jrt87

@DaniPooo I get all that.

My point is even in smaller production quantities, many of the people they'd hope to be targeting with this aren't happy with the value proposition and won't be buying (at launch, at least).

@LogicStrikesAgain I'm not the guy you originally replied to, but that's ok.

@LogicStrikesAgain Because the taxes vary from State to State.

(I'm half-American/half-Brit so had many years to ponder these subtle differences).

@EddieGallad Sure thing, tough guy.

@MrMagic I didn't realise you could take the PS5 Pro on a plane and play games on an OLED screen off a battery. Cerny should have told us, might have softened the blow of the suggested RRP.

@johnedwin If you're going to be silly and assert something without proof, I'm just going to ignore it and wish you a good evening. I'm not into the Console fanboy wars nonsense.

@bindiana The overwhelming number of comments across all PS5 Pro stories since 4.10pm have been critical + social media is a bloodbath. This is a Playstation enthusiast website where the most positivity should be found, yet it's scant. This isn't going to sell well at all unless they come out with a charm offensive and alter their value proposition (ie, cut out trying to nickle and dime us for a plastic stand, for a start).

What is it even for? So I can play Rebirth at 60fps without blurry graphics? Something that should have been the case on base PS5 in the first place. The devs even admitted to it, patched the demo to "fix it" and made it look even worse.

The Pro is not good value to somebody who already owns a PS5 (vast majority of us) just because an equivalent PC rig + setup is two to three times as much.

My M2 ShotTriggers titles will never have looked or played better!

@DaniPooo I'm fairly certain Sony would prefer readers of a Playstation enthusiast site to upgrade and not 'stick with what they have'. They have probably calculated that the people who only buy Fifa and CoD every autumn will be 'sticking with what they have'.

You and a dozen other posters on here may be Fry - Take My Money.jpeg on this, but that isn't going to translate into a sale success in Sony's eyes.

@StrickenBiged

The PS4 Pro's market share was 20% of all Playstation 4 owners.

This is a poll on a site of Playstation enthusiasts and 80% aren't interested.

Wouldn't trust Square Enix as far as I can throw them to patch Rebirth competently so as to have 60fps w/ acceptable image quality.

At least we've finally somewhat of an admission from them that their excessively blurry performance mode was unacceptable.

Having gone with Midnight Black plates and black Dualsense a few years ago, I'd probably need to add slim black plates to the separate HDD and vertical stand purchase.

Concord and then this? Sony having a great week! People will say "but but they'll sell out", but how many are they producing at this price point?

Looking at £400-500 to upgrade to Pro with disc drive if you flog base model for £300 (that resell price will crater soon, too).

Madness.

@redd214 Base PS5 resell prices about to crash. Probably looking at £400-£500 "upgrade" price if you want a Pro and disc drive.

What were they thinking?

£700 and no disc drive?

Wow. No chance.

@30fps60fps

Xbox has effectively tried that with the Series consoles, and it's causing all manner of problems.

30fps is the secret shame of the game development industry. The lowest accepted standard for getting a game out there if you're struggling with optimisation and/or your publisher insists you cheap out on dev budget.

Why would you ever market a console around such a known inferiority? 30fps is not a feature, it's a compromise. One that's being increasingly rejected by console consumers outside of the masses who only buy COD and Fifa every autumn (whose games are typically 60fps anyway).

@Pranwell

I agree to an extent. There are definitely going to be some who are saying such things because actually they'd like a Pro, but it's beyond their means.

But as somebody who could afford it with relatively ease, generally likes to be on the cutting edge of tech, and, to be frank, sometimes has poor impulse control — they really need to sell this thing to me. Of course, if I didn't have a very capable PC, it would be an obvious purchase. But there just aren't the exclusives there at present, in my mind.

@KilloWertz Couldn't agree more.

Square Enix, or at least the dev teams on their recent mainline FF titles, are particularly untalented when it comes to technical optimisation on PS5.

