I think we're focusing on the wrong thing in this article - having just spent 10 minutes reading the Japanese comments on the clip, it's more apparent that the Japanese people themselves are upset with Ubisoft for not showing any understanding or care toward Japanese history.
If there is any one thing that the western world needs to understand about Japanese society, it's that the Japanese hold their history in reverence, they honor their ancestors and take pride in their history and where they've come from. The comments from Japanese viewers highlights that Ubisoft doesn't appear to have done any research - the buildings are wrong, the doors are wrong, the tatami are wrong, Yasuke wasn't a samurai (he was a servant/long sword holder), Yasuke in the clip is wearing Warlord armor because Ubisoft didn't research the different grades of armor. Basically, Ubisoft have decided to make a game based in Japanese history, but have done no research which in itself is a huge insult to Japan. If there is one country in the world that you can play fast and loose with historical representations with, Japan is not that country.
I kind of get where the negativity is coming from - Ubisoft have the chance to create an AC story based in a mystic foreign land, to create strong Japanese characters, but instead they go with Yasuke. It feels like when it came to character design, they were worried about having a character that wasn't relatable to western markets, so they default to a notable non-Japanese historical figure so Western markets can relate.
Also to everyone up top that's trying to debunk dislikes - can someone provide a link to the source of the idea that dislikes are made-up? I don't use a browser extension but I definitely have the dislike function (YouTube Revanced) and I see the dislikes. I also don't often dislike videos, I'd guess maybe 1 in every 100 as my feed is tailored to my interests, so how does this work? My understanding is that the dislike function wasn't removed, the button was simply removed from the UI, hence extensions and reworked apps can return it, and all of us with it see the same number of dislikes on videos.
@rjejr I don't see a 4K TV as being a requirement/consideration to upgrading, as a good proportion of PS5 owners play games at a lower resolution than 4K aka pick Performance Mode where it's available in-game. Companies that track TV ownership stats also (mostly) separate PC monitors, not including them in the overall number.
MOs have become harder to accomplish, and will become more difficult as more players leave the game @DragoonZied. As much as we may want to blame Sony for players departing, a good chunk of players will naturally leave the game around now due to other factors. The player numbers will never be as high as they are in the first 2-3 months after release for any game. Personally I haven't played in about a week. I found that dropping in, killing bugs/bots, collecting samples and completing objectives started to feel very repetitious, and knowing this is a live service game that Joel can manipulate at any point i.e. we'll never 100% defeat any enemy force, I decided to put this game to the side and make it my 'pick up and play' when I don't feel like playing something else, and right now I have a lot of something else to play, so unless a buddy begs me to dive, I'll probably be staying in orbit for awhile to come.
HellDivers 2 but in honor of Arkane Austin being shuttered by Microsoft, I decided to restart an Arkane game that I didn't complete previously, so I've dived back in to Dishonored 2!
If you focus on this quote - "Matt Booty said that the company's studios were spread too thin, like "peanut butter on bread", and that leaders across the division felt understaffed." you'll see the masterstroke in all of this, because your teams can't be spread too thin and understaffed if the teams no longer exist!
A company cannot have a monopoly when they own the platform and are the only company selling through that platform. That is simply their retail platform.
In order for Sony to have a "digital monopoly", the PlayStation consoles would have to be able to host other vendors digital stores e.g. you'd have to be able to have the Microsoft store and Square Enix digital stores run along side and separate to the PSN, selling digital PlayStation games. The monopoly would then exist if Sony quashed the competing digital stores to give themselves the largest market share of digital content sold on and through the console, unfairly pushing the competitors out.
Stating that Sony have a monopoly on digital sales through PSN is akin to walking into a 7/11 (or any other store) and declaring that they have a monopoly on stuff sold in the store. They don't, you've just walked into their store where you can only buy from them.
@Nightcrawler71 yeah, all expansions. Thankfully Bungie insist on vaulting old content like the main/original campaign and earlier expansions, to keep the game at a "reasonable" install size.
@soracloud28 general consensus is that Curse of Osiris was the low point. The game had very little in the way of content back then, and is far more expansive and involved now. I will warn though - there is a lot of stuff thrown in your face if you haven't played in awhile, a lot of quests that aren't actually important to the story that the game will give you. If you do jump in, try to do the expansions in the order of release, even though it can be tempting to try to smash out Beyond Light and Lightfall as they both give you extra subclasses (stasis and strand).
@Pat_trick but the "I can't get PSN in my country" point becomes moot when you realize Sony sells PlayStations in those countries. People buy the console and make accounts registered in the nearest region. The only people having issues here are PC gamers who either haven't done enough research to realize it's not an issue, or people who are just here to jump on the bandwagon.
@Pat_trick "Sony famously suffers more data breaches than all the other platforms." but they actually don't. They handle it differently. If the PSN gets hacked, Sony step forward and make people aware of it, and investigate if customer data has been accessed. Other companies, such as Microsoft, prefer to investigate if customer data has been accessed and then reveal the hack if it has.
If you want to know if Microsoft have been hacked, you have to go searching.
@ShogunRok 100% behind this. Let the people who review bombed the game mark themselves! Let the rest of us see that they are a player that doesn't understand that PlayStation products are sold across the globe, including in the Philippines, and all that they needed to do was select the closest region if theirs wasn't listed!
This whole debacle was pathetic. People crying that HellDivers couldn't be played in countries with no PSN, when those same countries sell PlayStation products with no issue. I guess it shows that PlayStation owners are smart enough to understand you select the closest region, while PC players just can't figure it out.
And before anyone comes with the "If you do that you'll break Sony's ToS and get banned!" bit, no, you won't. I run multiple PSN accounts, each set to different regions. A bunch of content creators do the same. I haven't been banned. They haven't been banned. I even went as far as to review the PSN ToS to reply to another person that cried that. The ToS just asks you select your region, not your city or country, just region i.e. North America regardless of whether you live in Canada, US, Brazil, Mexico etc. The whole "banned because of ToS" point was fabricated and spread as misinformation to justify all of the crying.
@Pat_trick "PS Plus is available only in 69 countries and yet they sold the game to every territory."
