Intr1n5ic

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.

@HonestHick This is fundamentally where our opinions differ. I don't think the world's richest company consolidating more of the market will ever be a good thing for the industry. No amount of select titles they decide to release elsewhere is going to change my opinion on that.

I don't think their actions are harmless either, and I'd be willing to bet the 1900 people who just lost their jobs at Activision/Blizzard would agree with that.

@Friendly "I think Nintendo’s platform is where most sales will be."

I agree. I'll think they'll do extremely well on there.

"Good sportsmanship. Let’s see if there are more ports this year indeed." 👍

@Friendly "yes, for this year that’s the lineup."

Okay, I'll have a sportsman's bet with you that they port more before the end of the year.

"They probably did this at the start of the year while there’s not much competition".

I'm probably misunderstanding you, but what do you mean by not much competition? From a PlayStation perspective, Pentiment comes out close to FF7 Rebirth. Hi-Fi Rush comes out close to Dragon's Dogma 2, and the last two come out a week either side of Stellar Blade.

If I had interest in any of these ports I know where my money would be going. I don't think they could have picked a worse time to release them.

@Friendly "These are the only 4 games for this year that are going to other platforms. Smaller and GaaS games."

Oh sweet summer child 😂

I'm a fan of the games so I'm keeping an open mind, but I really didn't like Eli's last film. I thought the dialogue in particular was poor so I'm not over the moon about his involvement in the writing of this.

@lacerz Yeah, any exception will likely be a situation where their hand is forced.

A bit disappointing regarding the rest of this year but I'm not that fussed. I don't know where people find the time to play what's already available. In the first 6 or 7 weeks of this year I've spent roughly £300 on Like a Dragon, Granblue Fantasy, Helldivers, Dragons Dogma 2 and FF7 Rebirth. Stellar Blade I'll grab closer to its launch, as well as many smaller indie titles I like the look of like Dave the Diver and Harold Halibut. Then there's, Rise of the Ronin, Black Myth Wukong, The Plucky Squire, Concord? etc, to consider later on.

With a full time job there's enough there to keep me busy for the entire year. Not to mention my backlog which is just stupid at this point.

@XboxistheBestBox You're dreaming. There is no future where Sony helps to strengthen Microsofts position. Same day launch on PC is realistic, especially if they're paying attention to how well Helldivers is performing. Select titles ported to the switch 2 is also something I could see happening, but there is no chance they bring their titles to Xbox.

@__jamiie My point from the start has been very clear. Xbox, under Phils guidance, followed up their most successful generation with one that became synonymous with having no games. That was followed by a new console that launched with no games, then buying other people's games, and it's culminating with bringing their bought games to other systems.

I think he's done a fantastic job.

@__jamiie Agreed, they came flying out the blocks with brand momentum this gen.

@colonelkilgore Never change 😂

@__jamiie "As I, and other people have said, the last generation was the most important to win or lose."

I don't disagree, unfortunately Phil spent 7 and a half years losing it by not releasing games. He then started this gen not releasing games.