@Jarobusa yeah, it's pretty well known the fees they've had to pay to get games on it in the industry, and then you have the server costs, and the lost sales revenue from games like Gears 5. Satya Nadella described it recently as an important loss leader to help establish a concept in the market place. What is it? 10m subscribers or thereabouts? That's not enough to cover the costs of Microsoft's own development program let alone paying fees to secure other games.
@RedShirtRod revenue isn't the same as profit. If my revenue (income) is £100 and my expenditure (costs) are £300 even if I increase my revenue to £200 I'm still making a loss. That's where Game Pass is. There's also the dropped sales revenue, taking Gears 5 it sold badly, for obvious reasons. Sorry, but without that sales revenue Microsoft with current GP subscriptions is never making the money back to develop that game. Then you have the lost sales revenue on top, who is going to buy a game you can play for free with a free trial? That's what I did. Played the game on a month's free trial, cancelled my subscription and I know others who did the same. Microsoft seem willing to take the hit to make it work for now. But long term Game Pass does not survive in it's current format.
@RedShirtRod actually in earnings calls Microsoft confirmed it has lost over $2bn so far. When you look at the cost of development of Halo Infinite, so far $500m, and Gears 5 $300m it doesn't take a genius to work out that the subscription fee doesn't cover those costs, let alone make a profit. That means for Game Pass to be sustainable one of 3 things has to happen:
1) The monthly fee has to rise significantly
2) The games have to generate income from elsewhere, which means grindy GaaS micro-transaction hell.
3) The quality of the games on Game Pass has to plummet.
To be honest raising number of subscribers won't help MS with Game Pass, like it didn't Netflix, it will just make the content more expensive to secure. Plus, honestly, right now? There's nothing coming to Game Pass so far that compares to Sony's first party games. I do think Sony will need to respond somehow, maybe with PS Now or PS+ game collection, but they shouldn't copy the Game Pass business model because it isn't sustainable.
@blacklivesmatter and that's a problem for the industry, Game Pass has lost billions, and isn't economically sustainable for the industry. Well, if you want good AAA games and not GaaS money sinks that is. I personally want Demon's Souls and Ratchet & Clank type experiences, and if Game Pass becomes the model I'm sorry but those games will disappear. Putting games like that on a subscription service two to three years later though might be profitable and good value for money.
Actually I agree with Ryan to a degree, but I do think they'll need to offer a value proposition. Putting those games on PS Now 24 months after launch offers a good value proposition to consumers and maybe a nice revenue stream for Sony. I've said AAA games going to Game Pass day and date on Game Pass just isn't sustainable.
@Mostik if it's an "upgrade" you'll essentially get the PS5 version on PS5. But again, Sony haven't communicated this clearly, and they've created this horrible gray area where it just isn't clear, unlike Microsoft who are very clear. There dies now seem to be confusion around the free upgrade of SIE games too... apparently there will be free upgrades... maybe. It's a mess and the marketing manager Eric Lampel should take the blame, although given Geoff Keighley's Twitter gave more official information out last night than the PlayStation Twitter account, perhaps Geoff Keighley is the new Senior Vice President, PlayStation Worldwide Marketing, because Lampel and his team were nowhere to be seen.
@naruball I know what they tried pulling with PS Vita, but this is an industry wide push to up the price of games, and @nhSnork please don't fall for the industries propaganda over next-gen games costing more because of 4K and RT, because it is nonsense. We don't have to do more work to get more pixels, it's the system itself that does that. In fact the time to get stuff up and running on PS5 and XSX is less than PS4 and X1. There's also less need for outsourcing assets to downscale them now too, although the XSS does throw a wrinkle in there. No, this is about increasing profit margins pure and simple.
@Mostik that's all voluntary, but mostly because Microsoft forced them as part of their licensing agreement. It seems like Sony won't be going that route. Looks like Sackboy isn't offering a free upgrade path either. Compare that approach with Microsoft and Sony do not look good. I actually think Ubisoft have played a blinder keeping their games priced the same, because compared to everyone else they don't look so greedy now. That might actually get them some more sales.
@naruball I agree with not buying all games day 1, in fact I urge people to never do that, because some games ship in a terrible state. Some are never fixed. However, at those prices... Sheesh... I do think ultimately that's going to cut down on the amount of games purchased. And for the industry that might back fire. Last time games got that high, well let's just say it reduced average game purchased per year to roughly 1. Doubt it'll get quite that bad, but with fewer purchases per customer in could see many developers go under. I was expecting it, but honestly, looking at it in the cold hard light of day? It's not a great look during a global Pandemic.
@Mostik I don't think there will be free upgrades, I now think this is why Sony were so ambiguous. There's no free upgrade of Miles Morales it seems. So why would there be for any of their other cross-gen games, which at this point could be all of them.
I kinda think Sony face planted this showcase actually. There are two first party release games, Destruction Allstars and Sackboy's a Big Adventure we saw nothing of, at all. Yet we saw more of Oddworld? Really? It's been the same game for 25 years, and we saw more than enough at the reveal event. Why did we need to see Fortnite again?
The next-gen / cross-gen situation is horribly muddled now. So Spider-Man Miles Morales is cross-gen after all, as is Sackboy and Horizon: Forbidden West. What about Ratchet & Clank? GT7? Returnal? God of War Ragnarok? I thought Sony believed in generations. What happened to that? Developing on the PS4 as well absolutely will have limited what could've been achieved with those games. Not saying it's a bad thing, as those who can't be on PS5 at launch won't be left in the cold for new games... but it is at odds with what Sony's previous communications have been.
The lack of UI in the show is baffling as hell at this point. It has to be ready because they are shipping the damn things right now, and they'll be installing the OS. So why haven't they shown it? Again for me that's a face plant moment. There's simply too much about the experience of owning a PS5 that they've not shared, and this close to launch? That seems mental to me. They have so, so much more they need to show still.
The price of games... ouch. I think we could be looking at the next console gaming crash, I really do. Jim Ryan wants the fastest adoption rate ever? Not at €80 a game you won't Jimmy Boy. This just shows to me that Sony need to very rapidly realign their PS+ and PS Now services into something that can compete with Game Pass, because if they don't they'll struggle. Those price hikes are exhorbitant.
And finally, the pre-order mess? What the hell were they thinking? They didn't give us a date, they just started a free-for-all and it's a mess. They promised they wouldn't just drop it on people, well they did, and that's unacceptable in my opinion. Not that the Standard Edition here in Sweden is going to sell at all with it being marked up at pretty much 6000 SEK (or £525, $680 or €576). For comparison the Digital Edition is way cheaper at 4100 SEK, to the point where it seems like they are trying to kill physical in Scandinavia.
