Alternative Next Gen Consoles

As well as the Xbox One and Playstation 4 there are a number of alternative devices that are due to hit the market this year attempting to grab a piece of the lucrative console market by utilising the Android operating system.  Some of these are being developed by big technology companies such as Nvidia whilst others are being developed and brought to market by independent manufacturers via alternative funding methods like the Ouya which received it's funding via Kickstarter.

Nvidia Shield

The Shield handheld gaming device comes equipped with Nvidia's Tegra 4 Quad Core Mobile Processor, 2gb of RAM, an integrated 5 inch multi-touch display, and 16gb of flash storage.  The device runs Android's Jelly Bean operating system so the user can install games from Google's Play Store to play on the integrated screen or to output to your TV via the Mini-HDMI port on the back of the device.  As well as running Android games the Shield will give the user the ability to stream and control games from their GeForce GTX powered PC's using a wi-fi connection and will retail at $299 (no UK price has been announced yet).

Ouya

The Ouya games console will run a modified version of Android's Jelly Bean operating system and will feature an exclusive Ouya store for applications and games.  Out of the box the console will include TwitchTV, access to Onlive game streaming and will be open to rooting without validating the warranty.  In addition to this all owners will be able to use their Ouya consoles as developer kits allowing anyone to create games and applications for the device.  The system runs an Nvidia Tegra 3 system-on-chip with a 1.7 GHz Quad-Core Arm processor, 8gb flash storage, 1gb of RAM, and will plug directly into your TV via HDMI.  Every game or application on the Ouya is required to have a free component whether that be totally free, with a free trial or with in-app purchases or additional levels.  The Ouya will retail at $99 in the US and £99 in the UK.

GameStick

PlayJams GameStick console resembles a USB memory stick and plugs directly into the HDMI port of your TV allowing you to take your console anywhere you want.  The device features wi-fi allowing users to access the internet and bluetooth connectivity so up to 4 people can play simultaneously.  In addition the console will allow other Android and iOS devices to be used as controllers and will support XBMC for media streaming.  The GameStick offers similiar specs to the Ouya with an Amlogic 8726-MX system-on-chip, 1 gb of RAM, 8gb flash storage and will retail for $79 US or £79.99 UK.

MOJO

Madcatz have yet to release much in the way of details regarding their MOJO micro-console except for the fact that it will run Android (although which version is yet to be decided).  It will come with access to the Google Play store meaning you'll be able to download and play all those games you already bought on your Android phone or tablet.

Gamepop

The Gamepop console is a subscription based hardware and software solution offering mobile based gaming on your TV for $6.99 per month and, up until the end of June, this monthly cost includes the hardware also.  If you choose to cancel your subscription during the first 12 months you need to send the console back in working order and pay some re-stocking fees but after this it's yours to keep.  Specifications for the hardware haven't been shared yet but the console allows you to access more than 500 mobile games on your TV.

Steambox

There's alot of speculation out there regarding the upcoming Steambox from Valve.  At the moment there are no specifics regarding the hardware or software itself but it's expected that the hardware itself will be tightly controlled whilst the software will be open.  It's expected that the unit will ship with a Linux OS but users will be able to install Windows as an alternative OS if they want.  Xi3 revealed the Piston at the Consumer Electronics Show in January which is one of several designs that Valve are looking at for the Steambox however at $1000 you may as well build a gaming PC and use your TV as a monitor via HDMI ouput as it will work out cheaper and be more powerful. 

