It's been a great year for third party indies, and I'm really happy about horror games getting a proper resurgence with games like RE4 and Dead Space remakes.
I won't spoil anything but they added new endings to SH2 for the remake and one of them basically supersedes any of the other endings in my own personal head cannon based on how well it was done. Obviously Bloober are massive fans of Silent Hill and it shows. They kept what needed to be kept, and made meaningful changes on top of it in a really masterful way.
Yeah it definitely gave me RE2 remake vibes, which is a big compliment. I played the original SH 1 and 2 back in the day and loved em, but I like the remake even better.
I'll have to think about it a bit more, but I think this is my favorite horror game of all time now. And I'm a huge horror game buff, I try to play everything I have time for.
Bloober really pulled it off and I am shocked how good they did.
My only small gripes are it is overall too easy (highly recommend setting combat to hard, even for new players), some of the areas - Toluca Prison and The Labyrinth - are so dark on standard settings on an OLED I can barely see what's going on, and the red effect on the screen when you get injured looks really cheap and is very distracting.
I ended the game with a pharmacy full of healing items and a ton of bullets on normal difficulty, even though I wasn't really conserving anything. I've started a second playthrough on hard and it feels more balanced.
Sutherland definitely lent a different angle to the voice. Sort of a reading-his-lines-over-the-phone, half asleep quality that really established Venom Snake as his own thing.
Appoint Hermen Hulst as the new CEO of Ubisoft. I mean it would hurt to see him leave Playstation but Ubisoft needs his business genius more right now. It's just the right thing to do.
We'll just have to find some way to go on without him.
Oh absolutely, it all goes back to our Puritan and English common law roots in our legal system, which still influences a lot of what we do and how we do it. At least on the surface. Swearing on the bible for court testimony comes off as almost laughable and quaint in the modern setting, a relic of a relic of a bygone time that somehow survived. I provide some court testimony now and then for work, it always comes off as a bit of a bad joke.
For the lobbying, the law(s) prohibiting it would have to be airtight and prevent alternate backdoor channels of "donations". Sort of how applying trade sanctions creates two dozen other problems / secondary abuses and it becomes this game of whack-a-mole. The law would be have to be written well and foresee these issues in advance. Now I don't know about you, but I don't have that kind of faith in our elected representatives to pull this off. But in theory, it could be done. In theory.
If the problem is cultural, we are all screwed. Once something becomes baked in to how we think and act as a society, nothing short of a megaton bomb can change it. Let's hope it isn't that and we are being overly pessimistic here. I have faith that there are a lot of people out there who still believe in equity in their business dealings and wouldn't cheat even when presented an opportunity to do so. I don't think a lot of these commenters, if placed in this CEO's position, would go through with these layoffs. Now maybe that's because they are naive to the business realities, but regardless I think that most here would take a 5% pay cut to their multimillion dollar salaries to make it happen. I truly believe most people are good. Its just by design the good people, who outnumber the bad, are not given these positions of authority. Of course we have all heard the studies that CEOs and executives test well above average for psychopathy, narcissism, and other personality disorders. It's a feature, not a bug.
To bring the scope in a bit, look at scalpers. They exist in significant numbers, sure, but on the whole the general audience feels the act is unethical, even if only because it negatively affects them. I believe some people over time develop this idea they can or even need to cheat to get ahead, that to believe anything else is to be a rube. And this is generally a result of them being treated unfairly or cheated in the past themselves. They feel being a cynic means they are more aware of the reality when ironically they completely lack self-awareness. Being cynical is very "in" right now, unfortunately, a product of an overall lack of faith in any formal institution - religious, social, or governmental. And granted, those institutions haven't given them much good reason to have any trust.
I guess my point is there will always be "cheaters", but most people aren't and can freely recognize bad conduct. We just need to stop giving the outlier bad faith actors positions of power. Or at least I need to believe this to maintain my sanity.
Trust me, I remember a better time where Ubisoft put out good stuff - the first couple Assassin's Creed games, some original IP like Child of Light, and the awesome Rayman Origins and Legends come to mind. They have talent. Further back into the PS1 and PS2 era they were a truly impressive and creative company.
I don't want anyone to lose their jobs, but my logic here is if the company goes under, that talent will be snapped up quickly by other devs or publishers. It's an institutionally rotten company for sure, but there's always some good with the bad.
If there was a path forward for them to be better, I can't help but think they would have already pursued that. This has been a long time in the making. Maybe if they sell and get new management, scale down, and change up their business model? I really don't know. Here's to hoping.
I was pretty hard on Bloober and was a big detractor of the decision to allow them to do the remake. If this turns out good, I will never have been more happy to eat my words. I don't put much stock in Famitsu by itself, but other preview footage and impressions have been really positive as well. I'm excited and will give it a go.
If it's good, let them have Silent Hill 3 and 4 and maybe eventually a new entry.
Wasn't WB considering divesting itself of its video game business a couple years back? After seeing the microtransaction hellscape they turned Mortal Kombat into, I wouldn't shed any tears.
Call it Schadenfreude, but I am so ready for this company to die. Ubisoft, EA, Activision, and TakeTwo are the Axis of Evil of video game publishers as far as I'm concerned.
