Th3solution

@REALAIS Absolutely. And like I mentioned, it makes a difference if they are calculating this according to all first party games, or is it all first party games released in the last 2 years. Because guess what — unless I’m missing something there has been only 4 other first party releases in the last two years: MLB The Show, Spidey 2, TLoU2 Remaster, and Concord.

I’m an absolute Sony enthusiast and I’ve only bought one of those and I bet there’s lots of people who have bought none of those but have bought other Sony games or some of the many second party releases the last couple years (Helldivers, Rise of the Ronin, Stellar Blade, Until Dawn, FF16, etc). So it’s a completely different conclusion if that’s what they are putting in the denominator.

@REALAIS Haha! 😅 I definitely get lost in the weeds sometimes. It’s just that it’s a minor pet peeve of mine when data is used which is either not valid or is conflated and not related to the conclusion being drawn from them. We just had an election and so I’ve been in my “skeptical of statistics that are thrown around” mode. 😄 Numbers can be spun and manipulated in many ways and often companies, people, or governments report stats that aren’t measuring that they think they’re measuring.

And I’m not saying Sony is misleading us or erroneously coming to the conclusion that Astro Bot has reached a new audience. I believe it’s correct, and this number may be the most accurate assessment they can come up with to prove that, but I believe it’s healthy to just verify where numbers are coming from because, like they say — “67.3% of statistics are made up.” 😜

@REALAIS @Sergo Yeah, the physical sales is the one variable that simply using PSN sales data would miss and could affect the accuracy of this number. And if launching the game is the metric to count as a sale, then that also doesn’t account for multiple users in a household.
Scenario 1: Steve buys a physical copy of Spider-Man 2 and then buys Astrobot digitally. Is he a “new user”?
Scenario 2: Steve hasn’t bought any Sony games in 2 years but buys Astro Bot on disc but hasn’t played it yet. Is he being counted as a “new user”?
Scenario 3: Steve has bought and played TLoU2 Remastered this year, then buys Astro Bot, plays it. He has a wife and a 11 yr old daughter and an 8 yr old son, none of which played TLoU2. They all play that copy of Astro Bot on their own PSN accounts. Is that being counted as 3 “new user” sales?
Scenario 4: (and this is closer to my situation) Steve has bought on sale GoWR, HFW, and GT7 on disc this year. He hasn’t played any of them and they sit on his pile of backlog shame. He buys Astro Bot digitally. Is he counted as a new user even though he’s bought 3 Sony games this year and just hasn’t played them yet?
Scenario 5: Steve has PS+ Extra and rarely buys games. He’s played TLoU1 and Demon’s Souls this year through PS+. He buys Astro Bot. Is he not counted as a “new user”? If he’s playing all the games via the service, technically he’s a new purchaser but his trophy list may have many Sony games the past 2 years.

Anyway, there’s just lots of variables to account for. I think the data is probably real in the sense Astro Bot has allowed them to tap into a new market, the family and kid-friendly market who often don’t engage with their games. It’s just the exactness of that “37%” number should probably be taken with a grain of salt. It’s almost certainly a measure of new engagement with a Sony game rather than a sales metric. I would be curious to see of the 1.5 million games sold, how many different users have launched the game? I suspect Scenario #3 is quite common and so 2 or more people in a household are playing the game because it’s rated E and so it’s going to skew the numbers. So 1.5 million x .37 = 555K people who’ve not bought a Sony product in 2 years? That’s probably not a legitimate number.

Also, I do think they might mean a “new user” hasn’t bought one of Sony’s new releases in the last 2 years, so in other words hasn’t bought SM2, Helldivers2, Until Dawn Remake, etc. I imagine people who bought Demon’s Souls this year but nothing else would still be considered a “new user”, but it’s hard to tell from their explanation.

I wonder how they gather that “new user” data. It’s an interesting statistic and I don’t doubt that it’s correct, but how does Sony know if I’ve purchased one of their games in the last 2 years? Perhaps they mean “played” one of their games in the last two years and they are using trophy data attached to their user profiles.

I’m not sure but just my gut instinct is that this game is going to underperform. I could be wrong though. It just seems like the audience for it is busy with other games. Feb is probably a good time to throw it out there and see how it does. On the plus side, at least Ubisoft doesn’t have to pay royalties on this game like for Star Wars and Avatar.

