Am I the only one who doesn't care about graphics?
Hello everyone, I hope you are all doing well during this Covid-19 crisis and take care of all of your family and friends! I have been a gamer since my young childhood, and I love them since it is a good way to relax when I am stressed. I will always defend video games for the positive effects they can have on our minds.
Why I am writing this?
I have noticed something really severe: most people now care only about graphics. They want to know which is the most powerful between PS5 and XBOX Series X. And they will buy only games with beautiful graphics. I am playing newer and older games, and I feel like why people care about graphics. I have been playing Super Mario World and Super Metroid on the Switch's SNES Online, and it was more rewarding and satisfying than most nowadays games I have been playing. By seeing how the gaming community behaves, I believe it tends to focus only on graphics and nothing else. When I want to buy a game, I don't even care about the graphics, and I have the feeling I am the only one who focuses on gameplay, music, art style, etc. Am I the only one?
The Delusion about FPS/Graphics
At least 20 or 30 FPS is good. I understand if someone wants to play at 60 FPS, but this should not be mandatory in my opinion. And then who cares about 120 fps or 240 fps? Your eyes don't even see the difference. I know sometimes games need some precise input so my best compromise would be 30 FPS for offline and relax games, and 60 FPS for online games with tournaments for example. I don't understand when people tend to buy the best resources for their PC. Games don't need 8K and 240 fps to be enjoyable. But yeah, this is your money and you do whatever you want with it, I am not your mother ;).
The most powerful is NOT the winner
If you look at each "war" generation console, the most powerful console always failed. But remember that there were never console war. Only one during Nintendo and SEGA during the beginning of the 1990s. Sony VS Microsoft is nothing compared to what happened then.
NES and Master System were a bit equal and during this period we didn't care about the power of a console.
SNES won against Megadrive (Genesis). Sonic The Hedgehog for example was more beautiful and smooth than Super Mario World. You can even add the Neo-Geo which was really really expensive but wasn't successful. And even the PC-Engine (TurboGrafx-16) if you want to be exhaustive.
Playstation won against N64 and Atari Jaguar. Playstation is 32-bit and less powerful than N64 and Atari Jaguar that were 64-bit. It won most notably because of the usage of the CD that could store 1 GB instead of a cartridge that can't store more than 100 MB. N64 games are more beautiful than Playstation games but it lost. I don't even count Saturn, because it was a mess during the commercialization of this console. I think it was as powerful as the Playstation but correct me if I'm wrong.
PS2 won against XBOX, Gamecube, and Dreamcast. Dreamcast won at the beginning because it was the only 128-bit console, but when PS2 came, it led this whole generation, at the expense of the Dreamcast. Gamecube and XBOX were more powerful than the PS2, they "survived" because of their exclusivities.
Wii won against PS3 and XBOX 360. I think this one is the most relevant. If you were living during this period, you can totally relate to what I am saying. This was Gameplay (Wiimote) versus Graphics (transition to HD), and Gameplay largely won. The Wii was largely criticized for being just a copy of a Gamecube.
PS4 won against Wii U and XBOX One. PS4 was less powerful than XBOX One, and yeah I know the Wii U was less powerful than PS4. The failure of the Wii U was because of its marketing and how Nintendo sold it. They didn't make the same mistakes for the Switch. For the Switch, I don't know where I can put it since it was released in the middle of a generation. But anyway, XBOX One was the most powerful and didn't win.
For the handheld consoles, this will be really quick... Game&Watch won but no rivals. Then someone who will tell me the GameBoy didn't win against Game Gear and Atari Lynx... GameBoy was monochrome and ugly compared to them, but it won easily. GameBoy Advance didn't have any concurrent (there was Wonderswan or the N-Gage but do you know them?). DS easily won against the PSP, and again the DS was less powerful than the PSP. Same for the 3DS and PS Vita, don't tell me PS Vita won against 3DS.
Graphics is different than Art Style
Don't confuse graphics and art style. the Pokémon series, or Zelda: Breath of the Wild, has awful graphics but an awesome art style. The games have bad graphics, but the character design, the level design, the way everything is drawn is beautiful. However, we are not talking about art style here.
People who tell me Graphics are important
If you are going to tell me graphics are essential because when you play, you need to look at a fantastic landscape. A video game is something you play through. If you just sit and look at the landscape, I'm sorry but this is not a video game since you are not playing, this is just panorama. This is not playing, you just watch beautiful pictures. Photography is different than video games, even both are considered art. I would ask you what is a video game for you? For me, a video game is the gaming interaction between the human and the video of a machine. No questions about graphics. This is called a video game, and not video watching or anything like that. If you need to look at beautiful backgrounds, you can go on Google Images, and look for high-resolution pictures (Settings > Advanced Research).
Games with bad Graphics are Bad?
My favorite question to beat the people who only care about graphics is: Why retrogaming exists if graphics are so important? This is not nostalgia or anything like that, I am born during the Gamecube/PS2 era and I didn't even know how the 1980s or the 1990s were in terms of video games. (I wish I could have been here when Final Fantasy VII and Pokémon Red/Blue were released). And can you tell why Minecraft is the best selling game of all time?
Conclusion
To conclude, of course, I agree this is cool if you have good graphics, but people need to stop worship graphics and giving all of their attention to this instead of focusing on gameplay, music, etc. This should not be a criterion to define the quality of a game in my opinion. Can someone tell me this is just me who is a toxic hater, or if someone feels like me? Maybe I am just stupid so I would like that someone can correct the wrong things that I believe in. Thanks a lot for reading my very long message and have fun playing the wonderful video games we can have in 2021! Remember video games are the most prolific media, far ahead of the cinema or the books. TL;DR: Am I the only one who is noticing people only care about graphics? I want to know if I am just a toxic hater who doesn't understand what the gaming industry needs right now, or if I am on the contrary smart enough to understand video games are not based only on graphics.
What are the age restrictions on online play (PS4 specific)
I'm so fed up. Spent all day trying to get my son's account online to play MD on his birthday, only to continually hit a brick wall. Reading through this thread from 8 months ago, it sounds like the same issue. I just don't get why there's zero information about this *anywhere*. No where do Sony, Microsoft or Mojang state that the game has a different age threshold for online play versus the offline play. The only official rating is from PEGI which have it clearly stated as not for under 7's here. Yes, I get that online gaming is a scary world and without the proper checks and balances, children could be exposed to things they shouldn't be. But we have such checks and balances in place to prevent him doing anything he shouldn't. We trust him to only play online with people he trusts (namely just his cousin and a friend from school), and that's been fine on android tablet - and from reading online, fine on Xbox and Nintendo too. Just Sony somehow being d***s about it. Appreciate this is mainly a rant after spending 5 hours of my sons birthday trying to get him online, but if anyone does have any suggestions (besides 'let him use your adult account') I'm all ears. Likewise, if anyone knows - and can link to - any specific age restrictions for online play I'd really appreciate seeing them.
Hi Reddit, I am kinda new to minecraft and still learning so please be nice. I have tried to find solutions but nothing I've found has worked. I have a nice area for sea turtles (fenced off, lots of water and seagrass, built on sand - 2 levels, lots of space). I got shears and feed them (I lured 3) seagrass, two go into love mode and nothing happens... I have tried on several occasions and in-game days apart. I'm playing offline as I can't, for personal reasons connect my PS4 online. Should it be on a specific mode like peaceful/easy/difficult? Also, side question. I bought the game end of last year; Were bees, pandas (I do have bamboo and it has mentioned pandas but not been able to find) etc. in the game yet or not? Just so I know whether not to bother looking or keep trying. Thanks in advance for any help!
i always see them offline but they say that they are playing but i cant see them online i am on ps4 i linked my microsoft account in my minecraft too but idk i cant see them online is there a thing i need to enable in my microsoft account?, so i can play/see my friends online? i enabled cross platform in ps4 minecraft settings but still i cant see my friends online!
i always see them offline but they say that they are playing but i cant see them online i am on ps4 i linked my microsoft account in my minecraft too but idk i cant see them online is there a thing i need to enable in my microsoft account?, so i can play/see my friends online? i enabled cross platform in ps4 minecraft settings but still i cant see my friends online!
What would you say is the biggest "bottleneck" for the site right now? Thanks for all that you do.
Like code-wise? It's kinda spread out right now balanced across things. Every time traffic doubles, something architecturally breaks. I think next to break would be our cache infrastructure, then the number of db queries we make. But we survived Black Friday and Cyber Monday, so architecturally we're probably fine until next year.
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out of curiousity how hard is it to redesign these things when they break?
Depends on what it is. First version of the site ran everything on a $20/mo single 256MB RAM instance. Then we had a traffic spike the same time processing a large Newegg catalog and it ran out of RAM. Just paid more money for a 768MB RAM instance which bought me another year. Then that migrated to a separate db from frontend. Then separate offline task/feed processing. Usually you see the issues cropping up months before they break, so you have time to prepare. Our current pricing architecture was years worth of work and iteration though.
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How much of this did you learn on the job? Or were you already proficient in designing scalable systems before starting PCPP?
There are a lot of articles that talk through different sites and their architectures. Those often provide some good info on why they chose what they did, what broke, how they fixed it, etc. For smaller stuff like ours there are pretty standard patterns. Eventually you'll hit a point where some aspect of that starts to fall behind. That's when you can adjust your setup to your particular performance needs. So I guess what I'd say is it has been a mix of reading how larger players do it, and then using that to guide our architecture.
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What arch are you using? AWS? Azure? Other?
AWS
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I'm assuming you're the AWS Arch, SysOp, Dev?
Yep.
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Very nice. How long have you been doing AWS?
About five years I think? It's not the cheapest but it's been great for us.
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The resource costs more, but you save in not having to have more people on staff to support it. Did you switch from On site? Datacenter?
We were at a different (smaller) cloud provider. Before when that provider would go down, people would harass on twitter telling us to fix our stuff. Now when AWS goes down, half the internet goes down with it so people blame AWS and not us. That's been kinda nice lol.
How formal is the required attire at The Eggies?
Hahahahaha. I'll never forget what you told me - that everyone probably thought I worked for intel because I wore a suit. The card said evening/cocktail attire! That event was an interesting experience.
What has been the weirdest PC you have seen in your life?
There was a guy who brought a grill PC to QuakeCon several years ago. As in, grill on wheels. Flip open the grill and the monitor was on the top half, and the components were in the bottom half. That thing was so awesome.
We hope to soon. We need to incorporate some modeling for cases so that we can list them with integrated cooling first.
What are your thoughts on things like Stadia and online/cloud work environments where having high-end computer parts don't matter as much as a solid internet connection? Do you see the relevance of PCPartPicker waning in the near future or do you think building PCs will still be a thing a generation or two down the line?
I'm not too worried about it to be honest. If it becomes prevalent, that's ok. I think there will always be a DIY side of things even if latencies reduce enough to make cloud setups viable.
Hi Phillip, about 8ish years ago I was learning how to code web applications and was a total noob. I sent you an email with beginner questions and you answered. Just want to call out how much of an impact that made as now I’m a Staff Software Engineer at a tech company.
That's awesome! Congrats!
What's your favorite cheese?
Eh, maybe Parmigiano Reggiano?
Do you sometimes get items to review/test or to thank you for your website?
When we were filming content for youtube we'd get stuff to review/test. But we never really pushed hard for it. Some manufacturers would let you keep the stuff, others would ask you to send it back. I think if we had started doing product reviews we could have opened up the review sample floodgates but we never went there.
Do you use PCPartPicker yourself to pcpick parts?
Yes.
?
Correct - all the components are entered manually. There's a team of people who do that, and I do very few these days (mostly the CPUs). We don't scrape for that data but we have some tools/dashboards to make it a bit easier.
Umm hi Pc Part Picker, I'm a huge fan! When I watched some yt vids on pc building back in the day, I was lead to your site where I discovered a platform to share lots of cool builds and ask questions to others when I was making mine. While this has been said before I'll say it again, your site has been massively helpful and had been a cornerstone in the pc gaming community because of how good of a resource it is, so thank you so much. So anyway... 1. Who chooses which builds get featured? I love hopping on and seeing what creative things people do with their builds. Is there an upvote criteria for it/do some just get recommended? 2. What got you into custom PCs and gaming? It'd be super cool to hear your story and what got you to make this site in the first place. ty!
Alex already mentioned #1 - Ryan picks. (I'll also second the good photos. For me great photos of a good build will win out over bad photos of an epic build.)