Glad it's a launch game, and that's likely to be my own personal pick, possibly with Spider-Man Miles Morales. But maybe I'll hold off getting a PS5 for now as it seems they're coming to PS5 as well.
Yes and no. Still no idea what the launch line up is. Still don't know when pre-ordered open. Still haven't shown the UI, but the price and release date is out there... and Demon's Souls had me throwing my debit card at the screen. Sad there was no Returnal, but otherwise for 40 minutes, that was a lot of games.
@theheadofabroom imposter syndrome is real, I honestly don't trust people who don't have doubt, you need to be humble when working in a big team, and to constantly stay on top of things you need to have that drive to keep up to date.
@theheadofabroom Well my artist friends have been creaming themselves over the quality of assets they can now use. It's actually understandable, I never thought about it this way, but rarely have got to see graphics artists work as they actually intended it to be seen. A friend said to me months ago that she'd struggled with this all her time in the industry, and it was like going into an art gallery and all the painting were smeared with Vaseline. The artists will always find ways to disappoint themselves and push too far, but I hope we do get closer to being able to realise their visions.
@theheadofabroom well, according to Insomniac they've completely reanimated everything for Miles Morales. But the point about reusing assets is what I was driving at. Previous gen you'd produce hi-res models, then down scale and make shadow maps etc. from the hi-res models. This gen you can pretty much chuck the hi-res models in the game as usable assets. That's a fricken game changer for the development pipeline. Realistically Sony Santa Monica could've been dual tracking their development like Insomniac did. There's already rumours that's what Sucker Punch and Guerilla were up to as early as 2016. Just saying rather than having to email high quality assets out to China or India to down res and turn into game assets, we're probably looking at most of it being in-house now. In terms of recording cut scenes... Yeah, there I'm not so hot, but Sony do have a number of impressive mocap facilities nearby, and it doesn't matter I guess when that's done, front end it or back load it, as long as you know the narrative you can work around it I think. Just to be clear though I don't think we'll see GoW2.
@theheadofabroom I think part of the "charm" of developing on the PS5 is the ability for developers to get quick turn around times. I think the plan is to make the leap less strenuous this time and to bolt things on to engines rather than re-write them from the ground up. So it depends on a number of things, how scalable is the engine Sony Santa Monica use? And what work was done on the narrative arc. In many respects the high end assets probably already exist, so if the engine is scalable and modular a new GoW in 2021 isn't utterly bonkers. Just look at the turn around Insomniac have achieved. Do I think it's likely they'll show it tonight? No actually I don't, becausr I don't think they need it, unless the PS5 is $700's.
@Tharsman actually as an investor you are protected from malfeasance and misrepresentation. Especially where material damages might be invited (damage to stock prices would be that). Companies would rather not engage or give any statements at all if there was a risk their statement could be misconstrued as misleading investors and thus manipulation of stock. Sony doing this therefore should be seen in that context, they normally keep their trap shut and get on with proving these sorts of thing wrong, but the article really hit their share prices, and not responding wasn't really an option. I'd imagine that Takashi Mochizuki has been fielding some very awkward calls today, and potentially trying to answer some very difficult questions, as is their editor. This is really big news in Japan.
@zupertramp sadly in the world we currently live in we can't rule out the insanely improbable anymore. I'm glad you didn't think I was a conspiracy nut. I believe part of the reason Sony did respond is because the rumour also seems to have hit two partner organisations as well, AMD and TSMC. To be clear, TSMC has evolved genuinely into a world leader in chip fabrication, currently I'd argue they're unparalleled, so rumour like this hurt the image and reputation they've worked really hard to achieve. It also hits AMD, because their RDNA 2 architecture was supposed to be able to run higher clocks, it's part of their roadmap plan for better specific shader, pixel fill and RT performance, so the rumour that their new architecture was faulty and providing rubbish yields hurts them too. So I can now see why Sony may have felt the need to respond. Again though, if it was true, they wouldn't have refuted the claim like they did. Either way, I think the Bloomberg article is terrible journalism, and it's not the first time tech journalism from Bloomberg has been nonsensical / unverifiable. Is it done with malicious intent? Who knows. Was it done with criminal intent? Who knows. Or was it just carelessly farted out by an awful hack with a track record of getting everything wrong? Maybe. Either way, given we've been hearing initial test run yields were good, it would have been weird for it to go backwards once they got into full fabrication, in fact it's pretty much unheard of, which is why I took the report with a pinch of salt.
@zupertramp firstly, there is no way a corporation like Microsoft would be involved in paying a journalist at Bloomberg or anywhere else for that matter to write negative stories. So scratch that one right away. I'd not even hint at that as it is tin foil hat bonkers. On the forums I've even given an argument that these negative articles are more about driving traffic, rather than being genuine journalism. However, a journalist writing a highly negative story on the part of a trader who knows in 24 hours a company will have some really good news, and knows a highly negative story beforehand would give them an opportunity to short shift stock? Yeah, I can see that. It's happened before. The Bloomberg article really hit Sony's stock hard. That makes it cheaper to buy, then after tonight if it's really positive news, they'll bounce back and possibly exceed recent highs, and you sell and make a killing. Does this mean this is what happened? No. But were I an SEC investigator I'd be interested in at least having a look at it. As to the SEC? They generally seem to have teeth, probably becaue rich people don't like being duped by share scams etc. One thing the USA does well is look after the rich.
@zupertramp actually if it is true and they've denied it that constitutes a false report and the SEC will be interested, as it's stock manipulation. Corporations just simply can't go around making stuff up... unlike politicians.
@vegeta11 it was Facebook who acquired Ready at Dawn, not Microsoft. Also, Sony own The Order IP, so it's not totally impossible some other studio could do a sequel, but it is exceedingly unlikely at this point in time.
@JJ2 they have too because it can effect their share price and thus their shareholders. It can also influence other aspects of their business like the ability to raise loans against future acquisitions.
@Fenbops agreed, can't wait until tomorrow when also speculation stops and we know what Sony have got to show. Won't stop people speculating on how Sony can't afford whatever price they set the thing at, and how it'll bankrupt them.
@NEStalgia I think one of the really big cost saves of the PS5 DE is often overlooked too, warranties. Moving parts like disc drives are way more likely to fail, hitting a company in the warranty pocket. Without the HD Blu-Ray drive the DE has far less likely components that can fail, so here in Europe over the two year warranty period the PS5 DE Will cost Sony way less potentially on repairs. It's why I also believe the rumours of an Xbox Series W or V, essentially an XSX without disc drive.
@Robinsad they're also coming off the back of the PS4, which has been insanely successful. It has the highest software attachment rate of any previous console. It has been an utter beast of a system. Thing is? Demand for the PS5 is ridiculously high, so high I don't think Sony have to go aggressive on price, they could shove the PS5 SE out the door for $499.99 and the PS5 DE out the door for $449.99 and I think the market would go "yeah, OK". I guess it all depends on what their goals really are as a corporation / platform holder. It's all guesswork and speculation at this point, and we'll all know soon enough. Signing off for now as I have emails to answer.