@Jrs1 @zhoont sounds good — I will definitely keep that in mind this weekend as I will probably pour a bunch of hours into the game. There’s one Joker I have access to where you get x3 multiplier every 6 hands. I have been passing on that but maybe I need to try my luck with that and time it to occur during boss blinds if possible. 🤔

@zhoont @Jrs1 I’m getting a feel for the tactics you can take to get higher scores. I’m trying to unlearn some of the instincts that are natural with normal 5 card draw poker. Better hands don’t always mean more chips, depending on how things are set up. The way the jokers, hand levels, and card buffs all interact is the most important thing.

My best run was when I just happened to get a bunch of jokers that had perks for playing face cards. Then I just started to accumulate buffed face cards in those packets and through tarot cards to further enhance the jokers and just kept cashing in on two pair or flushes that had plenty of face cards. I was blowing away small and medium blinds in 1-2 hands until I got to that boss blind of 300K. 😞

@Jrs1 Yeah, I ran up against a 300,000 blind as a “very large blind” challenge on my boss blind yesterday and didn’t even get close. I was just past Ante 8. I had such a good run going too and so it was a real letdown. I’m still having a lot of fun with the game but I’m seriously doubting that I’ll ever get good enough to get a score that high.

GoY and DS2. For my third I guess I’ll say Crimson Desert, but I really want to say Marvel’s Wolverine. Isn’t that supposed to come next year? 😄

This game looked really fantastic, but time will tell if it’s as good as it showed.
As for the exclusivity, it seems wise for Sony to pursue this game as it has potential to be a cult hit like Stellar Blade. But it’s also probably going to work out better for the developers to take the chance at self-publishing if it is successful as it appears. Of course none of us know what the development costs are and the marketing budget. Sony could have helped them take less risk by providing backup funding. It will be interesting to see.

Slime Hexagon?

There’s always room for a good game. Unless it’s another annualized sports game. Or another COD style military FPS. Or another live service hero shooter. Or another 2D Metroidvania….

😜

I’m surprised this doesn’t happen more often, to be honest. Many of these games that are based on real events are difficult to get right from all parties’ perspectives. We were just talking about it with AC Shadows. I think we’ll probably see more and more that certain governments and societies are going to push back regarding outside interpretation of events involving their people. I’m not saying it’s right or wrong, necessarily. Just saying it’s the realities of the world we live in and so much depends on the eye of the beholder.

I’m a big fan of Control, so you have my attention. I don’t do multiplayer but I could make an exception.

Is GamePass not getting this also? Remedy snuggling up close to Sony, eh?

Probably my favorite game of this genre. Although Quantic Dream has certainly fallen from grace in recent years. Not to mention it’s a studio that appears to have vanished into thin air as far as ongoing projects.

Somehow I’ve never heard the term “to vent one’s spleen” before now.

Yeah, this was quite annoying. I couldn’t connect and even booting up Dark Souls 2 from the disc wouldn’t work because it would get hung up trying to load the trophy list. So I ended up playing Vampire Survivors on my phone. 🫤

I’m not sure it’s emphatically better. Both look good but the new one looks more like a SnapChat filter.

They either learned from the over-aggressive pricing of TLoU Part I and Part II remake/remasters, or this remaster is really not as intricate as those since it’s one-seventh of the price.

Hmmm… not sure why someone of his stature is posting stuff like this. I mean, I agree with his sentiment, but let us peasants have the “If you don’t like it, don’t buy it” and “If you think you can do better, make your own game” jabs at these idiots. We have enough people in power in this world who spout nonsense like a 14 year old on social media. No need to add to the problem.

2025 is going to be nuts

Looks quite good, actually. There’s a weird combination of photo realistic graphics alongside the artistically designed abstract. But it works.

I’m more interested than I was after the initial trailer. Still, I’ll wait for reviews

I’m not likely to play this immediately, but it’s a game that is worthy of a replay at some point. I’ve only ever played the OG PS3 version!

Oh yeah, I forgot how janky the NPC talking animations were. Cleaning those up is worth the price alone.

If we’re lucky, maybe it’s a little “Blue-Eyed Samurai”: The Game?

I have really liked Dontnod’s games. I thought Remember Me was actually underrated. I never got around to playing Vampyr though.

But all of their games I’ve played I think I got through PS+. Perhaps I’m part of the problem.

