@0niguy if true, fantastic. But also, if true, why not provide ps5 copies for reviewers that specifically cover consoles? Push square being one example that would have benefited hugely from having access to the ps5 version.
Tbh I’m not surprised there’s no early access review copies for ps5 available. Nvidia have been championing all the rtx and dlss features for wu kong since the game was first revealed - they also released a feature set video the other day.
Game science aren’t a massive studio and I’d imagine Nvidia have been providing them with support to ensure the game is properly optimised for their gpu’s. It’s also being given away free for anyone buying a 40 series card.
I’ll be very surprised if this game launches without performance issues on ps5, especially given how graphically demanding it is.
If you own a ps5 I’d recommend waiting until the game has launched before buying. The lack of ps5 coverage is definitely a concern.
@Chasloyal buying them as presents, I have absolutely no issue with. Buying them to sell on and make a profit, yeah, I think it’s a scumbag move. I’m entitled to my opinion, and I’m clearly not alone in it. If they’ve sold out, you’ve essentially stopped someone from buying it to add to their collection or use at the RRP just so you can make some money for your own pocket. Sorry, that’s just how I see it.
@AstroBottom thanks for that, I have a degree in business economics so I think I might just about understand how market forces work 😉
The RRP is set by the manufacturer of the product. The item’s price is based on the supply provided to licensed sellers and the projected demand for the item. Scumbags who reduce supply by bulk buying the item with bots and then artificially inflate the price is not how a competitive free market is designed to work.
We saw many examples of the same scumbags with rooms filled with ps5’s when the console first launched. Hoarding and artificially restricting supply and then increasing the price by 100%.
Imagine if governments implemented a law that items still in circulation could only be sold at a maximum of their rrp by third party sellers. Would completely put an end to the business of scalping and send these scum bags back to whatever hole they crawled out of 😁
I’d be far more interested to know software attachment rates for this generation than hardware sold. (The number of games bought per system sold).
I’d imagine it would be a lot higher on PlayStation than Xbox due to gamepass. But would also be interested to see how it compares with last generation given how popular some of todays f2p titles are.
@trev666 it is a shame if you like this type of game. Like the senua games, you can’t blame people not buying something that they don’t enjoy playing.
I thought Alan wake was just ok so I’ll probably pick it up the sequel when it’s heavily discounted and when I have a 60 series gpu to run it properly 😁
@Kienda I agree, although much of the mainstream media outside of gaming don’t share that rational understanding.
In 2011, after the horrific massacre in Norway by the right wing terrorist Anders Behring Breivik, many uk newspapers were claiming he’d used call of duty as a training aid. Absolutely ridiculous.
I don’t blame capcom for removing the feature in case of negative publicity from non-gaming media.
@MFTWrecks so you think both titles will be around for multiple decades?
In the current economic climate and given the failure rate on live service titles, particularly new IP, it’s quite unlikely that they both achieve the success that Sony would demand in order to achieve continued funding and support.
I know nothing of marathon, but the current situation at bungie is obviously pretty dire and rumours have suggested multiple shifts in direction for the game during development. Concord is a known, and the play tests have not really set the world on fire and the uptake on the open play test was pretty lacklustre.
I don’t want either to fail as I don’t want any of the devs working at the studios to lose their jobs. Unfortunately for both, Sony and its shareholders will be measuring their success against that of helldivers.
Edit: Jason Schreier just recently had this to say: "[Marathon] sentiment is not great, there's a reason it slipped a whole year and some developers don't even think it'll even hit it's current deadline"
@Colour I only got into mh when world released so I’m relatively new to the series, I tried some of the older titles on the Wii and 3ds but didn’t gel with them.
I would say, experiment with all of the weapons. Some are considerably slower than others and require a good understanding of a monsters attacks and openings in order to use effectively - the great sword is one such weapon.
The sword and shield has pretty high mobility and is a lot faster than many of the other melee weapons, as are the dual blades. This means they’re slightly more forgiving when it comes to landing hits and avoiding monster attacks.
@Sergo all these previews were made using remote capture - a technology with significant latency and fidelity compromises that is also impacted by geographical location and local internet speeds.
As such, none of the current previews are likely to give any real insight into the actual technical performance of the game. I would guess it will perform similarly to Ubisoft’s avatar game on ps5 as that is the latest title to use the snowdrop engine. Obviously this will also depend on optimisation, but I would anticipate, as with avatar, a performance and fidelity mode on console.
@thefourfoldroot1 totally agree, the lack of eye tracking and foveated rendering on pc are slightly disappointing. I guess it’s still a nice bonus for those that have a decent gaming pc and only own a psvr2 headset.
I do also wonder if Sony might port call of the mountain to pc at some point in the future.
As someone that’s played a fair bit of overwatch 2, the reason I downloaded it in the first place was the fact it was f2p. I wouldn’t even have looked at it were it a £40 title. Similarly with marvel rivals, if that’s a f2p title, I’ll definitely download it and give it a go.
Warzone, Fortnite, valorant, apex, overwatch and many other PvP centric games have set an expectation for a lot of gamers, particularly the casuals, that access should be free. You absolutely have to be nailing everything - character design, gameplay, progression etc if you’re going to charge for access and want to have success in the market.
Concord by all accounts seems “fine” at best which I don’t think is enough for it to be competitive.
I’m assuming all these people that value ownership over licensing own record players, cassette decks and cd players for their music and still buy their music albums on vinyl?
