Topic: PlayStation 5 --OT--

@Ralizah To be fair, they will sell out no matter what. They don't have to send out those emails at all. If you have a PS4 and are looking to upgrade, it's a safe option I guess.

@KilloWertz Being underleveled isn't really an issue in the sequels. In fact, I had more of an issue in XC3 trying to keep my levels low enough that I could actually gain class points from battles, because those reduce to practically nothing if you're 5+ levels higher than the enemies you're fighting.

@Octane Sure, but the majority of Sony's profits derive from people buying games and DLC on their consoles. You know which purchased consoles aren't really making money for Sony? The ones sitting unused in storage units and warehouses while the owners try to flip them for more than MSRP.

I think we'll see this model of distribution that bypasses retailers entirely increase over time. Valve is enjoying great success selling the Steam Deck this way.

@Ralizah That's good to know. I would have preferred not to put it on Casual mode as it did make the final couple of battles kind of anticlimactic (although I did die once against Zanza even on Casual), but it is what it is. I just wanted to experience the rest of the story to be honest.

I guess it will pay to do side quests for the areas I'm in before moving on to another area then when I play XC3 sometime next year. I technically already do that in games that have side quests good enough to want to do most of them (like Horizon Forbidden West), but I will keep it in mind.

Butting in to another conversation, you are right that selling the Steam Deck themselves has worked out for them so far. The fact that you can only play a small fraction of the games on Steam, with some of the games marked as unplayable having no rhyme or reason (sequels to games working but not the original or vice versa). I would have considered getting one someday down the road with PlayStation going more towards PC and Xbox basically being both at this point, but not if so many games are unplayable.

@KilloWertz One thing you can do to avoid becoming overleveled while doing most/all of the side-quests (because you'll probably want to) is to turn off the Overkill setting for chain attacks, which will keep you from getting a sometimes truly ridiculous set of experience multipliers when fighting Elite enemies.

Valve has said the Steam Deck will be a long term platform for them. Their goal is to evaluate as much of the library as possible for compatibility with the system. Keep in mind that newer games are going to be much more likely to run on the hardware to begin with, since most developers won't want a reputation for having games that don't work on a popular PC-adjacent platform. Developers will likely continue to update their older games to ensure compatibility as time goes on. It's very wild west right now in terms of game compatibility, but, ideally, over time, the majority of games on the platform will be updated to run well on it.

Also worth mentioning, but a game not being verified for the Deck often just means Valve hasn't looked at it yet. It'll take them years to analyze most of the library.

@Ralizah I will try but likely fail to remember that as well.

True, but there are games on there that they have said don't work, with some of them being baffling. Like I said, it is weird that some games in a series work, but a random game won't. In the grand scheme of things, it's not a big deal, as how many more times would I really play Bioshock Infinite? I already own it twice too (counting the Bioshock Collection being free from PS Plus years ago), but still, it was disappointing to read that only roughly 10% of what's on Steam actually works on the Steam Deck so far.

Just sell your Switch and buy a Steam Deck if you think it's so great... jk

@KilloWertz It's fine. Feel free to ask questions on NL or on the Switch thread here, and I'll assist to the best of my ability.

Only 10% actually works, or 10% has been Verified to work on the Deck? Because, again, those are entirely different things. A lot of unverified games atm seem to work fine on the Deck. Many others work fine with relatively simple workarounds. It's actually just a handheld PC, so most problematic games can be made to work with some tinkering, I reckon.

Steam hosts a LOT of games, including a lot of older, poorly optimized ones, so some games will always just not work on it. It'll never have a library as optimized to run well on it as a normal console like the PS5 or Switch does. But it'll also be good for playing games indefinitely (with some obviously downgrades to performance for future AAA stuff, since this is effectively the equivalent of a portable PS4).

Aside from wanting a somewhat less bulky form factor, which I expect will come with a future revision, the only thing keeping me from ordering one is that I already have so much stuff to play on Switch and PS4 as is at the moment. I feel like I'm years away from needing new hardware of any sort unless my rig's increasingly ancient GPU gives out.

