Topic: The Chit Chat Thread

Wasted the entire day away chasing down a package & now I'm at work.
Long story short. Don't buy digital.

Makes...no...sense....lol

Did Push Square do an article about Shawn Layden's comments to Greg Miller when asked about possible PSN name changes?!?!

@kyleforrester87 Haha without context that does come off strange.
If I had bought Farpoint physical- like I do most games, I would've got the Aim Controller bundled & wouldn't have been forced to order online.
Basically that was the cause of all my problems.
Anyways, it's over now. Time to put this ordeal behind me.

@bbtothe Yep they posted it the other day.

@Tasuki ah cool thanks ill dig it up

@Kidfried Fair enough - but I do see a lot of posts here saying the Xbox has no exclusives because they are all on PC and 'timed' exclusives don't count either. I wasn't referring to you directly but making a point that people have 'double standards' in general. With the likes of Nier and Hellblade winning awards, I saw a lot of comments praising Sony's 'exclusives' and from some that have said MS has 'no' exclusives. Its not like MS didn't win 'awards' with Cuphead and Forza Motorsport 7 either. Looking ahead, I can see Sony being nominated for a lot of awards at next years Game Awards but I can see MS getting a few nominations too - Ori and Forza Horizon 4 for example. Of course that could change by the time we get closer to the awards as we will no doubt have games we are yet to hear about releasing.

As far as PC's go though, you can play Nier with any PC - at least any that meets the required specs - but you can't play any MS exclusives with 'any' PC unless its Windows 10 and you sign up to MS - either with your Xbox profile or create an 'Xbox' profile on your PC and buy from the MS store. You can't get them through steam so effectively its an 'Xbox' on PC. Either way its still Exclusive to MS more so than 'Nier' if that makes sense and MS still get ALL the money on PC purchases - no other retailer gets money. They probably get more money for selling on PC than they do by me buying physical from Amazon for example for my Xbox - although those games can still be downloaded and played on Xbox anyway. It does annoy me though that many PS gamers are hypocritical and overly bias. I know I may come across as 'bias' towards MS at times as I try to correct peoples hypocritical or PS bias comments but the truth is, I couldn't pick one over the other. Both have their strengths and weaknesses. At the moment Sony are dominating in the quality of their first Party games but they are also showing their long term projects too so it seems they have a LOT more games to come than MS's more short term view. Either way, I am still looking forward to 2018 and gaming on both my Pro and X.

My Laptop too couldn't cope with playing these games either - not that I would want to. I much prefer playing on a big 4k screen with a controller. I know I could probably have bought a 'decent' gaming PC with the money I have spent on consoles in the past couple of years but I would still have wanted/needed at least a PS4 for a lot of my games.

@Kidfried I totally agree that the Xbox is very limited compared to Sony when it comes to JRPGs. That's not surprising though as Sony do have a number of Studios based in Japan and its not like Konami or Capcom are making JRPG's for the multi-platform market. Sony is a Japanese product and like Nintendo, they cater more to the Orient than a western based console that the Xbox is.

Personally, I don't care much for JRPG's myself but I still wouldn't want to go without a Playstation. Ever since the first PS console, I have always had access to Sony's 'exclusives' and ever since the Xbox came along, I have owned both. I really could not pick one over the other if I was 'forced' to pick a side. Both have their strengths and weaknesses.