2) - Growing up the last family computer we had was a commodore 64. The IBM PCs and clones were too expensive. Later after my brothers went to college I'd borrow my dad's work laptop to play warcraft 2 over a serial cable with friends. My first PC was scraped together as cheap as I absolutely could because I didn't have a lot of money. I think my first build was ~$350 minus OS but including monitor (bought for $100 at an auction) and a bunch of secondhand parts. I upgraded that PC to a Celeron 300A running 450MHz my junior year in college and it was so stupid fast for me. But that too was a budget upgrade at the time. I ran that build for another 4 years I think? By that time I was out of college with a full-time job, so I had a bit more discretionary income to spend on PC stuff. So long story short, custom PCs for me started out of budget necessity. Later when I had more money it shifted to being able to get exactly what I wanted.
What's your stance on RGB?
My kids love it. I like it if it's subtle and not distracting.
What’s one feature most people don’t know about/use? I’ve only ever used pcpp a couple times, but I’d love to get more familiar with it!
Probably parametric selections.
ok, so first of all, thank you so much for this service. Without it, I would have been lost on my first PC. Secondly, the question. What were the specs of your first build?
AMD K5-133. 80MB hard drive. I think it had 2MB RAM, but I can't remember.
Idk if this has already been asked and answered, but did your ever expect it to become so widespread and popular?
Not even close. I thought if I was lucky it'd make enough for my wife and I to go get coffee. I had planned to work on it for about a year, learn Python and Django, and then move on to something else.
No questions at this time - I just wanted to use this as an opportunity to thank you for contributing to KBMOD's Extra-Life campaign over the years. Literally, tens of thousands of dollars, all of which you didn't have to donate. What Extra-Life does for kids is great, and you are a big part of that. Thank you. :)
KBMOD was one of the first groups that started using the site. They had me on their podcast waaaay back. I had a newborn who barely slept so I did that interview in my car parked in my garage. They're great guys, and I'm more than happy to contribute to what they've done for Extra Life.
Have you ever thought about stopping work and stepping down from owner of PCPP? If so why?
Like if I could retire? Selfishly and honestly, yeah, all the time. I don't because I feel like PCPP is only about 10% of what I want it to be (feature/functionality-wise). Too much unfinished stuff.
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You have done me and my friends countless benefits with this tool. We definitely take it for granted and I give you my gratitude. Your compatibility notes have saved me more times than I’d like to admit! Anyways, here are my questions. 1. If you could travel back in time to 2010, and give yourself advice for the future, what would it be?
1) - great question. Had to think about it for a bit. Mostly I wouldn't say anything at all, because my naivety early on kinda helped? There were some problems we'd have to solve later that I didn't really know how hard they were when I first started. Had I known (like how terrible most retailer price data quality is) I may not have ever tried to do it?
One of the things that was really hard for me the first several years was the emotional roller coaster. When I left my job to work on it full time, it was a heavy weight of responsibility. What happens if it fails? What happens if I screw up royally? The highs were higher and the lows were lower. And I could go from the highest high one day (just got mentioned on website X or Y) to the lowest low the next day (retailer Z cut commissions by a factor of 4, or a new competitor popped up cloning all our features and data but with better UI). The emotional swings were really hard to deal with. Over time I've learned to temper that, so the bad days aren't as bad and the great days are good. I'd tell myself that when it gets a little crazy to just take a breath, slow down, and take it all one bit at a time.
2. Have you ever thought of expanding beyond computer hardware and doing something else? For example, another program. Have a great day!
2). We've looked at other niches. We launched a cycling site similar to PCPP. We learned a lot along the way but unfortunately it just didn't work out. The concept might be viable in other niches, but it's not something we're going to consider pursuing for at least another year.
Are there brands who tried to pay you guys for higher rankings?
Yes. But we don't do that. I guess it's pretty common other places because we get asked for that a lot. Essentially paid placements or people wanting to pay to win the buy box price - which we don't do.
Thanks for all the hard work! Could you expand on the issues you faced when trying to make MTB part picker work? Remember the project being unfeasible and closed but would really love to hear you talk more about it. Is MTB another one of your personal hobbies?
Our cycling site was pretty hard to shut down. That one hurt. We ran into a couple things: people build new PCs ground up every few years. Bikes on the other hand are usually bought pre-built and are rarely ground-up builds. PCs are economically viable to build ground up, where bikes aren't unless you're $5K+. And at that price point, you're probably buying from a local bike shop you've got a relationship at rather than our site. So most of our traffic/sales were cockpit or weatear oriented. Lots of tires. Data entry for compatibility for full bike builds was really expensive because it needed really intense domain specific knowledge. So the site basically wasn't profitable where it was actually referring sales.
I'm not a MTB guy, but I do enjoy bikes. I don't ride that much though. I converted an old hybrid to a 1x drop bar setup for commuting to the office, so I'm super excited to be able to ride that once COVID goes away.
What was the hardest part?
Work-life balance.
First off, thank you so much for creating what has become an integral part of PC building for not just myself but for all my friends as well. I always tell anyone who is new to the PC scene to build their rig or check for compatibility using PCPartPicker! My questions is, I feel it's become second nature to me and so many others to check the price history as well as set alerts for any potential components that do go on sale in the future. PCPartPicker is an awesome site to do this on but I feel like there could be more to it. For one a PcPartPicker mobile app would be awesome along with notifications of sales on components one wishes to be alerted on. Are there any plans to do bring an app to the market or maybe even go further with price alerts for components that users want to be instantly notified on?
We hope to launch a PWA version later this month that will support push notification price alerts (on platforms that support it).
Hello pcpartpicker love your website, you are a god among men. Question: How fast does your crawler work? In an era like now where RTX 3000 series and Ryzen 5000, Radeon 6000 disappear in an instant, do you think your crawler could be fast enough to "catch" and display stock before they get sold out?
We can run very fast - < 10min latency on full product catalog updates, or < 1min latency on select product sets.... if we had that kind of availability from retailers. Only one offers that though. The rest have data feeds with latencies too high to use for catching GPU stock right now. (If you watch closely enough, you'll find that even retailers have caching latencies between product pages and product category pages. The category page pricing can be out of sync with the product page pricing. If they can't get it the same on their own site there isn't a chance we'll get better latency from their feed.)
What is the future of PcPatpicker? I know you added Cycling Builder but that seems to be discontinued. Are you planning on expanding into any more fields similar to Cycling or was that a one-off thing?
For now we're going to focus solely on PC. We learned a lot trying to launch Cycling Builder. I don't plan on going after other niche markets for a while, if at all.
Hey Philip and team! Two questions: 1. How do you handle low quality data/data integrity issues from your partners? For example duplicate listings made by marketplace sellers on Amazon 2. Would it be possible to add RGB compatibility to cases and related components, or would that be hell? I think it might be helpful for me builders to know that their Asus Mobo isn't going to support their MSI RGB controller, for example. :) Thank you!!
We generally only list the buy box winner. In the past we've had to do some validation on marketplace sellers that would show low base price but exorbitant shipping. But Amazon seems to have filtered that out a lot more than what we were seeing 5-6 years ago.
Do you have the hammock up at the new office? Serious aside, big congrats on yout progress over the past decade. Its been great to see first hand how this community has evolved since you made pcpp your fulltime gig!
Thanks Jappetto. :) I had the hammock is up in the back of the office but Jack took it down to make room for the reno... :(. One day, one day.
I know this is such a small feature to ask for: but would you be willing to make the line on the price history graph “hold” and slidable for mobile users? For example, on my iPhone in safari, I can tap different points on the graph and prices pop up. But I can’t tap and hold the line on the graph and slide it left or right (with the idea being the prices would change dynamically with the hold and slide method). Regardless, I really enjoy your website and all the work your team has put into making it such a great tool for the pc building community. It’s the first place I send friends who are new to building and want to get an idea of what’s required.
Can look into this for sure. Probably a touch/drag event I'm not handling.
What was the most difficult technical challenge you faced?
We've since removed the feature, but doing lowest-price calculation on a part list with parametric part selections and combo deals was probably the hardest problem so far. The general algorithm itself isn't bad, but rather it's doing it hundreds of times a second across hundreds of thousands of prices, and getting an answer back in < 100ms for each. That was hard, but fun.
Have you considered cooperating with userbenchmark website? I liked to check my pc parts there before i purchased and they have sophisticated database, maybe some kind of collaboration could boost both websites, what do you think?
We're working toward sourcing our benchmark data internally where we can control every aspect of the process.
Hey, I have a question: Your price history software is probably the best implementation I've found so far, with specific retailers and the like (in comparison to say CamelCamelCamel which just shows Amazon and 3rd party), is there any possibility to expand this to maybe more tech related products? Maybe even a whole new site, because it's *really really good*
We could. We have the price tracking across retailers already. But it'd be a bit different of a site - just price comparison. It requires a bit different workload to populate that stuff. On the PC side, the data entry is pretty expensive because we model all the bits for compatibility. For general purpose price comparison though, it's more just aggregating pictures and random specs that don't have specific meaning. There are data sources for that available, but from what we've found the quality is really low. I'm not sure if that's something we'd want to do (listing stuff with spec data we don't source ourselves, and with filtering that wouldn't be as detailed).
Thanks you guys rock. Would love if there was a way to do rebates through pc partpicker, and letting you guys get a cut. Any chance you can add in bundle sales? Sound like that could be complicated but super useful.
We ran bundle sales listings for a few retailers for several years. We ended up removing them because they were often unreliable. One retailer even had bundle deals listed that were more expensive than the sum of the parts. It was a huge hassle both on the implementation and data quality side, so we ended up removing it.
PCPP, Jesus Christ, thank you so much. You helped me make my first build, and now my second one. You have helped so many people, and I hope you understand how much everyone cares about the resource. For my question, what was your first experience with technology?
Computer-wise my grandparents gave us a TRS-80 color computer growing up. Had minesweeper some submarine game can't remember the name on the cassette tape drive. Later we got a commodore 64. But I was more into audio than computers until I got to college.
Not sure if the AMA is over now or if this has already been asked. If so, no worries. Thanks for making pcpartpicker. Its been imparitive to pc gaming and pcs. But what are your hobbies and passion outside of computers and gaming? Do you have any other pet projects like pc part picker? And do you have any pets?
I love building stuff. Anything really, but electronics and lately 3d printing. Used to do a lot of woodworking but that stopped when I had kids (no time these days). Love swimming, and picked up running again when COVID hit.
Hey, thank you so much for what you do! Its really cool! If i had one thing to suggest, it would be to improve the estimated power consumptions as i've had some issues with that before But i'd love to ask -- what was the biggest hurdle you had to jump to set up your system?
The biggest hurdle was probably convincing retailers we were worth working with early on. When we were small no one knew who we were, and so when we'd ask if we could list them they only saw us as another price comparison site.
Might you have any plans to open source/license your part search engine for other hobby projects? I can think of several "assembled from standard components" type things that I really wished I could use PCPartPicker on.
We tried it out for cycling, but it didn't click like PC did. We've had suggestions for a number of other niches. The challenges are partially product modeling, and partially getting part numbers for everything. The latter is surprisingly hard.
Considering that the idea literally spawned from relevant work at the time, was there ever any intellectual rights issues? Was that ever a worry in your mind? Appreciate the work and due diligence with the AMA.
I talked with the company about it to confirm that there wouldn't be any overlap or competing interests. I had an appendix/page/whatever-the-name-is added to my employment agreement saying it was ok to work on it.
Awesome! I'm happy that we got to be a small part of that.
What are your thoughts on the shortage of hardware, bots, scalpers, ebay listings, and so forth?
It stinks. Everyone has different opinions on who should get their cards first. Or whether different approaches (scalping, scraping, etc) are ok or not. So personally I'm just sitting back while supply catches up and then I'll try and get a card once it all settles down.
What are your other hobbies aside from PC stuff?
I got my first filament 3d printer last year and absolutely love it. I love electronics in general so anything involving that. (For instance here's the beginning stages of a motorized minecraft chicken alarm clock for my son: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C15NKLbUFdo. I absolutely love tinkering on stuff like that.)
Regarding cases, I know we can sort by full/mid/itx etc., however I wanted to ask if there were plans to add dimension sorting, like by width. Is that just a lot harder to pull off?
We're really constrained width-wise on that category view and how many columns we can show. We could put it in there, but we'd have to drop other columns to make it work.
