@IamJT I'm not sure there were any decisions in that movie that WEREN'T questionable, other than maybe casting Liam Nisson. Which I'm sure he thinks was questionable.
It was so amazingly bad it took me many years and a Bioware fanfic to actually get me to watch anything SW again.
@kcarnes9051 Fair point. I forgot marvel anything existed because it doesn't to me lol 😆.
Though it's not Sony ip or Sony exclusive IP in the stellar blade sense, it's Disney ip. Youre right but I was really thinking of actual Sony franchises, not just Disney licenses. For actual Sony franchises (forgot to include concord because the lead was clearly....err whatever her name was for a week and a half....). Still, yeah games was nothing but burly space Marines and effeminate anime dudes for ages, but humans always have a habit of overcorrecting everything until they have the same problem they started with and then do it all over again.
@GamingFan4Lyf day and date is the big one. Sonny's plan is to get people to play on console for fomo. And to a degree that does clearly work so maybe they're right. But they're also losing market on those that don't because it's an old game outside the marketing up against trendier things then it launches. If course the point was also reaching markets they don't sell consoles and then annihilated that with the PSN requirement.
I agree Lego horizon is made for switch. Cute as it is, ps and pc players already played the real game. And the sequel. And the remaster now. Why play it again in Legos? Is an odd release. Why not make a new side story at least?
@Medic_alert "As for the idea that the upscaler was available when PS5 launched, it just isn't right. Console hardware is locked in years ahead of time and as stated not all features will be current on console and on PC at the same time. "
And staying current on PS, for an all digital consumer is now $1100-1500 for the generation. So a $1500 PC for the generation, or a $1500 PS for the generation. One offers more, one is more convenient. The choices now really come down to that. Your points are correct, but that's why the pricing is absurd. The consoles are naturally years behind, but are now creeping steadily towards similar total cost.
@Medic_alert Comparing the GPU price to the base console price doesn't really pan out and never does, and obviously Sony was taking a loss while Nvidia was making mad profit on each sale, so that doesn't match up either.
It kind of goes back to PS5 and XSX never should have launched in 2020 AT ALL to begin with. It was far too many steps behind the current paradigm to have been justifiable.
And yeah, I very much don't like what Sony is doing here, where they're basically doing a "do over" of the original console, more or less admitting that it's not actually good enough to meet the marketing promises on the games made now (while also hedging that the Pro won't be either), and following the PC route of instead of pushing developers to make games for their console, even exclusive games, the onus is on the consumer to keep ponying up for more hardware to make up for the games and brute force them. Except it's kind of expensive for a 45% power bump (which is next to nothing in the 4k realm) and adding on an AI scaler that was already current back when the base model launched, for nearly double the original launch price of the digital console, 4 years into it's obsolecense. If you're going to follow the PC route, why bother with a locked ecosystem at all?
Obviously the answer comes back to "convenience" and hassle free as originally said. But where consoles used to represent convenience, value, and budget, we're down to a PC-style upgrade cycle, with PC-style cost structure simply distributed differently, with all of the disadvantages of a locked ecosystem. IMO they're undermining the whole argument for buying into console ecosystems by going this route. Won't affect those already invested, of course.
But I do still find it silly that people are talking about this like it's some kind of revolution. It's not a revolution. It's playing catch up on the consumer's dime with where they said they were already supposed to be years ago.
Well...yeah, I suppose....kind of a shame that it took a $700 console 4 years later to implement what was already current gen back when the $400 console launched and just didn't include obvious current gen features.....
@Medic_alert "If PSSR is very good it will be game changing"
Why are people acting like Sony's hand-rolled proprietary upscaling is "game changing" as though AI upscaling hasn't existed before for the past 6 years on PC hardware? As though the existing PC handhelds aren't already using AMD's RSR and FSR in quality mode (not that lousy performance mode that the base consoles are using that looks like Vaseline) to excellent results? As though Nvidia hasn't been pushing this since years before the PS5 released? Do people seriously never look outside the Sony bubble that they think this magical tech is new to the world just because Sony made their own version and trademarked a name?
I'm really not comfortable with how DF, as a selected, favored, blessed chosen ones allowed to touch a PS5 Pro seem to be acting as a marketing arm for this product given their clout. However, at least they hedged slightly with "here is a conversation to be had between the value of a PS5 Pro and a PC, but for a hassle-free gaming experience...." At least they put the label on it that, for the hassle free angle there it is. But acknowledge that the PC comparison for value is there....
They're not wrong that it's a certain type of gamer, but I think it needs to be italicized, underscored, and bolded in every conversation about it that this is an "acceptable compromise choice" if convenience and no-hassle is your primary concern but want more PC-like performance. And yes, I don't think there's an argument against that. It's a classing how much are you willing to pay/value lost for the sake of convenience and expediency vs the alternative. And for someone where that's a priority, this is a good enough fix.
But good grief is that an incredibly mediocre upgrade for the money. It's a $700 AI scaler plus a tiny raw performance boost.
Why are we still having articles pretending that the PS5 Pro enables all new functionality in a game that already has a PC version that already has access to much better features than even the Pro can handle? The pro is merely getting "closer" to a version of the game that's already been out for a while, and it won't be until PS6 that it can match it. If that.
@LifeGirl @ButterySmooth30FPS It was literally designed for PS4 as the primary platform, directly stated by Guerilla. If "Made for PS4" isn't "last gen", then all these remasters are even more pointless than believed. They're all current gen already!
@Ralizah They're only on their 3rd CEO. Patriarch Yamauchi was the big bad that everyone loathed (and caused PlayStation to happen ), Iwata who cleaned house. We're only on the 3rd exec, and they're radio silent and finding backdoor reasons to sue people. I'd say Iwata was the exception. We're back to the lieutenants acting for the old patriarch again. After spending nearly a decade being the big kahuna of console gaming again.
@GamingFan4Lyf IDK, I want to play it but still haven't even finished the first lol. Might play it this year, and be anxious for goy, but I have like 60 other backlog games dating through last Gen to get through so I'm sure I can wait for the inevitable far superior PC version that includes the inevitable dlc, and has vr mods day one 😂
Not sure where Sonny goes with PC. They seem as consistent in messaging as Xbox. They talk about expanding PC. Totoki told investors the pc expansion is a big part of their strategy. Then Herman keeps talking about using PC to sell more consoles, and the other CEO taking about console first etc. Seems like the same dynamic as Phil and Sarah saying one thing and Satya and Amy saying another.
Though their games don't seem to be selling that amazing in PC so that might affect their effort. Otoh got was the best ever launch of single player on steam until the once in a lifetime China only event that was wukong.
@GamingFan4Lyf Maybe, but the recent games would GoT which was, quite a few years after console launch, and Ragnarok which fits the 2 year mold-ish, so I'm still going to assume it's the 2 year thing unless it's remasters or online games. (or TLOU2 that's still missing but I suspect that's due to ND's incompetence more than a plan given the state 1 released in that made Ubisoft look good.)
Plus as long as Herman's plan is to get PC gamers to buy consoles for sequels (which is insanity) they'll make the console exclusivity thing as drawn out as they can, though Totoki may not like that, he's big on the PC push and Herman's probably in his doghouse after Concord. )
@DennisReynolds IIRC the patents that are likely in question are related to databasing (FFS), were registered in Japan prior to Palworld, but registered in the US, elsewhere, AFTER Palworld, so this suit could only actually work in Japan and not outside.
Still my whole impression is that they hated that the game literally copied their art style to use their brand power to sell the game (scummy on Palworlds part) ,but couldn't find a solid suit. They were allegedly pressuring retailers and media in Japan to ignore the existence of Palworld. And meanwhile had their lawyers just search for "anything" they could find to hang it with.
It makes me hate everything about Nintendo more, and yet, I can't say Palworld is innocent, they intentionally copied Pokemon's aesthetics for obvious beneficial reasons like waving a piece of meat in front of a wolf.
@Ralizah "at least now" I was gonna say...half the companies in the industry exist because of their hatred of Nintendo and Nintendo's inability to play nicely with anyone. EA exists because Nintendo sucked. They improved under Iwata, but I suspect they're back to their old chicanery these days. Nintendo never improved, they simply borrowed Iwata for a time.
Once consoles decided to follow the PC route where games aren't optimized to hardware and the solution for every poorly made game is just to buy more hardware to run everything fasterer, consoles outlived the entire purpose of consoles.
How about instead of selling people $700 more in hardware, the devs actually built their game to run properly on the hardware they already knew the player was using.? That's what consoles are for! If having a fixed spec to build for to make it run right is no longer an asset for developers to make their games run properly out of the box on consoles, I really don't see the purpose of consoles at all anymore.
@Octane It's slang for what happens when you can't afford a separate stand for your vertically off balance external disc drive equipped PS5 Pro and your Kat brushes up against it.
I reeeeallly hate to wade into this whole misguided gender wars conversation but I never actually realized until reading this thread and it occurred to me that Sony main characters actually ARE turning into a matriarchy where most Sony franchises are now headed by female leads.
Ghost: out with Jin in with new female prograg
Horizon: Aloy
Ratchet: Rivet Co hero
Uncharted: presumed to be Drake's daughter
Tlou: female protag murders male PC then takes rest of game.
Stellar blade (not Sony IP Sony pushed)
Gravity Rush: Kat
Infamous: Fetch was the latest and much better protag than CardboardMan.
Sack Boy and Kratos are the only male protags left they haven't killed, retired, or abandoned.