I do think though that we are seeing the fruits of the multiple studios Sony have in recent years. The first couple of years did feel very 'barren' to me on PS4 - Killzone (good but average), Infamous (good but not as good as the previous games - same story as Killzone) and remasters of Last of Us, Nathan Drake etc were the only games of any 'interest' to me. I know we had the Order, Bloodborne (not a 'Souls' fan), Until Dawn etc but it wasn't until Uncharted 4 and then E3 2016 that I felt that Sony had really turned things around and we saw the fruits of the many studio's Sony own delivering. This year in particular - especially if you are fan of Japanese games has been very strong. At the start of this gen though, MS were delivering on Exclusives - Ryse, Forza 5, 6 and Horizon 2, 3, Halo 5, Titanfall, Dead Rising 3 and 4, Sunset Overdrive, Ori and the Blind Forest, Quantum Break, Rise of the Tomb Raider (I know some were timed but still 'Exclusives' for a year etc - maybe not all game of the year potential but still a lot of fun and interesting. Things have dried up since and MS have really limited what they are prepared to reveal to just a year ahead now - thanks to overly long productions with delay after delay (Cuphead, Crackdown 3, Sea of Thieves) as well as dealing with the aftermath of cancellations (Scalebound, Fable Legends) so as an Xbox gamer, we really don't know what MS has for us beyond next years E3. Compared to Sony, we can name a number of games that are likely to still be unreleased by E3 2018.

In all fairness though, Sony should have more exclusives. They have way more Studio's than MS. From such a small Island, Japan has a surprising number of studios and with the 'history' of Playstation, its not surprising they have good relationships with a number of 3rd party publishers too. I love the fact that Sony and MS co exist as each push each other to improve or at least offer their users similar functionality. Sony certainly have the best HD console on the market whilst MS now have the best 4k console. I see MS going a 'different' route in the future with 'iterations' and phasing out the weakest where Sony will be following the traditional generational path. Maybe if MS are successful with their Path, Sony may follow that. If both are successful, then we could see both pathways co-existing. At some points, like now for example, MS has the 'strongest' console but I expect the PS5 to be stronger. That may well be trumped by the 'nextbox' iteration but Sony could respond with a PS5 Pro iteration. All that means is that we as gamers get better games - not just visuals but performance and features too.

I can't see 4k being replaced soon but as we know, the amount of power required to do full 4k is more than these consoles have. With better CPU's I can see more advancement in gaming. Better AI and/or more NPC's, more dynamic and filled worlds, more destructive or even more realistic growth in these worlds as opposed to a 'static' environment - even if we do get night.day cycles, dynamic weather etc. We see NPC's building, chopping etc but always these never finish. That building is never built, that tree is never chopped down etc but that could change with more CPU power. Even if we can get to a point where visuals are full 4k with 'ultra' settings on consoles, the CPU is an area where I think we are holding 'devs' back currently on the type of games, the worlds they create and the directions they can go. With HDMI 2.1, we could see more than 60fps gameplay on consoles. 4k/60 'could' be the 'norm' with up to 4k 120 possible. Game VRR will also eliminate most of the issues associated with unlocked frame rate games. As the CPU has to perform billions of calculations, handle AI and Physics etc and tell the GPU what to draw and do this in enough time so that the GPU can draw the frame in 33ms (for 30fps gaming) or even 17ms (for 60fps), its little wonder why games have performance issues in certain points with the 'weak' Jaguar CPU in consoles. Its still amazing what these games offer but they are definitely holding back devs. Its not a simple case of reducing the resolution in half to get double the frame rate - it may work in some games because of the reduced time a GPU needs to render that frame but you still have to do all the calculations etc and if those, combined with the render time are more than 17ms, you can't hit 60fps. Particle effects for example are physics based calculations, where each particle is, where they are moving to and what objects they may need to bounce off - all often calculated in CPU and sent to GPU so it knows where to draw these - that's why these scenes often hit frame rate performance.

I have no doubt that Sony will be upgrading the CPU for the PS5. Visually games may not look too different from the X or high end PC's but the better CPU will give Sony the opportunity to offer more 60fps games that are 30fps on the X. More RAM for example will still give Sony's PS5 the same high quality textures. A more powerful GPU may give Sony an edge in Resolution and/or Visual settings but most won't see much difference on a 4k screen at normal seating - especially with Temporal Anti-aliasing. Audio will be the same (both Atmos enabled no doubt) so the main difference will be performance - at least that's how I see it going.