@thedevilsjester but they're hits they've been willing to take before. Just looked at costs for their other home consoles cost of manufacture at launch:
PS1 $299.99 - cost of manufacture at launch $380''s
PS2 $299.99 - cost of manufacture at launch $372's
PS3 $599.99 - cost of manufacture at launch $840's
The idea that Sony aren't willing to eat HUGE upfront costs on their console hardware at launch seems bizarre to me. All of their divisions are profitable right now and have no debts to service, and the PlayStation division is in seriously rude health after the success of PS4 and their first party studio games selling really, really well. We now know their SSD controller they developed with Marvell is indeed heading for enterprise servers, and maybe even very high end PC SSDs, so that's another revenue stream for them from their R&D investments. I'm painting the best possible picture here I know, and I still expect the price to be $499.99 and $399.99, but mostly to temper expectations.
@nessisonett I've said elsewhere on here that it's possible. Look, rumoured costs at the start of the year places the PS5 bill to manufacture at around $450's or $428's, those prices arguably represent the two SKU's, but let's look at Sony's recent history in launch prices:
PS4 $399.99 - cost of manufacture at launch $438's
PS4 Pro $399.99 - cost of manufacture at launch $450's
PSVR $399.99 - cost of manufacture varies, but let's take the $432 figure because it is lowest.
Looks to me like Sony at launch are willing to eat considerable losses. So does the rumoured PS5 costs fall outside of those ranges above? I don't think they do. Now, if the latest Bloomberg rumours are true they might blow those production costs out of the water, right? But conversely if the rumours are false, and they've upped their manufacturing runs that'll reduce costs significantly too. So I could see a scenario where Sony do dip below $399.99 for the Digital Edition, even if I seriously doubt they would, because I don't think they need too.
@TheNewButler I think what even constitutes a layperson now has shifted considerably. There's a lot more you have to be across to be considered an informed layperson. 20 years ago I wasn't exactly graphics pipeline guy, but I knew enough to hold my own with those who were supposedly specialist. Now you have specialists in single graphical fields, and even sub fields, I wouldn't even dare to question a BVH or PBR specialist now, I'd just sit and listen and try to keep up. I suppose the difference with me is I know how much I don't know, and that is to say a hell of a lot.
@TheNewButler well informed or just exceedingly good at blagging? That's for others to decide. I'll be honest though, tech fabrication and manufacturing is way out of my personal comfort zone. I have a passing / professional interest in this stuff, but not what it was when I was younger and less prone to nervous breakdowns due to work loads. lol. I have no sources at either TSMC or AMD on the hardware side of things. None. Same with Sony and Microsoft, so do not take anything I say here as gospel, because it is not. Far from it, I'd stick a health warning a mile high on it all. On this I'm just the same as everyone else on here, spit balling and guessing really, because only those involved with the manufacturing of the PS5 will know this stuff. Developers rarely get to hear about this stuff, unless it directly affects the specs we have to target and a new development kit arrives. So on this topic I urge all of you to file me under uninformed average Joe schmuck.
Actually, thinking about it we have had leaks about both the XSX and PS5 APUs on numerous tech sites. We've heard yields were so good Microsoft considered a clock boost, and Sony considered enabling more CU's on their dies, either 2 or 4 depending on which site you listen too and a 100 MHz clock boost on the CPU. Of course these tech sites could be misinformed / making it all up, or recycling the same made up rumour, but people like Moore's law is dead have been eerily accurate with Nvidia Ampere and were spot on with RDNA 1, and seemingly are fairly well informed about RDNA 2. So the "leaks" up until this point suggest Microsoft and Sony had enough potential wiggle room to consider some baseline spec bumps, does that sound like something you'd do if you had yields of 50%? I don't think so.
New Sonic game at the PS5 event? Cerny did work on Sonic when he was at Sega... just saying... only joking. Best you could hope for is some Sonic Collection at this point.
@Dan_ozzzy189 it doesn't "smell" right to me, and so far flies in the face of everything Sony have seemingly communicated, and via earnings calls / reports, which would constitute stock manipulation, because that's what false reporting is. The timings also seem odd. We'd have heard about this way before now, especially given how leaky TSMC are. We Know AMDs performance on new chips before AMD do because of loose lips at TSMC. lol. Not quite, I'm joking for effect, but unlike Nvidia, we knew what was planned for Big Navi / RDNA 2 over 18 months ago because of leaks from TSMC. Why would they suddenly be less prone to leaks around Sony and Microsoft? We know they aren't because leaks of chips for both companies systems were happening in early 2019 and they were pretty much spot on to final specs.
@G8crasha both are using TSMC to fabricate their chips. But it is conceivable because of configuration differences that one might have issues whereas the other might not. Microsoft are targeting much lower clocks on their GPU than Sony. Sony have more cache on their GPU at all levels than Microsoft, and Sony have very custom cores on their SoC / APU like the Tempest Engine, whereas Microsoft have made fewer customisations and are much, much closer to stock layouts with their CUs. Conversely though the XSX die is way bigger than the PS5 die, so they have fewer chips per wafer and any fabrication defects are likely to have a higher impact on yields because their chips are bigger. But again, rumblings out if Redmond seemed to suggest they too were getting good yields on their APUs, so who knows, both could be bluffing and yields are terrible. If that is the case then RDNA 2 could be a disaster for AMD.
@Chryssy75 actually it isn't Sony are producing their custom chips using AMD licenses at TSMC which is no longer AMD owned, and Sony will be working on a per wafer cost, so if they are having to bin more chips that's a cost they will have to absorb. However, tech sites with sources close to TSMC seem to be raising eyebrows about the validity of the rumours already. I'll wait until tomorrow, but if the PS5 comes in at $499.99 and $399.99 or under we can file this "rumour" under BS. It also seems RDNA 2, a.k.a. Big Navi might be targeting similar clocks to the PS5 according to a number of sites, so this is in the pipeline that AMD wanted to pursue because certain computational tasks just run better at higher clocks as opposed to parallel. Notably pixel fill rates, geometry, ray tracing, VRS etc. etc. etc. so I think one of the ways AMD might be seeking to get closer to Nvidia in terms of real world performance is by pushing clocks as opposed to cores.
The timing of this story seems iffy to me as well. If Sony were having yield problems we'd have had that leaked out by now. They've been in mass production of these chips since early spring and chose to ramp production of these chips because according to an earnings call in late spring yields were far better than expected. Well TSMC's average yields on new dies is around 75% on average at 7nm fabrication, so I'd assume that's what Sony would see as expected yields, and 50% doesn't sound far higher than 75% to me, but I'm no electrical engineer and my knowledge of wafer fabrication is rudimentary at best.