The other thing that might be skewing the data is the fact that any second hand sale of a physical game copy does not register as an actual sale.
Every CeX, eBay, facebook marketplace etc sale of a pre-owned title potentially costs the developer money in lost sales. I’m sure publishers and developers would be absolutely fine with pushing physical copies if they could somehow guarantee that they wouldn’t be sold again whilst new copies of the game are still in circulation.
Just from a software sales perspective it’s actually in the interest of all developers and publishers to push digital. A digital sale is non transferable so therefore carries no risk of being resold and cutting the dev/publisher out of any resale revenue.
@Jamesblob I also have a ps5 for the record, so I do “have money in the game.” If I only had a ps5 I’d be paying for a month of Ubisoft plus too.
I also used ps+ extra for a month to play returnal, horizon forbidden west and demons souls. Hope this makes you feel better. I didn’t pay £70 for them either. Oh and I haven’t bought a single physical game for my ps5 - the only action my disc tray gets is for the occasional blu ray 😊
I look forward to your response
Edit: your response seems to have been the removal of your comment
@Jamesblob ok, I’ll be blunt with you. I play on pc, I don’t give a crap about physical releases. I haven’t had a disc drive in my pc for 15 years and last time I checked nobody else on pc gives a damn about physical media - in fact we all welcome the convenience of the digital medium.
I play 90% of single player games through once and then never touch them again and have never played through a Ubisoft title more than once. I’d happily rent every single player game for £15 a month if I could.
I never subscribe to a service to play a game blindly - I’ll wait for reviews and for the game to be released into the wild before I commit to a month of a service.
I win when I pay £15 to play a new title, I don’t win when I pay £70. The math is quite simple.
With regards to games being released in an unfinished or buggy state - the casual market (the one that actually makes companies all the money) rarely, if ever plays a game through to completion and couldn’t tell the difference between hd, 4K, 30fps or 60fps. I doubt any of them would view the videos of the latest preview as being unfinished.
As far as bugs are concerned, I’ve played every Bethesda title at launch so I’m well versed in bugs - provided there’s nothing game breaking I’m able to get past most. Yes, ideally, there shouldn’t be any bugs at launch. I can’t remember the last title I played that didn’t have multiple patches over the first few weeks of launch. Even Nintendo have had to patch their games for bugs at launch - skyward swords hd remake famously launched with a game breaking bug that required an update to fix.
If you’re worried about bugs you shouldn’t play any game day one - in fact, you should probably wait 6 months or for the goty edition.
@Jamesblob if you’re not buying the game, then obviously don’t subscribe for a month.
I subbed for a month to try the Metroidvania prince of Persia, assassins creed mirage and avatar. It would have cost me over £100 to buy these digitally and would have provided Ubisoft with 100% of that revenue as I play on pc. Instead I paid £14.99 for the month and got to play all three.
Depending on reviews I want to check out outlaws and also assassin’s creed shadows. I’m not paying £70 for each, I’ll sub for a month and do it that way.
If you have no interest in any Ubisoft game, that’s fine. Other people do, let them play what they want and if they want to buy the game outright, fine. If they want to sub for a month to do so, also fine.
I don’t tell other people what games they can and can’t play or how they choose to pay for these games.
If you really want to play this at launch but don’t want to play the full asking, price Ubisoft plus exists. A month’s sub seems like enough time to finish the game or bail without having wasted that much money should the full release match the previews.
Raising prices to make more money seems to be standard practice for both Sony and Microsoft right now. As a consumer obviously you want companies to act in your best interests - unfortunately most companies are ruled by shareholder sentiment and therefore profits and returns will always rank highest in priority.
For me, someone that mostly plays single player games once to completion over the course of a month game pass ultimate still represents great value for day one releases. I’ll continue to sub for a month when there’s a new title I want to play - $20 vs $70 is a no-brainer for me.
Still waiting for Spider-Man 2 and the last of us part 1 to hit Sony’s subscription service. Microsoft have made $70 games far less appealing than they once were. I’ve had a ps5 for about 3 years the only games I’ve bought for it have been ff16 and ragnarock - everything else I’ve played through ps plus extra which I’ve had for about 3 months total.
Genuinely feels sorry for people that have become so dependent on trophies that they’re willing to skip a fantastic experience just because of an absent trophy list. Especially in the case of someone that did multiple playthroughs, beat all optional bosses and cleared a ton of side-quests from the main game.
I can understand having had your fill of a game not having any further desire to play additional content released several years latter. But to not play something purely based on trophy support seems insane to me.
I’ve seen comments from people saying they’ve absolutely hated grinding out a platinum for a particular game too. Why are these people playing a game that they’re not enjoying just to gain an extra number and icon for their psn profile?
I’m so glad that I can just play the games I want, for as long as I want without worrying about trophies and achievements.
@OldGamer999 “sometimes it’s not about selling the most, but also about making more profit instead.”
Yes, charging consumers more whilst producing less is definitely one route to larger profits.
I miss mid generation ps3 and launch ps4 Sony - they were at their best with their backs up against a wall and having to actively work for market share and sales. They’re more like complacent 360 era Microsoft right now and that’s not a good thing
@HotGoomba I agree that consumers don’t always know what they want if it’s something they’ve never experienced before. All your examples, bar Zelda, were new, arguably, genre defining IP. This is an existing well known AAA rpg franchise turned into a seemingly generic Lego game.
