Comments 7,028

Re: Don't Nod Financials Result in Reorganisation and Layoffs, Cancelled Projects

NEStalgia

At some point someone needs to figure out what is wrong with the industry and fix it. We never more expensive hardware and more expensive games than ever, yet the industry is in continuous contraction. Something is very wrong with the industry and it's not the result of individual success or failure, the industry as a whole is in continuous deep trouble.

Re: Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart Showcases the Problem with Sony's Games on PS5 Pro

NEStalgia

@SuntannedDuck2 You are the only poster that consistently out -text walls me... 😂

I agree with you about Rift though. I didn't line it as much as the PS4 r&c game. That one I replayed repeatedly to max everything. Rift,I got part way through the second replay and then just stopped. It wasn't as fun to replay. the levels were mostly built around gimmicks that were fun the first time through and then got old trying to do them again. They only work once, or did infrequent playthroughs

Re: Opinion: The Price of Playing PS5 Games Day One Is Getting Higher and Higher

NEStalgia

Pay more, get less. Guaranteed. That's the 9th gen promise!!

I truly do not understand these FOMO people. I have FOMO. Fear of missing out on the half price sale when it hits. Who in their right mind pays fortunes for things just to get a worse beta then the people that didn't pay fortunes.

Though in the DBZ example it's not a fair example. People didn't upsell to get early access, people upsold to get the DLC they were going to buy anyway because that's how fighters work now, and as a bonus for prepaying they got to play "early." I've bought Ubisoft "upsell editions", didn't touch the early access, it was just a good deal for the game and DLC when it also included one of their remasters of older games with it. The bundle price was cheaper than all the parts together, even on sale, because the DLCs rarely go on sale while the base games do.

Re: Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart Showcases the Problem with Sony's Games on PS5 Pro

NEStalgia

The pattern I'm mostly seeing from the PS5 pro demonstrations is that what it does best with is poorly optimized games that already had insanely low rendering resolutions. It's not significant in games that already ran well, which makes sense because it's main difference is simply a better scaler.

It still presents a strange situation in console though. In PC a better GPU just means you can crank the details for "moar everything" compared to a lesser GPU. In console it means devs can make this better looking/performing mode for Pro owners, which is going to be a smaller-than-Xbox-portion of their market, and they get the choice of just not caring about Pro, bump the targets up and leave it at that, or use the Pro as an excuse to make a badly made game on console justifiable, while making their games a terrible experience for 80+% of their customers. It's an awkward place, because it defies the whole nature of a console - you pay your money, you play your game as it's meant to be, unless you pay more money and get a different experience. The whole point of console is "you buy a PS3, you play PS3 games that run as they're supposed to on PS3." Now we have "what specs do you want on your console build?" and almost announces to the market that there's the "good playstation" and the "lousy budget one", which also breaks the nature of what has made console a staple item.

Re: Atlus Fans Don't Think Xbox's Marketing Is Doing Metaphor: ReFantazio Justice

NEStalgia

@Flaming_Kaiser Yeah, can't disagree there. Puts on hipster glasses and pocket protector I was a Linux nerd before it was cool!

I ended up going back to Windows just because too much of what I needed to do depended on it, and I was spending more of my life fighting to make things work in Linux through workarounds than just using the things I needed to be doing, but yeah, I did the Linux-only life for some years from the late 90's into early 2000s. Still work with it for server applications IRL, to me Windows is never a "real" server.

These days the Linux UI stuff has gotten a ton more capable. Back in the day, you were really better off just living on the bash prompt.

Re: PS5 Pro Makes Quality, Performance Modes in Dragon Age: The Veilguard Better Than Ever

NEStalgia

@Flaming_Kaiser TBF, we all know Sony's spying on us too. Maybe not Nintendo (yet) but they will.

But yeah, I get not liking Win11 in that regard, who does? There's always SteamOS for those concerns (it's what Deck runs.) But with Windows, I'm honestly shocked, having returned to PC from an absence of a long time, just how plug and play it's become. If you hand a novice a premade PC/laptop, give them Steam Big Picture mode or Playnite (launchers that look and feel just like consoles) and a controller, and they'll never know it's not a console.

Obviously getting into mods and customizing things gets a lot more complex but that's bonus additional.

