I'd be highly shocked if the disk drive didn't connect via USB - it's an incredibly flexible set of standards (for instance keyboards and mice still use the PS/2 protocol over USB, as it's part of the spec for HID).
That said there's nothing to say that the firmware will allow it to talk to anything but a Sony device, and I'd expect all traffic between the console and the disk drive to be encrypted so it's not a vector for piracy. I'd be shocked if you could plug it into your laptop to read 4k Blu-ray discs, for instance.
@Flaming_Kaiser when did I say they should work for free? In what way would making more money due to more sales mean people work for free?
I said it's a misstep because they've taken it from a price point that for many would be in impulse buy territory, and placed it at a price point which is not in that realm. This means that much fewer people who own the games already on PSVR will buy the next generation version than otherwise, especially with the psychological effect of "I already own this, why buy it again?" versus "I enjoyed this, let's see what the upgrade brings", which harms the studio's reputation and decreases sales both for these two games, but also for future titles.
But sure, I'm checks notes asking people to work for free (people who have already been paid by the time the game releases, I might add)
@sanderson72 it may be running in the same engine, but evidently the main game wasn't pushing the engine to its limits. I'd guess because everything had to be optimised for asset streaming off a 5400rpm hard disk, rather than the SSD
If I were her I'd be distancing myself from this game as much as possible - she sees to do a good job of the script she's given, but the script is dire
@DiscoStuUK eh, he was pretty good in Luther where he wasn't trying to do an accent. It just feels like more and more he's trying to pretend he's from Compton rather than Brixton? It feels like when he remembered being a Brixton boy, he put more effort into his American accents.
@Dezzy70 the thing is that back then there was a much greater difference between hardware generations (to the point where backwards compatibility was often done by including previous generation silicone within the new generation hardware) and so much more effort needed to be put into porting between generations (even more than porting between PSVR and PSVR2). Meanwhile there was no digital store so you couldn't check whether someone had a license for one version and offer a paid upgrade to the new one. The benefits we see now are because the technological improvements we've made since then have followed a path chosen to enable them.
Things were worse back then, but having made such progress in terms of both developer experience and customer expectations then "things used to be worse" isn't really a valid excuse to roll back what we've gained through technological innovation.
All of this said: I'm sure there's good reason why the DLC won't be coming to previous generation hardware, but we'll have to wait until April to find out what they're bringing us which wouldn't be possible on decade old hardware.
@Flaming_Kaiser the marginal cost of a digital game is precisely £0, so any sales made at a discount which wouldn't have been made at the usual price are (minus the platform-holder's take and taxes) extra money the studio wouldn't have seen. Obviously you have to take into consideration the money lost from people who would have bought it anyway without the discount, but if you consider that Moss is £19 (currently £17 with the 10% discount) then if they'd sell twice as many units at £10 then they're already £1 per sale ahead. A £10 upgrade seems fair enough, right?
I saw the other article first with mostly the same info, so I'll copy my comment from there:
I can understand not being a free upgrade for the reasons stated, but not offering a discounted route for those with the originals seems like a misstep
I can understand not being a free upgrade for the reasons stated, but not offering a discounted route for those with the originals seems like a misstep
Is there any way to jump into ME3 and tell it where you were up to in the other two? I played the first two on Steam back in the day, but then the third required Origin, which at the time was essentially malware.
I'll probably give Biomutant a go at some point, but based on reviews my expectations are low.
All in all, a great month for some, and I'm mostly happy for me.
Graphics have never been Firaxis' strong point, and are arguably a waste of performance budget in a complex tactical game. The thing which made me nervous was the state Xcom2 released in, which was fun enough to be worth it, but laden with performance issues, hitches, crashes, and the sort of bugs that would end an Ironman run through no fault on the player's part. War of the Chosen (the expansion) was a vast improvement and it seems like they've learned their lesson as a studio.
I'm looking forward to picking this up, but not day 1 like XCom 3 would be, especially at I still have to play GoW:R (although I finally have a moving date and it's next week)
On top of @Jaz007 's statements which I agree with, I'm not sure that clubbing people over the back of the neck after interrogating them with a gun to their head counts as nonviolent? It's great to have clean hands options, but it feels like it's easy to overstate things.
this fresh take on Sam Fisher's origin story can also apparently be completed without violence
@Pandalulz yeah I think it's an attempt to prevent cheating with save editors. Honestly though multiplayer stuff should be saved on the server and never trust client-side data, and if people want to cheat on single player games I don't see why anyone should stop them
@thedevilsjester I knew he'd killed the Greek pantheon, that he'd been somewhat of a rage monster, but I didn't know it was because he'd been tricked into murdering his family
Honestly since I moved over to Mastodon and a lot of the folks I follow have also moved there, every time I look at Twitter I get the impression that all the decent folk have left, are no longer posting. Its been a pure trashfire for the past week or so there, which is just polarising stuff like this even more.
