January 2013 NPD: Capcom Will Cry Edition (Bonus: Nintendo too!)

[Indy_aka_Rex]

Lol at selective "1st-year" titles. There are plenty of really decent looking games on tablets without ass-framerate already, and that's all J6P needs. Speaking of J6P, keep in mind that COD already has a presence on the tablets, so there's that foot in the door.

The zombies game on iOS/Android is not the same thing, and the best looking tablet games do look like first-year 360 titles. The Unreal and Unity-powered stuff and Gameloft's iOS outings look good, but they pale in comparison to what the 360 showcased early on. Nobody said they were ugly, PDZ wasn't an ugly game either, and it still isn't... But, while PDZ was pretty then and holds up today, it doesn't hold up to a 360 game released a year later. Hell, even the unreal stuff like Infinity Blade doesn't match up to Epic's earliest Unreal games like GoW1.

Huh? That makes my point for me. A couple years from now, which is what we're talking about, why buy a console when you have a tablet that already does HD gaming if you're J6P?

Because they're still not gonna be on-par with what we're getting, and by then? Odds are, a PS4 or a new XB is not going to cost 300-400 while a new iPad is all-but-guaranteed to start at 500 dollars.

Unsure if you've been following the discussion. I suggested bluetooth controller support which isn't really any sort of stretch...

Which is pointless unless it's packed-in, otherwise it'd be a 40+ dollar add-on, on top of the 500 dollar expense of the tablet and the added cost of an adapter to connect to the TV.

The point I'm making is that the proprietary box is falling into, at best, redundancy and, at worst, irrelevancy. I'm not arguing that such has already occurred - but that it IS occurring and in a few years, the pickings might be ripe for someone like Valve or Apple to release some client/platform across tablets and phones that will work in conjunction with a TV.

The argument that consoles will become redundant or irrelevant with time isn't new, and honestly... the whole doom and gloom predictions of irrelevancy and redundancy just don't hold up. TV, cable, satellite, etc. have all been redundant and irrelevant for years, if not decades, so have movie theaters, but they're still around and they're still successful despite things like: the internet, streaming media, video games, etc.

We have all sorts of "proprietary boxes" in our day-to-day lives, and plenty of them are either redundant or irrelevant, but we still buy into them, and it's because they are proprietary, it's because they are "redundant" that we still buy into them - because redundancy doesn't take away their relevance and while they might be irrelevant by comparison to something else? They're not irrelevant as a single-use product.

What's detracting from consoles isn't their games or how proprietary and closed they are, it's MS, Sony and Nintendo's insistence than in order to stay relevant they have to be more than what people buy them for. Ultimately though, we all end up buying consoles for one thing only: Games... So they're not going to be redundant or irrelevant, not today, not a couple of years from now.

Tablets and smartphones aren't made for games, games are shoehorned into them and that's why they're unreliable and do not threaten consoles. They might threaten handhelds at some point, but not consoles.

[Dennis M.]

Notice that everything you've just listed is a software progression, and I agree with you. The hardware middlemen are gone and dying. Blockbuster, Circuit City, Best Buy are all dead or dying. Why? Because people figured out that paying their markup is totally unnecessary - they can just get items sent directly to the devices they already own (even if they have to go through a software middleman, a la online client or platform).

What happens when people begin to think the same thing about consoles? It's already a much harder sell for MS or Sony when they roll out a $400-$500 console, and Joe Six Pack either wants or is already holding a $500 iPad that satisfies a lot of entertainment needs, and it even has it's own COD etc. Perhaps not a perfectly smooth solution yet, but in a couple years I don't see why that wouldn't be ironed out.It's becoming more and more easy to bypass the hardware middleman who wants to sell you a $500 proprietary machine. There is less and less reason to bite at that proposition.

I think it's unarguably the current and future trajectory of the industry.

I agree with your concept of dispensing with unnecessary gadgets that overlap in function but what you 're proposing does not sound like an elegant solution to me. I agree that we must reach a point where only one box will be needed under the TV but I don't see why even that must be replaced by a docked tablet (if I understand your point correctly). A mobile device has inherent drawbacks (horsepower, deteriorating battery etc.) and will always be inferior to a box that is designed for games and media functions.