Re: PS5 Pro Makes Quality, Performance Modes in Dragon Age: The Veilguard Better Than Ever

NEStalgia

@Intr1n5ic Of all the great content I never expected Skyrim would be the thing to blow me away most of all. It's seriously lifelike in an almost eerie way. Not the NPCs, but the environments. I'm using Quest 3 for now. My intention was to get a Pimax Crystal Light, but then I decided I was going to overspend and get a Crystal Super, I put a reservation on the super bundle with both the QLED and mOLED modules which is quite a spend after just building the rig and the Quest setup, plus it's more tuned to get the most out of it on future GPUs, not even 4090 while light is more about maxing 4090. But I'm not sure if finances will hold up for it, and, as I use the Quest, other than wishing for better blacks, I'm almost wondering if I actually need better. The black level sucks, but the clarity is much better than I expected in terms of not noticing screen door on sufficiently complex looking games. And even the compression with wireless isn't horrible for most things (The Luke Ross modded games suffer from the compression badly, like Elden Ring, HFW, GoT, etc. But Skyrim for example I only see SDE if I look for it.)

Re: PS5 Pro Makes Quality, Performance Modes in Dragon Age: The Veilguard Better Than Ever

NEStalgia

@Intr1n5ic Well, it's a game that, ironically actually runs worse with DLSS on, which is a feat I can't understand how they managed.... Fwiw though I was running it modded for VR tonight. I had to turn rt off, not for performance but because rt doesn't behave with forced vr, it shimmers across the view. And with dlss off it looked and ran better. But was getting 60-70fps. I think the finally seemed to fix whatever was wrong because that's a very tall order even on a high end rig. I didn't expect much from it but now I'll play the whole game in VR which is bonkers. Doesn't look photorealistic like Skyrim heavily modded which might be the best looking VR thing in existence, and it has too much alias shimmering, but plats well. That wouldn't have happened pre patch.

Re: PS5 Pro Makes Quality, Performance Modes in Dragon Age: The Veilguard Better Than Ever

NEStalgia

@Intr1n5ic $340 CPU, but yeah that's a nice CPU but the point isn't that such a nice CPU runs the game well. The point is the game barely even USES the CPU. At all. Single digit to below 29% at peak. It'd run well on a potato. But not on the consoles.

But yeah I think that larger SSD was such a stupid misstep as it boosted the price into crazy while the market it targets likely already has an SSD to swap in. If the console were 550 or 600 with the original SSD it would look much better. Or just sell a 2tb and a 800gb model separately like phones. Or PS3...

@HonestHick tbf, even as a 4090 owner, I'm pretty meh on rt. Yeah it can look nice but most of the time it merely lights differently not necessarily better. I enable it basically because it's there lol.

The Legend of Zelda: Wind Breaker confirmed!

Re: PS5 Pro Makes Quality, Performance Modes in Dragon Age: The Veilguard Better Than Ever

NEStalgia

@HonestHick I haven't seen the comparisons, but are they comparing to it fsr in Ultra Quality mode on current equivalent PC cards (7700xt or so?) or are they comparing it to that shoddy, 2 generation old fsr that seems to only run in performance mode that's used on base console? Again sketch if so, there comparing low modes in old products to a new product and far gets a worse rep than it deserves. If they're comparing to 7 series pc cards with far in ultra quality then fair game.

Lol, Nintendo port begging and not for TTYD. That's a new one 😂

Re: PS5 Pro Makes Quality, Performance Modes in Dragon Age: The Veilguard Better Than Ever

NEStalgia

@HonestHick I can't imagine why Sonys hands were tied to the same CPU for bc. That's kind of like saying they had to use the PS4 CPU otherwise no bc. And pcs should run 486s for Doom. I'm seriously finding DFs coverage of this product uncomfortably suspect. It could have had a new CPU that ran in PS5 mode just like the PS4 CPU runs in PS4 mode.

idk about the Xbox rumor. Seems very pie. I assume a turbo mode, not an egpu for cost but series x level hardware on a handheld would be hard, and not cheap.

" machine that can blast most games at the performance we were told we’d see this gen. "

Lol. Kinda says everything really 😂

Re: PS5 Pro Makes Quality, Performance Modes in Dragon Age: The Veilguard Better Than Ever

NEStalgia

@HonestHick Yeah but I'd be kinder to it if it offered appropriate upgrades for the coin. You know dragons dogma 2 and how it's CPU bound on PS5? The same exact cpu that's in the PS5 Pro? I was running it on my 7800x3d yesterday. It sips 7-28% CPU. The fans never even rev up due to CPU heat. They rev up when launching steam and Xbox store but not playing dd2. How is that lightweight cpu game destroying console CPUs? How bad are these CPUs? And still in the pro! I won't compare GPU because because that's apples to watermelons. But the CPU....