@The_Flapjack £480 + 20% VAT = £576, so there's actually a slight discount, likely to factor in that the Tories keep tanking our economy so the basic cost of living has shot up, affecting affordability at a given price point.
I'm pretty sure that in the UK this would fall under the Sale of Goods Act, entitling the customer to receive what was advertised. A bit like how if a shop mislabeled the price of an item them have to offer it at the advertised price. (I know about 7 people who got a Sony Bravia entertainment system (TV, stand, speakers, VHS) for £199.99 back in the late 90s because there was a typo on an advert (was supposed to be £1999.99 which was already a bargain)
Embrace a competing product Extend it with content exclusively available on your platform Extinguish it once they're reliant on you, so your own product can flourish
The tune has never changed, but different leaders have emphasised the first and second stages differently.
@andy24king seems pretty simple, implement an allowlist (aka whitelist) of available games on the console which is updated every time you're online. If you put in a disk that's not on the list then it tells you that you can't play it, and if you're offline it prompts you to connect to the server. The whole thing could be implemented in the part of the OS which deals with installing and launching games without being active at any other time.
While toying with the idea as a thought exercise I considered allowing an entry with a date in the future when it becomes available, but without verifying against a server then it becomes vulnerable to people messing with the system clock. As proposed it would still be vulnerable to people with hacked consoles, but you'll never fully deal with that, and people who haven't installed the update that added the allowlist feature.
It sucks that it forces you to connect to servers to play a physical game, but you should be installing firmware updates anyway, and you can play anything that was released prior to the last time you connected without issue.
@UltimateOtaku91 that's how it has worked for all my other physical games that got upgrades: Mafia Remake, CP2077, Fallen Order, Borderlands 3, etc etc
@UltimateOtaku91 the good news is that the second hand market is flooded with copies at this point, and the PS4 version is regularly on digital sale, I picked up the GOTY after playing a bit for free because I wanted the DLC and I paid < £20, about 2 years ago
@UltimateOtaku91 I mean it's free with the PS5 Collection, so if you have ps+ you own it already. If you don't, then why do you expect to get a free game for nothing?
Prepare for the future: A next-gen update is coming to Fallout 4! Coming in 2023, this free update will be available for Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5 and Windows PC systems, including performance mode features for high frame rates, quality features for 4K resolution gameplay, bug fixes and even bonus Creation Club content!
Someone call Sony and let them know that 68% of this poll's recipients are happy to buy a £3000-5000 games console.
I was about to comment that as long as you can maintain fidelity I'll take the highest stable frame rate you can manage but honestly some games are far more relaxing to play at 30fps than 60fps. Others feel like crap at anything under 60fps. Anything is better than an unstable frame rate.
Console gaming has never been able to keep up with PC but it's a helluvalot cheaper over the period of a generation, and much more convenient. If you don't like the tradeoffs then PC is right there, and nowadays you can even buy a graphics card.
Someone mentioned Vampire the Masquerade - Bloodlines so I'm taking a break from AC: Valhalla to play that again. The 00's jank is real, but it's just such a good game with such a well realised world and characters, I don't think there's much that comes close, let alone doing things better, and I really hope the sequel delivers whenever it resurfaces (I was going to say when it sees the light of day, but let's not)
Comments 1,564
Re: 'Flawless' New PS5 with Some Devs, Features Detachable Disc Drive
I'd be highly shocked if the disk drive didn't connect via USB - it's an incredibly flexible set of standards (for instance keyboards and mice still use the PS/2 protocol over USB, as it's part of the spec for HID).
That said there's nothing to say that the firmware will allow it to talk to anything but a Sony device, and I'd expect all traffic between the console and the disk drive to be encrypted so it's not a vector for piracy. I'd be shocked if you could plug it into your laptop to read 4k Blu-ray discs, for instance.
Re: Fans Are At War with Street Fighter 6's PS5, PS4 Box Art
Is he calling us all w******?
Edit: I know it's just the logo, but it looks like motion lines around his fist
Re: Both Moss Games Receiving PSVR2 Versions, Out on Launch Day
@Flaming_Kaiser when did I say they should work for free? In what way would making more money due to more sales mean people work for free?
