@dskatter @AdamNovice Certainly on the video they do address the controversial elements of it.

It is technically impressive and it's natural for DF to wax lyrical about the technical impressiveness of it. But it's not as if they ignored the issues either. I'm seeing comments elsewhere about them ignoring artist intentions but they absolutely talked bout that n the video

The Grace shot is particularly damming, but some of the other examples look far more reasonable.

I do however think the video is worse for being recorded like 5 minutes after the demo. Perhaps it would have benefitted from being done the next day. Personally I think it's technically impressive but looks more artificial than natural and the face work needs scaling way back, and realistically will probably have to be just for performance.

@SodaPop6548 Someone from Korea flew to Germany to hand John a PS5 Pro with the non final build on it. Not a joke, but Johns own words (this weeks weekly show went out to patrons a day early this week).

So DF have only showed what they had access to. Why that was the version chosen by the dev is probably because they want to show it at its best.

Why the developers simply couldn’t have put out videos themselves is a mystery. Another mystery is why they only had a non final non-pssr2 build to show this close to launch?

On the other hand they put out a comprehensive breakdown of modes and how they are set which is more than most devs.

It’s all a bit odd really.

Can anyone clarify if this is playable single player? I got the impression from official quotes some of it is but some of it is high end MP only?

To my shame I still haven’t finished it but I’ve effectively done everything to platinum it apart from the point of no return and the ring toss game (which didn’t seem to work properly imo). This might stop me immediately putting it on eBay once that’s done if it has SP content.

@somnambulance

Surely it can’t help them that Capcom and Square are starting to give more support to other platforms at this point. Requiem and Pragmata launching day and date on Switch in particular probably hurts Sony.

Requiem sold 4x more copies on PS5 than Switch 2 in Japan. 38k on Switch 2 doesn't seem that much for a 4.5m install base. It's half the number of Switch 2's sold that week. I don't think it's a big issue for Sony.

Switch 2 getting more big budget and technical games is more down to having a decent hardware spec this time. It's more than good enough to handle these games in portable mode. I think it's fine, some games will just sell more on one or the other but they aren't necessarily fighting over each others meal. DQ VII remastered is pretty much split between the two but other games will sell more on PS5 and others more on Sw2.

I think there is room for market expansion rather than Nintendo necessarily biting too much into Sony's sales.

@datamonkey That'll be the Japan studio making games the Japanese buyers weren't exactly buying in droves? Japan Studio's success dropped off hugely after ps2 and the studio went through several internal reboots. The only really successful Japan Studio games were the ones they produced for outside developers. There is a reason they expanded the Astro Bot team and removed everything else (external producing for Japan is now handled by Xdev, who were already doing Europe and the US)

@datamonkey Less than Nintendo merging their handheld and console operations into one instead of having separate machines. The Switch changed everything in Japan. one machine, more sales, every Nintendo game is on one machine. Everyone wins apart from Sony (Microsoft in Japan are a rounding error)

Let's be clear, Nintendo's handhelds were outselling Sony in Japan well before Sony reorganised their operations ( Sony's wider Japanese operations went through huge restructuring some years ago, which may or may not be part of PlayStation's HQ moving to the US). We should assume Switch sells more units from being portable in Japan than as a tv console.

@Oram77 It does seem to be coming in hot. The DF coverage is based on a pre release build. Which seems very late to not have the release build.

I'll be playing on PC eventually so it won't affect me but I think they could have handled all of this a lot better. It's especially baffling because the game looks amazing and there was/is a danger of it all backfiring a little.

@AinsleyE

FFXIV really is the only thing that makes them happy.

DQ Online too, but that's Japan only.

@Impossibilium Indeed but I suspect this is a longer game plan of getting more players into that content so they can make more money long term.

This is part of the attempt to make more money on v-bucks after some initial hit.

It's a weird set of comparisons.

Firstly, RT is part of Art Direction. Using it or not will dictate how you art your game and light it. A game that only uses RT will free up artists to make actual art instead of wasting time doing multiple passes of light baking. How you light and shadow your game directly affects art direction. If you have a nice looking game but your reflections are really bad SSR, your art direction will suffer/not live up to its potential. Capcom have had really bad SSR over the last few years that destroys the presentation of their games.(RE2 pre RT I’m looking at you)

Also he might be right that RT doesn't add to story or gameplay, but neither does the fps he cares so much about. People want better looking games and that can be achieved through RT.

People used to moan about programmable shaders when they came along. Try playing a game without them now. RT is here and it’s staying. Wether it is for all games or all users is up for debate, but it has its place.

@JDINCINERATOR a rumour that didn’t say it was this month.

Also leaks are rumours until they are confirmed.

TLDR; No.

Setting aside the obvious moral issues, the legal ones will ensure it.

