Comments 135

Re: Here's Why Decima Engine Was the Top Choice for Death Stranding and Kojima Productions

Katsuhono

"He says "no engine is the best choice in every scenario", but Decima "enables us to accomplish many things that would be difficult to achieve elsewhere"."

And yet people still want more studios to use this or that engine, most people don't know anything about working with a game engine and the cost of maintaining one or changing one mid-production. People have done great games with Unreal Engine (Days Gone and Returnal look and play great), Decima Engine, ND or Santa Monica are doing wonders with their own tech. The RE Engine is incredible but has also been misused lately with games that probably didn't fit its strength.

Re: Opinion: The Euphoric Reaction to PS6's Rumoured Delay Really Confuses Me

Katsuhono

If we take the past into account, remember when consoles prices used to go down as the generation went on ?
This is the first generation where price are going up the older it gets and you want Sony to release a new piece of tech ? So much of this generation is unlike anything that has come before (and to be honest every generation was quite unique) why would Sony have to do "like they've always done" by cherry picking things that furthers your argument.

Re: Opinion: The Euphoric Reaction to PS6's Rumoured Delay Really Confuses Me

Katsuhono

Okay one last thing.

I would also argue that a game taking full advantages of a possible PS6 isn't on the console itself but on the developper. I think we've seen it this gen, some developpers just don't have the ressources to exploit the full capacity of the machine.
Games takes longer and longer to develop, not necessarily because they get more complex but more often than not it's to match a level of fidelity that takes a f*ckton of ressources. A better machine doesn't automatically means better looking game right at the gate. Spider-Man 2 looks better than Spider-Man 1 but it also cost tripled the budget, does it look "triple the budget better" ? Personnally I don't think so, what does a Spider-Man 3 on PS6 looks like ? A 700$ million dollars games that has better leaves and cans textures or a bit more detailed people in the streets ? Just for it too look barely better than the previous one while revenue expectations skyrockets even more. 80$ games, 100$ games ?

Re: Opinion: The Euphoric Reaction to PS6's Rumoured Delay Really Confuses Me

Katsuhono

@GamingGod I have not ! But from what I gathered and I might be wrong, isn't it more of a troubled optimized game rather than something that truly struggles to be played on PS5 ? I know the RE Engine has had some troubles lately with Monster Hunters Worlds aswell. But again, I haven't played either of those if they are truly next gen experiences and not current gen with optimization problems, I stand corrected !

Re: Opinion: The Euphoric Reaction to PS6's Rumoured Delay Really Confuses Me

Katsuhono

Let's not forget that there is no rule around generation length. There was 6 years between Ps1, 2 and 3, 7 years between Ps3, Ps4 and PS5 so why wouldn't there be 8 years between Ps5 and Ps6 ? Nintendo made the jump from the Switch 8 years after the release of the first Switch, the Switch was released in a haste 4 years after the Wii U.

Sony waiting a year or two from what is expected isn't a bad sign at all, we don't have to HAVE another console every 7 years, if the technology leaps makes more sense to wait a year or two for it then let's wait. Sony marketed the PS5 PRO with The Last Of Us Pt.II a game from 2020 that was first released on PS4, yeah it played at a lower resolution and lower framerate but the game still looks damn good and the difference between the PS5 Pro and the PS5 version is honestly marginal, I'm playing Death Stranding 2 right now and it looks amazing on a normal PS5.

The PS4 Pro was a real upgrade, bringing 60fps to some titles or the resolution update to match the advance of 4K back in the mid 2010s was really needed. What did the PS5 Pro brought ? a cleaner 4K that you can only notice by pausing the gaming and zooming on a still frame ? more consistant 60fps when most games already hit that ? All of that for 900 bucks.

So what now ? a 1000 buck Ps6 with even more diminishing returns. If most people can't tell at a glance if a game is running on a PS5, PS5 Pro or PS6 do we really need a PS6 ?