Ignore the discussion about DEI and historical accuracy that is dominating the news cycle, there are so many other totally legitimate reasons this company is where it is. A culture of sexual harassment, predatory microtransactions, live service push, uninspired releases. This didn't happen overnight. They check all the boxes.
Yeah the Supreme Court is definitely apolitical and known for its sound legal decisions, as evidenced by the Jim Crow rulings.
I always found it kinda funny how we Americans ascribe an almost divine infallibility to the decisions of the Supreme Court, like it's the Pope making papal decrees. Until recently that is, with US approval ratings of the Supreme Court nosediving to finally join nearly every other public institution in the doldrums of public opinion.
Corps will do whatever they can get away with doing legally. They internally weigh violating laws and regulations through the lense of 'will this action net more profit than the potential fines / lawsuits?' It's an actual managerial accounting task. They literally do risk-benefit assessments to determine whether or not they follow the law, as the only penalty is monetary, something they tend to have quite a bit of. And they get to do this while having all the rights and protections of a person. No accountability anywhere you look in this system.
Meanwhile, the FTC and SEC (the supposed check on corporate abuses) are about as toothless as my 90 year-old grandmother and have been for decades. The corporations know it. In this environment, decisions like these mass layoffs are not only expected outcomes, they are inevitable.
Banning corporate political donations (lobbying) would cure about 60% of this country's ills in one swoop. It gets talked about now and then, but not with any earnestness and usually only as a bad-faith political platform for some up-and-comer to campaign on. But I guess I'm not telling anyone anything they don't already know.
I think there are a couple workable ways to lock out scalpers from their online storefront. Whether it's trophy count, hours played, or age of the account.
But that would require effort. And I remind everyone this is the same company that took 4 years to add customized themes to the PS5 UI, a feature which still hasn't been fully implemented.
And just forget about third party retailers doing anything about this. They have absolutely zero incentive to do so and Sony has no leverage to compel them to change. The retailers have all the power in that relationship.
My position has always been there is a legitimate financial incentive for Sony to keep this hardware out of the hands of scalpers; if a PS5 is sitting in a closet waiting to be sold at an extortionate mark-up, that's Sony missing out on game, DLC, and microtransaction revenue from a legitimate end user. How much money did Sony lose as a result of the PS5 scalping debacle which lasted every bit of two straight years? Millions? Billions? All because they couldn't be bothered to assign a team of competent people to the task for a couple weeks to work it out.
But I think by writing this I just put more thought into it than Sony execs have over the course of the previous 4 years.
Too bad the US Supreme Court classified corporations as a "person", being granted all the benefits and none of the disadvantages of an individual, in an act that required the most insane mental gymnastics of any legal opinion I've ever read.
You can thank political lobbying for that one. Money, money, money.
I'm guessing they'll do a second run of the 30th Anniversary edition or alternatively standalone plates within the next 12 months. Just a random guess but seems like releasing 12,300 for the entire world was more of a marketing gimmick than anything, and a wider release will follow down the road.
I think market goodwill is a currency that Sony is blowing through with nearly every decision they make. You can get by for a long time off past successes, but each bad decision is another brick in the wall, to quote a really obscure song from the late 70s. These companies used to assign at least some intangible value to brand image and protected it at all costs. Now seems like they don't care. The idea was 3 bucks in a year is better than a dollar today. You know, an investment. Now, they want the short term gains no matter the long term cost.
They push and push and push for each and every little dollar to pump those quarterly profits until one day, the goodwill is gone, and the well is dried up. It happens slowly, then all at once. Iterative, samey releases with expensive cost of entry, both in hardware and software. Ubisoft is learning this lesson after making short term bets for close to 20 years now, with no thought to the future. It finally caught up to them, 14 Assassin's Creed games later. They took the easy, fast money route at nearly every juncture and well look now.
Anyways, two points: the PS5 Pro preorders on PS Direct don't require payment until shipment, and there was a concern they would sell out quickly online. So I imagine a lot of people submitted a preorder just to sit on it while they mull the cost over. Meaning, I believe a lot of preorders will be cancelled closer to release after people realize they aren't going out of stock and once the FOMO dissipates.
PS4 Pro was 12-14% of total lifetime PS4 sales according to estimates. I still stand by this won't move half that amount, percentage wise. Still guessing under 5 million lifetime sales, unless it reveals some new functionality before launch beyond what's already been shown. Under 5 million might be viewed as a success internally by Sony, I'm sure they have this all projected out in graphs and bar charts based on market research.
Sony had 4 whole years to sell me on a Pro. In their releases, their UI, their customer responsiveness, their pricing models, etc. It was a 4 year long job interview. They answered nearly all the questions wrong, and suffice to say, they won't be making the cut with me. A key error was prioritizing cross-gen PS4 releases for short term gain, stunting the base PS5 significantly.
I guess what I'm saying in a nutshell is even though it seems like Sony is getting a pass on everything it is doing now, consequences will manifest down the road. Every bad call they make now - every price increase amidst a looming recession, every lazy port, every day they don't communicate their release schedule properly, every expensive hardware offering - is less PS6 units sold in the future.
But hey, that's a problem for the next CEO and the speculative investors can always sell when the stock dips as a result of institutional mismanagement, so who cares.
