Its not as simple as that. While the PSVR and PSVR2 headsets seem similar since they are both VR headsets with some sort of camera based tracking, at the hardware level they are as different as PS5 controller and a HOTAS. The raw input (which is what most games will be reading, rather than some high level VR API) will be incredibly difficult and unlikely to work in most cases.
That's not even mentioning the custom in-game calibration tools in many games that directly use the camera and its raw input.
To be clear, I am not excusing Sony, these problems were solved with convergent high level APIs on the PC before the PSVR existed, so they should have designed it better so that a remapping could easily be done; but I do not think they did, and don't think its possible for them to do so at a system level.
I love the design of the PSVR2, and the controllers are pretty great; but the headset is physically painful to wear! Even with the Globular Cluster mod (which unfortunately doesn't change the facial interface). I wish Sony put more effort here, rather than supporting third party devices.
@LuXifer I am in a similar boat (except I stopped at 4). Mostly because 5, and 6 were not released in the US until over a decade later on the NDS, and by the time VII released I had forgotten about the series.
While I was a big fan of DQ/DW in the early years (1-4), I kind of lost touch with the series until the phenomenal DQ11. Going to be playing through the ones I missed eventually, a remaster would be nice, though I prefer OG hardware.
@MrHabushi
Sony will not keep supporting older titles indefinitely. Its costly and they will eventually discontinue updates; however that's not really the main issue.
Sony could also get out of the gaming business entirely; maybe SteamDeck (or new SteamBoxes?) get so popular that they no longer see a point, or maybe they make an incredibly stupid mistake that irreparably damages the brand, or any number of possibilities.
The point isn't to think about the myriad of what-ifs, just that there is a very real possibility that 10/20/30 years from now the games will no longer be playable and I do not want to support the "games are ephemeral" mindset.
Tangentially related, my ISP was having issues recently and we were without stable internet for over two weeks.
@MeanBeanEgg (Note: I am speaking generally, not about this or that game specifically)
Take this to its logical extreme, imagine a game that is so obviously bad that only one person in the world bought it, and they gave it a 8/10. Should we discount the opinions of the rest of the world that recognized a stinker before spending their money on it, because their opinions are not valid unless they paid for the game? Should this game go down in history as a great game, an 8/10, or should it be recognized that its flaws were obvious enough that one could easily make a judgment on the game without having bought it?
I don't agree with reviewing a game that you haven't done any kind of research on; but I also don't think that you have to buy the game for your opinion on it to matter either. Do I know the solution? No. But discounting all voices that didn't buy the game is going to give you a very slanted viewpoint.
Controversy aside, how much a long awaited game that is a sequel to a beloved franchise sells in its first month is mostly irrelevant. Many people will buy the game based on expectations and history. Its long tail (how it sells over time) and how many buy the next one, is a far more telling metric.
Unfortunately, I think 2024 was lukewarm year for console gaming, nothing really excited me or pushed the bar. I think I played more PS4 titles than PS5 this year. Nothing wrong with a nice calm year to catch up on some backlog though.
@Johnnycide It's funny how that ends up the case. Quite a few pieces of entertainment in the gaming sphere this year have come from games that I didn't even play.
@DrVenture69 @MrHabushi Unfortunately An "update" is not a viable solution to me, because the update servers will eventually also be taken down, in which case you wont be able to get the update that disables the requirement.
Granted these are (potentially) long term worries, and many don't care about them; but its a deal breaker for me.
@DrVenture69 The issue (at least for me) isn't about how well it works now, its about the single player game being almost completely unplayable when they eventually shut the servers down for good, which they will, its only a matter of time.
@UltimateOtaku91 The PSP had 24-pin multi AV output port that could connect to a display. It wasn't as useful as the Switch "dock and go" or even the SteamDeck dock; but it did exist.
It depends, if it is independent of the PS5/PS6 (different game library) then no, I do not want this. I do not have unlimited time or money to support two separate ecosystems. IMHO this a contributing factor for the lower adoption of the PSP and PSV.
If its like the the SteamDeck, in that its the same games as its big brother but with different performance profiles, absolutely. Day One.
@UltimateOtaku91 While I do think that there is a bit of politics in the online discourse, I don't think its lower scores are a reflection of that. When commenters make the accusation that its all politics; that discounts the opinions of those that actually just don't like the game.
I say this as someone that genuinely doesn't like the game, and I don't have any issues with its origin. I am actually happy to see more cultures throwing their hat into the ring.
@dancingstar93 Yeah the trials do offer an occasional roadblock to the Duty Support solo play; but they tend to be a lot shorter and have less vitrol; so are not as big of an issue for solo play as dungeons (at least in my experience). It would be nice to see the MSQ ones in Duty Support so you are not reliant on others (especially for DPS).
