Not every game can be Fortnite - there's just not enough room.
You're fighting for attention with:
every established game (Fortnite, Genshin Impact)
every new game (Stellar Blade, Helldivers 2)
sporting events (NBA/NHL playoffs)
TV/streaming (Halo, Fallout, just to keep with video game-related titles)
movies, concerts, attending protests on college campuses...
Not to mention other non-"entertainment" things like work, school, or even just nicer weather outside as we get into spring and summer
How well do you expect your game to do?
Especially the F2P games that depend on constant engagement and buying DLC - the few with staying power rake in billions and make all the other studios turn green with envy, but most games won't come near that (and most who come close won't sustain it). If it was that easy to become the next Fortnite, Fortnite would have died by now.
Tried the demo from Steam on a ROG Ally, and it was interesting. Not sure what the DualSense triggers will add to it, but I love seeing studios use those types of features.
You have to just really love puzzle games to enjoy this one, I think. I like them, but I didn't finish the demo - maybe I'll go back to it when I'm in the right mood.
I actually thought the real-life ads in Burnout Paradise were great, and kind of missed when they were pulled from the game and replaced with fake ads for fictitious products because the deal was over.
But a popup ad, like in mobile games? No thanks - no, that's too polite. F no. Uninstall, and ask for a refund if at all possible - just as I do on most mobile games (you can tell I don't play a lot of mobile games, then, right?).
@OneWingedAngel If they could make great games during the PS1 and PS2 era with barely a couple of million then they can do so today too.
Something to remember - the PS1 released in 1995. Inflation has almost exactly doubled the value of that today - so $2 million in 1995 is just over $4 million today, at least in US dollars.
I'm pretty sure I've seen this show before - is it a rerun?
Didn't Microsoft go on a buying spree of studios in the late 90s or 2000s? And didn't they end up closing most of those studios a few years later? It all feels so...predictable.
@get2sammyb The worst thing is many of us predicted this from the outset and were shouted down. I've been saying for years this would all end in tears, and it's going exactly how I expected it to.
Yep, and just like politics, people are crying "Nobody could have seen this coming!" in the face of the people who warned them this is exactly what was coming. You can't even tell them "I told you so," they're too drunk on the KoolAid to hear you.
@Jdubz why keep pushing the live service games when only a couple of them have really properly taken off? It seems such a high risk, high reward strategy?!
It's exactly BECAUSE it's a high risk, high reward strategy that they're drawn to it like moths to a flame. Can you imagine the career boost if you're the exec who green-lit the next Fortnite?!?! You put all your chips on one number and spin the wheel - you'll probably lose, but if you win you win HUGE!
Inflation is a thing. McDonald's doesn't have a real dollar menu any more - those cheesburgers aren't ever going to be less than they are now, which is more than they were a couple years ago.
Even if they manage to make games with fewer employees, wages aren't going down. Even if they manage to save some costs by using AI instead of paying voice actors or artists or programmers, you still need real people to craft a real game - and "AI Prompt Engineer" is a growing field that didn't exist one or two years ago.
If prices are going to stay around $70, then games are going to need to be smaller or poorer quality - or they're going to be riddled with DLC to raise revenue. I think he's right, but not in the way people will like - I think prices are on their way to $80 and $100. They're already there - and beyond - if you factor in season passes and such.
We want games that aren't too short, that have "good" graphics, that have an engaging story, that have good character acting, that aren't riddled with bugs, and that are different than the last thing we played. ALL those things cost money.
EDIT: That said, I'll be buying Stellar Blade on sale some time this summer or fall, because I'm too cheap to pay $70-80 for a game, even though I'm eager to play it. Each of us has some agency here.
I love Sackboy - I own a physical, stuffed Sackboy! - but there's no way he beats Pac-Man as a more iconic character. Or even Pikachu (the only Pokemon I ever enjoyed was the Detective Pikachu movie with Ryan Reynolds).
Show 100 random people on the street photos of those three characters and see who can name them. I bet Pac-Man gets over 90%, and Sackboy under 50%. Heck, I'm not sure Lara Croft would hit 50%.
For a question like this, you're polling the wrong people. Go poll marketing firms about iconic characters, and I bet the list looks a lot different.
@Moochy [check out his list] I think you put Crash a little high, and I want to root for Sackboy (4 games!) being higher, maybe bumping Ellie. But your list is still a lot closer to reality than whatever the BAFTA list is.
Someone said Motorstorm. Heck, take the old PS3 Motorstorm games, remake them for PS5 with PS5-level graphics, and I'd buy them again.
Yes, it would be better to build something new. But I miss arcade racing games. There needs to be something between GT and kart racers (and while I wish The Crew Motorfest was it, that game just falls totally flat for me for some reason).
Immortals of Aveum looks like one of those games that I would never have paid for, but might enjoy when I can try it for free. We'll see.
I think I'll wait a bit, as the developers are promising HDR and frame-generation additions coming in the next few weeks. My TV supports HDR, 120fps, and VRR, so hopefully the upgrade goes well and makes it "better," and I can give it a shot with it looking its best.
Bought the disk used for $5 back while it was banned from the store. Waited for the PS5 upgrade, then decided to wait for the DLC to go on a better sale.
@Sil_Am "There is a solution, though, they should make their own store on PC to compete with Steam, with trophies, save sync, and cross-buy with Playstation consoles. These features would make people favor its store, instead on Steam."
Well, that would certainly be something that might benefit Sony on one hand. But it would have its limitations. Chief among those is I doubt very much Sony would offer cross-buy. They're paying for a port, they want to recoup that cost, and asking gamers to double-dip on purchases if they're double-dipping on platforms seems less egregious to me than charging extra for a PS5 port of a PS4 game.
