Consoles that require the internet vs ones that don't

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Sumez
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Re: Consoles that require the internet vs ones that don't

Post by Sumez »

At least those weren't released with the mindset that they can always patch the game as they go along since they have the internet. Shipping unfinished products has become a very deliberate marketing strategy in recent years.
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rainwarrior
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Re: Consoles that require the internet vs ones that don't

Post by rainwarrior »

Sumez wrote:At least those weren't released with the mindset that they can always patch the game as they go along since they have the internet. Shipping unfinished products has become a very deliberate marketing strategy in recent years.
Yes, some are released like that, because they can be. The vast majority of users will download and install patches. Nobody sets out with this as a target goal*; a game that's unfinished at launch is terrible marketing. That's not a marketing strategy, that's a coping strategy. It's a desperate attempt to get enough momentum to continue working on the game.

That's beside the point I'm making though. My point is that most switch/PS4 games are "complete" and playable 100% offline, and they really do QA for this. If you want to play your PS4 offline, you can actually DO it; the majority of games are fine on disc.

There are games that suck at release and later get a little better, but if you're comparing against the average NES game... they just suck at release and forever instead.

Already there's more than twice as many games out for PS4 than the NES had in its entire lifetime. There's more visible coverage of games than ever, and there's just more games overall, so it's easy to point to examples where a game did a bad thing. The equivalent of "unfinished at release" is just either cancelled, or released as a terrible game anyway in the NES era.

The nice thing about all this extra visible coverage is at least you have a much better chance to spot the duds before you buy them.


* Well, there's early access but that's a bit of a different situation, and not applicable to major consoles.
Rahsennor
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Re: Consoles that require the internet vs ones that don't

Post by Rahsennor »

I'm still waiting for the 'free' copy of SSB4 that came with my Wii U to download. I bought my Wii U a year ago.

Don't even get me started on the DLC.

You also have to delete all internet connection settings to make the thing work offline. And then re-enter them from scratch every time you actually want to go online.

I will not be buying a Switch.
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Re: Consoles that require the internet vs ones that don't

Post by tepples »

If you want to use eShop on satellite, you may have to drive your Wii U into town and park it in a restaurant to use its complimentary WLAN connection to the Internet. You won't need to carry a monitor, will you?
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Re: Consoles that require the internet vs ones that don't

Post by Dwedit »

Wii-u has its own screen already :)
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rainwarrior
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Re: Consoles that require the internet vs ones that don't

Post by rainwarrior »

Rahsennor wrote:I'm still waiting for the 'free' copy of SSB4 that came with my Wii U to download. I bought my Wii U a year ago.
Yeah, I don't know if that means you expected a download code in the box to be a disc, or if you don't have a suitable internet connection, but either way that's a fair beef to have with it.
Rahsennor wrote:You also have to delete all internet connection settings to make the thing work offline. And then re-enter them from scratch every time you actually want to go online.
I'd agree that the Wii U internet settings UI is pretty terrible. Did you find yourself wanting to make it go offline and online again frequently? (I never wanted to force it offline, but I did wish it was easier to switch the WiFi connection because I sometimes took it to a friend's house.)
Rahsennor wrote:I will not be buying a Switch.
I wouldn't get a Switch either.

In my view the Wii U had about 10 worthy games, and then between Wii emulation and Virtual Console (eventually) there was a bunch decent backlog stuff on it, if you hadn't played it before.

The Switch, with no backward compatibility and no VC... not really expecting enough to appear there unless it lasts many years, unlike the Wii U.
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Drew Sebastino
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Re: Consoles that require the internet vs ones that don't

Post by Drew Sebastino »

Rahsennor wrote:I'm still waiting for the 'free' copy of SSB4 that came with my Wii U to download.
You're not missing much. :lol:
rainwarrior wrote:I wouldn't get a Switch either.
I was gullible enough to get one. If you already bought a Wii U (or possibly even if you haven't), don't get a Switch. The worst "best" game on the Switch, Breath of the Wild, is on the Wii U. The performance is worse, but the performance on the Switch version is bad anyway (especially for the Xbox 360 visuals). I personally don't like any Mario Kart game other than Super Mario Kart, but there's no reason to get Mario Kart 8 Deluxe 8 Deluxe if you already have Mario Kart 8 (unless you were that distraught about having no Battle Mode). I'll be damned if ARMS keeps you entertained for more than 30 minutes. Nobody gives a shit about Pokken, but it's also on the Wii U anyway. While Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is Mario Kart 8 with slight improvements (except removing firehopping, because people who lacked enough skill to do it kept whining to Nintendo), Splatoon 2 is an inferior version of Splatoon 1, even before all of Splatoon 1's updates (the contents of which should have been there on Splatoon 2's release). I don't know about Super Mario Odyssey; it's supposed to be very good, but so was Breath of the Wild. :|
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Re: Consoles that require the internet vs ones that don't

