PlayStation 4 Console Thread

[Guest]

Sony lol.

And let the red rain...

[Smoothy]

Re: backwards compatibility conversation: fact is that the BC feature is and always has been the exception rather than the rule - the only consoles that have done it is recent ones.

Who is asking anyone to "trash" their library? Does their old console somehow stop working the moment a new one comes out? No. It's always been like that - I still have my perfectly-working Super NES for example, I don't expect my Gamecube to play Super NES games!

Re: CDs - yeah I believe PS4 might not play CDs. That's not because it's not capable - the hardware blatanly is, it'll be because they can't be bothered to add the codecs/licence the necessary stuff needed for it (this is regarding CD audio).

[SeanR]

Megadrive had a mastersystem adaptor

[SMD]

The Mega Drive had the Master Converter. The SNES had the Super Game Boy. The PS2 played PS1 games and the first PS3 played them all.

I don't understand the argument here. Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo all want people to stay in their ecosystem. Nintendo have made it very clear that they've changed their entire philosophy to do this. People who bought games in previous generations are exactly the kind of people you want to try and court to stay with you. This isn't a Sony/Microsoft thing. When Sony gave away games with Plus, there were people on here arguing that Microsoft didn't need to do that because Live was better. Well, they did it because clearly it wasn't enough of a pull and now Microsoft have fallen behind they're trying to entice people - which Sony should and ought to react to.

And again people say they don't need to because of some odd reasoning about previous generations. Consoles tend to be outlived by their games, especially as moving parts increase, so this just makes sense to keep people coming back and locking them in to your brand.

[Smoothy]

Yes but was never a sold solid feature of Megadrive - no one bought it expecting to play Master System games that they already bought, in the same way no one bought Super NES games expecting to continue to play Nintendo games.

Hell, you had to buy adapters to do it on the consoles that had made it available.

[SMD]

Alright, if anyone needs me I'm feeding fivers into the disk slot of my PS4.

#HailSony

[TehStu]

Sony lol.

And let the red rain...

I've posed your post, out of spite.

Anyway, I had things like the master system converter for the megadrive in mind throughout these conversations, so there's always been that potential for backwards compatibility. It's always been a relative niche though, and you'd probably go to emulators if you were serious about it (although there be legal dragons, obviously).

Consideration of previous BC ignores vast digital ecosystems that have quickly risen since the last generation of consoles, though. BC may well turn out to be the usual fad, or it may be seen as a "well yeah, because my phone does it." I don't think you can proclaim one way or the other, at this point.

[Guest]

Fuck off Stu, one sucker had already taken the bait, surely more would swarm once they saw that red glow.

Seriously though, it's a good thing to get this emulation working, but in light of what MS have done with the 360 backwards compatibility on the One, then there's no way they can realistically charge for it, right? That would be a proper dick move.

[TehStu]

Really? Fuck off? You enormous child.

The guy out in front, by some margin, can do what he likes, as history dictates. I've lamented this in the sales thread.

[Dudley]

I see this quoted a lot but I've never seen a solid source. While its true that BR and CD/DVD are dissimilar enough wavelengths that they are different lasers, CD and DVD are close enough together that every player since the dawn of DVDs has shipped a tunable laser that can do both. And of course the PS4 can certainly play DVDs. It's possible Sony used a DVD-only red laser and shaved a few cents off the cost... but that would imply a custom component, rather than a decades-old standard one, and could actually make the whole thing more expensive. Is there a canoncial source, then? Or is it just hearsay based on the PS4 not playing audio CDs (which could easily be due to software, albeit a baffling limitation, but Sony's software department does ten baffling things each day before breakfast.)

In my case repeating information I'd heard elsewhere.

[Guest]

I'm just playing Stu, don't take it the wrong way. I thought your comment about possing my post 'out of spite' had a bit of nuance to it. I liked it man! I'm honestly not the enemy.

I totally agree about how their attitude has seemingly changed now they're out in front and apparently uncatchable though. Although I would counter that with that they never really knew what they were doing, it was just a head start gifted to them by MS that they capitalized on and a lot of people fell for it. There's no way that I'd ever support Microsoft's stance from that point either, they fucked up good. But, one company is doing something about it, one isn't, and just to bring it back on track Sony are obviously responding to MS offering backwards compatibility. They just need to do it right for their customers. Or, as you put it, and is probably the case, they can do what they like cos they're out in front.

It's a load of shit for all of us if you PS4 owners get behind this alleged charging for 2 generation old games.

[footle]

Really? Fuck off? You enormous child.

The guy out in front, by some margin, can do what he likes, as history dictates. I've lamented this in the sales thread.