Likewise, features like cross-save are unlikely to materialize unless Sony can encrypt the saved games on the PC side. Heck, Sony doesn't let you back up your saved games on the PS5 (like you could on the PS4 and PS3) to an external drive, it's cloud backup with PSN or no backup at all!
On the other side, there are Steam loyalists that make console fans look downright reasonable. They may be a vocal minority, but listen to them complain about the Epic store, and you'd think you were hearing XBox and PS fans going at each other.
Even without game appearing in subscription services day 1, it still hurts sales, for two reasons.
First, I'm one of those who still haven't bought Spider-Man 2, because I have a huge backlog (and one live service game) to keep me busy. I'm playing through Nier Replicant now, "free" from the middle tier of Plus.
Second, if I wait long enough, they'll announce some DLC for Spider-Man 2 just before they put the base game on Plus, at least on the middle tier for a while. I can wait, I haven't even started AC Valhalla, yet, or a half-dozen other Plus game that interest me.
I like the subscription service, and I think as long as Microsoft funds Game Pass, Sony has to have something similar. But it simply has to be cannibalizing sales for both companies. I don't see how the finances match up - not when delaying or cancelling one or two day 1 purchases can fund your subscription for the YEAR.
@sanderson72 I'd love a ModNation Racers sequel. I don't see it happening, but that game was awesome. It might be the only day one purchase I don't regret, except that my disk cracked and I had to buy it again. Grrr.
I understand why people who run a site with news about consoles would LOVE to have more detailed information like this - it's data you can write a lot of articles about. But I don't honestly care what everyone else is playing (or not playing), I care about what I and my family are playing. If I were into online multiplayer (haven't found one I liked since Burnout Paradise), I'd also care what my friends were playing, but that's about it.
My wife may be on the PS5 playing Minecraft for hours because that's her thing...though I'll be next to her playing Minecraft on my ROG Ally, while one of the kids is playing on her laptop while yammering at us over the speakerphone because neither her or my wife want to bother with Discord, but that's another story. If Minecraft is at the top of the list or finally falls off it altogether, it's not going to change our habits one bit.
@SaiPri - wow, if you're going to dream, dream big? Are there ANY new games for PSVR1 any more? I'm not being critical - it's an honest question.
That's a downside for PSVR - without backwards compatibility (though I understand it's radically different tech, so I get it) it's not just a smaller library for PSVR2, it's also a dead end for PSVR1.
Unless Sony can make some compatibility layer so games made for other headsets can be ported to PSVR seamlessly, maybe even without developer intervention...? Now I'm the one dreaming big.
I'm American, so that's the source of my analogy - it's a bit like watching when the Presidency goes to the other party, and all the politicians who used to say this or that was an abuse of power by the President suddenly discover the same thing is totally legal and justifiable because THEIR President is now in office, while those in the other party do the flip-flop in the opposite directions.
Playstation fans who moaned exclusives going to PC (I may be among them) are suddenly fans of exclusives being available on all platforms, while XBox fans to delighted in seeing TLoU or H:ZD come to PC are now crying that Playstation players might get Starfield.
If you ask them if it's good for a console exclusive to be opened up to all platforms, they have to ask which console and which platforms you're talking about before they answer. And that's funny to me, even if it does hit a bit close to home.
If all the skins can be earned in-game as developers have stated, the only point in spending the extra $10 is to get access to a few skins sooner.
While I love the look and the gameplay snippets seem promising, I've been burned before. I'm waiting a couple months after release, when the worst bugs have been patched and there's a sale.
This is one of those things that matters to 1% of the player base. Most will play it in their native/preferred language and not give it another thought.
I don't mind having to read subtitles during movies to understand the dialog, but that can be a serious issue in a video game where your focus may be more divided and you risk either missing dialog or missing important gameplay cues.
@CJD87 You don't have to get into any debates outside the game to draw an obvious comparison.
Movie blockbusters rarely win Oscar (Academy Awards) awards, or even nominations. How many Marvel movies got Best Picture nominations, despite being at the top of the box office every year for a couple decades? 1: Black Panther. Several got nominated for special effects and makeup and editing and sound and costumes, but only one for Best Picture - despite routinely being the best-selling movies of the year.
That's because the academy awards are about merit, in the eyes of the academy members, and not about popularity. And that's what all award shows ought to try to be - rewarding merit, based in the eyes of the voters, whoever that may be.
We can argue that HL may have received an award if it wasn't for "the controversy" (just as you might argue Black Panther might not have been nominated if it dealt with standard superhero fare rather than having a primarily black cast), but whoever makes the awards also makes the criteria for them, and they can use whatever criteria they like.
On the other hand, most studios (whether movie or game studios) would be happier having the highest-grossing movie/game of the year, rather than having the most awarded movie/game of the year. Audiences vote with their dollars.
@Bez87 You seem to be drawing a distinction between a "Showcase" and a "State of Play" which seems common around here. I'm not sure Sony (currently?) draws the same distinction between them that people around here do. Maybe they used to, but not lately.
I'm not sure how hyped Sony is trying to get you - any hype you feel today isn't from them, at least not directly, since this is still just rumor. They've been announcing these things as little as a day in advance, usually less than a week in advance, and often with tips to manage expectations.
I don't begrudge Sony or anybody else not promoting what they're working on when they're months or years away from completion. Aren't we tired of slipping delivery dates, yet? One way to fix that is to not announce something until it's close enough to complete that its release date has some relationship to reality.
Fair enough - I haven't seen Succession, but it certainly looks more like something mainstream awards voters would enjoy. Apple TV has had a few big hits worth watching - personally, I'm more interested in solid news of the next season of Severance than of TLoU.
Wait - the line saying the new game is "building on the ideas introduced in its likeable open world outing" is based on what?