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Ghouls, Ghosts, and Dark Souls

Recently, when I've had a some spare time, I've been picking up my PS3 controller and having another bash at Dark Souls.  The games name is synonymous with difficulty and when you mention it to other gamers you can tell by their pained expression that they've played it and ultimately loved it, or, got so frustrated with it they've thrown their controller through the telly.  Dark Souls has a reputation for a high learning curve and YOU WILL DIE... ALOT... OFTEN but such is the nature of this game, if games were easy to defeat would we still be willing to part with our hard earned wedge for them???  I've seen games where people have paid £40, completed them the same day, and then traded them in or simply never played them again, where is the fun, where is the challenge???  This is part of the reason that I play games on Hard difficulty, to make them last longer... if I'm investing that much money in something I want it to last, I want it to make me frustrated but at the same time I want it to show me that it's not stupidly difficult and that progressing is more about skill than luck so that when I do eventually get past Boss X after the 137th attempt I feel that sense of achievement for a job well done.

So, did this yearning for games with a steep learning curve start with Dark Souls?  No.

It started way back in 1990 when as a young boy of 12 years old, my parents and I had taken a trip to Ross Records in North End, Portsmouth.  This was quite an event for me at the time as it took nearly an hour in the car from where I lived and parking was always difficult on Fratton Road but this was the only shop to trade in used consoles and games in my local area at this time.  Considering the infrequency with which we made this trip I always tried to make these journeys count, scouring the racks of pre-owned Sega Megadrive and Sega Mastersystem games (the Mastersystem was mine whilst the Megadrive was my parents but they let my sister and I play it so technically it was ours and my parents knew it but they just wouldn't admit it) for those elusive bargains and games that would last until we made the journey again.  Then one day I saw a box that promised everything I was looking for (and was interested in at the time, remember I was 12 and hadn't discovered girls yet) - knights, demons, and the undead all wrapped up in platformy goodness and, luckily for me, they hadn't introduced age restrictions on games yet so there were no issues with me buying it... so I did.  I took it home and immediately slotted the cartridge into my (I mean my parents) Megadrive, picked up the controller, pressed Start, watched the intro, and then died.  Not literally of course, that would mean I'm typing this from beyond the grave and haunting you by means of the internet and we all know that's full of cats and not ghosts, my character, Arthur, died.  I tried again, got a little further, died again.  Lather, rinse, repeat... this went on for several hours, passing the initial stage, getting past the guillotines, onto the wind stage with those irritating flying reaper things.  Eventually I saw the first boss, a giant green one-eyed monster who held his head with one hand and... you guessed it... I died.  Considering there were 6 stages in this game, limited continues, and a two hit and you die health system, this was a pattern that continued for some time but I was hooked.  I did eventually defeat the game and it consistently remains one of my favourite games to play because it's so easy to pick up and get in to but seriously difficult to master.

So, if anyone wonders why I love Dark Souls, and why I play games on Hard mode, they can thank Capcom for getting me hooked on near impossible games at such a young age.

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Xbox U-Turn

So it seems that either sometimes big businesses do listen to their customers or simply bow to pressure from the industry as it appears Microsoft have done a complete U-turn on their recent announcement regarding online checks and second hand games.

In a post on the Xbox website Don Mattrick has announced that:

Xbox One will no longer require an online check every 24 hours

You will be able to sell, lend, and rent games without any restrictions and the console will have no regional restrictions

The full announcement can be found here and is a major and very embarrassing change of stance for Microsoft the question really is whether they've backtracked because of the customer complaints or because they're worried about losing market share to Sony.

If the change is down to consumer complaints I wonder how much we need to complain to get them to change their minds on backwards compatibility??

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Is old the new new?

If you know anything about the gaming world or anyone remotely interested in it, and to be fair if you know anyone with a penis then you do, you'll be aware that the E3 exhibition was held last week and, with it, came the reveal of the new Xbox and Sony consoles.  In fact unless you've been doing a Robinson Crusoe and have been stranded on a desert island eating nothing but coconut stew for every meal whilst talking to a volleyball there's a pretty good chance you've heard something about either of them in the news.