Added to that the dev cycles are getting absurdely long, long enough that some first party studio might actually MISS this gen entirely or we should consider ourselves lucky if we get ONE game from them. So what if we get Intergalactic in 2027 then the next Naughty Dog game is coming on the PS7 ?
At the end of the PS3 we could tell that the machine was giving its all with games like Uncharted 3 or The Last Of Us, the jump to the PS4 and PBR rendering method was huge, the difference between The Last Of Us on PS3 and The Last Of Us Part II 7 years later is huge, 6 years after The Last Of Us Part II... ? most game looks the game. You're right about the original PS4 being a bit slow and dated, that's why a PS4 Pro was created, by the end of the PS4 life cycle I was honestly worried my console might die when playing God of War or TLOU Pt.II I could hear the fan struggling to keep the machine running, 6 years into the PS5, I'm sorry but I don't see it, I haven't seen one game that takes the PS5 to its knees, I haven't seen one game that felt a bit held back by the tech inside the PS5.

Re: Spider-Man 2 Won't Receive Any PS5 Story DLC

Katsuhono

@Rich33 Lots of things change during production, iirc God of War Ragnarok started as a DLC, The Lost Legacy too before becoming a smaller stand alone title. The leak might have made Insomniacs change plans or they could just as easily changed plan on their own accords. We might never know ! But it's not something unusual for a Sony Studio.

Re: PS5 Pro Boost Is Pretty Clear Cut in The Last of Us 2 Remastered Comparison Video

Katsuhono

I feel insane, of course the image zoomed x3 on a stationary element is cleaner than the base PS5 but what about actual gameplay ? It's all fine and dandy but when you play, you're constantly moving the camera, your eyes are constantly scanning different part of the scenery, you're engrossed in the world and the story.
Who can confidently and for 30 hours of TLOU II definitely tell the difference by playing the game normally ?
I've changed GPU recently I have a high end RTX 4XXX card, I'm playing the TLOU Pt I Remake and even with every settings imaginable pushed to ultra, as soon as I start playing, I cannot tell you the difference between the PS5 version.
I just don't understand how you can justify a machine that cost 300-400$ more than the original that gives you check notes clearer backpack textures and grasses.

Honestly I'd be interested in doing a "blind test", take a few hundred people, make them play the game without telling them if it's PS4, PS4 Pro, PS5 or PS5 Pro (or even PC at Ultra if the port is in the works) and see how many people can definitely tell the difference without obsessing over distant background details and just playing the game like a normal human being.

Re: Ex-Sony Boss Shawn Layden Explains How to Make Games Faster, Cheaper

Katsuhono

@get2sammyb

While I agree that Internet communities would be unbearable, if the whole industry shifted toward riskier game/game design and being less driven by pure technological fidelity. It's not like they would have a choice ? Rise of the Ronin gets roasted because next to everything else it looks a bit more "dated". Elden Ring doesn't really scream next gen visuel and was very well recieved, Nintendo has left the "graphics above all" race and has done tremendously well with the Switch a device powered by a 2015 tablet CPU.
Either way, it is just not sustainable in the long run, Spider-Man 2 cost triple the budget of the first one but it doesn't feel 3 times prettier or more advanced. It's getting rarer and rarer to get at least two games in the same franchise on the same console generation and for what ? people will still complain that they've waited too long "for this".

Re: Soapbox: Dead Space Is This Year's (Almost) Forgotten Horror Delight

Katsuhono

My personal Game of the Year, it's my most played game from January to April on Playstation, completed it 7 times, platinum, etc etc... It truly made a mark on me, I hope it sold well enough to warrant a sequel or even better I'd buy a Dead Space Extraction VR remake in a heartbeat.
I cannot recommnd the game enough !

