Cakefish

Alas, too late for UK and many other countries, Sony already increased prices last month for us lucky lot. On top of the already increased prices vs launch. Remember when PS5 Digital was £359.99? I do. £429.99 nowadays. A £70 increase. Eww.

Sad thing is that Microsoft leapfrogged Sony and priced Series X Digital at £449.99 leaving the door wide open for Sony to go that much further and price match. Seeing how trigger happy Sony have been on hiking prices in Europe so far I wouldn’t be surprised if they did just that later this year.

Store ratings such as Steam/PSN/Xbox are way more useful and reliable than Metacritic, because people actually have to buy the game to be able to leave a review. Somewhat compromised by Steam’s generous refund policy and also Xbox Game Pass but still a better indicator than Metacritic. It’s highly rated on all of these storefronts too of course, I’m not arguing against the game’s quality here just to be clear.

@Rich33 funnily enough Star Wars Jedi was on my mind when typing out my comment! Hollow Knight is another one often lumped in with souls games while it plays nothing like Elden Ring or Dark Souls in the moment-to-moment gameplay.

I found Lies of P fantastic, they really nailed the From Software style while also bringing enough new ideas to the table to feel unique. A brilliant game, I can’t wait for Overture DLC.

@Rich33 yeah many often include the indie shovelware to artificially bulk up soulslike numbers when complaining about over saturation, whereas they don’t do the same for their favourite genres. There’s also a tendency to automatically label every single action RPG as a soulslike even if it takes just one singular game mechanic from souls, so the genre label is applied too loosely these days I feel. So many things automatically labelled as soulslike even though they don’t provide much in the way of a true From Software style experience.

I adore this game, on my 3rd playthrough, but I’m not sure how I feel about a movie adaptation. They’re always a bit hit and miss. The story and theme fit the concept of a coop game perfectly, but how that’ll translate to a feature film is another question altogether. With how proud Josef Fares is of his team’s work on this game it’s difficult to see him sell the IP out to the standard Hollywood corporate slop factory, so hopefully it ends up being decent.

Switch 2 is objectively superior though. It has SSD storage, it has a superior CPU, it supports DLSS and other modern GPU features such as mesh shaders and VRS. It also has more RAM to play with for higher detail textures.

I think once again people are misunderstanding Digital Foundry, which is all too common. In raw pixel pushing output it may match PS4, but the perceived visual output will be very different in the vast majority of games - thanks to the newer architectures. And loading times/asset streaming will be lightyears ahead because of the SSD. They have said as much on their podcast.

@OldGamer999 very true but I have bemoaned Microsoft aplenty for pricing the digital XSX so highly. So I’m maintaining consistency here by bemoaning Sony voluntarily throwing away the price advantage that they had.

The timing also feels particularly insensitive and poorly judged. We’re hearing about all the crazy tariff situation in USA and Sony’s immediate reaction is to raise prices in anywhere but USA. It just feels like a real slap in the face, like we are the ones being punished for the USA instigating economic turmoil. It’s very poor optics from my perspective.

Hmmm new tariffs in USA so Sony’s reaction is to hike price in Europe instead? …is Sony drunk?

10/10, definitely a serious GOTY contender!

Deserves every bit of success, the game is a masterpiece.

If it exactly matches up with the Xbox store pricing then what is the issue here? PlayStation players can’t expect preferential pricing - unless Microsoft really did want to speedrun killing off Xbox consoles!

Dragon Age really must’ve bombed for EA to be this desperate, oof! Not even 6 months from release.

Come on Nier 3 announcement please please please 🤞🏻

Who owns Stellar Blade IP? I just want to know if there’s any chance of an Xbox port sometime in the distant future.

For the best, because in the end Bandai Namco stepped in and gave us a multiplatform release so that all players can enjoy this masterpiece, the sequels, and Elden Ring.

The more I hear and see about this game the more interested I get. The long wait until (presumably) 2026 will be hard for this one.

I thought it was a very good show. Lies of P Overture, Tides of Annihilation, Split Fiction, Stellar Blade PC all looked great and Borderlands 4 release date is also welcome (though the trailer for that one wasn’t that impressive, didn’t look much evolved over 3, so I need to see more).

Instantly became one of my most anticipated games. Looks fantastic.

Good stuff.