What is your favourite Christmas movie, and Christmas time food?
Elf. We watch it every year. My wife made me watch it every year after we got married, now we both make my kids watch it every year.
Not really Christmas food specifically but around Christmas time my wife makes a certain Chex mix that I love. That or the scones she makes.
Thanks for building a truly useful site with no extra crap. My question...What are some of your favorite retailers, and why?
I wish I could answer this. I've had some really great retail experiences - both with pre-sales help and super easy returns / RMA service. If I retire from this one day I'll be happy to say who those were from.
What’s your favorite console?
My kids really aren't that into consoles, so we don't have a PS4/5/Xbox here. Tried to get them into the Switch but they don't play that either. The last console I spent significant time on was a Panasonic 3DO that I won in a competition and had Street Fighter for.
Thank you for everything with that website. It's been a godsend as I build PCs for friends and friends of friends. I only have one question. Why doesn't Amazon appear in the price history graphs?
We only show price history for the retailers when we have permission to.
Thanks for helping me build my first PC this spring. If I have to ask a question... what's your favourite pizza?
Pepperoni from Via313 (Detroit style). manirelli is from Chicago so I'm sure he's a bit opinionated on this question.
Pcpartpicker but for bikes? I heard this almost happened. Im in the market for a new bike and a site like that sounds so awesome!
We launched a cycling site, ran it for roughly a year, and then decided to shut it down. It just didn't work out unfortunately.
How many times have you built your own PC?
For myself personally? Lots of little odd systems here and there for linux servers, experiments and whatnot, so probably a couple dozen. For work related stuff, both at my old job and via PCPP, several dozen more.
What do you think was the break trough point in your sites history. When did you really get things going?
I'd say the inflection point happened probably April 2011. That's the point where I realized that this might not be a side project after all.
Avid PCPartPicker user here. What are your plans for the future of PCPartPicker?
PWA version later this month, benchmarks and youtube content again next year. Those are the main things. Otherwise lots of small things here and there.
Thanks for the help for years! How do you guys feel about newegg attempting to implement pcpartpicker like software internally on their own website?
I figured it was inevitable, and I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner.
1. Is it still coded using Django? 2. Any thoughts on making parts (heh) of it open source?
It's written mostly in Python and uses a lot of Django, yeah. No plans to open source it right now.
Would you consider becoming a stockist for pc parts in the future?
No plans on selling stuff ourselves. We have no real expertise in that and the margins are super tight.
u/pcpartpicker just wanted to ask, how are you?
Doing ok. Feeling like I'm finally starting to come out of a year's worth of development burnout.
Any more info on development for the app?
Hoping to release the PWA version this month.
What’s your favourite food Mr. Partpicker?
Sushi, but rarely get to eat it.
the below is a reply to the above
I’m assuming that’s because of your location relative to the closest ocean
Oh I'm no connoisseur. I like just the simple stuff and it doesn't have to be on the coast or at a fancy place. The issue is that it's expensive, my kids won't eat it, and I don't want to eat at a restaurant because of COVID (and I've never been big on sushi takeout).
And they all applaud at the end too, like a real life emperor has no clothes moment.
What kind of revenue do you make?
Slightly more than expenses.
First, Thank you for this wonderful tool. For suggestions, PCPP works pretty good in America and Europe, but when it comes to Asian countries, most of the times it's not very helpful as it shows very high prices. So, kindly see to this!
manirelli: If you have suggestions for retailers you can always send a message on our contact page: https://pcpartpicker.com/contact/
the below is a reply to the above
For example - pcpp shows me a price, but if I directly go to the official site, it's very less. Like in amazon, most of the time, it's due to difference in sellers. So, is there an option to automatically select the cheapest option?
We have some special rules in place to prevent unreliable listings from showing but the default is to show the lowest price based on the information provided from the retailer. If you have a specific example I can take a look.
the below is a reply to the above
Specialist-Hippo9328: Ok, thx. I got that. I don't have a specific example right now FUS_ROALD_DAHL: Maybe see if you can find one. It's not every day you have a developer offering to look at your specific issue.
ThoughtA: You're not wrong, but we see every single piece of feedback like this and devote time to them. For example, if you send us a ticket about it via our Contact page, you will get a human response 100% of the time.
oh, man. how blessed are you? that websites doing great. lol. is awesome.
manirelli: Very blessed and thankful every day.
I was hoping you'd shed some light on what you consider to be current gen PC specs for an AMD build. Think in the $1000 price range. Maybe something like the 3600 CPU and the rx 5700 GPU ect? Thanks!
I really like your site, im sure it has helped countless people, including me, and saved us countless hours of researching. Theres not enough good things i can say to express our appreciation, so im gonna be real and talk about areas that need improvement. For me, that is price availability updata, at least for canada. i find it not as useful as its intended to be, half the time it doesnt show the store and their price. And its not even a small store, its big ones like amazon, canada computer, bestbuy! I mean i dont expect real time updates for every store, but i remember x570 tomahawk being available in many stores, different prices, but on pcpp, it showed no price no stores for months! And there were quite a few items that i found in regular big retailers that just simply didnt show on pcpp. So ultimately, i could only use pcpp for 3 things, keeping lists of diff builds, compatibility check, and if i dont know where to start looking for a component, i could use filters to narrow it down to get a few models, and google to compare and look deeper. I cannot rely on it for price alert anymore, i had to manually set up wish list with every retailer, and check them individually, which i believe is one of the problems pcpp was designed to resolve. I really wish i can start trusting pcpp on prices again.
ThoughtA: If you have any examples, now or in the future, we would very much appreciate you reporting them. Usually it's because there's an issue with the merchant's data (even the big ones), but that doesn't mean we necessarily wouldn't be able to do anything about it.
First of all, thank you so much for PCPartpicker. And for a question, what is your favorite feature in the works and/or one that is already in PCP? (Sorry if that made no sense.)
manirelli: Oh that has to be [redacted]
Probably got to this late, but I'll give it a shot maybe somebody gets to it. What parts should a long-term, sort of "layaway" build focus on first in regards to price changes? Meaning, what products fluctuate in price the fastest and/or most substantially? Also what parts should an amateur builder obtain first without worrying too much about compatibility/obsolescence if the rest of the build takes a bit more time to piece together? Might be a little vague I know, but basically I got a new job in tech where I will sometimes need to work remote and the work I do isn't going to be possible on the budget laptop I'm rockin' these days. My goal is to put together a PC powerful enough to remote my new job and hopefully a strong enough GPU to handle my gaming hobbies as well. Dual purpose, but I won't be able to buy it outright, was a tough year. It will be a build I slowly pay for and piece together over the next year hopefully. This might not be the type of question you guys are fielding but thought I'd give it a shot. Love to hear what the pros think. I've used PCPartPicker in the past to help friends put together their monster gaming stations when they first got started, I have a lot of faith and respect in this tool.
ThoughtA: If you don't have a use for the component before the build, I'd largely hold off on buying piecemeal over a long time. There's some wiggle room when it comes to parts that don't directly impact performance such as the case or PSU, but even there there will be advances made, aesthetics changed, and preferences evolved. Better to have a beefier emergency fund than a video card collecting dust on the floor when that video card could be cheaper later (current stock issues notwithstanding). That being said, if you're fight stock issues, see something in a particularly deep sale (if it impacts performance), or see something on a decent sale (and doesn't impace performance), then it's not so bad to have at it. Additionally, if you do have use for the component, such as throwing the GPU into your build that you plan to replace later, then any part is fair game.
Why don't you make the various flags and data points required for items as they're entered? Fans, for instance, not every one lists a decibel rating.
ThoughtA: We do have a number of data fields that are required for entry. However, requiring certain data fields would create more problems than they'd solve it. This is often the case for specs that are not always listed. If case fans required decibel rating to be added, there would be fans that are just never added to the site because that spec data is missing for them.
If the data is there, we will always add it regardless of whether it's a required field. The data field required status mostly just helps with human error, which we try really hard to cut down as close to zero as possible.
Much doubt you will see this but ill drop it anyway. Pcpartpicker has helped me an insane amount. I have friends, friends of friends and other people who want to build PC's and I always use Pcpartpicker to ensure im not buying the wrong parts. This site has been one of the most useful sites and has helped me make some cash on the side (from building PC's), and I will be forever thankful for this (not to mention that the user compatibility is one of the best i have ever seen and so simple). I did want to ask a question however, all the prices accessible are always in american dollars (which I take is where most your customers are from) but has it ever been thought to move it to a more world wide option and show prices in the selected countries. In each country in the world there are places where people buy from. I feel this would add on to make things quicker and simpler. For example: South Africa has a site called evetech.co.za Switzerland has a site called digitec (Of course there are many more, but these are the primary ones)
manirelli: We currently support 37 different countries. The country dropdown is in the top right corner of the site. If you have additional retailer recommendations please send them via our contact page: https://pcpartpicker.com/contact/
Bruh this is cool. 1. Will you ever add micro center as a price option? 2. Do you think you will ever make a dark mode for the website?
We’d love to work with them. We had some discussions with them but then they stopped responding.
On desktop the switch is on the top right corner of the site. On mobile, tap the profile icon and then the switch.
Philip, Brent, Jenny, everyone...thank you so much. I'm a longtime lurker here, but my brother and dad are the engineers in the family; I'd never built a PC. When my old prebuilt started to slow down last year, I decided to give it a shot. I built the whole thing through your website; it's an AMD build with an RX 5700. In total it cost me just under $900, way less than I expected to spend (though I later sprung for a fancy 1440p monitor, also found through your site). Four different retailers delivered my stuff over the next week, I inexpertly threw it together, and it runs like a dream. I can't imagine trying to do it without PCPartPicker. Now I'm playing Cyberpunk smoothly on Ultra settings while the internet implodes about it not working on their machines. All thanks to you guys. So I guess my question is...do you feel the love and appreciation for what you do every day? Because we're sending it your way.
Thanks for the kind words. :). Definitely feel appreciated. Definitely.
Yo! I used your site to build my first rig a few months back. What do you think the new Intel series of CPUs will look like?
manirelli: Visually? The same as the others :) I try not to crystal ball too hard on future components. Build with what is available unless there are solid releases dates (and reasonable supply).
Hi Philip! I LOVE what you built. about five years ago, my son was getting interested in pc's and wanted to build one. I was clueless and found you site. I was able to learn how to ask my son the right questions by reading the forum, and then got suggestions and critiques on my virtual build. I ordered the parts directly from your handy dandy list of pricing and availability, they came in and we built his first pc. He was off and running and has been using your site to help classmates build their own machines. I don't have a question, just want to thank you for developing a useful and easy-to-use tool for people who are not computer inclined. I hope that this venture has served you well and you continue for as long as I might ever need your help. Best wishes, Mike
That's awesome!
I think all one needs to know the least number lives you've made better is to look at the number of subscribers just on this sub. Thank you! Question: 1. One of the things I noticed is that whenever there is a new price for a product that is listed on the retailers the website tracks, there is a delay before the information is updated. Sometimes that delay is significant such that the listed price won't last before your websites starts to reflect it. Do you have an strategies to minimize that to the point that all we need to do is just visit your website for all of our purchase needs? 2. Will you allow users to submit links or embed video links to products review so that people can just watch it on your site as they browse?
On 1), most of the time there is a lag is from how long it takes for the retailer to send us the price data. We push for updates as frequently as we can get, but some retailers only update their price data (for us) once a day. On fast moving products that can mean that we show stale prices. 2). We can certainly look into that. I've seen a few other people mention linking to other product reviews, so that's something I can chat with our team about.
Why do my fans never turn off? Running an old ASRock motherboard with an AMD Phenom II processor. BIOS is updated, latest update of Windows 10, all updated drivers, etc. 2 fans plugged into a splitter to the fan header on my motherboard + 2 more plugged straight into my power supply + the cpu cooler fan all stay running when my computer goes to sleep (on it’s own, or when forced to sleep). Monitor still goes to standby after 10 mins. Any help would be greatly appreciated. I already tried a clean install of Windows with no background apps running and fans still stayed running.
manirelli: The fans plugged into your PSU molex will run at 100% - that is a limitation of molex. Modern boards can control fan speeds on some 3pin headers but one that age may not be able to. It will depend on the specific hardware (mobo/fans) involved. Feel free to stop by our discord and ask in the troubleshooting section. Pictures will be helpful. http://discord.gg/pcpartpicker
A take on the—probably inevitable—rise of cloud gaming. What are your opinions/ideas on the matter?