Given that, one of the most interesting ideas introduced in that game was the motorcycle mechanics. If they build on that in another open world game, that could be quite interesting.
The hordes was another interesting idea - a mass of people (not necessarily zombies) or other enemies (a la A Plague's Tale) might be interesting as well - but I'm hoping it's more on the bike.
@AverageGamer This is why the game industry needs to be more open about things and not so secretive about everything. Keeping people out of the loop for years on end.
Nah.
I think it's been proven that people cannot handle being told everything about a game while it's being built - they will gripe at "promised" features being dropped, at work-in-progress graphics being poor quality, and that the game is too much like something else or not close enough to the same thing. They will complain every time a release date slips.
Sure, record your developer diary and all the details of how you made everything - and release it with or after the game. But don't let people in on the creative and practical decisions being made as you go - we've already seen people can't handle it.
I wonder how much the collective outrage and warnings about the dangers of digital media led to whatever negotiations happened to allow the change to be rolled back, at least temporarily. Or perhaps it's more similar to when your local TV channel and cable or satellite company have a dispute, and each starts warning you the channel may go away because the other side is being unreasonable.
Are they hoping that after 30 months, people will be less upset because they knew it was coming? Or are they expecting to sort out some new deal during those 30 months, and this is just a stay while they continue negotiations?
It's bad for the industry as a whole to have customers lose access entirely. It would be much smarter if they could either issue refunds or issue some sort of migration, so if you owned the content from Playstation you could continue to access the content on service X by linking your Playstation and X accounts.
I bet if you went back through the years and compared the winners of user-voted awards such as this to the release dates of the contenders, you'd find a common trend - the most recently-released contender usually wins.
That's because the fun you had 10-12 months ago doesn't feel the same as the fun you had yesterday, even if the fun from 10-12 months ago was objectively greater if you could stand them side-by-side in time.
I'm not saying Spider-Man 2 shouldn't have won - I'm saying it was inevitable given the voting parameters.
I'm betting the Pro will be $600 with disk, either no non-disk option or a $550 that supports the attachable drive of the new "slim." The regular PS5 will get about a $50 price drop at the same time, with another $50 off for holiday sales, but production will slow or stop.
That's based on my own speculation and no insider knowledge whatsoever.
Let's face it - the 2600 games were abysmal. I loved them as a kid because that was the best you could get at home, even if it was pretty bad compared to what was available in the arcade (which itself is pretty lame now).
I played through Adventure after I got this game for Christmas last year, to beat the game and find the easter egg room (again, I did it back in the day, too), but I didn't spend much time on the rest of the 2600 games, and I probably won't...though I might go back and play the Yars Revenge remix a few more times.
But those games - as bad as they are by modern standards - are one of the reasons a web site like this can exist today. They helped create the industry. And it's amazing to see how much gameplay they actually were able to create with such primitive tools, even if it doesn't hold up well any more.
I hate the new version of Pinball FX. It takes WAY too long to load on a PS5 - it's frankly embarrassing. I hate the UI of a room of tables - I much prefer picking from a menu like in previous versions. Once you get to a table, I'm not sure I see anything in the new version that's better than the old. I'm very disappointed in general.
Add in the need to buy every table again (without a discount for owning a prior copy) or pay through the nose for a subscription, and there's no reason to play this new game - or would be, if new tables were released in both the new and old versions.
I enjoyed Destiny, but never got into Destiny 2. Bungie hits the monetization way too hard, releasing add-ons at full-release prices way too frequently, and even retiring content people paid for. I'm likely to avoid anything from Bungie until I'm sure they're not doing the same thing now that Sony owns them.
So clearly there's no way I'm getting cosmetic items for a game I don't play...but they look great!
I suspect that the speed of your INTERNET connection is largely irrelevant - but rather, the speed of your home WIFI connection is crucial. One of those can easily be better than the other - usually it's the home network is better than the Internet connection, but that's not always the case.
When you're streaming Netflix or cloud gaming, you want both Internet and local network to be very fast; for gaming you also want low latency (latency is often related to speed, but it's not the same thing). But for streaming in-house, your Internet could be off and you might still have an excellent experience - the bandwidth and latency between the devices on your home network are what matters, not the speed of your connection to the Internet.
Testing at different locations with "fast Internet" doesn't say much - what kind of home network did they actually have, how many devices were on it, how much interference from microwave ovens and other devices, were you on a guest network or the same network as the PS5, was the PS5 wired or on wifi...?
EDIT: I see when you went to another house, you were connecting back to "your" PS5 - presumably that was an Internet connection, so the Internet speed does matter in that case - as well as the local wifi. Also critically important would be how much UPLOAD speed your home Internet connection has. Most consumer Internet - at least in the US, but I believe in many other places as well - have much, MUCH slower upload speeds than download - and that matters for remote play away from home. So too does which networks you and your host are on - you can have dramatically different experiences based on where you are, which can determine what route the traffic takes over the Internet to get to your home. I suspect users will find wildly varying experiences using this outside the home, based on multiple factors, many outside their control.
It does look a little slimmer - and I really like how the center portion is curvier, too. But I'm not buying one unless my launch-day PS5 dies.
If (when?) they release a Pro, I might buy it - but I doubt a lot of people will buy this just because it's a little smaller, they'll buy it because they want a PS5 and this is what's available.
@Mephisto2869 There were some 3D games, yes - not many, though, and I don't recall ever playing one and getting excited about it as much as I was excited about the IDEA of a 3D game. I always really wanted to play the Zen pinball in 3D, but I never bought the tables (you had to pay for them again even if you owned them, for the 3D version).
The early TVs that required expensive, battery-operated glasses kind of ruined the market - by the time TVs came out that used the same glasses you wore in the theaters (I still have one), consumers had turned on the technology and it was already dying.