Smartphones swallowed every other mobile gadget (cameras, ipods, gaming handhelds, GPS devices etc.) because it's a lot more practical to carry one device, and people were willing to sacrifice some functionality for that. I just don't see the same incentives for tablets to take over the living room. The way I see it, set top boxes with a lot of horsepower and a semi-open OS are better suited to the living room than a tablet and having to deal with docking stations, non-standard controllers etc.

[CorruptedDragon]

I agree with your concept of dispensing with unnecessary gadgets that overlap in function but what you 're proposing does not sound like an elegant solution to me. I agree that we must reach a point where only one box will be needed under the TV but I don't see why even that must be replaced by a docked tablet (if I understand your point correctly). A mobile device has inherent drawbacks (horsepower, deteriorating battery etc.) and will always be inferior to a box that is designed for games and media functions.

Smartphones swallowed every other mobile gadget (cameras, ipods, gaming handhelds, GPS devices etc.) because it's a lot more practical to carry one device, and people were willing to sacrifice some functionality for that. I just don't see the same incentives for tablets to take over the living room. The way I see it, set top boxes with a lot of horsepower and a semi-open OS are better suited to the living room than a tablet and having to deal with docking stations, non-standard controllers etc.

hehehehe you said dock

[Badger3920]

The zombies game on iOS/Android is not the same thing, and the best looking tablet games do look like first-year 360 titles.

No they don't. This "first-year" thing is an exaggeration, there are plenty of decent looking titles on tablets and phones, and some of the new retina displays really show them off. There are also plenty of crappy looking games both on tablets and on consoles from throughout this gen. In any case, that's a diversion because the point mule made directly above yours is what we're talking about.

Further, it's a fiction to say that the tablets must match or outpower consoles. They were more than happy to choose the wii or the ps360 for a considerable amount of time, and they were also happy to buy the 360 despite clear PS3 graphical superiority for the first 2/3's of this gen. All J6P needs is something somewhat pretty and 'good enough.' The wii barely even met that.

Because they're still not gonna be on-par with what we're getting, and by then? Odds are, a PS4 or a new XB is not going to cost 300-400 while a new iPad is all-but-guaranteed to start at 500 dollars.

So what, people will already have iPads. They don't buy them merely for gaming - so a tablet/phone platform is basically an already-given install base. Their existence happens regardless of consoles while the reverse may not then be true. It exists regardless of PS4/720 pricing. The point is that their level of capability, every time it increases, presents a further possible reason not to own a proprietary box.

The argument that consoles will become redundant or irrelevant with time isn't new

Perhaps not, it's just never been more true than it is now.

[Badger3920]

I agree with your concept of dispensing with unnecessary gadgets that overlap in function but what you 're proposing does not sound like an elegant solution to me. I agree that we must reach a point where only one box will be needed under the TV but I don't see why even that must be replaced by a docked tablet (if I understand your point correctly).

It doesn't have to be a tablet, that's just the most obvious solution imho. I think it's a pretty elegant solution because, if your tablet is anywhere within wireless range of your room, it can sync with your TV and stream anything you want, or you can access your games. It's not even a box under your tv at that point.

The major caveat, as RRS mentioned, is that it just has to become seamless - which is true. I eagerly await the day that I don't need any boxes under my tv other than perhaps my receiver. I can leave a bluetooth controller on my end table, and just pick it up to play some games whenever I want.

To me, that sounds a lot better than having several different boxes plus a console sitting there. If you have to make sure you plug your tablet in after awhile, or beforehand if you know you're going to put it through some significant usage, that sounds like a pretty clean and easy trade off to me.

Outside of the over-the-air-HDMI solution, I can basically already do ALL of this with my gaming PC. It's just a somewhat cumbersome solution, and we need a developer to come along and get serious about providing a fluid interface system.

[hdinred]

You guys and your long, wall-of-text posts.. If I wanted to read that much, I wouldn’t have quit grade school!

[Badger3920]

Summary:

-Tons of market creep from several industries inward toward console functions
-Tablets, phones, pc's and other gadgets are performing more comprehensively such that console offerings are more and more redundant
-In a couple years, it seems likely that someone will attempt to utilize this large and stealth install base
-As tablets and phones and other various technologies grow, the need for a proprietary box of locked down hardware continually diminishes

[Dennis M.]

It doesn't have to be a tablet, that's just the most obvious solution imho. I think it's a pretty elegant solution because, if your tablet is anywhere within wireless range of your room, it can sync with your TV and stream anything you want, or you can access your games. It's not even a box under your tv at that point.

