Are video game consoles too complex?

[Master Phruby]

I've been reading about all the new updates to the dashboard in the xbox one and thinking the interface is getting just too complex. Besides all the social media, tv tuning, advertising, DLC and game library, you can tweak the interface for transparencies and other stuff. This thing is now a complete desktop computer! Is all this stuff really necessary?

 

Back in the old days there was no crazy OS to run the games on. The most complex we got was a new pause button and number keypad on the controller and even that was pushing it!

[Video]

Pretty much. I just got a 360 in that someone hadn't updated (or played a new game on, apparently) and it still had the old blade front end. Wow, that was cool, so clean and simple. Xbox360's current 'wannabeandroid' front end is to cluttered and just stupid, and the xbox one is even worse. I haven't seen the PS3/4 yet, but I assume they are equally as bad. The dash should have a disc access, and a memory access, and that's pretty much it. All the rest is just clutter and meaningless.

[akator]

I partially agree.

 

There is definitely something enjoyable about the simplicity of classic systems. Fire them up and play, it's definitely appealing.

 

However, I'm not against modern multifunction systems, either. When the interface is done right, it is still easy to play games yet also access the additional functions. IMO Sony's XMB (Cross Media Bar) interface was an excellent blend of simplicity, appearance, and function. I never felt that interface got in my way, playing games or otherwise.

 

I have only spent a few hours with Xbox One and PS4, but so far I agree that their interfaces are unnecessarily complicated. The XMB never felt like a chore for me, whereas these later interfaces require a lot more time and effort to get where I want to go. I am fairly certain that over time they will improve. Although that may be wishful thinking

[omegadot]

I just got an Xbone last weekend and I'm still not entirely sure how to use the interface. I can get where I want but I'm often surprised by what buttons do. It has some very nice features. Like when my daughter decided to crawl over and turn it off I was was able to boot and go right where my since and I left off, but the first time I had to actually close an application was a nightmare. And finding the settings was also not immediately obvious at all. Over all I'm still in the judging phase but it's way more complex than I'd prefer. The Wii U is like put game in, go. Now you are playing a game. That I like.

[Keatah]

Ohh god yes! Absolutely, unequivocally, without a doubt, yes! Seems like consoles can be full of make-work and job-justifying busy-ness, with no real benefit to the end user.

 

Back in the day I was just fine using a "card catalog" for finding my disks and cartridges, on a shelf, like in the library. I had a nice laminated sheet depicting the layout of all my games and where my most important ones were. I had like 10 of those Apple SoftwareBank 3-ring binders full of 40 disks each. And I didn't need no stink'n menu system to find stuff.

 

As a matter of fact, I even tried to use PFS: Personal Filing System to set up an electric catalog. It became too tedious and took too long.

 

Furthermore, what is it we are supposed to be doing? Testing some under-sexed intern's experimental UI? Or are we supposed to play games? As I learned back in the 70's with my Apple II stuff, just because something can be done doesn't mean it should.

[Cobra Kai]

I do feel like the technology is leaving me behind, and it has nothing to do with whether or not I'm intelligent enough to use it. First, I don't want to be monitored and spied on, that was the line I drew in the sand. Second, I have no use for all the tv apps, music apps, movie apps, apps apps apps apps. Anything that goes beyond playing games is useless flair to me, and all that stuff doesn't add value to a game console, in fact it decreases value for being so distracting and decreasing performance. What if all that power and resources were used to just run games? How fast would the machine boot up for instance? My Xbox 360 takes about 3 minutes to get to homepage after I press the power button, that is ridiculous. After countless updates on the console, I think the performance of my system is way worse than when I bought it.

[omegadot]

I agree with a lot of the discontent with content hoisting to a point. I like that I can have one less device hanging off my TV, though. I really like streaming my own media because I can leave my discs far away from my children and Plex and the other inbuilt dlna etc stuff allows me to do that. We had a roku that we used for a while but that's not really necessary at this point.

 

I think the PS3 had it right. There was functionality but not a boatload of ads and what not all over.

Edited February 20, 2015 by omegadot

[moycon]

Yes! When we were kids we only had to turn on the system and play a game, we only needed one button, and we mainly sat alone playing by ourselves for hours.

It was awesome. It should have remained this way forever.

Also...Get off my lawn.

[Keatah]

Back in the old days there was no crazy OS to run the games on. The most complex we got was a new pause button and number keypad on the controller and even that was pushing it!

