Unimportant & Seldom/Never Used Console/Gaming Features?

[disgaeniac]

I'll give ya the internet browser point, Greg -but- since I've switched my consoles' connections to "wired" (by adding...wtf did you say those things that you turned me onto were called?), + upgrading my internet speed + having that sweet & wireless Logitech keyboard hooked up to my PS3...it's really not thaaat bad.

2 additions:

cameras (for the sake of using it as an actual camera) on handhelds and

PS Home (nuff said).

btw - feel free to also talk about the best/your favorite & most used features here too!

[soera]

I cant believe people use their consoles for actually gaming. I mean ... wtf? We can talk to people on VGCollect with our consoles, why in the hell would you ever stop to actually turn on a game?

In all seriousness, the function I find the most annoying (its not actually the function itself though) is the Street pass. I recently played through FF III on my 3DS. It was on my backlog but never made it out till years after the game was out. But because of the street pass stuff on there, I was unable to get all the stuff I wanted cause 1) no one in my area uses it and 2)even if they did, they werent playing FFIII. So a lot of the really cool items are unavailable to people who dont use it. There is NO reason something like that should be required. It totally locks out part of the game to people 6 months after the game is released and thats just plain up bullshit.

One of the options I actually use the most is the DVD/Blu ray players. I already have a handful of consoles plugged in different rooms so the fact that I dont have to add another player to those rooms makes it much easier on me. My PS3 is my only blu ray as well.

[karyann]

I don't really care for watching tv, netflix, or other tv/streaming apps with my console because most of the time I use them just to play games( especially with those xbox one ads making a big deals about  the nfl tv app). I also didn't really care about swapnote and pictochat on the 3ds and ds too much since I didn't have many people who wanted to swap pics back and forth.

I remember when The Ds first came out Pictochat was the shit in my bus. Everyone in my bus would bring their DS and go into Pictochat and draw and chat and shit... I in the otherhand... didn't own a DS back then  :'(

Oh man, I never got any use out of pictochat except doodle by myself. I had ONE friend who had a DS back then. 

[burningdoom]

I cant believe people use their consoles for actually gaming. I mean ... wtf? We can talk to people on VGCollect with our consoles, why in the hell would you ever stop to actually turn on a game?

In all seriousness, the function I find the most annoying (its not actually the function itself though) is the Street pass. I recently played through FF III on my 3DS. It was on my backlog but never made it out till years after the game was out. But because of the street pass stuff on there, I was unable to get all the stuff I wanted cause 1) no one in my area uses it and 2)even if they did, they werent playing FFIII. So a lot of the really cool items are unavailable to people who dont use it. There is NO reason something like that should be required. It totally locks out part of the game to people 6 months after the game is released and thats just plain up bullshit.

One of the options I actually use the most is the DVD/Blu ray players. I already have a handful of consoles plugged in different rooms so the fact that I dont have to add another player to those rooms makes it much easier on me. My PS3 is my only blu ray as well.

I hate Street Pass for the opposite reason. To many kiddies want to message me or play games with me to the point of annoyance. I just want to play my games!

[karyann]

I'll give ya the internet browser point, Greg -but- since I've switched my consoles' connections to "wired" (by adding...wtf did you say those things that you turned me onto were called?), + upgrading my internet speed + having that sweet & wireless Logitech keyboard hooked up to my PS3...it's really not thaaat bad.

2 additions:

cameras (for the sake of using it as an actual camera) on handhelds and

PS Home (nuff said).

btw - feel free to also talk about the best/your favorite & most used features here too!

Speaking of PS Home, what does it even do? I wanted to try it once, but the loading took forever so I just shut it down and never tried again 

Cameras are indeed useless as real cameras. Take the one on the 3DS, for example; it adds a cool feature for some games, but I've also seen people in conventions use their 3DS to take cosplay pictures, and every time I wonder WHY. The quality is terrible for anything else than detecting stuff in a game. 

