Intr1n5ic

@ShogunRok Don't you dare bring the special one in to this!

"Nostalgia is an immensely powerful thing"

I feel like you're trying to downplay this result somewhat, Robert. 😄

It's also the highest rated release so far this year on both metacritic and opencritic of all games across all platforms.

Rebirth is a deserved number 1 for me. It's still early but I'll be surprised if I enjoy my playthrough of anything else as much.

@NightshadeNL Evolve literally means to develop gradually. The responses here are focusing on bug fixes and disregarding everything else they've done to the game. A complete overhaul of mechanics and stats, of the skill tree, of cyberware, of combat, of vehicle controls, of the police system. They introduced vehicle combat, added a ton of new weapons, made changes to stats and perks on existing ones, added finishers for melee. Along with a massive amount of QOL improvements to multiple different systems and features in the game.

I could go on and on listing everything they've done, and it would be a completely separate conversation to one discussing bug fixes and performance alone. If they wanted to, they could have just fixed the bugs and framerate issues and sailed off in to the sunset with their millions. They stuck it out and delivered a vastly superior experience to what the game was at launch.

Nobody is celebrating or encouraging how this game began, they're acknowledging what it's become over several years.

@Deoxyr1bose I don't think this award is encouraging the notion of a comeback, and it's definitely not promoting the idea that things can just be fixed later. It's an acknowledgement of a team who spent 3 years working their arse off to correct their admitted failures. Should it have released the way it did, absolutely not, but they've "evolved" what was the most heavily criticised release in recent memory, in to something that's now received a lot of critical acclaim.

@BeerIsAwesome To be fair, it's evolution from what it was at launch to what it is now is massive. I think it's deserving of that award.

@MikeOrator You're not wrong, but with it being only 2 weeks away they'd be crazy to omit that from todays announcement. You've also got to wonder how that would even work. If you're playing the game at 60, it would need to load you in to a 30fps lower resolution world to do the dlc, or make it completely unavailable. I can't see that happening.

@LifeGirl Woot! More negativity!

4 isn't as good as previous entries but there's still a lot of fun to be had with it. It's on sale at the minute for £3.99 if anyone's interested in playing the upgrade, and all 6 dlc's are currently on sale as well until the 24th, separately or as part of the season pass.

@MikeOrator I would guess it's all of it, would be very strange of them to not upgrade the dlc.

FF7. There's some excellent games on that list but I put 133 hours in to Rebirth and loved every minute of it.

@NEStalgia "I think whether 30fps is acceptable or not depends on the genre."

For some maybe, I personally can't enjoy a game at 30 anymore regardless of the genre.

I think the more pertinent question is, if the hardware is capable of doing so, is it acceptable to not provide a choice.

Edit - Just to add, I think you're spot on about display being a factor. I play on a LG C2 and 30 is indeed horrendous.

@Cloud39472 I'm guessing you just missed the zero, but that number is over 50 million.

I agree though, none of these polls mean anything, particularly when they can be influenced by trolls. It also feels like certain people are currently working overtime to downplay the importance of framerate because of a certain upcoming 30fps game.

I've given it an 8 despite my frustrations with how poorly it runs, and I'm being generous. I don't see it getting better any time soon and will probably sell it on rather than hold out for further improvements.

I completely forgot to add them this month, cheers for the reminder 👍

I thought the demo was good, but it was the preview and boss challenge at the end that sold me. The skills from the challenge mode give a great sense of how much better the combat gets. I'm really looking forward to this.

I'd like it to not run like s**t, please. Not that concerned about anything else they want to try and sell me right now.

@thefourfoldroot1 Same boat for me. I had one develop drift after years on the PS4, but so far so good on my launch duelsense. It has developed a couple of other issues after three and a half years though. The battery doesn't hold its charge as well as it used to, expected, and the spring in the R2 failed. It still works but it's a hair trigger now.

I thought it was excellent, one of my favourite games this gen.

@HonestHick You're right, they did mention that. I can't recall exactly what was said but it would have caused conflicts with older titles.

@NEStalgia True, if we're being specific the only comparable example is the PS4 pro. I don't know the figures personally but I know it wasn't flying off the shelves.

This may do worse, we'll have to wait and see, but I think they know what they're doing. I have a feeling this is more of an experiment with their own studios to see what the proprietary tech is capable of before a proper launch with the PS6.