I wasn't aware that Duty Support works for dungeons that far back though.
@LavenderShroud
About three expansions back, FFXIV added Duty Support, a way for you to play MSQ (Main Scenario Quest) dungeons with an NPC party (and the system actually works well). They started adding support for older content recently, so the requirement to team up for MSQ content is as low at it has ever been.
Of course that's just MSQ content, if you want side content, you will need to team up occasionally.
I have been playing FFXIV since 1.0 and most of the time I play solo; so if you are worried about being forced to team up, don't be. You can play a lot solo, and the few times you have to team up, the Duty Finder makes this fairly painless.
@nomither6
" and didn’t even mention games from the ps2 era with couch co-op too."
I could have been clearer in my original post; but, single-player being just multi-player with bots, or multi-player being just single-player but co-op; are not games I classify as having different multi-player and single-player modes for the purpose of split resources (since the overlap in resources in developing these games is quite high)
I actually enjoy these types of games, and think the extra effort either way is actually worth it.
@nomither6 I don't agree with your list; however I could show an equal list of games that were terrible that had both modes, so cherry picking some that happen to work doesn't really prove anything.
Its irrelevant anyway; because I didn't say that there are not good games that have both modes, just that if the resources that were split between both modes, were given to a single dedicated mode that the game would better.
I am not trying to argue with you about your tastes or what you think works or what you want, or that what you want is wrong and what I want is right. My entire point was that we have different opinions, and they can often be mutually exclusive so its difficult for developers to decide who they are going to listen to.
@nomither6 I disagree. The two modes co-existing has never "worked" imo. Mathematically resources (time, money, etc...) used on one aspect, are resources not available to the other aspect (with very little overlap). Even if you manage a decent game with a split resources, it just means that the game (either half) could have been so much better if it were the only focus.
With that said, if I am being honest, my desire for separation is in part (a big part) because I abhor multiplayer, and I don't want to be forced to play it to get the trophies for a single player game, and I am bitter about it.
@Monstermash40 Being a sequel to an older game most certainly played a role; but even with a lot more people going digital as you mention (anywhere from 60/40 to 40/60 depending on where and when you check), we can average it to 50/50, that means you are losing 50% of potential buyers, which is no small number. Combine these two issues, and its pretty easy to see why it sold poorly.
The number going all digital is misleading though, for example a lot of the digital only buyers, are a newer generation of gamers, which don't hold older games in as high regard. So the target audience for a sequel to a much older game? I would wager that they lean more heavily in the physical direction than the digital. A new IP or a sequel to a more modern game might be different and skew the other direction.
If all 4 million sales were at launch price $70, then that's 280 million gross. 30% loss for the platform holder fee would be 196 million profit.
If its anything like Control, it won't hit 3-4 million in that $70 launch window, it will be a long tail. For example Control Ultimate Edition (all the DLC) has very regularly been on sale for $9.99 (and has gone as low as $7.99). (I don't know the price for the base game).
If we went by that price (say $10 for a round number) then 4 million sales would be 40 million gross, or 28 million after the platform holder fees.
The actual profit will be a mixture of these two; and depending on the initial few months sales, will probably be more of the latter than the former.
@Monstermash40 I can't speak for everyone, only myself and some other commenters that I see online; but Alan Wake 2 originally launched Digital Only, and even though I loved Control and and Alan Wake, Digital Only is a no-go.
They eventually released it physically, but I only found out about it accidentally, since I had already written the game off as a no-play.
How many others don't even know it had a physical release? How many have written it off the same way I had? How many aren't willing to pay $80 for a physical copy of year old game?
The audience for different games have different digital/physical splits, and we don't have enough information to tell if this was a large contributing factor, or just a small dent in the overall potential sales; but it paints a pretty clear picture from my point of view.
Maybe I am the odd one out; but looking at these lists; makes me sad for the last year of gaming. Is this really the best of 2024? 2025 can't come fast enough.
@OmegaStriver I want single player titles that are at least 30+ hours with no funding going to some tacked on multiplayer. If you are going to make a multiplayer game, make a multiplayer game, if you are going to make a single player game, make a single player game; and if I am spending $60-$70 for a game, I want 30+ hours worth of entertainment out of it.
The industry is so divided because we are so divided. Different players with different tastes want a different experience which are often opposing or mutually exclusive experiences so if you make group A happy, it angers group B, and vise versa.
@Oxy I love these smaller budget or indie games; but I will not buy a digital only game. Unfortunately, lower budget and no physical release, often go hand-in-hand.
Sometimes, I am lucky enough to get them at LimitedRunGames and similar places; but that only works for a handful of titles and only if I happen to know I want to play a game at the same time they are doing their print runs.
@Dynamq How is using money that you earn, for things you want, "Lack of basic life knowledge"?