 

Yes. A new functional something-or-other button or new controller type. Something real, something useful, something tangible. And that was fun! Even differently shaped cartridges with a new label style could be a form of excitement in its own right.

 

Consoles are supposed to be about good gaming. Not delay-inducing online activities or other non-gaming stuff they shove in your face. Not to mention microtransactions, subscriptions, DRM, DLC, and all that.

 

People are sheeple. They really don't like all this online ball-n-chain stuff. But since they are told it is good it is good. It's the new thing, the best thing. Ughhh.. My few and far between experiences with DRM and online activations and subscriptions has been nothing but annoying and time-wasting.

 

I understand much of this DRM/DLC is done for piracy and milking reasons. But, I suggest, make the price more reasonable, the quality higher, and begin teaching society as a whole that original non-pirated material is a good thing. BITD I was proud of my array of cartridges and store-bought disks for the 8-bit consoles and Apple II. Each one had some sort of meaning, some form of substance. A presence. All this is gone with modern consoles.

 

 

I've been reading about all the new updates to the dashboard in the xbox one and thinking the interface is getting just too complex. Besides all the social media, tv tuning, advertising, DLC and game library, you can tweak the interface for transparencies and other stuff. This thing is now a complete desktop computer! Is all this stuff really necessary?

 

To answer the question, "Is all this stuff really necessary?" cleanly and directly. No, it is not. It appears to me that this extraneous stuff is there to push content into your face, while charging money for it. That and the shoving of company (and design studio) logos in your face. Stop doing that. I don't give a shit that you named your startup after a pig or a fish.

 

The failings of the modern gaming ecosphere encourage me to appreciate the older consoles (through emulation or real-life) more than ever. About the only "force feeding" involved with the classics were the tv and magazine ads. The rest was up to you. You had the choice to flip through And the occasional flip through the Montgomery Wards' or Sears' or Penny's wishbooks. That was fun! To read those and dream of the next console. Rare memories indeed because there weren't that many consoles to begin with. In fact, advertising was rare enough that if you were into the hobby at all, you actually looked for or waited for the next advertisement. If you were reading a magazine, you might even flip through it in anticipation of finding a videogame ad, like from in Pop-Sci, or Time. So I take that back, magazine ads weren't any kind of force feeding. If it was a videogame magazine like EG or Videogames, well, every other page was an ad. And it was still pretty fun. The ads were almost always relevant. They might paint your aging system in a new light, or announce new games or accessories for it. Or they'd announce entirely new systems. The ads didn't scream at you, either. They disseminated timely and concise information. Not always technical, but with screenshots. And they even provided "structure" and "division" to the magazine. Mostly. +1 I say! Today ads seem full of super action or super violent wild-ass concept art that is so far out of touch with the essence of the game. Or in general good gaming in and of itself. Today's adverts do little to nothing to inspire me to purchase a game or console.

 

No matter how hard, no matter how much smoke comes out, no matter how much overtime; the marketing departments work.. I ain't buying into modern gaming. It'll never happen.

 

Open comment to them, "You don't have anything I'm interested in or anything I might become interested in."

 

 

I do feel like the technology is leaving me behind, and it has nothing to do with whether or not I'm intelligent enough to use it. First, I don't want to be monitored and spied on, that was the line I drew in the sand. Second, I have no use for all the tv apps, music apps, movie apps, apps apps apps apps. Anything that goes beyond playing games is useless flair to me, and all that stuff doesn't add value to a game console, in fact it decreases value for being so distracting and decreasing performance. What if all that power and resources were used to just run games? How fast would the machine boot up for instance? My Xbox 360 takes about 3 minutes to get to homepage after I press the power button, that is ridiculous. After countless updates on the console, I think the performance of my system is way worse than when I bought it.

 

Don't worry, technology is an inhuman satanic-like powerfully-evil thing that exists to transfer money from you to someone else. Rarely these days is it advanced and pushed ahead for the betterment of mankind. Only for the transfer of money. Remember that. So don't feel bad that it is leaving you behind. Be happy and don't go through extraordinary efforts to keep up with it or the Jonses. You can enjoy its benefits and all that by buying 2nd hand and last-year's equipment and minimizing subscription services. It isn't that hard.

 

I, too, dislike the spy factor. Our critical systems are off the grid, air gapped, and use file transfer techniques not recorded in NTFS $Metafiles, Registry, Indexes, or any of the other numerous record-keeping components of Windows. Windows is one big snitch. USB? Ha! No frakking way.. There's more but that's beyond the scope of this thread.

