Topic: PlayStation 5 --OT--

@graymamba Yes, there’s some local outlets that deal exclusively in the second hand market, but GameStop has both new and used games so it dominates both markets. I think Best Buy also dabbles in the second hand market but I haven’t been there lately and it always seemed sparse. So we’ve ended up with a few ‘mom-and-pop’ used game and movie stores that can survive sporadically. Usually they focus on retro games because GameStop mainly just deals in the modern gens (PS5 and PS4, although yesterday I noticed about 20 PS3 games they had on the shelf). But when I’ve been to some smaller locally operated stores they have PS2, PS1, and all the old Nintendo games, as well as usually movies, etc as well as maybe comics, collectibles like figures, retro posters, etc.

But I’m like you, in that when I’m in town or traveling about I’ll just browse a GameStop if I’m in the area. In fact that’s what I was doing yesterday. But yes, GameStop has also turned into game and nerd-culture themed junk stores with models, T-shirts, action figures, etc. But there still used to be a solid selection of new and used games and now it’s such a crapshoot. And the low supply has caused prices to be so high. For example, new copies of Dragon Age Veilguard were $70, and used were still $40, even though I got it “for free” digitally last week. Rise of the Ronin (a title I’ve kept my eye on) was still $70 a year later and I’ve yet to see a single used copy. But every now and then I find a steal, so I keep looking. It’s also the thrill of the hunt. I’m kicking myself for not picking up the copy of Sekiro they had, which was pre-owned for $50. It’s a rare find. I had a hard time paying that because it was just on sale on PSN digitally for $30 last month, but I have all the other From Souls games on disc and it would be nice for my obsessive tendencies to not have just one of them digitally. 😅 I think we’ve discussed this odd issue before. 😂

@JohnnyShoulder town-CeX is all I get these days 😅

@Th3solution talking of our particular issues with physical vs digital and how it impacts certain games in different ways… well the Portal is really changing my perspective. Sony those crafty devils have delivered a peripheral that has turned my need for physical media on its head! 🙃

@Hapless funnily enough, the only Game I’m still aware of in South Wales is a department within Sports Direct… wtf!

@graymamba Yeah, I made this comment over on a couple of the Portal articles, but you’re right — the ability to cloud stream on the go with basically a handheld PS5 has made me rethink things as well. We’ll have to see how you get along with the Portal and if you even like using it, but if you do think you’ll use it a lot then you’ll have to consider having a decent digital library and/or subscribing to PS+ Premium for the digital catalogue.

I still own physical discs for a number of the titles that are on the PS+ Extra/Premium catalogue, often because I bought them when I found them cheap or because I was a day 1 purchaser at launch and either the resell value was low so I kept the disc, or I wanted the disc for a collection (like the FromSoft games).

So as an example, right now I’ve been gradually playing FF7 Crisis Core on the Portal and even though I have the disc, I am playing it through the PS+ cloud streaming. It’s just easier that way. And I don’t want to sell back the disc just yet because that was a really hard one to find so I might end up keeping it. Also, stuff falls off PS+ sometimes and I need a backup way to finish it. There’s several games I have like that — Witcher 3, AC Odyssey, Returnal, GoW Ragnarok… I own the discs but if/when I play the games I’ll probably just download or stream the digital copy from the PS+ service.

It’s redundant to own a disc for a game and also have access to it through a service, but welp… it is what it is. 🤷🏻‍♂️

But yes, having a digital library would be much more convenient for a long trip with the Portal. If you’re out for a couple weeks then you probably don’t want to limit yourself to the one disc you left in the PS5. With digital you can flip between whatever games you downloaded onto your console. And then, once they inevitably let us cloud stream our digital purchases with the Portal, then you can flip between your whole digital library regardless of even having it downloaded to your console. Once they enable that function, I’m going to be really tempted to shift away from discs for most of my purchases.

@Th3solution yeah that will be a massive boost, if Sony are able to allow Pprtal access to your whole digital library, even if the games aren’t installed to you PS5. And with the updates to the Portal that they’ve already made, I’m thinking it’s probably more of a case of when that happens rather than if… so fingers crossed on that front.

@xeofate Replacing the controller battery is so easy. Actually removing the old battery is a bit fiddly, but everything else was really simple. If i can do it, pretty much anyone can.

Any fixes to PS5 stick drift? I've had my PS5 since 2022. The controller that came with it started having stick drift a month ago. I bought a new 2nd controller in January, and it already has stick drift. I have tried "fixing" them myself by opening and cleaning the controller area, but it only helped slightly. Any other fixes or should I just buy new controllers?

@Th3solution @graymamba Final controller update. The battery was depleted last night, so not mind blowing but glad it worked as it did before.

One thing I did notice was that the battery indicator on the console suddenly went from full bars to one bar in about an hour. Apart from that though, I can't complain about the results.

@JohnnyShoulder Overall seems a good result if it stayed charged on par with the original battery. No explosions is a plus too. 😄

That’s odd about the battery indicator though. Any chance that you have the more specific battery indicator widget enabled on your Welcome Hub? And if so, did it go from full green circle down to red quickly in an hour also?