@rusty82 I think Microsoft have realised that the more platforms a game launches on, the more money it typically makes. There’s a reason why gta, cod and fifa sell so well and are in the top ten sales chart for the whole year. Whereas exclusives always dip out after a few weeks or months.
Sony are essentially losing sales with every ps5 exclusive launch in the hope that they will recoup that lost money through hardware sales and subsequent software and service purchases through their closed marketplace.
I really hope that mh wilds doesn’t suffer from the same cpu limiting issues present in dragons dogma 2. I know those problems were mostly limited to the populated town areas and have been attributed to the complex behaviours of multiple npc’s in a small area. I’m slightly concerned that the gameplay mechanic of wilds revolving around ‘herds’ of monsters might lead to similar issues due to the numbers present in one area at a time.
Hopefully capcom have learnt from dragons dogma, although the fact we still haven’t got any more optimisations for the game since launch month suggests not.
I’m a pc player, but I don’t fit the clickbait narrative of this story, as I’m far from raging. I’m happy that even more ps exclusives are making their way to my platform of choice. Roll on Spider-Man 2
An okay showing for me, saved from being terrible by Astro bot and mh wilds at the end. I’ll be incredibly surprised if Concorde is still being sold this time next year, game looks pretty derivative sadly, and is launching into a very overcrowded and competitive market space. I hope the studio get to make something else if it fails.
@KawakiisaFraud I am a pc player that wants to play the game at 60fps and a decent native resolution. I have a ps5, but I’ll be waiting for the pc version so I don’t have to compromise on frame rate and image quality. GTA games are a rarity - GTA V released over 10 years ago. I don’t mind waiting a little longer in order to experience the game at its absolute best.
Also, I played Spider-Man remastered on ps5, but I’m waiting for Spider-Man 2 to release on pc. Single player games on ps5 have encouraged me to wait for their pc releases, so I guess their current strategy of converting pc sales into ps5 sales is failing… and I suspect I’m not alone in this regard.
It’s amazing how much the comments narrative flip flops on push square. Cod being day one on gamepass is going to ‘tank’ sales and make the game ‘flop’ vs Xbox is dead, everyone is selling their series consoles for ps5s, nobody’s buying Xbox. Are people on PlayStation going to suddenly stop buying cod because it’s on gamepass? Also, if you’re one of the millions of casual gamers that only play cod, fifa and Fortnite it’s still better value to purchase the game outright than pay for 12 months of gamepass.
I stopped buying cod after black ops 3 and haven’t returned since as I don’t care for the multiplayer any more and can’t justify £70 for the single player. Microsoft will probably get a month of gamepass out of me for the campaign - money they wouldn’t have seen had cod not been on the service day one.
Also, the game makes millions from micro transactions - gamepass will make that potential market even larger.
@Netret0120 what’s the issue with it being day one on pc? Does that stop a game releasing on ps5? You can pay £350 for a ps5, or £700 for an equivalent pc. Really doesn’t seem like they’re the same market with those prices. Also, one is plug and play and more suitable for mass market, the other is more of an enthusiast device that require considerably more time investment and tinkering.
It will be an insignificant number of players that would switch to pc from ps5, the vast majority of their market would stay on PlayStation. It would also be far more efficient from a marketing standpoint if the game were to release simultaneously across pc and ps5. Especially given how much money is spent on that aspect of release.
@Icey664 It’s actually not strictly true that only Japanese can be samurai. The Samurai were a caste in Japanese society into which, generally, foreigners were not permitted to belong. However, a daimyo could bestoe the Samurai status on a foreigner in some cases. Despite being incredibly uncommon and a rarity it has, apparently, happened a couple of times before in history.
@Icey664 depends if you choose to view it like that. You could also argue that two “generic” Japanese male protagonists would be predictable in a game set in feudal Japan.
Yasuke is a real historical figure and one, I would imagine, that not many have heard of. I also feel that a female character fits the role of an assassin for this time period pretty well:
“The exploits of the kunoichi were first recorded into a 17th century handbook called the Bansensukai, which described kunoichi-no-jutsu (a technique to use a female). According to the text, kunoichi operated as infiltrators, spies and assassins.”
@OldGamer999 Xbox and pc both utilise directx api, PlayStation uses a custom api. It’s one of the reasons naughty dog’s in house pc port was such a *****-show at launch - they weren’t overly familiar with developing for pc. It’s also why Sony bought nixxes to handle the majority of pc ports.
It’s easier for Xbox to port to pc than Sony due to directx, and there’s little to no work done with cloud “ports” of Xbox games as they’re running on server blade versions of series x hardware. The biggest difficulty for Xbox seems to be the sacrifices required to get games working on the series s.
Sony will essentially be optimising for the same number of hardware configurations once the pro launches. Although the rumours suggest that porting between ps5 and ps5 pro should be incredibly straight forward for devs vs the headache of series s and series x.
@Northern_munkey coveting gamess on PlayStation brings a subset of people infinitely more joy than knowing that other people are able to enjoy those same game on a different platform.
@Nem brand dilution? As in the same brand dilution which saw everyone switch to pc after the first Sony title appeared on steam? Or the same brand dilution which saw helldivers go top of the steam charts and PlayStation store at launch? Did this brand dilution slow PlayStation 5 sales?
I guarantee you that Sony is running those numbers and doing the math. They have a pretty big problem regarding development costs that needs solving and there’s only a few options available. None of which are going to make you happy.
