PS4 is just a shitty PC, why not join us, the PC gaming master race?

Sony's marketing campaign is based on Richard Florida's "rise of the creative class" a manifesto that has taken root in the U.S regarding creative place making and the enticement of young professionals through arts and entertainment being the core driving force in community development. The emphasis on "community" is two fold. One, to
drive people further into a complacent make believe place, disconnected from their power process concerning matters of political responsibility and overall awareness and subsequent activism. This marketing promotes that being connected to others in your community through a gaming device has more value to your well being. Yes, let's turn ourselves into petty lumps, sharing every achievement we make in a video game. Secondly, to tap into the Western middle class themes that are driven through urban renewal and eco consciousness such as "human rights" and "responsible comfort" or "never ending rapture". Sony has taken a marketing campaign aimed at revitalizing urban cores as a means to jump start a new downtown/urban real estate market on the heels of the great suburban home crash of 2007, with increased competition between cities for skilled labor and have basically grafted it onto a device, showering it with hype regarding it's place in "community". The "you can play anywhere, anytime, showing images of people walking around with their faces buried in electronic devices is a wet dream for those who want the public completely out of the decision making processes of a nation. Let's face it, video games are a great distraction/propaganda tool that can wind us up, manipulating our emotions on a basic level. Not to mention the electronic eye staring at you in your living space. As other posters have pointed out, these "social" technologies woven into the game system resemble the tentacles of big brother, painted up with the warm feelings of friendship and reaching out to others.

This "community" angle was so hyped, with it's flowery promises of the PS4 as the new universal creative device which can deeply influence our lives, the way it was packaged as a human making epoch, it actually came off as religious zealotry.

At it's base, it is just new hardware packaged with spyware and games. Where the PC wins beyond it's capabilities is the neutral space it holds. There is no hyped out pill you have to take while enjoying a gaming experience. PC's for the most part dodge the loads of Sh*t that console gamers have to endure just to play a game.

PC wins the "dodge hype" battle and the "big brother holding your hand" as console systems are getting more sticky and intrusive.

 

Digital Foundy on the PS4

" The GDDR5 memory modules - the same used in PC graphics cards - are only available in certain configurations, with the densest option available offering 512MB per module. The startling reality is that unless Sony has somehow got access to a larger chip that isn't yet in mass production and that nobody knows about, it has crammed 16 memory modules onto its PS4 motherboard. To illustrate the extent of the achievement, Nvidia's $1000 graphics card - the GeForce Titan - offers "just" 6GB of onboard GDDR5."

" There was also talk of a new processing module in the PS4 hardware designed to handle tasks like background downloading. Our sources suggest a low-power ARM core designed to handle "standby" tasks along these lines, while the console also saves the current gameplay state when the system is closed down, meaning instant access to the last game you played when you power up again. OS tasks and resource allocation remain unknown (512MB or thereabouts was discussed with developers) but we now have some idea of what this system can do: Sony talks about running a web browser "and other applications" during gameplay."

Full analysis here: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/df-hardware-spec-analysis-playstation-4

 

Just called it the Playstation Viao and call it a day

 

I don't understand why people get off on video game speculation.

 

This was the one console I was looking forword to. My custom pc's have always been better over the years, but the gaps between console and pc are growing too far apart. I have always enjoyed being able to switch between console and PC, but the console is just lacking nowadays and even the tech they just unvailed in the ps4 is good for nothing other than bitcoin mining.

To be honest, all I really wanted out of this release was some excitement to bring back the days with the excitement of the ps2, make consoles fun again. I still might get one but it just doesn't feel right and consoles seem to be hitting a wall fast.

 

Last generation's consoles (PS3, 360, Wii) killed console gaming for me.
Yes I do, and will continue to buy, but only on a limited scale.
After all, what can any current or next gen console give me that:
1) I can't already play an effective, probably better-programmed version on a "classic" system
2) If I want disposable gaming, iOS, Android, Steam, etc all are there waiting for my buck as well.

I see myself buying whatever ridiculous crap sony come out with, because well- why the hell not.
As far as game distribution, depending on the role the used game market plays in this next generation of systems- it's hard to beat more or less a gaming appliance that if you wait 6-8 months, games are down in the 13$ range. even if they're disposable or unplayable in the future.

Current generation systems already have issues with future playability- primarily focused on games that ship broken and need online updates from day one, to the fact that resigning of games and downloadable content simply won't happen in a world where sony, ms, and nintendo have pulled the plugs on the respective stores. The same can be said of steam, itunes store, google play, etc.

But really, who didn't see this coming, and why the hell worry about it.
<3 your old games, and either buy a gaming VCR (PS4), or just build a pc.

 

Some of what you said made sense, but this is a little ridiculous. You think Sony is making the PS4 in order to stimulate the real estate market? I don't see how you can even draw that connection mentally. Sony has no involvement whatsoever in the real estate market, as far as I'm aware.