@BAMozzy @Kidfried It is interesting to see how MS and Sony have varied a little in their philosophies and then how that has evolved over time. I heard it explained this way for simple minds like mine — Microsoft is a software company that decided to get into hardware, and Sony is a hardware company that decided to get into software. Each had their initial strengths years ago (Windows OS and Office for MS; TV’s, Video players, Walkmans etc for Sony) and then each got into gaming consoles later. It may explain a little about why the PSN until recently never functioned as smoothly as Xbox Live, and why the early gen Xbox hardware has taken some time to catch up and for now surpass. As for Nintendo, well ... I guess it’s all they’ve ever done is gaming, so they should of be the experts now.

@KratosMD I admit I have been quite frugal with my gaming this year as I knew November would be really expensive for me. In the first 7months or so, I only bought 4 games and one of those was actually paid for last year (ME:A) - the other games being H:ZD, Infamous: First Light and Witcher 3 GotY (all on PS4).

Since August though I have bought 10 games - some were Special editions with Season Passes/extra content as well as some DLC (H:ZD) and of course the Project Scorpio.

Its not been a particularly 'heavy' year as far as buying games are concerned but if you look at the past 14-15 months, its been one of my most expensive years as far as game expenditure is concerned. In that time, I have purchased 3 consoles (WTF!), a couple of controllers (inc a Limited Edition Gears 4 Elite controller - more expensive than a Standard Elite) and around 25 games - the majority were limited edition versions with Steel books, Season Passes etc. Its a good job I don't have a Mobile or Car to run as there is no way I could have afforded the year I have...

I do think that the N64/PS1 era and the XB360/PS3 era had many years that I bought a LOT of games. Take last gen for example, it seemed that most games dropped very quickly in price - more so than this gen. Maybe because of the 2nd hand market being flooded so 'new' games dropped quickly. Indie/Arcade games were cheaper too - no more than £10 (or 1200 MS points) - and some 'indie' games cost less than £1 on the XB360 (didn't really bother looking on PSN for these but my Son had a 360 and was often playing some 'minecraft' clone or some other really cheap 80p game). It enabled me to pick up games I may already have on one console for £5-10 at most. I still have all my Xbox games going back to the OG console, I gave one of my kids all my PS1/2 games when my OG PS3 died and replaced by a Slim and my youngest had all my N64 games - anything prior was taken to a tip. That means I can compare the size of my gaming collection - certainly last gen - with my current collection. My OG Xbox games take up a cardboard 'microwave' box - which would probably house most of my XB360 and PS3 games - not bad for a console that was replaced after 4/5years. My current gen collection doesn't beat my last gen collection numerically - in fact it doesn't beat either my PS3 or 360 collection separately. I can see that because my current Gen games take up a shelf where as both my PS3 and XB360 games take up more than a shelf individually - but in fairness, last gen did go on for a long time...

I've bought the majority of my PS4 library this year. Not counting PS+ games, I'm currently sitting at 59 physical games & 52 digital.
I've probably owned about 70-75 physical game, but I do trade games in that I simply didn't enjoy or finished quick enough to retain some decent store credit with a fast trade in.

I've been thinking... .Despite my purchasing habits being ~60/40 in favour of physical I'm much more likely to 'finish' a game I bought physical.
From my 59 physical games, I've only got 10 left to beat. Got about 40-45 digital games to still beat.

I guess I feel more compelled to finish a game once I've inserted a disc. Then again the games I do buy physical are usually games I'm really excited for. Digital tend to be on sale items. I'm sure that also affects why I'm more likely to beat a physical game rather than a digitial one.

@Fight_Teza_Fight That’s an interesting observation which actually seems to hold true for me too. I’m about 60-70% physical (and now with the whole net neutrality debacle I’m glad to have physical copies) and it does seem like the games I have physical discs for are the ones in the forefront of my mind to complete. Most of my digital are games I’ve got from PS plus, so it’s not like I actually chose to buy them, but I’ve had a few that I was excited enough about to download on my hard drive and I’ve been ignoring them there for a long time (sorry Valiant Hearts and Transistor ... I’ll get to you both one day).
But if I was honest with myself, the digital games are much more convenient to launch and play once they’re downloaded.. no cumbersome disc changing and the PS4 runs quieter without a disc in it.