What hasn't really been publicised much, unless you move in certain gamer circles, is the upcoming release for Hyperkin's RetroN5 console.  This isn't just a pure gamers console it's actually 9 consoles in one box!!!  Whilst the likes of Sony, Microsoft, and the rest of the world have been looking to the future these guys have been looking to the past and have created a Frankenstein's monster that can play original NES, SNES, Famicom, Super Famicom, Game Boy, Game Boy Colour, Game Boy Advance, Sega Megadrive, and Sega Genesis cartridges.  Unlike other retro emulating consoles of the past the Retron5 utilises software based emulation rather than the cloned hardware emulation of the previous iterations making it more flexible and able to offer more features.  Based on the Android Operating System the Retron5 will offer upscaled graphics output through the HDMI port on the back, improved sound through audio interpolation, and will allow users to save their games at any point (auto saving on shutdown so you can come back to your game at a later date and pick up right where you left off).

The Retron5 console has a total of 6 different controller ports so hardcore retro gamers can use their original pads to play or can use the wireless Bluetooth controller that comes with the console and, due to the software emulation, the user isn't even limited to using a console specific pad so you can use your favourite Megadrive pad to play Super Mario World till your hearts content.

How much for all this Retro goodness I hear you ask?  No official price yet but Hyperkin say it'll be less than $100 so expect it to be around £80 - £100 if it launches in the UK (or if you can find one on EBay) and it's expected to launch this summer so dust off your old cartridges.

What this means for the price of those retro consoles currently selling on EBay remains to be seen, will they hold their price or will their value drop making them more affordable for collectors?  No doubt the value of these cartridges for the emulated consoles will go up due to an increased demand so if there are any you want ready it may be better to look for them online now.

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What the future looks like

In case you've been living in a cave somewhere and haven't seen the PS4 and Xbox One close up here's a few photo's for you...

PS4

Xbox One

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The future of gaming

Like many gamers I've found myself watching the announcements of the new generation of consoles with avid curiosity.  Historically I've always been a Playstation fanboy but recently got an Xbox 360 in the sales so I'm approaching this all with an open mind.  Which of the next-gen consoles would I like, which can I afford (the answer is neither if my wife is reading this), and why?

Playstation 4
When Sony announced the PS4 back in February I found myself underwhelmed by the announcement.  With Sony focusing more on the social aspects of the console than the gaming it seemed that I was simply looking at another way to update my Facebook status (and a very expensive one at that).  The controller looked ugly, the console itself didn't even get revealed, and the information on games was pretty much non-existent.

Fast forward 3 months to the first day of E3 and Sony, to be fair, haven't done a bad job of their announcement.  The console is finally revealed, a (slight) throwback to the PS2 days of a menacing looking black obelisk stood below or to the side of your TV.  All sharp corners and hard angles the PS4 blends together old and new styling mixing the glossy piano black of the original launch PS3 with the matt black of the current generation.  Having seen more images of the Dualshock 4 controller from various angles it still looks like it's taken a beating with the ugly stick when viewed face on but it's subtle redesign, textured grip, and the light bar across the front make it seem fresh and new.

The specs for the PS4 have been known for some time already - boasting an 8 core X86-64 AMD processor with an additional Radeon based GPU for graphics processing, 8gb of GDDR5 RAM, a 500gb HDD (upgradeable for those of you who feel that half a Terabyte isn't enough space), and an upgraded Blu-ray Drive the PS4 is the most powerful of the next-gen machines.

The big issue, and the most likely point that will sway gamers one way or the other, is the ability to play second hand games on the console and the restrictions the developers will place on this.  At E3 Sony announced that there will be 'no new restrictions' regarding second hand games meaning you can freely lend them to friends, sell them to another person, trade them in at your local game store, or buy them and play them on your PS4 without any fear that they won't work.  There's no guarantees that Sony won't take this ability away at a later date of course (anyone remember when you could install a 3rd party linux OS on your launch day PS3 if you wanted to?) but for now this is a major selling point.

