EqualOpportunityFanboy.com takes a look at the benefits of HD to online gaming with COD4 as an example. Conclusion: If you don't already own an HDTV, start saving...
In honour of PlayStation's 30th birthday yesterday in the US, data company Circana has dug out figures showing the top 20 best-selling PlayStation video games ever (date-range Jan 1995 to July 2025). Don't get too excited.
This is a great reminder of how game sales have become more concentrated in a smaller number of games/series over time. In the PS1/PS2 era a game was a success if it sold a million or a few million copies. The GTA games (3/Vice City/San Andreas) were pretty big outliers in selling as much as they did during the PS2 era. So in the minds of a lot of gamers something like FF VII feels like it was as big of a PS1 game as God of War 2018 was for PS4, but in reality far fewer people bought it (though it has obviously reached additional people through remasters, etc.).
What this says to me is, not many people are buying a PS to play PS exclusives. Like so many false narratives, like Xbox gamers don't buy games! It seems Playstation as a default system is a vanilla system to play call of duty, Minecraft, GTA games and a sports games.
if you look back into the PS history, it has always been the 3rd parties who sells the most games. it was just that the PS1 and PS2 were so dominant that many of those 3rd party games were exclusives. so, back during the PS1 and PS2 days, the strategy was "to sell as many consoles as possible in order to sell more 1st party exclusives" to ride on that wave. The strategy to push many 1st party exclusives to sell consoles only started with the PS3 when many of those prior 3rd party exclusives went multiplat but more accurately, it started with the PSP.
Sony saw with the PSP, which was being trounced in sales by the DS, that 3rd party exclusives are hard to come by if you're not dominating the market. So they started building more 1st party games and when the PS3 were facing difficulties in sales, they knew they had to rely on their own to differentiate the PS3 from the 360. So the strategy back then changed to "release more 1st party exclusives in order to sell more consoles".
the only manufacturer that is still consistently selling their hardware to play 1st party exclusives, is Nintendo, and that was because they gave up the armrace for power thus they can't rely on 3rd parties anymore as all multiplats play better on competing consoles. AND that's also why they are the most ominous in going after emulators and also patent trolling!
so, you're not wrong there, but not an "aha!" moment or anything. it has been this way since the last, at least, 15 years for Playstation.
@zerobalance
So... what this tells you is that Call of duty, being the absolute check writer that it is, has been outsold by Last of us, God of war, 2 Spider man games..... Saying Playstation exclusives doesn't sell is like saying call of duty doesn't sell because they have outsold some of iterations. Does that make sense to you?
Everything you need to know about Modern Warfare III coming to Xbox Game Pass and PC Game Pass.
Will be interesting to see what sort of numbers GP users draw in come tomorrow. It is believed that this is one many have been waiting for.
Darth,
That is not accurate; this game is old, and most people who want it have already bought it. You might get a small number of subs, but we will mostly see a good influx of players(not new subs) from people with Game Pass who will try it, which is what happened with D4.
CoD: BO 6 will be the test for actual sub numbers.
That's fair... seeing as many have been saying they want CoD in GP. My comment was more of , now that its here... what can it do. Im sure there will be other titles in the franchise that will either entice or turn off different users.
No one's buying a console and signing up for a monthly bill just to get this game to avoid buying it. That's ridiculous. Besides everyone bagged the crap out of this on release for the 4 hour campaign.
MW 2019 is five years old at this point and on previous gen hardware, but it is still the best looking Call of Duty game to date.
MW was an excellent videogame. They messed up Spec Ops big time, but aside from this it was a huge step in the right direction initially. Most notably, at launch it seemed to come from a very cohesive creative vision that was felt across gameplay, to story to art style/visual direction. It was also very notably written by prominent ex-Naughty Dog guys that quit almost immediately before release.
That COMPLETELY dissolved through post-launch content and the full pivot to a "cross-mode" narrative that completely obliterated the cohesion in overall story direction. Warzone then "became" the new face of Call of Duty and the franchise completely removed itself from anything remotely creatively "good". It is a pure money machine, so I kinda get why they're doing it....but I personally completely lost interest.
I would love to see Infinity Ward move off CoD and get to make their own product with full control. They clearly have some massive talent in their ranks but it's perverted by Activision's corporate interests.
NOt read the article but I believe the clarity and bigger and wider size of image on screen really helps picking out the enemies. I love me 50" HDTV :)
Yeah big ones are getting really cheap and you can get a 22" computer monitor with HDMI that'll do over 720p for like $200. There's really absolutely no excuse not to have one.
...if your going for a big screen or sits fairly close to it. You will hardly benefit from HD on a 32" with 4m of viewing distance. On the other hand. If your planing to buy a new tv to day, god luck finding one that isn't HD. You will hardly save anything buying an SD tv (if you can find one).
I just read the article, and yeah, I agree with it only because I just got my HDTV over the weekend.
Before: I work at a restaurant/bar, and bought one of their 27" CRT TVs that they had above the bar. At 10yrs old, and with it being on 10~16 hours a day, the picture was blurry. But being a student, spending $50 to go from a 21" (new) tv to a 27" is always nice, despite the blurriness. I've been using this TV for the past 1.5 years, including my PS3 needs.
After: One of my bosses was contemplating getting a 50" plasma, so I offered $600 for his TV, a 32" Samsung HDTV. I finally got it 2 nights ago, and bought an HDMI cable last night. Taking COD4 as an example (as I play this game a lot), it was incredible. The sharpness of the picture was incredible. I really could peg off snipers off at a distance with my assault rifle (I seriously noticed this within the first few minutes of online gameplay).
I'll be getting my copy of NHL 08 back soon from my sister, and one of the reasons I lent it to her (for her fiancee) was because I couldn't read any of the text in the game due to the CRT TV.
BUT, as nice as HDTV is, upgrading to a HDTV rig can be pricey, and even as a student, I stretched my pockets. Although it was worth the penny-pinching price I paid, HDTVs are still a luxory item.
I do recommend to all CRT-users to get a HDTV, but if it means spending cash you don't have (ie. a credit card), I'd suggest you save up until you can afford a decent size TV. Otherwise, I'd really recommend getting alternatives, such as Team xTender's 1080p VGA box, which allows you to hook up your PS3/360 to your computer monitor via component cables. It's a cheap ($60~70) alternative until you have some extra spending cash to get a nice TV.
I heart the ghillie suit.