 

I, too, liked the instant load of the VCS' bios. I could actually be playing a game with it before any modern day system's fan or HDD spooled up. It was remarkable technology they had back then, wasn't it? And today we have game consoles infinitely more powerful, capable of billions of operations per second, and they take minutes, or longer, to get themselves started. So much for whiz-bang programming. I don't really care if a game console can do this, this, this, and this. I want it to play games and nothing else!

 

I've never really noted a performance increase in any machine when updating any software or any OS. It's always become slower, lumbering, longer-to-load. Heavier. At least on the same hardware..

[Lord Helmet]

The only time I have an issue with the complexity of modern consoles is when something goes wrong and I can't play the games I want to play. For example...when PSN was hacked over the holidays when I wanted to play COD Advanced Warfare online. Other than that I have no problem with software updates and other complexities. I love modern games just as much or more than the games on the 2600 that hooked me on the hobby in the first place.

[cimerians]

The PS4 has your games listed horizontally right in front of you, thats it. Nothing bothers me at all. In fact it may be too simple, because you can't really organize stuff or anything.

 

On Xbox One there are touch screen like tiles (like Windows 8 or windows phone along with a highly customized\flavor of Hyper V) which gives you nice things to do like pinning and "multitasking". So yeah Xbox will be more cluttered...but its not that bad. Pin your games and after that you get used to it really quick.

[omegadot]

I do grant the industry and other fans the fact that for me games are a more permanent thing. I don't just consume them and move on. For that reason things like stability and long term availability are a big deal.

 

I think a lot of people consume games the way I consume movies and books. I rarely revisit either and don't worry much if they go poof. Games I waltz through and feel more connected to, so I want them to remain and I want them to be simple escapism from life.

 

I also find I prefer a sort of wide and shallow complexity where my games are organized laterally and are not in a sort of decision tree that modern consoles tend to place them in where I'm often navigating through screens and menus to get to my goal.

 

There's nothing that makes my enjoyment superior or anything, it's just a different goal.

[HammR25]

Today's consoles seem really easy compared to the computer I built with Windows ME.

[roland p]

I'm starting to like my Gamecube more and more:

- Easy on/off switch. (I never 'get' what the wii power button does, it goes green, orange, red, the slot turns blue sometimes )

- Boots fast.

- Eject button works in 0 seconds

- It even has a reset button.

- wireless controller batteries last for 100 hours.

 

Basically (besides the wireless) stuff you took for granted during the 80's and 90's...

 

This all sounds trivial, but to me it's part of the experience.

[Keatah]

I was told by an industry insider that a sub-purpose or nice side-effect of DRM & DLC with CnC servers and all is is that games can be removed from your home. Made playable no longer.

 

This is advantageous to the industry to help prevent market saturation. It is a way to keep pushing forward. A way to keep up the demand. Out with the old, in with the new. Whether you like it or not.

 

I'll have to check with Noam Chomsky and Alex Jones on that.

[Keatah]

I'm starting to like my Gamecube more and more:

- Boots fast.

- Eject button works in 0 seconds

This all sounds trivial, but to me it's part of the experience.

 

It isn't trivial..! Let's extend this to BD players for a moment. I know of many that take over 6 minutes to go from power-up button press to the beginning of the movie.

 

I don't know exactly, precisely, what it is doing. But surely you don't need 500,000 lines of code to open and close the disc tray do you? Those engineers muse be pretty dumb if they're that inefficient. And if you do need that much, why aren't you using an efficient compiler and better microprocessor that can chow through those lines of code quickly? You engineers must be dumber than a box of rocks.

 

And what the fuck else does a BD need to do?? I mean press the power button. The display should snap on instantly, it does not. At least 10 seconds transpire. Then diagnostic dots or H-E-L-L-O scrolls across, then some clicking, then nothing. Trying to press the eject button does nothing. Then 20 seconds later you can open the door. Then put the disc in, 30 seconds of please wait while a progress bar scrolls. Then another one. All while the controls do nothing, no so much as a beep. Does it cost too many lines of code and a piezo element?

 

You should be able to put the disc in and open the door immediately. And the disc should spin up immediately, read the beginning of the disc and present you with the PLAY - FEATURES - LANGUAGE - SOUND screen. The controls should respond instantly. Not make the user request sift through a hundred layers of shit software. And whatever the machine is doing, shouldn't a 3 GHz processor be enough to blast through it and give you that instant response like an 80's gadget?

