Comments 3,677

Re: UK Retailers Are All Discounting the PS5 Pro Already

Matroska

@get2sammyb Yeah, of course products being available is the default but it's not the default that they get discounted within days of launch. That shows a critical lack of sales (at least here) rather than simply a healthy supply of products. Within a week retailers are choosing to cut into their own profits to get rid of stock. Even those damn scalpers are doing it and given how greedy they are that's saying something.

The Switch got a fairly slow start, decent but not great, and went on to be the 2nd best selling console of all time, so it can certainly be turned around... But it also wasn't discounted within about a week. I guess you can at least say not selling out AND being discounted is a sign of Sony overestimating the appeal.

Re: The Game Awards Will Confirm 2024 Nominees on Monday

Matroska

@ECharles Not to speak for him but I can't possibly summon up any interest in what games a group of complete strangers liked. It's like getting hyped to see what Bob from Tennessee's favourite ice cream flavour of the year was. It's not even like we get a written review. Imagine on this site if we got no articles for a year but then suddenly one from an anonymous person saying "I most liked that DBZ game 😀"

Re: LEGO Horizon Adventures Sets Odd Precedent, Lacking PS5 Pro Support

Matroska

@dskatter What's the CPU got to do with being Pro enhanced? It has the same CPU as the normal PS5, doesn't it? This game does, however, have a performance and fidelity mode, meaning it only runs at 30fps with the higher quality graphics, so they could have had the Pro do it as fidelity quality but actually at 60fps.

Re: Dragon Age: The Veilguard Sales Keep Pace with Dragon's Dogma 2, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth in UK

Matroska

@Savage_Joe "And the biggest indicator of all, Bioware canned all plans for DLC"
Can you find a post where EA talk about their plans for DLC that they then cancelled? Because over a month before the game came out, they said there wouldn't be DLC, it wasn't something said only after release. And at no point did they say they planned for DLC.

And incidentally, the only time I can think where DLC plans have been cancelled was with FFXV. One of the best-selling FFs, having sold over 10 million as of 2022. So even if your fictitious point was true it wouldn't relate to the success of the game. But as far as I can see it, it's not true anyway.

Re: Black Ops 6 Drives Monthly PS5 Sales Growth in the UK, 75% of Players Purchase on PlayStation

Matroska

@KingPev Obviously microtransactions come into it, but to recoup $76 billion it would take roughly 1.26 billion sales of CoD at $60 per game. To put that into perspective, the original Xbox lost Microsoft somewhere between $5 and $7 billion it was such a flop. They've now lost 11 to 15 times that amount until they make it back - and soon enough to matter. I know it's not just about CoD, but to even break even if it was just down to CoD (just as an example) they'd need to sell 50 million copies of CoD each year for the next 25 years. Well, more than that since a large cut goes to the platform holder. The best selling CoD of all time is apparently Black Ops with 30 million but that's total sales across numerous years, not just in one year.

As we both said, microtransactions are part of it too but we have no way of knowing how profitable they are each year. But we do know that the decision to buy Activision Blizzard was seen as so bad that the higher ranks of MS stepped in and made them release various exclusives on PS5.

Re: Australia's Planned Social Media Ban to Include PSN

Matroska

@JuiceboxMeister Yeah okay. I wasn't saying "men" in a consciously gender focused way. I'm a man myself. I was just saying it as a default thing - if anything sexist against women as I accidentally assumed it would be mainly men. The main point was it was legislation by people out of touch with what they're legislating about.

Re: Hands On: The Last of Us 2 Marries Visuals and Frame Rate in PS5 Pro Game Changer

Matroska

@Titntin "Virtually all of the time" isn't the same as "all of the time". Look at the meaning of the word. It means "almost": https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/virtually

It's that choice of words that I read in the article that made me say what I said. If I hadn't read the article I'd have assumed it was a consistent 60 since it's first party and originally on PS4.

Re: Grammy Nominees for Best Video Game Soundtrack Revealed

Matroska

Rebirth obviously has great music but for me it's arguably not the same thing since the original compositions happened in the 90s for the PS1 FFVII. I mean, if you don't look at it that way, SE could release a game each year with some FFVII music in and every year it should win awards. Just keep releasing slightly different versions of Theatrhythm, a game with dozens of the best pieces of videogame music ever.

Re: Australia's Planned Social Media Ban to Include PSN

Matroska

Imagine if the ban was for people aged 50 plus watching TV because it features biased opinions and endless adverts that try to alter people's opinions on various products. This is the classic thing of old men not knowing anything about what they're legislating.

