Comments 423

Re: Sony Posts PlayStation Stars Scheme Overview, Release Dates

Shstrick

@itsfoz PSN wallet funds, so actual money. Not sure what the points payout will be, but say they give you 5 points for every dollar you spend and you spend $50. You’ll then have 250 points. Then you go to buy your next game and in your cart it gives you the option to redeem your 250 points for $2.50 off your purchase.

Edit: math 🫣🤭

Re: Talking Point: Is Assassin's Creed Moving in the Right Direction?

Shstrick

Looking forward to seeing what a “classic” AC feels like in the modern era. I started AC 2 over the weekend and good lord the combat is bad and the traversal is one of the most frustrating things in any game I’ve ever played. I much prefer the action RPG gameplay of the recent games, but I’m not opposed to the classic style if its done right. Traversal shouldnt be an issue going forward since they seem to have gotten that aspect down pretty well at this point.

Re: Talking Point: What Do You Make of Microsoft and Sony's Call of Duty Quarrel?

Shstrick

I’ve been rethinking this recently and I don’t think it’s quite as bad as I originally thought. The real issue here is all the COD money that PS uses to fund internal studios, R&D, marketing. COD sells 10m+ copies on PS every year, so to not have that revenue anymore is a big deal. With that said, I do think PS could build up to having something comparable over time if they tried. If anyone can make something to compete with COD in terms of quality it’s Sony. What I think is more likely is that they’ll put their money behind a different FPS series like Battlefield. Either way there will be something to fill the void on PlayStation.

I personally like COD, but I don’t play every game in the series and I NEVER buy them at full price. I’ll either stop playing them or I’ll find a cheap Xbox/use GP streaming.

Re: Poll: What Review Score Would You Give The Last of Us: Part I?

Shstrick

I wouldn’t say the Mona Lisa is a bad work of art just because I can’t afford to buy it, so I won’t do that with games either. The Last of Us is a 10/10 for me.

With that said, $70 is a lot of money. I went ahead and picked it up because TLoU is one of my favorite games ever, but it definitely felt like a big investment. For most other games price factors in more heavily for me, this was just an exception (although I think $70 is my tolerance limit. More than that and I’ll probably pass in the future).

Edit: just so it’s clear, I don’t fault anyone for being upset about the price. It definitely is overpriced for the average player, especially those that have played TLoU before and don’t think it’s a 10/10

Re: PlayStation Bites Back At 'Inadequate' Call of Duty Offer from Microsoft

Shstrick

@get2sammyb on the other hand, most of those games have been garbage and this is Sony we’re talking about. Sure, nobody has been able to make a game that actually competes with COD - it seemed like Battlefield was close there for a while - but if anyone can do it, I would think Sony can. They wouldn’t be able to produce games at the same pace as Activision, but over time? Who knows…

If this deal goes through I expect Sony will at least give it a shot, and that’s a very exciting prospect for me

Re: PlayStation Bites Back At 'Inadequate' Call of Duty Offer from Microsoft

Shstrick

@awp69 because the timed exclusive games usually sell a few million at most over a number of years while COD sells 10 million a year on PlayStation alone. On top of that, this deal also includes Diablo, Overwatch, Crash Bandicoot, Spyro, Guitar Hero, Tenchu, Tony Hawk, Warcraft, StarCraft, and King which is the biggest mobile dev in the world. FF7 Remake could come to Xbox next month for all we know, but most of these other IP would likely be gone from PS once the existing contracts are up. It’s the difference between Sony making a billion dollars over a few years vs Sony potentially making 100 billion dollars over the same time period (bad math/expectations, but you see my point). At the very least it’s worth fighting over.

If MS wanted the timed exclusivity deals they could get them, they’d just rather buy the companies because that’s how they’ve always done business. I think I read somewhere that MS (not just Xbox) has acquired something like 400 companies to date. Not that they shouldn’t, I definitely would if I had the money just sitting around.

Re: Lighter, More Energy Efficient PS5 Has Revamped Gubbins

Shstrick

@Voltan I think your original point still stands. Raw material prices are up across the board, as well as shipping and manufacturing costs especially when compared against the costs from a few years ago. For all we know, Sony’s primary manufacturer might’ve told them the old parts are getting too hard to produce and changing up materials is the only way to continue making units in the numbers Sony wants, which could mean renegotiated contracts, shipping from additional locations, increased R&D, testing, additional tariffs/general taxes. Or the new SKU could be way cheaper for Sony to produce and consumers are getting bent over a barrel. There’s really no way of knowing, so for journalists to pretend they know for a fact this SKU is cheaper to make us just disingenuous. They’re just playing off of peoples emotions about the PS5 price increase to drive site traffic.