[maximo310]

I'll give ya the internet browser point, Greg -but- since I've switched my consoles' connections to "wired" (by adding...wtf did you say those things that you turned me onto were called?), + upgrading my internet speed + having that sweet & wireless Logitech keyboard hooked up to my PS3...it's really not thaaat bad.

2 additions:

cameras (for the sake of using it as an actual camera) on handhelds and

PS Home (nuff said).

btw - feel free to also talk about the best/your favorite & most used features here too!

Speaking of PS Home, what does it even do? I wanted to try it once, but the loading took forever so I just shut it down and never tried again 

Cameras are indeed useless as real cameras. Take the one on the 3DS, for example; it adds a cool feature for some games, but I've also seen people in conventions use their 3DS to take cosplay pictures, and every time I wonder WHY. The quality is terrible for anything else than detecting stuff in a game. 

The 3ds camera is pretty bad, because it has 3 camera sensors, 2 outside, and 1 facing the user and they all use 0.3 megapixels with one-point focus and digital zoom, but they put more time into the 3d functionality of the camera instead of making it better. Most of the pictures I've taken with my 3ds seem to always come out blurry, even if the object I'm taking a picture of is like a foot away.

[disgaeniac]

KARYANN -

I can't tell you much more about PS Home than you already know - It sounds like I only spent a few more minutes with it than you did (as in, I didn't even stick around long enough to finish the character creation/customization).

iirc, it was supposed to be all about creating your own avatar + home, customizing your clothes, hair, etc and then customizing + decorating your place...all so you could then venture out into your virtual world, with your virtual avatar to meet & socialize w/ other like-minded virtual avatars with their own virtual houses & accessories; so you could all then...wrf?!

Hell if I know 

I suppose that they'd all get together to try to convince & re-assure each other that it made sense, and that it was normal & okay to spend countless hours (and money(?); I wouldn't know, but I'd be shocked if Sony *Didn't* have "premium" items that cost real money - and, I'd be just as shocked if there weren't people who'd spend real money for fancier & higher quality pretend clothing + housing) using their expensive *GAMING* consoles to create & dress up pretend people & houses to spend even more time talking to even more pretend people & visiting more pretend homes...instead of, you know - popping a game into it & playing it 

If you want more specifics about it...try asking SOERA, I think that he'd be our resident expert and, I'm guessing that he spent a lot of time there 

[evilnick]

I don't use almost any non-gaming feature.  TVii for the Wii U, for instance.  Don't care.  My girlfriend uses my Kinect on her X360 for watching Netflix, but still resorts to the controller half the time.  I never use the camera on the 3DS, and I have never used the chat features on the Wii U.  The PS3 has so much crap buried in that terrible menu system that I've never used, and any pages after the first two on the Xbox 360 are never used by me. 

Essentially, outside of Netflix and Hulu, I never use these things for anything other than gaming. 

[karyann]

using their expensive *GAMING* consoles to create & dress up pretend people & houses to spend even more time talking to even more pretend people & visiting more pretend homes...instead of, you know - popping a game into it & playing it 

They could just buy Animal Crossing and enjoy tons more stuff while doing that 

[disgaeniac]

using their expensive *GAMING* consoles to create & dress up pretend people & houses to spend even more time talking to even more pretend people & visiting more pretend homes...instead of, you know - popping a game into it & playing it 

They could just buy Animal Crossing and enjoy tons more stuff while doing that 

I never tried an Animal Crossing game...are they fun?

How many are there, what systems are they on, and which one(s) the best?

[abe]

using their expensive *GAMING* consoles to create & dress up pretend people & houses to spend even more time talking to even more pretend people & visiting more pretend homes...instead of, you know - popping a game into it & playing it 

They could just buy Animal Crossing and enjoy tons more stuff while doing that 

I never tried an Animal Crossing game...are they fun?

How many are there, what systems are they on, and which one(s) the best?

I personally really enjoy Animal Crossing, but I've found it's the kind of thing people either love or hate. You have to make your own goals and you can do what you want (mostly) whenever you feel like it. The games never really end, so can you just stop playing whenever you decide you're finished with them. I find they're a great way to relax.