@MrGawain this would be nothing to do with a "production line". This is wafer fabrication of silicon semiconductors. The issue would be that they are having higher levels of defects in the chips when they run through verification tests. The other possibility is that the yields they are getting aren't able to run target clocks, because the GPU in the PS5 is set really high for a production unit. I've got stable and higher clocks out of both AMD and Nvidia GPUs over the years, normally with water blocks and custom cooling loops, but for a stock GPU device to launch with clocks over 2.0 GHz has in recent decades been unheard of. Even if with RDNA 2 AMD were targeting an architecture that was capable of being clocked higher and at around 2.0 GHz as standard, we don't think they've achieved that goal (according to leaks), or we don't know if the have until October 28th, quite often AMD leave performance on the table with their GPUs because the power consumption / cooling concerns.
Also to those thinking it'll affect reliability of launch units, it won't. Launch units will be far more rigorously tested, which is why manufacturing costs on any new electronic devices are higher, they need to test everything to:
A) get wrinkles out of the production line
B) make sure initial batches work as intended
C) find the stubborn spots within the product they can't get out so for future runs they know where and what to test.
@pip_muzz no it's the opposite regardless of yields. To "OK" a chip they will test them to see if they can perform as they should. On a new die these tests are more rigorous. They relax them over time as they know what causes issues and what doesn't. So less tests are done on later chip runs. However, by then the production should remove wrinkles. However yields as low as 50% is a financial disaster for Sony, it's almost unheard of in the semiconductor business right now, yields of 70% on a new product is considered really bad now and hitting 80% yields is average for new products.
OK, if yields are as low as 50% then you're looking at the consoles main component costing almost double the expected cost, that places the PS5's SoC or APU if you prefer at a cost close to $400's. If true then the PS5 price will close to $700's to manufacture. It also flies in the face of the companies own earnings call where they said yields were higher than expected. Using a mature node (7nm is bread and butter to TSMC) and mostly mature architecture (Zen CPU yields are rediculously high and RDNA 1 was too) I'd be amazed if yields were as low as 50%. Maybe the clock speed is the issue... but again that flies in the face of how early and how many PS5 Dev Kits Sony were able to put into developers hands. I'll just say while it's not beyond the realms of possibility, I'm certainly taking it with a pinch of salt.
@deckerdblade they've literally flown in every console to launch since the PS1. Initial batches put on boats then fly in the first wave as they come off the production line. They did it definitely with the PS4, PS3 and PS2. Apart from PS3 I think they've reasonably priced all their other consoles. It's an initial batch / launch. They'll use more conventional methods going forward. Pretty certain Microsoft are also flying their initial launch stock in as well.
@OmegaStriver I was talking to a friend about it the other day that showing how quick it is to switch between games by playing the actual games themselves on a PS5 would be a major selling point, maybe commentary over the footage explaining things. You could show the features of the UI, the new social features and how it looks, and get your game demos in all at once. Problem is most gameplay demos are done by a games tester with insane levels of play time with one of these games, someone who can choreograph good play runs, and finding someone who could legitimately do that across all the games they might want to show could be hard, but maybe they could fake it? But would that be OK? Not sure, either way Sony's marketing team have been on fire over the past few years and they'll probably nail it.
Price Launch Date Launch Games And gameplay footage of Spider-Man Miles Morales, Demon's Souls, Horizon Forbidden West, Returnal and maybe a game reveal or two.
I'm sure there was somebody on here who said this was happening a few weeks back. It is a pretty standard move at launch though. The more interesting rumour is Sony are going to push ahead with increased production throughout November up to March to meet demand. If so that's crazy. Normally these things are manufactured in large batches as and when required, keeping manufacturing going throughout the winter and into Spring if true suggests demand for the PS5 is really high, and that the price won't be so bad.
This is actually a pretty good example of why you should only show games when they are ready. I'm no graphics expert, but they've clearly added more advanced specular maps, properly implemented ray tracing, kicked up the model complexity and added way more particle effects and detail to animations. It's starting to look polished. Good job team.
I agree with @nessisonett 2020 has been a bad year for many people, with some being a little tight on cash. As long as the payment plans aren't too onerous, and there's no compounded interetest involved I don't see a problem with making the next-gen more accessible financially. It's not stupid if that option still allows you to pay your bills and put food on your table.
Comments 834
Re: Sony Won't Follow Game Pass Model on PS5, Doesn't Believe It's Sustainable
@Jarobusa yeah, it's pretty well known the fees they've had to pay to get games on it in the industry, and then you have the server costs, and the lost sales revenue from games like Gears 5. Satya Nadella described it recently as an important loss leader to help establish a concept in the market place. What is it? 10m subscribers or thereabouts? That's not enough to cover the costs of Microsoft's own development program let alone paying fees to secure other games.
Re: Sony Won't Follow Game Pass Model on PS5, Doesn't Believe It's Sustainable
@RedShirtRod revenue isn't the same as profit. If my revenue (income) is £100 and my expenditure (costs) are £300 even if I increase my revenue to £200 I'm still making a loss. That's where Game Pass is. There's also the dropped sales revenue, taking Gears 5 it sold badly, for obvious reasons. Sorry, but without that sales revenue Microsoft with current GP subscriptions is never making the money back to develop that game. Then you have the lost sales revenue on top, who is going to buy a game you can play for free with a free trial? That's what I did. Played the game on a month's free trial, cancelled my subscription and I know others who did the same. Microsoft seem willing to take the hit to make it work for now. But long term Game Pass does not survive in it's current format.
Re: Sony Won't Follow Game Pass Model on PS5, Doesn't Believe It's Sustainable
@RedShirtRod actually in earnings calls Microsoft confirmed it has lost over $2bn so far. When you look at the cost of development of Halo Infinite, so far $500m, and Gears 5 $300m it doesn't take a genius to work out that the subscription fee doesn't cover those costs, let alone make a profit. That means for Game Pass to be sustainable one of 3 things has to happen:
1) The monthly fee has to rise significantly
2) The games have to generate income from elsewhere, which means grindy GaaS micro-transaction hell.
3) The quality of the games on Game Pass has to plummet.
To be honest raising number of subscribers won't help MS with Game Pass, like it didn't Netflix, it will just make the content more expensive to secure. Plus, honestly, right now? There's nothing coming to Game Pass so far that compares to Sony's first party games. I do think Sony will need to respond somehow, maybe with PS Now or PS+ game collection, but they shouldn't copy the Game Pass business model because it isn't sustainable.