If you can barely afford to eat/pay-bills and you are spending the money you should be using for rent, on a PS5 Pro, sure. But if all your bills are paid, and you have disposable income; what does it matter what you choose to spend it on? You could light it on fire if it makes you happy, you earned it, do what you want with it.
To the topic at hand, they absolutely should have the option to use the old modes. Even a "good" patch might have trade-offs that I am not willing to make on a game-by-game basis, so it would be great to be able to turn that off. A simple solution would be to allow you (at the system level) to toggle PS5/PS5 Pro flag on a per-game basis.
@PuppetMaster Currently Fortnite makes $26 BILLION a year (as of 2023). Thats $71 million per month. When taken into context, a $200+ million failure (over multiple years)? That's barely a blip. Sony can easily eat a dozen Concords for the chance at a single Fortnite. This is the golden goose they are chasing.
They do risk devaluing their reputation; but they are trying to buffer this with AAA single player games.
To be clear, I am not excusing what they are doing, just putting it in context.
@PuppetMaster While I agree with you completely as a consumer, the reality is that with a live service game, they can fail multiple times, and have just one success, and still make a lot more money at the end of the day than if they had many single player successes.
The only way this live service craze ends is when the cost of the failures far exceeds the theoretical profit from success. In a real way, Sony (and similar) are playing a game akin to the loot boxes they adore. As long as every now and then they get something decent, they will keep rolling for that big prize.
@Cerny But those 10 new devices are less different year over year than the PS5 to PS5 Pro. I agree that there are way too many PS5 Pro articles; but comparing a mid generation refresh (the second one Sony has ever done) to a company that releases minor incremental changes in a yearly cadence is unfair at best.
@PuppetMaster When one company uses another companies game engine, it usually involves royalty fees, for example Epics Unreal Engine is 5% of the profit. I would assume that a similar deal exists here, which would mean that Sony would still make money on every unit sold, no matter where its sold.
@Cerny The difference there is that Apple releases a LOT of new hardware; and each OS has new wallpapers, so its not a rare or unique event; where as the console manufactures do not do this kind of thing nearly as often, so its notable when they do.
And for what its worth, there used to be a lot of discussion about new Mac OS version wallpapers. If there isn't anymore, its probably because it has become boring and routine.
With that said, I am not a fan of this wallpaper, its too colorful and busy, it feels like clutter.
I felt that the PS4 Pro was a complete waste of money, it was worse than the base PS4 (considerably louder and hotter) and I couldn't notice any improvement in performance or fidelity in the games I played.
I am hopeful that the PS5 Pro will fare better; but only time will tell.
@captainsandman Not sure. There have been RTS games on consoles as long as the genera existed, from Dune 2 (Genesis) to C&C and Warcraft/Starcraft on PS1 and N64, to the most recent (in my memory) C&C RA3 on PS3? And all of them (other than Dune 2) played terribly compared to their PC counter parts. I wonder if its just people buying them hoping that someone has done the impossible and made a great controller interface (like FFXIV did for MMORPGs) only to realize that no, no they haven't.
@Vaako007 I prefer console for nearly everything (I usually just avoid PC only games entirely); but RTS games (and their ilk) are the one exception I make.
As for C&C Generals; I felt it was the start of the decline of C&C. It wasn't terrible but it certainly wouldn't be anywhere on my top list. RA2 for me being "peak C&C".
@Medic_alert While I agree that currently one of the big distinguishing factors for a console is its library and "spreading the love" would dilute that, it doesn't mean that there are not viable solutions to this problem.
This is a pipe-dream (and not going to happen); but it is an example of a win-win scenario: Sony and Microsoft form a coalition where there is one storefront that they both have equal stake in. That 30% cut gets split between them but with a larger portion of that share going to the platform holder that made the sale. A utopia.
@PerpetualBoredom Good to know, I was wanting to get the collection physically; but unwilling to pay outrageous scalper prices for it.
@Melee_Ace They are 30+ year old games; but its not just the ROMS wrapped up in a nice package. They were all completely rebuilt from scratch (in Unity IIRC) so its a considerably more effort than most retro bundles.
The graphics SDK is only one of many components of a platforms dev tools; its the highest profile (most visible) to end-users but it is only one part of the package. Many game engines, either third party, or in-house, abstract the graphics SDK (even PC only titles because there is more than DirectX, like OpenGL, Vulkan, and Metal to name a few), so from a developers perspective this is often irrelevant unless they are building a new engine from scratch.
@Deljo Thats a bit disingenuous, they are not simply buying something and selling it for a profit; they preventing legitimate buyers from getting an item (intentionally) so that they can sell it for considerably more.
@tpepper1985 If you have offline games that seem to be impacted; you might try disabling internet on your playstation and seeing if they work.