Re: Told You So! Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart Really Wouldn't Have Worked on PS4

Katsuhono

Nobody here in the comments arguing that it could work on a PS4 or HDDs seems to be acknowledging the fact that Rift Apart uses the "Direct Storage" technology which did not exist when Rift Apart was released on PS5 2 years ago. At the time of development (which was 2020/2019 or even before that) there was first of all no consumer SSD faster than the one in the PS5 at a reasonable price, there was no DirectStorage to compensate for the speed at which HDDs and SSD decompresses files. In the Digital Foundry video the game running on a machin with the latest CPU and latest GPU (both released AFTER the PS5 and the setup costing about 4-5 times the price of a PS5) still loads slower than the PS5. Insomniacs never said "you will never be able to play this game anywhere else than on the PS5" but at the time of development, the SSD of the PS5 gave them the possibility to create this game as they intended.

Re: Poll: What's the Best Uncharted Game?

Katsuhono

Honestly I'll have to go with The Lost Legacy, something about the brevity of the experience. I love 2 and 4 but they both have some pacing issues IMO, 4 reaaaally gets going in Madagascar. TLL is fun throughout !

Re: Poll: How Long Should Games Be?

Katsuhono

Some of my best gaming experience have taken me hundreds of hours (BOTW, Red Dead Redemption 2) some of them were a lot shorter (Journey, A Short Hike) and a lot of them between these two extremes.
I just want a game to be good, I'm not expecting X amount of playtime for X amount of money given (as long as it is still fair). The worst thing a good game can do is overstay its welcome.

Re: UK Sales Charts: Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart Sells Even Better in Its Second Week

Katsuhono

@Kirbyboy92 The thing to celebrate is that it was an incrase, at all. Big Games just don't usually do that, it would be something to celebrate even if the game dropped 2-3%, Games like this are notoriously very frontloaded, they make most of their sales in the first week and then it slows down hard. It would be like Endgame making 650 millions in its first week and making that again in the second week, it would be unprecedented.

Re: UK Sales Charts: Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart the Next Insomniac Game to Take Top Spot

Katsuhono

@Serialsid I'll have to agree with this sentiment. While GamePass is great "bang for your bucks", I'm not sure yet of the impact it will have long term. I'm not a fan of thinking of games as "disposable" and I've had the same problem on a smaller scale with free PS+ games that just didn't grab me fast enough and I ended up dropping them. "I haven't paid anything so it doesn't matter".
The other big worry I have is what kind of budget makes sense for GamePass ? Would we get games like The Last of Us pt.II, God of War ? Red Dead Redemption ? Games that cost a ton of money just to be added as part of a 15$ subscription service. How do you reconcile the fact that these games sell up to 3-4 millions in one week end at fullprice but now it would have to share the 15 dollars price tons of other games.
And my last question is how do you make games for GamePass ? frontload the game to maximize players retention, just like you said, when somebody pays a fee upfront they're definitely more likely to stick around, when it's part of a subscription, not so much.

I'm glad GamePass exist but I'm not sure if it really is the "savior" of gaming as some seem to think, I dunno...

Re: UK Sales Charts: Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart the Next Insomniac Game to Take Top Spot

Katsuhono

@Kidfried The article is litteraly called "UK Sales Charts", the article mentions multiple times that it is "physical only" what more do you want ? they're not trying to say that R&C is take the top spot worldwide, they're just stating the facts, It's the best selling physical game in the UK, that's all. It's not the whole story but it certainly means that the game is probably selling well everywhere else but we don't have precise data on that.

Re: Reaction: Partnerships Show PlayStation Empowering Creators, And Avoiding an Acquisition War

Katsuhono

@Gamer83 I wouldn't mind Sony not buying them if the shadow of Microsoft's wallet wasn't looming over the game industry. Sony and Insomniacs perfectly worked together from their beginnings and that was cool, I'm glad they went first party because that would have been a terrible blow for me if Microsoft bought them.
I absolutely enjoyed RETURNAL and the last BluePoint's remakes so I'd be down aswell but I wish it wasn't because they might get grabbed up by the competition. It's kind of alarming.