Re: Sony Won't Follow Game Pass Model on PS5, Doesn't Believe It's Sustainable
@blacklivesmatter and that's a problem for the industry, Game Pass has lost billions, and isn't economically sustainable for the industry. Well, if you want good AAA games and not GaaS money sinks that is. I personally want Demon's Souls and Ratchet & Clank type experiences, and if Game Pass becomes the model I'm sorry but those games will disappear. Putting games like that on a subscription service two to three years later though might be profitable and good value for money.
Re: Sony Won't Follow Game Pass Model on PS5, Doesn't Believe It's Sustainable
Actually I agree with Ryan to a degree, but I do think they'll need to offer a value proposition. Putting those games on PS Now 24 months after launch offers a good value proposition to consumers and maybe a nice revenue stream for Sony. I've said AAA games going to Game Pass day and date on Game Pass just isn't sustainable.
Re: PS5 User Interface Reveal Is Coming, Says PlayStation Boss
When? November 11th? lol.
Re: Reaction: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Today's PS5 News
@Mostik if it's an "upgrade" you'll essentially get the PS5 version on PS5. But again, Sony haven't communicated this clearly, and they've created this horrible gray area where it just isn't clear, unlike Microsoft who are very clear. There dies now seem to be confusion around the free upgrade of SIE games too... apparently there will be free upgrades... maybe. It's a mess and the marketing manager Eric Lampel should take the blame, although given Geoff Keighley's Twitter gave more official information out last night than the PlayStation Twitter account, perhaps Geoff Keighley is the new Senior Vice President, PlayStation Worldwide Marketing, because Lampel and his team were nowhere to be seen.
@naruball I know what they tried pulling with PS Vita, but this is an industry wide push to up the price of games, and @nhSnork please don't fall for the industries propaganda over next-gen games costing more because of 4K and RT, because it is nonsense. We don't have to do more work to get more pixels, it's the system itself that does that. In fact the time to get stuff up and running on PS5 and XSX is less than PS4 and X1. There's also less need for outsourcing assets to downscale them now too, although the XSS does throw a wrinkle in there. No, this is about increasing profit margins pure and simple.
Re: Reaction: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Today's PS5 News
@Mostik that's all voluntary, but mostly because Microsoft forced them as part of their licensing agreement. It seems like Sony won't be going that route. Looks like Sackboy isn't offering a free upgrade path either. Compare that approach with Microsoft and Sony do not look good. I actually think Ubisoft have played a blinder keeping their games priced the same, because compared to everyone else they don't look so greedy now. That might actually get them some more sales.
Re: Reaction: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Today's PS5 News
@naruball I agree with not buying all games day 1, in fact I urge people to never do that, because some games ship in a terrible state. Some are never fixed. However, at those prices... Sheesh... I do think ultimately that's going to cut down on the amount of games purchased. And for the industry that might back fire. Last time games got that high, well let's just say it reduced average game purchased per year to roughly 1. Doubt it'll get quite that bad, but with fewer purchases per customer in could see many developers go under. I was expecting it, but honestly, looking at it in the cold hard light of day? It's not a great look during a global Pandemic.
Re: Reaction: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Today's PS5 News
@Mostik I don't think there will be free upgrades, I now think this is why Sony were so ambiguous. There's no free upgrade of Miles Morales it seems. So why would there be for any of their other cross-gen games, which at this point could be all of them.
Re: Reaction: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Today's PS5 News
I kinda think Sony face planted this showcase actually. There are two first party release games, Destruction Allstars and Sackboy's a Big Adventure we saw nothing of, at all. Yet we saw more of Oddworld? Really? It's been the same game for 25 years, and we saw more than enough at the reveal event. Why did we need to see Fortnite again?
The next-gen / cross-gen situation is horribly muddled now. So Spider-Man Miles Morales is cross-gen after all, as is Sackboy and Horizon: Forbidden West. What about Ratchet & Clank? GT7? Returnal? God of War Ragnarok? I thought Sony believed in generations. What happened to that? Developing on the PS4 as well absolutely will have limited what could've been achieved with those games. Not saying it's a bad thing, as those who can't be on PS5 at launch won't be left in the cold for new games... but it is at odds with what Sony's previous communications have been.
The lack of UI in the show is baffling as hell at this point. It has to be ready because they are shipping the damn things right now, and they'll be installing the OS. So why haven't they shown it? Again for me that's a face plant moment. There's simply too much about the experience of owning a PS5 that they've not shared, and this close to launch? That seems mental to me. They have so, so much more they need to show still.
The price of games... ouch. I think we could be looking at the next console gaming crash, I really do. Jim Ryan wants the fastest adoption rate ever? Not at €80 a game you won't Jimmy Boy. This just shows to me that Sony need to very rapidly realign their PS+ and PS Now services into something that can compete with Game Pass, because if they don't they'll struggle. Those price hikes are exhorbitant.
And finally, the pre-order mess? What the hell were they thinking? They didn't give us a date, they just started a free-for-all and it's a mess. They promised they wouldn't just drop it on people, well they did, and that's unacceptable in my opinion. Not that the Standard Edition here in Sweden is going to sell at all with it being marked up at pretty much 6000 SEK (or £525, $680 or €576). For comparison the Digital Edition is way cheaper at 4100 SEK, to the point where it seems like they are trying to kill physical in Scandinavia.
But hey, Demon's Souls looked nice, right?
Re: Demon's Souls Remake Is a PS5 Launch Game
Glad it's a launch game, and that's likely to be my own personal pick, possibly with Spider-Man Miles Morales. But maybe I'll hold off getting a PS5 for now as it seems they're coming to PS5 as well.
Re: Talking Point: Did the PS5 Showcase Event Deliver?
There is some weird wording at the end of the Demon's Souls trailer:
*Not available on other consoles for a limited time. Coming to PC.
Re: Talking Point: Did the PS5 Showcase Event Deliver?
Yes and no. Still no idea what the launch line up is. Still don't know when pre-ordered open. Still haven't shown the UI, but the price and release date is out there... and Demon's Souls had me throwing my debit card at the screen. Sad there was no Returnal, but otherwise for 40 minutes, that was a lot of games.
Re: Fans Believe God of War 2 Could Be Part of PS5 Showcase Event
@theheadofabroom imposter syndrome is real, I honestly don't trust people who don't have doubt, you need to be humble when working in a big team, and to constantly stay on top of things you need to have that drive to keep up to date.
Re: Fans Believe God of War 2 Could Be Part of PS5 Showcase Event
@theheadofabroom Well my artist friends have been creaming themselves over the quality of assets they can now use. It's actually understandable, I never thought about it this way, but rarely have got to see graphics artists work as they actually intended it to be seen. A friend said to me months ago that she'd struggled with this all her time in the industry, and it was like going into an art gallery and all the painting were smeared with Vaseline. The artists will always find ways to disappoint themselves and push too far, but I hope we do get closer to being able to realise their visions.