For people upset about the price increase, at least this new unit is more energy efficient, so if you manage to get one you’ll likely make up for the cost difference a few times over by the time the PS6 comes out. A small ray of sunshine, but it’s at least something.

Re: UK Government Investigating Xbox's Activision Buyout Further

Shstrick

@Get-Real 🤣 I think we’ve all learned our lesson about trusting Sony recently, so no. But I do own a PlayStation and not an Xbox or gaming pc. As long as I can still play the games I like on the system I have and my money isn’t going directly to the CCP I don’t care who owns what.

Re: UK Government Investigating Xbox's Activision Buyout Further

Shstrick

@Dr_Luigi For me, my stance will always be “don’t trust the trillion dollar corporation regardless of what they say and regardless of past precedent they seem to have set.” I’ll believe what they’re saying about COD not being exclusive in 5 or 6 years when existing contracts with PS are up.

Not that I disagree with everything you’re saying in this thread. I think you’ve been pretty insightful. I just think MS doesn’t really have to worry about the revenue lost making COD exclusive because of a few things:

1) they’re in the top 3 (maybe number 1 at this point) richest companies in the world, so I can see then being willing to lose tons of money to become the market leader in the long run

2) the Activision acquisition includes a lot of other big IP besides COD, so they could feasibly make up for lost revenue through those other IP (I.e. “we’re losing money on COD, but we’re raking it in from Diablo Immortal, World of Warcraft, and Overwatch 2 microtransactions, so who cares?”)

3) having COD exclusive to Xbox and Gamepass would be titanic in terms of gaining mindshare from the average gamer that plays COD every year. I know a lot of people that play COD regularly that would gladly jump ship from PS if it meant they could keep playing their favorite series.

That was a lot to type so I probably won’t respond anymore, but I appreciate the discussion . You seem like one of the good ones here, so I’ll probably keep reading what you write. Keep on keeping on!

Re: UK Government Investigating Xbox's Activision Buyout Further

Shstrick

@Beerheadgamer82 Exactly. There’s reporting that MS paid $600,000 to put Cooking Simulator on Gamepass. Cooking Simulator. I can only imagine what they’re paying to get bigger AAA games and high profile indies on the service and they’re doing it for almost every third party game that comes out, which absolutely hurts sales of those games everywhere else.

Re: UK Government Investigating Xbox's Activision Buyout Further

Shstrick

@AdamNovice This. He’s been out there repeatedly saying COD would still be coming to PS, but we know he talks out of the corner of his mouth all the time, leaving out key details on purpose. If there’s anything we’ve learned over the last few years it’s this: Do Not Trust Corporations.

Re: New PS5 Model Reportedly Lighter Than Ever

Shstrick

Important to note that just because the parts are lighter doesn’t mean they’re cheaper. This could just provide an alternative SKU for them to produce with parts that are equally as difficult to source. Meaning the cost to produce might be the same, but they’re able to produce more overall units because the different types of parts used is more diverse.

Re: Americans Earn the Fewest Platinum Trophies for PS5, PS4

Shstrick

American here. I generally only go for trophies in my favorite games and even then I only do it if I have nothing else to play. Otherwise I’d rather move onto the next game and play a wider range of titles. Maybe it’s a sign of our short attention spans 😅🥲

Re: Embracer Completes Crystal Dynamics, Eidos Montreal Acquisition

Shstrick

@Americansamurai1 Agreed. Seems like there’s nothing preventing them from announcing it at this point. At first I was against the idea of Sony buying Square, but with the way these acquisition sprees have been going I really hope it does happen soon. SE is my favorite publisher outside of PlayStation Studios, so I’d much rather Sony scoop them up before Microsoft or Tencent. Seems like anything goes at this point.

Re: Rumour: Amazon to Announce Acquisition of EA Later Today

Shstrick

@thefourfoldroot1 😅 they already have their own cloud service, Amazon Luna. Here’s hoping that goes the way of the dodo and the next Mass Effect isn’t exclusive to a streaming service. More likely IMO is that everything goes to Luna, but Twitch becomes the real Amazon platform to compete with Sony and Microsoft.

Re: Bungie No Longer Removing Destiny 2 Expansions People Paid For

Shstrick

I don’t see why they couldn’t put each expansion in a separate package and make them downloadable similar to Halo MCC. They could save a “final” state of each player’s inventory per expansion and carry it over to the next expansion whenever it’s loaded up.