Their PC ports leave a lot to be desired, too.

Already double dipped on PC for desktop arcade stick play and Switch for portable accessibility.

May consider it next year if there is enough justification. To begin with, Rebirth finally being at acceptable image quality @ 60fps.

I have Astro Bot and Stellar Blade to play, and they run fine on base PS5. Other big games this year (Silent Hill 2 & Metaphor:ReFantazio) I plan to play on PC.

@carlos82

It's why I typically ignore all the overly positive comments about games in their first few weeks. People who paid over the odds at launch for a game self-validating their purchase before they've got long enough into the game to get frustrated by its repetition and faults.

@FredBiletnikoff @PeaThetic @Deljo

I'm glad I never have to see their off-topic diatribes anymore.

This game looks alright if you like the HP universe, still think it should have been a part of HL, though.

He's right, they should diversify their first party published titles. Just not into live services.

@OldGamer999

I played V on release for PS3. Took about forty hours to complete and never really thought about it again after. Previously played III, Vice City and San Andreas back on OG Xbox back in the early 00s. I mainly enjoyed just screwing around on those older titles with cheat codes enabled, although did finish their stories.

Not sure even one of them would make it into my personal top 50 list, although I appreciate the series' seminality. People can get so angry when you suggest you've very little interest in playing GTA6.

Most overrated series in gaming history. Was fun for a few entries back when the open world sandbox thing was new. Good on the bloke for sticking by his principles and telling them where to get off with that offer.

@the_sultan999 I'd suggest most people on this site have an obsession that others, even within the hobby, would look at as a little too laser focused.

I really like shmups. I have a spreadsheet that catalogues about 300 of them at last count (high score/furthest stage reached on 1 credit/how many credits used to complete etc). When I went to Japan this year I went to Taito Hey! so I could play Senjin Aleste (only in JP arcades) and get a score for it!

I also have spreadsheets for all my favourite genres (survival horror, visual novels, metroidvanias etc). In many ways marking games as 'complete' on those is my platinum trophy.

Actual PS trophies, I can take or leave. I usually play a game and if I'm enjoying it look near the end to see how many I can get to maximise my percentage, but don't really care. I have 18 plats since 2019 when I started my current PS account.

@donv2135 Your asserting something blindly and quite frankly sounding a little silly. Please provide evidence that single player games published by Sony Interactice Entertainment like GoW: Ragnarok, HFW & Spiderman 2 have lost money. Maybe Stellar Blade and Rise of the Ronin earlier in the year? You can take it back further to R&C: RA & Demon's Souls etc if you want. Maybe Astro Bot will be a financial loss?

We do know the likes of Destruction All-Stars and Concord absolutely have lost Playstation money. A LOT of money. Helldivers 2 has done ok. Sony do not need live services to fund single player games. If anything, it's the reverse.

Not a fanboy. I've owned every home console and a PC since the PS2/XB/GC and I am perfectly entitled to express my dissatisfaction with Sony's direction as a long time customer. If you cannot handle contrary opinions than perhaps consider logging off yourself.

'You’re feeling conflicted right now, aren’t you?'

No.

Updating a single player game with a small promotion for a sequel or adjacent title is not comparable to spending $200m on Concord.

@QiaraIris 'Please think of the developers' is a virtue signal. Nothing more, nothing less.

The team — succeed together, fail together — took a paycheque for 8 years and failed in their objective despite receiving heaps of free feedback from prospective customers.

@Mintie Firewalk Studios is washed and their name is tainted beyond rescue. Sony will downsize and rename the studio or skuttle it and redeploy a few of the staff to other teams.

Wasn't on my radar but may give this a look-in on a future Steam sale as it looks really good.

@LifeGirl How many microtransactions and battle passes would they have to sell to fund the full character redesign; promote the relaunch, run the servers and pay even a skeleton crew to maintain it?

Ain't no redemption arc for this dogwater.

@Frmknst Deluded that you think it will. It's a tax write-off.

