@dz99ls: You know, I actually do have a nice life, but thank you for wishing that for me. I'm sorry your life has caused you to be so god damn cynical though. Just because the "world works" in some way you think it does, it doesn't mean individuals work like that as well. Again, they COULD, but they don't immediately DO.

The fact that you "know" how the world works means absolutely zero when it comes down to people, which was the entire point of discussion, that you chose to ignore. Although I'm kind of starting to doubt you know how the world works in the first place. You're just bitter over stuff and want to project it on other things, and that's okay. Do whatever makes you happy, dude, just maybe don't immediately assume someone is this or that, in any circumstance. It might not get you far in life. Peace out :)

@dz99ls: Right back at ya bud, right back at ya. Maybe take the time to actually read what I said and the points I was trying to make. Because whatever you were trying as a rebuttal was just beside the point. But you know what? Whatever man, you're right. Good on you for saving us from this monstrous principle that maybe you can't always presume to know people, considering though you have little to no knowledge of them. I want to personally thank you for doing everyone this great service. You just fight them corporations man, keep on fighting the good fight.

@dz99ls: Uhm, ok, sure, I wasn't disputing that... still don't mean you know WITHOUT A SHADOW OF A DOUBT how the man will act, since he's actually been quite a stand-up guy in a lot of cases. Could he just be a corporate shill? MAYBE, not SURELY. Unless you've met him and he like... set puppies on fire in front of you or something, I don't know. And yeah, it's pretty clear the discussion is going nowhere when all you do is cling to "M$ is totally evil, y'all!". I'm not saying they're not, but that wasn't the idea that I said anything about....

*sigh*

@dz99ls:Again with the corporations... I was talking about the fact that you don't know the man personally, and yet it's a fact he would behave a certain way in a hypothetical situation. If you would have phrased something like "I imagine he would have acted the same way during the 360 days", that would have been okay. But you wanted to make it super clear cut. Which it isn't.

It seems quite clear you don't know how people work, or even how to maintain the discussion point. :))

@xrizz1066: I don't particularly see why you feel the need to bring forward stuff about what Microsoft as a company did overall, when we're talking about a division. They get bankrolled by the OS side? Whoopteedoo, so what? There are different people managing things, and Don Mattrick always struck me as odd. Phil Spencer at least seems to have his shit together, and seems at least a bit genuine.And we're kind of diverging from the main point of why it would be bad overall if XBox failed.

As for the money driven part, it kind of comes with the territory of a company that invests billions of dollars in stuff. It's very risky, and sometimes may involve dicking over the customer to meet certain demands coming from a lot of places. It's not pretty, but it is a reality, and not as easy to manage as you might think. Congratulations on your successful company, by the way :) However, I assume it's significantly smaller than anything like Sony or MS divisions, and that's where things change really. And yeah, the launch parity (not polarity, btw :P) clause is kind of bullshit, but I guess they wanted things to be on a kind of even playing field in terms of launches. Dunno what they had in mind specifically, but it's more misguided than malevolent as far as I see it.

Also, Sony held back the PS3 mostly because of the fact that a pretty significant chunk of its launch titles were simply not ready, because of the PS3 Cell architecture, that people fumbled around for a pretty long time. Still a consumer oriented decision, but just felt like pointing that out :)

All three big console companies have had their fair share of failed stuff, whether because of rushing things to meet quarterly targets, or because of good old fashion oversights. I'm not trying to defend Microsoft or anything really, I just think that this polarization in the gaming community and media is a bit exaggerated. Should Microsoft improve the way they handle things? Absofuckinglutely. But in the end, they've had their share of ups and downs, just like every company on the face of the Earth, and I think both their contributions and failures need to be given the same amount of consideration. But hey, everyone's entitled to burn with hatred for a given company, just like I wish that EA would be catapulted into the sun =))

As for the health regen, it may have worn out its welcome, but it doesn't make it less iconic, which is the point I was making. And popularizing something is just as important to the gaming ecosystem as innovating is. Like how Angry Birds is just a clone of older flash games, but it took the world by storm. But eh, that's popularity for ya. It's a fickle thing :))

@dz99ls: You were talking about a specific person in the previous post. I don't claim to know the inner workings of their corporate profile, but you can't state without a shadow of a doubt that Phil Spencer would have acted like a douchecanoe in the 360 days, simply because they had a leg up on the competition. Have you met Phil Spencer in real life? Had a talk with him? Know his deepest darkest secrets? No. So you can't state, as a FACT, that he would have acted like this or that. I'm all for speculative history, but maybe tone down the "if you think he wouldn't, you be cray cray".

@xrizz1066: Monopoly they've had on what? Windows? The XBox division doesn't much have to do with that really. We're talking about different people, even if it is the same company. Regardless, I said you move closer to a monopoly if one of them falls, not that it instantly becomes one.

I don't know of these instances of bullying small companies and publishers, and my searches haven't turned anything up, so you're going to have to provide some examples on that. They've generally been very open to indies and smaller studios, and it's allowed some pretty great games to pop up on XBox Live Arcade (and later PC and other consoles).

All gaming companies are money-driven, because at the end of the day you can't pay your developers with your burning passion for making video games, and we can argue about whether or not one is greedier than the other all day, and none of us would come out right :)). As far as inventing and innovating... You know that fancy little thing called regenerating health and/or shields that's become a staple in modern FPS? A little game called Halo brought that to the board. Cover based shooting got popularized by Gears of War. Then you had little gems like Limbo and Braid on XBox Live Arcade. I have a base distaste for them as well in regards to certain things, but they have done great things as well. Sony has their failings, so does Nintendo, but at the end of the day, all three of them have brought forth great things in different ways. And it's that kind of diversity that I wouldn't like to see gone.

But yeah, more competition is always good for the end user :)

@dz99ls: Bro/Sis, with your profiling skills you should go work for the police or something. You'd make a killer sleuth. I'd like to also know where this font of universal knowledge on human behavior in all cases, is located. Teach me, senpai!

@xrizz1066: Except here it's not teams playing against each other and scoring to determine a clear cut winner. The current consoles are part of an ecosystem, and none of them ever really "wins". Sure, there are fans for both, but in case one of them folds who wins? No one wins. Because if you're a fan of the system, and the other one fails, your system isn't going to get better, and your games aren't going to be better either. Instead, you're getting closer to a monopoly where the leading console maker won't give two shits if they make a good product, because it's their way or the highway.

As far as the bullying is concerned, ha, please. As if Sony didn't bully the shit out of MS when their consoles were first announced and XBox One dropped the ball with the always online console, slapped on Kinect and other bullcrap. Granted, Sony laid out some sick burns for Microsoft, but it's still bullying. No one is innocent in that, except maybe Nintendo.

Full disclosure: I own a PS4 and a 360, and am considering buying an XBox One sometime in the future. Just in case any fanboy arguments arise from someone :P

@rebfaction: It rewinds itself automatically when you screw up a QTE or some other pre-scripted section, and it also pauses the action to allow you to do that QTE, so it's pretty set :D it doesn't have fast forward, though, so there's that. Also, you clearly didn't understand what I meant by IMSSIS, or rather didn't want to. I get that you liked The Order: 1886, and l did as well, but that doesn't mean you should so easily overlook some of its more glaring flaws.

Either way, the point wasn't to riff on the type of game it is (a genre which I'm a fan off, since I liked stuff like Heavy Rain and Beyond: Two Souls, as well), but more that there are objectively better games on the platform (PS4), so saying it is the best PS4 game is a reeeeeeeally big stretch.