Anyone who’s listened to Colin as long as I have will know he takes great pride in his journalism accuracy. He wouldn’t say something like this without some confidence. He hates being wrong, but he does own it when he is , like with his incorrect leak about the Bloodborne sequel. He keeps a tally of how many times he’s been wrong on major industry news and definitely would not risk eating crow about anything.

Still… an absolutely disgusting budget for what the game ended up being. I does make me wonder if they somehow try to repurpose any of the assets or other parts of the game to recoup all the investment and human power that went into making it. And I’m still not convinced that they won’t re-release it maybe in some alternate form maybe as a F2P or something.

Man these are beautiful. 🤩
I don’t think I’ll buy but good grief I wish I could.

@Yousef- Lol, I wouldn’t doubt it.
Although, I do think the theory about PS6’s backwards compatibility being limited to the PS5 library is an interesting one. It would explain some of the motivations for doing all these PS4 Remakes. If we give Sony the benefit of the doubt, then they are doing this in preparation for next gen. If we’re being cynical, then it’s gotta be for a cash-grab and Sony is creatively bankrupt. 😅

I usually try to give the benefit of the doubt.

Another less critical theory is that it’s simply an attempt to have a synergistic release with their other multimedia products and shows. There is a market of people who will be exposed to the Lego game, the MMO, and whatever TV show comes out and will want to play the game that started it all. Sure they can just buy the PS4 game and play it, but many of them will pay top dollar for a PS5 version instead.

As for me, I doubt I’ll play the game again anytime soon. Maybe on PS6. I still have yet to play Forbidden West! I need to get on that.

Oh no. The Lego game made me think that Sony hadn’t actually lost their collective minds and greenlit a remake, but unfortunately they did. A reimagining of the original game for the Lego audience is one thing, but a full remake is quite another.

So we have TLoU and TLoU II, Uncharted 4/LL, Spider-Man, Ghost of Tsushima, Until Dawn, and now HZD. Surely God of War (2018) is next?

Edit: Also absolutely bonkers that Bloodborne isn’t on the PS5 Remake list.

I enjoyed both Fallen Order and Survivor. Played each during the launch window and had a good time with them. Survivor is definitely the more expansive and ambitious title, and for the most part that makes it the better game, but Fallen Order had the better storyline and pacing. Both really enjoyable though, especially if you’re a fan of the franchise.

For the next one, I’m hoping they can keep some of the open world mechanics, but tone it down a little from what Koboh was. I think it was slightly too big and affected the storytelling. Some of that can simply be improved by making the collectibles more impactful to reward exploration. There’s only so many hairstyles and droid color palettes that one can use.

This gives me Puppeteer vibes.

Like mentioned by @Nei @UltimateOtaku91 I don’t know that Metacritic necessarily creates a bias against unique or experimental games. In fact, I think sometimes it helps unorthodox games gain some attention that they otherwise would not get, such as Balatro, Animal Well, Vampire Survivor, etc.

However, I agree that Metacritic scores have become too powerful of a factor. Like @LuXifer mentioned, the fact that developers’ bonuses can be tied to how a game scores is not always fair. I understand the logic of using Metacritic instead of sales to determine a reward for making a good product even if it doesn’t sell well, but the fact remains that Metacritic’s algorithm and bias is just too unpredictable and inequitable to use as a ‘absolute truth’ of a game’s quality.

Personally I almost never go to Metacritic for information on whether to play a game. I rely on smaller recommendations from Push Square and other smaller outlets, as well as word of mouth from players.

@anoyonmus @Yousef- Thanks.
I did forget to mention that they are definitely trying not to Lego of their marketplace lead.

Sony has Conquered the industry and has already given us a number of Fair Games, so why should they show us anything new? They are on Fire and Walk with purpose, no need for Bungee cords to make them bounce all over the place. They’ll be alright, even if they’ve stopped treading into Uncharted territory and have disappointed even The Last of every one of Us this generation. But they’ve done the L ast o’ covering for what they Bought and I think they learned some lessons this year.

@KidRisky Ah, makes sense. My game library is pushing 500 titles at this point so I can see the value in only restoring the license that you need. In fact it’s weird that it hasn’t been like that from the start.

@Yagami It’s absolutely the prerogative of each gamer to choose their hill to die on. I don’t begrudge anyone that right. I just think people aren’t being completely honest with themselves when we see GOTY candidates and huge bestselling games that are still coming out at 30 fps, which to me says that the ultimatum of “60 fps or bust” is probably being a tad overstated. A good game is still a good game.