Now, Skyrim with 300 mods running in VR with an LLM, that'll rev fans like a leaf blower 😂

@smallbrownbike Haha, steam deck is both the shallow and deep end of the pool at once. Use it at face value and it's a console like any other. But try to be a power user and you're dealing with Linux, much more complicated than Windows. Proton is a Windows compatibility layer for Windows games to work right in Linux.

Think of it like a layer that lets you play PlayStation games natively on a Mac.

But yeah certainly PC, or at least custom PC isn't for everyone just irks me how console is imitating the PC pricing over a generation but not offering as much.

Re: As Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero Explodes, Bandai Namco Is Reportedly Cutting Staff and Projects

NEStalgia

@nessisonett From the US perspective, though, we can only envy oidashibeya. Here, if you're old, you're done. You can work at an Amazon warehouse, the world has no more use for you. Ironically it's like your comment on the young but for the inverse reason. In the US, only the young have value. Everyone else is expendable. The young champion this, seemingly ignorant they won't be forever young.

Re: PlayStation Community Reflects on Iconic Uncharted 2: Among Thieves for 15th Anniversary

NEStalgia

@ryanburnsred I think it's because its presentation was such a wow factor at the time. Uncharted 1 was samey and shades of brown, but 2 had that "Hollywood" look to it with interesting setpieces and all. It's a fun time, it's popcorn entertainment, but it's nothing particularly special outside how impressive it's presentation was for its time. The gunfights were all protracted and very arcade shooting gallery-esque in 1 and 2 as well.

Re: PlayStation Community Reflects on Iconic Uncharted 2: Among Thieves for 15th Anniversary

NEStalgia

@Max_the_German I agree. This was arguably the beginning of "OMG it's like I'm playing a movie" presentation overriding games being games. The presentation was amazing at the time but the gameplay was repetitive and bland and the story started great, then went way off the rails and the ending was bizarre. The tibetan backdrop was great though.

People rave about this one but I've always felt 3 was actually a much more cohesive, and therefore, better game of the original trilogy.

Edit: But Chloe/Claudia Black really stole the whole show. But then she did it again in 3 and 4 lol 😂

Re: Publishing Director Calls Out Shameless Baldur's Gate 3 Collector's Edition Scalpers

NEStalgia

@LikelySatan You misunderstand. I'm not saying offering a special edition is a problem. I'm saying making that edition limited is a problem. Scalpers are selling them at thousands because they're limited, not because a special edition exists. If it's a manufacturing thing, make the period of time to ORDER it limited, but make as many as are ordered even if they ship late. Same for hardware.

Then again, though I didn't originally intend it, since you mentioned what might come in a standard edition, I'll point out that Baldurs Gate 2 came with a 300 page spiral bound manual, a metal coin, and a cloth fold out map, all in the $50 standard edition... 😕

Re: One Year On, Plucky PS Portal's Sales Remain Strong

NEStalgia

@TheDudeElDuderino At 3% of the install base I'm not sure it's hit wiiu levels despite the media pretending it's this smash hit lol.

Not knocking the device. I have some issues with it but it's absolutely the cheapest device in its class if you are ok with the limitations and only play PS. I'm actually surprised the numbers are as low as they are. As someone that values remote and handheld play I'm kind of the target market. I play on handheld at home about equal to consoles. And also loved wiiu.

But I'm also multiplatform so I got G Cloud instead which is great if overpriced and more expensive than portal.. Then I moved into Ally and Legion that does everything and more, but for less money for they PS only crowd it's still a decent buy. Only 3% though? I thought it did better. Weirdly I actually think Pro will do better than portal.

Re: Subscribers Start Receiving Their Final Copies of PLAY Magazine

NEStalgia

@RobN @LifeGirl I think the bigger problem is a generation that doesn't know how to read and only watches videos....

Personally I can't imagine using videos for news in the Internet age unless you specifically want to see or hear something in motion. They're so slow and inefficient to sit and watch through to get the info vs just reading text. I liken that to the people that watch home shopping TV and sit through an hour of product sales rather than just reading the Amazon description in 20 seconds.

Re: Metaphor: ReFantazio Immediately Tops 1 Million Sales at Launch

NEStalgia

@Ralizah lol there's sadly some truth to that. Much as I hate to admit it because it actually is a really good game, and the battle system being a bit like tms makes it have a great hook.