Lies of P Overture looks amazing. A longer ways off than I’d hoped, but it’ll be worth the long wait I’m sure. This was the highlight for me.

The Split Fiction trailer was great, very excited for that game.

Good to have a release date for Borderlands 4, though the trailer wasn’t all that interesting to be honest.

This was the highlight for me, it looks so good! Can’t wait!

Why is there always so much contempt for soulslike games in online communities these days? It’s like me saying “Hollow Knight Silksong, another metroidvania? Yawn!” or “Doom The Dark Ages, another FPS? Eww yuck!”. Why don’t other subgenres also get this kind of treatment? Maybe it’s because it’s a relatively newer subgenre than these other ones and some people don’t like ‘new’ things.

It’s a definite ‘no thanks’ from me then. I shall wait for the PC release.

Probably just some sort of £100 FOMO edition that gives one or two weeks advanced access or suchlike.

As a current XSX owner, they’re going to need tangible advantages over PS6 to make me willing to lose out on all these Sony exclusives. Something they failed to do this generation. XSX’s theoretical power advantage is only seen in a small handful of games such Alan Wake 2. Most games show no difference or even a slight lead for PS5. Sony is already investing in AI with PSSR so I doubt they can significantly leapfrog Sony in that regard either. They can brute force it with larger chips, but it’ll be an expensive device limiting the mass appeal. And if it doesn’t meet a certain threshold of sales third parties won’t bother supporting it. And that’s why GameCube and Xbox struggled vs PS2 and the Vita struggled vs 3DS, despite being more powerful. I don’t see how they can possibly compete via hardware alone, but we’ll just have to wait and see. It’s essential that they deliver on these lofty promises to keep me invested in Xbox.

@Matroska sorry to be bearer of bad news but £40 would get you only 40% of a disc drive.

@Oz_Who_Dat_Dare That sounds promising!

Is there any chance Stellar Blade might also eventually make the jump? Now that we know that being originally published by Sony isn’t a surefire guarantee it will stay a permanent exclusive if they don’t also own the IP.

I was interested, but after finding out it is 30fps only on non-professional consoles I’ve decided to add it to my Steam wish list instead and I’ll get it on sale for PC at some point. It’s no longer worth buying day 1 if they aren’t going to take the time to add in a 60fps mode.

@Bez87 After the initial knee-jerk backlash to the pricing, the internet sentiment has rapidly softened to the Professional thanks to positive coverage from Digital Foundry and others. I’ve observed the same about-turn in public opinion on Reddit too. Interesting how quickly mass opinions can shift!

There isn’t a poll option for the undecideds. I’m still unsure!

@torquex Yeah I love my PC, but it’s just not best suited for lounge gaming. Steam Big Picture Mode is great, but anytime you need to do something in Windows proper it would be a pain to have to take out the mouse & keyboard each time when sitting on the sofa. I’d also need to replace all my parts with mini-ITX hardware which is even more costly than regular PC parts. It’s doable, but until Windows gets a more living room friendly UI I think I’ll keep my PC at my desk for now and have consoles for the lounge TV.

You’re right that it’d probably be wiser for me to invest that money in PC instead, Nvidia RTX 50 series should arrive next year and I could do with a CPU upgrade too. I just get FOMO very easily when it comes to shiny new tech like this! It’s definitely a weakness of mine.

I’m debating buying one anyway at current price, though still undecided. I’m an all-digital consumer so I have no need to worry about the overpriced disc drive attachment. I’m used to overspending on gaming tech. My RTX 3080 cost me £740, just for the GPU. That’s the problem though, I already have a PC so it becomes much harder to justify PS5P. I prefer gaming in the living room and currently have an XSX for that purpose, but we all know that Xbox have been slow motion imploding throughout 2024. There is so much negativity around that brand that I’m starting to feel some pressure to invest in PlayStation. Tricky predicament.

The regional pricing is off. $700 plus 20% VAT, should be £649 (rounded up slightly). Instead it’s £699, which is a disappointingly poor conversion.

@DonkeyFantasy Yep, I’ll be getting that PS5 Pro as soon as it launches. I’m just bummed out that I can’t bring my existing games library and game saves with me. I’m going to have to slowly rebuild from scratch, ugh.

Doesn’t work for the digital edition sadly, I just tried.