Intr1n5ic

I've wanted to check out Odin Sphere for years and never got around to it, looking forward to that.

Wishful thinking perhaps, but I would love to see BG3 at the top of that list for September. Hopefully it was well supported on console because Larian deserve it.

I'm happy to hear this, Sabotage deserves it. From what I've played so far it's an excellent game. It reminded me of Golden Sun and how engaged I was when I first played that many years ago. Sadly, I've had to put it on the back burner for the time being because BG3 has consumed my life, but I'm looking forward to finishing it.

@Fiendish-Beaver Agreed. I can't remember the last game I played that I rated as highly as this, like yourself, it might well have been DOS 2. I thought Returnal was incredible from recent years but it's apples and oranges.

@Fiendish-Beaver I dunno, I haven't played it myself, but after watching a lot of different streamers and seeing some of the complaints about Starfield, I don't think it stood a chance against TOTK either.

It's a 10 for me as well, it's so good, and the PS5 version looks and runs great. I wasn't sure how they were going to handle the abilities but they did an amazing job on the customisable radial wheels for all the skills.

My only complaints so far, it doesn't look like you can check how many camp supplies you have without going back to camp and initiating a rest, which isn't ideal. On PC this info is on your hotbar. The second is just preference, but I wish the long hold on the touch pad opened my character sheet rather than my journal.

@naruball I don't disagree. I think the lack of reasoning to justify it and also the timing of the announcement was extremely poor. Communication as ever from Sony is awful.

The increase for us in the UK on extra is 19%, which understandably is a big jump for some. I can only speak for myself on that, but I purchased my 12 month sub during black Friday last year and I feel like I heavily underpaid for what I received from it. Had it been the full £84 I would think the same.

@naruball It's definitely not for all tiers, specifically essential and premium, but when I look at what I've received on extra over the past 12 months, I really don't think £1.33 more a month is an unreasonable increase.

Baldur's Gate 3 from 5pm

I'll give the patched up Saints Row a chance, but this is clearly a pretty poor month for essential.

@andy24king Because they're not a trillion dollar company who can bankroll their subscription service with profits derived from outside their gaming division.

I happen to think extra is fantastic, I got a ton of value from it over the past year and I'll probably grab another year over black Friday using some shopto workarounds. I'm playing Sea Of Stars right now which is a quality game, it would of cost me £29 without extra. More of that and I don't really give a ***** about the increase, I still feel a little over £8 a month represents insane value for money (even less with shopto).

The premium cost increase is ridiculous though, I can't say anything redeeming about that tier, and I can't wrap my head around the timing of these announcements in general.

Anyway, you're wasting your time getting angry on here talking about it. Speak with your wallets if you're genuinely aggrieved. Sony seeing a significant drop in their subscription numbers is the best way to get their attention.

I'm really enjoying it so far, it's a great game.

@Kienda "Of course servers cost money, but they charge because they can, not because they must."

Yes and no. Consoles provide a baked in service to access online gaming through their infrastructure. PC is different in that you have full control over how you connect to others. Any attempt to try and charge people for that isn't going to fly when you have complete system access that allows you to configure it yourself.

You're correct in stating that all three if them starting charging because they can, but now that it's been established, what's required to maintain it costs money. It's not just servers, it's everything that comes with that. There will be thousands of individuals employed to work on the backend of these services for each company. All of those moving parts incur operating costs, and as console owners these are unfortunately passed on to us if we want to use them.

I'm not defending it, it was certainly introduced to generate more income, but there's a lot more going on than just server costs.

@Kienda "But the only benefit to paying for online multiplayer is to line the shareholder’s pockets of multi-billion-dollar corporations."

There's a bit more to it than that. Online services require huge infrastructure to operate and maintain which all incurs costs. Servers, security, staffing, maintenance etc. They covered those costs up until roughly 14 years ago when the company went through a period of significant financial losses in different markets. Everything was restructured shortly after. Providing this service at a cost to the consumer was a necessary change that needed to happen.

This is the predicament for all subscription models. They require consistent growth, or at least a large enough plateau to maintain a certain level of quality output and service. When this isn't the case, adjustments start to appear in different forms. With gamepass, for the first time we're seeing a major release drop almost a week early for an added cost, and my theory on that is they were concerned about recouping costs/turning a healthy profit on its development.

One of the bigger problems with this model is the ability to dip in for a month to play a big release and then immediately cancel. A lot of people doing that won't pay full price when they can purchase cheap keys from different online sellers, and long term subs will use years of cheap conversion or yearly plans to save on cost as well.