These are the Animal Crossing games we've gotten.
Animal Crossing (GameCube) -This is actually an upgraded port of the N64 original, which was exclusive to Japan.
Animal Crossing: Wild World (Nintendo DS) -Enjoyable, but feels pretty outdated now. It's kinda hard to go back to after AC: New Leaf
Animal Crossing: City Folk (Wii)
Animal Crossing: New Leaf (3DS) -In my opinion, this one's the best of the series. I'd recommend it.

[karyann]

I personally really enjoy Animal Crossing, but I've found it's the kind of thing people either love or hate. You have to make your own goals and you can do what you want (mostly) whenever you feel like it. The games never really end, so can you just stop playing whenever you decide you're finished with them. I find they're a great way to relax.

These are the Animal Crossing games we've gotten.
Animal Crossing (GameCube) -This is actually an upgraded port of the N64 original, which was exclusive to Japan.
Animal Crossing: Wild World (Nintendo DS) -Enjoyable, but feels pretty outdated now. It's kinda hard to go back to after AC: New Leaf
Animal Crossing: City Folk (Wii)
Animal Crossing: New Leaf (3DS) -In my opinion, this one's the best of the series. I'd recommend it.

I second everything in this post! And if you ever want to try the series, go straight to New Leaf Not that the rest is bad, but for someone who never played it, it's the best way to know if you'll like it or not.

[betelgeuse]

Features not used- Pretty much anything on the system that doesn't play the actual game.

I use to get excited with a free demo disc that came with pre-orders, now you can download any trial version of any game and I never do....strange.
The DVD player never synced up properly with audio/video on my PS2 without tweaking settings, so I stopped using that.


Best feature- Blu-ray player on PS3

I used this more than I played games on the system, until I got a stand alone that surpassed it. There just weren't any players at the time, for the price, that had a faster access or disc load time.

[okay]

I'll agree with the stupidity of PS Home. I used it, what...twice? I tried out the bowling game and hated hated HATED it. What a joke.

I got a LOT of use out of the PS3's Folding@Home function. I was quite upset when they ended support of it.

[gokurin]

I know that there are a few things, but I can't think of them off the top of my head... I'll think about it a little!

Street Pass is a good one.  I didn't even pull it up until after I had had my 3DS for more than a year, and then it was just to see what the heck it was.

Streetpass is really neat, but you need to live in a very populated area. I've experienced it in 3 different areas: small city where I never got any streetpass except from friends at school, a big city where I get a few streetpass tags at the biggest mall in the city, and a very big city where I get my 10 streepass tags daily. And after all that, I have to say: it's a really cool feature, but it can't be enjoyed by everyone because of population limitations

Yeah streetpass is pretty lame in small towns.  I only have one streetpass tag and it was from my sister's 3DS ha.

Just go to a day one release of a popular 3DS game like Smash or Pokemon.
You'll get a bunch.

using their expensive *GAMING* consoles to create & dress up pretend people & houses to spend even more time talking to even more pretend people & visiting more pretend homes...instead of, you know - popping a game into it & playing it 

They could just buy Animal Crossing and enjoy tons more stuff while doing that 

I never tried an Animal Crossing game...are they fun?

How many are there, what systems are they on, and which one(s) the best?

I personally really enjoy Animal Crossing, but I've found it's the kind of thing people either love or hate. You have to make your own goals and you can do what you want (mostly) whenever you feel like it. The games never really end, so can you just stop playing whenever you decide you're finished with them. I find they're a great way to relax.

These are the Animal Crossing games we've gotten.
Animal Crossing (GameCube) -This is actually an upgraded port of the N64 original, which was exclusive to Japan.
Animal Crossing: Wild World (Nintendo DS) -Enjoyable, but feels pretty outdated now. It's kinda hard to go back to after AC: New Leaf
Animal Crossing: City Folk (Wii)
Animal Crossing: New Leaf (3DS) -In my opinion, this one's the best of the series. I'd recommend it.

RIP in peace Nintendo WFC ;-;7