Hope this is good. One positive about this generation and the previous one is it has been a second golden age for horror games. There was a time, like late oughts, where horror games were pretty few and far between
Nomura isn't my favorite. He is good at starting stories but terrible at putting them together into a cohesive whole. Kingdom Hearts' story is a total mess, he meddled in Rebirth to make the story convoluted and impenetrable.
All his stories "jump the shark" and become ridiculous and so convoluted trying to figure out what is going on is like trying to find meaning in an abstract painting. It's always alternate universes with him. His stuff is pretty predictably chaotic at this point.
I'll see your Secret Agent Clank and raise you 'Ratchet and Clank: All 4 One' as the worst entry. Gotta remember a big selling point of this game back in the day is it was portable.
They need to add an option to have the background theme on the 'Welcome' tab override the game tile backgrounds. So it's an actual theme similar to PS3 / PS4. Also add some custom themes to buy in the store.
Yeah they marketed themselves like the plucky underdog because they WERE the plucky underdog. They did well for themselves with that angle. Probably a little too well.
Hey, did you ever go PC like you were thinking? How has that experience been for you? Because this seems like a good bookend for me. I'm not supporting this crap anymore.
Yeah, definitely, agreed 100%. We all enjoy the same hobby and we want it to be better. Naturally we all have different ideas about that based on our different personal experiences.
I don't get what Sony is doing. I don't get what Microsoft is doing. I grew up playing Final Fantasy on PS1 AND I remember going to HALO LAN parties in my teens. It was about fun, and it was awesome. Money always gets in the way. They always just want more while giving us less, and this console perfectly encapsulates that for me.
I can't believe the PS1 broke into the market by placing itself as the plucky underdog compared to the stoic, corporate, clinical monster it is today. Maybe nostalgia talking a bit there, I don't know. It's unrecognizable to me now. I won't talk about Microsoft or else this comment would be too long. I guess we grew up and things changed.
I just want this hobby to stay as awesome for others as it was for me back then. I don't think people coming in at the PS3/360 and after have any idea how much has been taken away. If they did, they'd demand more. I get certain market realities exist, but customers (not consumers) can always demand more. I hope they vote with their wallets with the Pro.
Yeah, everyone should remain respectful. The "You are too poor for this" versus the "If you buy this you are an idiot" remarks help nobody.
If you feel this checks all the boxes for you, then that's it. I worry about the broader market trends associated with this, or the fact it might set a precedent to release digital only consoles going forward. Those are personal concerns, though.
I sincerely hope this bombs, because it represents a future I don't want, i.e. high prices / digital only. Some people aren't too fussed about it though, and I can't really have bad feelings about that.
I never thought I'd agree with you on anything, but hell might be freezing over. Because you hit the nail on the head here. To add to your points, the main point of contention for me is not the price, it is the removal of the disc drive.
The demographic they are targeting and that has the money to buy this is still attached to physical media more than any other subsection of the market. And they pulled the disc drive. So who is this for?
It's not for little Fortnight Billy buying vBucks with his mom's credit card or COD Bro #73859593. And at that same time it isn't exactly a premium product either made to target the bleeding market hardcore crowd, is it? Considering they removed a major component of the base model.
That's the thing, I'm guessing R&D costs for this were pretty low. They added a new GPU and racing stripes on the side, essentially. It has a slightly different form factor but similar enough they can make it compatible with the disc drive attachment. It's 95% the same thing as the base model.
I think this is a cheap patchwork overall. Mark Cerny probably put it together over the course of a weekend in his basement. And I think that was intentional because I'm sure they don't anticipate blockbuster sales on this.
Called it yesterday in another push square article about the disc drive add ons selling out after this announcement. Sony doesn't seem to keep a lot of certain items on hand. The Dualsense Edge stick modules have been sold out for months and have been targeted by scalpers.
Ever since the PS5 scalping bonanza I was always wondering, do these guys like get together and coordinate their schemes together? Turns out that yeah, there are forums all these scumbags hang out and discuss what the next thing they are gonna scalp / sell shopping bots to each other. Disc drive add on seems like a prime target right now.
Funny, I remember they made the EXACT same argument at the launch of the PS3. "It's actually a good deal for what you are getting because it has a Blu-ray player."
Yeah a $200,000 Ferrari is probably a good deal for what you get, doesn't mean people can afford it. The PS3 launched at that price and Sony spent the vast majority of that gen catching up to Xbox.
Well, this is about as nasty as it gets. Won't be participating, but just a heads up to people, Playstation Direct has a tendency to run out of stock on accessories. If you are sure you are gonna preorder this and know you are gonna want the disc drive attachment, I'd pick the drive attachment up now as those might go out of stock if their other item outages (RIP Edge stick module stock) are any indication.
I mean, they gotta know what the demand is for this, so the only difficulty I can foresee is they just don't make that many. The online reaction to this has been astoundingly negative across all channels and corners of the internet. Absolutely getting blasted, everywhere. The YouTube official reveal video is getting ratioed to the depths. I'm honestly surprised they haven't disabled comments yet, it's that bad.
Buuuuut, that means better odds for those that are interested, so that's 👍. Despite me being somewhat disgusted by this, I'd rather real gamers get their hands on it than scalpers.
If you are truly interested, I'd jump on preorders when they open, just to be on the safe side.
Hit the nail so hard on the head. PushSquare is the hardcore crowd to a T. We are the exact target market for this. And only 10% of us interested. Extrapolate that to the wider audience and well... this is gonna be ugly.