@Yagami Yeah, I agree. Depending on the scope and graphical quality of the game, along with a lot of other gameplay factors, 30 fps is often reasonable. Sure, we’d all prefer to have 120 fps at 4K, but we have to be realistic. Nevertheless it’s amazing how many people threaten to boycott a game because it’s limited to 30 fps.

Oh wow, this does look nice. The customizable nature of it is much appreciated. Seeing the battery level of the controller and storage space will come in handy. Unfortunately it looks like it will still keep the feeds of intrusive advertising and useless PS content updates.

It will be interesting to see if all the “I can’t tolerate 30 fps and refuse to buy a game that is limited to 30 fps” people will show up for GTA6. I’m sure they will. Just like they made an exception for Tears of the Kingdom and Starfield and the other big games that launched at 30 fps. The way people speak in such absolutes drives me crazy — “I’ll never play a game at 30 fps…. Well, except for this one… oh and that one… well, maybe this other one too….”

I’m not really sure what restoring licenses does. I don’t think I’ve ever had to do that, but I know sometimes if there’s a little glitch with the PSN that one would have to restore licenses but I never knew this was an issue that needed to be updated.

As far as the Welcome Hub, if it’s like the Explore section then it’s mostly just advertising anyway, so I don’t think the rest of the world will be all that enthused when you really see it. Although maybe they’ve improved it.

The adaptive charging is probably the coolest part, but I have an old model so it won’t apply. Also, apparently it works just on controllers and not on the headsets? I’ll just keep plugging my stuff into an external charger. 🤷🏻‍♂️

Thank all the people who paid $700+ for their launch PS5 from scalpers for the Pro's pricepoint.

There was this narrative out there that the live-service games needed to exist in order to fund Sony’s ongoing single player gaming projects… and I think it actually looks like the opposite is happening. The single player games are keeping the company afloat.

All I can think about is: 🎵 “Get it on, Bang-a-Gong, Get it on…” 🎶

So strange that Bungie keeps following up bad decisions with even more.

The way Destiny 2 has been evolved, it’s completely walled off any new player attraction. If a player didn’t get in on the early content they now have no idea how to get into this game. It’s so inaccessible to new player and the old players are gradually leaving. Let this game die and reboot something new. Time for Destiny 3.

The post-launch support for this game has been really impressive. The base game sweeped all the GOTY awards and yet they keep improving it, and for free instead of selling the added content like most publishers would do. I haven’t seen sales numbers, so I wonder if there’s a spike in sales after each major update.

@AdamNovice Is that what he’s saying? He says, “…we don’t have that much IP that we fostered from the beginning. We’re lacking the early phase (of IP) and that’s an issue for us” and then goes on to say how creation of new IP is their focus, so that it can be distributed.

You might be right, because his statement seems a bit contradictory. But none of those you listed are “early phase” IP, they’re properties that have been around for ages and stood the test of time. Sony has a nest egg of legacy properties that they failed to keep relevant, mostly at the expense of creating new ideas. If they want a Star Wars or Mario type of property, why would they keep creating more new IP rather than mining the popular stuff to death like those you listed? I mean, Uncharted is no Harry Potter, to be sure, and neither Kratos nor Aloy are Mario or Luke Skywalker, but I haven’t seen them commit their popular creations to the level they could be. The closest we have now is Horizon which they are tapping into from all angles at this point with a show, an MMO, a Lego game, etc. (which incidentally seems to be too much and risks killing the franchise with oversaturation, imo) but Sony seems to be have been happy to move on and maintain a better diversity than their competitors by encouraging and allowing their creatives to do what they want, which is often making something new. Because that’s usually what artists like to do.

It’s an odd thing to say when it seems to me that Sony has the most original IP of the ‘big 3’. Not the most iconic or productive IP, mind you, but I think they have the largest quantity.

They just haven’t always shepherded their existing IP very well. Nevertheless, I’m all in favor of a steady stream of new IP, and yet maintain a controlled reliance of recycling older stuff. I would prefer it not become a Nintendo level of dependency on Mario, Zelda, and Pokemon; or a Xbox level of scattershot IP which mostly just die quietly. A good balance of core IP that recurs in games and media, coupled with new experimental projects, please.

Fishing — the most overrated mini game.

…Well, maybe in a tie with lock picking.