Playstation gives into the Fortnite Crossplay drama and opens its doors fully, finally...

[maartendc]

5 hours ago, Stefan Payne said:

So its not BS, its internal, "political" things going on...

Well yes, I agree with you there. There are "political things" going on inside the company to make this decision. It goes like this:

 

Employee A: "Hey we should really open up this crossplay thing, people are asking for it, and we can easily do it:

Manager/CEO B: "No, we are winning this generation, people should just buy Playstations if they want to play with their friends. This will make us more money"

Employee A: "This is making us look really bad, but whatever".

 

....2 months later

 

Investor C: "Hey my kid is saying Playstation sucks because he cannot play Fortnite with his friends. What the fuck are you guys doing over there?? This is costing us sales. FIX THIS!".

Manager/CEO B: "So sorry sir, we will definitely fix this, I don't know how this happened". To Employee A: "Hey iditiot, flip the switch on this cross-play thing".

Employee A: Sigh...

 

Again, the reasons they gave were "technical" or "ecosystem" or "we cannot do it". Those reasons were all BS and we all know it. The reason was NEVER technical, as evidenced by the fact that it worked when Epic enabled it. The only reason they didn't want to do it is because they thought they could leverage dominant market position. They straight up lied, and if you think otherwise, you are believing the lie.

 

You know what, you believe what you want to believe. I'm not going to sit here and try to change your mind.

[Stefan Payne]

3 hours ago, Trik'Stari said:

I legitimately dislike controllers, Sony controllers most of all. The 360 controller was alright, but still not as good as keyboard and mouse.

 

You can have plenty of input device variation on PC. More so than console when you consider the ability to install drivers and what not. As well as the ability to configure such devices as you see fit (HOTAS is a good example)

Its your right to dislike controllers.

But:
Whenever I use one Controller for a long period of time, everything else feels weird.

I'm not just talking about PS4 vs. XBox or whatever, you can get used to a (good) 3rd Party Controller as well. When you then use the Original one, it also feels weird. 

And of course it depends on how big or small your hands are...

And it takes a bit of time to get used to something different...

 

That's how it is with me. When I use the PS3 Controller for longer periods of time, it feels awesome others feel weird. You can use the same analogy with everything else. For example Logitech F710 (though I do not own one of those).

 

3 hours ago, Whiskers said:

It could be argued that without consoles there would be stronger incentive for universally compatible peripherals and accessories rather than ones designed to function exclusively on one device. Hypothetically if consoles weren't to exist this could have led to tangibly higher innovation and improvement in input device variability, accessibility and quality.

I have to disagree with you here because the XBox 360 brought us XInput wich brought us the Standardisation of Button layouts with PC. Before that there was total chaos, everyone was doing what their dice told them, every Controller had a completely different button layout. So the first thing you had to do was map the buttons so that its somewhat usable. And also do you know what to do when you have to press "Button 11"?

Or "Button 5"?

So the XBox 360 forced two analogue sticks with a digital pad, two digital shoulder buttons, two analogue triggers, A/B and X/Y Button Layout, that are also colored to the PC. With that, the game developer knows what to expect. And that is important for Game Development as they usually use the lowest common denominator.

So I could argue that the XInput support on PC brought us better Gamepad Support for Games...

 

As for the Standardization: The PC is the center of (well, almost) everything, as you can use (almost) every standard Console Controller.

PS3 Controller works without any driver, though I haven't tried it with Bluetooth, only with Cable. And you can also use the PS3 Controller under "certain circumstances" on the WiiU and the PC.

 

Before the XInput Standardization everyone kinda did what they wanted (Windows 95 era- XInput), before that there were two quasi competing standards: CH Flight Stick and Thrustmaster. One uses multiple Button Presses for the Hat, the other one the Analogue Thruster... 

 

And I have a totally useless picture:

 

Well, you can pair the XBox One Controller but you can't use them. Would be nice if that would be possible.

So all that Picture is good for might be a

 

As for Sony: You can actually use the PS4 Controller with PS4 for many things, as well as PC (since PS3 its possible to do that easily), though some features of the Dual Shock 4 are not available on PS3 and some functions can not be accessed with the Dual Shock 4. But you can play many games with that setup.

While it would be nice to have cross compatibility with the consoles, it can also be a disadvantage, when they implement different functions on the consoles (wich is the case right now.)

 

3 hours ago, Whiskers said:

Key part there however being hypothetically; any PC vs. Console argument is ultimately moot because they rely on supposing the likely outcome of a reality which doesn't exist. As things stand today consoles and PC share a significantly more symbiotic relationship than most people seem to like to think they do. Both have upsides and downsides, but both work towards overall improvement - and the entire gaming market benefits as a result (for the most part).

I agree with that.

And that shows with the Porting of Games like Ni No Kuni 2, and other Bandai Namco and other titles that you haven't seen on PC before. 

The only real difference between PC and Console is the Operating system (and the weird stuff Sony does like using an ARM SOC as the Southbridge). And that's about all that comes to my mind when it comes to Consoles... 

 

Still, the console allow for innovation in input devices, like the Wii did, the WiiU. The PS4 came a bit later and didn't bring anything new to the table, just implemented existing stuff that the PS3 already used and the Touchpad. The WiiU used a rather big though low resolution touchscreen, also had gyros, but no analogue triggers.

The XBox One brought Trigger Vibrators to the table.

 

So there is a bit innovation and I hope that the differences in Input devices that became a bit bigger with this generation will shrink and M$ will integrate at least gyros and accelerometers. And possibly also the Touchpad. 

And that one of the two might integrate a small touchscreen at one time as well (I already liked the Controller Screen with the Dreamcast)...

 

 

[Stefan Payne]

2 hours ago, maartendc said:

There are "political things" going on inside the company to make this decision.

And that is why you have to keep up the preassure when there is something you don't like, to get the company (whoever) to change their behaviour.

It can only happen when there is enough public preassure from all sides...

[ZacoAttaco]

I like how I can relax and sit back and use a controller. If I'm trying serious then it's mouse and keyboard all the way, but sometimes I don't want to sit at my desk and concentrate.

 

Sometimes I just want to sit back and chill and that's why I have a gaming rig as well as a console. For me they co-exist.