GregHowley.com

E3 has ended. And all the talk is about the new consoles. The 360 and the PS3 are nearly "last-generation" technology. I'll certainly admit that I haven't had the time I once would have to follow every last announcement and tidbit of news, but I've read certain digests and participated in a good number of Google Plus discussions, so I feel that I've got a good feel for things.

Sony is ahead.

To me, it's clear that the XBox 360 won the now-ending console generation, largely due to its online play. I don't play online games. I've played Borderlands on the PC online with friends a couple times, and I played Hoard on the PS3 online with my brother once. Oh, and I used to play Street Fighter 4 online with my SlikStik connected to my PC back when that game first came out. My ambivalence to online play is a significant part of why I was never interested in the 360. I got the PS3 because it was the least expensive BluRay player on the market and seemed to have good longevity, as it was able to accept online updates. I got it for the games too, of course. But the Playstation Network goes down more often than a prostitute.

So yes - the 360 won that generation. But when Microsoft announced the XBox One a few weeks ago, the details raised a few red flags. Firstly, their focus was about its capability as a multimedia device: watch live TV! Stream video! But people seemed to feel that there wasn't enough focus on games. The core gamers were nonplussed. Also, the concerns about the always-online requirement were justified: if the XBone can't "phone home" via an internet connection every 24 hours, its ability to play games is shut down. In reality, the number of occasions when people would actually lose internet connectivity for that length of time seems miniscule, but even so, this seems exactly the type of thing that will inconvenience honest users and be nothing more than a nuisance to the hackers and pirates it was created to foil. I'm willing to bet that some enterprising hacker works around the DRM within weeks of the XBone's launch. Meanwhile, Jane Doe's router dies and she doesn't have time this weekend to go out and buy a new one, so she can't play Katamari Cowbell or Resident Evil 7.

Another large cause for concern was the Orwellian new Kinect. Penny Arcade put it pretty well in their comic about the new Kinect, but the bottom line is that the Kinect allows you to turn the XBone on with voice commands, which means that it's always listening. Combine that with the fact that it's always online, and the implications are quite disturbing. The notion would seem like a crazy conspiracy theory were it not for the recent PRISM revelation.

As big a deal as any of the previous factors may be, the biggest seems to be about used games. Microsoft announced that you can get games from their online store, or via physical disk. But all games must be installed to the XBone's hard drive, and are then tied to the user's ID. If you then want to give the game to a friend, you can give them the physical disk which he can then play after paying Microsoft. I understand completely what they're trying to do. They want to kill Gamestop. I'm no Gamestop fanboy, for sure. It's a crime how Gamestop leeches off the video game industry, charging $55 for a "pre-owned" game that some schlub sold to them for $25 the day before. The publishers' main problem with this is that the same copy of a game can be sold and re-sold many times, and that the bulk of the profit is going to Gamestop. I get it. I understand. That's not fair. But consumers' main problem is that if they've purchased a thing - be it a chair or a book or a video game - they own it and should be able to do what they like with it. They should be able to lend it, burn it, or sell it at their discretion. A friend of mine once made the point that when he re-sells his car, the vehicle menufacturer doesn't get a cut, and that isn't nearly as large a scandal. And while I understand that this is likely because there are fewer car sale transactions due to the higher cost of cars and the fact that people generally own only one car per person, there's still a point there.

There have been many discussions about used games, the rights of consumers, the problem that is Gamestop, the money that would be away from the industry by denying gamers the cash from selling their games, and the increasing prevalence of digital distribution of games. But to me, the core issue is that of discounting games as they age. Used games are a single flavor of that. But as time goes on, the flavor that I avail myself of most often is the Steam Sale. I frequently download games from Steam for $5 or $10. I recently got Borderlands 2 - an eight month old game - for $13, and that game was selling for $60 a week prior to that. If there's some guarantee that these discounts will be available, then the prohibition of used games loses a lot of its sting. In any event, digital distribution is an inevitability. Physical media is on the way out, and with it used games.

When Sony talked about the Playstation 4 at E3, they highlighted a few key points. Used games! The PS4 will allow used games! And it will be a hundred bucks less than the XBone. Boom. The speaker should have dropped the mike right there.

There's really nothing special about the Playstation 4. It plays games, and they'll look slightly better than the games on the PS3. Aside from the lower price, its main draw is that it's removed less functionality than the XBone has removed. That's kind of sad. But it is what it is, and based on that, the PS4 is ahead.

Oh, and then there's the Wii-U. Wii-U-Wii-U-Wii-U-Wii-U! Sounds like a fire engine. Yeah, that thing's got no games. The Wii was innovative with the motion controls and it sold like crazy for a while, but I think that market has been exhausted. If there were more games that made good use of the innovative asymmetrical play element, the console would be far more attractive. But the issue is that games designed that way can only be released on the Wii-U, whereas games designed for the other consoles can be released for the PC, PS4, XBone, and others. Sorry, Nintendo.

So personally, I'm looking at the PS4. Or maybe the Ouya.