Re: Hands On: The Crew Motorfest has Never Looked Better Thanks to the PS5 Pro

Matroska

Imagine if PC gaming sites wrote an article for every game that looks better on higher settings every time a new graphics card came out. I know people that have a Pro are excited but, again, people with a new GPU are excited too so that should be justifiable too, right? And if you don't like the article, don't read it? Well the headline already conveys the content of the article and you can't like or dislike it without reading it.

It's not the fact that they're covering the Pro, of course they should, but at this point it feels like ad bots have taken over the site. You can journalistically cover something without spamming and without sounding like you're posting on the official Playstation Twitter account. Where are the articles about the games that still don't consistently run at 60, like Elden Ring? Eurogamer is covering that kind of stuff in a more journalistic, less fanboyish way.

Re: Dragon Age: The Veilguard Reveals Players' Most Popular Class, Race, and Faction

Matroska

As a person playing rogue on hard mode, it's not all that great. Not being able to block so having to do either perfect parries (with 5/5 difficulty for timing on hard mode) or dodging all the time is annoying. You take massive damage from being hit so trying to time a parry in the midst of a storm of special effects isn't a great idea. And the fact there are no rogue things to do, like picking locks, means rogues are just fiddly warriors.

>the edgy Shadow Dragons. After that, it's the Antivan Crows at 16%
Surely the Crows are the edgier ones? The Shadow Dragons are nice people freeing slaves. Also you have Dorian on your side who's about as edgy as a puppy, albeit a snarky puppy.

Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? - Issue 554

Matroska

Just Veilguard. After this, I'm buying Ys X and Metaphor ReFantazio. I did start a playthrough of ME1 before Veilguard, being in a Bioware mood, as well as all three previous Dragon Ages - basically the gaming equivalent of when my dog tries to carry a log in her mouth instead of a normal stick. I might go back to them at some point.

Re: 'Mind Boggling' Horizon Forbidden West Has the Best Console Image Quality Ever on PS5 Pro

Matroska

Ever... Until the PS6 in a few years.

@Kienda That won't happen. This is only like getting a somewhat better GPU for you PC so now you can raise the settings. The games can be on high settings instead of medium. The PS5 will continue to get medium to high settings and the Pro will get high to very high, depending on framerate choice.

These games are still coming out on PC and will still be scalable to different hardware tiers. Most modern games still run on a 970, a card from 2014. And yeah, at 60fps depending on the graphics settings. And the Pro isn't that powerful. It can't run Elden Ring at 60fps, a game that came out on PS4, and that does actually run at 60fps on a $350 graphics card.

Re: Gran Turismo 7 Clocks Native 4K/120fps on PS5 Pro Via Game Boost, Pre-Enhanced Patch

Matroska

But it still can't do Elden Ring at 60fps. If it can't even do that, and PCs can, it seems pretty underwhelming.

https://www.eurogamer.net/digitalfoundry-2024-can-ps5-pro-run-elden-ring-at-60-frames-per-second

"A lot of the game will run at 60fps, but it's hardly consistent and for the most part you're in the 50s - though truly challenging scenes can take you into the 40s". That's not performance mode, but apparently even that mode can't maintain it.

Re: Metacritic Responds to Ongoing Dragon Age: The Veilguard Review Bombing Campaign

Matroska

@Secryt The problem is the game isn't a 0/10 or 1/10. That's why it's review bombing, not simply because they didn't like it. Imagine if I gave OoT 1/10 because I don't like the political message that having an unelected monarchy is a good thing. Imagine if I'm referring to that as psyops and royalist propaganda. It's safe to say, if I did do that, I'd need therapy.

Re: PS5 Pro Makes Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth Look Like a Whole New Game

Matroska

@zupertramp Yeah, what we're seeing here is like if a guy had a PC and started to play The Witcher 3, for example, on medium settings and then put it on high settings and started screaming about his face melting and how he's now basically playing the Witcher 4. It's a bit sad too because it still looks worse than it could on a PC so, even though I mainly game on PS5, it does reinforce the console peasant stereotype.

I feel like if the Push Square guys got a good PC, they could entertain themselves all day by opening games and raising draw distance and texture resolution. They'd be in tears of joy from just turning on ambient occlusion.

Re: PS Plus Essential Provides 3 PS5, PS4 Games to Download Now

Matroska

I do wonder if Sony intentionally put underwhelming games up when the new releases are so impactful. Like, we have Veilguard (the first new entry in one of the main WRPG series in a decade), Metaphor ReFantazio, a new CoD, and more obscurely but relevant to my interests, a remake of Romancing Saga 2, a classic JRPG, and a new Ys game, one of the longest running JRPGs. And I'm sure many other major games, but those are the ones on my personal radar - plus CoD which I'm not a fan of but obviously loads of people are. I bet when GTA6 comes out, that month will be bad too.

Re: Poll: What Did You Think of the Monster Hunter Wilds Beta?