Don't forget the vertical stand (batteries not included).
Man I used to talk smack on the PS4 Pro back in the day. But compared to this, it looks like the deal of the century. At least it added 4k and enhanced VR compatibility, that was actually a meaningful jump. Now we are splitting hairs about framerate and more foliage. What a joke.
Well PS4 Pro sold 14.3 million lifetime to put it in perspective. That wasn't considered that great at the time, and PS4 Pro certainly had its detractors for sure, but it was objectively a much more attractive package than whatever this is.
It will do a lot more than 100k units because this is Sony we are talking about here. But it will still sell miserably by any measure. I suspect the R&D costs to slap this together were pretty low, I would be soooo curious what their break even point in sales for this would be.
My theory: Sony does a lot of market research - they know full well and with statistical certainty this is going to bomb, but the Pro release is more about refreshing the brand than creating revenue.
It's not marketed to true enthusiasts if it doesn't come standard with a disc drive. I'm not sure who this is for. As it stands, this does less than a base model. No disc drive out of the box is a severe handicap.
I've bought all their new hardware for the last 15 years, day one. I am the target market for this, I think. Bought the PS4 Pro, the VR, the VR2, the Edge controller, the Portal, virtually everything they've put out, a bajillion Sony headsets, all the rest. Multiple PS5s at this point. And I wouldn't touch this with a ten foot pole.
I'm - really - curious to see how many units they move with this. It's cheaper than PC but only just at that price. Though it's not the price that bothers me necessarily is what I'm saying, it's the entire concept of it.
I was hoping for this too. As a total package, this Pro model looks extremely lazy and patchworked together. Doubt there will be any meaningful upgrade to VR2 games like the PS4 Pro offered, unfortunately.
This will bomb. I'd bet my firstborn on it. Price, debatable upgrade, no disc drive for the hardcore crowd that prefers physical. Yup, I'll bet anyone 100 bucks right here, right now this flops bad. I'm not saying that for theatrical effect, who wants to take me up on the bet?
Comments 685
Re: Poll: What Review Score Would You Give Silent Hill 2?
@somnambulance
It's been a great year for third party indies, and I'm really happy about horror games getting a proper resurgence with games like RE4 and Dead Space remakes.
I won't spoil anything but they added new endings to SH2 for the remake and one of them basically supersedes any of the other endings in my own personal head cannon based on how well it was done. Obviously Bloober are massive fans of Silent Hill and it shows. They kept what needed to be kept, and made meaningful changes on top of it in a really masterful way.
Re: Poll: What Review Score Would You Give Silent Hill 2?
@somnambulance
Yeah it definitely gave me RE2 remake vibes, which is a big compliment. I played the original SH 1 and 2 back in the day and loved em, but I like the remake even better.
I'll have to think about it a bit more, but I think this is my favorite horror game of all time now. And I'm a huge horror game buff, I try to play everything I have time for.
Bloober really pulled it off and I am shocked how good they did.
Re: Poll: What Review Score Would You Give Silent Hill 2?
I'd land somewhere between a 9 and a 10.
My only small gripes are it is overall too easy (highly recommend setting combat to hard, even for new players), some of the areas - Toluca Prison and The Labyrinth - are so dark on standard settings on an OLED I can barely see what's going on, and the red effect on the screen when you get injured looks really cheap and is very distracting.
I ended the game with a pharmacy full of healing items and a ton of bullets on normal difficulty, even though I wasn't really conserving anything. I've started a second playthrough on hard and it feels more balanced.
Very small complaints. Overall amazing game.
Re: PLAY, the Last Bastion of PlayStation Print Media, Has Reached Its Final Issue
Man, does anyone remember PSM magazine? That was so cool. There's just nothing like print media.
Re: David Hayter, the Voice of Snake in Metal Gear Solid, Teases Return to the Role
@Oram77
Sutherland definitely lent a different angle to the voice. Sort of a reading-his-lines-over-the-phone, half asleep quality that really established Venom Snake as his own thing.
Re: Tencent, Guillemot Family Reportedly Considering Ubisoft Buyout
Appoint Hermen Hulst as the new CEO of Ubisoft. I mean it would hurt to see him leave Playstation but Ubisoft needs his business genius more right now. It's just the right thing to do.
We'll just have to find some way to go on without him.
Re: Silent Hill 2 (PS5) - The Horror Great Remains So in This Excellent Remake
Well done, Bloober.
Re: Epic Games Boss Says Firm Now 'Financially Sound', Following the Firing of Over 800 Staff
@NEStalgia
Oh absolutely, it all goes back to our Puritan and English common law roots in our legal system, which still influences a lot of what we do and how we do it. At least on the surface. Swearing on the bible for court testimony comes off as almost laughable and quaint in the modern setting, a relic of a relic of a bygone time that somehow survived. I provide some court testimony now and then for work, it always comes off as a bit of a bad joke.
For the lobbying, the law(s) prohibiting it would have to be airtight and prevent alternate backdoor channels of "donations". Sort of how applying trade sanctions creates two dozen other problems / secondary abuses and it becomes this game of whack-a-mole. The law would be have to be written well and foresee these issues in advance. Now I don't know about you, but I don't have that kind of faith in our elected representatives to pull this off. But in theory, it could be done. In theory.