You can't buy the game from Sony, through the PSN store, in countries that PSN isn't available unless you already have a PS5 and a PSN account set to a different region. The game has been sold in those countries by Valve on the Steam store.
It's quite likely a misunderstanding, with Sony not realizing that the game is being sold on Steam in regions that can't access PSN natively.
@Steel76 because Sony and Steam are two separate entities. Sony control what is available on PSN and where, and Valve obviously control what is available on Steam and where.
I'd bet that Sony, with the PSN, have a harder time making the PSN available in certain regions due to government interference e.g. there may be no PSN in China due to the Chinese Communist Party wanting full access to the PSN and control over it. Other countries may impose similar restrictions and controls, or taxes/tariffs. PSN is built into the console.
Steam on the otherhand is a peice of software that gives you access to the store and games, it's not baked in and in theory can be downloaded anywhere, meaning Valve have less control and can move more freely i.e. it's harder for a government to impose restrictions on Valve when Valve themselves don't have full control over who downloads Steam and where they download it.
Sony pulling the game from certain regions, to me, is an indicator that they weren't aware of this issue. Games often get pulled from digital stores while issues get resolved. They may well be trying to figure out a solution and have pulled the game until then.
@ChrisDeku you're right that you can look up various individuals publicly facing information, but that's not what that person will have linked to their personal accounts i.e. no company CEO will use their corporate email address on their personal bank account. If you want that personal email address, you're going to have to hack a service provider that they subscribe to.
While I can appreciate that you're trying to insult me and get under my skin by stating things like "that's some real big brain thinking right there, son", you're just showing that you're naive when it comes to understanding what hackers are after. They're after your name (actual, not username), address, email address and phone number. All of which can be found on most people's accounts, all of which can be used to get access to things like bank accounts. Don't believe me? Go watch this short 4 minute video...
With just a name and phone number she took over his account in 4 minutes.
Hackers don't target exclusively big bank accounts. 50 small accounts can easily hold as much money as 1 large account. In the 2011 Sony hack, hackers exposed personal data of 77 million people. Even if half of those people only have $5 in their accounts, it adds up to a huge wealth that they could access with a little bit of effort.
"I don't want these as subscribed games when I can play them for free"
You don't want games included in PS Essentials that are free to play. Let me just check... Yeah Destiny 2 Lightfall is a paid expansion of the core F2P game. You can't play Lightfall without paying for it otherwise.
"give me games that everyone else pays for that's why I subscribe ps you greedy rats."
You want games that everyone else pays for... For free in the essentials line up? You want for free what everyone else pays for? And Sony are the greedy rats?
Hackers don't need your credit card details to attempt to breach other accounts that you have. They just need your name and email address, both of which the majority of people have on their accounts.
@ChrisDeku "BTW this whole security/data breach angle is a total joke. Even if you use your real name and email, what are they going to do with that? OMG now they know my username is “Otaku69”. Yeah, so?" Why do you think hackers try to steal your data? It isn't so that they can see what your "consumption habits" are. A hacker with your data from a breach, like the 2010 Sony hack, will look up your address and see which banking establishments are close by, and then try to login to their websites using your email address and password they got from the breach or phone the banks and claim to be you, using your data when challenged by the bank employee.
Ask me how I know this...
(Because I was woken up by a phone call from my bank at 3AM to ask me if I was trying to access my bank account from China, after my details were exposed during the Sony hack)
To everyone crying out that Sony "just want your data" - you don't have to give them your data. Sony performs no data verification when the accounts are created. You can freely create a PSN account for a different region, providing an address scraped off of Google Maps, using a burner e-mail address and provide your name as Santa Claus.
You'll find that they state that during account creation you must select the "region"* of your address. They do not state that your account will be banned if you select the incorrect country or provide incorrect address details. As I've previously pointed out - prominent content creators openly use accounts setup in other regions to play on those servers, Sony know about this and do nothing.
*A region is not a city or country. NA (North America) is the server region for Canada, USA, Mexico, Brazil etc. You may live in a country that is technically South America and find that you can only select NA, because NA is the closest region to you.
Sony do not state that you have to list your exact city or country. They only ask for you to select your region, and so people in the Philippines simply have to select the closest region.
Take a step back from the HD2 situation and look at the situation in the Philippines - if PSN isn't available there, does that mean that Sony does not sell PlayStation consoles in the Philippines?
Or...
Do people in the Philippines just select the closest region from the drop down menu and carry on?
That's all that the PC players need to do. Problem solved.
@Broosh I doubt Sony would ever check. They're fully aware that people use this practice. Take SuperGT, TheKie25 and Tidgney as examples - they're all prominent Gran Turismo 7 streamers that openly use fake accounts to race in different regions. SuperGT is regularly invited to Polyphony Digital (who are owned by Sony) events and Tidgney is an ex-World Tour racer who has an avatar you race against in the game.
Sony know they couldn't ban a regular Joe without also banning a chunk of content creators for doing something that isn't actually hurting anyone. It'd just hurt their own brand.
@Voltan there is a very simple solution to PSN not being available in your region - use fake details. A lot of Gran Turismo 7 streamers use this trick to play on other region servers.
Go to Google Maps. Pick a city at random in the region that does have PSN. Pick a random gas station or McDonalds. Click it and Google gives you the full address. Now go to the PlayStation website and create an account using the address details Google provided. Done. You can now play HD2 with a PSN account even if PSN isn't natively available in your region.
PSN accounts are free and don't have any kind of IP check to confirm region when you make them. You can literally create PSN accounts for every region across the globe and login to them from anywhere without Sony preventing it.
@jorel262 Square Enix put the target on themselves, to be fair, by releasing their own statements indicating that Rebirth hasn't met their expected sales figures. Rags like PushSquare simply grab onto that and run it for as long as they can to keep people clicking links and leaving comments.
With the previous D2 DLC (WitchQueen?) being included a few months back and now Lightfall, it's clear that Sony are doing everything they can to try to pull players back into D2 before Final Shape. Just a pity that Lightfall is one of the more polarizing DLCs the franchise has had!