We all know that both the PS4 and the Xbox One will NOT be backwards compatible out of the box, HOWEVER, Sony sank a not inconsiderable sum ($380 million USD) to acquire the Gaikai cloud based gaming service back in July 2012 with plans to allow for cloud based emulation and streaming of PS1, PS2, and PS3 titles to the Playstation 4 over the internet.  To date Sony are still to officially rule out any form of on-console emulation for older generations so don't throw away your old games just yet.

Xbox One
Microsofts Xbox One reveal in May began to hammer home the fact that this generation of consoles seemed to be less about the games and more about the additional capabilities of the machines. Touting the Xbox One (seriously??? my 7 month old daughter could have come up with a better name than that) as an 'all-in-one entertainment system' Microsoft seem to be forgetting that this is supposed to be a console and are trying to use it to muscle in on the media device market currently dominated by Apple TV and Google TV.  Cable TV users can plug their connection directly into their Xbox One to further integrate the system, but this is no good for those of us who live in Blighty where we don't get Cable TV like the US.

Unlike Sony, Microsoft used their launch event to showcase the console itself, another throw back to the older generations, the device itself looks like a VCR my parents used to have.  It may be boxy and retro in design but it's two tone "liquid black" finish marks it as sleek and modern.  The only tell tale sign that this box is part of your home media system will be that little glowing Xbox logo winking at you from the shadows beneath your TV cabinet.  Silently mocking you for spending an extortionate amount of money on it when you could have bought Apple TV for £99 and got the same effect.  The joypad's had a little tweak in the design, not much to be honest as it didn't really need it, and has Impulse Triggers added in as a nice addition to the ongoing immersion in gaming entertainment.  Impulse Triggers are individual vibrate functions for each of the trigger buttons mounted on the shoulders of the Xbox controller - a nice idea but not a necessity.

Specs wise the Xbox One on paper reads similiar to the PS4 - 8 core X86-64 processor, 8gb of DDR3 RAM (3gb reserved for OS and Apps and 5gb for games), a 500gb (non-replaceable) HDD, and a Blu-Ray drive.  Microsoft claim the choice of the DDR3 RAM was a deliberate choice not to target the high end graphics market and means that the console will be slightly slower than the PS4 but not by so much you'd notice really.

The Xbox One will come shipped with the upgraded Kinect sensor and the console WILL NOT function without the Kinect attached although users can choose to turn off all Kinect functionality whilst keeping the unit attached to the console.  The new Kinect has an upgraded camera for greater accuracy in tracking users and is apparently so accurate it can track your heart beat (which could offer some interesting opportunities for use in the development of survival and horror games like the Resident Evil series).  The microphone on the Kinect will remain in an 'always-on' state so it can accept voice commands, even when the console is in sleep mode.

Microsoft have taken a hard line approach to the second hand market on the Xbox One console stating that it would be down to the game developers to decide if second hand games could be played and any costs incurred in doing so.  When you buy a game it is registered to your Xbox account, you can loan it to a friend but ONLY ONCE and only if that friend has been on your friend list for more than 30 days.  The Xbox One also needs an 'always-on' internet connection as it needs to connect to the Xbox servers every 24 hours for verification, if it can't connect it won't let you play (although you can still watch DVD's and live TV) and, even worse, if you're logged into another console playing your games on the cloud the console will require authentication EVERY HOUR.

Xbox One won't be backwards compatible and, according to sources at Microsoft, it never will be as “Xbox One hardware is not compatible with Xbox 360 games,” ... “We designed Xbox One to play an entirely new generation of games—games that are architected to take full advantage of state-of-the-art processors and the infinite power of the cloud. We care very much about the investment people have made in Xbox 360 and will continue to support it with a pipeline of new games and new apps well into the future"

The Xbox event at E3 was solidly about the games, having got most of the hardware stuff out of the way at the earlier conference, and seems to be where Xbox have the edge.  Offering more launch titles than the PS4 from day one Microsoft seem to be forgetting that the majority of gamers would buy these titles, play them to death, then trade them in for their next game.  Something Microsoft don't seem to be willing to offer it's loyal customer base but Sony will.

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