If the problem is cultural, we are all screwed. Once something becomes baked in to how we think and act as a society, nothing short of a megaton bomb can change it. Let's hope it isn't that and we are being overly pessimistic here. I have faith that there are a lot of people out there who still believe in equity in their business dealings and wouldn't cheat even when presented an opportunity to do so. I don't think a lot of these commenters, if placed in this CEO's position, would go through with these layoffs. Now maybe that's because they are naive to the business realities, but regardless I think that most here would take a 5% pay cut to their multimillion dollar salaries to make it happen. I truly believe most people are good. Its just by design the good people, who outnumber the bad, are not given these positions of authority. Of course we have all heard the studies that CEOs and executives test well above average for psychopathy, narcissism, and other personality disorders. It's a feature, not a bug.
To bring the scope in a bit, look at scalpers. They exist in significant numbers, sure, but on the whole the general audience feels the act is unethical, even if only because it negatively affects them. I believe some people over time develop this idea they can or even need to cheat to get ahead, that to believe anything else is to be a rube. And this is generally a result of them being treated unfairly or cheated in the past themselves. They feel being a cynic means they are more aware of the reality when ironically they completely lack self-awareness. Being cynical is very "in" right now, unfortunately, a product of an overall lack of faith in any formal institution - religious, social, or governmental. And granted, those institutions haven't given them much good reason to have any trust.
I guess my point is there will always be "cheaters", but most people aren't and can freely recognize bad conduct. We just need to stop giving the outlier bad faith actors positions of power. Or at least I need to believe this to maintain my sanity.
Re: Assassin's Creed Shadows Reportedly Has a Co-Op Game Mode in Development
@Ainu20
Trust me, I remember a better time where Ubisoft put out good stuff - the first couple Assassin's Creed games, some original IP like Child of Light, and the awesome Rayman Origins and Legends come to mind. They have talent. Further back into the PS1 and PS2 era they were a truly impressive and creative company.
I don't want anyone to lose their jobs, but my logic here is if the company goes under, that talent will be snapped up quickly by other devs or publishers. It's an institutionally rotten company for sure, but there's always some good with the bad.
If there was a path forward for them to be better, I can't help but think they would have already pursued that. This has been a long time in the making. Maybe if they sell and get new management, scale down, and change up their business model? I really don't know. Here's to hoping.
Re: First Review Scores for PS5's Metaphor: ReFantazio, Silent Hill 2 Are Glowing
I was pretty hard on Bloober and was a big detractor of the decision to allow them to do the remake. If this turns out good, I will never have been more happy to eat my words. I don't put much stock in Famitsu by itself, but other preview footage and impressions have been really positive as well. I'm excited and will give it a go.
If it's good, let them have Silent Hill 3 and 4 and maybe eventually a new entry.
Re: Crickets as Suicide Squad Endures Another Muted Launch
Wasn't WB considering divesting itself of its video game business a couple years back? After seeing the microtransaction hellscape they turned Mortal Kombat into, I wouldn't shed any tears.
Re: Assassin's Creed Shadows Reportedly Has a Co-Op Game Mode in Development
Call it Schadenfreude, but I am so ready for this company to die. Ubisoft, EA, Activision, and TakeTwo are the Axis of Evil of video game publishers as far as I'm concerned.
Ignore the discussion about DEI and historical accuracy that is dominating the news cycle, there are so many other totally legitimate reasons this company is where it is. A culture of sexual harassment, predatory microtransactions, live service push, uninspired releases. This didn't happen overnight. They check all the boxes.
Re: Epic Games Boss Says Firm Now 'Financially Sound', Following the Firing of Over 800 Staff
@NEStalgia
Yeah the Supreme Court is definitely apolitical and known for its sound legal decisions, as evidenced by the Jim Crow rulings.
I always found it kinda funny how we Americans ascribe an almost divine infallibility to the decisions of the Supreme Court, like it's the Pope making papal decrees. Until recently that is, with US approval ratings of the Supreme Court nosediving to finally join nearly every other public institution in the doldrums of public opinion.
Corps will do whatever they can get away with doing legally. They internally weigh violating laws and regulations through the lense of 'will this action net more profit than the potential fines / lawsuits?' It's an actual managerial accounting task. They literally do risk-benefit assessments to determine whether or not they follow the law, as the only penalty is monetary, something they tend to have quite a bit of. And they get to do this while having all the rights and protections of a person. No accountability anywhere you look in this system.
Meanwhile, the FTC and SEC (the supposed check on corporate abuses) are about as toothless as my 90 year-old grandmother and have been for decades. The corporations know it. In this environment, decisions like these mass layoffs are not only expected outcomes, they are inevitable.
Banning corporate political donations (lobbying) would cure about 60% of this country's ills in one swoop. It gets talked about now and then, but not with any earnestness and usually only as a bad-faith political platform for some up-and-comer to campaign on. But I guess I'm not telling anyone anything they don't already know.
Re: Sony Fights Scalpers in Japan By Demanding PS5, PS4 Playtime
I think there are a couple workable ways to lock out scalpers from their online storefront. Whether it's trophy count, hours played, or age of the account.
But that would require effort. And I remind everyone this is the same company that took 4 years to add customized themes to the PS5 UI, a feature which still hasn't been fully implemented.