You also failed computing if you think a switch could run any of the current ps5 exclusives at an acceptable frame rate
@Dr_ENT there were almost 28 million series consoles sold by February 2024. That’s a pretty large user base to write off.
The insomniac leaks revealed that the pc port of ratchet and clank cost $2.6 million and took 5 months to build. At $70, it would require just over 37,000 sales to generate revenue of $2.6 million. That obviously doesn’t account for the cut steam would take. But, 80,000 copies sold would generate revenue equating to more than double the cost required to port the game.
Microsoft shares more in common with PC than PlayStation does, in so far as both Xbox and PC titles are developed using direct x api. If a port has already been created for pc, some of that work would translate to an Xbox port. It doesn’t seem unreasonable to expect a PlayStation port of a first party game to be able to sell at least 100,000 units on a system with an install base of 28 million. Using R&C’s port costs as a rough estimate, 100,000 units would equate to a 250% return in revenue. I wouldn’t be surprised for some of the more iconic titles such as Spider-Man to push close to 1 million in sales on series consoles which would obviously result in a significant return on investment.
@CupidStunt I assumed you were talking about Sony, as I hadn’t mentioned Nintendo bringing titles to multiple platforms. Nintendo are killing it in terms of hardware and first party software sales. There’s absolutely no reason for them to change their strategy right now.
It’s more concerning that the most profitable console manufacturer can’t see current development spending for first party as being viable in the future. Especially given that the future should entail an even larger PlayStation install base.
@CupidStunt according to Sony the current development budgets for their triple A first party titles aren’t sustainable long term. If they wish to maintain the quality and cadence of first party releases, they need to sell a lot more copies. Expanding to other platforms is one way of achieving this. Particularly as the home console market isn’t really growing.
Either way, it’ll be interesting to see how Sony navigate increased development costs over the coming years. Microsoft seem to be embracing a bigger market and are reaping the benefits of Xbox, pc, PlayStation and switch platform releases. Sony are restricting their launches to ps5 and augmenting this with some delayed ports to pc. Helldivers 2 being the only exception to this, launching simultaneously across pc and ps5 and enjoying huge success.
That’s a lot of PlayStation money for microsoft. Multiplat strategies pay a lot better than exclusive, who’d have thought? I wonder when Sony will do the math?
@Jay767 yeah, they need to leave the pc space immediately. They also need to stop making exclusives as the current model isn’t sustainable long term and attempting to recoup some of the development costs by launching on pc is a terrible strategy.
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Re: Poll: What PS5 Games Do You Most Want to See at Gamescom 2024?
7% - “yes, I expect plenty.”
Tell me you’ve never watched anything from gamescom before without telling me you’ve never watched anything from gamescom before
Re: Hands On: Black Myth: Wukong Is Brilliant, But We Have PS5 Concerns
@0niguy if true, fantastic. But also, if true, why not provide ps5 copies for reviewers that specifically cover consoles? Push square being one example that would have benefited hugely from having access to the ps5 version.
Re: Hands On: Black Myth: Wukong Is Brilliant, But We Have PS5 Concerns
Tbh I’m not surprised there’s no early access review copies for ps5 available. Nvidia have been championing all the rtx and dlss features for wu kong since the game was first revealed - they also released a feature set video the other day.
Game science aren’t a massive studio and I’d imagine Nvidia have been providing them with support to ensure the game is properly optimised for their gpu’s. It’s also being given away free for anyone buying a 40 series card.
I’ll be very surprised if this game launches without performance issues on ps5, especially given how graphically demanding it is.
If you own a ps5 I’d recommend waiting until the game has launched before buying. The lack of ps5 coverage is definitely a concern.
Re: Beware! Scalpers Reselling Astro Bot PS5 Controllers for Ridiculous Prices
@Chasloyal buying them as presents, I have absolutely no issue with. Buying them to sell on and make a profit, yeah, I think it’s a scumbag move. I’m entitled to my opinion, and I’m clearly not alone in it. If they’ve sold out, you’ve essentially stopped someone from buying it to add to their collection or use at the RRP just so you can make some money for your own pocket. Sorry, that’s just how I see it.
Re: Beware! Scalpers Reselling Astro Bot PS5 Controllers for Ridiculous Prices
@AstroBottom thanks for that, I have a degree in business economics so I think I might just about understand how market forces work 😉
The RRP is set by the manufacturer of the product. The item’s price is based on the supply provided to licensed sellers and the projected demand for the item. Scumbags who reduce supply by bulk buying the item with bots and then artificially inflate the price is not how a competitive free market is designed to work.
We saw many examples of the same scumbags with rooms filled with ps5’s when the console first launched. Hoarding and artificially restricting supply and then increasing the price by 100%.
Re: Beware! Scalpers Reselling Astro Bot PS5 Controllers for Ridiculous Prices
Imagine if governments implemented a law that items still in circulation could only be sold at a maximum of their rrp by third party sellers. Would completely put an end to the business of scalping and send these scum bags back to whatever hole they crawled out of 😁
Re: PS5 Continues to Dominate a Slow UK Games Industry in July
I’d be far more interested to know software attachment rates for this generation than hardware sold. (The number of games bought per system sold).
I’d imagine it would be a lot higher on PlayStation than Xbox due to gamepass. But would also be interested to see how it compares with last generation given how popular some of todays f2p titles are.
Re: Alan Wake 2 Still Hasn't Made Remedy Any Royalties, But Work Is Underway on Max Payne's PS5 Remakes
@trev666 it is a shame if you like this type of game. Like the senua games, you can’t blame people not buying something that they don’t enjoy playing.