Re: Fans Believe God of War 2 Could Be Part of PS5 Showcase Event
@theheadofabroom well, according to Insomniac they've completely reanimated everything for Miles Morales. But the point about reusing assets is what I was driving at. Previous gen you'd produce hi-res models, then down scale and make shadow maps etc. from the hi-res models. This gen you can pretty much chuck the hi-res models in the game as usable assets. That's a fricken game changer for the development pipeline. Realistically Sony Santa Monica could've been dual tracking their development like Insomniac did. There's already rumours that's what Sucker Punch and Guerilla were up to as early as 2016. Just saying rather than having to email high quality assets out to China or India to down res and turn into game assets, we're probably looking at most of it being in-house now. In terms of recording cut scenes... Yeah, there I'm not so hot, but Sony do have a number of impressive mocap facilities nearby, and it doesn't matter I guess when that's done, front end it or back load it, as long as you know the narrative you can work around it I think. Just to be clear though I don't think we'll see GoW2.
Re: Fans Believe God of War 2 Could Be Part of PS5 Showcase Event
@theheadofabroom I think part of the "charm" of developing on the PS5 is the ability for developers to get quick turn around times. I think the plan is to make the leap less strenuous this time and to bolt things on to engines rather than re-write them from the ground up. So it depends on a number of things, how scalable is the engine Sony Santa Monica use? And what work was done on the narrative arc. In many respects the high end assets probably already exist, so if the engine is scalable and modular a new GoW in 2021 isn't utterly bonkers. Just look at the turn around Insomniac have achieved. Do I think it's likely they'll show it tonight? No actually I don't, becausr I don't think they need it, unless the PS5 is $700's.
Re: Fans Believe God of War 2 Could Be Part of PS5 Showcase Event
There was me hoping for a sequel to Pong. FML.
Re: Sony Says Troubled PS5 Production Rumours are False
@Tharsman actually as an investor you are protected from malfeasance and misrepresentation. Especially where material damages might be invited (damage to stock prices would be that). Companies would rather not engage or give any statements at all if there was a risk their statement could be misconstrued as misleading investors and thus manipulation of stock. Sony doing this therefore should be seen in that context, they normally keep their trap shut and get on with proving these sorts of thing wrong, but the article really hit their share prices, and not responding wasn't really an option. I'd imagine that Takashi Mochizuki has been fielding some very awkward calls today, and potentially trying to answer some very difficult questions, as is their editor. This is really big news in Japan.
Re: Sony Says Troubled PS5 Production Rumours are False
@zupertramp sadly in the world we currently live in we can't rule out the insanely improbable anymore. I'm glad you didn't think I was a conspiracy nut. I believe part of the reason Sony did respond is because the rumour also seems to have hit two partner organisations as well, AMD and TSMC. To be clear, TSMC has evolved genuinely into a world leader in chip fabrication, currently I'd argue they're unparalleled, so rumour like this hurt the image and reputation they've worked really hard to achieve. It also hits AMD, because their RDNA 2 architecture was supposed to be able to run higher clocks, it's part of their roadmap plan for better specific shader, pixel fill and RT performance, so the rumour that their new architecture was faulty and providing rubbish yields hurts them too. So I can now see why Sony may have felt the need to respond. Again though, if it was true, they wouldn't have refuted the claim like they did. Either way, I think the Bloomberg article is terrible journalism, and it's not the first time tech journalism from Bloomberg has been nonsensical / unverifiable. Is it done with malicious intent? Who knows. Was it done with criminal intent? Who knows. Or was it just carelessly farted out by an awful hack with a track record of getting everything wrong? Maybe. Either way, given we've been hearing initial test run yields were good, it would have been weird for it to go backwards once they got into full fabrication, in fact it's pretty much unheard of, which is why I took the report with a pinch of salt.
Re: Talking Point: What Will Be Announced at PS5 Showcase Event?
What will be revealed at the PS5 event?
Me: stuff.
Re: Sony Says Troubled PS5 Production Rumours are False
@zupertramp firstly, there is no way a corporation like Microsoft would be involved in paying a journalist at Bloomberg or anywhere else for that matter to write negative stories. So scratch that one right away. I'd not even hint at that as it is tin foil hat bonkers. On the forums I've even given an argument that these negative articles are more about driving traffic, rather than being genuine journalism. However, a journalist writing a highly negative story on the part of a trader who knows in 24 hours a company will have some really good news, and knows a highly negative story beforehand would give them an opportunity to short shift stock? Yeah, I can see that. It's happened before. The Bloomberg article really hit Sony's stock hard. That makes it cheaper to buy, then after tonight if it's really positive news, they'll bounce back and possibly exceed recent highs, and you sell and make a killing. Does this mean this is what happened? No. But were I an SEC investigator I'd be interested in at least having a look at it. As to the SEC? They generally seem to have teeth, probably becaue rich people don't like being duped by share scams etc. One thing the USA does well is look after the rich.
Re: Sony Says Troubled PS5 Production Rumours are False
@zupertramp actually if it is true and they've denied it that constitutes a false report and the SEC will be interested, as it's stock manipulation. Corporations just simply can't go around making stuff up... unlike politicians.
Re: Talking Point: What Will Be Announced at PS5 Showcase Event?
@vegeta11 it was Facebook who acquired Ready at Dawn, not Microsoft. Also, Sony own The Order IP, so it's not totally impossible some other studio could do a sequel, but it is exceedingly unlikely at this point in time.
Re: Sony Says Troubled PS5 Production Rumours are False
@JJ2 they have too because it can effect their share price and thus their shareholders. It can also influence other aspects of their business like the ability to raise loans against future acquisitions.
Re: PS5 Price May Dip Below $400, Analyst Speculates
@Fenbops if they don't you up for forming a militia group and storming Sony HQ in a violent coup d'état?
Re: PS5 Price May Dip Below $400, Analyst Speculates
@Fenbops agreed, can't wait until tomorrow when also speculation stops and we know what Sony have got to show. Won't stop people speculating on how Sony can't afford whatever price they set the thing at, and how it'll bankrupt them.
Re: PS5 Price May Dip Below $400, Analyst Speculates
@NEStalgia I think one of the really big cost saves of the PS5 DE is often overlooked too, warranties. Moving parts like disc drives are way more likely to fail, hitting a company in the warranty pocket. Without the HD Blu-Ray drive the DE has far less likely components that can fail, so here in Europe over the two year warranty period the PS5 DE Will cost Sony way less potentially on repairs. It's why I also believe the rumours of an Xbox Series W or V, essentially an XSX without disc drive.
