@PapaGlitch at best, it’s a massive oversight by Sony. At worst, it’s a deliberate attempt to exploit some of its customer base. If the game were on sale in an unsupported region, I think it would be pretty reasonable to assume that when this change were implemented, so too would support for psn be added.
@UltimateOtaku91 the game should never have been listed in those countries if that were the case. Or the warning should have been more explicit, stating that your access to the game will be revoked at some point in the near future.
@get2sammyb @get2sammyb I don’t know if valve have the equivalent of the psn outage? I have a psn account, but use PayPal for all my transactions with them. I used to have my bank details saved to my account. Their handling of the outage and failure to quickly notify their customer base that payment data had been compromised means I still don’t trust them with any more of my personal information than absolutely necessary.
My issue isn’t the farming of my data, it’s more the security of my data with that company. Getting a ton of unsolicited spam and phishing emails every day because your email has been stolen from a company with lapse security and safeguarding procedures is reason enough, for some people, to object to a mandatory account sign in that wasn’t present at launch.
It’s not a big deal for me, but some people are particularly adverse to giving companies they don’t trust personal information such as email, date of birth, name etc.
I’m not sure if such people still remember the psn outage of 2011.Sony essentially tried to cover up the fact that millions of people’s data had been compromised for over a week after the event.
If the requirement for a psn account wasn’t present at launch for helldivers on pc, it’s not surprising that the player base are kicking off. That’s pretty much how they operate lol.
@NEStalgia I strongly disagree with you saying that it’s only non-profit organisations that invest in r&d when increasing sales.
Nvidia, a publicly traded company, have enjoyed huge growth in sales and seen their share price rocket on the back of the AI boom. They’re spending more on r&d now, mostly AI related, despite enjoying more sales.
I do concede that Sony’s desire to spend on r&d is probably hampered by the fact that they’re operating in a fully saturated market. The potential for growth is limited and therefore the returns on investment are likely to be small. Nvidia is clearly operating in a growth market where investment is all but guaranteed to yield higher profits and further growth.
@truerbluer sony making more money from sales in an additional market will be benefiting every console player. A proportion of this extra income will be invested in helping studios with the development of more games. It will also increase the return on a title, making it more likely for the game to get a sequel or the studio to continue developing new titles.
Microsoft games in more places makes complete sense in the current development climate. Taking full advantage of the PlayStation install base to help fund new titles and subsidise gamepass seems to be working well so far. I fully expect more titles to come to PlayStation after a period of exclusivity on Xbox.
Sony have already said that the current cost of development for their triple A exclusives isn’t sustainable, so something is going to have to give. Either the quality, size and scope of their titles will need to go down, the cadence of new games will fall (as is already being seen) or they will need to release their titles on more platforms (day one pc releases, Xbox/switch 2/mobile releases). Will be interesting to see how Sony navigate increased development costs during the remaining lifecycle of the ps5.
@Nalodart only if he purchases a release date copy on ps5. If ps5 gets early access you’ll be able to buy at a cheaper price and then just wait for the full release. Game will be £40 on PC at release but I don’t know how that will translate to the consoles.
I paid about £28 on pc for early access using an affiliate link from a twitch streamer.
@AverageGamer my point was that MH world and rise are bigger games from a sales perspective with more egregious mtx implementation yet none of the outcry. Achievements and trophy ratios are irrelevant to the mtx in those games.
@AverageGamer I mean MH world and its expansion has sold over 24 million units to date. I wouldn’t say that’s very niche, in fact it probably ranks as one of the highest selling titles of all time. It’s no GTA or Skyrim, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s in the top 10. It’s capcom’s most successful title ever.
It was the MH title that finally broke the mainstream market.
@AverageGamer true, I guess. I bought the game day one on pc and while I don’t like any form of mtx within games, there really isn’t any need to engage with those in this one. There are far better examples of predatory mtx implementation in games than those available in DD2. The poor optimisation at launch is a far bigger issue imo.
MH rise had worse mtx at launch as did MH world, yet I don’t remember those titles receiving the levels of gamer outrage DD2 has. I suspect that the majority of those complaining haven’t even played the game to understand how the available mtx impact gameplay and progression.
@AverageGamer sadly it wouldn’t have made much difference. The only people that care about mtx in games are the enthusiasts, casuals buy the game for the box art and the advertising - not the Reddit posts or gaming website coverage.