@Th3solution Both battery indicators went from full bars to one in under an hour, which is not normal. It felt it stayed that way for a bit longer than with my other controllers. I'll pay more attention to the battery levels when I'm using them, to see if that is case.

But I'm not too bothered about, and it's not an issue really as the battery still lasted as long as I thought it would.

@JohnnyShoulder do you have a set up where you can just have a super long cable plugged in, or a smaller cable in a phone charger nearby where you game. I tend to find the wirelessness of controllers is more about keeping them out of the way, but when in use for single player gaming having a wire is still a very acceptable experience. Although, this in itself probably isn't that good for the batteries anyway, but they don't lose charge when they are still plugged in, at least 😅

@Ravix Nah I just use the cable that came with the console, and charge them when needed. As I have three of them at the mo I rotate them as required.

I could charge them elsewhere in the house, but there is usually another device plugged in and it is more convenient to plug into the PS5.

Weirdly jealous of people getting to play InZOI, I have no idea why, as I only ever really played the sims at one point as a clueless kid that had no idea what the heck it was or what I was doing anyway, and I'm not sure I even really liked it haha.

Anyone know how long the expected early access period is, and when it comes to console? It'd be such a dumb thing to finally buy a gaming PC for, but I don't know... the Fomo is strong at the moment for some reason. It looks like it is absolutely batsh*t mental and I kind of want to try it 😂 I guess I'll wait for the console release, and might not care by then. But who knows.

Anyone trying it on PC?

Anyone know what MindsEye actually is yet?

The trailer feels like "a Ubisoft orignal" iRobot x WatchDogs x Fast and the Furious. It really does feel like the most Ubisoft game I've ever seen not made by Ubisoft. It's more Ubisoft than half of Ubisoft's output tbh. Although the bad guy didn't have a manbun.

I don't mean this in a mean way, btw. It's just the tone reminded me of the kind of thing I probably would have got excited for in the past if it was "new for the PS4", but I'm not sure if I am excited and interested now or not because I have no idea what it even is 😅

Anyway, here is the latest trailer, it launches in June. Does that mean that Everywhere also launches at the same time this releases, as this game is from inside Everywhere (PS Home Advanced) who knows 😂

Taking bets on whether Push can make a Bloodborne article out of this...

PS Stars has a campaign featuring Bloodborne. But all the other games included are either brand new this year, have or have had a sequel coming out this year, have a tv show about to release its latest season, or are set to have a remake soon 😛

@Ravix Bloodborne TV show confirmed.

HDR on PS5. Anyone know which settings to tweak (TV or Console) when in some games really dark scenes can have a kind of shiny grey quality in areas that are supposed to be black or more natural looking dark, dark grey. It's kind of like an reflective shimmer rather than grey or black at times.

Or are some games just badly tuned for HDR?

It was kind of driving me loopy trying to fix it within tbe PS5 HDR menu so I just gave up and turned the black level down a touch and adjusted gamma on the tv itself, but there must be another solution 🤷‍♂️

@Ravix Not sure if it will fix your specific problem, but I used something like dis.

And yeah some game don't have great HDR optimisation.

@JohnnyShoulder weird thing is, I'd seen a similar video by Vincent Toh. And I just think it's wrong for some reason. And I've seen other people saying how actually setting black to 0, even on an OLED is leaving them with poor results too. It certainly didn't fix anything when I tried it (I think it was already set up like that from a while back) so it was set like that when I noticed the issue in AC Shadows. And I was switching HGIG on, Tone mapping on, changing tv settings, changing in game values, and PS5 values and nothing really made that specific thing go away 🙈

It may actually be certain games though, but since changing the third HDR to maybe 5 or 6 up from 0 black, it has looked noticeably nicer in night time or shadowy gameplay. Haven't had a really dark curscene yet to see if the weird grey shimmer has been removed though. But it does seem lesser in regular play.

@Ravix yeah the one from Vincent Toh is the one i used I think, but is was about 20 mins so didn't wanna share it lol.

I don't recall noticing anything like you've explained with my TV, but it is not an OLED.

I remember HDR being a pain to get right when I had my old 4K TV with my OG PS4 (so no 4K just HDR). It took me an age fidling round with settings to get it right, and even then some games looked a bit dodge. When I got my PS5 all that seemed to be ok for me.

@JohnnyShoulder yeah, I've not really noticed it for a while, so it might just be AC Shadows. And it's mostly in cut scenes at night with little to no candlelight, just natural light. Scenes where there are numerous blacks and grey tones, I guess.

I don't know if it's crush or something else (feels more like an unnatural shimmer where the grey is malfunctioning, so no idea what its called) but I find it hard to care about technical things unless it's glaringly obvious and I have to try and sort it 😅

What I will say is, apart from that initial small issue, the advanced Ray Tracing mode for that game is glorious. And I can't justify using performance mode or even balanced, yet 😱 never seen reflections so crisp on console.