NEStalgia

How did push go from being critical to sounding like marketing copy on this thing? Pressure from Sony handlers? Just following the poll and riding the wave in whatever direction?

Why are we making news about it enhancing PS4 games? That's both pretty much the only thing Sony has actually said since the beginning it does, and also it's fairly pathetic if a major bullet point of the pro is that the standard model was so pathetic since the start that is didn't significantly improve old games while saying it would.

@Balaam_ You really wouldn't have played a great game just because an optional dlc you don't want messes with trophy percentage? You don't play games to enjoy the game but merely to get OCD completion tokens? It's not about the journey, it's about the destination?

I've never got the whole trophy thing but the more people talk about them like this the more i feel there's something fundamentally damaging to gaming about their existence.

@MFTWrecks lol, half true but putting quarters in to access the content (aka buying or renting the activity of gameplay) vs paying for imaginary clothing isn't really that comparable.

@rjejr absolutely shameless

@IamJT I truly don't even understand how it works. Like, it's just Product Placement Simulator. And viewers pay per placement. I truly don't understand how it's actually popular.

If you told me 30 years ago I'd be living in a world where people pay real money to get imaginary cartoon Jordans, I would not have believed you.

At least getting capped because you were seen with Jordan's still applies. Not everything goes out of style with time.

So is this Fortnite x Just Dance? Because that's what it looks like.

WHO ARE YOU, AND WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH ELECTRONIC ARTS??

@UnlimitedSevens LOL, yeah, I think it was actually exceedingly revealing, Jim's quote on that. It reveals how they view their own products. That was regarding the 4 Pro, which had more meaning than the 5 Pro, at a much lower cost difference to the standard console. Yet his comment revealed that they essentially thought the pro product had little to offer and that the sales were based on the irrationality of their consumer/personality flaws in the market. He'd continued about wanting "the best" basically simply because it exists. It was one of those few cracks in the corporate shine that shows the industry is aware of and actively exploiting known personality flaws in the video games market, just like the gambling, and for that matter, alcohol industry does. That they're doing it again, is fairly offensive. Of course, it did start under Jim if it's been there all along so we're STILL shoveling Jim's steaming pile.

@naruball It is both sense, and the opposite of sense. A dual-sense, if you will.

(How am I the first one to do this joke here?)

FFS.

In the words of Jim Ryan explaining the (initial early adopter period) success of PS4 Pro: "Gamers are not, necessarily, rational."

@IOI Hulst is where he is because Jim Ryan put him there as a fellow traveler though. Without Jim, they'd be no Herman to deal with. He's a waste product of Jim's.

@LowDefAl The only place I'd disagree is the health of the brand. I think that's largely just sitting in that momentum wave. I think their management has taken the wrong lessons from their sales success, and moved in multiple directions that over time will put the brakes on their momentum. It's kind of a hallmark Sony practice to take good sales to mean they have an Apple-like cult following (long before Apple was Apple), and that people buy their product simply because it has their name on it, and they align their business around that expectation. The only reason that strategy hasn't cratered on them yet is because of a lack of real competition. The moment that changes, and someone, if not MS, Nintendo, Apple, Asus....SOMEONE, moves in to challenge them, that strategy will grind to a halt. Which has happened to them in every single industry they've tried that strategy.

It's like filing down the legs of the ladder so that the latter looks stable, but once someone puts weight on it, it snaps and falls.

@LowDefAl There does remain a difference between a product that's succeeding because of it's excellent strategy and offering, vs a product that's succeeding in spite of dreadful mismanagement because of its existing momentum due to past strategies from previous management in the face of competition even more mismanaged. The former continues building loyalty and momentum. The latter persists simply because it's a market default which can be disrupted at any time by outside forces or market apathy. The success of PS currently has very little to do with anything PS is actually doing, because PS isn't really doing much of anything. It's success lies mostly in being, currently, the only real option that exists to play a segment of games for those that want console convenience over PC and aren't interested in the very weak offerings of Xbox. It succeeds because there's not really anything challenging it, so it's purchased whether or not it's a good offering. If something else attempts to challenge it, that momentum can easily give to inertia.

At the rate gaming is going, buy a PC now and it'll play everything you want for decades until the traces oxidize and crumble. It won't play the latest games at the highest spec, but those games will also have potato mode support.

TL;DR "We looked over our shoulder as we always do and decided to just copy what Xbox was doing. It doesn't work for them but we're sure it'll work for us."

The main risk with this setup is that one of the CEOs is Herman Hulst.