And just forget about third party retailers doing anything about this. They have absolutely zero incentive to do so and Sony has no leverage to compel them to change. The retailers have all the power in that relationship.
My position has always been there is a legitimate financial incentive for Sony to keep this hardware out of the hands of scalpers; if a PS5 is sitting in a closet waiting to be sold at an extortionate mark-up, that's Sony missing out on game, DLC, and microtransaction revenue from a legitimate end user. How much money did Sony lose as a result of the PS5 scalping debacle which lasted every bit of two straight years? Millions? Billions? All because they couldn't be bothered to assign a team of competent people to the task for a couple weeks to work it out.
But I think by writing this I just put more thought into it than Sony execs have over the course of the previous 4 years.
Re: Lords of the Fallen PS5 Sequel Prioritising 'Elevated Production Values', More 'Commercial' Art Style
A more "commercial" art style? Sounds enthralling. Sign me up.
Re: Epic Games Boss Says Firm Now 'Financially Sound', Following the Firing of Over 800 Staff
@NEStalgia
Too bad the US Supreme Court classified corporations as a "person", being granted all the benefits and none of the disadvantages of an individual, in an act that required the most insane mental gymnastics of any legal opinion I've ever read.
You can thank political lobbying for that one. Money, money, money.
Re: Sony Fights Scalpers in Japan By Demanding PS5, PS4 Playtime
@MinervaX
I'm guessing they'll do a second run of the 30th Anniversary edition or alternatively standalone plates within the next 12 months. Just a random guess but seems like releasing 12,300 for the entire world was more of a marketing gimmick than anything, and a wider release will follow down the road.
Re: Fans Appear to Be Coming Around to PS5 Pro
Sub-50% buy-in on a dedicated, hardcore PS website isn't promising. You can't spin this.
Re: Bickering Begins Over PS5 Pro's Inability to Sell Out
I think market goodwill is a currency that Sony is blowing through with nearly every decision they make. You can get by for a long time off past successes, but each bad decision is another brick in the wall, to quote a really obscure song from the late 70s. These companies used to assign at least some intangible value to brand image and protected it at all costs. Now seems like they don't care. The idea was 3 bucks in a year is better than a dollar today. You know, an investment. Now, they want the short term gains no matter the long term cost.
They push and push and push for each and every little dollar to pump those quarterly profits until one day, the goodwill is gone, and the well is dried up. It happens slowly, then all at once. Iterative, samey releases with expensive cost of entry, both in hardware and software. Ubisoft is learning this lesson after making short term bets for close to 20 years now, with no thought to the future. It finally caught up to them, 14 Assassin's Creed games later. They took the easy, fast money route at nearly every juncture and well look now.
Anyways, two points: the PS5 Pro preorders on PS Direct don't require payment until shipment, and there was a concern they would sell out quickly online. So I imagine a lot of people submitted a preorder just to sit on it while they mull the cost over. Meaning, I believe a lot of preorders will be cancelled closer to release after people realize they aren't going out of stock and once the FOMO dissipates.
PS4 Pro was 12-14% of total lifetime PS4 sales according to estimates. I still stand by this won't move half that amount, percentage wise. Still guessing under 5 million lifetime sales, unless it reveals some new functionality before launch beyond what's already been shown. Under 5 million might be viewed as a success internally by Sony, I'm sure they have this all projected out in graphs and bar charts based on market research.
Sony had 4 whole years to sell me on a Pro. In their releases, their UI, their customer responsiveness, their pricing models, etc. It was a 4 year long job interview. They answered nearly all the questions wrong, and suffice to say, they won't be making the cut with me. A key error was prioritizing cross-gen PS4 releases for short term gain, stunting the base PS5 significantly.
I guess what I'm saying in a nutshell is even though it seems like Sony is getting a pass on everything it is doing now, consequences will manifest down the road. Every bad call they make now - every price increase amidst a looming recession, every lazy port, every day they don't communicate their release schedule properly, every expensive hardware offering - is less PS6 units sold in the future.
But hey, that's a problem for the next CEO and the speculative investors can always sell when the stock dips as a result of institutional mismanagement, so who cares.
Re: Slitterhead Is the Siren Successor for PS5, PS4 You've Been Craving
Hope this is good. One positive about this generation and the previous one is it has been a second golden age for horror games. There was a time, like late oughts, where horror games were pretty few and far between
Re: Dark Fantasy Adventure The Midnight Walk Flares Up on PS5, PSVR2 in Spring
Loved Lost in Random, feel that's a true PS5 hidden gem. Will be looking forward to this.
Re: Ubisoft Backs Out of Tokyo Game Show at Eleventh Hour, Cancels Livestream
Open world slop factory.
Assassin's Creed 38: Electric Boogaloo
Re: Dev Behind PS5, PC Flop Concord Could Close as Director Steps Down
Firewalk, you will not be missed.
Re: Tetsuya Nomura Considers Retirement, and How to End Kingdom Hearts
Nomura isn't my favorite. He is good at starting stories but terrible at putting them together into a cohesive whole. Kingdom Hearts' story is a total mess, he meddled in Rebirth to make the story convoluted and impenetrable.
All his stories "jump the shark" and become ridiculous and so convoluted trying to figure out what is going on is like trying to find meaning in an abstract painting. It's always alternate universes with him. His stuff is pretty predictably chaotic at this point.