The guy out in front can do what he likes, yes. The people in here saying that anti-consumer policies are to be expected and that we shouldn't moan about them are...

[TehStu]

... misguided if they think Sony should try to one-up, or even maintain parity with Xbox offerings. I mean, ideally, it'd be more like last gen, each keeping the other on their toes, broadly.

More's the pity.

[Halo]

See, I've not really noticed any 'attitude' change in Sony.

I will concede that PS+ titles have shifted away from AAA games and towards indies since they introduced it. I know this annoys some but I'm neither surprised nor particularly upset about it, as it seemed inevitable once they started charging for online (something revealed at the PS4 *announcement*). I still think PS+ and GWG represent excellent value for money, and this is from someone who was always pissed off by the terrible deal that Live used to represent.

I think the only major change in Sony this gen is that they didn't screw up the hardware. They used off-the-shelf components rather than weird custom hardware and they nailed the performance, price-point and release date. They even finally fixed the controllers ergonomics (even if, annoyingly, the controller seems to be surprisingly fragile). At the same time, Microsoft made a series of dumb decisions.

Sony (along with other Asian companies for whatever reason) have always been a bit crap at software and services and they continue to be so. Sony's online functionality being a bit crap isn't really a new problem, neither is their iffy support. They're slowly but surely adding all the nice-to-have features to the OS, which others seem to be a lot more annoyed about than I am, largely because I see all these features as extras rather than fundamental to its basic purpose of playing games.

Plus Sony's software PS2 BC solution on the PS3 never let you run PS2 disks, despite there being no real technical reason for not allowing you to do so, so it's not exactly a change in that regard either.

The guy out in front can do what he likes, yes. The people in here saying that anti-consumer policies are to be expected and that we shouldn't moan about them are...

Sony's likely spent millions developing a software PSX/PS2 emulator for the PS4 and, not unreasonably, want to make money out of it. The 360 BC is designed to encourage 360 owners to buy the Xbone over the PS4, but it's highly unlikely a PSX/PS2 emulator is going to do the same thing, so there's little strategic advantage in offering it for nothing.

I don't really see why Sony should be expected give away their emulation software for free, or how not giving it away is in any way "anti-consumer". Maybe the compromise solution is to sell the emulator to those who want to run PS1/PS2 disks for, say, £20 and be done with it.

[Alex W.]

Before we get all over-excited I have to assume that the Star Wars titles running under emulation are distributed with individual copies of the emulator and the publisher probably paid a decent chunk of change for tuning the emulator to those games, re-testing and certification to make sure they work. So even if Sony had a commercial interest in letting people play the PS2 and PSone classic libraries on the PS4 - and they might, just to keep up with the Joneses - I really doubt that we're actually near the point where they can.

[TehStu]

Halo, have you read the customer service thread?

I didn't say they changed, but they're clearly not having to innovate as they did previously, and as MS now must.

[Uzi]

What about PlayStation vr? Seems fairly niche, innovative and something unlikely to yield an amazing return. Seems more innovative than what they did with the ps3 with stuff like move

[Halo]

Halo, have you read the customer service thread?

Sony's CS has long been bad and Microsoft's has been exemplary. It's not a new thing, this stretches back years. It doesn't make it okay but makes the notion of a shift in attitude seem a bit silly.

[TehStu]

Ok, didn't own a PS3. Surprised it didn't get mentioned in the run up to the PS4.

[TehStu]

What about PlayStation vr? Seems fairly niche, innovative and something unlikely to yield an amazing return. Seems more innovative than what they did with the ps3 with stuff like move

Yeah, that could certainly be it. You should probably take my ramblings with at least a small dose of salt. I'm really annoyed with their apparently quite historical attitude to customer service, which has caused me to dial right back in giving them money, and even spend a few hundred bucks on the other guys. It's about the only direct influence we have.

[mushashi]

Kinell man, don't you think people would buy extra titles (likely digital, given the impulse nature of cheaper games) if some effort was put in to BC? Or diddle a bit of money out of people who think "sod it, I'll buy ME for 4 bucks to save having to fetch the disc"?

They don't have to do anything, but they've chosen to do something, and whether people engage with it in any meaningful way is partially up to Sony.

And in any case, we can put our fingers in our ears about "the olde model" all we want, but times have clearly changed, as have, arguably, expectations. Presumably, this is why these devices didn't necessarily cost $700, because they didn't actually pack the punch we expected. I don't know the numbers, but that we frequently talk of lowered graphical expectations reasonably implies they weren't the big loss leader that they have been previously.

If you expect the PC/mobile business model, are you prepared to pay PC/mobile hardware costs? as otherwise, why would anybody bother to compete in the console hardware gaming market?

