Comments 2,395

Re: PS5, PS4 Owners Are Understandably Irate with PS Plus Price Hike

Haruki_NLI

I don't think there will be any improvements to the service. Sony has a history of this kind of stuff and we all know it.

Take the PlayStation Link accessories for instance, $150 or $200 for a headset or earbuds, but these are the only wireless options for your PS Portal because they omitted Bluetooth in favour of a new proprietary tech and gave some vague reason as to why. It reeks of the Vita needing memory cards because they expect certain speeds, but turns out SD Cards work just fine thanks.

I'm willing to bet if we open the PS Portal, there's a Bluetooth chip in there.

I also expect, for the new PS5 revision, that the existing, expensive, Pulse headset the system launched with wont work, because it'll use PS Link accessories instead. So that'd be two seperate headsets in not even 4 years, all because.....reasons?

It's the same with PS+, its a price increase....because they can. Sure, Xbox just raised the price of Game Pass and PS+ works out cheaper yearly, but the value proposition you can argue isn't there for that highest tier compared to the highest tier of Gamepass.

But also, $80 a year to play online? What in the hell is this? It says something that people online are starting to look at the Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pack Family Plan (For 8 people) and realise that's now the same price as as the base PS+.

When your traditional expensive and overpriced competitor is offering a bundle for 8 people at a discount to their highest tier for online and its the same price as you basic offering, there's something wrong.

If you're doing things with accessories that even Apple wouldnt do, there's something wrong.

Live services, increasing prices on consoles, games, services, locking you into new accessories by forced compatibility, it's all so unnecessary and yet here we are.

Re: Sony Has a State of Play Livestream for September, Rumours Suggest

Haruki_NLI

@ED_209 See, I can get that idea, but my thought is Sony wants to maintain the PS Plus sub levels that CoD brings in, because let's be honest that's basically it for them in terms of paid multiplayer games.

So they're honestly more likely to have their live service games be paid retail releases that you then need to subscribe to PS+ for, with in game purchases. Just like Call of Duty.

Re: PS Portal's Battery Life Aiming to Match PS5 Controller

Haruki_NLI

@lightningbolt79 and you can only use wireless headphones with it if you buy the new expensive ones that use a proprietary tech for connecting because Sony does that again, and you can't use Bluetooth because it's not supported.

So you can't even use your expensive PS5 headset from when the PS5 launched. It's insane

Re: Poll: Is 'Live Service' Becoming an Excuse to Release Unfinished Games?

Haruki_NLI

I find it interesting that some of the best and most played "live service" games are the ones that didn't really start out with that goal.

Fortnite, Mario Kart 8, Splatoon, Call of Duty managed to adapt into it.

A lot of the failures seem to come from diving head first into trying to force it when almost all the big hits got there slowly, or by complete accident.

Re: Over 56% of Final Fantasy 16 UK Launch Sales Were Digital, But the Charts Only Count Physical

Haruki_NLI

@Splat Unfortunately some storefronts, platforms or publishers don't provide digital sales data, and more often than not, that digital data is paywalled even to outlets.

So until both of those things changes, sales charts are by and large meaningless as an objective look at sales. Though even now through extrapolation and the idea of "roughly half of sales are digital" you can still get some rough estimate.

Re: Pokémon Dev Reveals Project Bloom, New IP Funded by GTA Owner

Haruki_NLI

@get2sammyb True. But this is Game Freak. They did Legends, guided BDSP, did Little Town Hero and Sword and Shield DLC all simultaneously alongside Scarlet and Violet.

Right now we know of Project Bloom, SV DLC, probably the next two Pokemon games in the world already.

One of these has got to give, and Pokemon can definitely get worse. Way worse.

It's a shame Game Freak just can't get the manpower to do all the things it wants to do because with that they'd consistently have good games. Maybe with that nice new office space Nintendo just gave them...

Re: Sony: We're Not Just Creating 10 Live Service Destiny or Fortnite Games

Haruki_NLI

They seem unwilling to realise that yeah, these are all different genres, but you're going to need to either start pulling people away from their current handful of choice, or do the impossible and make an additional one that people also somehow find time to play.

And when you make that many in such a short time? Most of them won't stick.

But if even one sticks, it's good money.

Re: PSVR2 Sales Off to a 'Slow Start', New Report Claims

Haruki_NLI

This guy has said a lot of different things about the console manufacturers lately, to the point at least two of them had to come out and outright (In one case very very bluntly) refute the claims to investor relations, because what he says is gonna cause issues when it comes out he was wrong and the market takes it as gospel.

So yeah, lets not put any weight in this.

Re: Sonic Frontiers' Worst PS5, PS4 Trophy No Longer Gnaws At Your Soul

Haruki_NLI

It never made sense since the Hermit Koco takes seeds and upgrades both Offense and Defense in bulk in one go. So having Elder Koco require you to pick and choose each level for both Rings and Speed one by one was bizarre, including the lengthy animation and delay on the menu.

But then upon finding out that you can use Hermit Koco to transfer levels from Rings to Speed or vice versa, which almost logically you think since its not a choice and just transferring from one to the other, you can choose how many levels to swap.

Nope. One at a time.

So thank god they added this in.

Re: PS5, PS4 Battle Royale Brawler Rumbleverse Shutting Down After Just Six Months

Haruki_NLI

And here we go. Epic has Fortnite, Rocket League and Fall Guys. They tried a 4th game, and realised that yeah, people don't have the time or funds to devote to that many at once. So something has to give. Even when the juggernaut does it.