The show wasn't mind blowing, but it's much better than they've had for years. Presentation was human instead of the Nintendo format of disembodied robot announcers talking over a YouTube playlist of trailers. The astrobot free dlc and got were the big highlights, Sakaguchi was a highlight to me. Fell asleep a while when Cerny soothed us. Mon Hun picked it up. Goy (lol) looks great. Not the old PSX/E3 experience but more watchable than anything they've had in 4 years.
Looks good, I do hope they manage to make it less repetitive than the first where I think content was a step back from infamous 1 and 2. The wolf sidekick has been done in other games, Arashi comes to mind and obviously Torgal, so it doesn't feel as unique as they were hoping there but get we know a game is coming and it's a good one. And SP is STILL more productive than ND ....
@AdamNovice Indeed, Jim's story is done .
@GamingFan4Lyf solidarity my friend. We need the PC port though it might be years later. Plus I need my VR mod for it as I'll be playing the first in VR
Nothing about this seems... Good? IDK it's very generic, doesn't really feel like DA, the combat feels.... Messy? Neither RPG strategic nor action game precise, the cutscenes seem heavy yet not amazing, and something about the art style makes me want to look away all the time. IDK what I didn't like about the art but I just don't.
Maybe it'll surprise but something about the game feels just plain wrong. Which is weird because usually EA single player games are actually very good, just attached to terrible policies and rarely existing at all
They're so remarkably vague about what people should actually expect from a device their own statements reveal isn't all that. 60fps (except when it isn't). On select titles. They keep highlighting rebirth because it's so amazingly horrifyingly badly made as an exclusive that it brute forces extremely well. Even though nobody bought the game anyway. Then they show everything else in a flash and half the images still look soft. We'll see how reality pans out but this thing feels like an as seen on TV marketing infomercial. "It really does ALL that and MORE! ORDER NOW!"
@Arkz ROFL, I snorted my coffee as I read that. So completely on point! 🤣
Lol stellar blade finally became automata as it always wanted to be. That's actually pretty awesome in it's own way though. if Nintendo owned automata they'd have sued them for violating patients on methods of animating jiggle in playable characters. But square actually approved a crossover instead. Props to square.
Also, avoid deviantart for the next year or two 😂
Price genuinely matters for something like this and Sony uncharacteristically got it right on this one. It's completely unnecessary as the game already looked great, but $10 for a texture and model mod basically? Sure, fair enough.
If I hadn't already got platinum and hadn't already switched switched to PC I'd have upgraded. Even for $12 on steam for the old version though, I already played it and can't see playing through it again, much as I love it.
@themightyant And those things are nice to have. Meanwhile books, as I said can have problems with bindings, print, pages being bound out of order. It happens. Having instant feedback on these things would be helpful to the publisher of books as well.
Obviously it's not a 1:1 comparison. But you know what? Doesn't matter. There's a simple solution. DO NOT mandate that customers opt into sending that data and allow them to opt out. DO NOT force consumers to permanently and unalterably link their favorite store to an account with the publisher so that the publisher can ride roughshod over the store/DRM management scheme and meddle with the ownership rights of a product license which are between the licensor and licensee and not the license issuer. Ba da bing, problem solved!
@LogicStrikesAgain Yeah, also totally agree on the latter. Weird thing is PC gamers in particular tend to be a group that's much more data concious than almost any other group other than actual protection and rights advocacy groups and such.
Why go after Sony? Because they're new, vulnerable, originally were NOT on the hitlist and they randomly decided they wanted to be, they were originally a paragon of the right way to do it before they went bad (Hulst?) At some point "the buck stops here". EA and Ubi did it and it was met with surprise. Now it's one too many.
But I also think that if they can get Sony to back down with enough pushback the argument will grow and start pushing back on Ubi and EA too. Ubi's weak right now. Their shares are in the tank. They don't need a big uproar from consumers right now. Sony first, Ubi next. Take them down, then EA and R* can be in the sights as the holdouts. R* won't back down, they're even more pompous than Sony. But I do think this is a tipping point if the momentum against Sony can actually succeed in getting them to back down.
@LogicStrikesAgain A fair reply. On your second post, they may well be a platform holder, but on PC, they're just another publisher, like every other publisher. It's not their platform. Which should be fine to them, after all they were a publisher, themselves, before they had a platfom as well.
Cross saves would make sense, if the game had cross-buy (like MS/XB Play Anywhere), but it doesn't. It's a totally separate license. Maybe cross-save is a good feature, and it's great feature to offer as an OPTION to opt into to get. But mandating logging in for crossplay for a game with no online, and cross saves when you own only one license, doesn't check out. Again, it's a FINE option to have, and a great offer for anyone who wants it. Making it manditory is the problem. Being able to link to PSN and being required to are two different things. Additionaly Sony did not require this until recently on their single player games, and the previous single player game they released, GoT, does not require it for the main single player game, only for the Legends online component, while GoWR which has no online component at all requires it for the single player content. Again Sony's even inconsistent with themselves, paying attention to the market one moment then ignoring them the next.
Similarly they already put the game on Steam which already is a DRM platform. The idea of requiring TWO DRM platforms, goes back to exercizing draconian control over the consumer which is the point. PC owners play on PC because they reject that from console. And again, Sony is being inconsistent with themselves, ratecheting the noose tigher and tighter, where HzD and I believe Gow2018, and TLOU are all also on GoG (CDPR) - which has ZERO DRM whatsoever, of any kind. That's the whole point of the platform. Shocking Sony of all companies would do that? Yes. But this sense of tightening the noose more and more with every release is not helping them develop good will, it's doing the opposite.
Trophies, sure, but again that goes into an OPTIONAL thing that would be nice to offer, but not require, while Steam also has achievements, and dedicated PC players that do value trophies would only care about their Steam achievements, not console focused ones on PSN. It's, again, a place where choice matters.
Going back to Piracy, yes, I'm sure it's a "piracy" thing, too, which is a bit ironic as we're a week in and have a mod to remove it already, but that still goes back to only a few handfulls of publishers, the most disliked ones, taking that step.
I don't agree with it, and yes, I do see from a business standpoint the logic, but that's also the whole point of consumers gathering to put their foot down to demand they won't be tolerating it. Sony may not give consumers a choice, but sony did have a choice. They could have continued their ORIGINAL path on PC which was well regarded and seemed actually consumer friendly in the extreme, even supporting DRM-free games which few big publishers do. Or they could join EA and Ubisoft on the most-hated publsihers list. This is the choice they made. Seems fitting they should face trouble for choosing it.
@LogicStrikesAgain Are typos, binding failure, out of order pages, smeared or blurred print on pages not real problems books face? Would not the publisher benefit by knowing these things? And assocating them with a complete and total personal profile would benefit the publisher's marketing efforts just as much as for video games?
The only difference here is one CAN require this and he other can't, partially because the medium enables it and partly because one has trained their customers to expect it.
They aren't FORCING you to share all of your information with them so they can benevolently help you. They could ASK. But by making it a requirement, they made it clear they're not doing it to make your experience better.
And I would not read very far into "privacy laws", mostly written by the companies themselves to enable them to do what they were already doing in a way that looks "trustworthy". Whether through forked tongue or sheer incompetence, or silver tongued wording, they've enabled everything they want from it. The only way to "respect your privacy" is to let you say "no thanks" when they ask for your information. "Laws' also state that whatever information they have on you, they OWN it, not you. Not handing it to them begin with is the only way to not transfer ownership of that data to them. Which brings us back to the problem of people wanting choice of who they share information with.
Going back to the book, perhaps it's a particularly naughty book, and you don't want the local bookstore to know you buy naughty books, so maybe you buy it from a select retailer that specializes in that with a separate account. You don't really want to then have to mail out a form with all your data to be allowed to open the book to the publisher and/or other book retailers. That's why you bought it where you did!
We're unfortunately legally 30 years behind where we need to be regarding data, and shadowy data brokers own everyone. Fighting it will be a long and difficult battle, but it's one that needs to happen. People insisting we just embrace it have missed the entire landscape that has unfolded, and, though @naruball will be appalled by my analogy once again I'd like it to, during the time of American slavery, a great many slaves did not want slavery to end, they wanted things to stay as they were as they had reasonably benevolent owners who treated them ok and the idea of freedom and leaving the comforts of things being taken care of them was much worse to them than the status quo. That's the human psyche in a nutshell. Even the idea of being owned as property can be considered acceptable, and even fought for as desirable if it's stable comfortable enough to make being free seem scarier. Our digital personas are far closer to slavery than people are willing to see. We may not be bought and sold as property physically, but our whole identity of who we are is. As long as our owners buy us invisible fences instead of leashes and posts, many seem fine with that.
@HarmanSmith Exactly right. That was kind of the whole point and place of consoles. And I also agree that was where Xbox seemed to be trying to go but fumbled it badly. It was better then, and it's what the S represented.
I think in Sony's case the problem is 3 fold. First, it's Sony's own corporate culture to perceive their electronics as luxury lifestyle electronics. They haven't been that since the 80's but it's what they perceive themselves as. Playstation was the red headed step child Sony didn't want. They didn't even want the Sony name on the box because they thought it would fail and devalue their prestige lifestyle luxury brand of electronics. Playstation thrived in exactly the same way Phil's Xbox did prior to ABK - by kind of doing their own thing off to the side of the parent corp.
But when PS became wildly popular and started turning more profit than the "lifestyle" electronics, much like with Satya and Amy, the money men from corporate came in to incorporate it into their core strategy of lifestyle luxury goods.
Their second problem is they accidentally cultivated this culture of "premium" gaming mimicking their own Hollywood film division. Once they did that, they started running their gaming like their Hollywood division. With the same goals, expectations, and management methods.
And the third is as you noted, that mass market to bring "blue collar" gaming to which is what consoles represented moved onto phone gaming. Which seems to have cleared Sony (and others' in the industry) to view the remaining market as only this super premium elite market of distinguished media consumers.