Sometimes games will check for a valid internet connection and IF one exists, try and connect to remote servers for some reason (telemetry?) and will fail if the connection to the server fails, rather than fall back to the no internet mode. The same games might work when there is no internet connection to begin with.
I have had this experience with games on the PS3 that lost their servers and would just crash when they were started and had to be played with internet off.
@ThunderFunk I couldn't agree more; however I like to think of it (and any purchase) in a slightly different way:
If you make $X per hour; and a product costs $Y; simply take ($Y / $X) and ask yourself if the product will provide you value that is greater than the effort you spent for those hours.
This is a personal equation, and will change dramatically depending on what your income is. If you make $15/hr, its a hard sell for nearly 48hrs of work. If you make $30+/hr, it becomes a much better value proposition.
@AverageGamer Studios close and are closed all of the time and whether or not a platform specific game is better or worse than a different similar game on another platform; will rarely enter into the equation.
Even sales numbers cannot be compared as a representation of how much better one game is over another, not when talking about different platforms that have different audiences and different ecosystems.
I thought that Drive Club was one of the best racers I have ever played; and Forza doesn't interest me at all.
Its not fanboy-ism, I love the idea of some Microsoft exclusives coming to the PlayStation; and there are plenty of games on other platforms that I wish were on my platform of choice; but Forza just isn't one of them.
@Mikey856 Standing up? Do you mean vertically? (I was only referring to its horizontal orientation) It is definitely a lot more stable vertically; but that is not viable for many setups.
I wish it were, since its clearly designed with a vertical orientation in mind; but I can't think of many setups where vertical would be a good choice.
The launch model of the PS5, on its stand horizontally is very sketchy. The only reason I am looking forward to a PS5 Pro is that it is another opportunity for them to fix that mistake; but I am not holding my breath.
While I would prefer that they leave the content in and didn't have a disclaimer, I know that there are those on the outside that would have an ignorant take on it, so if this is the price to pay to keep the integrity of the game as it was designed (not as we would design it now), I say its worth it.
@Northern_munkey But it doesn't. Not really. I (and many others like me) have a large physical collection and don't really play online games; which means it doesn't have any impact. However if I had digital copies of those games, it would have a serious impact.
In my personal experience, those that prefer physical titles also tend to prefer offline games; which means that even if it impacts a few titles they own, it has very little overall impact.
Comments 1,565
Re: The Talos Principle 1 Returns in a PS5 Remaster with New Content
I have been meaning to play this for awhile now, if the remaster gets a physical version, I might just dive in.
Re: Sony to Make PSVR2 Pads Usable on Apple Vision Pro, New Report Claims
@Max_the_German
Its not as simple as that. While the PSVR and PSVR2 headsets seem similar since they are both VR headsets with some sort of camera based tracking, at the hardware level they are as different as PS5 controller and a HOTAS. The raw input (which is what most games will be reading, rather than some high level VR API) will be incredibly difficult and unlikely to work in most cases.
That's not even mentioning the custom in-game calibration tools in many games that directly use the camera and its raw input.
To be clear, I am not excusing Sony, these problems were solved with convergent high level APIs on the PC before the PSVR existed, so they should have designed it better so that a remapping could easily be done; but I do not think they did, and don't think its possible for them to do so at a system level.
Re: Sony to Make PSVR2 Pads Usable on Apple Vision Pro, New Report Claims
I love the design of the PSVR2, and the controllers are pretty great; but the headset is physically painful to wear! Even with the Globular Cluster mod (which unfortunately doesn't change the facial interface). I wish Sony put more effort here, rather than supporting third party devices.
Re: Outstanding PS2 RPG Dragon Quest 8 Is Now 20 Years Old
@LuXifer I am in a similar boat (except I stopped at 4). Mostly because 5, and 6 were not released in the US until over a decade later on the NDS, and by the time VII released I had forgotten about the series.
Re: Outstanding PS2 RPG Dragon Quest 8 Is Now 20 Years Old
While I was a big fan of DQ/DW in the early years (1-4), I kind of lost touch with the series until the phenomenal DQ11. Going to be playing through the ones I missed eventually, a remaster would be nice, though I prefer OG hardware.
Re: My First Gran Turismo Has Been Rated for Release on PS5, PS4
@MrHabushi
Sony will not keep supporting older titles indefinitely. Its costly and they will eventually discontinue updates; however that's not really the main issue.
Sony could also get out of the gaming business entirely; maybe SteamDeck (or new SteamBoxes?) get so popular that they no longer see a point, or maybe they make an incredibly stupid mistake that irreparably damages the brand, or any number of possibilities.
The point isn't to think about the myriad of what-ifs, just that there is a very real possibility that 10/20/30 years from now the games will no longer be playable and I do not want to support the "games are ephemeral" mindset.
Tangentially related, my ISP was having issues recently and we were without stable internet for over two weeks.