I didn't realise warranties were that short in the US, I'm shocked by that. Electronics are two years in the UK. Sony will state 1 year in their terms and conditions but our retailers offer more, so as long as you didn't buy from Sony direct they have no option but to honour it.

@HonestHick Understandable, to be honest I am as well. From listening to the Digital Foundry guys it seems the issue was likely power consumption and that would of been too big of a mid gen overhaul. This is more of an introduction to their proprietary ai and upscaling tech.

In reality though, 60 has been an option on almost everything released this gen, both first and third party. What this machine will hopefully do is allow us to enjoy that without a significant compromise in fidelity. It's not going to make poorly optimised games run any better.

@NEStalgia I don't believe this is a question of optimism. I'm offering a point of view from personal experience. I would also say it's a lot more realistic then the possibility of a net neutral scenario. This isn't a new concept, Sony have released several iterations of their consoles in most gens, from fats to slims, bigger hard drives to pros. I'm sure they have a far better understanding than you or I on what could potentially "cannibalise" their market.

I buy 99% of my electronics brand new for several reasons, I can afford to, I don't want them to be handled by someone else, and I want the manufacturers warranty. Having worked in a retail position when I was younger that sold secondhand games and consoles, I understand why that isn't an option for a significant amount of people though. I'm obviously using friends and family as examples to draw upon as well, but the primary reason I've encountered with consumers using a secondhand market is financial constraint.

Again, personal experience. I'm not speaking for the market as a whole, I'm sure there are a lot of people who just want a bargain. I'm just saying you're overstating the impact those sales have.

@NEStalgia I think your logic is way off here. I would argue that a lot of people who buy secondhand do so because they can't afford or justify the cost of a new machine at retail, and as a result they were likely never going to affect the sales of the base unit. You're also assuming that resold base units are directly sold to consumers. Right now I can sell my PS5 for around £230 at CEX, there's no telling how long they'll have to sit on that stock, and as mentioned, if they do eventually sell it, it will probably be to a customer who wasn't able or willing to buy a brand new anyway.

For those like myself, not only are we double dipping with a pro, but our second purchase will likely be at a higher cost than the first. With that in mind, I'm not sure how you've arrived at a net neutral conclusion.

@danschae This is the draw for me. Devs who can already produce a stable 60 with the current hardware with be able to do so without the graphical hit we're currently seeing. I just got done with Rebirth, and whilst I don't think the image was as bad as people were claiming on performance mode, it clearly suffered as a result. Had the pro been available, I think we would of seen the same flawless 60 but with significantly better graphical fidelity.

@NeonPizza I have great memories of Powerstone with my brothers growing up. How our mum handled us I'll never know.

I feel like I'll be buying it on release.

If devs are frustrated about developing for multiple systems now, imagine the headache when a rumored handheld gets thrown in to the mix.

@Enigk Probably right 😄

In all seriousness though, Sony will be eyeing GTA as a huge pull to sell pro units. Rockstar will have these devkits for roughly a year before the expected launch, and with their long running promotional ties, I imagine Sony will be doing everything they can to ensure there's a pro version ready for it.

I'll be buying this just to play the best version of GTA VI at launch.

@AK4tywill Classic. I would watch it with my parents when I was little.

I hope Capcom paid him more than a tenner for this.

Just got to Costa Del Sol and I'm loving it so far. I've given it a 9 at this point.

Alright, alright, alright, kupo.

It looks excellent.

Not sure why this has become a PS5 Pro conversation. This is entirely down to the devs not wanting to invest the time and resources in to creating a 60 fps mode for console. It has nothing to do with hardware, there are far more demanding games that have demonstrated that already. It's just poorly optimised, evidenced by the fact that they didn't even bother to ensure a stable locked 30.

@ShogunRok Forspoken has entered the chat 😬

@Shepherd_Tallon Yeah, I've seen the same so I know where you're coming from.

I dunno, it just didn't read well to me. 13 people making claims against 2 separate individuals didn't feel like it played in to that, but who knows. It was investigated and addressed either way.

@Shepherd_Tallon That's a fair reply, but what raised my eyebrows was that some of those involved allegedly received payouts for their claims. That doesn't sound to me like it's a case of someone being thin skinned, or a simple matter of being asked to do something job related that they didn't want to.