I said it's a misstep because they've taken it from a price point that for many would be in impulse buy territory, and placed it at a price point which is not in that realm. This means that much fewer people who own the games already on PSVR will buy the next generation version than otherwise, especially with the psychological effect of "I already own this, why buy it again?" versus "I enjoyed this, let's see what the upgrade brings", which harms the studio's reputation and decreases sales both for these two games, but also for future titles.
But sure, I'm checks notes asking people to work for free (people who have already been paid by the time the game releases, I might add)
Re: Horizon Forbidden West DLC Takes Aloy to the Burning Shores Only on PS5
@sanderson72 it may be running in the same engine, but evidently the main game wasn't pushing the engine to its limits. I'd guess because everything had to be optimised for asset streaming off a 5400rpm hard disk, rather than the SSD
Re: Actress Ella Balinska Anchors Massive Forspoken PS5 Showcase
If I were her I'd be distancing myself from this game as much as possible - she sees to do a good job of the script she's given, but the script is dire
Re: Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty Recruits Idris Elba, Shows Car Combat
@DiscoStuUK eh, he was pretty good in Luther where he wasn't trying to do an accent. It just feels like more and more he's trying to pretend he's from Compton rather than Brixton? It feels like when he remembered being a Brixton boy, he put more effort into his American accents.
Re: Horizon Forbidden West DLC Takes Aloy to the Burning Shores Only on PS5
@Dezzy70 the thing is that back then there was a much greater difference between hardware generations (to the point where backwards compatibility was often done by including previous generation silicone within the new generation hardware) and so much more effort needed to be put into porting between generations (even more than porting between PSVR and PSVR2). Meanwhile there was no digital store so you couldn't check whether someone had a license for one version and offer a paid upgrade to the new one. The benefits we see now are because the technological improvements we've made since then have followed a path chosen to enable them.
Things were worse back then, but having made such progress in terms of both developer experience and customer expectations then "things used to be worse" isn't really a valid excuse to roll back what we've gained through technological innovation.
All of this said: I'm sure there's good reason why the DLC won't be coming to previous generation hardware, but we'll have to wait until April to find out what they're bringing us which wouldn't be possible on decade old hardware.
Re: Crime Boss: Rockay City Is a Star-Studded FPS Heist Game Shooting for PS5
So Payday, trying to be GTA Vice City, but they blew half their budget on big name has been actors?
Or am I missing something that makes this look interesting?
Re: Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty Recruits Idris Elba, Shows Car Combat
We all love Idris Elba, but what was that accent? He did so much better back in The Wire
Re: Star Wars Jedi: Survivor Confirmed for March 2023 in Gameplay Reveal
Cool, I enjoyed the last one, can't imagine preordering it, but I'll probably pick it up when I can find it for £20 or less (all praise eBay)
Re: Both Moss Games Receiving PSVR2 Versions, Out on Launch Day
@Flaming_Kaiser the marginal cost of a digital game is precisely £0, so any sales made at a discount which wouldn't have been made at the usual price are (minus the platform-holder's take and taxes) extra money the studio wouldn't have seen. Obviously you have to take into consideration the money lost from people who would have bought it anyway without the discount, but if you consider that Moss is £19 (currently £17 with the 10% discount) then if they'd sell twice as many units at £10 then they're already £1 per sale ahead. A £10 upgrade seems fair enough, right?
Re: Both Moss Games Receiving PSVR2 Versions, Out on Launch Day
@Flaming_Kaiser nothing beyond what anyone who didn't own the original would pay, I don't think?
Re: Both Moss Games Receiving PSVR2 Versions, Out on Launch Day
I saw the other article first with mostly the same info, so I'll copy my comment from there:
I can understand not being a free upgrade for the reasons stated, but not offering a discounted route for those with the originals seems like a misstep
Re: Questions Over Free PSVR2 Upgrades Raised by Moss, Moss: Book II
I can understand not being a free upgrade for the reasons stated, but not offering a discounted route for those with the originals seems like a misstep
Re: Poll: Are You Happy with Your PS Plus Essential Games for December 2022?
Is there any way to jump into ME3 and tell it where you were up to in the other two? I played the first two on Steam back in the day, but then the third required Origin, which at the time was essentially malware.
I'll probably give Biomutant a go at some point, but based on reviews my expectations are low.
All in all, a great month for some, and I'm mostly happy for me.
Re: Hands On: Is Marvel's Midnight Suns Any Good on PS5?
This is roughly what I was hoping for:
Graphics have never been Firaxis' strong point, and are arguably a waste of performance budget in a complex tactical game. The thing which made me nervous was the state Xcom2 released in, which was fun enough to be worth it, but laden with performance issues, hitches, crashes, and the sort of bugs that would end an Ironman run through no fault on the player's part. War of the Chosen (the expansion) was a vast improvement and it seems like they've learned their lesson as a studio.