Re: Palworld Struck by Nintendo Lawsuit Days Prior to Predicted PS5 Reveal
@anoyonmus
NINJA lawyers
Re: Palworld Struck by Nintendo Lawsuit Days Prior to Predicted PS5 Reveal
Nintendo's lawyers strike again.
Re: Play the Worst Ratchet & Clank on PS5, PS4 with PS Plus Premium
I'll see your Secret Agent Clank and raise you 'Ratchet and Clank: All 4 One' as the worst entry. Gotta remember a big selling point of this game back in the day is it was portable.
Re: Feature: Everything You Can Do in PS5's New Welcome Hub
They need to add an option to have the background theme on the 'Welcome' tab override the game tile backgrounds. So it's an actual theme similar to PS3 / PS4. Also add some custom themes to buy in the store.
Re: PS5 Pro Reveal Is Already Sony's Most Disliked Console Announcement
@NEStalgia
Yeah they marketed themselves like the plucky underdog because they WERE the plucky underdog. They did well for themselves with that angle. Probably a little too well.
Hey, did you ever go PC like you were thinking? How has that experience been for you? Because this seems like a good bookend for me. I'm not supporting this crap anymore.
PushSquare should do a PC-specific sister site.
Re: PS5 Pro Reveal Is Already Sony's Most Disliked Console Announcement
@NEStalgia
That's it in a nutshell. For those of us that know, know. They push these changes incrementally like boiling a frog. This is a market test.
It all started with a 2.99 horse armor DLC. Now we live in microtransaction hell. That was a very gradual thing.
Re: PS5 Pro Reveal Is Already Sony's Most Disliked Console Announcement
@Banjo-
Yeah, definitely, agreed 100%. We all enjoy the same hobby and we want it to be better. Naturally we all have different ideas about that based on our different personal experiences.
I don't get what Sony is doing. I don't get what Microsoft is doing. I grew up playing Final Fantasy on PS1 AND I remember going to HALO LAN parties in my teens. It was about fun, and it was awesome. Money always gets in the way. They always just want more while giving us less, and this console perfectly encapsulates that for me.
I can't believe the PS1 broke into the market by placing itself as the plucky underdog compared to the stoic, corporate, clinical monster it is today. Maybe nostalgia talking a bit there, I don't know. It's unrecognizable to me now. I won't talk about Microsoft or else this comment would be too long. I guess we grew up and things changed.
I just want this hobby to stay as awesome for others as it was for me back then. I don't think people coming in at the PS3/360 and after have any idea how much has been taken away. If they did, they'd demand more. I get certain market realities exist, but customers (not consumers) can always demand more. I hope they vote with their wallets with the Pro.
Re: PS5 Pro Reveal Is Already Sony's Most Disliked Console Announcement
@twitchtvpat
Yeah, everyone should remain respectful. The "You are too poor for this" versus the "If you buy this you are an idiot" remarks help nobody.
If you feel this checks all the boxes for you, then that's it. I worry about the broader market trends associated with this, or the fact it might set a precedent to release digital only consoles going forward. Those are personal concerns, though.
I sincerely hope this bombs, because it represents a future I don't want, i.e. high prices / digital only. Some people aren't too fussed about it though, and I can't really have bad feelings about that.
Re: PS5 Pro Reveal Is Already Sony's Most Disliked Console Announcement
@Banjo-
I never thought I'd agree with you on anything, but hell might be freezing over. Because you hit the nail on the head here. To add to your points, the main point of contention for me is not the price, it is the removal of the disc drive.
The demographic they are targeting and that has the money to buy this is still attached to physical media more than any other subsection of the market. And they pulled the disc drive. So who is this for?
It's not for little Fortnight Billy buying vBucks with his mom's credit card or COD Bro #73859593. And at that same time it isn't exactly a premium product either made to target the bleeding market hardcore crowd, is it? Considering they removed a major component of the base model.
I... really don't get this.
Re: PS5 Pro Reveal Is Already Sony's Most Disliked Console Announcement
@roe
That's the thing, I'm guessing R&D costs for this were pretty low. They added a new GPU and racing stripes on the side, essentially. It has a slightly different form factor but similar enough they can make it compatible with the disc drive attachment. It's 95% the same thing as the base model.
I think this is a cheap patchwork overall. Mark Cerny probably put it together over the course of a weekend in his basement. And I think that was intentional because I'm sure they don't anticipate blockbuster sales on this.
Re: Prospective PS5 Pro Buyers Cause Surge in Disc Drive Sales
Called it yesterday in another push square article about the disc drive add ons selling out after this announcement. Sony doesn't seem to keep a lot of certain items on hand. The Dualsense Edge stick modules have been sold out for months and have been targeted by scalpers.
Ever since the PS5 scalping bonanza I was always wondering, do these guys like get together and coordinate their schemes together? Turns out that yeah, there are forums all these scumbags hang out and discuss what the next thing they are gonna scalp / sell shopping bots to each other. Disc drive add on seems like a prime target right now.
Re: 'It Makes Sense Why the PS5 Pro Price Is So High,' Say Tech Experts
Funny, I remember they made the EXACT same argument at the launch of the PS3. "It's actually a good deal for what you are getting because it has a Blu-ray player."