I initially posted this as a reply to a post byu/html_question_guy, but it got closed so I thought I'd post it directly since I think it's worth discussing at the very least: The following is my take on the current rise of cloud gaming, as well as a review of sorts of the field's major competitors. As a preamble, I've tried all the big cloud gaming services (pretty much) and I live in France which—like most of Europe and a rapidly growing portion of the world—has cheap, fast and actually unlimited internet. If you're in the USA and have data caps, vote with your vote! I believe that with good internet conditions, cloud gaming is as inevitable as music and video streaming. You are just getting rid of the physical gear and getting the content directly via an online service at a completely different level of convenience. If you're attached to physical things and the concept of ownership (which is basically no longer true in most cases due to how modern licensing, platforms and DRM work), you'll be safe for quite a while: it's not like you can't get CDs (or even vinyl and cassettes) anymore. Now for why I'm probably no longer going to bother with buying powerful gaming hardware ever again, and you probably won't either soon enough:
The first, and main thing is convenience. Being able to click on a button on my phone, TV, computer or tablet and be in a game in less than 10 seconds (sometimes under 5 seconds) is kind of crazy. Now add the lack of downloads and updates and you have a pretty amazing shift in how/when you can play. For people who play all day long this one will be relatively small, but for most gamers it will be significant.
No need for dedicated hardware. I can't understate this: my PC is due for an upgrade and the PS4 will be obsolete within a year. At best, this is a 550€ + 9€/month and at worst it would be around 2000€; both to be repeated 5-6 years down the line. With Stadia (which would be the cheapest in my case as I'll explain later), that's 0€ at best and 10€/month at most. That plus my living room looks cleaner now and heats up way less in the summer.
Cloud-specific features. This one is mostly being ignored since most gamers have some sort of allergy to Stadia, but the concept of having multiplayer run as smoothly as if it were running on the best LAN network ever + being able to see other player's screens in a corner in a tactical game + being able to literally send a link to a friend so they can just hop into a game with you (imagine how that would transform Monster Hunter World for example)... I just find this sort of thing fascinating, and I can't wait for more of these features to come out!
I could go on, but those are the big ones. Now for the things people use as arguments against:
Latency. Just do yourself a favor and try Stadia with its WiFi controller on a decent network. If you haven't, please refrain from declaring that latency will kill the experience. Unless you are a pro or near-pro level player in titles that require twitch reflexes, this just isn't an issue at all. The latency is barely more than that of a current-gen console (better in some titles). Have you ever heard people complain significantly about those?
Quality. This is the one where there is, in fact, a bit of a loss with cloud gaming. Video compression is just the name of the game, and it's good but not perfect. A 4K60 stream on a 1080p monitor is nearly as good as something running locally, but if you're running 4K120 or even 1440p90, then yes, you'll be losing something. But for most people, this is barely noticeable, and for the others, it's probably an OK price to pay. That, and as internet speeds get faster, encoding tech gets better and stream resolutions get better, it will become somewhat of a moot point.
Ownership. Ok, so let's make things clear: unless you buy exclusively offline DRM-free games or games which let you set up your own servers (like Minecraft for example), there is a pretty big chance that upwards of 70% of the games you "own" aren't yours at all. You have a license to play them, but some feature, server or platform may disappear one day and they'll be lost until someone hacks them (and then get sued for it and it goes down again). Even with Steam, unless the game is installed when it goes down or they remove the title, it's no longer yours. This is just how things have gone for quite a while. If this is a problem for you, then good luck, the upcoming decades might get a bit tough at times. And I'll add a special mention to Stadia here, who have it in their licensing terms that if a publisher pulls a game from the platform, it will no longer be sold, but current owners will be allowed to keep playing it! Edit: it looks like Steam mentioned something similar if the platform ever goes down, but I believe there is nothing in the rules at this point, so take it with a grain of salt IMHO.
And even though it's specific to Stadia, "Google kills it's services". No it doesn't: it kills it's free services designed to grow the advertising business and it merges/rebrands it's paid services (2 of them were actually deleted I believe, after little investment). They're putting millions into Stadia, including tons of gaming servers which would be moderately interesting to reuse on anything else, and have been accelerating things since launch, not the reverse.
Finally, a special mention for modding: For now, it's a loss, but cloud gaming is targeted more at console gamers than PC gamers overall, so it's not a huge issue. Stadia have stated they're working on a solution (with the Farming Simulator devs I believe), and if they get a platform-level solution implemented, I thing this will ba game changer for some.
OK, so the actual services themselves:
Stadia: best cloud technology, will probably take over the casual market. — Honestly, regardless of their lackluster marketing and how almost the entire gaming community has agreed that they are the enemy, it's by far the most mature, reliable and advanced cloud gaming platform. That whole thing where "it just works" is not a myth; if you've got a good enough network, it runs flawlessly with a surprisingly low bandwidth requirement. It's free (which is kind of crazy) and works on pretty much any device at this point. — Sure, the games catalog is not quite there yet, but it's constantly growing and will probably be on par with most other cloud services by the time things start to matter for the long term. — If you haven't, give it a try... it kind of feels like magic at this point. I believe Google are aiming at capturing the continuously growing "casual" gamer demographic first before any other cloud gaming service does by offering the simplest, most straightforward experience by far (and their marketing seems tailored just for that anyway).
GeForce Now: Power and games catalog, currently too clunky to grow significantly. — It's the service that offers the best quality overall, though I've noticed it is somewhat less consistent and often has more latency than Stadia. The concept is amazing, especially for people who have huge games libraries. I think they're going to get a lot of the "hardcore" gamers who inevitably end up transitioning to the cloud. The main issue is that the horribly clunky user experience and the odd "free with a time limit" business model will probably prevent it from growing into anything else than a niche enthusiast platform. — This is totally a case of "wait and see", but personally, I am not sure I'm willing to put up with the clunk anymore (even though I've been an avid PC gamer and a huge fan of modding... Stadia has just made it so easy that I'm no longer willing to bother with all that I guess).
xCloud: Not yet, not by far. — So the "Netflix for games" bit seems pretty amazing on paper, right? The issue is that currently, the tech feels like it's 4-5 years behind the other main contenders. I know that it's coming out of beta soon with 1080p on desktop and all, but if you compare that to the 4K60 of Stadia, it feels like they're trying to catch up. — Technology set aside, the 200+ games on offer as part of a subscription is pretty cool, though it caters to the type of people who play a lot of games at a pretty fast pase, otherwise it's not that interesting once you get down to it... contrary to TV series, I'd wager most gamers play a few online games a lot plus a few solo games here and there. So it might sound amazing, but I'm not sure it's actually the best model, not for me at least. — I believe Microsoft has the network infrastructure, the cash and the know-how to make xCloud one of the top cloud gaming platforms; but they're late to the game and until they've caught up, I'm not convinced. Hopefully their games catalog will keep them in the game long enough to get good tech.— And the last bit that has me doubtful is that they are probably not going to want to kill their console sales by offering the same level of quality on xCloud (imagine the pay $600 + $8/month to be able to play this game... or just stream it for $15/month and you're good to go sales pitch... not good for physical sales I'd wager)
Shadow: The future, but probably not for gaming.— Honestly, the tech is amazing. The value for the price is incredible, especially if you have need for a powerful computer as part of your everyday life/work. The thing is... it kind of negates nearly all the benefits of cloud gaming: you still need to download/install games on your Shadow instance, you still get Windows updates, you still have to deal with drivers and peripherals acting up if you ever plan on using some specific keyboard or microphone, etc. So is it probably one of the best offerings out there? Yes, if you do more than game on it. It will probably grow to the point of becoming one of the biggest cloud gaming services, but not just for games... I'd wager it will be most popular with people who use demanding software for work and want the convenience of a thin&light, a chromebook or a tablet.
PS Now: First to start, last to reach the finish line. — They were the first big company to invest into cloud gaming. The potential was huge... coupled with their good position in the mobile phone market, they could have been the first to make something great out of cloud gaming. But the "early adopter" problem means they sunk a whole lot of money into an infrastructure that is now outdated and massively under-performs when compared to the competition. — Even though they have Sony exclusives, PS Now feels pretty terrible (mostly due to latency), has some pretty bad compression; it's more of a "bonus" for people who own a PS4 than a viable platform at this point. Even the fact that AAA titles only stay available for a short time when they are included makes it feel like more of a demo + access to older games than a real subscription. — If their deal with Microsoft pans out and they properly join the race, they might catch up some day, but for now it's just not worth it.
Conclusion: Stadia will probably pull off a Nintendo and get a huge market share by catering to "casuals" until they have enough weight to start moving into the "hardcore" space (think DS -> Wii -> Switch). GeForce Now and xCloud are going the other way around, leveraging their respective brands/communities to get their existing playerbase beamed into the cloud (^^). Both strategies will probably work, but in terms of tech and UX, Stadia is light years ahead of the competition, so I'll probably be using it the most until the others catch up. Overall, cloud gaming is inevitable, practical and honestly just cool. Just how other media have gone digital/online, so will games. I mean even books have made the shift, and a majority of people I know seem to have some sort of fetish for the touch and smell of paper... Give it 5–10 years and opinions will have shifted towards cloud gaming for most people.
I cant join my cross platform friends minecraft world on nintendo switch.
Me and my friends want to play minecraft together. We all have minecraft, just on different devices. I'm on nintendo switch, friend #1 is on ps4 and friend #2 is on mobile. My two friends can join each other. They can receive invites from each other and can join each others realms. I, however can not. Whenever I try to join my friends, it says that "None of your friends are playing minecraft right now" when my friends are playing. And I dont receive any invites. Nothing pops up on my screen telling me that my friends have sent me an invite. Also, whoever they go to invite me, it always shows that I'm offline when I reassure them that I am online. I have bought nintendo switch online, I have my notifications turned on for all friends, my internet connection works fine, and multiplayer is on. Me and my friends have tried almost everything to try and fix this but nothing has worked. I'm not sure why I cant play with them when I know it is possible to play with cross platform friends on nintendo switch. If anyone has anything that could help fix this problem, or knows something, please can you tell me. I just wanna play with my friends.
Discussion: Sony needs to reinstate the ability to be logged into PS4 and PS5 at the same time
I don't know when the change happened, but when the system was released we were able to log into a PS4 and a PS5 at the same time on the same PSN profile. Now, if you try to do this it suspends the other person from playing anything while the system is online even if we are playing different games. I understand I can always go offline but this isn't good enough. So if my daughter wants to play any of my games on the PS4 downstairs I have to make sure she is offline so I can remain online. This isn't right. The prior generation there were no issues with the PS VITA or PS3 being online at the same time as the PS4. It seems to me this is Sony's heavy handed attempt to keep us from playing 2 copies of the same game with only paying for one. For example, we were able to Co-Op Minecraft the first few weeks and now that's gone. There needs to be a middle ground that will respect the ownership right of the paying customer. I'd be fine with locking out the ability to play the same game at the same time online if that's what they decide, but taking away the ability to be online and play anything on a second console us wrong.
Hi all, I'm new to minecraft, learning to play it so I can play with my son. I've tried following recipes from YouTube videos and cannot craft them, am I missing something? I'm playing minecraft on PS4, offline. thanks
Fixed a corrupt world but now can't find cross play friends [bedrock]
This all started when my power went out and corrupted my ps4 minecraft world. I deleted the save on the hard drive and replaced it with cloud data. All my settings were set back to default and I had to sign in, but that was all that was changed initially. Now I can't find my online cross platform friends but the offline is still there. I also cannot remove the person I'm trying to play with from my friends list even though their account appears when I search for it. Does anyone know a fix?
Minecraft bedrock edition players Mobile and ios players Just wanna let you know There's a TON of BUG TON OF FEATURES TONS OF BUGS (Prior to 1.16.100 and 1.16.101) HERES ALL OF THEM : •Frame drops during gameplay (Low and fancy graphics) •Random triangle when using texture packs •You can't play on multiplayer when using cellular data even if the setting is on •Sound lag / latency •High ping / offline local worlds •Intense frame drops even on medium and high end phones •slow chunk loading •minecraft not being responsive for a short amount of time •screen glitches when having to play in a world with huge structures etc. •world not being able to be opened when you used it on a beta version •new achievement screen/gui not being able to be seen on certain devices •mob being to unresponsive to players for a little amount of time Note : This update is unstable to android iOS and even PS4 and consoles every player is highly affected by this version That's all report this to Mojang studios We need them to fix this It's important for everybody using IOS and ANDROID pc's may not be affected as much Mojang needs to fix this properly Because it broke almost everybody's games
I play Minecraft on switch. My brother plays on PS4. We both want to play together, but my switch say do he is offline even when he is online. And when I search him gamer tag it says he is on, but it doesn’t let me join him. What can I do fix this?