@Ralizah I reckon I’d be fine with the tinkering to get older games working on the Steam Deck given that I sat for a couple of hours tonight playing 007 Nightfire streamed from a laptop to a PS Vita with varying success 😂

@nessisonett Steam Deck is amazing for tinkering, basically. Lots of stuff to do with it.

The demographic it doesn't appeal to, as of yet, at least, is the 'set it and forget it' crowd that wants the minimum number of barriers between turning on the system and actually playing the game.

@nessisonett @Ralizah The Steam Deck seems to be an awesome piece of kit for the price, especially if you compare to similar devices out there which are almost 3 times the price.

Maybe when version 2.0 is available I will think about getting one. But I am wary about getting a second device to game on since I got the Switch, as I hardly use it these days

I know they won't because it's been bad ever since the PS5 came out and their tech team is a joke, but they really need to fix the Store on the PS5. Tonight was probably my worst experience with searching on there, with it refusing to search for anything but add-ons. No matter how many times I entered in the word Shantae (I was curious how much the last one they put on PS5 was), it kept failing to look up actual games.

I love my PS5, but damn is the UI awful in certain areas, with the Store being near the top of the list.

@KilloWertz I have to agree with you on the PS Store search logic. It’s really pretty bad. I know what you mean about putting in a specific search term and getting the top 10 results be the most ridiculous things like add-ons and unrelated content. I don’t know how many times I’ve searched for a game and I have to scroll through a dozen Sackboy outfits before getting to the actual game (if it even brings up the game!) 😅

I’m not much of a computer tech guy, but to me it seems we need better relevance tracking with the search function. I understand the want to sell DLC and add-on content so they want to pull that stuff to the top, but it’s borderline asinine when it’s for games that are so obscure and it seems you’d want the user to buy the game they are actually searching for! 😄

@Th3solution Yeah, but it makes even less sense when it literally refuses to search for anything but Add-ons, as if I selected an option that I wanted to search for Add-ons only. I haven't used the Store much lately, but I don't remember it doing that before. Yes, it would give me wacky results, but not refuse to search for actual games.

As nice as it was to look at prior to the last update (ruining the home screen by shoving Activities in our faces), this is turning into the worst UI PlayStation has ever put out. It's functional mostly (besides the Store), but it's not very good overall. I'd be less harsh if they gave any hint that they were aware of this stuff and were working on it, but time goes by and it doesn't change and they remain silent. It's also ridiculous that I would have had to put my Deathloop disc in to download the update yesterday instead of being able to check for updates for games that aren't on my Home screen. I could do that on the PS4, but nearly 2 years in we still can't do that either.

@KilloWertz In my experience the game update download process seems to be quite random. I believe I’ve had some games automatically download updates (while in rest mode for example) and then times when the prompt for updating shows up only after launching the game. I think the auto-update feature limits itself to only games that have recently been played, but I’m not sure it’s consistent that way.

As for not being able to manually download an update patch without the disc being in, I also feel like that’s been inconsistent. I have some games on my system that I haven’t put the disc in for ages (like No Man’s Sky and Tetris Effect) yet have sometimes auto-downloaded a patch. I’ve never tried to manually do an update for a game without having the disc in though. Maybe I’ll try it for kicks and see what happens.

But I’m not sure why the system has an option to select for automatic game updates if it’s not going to actually download said updates automatically. 😅 Like what’s the point? It’s not a deal breaker for me, but it’s just weird. Even console firmware updates don’t always automatically download for me like they are supposed to. Maybe it’s my internet.

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On a separate (but related) note, I noticed a notification this morning that Horizon Forbidden West is on a nice 30% sale right now. Pretty sure this game wasn’t included in the current sale, so it’s just a separate random offering, I guess. Since the game is on my wishlist I got a notification. $39 is tempting, even though I have a boatload of games lined up to play yet.