Re: Analyst Says Dragon Age: The Veilguard Had a Good, But Not a Great Launch
@MeanBeanEgg (Note: I am speaking generally, not about this or that game specifically)
Take this to its logical extreme, imagine a game that is so obviously bad that only one person in the world bought it, and they gave it a 8/10. Should we discount the opinions of the rest of the world that recognized a stinker before spending their money on it, because their opinions are not valid unless they paid for the game? Should this game go down in history as a great game, an 8/10, or should it be recognized that its flaws were obvious enough that one could easily make a judgment on the game without having bought it?
I don't agree with reviewing a game that you haven't done any kind of research on; but I also don't think that you have to buy the game for your opinion on it to matter either. Do I know the solution? No. But discounting all voices that didn't buy the game is going to give you a very slanted viewpoint.
Re: Analyst Says Dragon Age: The Veilguard Had a Good, But Not a Great Launch
Controversy aside, how much a long awaited game that is a sequel to a beloved franchise sells in its first month is mostly irrelevant. Many people will buy the game based on expectations and history. Its long tail (how it sells over time) and how many buy the next one, is a far more telling metric.
Re: Site News: Write to Us About Your PS5 Game of the Year for 2024
Unfortunately, I think 2024 was lukewarm year for console gaming, nothing really excited me or pushed the bar. I think I played more PS4 titles than PS5 this year. Nothing wrong with a nice calm year to catch up on some backlog though.
Re: Secret Level's Concord Episode Has a Trailer, and It Feels Really Weird
@Johnnycide It's funny how that ends up the case. Quite a few pieces of entertainment in the gaming sphere this year have come from games that I didn't even play.
Re: My First Gran Turismo Has Been Rated for Release on PS5, PS4
@DrVenture69 @MrHabushi Unfortunately An "update" is not a viable solution to me, because the update servers will eventually also be taken down, in which case you wont be able to get the update that disables the requirement.
Granted these are (potentially) long term worries, and many don't care about them; but its a deal breaker for me.
Re: My First Gran Turismo Has Been Rated for Release on PS5, PS4
@DrVenture69 The issue (at least for me) isn't about how well it works now, its about the single player game being almost completely unplayable when they eventually shut the servers down for good, which they will, its only a matter of time.
Re: Talking Point: Would You Want a Steam Deck-Like Portable PlayStation?
@UltimateOtaku91 The PSP had 24-pin multi AV output port that could connect to a display. It wasn't as useful as the Switch "dock and go" or even the SteamDeck dock; but it did exist.
Re: Talking Point: Would You Want a Steam Deck-Like Portable PlayStation?
It depends, if it is independent of the PS5/PS6 (different game library) then no, I do not want this. I do not have unlimited time or money to support two separate ecosystems. IMHO this a contributing factor for the lower adoption of the PSP and PSV.
If its like the the SteamDeck, in that its the same games as its big brother but with different performance profiles, absolutely. Day One.
Re: Black Myth: Wukong Declared Ultimate Game of the Year at the Golden Joystick Awards 2024
@UltimateOtaku91 While I do think that there is a bit of politics in the online discourse, I don't think its lower scores are a reflection of that. When commenters make the accusation that its all politics; that discounts the opinions of those that actually just don't like the game.
I say this as someone that genuinely doesn't like the game, and I don't have any issues with its origin. I am actually happy to see more cultures throwing their hat into the ring.
Re: Huge PS5, PS4 MMO Final Fantasy 14 Is Being Shrunk Down for Mobile
@dancingstar93 Yeah the trials do offer an occasional roadblock to the Duty Support solo play; but they tend to be a lot shorter and have less vitrol; so are not as big of an issue for solo play as dungeons (at least in my experience). It would be nice to see the MSQ ones in Duty Support so you are not reliant on others (especially for DPS).
I wasn't aware that Duty Support works for dungeons that far back though.
Re: Huge PS5, PS4 MMO Final Fantasy 14 Is Being Shrunk Down for Mobile
@LavenderShroud
About three expansions back, FFXIV added Duty Support, a way for you to play MSQ (Main Scenario Quest) dungeons with an NPC party (and the system actually works well). They started adding support for older content recently, so the requirement to team up for MSQ content is as low at it has ever been.
Of course that's just MSQ content, if you want side content, you will need to team up occasionally.
I have been playing FFXIV since 1.0 and most of the time I play solo; so if you are worried about being forced to team up, don't be. You can play a lot solo, and the few times you have to team up, the Duty Finder makes this fairly painless.
Re: Do You Really Want Devs to Make Lower Budget, More Original Games for PS5?
@nomither6
" and didn’t even mention games from the ps2 era with couch co-op too."