Scored an 8 for me. There’s a lot it does brilliantly and quite a few issues that prevent it from scoring higher in my opinion:
Combat is up there with the absolute best of the genre and the level of customisation in the character creator is probably the most detailed I’ve seen in video game. The pawns are fun and a different take on a pseudo multiplayer system. You can become quite attached to them and your party during a playthrough. The world is interesting and rewarding to explore in many cases. Some of the side quest stories are genuinely compelling and interesting, often more so than the main questline.
However, some of the questing is quite basic and the single player story relatively short. The enemy variety is awful in terms of repetition, particularly when you get to the late game. Difficulty is also non existent once you get to late game and new game plus, there are no settings to rectify this. New game plus also doesn’t scale difficulty - there are posts on reddit from people in new game plus 2 and 3 describing how random pawns in the world are basically killing mobs and large monsters including drakes before the player can even get to the fight. The storyline is also incredibly weak and full of plot holes, the dragon really seems like an afterthought.
If you could marry up the best of this game with the best of the elder scrolls franchise you’d have the perfect game. Worth playing and I enjoyed my playthrough, a solid 8.
@matekomlosi you’re not getting 4090 performance from a 45% base ps5 gpu upgrade. You won’t be “brute forcing” rather more likely “subtle nudging” a game towards 60 using upscaling to render a non-native 4k image. Either way, it should result in an improved experience over the base console, albeit for a more premium price.
@breakneck Not entirely sure how you are coming to that conclusion. The game has a great meta critic score and physical sales have been in decline for years. So much so, that Sony’s 2nd quarter report of this financial year showed physical games accounting for just 4% of revenue vs digital game sales at 21%.
As mentioned by others, lots of people buy the disc for FIFA as they trade in each year for the next iteration. FIFA is also often bundled with hardware along with CoD.
The game had capcom’s most successful single player PC launch of all time on steam in terms of player numbers.
The game is definitely not going to be regarded as a “failure” by capcom.
@ROTTIEMAN16 I think they mean the improvement won’t be significant. Dragons dogma 2 isn’t using full path tracing. I’m playing on pc and disabling raytracing improves frame rates by anything up to 20%. If the ps5 version is running at about 30fps, that equates to a 6fps gain - 36fps is a long way from 60 still.
@wildcat_kickz no problem. Yes, I think we are just coming at this from different angles.
Sony will have run the numbers and are already committed to the production and sale of a pro unit. Nobody can truly predict the outcomes of a market. I’m pretty sure that Microsoft saw this generation unfolding very differently to the current reality when they were signing off on their series line of consoles.
Either way, it will be interesting to see what the pro console can do and how the market reacts to it.
@wildcat_kickz I apologise for my condescending comment, it was rude and unnecessary.
I still contend that Sony, being a publicly traded company, would not wish to present its financials with substantial debts despite having pre budgeted for r&d. I remember Sony selling its headquarters in the US in 2013 to enter into a rental agreement with the new owners in order to flatter its accounts appease shareholders and shore up its market value.
Whether pre budgeted or not, r&d would still impact overall spending by a company, especially in the current financial climate. Budgets are also subject to change.
With regards to cost of development for ps5 pro, you are in agreement that it would add to the current zero development costs for the PlayStation 5 pro. You also understand that PlayStation, while using similar architecture to pc, has completely different development tools? Xbox uses direct x on both Xbox and pc, which makes porting games considerably easier. It’s also why naughty dog’s in house pc version of the last of us part one remake performs so terribly on pc and why Sony purchased Nixxes software to specialise in porting games to pc.
A PlayStation 5 pro is great for the people that want it. But it is not just a “free” extra choice for the people that don’t want it. Depending on price it is unlikely to generate any extra revenue of significance.
PS4 pro only accounted for 20% of PlayStation 4 sales and was sold as a 4k device during a time of relative economic prosperity. PS5 is already sold as a 4k device and 8k tvs are practically non existent. Most casual gamers are happy with 30fps and don’t have a clue about 60fps yet alone 120fps. We’re also still in times of economic uncertainty so I don’t think ps5 pro will come close to achieving a 20% split market share with the base console.
@wildcat_kickz I guess you don’t understand finance and accounting. Yes the money should be made back eventually, but in the short term budgets will have been reduced to reflect these increased costs. Shareholders are accepting of increased r&d costs in the short term provided they have been offset by savings in other areas. Particularly in the current economic climate. The recent job losses at Sony studios, reduced first party output and cancellation of projects are evidence of this.