@Kelrics90 have you considered that you perceive double-standards that aren't actually there? PushSquare give the response from the game director;
Director Hyung-Tae Kim, when asked directly about this during a launch event, denied any accusations, stressing “the final costume we wanted to show you is indeed the costume [in the patch]”. However, he admitted this answer “may not be enough to convince our users” and that discussions are taking place “internally” on the matter.
The only people that are claiming Sony forced censorship on the game are the players, who literally have zero knowledge of what those internal discussions are. You can't accuse Sony of double-standards and censorship when Sony appear to have had nothing to do with it.
What's this? Someone has already found a way to get all the horny kids that purchased the game to see a female in skimpy outfits to list themselves?! Bahahahhaaha!
This thread section is damned comical. This isn't censorship. It's a design choice. Developers can develop whatever games they want, but it will always be subject to Sony's review and input, this is because Sony own the console platform and decide what gets released on it.
Sony own the PS5 and have every right to decide what does or doesn't get launched on their console. This would be like me owning a museum and refusing to display pictures of scantily clad women that a boy drew with a sharpie, just to end up with a rabble shouting that it's censorship. It's not censorship. It's a choice.
Content can be censored. People playing videogames cannot.
To those people crying "no-one has the right censor me!" and "no-one can decide what I can and can't see!" You do realize that you're arguing that if T&A exist anywhere in the world, you have every right to see it? It'd be like a hot woman wearing a top that exposes a little bit of side-boob for two days and then covering it up on the third, just to have you shout "I HAVE EVERY RIGHT TO SEE YOUR SIDE-BOOB!". No, you don't. If that woman decides to cover up, that is their choice. You have absolutely no right to see a scantily clad female in a videogame, what you see in a videogame is decided by the developers and publishers, just as that woman decides when to cover-up.
Order was completed a few hours ago. I assume the screenshot, at 9.4%, was from early this morning (over 12 hours ago) as the order reportedly hit 20% in less than 2 hours and was at 77% around 10 hours in.
Edit - checking the Helldivers2 Reddit - it took around 13 hours to complete!
@PerpetualBoredom sure, paying customers getting priority over non-paying customers is a bad look...
...if you're not a paying customer.
If you invest significantly more effort into your job than your colleague that only does the absolute minimum, don't you deserve more reward than them?
If you invest more effort, you have a higher value to your employer, and it's exactly the same with big companies - if you invest more into their ecosystem, you have a higher value to them, and so they want to do more to retain your business which is often done by rewarding loyalty.
@PinderSchloss absolutely did, but that's only a free upgrade to the PS5 version if you've already got the PS4 version. If you don't have the PS4 version but you have a PS5 console, good news! Bethesda are re-releasing the game on PS5!
Let's not get into how it's quite likely that the improvements are lifted from various mods, making this a quick low-effort cashgrab.
If Starfield and Redfall hadn't bombed, I doubt this release would be happening. Bethesda have released flop after flop after flop, and no doubt Microsoft are leaning on them to create maximum revenue with the absolute minimum expenditure, so re-release whatever can be re-released!
@MrHabushi spending any money on HellDivers Super Credits is a silly move from the get-go. 1,250 points gets you 375SC or... Just do 3-4 solo runs on trivial/easy, hit every point of interest on the tiny map you'll be on and you'll likely get the same amount of SC in 30 minutes or less.
It's the same as the 250,000 Gran Turismo credits for 1,250 points. Anyone who has spent time on GT7 knows of ways to earn well over that in 30 minutes.
Those microtransactions are so trivial that only the truly lazy would ever purchase them.
Sony could do away with the games and just give you the option to transfer points into wallet funds, but that doesn't help them sell specific games.
You could check PS Stars and see 18,000 points and not bother transfering because there isn't anything that comes to mind, but if you login, see 18,000 points and Rise of the Ronin for 17,500, it becomes an enticing product - it's a popular new game that won't cost you any cash, just points.
Don't forget that if you're at the highest level of PS Stars (level 4 I believe), you get priority support when contacting them. Sony announced this feature when they first announced PS Stars, but quickly swept it under the rug due to complaints of being unfair toward people who don't use PS Stars, but having contacted Support a handful of times and getting a rep within a minute every time, even when a buddy had to wait 15 minutes, I can assure you that Priority Support still exists!
Some devs believe that if you want a game to last 10+ years, you should make an MMO or Live Service game. Bethesda believe that if you want a game to last 10+ years, you should keep re-releasing it across multiple generations of consoles...
Bethesda Softworks where our motto is "Re-release it, Re-release it, Re-release it and Re-release it, because we know someone will buy it!"
Bungie need to move on from Destiny as a franchise. Don't get me wrong - I enjoyed D1 and regularly play D2, but unless you've followed the various story arcs from season to season, it's very difficult to know what's going on. Add in all of the miss-management, vaulting of paid-for content, poor decisions in game direction and the sheer amount of time required from the player just to keep up... They need to move on.
Like others - I'm here for Final Shape, but that's just to wrap up the current story. After that I'll be enjoying other less-grindy games.
@Fishface45 I'd laugh hard at WB if they decided to flip the game to F2P so soon.
Bungie did that with Destiny 2 years after release, and the players (myself included) that paid for the game felt like we'd been swindled. If WB flipped to F2P right now they may gain a few players (with the stream of negative publicity this game has, I doubt they'd gain many), but they'd convince a lot of the players that paid to play the game that WB doesn't give a toot about them, causing players to leave.
That being said, WB do seem like they like to do the exact opposite of what should work for them, so... maybe it'll go F2P before the end of the year?
What about the flipside of this question: do 4K, HDR and (mild) Ray Tracing matter to you?
In all honesty, I think we'll always be sitting in this Quality or Performance situation, with no-one being able to push 4K, HDR, Ray Tracing AND 60fps on console.
Console are stuck in a loop where with every new generation we're sold on a great graphical improvement AND performance improvement, and so the devs start working towards the graphical potentials of the console and rapidly learn that things like 4K, HDR and Ray Tracing are only possible at the expense of FPS due to how resource hungry they are. And when the next console generation starts, they'll have more power/resources available, but the expectations for graphical performance would have also increased, so they'll again be stuck with the decision of chasing 8K, HDR with full Ray Tracing and whatever other stuff comes up, at the expense of FPS.