Studios releasing movies where the 3D was added post-production (with varying levels of quality from decent to deplorable - nothing as awesome as Avatar) didn't help matters, either. One of the last movies I saw in 3D - Ready Player One - also felt like the last one I cared to bother seeing in 3D.
The gimmick will come around again in another decade or two, I'm sure, and will be better than before, used well by some and poorly by most.
I enjoyed the first Avatar, but the movie was always best because of it's immersive, innovative use of 3D rather than for anything else about it. It single-handedly drove a decade of 3D copycats and even 3D televisions - which dropped off the market just as they became good, which frustrates me immensely.
If this game somehow leveraged 3D tech, which would require using VR at this stage, then I'd be very interested.
As it is, I'll wait for the reviews - and regardless of the reviews, wait for the inevitable price drop. And honestly, no matter what the reviews say, I'll probably play this in a year when the bugs are squashed and the price is low - maybe two years if the reviews of the full game are awful.
Some of those jobs go in cycles. You don't need the same type of PR team when your company is mostly heads-down in development and not releasing new content for a year or more as you do when you're fully supporting a community-driven game.
Hopefully this is just a matter of adjusting resources while they work on the next big thing, whatever that may be.
Wow...amazing differences. I'm not sure how much is color palette and textures for some of those shots, but there's a lot more detail no matter how you look at it.
Love the comparison, and the lack of spoilers - thanks!
This iteration of the PS5 isn't about the gamer - it's about saving Sony some money in parts and manufacturing. I'd bet that when someone does a teardown and looks at the internals, they'll find plenty of cost savings in there. That's why, with inflation still higher than most gamers remember it ever being in their lifetime (I'm old enough to remember 70s gas lines, even if I was too young to be driving then), Sony isn't raising prices again with this model...well, with the disk model...well, with the disk model if you want it to lay horizontally.
The point is, this upgrade isn't about delivering something new to us - but the Slim models rarely were. The PS3 and PS4 slim models weren't better than the originals, just smaller, sometimes with fewer ports, often with lower power usage, and sometimes a lower price. Why does any of that interest someone who owns one already, except MAYBE the power usage?
Thank goodness. I'd be happier if there was an option to auto-update all installed games, because I really don't understand why that isn't even an option on the PS5. Go use bandwidth at 3am, I'm okay with that.
At least now if I'm considering a couple games I haven't played in a while, I can check to see if there are any updates before I try starting them. It lets me download an update even if I'm not sure that's the game I'm going to fire up, so at least it's more likely to be ready next time.
I wasn't thrilled with the original. I enjoyed it for a few weeks, but then fell out of it to the point I deleted it.
The loot box mechanic was very, very annoying - but the worst was that races were 100% about boost. The cars were all but identical, what mattered was how much boost each one had and how effectively you could maximize it. A few tracks had shortcuts that were mandatory to know for certain races/events, but most the time it was about picking the car with the best boost, because no other car was worth it. That made me and my Sopwith Camel Snoopy car very sad.
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Re: Publisher Nexon Investigating Cause of The Finals' 'Lower-Than-Expected' Performance
Not every game can be Fortnite - there's just not enough room.
You're fighting for attention with:
Not to mention other non-"entertainment" things like work, school, or even just nicer weather outside as we get into spring and summer
How well do you expect your game to do?
Especially the F2P games that depend on constant engagement and buying DLC - the few with staying power rake in billions and make all the other studios turn green with envy, but most games won't come near that (and most who come close won't sustain it). If it was that easy to become the next Fortnite, Fortnite would have died by now.
Re: EA Sports College Football 25 Kicks Off on 19th July for PS5
Wish I could get an old-school EA football game without all the Ultimate Team garbage. I don't want a gacha game, I want football.
Re: Mini Review: Paper Trail (PS5) – Unique Origami-Style Puzzles Set in a Gorgeous World
Tried the demo from Steam on a ROG Ally, and it was interesting. Not sure what the DualSense triggers will add to it, but I love seeing studios use those types of features.
You have to just really love puzzle games to enjoy this one, I think. I like them, but I didn't finish the demo - maybe I'll go back to it when I'm in the right mood.
Re: EA Exploring 'Thoughtful Implementations' of In-Game Advertising
It's all in the execution.
I actually thought the real-life ads in Burnout Paradise were great, and kind of missed when they were pulled from the game and replaced with fake ads for fictitious products because the deal was over.
But a popup ad, like in mobile games? No thanks - no, that's too polite. F no. Uninstall, and ask for a refund if at all possible - just as I do on most mobile games (you can tell I don't play a lot of mobile games, then, right?).
Re: More Xbox Layoffs Reportedly Inbound as Company Attempts to Cut Costs
Something to remember - the PS1 released in 1995. Inflation has almost exactly doubled the value of that today - so $2 million in 1995 is just over $4 million today, at least in US dollars.
(source: https://www.officialdata.org/us/inflation/1995?amount=20)
Re: More Xbox Layoffs Reportedly Inbound as Company Attempts to Cut Costs
I'm pretty sure I've seen this show before - is it a rerun?
Didn't Microsoft go on a buying spree of studios in the late 90s or 2000s? And didn't they end up closing most of those studios a few years later? It all feels so...predictable.
Yep, and just like politics, people are crying "Nobody could have seen this coming!" in the face of the people who warned them this is exactly what was coming. You can't even tell them "I told you so," they're too drunk on the KoolAid to hear you.
Re: Warner Bros Revenue Plummets as Suicide Squad Falls Completely Short of Hogwarts Legacy
It's exactly BECAUSE it's a high risk, high reward strategy that they're drawn to it like moths to a flame. Can you imagine the career boost if you're the exec who green-lit the next Fortnite?!?! You put all your chips on one number and spin the wheel - you'll probably lose, but if you win you win HUGE!