Matroska

I'm going to get it but on PC. I have quite a bit of money saved up so I could get a Pro but it's a big chunk of the money it'd take to get a really good PC (about half to a third) so I'd rather just take the plunge rather than burn that money on hardware that's worse than a PC and will be replaced by the PS6 in a few years.

Not to be all doom and gloom, but this console gen has just convinced me there's no reason to buy consoles anymore other than not being able to afford a PC. Long gone are the days when, say, the SNES or PS1 were their own distinct things from a PC rather than just a lower spec PC with less games, more expensive games, and paid online.

Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? - Issue 553

Matroska

@Fishnpeas Talking about "polishing your sword" and burping isn't adult humour. It's very childish. Imagine a professional standup comedian going on stage and going "any of the men here like to, ahem, polish their weapons ehehehe! Burp!" It's really cringy and there wasn't anything to redeem the character either.

Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? - Issue 553

Matroska

Veilguard. I'm playing on hard mode (Underdog) and it's brutal. Most attacks take off ⅓ to ½ of my health. I can't block, just parry - and the timing is really specific. I really like the different areas, the different things to discover and the way you open up new areas. I've felt really involved in the story too.

While there is an MCU dialogue element to Harding and Bellara, Harding was like that in DAI, and DA has always had stuff like that; Alistair (and the Warden if you choose a certain voice) say "Warden senses tingling!" in DAO. Not to mention Alistair's famous "Swooping... Swooping is bad" line. And talking of "where's my dark tone?" it does have that, but also lighter stuff. Like the series always has. See Oghren's many banters about w*nking in DAO or scenes like this:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gb6v62TUQLg

Re: BioWare Rules Out Any Dragon Age: The Veilguard DLC

Matroska

@Lavishturtle They said a while ago they weren't doing DLC. I'm not sure why sites are reporting it now as if it's a new thing. Here's an article saying the same thing from over a month ago:
https://www.thegamer.com/dragon-age-the-veilguard-no-plans-for-dlc-inquisition

It's also done well critically; professionally, Steam user reviews, PSN user reviews and Xbox user reviews (the latter two both around 4.5/5). And as another article on here says, it's the most successful launch for a single-player EA game on Steam in history.

Re: Sony Knows How to Sell PS5 in China, And It's with Gacha

Matroska

@PuppetMaster Well it's not just that, China has over a billion people in it whereas Japan only has about 120 million last time I checked. Also Japan has an ageing population with less and less kids being born, so fewer up-and-coming new customers to get into gaming. You see it all over the world, China is the US's biggest exports market after Canada and Mexico, two countries it directly borders.

Re: Tales of Graces f Reveals Remastered PS5, PS4 Updates in New Trailer

Matroska

Definitely getting this. I bought it on PS3 but didn't get that far (and my PS3 broke ages ago). I emulated it too but again, random stuff got in the way and I didn't make much progress. But what time I did spend was really enjoyable. There's something really charming about the look, feel and tone of the game. I like how it starts out with the main characters being kids, too. Makes you feel more attached to them.

Re: Mini Review: Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven (PS5) - Hardcore Remake Is a JRPG Blast from the Past

Matroska

I really enjoyed the demo. I played on Hard and it was fine apart from the last mimic in the mansion absolutely destroyed me two times until I got lucky and he just decided to stop one-shotting each member of my party. The final boss (of the demo) was also tough but mainly due to the punishment of losing LP. If it wasn't for that mechanic, he'd be fine.

I want to get this, as well as Ys X, but they'll have to wait until after Veilguard.

Re: Cash Rewards Still Unavailable for Millions in PS5, PS4 Rewards Scheme PS Stars

Matroska

@EfYI Occam's razor would say they haven't intentionally taken it away at all since loads of people can still do it. Also you had to spend something like £125 to get a £5 discount, which basically meant you were getting 4% cheaper prices. So in other words, a £70 game would be £67.20. it's not exactly denting their profits by much, especially when you consider that most people don't even do it. They're losing more money by having a library of hundreds of games you don't need to pay for anymore as long as you pay an amount equal to less than two new games a year (PS+ Extra)

Don't get me wrong, they're definitely trying to rein it in a bit or they wouldn't be changing the limit to 12 months. But the fact is that it still works for many people, including in the UK, and when you look at it in detail you're still paying more than for physical.

Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? - Issue 552

Matroska

For a couple of weeks I've been going between Dragon Age Origins, DA2 and DAI. Not one of my better ideas. Not least because they all have different world states since the final saves haven't been imported to each other. So, for example, in DAI Alistair is dead but in DA2 he's king of Ferelden. Still, it's been fun overall.

Also tried the Ys X demo and loved it, just a shame Veilguard is out in a few days so I won't really be able to play both.