How do I prevent myself from getting hit offline? (PS4)
It was just a calm day, where my two friends and I were playing. For some reason, someone that none of us knew (or even be in any of our ps4 communities) joined our party. We were playing some Minecraft on my friend's world, and this kid joins. They seemed harmless at first until we had to ban him for 24 hours on his world. Once that happened, he swiped our IPs, and read our cities out one-by-one. Then, he proceeded to hit us offline. Is there any way I can prevent getting hit offline without downloading a VPN?
A very long and updated List of recommendable Coop Titles for Game Nights and Coop Groups (Online or Couch) with Mini-Reviews
Hey fellow reditors, This is an updated and rewritten post of one I posted a few month ago. There are new redditors and the list contains a lot more games now, so take a look if you like. We are a group of old friends and we meet up twice a year for a long weekend of couch (offline) coop gaming and play a handful of times a month coop games online. We already did this on other platforms but are really going strong on the switch. I think you can consider us Coop-Experts. We often notice that some of the games we play are not played by anyone else (no other parties in the online lobbies, very rare occasions of randoms joining us) so I guess I would like to use this post to a) recommend some games we really liked and b) offer our expertise when some of you guys plan to play Coop (on- or offline) and have troubles/questions. We have played almost all real coop games or have analyzed them to decide if we want to play them or not. So we pretty much have an opinion on most if not all coop games on the switch. We are also playing some multiplayer games (YES! There absolutely IS a distinction between coop and Multiplayer games although this is way too often ignored when people speak about these kind of games on the internet. :) ) If you plan a weekend for couch COOP and want to know if a game can be recommended or need an answer on how a certain coop feature is implemented please just ask. Often times databases ( we obviously know about the great website www.co-optimus.com, but also they are not complete), official websites or even the digital storefront listings of games are quite vague on what modes can be played in which way, so we also had to resort to asking others (sometimes the devs themselves) for necessary details. Not that many games offer their coop modes also for online play (we heard from devs, that the switch architecture is sometimes to blame) so these online coop games are rare. I hope the following list of Coop Games can help some people to decide what to play when they have friends over. Maybe it will encourage a group to pick out one game as a coop project. Hopefully you guys can recommend some other coop titles that slipped through our net or get a discussion started on what are the best coop titles out there and what makes them great! I updated the following recommendations and put them in alphabetical order because they became so many (apparently we played a lot of games!) I gave them an out of the hip star rating (out of 5) which does was not discussed or deliberated on in group. Real Coop Games Aegis defenders (3 Stars) (couch only) 2 Player Tower Defense Plattformer. Game was short and neat. There was some iffy checkpointing and some framerate issues. Blazerush (4 Stars) (couch tested, seems to have some online play as well) Hidden Gem Alert! We downloaded this as a micro machines stlye racer because we played too much of Mario Kart. The custom game modes are really neat. There is football, races, death races, king of the hill and they are sometimes 2 on 2 coop sometimes simply multiplayer. But then we found a feature that I think I have never before seen in a racing game: the career mode can be played fully with 4 player local coop. Everyone working together against the CPU. This was a lot of fun. We played through it on 2 days. This game deserves a lot more attention. It looks and plays great. The vehicle variety is great and sometimes key to mastering a level. If you like racers you have to get this. We were utterly surprised by the quality of this title and it turned unexpectedly to a show stealer of a whole weekend. It also features online multiplayer but we have not found out if also the career can be played online coop. Broforce (2 stars) (couch and online) This is way more multiplayer than coop. fun romp but more action and less cooperation. We encountered some bugs (PS4 Version) Catastronauts (4 Stars) (couch only) A mix out of Overcooked and Lovers in dangerous spacetime, But brings a different vibe. IT can get very chaotic but this is a little less process focused so far (we are not completely done yet) so there is more room for error than in the overcooked games. This game seems a little like a cheap overcooked clone but it is better than that and is quite fun. Very nice: the voicework is over the top and spoofes “Nintendo speech” in games. Up to 4 Player campaign-coop offline. Crawl (4 Stars) (couch only) Really unique and clever concept! It is coopetetive and changes you around in a 3 vs 1 setup. Great style. Give it a try. Takes a lot of getting used to but deserves more attention. We have only played it a few times because we are scared if we play it more we won’t play that much else. Experienced players will find a lot to like here since it is a great sort of working together against each other and it gets really tense towards the end. Death Squared (5 Stars) (couch only) Great Coop puzzler. (too few of those!) This is more brain and less controller input focused. So you try a few things but mainly you discuss what there is to do and what might work. Somebody gives a hypothesis and the other poke holes in it. Very fun. Leads to some levels where a player might have to too do only a small part of actual gameplay but still every character is vital to the solution of the puzzle. Quite laid back and not action heavy, but you have to concentrate and think a lot. Up to 4 player campaign coop offline. Deru: The Art of Cooperation (4 Stars) (couch only) Hidden Gem Alert. This is a really good puzzle, coop game that makes full use of cooperative gaming. It is great fun, cleverly designed and something I really recommend. The setup is simple: two players, one black, one white, have to traverse to their respective target locations. There are however laser mazes and other obstacles that are also black and white. You cannot hit the opposite colour or you are dead and that means the team failed. You can however block or destroy your own colour to open routes for the other player. It is used in very unique and clever ways and playing it is a delight. You feel really dumb until you feel really smart. When somebody remembers Shizoid on Xbox360 (the most coop game ever! Brain synchronisation!): this reminded me a bit of it. Utterly recommended. It is rather short though. Disc Jam (5 stars) (couch and online) Hidden gem alert. This is multiplayer or at least 2 on 2 but oh boy: This game is great. It looks hideous. Seriously the artstyle is haunting and normally it would be okay to pass on this at the first sight of a screenshot. But this is the best Mario Tennis/virtua tennis – Court like games on this generation. You have Longer rallies than other games in that manner which means that the point counter and the reward for a winning shot is constantly going up. Not that many interrupting animations. Very fast paced. Seriously try this out. This is the most competitive we get amongst each other (right next to Mario Kart) Up to 4 Players on- and offline however the switch version has no 2 online Players as a double online. You need to be 4 online players or 1 player to play online against other humans. Escapists 2 (5 Stars) (couch and online) We started this and were utterly confused. After 40 Minutes we were thinking that the game was nice but probably something we won’t stick with, since it asked a lot of tiresome prison day-to-day stuff and it felt like we were playing alongside each other and not really cooperating. That something changed and the game clicked. WE LOVED THIS! We played every level. Every DLC. Every coop escape (there are a few single player only escapes which would have loved to do coop as well!) This is really a unique game that makes you plan something and then realize said plans. Seriously after all this preparation your pulse is up to unhealthy levels! It is great jump of the couch moment fun when you flee from a tightly guarded prison. It has a strange saving system which is perfectly fine once understood. Flat heroes (4 Stars)(couch only) It was a really nice, small game with creative levels for four squares to play through. I think this was one of those games that we started and played to completion in one sitting. We were totally captivated by it. Easy to pick up and play. Full Metal Furies (4 Stars) (couch and online) We have recently started this and are around 30% through and really dig it so far. Great and very stable 4 Player online on switch (which is not always the case). All 4 player classes are completely different and the game asks specific players to kill specific colour-coded enemies which makes for great coop gameplay. It is a little hectic and there is a lot happening on screen which can be confusing at times. Also not too easy, not too hard. Looking forward to play more of it. Hammerwatch (3 Stars) (couch and online) This is a nice pixel-art diablolike dungeon crawler for four people. It has different classes and from our experience you absolutely need one player to be the healer mage. It is quite the difficult game with a shared life-pool. You can save but loading means joining in again and that is where the trouble starts: the game has to be joined by a 4 digit code of letters and numbers and it does not run that smoothly, loading means rejoining which means that you communicate and type in the code a lot. That was a little annoying. However when the game works it is quite fun and we have only completed the first of two campaigns and plan to continue. Hell Warders (2 Stars)(online only) This is a very very ugly Dungeon Defenders Clone. It runs horribly. I have to admit it was fun for a few evenings but this may have been so because we loved Dungeon Defenders 1 on 360. You should not play this game since a new Dungeon Defenders Game is announced. We did not finish it because the frame rate dropped to almost unplayable levels. It is a mess. A mess you can find fun in. You shouldn’t. Human fall flat (4 Stars) (couch and online) 2 Player offline Octodad-style fun. Some really great ideas (the climbing controls are very interesting) and top visual humour. It is a puzzleplattformer I guess. This has an 8 Player online mode I have not tried. If anyone can chime in on that this would be highly appreciated. We really laughed a lot. Not unsimilar to Octodad. Joggernauts (3 Stars) (couch only) A simple concept: you run in a row and the player of the right colour has to be in front. Everybody can switch position with the player besides him. When the right person is not in front at the right time you will lose health. Simple but devilishly difficult to coordinate. We were really really bad at this. But if you have time and determination this can be a sort of hive-mind-ballet of the best kind. We were somewhat thrown off by the fact that in the options you have a slider of the speed which makes thinks easier. It is probably meant to be used to find a speed that suits your team but it felt to us as cheating? I dunno. Maybe we played it in way to hard, but we probably needed a little more direction and handholding here. Maybe we will pick it back up. It really seems to be a creative and good game that can be worth your time. Just Shapes N Beats (5 Stars) (couch only) This Game is a little marvel. It is an audio-visual experience and very close to what I Imagine to be similar to group-drug-euphoria. This is not a rhythm game – though it helps if you feel the music. This needs to be played with sound on full volume and the biggest and best picture. Gameplay: you play along creatively designed winamp visualisations of BitPop Music in a bullet hell fashion(but very clearly communicated) . This is almost a multiplayer game but the cleverly implemented revive mechanic elevates this to a great coop game. Best part is that the audiovisuals are so great that the group is almost dancing while playing and having a sort of synaesthesia experience where the feel for the song translates to great gameplay performance. Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes (5 Stars) (table only) This is THE Team-COOP game. We are playing this for years now on these weekends. We play the pc version but the switch version is the same. This is a test of your own abilities to understand and perform under pressure, as well as a test of the team on how to juggle information and workload. Very clever game design, great concept and good onboarding. Gets very hard but that is okay. One of the best group game experiences ever, marries something like a board game with a videogame. Should be played in group of more than 2 but less than 8. You can play it over skype but it is more fun with everyone on one table. Killer Queen Black ( 4 Stars) (couch and online) This is a very unique game that gives you a lot of tactical coop gameplay on one screen. You team has to be well tuned. It has a very creative rules that mix together a lot of rules similar to the Splatoon 2 ranked modes. This game is easy to learn but incredibly hard to master. I am hoping for a good community that will make this possible to play in ranked mode for a while and find people on your level. You can get easily devastated by a good team which might lead to some frustration. I really like this because of all the creativity but the task to get deep into it is daunting. Sky high skill ceiling. Kirby’s Star Allies (1 Star) (couch only) I am really sorry to say: this was not challenging enough. We are all Nintendo fans and payed full price and tried to like it but is was just too easy. This is okay but we were not the target demographic. Play this only if you are very young and inexperienced J Up to 4 Player campaign-coop offline. Lode Runner : Legacy (4 Stars)(couch only) Lode Runner on the Xbox 360 is one of my all-time favourite Coop games and a great version. It has a great two player adventure mode and an utterly brilliant 2 player puzzle mode (the 2 plyer puzzle mode is in fact so great that you can play the 1 player puzzle also in coop). This version is not that good. However: There is a nice adventure mode and there is a puzzle mode which can be tackled in a team. So this is still a super fun game and especially great for people who like 2D Plattformers and Puzzle games and Coop. This would probably be a 5 Star Game as well because the mixture of coop and puzzle is unique and brilliant, it is however not that good than the preivious entry in the seires. But the best (and so far only) Lode Runner on Switch so stop reading now and buy it J Lovers in a dangerous space time (4 Stars) (couch only) Also a big focus on Collaboration. The sense of “get us safely through here” is very great and fuses you together is a team. Very “we all lost or we all won”. Great team experience and also quite non-gamer friendly. It is also fun with two players, but gets harder at the end. Up to 4 Player campaign-coop offline. Mechstermination Force (4 Stars) (couch only) Hidden Gem Alert! This is a short and very good 2 Player Plattformer Boss-Rush with very creative enemy design and deserves way more praise and attention. It has some puzzle elements since you have to crack the pattern to kill the bosses and find your way to the weak points. It is an all-around ideal package for 2 players on a couch. Utterly recommended! To be 5 Stars it needed one finesse extra, but I am super interested in what this dev team does next. Mercenary Kings (4 Stars) (couch and online) This marries Contra-Gameplay with Monster Hunter Looting. The structure takes a little getting used too and the (rather small) grind may be offputting for some but the graphics and the presentation are super nice. It was a very fun and engaging romp. It seems that we liked that way more than the general consensus. I urge more people to give it a try. Monaco: What's yours is mine (5 Stars) (couch and online) This is a great game with a fantastic artsytyle and sound design. We played this way back on Xbox 360 and are now starting it again on switch beacause of the added content. We remember this as being one of the best coop titles we ever played so we all double dipped. This is utterly recommended and deserves to be a success on the switch as well. It has you and your friends breaking in and heisting into high security buildings playing on what looks like build plans. you have several characters and it will not always go to plan. Great mixture of stealth and action. Hilarity will ensue! Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate (5 Stars) (online only) A star of coop games. Very Japanese, Very much to learn. Quite difficult to get into it but when you are in. boy. You. Are. In. The complexitiy and the thrill of a good prepared hunt is matched by nothing. Game design at its finest hidden behind many hurdles. This is also a great version with many monsters and a few Quality of life improvements not that many as in MH World though but alos this game has a bit more charme than world (looking especially at the design choices for weapons and armor). This is one that your group has to decide beforehand that they really want an epic and complex adventure with a bit of forcing yourself through the early learning stages. The reward is immense. Getting into the MH Games is like learning an additional foreign language. Embrace everything that is weird and befuddling. Up to 4 Player campaign-coop online. After being done with it I would count this as one of the best games ever. Ms Splosion Man (2 Stars) (couch and online) We played the sh*t out of Splosion man on 360 and loved it. Very nice timing based coop jumping. When you are in sync it works like ballet. This is the sequel with better reviews. We played a whole bunch but never got to finishing it. It is more or less the same but maybe we burned out on the first one so we did not get that into this. We plan to give it another go. (so take the rating of 2 stars with a grain of salt, not very firm rating) Mugsters (3 Stars) (couch only) A somewhat strange game for 2 players in a nice polygon-popart artstyle that asks you to complete certain objectives on small diorama-like levels. It is a good time waster to talk over with a good friend and also brings some hilarious situations with it and also some puzzles. We are not done and we plan to continue. It is not that engaging that you have to keep on your toes all the time, so rather a laid back experience. Probably also neat in a bigger group and passing around the controllers. It is a little out of the ordinary which we always welcome. Nine Parchments (3 Stars) (couch and online) This was a fun “one of those” games. Top down twin stick. This time again a somewhat diablo setup. However the coop spellcasting was fun. It feels a little bit more like a multiplayer game but the revival and healing is important so you need to work together. The coop is a bit drowned in the action. This sounds rather harsh. It really is a fun game but most of it has been seen in a similar fashion somewhere else. Up to 4 Player campaign-coop offline and I think also online. No Heroes Here (5 Star) (couch and online) Hidden gem alert. This is a 2D Pixelart / tower defense take on the Overcooked Collaboration mechanics. This is a game that way too few people played. The generic name does not do it any justice. It really is a lot of fun. Great High Performance coop. Great screaming at each other. Very neat: This works online. we encountered some small bugs but the devs promised to fix them. There is follow up to this game which looks very similar called “Monica E A Guarda Dos Coelhos” which we were very much looking forward to but the devs left out the online coop mode (why oh why?!?!) so we did not yet get around to playing it. Up to 4 Player campaign-coop on- and offline. NoReload Heroes (2 Stars)(couch and online) A very simple twin-stick shooter which does not really do anything new. Also it seems to be roguelike, because we did not find a way to save. We played this for a few hours and then died and it was over. It was not bad, it is just nothing special. It is a bland “one of those”. Octodad: Dadliest Catch (as a game 3 stars, as an experience 5 stars) (couch only) Play this unsober with a complete group of 4. It is a party game. The controls are the best (worst) thing and humour is old-school top notch. Every player takes control of 1 of 4 limbs and your task is to do everyday tasks and hilarity ensues. The whole presentation and heart-warming story does the rest to make this game really good. This is more of an event as a real game. It is also the right amount of short. Up to 4 Player campaign-coop offline. Overcooked 1 (5 Stars) (couch only) Hectic & fun team experience. Very gaming-newcomer friendly. Big focus on Collaboration. Easy to learn, hard to master (gets very process-focused to increase performance for better results). You will scream at each other (always a big plus in our group!) Up to 4 Player campaign-coop offline. Overcooked 2 (5 Stars) (couch and online) Pretty much the same as the first one. Some neat changes, but not better or worse than part one. Biggest chance for us: this is online playable (which too few games are), so we keep our couch time for offline-exclusive titles. Up to 4 Player campaign-coop on- and offline. A sh*tload of DLC. PixelJunk Monsters2 (3 Stars)(couch and online) This is a nice and very tower-defensy tower defence game that you can play coop and also online. It is quite challenging in the harder levels but it does not seem to leave that much room for error so games can be over quite quickly which means a quite long repeat of the whole level. It scratches the tower defence itch and leaves good room for tactical deliberations among the group but it misses a good action component during the waves like In Dungeon Defenders. Rayman Legends (4 Stars) (couch only) Very fun and challenging 2D fast paced platforming. Maybe 2 or 3 players is the best way to play this. Up to 4 Player campaign-coop offline. Rico (3 Stars) (couch and online) A fun, tactical ego shooter roguelike. It has a great sense of place and cool slow-mo action that depends on good cooperation. It is mostly stylish gunplay that feels good. However, the fun is a little dampened by the fact that the game is a roguelike and you start from scratch once you failed. This is especially punitive since there are missions where you have to quickly find two bombs and finding them in time seems to us like pure luck. 2 Player fun but not that long lasting. Shift happens (3 Stars) (couch and online) 2 Player Puzzle Platformer. Not that polished but some very good ideas. 2 Player on- or offline campaign coop. Super Chariot (5 Stars) (couch only) 2 Player Puzzle Platformer. We played the PS4 version but switch should be identical. High Performance 2 Player Cooperation. This is really great. The game has a unique flow. The physics based puzzles are not easy and for some of the coop challenges you have to perform very good as a team. There is a very hard challenge in the end game after the campaign for dedicated players to sink their coop perfection teeth into. 2 Player offline campaign coop Super Kriby Clash (1 Star) (couch and online) A 2D-Brawler with a simple “my first Monster Hunter”-Progression and structure. It is well presented and free to start but the multiplayer integration is horrendous. You have to play a lot on your own to unlock coop stages. This boils down to a gameplay loop of playing together for 10 minutes and then each player alone for 10 minutes and it never comes together as a real coop experience. It had potential but the structure killed it for us completely. Fun for one evening but not really worth anyone coop-group’s time! Snipperclips: Cut it out! Together!(3 Stars) (couch only) Played the 2 player “campaign” and it is really nice. Very creative because every level is a little different. Some levels are more fun than others. It is a great showcase of the switch’s portability. I coop played this on the subway (mounted on a suitcase in the isle) and on a train. This is also something you can coop with non gamers. It is not that deep though. Splatoon 2 (5 stars) (online only) 4 player online in ranked mode. Ranked mode is superbe and the most coop splatoon gets. Why so many people stick to turf war or salmon run is beyond me. These modes are so creative, strategic and demand a high amount of team work and collaboration. If you want to test your coop team against others this is the game to play. You have to be a group of 2 or a group of 4. Sadly 3 squads are screwed. Terraria (4 Stars) (couch and online) This is a really good game. It offers you a lot to do and caters to many playstyles. You CAN play this as a building game like Minecraft but you absolutely do not HAVE to do so. There are “quests” and Bosses and a progression and you can totally team up as a group to play through it which we did and we really enjoyed. You can upgrade your gear and get fun mobility gadgets. You have to dig and fight and gather to reach some weird (a wiki or an experienced player helps) conditions to unlock a boss. Everyone should have built at least one “Hellevator” in his coop-gaming live. We played this on PS4 and switch has to seemingly wait for local Coop. Tied Together (3 Stars) (couch only) A very fun concept and a nice game. It is very indie and veeeeery short. I think we played it in one sitting with 4 players. This also means that it did not get a true difficulty curve going. This was a nice effort by an indie studio and is worth your time but this could have been so much more with more content and some more ideas to build on the concept. Towerfall (4 Stars)(couch only) We played only the coop campaign+dlc, not the multiplayer. And sadly we did it with 2 people and you can and probably should do it with 4, because the game is really good. It has a very nice pixel art style and a very intuitive gameplay loop. Though it controls very easy the game itself is rather difficult at times, so probably more for the gamepad experienced player. We played it on ps4. but it is a good fit for switch (what isn't?) 4 Player offline campaign coop. Unravel 2 (3 Stars)(couch only) It is a nice puzzle platformer for 2 players with some neat mechanics. We have not completed it yet but I think it deserves its mention here. It is not really innovative but very competent. We failed to find the feature that really sets it apart, except its graphical polish, but we played the PS4 Version. Warframe (5 Stars) (online only) This also has to be highly recommend. Very hard to get into. Not all of us made it. But some of us are now real fans with quite the hour count. and free. It brings with it one of the most creative player design there is and harbours some crazy surprises down the road for people who stick with it. It somehow really scratched my borderlands itch and I like it more than Borderlands 3. I wrote a love letter to this game here: https://www.reddit.com/NintendoSwitch/comments/c658ej/warframe_how_this_brilliant_game_surprised_me/ Wolfenstein : Youngblood (2 Stars) (online only) Playing through the campaign with a friend. It is a modern shooter and has not that many unique things. It is a nice coop mode since you can revive and buff each other but the game isn’t really that great or memorable. The switch version is also not very well optimized and not pretty. Serviceable game, serviceable port. Good game to play while you are talking about stuff. 20xx (4 Stars) (couch and online) A fun roguelite megaman-ish platformer for 2 people. This is roguelite done well (and similar to how dead cells handled things) You always get some little upgrades you can keep and your progressions moves along in a good pace. The game overs a lot of characters and quite some depth that we did not check out but we played it through and really liked it. The coop aspect is mostly that pickups have to be distributed well and that your positioning can give tactical advantages. Especially with the great boss design. Multiplayer Astro Bears (4 Stars)(couch only) This is always cheap in the store and really really good. It is a sort of a palate cleanser game you can play for a few rounds between other games or really get your teeth into. It is easy to pick up and can get really tense when the round continues on and the space to manoeuver gets smaller and smaller. It is just competitive and nor really that varied but simple fun. This really should be on every switch out there. It can be played in almost every group, for almost every amount of time. Ideal party game. Bomberman R (2 Stars or 5 Stars) (couch and online) It is Bomberman! Hoooray! One of the absolute best and most fun competitive games out there. BUT it is simply not that great a version FOR US. We prefer Bomberman 95 on PC. We played this for hundreds of hours in the last 24 years, so we feel every change and Bomberman R feels wrong. Wrong speed, Wrong physics, wrong pixelhitboxes. If you have not played and loved another Bomberman version and would start with this I implore you: do it! You will most likely love it and it will stick with you your whole live. It could be legitimately 5 Stars FOR YOU. Everybody should have their own got Bomberman and play a lot of Bomberman. It is just how things are meant to be. Diablo 3 (2 Stars)(couch and online) I think I will get yelled at for this, but please hear me out: I played this on PS4 and it was one of my biggest gaming disappointments ever. I liked the first 2 Diablo games a lot and was looking forward to the PS4 port of Diablo 3. Played it in coop and we noticed it was too easy on normal. We increased the difficulty several times to the absolute max (of what was unlocked at first playthrough) and the game was still too easy. It was so easy in fact that it was challenge free and close to broken: bosses would die in a few hits and never were able to complete their voicelines. It was a boring slog and also we were just playing alongside each other. As far as I remember it felt more like multiplayer than real cooperation or coordination. I was super bummed and did not enjoy my time with the game at all. For a long time I thought this might have been a bug but people online told me that ‘yes it is too easy’ and ‘the campaign is just the tutorial’ and ‘the game really gets good with the endgame’. I believe that. BUT a game that takes 35hrs to get good is a really badly designed game and not for me. This is my honest opinion and I am sorry. Flip Wars (1 Star)(couch and online) This was cheap and looked a little like Bomberman. Simple geometric action against other players. The game idea is not bad. Nothing else positive to say. Not that fun, not that well made, horrible online mode. Stay away. Guns Gore and Canoli (1 Star) (couch only) I think this is just multiplayer. There were no coop elements if I remember correctly so we all were not that hot n this one. It is rather stupid action and you do not need to work as a team. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe ( 5 stars) (couch and online) We play Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. Of course we do. Everyone should. We desperately need new tracks. New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe (3 Stars) (couch only) We played the Wii U undeluxe variant. I hesitated to put it under Multiplayer but compared to other games on this list the coop component is not that huge. It is however super fun and I think also better than its reputation. The game design is top notch and the game gets harder as you go along and it does was a 2D Mario game has to do. I also really liked finding the shortcuts on the overworld. This is probably best played with 2 or 3 players since 4 is very chaotic. Runbow (3 Stars)(couch and online) This is a fun diversion. A clever concept where consistently changing colours of the background change the level layout and you have to pass thorugh it as fast as possible while bothering other players. It is quite hard in the beginning and feels random. But you learn to have an eye out for the next colour changes and what they mean for your best way to traverse the level. This has very short rounds and you can die in a second. It is also a palate cleanser and party game but I think it is not deep enough for us to play it a lot. Honourable mentions Skyforce Reloaded We tried this but stopped and never gotten back around to playing it. We palyed the first one on PS4 and really liked it. Seems to be more of the same which would make this a very good 2 player coop shoot em up that took a lot of things from ealier games in this genre and mixed and matched the best. Sine Mora EX Played this on PS4. It was short and quite good. I don’t remember it well enough so to score it fairly. Unruly Heroes We are in the middle of this and I remember it being quite nice but somehow the details escape me. Will probably be able to say more soon. Yoshi’s Crafted World Will be played this weekend. Will put this in later. Degrees of Separation Will be played this weekend. Will put this in later. Please comment, ask and criticise. I will edit if I missed stuff or have to correct errors. We are also always looking for coop recommendations so please post these. Thanks in advance!