I thought Alan wake was just ok so I’ll probably pick it up the sequel when it’s heavily discounted and when I have a 60 series gpu to run it properly 😁
Re: Dead Rising's PS5 Remaster Will Strip Bonus Points for Erotic Photos
@Kienda I agree, although much of the mainstream media outside of gaming don’t share that rational understanding.
In 2011, after the horrific massacre in Norway by the right wing terrorist Anders Behring Breivik, many uk newspapers were claiming he’d used call of duty as a training aid. Absolutely ridiculous.
I don’t blame capcom for removing the feature in case of negative publicity from non-gaming media.
Re: It Took PS5 Longer Than PS4 to Pass 4 Million Units Milestone in the UK, But There's Context
@Member_the_game sounds like someone fell for the “we believe in generations” tagline 😉
Re: Bungie to Reveal the Future of Destiny and Its Next Multi-Year Journey Soon
@MFTWrecks so you think both titles will be around for multiple decades?
In the current economic climate and given the failure rate on live service titles, particularly new IP, it’s quite unlikely that they both achieve the success that Sony would demand in order to achieve continued funding and support.
I know nothing of marathon, but the current situation at bungie is obviously pretty dire and rumours have suggested multiple shifts in direction for the game during development. Concord is a known, and the play tests have not really set the world on fire and the uptake on the open play test was pretty lacklustre.
I don’t want either to fail as I don’t want any of the devs working at the studios to lose their jobs. Unfortunately for both, Sony and its shareholders will be measuring their success against that of helldivers.
Edit: Jason Schreier just recently had this to say: "[Marathon] sentiment is not great, there's a reason it slipped a whole year and some developers don't even think it'll even hit it's current deadline"
Re: Bungie to Reveal the Future of Destiny and Its Next Multi-Year Journey Soon
@MFTWrecks I am genuinely interested to see which multiplayer game survives longest - marathon or concord
Re: God of War Ragnarok PC System Requirements Revealed Ahead of September Launch
@WhiteRabbit “PC crybabies gonna crybaby”
Do your parents know you’re on the internet unsupervised? 😉
Re: The Monster Hunter Wilds Marketing Machine Kicks into Gear with New Gameplay Videos
@Colour I only got into mh when world released so I’m relatively new to the series, I tried some of the older titles on the Wii and 3ds but didn’t gel with them.
I would say, experiment with all of the weapons. Some are considerably slower than others and require a good understanding of a monsters attacks and openings in order to use effectively - the great sword is one such weapon.
The sword and shield has pretty high mobility and is a lot faster than many of the other melee weapons, as are the dual blades. This means they’re slightly more forgiving when it comes to landing hits and avoiding monster attacks.
Re: Preview: Star Wars Outlaws Thrives in Its Rewarding Open World
@Sergo all these previews were made using remote capture - a technology with significant latency and fidelity compromises that is also impacted by geographical location and local internet speeds.
As such, none of the current previews are likely to give any real insight into the actual technical performance of the game. I would guess it will perform similarly to Ubisoft’s avatar game on ps5 as that is the latest title to use the snowdrop engine. Obviously this will also depend on optimisation, but I would anticipate, as with avatar, a performance and fidelity mode on console.
Re: PSVR2 App for PC Now Live on Steam
@thefourfoldroot1 totally agree, the lack of eye tracking and foveated rendering on pc are slightly disappointing. I guess it’s still a nice bonus for those that have a decent gaming pc and only own a psvr2 headset.
I do also wonder if Sony might port call of the mountain to pc at some point in the future.
Re: Marvel Rivals' Closed Beta Is Putting Concord's Player Numbers into Perspective
As someone that’s played a fair bit of overwatch 2, the reason I downloaded it in the first place was the fact it was f2p. I wouldn’t even have looked at it were it a £40 title. Similarly with marvel rivals, if that’s a f2p title, I’ll definitely download it and give it a go.
Warzone, Fortnite, valorant, apex, overwatch and many other PvP centric games have set an expectation for a lot of gamers, particularly the casuals, that access should be free. You absolutely have to be nailing everything - character design, gameplay, progression etc if you’re going to charge for access and want to have success in the market.
Concord by all accounts seems “fine” at best which I don’t think is enough for it to be competitive.
Re: Capcom Says It Won't Give Up on Physical Games, Despite Utter Domination of Digital Sales
I’m assuming all these people that value ownership over licensing own record players, cassette decks and cd players for their music and still buy their music albums on vinyl?
Re: Capcom Says It Won't Give Up on Physical Games, Despite Utter Domination of Digital Sales
The other thing that might be skewing the data is the fact that any second hand sale of a physical game copy does not register as an actual sale.
Every CeX, eBay, facebook marketplace etc sale of a pre-owned title potentially costs the developer money in lost sales. I’m sure publishers and developers would be absolutely fine with pushing physical copies if they could somehow guarantee that they wouldn’t be sold again whilst new copies of the game are still in circulation.
Just from a software sales perspective it’s actually in the interest of all developers and publishers to push digital. A digital sale is non transferable so therefore carries no risk of being resold and cutting the dev/publisher out of any resale revenue.
Re: Star Wars Outlaws Boasts Ubisoft's Biggest Ever Marketing Budget, Strong Launch Expected
@Jamesblob I also have a ps5 for the record, so I do “have money in the game.” If I only had a ps5 I’d be paying for a month of Ubisoft plus too.