TL;DR "We looked over our shoulder as we always do and just decided to copy what Nintendo is doing because
it worked for them so it'll work for us too."

Push will host the cracked ISOs to celebrate, right?

All these PS5 Pro discs will feel right at home with a nice collection of Series S discs

"we're confident that by the time everyone forgets how much our last game sucked, our next game will be much better received!".

(Tbf outlaws actually seems better than it's reputation implies.)

@rjejr Yeah they don't get a party, they just become a component manufacturer. They are in the party-free zone.

I, myself, am waiting for PS5 Pro(TM) color plates in the Concord Grape color way. I hear all proceeds will benefit The Hulst Foundation.

This is a case where the price is what matters. If this weren't a $10 upgrade a texture pack and reshade would have been outrageous given that the original already looks great. But for a $10 upgrade as a graphics mod, it seems fair.

@OldGamer999 Honestly I think the biggest problem is that REEngine is just bad. It worked for closed corridors and simple switch games but every big world they try to build with it makes Bethesda games look polished. I don't know why people roll with the whole "capgod" thing.

@HonestHick lol the fake CGI trailer is peak!

@HonestHick To be fair, Sony used to have SOCOM that did well in the online space. Then they bought the studio, then closed it ... 🙄

Oh and they had Sony Online Entertainment with Everquest, one of the biggest MMOs ever and even advertised it in movie theaters. And then they sold it... 🙄 😂

@Banjo- this must be Herman's version of a pump and dump scam 😂

@Banjo- I'm pretty sure they sold through all printed physical copies as collectors were snapping them up while it burned 😂

@TrickyDicky99 Even that's a triumph next to Concord....

@ChrisDeku Infinite cost a lot but it also generated a lot of hardware buzz and sales early on as it and Forza horizon 5 were the main (delayed) launch games. It may not have made its money back but it did shift platform and sub sales making it fulfill a purpose, including PC subs. Concord, not so much, and the game still has an ok player base and cosmetics store generating some revenue. With an 87 on metacritic it's still a successful game even if it cost too much, and will continue to have some sales/sub interest for a long time for the campaign.

It wasn't the hit they wanted but Concord can't stand in the same room with it.

@TrickyDicky99 PSVR2 is Wii levels of success next to Concord.

@get2sammyb Even a 3 for 1 bundle of Knack3, Lair2, and Haze2 for $4.99 would have made more money than this.

Maybe if the industry focused less on "evolving revenue streams" and focused more on "making products for which there is market demand, at a price the market is willing to pay to sufficiently ROI" they'd be in a better place?

These executives have stopped thinking about meeting the market and generating customer loyalty, they're only looking for "revenue streams".

Sony is in a rough spot though. Their old model doesn't work anymore with the current market. But their only solution seems to be trading their brand cache for lottery tickets.

@nomither6 Yeah, I'd say FH4 qualifies as live service. You have the drivatars, you have drop in multiplayer, they have events throughout the year etc. GT, iRacing, Automobilista2, Asetto Corsa, Forza.... All of them have elements of live service but nobody thinks of them as live service. iRacing even has a monthly subscription but people don't really talk about "live service"

@nomither6 The whole "live service" name is a business suit buzzword with monetization implications. Look at most racing games, nobody called them "live service" it was just a racing game with online play and new maps sold periodically. Now it's a "live service."

@nomither6 The thing is when you think of "live service" there's a lot of games that are "live service" that work that aren't what executives think of as "live service" (aka recurring revenue cash cows.)

MOST racing games are "live services" but aren't monetized beyond selling new cars and tracks to add for a long time. The base game is the engine, and some core content, and more content is sold for the same game rather than "sequels" forever and ever. Elite Dangerous is an MMO with no recurring subs, it does sell in-game currency, if you want to buy particular ships or gear outright without playing and grinding, but otherwise it's a base game with free online forever.

The problem is a game that lives as a service and the engineered corporate cash cow of "live service genere $$$" aren't the same thing.

@MinervaX Sorry, the internet irony filters were on I saw it coming since June.

@HonestHick TBF I think remakes of all the Destiny expansions people bought and then got stripped of by Bungie is a more in-demand product than Marathon....

I did not expect this outcome at all. Shocked, truly.

This game did so badly it was too undetectable to even harm Sony's image lol.

Jim and Herman are the ones to truly blame. Yes, the studio failed to make a game that had a market, but Jim and Herman are the ones that threw good money after bad on it, and declared it the "Future of PS".

