons most of the time.

True that. I can't even imagine the amount of bullshit that happens to small-to-medium sized businesses, both between themselves and bigger companies trying to peek in. It's all sorts of crazy.

This is actually an interesting point. People have always loved gossip, but it seems that the gossip becomes more personal and petty with every passing year. We're probably just a couple years from people going nuts over pics and videos of celebs taking a shit.

This of course goes hand-in-hand with the fucking desperation 24-hour news channels have to fill time.

Seriously, just stick to local news. At least it's more local idiocy...

I don't expect remodels of either system this year. Too early still. PS3 didn't get a redesign until... 2009 was it? The Xbox 360 S wasn't introduced until 2010. Based on that, I can see the PS4 and Xbone getting redesigns no sooner than 2017, by which time I imagine the parts will be much smaller and more easily made.

As for 2015, however, I can only expect three things:

Forum dwellers will point to one or two terrible things and once again say that gaming is dying, ignoring all the good that comes out in the year.

The games media will continue to look down at its audience.

And that there will likely be more than a few sweet games out.

To be fair, at the very least Polygon's been going the click-bait route for some time now.

Unfortunately, with the internet being what it is, people are chomping at the bit to see who can get out the juiciest, sleaziest gossip out there, ethics be damned. Ethics, unfortunately, don't get clicks the way banal gossip does. Gotta get them ad dollars, yo.

The problem I had with Persona 3 AND 4 was that it basically required you to have fucking lived in Japan to understand anything. There was no attempt to explain what traditions and cultural norms you were supposed to know - the game just assumed you knew everything about going to a Japanese high school, and off you go.

Portal 2: Especially about 2/5's of the way in, there are more than a few "puzzles" where the portals can go exactly ONE spot, as so much of the environment is non-portal-able. This was a problem near the end of Portal 1, but 2 cranked it up in spots. Oh, and fuck if trying to bathe things in white gel wasn't a chore.

Interesting MS is pushing so hard for a TR game, and one that's only a timed exclusive. TR isn't going to sell millions of systems, certainly not the way SFV will. Microsoft NEEDS to make its own games what aren't Halo or Forza again. Nintendo and Sony have shown the value or having a diverse first party offering, and MS needs to get on the bandwagon too.

I'm honestly surprised we haven't seen NES and SNES Flashback consoles. The continued success of the Atari Flashback line has to let them know there's a market for this sort of device, and it's not like they don't have enough first-party games to fill them with.

@tankintheair315: The games tend to be good, and people tend to hold onto them. There aren't quite as many preowned copies of their games, especially near launch, as you would find with other publishers' titles. Obviously, every company will have its stinkers that are discarded quickly (Other M has been mentioned before), but generally, the games are of such a quality that people wanna hold onto them. It's something other publishers, most notably EA and Ubisoft, should consider when they decry the used market. Best way to get rid of it is by making games awesome, not restrictive DRM.