I could have been clearer in my original post; but, single-player being just multi-player with bots, or multi-player being just single-player but co-op; are not games I classify as having different multi-player and single-player modes for the purpose of split resources (since the overlap in resources in developing these games is quite high)
I actually enjoy these types of games, and think the extra effort either way is actually worth it.
Re: Do You Really Want Devs to Make Lower Budget, More Original Games for PS5?
@nomither6 I don't agree with your list; however I could show an equal list of games that were terrible that had both modes, so cherry picking some that happen to work doesn't really prove anything.
Its irrelevant anyway; because I didn't say that there are not good games that have both modes, just that if the resources that were split between both modes, were given to a single dedicated mode that the game would better.
I am not trying to argue with you about your tastes or what you think works or what you want, or that what you want is wrong and what I want is right. My entire point was that we have different opinions, and they can often be mutually exclusive so its difficult for developers to decide who they are going to listen to.
Re: Do You Really Want Devs to Make Lower Budget, More Original Games for PS5?
@nomither6 I disagree. The two modes co-existing has never "worked" imo. Mathematically resources (time, money, etc...) used on one aspect, are resources not available to the other aspect (with very little overlap). Even if you manage a decent game with a split resources, it just means that the game (either half) could have been so much better if it were the only focus.
With that said, if I am being honest, my desire for separation is in part (a big part) because I abhor multiplayer, and I don't want to be forced to play it to get the trophies for a single player game, and I am bitter about it.
Re: Remedy Offers Control 2 Insight, AAA Action RPG on €50 Million Budget
@Monstermash40 Being a sequel to an older game most certainly played a role; but even with a lot more people going digital as you mention (anywhere from 60/40 to 40/60 depending on where and when you check), we can average it to 50/50, that means you are losing 50% of potential buyers, which is no small number. Combine these two issues, and its pretty easy to see why it sold poorly.
The number going all digital is misleading though, for example a lot of the digital only buyers, are a newer generation of gamers, which don't hold older games in as high regard. So the target audience for a sequel to a much older game? I would wager that they lean more heavily in the physical direction than the digital. A new IP or a sequel to a more modern game might be different and skew the other direction.
Re: Remedy Offers Control 2 Insight, AAA Action RPG on €50 Million Budget
@3Above
If all 4 million sales were at launch price $70, then that's 280 million gross. 30% loss for the platform holder fee would be 196 million profit.
If its anything like Control, it won't hit 3-4 million in that $70 launch window, it will be a long tail. For example Control Ultimate Edition (all the DLC) has very regularly been on sale for $9.99 (and has gone as low as $7.99). (I don't know the price for the base game).
If we went by that price (say $10 for a round number) then 4 million sales would be 40 million gross, or 28 million after the platform holder fees.
The actual profit will be a mixture of these two; and depending on the initial few months sales, will probably be more of the latter than the former.
Re: Remedy Offers Control 2 Insight, AAA Action RPG on €50 Million Budget
@Monstermash40
I can't speak for everyone, only myself and some other commenters that I see online; but Alan Wake 2 originally launched Digital Only, and even though I loved Control and and Alan Wake, Digital Only is a no-go.
They eventually released it physically, but I only found out about it accidentally, since I had already written the game off as a no-play.
How many others don't even know it had a physical release? How many have written it off the same way I had? How many aren't willing to pay $80 for a physical copy of year old game?
The audience for different games have different digital/physical splits, and we don't have enough information to tell if this was a large contributing factor, or just a small dent in the overall potential sales; but it paints a pretty clear picture from my point of view.
Re: All The Game Awards 2024 Nominees Revealed, Astro Bot Up for 7 Awards
Maybe I am the odd one out; but looking at these lists; makes me sad for the last year of gaming. Is this really the best of 2024? 2025 can't come fast enough.
Re: Do You Really Want Devs to Make Lower Budget, More Original Games for PS5?
@OmegaStriver
I want single player titles that are at least 30+ hours with no funding going to some tacked on multiplayer. If you are going to make a multiplayer game, make a multiplayer game, if you are going to make a single player game, make a single player game; and if I am spending $60-$70 for a game, I want 30+ hours worth of entertainment out of it.
The industry is so divided because we are so divided. Different players with different tastes want a different experience which are often opposing or mutually exclusive experiences so if you make group A happy, it angers group B, and vise versa.
Re: Do You Really Want Devs to Make Lower Budget, More Original Games for PS5?
@Oxy I love these smaller budget or indie games; but I will not buy a digital only game. Unfortunately, lower budget and no physical release, often go hand-in-hand.
Sometimes, I am lucky enough to get them at LimitedRunGames and similar places; but that only works for a handful of titles and only if I happen to know I want to play a game at the same time they are doing their print runs.
Re: Disgruntled PS5 Pro Owners Campaign to Disable Support After Slew of Shoddy Patches
@Dynamq How is using money that you earn, for things you want, "Lack of basic life knowledge"?
