On multilayer games I've had sessions where I've played incredibly well when badly hung over. For the Wii version of Trauma Center the controls were really fiddly and I actually found drinking a small bottle of beer made me play better because I was less tense and jittery. Overall I think people play best when they are having a good time. When people are stressed or getting angry at a game their performance is hit.
The idea of using alcohol to "get in the zone" has been about quite a while and not just for gaming. Personally I do think after a small amount of drink many players for many games will play better. I think I highly experienced player, who perhaps has already trained themselves not to engage in analytical thinking when not needed wont benefit but will suffer from reduced reactions.
I've been saying this from the start: Kinect technology awesome, Kinect games awful.
I mean Kinect 2 uses photon time of flight to map 3D even more accurately. In a device for about $100? Incredible. However there has yet to be a use for that in gaming which isn't a heaving piece of crap.
It's a fantastic piece of technology and if it wasn't for the assumption that it would be commercially viable because if there's bound to be awesome applications to gaming it wouldn't exist and we wouldn't get all the cool non-gaming uses. It just turn out that assumption was wrong.
Look at the 3DS in December 2012. Look at the 3DS now, in December 2013.
3DS's problem was catalogue and not a lot looked that promising in 2013. Wii U's problem is the same but with Nintendo they will continue to put out first party games and continue to build momentum. The question may be now "do you want to buy a Wii U to play Super Mario 3D World?" At least if you if you insist on ignoring Pikmin, Wonderful 101, Monster Hunters that's the question. Next year it will be "do you want to buy a Wii U to play Mario Kart, Bayonetta 2, Zelda, X AND Super Mario 3D World?"
While I tend to think the paid reviews score accusation comments are lame denials is the idea of some sort of great "conspiracy" to influence scores really that far fetched? I mean lets start with whole Kane and Lynch: Dead Men incident. Video gaming sites (and even magazines) are dependent on ad revenue. When the company paying you quite openly wants favourable reviews that is a clear conflict of interest, the natural order that pressure will be applied along the chain. It takes purposeful effort against that to prevent it.
Further gaming sites are openly complicit with towing the line provided to them in some regards such as with embargoes. A review might be ready and in the consumer interest to be published earlier but not in the publisher's interest. Or with upcoming games publishers are sometimes very specific about what details can be revealed when, outlets are in sense playing to a marketing script. Now the reason for that kind of collaboration is that if outlet doesn't play along they won't have the information available to them at all in the future but it's a case of the outlets interests not entirely aligning with their readers and instead favouring the publisher.
Personally I feel the practice of embargoes is major roadblock to the credibility of video game journalism. The fact is that unlike in actual journalism though it's often broken the concept of ethics exist in a formalised form. Video games are bigger than film and music in terms of revenue and video game news outlets play an important role in de terming where exactly that revenue goes. However it is still considered too frivolous for formal ethics or codes of practice to exist to protect the interest of the readers.
A console monopoly basically can't happen. For a monopoly to actually exist the situation isn't simply that there is a single company in that sector, in practice the additional requirement that no other company can enter that business is required. There are too many players on the fringes of the core market for that to possible such as Nintendo, Valve, and then some viable long shots such as nvidia, Apple. If either Sony or Microsoft dropped out then that space would look a lot more appealing than it does now.
However what we have seen in previous console generations is not a true monopoly but the core market having a single dominant console such as with the Playstation. This past generation was the exception with something approaching parity in the core market. However Sony essentially had no direct competition in Asia for the PS3 and it didn't lead to price hikes. There's actually various mechanisms that can push down prices even without competition especially when an industry is essentially selling a service as opposed to a commodity. For example the business model of expendables, if you sell at a lower price people may buy more overall, anyone who uses steam regularly probably gets stung by this in the Steam sales. Further the idea of competition pushing down prices through supply and demand is a flawed oversimplification. Even in that environment "premium" products can be used to push up prices if there is a section of the market that will support it or can be goaded into supporting it.
The particular problem here is that their big next-gen headliners are disappointing and two of the tentpoles which were propping up the launch line up disapeared (Driveclub and Watch Dogs). It's not just quantity of launch line up it's quality. The N64 may have launched with just two games but one of those games was a killer app and the other was pretty damn good too. Sadly killer apps at launch have been in short supply for quite a while, the last one probably being Halo.
The Xbone's launch line up suddenly started to look good. Sony had been handed such a big advantage by Microsoft's failure to win over much of the core market but the reality of the launch line ups looked pretty different in contrast.
For years much of Sony's exclusive slate was carried by their massive advantage in Asia, particularly Japan. Because they aren't even launching in Japan until next year that doesn't help them with the PS4.
Some really interesting stuff and in practice this is probably the best funded research with the most data available on the subject. Definitely worth a watch if you interested in the topic.
@LightEffect @WeWerePirates It's like the brain has a "movie mode" and the weirdness is 48fps causing that not to kick in. There is definitely something interesting going on when people dislike 48fps when from a video quality standpoint it's just better. I mean the interesting thing here isn't that 48fps causes this issue it's that there is something like a movie mode at all.
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