And with brand power that means competitors won't really directly impact their base, they keep going in directions that are likely to end very badly in the long term even if they seem ok in the short term. I think if we can get a next Xbox that tries to shift the paradigm to open platforms and meld with PC properly, it will finally knock sense into Sony to join the party. Somewhat. They can't do what Nintendo does, that works only for Nintendo, only because they have household brands in a way only Disney could compete with. Without Mario and Pokemon, they'd have a hard time selling their hardware to anyone, now that the novelty of handheld dockable has become common.
@AdamNovice True, it was safer with Astrobot because it continued with more of what was already proven, though. There's nothing about Astrobot that could cause controversy because it just continued the adventure from the free game to full length.
@LogicStrikesAgain " Considering every publishers asks you to do so"
Every publisher does not DEMAND (not ask) this. A very select list of only the most disliked (from a consumer trust standpoint) publishers do this and Sony decided to throw themselves on that list. Normal publishers that have not already declared themselves enemies of their customers do not do this outside games that require logging onto a server to play.
You do not have to do this to play Elden Ring from Bamco, nor LaD/Yakuza from Sega or P5 from Atlus. You do not need to do this to play non-Bethesda Microsoft games (other than ones with a shared server like SoT) - where MS never required it and Bethesda required it long before MS owned them. You do not have to do this to play CoD offline (Activision before MS). You do not need to do it to play Darksiders from THQ, or FF16 from Square Enix. You do not need to do it to play Wukong from Game Science, nor myriad other games. I have not needed to do this once on ANY game on the Meta platform of Quest. Not even Ubisoft with AC:VR. You do not need to do this with MOST games from MOST publishers.
The publishers that do this are a very small select list of publishers that have mostly been on gamers' s--tlists for ages because of abusing their customer relationships. Sony voluntarily decided to throw themselves onto that s--tlist. After originally not doing so.
@themightyant When I turn on an Xbox I'm sharing my DRM data with the store I bought my game from (Xbox.) When I turn on my PS5 I'm sharing my DRM data with the store I bought my game from (PSN). When I launch on Steam I'm sharing my DRM data with the store I bought my game from (Steam.) Similarly when I launch a Ubisoft title on PS5 and it asks me if I'd like to share my data with Ubisoft to help improve the product and I say no, I was given a choice, and I'm ok with being given that choice.
When I launch a Ubisoft game on PS5 I'm not required to share my data with Xbox, Ubisoft, Sega, and Konami. But Sony, EA, Ubisoft, want me to share my data with them when I launch a game on Steam. THAT is the difference.
If we go back to paper media, when I buy a paper book at Walmart, Walmart knows I bought it because I bought it from them. Random House does not. And I'm not required to submit written notification to Random House that I have purchased their book, the purchase price, my address, household income and occupation, prior purchase history, competing purchase history, family connections, associated friends, history of other similar books read and progress through which I've read them. Sony, EA, Ubisoft, Bethesda, Rockstar.....they DO.
@Ralizah Weirdly, it's not even DRM. Ubisoft and EA use it as DRM by actually making it locked to their launcher/account. Sony even supports family sharing, so you can share it with (select) other people even moreso than on the console, with multiple different PSN logins. Curious if they'll still put the newer games on GoG like they did the first patch which makes it even funnier.
BUT one thing that makes these "link your account" things really dangerous is what happened to me and FFXIV. That one needs a Square login to work obviously, but they "link your account" between PSN and SE like this on console (and Steam as well) and as a result I could never play FFXIV on Playstation again because they did "something" to my username on the one I registered on PSN that it's not the one I entered and recorded. They will not help you recover without a random video game CSR taking your personal identifying document scans (no thanks), so I had to create a new account, which was fine I had zero progress on the old one. But even though it prompts for square login, because it's linked to your PSN account I'm not allowed to log into the game as any user while using my PSN account other than that linked one, so my PSN account is forever locked out of FFXIV because I can't use my real square account with it because it's locked to an old one I can't use.
And is any of that for DRM? NO! Because the actual windows version Square sells itself lets you log in under any valid square account you want at any time. The way it's SUPPOSED to work. Buy it on steam? Locked to one user. Buy it on Windows native? Everyone can log in! Does it make sense? No. These "link your account" things are fundamentally broken.
And, yes, (for now) PS5 discs can run without a PSN account for offline, as a result of the EXACTLY SIMILAR PUSHBACK XBOX ONE GOT FOR SIMILAR DRM PRACTICES. Betting that changes on the PS6 though.... "Fans" keep proving it's only wrong when Xbox does it or Steam customers do it. It's always ok if Sony does it because they "mean well."
@naruball Maybe, and I get your point, but it's easier to convey the concept of the group psychology when looking at an extreme case than trying to meander through subtle cases. People can see easily the social thought process in those big events because they're so stark. Again, it's not about comparing the event itself, it's about comparing the mass psychology involved in reaching a boiling point over an issue and how that can snowball from there. And that's easiest to see in the most clear cut extremes.
@thefourfoldroot1 Yep, imagine a gaming industry in which nobody is needed except Peter Molyneaux, who can actually ship a game that does what he says it does, and we can pay $200 each copy that's injected right into the hedge fund and megabank investors veins. Yep....good times ahead....
GAI currently by definition just re-uses what has been done before. It can give you what you want, kind of, almost, as long as it already has an example to copy or iterate on (kind of like the whole modern AAA industry, but so much cheaper for the bankers!)
AGI could be so much more powerful, could achieve sentience, all that jazz. But also if it can do all that, also can replace humans completely, for less. It won't exist for some time still, but that's the dreaded AI of sci-fi that's the pipe dream for corporate types who want all the reward and none of the cost.
The current AI, generative AI quite literally can only use what it already sees, whether created by humans or created by other AI or itself. It's not really "intelligent", it simply renders all human effort on the internet public domain and glues it together in usually awkward ways.
What you're talking about is Artificial General Intelligence. It doesn't exist yet. They're working on it. That's what would be your dream of reducing game dev to only Molyneaux That's what would also create giant land squid to consume the earth.
Wow. I didn't want to spoil myself, clicked anyway and then found I didn't. That's worse than I thought. Ok, there's still 5 or so more games to show, so maybe there will be a nice surprise in there. Not sure I'm keen on actually watching the whole show just for this though....yikes. We went from E3+PSX to.....this. I think the Sega Saturn had more energy than PS5 right now.
@HonestHick "Instead of showing it early and having the project take criticism, they will make sure it’s deep enough along to be shown in a good way."
So, The Concord Strategy(TM), then?
@KundaliniRising333 "Wtf is going on with Sony?!"
They found a new market and it isn't their old one, and it isn't us. It's the new corporate target market in most industries is the low hanging fruit of "high income millennials making six figures" (I've seen it stated in exactly those words from various companies) (who are almost always the children of high income boomers that made six figures, go figure), who want their "statement" entertainment/media rooms with their Bravia 100 inch Plasma and their B&O (or Bose!) Audio, and their PS Pro so they can look at it and never use it because they're married to their career and travel. But they'll spend money into F2P gatcha games to get to the end fast and feel brief accomplishment. Big money.
That's the new market, plus the actual Fortnite/GTA kiddies/money sinks. Everyone else is along for the ride.
@NeonMullet Oh Playnite's just a PC library/launcher/homescreen UI so it has a controller friendly console-like frontend. You can skin it to look like PS4, 5, XSX, X1, Deck, Steam, or unique things etc. But it has a default background music that's dreary and sad like PS
Yeah, strictly PC, it feels much like a PS or Xb interface (I go for something different, I don't want it to be exactly like a console I already have, but yeah the background music is just an mp3 in a directory.) PS5, you're stuck, that's in the firmware. Someone thought it was a good idea. Probably Jim and Herman, because it fits the mood of them killing PS
Yep I'm with you on hating modern and missing the late 80's, early 90's.
Aww boxes, I remember when I was all PC in the late 90's early 00s. It had the BEST boxes. The big full sized cardboard software boxes with inserts. Games like Baldur's Gate 2 came with a spiral bound manual weighing like 2lb, a CLOTH, folded map, and a metal coin. That wasn't the deluxe super $100 collectors edition. That was just stock and standard in the box for the price of the game! Eidos had those trapezoid shaped boxes. Then the boxes shrunk and became the mini boxes for a while. Ok but still not as cool. The jewel cases were inside (though screw the cardboard sleeve era that scratched CDs!) And then just became DVD cases. And then vanished entirely once Steam happened.
I think everything that defines the modern is corporate, soul sucking, defined by lawyers. IDK how we got here. Khrushchev told us one day we'd wake up in a communism and wonder how we got there......he wasn't wrong. His plan worked. Even if it outlived his country.
@thefourfoldroot1 Somewhat yes on both counts, but I'm not convinced AI is magically going to speed up game development. It means we'll either get more generic uninteresting games that make Concord look unique much faster, possibly even more broken games than the games we already get, or on the handful of good games that remain the stuff the AI is accelerating isn't what they were spending far too much time on anyway. The problem is scope including the technical scope for gfx. They're putting far too much work in general into a game that doesn't have a potential real market to justify all that effort because the market is never going to bay exotic pricing for a piece of entertainment. I don't think AI magically fixes those problems. It shrinks some departments, sure, but it doesn't really speed up the overall project that dramtically because the biggest consumer of time is really the human aspect, not the busy work. The busy work is farmed out for lowest cost anyway. It just makes it cheaper with less humans.
@Ralizah LOL especially Yokoi. Dude told the whole industry point blank in the mid 90's and nobody, even Nintendo at the time, listened.