If you can barely afford to eat/pay-bills and you are spending the money you should be using for rent, on a PS5 Pro, sure. But if all your bills are paid, and you have disposable income; what does it matter what you choose to spend it on? You could light it on fire if it makes you happy, you earned it, do what you want with it.
To the topic at hand, they absolutely should have the option to use the old modes. Even a "good" patch might have trade-offs that I am not willing to make on a game-by-game basis, so it would be great to be able to turn that off. A simple solution would be to allow you (at the system level) to toggle PS5/PS5 Pro flag on a per-game basis.
Re: Sony Comments on Concord Disaster, Says Game Should Have Been Tested Earlier
@PuppetMaster Currently Fortnite makes $26 BILLION a year (as of 2023). Thats $71 million per month. When taken into context, a $200+ million failure (over multiple years)? That's barely a blip. Sony can easily eat a dozen Concords for the chance at a single Fortnite. This is the golden goose they are chasing.
They do risk devaluing their reputation; but they are trying to buffer this with AAA single player games.
To be clear, I am not excusing what they are doing, just putting it in context.
Re: Sony Comments on Concord Disaster, Says Game Should Have Been Tested Earlier
@PuppetMaster While I agree with you completely as a consumer, the reality is that with a live service game, they can fail multiple times, and have just one success, and still make a lot more money at the end of the day than if they had many single player successes.
The only way this live service craze ends is when the cost of the failures far exceeds the theoretical profit from success. In a real way, Sony (and similar) are playing a game akin to the loot boxes they adore. As long as every now and then they get something decent, they will keep rolling for that big prize.
Re: Hypnotic PS5 Pro Boot Screen, Background Worth the Upgrade
@Cerny But those 10 new devices are less different year over year than the PS5 to PS5 Pro. I agree that there are way too many PS5 Pro articles; but comparing a mid generation refresh (the second one Sony has ever done) to a company that releases minor incremental changes in a yearly cadence is unfair at best.
Re: Death Stranding Gets a Surprise Xbox Series X|S Port, Out Now
@PuppetMaster When one company uses another companies game engine, it usually involves royalty fees, for example Epics Unreal Engine is 5% of the profit. I would assume that a similar deal exists here, which would mean that Sony would still make money on every unit sold, no matter where its sold.
Re: Hypnotic PS5 Pro Boot Screen, Background Worth the Upgrade
@Cerny The difference there is that Apple releases a LOT of new hardware; and each OS has new wallpapers, so its not a rare or unique event; where as the console manufactures do not do this kind of thing nearly as often, so its notable when they do.
And for what its worth, there used to be a lot of discussion about new Mac OS version wallpapers. If there isn't anymore, its probably because it has become boring and routine.
With that said, I am not a fan of this wallpaper, its too colorful and busy, it feels like clutter.
Re: Poll: Did You Buy a PS5 Pro?
I felt that the PS4 Pro was a complete waste of money, it was worse than the base PS4 (considerably louder and hotter) and I couldn't notice any improvement in performance or fidelity in the games I played.
I am hopeful that the PS5 Pro will fare better; but only time will tell.
Re: Xbox Appears to Be Readying More Releases for PS5
@captainsandman Not sure. There have been RTS games on consoles as long as the genera existed, from Dune 2 (Genesis) to C&C and Warcraft/Starcraft on PS1 and N64, to the most recent (in my memory) C&C RA3 on PS3? And all of them (other than Dune 2) played terribly compared to their PC counter parts. I wonder if its just people buying them hoping that someone has done the impossible and made a great controller interface (like FFXIV did for MMORPGs) only to realize that no, no they haven't.
Re: Xbox Appears to Be Readying More Releases for PS5
@Vaako007 I prefer console for nearly everything (I usually just avoid PC only games entirely); but RTS games (and their ilk) are the one exception I make.
As for C&C Generals; I felt it was the start of the decline of C&C. It wasn't terrible but it certainly wouldn't be anywhere on my top list. RA2 for me being "peak C&C".
Re: Poll: What Did You Think of the Monster Hunter Wilds Beta?
I thought it was an overall decent showing, though the multiplayer aspect when trying to play with a group of friends was atrocious.
Re: Xbox Fans Really Want a Port of PS5, PC Hit Helldivers 2
@Medic_alert While I agree that currently one of the big distinguishing factors for a console is its library and "spreading the love" would dilute that, it doesn't mean that there are not viable solutions to this problem.
This is a pipe-dream (and not going to happen); but it is an example of a win-win scenario: Sony and Microsoft form a coalition where there is one storefront that they both have equal stake in. That 30% cut gets split between them but with a larger portion of that share going to the platform holder that made the sale. A utopia.