Yeah I haven't tried smtv on battery yet but, wired turbo on NON extreme ally running 120fps after whatever that was on switch makes me so it just because I can lol. Though it'll take a back start from metaphor for sure now.

Re: Aug 2024 USA Sales: Console Sales Take a Sharp Decline, But PS5 Is Still King

NEStalgia

@rjejr I'm not a birthday fan, you didn't used to be a birthday fan, but the only thing is has to do with Nintendo is that autocorrect apparently thinks Nintendo is spelled "birthday" 😂. I guess it's more fitting that "deodorant" 😂

Infamous was great. I like ghost, but that happened to the fun games that weren't about the sadness of war and apocalypse? Not sure what's wrong with creators today.

I'm playing video games to get away from yard work. I stand outside playing VR pressure washer simulator instead of doing actual pressure washing i actually should be doing. I figure simulating it counts as doing with if I'm standing in the right spot to do the actual work. Maybe we can get tax simulator so we don't have to actually do that either

Considering the most interesting 2 games of 2024 are Metaphor and Pirate Majima, I think the Dreamcast is getting the last laugh in the end . Metaphor sold 1/5 as many units in a day as PS5 has sold since April, and probably gets more profit too! 😂

Re: Poll: Are You Playing Metaphor: ReFantazio?

NEStalgia

@HarmanSmith From the demo (and that was before a patch was added to enhance its performance at least a little on PC) it runs just fine on the non-extreme Z1 Ally. Played 17 hours in the demo including the optional dungeon (but couldn't beat the OHKO boss of it) It's not a super performer by any stretch, I could get about 30-40fps plugged in in Turbo mode, but for a game that infamously grinds 4090 to 45fps for reasons no one can explain, I thought it played fantastic on the little Ally (and of course would be better on the Extreme Z1 version.) I think unplugged it's still better than SMTV was on Switch as an exclusive lol.

It's I think 86GB installed but needs 93GB to unpack (37GB download, unpacks to 86.) It took FOREVER to unpack it though, I had to leave the Ally running for like an hour or so, because that's a very big file to decompress for that little CPU!)

Yeah, on mine I have Metaphor, FFXIII + mods, MH Stories 2, Live A Live, P5 Strikers, Triangle Strategy, Little Kitty Big City, Harvestella, Rune Factory 5, Octopath 2, AC: Unity, SMTV, P3R, Prince of Persia: Lost Crown (Awesome on Ally btw, 120fps in turbo!), and I might be forgetting a game or two on there. I had to remove Soul Hackers 2 and Armored Core 5 to fit Metaphor lol.

I thought the "fix" for the SD slot was selling the $800 Ally X?

I'll let you know after I can dig into the full game with the patch if it's even better now tonight, but even if it's the same, it's completely playable and doesn't feel stuttery or anything. Looks good too, despite low settings.

Re: Aug 2024 USA Sales: Console Sales Take a Sharp Decline, But PS5 Is Still King

NEStalgia

@LowDefAl To be fair even my legion z1 extreme and ally non extreme have more steady performance than the consoles have. yes some games are outside it's ability to run. And some games only pull off 30-45fps because it's technically a potato that's weaker than PS5 technically, but I can dial back the graphics and let it run smoothly. The problem on consoles is that with locked settings the performance is worse than it should be because they still make compromises for pretty over performance. So you end up with weak pcs running games smoother then the console because devs bog the console down with gfc settings it doesn't need. The problem is devs, not the hardware, but it's still a more constant problem on console because of that.

As to price though yeah that's exactly it. Heck Meta just released a $300 quest 3 all in 1. Is a quest 3 with fresnel lenses and no adjustments on the visor. How does Meta get the market better than the legacy players? All that civ play is working on ol Zuck.

Re: Aug 2024 USA Sales: Console Sales Take a Sharp Decline, But PS5 Is Still King

NEStalgia

@rjejr Oh, FFS, Nintendo. Fortunately I have USB adapters around so not a disaster but seriously wtf. Clocks 50 years ago you just plug in, the cord wasn't separate. Seriously the clock is the only thing out of Nintendo lately that feels Nintendo. The games feel so formulaic with a few exceptions. The clock is pure Iwata. Worth $100 for one last chance to be surprised and delighted by the maestro. Better than the stutter fest Zelda game that still just follows the crafting zeitgeist.

You've been a big birthday fan. have you been pleased with their output lately, or feeling like you've outgrown Nintendo in a way that never happened with Iwata? I wanted to love switch but it just hasn't happened for me.

Lol, if only I could turn it to cash like Bono I'd be all set! 🎸