@naruball The default PushSquare Response (TM) when comparing and contrasting events. It's not about murderous mayhem versus gaming. It's about examining the mass social psyche behind large scale revolts and protests and protests that become revolts. Those are big examples there for obvious examples to comprehend. It's not the context of the scene that mattered. It's the context of the large group of empowered population realizing they have power to change a condition they've disapproved for a long time. Whether that's protecting their physical lives in the other events or their digital lives in this event, it's about the group psychology, not the specific events that I'm comparing.
@themightyant No, those reasons are fine, and are valid, if they gave players the OPTION of opting into it for those reasons. A LOT of software and games have that checkbox asking if you'd like to submit detailed information which may include personal information to help improve the product. That's perfectly fine. It's a choice, and they tell you the benefits and you can make your choice. Telling you to hand over your data to play, even though you've already handed over your data to the intermediate company by choice, and paid for the product, to effectively help enhance the product, with no choice in the matter is not the same thing. That's when it crosses the line.
Even UBISOFT that locks their games to their launcher for disgusting DRM reasons because Yves thinks PC gamers are all pirates (but didn't even bother stealing Skull and Bones......) makes their sign ins OPTIONAL on other platforms......
Bottom line is you meet your market where they are. They did good in their PC rollout, but this one detail they failed to listen to the market and it keeps biting them, for no reason. And weirdly inconsistent reasons as GoT does NOT require it outside legends.... They don't need it. They've told us they don't need it. They, like Xbox just seem to have two left hands and don't know what either is doing, but the foot always finds the mouth.
@PsBoxSwitchOwner Sure. So we should just post it all on 4Chan ourselves since it's all inevitable. Maybe I can get a 30th Pro on your credit card while I'm at it. Or 10 of them.
Or we could try to start making a stance to reign it in rather than just volunteer to feed it maximally?
Beautiful.. And guaranteed the VR mods are right behind too!
Since @PsBoxSwitchOwner has given up and decided that being sold into corporate slavery is inevitable and therefore acceptable, I hereby officially bid $699.99 for ownership rights.
@naruball It's folly to assume that just because Sony became the catalyst of the movement today means the same people haven't been fuming but oppressed at other companies. La Bastille, Boston Massacre, Lenin. It's how every mass revolt starts. It's not about that one incident, is that a large enough number of people have been quietly fuming for a long enough time until one day a single change makes them all realize a lot of other people have felt the same way and suddenly a weakness in the enemy appeared. They're starting with Sony because they're new and vulnerable. They're not going to END with Sony if they succeed.
If people did not revolt over these things your PS5s would have always online DRM with discs as unlock media, and used copy activation fees. And so would your PS4.
@Max_the_German It's weird the companies are pushing ever more expensive hardware. Consumers are trained to expect to need more hardware by poorly built games spending the tech budget in calculating water drops reflecting the light from Polaris, while AA is basically where all the profitability is.... We REALLY need to step hardware back 3 generations while making people feel like they're going forward. I think that's the point of the handheld revolution but Sony is busy thinking they're Nvidia.
@LuXifer what's that? I'm pretty sure I heard you say if you throw another 300m at it I triple my investment, right?
@CutchuSlow And you should be grateful to be paying more to support the hedge funds that own shares so creatives can keep getting fired after making the best video games like Concord!
I suspect at this point a price drop would be after the ps6 is out or just before. And the drop will be back to the launch price. Why cut prices if people are refusing to buy the competitors better cheaper product? It's like Chanel No. 5. It's like $100 a bottle and smells like a brothel, but people buy it...
@OldGamer999 I mean there's only 12000 of them. There's more legitimate individual scalpers than that! I'm sure they can all have a PSN account. Unless they're PC gamers
Beyond that, scalpers work in groups to secure all inventory. The bot nets work for their collective benefit, and they have the address for delivery split up among them. That's also how organized theft rings work when buying inventory including things like this on stolen credit cards. The merch is delivered to various locations and resold organizationally.
Plus PSN accounts just need an address and email. The bots can open a few tens if thousands of them in a few minutes. And the probably still have them from PS5 launch anyway.
Someone has not been doing their due diligence for the Tojo Clan I see....
@NeonMullet Who'd have guessed that Echochrome would become the default color scheme of Playstation....
You're right about the teal. I knew SOMETHING was missing. You can't do early 90's without teal or seafoam green. It's not possible!
LOL, I gnashed my teeth so hard when I installed Playnite on PC, added the sounds, and what does full screen play? Something PS4-5'ish ambient sounds. Not as bad as PS5, but still, people seem to love that.... Fortunately it's just an mp3 so you can stick anything in there. I think I have to make it rave music or something just to counteract the dreariness of the default
@jrt87 That's what I don't get about these FOMO mad rushes for instant-sellout products. Instead of having these intentionally limited runs of products, and instead of opening up the sale for launch models and selling out every 15 seconds while competing with bots, why not just take preorder reservations and fulfill them in order as they become available? Make as many as is needed to fill the reservations. If you're number 2 million in line, and they have to tell you that your order is expected to ship in the July 2025 batch, then, you have your order in, you know when to expect yours. How is this difficult? And it defeats scalpers because not many people will pay scalpers foretunes (except the true FOMO need it day one crowd) when you can just put an order in and get a date for when you should get yours.
Much smaller companies manage that fine. Valve did it with Deck. Pimax does it with their VR headsets. They're currently taking $1 reservations to receive an invite, in order, to place an order whenever they start taking orders for their Crystal Super in Q4 (or delayed to Q5?) You can place a reservation whenever, even if it means your batch is 6 months later because you were late to the party you're still in line. (and probably get better QC.) How do these much bigger firms fail to get this right??
Of course we know they answer. This isn't by mistake, they WANT it this way to always sell out and look like the new cabbage patch doll, and incite ever more FOMO and envy around their brand. They're not here to sell products. They're here to sell brand power. And shorting supply is proven effective. The most popular toy is the one you can't have.
If anyone wants a PS5 launch phat 30th anniversary edition bundle, one of a kind, you can't buy one of these from PS Direct, I've got a PS5 phat and a box of acrylic paints from Michael's. I can have it to you by October 15th. Only $1800 + shipping. Matching Dual Sense Edge and case included. DISC DRIVE AND VERTICAL STAND INCLUDED!!!!!! Order quickly, only one available!
@jrt87 Can you just feel PSN starting to go down for hours on end after the inevitable DDOS after swaths of scalpers fail to stake their claim? I can! Nobody should make Helldivers plans this week, that's for sure
As for premium brand electronics, audio is a special case, as it's not so much about premium BRAND as much as materials and design. And audio is filled with a lot of "premium" brands that are worse than average brands, and filled with a lot of ultra-lux exotic brands that are indistinguishable from premium brands (but people who happen to buy it can hear the difference!) Incidentally I'm also a bit of an audio snob, though I also can't stand the super premium pricing that has taken effect there over the past decade, and I'm infuriated to see gaming going the same route. Having said all that.......Sony CONSUMER audio isn't a brand I'd pay for in audio They charge too much and offer far less performance. Even there, they're a company that sees themselves as a much higher tier player than they are. Now they do have some advantages in automotive audio, and their pro audio has the ironic asset of being both good and cheap and is thus industry standard...
Comments 6,961
Re: Ubisoft Board Orders Internal Investigation and Review into Company's Financial Woes
@IamJT I'm not sure there were any decisions in that movie that WEREN'T questionable, other than maybe casting Liam Nisson. Which I'm sure he thinks was questionable.
It was so amazingly bad it took me many years and a Bioware fanfic to actually get me to watch anything SW again.
Re: All Eyes on Aloy (Again), as Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered Comparison Does the Rounds
But is she still 3'8" tall like in Call of the Mountain? 🤣
Re: Ubisoft Board Orders Internal Investigation and Review into Company's Financial Woes
@IamJT Mesa nosa know what a yoosa be saying!
@Xbox_Dashboard Deus Ex was Ion Storm published by Eidos, then Squeenix. Nope, not Ubi!
Re: Stellar Blade's NieR: Automata Colab Only Happening Because Yoko Taro Loves Money
Taro for President!
Re: Ghost of Yotei Is the Ghost of Tsushima Sequel We Needed, Slashing to PS5 in 2025
@kcarnes9051 Fair point. I forgot marvel anything existed because it doesn't to me lol 😆.
Though it's not Sony ip or Sony exclusive IP in the stellar blade sense, it's Disney ip. Youre right but I was really thinking of actual Sony franchises, not just Disney licenses. For actual Sony franchises (forgot to include concord because the lead was clearly....err whatever her name was for a week and a half....). Still, yeah games was nothing but burly space Marines and effeminate anime dudes for ages, but humans always have a habit of overcorrecting everything until they have the same problem they started with and then do it all over again.
@GamingFan4Lyf day and date is the big one. Sonny's plan is to get people to play on console for fomo. And to a degree that does clearly work so maybe they're right. But they're also losing market on those that don't because it's an old game outside the marketing up against trendier things then it launches. If course the point was also reaching markets they don't sell consoles and then annihilated that with the PSN requirement.
I agree Lego horizon is made for switch. Cute as it is, ps and pc players already played the real game. And the sequel. And the remaster now. Why play it again in Legos? Is an odd release. Why not make a new side story at least?
Re: 'PS5 Pro Is a Really Good Investment,' Argue Tech Experts After Hands-On
@Medic_alert "As for the idea that the upscaler was available when PS5 launched, it just isn't right. Console hardware is locked in years ahead of time and as stated not all features will be current on console and on PC at the same time. "
And staying current on PS, for an all digital consumer is now $1100-1500 for the generation. So a $1500 PC for the generation, or a $1500 PS for the generation. One offers more, one is more convenient. The choices now really come down to that. Your points are correct, but that's why the pricing is absurd. The consoles are naturally years behind, but are now creeping steadily towards similar total cost.