Re: Marvel's Midnight Suns Cinematic Launch Trailer Sets High Stakes Ahead of Release
I'm looking forward to picking this up, but not day 1 like XCom 3 would be, especially at I still have to play GoW:R (although I finally have a moving date and it's next week)
Re: The Upcoming Splinter Cell Remake Can Be Enjoyed by Pacifists As Well
On top of @Jaz007 's statements which I agree with, I'm not sure that clubbing people over the back of the neck after interrogating them with a gun to their head counts as nonviolent? It's great to have clean hands options, but it feels like it's easy to overstate things.
Re: PS Plus Black Friday Deals Begin This Week
@Pandalulz yeah I think it's an attempt to prevent cheating with save editors. Honestly though multiplayer stuff should be saved on the server and never trust client-side data, and if people want to cheat on single player games I don't see why anyone should stop them
Re: PSVR2 Exclusive Horizon Call of the Mountain Grabs Pre-Order Trailer
It looks great, don't get me wrong, but £550? I'm going to need to see what the library looks like in 12-18 months
Re: Poll: Did You Buy God of War Ragnarok?
@thedevilsjester I knew he'd killed the Greek pantheon, that he'd been somewhat of a rage monster, but I didn't know it was because he'd been tricked into murdering his family
Re: Poll: Did You Buy God of War Ragnarok?
@thedevilsjester huh, I went in blind(ish) and loved it, maybe I should watch some let's play videos
Re: Poll: Did You Buy God of War Ragnarok?
I'm in the middle of a house move so I'm saving this for when I'm in the new place (an indeterminate number of weeks, but hopefully before Xmas)
Re: God of War Ragnarok PS5, PS4 Reviewer Threatened Over Lower Score
Honestly since I moved over to Mastodon and a lot of the folks I follow have also moved there, every time I look at Twitter I get the impression that all the decent folk have left, are no longer posting. Its been a pure trashfire for the past week or so there, which is just polarising stuff like this even more.
Re: God of War Ragnarok Equals Ridiculously High Review Rating of Its Predecessor
I can't say I ever had any doubt that this one would be a right barnstormer
Re: PS Plus Extra, Premium Lose Five PS4 Games on 15th November
@Ravix @huyi 3 was on Extra, 2 and the remake were Premium
Re: PS Plus Extra, Premium Lose Five PS4 Games on 15th November
Great games, and I'm glad I bought the collection second hand a year of so ago
Re: PSVR2 Launches 22nd February 2023, Costs $550
@The_Flapjack £480 + 20% VAT = £576, so there's actually a slight discount, likely to factor in that the Tories keep tanking our economy so the basic cost of living has shot up, affecting affordability at a given price point.
Re: PSVR2 Launches 22nd February 2023, Costs $550
I'm disappointed, but not all that surprised, I was thinking £50 less than the console, not £75 more, but this thing will still sell
Re: Vampire: The Masquerade - Swansong PS5 Upgrade Box Listing Was a 'Mistake', Says Publisher
I'm pretty sure that in the UK this would fall under the Sale of Goods Act, entitling the customer to receive what was advertised. A bit like how if a shop mislabeled the price of an item them have to offer it at the advertised price. (I know about 7 people who got a Sony Bravia entertainment system (TV, stand, speakers, VHS) for £199.99 back in the late 90s because there was a typo on an advert (was supposed to be £1999.99 which was already a bargain)
Re: Mini Review: Brewmaster (PS5) - All Hail the Best Beer Brewing Sim on PlayStation
Having lived and worked in Hoxton/Shoreditch during its gentrification this hits hard
Re: As Long As There's PlayStation, Call of Duty Will Release on It
@racinggamefanatic this exactly,
Embrace a competing product
Extend it with content exclusively available on your platform
Extinguish it once they're reliant on you, so your own product can flourish
The tune has never changed, but different leaders have emphasised the first and second stages differently.
Re: God of War Ragnarok PS5, PS4 Spoilers Rife As Retailers Break Street Date
@andy24king seems pretty simple, implement an allowlist (aka whitelist) of available games on the console which is updated every time you're online. If you put in a disk that's not on the list then it tells you that you can't play it, and if you're offline it prompts you to connect to the server. The whole thing could be implemented in the part of the OS which deals with installing and launching games without being active at any other time.
While toying with the idea as a thought exercise I considered allowing an entry with a date in the future when it becomes available, but without verifying against a server then it becomes vulnerable to people messing with the system clock. As proposed it would still be vulnerable to people with hacked consoles, but you'll never fully deal with that, and people who haven't installed the update that added the allowlist feature.