And it’s really weird because the PSN digital version of the game still has two separate entries for the PS4 version and the PS5 version. And at two different prices no less! Despite there being a free upgrade to download the PS5 version if you own the PS4 version, why in the world would someone buy the digital PS5 version and spend $10 more? I can see the reason why someone might buy a separate physical version for PS5 so they have the PS5 case, and the PS5 disc to directly download content, etc. But when you are downloading a digital game, I’m not seeing the attraction of buying the PS5 version as opposed to buying the PS4 version and then just downloading the free PS5 upgrade. Most digital game with a free PS5 upgrade (say Resident Evil Village for example) only have one entry in the PSN store to just buy both the PS4 & PS5 version as one product for one price, despite there being two different disc boxes if you go physical. Not Horizon Forbidden West though. Just another weird curiosity.

My 65" LG C1 OLED TV arrived today and... well first of all I had to call my brother to help me pick it up off the floor after I took it out of the box - the way it's built isn't very 1-person friendly even for a big guy like me 😂

With that out of the way though, I tried a couple games that support the 40 fps mode with 120hz screens and yeah, all games with ray tracing should definitely do this, it's great!

@Th3solution Here in the UK Horizon Forbidden West is the current Deal of the Week priced at £52.49 with 25% off. The PS5 and PS4 versions are priced the same it looks like, but the Digital Deluxe Version is about 10 quid more expensive.

@JohnnyShoulder Interesting. Over here the deal of the week is TNMT Shredder’s Revenge for 20% off. HFW isn’t even listed under any of the sales, but when I search and pull up the game it shows up on discount — PS4 Ed. $39, PS5 Ed. $49, and Digital Deluxe Ed $59.

I would have thought they’d highlight the discount since this is the crown jewel right now of the first-party moneymakers.

Also it’s interesting that Sony isn’t trying to fool PS5 owners over there into paying an extra $10 like they are over here.

@Th3solution If the game is on your Home screen, it will either automatically start downloading the update or you have to hit Check for Update and it starts eventually that way. Either way is fine, but inconsistent like you say as sometimes it won't automatically start no matter what. If you have the game amongst the games on your Home screen, the disc doesn't need to be in there.

Still, the fact that you have to effectively put it back on your Home screen by inserting the disc is inexcusable at this point. Is it that big of a deal? Most of the time, no, but it is still annoying given that you could at least check for updates for any game in your library on your own on the PS4. I forgot about the update for Deathloop until after I put my PS5 into sleep mode to download the Star Ocean demo overnight, so instead of it just automatically downloading overnight, I had to do it in the morning. Again, not a huge deal, but still something that shouldn't be an issue at this point.

There's plenty of things in the UI that defy logic. Your system update issue is a bit weird though, as I've always had the system updates automatically start. How quickly it starts is variable, just like with game updates and installations sometimes taking a good minute or more to start, but system updates starting have been good as a whole.

As I always say, none of this is truly dealbreaking or would make me get rid of my PS5, especially since the gaming aspect of things on the PS5 is obviously good given the games available. It's just the UI should be in a better place at this point, and they continue to be dead silent about anything, leaving you wondering if they will ever fix some of the stuff.

@Th3solution We had turtles as last weeks deal of the week, Horizon replaced it today, I think.

@KilloWertz By the sounds of it you should set fire to your PS5 and have done with it.

@JohnnyShoulder Nah, I just don't refuse to criticize them for bad decisions or a bad UI for the PS5. While I know you were trying to be playful there, they are all legitimate complaints even if some of them aren't major in the grand scheme of things, and there is no excuse why at least some of the things aren't fixed by now.

@KilloWertz I was being dead serious. I get it, but I find I just don't care about most of the things you are bringing up and they don't bother me as much. Maybe seeing people complain about absolutely everything and anything since the covid started has made me a bit ambivalent with things like this.

The system is ok for me, it's quick and everything seems to work as far as I remember. It is not perfect by any means, but I don't think any UI has or ever will be.

I don't get the lauding over the PS4 UI though, for me that was way much worse, sluggish and unresponsive at times, and the store especially always used to crash.

Have you tried complaining through the proper channels? You may actually get through to someone that can do something about it.