Great to see some of you being dismissive about the "toxicity" part of the article, despite the fact that it clearly states those on the receiving end sought external legal guidance, and their claims were seemingly serious enough to receive payouts.

Allegedly of course.

This report is all over the place. Some people are unhappy, some are complimentary. Some believe change was needed because of the disorganised nature of the studio, some don't like that change because it's affected the culture. One former employee witnessed nothing but professionalism, whilst another thinks Sony just put their mates in charge.

Overall, it does sound like Sony put a ton of pressure on them to make sure Horizon was their primary focus, and for some, this might have been a project they had no interest in developing. More people were probably brought it to oversee and ensure it was ready for the VR2 launch and that contributed to some of the discontent.

To be honest, I'm confused as to why Sony bought them in the first place, Firesprite's portfolio since its creation 12 years ago isn't particularly impressive. Also, why would former devs of studios previously shut down by Sony want to get back in to bed with them.

The one thing I will say, if there is any truth to reports of individuals within that studio creating a genuinely toxic environment, those are redundancies I can get behind.

@Friendly "because these layoffs couldn’t have been prevented some way or another?"

Some of them maybe, but neither of us know what the full story behind them are. You're assuming it's all financial and to appease shareholders, when in reality there's likely a range of contributing factors. How can you comment on what's preventable without that context? This is why I highlighted your post about Microsoft because we can comment on that. They spent just shy of 70bn on a publisher and immediately put 1900 people out of work. That's preventable, and in no way comparable to this. You can do whatever gymnastics you want to try and lump them in the same boat, but Microsofts example is just ruthless.

A hypothetical scenario for you regarding this story. Let's say London Studios spent the last 5 years working on something and what they achieved in that time is complete garbage. They've spent a huge amount of money, wasted a ton resources, and failed to deliver on the product they pitched to Sony and were greenlit for. Are you suggesting Sony management should take the hit for their failures, or is the more logical step to cease development and shut down a failing operation?

@Friendly Yes, that's how corporations work. How they both go about it though isn't remotely close.

@riceNpea This is the likely scenario here. This studio spent 20 years making mainly Singstar games. I believe they helped other studios in some support capacity on larger titles, but the reality is, this was their first attempt at a game of this type and it obviously failed massively to meet expectations.

It's sad when people lose their jobs and projects like this fail, but considering the entire studio was closed, I can't help but think that whatever they were doing for the past 5 years must have been extremely poor and viewed as an enormous waste of time and money.

@Friendly It's a little different, no? Sony didn't just spend tens of billions acquiring these people to immediately fire 900 of them. Even when they spent 3.6bn on Bungie they didn't do that, 1.2bn of that figure was spent on employee retention rather than severance packages.

Anyway, It's always sad to read about things like this happening in the industry, hopefully they're not out of work for too long.

@Hamst88 I thought as much.

@TrickyDicky99 Once again, you haven't played GT7 have you, let alone the PSVR2 version?

"Now I bet you find a plethora of excuses not to give out your ID."

I don't need a plethora, just one. You seem extremely immature and would be the last person I gave my PSN ID to.

@TrickyDicky99 So you haven't played it.

I hope the 99 in your name doesn't represent the year you were born.

@Yozora146_ The dude is anything but fair. He's a broken record with a never-ending hate boner for this device.

@TrickyDicky99 Have you even played GT7, do you think all it offers is a single track, or are you just being deliberately hyperbolic as per usual to contribute yet more negative commentary on this site?

I got one at launch and was using it almost daily to play GT7, but when BG3 came out everything else got put on the back burner. I'm not sure when I'll pick it up again as I have 4 rpg's to play through now before Stellar Blade. No regrets whatsoever though, I've had a lot of fun with it.

@HonestHick Microsoft overtook Apple last month.

"However the MS & ABK layoffs were all but certain as they don’t need 2 people doing a one person job."

I've heard this being touted. I'm not sure I buy the excuse that 1900 positions overlapped but it could be true, either way, had the acquisition not gone through there would have been zero overlapping.

"The good thing is new studios pop up all the time in this industry and those people could get back into something like that and who knows be the next big person at a new studio, or go on to make indie stuff."

Hopefully.

I'm bemused as to why a sequel to Bloodborne still hasn't been negotiated. Sony must know how beloved that game is.