Re: PS Plus Essential Games for May 2024 Announced
Ouch. Won't touch Destiny again (fan of the original, never got into D2), not a fan of Ghostrunner or EA FC. So it's just Tunic for me this month.
Oh well, they can't all be tailored for my taste (but I wish they could).
Re: $70 Games Are Just a Phase, Believes Saber Interactive CEO
Inflation is a thing. McDonald's doesn't have a real dollar menu any more - those cheesburgers aren't ever going to be less than they are now, which is more than they were a couple years ago.
Even if they manage to make games with fewer employees, wages aren't going down. Even if they manage to save some costs by using AI instead of paying voice actors or artists or programmers, you still need real people to craft a real game - and "AI Prompt Engineer" is a growing field that didn't exist one or two years ago.
If prices are going to stay around $70, then games are going to need to be smaller or poorer quality - or they're going to be riddled with DLC to raise revenue. I think he's right, but not in the way people will like - I think prices are on their way to $80 and $100. They're already there - and beyond - if you factor in season passes and such.
We want games that aren't too short, that have "good" graphics, that have an engaging story, that have good character acting, that aren't riddled with bugs, and that are different than the last thing we played. ALL those things cost money.
EDIT: That said, I'll be buying Stellar Blade on sale some time this summer or fall, because I'm too cheap to pay $70-80 for a game, even though I'm eager to play it. Each of us has some agency here.
Re: Immortals of Aveum Cost $125 Million, Branded a 'Truly Awful Idea'
Should have said "month or two," you'd have been closer.
EDIT: That was from Feb. "Month or two" would have nailed it, for April.
Re: Random: Lara Croft Tops Mario as the Most Iconic Video Game Character of All Time, Apparently
I love Sackboy - I own a physical, stuffed Sackboy! - but there's no way he beats Pac-Man as a more iconic character. Or even Pikachu (the only Pokemon I ever enjoyed was the Detective Pikachu movie with Ryan Reynolds).
Show 100 random people on the street photos of those three characters and see who can name them. I bet Pac-Man gets over 90%, and Sackboy under 50%. Heck, I'm not sure Lara Croft would hit 50%.
For a question like this, you're polling the wrong people. Go poll marketing firms about iconic characters, and I bet the list looks a lot different.
@Moochy [check out his list] I think you put Crash a little high, and I want to root for Sackboy (4 games!) being higher, maybe bumping Ellie. But your list is still a lot closer to reality than whatever the BAFTA list is.
Re: Rumour: Sony to Host Big PlayStation Event Next Month
Someone said Motorstorm. Heck, take the old PS3 Motorstorm games, remake them for PS5 with PS5-level graphics, and I'd buy them again.
Yes, it would be better to build something new. But I miss arcade racing games. There needs to be something between GT and kart racers (and while I wish The Crew Motorfest was it, that game just falls totally flat for me for some reason).
Re: Rumour: Sony to Host Big PlayStation Event Next Month
Didn't this news break on Monday? Are we sure this isn't an April Fool's Day joke?
Re: Atari's Retro Revivals Continue with Top-Down Racer NeoSprint on PS5, PS4
You can build your own tracks?!?!
Looks like it could be a blast. I need a bunch of those old steering wheels that you could just spin and spin, though...!
Re: 3 New PS Plus Essential Games Up for Download Now on PS5, PS4
Immortals of Aveum looks like one of those games that I would never have paid for, but might enjoy when I can try it for free. We'll see.
I think I'll wait a bit, as the developers are promising HDR and frame-generation additions coming in the next few weeks. My TV supports HDR, 120fps, and VRR, so hopefully the upgrade goes well and makes it "better," and I can give it a shot with it looking its best.
Re: Cyberpunk 2077 Is Completely Free to Play on PS5 This Weekend
Bought the disk used for $5 back while it was banned from the store. Waited for the PS5 upgrade, then decided to wait for the DLC to go on a better sale.
Still waiting. But it's on my list.
Re: Talking Point: How Do You Feel About the PS5 Pro?
Like game preorders, I'll wait for the reviews.
I want to see how well it performs with real-world games on release day. What improvements do we see on day one?
That, and the cost, will determine my interest. I won't preorder one, but I might pick one up before the end of the year. It depends.
Re: Horizon Forbidden West Off to a Sturdy Enough Start on PC
@Sil_Am "There is a solution, though, they should make their own store on PC to compete with Steam, with trophies, save sync, and cross-buy with Playstation consoles. These features would make people favor its store, instead on Steam."
Well, that would certainly be something that might benefit Sony on one hand. But it would have its limitations. Chief among those is I doubt very much Sony would offer cross-buy. They're paying for a port, they want to recoup that cost, and asking gamers to double-dip on purchases if they're double-dipping on platforms seems less egregious to me than charging extra for a PS5 port of a PS4 game.
Likewise, features like cross-save are unlikely to materialize unless Sony can encrypt the saved games on the PC side. Heck, Sony doesn't let you back up your saved games on the PS5 (like you could on the PS4 and PS3) to an external drive, it's cloud backup with PSN or no backup at all!
On the other side, there are Steam loyalists that make console fans look downright reasonable. They may be a vocal minority, but listen to them complain about the Epic store, and you'd think you were hearing XBox and PS fans going at each other.
Re: Stellar Blade PS5 Demo Drops This Week, Progress Carries to the Full Game
When games have review embargoes that go up to the day of release, run.
When games release demos before release day, run.
Just run in opposite directions - away from the former and toward the latter.