Unless you think there's some secret conspiracy between videogame companies and real estate agencies. That makes me think about the first Superman movie, when Lex Luther reveals his plan to nuke half of California, so he can sell real estate. I thought, "So you're going to take over the world... with real estate?" It's funny.

 

[video=youtube_share;EIEN4u2nH5E]http://youtu.be/EIEN4u2nH5E[/video]

 

Please don't use the revolting "PC Master Race" and "console peasant" phrases. I know to most it's just a joke (aside from a few idiots who actually believe it, and spout it endlessly on the PC boards on gamefaqs.com) but it does come too close to comfort to real world predjudices, and even though I've not suffered racism myself (I'm a white male in a predominantly white country) I know people who have, and the "master race" thing is still used by some ****heads in a racial context.

I know. Modern consoles are getting the disadvantages of PCs (incompatibilities, games released untested, mandatory updates and fixes, etc) without the advantages (flexibility, upgrade-ability, the ability to mod your games, etc). I want a games console to be a games console, pure and simple. It used to be you bought a console for ease of use and reliability, and a PC for power and flexibility. The way it's going, the only advantage of consoles will be their exclusive games.

The games industry is doing so much wrong, and it's getting worse. Fewer software houses means less competition, and less competition means lower standards and higher prices. Games are becoming ever more expensive to make, which means less games are made, and software houses are afraid to take chances by innovating. Paid for Downloadable Content which so often seems like it should have been part of the original game (and sometimes is actually on the disc you've bought, but you have to pay extra to unlock it) goes against the consumer's best interests, and it's entirely possible that we'll end up not owning games (as in buying them and then having a license to play them for the rest of our lives, as we have now), but renting them, since DRM and always-connected broadband means that it's possible for you to digitally download a game that will only run on your machine for as long as the software house chooses. Then when it times out, if you want to play it again then you'll have to pay again. Software houses will love this, as it will gain them more money for the same game, especially if the game has the popularity of the really big titles, like Doom, Half-Life, Goldeneye, most of the Zelda games, etc, which are still very popular many years after their release. And even though you're renting, not buying games, you can guarantee that it won't be much cheaper for you, the software houses will, when the system becomes fool proof, charge you as much as they can get away with.

The 360 wasn't PC based. The XBox 1 was, but it only used it's PC architecture for the hard drive and cut-down-Windows-2000 OS, and it didn't have pale imitations of PC features like Facebook etc access, important patches for every game you try to play, and mandatory system updates that add nothing the user wants. The XBox 1 was great, in many ways much better than the 360.

That's your opinion. I have both the XBox 360 and PS3, and I prefer the 360, but it's close. There's no "hands down" winner at all. And the 360's interface is, I think, more user friendly than the PS3's (though uglier, and you can skin the PS3's with real background images), but it's not much good, and most people prefer the older 360 interfaces, such as the Blades.

The same is true for the PS3, to one degree or another. But personally most of the exclusives on either side don't bother me, apart from Halo 3, Reach and 4 (not ODST), Perfect Dark (XBLA, not Perfect Dark Zero), LittleBigPlanet 1 and 2, and maybe a few others.

 

Hahahaha. Yes, let me explain. I used to volunteer my time rather heavily in the arts arena through being a board member for a particular city arts council, to running an art league, curating shows and promoting arts based educational programs for communities. The new national trend here in the U.S is to relabel artists as "creatives" with the "creative class" as a means to stretch the term for more people, even those who couldn't draw a box to sh*t in. This new "creatives" movement is a means to rally people around an idea of being included in the art world , loaded with ancient memes about sophistication and secret languages for the learned men and women of the upper tiers, this new "creatives" movement opens up the art world as being accessible with a no culture , consumer friendly enlarged arena for the masses. So, some of you may have noticed this trend, the loads of new arts organizations that are opening up in urban areas labeled as using art as a beautification device for communities. So, where does this all come from? Richard Florida, who wrote a book called "rise of the creative class". He has been preaching to cities across the United States and Canada about how cities, if they are going to be competitive , need to attract the young professional, the skilled labor class, the I.T creature, which is drawn to arts and entertainment and urban living. Oh, and he includes a chapter on nightclubs. So, Cities have swallowed up this "creatives" movement and have poured loads of money into urban renewal and the arts. The catch in all of this, is that it's not entirely about enhancing communities simply for the sake of being an attractive place to live. No, first, we need to look at what artists do to communities historically. It's well known that artists when they move to run down areas, they ultimately turn these areas or neighborhoods into beaming commercial citadels as bars, restaurants, galleries and night clubs follow the artists. This trend is now a formula. Secondly, the power structure is quite aware of Arnold Toynbee's seminal work, "A study of history" which basically states that the cyclical rise and fall of civilizations is based on the creative state of it's people. So, Richard Florida, jived on this and produced a manual for cities to jump start their economic future, remain viable and attract the best and brightest. So, who runs cities..... the most powerful people in a city are usually it's developers, as they play a large part in overall city planning. They have taken this "creatives" mantra and have been backing art organizations to filter into certain communities within urban areas to revitalize them. The mayor, city council, the media, the developers, restaurant titans, artists, have all colluded to basically promote "creative place making", which is nothing more than a gentrification trend to bring the white middle class into the urban interior. Why? Because national policy has been set for a new real estate market in which to salvage the economy after the great crash of 2007. So, all of this noise, "creatives", "help the community", educate the poor, (mind you there are many white papers which state that arts in a community is beneficial, but it is no substitution for an efficient education model, which is mostly lacking in the U.S due to the way tax structures are implemented regarding funding for particular school districts, yes the poor stay poor for a specific reason, they are given sh*t poor education). Anyhow, this trend is primarily needed to jump start a new real estate market.