@GamingFan4Lyf HellDivers 2 is not PvP. The game is PvE with friendly fire, the point being the devs see the humor in a player calling down an airstrike and accidentally killing another player, or someone rapid firing at a bunch of bugs when another player runs across their line of fire without realizing it. Friendly fire happens.
However there is a contingent of players that take everything personally - if you accidentally hit them with a single bullet, as far as they're concerned it was intentional and they will kill you because of it, or in this case some players ignored the community missions and stayed playing on a planet they liked to play on, and if you wear this cape some players take that as a sign that you did that and they kill you for it because you didn't help with the objective.
That's not friendly fire or PvP, that's just being a toxic dickbag.
@Loamy correct, meaning a chunk of players who don't live on social media will put on this cape and have no idea why they're being targetted.
I sincerely think people who think it's their place to dish out their skewered version of "justice" to anyone they decide deserves it, should be put in their own special corner together, so they can just beat on eachother and leave the reasonable people to get on with whatever they're doing.
Lara at #1 makes sense, even if you take it outside of the UK.
While Mario may be more storied, he is the quintessential Steamboat Willie of videogames after all, but videogames were seen as silly amusement for kids and a hobby for nerds until the PS1 came out and pushed gaming into the public eye in a larger way than any other console at the time. Who was the mascot for the PS1? Initially you could argue Crash was, but once Tomb Raider came out, Lara became the defacto mascot. So you ask a bunch of mid-30-somethings to go down a list of characters and select the most iconic, and those gamers will reach back in their memories, remembering walking through game stores and seeing huge cardboard Lara Crofts, remember it as the high-point for gaming, the time it went from a silly little distraction to a widely recognized past-time, and you pick the icon of that moment - Lara Croft.
I mean... Let's be clear - Malevelon Creek was made an objective because there was regularly thousands upon thousands of players on the planet that wouldn't leave to fight on any of the other objectives. The easiest way for the devs to get those players to move on was making the liberation of the planet an objective, because now that the planet has been liberated, they have to move on!
Played maybe 30 minutes and won't be playing anymore. The mechanics behind the game are good enough, but I found the basis for the intro mission annoying - you're Eve, an elite soldier sent back to earth to fight aliens and take Earth back! But once you land you become a fragile woman that needs help doing the most basic things like... healing.
There were just too many tropes for me to want to see the demo to it's end. Almost like the devs are going with the early 90's stereotype of what a female character should be. Instead of giving us a powerful character and teaching us the controls, they made the character weak (even though she's supposed to be powerful) and saddled us with another character to hold our fragile hands.
Comments 203
Re: Assassin's Creed Shadows Reveal Trailer Is Already the Most Disliked in Series History
I think we're focusing on the wrong thing in this article - having just spent 10 minutes reading the Japanese comments on the clip, it's more apparent that the Japanese people themselves are upset with Ubisoft for not showing any understanding or care toward Japanese history.
If there is any one thing that the western world needs to understand about Japanese society, it's that the Japanese hold their history in reverence, they honor their ancestors and take pride in their history and where they've come from. The comments from Japanese viewers highlights that Ubisoft doesn't appear to have done any research - the buildings are wrong, the doors are wrong, the tatami are wrong, Yasuke wasn't a samurai (he was a servant/long sword holder), Yasuke in the clip is wearing Warlord armor because Ubisoft didn't research the different grades of armor. Basically, Ubisoft have decided to make a game based in Japanese history, but have done no research which in itself is a huge insult to Japan. If there is one country in the world that you can play fast and loose with historical representations with, Japan is not that country.
Re: Assassin's Creed Shadows Reveal Trailer Is Already the Most Disliked in Series History
I kind of get where the negativity is coming from - Ubisoft have the chance to create an AC story based in a mystic foreign land, to create strong Japanese characters, but instead they go with Yasuke. It feels like when it came to character design, they were worried about having a character that wasn't relatable to western markets, so they default to a notable non-Japanese historical figure so Western markets can relate.
Also to everyone up top that's trying to debunk dislikes - can someone provide a link to the source of the idea that dislikes are made-up? I don't use a browser extension but I definitely have the dislike function (YouTube Revanced) and I see the dislikes. I also don't often dislike videos, I'd guess maybe 1 in every 100 as my feed is tailored to my interests, so how does this work? My understanding is that the dislike function wasn't removed, the button was simply removed from the UI, hence extensions and reworked apps can return it, and all of us with it see the same number of dislikes on videos.
Re: Poll: Are You Happy with Your PS Plus Extra, Premium Games for May 2024?
I don't think there's been a month before with such clearly defined negative poll results...
Re: A Lot of PS4 Owners Have Yet to Upgrade to PS5
@rjejr I don't see a 4K TV as being a requirement/consideration to upgrading, as a good proportion of PS5 owners play games at a lower resolution than 4K aka pick Performance Mode where it's available in-game. Companies that track TV ownership stats also (mostly) separate PC monitors, not including them in the overall number.
Re: Shift Up Director Puts Stellar Blade, Sony Costume Conspiracy to Bed
@AfroMario their parents probably check their internet activity regularly and have filters for certain words...
Can't run the risk of being caught saying "sex" by mommy and daddy, because they'll ground you and take away your internets if they do!
Re: Helldivers 2 Players Given Second Chance to Secure New Anti-Tank Stratagem
MOs have become harder to accomplish, and will become more difficult as more players leave the game @DragoonZied. As much as we may want to blame Sony for players departing, a good chunk of players will naturally leave the game around now due to other factors. The player numbers will never be as high as they are in the first 2-3 months after release for any game. Personally I haven't played in about a week. I found that dropping in, killing bugs/bots, collecting samples and completing objectives started to feel very repetitious, and knowing this is a live service game that Joel can manipulate at any point i.e. we'll never 100% defeat any enemy force, I decided to put this game to the side and make it my 'pick up and play' when I don't feel like playing something else, and right now I have a lot of something else to play, so unless a buddy begs me to dive, I'll probably be staying in orbit for awhile to come.
Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? - Issue 528
HellDivers 2 but in honor of Arkane Austin being shuttered by Microsoft, I decided to restart an Arkane game that I didn't complete previously, so I've dived back in to Dishonored 2!
Re: More Xbox Layoffs Reportedly Inbound as Company Attempts to Cut Costs
If you focus on this quote - "Matt Booty said that the company's studios were spread too thin, like "peanut butter on bread", and that leaders across the division felt understaffed." you'll see the masterstroke in all of this, because your teams can't be spread too thin and understaffed if the teams no longer exist!
Matt Booty r smrt man.
Re: Helldivers Turn on Arrowhead Following Undemocratic Firing of Community Manager
Honestly, the Outrage Culture has worn out any empathy I had for things like this. It's outrage after outrage after outrage, driving people to apathy.
Maybe it's time to stop reading forums and chaff like this, and just play the game instead.
Re: Over 1,250 Massive PS5, PS4 Games Discounted Right Now
@Galv uhhhh
A company cannot have a monopoly when they own the platform and are the only company selling through that platform. That is simply their retail platform.
In order for Sony to have a "digital monopoly", the PlayStation consoles would have to be able to host other vendors digital stores e.g. you'd have to be able to have the Microsoft store and Square Enix digital stores run along side and separate to the PSN, selling digital PlayStation games. The monopoly would then exist if Sony quashed the competing digital stores to give themselves the largest market share of digital content sold on and through the console, unfairly pushing the competitors out.
Stating that Sony have a monopoly on digital sales through PSN is akin to walking into a 7/11 (or any other store) and declaring that they have a monopoly on stuff sold in the store. They don't, you've just walked into their store where you can only buy from them.
Re: Rumour: Ubisoft Is Going All-In on Assassin's Creed with Black Flag Remake, Another Remake, Co-op Multiplayer Games, and More
AC Black flag fans - "We want a remake of Black flag!"
Ubisoft - "Oh, you want a remake? Well how about a different pirate game?"
AC Black flag fans - "No, just a remake will do"
Ubisoft - "Well we're sure you'll like this pirate game more so that's what we're doing."
Ubisoft - "We're still working on it."
Ubisoft - "Still working on it. It's coming soon."
Ubisoft - "Still being developed. It'll come out soon."
Ubisoft - "Here! Here it is! 'ave at it!"
AC Black flag fans - "It's crap."
Ubisoft - "Did we tell you that we decided a few moments ago to remake Black flag?"
Re: Destiny 2 'Expansion Open Access' Announced, Could Be the Perfect Time to Dive Back In
@Nightcrawler71 yeah, all expansions. Thankfully Bungie insist on vaulting old content like the main/original campaign and earlier expansions, to keep the game at a "reasonable" install size.
Re: Destiny 2 'Expansion Open Access' Announced, Could Be the Perfect Time to Dive Back In
@Nightcrawler71 Destiny 2 currently takes up a cool 125.1GB on my console.
Okay, there's nothing "cool" about that. Takes up just as much space as Call of Duty!
Re: Destiny 2 'Expansion Open Access' Announced, Could Be the Perfect Time to Dive Back In
@soracloud28 general consensus is that Curse of Osiris was the low point. The game had very little in the way of content back then, and is far more expansive and involved now. I will warn though - there is a lot of stuff thrown in your face if you haven't played in awhile, a lot of quests that aren't actually important to the story that the game will give you. If you do jump in, try to do the expansions in the order of release, even though it can be tempting to try to smash out Beyond Light and Lightfall as they both give you extra subclasses (stasis and strand).
Re: Helldivers 2 May Turn Negative Steam Reviews into a Fashionable In-Game Cape
@Pat_trick but the "I can't get PSN in my country" point becomes moot when you realize Sony sells PlayStations in those countries. People buy the console and make accounts registered in the nearest region. The only people having issues here are PC gamers who either haven't done enough research to realize it's not an issue, or people who are just here to jump on the bandwagon.
Re: Helldivers 2 May Turn Negative Steam Reviews into a Fashionable In-Game Cape
@Pat_trick "Sony famously suffers more data breaches than all the other platforms." but they actually don't. They handle it differently. If the PSN gets hacked, Sony step forward and make people aware of it, and investigate if customer data has been accessed. Other companies, such as Microsoft, prefer to investigate if customer data has been accessed and then reveal the hack if it has.
If you want to know if Microsoft have been hacked, you have to go searching.
https://firewalltimes.com/microsoft-data-breach-timeline/
If you want to know if Sony have been hacked, they'll already have informed you.
Re: Helldivers 2 May Turn Negative Steam Reviews into a Fashionable In-Game Cape
@ShogunRok 100% behind this. Let the people who review bombed the game mark themselves! Let the rest of us see that they are a player that doesn't understand that PlayStation products are sold across the globe, including in the Philippines, and all that they needed to do was select the closest region if theirs wasn't listed!
This whole debacle was pathetic. People crying that HellDivers couldn't be played in countries with no PSN, when those same countries sell PlayStation products with no issue. I guess it shows that PlayStation owners are smart enough to understand you select the closest region, while PC players just can't figure it out.
And before anyone comes with the "If you do that you'll break Sony's ToS and get banned!" bit, no, you won't. I run multiple PSN accounts, each set to different regions. A bunch of content creators do the same. I haven't been banned. They haven't been banned. I even went as far as to review the PSN ToS to reply to another person that cried that. The ToS just asks you select your region, not your city or country, just region i.e. North America regardless of whether you live in Canada, US, Brazil, Mexico etc. The whole "banned because of ToS" point was fabricated and spread as misinformation to justify all of the crying.
Re: Sony Doubles Down on Helldivers 2 PSN Requirement by Taking It Off Sale for PC in Numerous Countries
@Pat_trick "PS Plus is available only in 69 countries and yet they sold the game to every territory."
You can't buy the game from Sony, through the PSN store, in countries that PSN isn't available unless you already have a PS5 and a PSN account set to a different region. The game has been sold in those countries by Valve on the Steam store.
It's quite likely a misunderstanding, with Sony not realizing that the game is being sold on Steam in regions that can't access PSN natively.