@Porco PlayStation has other facilities and departments in Japan than just developers.Like the Asian headquarters and hardware and research divisions. Example, Cerny designs the hardware technology of the console but Japan turns that into a physical product including final physical design. The ps4 and 5 unboxing were done by the Japanese guy who oversaw the actual physical design iirc.

All of the companies listed have a lot more staff than just development and none of them are strictly console development houses, they all do other things too.

I don’t see anything suggesting this is just people working directly on game development.

@Czar_Khastik 3 days after everyone else confirms it

I’d love this to be true if only because bilbilkun often only “leaks” the day of or the day before the actual announcement so what is the point of bothering. It will amuse me.

However I can believe one or the other of these games but not both at the same time, it seems a bit far fetched.

Edit: oh wait extra. In that case anything goes

As long as it's an actual Dragon Slayer project and not whatever Tokyo Xanadu was meant to be. Because Xanadu it isn't.

As for the 45th anniversary, it's not as a game developer. Not that wikipedia will tell you this for some reason, but Falcom started as a computer shop selling Apple II stuff - Computer Land Tachigawa. In fact they are alleged to be the first licensed Apple retailer in Japan, although I’ve found claims the first Japanese Apple deal was made in the 70s.

This is a figure that has been thrown around for some time. Microsoft simply can’t subsidise it, especially if they are giving up their cut to other game storefronts.

@Max_the_German

I don’t want bloated games like Horison Forbidden West

You know you can ignore the "bloat" if you want and play the game without issue right?

I never have understood this complaint about open world games being full of optional content. Lots of people want to play that content, and the people who don't can ignore it. Everyone wins.

@Lup

Don't let "critics" put a score on the game.

if you want to make a point, at least get your facts right rather than spreading incorrect info. Bungie have requested that people wait for a piece of content before they renew the game, but they are letting reviewers review the game as-is. A very different context.

There is enough ***** stirring based on wrong information or completely made up statements on this website, let's not twist Sammys actual explanation.

It’s A Whole New World of trophies

@2here2there For a lot of people the line between a set spec pc and a console is already quite thin. Steam Machine if it ever launches will be seen as a console as much as a pc, since SteamOS is closer to a console setup than windows for the user.

@illegalmonkey

they already said they are exiting the console market

Every official comment from Microsoft I have seen says that they are not exiting the console market. What they say the are doing is trying different things because they don’t believe the traditional model works (for them)

Project Helix isn’t an exit from the console market in their eyes. They want to redefine what a console is.

@TheArt it’s the exact same problem Phil Spencer attributes to the difficulty in selling Series consoles versus PS5.

So either they haven’t learnt, they think Game Pass makes up for it or they think people will buy old pc games to make up for it or some combination of the three.

It’s highly probably that the only reason Project Helix was announced officially was to boost Sharma’s profile. By saying she will be talking to partners soon she is trying to take on the narrative for what has been a long term project overseen by her predecessors and show she is out there getting on with the job.

And that’s fine and to be expected.

And what was announced was what we already knew besides the code name. A good code name imo but Microsoft’s issue was never with code names but the final name.

Sony don’t need to do anything. They have already effectively confirmed PS6 with Cernys AMD stuff. And they will release it when it makes sense to do so, which will be measured in different metrics (not forgetting costs of components in a fluid market) than polls on websites.

@ShadowofSparta @pukana @TrollOfWar No live service game ever launches everything all at once nor are they expected to. If anything it's usually best practice to have a steady schedule of content or modes once people have had a chance to play the actual main game.

There is a valid debate about when the correct time to review the game and that is arguably once at launch week with what it has then and then follow up on it later. Its rare for online games to be accurate to review before launch day when there isn't a proper player count, but there will always be content later, regardless of who makes the game and what time of the year it is.

FWIW I have no interest in Marathon or other online shooty shoot games one way or another, but the release of content is consistent with every other online game. When the review launches isn't going to change that so I'm don't agree with people holding back reviews for it but that's Push Square's choice since it isn't a binding request

@Voltan Marathon and 4Loop

@Haruki_NLI But the second game is in the middle gameplay wise so I don’t think it’s wrong as such

@Voltan FFXIV is one such game but I believe SE use their own custom driver to support Sony pads and features

However “any game” natively isn’t true. Only games that support Direct Input, older Xinput games require third party tools as the are designed for 360 pads basically. Steam can fix this but not always.

Less of a problem with modern games but might be a nasty surprise if you pix up an old game for pennies

@wildcat_kickz have they still not fixed that HDR bug?

Still not sure this needs a remake but will I play it eventually if it's good, yes absolutely.

@MasterChiefWiggum obviously it depends on where those jobs are, people in California probably aren’t going to move to Japan or Finland if they need to be in-office.

Sometimes you just need to know when to let go and Naughty Dog did that.

If anything they made more Uncharted games than expected.

Besides you just can’t please everyone, for everyone who wants more Uncharted there will be someone else who would rather something new.