It sucks that it forces you to connect to servers to play a physical game, but you should be installing firmware updates anyway, and you can play anything that was released prior to the last time you connected without issue.
Re: Poll: Are You Happy with Your PS Plus Essential Games for November 2022?
@Pokemaniacal why's that?
Re: Poll: Are You Happy with Your PS Plus Essential Games for November 2022?
I'll give Heavenly Bodies a go, but Nioh isn't the sort of thing I generally get along with, and I'm not even claiming the Lego TERF game
Re: The Witcher 3 PS5 Version News Coming 'Soon', Says a Cheeky CDPR
I think I saw something online saying the first Witcher game is getting a UE5 remake, which could be cool
https://twitter.com/witchergame/status/1585270206305386497
Re: God of War Ragnarok's PS5, PS4 Squeeze Gaps Spark Insight into Hidden Loading Screens
Can't say I'm a fan, I'd prefer they find other ways of making things one-way, like ledge drops.
If the devs say it's not to hide loading though, I'll happily believe them
Re: Sony Seemingly Scraps PS Plus Game Expiry Dates
@Steve30000 to be fair I haven't missed seeing any of their views since I added them to my ignore list a while back
Re: Fallout 4 Gets Free PS5 Update in 2023, Includes Creation Club Content
@EquiinoxGII one imagines they're doing it for Xbox but including PS5 because they want the CMA to let them have ABK
Re: Fallout 4 Gets Free PS5 Update in 2023, Includes Creation Club Content
@UltimateOtaku91 that's how it has worked for all my other physical games that got upgrades: Mafia Remake, CP2077, Fallen Order, Borderlands 3, etc etc
Re: Fallout 4 PS5 Version Confirmed for 2023 Release, Includes Creation Club Content
@UltimateOtaku91 the good news is that the second hand market is flooded with copies at this point, and the PS4 version is regularly on digital sale, I picked up the GOTY after playing a bit for free because I wanted the DLC and I paid < £20, about 2 years ago
Re: Fallout 4 PS5 Version Confirmed for 2023 Release, Includes Creation Club Content
@UltimateOtaku91 I mean it's free with the PS5 Collection, so if you have ps+ you own it already. If you don't, then why do you expect to get a free game for nothing?
Re: Fallout 4 PS5 Version Confirmed for 2023 Release, Includes Creation Club Content
The update I was is for Sony to allow custom models from mods, the availability of mods for PlayStation is so much lower than other platforms.
@UltimateOtaku91 @ShogunRok It says on the link at the bottom of the article that it'll be a free upgrade.
Emphasis mine:
Re: Poll: Do You Care About 60fps on PS5?
Someone call Sony and let them know that 68% of this poll's recipients are happy to buy a £3000-5000 games console.
I was about to comment that as long as you can maintain fidelity I'll take the highest stable frame rate you can manage but honestly some games are far more relaxing to play at 30fps than 60fps. Others feel like crap at anything under 60fps. Anything is better than an unstable frame rate.
Console gaming has never been able to keep up with PC but it's a helluvalot cheaper over the period of a generation, and much more convenient. If you don't like the tradeoffs then PC is right there, and nowadays you can even buy a graphics card.
Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? - Issue 449
Someone mentioned Vampire the Masquerade - Bloodlines so I'm taking a break from AC: Valhalla to play that again. The 00's jank is real, but it's just such a good game with such a well realised world and characters, I don't think there's much that comes close, let alone doing things better, and I really hope the sequel delivers whenever it resurfaces (I was going to say when it sees the light of day, but let's not)
Re: As Energy Prices Soar, Consider an Alternative to Video Streaming on PS5, PS4
@KidBoruto ah, good to hear it was temporary, who would have thought that Apple stuff wouldn't "just work"?
(It me: I've been forced to use a load of their gear professionally and it has given me a deep seated loathing for their software)
Re: God of War Ragnarok on PS5 Runs at Up to 120fps, Four Graphics Modes
@rjejr heh, as someone who's body is falling apart in myriad ways, accessibility options is my first port of call in any game - glad I could help!
Re: God of War Ragnarok on PS5 Runs at Up to 120fps, Four Graphics Modes
@rjejr huh I haven't got round to Miles Morales yet, did it not give an option under Accessibility?
Re: Microsoft Claims That Insomniac Developed Marvel's Wolverine Will Launch in 2023
I could see Spidey as a Spring release and Wolverine in the Autumn
Re: UK Sales Charts: Horizon Forbidden West Soars Back into the Top Three
@Netret0120 it has already been replaced by FIFA, at least in the UK. It's good to see people buying it anyway.