Re: 'PS5 Pro Is a Really Good Investment,' Argue Tech Experts After Hands-On
@Medic_alert Comparing the GPU price to the base console price doesn't really pan out and never does, and obviously Sony was taking a loss while Nvidia was making mad profit on each sale, so that doesn't match up either.
It kind of goes back to PS5 and XSX never should have launched in 2020 AT ALL to begin with. It was far too many steps behind the current paradigm to have been justifiable.
And yeah, I very much don't like what Sony is doing here, where they're basically doing a "do over" of the original console, more or less admitting that it's not actually good enough to meet the marketing promises on the games made now (while also hedging that the Pro won't be either), and following the PC route of instead of pushing developers to make games for their console, even exclusive games, the onus is on the consumer to keep ponying up for more hardware to make up for the games and brute force them. Except it's kind of expensive for a 45% power bump (which is next to nothing in the 4k realm) and adding on an AI scaler that was already current back when the base model launched, for nearly double the original launch price of the digital console, 4 years into it's obsolecense. If you're going to follow the PC route, why bother with a locked ecosystem at all?
Obviously the answer comes back to "convenience" and hassle free as originally said. But where consoles used to represent convenience, value, and budget, we're down to a PC-style upgrade cycle, with PC-style cost structure simply distributed differently, with all of the disadvantages of a locked ecosystem. IMO they're undermining the whole argument for buying into console ecosystems by going this route. Won't affect those already invested, of course.
But I do still find it silly that people are talking about this like it's some kind of revolution. It's not a revolution. It's playing catch up on the consumer's dime with where they said they were already supposed to be years ago.
Re: 'PS5 Pro Is a Really Good Investment,' Argue Tech Experts After Hands-On
@Medic_alert "Game changing for consoles"
Well...yeah, I suppose....kind of a shame that it took a $700 console 4 years later to implement what was already current gen back when the $400 console launched and just didn't include obvious current gen features.....
Re: 'PS5 Pro Is a Really Good Investment,' Argue Tech Experts After Hands-On
@Medic_alert "If PSSR is very good it will be game changing"
Why are people acting like Sony's hand-rolled proprietary upscaling is "game changing" as though AI upscaling hasn't existed before for the past 6 years on PC hardware? As though the existing PC handhelds aren't already using AMD's RSR and FSR in quality mode (not that lousy performance mode that the base consoles are using that looks like Vaseline) to excellent results? As though Nvidia hasn't been pushing this since years before the PS5 released? Do people seriously never look outside the Sony bubble that they think this magical tech is new to the world just because Sony made their own version and trademarked a name?
Re: 'PS5 Pro Is a Really Good Investment,' Argue Tech Experts After Hands-On
I'm really not comfortable with how DF, as a selected, favored, blessed chosen ones allowed to touch a PS5 Pro seem to be acting as a marketing arm for this product given their clout. However, at least they hedged slightly with "here is a conversation to be had between the value of a PS5 Pro and a PC, but for a hassle-free gaming experience...." At least they put the label on it that, for the hassle free angle there it is. But acknowledge that the PC comparison for value is there....
They're not wrong that it's a certain type of gamer, but I think it needs to be italicized, underscored, and bolded in every conversation about it that this is an "acceptable compromise choice" if convenience and no-hassle is your primary concern but want more PC-like performance. And yes, I don't think there's an argument against that. It's a classing how much are you willing to pay/value lost for the sake of convenience and expediency vs the alternative. And for someone where that's a priority, this is a good enough fix.
But good grief is that an incredibly mediocre upgrade for the money. It's a $700 AI scaler plus a tiny raw performance boost.
Re: Horizon Forbidden West on PS5 Pro Is 'Pure Eye Candy at Race Car Levels of Performance'
Why are we still having articles pretending that the PS5 Pro enables all new functionality in a game that already has a PC version that already has access to much better features than even the Pro can handle? The pro is merely getting "closer" to a version of the game that's already been out for a while, and it won't be until PS6 that it can match it. If that.
@LifeGirl @ButterySmooth30FPS It was literally designed for PS4 as the primary platform, directly stated by Guerilla. If "Made for PS4" isn't "last gen", then all these remasters are even more pointless than believed. They're all current gen already!
Re: Palworld's Release in Japan on Hold Indefinitely Thanks to Nintendo Lawsuit
@Ralizah They're only on their 3rd CEO. Patriarch Yamauchi was the big bad that everyone loathed (and caused PlayStation to happen ), Iwata who cleaned house. We're only on the 3rd exec, and they're radio silent and finding backdoor reasons to sue people. I'd say Iwata was the exception. We're back to the lieutenants acting for the old patriarch again. After spending nearly a decade being the big kahuna of console gaming again.
Re: Ghost of Yotei Is the Ghost of Tsushima Sequel We Needed, Slashing to PS5 in 2025
@GamingFan4Lyf IDK, I want to play it but still haven't even finished the first lol. Might play it this year, and be anxious for goy, but I have like 60 other backlog games dating through last Gen to get through so I'm sure I can wait for the inevitable far superior PC version that includes the inevitable dlc, and has vr mods day one 😂
Not sure where Sonny goes with PC. They seem as consistent in messaging as Xbox. They talk about expanding PC. Totoki told investors the pc expansion is a big part of their strategy. Then Herman keeps talking about using PC to sell more consoles, and the other CEO taking about console first etc. Seems like the same dynamic as Phil and Sarah saying one thing and Satya and Amy saying another.
Though their games don't seem to be selling that amazing in PC so that might affect their effort. Otoh got was the best ever launch of single player on steam until the once in a lifetime China only event that was wukong.
Re: Ghost of Yotei Is the Ghost of Tsushima Sequel We Needed, Slashing to PS5 in 2025
@GamingFan4Lyf Maybe, but the recent games would GoT which was, quite a few years after console launch, and Ragnarok which fits the 2 year mold-ish, so I'm still going to assume it's the 2 year thing unless it's remasters or online games. (or TLOU2 that's still missing but I suspect that's due to ND's incompetence more than a plan given the state 1 released in that made Ubisoft look good.)
Plus as long as Herman's plan is to get PC gamers to buy consoles for sequels (which is insanity) they'll make the console exclusivity thing as drawn out as they can, though Totoki may not like that, he's big on the PC push and Herman's probably in his doghouse after Concord. )
Re: Palworld's Release in Japan on Hold Indefinitely Thanks to Nintendo Lawsuit
@DennisReynolds IIRC the patents that are likely in question are related to databasing (FFS), were registered in Japan prior to Palworld, but registered in the US, elsewhere, AFTER Palworld, so this suit could only actually work in Japan and not outside.
Still my whole impression is that they hated that the game literally copied their art style to use their brand power to sell the game (scummy on Palworlds part) ,but couldn't find a solid suit. They were allegedly pressuring retailers and media in Japan to ignore the existence of Palworld. And meanwhile had their lawyers just search for "anything" they could find to hang it with.
It makes me hate everything about Nintendo more, and yet, I can't say Palworld is innocent, they intentionally copied Pokemon's aesthetics for obvious beneficial reasons like waving a piece of meat in front of a wolf.
@Ralizah "at least now"
I was gonna say...half the companies in the industry exist because of their hatred of Nintendo and Nintendo's inability to play nicely with anyone. EA exists because Nintendo sucked. They improved under Iwata, but I suspect they're back to their old chicanery these days. Nintendo never improved, they simply borrowed Iwata for a time.
Re: PS5 Pro Will Supposedly Fix Rise of the Ronin's Shoddy Frame Rate
Once consoles decided to follow the PC route where games aren't optimized to hardware and the solution for every poorly made game is just to buy more hardware to run everything fasterer, consoles outlived the entire purpose of consoles.
How about instead of selling people $700 more in hardware, the devs actually built their game to run properly on the hardware they already knew the player was using.? That's what consoles are for! If having a fixed spec to build for to make it run right is no longer an asset for developers to make their games run properly out of the box on consoles, I really don't see the purpose of consoles at all anymore.
Re: Ghost of Yotei Is the Ghost of Tsushima Sequel We Needed, Slashing to PS5 in 2025
@Octane It's slang for what happens when you can't afford a separate stand for your vertically off balance external disc drive equipped PS5 Pro and your Kat brushes up against it.
Re: Ghost of Yotei Is the Ghost of Tsushima Sequel We Needed, Slashing to PS5 in 2025
I reeeeallly hate to wade into this whole misguided gender wars conversation but I never actually realized until reading this thread and it occurred to me that Sony main characters actually ARE turning into a matriarchy where most Sony franchises are now headed by female leads.
Ghost: out with Jin in with new female prograg
Horizon: Aloy
Ratchet: Rivet Co hero
Uncharted: presumed to be Drake's daughter
Tlou: female protag murders male PC then takes rest of game.
Stellar blade (not Sony IP Sony pushed)
Gravity Rush: Kat
Infamous: Fetch was the latest and much better protag than CardboardMan.
Sack Boy and Kratos are the only male protags left they haven't killed, retired, or abandoned.
Re: Poll: What Did You Think of Sony's State of Play for September 2024?
The show wasn't mind blowing, but it's much better than they've had for years. Presentation was human instead of the Nintendo format of disembodied robot announcers talking over a YouTube playlist of trailers. The astrobot free dlc and got were the big highlights, Sakaguchi was a highlight to me. Fell asleep a while when Cerny soothed us. Mon Hun picked it up. Goy (lol) looks great. Not the old PSX/E3 experience but more watchable than anything they've had in 4 years.