@Enigk

This is Sony's New Coke moment. You will never hear another peep about Concord aside from in a statement on Firewalk's downsizing/closure. This curio on Amazon is its epitaph.

Was more than happy to digitally preorder this as I had every faith. Hopefully it will sell gangbusters and knock some sense into the Sony higher-ups about what their install base actually wants.

@Trapdoor Moribund company. Wouldn't be surprised if they drop shipped half their orders these days.

Game won't be worth anything in decades to come, this is a short-term cash grab. Tens of thousands of physical copies of Concord will have been produced and will find their way out into the wild. Many thousands will keep them sealed. They won't be rare.

@donv2135 I suspect you're the type of person who wanted posters to be quiet about their views on Concord, too.

You can stick your fingers in your ears all you want, but when people who've owned Sony consoles going back thirty years are starting to consider moving on it's a sign that something's not going right with the direction of the PS brand.

Unimaginative live services and janky overlong AAAA open worlds tanking. BM:W and (hopefully) Astro Bot achieving huge sales.

Keep voting with your wallets!

@PsBoxSwitchOwner

You're correct about MS moving on from Redfall.

Into a death spiral that's led to them announcing the PS5 release date of a first party, presumed exclusive, as a "just one more thing" at a major game show.

Hulst either needs letting go by his bosses or he needs to make quick, decisive pivots and communicate that to the PS install base. That has to start with the cancellation of Fairgames.

I've already made my mind up that I won't be buying a PS5 Pro. After Astro Bot I cannot see what my next PS5 game will be other than the small catalogue of PSVR2 titles I have/are out soon (newish £350 price drop PSVR2 adopter).

The likes of Metaphor: Refantazio/Silent Hill 2 and MGS3: Delta will be played on PC and I'm even going to sell the physical Stellar Blade I own and wait on the PC release, too.

My Series X has already been effectively mothballed by Microsoft's strategy and Sony aren't doing much better. PC and Switch mostly for me nowadays.

@StrickenBiged Thank you for a sensibly written, straight forward take on this. Irregular pronoun use is exceptionally rare and you basically never see/hear of it outside of social media bios or people arguing online. I saw them suggested last year on a Specsaver's staff member's name tag and that's the only example I can think of.

This game did not fail because the developers included pronouns on the character selection screen, but it is extremely revealing of the type of bubble the dev team live in that they thought it pertinent to put them in there.

They said the same about Concord.

If Sony are going to turn this around they need to act decisively and cancel Fairgames immediately. The dollar sign and the cringe r/antiwork premise & dialogue will sink it alone, nevermind it being another unwanted live service.

@Old-Red Game won't ever be worth a damn thing, not now, not ever.

They obviously produced tens of thousands of the physical copies and most will find their way into the wild and everybody out there will have the same idea about picking it up and retiring on it in 2060.

All they'll have is a cheap recycled plastic case, the artwork inlay and a shiny coaster.

This is a soft cancellation, it won't come back in any form. Herman Hulst needs to address the Sony fanbase and tell them in what ways he intends to regain their trust and reverse the Ryan legacy. The immediate cancellation of Fairgames would be a good start.

Buy Astro Bot and let's show Sony what we really want. The first live services were lightning in a bottle that became separate industries all unto themselves as for many of the younger generation, they are gaming. Nothing can ever hope to replicate the success of Fortnite, CoD and Roblox et al. The bubble has burst. Sony need to learn this.

So many of these studios hire for projects and then trim down before hiring for the next one? Seems to be a cycle/trade-off you have to get used to if you want to work in the industry.

Not one I'd ever want to work in or raise a family with.

If you listened to most games journalists last month you'd now be the proud owner of both Concord and Dustborn.

@Oz_Who_Dat_Dare

Investigating the working culture of game devs is the remit of the IGN journalist who wrote the initial articles about Game Science.

I hope they put the same dilligence into Firewalk and see if there are truth to the rumours regarding "the Professor".