Can’t fit it in a tweet. So, here’s my rundown.
I’m already not thrilled with the Xbone, and this is coming from someone who had a 360 and PS3 and ended up gaming on one and watching movies on the other. I would have been happy to roll over into the next generation, if it wasn’t being aggressively marketed in direct opposition to everything I want in a console.
Don’t care about TV. Don’t care about sports. Don’t care about social media sharing. Don’t care about dudebro gritty brown realistic shooters. Don’t care about shooters of any stripe, honestly. Don’t care about war, don’t care about drivin’, don’t care about any of this.
I mean, let’s quantitatively break this down, with (-) negatives, (=) apathy, and (+) upsides. Because math is fun!
- The Xbone Itself: -TV Focus, -DRM, -Social, -XboxLive, +Cloud Games, +Hardware (-2)
- Metal Gear Solid 5: -War, -Shooting, -Gritty, +Stylishish (-2)
- Ryse: -War, -Heavily Scripted QTE Setpieces (-2)
- Killer Instinct: =Nostalgia (0)
- Sunset Overdrive: -Shooting, -Zombies, +STYLE!, +FUN! (0)
- Forza: =Meh (0)
- Quantum Break: -Shooting, +STYLE!, +Concept! (1)
- Spark: -Overpromising, +STYLE!, +FUN! (+1)
- Crimson Dragon: =Meh (0)
- Dead Rising 3: -Shooting, -Zombies, -Gritty (-3)
- Witcher 3: =Meh (0)
- Battlefield 4: -Shooting, -War, -Scripting, -Gritty (-4)
- Below: +STYLE! (+1)
- Halo: -Shooting, -War, -Gritty (-3)
- Titanfall: -Shooting, -War, -Gritty, +Robots, +Innovative (-2)
FINAL SCORE: -15, with 57% of ’em being shooting games.
I don’t think Sony’s gonna do much better, though. The chances of them not embracing the same anti-consumer measures that Microsoft is embracing are low; if this is what game publishers want then they won’t be satisfied with only one of the two big new consoles offering it. Maybe Sony will be less draconian, but there will still be a dragon involved, no doubt.
The only hope is if Sony pushes harder on the indie front, delivering innovative and interesting new games that have distinct visual style without overloading the bullet points with bullets. We’ll see. I’ll post again later tonight with my thoughts there.
In the end… I’ll probably just ditch the new generation completely and stick to my PC. Steam and the Humble Store are consistently delivering interesting things and new concepts I want to play. Guess I’ll get to save money in the end by not buying a new plastic appliance.