 

My 80's VCR did better. My 80's CD player did better. My 90's DVD player does somewhat better. Modern avionics do better. My camera can take a picture in 0.2 seconds or less from power up if you hold down the shutter release button while turning it on.

 

My car stuff operates instantly, the engine computer is always ready to go. Even after a battery change. And I would argue it is as complex as a DVD player in both hardware and software.

 

And this problem is getting worse as time rolls on.

[cimerians]

I'm starting to like my Gamecube more and more:

 

 

Oh now you did it....now your going to get the complainers who hate to wait while the Gamecube logo forms

 

 

 

And those who think the Colecovision boot screen is evil too:

 

 

 

Other than constant advertisements I think I'm pretty tolerant. I owe it to the C64.

I played the C64 for 10 years without a fast load cart.

[+remowilliams]

I played the C64 for 10 years without a fast load cart.

 

Now that's hardcore.

[Torr]

Let's extend this to BD players for a moment. I know of many that take over 6 minutes to go from power-up button press to the beginning of the movie.

 

Yup, my BD Player is probably the most "technologically advanced" piece of hardware I own and, not counting FBI Warnings and Company Logos which vary by disc, The time from "Power" is pressed to I can actually open the tray is at least 2 minutes. Then add in that between just about every FBI Warning and company logo there is a load time, then another loading time (this time with a little animation!) of the main menu, then when I choose to play the movie another loading time (with a little animation) before the movie starts, so to start watching a movie is easily 5 minutes. I thought the same thing, "What is taking so long? It shouldn't take this long to load! With an SSD hard drive I can boot my computer and load an MP4 faster!"

 

Ahh the old VHS where I could fast forward to the opening credits.

 

Another thing that burns me is when you have to "Advance" past each and every "Preview on the disc! Haven't encountered that with BDs yet, but many late release DVDs are guilty of this. But that's a little off-topic and more of a Movie Watching gripe in itself!

[roland p]

My car stuff operates instantly, the engine computer is always ready to go.

Yeah, if car companies screw up, you might die. The kilometer/mile counter is intriguing, a digital counter that works faultless for the lifetime of the car.

 

Ahh the old VHS where I could fast forward to the opening credits.

VHS also 'remembers' where you left. Smart dvd players did this too. Blu-ray players have too much technology to 'just play video', so this feature must be programmed on the blu-ray. Edited February 20, 2015 by roland p

[omegadot]

 

 

 

Another thing that burns me is when you have to "Advance" past each and every "Preview on the disc! Haven't encountered that with BDs yet, but many late release DVDs are guilty of this. But that's a little off-topic and more of a Movie Watching gripe in itself!

 

I only own I think 4 BDs but they all have the option to hit top menu or some such and skip past all the previews.

[+save2600]

Q: Are video game consoles too complex?

 

A: Hell yes!

 

 

Don't need, desire, want or give a shit about any other "features" that only serve to bog down what is supposed to be the game playing experience. Menu system in Sony's PS3 (just as with all their consumer electronics for the past decade or three) is absolutely ridiculous. Between updates to the store or their network - forget about it. Can't help but feel those two features in particular becoming increasingly slow with each and every update also. Exactly what we've come to expect with computers anymore.

 

All I want or expect of a video game system is for it to play games and play them extremely well. That is apparently way too much to ask for these days.

[Lost Dragon]

I loved the original 360 'Blade' dashboard and always wished MS had given the option of keeping that, just letting us instal games to HDD when they upgraded it.I did not want all that dress-up shite, hence my blokey looks F-all like me.

 

And whilst i',m on WTF mode, often after my PS3 freezes up whilst using the outdated web browser, it asks IF i want to send a report to Sony?, i've sent more 'reports' than i care to think of, anything ever change? no, nor is it likely to in this stage of PS3's life...

 

I dunno...

[racerx]

Yes, they are.

Also, is this where I can complain about companies shipping broken or gimped software that require immediate patching to play?

Edited February 21, 2015 by racerx

[Keatah]

Yeah, if car companies screw up, you might die. The kilometer/mile counter is intriguing, a digital counter that works faultless for the lifetime of the car.

 

It has to! There is a LOT of money at stake. It is also important to consider that other consumer electronics for the house, and wearables like phones, are built to the lowest possible standard that still functions.