Assuming that all the functionality issues are ironed out in let's say 6-7 years from now, I'm still not sure this is a development I look forward to. I keep imagining this scenario where I'm playing a game or watching a movie with friends and notifications about emails from work keep popping up.
I don't know maybe I'm negative about this because I keep thinking of tablets in terms of a laptop replacement/ travel computer rather than an entertainment device.

The major caveat, as RRS mentioned, is that it just has to become seamless - which is true. I eagerly await the day that I don't need any boxes under my tv other than perhaps my receiver. I can leave a bluetooth controller on my end table, and just pick it up to play some games whenever I want.

Correct, but as RRS mentioned the mp3 not only offered superior functionality and convenience, it was also almost interchangeable in quality. OK, unless you had bionic hearing and incredibly expensive audio equipment but this is a very long discussion.
A tablet as gaming device will offer inferior quality for several years and debatable functionality even when everything is ironed out.
I mean, what is the upside exactly? Why do you sacrifice superior graphics? Fewer cables and boxes behind your TV are nice but ultimately I don't care that much. There is no incentive for tablets/pc-like devices to take over the living room in the way mp3s killed the CD or smartphones swallowed every other mobile device.

I could see the casual Wii/Kinect (and Move? lol) owners adopting tablets in the way you describe, if it's incredibly easy and they care enough to do it. To be honest I think that most of them will probably stick to gaming on the iPad itself. But the so-called core gamers are a sizable and dynamic portion of the market and I think they are unlikely to follow soon.

Outside of the over-the-air-HDMI solution, I can basically already do ALL of this with my gaming PC. It's just a somewhat cumbersome solution, and we need a developer to come along and get serious about providing a fluid interface system.

This is what I was thinking as well. A PC can do that already and it's been in a position to do these things for many years now. Remember Media Center PCs? Heh. Obviously what you 're proposing is much better but still quite removed. The way I see it requires hardware to become so powerful and energy efficient that the law of diminishing returns will kick in. I guess we 'll see.

[twonunpackmule]

Correct, but as RRS mentioned the mp3 not only offered superior functionality and convenience, it was also almost interchangeable in quality. OK, unless you had bionic hearing and incredibly expensive audio equipment but this is a very long discussion.

I guess I fall into that category. MP3s sound like shit. I consider it comparable to mobile games to console games. I don't even have that fancy of gear...unless you're counting my HT setup. Which, is borderline entry level; except the TV. However, my truck's speakers are standard and I think it is incredibly odd that people can't hear the MP3 fuck ups. Basically, MP3s tend to sound like bad 3rd generation recordings of the material that you like. Now, it isn't always that bad, the production on a lot of older albums were handled better, so the DB range wasn't balls out. However, on newer albums it's a problem and it starts to infect other platforms. CDs tend to sound like shit, and Vinyl sound better because of merely keeping the DB level in check. So, when kids today say Vinyl sounds better, it's true...but a lot of it is because of the production means to create one versus the other. There's a volume war in CDs and MP3s that hasn't infected vinyl. If CDs would go back to pre-volume war 90s-2000s, you'd get much better sounding albums. Not all modern albums are done in this manner, but it's incredibly common.

Anyway, The stair step effect, and overall gain blowout is fucking atrocious. Listening to Joanna Newsom in MP3 is a very depressing thing because of how it clips the highs. If you listen to a lot of string instruments, then you'll notice how MP3 can't keep up. Ugh...some of my favorite albums are butchered in MP3 form.

MP3 is no friend of violins, cellos, or bass.

Keep it wav, or get FLAC files if you can.

I have the latest album of the Swans - Arguably the 2012 album of the year. Fuck the grammies. - in FLAC. I'm ordering the Vinyl soon...but it sounds glorious. No clipping. It's awesome. I can blow it out on my stereo and it's just pure, tribal bliss.

The point of all this is that MP3 represents the "good enough" spectrum of content delivery. It's DVD to Blu-ray, console to PC games, or mobile to console/PC games. If you can't hear the difference that only means it's good enough for you. It's like when people have fun with a game that looks like a 2nd generation PS2 title, and you kinda lose your mind. It's good enough for them and that's all that matters.

[RedRedSuit]

The difference being that most people can't hear difference between mp3 and CD, or at least have to try hard, while most people immediately see difference between a good BD and a good DVD. It's a matter of extent.

With a good bitrate, of course.