Here in the UK, using a reputable site like shopto costs £8.85 for a month of ultimate. You would need 8 million subscribers at that price point to match 1 million sales at £70 for a new release. When you're talking about a single game costing hundreds of millions to develop, which Starfield likely did, then you can see the problems that could potentially arise going forward if growth doesn't significantly ramp up.

I'm looking forward to the reimagining of The Gold Saucer.

@HonestHick I'll be too busy playing Baldur's Gate 3.

@nessisonett Be honest though, take me out was pretty good when it first launched 😄

@HonestHick "Today it ends for me. Cause I know all i need to about you, you are easily trigger by some of us on here and i just so happen to be one of them."

Nope, I just think fanboys should grow up. I know all I need to know about you from the post I saw you delete 😉

@HonestHick I have no issue taking accountability for my actions and admitting when I'm in the wrong. I also wasn't the first to call you out, you can read back through the comments and clarify that for yourself.

I asked you why you changed your name, and was it to look less blatant when you go out of your way to talk up and defend MS and Xbox over here. I also said that I caught what you wrote on PureXbox under your old handle GreenBandit after the ABK block. I mentioned that because a lot of what it contained was a stark contradiction to how you talk about PlayStation over here. You then got defensive and started saying you were being attacked, probably from the embarrassment of knowing someone had actually seen that mental post before you deleted it.

Again, I have no idea why you chose to continue this today in such a childish manner. The conversation was long over.

@HonestHick Wait, who told you how to think or write about your hobbies? Who told you what to spend your money on and what you should or shouldn't like? Who got others to block you? Is all of that directed at me, because if it is please provide me with one example?

The conversation was over, but for whatever reason you chose to @ me today and continue it with a ridiculously childish post. Having pointed that out, you're now claiming you were deliberately being childish to express a point about how childish the conversation was yesterday. Are you okay?

To put this matter to bed. I wasn't arguing over a plastic box, nor was I defending one. You were being called out by multiple people for being an Xbox fanboy, and from everyone who was involved in that conversation, you were the one actively defending a "plastic box".

"They were spreading misinformation about Xbox to make PS look like they are going to crush Xbox out of the Console market"

That's just one of the comments you made. Tell me that wouldn't look out of place coming straight from the mouth of a teenage fanboy.

@HonestHick So what you just wrote to me was an example of you acting your age and being an adult? Objectively read it back.

@HonestHick That legitimately read like I was just dm'ed by a teenager on twitter.

I set myself a limit on what I was willing to spend on this and that was £150. I think the pricing is a little aggressive considering the limited functionality.

@XenonKnight Stop 😄

All jokes aside, I think they pass it now. The proposal has been completely revised and I don't see the CMA objecting to it.

@XenonKnight Neither do I, but I was interested to read different perspectives from both sides during that time. I saw their article on it minutes after it went live and GreenBandit was the first to respond. Roughly 10 or so minutes later he'd deleted his post. It was quite the read 😄

Anyway, best to move on.

@MrMagic Mate, it's wild, and now he's playing the victim after being called out for it.

I wish I'd taken a screenshot of what was written over there because it was one of the most extreme examples of fanboyism I've ever seen on either site, literally 30+ lines of mental anti Sony ranting after the ABK block.

@HonestHick Nobody is attacking you, don't be so soft. You were called out because of your constant defending of Microsoft here, and I specifically joined in because of something I previously saw you write that is a complete contradiction to how you present yourself here.

@HonestHick I didn't say they were leaving the hardware market, but look at how defensive you're getting at the mere suggestion of it from someone else 😄

@HonestHick Your response was supporting his point. PC is a software market for them?

@HonestHick I honestly don't care what you enjoy playing more or how many systems you own. I called you out because the way you present yourself here is a complete contrast to the way you present yourself on PureXbox. I called you out because of the absurd nonsense I saw you write over there back in April that was filled with anti Sony rhetoric and read like a rant from an angry child, which you quickly deleted. Meanwhile, you're over here regularly telling everyone that you own and enjoy everything, often before going out of your way to defend Microsoft at every opportunity.

This was an article about how well Sony is currently doing with hardware sales, your contributions from the start have been trying to let people know how great Microsoft are doing because of the PC market. You even said in your first comment, "not trying to be a fanboy". Your position couldn't be more obvious if you tried.

@General_Disarray You'll have to get the full details from @HonestHick, but I think is was when a trillion dollar company with more anti-consumer lawsuits filed against them than most, started to buy the biggest publishers in the industry. I've been informed that this is fantastic for everyone and promotes healthy competition.