So, watching Playstation 4's unveiling, I noticed the same tired memes that I have seen in board room meetings and endless narrative tropes about "creatives" and "we can overcome poverty", the same plot line that cities are utilizing to stimulate and strengthen their portfolio, with idiot participants prancing around like communist party members chanting "I am a creative" and other nonsense. I have already thrown this up in a bucket and to see Sony use it, well I know the origin of this campaign.

In total, the sentences above, wouldn't have made clear sense without all of that background, I should of been more descriptive of what I meant. Frankly, all of this feel good , "creatives" , "human rights", fake love movement is cynical and meant to take the inner city poor and ship them out to rural areas, while leaving the cities vibrant to compete with one another. It's all a ruse to shovel the poor out of the city and a new round of get rich efforts by those in power.

Sony, wanting to be relevant picked up on this and is using it, which from a marketing standpoint, makes perfect sense, use this "Love everybody" shield to hide their own agenda's, which is industry wide, spy on you. watch you. Get in your head.

Edit: I forgot to mention, the creative class is not just artists, I was speaking from my perspective, but lawyers, I.T, game developers, architects, people who "create" in some way fueling the economy, these occupations and others are part of the "creative class". Many of you may have come across this in your work place. Hair stylists, you are part of the creative class also.

 

No shit sherlock...idiot

Having powerfull PC gaming machine which doesn't mean it better than console overall.

I own and built PC rig with i5 3450 with GTX 680 and yet I still playing PS3

 

i have yet to see any ps3 exclusives worth buying a ps3 for, and any multi platform game that is better on a console over the PC (that goes for xbox 360 aswell)

 

I dont understand what assemblergame's problem is with the PlayStation, you dont like it? Just dont buy it.
I remember the exact same shitstorm on this forum when the PS3 was launched (I even remember most of the same usernames raging against the PS3 as today in this thread) and for today's arguments (PS4 == PC) why no one of you said that when the Xbox360 launched? Face it, today the PS3 outsold the Xbox360 worldwide and it definately has many good reasons (and a good price too) to buy one instead of a gaming PC.
Now the same with the PS4, and the experts again start shouting that it will be a massive failure and a dead system soon.

 

The PS3 HAS NOT outsold the 360 world wide. HAS NOT. It's VERY CLOSE if not a tie.

That said, I'm not even thinking about Next Gen XBOX right now. I've been sitting back for 7 years while the PS3 got all the really cool games like Uncharted, and Infamous and I got.........Nothing Microsoft doesn't care about 1st Party so...the XBOX is just sort of there.

 

inFamous is really just OK. Pretty good, but not exactly a killer app.

 

Lets just take a look at first party Sony games since the PS1 era just over all what they've out put

Warhawk
Crash Bandicoot (well the first few anyway before universal whored it out)
Spyro (same thing)
Ratchet and Clank
Jak and Daxter
Little Big Planet
Ico
Shadow Of the Colossus
God Of War
Gran Turismo
Killzone
Resistence
The Last of us
Infamous
Ape Escape
Heavy Rain
MAG
MLB: The Show
Motorstorm
Tokyo Jungle
Sly Cooper
Mark of Kri
The Getaway
Fantavision

Proablaby more but that's a huge amount of 1st part input meenwhile what exactly has Microsoft given us?

And that is very reason I'm skipping the Next Box Unless Microsoft starts buying up comapanies for first party games...I'm done. I could give 3 shits about Halo, Gears or War and Fable. Forza is just OK. Nothing else has been amazing either.

 

i think i could stick with the ps4 (if they price it properly) instead of spending an insane amout of money for a gaming pc.

I prefer playing on the sofa instead office chair, and i hate the idea of spending a lot of money on a machine that might not run properly games after 2-3 years while consoles now go on fpr 5-8 years playing thing optimized for them.

my 2cents.

 

unfair to compare games from the playstation 1 era as microsoft's xbox lines up with snoy's ps2, not the original playstation, unless you want to bring in the microsoft related PC games