Re: Ghost of Yotei Is the Ghost of Tsushima Sequel We Needed, Slashing to PS5 in 2025
Looks good, I do hope they manage to make it less repetitive than the first where I think content was a step back from infamous 1 and 2. The wolf sidekick has been done in other games, Arashi comes to mind and obviously Torgal, so it doesn't feel as unique as they were hoping there but get we know a game is coming and it's a good one. And SP is STILL more productive than ND ....
@AdamNovice Indeed, Jim's story is done .
@GamingFan4Lyf solidarity my friend. We need the PC port though it might be years later. Plus I need my VR mod for it as I'll be playing the first in VR
Re: BioWare Battles Dragons in Lengthy Dragon Age: The Veilguard Mage Gameplay
Nothing about this seems... Good? IDK it's very generic, doesn't really feel like DA, the combat feels.... Messy? Neither RPG strategic nor action game precise, the cutscenes seem heavy yet not amazing, and something about the art style makes me want to look away all the time. IDK what I didn't like about the art but I just don't.
Maybe it'll surprise but something about the game feels just plain wrong. Which is weird because usually EA single player games are actually very good, just attached to terrible policies and rarely existing at all
Re: PS5 Pro Flexes Its Muscle in Montage Trailer
They're so remarkably vague about what people should actually expect from a device their own statements reveal isn't all that. 60fps (except when it isn't). On select titles. They keep highlighting rebirth because it's so amazingly horrifyingly badly made as an exclusive that it brute forces extremely well. Even though nobody bought the game anyway. Then they show everything else in a flash and half the images still look soft. We'll see how reality pans out but this thing feels like an as seen on TV marketing infomercial. "It really does ALL that and MORE! ORDER NOW!"
@Arkz ROFL, I snorted my coffee as I read that. So completely on point! 🤣
Re: Acclaimed Action RPG NieR Automata Invades Stellar Blade in PS5 DLC
Lol stellar blade finally became automata as it always wanted to be. That's actually pretty awesome in it's own way though. if Nintendo owned automata they'd have sued them for violating patients on methods of animating jiggle in playable characters. But square actually approved a crossover instead. Props to square.
Also, avoid deviantart for the next year or two 😂
Re: Monster Hunter Wilds Reveals Its February 2025 Release Date on PS5
Highlight of the show other than got right here.
Re: Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered PS5 Is Official, Out 31st October with $10 PS4 to PS5 Upgrade
Price genuinely matters for something like this and Sony uncharacteristically got it right on this one. It's completely unnecessary as the game already looked great, but $10 for a texture and model mod basically? Sure, fair enough.
If I hadn't already got platinum and hadn't already switched switched to PC I'd have upgraded. Even for $12 on steam for the old version though, I already played it and can't see playing through it again, much as I love it.
Re: God of War Ragnarok PC Mod Removes PSN Login Requirement
@themightyant And those things are nice to have. Meanwhile books, as I said can have problems with bindings, print, pages being bound out of order. It happens. Having instant feedback on these things would be helpful to the publisher of books as well.
Obviously it's not a 1:1 comparison. But you know what? Doesn't matter. There's a simple solution. DO NOT mandate that customers opt into sending that data and allow them to opt out. DO NOT force consumers to permanently and unalterably link their favorite store to an account with the publisher so that the publisher can ride roughshod over the store/DRM management scheme and meddle with the ownership rights of a product license which are between the licensor and licensee and not the license issuer. Ba da bing, problem solved!
Re: God of War Ragnarok PC Mod Removes PSN Login Requirement
@LogicStrikesAgain Yeah, also totally agree on the latter. Weird thing is PC gamers in particular tend to be a group that's much more data concious than almost any other group other than actual protection and rights advocacy groups and such.
Why go after Sony? Because they're new, vulnerable, originally were NOT on the hitlist and they randomly decided they wanted to be, they were originally a paragon of the right way to do it before they went bad (Hulst?) At some point "the buck stops here". EA and Ubi did it and it was met with surprise. Now it's one too many.
But I also think that if they can get Sony to back down with enough pushback the argument will grow and start pushing back on Ubi and EA too. Ubi's weak right now. Their shares are in the tank. They don't need a big uproar from consumers right now. Sony first, Ubi next. Take them down, then EA and R* can be in the sights as the holdouts. R* won't back down, they're even more pompous than Sony. But I do think this is a tipping point if the momentum against Sony can actually succeed in getting them to back down.
Re: God of War Ragnarok PC Mod Removes PSN Login Requirement
@LogicStrikesAgain A fair reply. On your second post, they may well be a platform holder, but on PC, they're just another publisher, like every other publisher. It's not their platform. Which should be fine to them, after all they were a publisher, themselves, before they had a platfom as well.
Cross saves would make sense, if the game had cross-buy (like MS/XB Play Anywhere), but it doesn't. It's a totally separate license. Maybe cross-save is a good feature, and it's great feature to offer as an OPTION to opt into to get. But mandating logging in for crossplay for a game with no online, and cross saves when you own only one license, doesn't check out. Again, it's a FINE option to have, and a great offer for anyone who wants it. Making it manditory is the problem. Being able to link to PSN and being required to are two different things. Additionaly Sony did not require this until recently on their single player games, and the previous single player game they released, GoT, does not require it for the main single player game, only for the Legends online component, while GoWR which has no online component at all requires it for the single player content. Again Sony's even inconsistent with themselves, paying attention to the market one moment then ignoring them the next.
Similarly they already put the game on Steam which already is a DRM platform. The idea of requiring TWO DRM platforms, goes back to exercizing draconian control over the consumer which is the point. PC owners play on PC because they reject that from console. And again, Sony is being inconsistent with themselves, ratecheting the noose tigher and tighter, where HzD and I believe Gow2018, and TLOU are all also on GoG (CDPR) - which has ZERO DRM whatsoever, of any kind. That's the whole point of the platform. Shocking Sony of all companies would do that? Yes. But this sense of tightening the noose more and more with every release is not helping them develop good will, it's doing the opposite.
Trophies, sure, but again that goes into an OPTIONAL thing that would be nice to offer, but not require, while Steam also has achievements, and dedicated PC players that do value trophies would only care about their Steam achievements, not console focused ones on PSN. It's, again, a place where choice matters.
Going back to Piracy, yes, I'm sure it's a "piracy" thing, too, which is a bit ironic as we're a week in and have a mod to remove it already, but that still goes back to only a few handfulls of publishers, the most disliked ones, taking that step.
I don't agree with it, and yes, I do see from a business standpoint the logic, but that's also the whole point of consumers gathering to put their foot down to demand they won't be tolerating it. Sony may not give consumers a choice, but sony did have a choice. They could have continued their ORIGINAL path on PC which was well regarded and seemed actually consumer friendly in the extreme, even supporting DRM-free games which few big publishers do. Or they could join EA and Ubisoft on the most-hated publsihers list. This is the choice they made. Seems fitting they should face trouble for choosing it.
Re: God of War Ragnarok PC Mod Removes PSN Login Requirement
@LogicStrikesAgain Are typos, binding failure, out of order pages, smeared or blurred print on pages not real problems books face? Would not the publisher benefit by knowing these things? And assocating them with a complete and total personal profile would benefit the publisher's marketing efforts just as much as for video games?
The only difference here is one CAN require this and he other can't, partially because the medium enables it and partly because one has trained their customers to expect it.
They aren't FORCING you to share all of your information with them so they can benevolently help you. They could ASK. But by making it a requirement, they made it clear they're not doing it to make your experience better.
And I would not read very far into "privacy laws", mostly written by the companies themselves to enable them to do what they were already doing in a way that looks "trustworthy". Whether through forked tongue or sheer incompetence, or silver tongued wording, they've enabled everything they want from it. The only way to "respect your privacy" is to let you say "no thanks" when they ask for your information. "Laws' also state that whatever information they have on you, they OWN it, not you. Not handing it to them begin with is the only way to not transfer ownership of that data to them. Which brings us back to the problem of people wanting choice of who they share information with.
Going back to the book, perhaps it's a particularly naughty book, and you don't want the local bookstore to know you buy naughty books, so maybe you buy it from a select retailer that specializes in that with a separate account. You don't really want to then have to mail out a form with all your data to be allowed to open the book to the publisher and/or other book retailers. That's why you bought it where you did!
We're unfortunately legally 30 years behind where we need to be regarding data, and shadowy data brokers own everyone. Fighting it will be a long and difficult battle, but it's one that needs to happen. People insisting we just embrace it have missed the entire landscape that has unfolded, and, though @naruball will be appalled by my analogy once again I'd like it to, during the time of American slavery, a great many slaves did not want slavery to end, they wanted things to stay as they were as they had reasonably benevolent owners who treated them ok and the idea of freedom and leaving the comforts of things being taken care of them was much worse to them than the status quo. That's the human psyche in a nutshell. Even the idea of being owned as property can be considered acceptable, and even fought for as desirable if it's stable comfortable enough to make being free seem scarier. Our digital personas are far closer to slavery than people are willing to see. We may not be bought and sold as property physically, but our whole identity of who we are is. As long as our owners buy us invisible fences instead of leashes and posts, many seem fine with that.
Re: Sony Appears to Leak Many Games from State of Play
@HarmanSmith Exactly right. That was kind of the whole point and place of consoles. And I also agree that was where Xbox seemed to be trying to go but fumbled it badly. It was better then, and it's what the S represented.
I think in Sony's case the problem is 3 fold. First, it's Sony's own corporate culture to perceive their electronics as luxury lifestyle electronics. They haven't been that since the 80's but it's what they perceive themselves as. Playstation was the red headed step child Sony didn't want. They didn't even want the Sony name on the box because they thought it would fail and devalue their prestige lifestyle luxury brand of electronics. Playstation thrived in exactly the same way Phil's Xbox did prior to ABK - by kind of doing their own thing off to the side of the parent corp.