Re: Reaction: The Problem with PlayStation Right Now
Even without game appearing in subscription services day 1, it still hurts sales, for two reasons.
First, I'm one of those who still haven't bought Spider-Man 2, because I have a huge backlog (and one live service game) to keep me busy. I'm playing through Nier Replicant now, "free" from the middle tier of Plus.
Second, if I wait long enough, they'll announce some DLC for Spider-Man 2 just before they put the base game on Plus, at least on the middle tier for a while. I can wait, I haven't even started AC Valhalla, yet, or a half-dozen other Plus game that interest me.
I like the subscription service, and I think as long as Microsoft funds Game Pass, Sony has to have something similar. But it simply has to be cannibalizing sales for both companies. I don't see how the finances match up - not when delaying or cancelling one or two day 1 purchases can fund your subscription for the YEAR.
Re: Talking Point: Should Sony Be More Transparent About PS5, PS4's Most Played Games?
@sanderson72 I'd love a ModNation Racers sequel. I don't see it happening, but that game was awesome. It might be the only day one purchase I don't regret, except that my disk cracked and I had to buy it again. Grrr.
Re: Talking Point: Should Sony Be More Transparent About PS5, PS4's Most Played Games?
I understand why people who run a site with news about consoles would LOVE to have more detailed information like this - it's data you can write a lot of articles about. But I don't honestly care what everyone else is playing (or not playing), I care about what I and my family are playing. If I were into online multiplayer (haven't found one I liked since Burnout Paradise), I'd also care what my friends were playing, but that's about it.
My wife may be on the PS5 playing Minecraft for hours because that's her thing...though I'll be next to her playing Minecraft on my ROG Ally, while one of the kids is playing on her laptop while yammering at us over the speakerphone because neither her or my wife want to bother with Discord, but that's another story. If Minecraft is at the top of the list or finally falls off it altogether, it's not going to change our habits one bit.
Re: Beloved Indie Oddity What the Golf? Tees Off on PS5, PS4 in March
@SaiPri - wow, if you're going to dream, dream big? Are there ANY new games for PSVR1 any more? I'm not being critical - it's an honest question.
That's a downside for PSVR - without backwards compatibility (though I understand it's radically different tech, so I get it) it's not just a smaller library for PSVR2, it's also a dead end for PSVR1.
Unless Sony can make some compatibility layer so games made for other headsets can be ported to PSVR seamlessly, maybe even without developer intervention...? Now I'm the one dreaming big.
Re: Poll: How Do You Feel About All of the Xbox Multiplatform Rumours?
I'm American, so that's the source of my analogy - it's a bit like watching when the Presidency goes to the other party, and all the politicians who used to say this or that was an abuse of power by the President suddenly discover the same thing is totally legal and justifiable because THEIR President is now in office, while those in the other party do the flip-flop in the opposite directions.
Playstation fans who moaned exclusives going to PC (I may be among them) are suddenly fans of exclusives being available on all platforms, while XBox fans to delighted in seeing TLoU or H:ZD come to PC are now crying that Playstation players might get Starfield.
If you ask them if it's good for a console exclusive to be opened up to all platforms, they have to ask which console and which platforms you're talking about before they answer. And that's funny to me, even if it does hit a bit close to home.
Re: Stellar Blade PS5 Pre-Orders Go Live, Two Versions to Choose From
If all the skins can be earned in-game as developers have stated, the only point in spending the extra $10 is to get access to a few skins sooner.
While I love the look and the gameplay snippets seem promising, I've been burned before. I'm waiting a couple months after release, when the worst bugs have been patched and there's a sale.
Re: Stellar Blade's Japanese Dub Won't Be Available Worldwide, But Korean Will Be
This is one of those things that matters to 1% of the player base. Most will play it in their native/preferred language and not give it another thought.
I don't mind having to read subtitles during movies to understand the dialog, but that can be a serious issue in a video game where your focus may be more divided and you risk either missing dialog or missing important gameplay cues.
Re: Hogwarts Legacy Breaks 14-Year Call of Duty, Rockstar Streak to Become USA's Best-Selling Game of 2023
@CJD87 You don't have to get into any debates outside the game to draw an obvious comparison.
Movie blockbusters rarely win Oscar (Academy Awards) awards, or even nominations. How many Marvel movies got Best Picture nominations, despite being at the top of the box office every year for a couple decades? 1: Black Panther. Several got nominated for special effects and makeup and editing and sound and costumes, but only one for Best Picture - despite routinely being the best-selling movies of the year.
That's because the academy awards are about merit, in the eyes of the academy members, and not about popularity. And that's what all award shows ought to try to be - rewarding merit, based in the eyes of the voters, whoever that may be.
We can argue that HL may have received an award if it wasn't for "the controversy" (just as you might argue Black Panther might not have been nominated if it dealt with standard superhero fare rather than having a primarily black cast), but whoever makes the awards also makes the criteria for them, and they can use whatever criteria they like.
On the other hand, most studios (whether movie or game studios) would be happier having the highest-grossing movie/game of the year, rather than having the most awarded movie/game of the year. Audiences vote with their dollars.
Re: Rocksteady Lifts Suicide Squad Alpha NDA in Apparent Bid to Counter Damning Previews
July.
Re: Sounds Like Sony's Next State of Play Livestream Isn't Far Away
@Bez87 You seem to be drawing a distinction between a "Showcase" and a "State of Play" which seems common around here. I'm not sure Sony (currently?) draws the same distinction between them that people around here do. Maybe they used to, but not lately.
I'm not sure how hyped Sony is trying to get you - any hype you feel today isn't from them, at least not directly, since this is still just rumor. They've been announcing these things as little as a day in advance, usually less than a week in advance, and often with tips to manage expectations.