Re: Sony Doubles Down on Helldivers 2 PSN Requirement by Taking It Off Sale for PC in Numerous Countries
@Steel76 because Sony and Steam are two separate entities. Sony control what is available on PSN and where, and Valve obviously control what is available on Steam and where.
I'd bet that Sony, with the PSN, have a harder time making the PSN available in certain regions due to government interference e.g. there may be no PSN in China due to the Chinese Communist Party wanting full access to the PSN and control over it. Other countries may impose similar restrictions and controls, or taxes/tariffs. PSN is built into the console.
Steam on the otherhand is a peice of software that gives you access to the store and games, it's not baked in and in theory can be downloaded anywhere, meaning Valve have less control and can move more freely i.e. it's harder for a government to impose restrictions on Valve when Valve themselves don't have full control over who downloads Steam and where they download it.
Sony pulling the game from certain regions, to me, is an indicator that they weren't aware of this issue. Games often get pulled from digital stores while issues get resolved. They may well be trying to figure out a solution and have pulled the game until then.
Re: Helldivers 2 PC Is Getting Review Bombed Over PSN Requirement
@ChrisDeku you're right that you can look up various individuals publicly facing information, but that's not what that person will have linked to their personal accounts i.e. no company CEO will use their corporate email address on their personal bank account. If you want that personal email address, you're going to have to hack a service provider that they subscribe to.
While I can appreciate that you're trying to insult me and get under my skin by stating things like "that's some real big brain thinking right there, son", you're just showing that you're naive when it comes to understanding what hackers are after. They're after your name (actual, not username), address, email address and phone number. All of which can be found on most people's accounts, all of which can be used to get access to things like bank accounts. Don't believe me? Go watch this short 4 minute video...
https://youtu.be/lc7scxvKQOo
With just a name and phone number she took over his account in 4 minutes.
Hackers don't target exclusively big bank accounts. 50 small accounts can easily hold as much money as 1 large account. In the 2011 Sony hack, hackers exposed personal data of 77 million people. Even if half of those people only have $5 in their accounts, it adds up to a huge wealth that they could access with a little bit of effort.
Re: Poll: Are You Happy with Your PS Plus Essential Games for May 2024?
@Papolazarus
"I don't want these as subscribed games when I can play them for free"
You don't want games included in PS Essentials that are free to play. Let me just check... Yeah Destiny 2 Lightfall is a paid expansion of the core F2P game. You can't play Lightfall without paying for it otherwise.
"give me games that everyone else pays for that's why I subscribe ps you greedy rats."
You want games that everyone else pays for... For free in the essentials line up? You want for free what everyone else pays for? And Sony are the greedy rats?
Re: Helldivers 2 PC Is Getting Review Bombed Over PSN Requirement
@ChrisDeku and you don't on PSN.
Hackers don't need your credit card details to attempt to breach other accounts that you have. They just need your name and email address, both of which the majority of people have on their accounts.
Re: Helldivers 2 PC Is Getting Review Bombed Over PSN Requirement
@ChrisDeku "BTW this whole security/data breach angle is a total joke. Even if you use your real name and email, what are they going to do with that? OMG now they know my username is “Otaku69”. Yeah, so?"
Why do you think hackers try to steal your data? It isn't so that they can see what your "consumption habits" are. A hacker with your data from a breach, like the 2010 Sony hack, will look up your address and see which banking establishments are close by, and then try to login to their websites using your email address and password they got from the breach or phone the banks and claim to be you, using your data when challenged by the bank employee.
Ask me how I know this...
(Because I was woken up by a phone call from my bank at 3AM to ask me if I was trying to access my bank account from China, after my details were exposed during the Sony hack)
Re: Helldivers 2 PC Is Getting Review Bombed Over PSN Requirement
To everyone crying out that Sony "just want your data" - you don't have to give them your data. Sony performs no data verification when the accounts are created. You can freely create a PSN account for a different region, providing an address scraped off of Google Maps, using a burner e-mail address and provide your name as Santa Claus.
Re: Helldivers 2 PC Players Blindsided by Seemingly Sudden PSN Account Requirement
@Godot25 close but no cigar.
https://www.playstation.com/en-ca/legal/psn-terms-of-service/
You'll find that they state that during account creation you must select the "region"* of your address. They do not state that your account will be banned if you select the incorrect country or provide incorrect address details. As I've previously pointed out - prominent content creators openly use accounts setup in other regions to play on those servers, Sony know about this and do nothing.
*A region is not a city or country. NA (North America) is the server region for Canada, USA, Mexico, Brazil etc. You may live in a country that is technically South America and find that you can only select NA, because NA is the closest region to you.
Sony do not state that you have to list your exact city or country. They only ask for you to select your region, and so people in the Philippines simply have to select the closest region.
Re: Helldivers 2 PC Players Blindsided by Seemingly Sudden PSN Account Requirement
@Godot25 I'm perplexed...
Take a step back from the HD2 situation and look at the situation in the Philippines - if PSN isn't available there, does that mean that Sony does not sell PlayStation consoles in the Philippines?
Or...
Do people in the Philippines just select the closest region from the drop down menu and carry on?
That's all that the PC players need to do. Problem solved.
Re: Helldivers 2 PC Players Blindsided by Seemingly Sudden PSN Account Requirement
@Broosh I doubt Sony would ever check. They're fully aware that people use this practice. Take SuperGT, TheKie25 and Tidgney as examples - they're all prominent Gran Turismo 7 streamers that openly use fake accounts to race in different regions. SuperGT is regularly invited to Polyphony Digital (who are owned by Sony) events and Tidgney is an ex-World Tour racer who has an avatar you race against in the game.
Sony know they couldn't ban a regular Joe without also banning a chunk of content creators for doing something that isn't actually hurting anyone. It'd just hurt their own brand.
Re: Helldivers 2 PC Players Blindsided by Seemingly Sudden PSN Account Requirement
@Voltan there is a very simple solution to PSN not being available in your region - use fake details. A lot of Gran Turismo 7 streamers use this trick to play on other region servers.