But when PS became wildly popular and started turning more profit than the "lifestyle" electronics, much like with Satya and Amy, the money men from corporate came in to incorporate it into their core strategy of lifestyle luxury goods.
Their second problem is they accidentally cultivated this culture of "premium" gaming mimicking their own Hollywood film division. Once they did that, they started running their gaming like their Hollywood division. With the same goals, expectations, and management methods.
And the third is as you noted, that mass market to bring "blue collar" gaming to which is what consoles represented moved onto phone gaming. Which seems to have cleared Sony (and others' in the industry) to view the remaining market as only this super premium elite market of distinguished media consumers.
And with brand power that means competitors won't really directly impact their base, they keep going in directions that are likely to end very badly in the long term even if they seem ok in the short term. I think if we can get a next Xbox that tries to shift the paradigm to open platforms and meld with PC properly, it will finally knock sense into Sony to join the party. Somewhat. They can't do what Nintendo does, that works only for Nintendo, only because they have household brands in a way only Disney could compete with. Without Mario and Pokemon, they'd have a hard time selling their hardware to anyone, now that the novelty of handheld dockable has become common.
Re: Sony Appears to Leak Many Games from State of Play
@AdamNovice True, it was safer with Astrobot because it continued with more of what was already proven, though. There's nothing about Astrobot that could cause controversy because it just continued the adventure from the free game to full length.
Re: God of War Ragnarok PC Mod Removes PSN Login Requirement
@LogicStrikesAgain " Considering every publishers asks you to do so"
Every publisher does not DEMAND (not ask) this. A very select list of only the most disliked (from a consumer trust standpoint) publishers do this and Sony decided to throw themselves on that list. Normal publishers that have not already declared themselves enemies of their customers do not do this outside games that require logging onto a server to play.
You do not have to do this to play Elden Ring from Bamco, nor LaD/Yakuza from Sega or P5 from Atlus. You do not need to do this to play non-Bethesda Microsoft games (other than ones with a shared server like SoT) - where MS never required it and Bethesda required it long before MS owned them. You do not have to do this to play CoD offline (Activision before MS). You do not need to do it to play Darksiders from THQ, or FF16 from Square Enix. You do not need to do it to play Wukong from Game Science, nor myriad other games. I have not needed to do this once on ANY game on the Meta platform of Quest. Not even Ubisoft with AC:VR. You do not need to do this with MOST games from MOST publishers.
The publishers that do this are a very small select list of publishers that have mostly been on gamers' s--tlists for ages because of abusing their customer relationships. Sony voluntarily decided to throw themselves onto that s--tlist. After originally not doing so.
Re: God of War Ragnarok PC Mod Removes PSN Login Requirement
@themightyant When I turn on an Xbox I'm sharing my DRM data with the store I bought my game from (Xbox.) When I turn on my PS5 I'm sharing my DRM data with the store I bought my game from (PSN). When I launch on Steam I'm sharing my DRM data with the store I bought my game from (Steam.) Similarly when I launch a Ubisoft title on PS5 and it asks me if I'd like to share my data with Ubisoft to help improve the product and I say no, I was given a choice, and I'm ok with being given that choice.
When I launch a Ubisoft game on PS5 I'm not required to share my data with Xbox, Ubisoft, Sega, and Konami. But Sony, EA, Ubisoft, want me to share my data with them when I launch a game on Steam. THAT is the difference.
If we go back to paper media, when I buy a paper book at Walmart, Walmart knows I bought it because I bought it from them. Random House does not. And I'm not required to submit written notification to Random House that I have purchased their book, the purchase price, my address, household income and occupation, prior purchase history, competing purchase history, family connections, associated friends, history of other similar books read and progress through which I've read them. Sony, EA, Ubisoft, Bethesda, Rockstar.....they DO.
Re: God of War Ragnarok PC Mod Removes PSN Login Requirement
@Ralizah Weirdly, it's not even DRM. Ubisoft and EA use it as DRM by actually making it locked to their launcher/account. Sony even supports family sharing, so you can share it with (select) other people even moreso than on the console, with multiple different PSN logins. Curious if they'll still put the newer games on GoG like they did the first patch which makes it even funnier.
BUT one thing that makes these "link your account" things really dangerous is what happened to me and FFXIV. That one needs a Square login to work obviously, but they "link your account" between PSN and SE like this on console (and Steam as well) and as a result I could never play FFXIV on Playstation again because they did "something" to my username on the one I registered on PSN that it's not the one I entered and recorded. They will not help you recover without a random video game CSR taking your personal identifying document scans (no thanks), so I had to create a new account, which was fine I had zero progress on the old one. But even though it prompts for square login, because it's linked to your PSN account I'm not allowed to log into the game as any user while using my PSN account other than that linked one, so my PSN account is forever locked out of FFXIV because I can't use my real square account with it because it's locked to an old one I can't use.
And is any of that for DRM? NO! Because the actual windows version Square sells itself lets you log in under any valid square account you want at any time. The way it's SUPPOSED to work. Buy it on steam? Locked to one user. Buy it on Windows native? Everyone can log in! Does it make sense? No. These "link your account" things are fundamentally broken.
And, yes, (for now) PS5 discs can run without a PSN account for offline, as a result of the EXACTLY SIMILAR PUSHBACK XBOX ONE GOT FOR SIMILAR DRM PRACTICES. Betting that changes on the PS6 though.... "Fans" keep proving it's only wrong when Xbox does it or Steam customers do it. It's always ok if Sony does it because they "mean well."
@naruball Maybe, and I get your point, but it's easier to convey the concept of the group psychology when looking at an extreme case than trying to meander through subtle cases. People can see easily the social thought process in those big events because they're so stark. Again, it's not about comparing the event itself, it's about comparing the mass psychology involved in reaching a boiling point over an issue and how that can snowball from there. And that's easiest to see in the most clear cut extremes.
Re: Frostpunk 2 Dev Recoups Entire Marketing, Production Budget in Three Days
@thefourfoldroot1 Yep, imagine a gaming industry in which nobody is needed except Peter Molyneaux, who can actually ship a game that does what he says it does, and we can pay $200 each copy that's injected right into the hedge fund and megabank investors veins. Yep....good times ahead....
GAI currently by definition just re-uses what has been done before. It can give you what you want, kind of, almost, as long as it already has an example to copy or iterate on (kind of like the whole modern AAA industry, but so much cheaper for the bankers!)
AGI could be so much more powerful, could achieve sentience, all that jazz. But also if it can do all that, also can replace humans completely, for less. It won't exist for some time still, but that's the dreaded AI of sci-fi that's the pipe dream for corporate types who want all the reward and none of the cost.
The current AI, generative AI quite literally can only use what it already sees, whether created by humans or created by other AI or itself. It's not really "intelligent", it simply renders all human effort on the internet public domain and glues it together in usually awkward ways.
What you're talking about is Artificial General Intelligence. It doesn't exist yet. They're working on it. That's what would be your dream of reducing game dev to only Molyneaux That's what would also create giant land squid to consume the earth.
Re: Sony Appears to Leak Many Games from State of Play
Wow. I didn't want to spoil myself, clicked anyway and then found I didn't. That's worse than I thought. Ok, there's still 5 or so more games to show, so maybe there will be a nice surprise in there. Not sure I'm keen on actually watching the whole show just for this though....yikes. We went from E3+PSX to.....this. I think the Sega Saturn had more energy than PS5 right now.
@HonestHick "Instead of showing it early and having the project take criticism, they will make sure it’s deep enough along to be shown in a good way."
So, The Concord Strategy(TM), then?
@KundaliniRising333 "Wtf is going on with Sony?!"
They found a new market and it isn't their old one, and it isn't us. It's the new corporate target market in most industries is the low hanging fruit of "high income millennials making six figures" (I've seen it stated in exactly those words from various companies) (who are almost always the children of high income boomers that made six figures, go figure), who want their "statement" entertainment/media rooms with their Bravia 100 inch Plasma and their B&O (or Bose!) Audio, and their PS Pro so they can look at it and never use it because they're married to their career and travel. But they'll spend money into F2P gatcha games to get to the end fast and feel brief accomplishment. Big money.
That's the new market, plus the actual Fortnite/GTA kiddies/money sinks. Everyone else is along for the ride.
Re: Scalpers Want $10k to Try to Buy You a 30th Anniversary PS5 Pro
@NeonMullet Oh Playnite's just a PC library/launcher/homescreen UI so it has a controller friendly console-like frontend. You can skin it to look like PS4, 5, XSX, X1, Deck, Steam, or unique things etc. But it has a default background music that's dreary and sad like PS
Yeah, strictly PC, it feels much like a PS or Xb interface (I go for something different, I don't want it to be exactly like a console I already have, but yeah the background music is just an mp3 in a directory.) PS5, you're stuck, that's in the firmware. Someone thought it was a good idea. Probably Jim and Herman, because it fits the mood of them killing PS
Yep I'm with you on hating modern and missing the late 80's, early 90's.
Aww boxes, I remember when I was all PC in the late 90's early 00s. It had the BEST boxes. The big full sized cardboard software boxes with inserts. Games like Baldur's Gate 2 came with a spiral bound manual weighing like 2lb, a CLOTH, folded map, and a metal coin. That wasn't the deluxe super $100 collectors edition. That was just stock and standard in the box for the price of the game! Eidos had those trapezoid shaped boxes. Then the boxes shrunk and became the mini boxes for a while. Ok but still not as cool. The jewel cases were inside (though screw the cardboard sleeve era that scratched CDs!) And then just became DVD cases. And then vanished entirely once Steam happened.