For example, you play the base Destiny 2 game and the seasons that came out before the first expansion and you finish the story. Then your inventory gets saved in its current state. If you then download and load up the first expansion you start with all your gear and inventory from before. Then if you decide you want to go back to the base game it just gives your the final state of your base game inventory. So every expansion has a “final” state of your gear/inventory/story progress that you can load into whenever you want.

It would be a lot of data to manage and require a lot of servers, but players are forking over a lot of money and they’re Bungie/Sony. They can handle it. They could even package up everything in the game that came out before they vaulted the first batch of areas and deliver that as a downloadable chunk, so players pick between pre-vaulting and post-vaulting. Seems like a system they could keep up indefinitely.

Re: Next Destiny 2 DLC Lightfall Out 28th February 2023

Shstrick

“Bungie has made the commitment to not sunset anymore expansions.“

It’s about time! Here’s hoping they make the campaigns from the lost expansions playable in some form again. 🤞I was all in on Destiny at the start, but I had a period where I wasn’t able to play and I missed the first 2 expansions for Destiny 2. If they can keep their promise, I’m definitely going back for more

Re: Poll: Is PS Plus Premium Good Enough?

Shstrick

Poll needs an option for “Make PS3 games purchaseable and downloadable.” I want to be be able to access my existing PS3 library and buy new PS3 games on my PS5. I’m sure this is in the pipeline, but this really should’ve been ready on day one.

Re: Activision Removes Plagiarized Call of Duty Loyal Samoyed Skin, Apologises

Shstrick

If they made money off the design then the original artist’s work was of some value. I’d say the original artist is entitled to at least a portion of the money made from the skin. Since they apologized they admitted guilt so this would be a 100% win in court for the artist, as long as the value he sued for was reasonable, but unless he sues and wins more than ~$500k it’s probably not worth it to get into a legal battle with a giant corp.

Re: Hands On: The DioField Chronicle Is a Bit Dull, But It Could Still Be a Special Strategy RPG

Shstrick

@johnny30 If this was like Octopath Traveller or Triangle Strategy where the demo came out a year prior to the full game I would agree, but this game comes out next month. Feedback for things like bad character models, voice acting, and writing has basically no chance of effecting the final product. At best the only things they could fix at this point would be bugs like a typo here or there.

Re: The Last of Us PS5 Remake Compared to PS4 Remaster, Has More Detail

Shstrick

Looks better. Hopefully the rest of the game is similarly upgraded! I know I’m a sucker, but TLOU is my favorite game ever besides FFXIV, so I’m excited for this despite the high price. If they give this same treatment and pricing to other “remakes” I’ll probably pass, but I’m there day 1 for tlou.

Re: Immediate Backlash as Sony Asks Players About Purchasing NFTs

Shstrick

I hope there was a preceding question like “are you interested in purchasing NTFs?” If not, then not including an option like “Im not interested in NFTs” just turns the meaning of the question into “which of these things do you like?” Which kind of defeats the entire NFT questionnaire.

Does anyone understand what I’m saying or is it’s too poorly written? 😅

Edit:
I guess what I’m saying is that if they really wanted to know what gamers think then they should’ve including an option like “I hate NFTs and the prospect of having them shoved into my games make me not want to buy games from you anymore.”

Re: Tactics Ogre: Reborn Is Finally Official, Watch the Reveal Trailer Now

Shstrick

@Grumblevolcano this list is absolutely nuts. I don’t know how they expect to make money with a release schedule so packed. Not only that, but releasing everything so close to other big games like TLOU, GoW Ragnarok and COD (I know the audience crossover isn’t exactly one-to-one, but there’s definitely some.) I love square Enix games and I really want to support a lot of these series, but I only have so much time and money to spend.

Re: Poll: Are You Happy With Your PS Plus Essential Games for August 2022?

Shstrick

I’m looking forward to playing all three of these . I’ll probably start with Tony Hawk first, then play Little Nightmares on a random weekend. I haven’t started the Yakuza series yet, but I own all the other games through years of PS+ and deep discounts; I don’t think I paid more than $7 for any of them. So I might start that up soon and save Like A Dragon for the end.

Re: The PS5 Stock Situation Finally Seems to Be Improving

Shstrick

In the US. My handful of friends that play games already moved on and don’t plan on getting a PS5. The stock issues are getting better, but they’ve all either found other hobbies or bought an Xbox. Tried explaining to them last weekend that there are ways of getting them online like going through PS Direct, but they don’t care anymore.