Post by Rahsennor »

rainwarrior wrote:Did you find yourself wanting to make it go offline and online again frequently?
Any time I want to play online or browse the shop, I have to
1) turn my laptop into a wifi hotspot
2) pause downloads (they "helpfully" re-enable themselves every time you turn the console off, and I can't afford to pay hundreds of dollars in overage fees and/or get cut off for a month)
3) navigate through the craptastic settings app
4) type in my longass wifi password
5) play the game
6) navigate through the settings app again
7) delete all connection settings so that next time I turn it on it doesn't lock up for five minutes spamming error messages.

I should add that this is my second Wii U. The first one died within 24 hours.
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Sumez
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Re: Consoles that require the internet vs ones that don't

Post by Sumez »

rainwarrior wrote:That's not a marketing strategy, that's a coping strategy.
Hmm.... you'd be surprised. I think you might have a little too much faith in the integrity of triple A video game marketing. :)

EDIT: Don't know why I specifically mentioned triple-A. This happens anywhere someone's trying to make money off video games. I can tell you with 100% certainty that companies deliberately cut down severely on the QA process knowing that they can always fix issues that might exist when the game goes gold later - some times still before the actual release through a day one patch.
Last edited by Sumez on Tue Dec 12, 2017 2:28 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Bregalad
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Re: Consoles that require the internet vs ones that don't

Post by Bregalad »

Sumez wrote:At least those weren't released with the mindset that they can always patch the game as they go along since they have the internet. Shipping unfinished products has become a very deliberate marketing strategy in recent years.
God, I don't play any online games but this souds awful. Linux for instance insists on upgrading constantly, even debian stable distribution which is supposed to be stable has upgrades every week or so you should install. Why ?

Thanks to the internet, we can constantly download patches that fix vulnerabilities. But the internet is the reason those vulnerabilities exists in the 1st place. Thus if a machine can live without being connected, it's best to leave it unconnected, a lot of vulnerability problems would be gone, even if this means a couple of "features" taken off the product.

In the end, the Internet is just like computer themselves were before being connected : They spend 80% of the time to solve problems caused by themselves, and only 20% of the time solving problems already existing before, but in a much more efficient way.
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Fisher
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Re: Consoles that require the internet vs ones that don't

Post by Fisher »

Seems that "the quick little play" while my wife/daughter/whoever gets ready to leave are gone in the new console generation :-(
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Re: Consoles that require the internet vs ones that don't

Post by Pokun »

At least 3DS allows you to choose when to install updates (the actual downloading of system updates may happen automatically though) for the system or for games and games can normally be played without being updated, also updates tend to be quite small. The exception are games and apps that requires internet to work and such, including the eShop app and the UFO catcher game. I guess online mode in games also requires latest updates.

But Wii U seems to install updates automatically and PS3 seems to download tons of stuff every single time you start something. I wonder how the Switch works.
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Re: Consoles that require the internet vs ones that don't

Post by rainwarrior »

Fisher wrote:Seems that "the quick little play" while my wife/daughter/whoever gets ready to leave are gone in the new console generation :-(
I'd say it's the opposite, actually?

Dunno about the other platforms, but with PS4 at least you resume and suspend games as long as you don't switch to another game in between, so it's really quick to pick up and put down something in sessions.

Even if there was a patch waiting to download you can always just skip it if you want to play right now. (...and patches normally install in the background when you're not using the thing rather than right before you play the game. You only get interrupted for a first-time play, and only if you don't choose to skip it.)

On both of these fronts it's a vast improvment over the last generation.
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Fisher
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Re: Consoles that require the internet vs ones that don't

Post by Fisher »

rainwarrior wrote:On both of these fronts it's a vast improvment over the last generation.
Glad to know that! :D
Thanks!! :beer:
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Sumez
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Re: Consoles that require the internet vs ones that don't

Post by Sumez »

I really wish I could share rainwarrior's enthusiasm. The PS4 definitely works better than PS3, but Sony's patching system is still incredibly dumb. You pretty much need to re-download every single asset of a game to patch some minor changes in the code. Back in the previous generation, PS3 updates of several gigs would be a few megabytes in their X360 counterparts. Now that PS4 is my "system of choice" for this generation, it actually makes me miss the previous one.
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