Go to Google Maps. Pick a city at random in the region that does have PSN. Pick a random gas station or McDonalds. Click it and Google gives you the full address. Now go to the PlayStation website and create an account using the address details Google provided. Done. You can now play HD2 with a PSN account even if PSN isn't natively available in your region.
PSN accounts are free and don't have any kind of IP check to confirm region when you make them. You can literally create PSN accounts for every region across the globe and login to them from anywhere without Sony preventing it.
Re: Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth Sales Remain Muted in the USA, Compared to Past Games
@jorel262 Square Enix put the target on themselves, to be fair, by releasing their own statements indicating that Rebirth hasn't met their expected sales figures. Rags like PushSquare simply grab onto that and run it for as long as they can to keep people clicking links and leaving comments.
Re: PS Plus Essential Games for May 2024 Announced
With the previous D2 DLC (WitchQueen?) being included a few months back and now Lightfall, it's clear that Sony are doing everything they can to try to pull players back into D2 before Final Shape. Just a pity that Lightfall is one of the more polarizing DLCs the franchise has had!
That aside though I'm looking forward to Tunic!
Re: Stellar Blade PS5 Fans Irate Over Alleged Censorship
@Kelrics90 have you considered that you perceive double-standards that aren't actually there? PushSquare give the response from the game director;
Director Hyung-Tae Kim, when asked directly about this during a launch event, denied any accusations, stressing “the final costume we wanted to show you is indeed the costume [in the patch]”. However, he admitted this answer “may not be enough to convince our users” and that discussions are taking place “internally” on the matter.
The only people that are claiming Sony forced censorship on the game are the players, who literally have zero knowledge of what those internal discussions are. You can't accuse Sony of double-standards and censorship when Sony appear to have had nothing to do with it.
Re: Stellar Blade PS5 Fans Irate Over Alleged Censorship
What's this? Someone has already found a way to get all the horny kids that purchased the game to see a female in skimpy outfits to list themselves?! Bahahahhaaha!
This thread section is damned comical. This isn't censorship. It's a design choice. Developers can develop whatever games they want, but it will always be subject to Sony's review and input, this is because Sony own the console platform and decide what gets released on it.
Sony own the PS5 and have every right to decide what does or doesn't get launched on their console. This would be like me owning a museum and refusing to display pictures of scantily clad women that a boy drew with a sharpie, just to end up with a rabble shouting that it's censorship. It's not censorship. It's a choice.
Content can be censored. People playing videogames cannot.
To those people crying "no-one has the right censor me!" and "no-one can decide what I can and can't see!" You do realize that you're arguing that if T&A exist anywhere in the world, you have every right to see it? It'd be like a hot woman wearing a top that exposes a little bit of side-boob for two days and then covering it up on the third, just to have you shout "I HAVE EVERY RIGHT TO SEE YOUR SIDE-BOOB!". No, you don't. If that woman decides to cover up, that is their choice. You have absolutely no right to see a scantily clad female in a videogame, what you see in a videogame is decided by the developers and publishers, just as that woman decides when to cover-up.
Re: Super Earth Demands Helldivers 2 Players Slaughter 2 Billion Terminids
Order was completed a few hours ago. I assume the screenshot, at 9.4%, was from early this morning (over 12 hours ago) as the order reportedly hit 20% in less than 2 hours and was at 77% around 10 hours in.
Edit - checking the Helldivers2 Reddit - it took around 13 hours to complete!
Re: Fallout 4 PS5 Version Out 25th April with New Modes and Content
@PinderSchloss are you trying to be sneaky by leading me to a conclusion that you want me to go to?
Re: PS Stars Rewards Now Include Top PS5 Games Rise of the Ronin, Helldivers 2, More
@PerpetualBoredom sure, paying customers getting priority over non-paying customers is a bad look...
...if you're not a paying customer.
If you invest significantly more effort into your job than your colleague that only does the absolute minimum, don't you deserve more reward than them?
If you invest more effort, you have a higher value to your employer, and it's exactly the same with big companies - if you invest more into their ecosystem, you have a higher value to them, and so they want to do more to retain your business which is often done by rewarding loyalty.
Re: Fallout 4 PS5 Version Out 25th April with New Modes and Content
@PinderSchloss absolutely did, but that's only a free upgrade to the PS5 version if you've already got the PS4 version. If you don't have the PS4 version but you have a PS5 console, good news! Bethesda are re-releasing the game on PS5!
Let's not get into how it's quite likely that the improvements are lifted from various mods, making this a quick low-effort cashgrab.
If Starfield and Redfall hadn't bombed, I doubt this release would be happening. Bethesda have released flop after flop after flop, and no doubt Microsoft are leaning on them to create maximum revenue with the absolute minimum expenditure, so re-release whatever can be re-released!
Re: PS Stars Rewards Now Include Top PS5 Games Rise of the Ronin, Helldivers 2, More
@MrHabushi spending any money on HellDivers Super Credits is a silly move from the get-go. 1,250 points gets you 375SC or... Just do 3-4 solo runs on trivial/easy, hit every point of interest on the tiny map you'll be on and you'll likely get the same amount of SC in 30 minutes or less.
It's the same as the 250,000 Gran Turismo credits for 1,250 points. Anyone who has spent time on GT7 knows of ways to earn well over that in 30 minutes.
Those microtransactions are so trivial that only the truly lazy would ever purchase them.
Re: PS Stars Rewards Now Include Top PS5 Games Rise of the Ronin, Helldivers 2, More
@Stevemalkpus it's marketing.
Sony could do away with the games and just give you the option to transfer points into wallet funds, but that doesn't help them sell specific games.
You could check PS Stars and see 18,000 points and not bother transfering because there isn't anything that comes to mind, but if you login, see 18,000 points and Rise of the Ronin for 17,500, it becomes an enticing product - it's a popular new game that won't cost you any cash, just points.
It's simple marketing.
Re: PS Stars Rewards Now Include Top PS5 Games Rise of the Ronin, Helldivers 2, More
Don't forget that if you're at the highest level of PS Stars (level 4 I believe), you get priority support when contacting them. Sony announced this feature when they first announced PS Stars, but quickly swept it under the rug due to complaints of being unfair toward people who don't use PS Stars, but having contacted Support a handful of times and getting a rep within a minute every time, even when a buddy had to wait 15 minutes, I can assure you that Priority Support still exists!