Re: Sounds Like Sony's Next State of Play Livestream Isn't Far Away
I don't begrudge Sony or anybody else not promoting what they're working on when they're months or years away from completion. Aren't we tired of slipping delivery dates, yet? One way to fix that is to not announce something until it's close enough to complete that its release date has some relationship to reality.
Re: The Last of Us HBO Wins Eight Emmy Awards, Snubbed at Golden Globes
Fair enough - I haven't seen Succession, but it certainly looks more like something mainstream awards voters would enjoy. Apple TV has had a few big hits worth watching - personally, I'm more interested in solid news of the next season of Severance than of TLoU.
Re: Days Gone Dev on New PS5 Exclusive: We're Cooking
Wait - the line saying the new game is "building on the ideas introduced in its likeable open world outing" is based on what?
Given that, one of the most interesting ideas introduced in that game was the motorcycle mechanics. If they build on that in another open world game, that could be quite interesting.
The hordes was another interesting idea - a mass of people (not necessarily zombies) or other enemies (a la A Plague's Tale) might be interesting as well - but I'm hoping it's more on the bike.
Re: ISPs Seemingly Clamping Down on Downloads of Stolen Marvel's Wolverine Build
Nah.
I think it's been proven that people cannot handle being told everything about a game while it's being built - they will gripe at "promised" features being dropped, at work-in-progress graphics being poor quality, and that the game is too much like something else or not close enough to the same thing. They will complain every time a release date slips.
Sure, record your developer diary and all the details of how you made everything - and release it with or after the game. But don't let people in on the creative and practical decisions being made as you go - we've already seen people can't handle it.
Re: Turns Out You Won't Lose Access to Those Discovery TV Shows on PlayStation After All
I wonder how much the collective outrage and warnings about the dangers of digital media led to whatever negotiations happened to allow the change to be rolled back, at least temporarily. Or perhaps it's more similar to when your local TV channel and cable or satellite company have a dispute, and each starts warning you the channel may go away because the other side is being unreasonable.
Are they hoping that after 30 months, people will be less upset because they knew it was coming? Or are they expecting to sort out some new deal during those 30 months, and this is just a stay while they continue negotiations?
It's bad for the industry as a whole to have customers lose access entirely. It would be much smarter if they could either issue refunds or issue some sort of migration, so if you owned the content from Playstation you could continue to access the content on service X by linking your Playstation and X accounts.
Re: Marvel's Spider-Man 2 Wins Big in PS Blog Awards, Including PS5 Game of the Year
I bet if you went back through the years and compared the winners of user-voted awards such as this to the release dates of the contenders, you'd find a common trend - the most recently-released contender usually wins.
That's because the fun you had 10-12 months ago doesn't feel the same as the fun you had yesterday, even if the fun from 10-12 months ago was objectively greater if you could stand them side-by-side in time.
I'm not saying Spider-Man 2 shouldn't have won - I'm saying it was inevitable given the voting parameters.
Re: The Last of Us' Cancelled PS5 Multiplayer Was 'More Fun' Than Any Other Online Game
It's easy to say that a game nobody will see is the best ever. Who can argue?
And at this point, who cares? What does one person's opinion matter?
Move on.
Re: Rumour: PS5 Pro Targeting September 2024, Will Have Proprietary Upscaling Tech
I'm betting the Pro will be $600 with disk, either no non-disk option or a $550 that supports the attachable drive of the new "slim." The regular PS5 will get about a $50 price drop at the same time, with another $50 off for holiday sales, but production will slow or stop.
That's based on my own speculation and no insider knowledge whatsoever.
Re: 12 Extra Atari 2600 Games Are on the Way to Atari 50, Even More in Further Updates
Let's face it - the 2600 games were abysmal. I loved them as a kid because that was the best you could get at home, even if it was pretty bad compared to what was available in the arcade (which itself is pretty lame now).
I played through Adventure after I got this game for Christmas last year, to beat the game and find the easter egg room (again, I did it back in the day, too), but I didn't spend much time on the rest of the 2600 games, and I probably won't...though I might go back and play the Yars Revenge remix a few more times.
But those games - as bad as they are by modern standards - are one of the reasons a web site like this can exist today. They helped create the industry. And it's amazing to see how much gameplay they actually were able to create with such primitive tools, even if it doesn't hold up well any more.
Re: It's Going to Be a Big Few Days for Virtual Pinball Fans on PS5, PS4
@HughJasol But the PS5 load time is something like 600M/second - so a 3.6G file should take something like 6 seconds to load off disk.
Re: It's Going to Be a Big Few Days for Virtual Pinball Fans on PS5, PS4
I hate the new version of Pinball FX. It takes WAY too long to load on a PS5 - it's frankly embarrassing. I hate the UI of a room of tables - I much prefer picking from a menu like in previous versions. Once you get to a table, I'm not sure I see anything in the new version that's better than the old. I'm very disappointed in general.
Add in the need to buy every table again (without a discount for owning a prior copy) or pay through the nose for a subscription, and there's no reason to play this new game - or would be, if new tables were released in both the new and old versions.
It doesn't even support PSVR2, right? Meh.
Re: Alright, Destiny 2's Witcher 3 Crossover Armour Is Cool
I love the look of those.
I enjoyed Destiny, but never got into Destiny 2. Bungie hits the monetization way too hard, releasing add-ons at full-release prices way too frequently, and even retiring content people paid for. I'm likely to avoid anything from Bungie until I'm sure they're not doing the same thing now that Sony owns them.
So clearly there's no way I'm getting cosmetic items for a game I don't play...but they look great!
Re: Hardware Review: PS Portal Is the Perfect PS5 Companion (For Some)
I suspect that the speed of your INTERNET connection is largely irrelevant - but rather, the speed of your home WIFI connection is crucial. One of those can easily be better than the other - usually it's the home network is better than the Internet connection, but that's not always the case.