[twonunpackmule]

The difference being that most people can't hear difference between mp3 and CD, or at least have to try hard, while most people immediately see difference between a good BD and a good DVD. It's a matter of extent.

With a good bitrate, of course.

Naw, it's ignorance. Nothing more.

You'd be surprised by the sheer lack of quality people actually care about. TVs set to torch mode, zoom functions used, and just improperly setup DVD players. BD uses native res, so a lot of time will launch using it's own settings. So, people see the difference more, because the "aspect" part is handled for them.

If all you've been listening to the last few years have been MP3s, try popping in a CD or FLAC file sometime. You'd be surprised how apparent it is. Like, it's obvious at how bad it sounds.

[RedRedSuit]

No, it's not ignorance -- there have been studies. I shouldn't have said "most" people can't hear the difference. However studies have shown that a lot of people can't tell difference between a decent bit-rate (i.e., not 128 kbps) compressed audio file and a CD track; a lot of people can, but it's subtle; and in double-blinds studies there have even been results where people preferred the compressed audio (without knowing which is which obviously). So basically, to most people it's a subtle difference, and that's on good equipment. I should add iTunes uses 256 kbps since a long time.

On the other hand if you show anyone with 20/20 effective vision (contact, glasses, or naked) a Blu-Ray vs. a DVD on an HD TV, they will immediately note the difference. Hell, most people notice the difference between relatively crappy 720p or 1080i cable TV vs. the DVD. It isn't subtle.

So yeah, there wil always be people who can't tell the difference or don't care, but it's not to the same extent with compressed vs uncompressed audio as it is DVD vs HD.

[twonunpackmule]

No, it's not ignorance -- there have been studies.

It is ignorance. It's a simple fact of not caring to know. Which, is ignorance.

I don't even have that good of hearing anymore because of all the concerts I've been too. Seriously, wear ear plugs. However, I can STILL hear the differences.

So yeah, there wil always be people who can't tell the difference or don't care, but it's not to the same extent with compressed vs uncompressed audio as it is DVD vs HD.

It is to me. Especially something that's so obvious.

[Indy_aka_Rex]

No they don't. This "first-year" thing is an exaggeration, there are plenty of decent looking titles on tablets and phones, and some of the new retina displays really show them off. There are also plenty of crappy looking games both on tablets and on consoles from throughout this gen. In any case, that's a diversion because the point mule made directly above yours is what we're talking about.

I'm not going to post the images directly here since some are big, but here's a showcase of the best looking iOS games around (I'm only using iOS since they tend to be the most optimized/best looking):

Infinity Blade 2(direct iPad 2 image)/Infinity Blade 2 (preview shot)
Horn (preview)
Dream:scape (preview)
Arkham City Lockdown (preview)
Lili (direct iPad image)
Warm Gun (preview)
NOVA 3 (preview)
Epic's Citadel demo. (preview) and a Nexus 7 shot.


I'm not using Unity engine stuff, because it's similar looking, I just use those to give you an idea of the current tablet output.

None of those games matches what the 360 was putting out by the time Gears of War came out, way back in late 2006. Most of it looks on-par with stuff like Oblivion though, and that's prior to the enhanced tweaks it got.

Hell, Digitalfoundry goes a step further and argues that the hardware powering tablets released last year and similarly powering the Ouya? Is on-par with the ORIGINAL XBOX.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/df...ful-is-tegra-3

But what of Ouya, the Tegra 3 driven micro-console? How suitable is Tegra 3 for the job? Based on the games we've played, the overall feeling we get is that we're looking at technology roughly equivalent to the capabilities of the last-gen Xbox, embellished with higher resolutions and more modern graphical features. It is categorically not on the same level as the PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360 - nowhere near.

That's talking about Tegra 3 which is slightly behind its iOS equivalent but otherwise offer similar results.

Regardless, we're talking X-Box quality performance with a few added bells-and-whistles like better resolution, texture filtering and mapping. That's for last year's processors, meaning they're about nearly a decade behind the curve. I'm sure this year's stuff will raise the standards higher to something closer to what the 360 was doing by late 06/early 07, but that's still stuff that's more than a half-decade old.

Further, it's a fiction to say that the tablets must match or outpower consoles. They were more than happy to choose the wii or the ps360 for a considerable amount of time, and they were also happy to buy the 360 despite clear PS3 graphical superiority for the first 2/3's of this gen. All J6P needs is something somewhat pretty and 'good enough.' The wii barely even met that.