Panasonic have had multiple cancelled attempts to enter the dedicated gaming device market after the 1990s, they chose not to several times, despite having wasted quite a bit of money in hardware development. Ditto for the Koreans and the other Japanese CE companies.

If you expect change, then be prepared to reap the downsides as well as the benefits.

In terms of the rumoured PS and now confirmed PS2 emulators, they perform exactly the same function as the much praised Virtual Console service does for Nintendo, a way to monetise back catalogue as without a working emulator, how exactly can you sell old games which have been out of official circulation for years to new potential customers. Microsoft already did exactly the same thing with their emulator, they monetised it first with the release of Rare Replay. As that also has a working ZX Spectrum, NES and N64 emulator too, Microsoft could technically start monetising games from those old systems, well except for the small niggling problem of treading on somebody else's legal toes

[rafaqat]

If you expect change, then be prepared to reap the downsides as well as the benefits.

Wut? Why? I don't think anyone is asking for free ps2 games here.

Just the ones they own and have already paid for.

Sorry, but the recent moves from MS has changed expectations. I'd like the others to do more now.

[mushashi]

You might aswell petition Nintendo to release a disc authenticator for the Wii U while you are at it, as they on purposely nerfed the Wii U from being backwards compatible with the GameCube for economic reasons, despite somebody showing it is more than possible to run GC games on a Wii U, for free, in its current state, without even needing GameCube specific external inputs. Which is similar to how Sony chose to do physical game BC for the PSV initially, which also has a working solution for playing PSP games, just no way to play the UMDs you bought.

Would operate in exactly the same fashion as the X1 BC does, as the discs are useless on that machine too for actually playing the games they will allow you to play again from the select list people hope will eventually cover the titles they care about.

They'd offer it if they felt it offered some commercial advantage, which is the only reason Microsoft is being so generous, their backs are against the wall. PS+ was generous for exactly the same reasons and Microsoft didn't bat an eyelid in response initially, and now, this gen, they've only gone and copied the idea wholesale on the X1.

Wut? Why? I don't think anyone is asking for free ps2 games here.
Just the ones they own and have already paid for.

You misunderstand, I'm talking about the desire by some people for the 'perpetual' BC they think is being offered by the PC and mobile devices and now want as some God given right. There are downsides to the idea which people don't seem to have taken into account.

[SeanR]

What are they?

[JohnC]

Didn't the whole "Wintel" environment start to get massivly bogged down, both hardware and software, by trying to keep BC going at one point?

PC isn't all that BC any more anyway. I've occasionally tried to install XP or Vista era games which won't work any more.

[Wiper]

PC isn't all that BC any more anyway.

PC's are exactly as backward compatible as they've always been, which is to say that it's hit and miss, with fan-patches frequently required to get older games working particularly if you're working with original media. Of course, virtual machines and emulators (hi, DOSBox) give more options to brute-force games into working, and companies like GOG have helped to make working versions of games available to the buying public once again, so if anything the PC is more capable of playing its back catalogue than ever.

[JohnC]

Do GOG give you the game free if you own the original?

[Unofficial Who]

Plus Sony's software PS2 BC solution on the PS3 never let you run PS2 disks, despite there being no real technical reason for not allowing you to do so, so it's not exactly a change in that regard either.

Sony's likely spent millions developing a software PSX/PS2 emulator for the PS4 and, not unreasonably, want to make money out of it. The 360 BC is designed to encourage 360 owners to buy the Xbone over the PS4, but it's highly unlikely a PSX/PS2 emulator is going to do the same thing, so there's little strategic advantage in offering it for nothing.

I don't really see why Sony should be expected give away their emulation software for free, or how not giving it away is in any way "anti-consumer". Maybe the compromise solution is to sell the emulator to those who want to run PS1/PS2 disks for, say, £20 and be done with it.

I would be up for paying Sony for either a software or hardware solution for backwards compatibility. Win/win as I get to play my originals that I invested money in (without turning to the use of illegal emulators) and it doesn't pose an extra cost to the clear majority of PS4 owners who don't want and don't need bc.

I'm off to the Bone/360 bc thread now to tell them what fools they are.

[SMD]

Do GOG give you the game free if you own the original?

They never made money off you buying the original or your hardware...

...BUT they have given games for free to people to encourage them to use their ecosystem.

[DocG]

In terms of the rumoured PS and now confirmed PS2 emulators, they perform exactly the same function as the much praised Virtual Console service does for Nintendo, a way to monetise back catalogue as without a working emulator, how exactly can you sell old games which have been out of official circulation for years to new potential customers.

How does Sony digitally sell the many, many PS1/2 games that are in licensing hell following the bankruptcy or acquisition of the rights owner?