I also used ps+ extra for a month to play returnal, horizon forbidden west and demons souls. Hope this makes you feel better. I didn’t pay £70 for them either. Oh and I haven’t bought a single physical game for my ps5 - the only action my disc tray gets is for the occasional blu ray 😊
I look forward to your response
Edit: your response seems to have been the removal of your comment
Re: Star Wars Outlaws Boasts Ubisoft's Biggest Ever Marketing Budget, Strong Launch Expected
@Jamesblob ok, I’ll be blunt with you. I play on pc, I don’t give a crap about physical releases. I haven’t had a disc drive in my pc for 15 years and last time I checked nobody else on pc gives a damn about physical media - in fact we all welcome the convenience of the digital medium.
I play 90% of single player games through once and then never touch them again and have never played through a Ubisoft title more than once. I’d happily rent every single player game for £15 a month if I could.
I never subscribe to a service to play a game blindly - I’ll wait for reviews and for the game to be released into the wild before I commit to a month of a service.
I win when I pay £15 to play a new title, I don’t win when I pay £70. The math is quite simple.
With regards to games being released in an unfinished or buggy state - the casual market (the one that actually makes companies all the money) rarely, if ever plays a game through to completion and couldn’t tell the difference between hd, 4K, 30fps or 60fps. I doubt any of them would view the videos of the latest preview as being unfinished.
As far as bugs are concerned, I’ve played every Bethesda title at launch so I’m well versed in bugs - provided there’s nothing game breaking I’m able to get past most. Yes, ideally, there shouldn’t be any bugs at launch. I can’t remember the last title I played that didn’t have multiple patches over the first few weeks of launch. Even Nintendo have had to patch their games for bugs at launch - skyward swords hd remake famously launched with a game breaking bug that required an update to fix.
If you’re worried about bugs you shouldn’t play any game day one - in fact, you should probably wait 6 months or for the goty edition.
Re: Star Wars Outlaws Boasts Ubisoft's Biggest Ever Marketing Budget, Strong Launch Expected
@Jamesblob if you’re not buying the game, then obviously don’t subscribe for a month.
I subbed for a month to try the Metroidvania prince of Persia, assassins creed mirage and avatar. It would have cost me over £100 to buy these digitally and would have provided Ubisoft with 100% of that revenue as I play on pc. Instead I paid £14.99 for the month and got to play all three.
Depending on reviews I want to check out outlaws and also assassin’s creed shadows. I’m not paying £70 for each, I’ll sub for a month and do it that way.
If you have no interest in any Ubisoft game, that’s fine. Other people do, let them play what they want and if they want to buy the game outright, fine. If they want to sub for a month to do so, also fine.
I don’t tell other people what games they can and can’t play or how they choose to pay for these games.
Re: Star Wars Outlaws Boasts Ubisoft's Biggest Ever Marketing Budget, Strong Launch Expected
If you really want to play this at launch but don’t want to play the full asking, price Ubisoft plus exists. A month’s sub seems like enough time to finish the game or bail without having wasted that much money should the full release match the previews.
Re: Publishers Bail on Live-Service Flops Too Quickly, Says Warframe Boss
I wish publishers would bail on live service games before they even get to the development phase.
Re: Talking Point: Was Sony Right to Resist Adding PS5 Exclusives to PS Plus Day One?
Raising prices to make more money seems to be standard practice for both Sony and Microsoft right now. As a consumer obviously you want companies to act in your best interests - unfortunately most companies are ruled by shareholder sentiment and therefore profits and returns will always rank highest in priority.
For me, someone that mostly plays single player games once to completion over the course of a month game pass ultimate still represents great value for day one releases. I’ll continue to sub for a month when there’s a new title I want to play - $20 vs $70 is a no-brainer for me.
Still waiting for Spider-Man 2 and the last of us part 1 to hit Sony’s subscription service. Microsoft have made $70 games far less appealing than they once were. I’ve had a ps5 for about 3 years the only games I’ve bought for it have been ff16 and ragnarock - everything else I’ve played through ps plus extra which I’ve had for about 3 months total.
Re: Poll: Are You Playing Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree?
@Bunchesopuppies “No point in trophy less DLC.”
Genuinely feels sorry for people that have become so dependent on trophies that they’re willing to skip a fantastic experience just because of an absent trophy list. Especially in the case of someone that did multiple playthroughs, beat all optional bosses and cleared a ton of side-quests from the main game.
I can understand having had your fill of a game not having any further desire to play additional content released several years latter. But to not play something purely based on trophy support seems insane to me.
I’ve seen comments from people saying they’ve absolutely hated grinding out a platinum for a particular game too. Why are these people playing a game that they’re not enjoying just to gain an extra number and icon for their psn profile?
I’m so glad that I can just play the games I want, for as long as I want without worrying about trophies and achievements.
Re: Sony Skips Gamescom Presence for a Fifth Year in a Row
@OldGamer999 “sometimes it’s not about selling the most, but also about making more profit instead.”
Yes, charging consumers more whilst producing less is definitely one route to larger profits.
I miss mid generation ps3 and launch ps4 Sony - they were at their best with their backs up against a wall and having to actively work for market share and sales. They’re more like complacent 360 era Microsoft right now and that’s not a good thing
Re: LEGO Horizon Adventures Is Official, Out on PS5, PC, and Nintendo Switch
@HotGoomba I agree that consumers don’t always know what they want if it’s something they’ve never experienced before. All your examples, bar Zelda, were new, arguably, genre defining IP. This is an existing well known AAA rpg franchise turned into a seemingly generic Lego game.