Re: Soul Reaver 1 & 2 Remastered Reveals Baddies in PS5, PS4 Trailer
I love the Legacy of Kain series; but there doesn't seem to be a physical version announced yet.
Re: Get Back to JRPG Basics with Physical Final Fantasy 1-6 Collection Anniversary Edition on PS4
@PerpetualBoredom Good to know, I was wanting to get the collection physically; but unwilling to pay outrageous scalper prices for it.
@Melee_Ace They are 30+ year old games; but its not just the ROMS wrapped up in a nice package. They were all completely rebuilt from scratch (in Unity IIRC) so its a considerably more effort than most retro bundles.
Re: Get Back to JRPG Basics with Physical Final Fantasy 1-6 Collection Anniversary Edition on PS4
Is this just the same collection that released a couple of years ago that was being scalped for $1000-$2000 USD or is it different in some way?
Re: Microsoft Is Investigating Why Devs Are Prioritising PS5 Over Xbox
@Neither_scene
The graphics SDK is only one of many components of a platforms dev tools; its the highest profile (most visible) to end-users but it is only one part of the package. Many game engines, either third party, or in-house, abstract the graphics SDK (even PC only titles because there is more than DirectX, like OpenGL, Vulkan, and Metal to name a few), so from a developers perspective this is often irrelevant unless they are building a new engine from scratch.
Re: Sony Fights Scalpers in Japan By Demanding PS5, PS4 Playtime
@Deljo Thats a bit disingenuous, they are not simply buying something and selling it for a profit; they preventing legitimate buyers from getting an item (intentionally) so that they can sell it for considerably more.
Re: PSN Was Down But Has Now Been Resolved
@tpepper1985 If you have offline games that seem to be impacted; you might try disabling internet on your playstation and seeing if they work.
Sometimes games will check for a valid internet connection and IF one exists, try and connect to remote servers for some reason (telemetry?) and will fail if the connection to the server fails, rather than fall back to the no internet mode. The same games might work when there is no internet connection to begin with.
I have had this experience with games on the PS3 that lost their servers and would just crash when they were started and had to be played with internet off.
Re: How to Pre-Order PS5 Pro
@ThunderFunk I couldn't agree more; however I like to think of it (and any purchase) in a slightly different way:
If you make $X per hour; and a product costs $Y; simply take ($Y / $X) and ask yourself if the product will provide you value that is greater than the effort you spent for those hours.
This is a personal equation, and will change dramatically depending on what your income is. If you make $15/hr, its a hard sell for nearly 48hrs of work. If you make $30+/hr, it becomes a much better value proposition.
Re: Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions' Snitch Has Been Dramatically Nerfed on PS5, PS4
@NEStalgia This; but then add in a meta game where spectators can cast magic to disrupt the game.
Re: Rumour: Xbox to Announce a 'Big' Game Coming to PS5 at Gamescom
@AverageGamer Studios close and are closed all of the time and whether or not a platform specific game is better or worse than a different similar game on another platform; will rarely enter into the equation.
Even sales numbers cannot be compared as a representation of how much better one game is over another, not when talking about different platforms that have different audiences and different ecosystems.
I thought that Drive Club was one of the best racers I have ever played; and Forza doesn't interest me at all.
Its not fanboy-ism, I love the idea of some Microsoft exclusives coming to the PlayStation; and there are plenty of games on other platforms that I wish were on my platform of choice; but Forza just isn't one of them.
Re: PS5 Pro Still Likely to Launch This Year, Tokyo Game Show Reveal Possible
@Mikey856 Standing up? Do you mean vertically? (I was only referring to its horizontal orientation) It is definitely a lot more stable vertically; but that is not viable for many setups.
I wish it were, since its clearly designed with a vertical orientation in mind; but I can't think of many setups where vertical would be a good choice.
Re: PS5 Pro Still Likely to Launch This Year, Tokyo Game Show Reveal Possible
The launch model of the PS5, on its stand horizontally is very sketchy. The only reason I am looking forward to a PS5 Pro is that it is another opportunity for them to fix that mistake; but I am not holding my breath.
Re: Crystal Dynamics Warns Racial, Ethnic Stereotypes Remain in Tomb Raider 1-3 Remastered
While I would prefer that they leave the content in and didn't have a disclaimer, I know that there are those on the outside that would have an ignorant take on it, so if this is the price to pay to keep the integrity of the game as it was designed (not as we would design it now), I say its worth it.
Re: Players Reporting PSN Account Bans in Seemingly Widespread Issue
@Northern_munkey But it doesn't. Not really. I (and many others like me) have a large physical collection and don't really play online games; which means it doesn't have any impact. However if I had digital copies of those games, it would have a serious impact.
In my personal experience, those that prefer physical titles also tend to prefer offline games; which means that even if it impacts a few titles they own, it has very little overall impact.