@Th3solution It's something I think I'm going to address moving forward. There's a lot of digital games that I stop-start. I played Resi 7 (digital) for 8 hours in VR before stopping- think the game is only 9-10 hours long!
Yeah some games lend themselves better being digital (WipEout, Sports games,...)

I have only bought 2 digital games so far this gen - Ratchet and Clank & Infamous: First Light - both cheap in a sale and both games I wasn't bothered about having in my collection. I know how 'easy' Digital games can be to jump into at 'any' time as I have GwG/IGC games too - although I never count these as games I own. Even though I am disabled, it doesn't take me more than a few minutes to swap discs and be playing that game. Being an OLD gamer, I remember the times when changing a game meant that I would be able to go and eat my dinner, make a drink etc and come back to see the loading screen nearly finished drawing. With some games, it could take five minutes to find exactly where it was on a tape. I think modern games are super fast to get into today - as fast, if not faster than the N64 cartridges - especially if you powered down the console first to take out the cartridge before switching them and powering up - as you should do.
I know that Digital is faster and means you don't have to move - being disabled as I am should make that easier for me but I still prefer physical. Something to actually hold for my money, something that I can actually see in my growing collection on the shelf and, as a collector, I like the steel books, the art books etc that comes with collectors/special/limited editions too. I have never bought a USB flash drive and used the one from my Saints Row 3 limited edition to upload the PS OS when I swapped my Pro's 1TB drive for a 2TB drive.
I don't trade my games in, so its not like I buy physical because of that. Although maybe if times get really tough, I could sell my older games (my OG XB, 360 or PS3) along with the console to a retro games collector maybe even my PS4, XB1 games/consoles by that point. It will be worth more than a console with a 'digital' library as the person buying won't be able to play the digital games so they are 'worthless' (unless you also sell your profile too - assuming that there is still 'online' support and access to those games at that point).
I think there is something special about getting a new game, breaking the seal and opening it up for the first time. Seeing any artwork on the disc, looking through any artbooks or extras that came with them whilst waiting for it too install. Having two consoles can mean I can play on one whilst the other installs the new game or even watch something on TV until its ready - its still preferable to buying Digital for me.
I think its great that we are given the choice between digital and physical - that way people can decide which format is best for them. I would hate to see us forced to buy 1 or the other - especially forced to buy digital only as there is no 'competition' to drive prices down.

Anyone seen this?
http://www.argos.co.uk/product/7606548
Mini Commodore 64!
Well before my time, but I kinda want it !

@Fight_Teza_Fight very interesting, could be worth a purchase!

@Fight_Teza_Fight Yeah, I heard of it. They announced it not long after the announcement for the SNES Classic.

@Tasuki Didin't realise this was a thing. Must have missed that, as I only really frequent PushSquare and NL. Pretty cool nonetheless. I imagine the majority of SNES classics will end up on virtual console one day, but 60 retro games for £70 is very tempting.
@LieutenantFatman Been thinking that too. I was born in the 90's, so it would be cool to experience some gaming history. Very tempting indeed.

@Fight_Teza_Fight I played a C64 a lot with friends and this is probably a step too far for me to get into nostalgia wise. I can't remember any games, only that I completely sucked at all of them!

@Kidfried Oh wow that sounds amazing - I love all those soundtracks (even if I haven't played the game). I love Everybody's Gone to the Rapture. That is my go to album when I need to destress or chill out.

I am incredibly jealous!

@ZurapiiYohane Nice one. Enjoy your new headset !
I kind of cooled off on VR after the launch window, but Skyrim brought me back.
Now I'm using it more than ever.
Check out Wayward Sky, which I just beat (~3hours), it's a wonderfully charming game. Think you would enjoy it.
https://www.pushsquare.com/reviews/ps4/wayward_sky