I need 4 teammates for Minecraft PS4 CLASSIC edition
Minecraft is fun don’t get me wrong but it gets boring at times in survival I find myself quitting the survival world early if I’m playing solo. I need 3 other friends to play with to make a survival world beat the ender dragon and even build a cool base. If 3 people could interact with this and tell me your PS4 usernames and I will make a party chat and we can play survival. The reason I have to play multiplayer on the classic edition is because the new one for me doesn’t work at all for me online and offline and yes you can still play multiplayer on the old version for those of you asking
I’m 15 and I grew up with Minecraft. Playing on my dads phone when I was little then switching to the ps3 before the upgrade to ps4. Minecraft was one of my most played game on the PS4 and I played it almost every day with my brothers and cousins. But ever since we were forced onto bedrock Bc of the nether update I have just been angry and annoyed at everything bedrock has to offer just bc they want to have cross play. I believe crossplay is perfectly fine and I even encourage it...unless it involves mobile players. Yes I know you can toggle crossplay off but it does nothing but block other devices from playing with you, nothing else, the quality is shit but the drastic decrease in visual pleasure was fine and tolerable but the overall time it takes to load something is fucking unbelievable. Mojang is pushing the character creator onto players but I would at least expect it to fucking work but instead I’m forced to play the game as a default skin rather than have the upside of looking how I want. The menus are so much more confusing and so much more unappealing compared to ps4 and any mobile version before that. So fine, looks don’t matter, the visuals are fine and the loading can be tolerated what else is wrong? Almost everything that was satisfying isn’t anymore. Take the mining for example, for what was smooth and amazing to look at is now choppy and laggy. Even if you’re playing offline the game still has trouble recognizing the action of breaking and placing blocks. Another example of this are the controls, again they functioned smoothly and you had far more control of your character but now it just feels clunky and unresponsive. Don’t get me started on the shop. The in game store lets you purchase maps, skins and texture packs. Far more than what was available in the ps4 edition and I would appreciate that change, if the shop actually worked and the things you purchased were available to use. As I mentioned before skins are unavailable and can’t be accessed so purchasing them are useless, fine. Maps take 30 minutes to load and don’t live up to the wait needed to play them, okay. The store is shoved down your throat even if you don’t want to buy anything. So the store is forced onto you while you can’t access half of what’s included and what you can access are subpar and a pain in the ass to even try it out, so what’s good about it? Players can make their own maps and skins...if you’re a pc player. That’s the only positive I see in the store and I can’t even access it. Minecraft was the single player game for me and I mostly went online with my cousin who lives in across the country and my two brothers who I split screen with, the gameplay was fantastic and we found no issue just playing the game but ever since then I have avoided playing with others at all in Minecraft Bc of the drop in quality and even when I unplug the lan cable and play offline I fight the game more often than every single mob I’ve seen in my life. I haven’t played Minecraft in over 3 months and I can’t get over the fact it’s border line unplayable. I envy those who have a pc and can play Minecraft without the painful disease of playing bedrock. What I’m asking for is help to get back into the game and I would love to have a civil conversation about the matter. I don’t mean any hate or negativity to those who enjoy bedrock and prefer it. I hope those who have read this understand my criticisms and those who are willing to speak with me. I am not attempting to start an arguement on this subject rather inform those who find joy in bedrock, present my feelings of it and ask for help to get back into Minecraft. Thank you
[DEBUNKED] Did Phil Spencer really shoot down xCloud on Switch? | The Definitive Analysis
This started out as a simple reply to a comment but turned into a 10+ hour long writing session of a huge wall of text! Hope you can still read it, though, as it will answerallyour questions and doubts :) ------------------------------------------------ CONTEXT I made a video on why Master Chief in Smash makes perfect sense as a marketing buzz for xCloud on Switch (as well as Halo: Infinite, especially since it's F2P), but then Phil Spencer (head of Xbox) seemingly said Game Pass/xCloud isn't coming to Switch/PS4 in an interview. Let's analyze that! Video on why Master Chief in Smash makes sensePhil Spencer's interview (6:11) ------------------------------------------------ TL;DR: read headings "In Conclusion" and "Final Conclusion"
== Analysis ==
People seem to be jumping to conclusions from Phil Spencer's statement, so let me clear this up after carefully analyzing his words:
The thing about other gaming console platforms is we're not able to bring a full Xbox experience on those platforms
According to him, they've brought the "full Xbox experience" on PC and mobile devices:
In places where we have[been able to bring a full Xbox experience], like mobile phones, like we're doing now with xCloud coming to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate [and] what we've done with PC and bringing our full Xbox experience there.
so, What does "full Xbox experience" exactly mean?
(continued directly from last quote) Because we know when somebody is playing one of our Xbox games there is an expectation that I've got my Xbox Live community, I have my Achievements, Game Pass is an option for me, my first-party library is there, is completely there... And the other, you know, competitive platforms, aren't really that interested in having a full Xbox experience on their hardware. But for us, we want to be where the gamers want to be.
"Full Xbox experience" consists of:
Xbox Live (community, achievements, etc.)
Game Pass option
1st party titles
He mentions this list twice in the full interview! But is he sure about Nintendo not wanting such an experience on Switch? Let's tackle these one by one for Switch.
Xbox Live
Xbox Live is already implemented in Minecraft for Switch (Bedrock edition). You can sign in with your Microsoft account (required for cross-play and servers), earn achievements, join Microsoft friends' worlds, and online doesn't require Xbox Live Gold (only Nintendo Switch Online)! The achievements you earn and skins you buy will be saved to your Microsoft account (aka cloud saves).
Xbox also officially stated that Cuphead for Switch would receive Xbox Live support(March 2019), but as of writing, that still hasn't happened
Voice chat and text messaging shouldn't be an issue either, because some games like Fortnite have native messaging and voice chat, which is NOT a part of Nintendo's app
Game Pass
He doesn't specify Game Pass through xCloud or directly, but I'm assuming that on Switch it's Game Pass through xCloud, since that's the most feasible technically
Game Pass would seem to be the biggest barrier as people say that it would cannibalize the sales of Switch games in three ways:
Switch and Game Pass have a shared library of indie games that people think will see less sales of on Switch, which means Nintendo lose out on sales (because they get like a 30% cut of every sale).
Having a great library of 100+ games available for $10/month would seemingly render buying games useless on Switch, which again means Nintendo losing sales because Game Pass is plenty enough.
3rd party ports and AAA titles would seemingly decline as they can just release their games on Game Pass and tell Switch users to "play it on xCloud".
But does Game Pass on Switch really need to have thesamelibrary as on console/PC to be considered as a "full Xbox experience"? Can't they just release xCloud on Switch with a limited library to mitigate competition with Switch sales? Turns out Phil Spencer considers Xbox console as a "full Xbox experience" AND also PC as a "full Xbox experience" ™.
The problem is that Xbox Game Pass for PC and for console are two different services. They offer different games, even if many are shared, but you can't say they're the same. The fact that Phil Spencer still refers to both of them as the "full Xbox experience" means that the number of titles in Game Pass isn't part of the "full Xbox experience".
PC-only games include: Halo 3, Halo MCC, Saints Row IV, and Age of Empires II
Xbox console-only games include: Halo 5, Soulcalibur IV, Kingdom Hearts III, Red Dead Redemption 2, Nier:Automata, The Witcher 3, Devil May Cry 5, Mortal Kombat X, Tekken 7, Fable, DiRT 4, PUBG, Quantum Break, and Banjo-Kazooie
Clearly you CANNOT call them the same!
Yet, he is calling both the Xbox console and PC as a "full Xbox experience" each, meaning the Game Pass libraries don't have to be identical to be considered as part of a "full Xbox experience"!
So, what's really stopping Xbox from having a separate Game Pass library of games for xCloud on Switch?
If Nintendo aren't "that interested in having a full Xbox experience on their hardware" because of competing sales of shared titles, then simply remove those titles from Game Pass on xCloud for Switch!
1st Party Titles
First-party Xbox titles should definitely not be a problem for Nintendo. More AAA titles on Switch are always welcome, and being 1st party Xbox titles would mean nothing to compete with on Nintendo eShop.
Halo, Gears and Forza on Switch would only help drive Switch sales!
These games wouldn't otherwise be ported, so cloud streaming is the only way.
In Conclusion
Xbox Live is already mostly implemented in Minecraft for Switch, and planned for other titles like Cuphead
Game Pass doesn't need to have an identical library across platforms to be considered as part of a "full Xbox experience"
1st party Xbox games shouldn't be a problem for Nintendo to have on their platform
Which means:
There's already a "half Xbox experience" in place on Switch (Xbox Live)
If Nintendo is having an issue with the other half of the experience -- Game Pass through streaming -- then Xbox should simply remove the games Nintendo don't wish to have on Switch as competition. According to Phil Spencer, that should still be considered a "full Xbox experience" ™.
Xbox likes to offer choices to players (a large part of the interview), which is why Xbox games are published on Steam, as well as on their own Microsoft store and Xbox Game Pass for PC (separate app), because gamers want that choice.
However, people who buy Xbox games on Steam won't get the benefit of cross-buy, though. That means they'll have to re-buy the game on consoles and other platforms. With Microsoft store/Game Pass, it's buy once, play anywhere. This benefit is not carried over to Steam.
Xbox is willing to accept sacrifices on their services if it means giving playerschoices.
There should really be no problem for Xbox to give into this criteria of limiting their Game Pass library for Switch.
Conclusion: release Game Pass on Switch through xCloud with a limited Game Pass library, and it should still be considered a "full Xbox experience", meaning Phil isn't being 100% honest about Nintendo not wanting a "full Xbox experience" on the Switch.
B-but, Nintendo gains NOTHING!!
Then there are those who claim that Xbox Game Pass coming on Switch is a loss for Nintendo, as they wouldn't get a cut from the monthly fee of subscriptions, and it would only take over Nintendo's sales.