@General_Disarray Exactly. This guy's informed everyone on this site that he owns every system so many times I've lost count, and it's usually right before mentioning that Xbox is great and Microsoft are doing amazing things for the industry 😄

@HonestHick Yeah you did. You were the first to comment on the PureXbox article about it back in April. Your huge block of text read like a child having a mental breakdown because someone took their toys away. You left it up for about 10 minutes before deleting it, probably because you read it back and realised how unbalanced it was.

Nothing you say upsets or triggers me. I actually find it kind of amusing watching someone jump through hoops as they try to present themselves as having no bias or agenda.

@HonestHick So it wasn't to look less blatant when you come here to write essays about how great MS and Xbox are?

I thought the paragraphs you wrote on PureXbox were quite interesting after the ABK block in the UK, you know, the ones you quickly deleted because they read like an extreme fanboy having a complete meltdown. They certainly didn't come across as mature or unbiased.

What were some of the things you were saying that you hoped would happen to Sony and PlayStation again?

@HonestHick Why did you change your name from GreenBandit?

@naruball I'm honestly not that clued up on the performance of Sony's other divisions, I would need to read more in to it, but I completely agree with your sentiment. Companies don't just automatically scrap product lines or services because they're underperforming.

The argument that MS would have shut Xbox down if they weren't happy with its performance doesn't hold weight. Without question their hardware sales aren't meeting expectations, and subscription growth is consistently missing the targets they're setting for themselves year on year. I very much doubt anyone at the top is happy about that.

@themightyant "Game Pass is going strong with huge profits in subscription services"

What figures are you using to state huge profits? We know about supposed revenue numbers because that's all they disclose, but they don't provide any information on expenditure costs to run the service, or what their profit margins are after things like that are factored in.

I'm sure it's doing well, but none of us know exactly what that translates to, and recent changes would indicate, at least to me, that "huge profits" might be a stretch. Price increases, shortened trials, their big triple a's now releasing early at a premium cost to the consumer. Remember when play it day 1 on gamepass was a slogan synonymous with the service, well now it's play it day 6 unless you want to pay us more money. I feel like that's a pretty big shift that a lot of consumers should be concerned about going forward, and was perhaps driven by an uncertainty that they wouldn't be able to recoup development costs or turn a healthy profit from subscriptions alone.

Great review, sounds like a quality sequel.

It's currently 10% off to preorder on the store, only £22.49.

@Beerheadgamer82 Yeah, we don't know what's lined up for 2024 1st party wise, as you say, maybe nothing AAA will be ready in time, but they'll start the year strong with 3rd party FF7 Rebirth at least.

His reaction was great 😄

Death pulse is just a nasty affix, I've started scrapping every sigil that rolls with it. He should know what that circle and sound is by 85 though, and his teleport was up 🤦

This Judge is presiding over a case that's centered around a $69 billion dollar acquisition, and has been presented with an email that provides irrefutable proof of Microsofts intent to financially muscle rival platforms out of business. I'd be willing to bet it doesn't make the slightest bit of difference and this still gets passed.

Not my cup of tea but I'm sure some Lakers fans will be interested.

@Darthmoogle How many times does this need to be explained. It isn't about whether or not consoles are allowed to have exclusives, of course they are, and all of them do. The issue here is Microsoft buying up the biggest 3rd party studios who have a history of making multiplatform games. That in itself isn't the main issue either in all honesty, the bigger point of contention is that they are actively cancelling the release of games that were already deep in development and would have been released on PlayStation. So far we know about Redfall, Starfield, Indiana Jones, and you can probably add HI FI Rush to that as well seeing as it was in development for years before the acquisition.

That's the difference.

@HonestHick You're surprised by both, are they comparable to you?

We all know the loss of COD wasn't going to be the end of PlayStation, there's no surprise that this was being stated in an internal email. Whereas the other is the Xbox studios boss having a conversation with Microsofts chief financial officer about putting PlayStation out of business.

You could argue that email shouldn't be a surprise either given Microsofts history.

@cragis0001 You mean the same CMA who said they have no issue with regard to COD but are more concerned about how the acquisition will affect the future of cloud gaming, that CMA?

I see the verbal diarrhoea merchant is hard at work with his pr sob stories.

Both companies have been engaged in timed exclusives for well over a decade. Microsoft have taken that one step further by removing the timed part, and are now actively purchasing third party studios and cancelling their development and release on other platforms altogether.

Who in their right mind believes the garbage that routinely comes out of this man's mouth.

Nothing to add to this anymore, and @Th3solution said it perfectly anyway. Both sides have exclusives, and always have, but one side is now attempting to buy up the industry and make multiplatform games already in production for rivals exclusive as well.