Re: PS5 Price May Dip Below $400, Analyst Speculates
@Robinsad they're also coming off the back of the PS4, which has been insanely successful. It has the highest software attachment rate of any previous console. It has been an utter beast of a system. Thing is? Demand for the PS5 is ridiculously high, so high I don't think Sony have to go aggressive on price, they could shove the PS5 SE out the door for $499.99 and the PS5 DE out the door for $449.99 and I think the market would go "yeah, OK". I guess it all depends on what their goals really are as a corporation / platform holder. It's all guesswork and speculation at this point, and we'll all know soon enough. Signing off for now as I have emails to answer.
Re: PS5 Price May Dip Below $400, Analyst Speculates
@thedevilsjester but they're hits they've been willing to take before. Just looked at costs for their other home consoles cost of manufacture at launch:
PS1 $299.99 - cost of manufacture at launch $380''s
PS2 $299.99 - cost of manufacture at launch $372's
PS3 $599.99 - cost of manufacture at launch $840's
The idea that Sony aren't willing to eat HUGE upfront costs on their console hardware at launch seems bizarre to me. All of their divisions are profitable right now and have no debts to service, and the PlayStation division is in seriously rude health after the success of PS4 and their first party studio games selling really, really well. We now know their SSD controller they developed with Marvell is indeed heading for enterprise servers, and maybe even very high end PC SSDs, so that's another revenue stream for them from their R&D investments. I'm painting the best possible picture here I know, and I still expect the price to be $499.99 and $399.99, but mostly to temper expectations.
Re: PS5 Price May Dip Below $400, Analyst Speculates
@nessisonett I've said elsewhere on here that it's possible. Look, rumoured costs at the start of the year places the PS5 bill to manufacture at around $450's or $428's, those prices arguably represent the two SKU's, but let's look at Sony's recent history in launch prices:
PS4 $399.99 - cost of manufacture at launch $438's
PS4 Pro $399.99 - cost of manufacture at launch $450's
PSVR $399.99 - cost of manufacture varies, but let's take the $432 figure because it is lowest.
Looks to me like Sony at launch are willing to eat considerable losses. So does the rumoured PS5 costs fall outside of those ranges above? I don't think they do. Now, if the latest Bloomberg rumours are true they might blow those production costs out of the water, right? But conversely if the rumours are false, and they've upped their manufacturing runs that'll reduce costs significantly too. So I could see a scenario where Sony do dip below $399.99 for the Digital Edition, even if I seriously doubt they would, because I don't think they need too.
Re: Rumour: Sony Forced to Cut PS5 Production By 4 Million Units Due to Chip Troubles
@TheNewButler I think what even constitutes a layperson now has shifted considerably. There's a lot more you have to be across to be considered an informed layperson. 20 years ago I wasn't exactly graphics pipeline guy, but I knew enough to hold my own with those who were supposedly specialist. Now you have specialists in single graphical fields, and even sub fields, I wouldn't even dare to question a BVH or PBR specialist now, I'd just sit and listen and try to keep up. I suppose the difference with me is I know how much I don't know, and that is to say a hell of a lot.
Re: Rumour: Sony Forced to Cut PS5 Production By 4 Million Units Due to Chip Troubles
@TheNewButler well informed or just exceedingly good at blagging? That's for others to decide. I'll be honest though, tech fabrication and manufacturing is way out of my personal comfort zone. I have a passing / professional interest in this stuff, but not what it was when I was younger and less prone to nervous breakdowns due to work loads. lol. I have no sources at either TSMC or AMD on the hardware side of things. None. Same with Sony and Microsoft, so do not take anything I say here as gospel, because it is not. Far from it, I'd stick a health warning a mile high on it all. On this I'm just the same as everyone else on here, spit balling and guessing really, because only those involved with the manufacturing of the PS5 will know this stuff. Developers rarely get to hear about this stuff, unless it directly affects the specs we have to target and a new development kit arrives. So on this topic I urge all of you to file me under uninformed average Joe schmuck.
Re: Rumour: Sony Forced to Cut PS5 Production By 4 Million Units Due to Chip Troubles
Actually, thinking about it we have had leaks about both the XSX and PS5 APUs on numerous tech sites. We've heard yields were so good Microsoft considered a clock boost, and Sony considered enabling more CU's on their dies, either 2 or 4 depending on which site you listen too and a 100 MHz clock boost on the CPU. Of course these tech sites could be misinformed / making it all up, or recycling the same made up rumour, but people like Moore's law is dead have been eerily accurate with Nvidia Ampere and were spot on with RDNA 1, and seemingly are fairly well informed about RDNA 2. So the "leaks" up until this point suggest Microsoft and Sony had enough potential wiggle room to consider some baseline spec bumps, does that sound like something you'd do if you had yields of 50%? I don't think so.
Re: SEGA Kicking Off Sonic's 30th Anniversary with Funko Pops and Energy Drinks
New Sonic game at the PS5 event? Cerny did work on Sonic when he was at Sega... just saying... only joking. Best you could hope for is some Sonic Collection at this point.
Re: Rumour: Sony Forced to Cut PS5 Production By 4 Million Units Due to Chip Troubles
@Dan_ozzzy189 it doesn't "smell" right to me, and so far flies in the face of everything Sony have seemingly communicated, and via earnings calls / reports, which would constitute stock manipulation, because that's what false reporting is. The timings also seem odd. We'd have heard about this way before now, especially given how leaky TSMC are. We Know AMDs performance on new chips before AMD do because of loose lips at TSMC. lol. Not quite, I'm joking for effect, but unlike Nvidia, we knew what was planned for Big Navi / RDNA 2 over 18 months ago because of leaks from TSMC. Why would they suddenly be less prone to leaks around Sony and Microsoft? We know they aren't because leaks of chips for both companies systems were happening in early 2019 and they were pretty much spot on to final specs.
Re: Rumour: Sony Forced to Cut PS5 Production By 4 Million Units Due to Chip Troubles
@G8crasha both are using TSMC to fabricate their chips. But it is conceivable because of configuration differences that one might have issues whereas the other might not. Microsoft are targeting much lower clocks on their GPU than Sony. Sony have more cache on their GPU at all levels than Microsoft, and Sony have very custom cores on their SoC / APU like the Tempest Engine, whereas Microsoft have made fewer customisations and are much, much closer to stock layouts with their CUs. Conversely though the XSX die is way bigger than the PS5 die, so they have fewer chips per wafer and any fabrication defects are likely to have a higher impact on yields because their chips are bigger. But again, rumblings out if Redmond seemed to suggest they too were getting good yields on their APUs, so who knows, both could be bluffing and yields are terrible. If that is the case then RDNA 2 could be a disaster for AMD.