When you're streaming Netflix or cloud gaming, you want both Internet and local network to be very fast; for gaming you also want low latency (latency is often related to speed, but it's not the same thing). But for streaming in-house, your Internet could be off and you might still have an excellent experience - the bandwidth and latency between the devices on your home network are what matters, not the speed of your connection to the Internet.
Testing at different locations with "fast Internet" doesn't say much - what kind of home network did they actually have, how many devices were on it, how much interference from microwave ovens and other devices, were you on a guest network or the same network as the PS5, was the PS5 wired or on wifi...?
EDIT: I see when you went to another house, you were connecting back to "your" PS5 - presumably that was an Internet connection, so the Internet speed does matter in that case - as well as the local wifi. Also critically important would be how much UPLOAD speed your home Internet connection has. Most consumer Internet - at least in the US, but I believe in many other places as well - have much, MUCH slower upload speeds than download - and that matters for remote play away from home. So too does which networks you and your host are on - you can have dramatically different experiences based on where you are, which can determine what route the traffic takes over the Internet to get to your home. I suspect users will find wildly varying experiences using this outside the home, based on multiple factors, many outside their control.
Re: It's Clear to See Why Sony Isn't Calling the New PS5 Model 'Slim'
It does look a little slimmer - and I really like how the center portion is curvier, too. But I'm not buying one unless my launch-day PS5 dies.
If (when?) they release a Pro, I might buy it - but I doubt a lot of people will buy this just because it's a little smaller, they'll buy it because they want a PS5 and this is what's available.
Re: Preview: Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora Elevates the Ubisoft Formula with a Stellar Setting
@Mephisto2869 There were some 3D games, yes - not many, though, and I don't recall ever playing one and getting excited about it as much as I was excited about the IDEA of a 3D game. I always really wanted to play the Zen pinball in 3D, but I never bought the tables (you had to pay for them again even if you owned them, for the 3D version).
The early TVs that required expensive, battery-operated glasses kind of ruined the market - by the time TVs came out that used the same glasses you wore in the theaters (I still have one), consumers had turned on the technology and it was already dying.
Studios releasing movies where the 3D was added post-production (with varying levels of quality from decent to deplorable - nothing as awesome as Avatar) didn't help matters, either. One of the last movies I saw in 3D - Ready Player One - also felt like the last one I cared to bother seeing in 3D.
The gimmick will come around again in another decade or two, I'm sure, and will be better than before, used well by some and poorly by most.
Re: Preview: Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora Elevates the Ubisoft Formula with a Stellar Setting
I enjoyed the first Avatar, but the movie was always best because of it's immersive, innovative use of 3D rather than for anything else about it. It single-handedly drove a decade of 3D copycats and even 3D televisions - which dropped off the market just as they became good, which frustrates me immensely.
If this game somehow leveraged 3D tech, which would require using VR at this stage, then I'd be very interested.
As it is, I'll wait for the reviews - and regardless of the reviews, wait for the inevitable price drop. And honestly, no matter what the reviews say, I'll probably play this in a year when the bugs are squashed and the price is low - maybe two years if the reviews of the full game are awful.
Re: Media Molecule Confirms Report of Layoffs, Has Begun Consultation Process
Some of those jobs go in cycles. You don't need the same type of PR team when your company is mostly heads-down in development and not releasing new content for a year or more as you do when you're fully supporting a community-driven game.
Hopefully this is just a matter of adjusting resources while they work on the next big thing, whatever that may be.
Re: Video: Spider-Man 2 Is a Big Graphical Upgrade In Side-By-Side Comparison
Wow...amazing differences. I'm not sure how much is color palette and textures for some of those shots, but there's a lot more detail no matter how you look at it.
Love the comparison, and the lack of spoilers - thanks!
Re: Is It Surprising that PlayStation Fans Don't Really Care About the PS5 Slim?
This iteration of the PS5 isn't about the gamer - it's about saving Sony some money in parts and manufacturing. I'd bet that when someone does a teardown and looks at the internals, they'll find plenty of cost savings in there. That's why, with inflation still higher than most gamers remember it ever being in their lifetime (I'm old enough to remember 70s gas lines, even if I was too young to be driving then), Sony isn't raising prices again with this model...well, with the disk model...well, with the disk model if you want it to lay horizontally.
The point is, this upgrade isn't about delivering something new to us - but the Slim models rarely were. The PS3 and PS4 slim models weren't better than the originals, just smaller, sometimes with fewer ports, often with lower power usage, and sometimes a lower price. Why does any of that interest someone who owns one already, except MAYBE the power usage?
Re: Secret PS5 Update Makes It Possible to Check for Patches on Games in Your Library
Thank goodness. I'd be happier if there was an option to auto-update all installed games, because I really don't understand why that isn't even an option on the PS5. Go use bandwidth at 3am, I'm okay with that.
At least now if I'm considering a couple games I haven't played in a while, I can check to see if there are any updates before I try starting them. It lets me download an update even if I'm not sure that's the game I'm going to fire up, so at least it's more likely to be ready next time.
Re: Hot Wheels Unleashed 2: Turbocharged (PS5) - A Fast and Furiously Fantastic Follow-Up
I wasn't thrilled with the original. I enjoyed it for a few weeks, but then fell out of it to the point I deleted it.
The loot box mechanic was very, very annoying - but the worst was that races were 100% about boost. The cars were all but identical, what mattered was how much boost each one had and how effectively you could maximize it. A few tracks had shortcuts that were mandatory to know for certain races/events, but most the time it was about picking the car with the best boost, because no other car was worth it. That made me and my Sopwith Camel Snoopy car very sad.