Re: Many, Many More Major Xbox Games Are Being Plotted for PS5
@rusty82 I think Microsoft have realised that the more platforms a game launches on, the more money it typically makes. There’s a reason why gta, cod and fifa sell so well and are in the top ten sales chart for the whole year. Whereas exclusives always dip out after a few weeks or months.
Sony are essentially losing sales with every ps5 exclusive launch in the hope that they will recoup that lost money through hardware sales and subsequent software and service purchases through their closed marketplace.
Re: Dragon's Dogma 2 Patch 1.150 Drops as Players Still Wait for Better PS5 Performance
I really hope that mh wilds doesn’t suffer from the same cpu limiting issues present in dragons dogma 2. I know those problems were mostly limited to the populated town areas and have been attributed to the complex behaviours of multiple npc’s in a small area. I’m slightly concerned that the gameplay mechanic of wilds revolving around ‘herds’ of monsters might lead to similar issues due to the numbers present in one area at a time.
Hopefully capcom have learnt from dragons dogma, although the fact we still haven’t got any more optimisations for the game since launch month suggests not.
Re: PC Players Are Fuming Until Dawn, God of War Ragnarok Appear to Require PSN Logins
I’m a pc player, but I don’t fit the clickbait narrative of this story, as I’m far from raging. I’m happy that even more ps exclusives are making their way to my platform of choice. Roll on Spider-Man 2
Re: Poll: What Did You Think of Sony's State of Play for May 2024?
An okay showing for me, saved from being terrible by Astro bot and mh wilds at the end. I’ll be incredibly surprised if Concorde is still being sold this time next year, game looks pretty derivative sadly, and is launching into a very overcrowded and competitive market space. I hope the studio get to make something else if it fails.
Re: Sony Plans to Convert PC Gamers Through the Power of PlayStation
@KawakiisaFraud I am a pc player that wants to play the game at 60fps and a decent native resolution. I have a ps5, but I’ll be waiting for the pc version so I don’t have to compromise on frame rate and image quality. GTA games are a rarity - GTA V released over 10 years ago. I don’t mind waiting a little longer in order to experience the game at its absolute best.
Also, I played Spider-Man remastered on ps5, but I’m waiting for Spider-Man 2 to release on pc. Single player games on ps5 have encouraged me to wait for their pc releases, so I guess their current strategy of converting pc sales into ps5 sales is failing… and I suspect I’m not alone in this regard.
Re: Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Live-Action Trailer Revealed
It’s amazing how much the comments narrative flip flops on push square. Cod being day one on gamepass is going to ‘tank’ sales and make the game ‘flop’ vs Xbox is dead, everyone is selling their series consoles for ps5s, nobody’s buying Xbox. Are people on PlayStation going to suddenly stop buying cod because it’s on gamepass? Also, if you’re one of the millions of casual gamers that only play cod, fifa and Fortnite it’s still better value to purchase the game outright than pay for 12 months of gamepass.
I stopped buying cod after black ops 3 and haven’t returned since as I don’t care for the multiplayer any more and can’t justify £70 for the single player. Microsoft will probably get a month of gamepass out of me for the campaign - money they wouldn’t have seen had cod not been on the service day one.
Also, the game makes millions from micro transactions - gamepass will make that potential market even larger.
Re: Ghost of Tsushima PC Is Now PlayStation's Biggest Single Player Launch on Steam
@Netret0120 what’s the issue with it being day one on pc? Does that stop a game releasing on ps5? You can pay £350 for a ps5, or £700 for an equivalent pc. Really doesn’t seem like they’re the same market with those prices. Also, one is plug and play and more suitable for mass market, the other is more of an enthusiast device that require considerably more time investment and tinkering.
It will be an insignificant number of players that would switch to pc from ps5, the vast majority of their market would stay on PlayStation. It would also be far more efficient from a marketing standpoint if the game were to release simultaneously across pc and ps5. Especially given how much money is spent on that aspect of release.
Re: Assassin's Creed Shadows Dated for 15th November in First Trailer
@Icey664 It’s actually not strictly true that only Japanese can be samurai. The Samurai were a caste in Japanese society into which, generally, foreigners were not permitted to belong. However, a daimyo could bestoe the Samurai status on a foreigner in some cases. Despite being incredibly uncommon and a rarity it has, apparently, happened a couple of times before in history.
Re: Assassin's Creed Shadows Dated for 15th November in First Trailer
@Icey664 depends if you choose to view it like that. You could also argue that two “generic” Japanese male protagonists would be predictable in a game set in feudal Japan.
Yasuke is a real historical figure and one, I would imagine, that not many have heard of. I also feel that a female character fits the role of an assassin for this time period pretty well:
“The exploits of the kunoichi were first recorded into a 17th century handbook called the Bansensukai, which described kunoichi-no-jutsu (a technique to use a female). According to the text, kunoichi operated as infiltrators, spies and assassins.”
Re: Poll: Years Later, How Do You Feel About PlayStation's PC Strategy?
@OldGamer999 Xbox and pc both utilise directx api, PlayStation uses a custom api. It’s one of the reasons naughty dog’s in house pc port was such a *****-show at launch - they weren’t overly familiar with developing for pc. It’s also why Sony bought nixxes to handle the majority of pc ports.