Re: Rumour: Sony Forced to Cut PS5 Production By 4 Million Units Due to Chip Troubles
@Chryssy75 actually it isn't Sony are producing their custom chips using AMD licenses at TSMC which is no longer AMD owned, and Sony will be working on a per wafer cost, so if they are having to bin more chips that's a cost they will have to absorb. However, tech sites with sources close to TSMC seem to be raising eyebrows about the validity of the rumours already. I'll wait until tomorrow, but if the PS5 comes in at $499.99 and $399.99 or under we can file this "rumour" under BS. It also seems RDNA 2, a.k.a. Big Navi might be targeting similar clocks to the PS5 according to a number of sites, so this is in the pipeline that AMD wanted to pursue because certain computational tasks just run better at higher clocks as opposed to parallel. Notably pixel fill rates, geometry, ray tracing, VRS etc. etc. etc. so I think one of the ways AMD might be seeking to get closer to Nvidia in terms of real world performance is by pushing clocks as opposed to cores.
The timing of this story seems iffy to me as well. If Sony were having yield problems we'd have had that leaked out by now. They've been in mass production of these chips since early spring and chose to ramp production of these chips because according to an earnings call in late spring yields were far better than expected. Well TSMC's average yields on new dies is around 75% on average at 7nm fabrication, so I'd assume that's what Sony would see as expected yields, and 50% doesn't sound far higher than 75% to me, but I'm no electrical engineer and my knowledge of wafer fabrication is rudimentary at best.
Re: Rumour: Sony Forced to Cut PS5 Production By 4 Million Units Due to Chip Troubles
@MrGawain this would be nothing to do with a "production line". This is wafer fabrication of silicon semiconductors. The issue would be that they are having higher levels of defects in the chips when they run through verification tests. The other possibility is that the yields they are getting aren't able to run target clocks, because the GPU in the PS5 is set really high for a production unit. I've got stable and higher clocks out of both AMD and Nvidia GPUs over the years, normally with water blocks and custom cooling loops, but for a stock GPU device to launch with clocks over 2.0 GHz has in recent decades been unheard of. Even if with RDNA 2 AMD were targeting an architecture that was capable of being clocked higher and at around 2.0 GHz as standard, we don't think they've achieved that goal (according to leaks), or we don't know if the have until October 28th, quite often AMD leave performance on the table with their GPUs because the power consumption / cooling concerns.
Also to those thinking it'll affect reliability of launch units, it won't. Launch units will be far more rigorously tested, which is why manufacturing costs on any new electronic devices are higher, they need to test everything to:
A) get wrinkles out of the production line
B) make sure initial batches work as intended
C) find the stubborn spots within the product they can't get out so for future runs they know where and what to test.
Re: Rumour: Sony Forced to Cut PS5 Production By 4 Million Units Due to Chip Troubles
@pip_muzz no it's the opposite regardless of yields. To "OK" a chip they will test them to see if they can perform as they should. On a new die these tests are more rigorous. They relax them over time as they know what causes issues and what doesn't. So less tests are done on later chip runs. However, by then the production should remove wrinkles. However yields as low as 50% is a financial disaster for Sony, it's almost unheard of in the semiconductor business right now, yields of 70% on a new product is considered really bad now and hitting 80% yields is average for new products.
Re: Rumour: Sony Forced to Cut PS5 Production By 4 Million Units Due to Chip Troubles
OK, if yields are as low as 50% then you're looking at the consoles main component costing almost double the expected cost, that places the PS5's SoC or APU if you prefer at a cost close to $400's. If true then the PS5 price will close to $700's to manufacture. It also flies in the face of the companies own earnings call where they said yields were higher than expected. Using a mature node (7nm is bread and butter to TSMC) and mostly mature architecture (Zen CPU yields are rediculously high and RDNA 1 was too) I'd be amazed if yields were as low as 50%. Maybe the clock speed is the issue... but again that flies in the face of how early and how many PS5 Dev Kits Sony were able to put into developers hands. I'll just say while it's not beyond the realms of possibility, I'm certainly taking it with a pinch of salt.
Re: Sony Using Air Freight to Meet PS5 Demand This Holiday
@deckerdblade they've literally flown in every console to launch since the PS1. Initial batches put on boats then fly in the first wave as they come off the production line. They did it definitely with the PS4, PS3 and PS2. Apart from PS3 I think they've reasonably priced all their other consoles. It's an initial batch / launch. They'll use more conventional methods going forward. Pretty certain Microsoft are also flying their initial launch stock in as well.
Re: Talking Point: What Do You Want to See at PS5's Showcase Event?
@OmegaStriver I was talking to a friend about it the other day that showing how quick it is to switch between games by playing the actual games themselves on a PS5 would be a major selling point, maybe commentary over the footage explaining things. You could show the features of the UI, the new social features and how it looks, and get your game demos in all at once. Problem is most gameplay demos are done by a games tester with insane levels of play time with one of these games, someone who can choreograph good play runs, and finding someone who could legitimately do that across all the games they might want to show could be hard, but maybe they could fake it? But would that be OK? Not sure, either way Sony's marketing team have been on fire over the past few years and they'll probably nail it.
Re: Talking Point: What Do You Want to See at PS5's Showcase Event?
@OmegaStriver I actually think that's a good possibility actually.
Re: Talking Point: What Do You Want to See at PS5's Showcase Event?
Easy:
Price
Launch Date
Launch Games
And gameplay footage of Spider-Man Miles Morales, Demon's Souls, Horizon Forbidden West, Returnal and maybe a game reveal or two.
Re: Sony Using Air Freight to Meet PS5 Demand This Holiday
@JJ2 agreed, with the amount of Twitter hype coming from PlayStation luminaries they'd better deliver or it'll be really embarrassing.
Re: Sony Using Air Freight to Meet PS5 Demand This Holiday
I'm sure there was somebody on here who said this was happening a few weeks back. It is a pretty standard move at launch though. The more interesting rumour is Sony are going to push ahead with increased production throughout November up to March to meet demand. If so that's crazy. Normally these things are manufactured in large batches as and when required, keeping manufacturing going throughout the winter and into Spring if true suggests demand for the PS5 is really high, and that the price won't be so bad.
Re: Godfall Gets Its Best PS5 Trailer Yet
This is actually a pretty good example of why you should only show games when they are ready. I'm no graphics expert, but they've clearly added more advanced specular maps, properly implemented ray tracing, kicked up the model complexity and added way more particle effects and detail to animations. It's starting to look polished. Good job team.
Re: Project Nimble Was the Codename for PS5 Showcase Event
I agree with @nessisonett 2020 has been a bad year for many people, with some being a little tight on cash. As long as the payment plans aren't too onerous, and there's no compounded interetest involved I don't see a problem with making the next-gen more accessible financially. It's not stupid if that option still allows you to pay your bills and put food on your table.