Yeah a $200,000 Ferrari is probably a good deal for what you get, doesn't mean people can afford it. The PS3 launched at that price and Sony spent the vast majority of that gen catching up to Xbox.
Re: 'It Felt Like Putting New Glasses On,' Claims First PS5 Pro Hands On
Well for less than the price of a PS5 Pro, you can go out and buy a pair of glasses CNET. Heck, pick up two pairs.
Re: Despite Price Point, Analyst Firm Expects PS5 Pro to Sell Like PS4 Pro
I owned two PS4 Pros. I will not be buying this.
This analysis is incorrect and extremely superficial / doesn't dig into the context of the situation.
I don't see it breaking 5 million lifetime. These analysts are almost constantly wrong, about everything.
Re: How to Pre-Order PS5 Pro
@kyleforrester87
Okay, you got me with this one.
Re: Poll: Are You Sold on PS5 Pro?
@NEStalgia
It better rub my feet and tell me I'm pretty.
We need Jack Tretton back. Good lord, what are we gonna do with this company.
Re: How to Pre-Order PS5 Pro
Well, this is about as nasty as it gets. Won't be participating, but just a heads up to people, Playstation Direct has a tendency to run out of stock on accessories. If you are sure you are gonna preorder this and know you are gonna want the disc drive attachment, I'd pick the drive attachment up now as those might go out of stock if their other item outages (RIP Edge stick module stock) are any indication.
Re: Poll: Are You Sold on PS5 Pro?
@SoulChimera
I mean, they gotta know what the demand is for this, so the only difficulty I can foresee is they just don't make that many. The online reaction to this has been astoundingly negative across all channels and corners of the internet. Absolutely getting blasted, everywhere. The YouTube official reveal video is getting ratioed to the depths. I'm honestly surprised they haven't disabled comments yet, it's that bad.
Buuuuut, that means better odds for those that are interested, so that's 👍. Despite me being somewhat disgusted by this, I'd rather real gamers get their hands on it than scalpers.
If you are truly interested, I'd jump on preorders when they open, just to be on the safe side.
Re: Poll: Are You Sold on PS5 Pro?
@SoulChimera
On the plus side, based on the comments, sounds like you won't have much competition to snag one.
Re: Don't Worry, You Can Add an Ultra HD Disc Drive to PS5 Pro
@Boxmonkey
Hit the nail so hard on the head. PushSquare is the hardcore crowd to a T. We are the exact target market for this. And only 10% of us interested. Extrapolate that to the wider audience and well... this is gonna be ugly.
Re: Don't Worry, You Can Add an Ultra HD Disc Drive to PS5 Pro
@NoCode23
Don't forget the vertical stand (batteries not included).
Man I used to talk smack on the PS4 Pro back in the day. But compared to this, it looks like the deal of the century. At least it added 4k and enhanced VR compatibility, that was actually a meaningful jump. Now we are splitting hairs about framerate and more foliage. What a joke.
Re: Don't Worry, You Can Add an Ultra HD Disc Drive to PS5 Pro
@Shakybeeves
Well PS4 Pro sold 14.3 million lifetime to put it in perspective. That wasn't considered that great at the time, and PS4 Pro certainly had its detractors for sure, but it was objectively a much more attractive package than whatever this is.
It will do a lot more than 100k units because this is Sony we are talking about here. But it will still sell miserably by any measure. I suspect the R&D costs to slap this together were pretty low, I would be soooo curious what their break even point in sales for this would be.
My theory: Sony does a lot of market research - they know full well and with statistical certainty this is going to bomb, but the Pro release is more about refreshing the brand than creating revenue.
Re: Poll: Are You Sold on PS5 Pro?
@wildcat_kickz
It's not marketed to true enthusiasts if it doesn't come standard with a disc drive. I'm not sure who this is for. As it stands, this does less than a base model. No disc drive out of the box is a severe handicap.
I've bought all their new hardware for the last 15 years, day one. I am the target market for this, I think. Bought the PS4 Pro, the VR, the VR2, the Edge controller, the Portal, virtually everything they've put out, a bajillion Sony headsets, all the rest. Multiple PS5s at this point. And I wouldn't touch this with a ten foot pole.
I'm - really - curious to see how many units they move with this. It's cheaper than PC but only just at that price. Though it's not the price that bothers me necessarily is what I'm saying, it's the entire concept of it.
Re: All PS5 Pro Compatible Games
@Yozora146_
I was hoping for this too. As a total package, this Pro model looks extremely lazy and patchworked together. Doubt there will be any meaningful upgrade to VR2 games like the PS4 Pro offered, unfortunately.
Re: Don't Worry, You Can Add an Ultra HD Disc Drive to PS5 Pro
@PsBoxSwitchOwner
I dunno. We will have to consult the experts. Let's say, a flop is under 4 million lifetime sales. I offer 2:1 odds. Any takers lol?
Re: Don't Worry, You Can Add an Ultra HD Disc Drive to PS5 Pro
@Member_the_game
This will bomb. I'd bet my firstborn on it. Price, debatable upgrade, no disc drive for the hardcore crowd that prefers physical. Yup, I'll bet anyone 100 bucks right here, right now this flops bad. I'm not saying that for theatrical effect, who wants to take me up on the bet?