No, Badger. You know that's not true at all. They were more than happy to choose the Wii because most Wii sales weren't about visuals or even gaming itself - they were about a gimmick.

Which is precisely why shit like Wii Fit, Wii Play and Carnival Games sold shit loads while stuff like Zack and Wiki, Mad World, etc. failed to market... And that gimmick lasted Nintendo the better part of 3 years, by 2010 Wii sales were dropping. Once Wii units were readily available and once the motion control hype died down? Nobody gave a rats ass about the Wii. Right now it's dead. Yeah it had a strong start and that's why it managed to outsell everything at the time, however right now? It's lucky to sell 5m this year while the PS3 and 360 will most likely end up doing 13m between January and December, and if it keeps up? They'll do it again next year.

The 360 outsold the PS3 because:

1. It was superficially cheaper
2. It often had the most optimized ports.
3. It had a greater marketing budget and the most anticipated western IPs.
4. It had XBLive.
and
5. It launched earlier.

The PS3 has a clear graphical superiority over the 360 in terms of exclusives, but most of those exclusives are nowhere near as enticing to western gamers as a Halo game, or Bros of War. The best the PS3 has for the west is Uncharted and God of War, and Sony took years to put out GoW3 and now Ascension. Even then, it's just not the same response, it's not the same for Americans.

So what, people will already have iPads. They don't buy them merely for gaming - so a tablet/phone platform is basically an already-given install base. Their existence happens regardless of consoles while the reverse may not then be true. It exists regardless of PS4/720 pricing. The point is that their level of capability, every time it increases, presents a further possible reason not to own a proprietary box.

And like I just showed: Their level of capability might increase, but it's not making its gaming any more enticing over a console. It might make them more enticing over a handheld, but not a console. And it's precisely because they're not merely for gaming that they're not effective at gaming.

Consoles are dedicated machines, people buy them to play games. People do not buy tablets or smartphones just because they can play games - they're terrible at it.

It wouldn't matter if they were outputting GTX690 quality visuals in their games... You don't buy a tablet because it's as good or better than a console, you buy it because you can carry it around, watch a movie anywhere, distract yourself with a superficial game experience and surf the web.

You buy consoles because you want the gaming equivalent of an immersive film, not because you want to watch the Chocolate Rain guy sing a shitty cover of a song to get a quick laugh before work.

Perhaps not, it's just never been more true than it is now.

It's been plenty true in the past with stuff like the doom and gloom launched at hardware during the early 90s because of the gameboy, the game gear, the lynx, etc. Did it happen? No. Is it going to happen now? Nope.

I guess I fall into that category. MP3s sound like shit. I consider it comparable to mobile games to console games. The stair step effect, and overall gain blowout is fucking atrocious. Listening to Joanna Newsom in MP3 is a very depressing thing because of how it clips the highs. If you listen to a lot of string instruments, then you'll notice how MP3 can't keep up. Ugh...some of my favorite albums are butchered in MP3 form.

Keep it wav, or get FLAC files if you can.

I have the latest album of the Swans in FLAC. I'm ordering the Vinyl soon...but it sounds glorious. No clipping. It's awesome. I can blow it out on my stereo and it's just pure, tribal bliss.

I don't understand the whole "most people can't tell the difference argument" every time I hear someone say that, it's like "Are you deaf?" You can absolutely tell the difference between a 128k MP3, a 160k MP3, a 256k MP3, a 320k MP3 and a CD original, it gets far more difficult the higher the bitrate goes up, but it's still very much noticeable.

At the least I go with 320k for lossy MP3s nowadays (256k if I don't have a choice) but otherwise it's CD or FLAC. 128k is unacceptable to me.

[twonunpackmule]

I don't understand the whole "most people can't tell the difference argument" every time I hear someone say that, it's like "Are you deaf?" You can absolutely tell the difference between a 128k MP3, a 160k MP3, a 256k MP3, a 320k MP3 and a CD original, it gets far more difficult the higher the bitrate goes up, but it's still very much noticeable.

At the least I go with 320k for lossy MP3s nowadays (256k if I don't have a choice) but otherwise it's CD or FLAC. 128k is unacceptable to me.

It's completely obvious.

Now, if we're talking about say, the lossy soundtrack to Transformers on HDDVD vs the Lossless on BD, then I can understand RRS's POV. After a certain point, it doesn't matter. However, 320kbs vs 14,000kbs is a HUGE difference.