@cragis0001 At this rate the Steam Machine won’t be a rival because it won’t be launching. RAMageddon is making it unviable. If Valve weren’t talking release date or price (which was already implied to be high) four months ago then they are further away from doing that now.

@HRdepartment The toggle doesn't mean a game won't benefit from a patch, as a game can still be patched to work better with PSSR2 by taking better advantage. There may still be flaws on existing games or developer work arounds that aren't needed anymore.

However they don't need a patch to take advantage of PSSR2 if the toggle is on.

It's a clever solution and Sony must have plenty of faith in it not completely breaking every game, but the fallback is there just like Boost mode.

@badbob001 That's not how it works. A game using PSSR is coded into the game, the toggle just tells it which file to use when accessing pssr (the equivalent of changing the dll on pc), covering your first two options. That's fine.

Turning PSSR off completely through the dashboard would (probably) simply break games/compatibility.

Oh look, more landfill.

@Perturbator that would hurt more than help. Pc users already get upset over the mere suggestion of not using steam and hate launchers. Epic with all their money and throwing free games at people can’t get market traction so Sony won’t either. Ubisoft and EA only get away with it by doing subscriptions to their back catalogs in the same apps

Doing it now is a non starter

@Deadlyblack @AdamNovice it feels like with Nixxies having already done some remaster work it feels like they could possibly be given a sort of hybrid role. If that were the case it would help to explain the BP debacle, but also asks the question why they couldn’t be merged.

@Rich33 I'm expecting PSSR2 to require a firmware update, but its also not impossible that it exists in the existing firmware and is enabled on a per software basis.

I don't really understand the pixel peeping but DF never usually show it in this way on video which immediately drew my attention. Perhaps it was just the best way to explain the exact scenario rather than anything secret. However Jon has also said that the video was originally only going to be Pro and the "embargo changing" which could mean PSSR, it could mean Capcom just wanting all non S2 versions compared in one video. It's vague enough, unsurprisingly.

We know DF have upcoming embargoed content as Rich has said so (not unusual) but that could be anything .

@Th3solution I wouldn’t worry about overlap. Marathon is done and ready for release. this is just a pre launch stress test to make sure the servers are doing their job.

Horizon is just a standard milestone for getting actual feedback from actual people playing the game so they can tweak the game. Because it’s a closed nda invite they can filter most of the noise and they will have a specific number of invites which means they don’t need the numbers marathon does.

Marathon is out in a week, Horizon is 6+ months away but that’s plenty of time I think. They are different enough. It’s curious timing for them, I suspect the two teams decided for themselves and no one co-ordinated between them but equally it may have been deliberate as they have different needs.

@AK4tywill Yeah I realised that very quickly, I forgot there were two games

New Radical Games? Well you only get what you give I guess

IIRC this is how the Garage series operates in Japan if you buy digitally. Usually however you would expect a western release to do away with that.

Curious that she used the phrase AI slop which Nadella recently begged people to stop using.

Say what you want about Spencer and Bond but at least they had backgrounds in Xbox before being promoted, whereas this is clearly an AI and cloud shilling promotion and Xbox is already so far down that rabbit hole that I’m not sure how this moves the division forward.

@FxTANK note that the original release of MGS4 didn’t have trophies as they either weren’t available or weren’t mandatory at the time.

Trophies were eventually patched in when the game was reissued but MGO was already discontinued.

@Boxmonkey I agree with sentiment as there is a place for creater commentary on recent works in their IP but normally the person giving it can be relied on to not be a dick for the sake of it. Jaffe is know for being bitter towards Sony and God of War entries after he left so it’s difficult to take his comments as good faith when they are like this.

I mean if David Jaffe is moaning about something then it’s probably actually good

That can’t be right, an actual leak rather than the morning of the day it’s announced anyway like usual?

Crunch is never good but we also know it’s common. It usually happens at the end of a project so it’s not a great look at all.

However this also points out why games should only be announced when they are actually ready to be shown.

Sony took a lot of stick years ago, and quite rightly for announcing games that didn’t appear for years. So they stopped doing that and started announcing games when they were ready to. Astro Boy and Yotei come to mind. What happened here was clearly ND/Sony getting annoyed at all the demands for a new ND game and putting out a non-gameplay promo for a game that clearly wasn’t ready to be shown of. Because why else would they make an exception to an apparent policy?

@TheArt Procedural generation usually takes pre created “blocks” that are designed to attach to other blocks and having a coded routine pick random blocks and attach them together. It’s a technique that I believe dates to the 80s.

I believe there is video footage of a Guerrilla environment artist live altering the environment in HZD by taking these blocks, placing and manipulating them in the environment in real time. I expect most non-indie open world games work in a similar manner.

Edit: not the actual video I was looking for but it shows the system used
https://youtu.be/KRJkBxKv1VM?si=a5W0sigaPYs5pmrc (20:30)