It’s easier for Xbox to port to pc than Sony due to directx, and there’s little to no work done with cloud “ports” of Xbox games as they’re running on server blade versions of series x hardware. The biggest difficulty for Xbox seems to be the sacrifices required to get games working on the series s.
Sony will essentially be optimising for the same number of hardware configurations once the pro launches. Although the rumours suggest that porting between ps5 and ps5 pro should be incredibly straight forward for devs vs the headache of series s and series x.
Re: God of War Ragnarok Set for PC, New Report Claims
@Northern_munkey coveting gamess on PlayStation brings a subset of people infinitely more joy than knowing that other people are able to enjoy those same game on a different platform.
Re: PS5 Launch Makes Sea of Thieves One of USA's Best-Selling Games
@Nem well let’s just hope Sony never release a game on Xbox. I’ll be sure to find you when they do
Or will you delete your account and sell your ps5 if that happens?
Microsoft also did the math 3 years ago and decided it wasn’t worth it. Math can change
Re: PS5 Launch Makes Sea of Thieves One of USA's Best-Selling Games
@Nem brand dilution? As in the same brand dilution which saw everyone switch to pc after the first Sony title appeared on steam? Or the same brand dilution which saw helldivers go top of the steam charts and PlayStation store at launch? Did this brand dilution slow PlayStation 5 sales?
I guarantee you that Sony is running those numbers and doing the math. They have a pretty big problem regarding development costs that needs solving and there’s only a few options available. None of which are going to make you happy.
You also failed computing if you think a switch could run any of the current ps5 exclusives at an acceptable frame rate
Re: PS5 Launch Makes Sea of Thieves One of USA's Best-Selling Games
@Nem I guess you failed math
“The math is the PlayStation market is way bigger than the Xbox one.”
Xbox market > 0
PlayStation market + Xbox market > PlayStation market + 0
Re: PS5 Launch Makes Sea of Thieves One of USA's Best-Selling Games
@MrMagic the insomniac leaks also revealed that none of the spider-man pc ports had budgets in excess of $5 million:
Spider-man remastered - $2.5 million
Spider-man Miles Morales - $1.5 million
Spider-man 2 - $4.6 million
Re: PS5 Launch Makes Sea of Thieves One of USA's Best-Selling Games
@Dr_ENT there were almost 28 million series consoles sold by February 2024. That’s a pretty large user base to write off.
The insomniac leaks revealed that the pc port of ratchet and clank cost $2.6 million and took 5 months to build. At $70, it would require just over 37,000 sales to generate revenue of $2.6 million. That obviously doesn’t account for the cut steam would take. But, 80,000 copies sold would generate revenue equating to more than double the cost required to port the game.
Microsoft shares more in common with PC than PlayStation does, in so far as both Xbox and PC titles are developed using direct x api. If a port has already been created for pc, some of that work would translate to an Xbox port. It doesn’t seem unreasonable to expect a PlayStation port of a first party game to be able to sell at least 100,000 units on a system with an install base of 28 million. Using R&C’s port costs as a rough estimate, 100,000 units would equate to a 250% return in revenue. I wouldn’t be surprised for some of the more iconic titles such as Spider-Man to push close to 1 million in sales on series consoles which would obviously result in a significant return on investment.
Re: PS5 Launch Makes Sea of Thieves One of USA's Best-Selling Games
@CupidStunt I assumed you were talking about Sony, as I hadn’t mentioned Nintendo bringing titles to multiple platforms. Nintendo are killing it in terms of hardware and first party software sales. There’s absolutely no reason for them to change their strategy right now.
It’s more concerning that the most profitable console manufacturer can’t see current development spending for first party as being viable in the future. Especially given that the future should entail an even larger PlayStation install base.
Re: PS5 Launch Makes Sea of Thieves One of USA's Best-Selling Games
@CupidStunt also, out of curiosity, which PlayStation exclusive titles have sold in excess of 50 million copies to date?
Re: PS5 Launch Makes Sea of Thieves One of USA's Best-Selling Games
@CupidStunt according to Sony the current development budgets for their triple A first party titles aren’t sustainable long term. If they wish to maintain the quality and cadence of first party releases, they need to sell a lot more copies. Expanding to other platforms is one way of achieving this. Particularly as the home console market isn’t really growing.
Either way, it’ll be interesting to see how Sony navigate increased development costs over the coming years. Microsoft seem to be embracing a bigger market and are reaping the benefits of Xbox, pc, PlayStation and switch platform releases. Sony are restricting their launches to ps5 and augmenting this with some delayed ports to pc. Helldivers 2 being the only exception to this, launching simultaneously across pc and ps5 and enjoying huge success.
Re: PS5 Launch Makes Sea of Thieves One of USA's Best-Selling Games
@GADG3Tx87 was about to reply, but a mod beat me to it by removing your comment for trolling/baiting. Saved me some time
Re: PS5 Launch Makes Sea of Thieves One of USA's Best-Selling Games
That’s a lot of PlayStation money for microsoft. Multiplat strategies pay a lot better than exclusive, who’d have thought? I wonder when Sony will do the math?
Re: Single-Player Ghost of Tsushima PC Content Won't Require PSN Account
@Jay767 yeah, they need to leave the pc space immediately. They also need to stop making exclusives as the current model isn’t sustainable long term and attempting to recoup some of the development costs by launching on pc is a terrible strategy.