Heck look at all the others that have come and gone from smaller publishers.

And here we have Sony wanting 12 of them in a matter of years. We all know what's gonna happen.

Either only one or two land and the rest are a sunk cost, or none of them land because yet again, people already have their live services of choice and won't budge.

Re: Sonic Team Veteran Considering Ditching the Boost System for Next Game

Haruki_NLI

Dropping the boost after Frontiers wouldn't be weird, given it no longer damages enemies as of Frontiers, and is only used for speed and getting from A to B faster. Even then, the boost doesn't actually make you any faster in 2D.

So it's gone from what it was to only actually doing anything in 3D and not damaging enemies anymore.

But removing it would require making traversal of large open spaces speedier. Sure we have the Drop Dash now, so maybe just bring back the Spin Dash?

Only thing the boost really adds now is the air boost anyway.

Re: Sonic Frontiers Speeds Past 2.5 Million Sales in Its First Month

Haruki_NLI

@dasd2 Not gonna happen. Historically Sonic games have sold best on Nintendo systems even when multiplatform. Heck, Colours surpassed the HD version of Unleashed if I remember correctly. The only exceptions were the Wii U ones, obviously.

So as long as SEGA wants to target that market, and for Sonic there will always be a need for that large market, then it won't be next gen only. They tried that once.

Re: Sonic Fanbase Heartbroken Over The Game Awards Loss

Haruki_NLI

@NintenGuy No, I couldn't give a toss about the Game Awards. It's always gone on for too long and felt too....artificial, I suppose is the word.

I also happened to be asleep so just saw who won what and called it a day while reading any interesting news.

No hard feelings though, it's an older meme sir, but it checks out.

Re: Sonic Fanbase Heartbroken Over The Game Awards Loss

Haruki_NLI

@NintenGuy Two points.

1) Sonic Frontiers was remarkably mediocre. I dont think it was deserving of an award, regardless of how good it was relative to the series as a whole.

2) The Horizon joke was a popular meme in 2017, which I replied to what I assumed was a similar style joke from yourself. Apologies.

Re: Microsoft Invites Sony to Sign Its Own 10-Year Call of Duty Deal

Haruki_NLI

@MisterXpoSay But Sony would get the same money from CoD then as they do now. They get their split of third party sales, the rest goes to the publisher. It's in this case the publisher would be Microsoft, not Activision. Sony would get the same 30%.

They're just arguing against something Microsoft has repeatedly said they won't do, and would be stupid to do: once they own CoD, they go from 30% of the revenue on Xbox, to 100% of the revenue on Xbox, plus 70% on Playstation, Steam and Nintendo.

In what world Sony really thinks ANY business would be that stupid is beyond me and this legally binding contract now proves it.

What this really is is Sony crying about losing the marketing rights that propelled PS+. They get the same revenue from the games and IAPs.

Re: PS5 Games Likely to Remain $70 as Xbox Bumps Prices

Haruki_NLI

@Cyrus29 Maybe, maybe not. Nintendo budgets are lower, the hardware sells at a profit, and the games sell so well that the massive additional profits fund other games, whereas for Sony and Microsoft it would seem that while games turn out profitable, the lower (relatively) sales means less profit overall given those games also have far higher budgets, which means whatever they make back goes largely into the next entry, not other games as well, thus higher prices to offset that.

It's the one place where you can argue Nintendo stepping away from the power race has helped. Games for them are $60, cheaper to make, much more profit with massive sales funds everything else. I recall Miyamoto said Breath of the Wild needed to shift 2 million copies to make a profit. And you can bet all that Mario Kart money isn't going into Mario Kart 9, but games to expand the library that won't do as well like Bayonetta.

Re: 20 More PS Plus Extra, Premium Games Available Now on PS5, PS4

Haruki_NLI

@LifeGirl It's not a lot of money in November 2022.

It was even less money in September 2022.

But it'll be more money than now in January 2023.

Sure, most adults pay the difference every few days on other things. Other things they need. And that's going to become tighter and tighter.

That £16? That's a week of travel too and from work. And as management on just above minimum wage? That £16 I could spend on PS+ Premium for things I'm not going to use, or don't work great like the streaming, or having little to no value added to it each month? That's gonna have to go into something that gives value.

Subjective yes, but people place needs before wants and they then divide what little wants they can have by value offered.

And to many Premium is low down that list.

Re: PS Plus Premium Members Bemused by Sony Once Again

Haruki_NLI

@Milktastrophe This months premium of loads of PS3 Ratchet gaames despite 4 of them being PS2 games that could be played natively on the system if they tried.

And lets not forget how they did with Sly as well for Premium.

And how both those Sly games and all these Ratchet games were er....how do we say this....on PS Now before the rebrand but got taken down so they can add them back again a few months later?

This is objectively being given the same thing you had before after it had been taken away to give it a new name, and now you pay more for it.

Re: 21.7 Million PS5 Consoles Shipped by End of June 2022

Haruki_NLI

@uptownsoul No?

It shows that Xbox, as we see in monthyl reports, is selling plenty of cheaper Series S consoles that will therefore generate less revenue.

A £250 console that sells 100,000 units will generate less revenue than a console at £350 that sells 100,000 units.

Revenue is not profit, nor fully indicative of demand.

Heck, PS5 Hardware generates more dollar sales than Switch and Xbox hardware on the regular. But it doesnt generate the most unit sales.