@khayl " the characters Kock and the original team had created "

Uuuuuuuhhhhmmm.... 😒

@themightyant I keep reading that Skillup condemned it, so out of curiosity I checked for the video. The one I saw was the one after the press preview in LA, but in that he was praising it. Weird if he has a new video condemning it.

Got to say I'm shocked at the result. Absolutely EVERYTHING leading up to launch looked absolutely disastrous, and I couldn't understand how people were excited about it. The excessive marketing made it seem even more like they were trying to "buy" acceptance for it. I did not think it was actually going to turn out good! Though I liked Andromeda...so there's that...

@Zuljaras lol yep, Gog makes physical look restrictive. I still find it unfathomable that Sony actually put games on gog. I'm sure that's over!

@Zuljaras I never imagined you, Mr. Physical, would be a digital PC gamer, let alone a PCVR gamer living on the edge 😂!

One of us! One of us!

@The_Wailing_Doom "Starsiege"

In my head, I will forever hear Luke Skywalker calling me "Duster" over and over again

Great games, still have that huge box it came in lol.

Still, we've never had anything like MW2 ever again. How is it possible we've had no true simulator mech games in all these years? It's so old it's back when Myst made CD drives new!

I still stand by the idea that replacing iconic video game characters with voice actors behind that game with different actors just doesn't really work. Kiryu isn't kiryu without Kuroda. He's a huge part of the characters feel. Even in the games the English va breaks the character because the characters development evolves around the actors emotional range and manner.

@Blargh Yeah I enjoyed 3. Everyone was disappointed compared to mw2 at the time, but on its own it was a good game anyway, though badly buggy. Still doesn't compare to the unique sims. That was made by Zipper, later of SOCOM fame and briefly owned by Sony before they closed it.

I don't know how this installment plays, but one thing that wasn't addressed here is how HOTAS support is. This is not to be compared to Gundam style games, MW games are SUPPOSED to be slow and heavy. They're not walking get fighters, they're ginormous tanks. But traditionally MW games were meant to be piloted on a HOTAS, like a study sim.

I fear we'll never, ever see an MW game as good and deep as the classic Activision FASA MW2 series. It was a true mech SIM as much as DCS is a combat flight sim. Maybe we could beg for a legit remake of the classics.

@naruball yeah, see that's the thing, and the main problem with the industry today. They don't want their games to "make a profit". Studios that "make a profit" get closed weekly. They want their games to "meet expectations and projections", and the goal of any game in the live service initiative is that perpetual revenue/sales curve. Especially in live service because the ongoing costs of servers and content need to be justified by continuous revenue, in hd2s case, continued sales. The initial boom for the game looked great, but while it's still populated, I've no doubt corporate is shaking their heads with disapproval that their service didn't cut the mustard for the long term success goals. obviously it's not a failure in the Concord sense, but it's still another failed attempt on the live service success dart board.

Yeah the game is a success by traditional metrics, but the goal posts for the live service titles aren't in the same places.

Well that's not a headline I expected to read...

Whatever happened to the halcyon days when we just talked about beastiality in video games.

@McTwist Layden has generally been more coherent than the rest of Sony corp, but he's way out there on this one. I think being a life-long Sony staffer does something to people's minds. The company has always been a nasty one. Playstation was good because it wasn't like the rest of Sony until recently, but Sony itself was always nasty, long before PS existed. Much as I love most things Japan, being a company that thrived mostly on export, Sony has always run perfectly inverse the normal norms for Japanese companies - always. Layden's a core Sony guy, from long before PS existed.

Still he's generally been a positive in the industry, and even though he was part of the problem of the endless budget movie games blockbuster industry, he also recognized the problem he created and also tried to avoid it, until Jim threw him overboard and ran the engines at ramming speed to break through the iceberg. Even with that, though, he's quite wrong on this one.

@TrickyDicky99 I think the big problem remains that with the boom in mobile the "executives" in the industry all thought gaming was about to hit it big and become as mainstream as TV. The investors looked at the "gaming" numbers, which includes mobile, and saw nothing but infinite growth, and then demanded to see that growth. Then started pumping investment like crazy to realize that growth. Meanwhile the actual market for games is a small and stagnant niche and always has been. "Video games aren't popular" may be an exaggeration, but it's farily true. 300-350M consoles sold worldwide per generation on a world with how many BILLION people? That's barely the total population of the US alone. "Video games aren't popular" is the unfortunate reality despite the appearance of Fortnite.