I think everything that defines the modern is corporate, soul sucking, defined by lawyers. IDK how we got here. Khrushchev told us one day we'd wake up in a communism and wonder how we got there......he wasn't wrong. His plan worked. Even if it outlived his country.
Re: Frostpunk 2 Dev Recoups Entire Marketing, Production Budget in Three Days
@thefourfoldroot1 Somewhat yes on both counts, but I'm not convinced AI is magically going to speed up game development. It means we'll either get more generic uninteresting games that make Concord look unique much faster, possibly even more broken games than the games we already get, or on the handful of good games that remain the stuff the AI is accelerating isn't what they were spending far too much time on anyway. The problem is scope including the technical scope for gfx. They're putting far too much work in general into a game that doesn't have a potential real market to justify all that effort because the market is never going to bay exotic pricing for a piece of entertainment. I don't think AI magically fixes those problems. It shrinks some departments, sure, but it doesn't really speed up the overall project that dramtically because the biggest consumer of time is really the human aspect, not the busy work. The busy work is farmed out for lowest cost anyway. It just makes it cheaper with less humans.
@Ralizah LOL especially Yokoi. Dude told the whole industry point blank in the mid 90's and nobody, even Nintendo at the time, listened.
Re: God of War Ragnarok PC Mod Removes PSN Login Requirement
@naruball The default PushSquare Response (TM) when comparing and contrasting events. It's not about murderous mayhem versus gaming. It's about examining the mass social psyche behind large scale revolts and protests and protests that become revolts. Those are big examples there for obvious examples to comprehend. It's not the context of the scene that mattered. It's the context of the large group of empowered population realizing they have power to change a condition they've disapproved for a long time. Whether that's protecting their physical lives in the other events or their digital lives in this event, it's about the group psychology, not the specific events that I'm comparing.
@themightyant No, those reasons are fine, and are valid, if they gave players the OPTION of opting into it for those reasons. A LOT of software and games have that checkbox asking if you'd like to submit detailed information which may include personal information to help improve the product. That's perfectly fine. It's a choice, and they tell you the benefits and you can make your choice. Telling you to hand over your data to play, even though you've already handed over your data to the intermediate company by choice, and paid for the product, to effectively help enhance the product, with no choice in the matter is not the same thing. That's when it crosses the line.
Even UBISOFT that locks their games to their launcher for disgusting DRM reasons because Yves thinks PC gamers are all pirates (but didn't even bother stealing Skull and Bones......) makes their sign ins OPTIONAL on other platforms......
Bottom line is you meet your market where they are. They did good in their PC rollout, but this one detail they failed to listen to the market and it keeps biting them, for no reason. And weirdly inconsistent reasons as GoT does NOT require it outside legends.... They don't need it. They've told us they don't need it. They, like Xbox just seem to have two left hands and don't know what either is doing, but the foot always finds the mouth.
@PsBoxSwitchOwner Sure. So we should just post it all on 4Chan ourselves since it's all inevitable. Maybe I can get a 30th Pro on your credit card while I'm at it. Or 10 of them.
Or we could try to start making a stance to reign it in rather than just volunteer to feed it maximally?
Re: God of War Ragnarok PC Mod Removes PSN Login Requirement
Beautiful.. And guaranteed the VR mods are right behind too!
Since @PsBoxSwitchOwner has given up and decided that being sold into corporate slavery is inevitable and therefore acceptable, I hereby officially bid $699.99 for ownership rights.
@naruball It's folly to assume that just because Sony became the catalyst of the movement today means the same people haven't been fuming but oppressed at other companies. La Bastille, Boston Massacre, Lenin. It's how every mass revolt starts. It's not about that one incident, is that a large enough number of people have been quietly fuming for a long enough time until one day a single change makes them all realize a lot of other people have felt the same way and suddenly a weakness in the enemy appeared. They're starting with Sony because they're new and vulnerable. They're not going to END with Sony if they succeed.
If people did not revolt over these things your PS5s would have always online DRM with discs as unlock media, and used copy activation fees. And so would your PS4.
Re: Frostpunk 2 Dev Recoups Entire Marketing, Production Budget in Three Days
@Max_the_German It's weird the companies are pushing ever more expensive hardware. Consumers are trained to expect to need more hardware by poorly built games spending the tech budget in calculating water drops reflecting the light from Polaris, while AA is basically where all the profitability is.... We REALLY need to step hardware back 3 generations while making people feel like they're going forward. I think that's the point of the handheld revolution but Sony is busy thinking they're Nvidia.
@LuXifer what's that? I'm pretty sure I heard you say if you throw another 300m at it I triple my investment, right?
Re: How To Pre-Order PS5's 30th Anniversary Collection
@CutchuSlow And you should be grateful to be paying more to support the hedge funds that own shares so creatives can keep getting fired after making the best video games like Concord!
I suspect at this point a price drop would be after the ps6 is out or just before. And the drop will be back to the launch price. Why cut prices if people are refusing to buy the competitors better cheaper product? It's like Chanel No. 5. It's like $100 a bottle and smells like a brothel, but people buy it...
Re: How To Pre-Order PS5's 30th Anniversary Collection
@OldGamer999 I mean there's only 12000 of them. There's more legitimate individual scalpers than that! I'm sure they can all have a PSN account. Unless they're PC gamers
Beyond that, scalpers work in groups to secure all inventory. The bot nets work for their collective benefit, and they have the address for delivery split up among them. That's also how organized theft rings work when buying inventory including things like this on stolen credit cards. The merch is delivered to various locations and resold organizationally.
Plus PSN accounts just need an address and email. The bots can open a few tens if thousands of them in a few minutes. And the probably still have them from PS5 launch anyway.
Someone has not been doing their due diligence for the Tojo Clan I see....
Re: Scalpers Want $10k to Try to Buy You a 30th Anniversary PS5 Pro
@NeonMullet Who'd have guessed that Echochrome would become the default color scheme of Playstation....
You're right about the teal. I knew SOMETHING was missing. You can't do early 90's without teal or seafoam green. It's not possible!
LOL, I gnashed my teeth so hard when I installed Playnite on PC, added the sounds, and what does full screen play? Something PS4-5'ish ambient sounds. Not as bad as PS5, but still, people seem to love that.... Fortunately it's just an mp3 so you can stick anything in there. I think I have to make it rave music or something just to counteract the dreariness of the default
Re: How To Pre-Order PlayStation 30th Anniversary Collection
@GamingFan4Lyf And if they can't succeed, I have my acrylic paints and disc drive at the ready!
Re: Scalpers Want $10k to Try to Buy You a 30th Anniversary PS5 Pro
@jrt87 That's what I don't get about these FOMO mad rushes for instant-sellout products. Instead of having these intentionally limited runs of products, and instead of opening up the sale for launch models and selling out every 15 seconds while competing with bots, why not just take preorder reservations and fulfill them in order as they become available? Make as many as is needed to fill the reservations. If you're number 2 million in line, and they have to tell you that your order is expected to ship in the July 2025 batch, then, you have your order in, you know when to expect yours. How is this difficult? And it defeats scalpers because not many people will pay scalpers foretunes (except the true FOMO need it day one crowd) when you can just put an order in and get a date for when you should get yours.
Much smaller companies manage that fine. Valve did it with Deck. Pimax does it with their VR headsets. They're currently taking $1 reservations to receive an invite, in order, to place an order whenever they start taking orders for their Crystal Super in Q4 (or delayed to Q5?) You can place a reservation whenever, even if it means your batch is 6 months later because you were late to the party you're still in line. (and probably get better QC.) How do these much bigger firms fail to get this right??
Of course we know they answer. This isn't by mistake, they WANT it this way to always sell out and look like the new cabbage patch doll, and incite ever more FOMO and envy around their brand. They're not here to sell products. They're here to sell brand power. And shorting supply is proven effective. The most popular toy is the one you can't have.
Re: How To Pre-Order PlayStation 30th Anniversary Collection
@carlos82 But you can't get the gray middle section that way. Is that not worth $200 to you?
Re: Scalpers Want $10k to Try to Buy You a 30th Anniversary PS5 Pro
If anyone wants a PS5 launch phat 30th anniversary edition bundle, one of a kind, you can't buy one of these from PS Direct, I've got a PS5 phat and a box of acrylic paints from Michael's. I can have it to you by October 15th. Only $1800 + shipping. Matching Dual Sense Edge and case included. DISC DRIVE AND VERTICAL STAND INCLUDED!!!!!! Order quickly, only one available!
Re: Scalpers Want $10k to Try to Buy You a 30th Anniversary PS5 Pro
@jrt87 Can you just feel PSN starting to go down for hours on end after the inevitable DDOS after swaths of scalpers fail to stake their claim? I can! Nobody should make Helldivers plans this week, that's for sure
Re: Rumour: PS6 Could Span a Console and Handheld Device
As for premium brand electronics, audio is a special case, as it's not so much about premium BRAND as much as materials and design. And audio is filled with a lot of "premium" brands that are worse than average brands, and filled with a lot of ultra-lux exotic brands that are indistinguishable from premium brands (but people who happen to buy it can hear the difference!) Incidentally I'm also a bit of an audio snob, though I also can't stand the super premium pricing that has taken effect there over the past decade, and I'm infuriated to see gaming going the same route. Having said all that.......Sony CONSUMER audio isn't a brand I'd pay for in audio They charge too much and offer far less performance. Even there, they're a company that sees themselves as a much higher tier player than they are. Now they do have some advantages in automotive audio, and their pro audio has the ironic asset of being both good and cheap and is thus industry standard...