Re: Fallout 4 PS5 Version Out 25th April with New Modes and Content
Some devs believe that if you want a game to last 10+ years, you should make an MMO or Live Service game. Bethesda believe that if you want a game to last 10+ years, you should keep re-releasing it across multiple generations of consoles...
Bethesda Softworks where our motto is "Re-release it, Re-release it, Re-release it and Re-release it, because we know someone will buy it!"
Re: Bungie Might Be Making Destiny 3, Its Fanbase Speculates
Bungie need to move on from Destiny as a franchise. Don't get me wrong - I enjoyed D1 and regularly play D2, but unless you've followed the various story arcs from season to season, it's very difficult to know what's going on. Add in all of the miss-management, vaulting of paid-for content, poor decisions in game direction and the sheer amount of time required from the player just to keep up... They need to move on.
Like others - I'm here for Final Shape, but that's just to wrap up the current story. After that I'll be enjoying other less-grindy games.
Re: Suicide Squad Woes Continue As Hackers Make Free with Unreleased Character, Skins
@Fishface45 I'd laugh hard at WB if they decided to flip the game to F2P so soon.
Bungie did that with Destiny 2 years after release, and the players (myself included) that paid for the game felt like we'd been swindled. If WB flipped to F2P right now they may gain a few players (with the stream of negative publicity this game has, I doubt they'd gain many), but they'd convince a lot of the players that paid to play the game that WB doesn't give a toot about them, causing players to leave.
That being said, WB do seem like they like to do the exact opposite of what should work for them, so... maybe it'll go F2P before the end of the year?
Re: The End? Helldivers 2 Players Rid Galaxy of Automaton Menace
Rid Super Earth's galaxy of the bots but they're not defeated... They're still out there, probably amassing their forces to make a sweeping invasion!
Also - we've had bugs on the Eastern side of the galaxy map, and bots on these West, but what's going to fill the North and South?
Re: Poll: How Much Do You Care About 60fps on PS5?
What about the flipside of this question: do 4K, HDR and (mild) Ray Tracing matter to you?
In all honesty, I think we'll always be sitting in this Quality or Performance situation, with no-one being able to push 4K, HDR, Ray Tracing AND 60fps on console.
Console are stuck in a loop where with every new generation we're sold on a great graphical improvement AND performance improvement, and so the devs start working towards the graphical potentials of the console and rapidly learn that things like 4K, HDR and Ray Tracing are only possible at the expense of FPS due to how resource hungry they are. And when the next console generation starts, they'll have more power/resources available, but the expectations for graphical performance would have also increased, so they'll again be stuck with the decision of chasing 8K, HDR with full Ray Tracing and whatever other stuff comes up, at the expense of FPS.
...unless you own a $3k PC.
Re: Cowardly Helldivers Turn on Malevelon Creek Veterans, Targeting Noble Cape Wearers
@GamingFan4Lyf HellDivers 2 is not PvP. The game is PvE with friendly fire, the point being the devs see the humor in a player calling down an airstrike and accidentally killing another player, or someone rapid firing at a bunch of bugs when another player runs across their line of fire without realizing it. Friendly fire happens.
However there is a contingent of players that take everything personally - if you accidentally hit them with a single bullet, as far as they're concerned it was intentional and they will kill you because of it, or in this case some players ignored the community missions and stayed playing on a planet they liked to play on, and if you wear this cape some players take that as a sign that you did that and they kill you for it because you didn't help with the objective.
That's not friendly fire or PvP, that's just being a toxic dickbag.
Re: Cowardly Helldivers Turn on Malevelon Creek Veterans, Targeting Noble Cape Wearers
@Loamy correct, meaning a chunk of players who don't live on social media will put on this cape and have no idea why they're being targetted.
I sincerely think people who think it's their place to dish out their skewered version of "justice" to anyone they decide deserves it, should be put in their own special corner together, so they can just beat on eachother and leave the reasonable people to get on with whatever they're doing.
Re: Random: Lara Croft Tops Mario as the Most Iconic Video Game Character of All Time, Apparently
Lara at #1 makes sense, even if you take it outside of the UK.
While Mario may be more storied, he is the quintessential Steamboat Willie of videogames after all, but videogames were seen as silly amusement for kids and a hobby for nerds until the PS1 came out and pushed gaming into the public eye in a larger way than any other console at the time. Who was the mascot for the PS1? Initially you could argue Crash was, but once Tomb Raider came out, Lara became the defacto mascot. So you ask a bunch of mid-30-somethings to go down a list of characters and select the most iconic, and those gamers will reach back in their memories, remembering walking through game stores and seeing huge cardboard Lara Crofts, remember it as the high-point for gaming, the time it went from a silly little distraction to a widely recognized past-time, and you pick the icon of that moment - Lara Croft.
Re: Helldivers 2 Players Secure Symbolic Victory with Anticipated Liberation of Malevelon Creek
I mean... Let's be clear - Malevelon Creek was made an objective because there was regularly thousands upon thousands of players on the planet that wouldn't leave to fight on any of the other objectives. The easiest way for the devs to get those players to move on was making the liberation of the planet an objective, because now that the planet has been liberated, they have to move on!
Re: Poll: Are You Playing the Stellar Blade Demo?
Played maybe 30 minutes and won't be playing anymore. The mechanics behind the game are good enough, but I found the basis for the intro mission annoying - you're Eve, an elite soldier sent back to earth to fight aliens and take Earth back! But once you land you become a fragile woman that needs help doing the most basic things like... healing.
There were just too many tropes for me to want to see the demo to it's end. Almost like the devs are going with the early 90's stereotype of what a female character should be. Instead of giving us a powerful character and teaching us the controls, they made the character weak (even though she's supposed to be powerful) and saddled us with another character to hold our fragile hands.
Re: On Top of Character DLC and Microtransactions, Tekken 8 Is Now Getting a Premium Battle Pass
Ahhh... Remember when all you had to do to unlock extra fighters and outfits was beat the game?
Those were the good ol' days.