Technically, they could reach an agreement where Nintendo gets an x% cut of each subscription made through Switch, OR they could get an x% cut of every microtransaction made on Switch through xCloud
In Minecraft on Switch, buying coins leads you to the Nintendo eShop where you perform the transaction, meaning Nintendo already get like a 30% cut of every microtransaction made on Minecraft for Switch!
If Xbox is serious about putting xCloud on every device imaginable, then they must've prepared for platform fees and royalties. This shouldn't be a problem for them.
Hulu on Switch (USA only) has been there since 2017, but AFAIK it's not possible to login or buy memberships through the Switch app. You have to login through a web browser on your PC/smartphone, just like how logging into/registering a Microsoft account in Minecraft for Switch works. Nintendo seemingly don't profit off of this (unless there's a separate deal in place).
These services just serve as hooks to get new users onto the Switch platform, where they hopefully will buy 1st part Nintendo titles and other games.
But still, wouldn't Game Pass cannibalize Switch sales?
Actually, it's been proven time and again that putting a game on Xbox Game Passincreasesits exposure, playtime, and most importantly, itssalesacross platforms!
Clearly Game Pass is amazing for indie titles and exposure!
The same argument can be made for the Xbox console: wouldn't putting a game on Xbox Game Pass cannibalize sales of that game on the Xbox console?
But that's not the case. Descenders, as mentioned above, is a great example of an Xbox game being added to Xbox Game Pass and actually increasing its sales greatly!
Phil Spencer said in 2018 that putting a game on Game Pass raises its awareness, which generates word-of-mouth, which then starts trending on Mixer, Twitch, people talk about it on Discord, etc., and that helps bring in more sales, because people "play based on what everybody else is playing". Here are hard numbers for Game Pass(2019) -- most notably being 25% increase in preorders, and 10% increase in franchise sales.
If anything, Xbox Game Pass through xCloud on Switch might justincreasesales of games, thereby giving Nintendo more revenue!
The most convincing argument, that many seem to fail to grasp, is that cloud gaming is the future, it's coming in hard and it's here to stay. How is Nintendo, with itsportableSwitch, prepared for this wave?
Switch will loseeven more if xCloud comes to mobile phones and NOT the Switch, because that would be in competition with Switch's and casuals wouldn't have a reason to get a Switch. Gaming AAA games portably on their smartphones for only$10/month will be a viable and cheaper alternative to Switch, especially to parents and casuals/non-gamers. Nintendo will face competition regardless of what they do, so by not putting xCloud on Switch they would be losing out on the growing curious non-gamer market.
xCloud with its amazing games line-up and value for money would definitely pose a threat to console gaming because of the extremely low entry barrier, both economically and accessibly -- especially to Switch, because of portability. More and more companies are most likely coming with their own cloud gaming services, so preparing for this wave is inevitable for Nintendo.
I realize that Stadia isn't a success AFAIK, but xCloud has a much better pricing and value for money, and thus a much better chance at capturing the market!
and Let's face it, who's going to pay $300 for a Switch and thenonlyuse xCloud?? That'd be like paying $1000 for a MacBook/iPhone just to use Facebook, or get a Switch just to play Fortnite and watch YouTube... oh, wait...
Jokes aside, those who've bought a Switch must've been allured by itsunique aspects, like portability, offline play, its hybrid nature, different playstyles, 1st party games and their creative playstyles (like Super Mario Party), etc. The rest is icing on the cake. Cloud gaming won't just come and replace that! Maybe it will replace some 3rd party games purchases for some, but the gameplay will be heavily dependent on internet and a good stable connection, which will limit portability!
The best case scenario for Nintendo is to embrace cloud gaming early on and let people experience it through Switch with xCloud.They can't compete with it.
Microsoft has the perfect cloud infrastructure to pull this off, while Nintendo still struggle with their horrible netcodes (read: Smash Bros Ultimate). They'd be wise to jump on the superior cloud gaming service than to try and cook up a half-baked version of their own later down the line.
Besides, if they do try cloud gaming, it's highly unlikely they'll make their own cloud infrastructure. They'll anyways have to go with something like Microsoft's Azure cloud infrastructure, just like how Sony have partnered with Microsoft for their own cloud streaming service, because that's Microsoft's main business.
And let's face it, Nintendo's 1st party games rarely go on sale, except for on the eShop, because they know their games keep selling for $60. I don't think they would want to make an Xbox Game Pass replica and sell their 1st party games for $10/month. Heck, they recently stated that they're focusing less on mobile games because it's not quite working out for them and the recent success of Animal Crossing has them realize where the true money lies -- on their hardware.
But, Nintendo have in fact acknowledged that cloud gaming will be widespread in the future, and that they "must keep up with such changes in the environment". But they emphasize on their unique aspects as selling points, even if cloud gaming is to take over the industry. Also cloud gaming will only increase the number of gamers, so Nintendo will have even more people to sell their hardware to, or so they believe. But just like how they lagged behind in the mobile market, it'd be bad if they embraced cloud gaming too late.
Game Pass has already 10 million subscribers, reportedly, and it's only going to grow since Xbox is pushing it as their true next-gen "console". Nintendo had better jump on that before it really takes off with xCloud on every device without them getting any exposure from it.
If Nintendo don't accept xCloud now, which will anyways come to every device out there, they risk losing out on potential Switch buyers from the user base of xCloud subscribers on mobile! It's only in their best interest to embrace xCloud on Switch now, as they might get a share of xCloud users on to the Switch, because once casuals have tried xCloud on mobile, they might look for Switch with its dedicated gaming controllers as one of their many devices to play xCloud on. This also holds true for Xbox owners, who might be inclined towards getting Switch as a portable extension to their Xbox consoles. And once they're on Switch, Nintendo can push their 1st party titles and unique aspects.
Nintendo's 1st party games are still the biggest revenue makers on Switch. Almost 50% of Switch owners have bought Mario Kart 8 Deluxe! Besides, the unique aspect of Switch's many forms and playstyles isn't something cloud gaming can replace. So once people are onboard on Switch, they may buy other games, and thus increase Nintendo's revenue.
The last argument remaining for why this is bad, is that 3rd party developers can just put their games on Game Pass and tell Switch owners to play it there through xCloud
One question: do developers get paid for every time someone plays their game on Xbox Game Pass? --NO! They most likely get paid once upfront, and have to rely on microtransactions to keep revenue coming in. Yes, xCloud on Switch might increase player base and thus revenue from microtransactions, but indie games with no microtransactions will suffer from this.
The whole point of Game Pass is to raise awareness and thus increase sales! Meaning they want the exposure to translate into hard sales. Otherwise they probably won't earn anything from it.
Putting 3rd party games on to xCloud and just telling Switch users to play them on Game Pass is a horrible business model! They need to make ports/Switch versions available as well so people can actuallybuythem from all the exposure. This way the developers actually earn cash, AND Nintendo get a 30% cut from the revenue -- win/win!
unless we're talking about EA here -- this would only incentivize them to halt all future Switch ports, save money on that, and milk microtransactions...
However, that's not to say that some developers may still tell Switch owners to play their games on xCloud. That way they can test the waters and get a better insight on engagement from Switch users, to assess if making a Switch port is worth it. This means more 3rd party games having a higher chance of getting a Switch port, which is only great for Nintendo!
Final Conclusion
The cloud gaming revolution and games subscription model is coming and it's here to stay. It will compete with the Switch as a viable and affordable alternative. Nintendo have no choice but to embrace it, either now or later on.
They can't compete with it, however.
Nintendo ought to put xCloud on Switch to act as a hook and a gateway to their own Nintendo ecosystem.
As Game Pass is growing with its currently 10 million subscribers, it's going to be everywhere with xCloud on mobile devices, and Nintendo need to tap into that user base to not lose out
By putting xCloud on Switch, Nintendo give xCloud/Game Pass subscribers an option to use xCloud on a Switch -- which has dedicated gaming controllers and a portabie form factor better suited for gaming than smartphones -- thereby pulling them in Nintendo's ecosystem.
xCloud on Switch won't cannibalize sales either, but may rather increase sales!
Xbox should put xCloud on Switch with a limited Game Pass library (or not limited), and Nintendo should embrace the coming age of cloud gaming and take advantage of it while they can!
---------------------------- There you have it! Can't believe I sacrificed my sleep for this, haha, but would love honest criticism if there is any :)
What’s the best way to enjoy me playing games offline?
I don’t have PlayStation Plud do I can’t play online. I have: Battlefield 1, Minecraft (There aren’t any servers on PS4 yet) Star Wars Battlefront 2015 & CoD Advanced Warfare (Finished the Campaign btw, and not allowed to purchase exo zombies) so what’s the best way for me to enjoy playing offline in any of these games?
I am playing Minecraft on the PS4. I swear I remembering being able to pause your surrounding environment when you pause the game in offline mode, but no such luck for me lately (the past several months). What can I do to assure I am offline without stopping WiFi for my PS4? Is this a glitch?
So the title is one thing, but there’s also another problem. Just now I’ve signed in and out of my microsoft account to try and see if i can join our world. And nothing. I’m on the phone with them currently and I hear them playing just fine. But when I search their username up, the green light indicating that they’re online isn’t lit. They’ve also tried to send me invites, and log out of their account too. And they said that their minecraft says I’m offline. Is there any solution that we can use to solve this problem? I play on the switch while they play on the ps4, not sure if that’s any help though.
Minecraft on PlayStation 4 supports split-screen play for you to build with friends. You can also play cross-platform with other devices running Minecraft. Supports PlayStation VR. Available as a physical disc and digitally from the PlayStation Store. If a PS Plus member registers a PS4™ as their Primary system, anyone who uses that system has the ability to play online multiplayer, regardless of whether or not they are PS Plus members. Additionally, as many as four players can simultaneously play online on the same console, even if the 3 additional players don't subscribe to PlayStation Plus. Thanks for the A2A If your friend has a realm and he invites you to his realm, you obviously can play his world without even his presence in the game. Realm is an online subscription service where you can rent a private server from Mojang (Minecra... There are several benefits to playing Minecraft offline, such as enjoying gameplay when you don’t have an Internet connection, avoiding the installation of updates, reducing lag time, and playing without having to log in and authenticate with Minecraft session servers. You can play Minecraft offline simply by selecting “Play Offline” in the Minecraft Launcher, or by modifying your Minecraft server information. A Microsoft account is optional and not required to play Minecraft on PS4 ™. It is a free account you can use to sign in on a device. It allows Minecraft players on PS4 ™ to play with other players on non- PS4 ™ devices like iOS, Android, Xbox One, Switch, and Windows 10. These are the best PS4 games that you can enjoy playing offline. of Edith Finch is a must-play offline game. II, Super Mario 64, God of War, Fortnite, Sea of Thieves, and Minecraft. "We are excited to announce that starting today, you will be able to stream as well as download PlayStation Now games to your PS4 system so that you can play both locally and offline, all with a Being able to play Minecraft offline, you can have fun with the game when a decent internet connection is unavailable or inaccessible. For example, when you are traveling on a train or plane, Minecraft will remain on the menu. Can Minecraft be played offline? Yes, Minecraft can be played offline. Ilove 2 player PS4 games, you can call them offline multiplayer games or couch co-op games. I simply adore every PS4 title that can be played in split-screen mode. 10.9k members in the PSMinecraft community. Discuss news and information about the Minecraft Playstation Edition (PS4, PS3, PSVita).
Minecraft PS4: Survival Let's Play - Episode 1 - YouTube
How to Play Split Screen With other PS3 or PS4 Players on Minecraft. This Function will only work if you have 720P HD or higher. If you 💖 Popcorn and playin... Minecraft PS4 on how to split screen for PS3 and PS4.UPDATE: Check This Updated Version For Split Screen https: ... in this video I talk about why you can't play servers on Minecraft PS4. I also talk about will minecraft ps4 get servers? or will servers never come to Minec... Minecraft PS4 - SPLIT-SCREEN - How To Co-Op ( Split-Screen Tutorial on Minecraft Playstation 4 )Become A Member: https: ... Hello! Daniel here. Here I show how you play split screen on Minecraft on consoles. What you need:Minecraft (duh ;))2 game padsHD connection to your tv and y... thanks for watching everyoneremember to like,comment,share & sub-----... PS Plus Minecraft • Can you play Minecraft with friends on ps4 without PlayStation Plus?-----Our mission is informing people properly. With this video, ... About Press Copyright Contact us Creators Advertise Developers Terms Privacy Policy & Safety How YouTube works Test new features Press Copyright Contact us Creators ...
