Comments 1,552

Re: Talking Point: Would You Want a Steam Deck-Like Portable PlayStation?

thedevilsjester

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

thedevilsjester

@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

thedevilsjester

@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

thedevilsjester

@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?

thedevilsjester

@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?

thedevilsjester

@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?

thedevilsjester

@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

thedevilsjester

@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

thedevilsjester

@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

thedevilsjester

@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: Do You Really Want Devs to Make Lower Budget, More Original Games for PS5?

thedevilsjester

@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?

thedevilsjester

@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

thedevilsjester

@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

thedevilsjester

@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

thedevilsjester

@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

thedevilsjester

@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: Hypnotic PS5 Pro Boot Screen, Background Worth the Upgrade

thedevilsjester

@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?

thedevilsjester

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

thedevilsjester

@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

thedevilsjester

@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: Xbox Fans Really Want a Port of PS5, PC Hit Helldivers 2

thedevilsjester

@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: Microsoft Is Investigating Why Devs Are Prioritising PS5 Over Xbox

thedevilsjester

@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: PSN Was Down But Has Now Been Resolved

thedevilsjester

@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

thedevilsjester

@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: Rumour: Xbox to Announce a 'Big' Game Coming to PS5 at Gamescom

thedevilsjester

@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: Players Reporting PSN Account Bans in Seemingly Widespread Issue

thedevilsjester

@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.

Re: Players Reporting PSN Account Bans in Seemingly Widespread Issue

thedevilsjester

@Northern_munkey It doesn't have much of an impact on those who buy physical games. Physical libraries are still playable even with an account ban, since they are not tied to your account in any way. Where-as you can be locked out of your digital libraries depending on the type of ban. The only shared downside is for online focused games, since you need a valid account to play them either way.

Re: Unity's Newly Announced Install Fee Policy Already Causing Disharmony Amongst Devs

thedevilsjester

@IAmAshCohen17 Probably; but by that point the damage will be done. If they are willing to try this once, what makes you (the general you) think they are not willing to try something similar next time? And the time after that? This will hopefully be an eye opener for those using Unity, and a considerable number will likely abandon ship even if everything is rolled back, because they fear something similar happening again. Fool me once and all that.

Re: Unlike Recent Assassin's Creeds, There'll Be No DLC or Microtransactions in Mirage

thedevilsjester

@thefourfoldroot1 While I mostly agree with that, understand that some games go gold (and are complete) months before they are released, and instead of laying off the extra team members (that wont be re-hired until the next game reaches a certain development point) they instead pay them to design new, additional content that can sometimes be done before the official launch day (especially if they delayed launch to not collide with another big title).

If this wasn't a separate purchase, then most studios would just not make it since they wouldn't recoup the cost of the 3+ months of the studios resources that it took, in addition to the cost to develop the game. This would result in the team being downsized until they ramped up production again (a vicious rollercoaster that development studios go through). As a software engineer and game developer myself, I tend to want to support these studios (that make games that I enjoy) as much as I can, to reduce that churn as much as possible.

Not sure how much Ubisoft, EA, and other goliaths deserve that consideration, to be fair, but most studios are not as bad and could use that support.

Re: VR Skater Delayed Due to PS5 Approval Issues, But 'Sony Has Been Amazing'

thedevilsjester

@RobN You miss the third option. The team couldn't think of anything more clever, and reached the limit of their creativity with a generic name. This is what I find, most often, to be the case, so as a general rule, I avoid games with names like Shooter or Skater. Adding generic modifiers like, Mobile, VR, etc... doesn't make the titles any more interesting.

To each their own, of course, but if they had mashed the keys on the keyboard, I would be more interested in the game then just naming it "${PLATFORM} ${GENRE}"

Re: VR Skater Delayed Due to PS5 Approval Issues, But 'Sony Has Been Amazing'

thedevilsjester

@BlueWeezer I don't think Dark Souls falls into the category of generic names (mostly talking about ones that just describe the genre); though to be fair thats only one out of three of your examples.

I find that the name of a game, or book, or movie (or any other form of art) is a good indicator of the level of creativity that you can come to expect from the rest of the product; and while you can have a good product with a generic name (these tend to come from major developers though), the vast majority of them are shovel-ware.

Re: "We've Lost the Console Wars," Says Trillion Dollar Underdog Xbox

thedevilsjester

@WizardJ To be fair, they did sell roughly the same amount of 360s as PS3s over its life, though if we factored in the number of people that bought 2, 3, or even 4 to replace RROD failed units outside of warranty, I am sure the numbers of active consoles was a lot lower. Every other generation had Sony easily ahead of MS though.

Success means that there are a lot of studios that will exclusively target that system (even without deals) which conversely means being in last place will reduce the likelihood of a game being released on your system of choice. This is the main reason that console wars are a thing. We are fighting to be the platform of choice for developers/publishers.

It would be nice if you could install the Xbox runtimes on Playstation, and vise versa, and enjoy the games on your platform of choice.