No, it will not be “free” to properly utilise the capabilities of the new system, unless Sony is planning for developers ignoring the ps5 pro and only considering the gpu rendering budgets of the base system. It will entail extra costs, irrespective of scale, that would not exist were it not for the ps5 pro.
Hopefully you can finally understand this quite obvious conclusion.
@NeonPizza you’re completely missing the point. The PlayStation 5 pro isn’t some “free” system that Sony have just plucked out of thin air and put on sale. Sony would have spent money on research and development (probably considerable money), and later money on marketing. They don’t have an unlimited budget and this would have and will come at the cost of other budgetary expenses, most likely game development. It is not a “free” system and just a case of extra choice. It comes at a cost which will have an impact on those that will be sticking to the base system and therefore getting zero benefit from a pro. It will also entail extra development time and costs in order to fully utilise the feature set of the pro, not the machine learning upscaling, but the ray tracing features and possible frame rate increases (which can cause issues with in game physics and cutscenes).
People are objectively correct to have concerns and issues with the development and launch of a pro system if they’re not planning on upgrading.
@get2sammyb I think that is the issue. Everyone frequenting this website is an “enthusiast”, and make up a very small proportion of the total player base. Reading through the comments, a lot of these people aren’t interested in the prospect of upgrading to a pro. If you’re struggling to convince your core market of the need to upgrade then you’ve clearly missed the mark.
If this model doesn’t sell particularly well are we actually going to get third party devs to properly use its feature set? If they do, does it mean that the base model suffers from poorer optimisation as per Microsoft’s series s? How much are Sony planning on selling this for? PSVR2 and PlayStation portal aren’t exactly screaming value for mass market casual console player.
From a company view, I think it’s a misstep. Sony are dominating the market right now, there’s no need to release a more powerful system which will have extra R&D costs to recoup. This isn’t going to move the needle in terms of install base and the money would be better spent on first party titles, especially given the current release schedule.
This will also erode the impact of a future ps6 as the technical jump will be less from the pro vs the base system. There’ll be a lot of people that decide they’re happy to keep the pro model for a few more years after the ps6 release, maybe even opting to wait for the ‘inevitable’ ps6 pro. This then slows the adoption of the ps6 and restricts development as new titles remain multi platform for longer and are bottlenecked by the current cpu of the pro and base systems.
@jt887 totally agree, especially with respect to GTA VI. Rockstar have never targeted 60fps at launch on console or provided performance options.
Red dead redemption 2, their latest open world entry, had a 30fps cap across the base Xbox one, one s and one x, despite the huge gulf in gpu power, slightly higher cpu clocks and increased ram. The one x just provided a higher resolution output and improved graphical fidelity. GTA VI will be a better looking 30fps title on ps5 pro, and I shall be happy to wait for the pc release and the definitive version.
This isn’t going to be cheap if these specs are accurate and if the PlayStation portal pricing is anything to go by - $200 for a streaming device with an 8” 1080p lcd screen. I’ll be pleasantly surprised if the ps5 pro ships for anything less than $699. This will be an enthusiast device and Sony won’t be looking to take much of a hit on its cost as, like ps4 pro, it won’t come anywhere close to the sales volume of the base system.
Unlike the majority of people in the comments, I’m not committing to buying something without knowing the price point. Especially when Sony’s latest hardware release, portal, doesn’t exactly scream value for money.
@MikeOrator whilst I agree with you, there is, however, one benefit to pre ordering digitally and that’s the ability to preload.
If you’re planning on buying digital but have poor internet speeds a pre order often allows you a few days to download a game ready for launch.
I used to live in an area that had no access to fibre, the fastest download I recorded was 2.6mbps. It would take me days to download a game, made worse by the fact that any other internet based activity such as streaming a video would steal most of my available bandwidth. This would leave nothing for the download, essentially pausing it.
@TrickyDicky99 my mistake, I was confusing demons souls with miles morales. Which launched with a solid 60fps and looked great.
If you think a ps5 pro is going to magically transform every game running at 30fps on base ps5 to 60fps, you’re going to be extremely disappointed. A pro version of ps5, will be very similar to the ps4 pro in terms of upgraded capabilities: It will smooth out frame rates with games that have performance modes and will likely target higher native resolutions, possibly with the addition of some extra graphical features like ray tracing. I wouldn’t be surprised if some games have checkerboarded 8k modes seeing as Sony have 8k TV’s to sell. Pointless imo, but plausible given that the ps4 pro was used to help Sony market 4k.
@TrickyDicky99 it’s arguably a better looking game than a “current gen” dragons dogma 2. The dlc for forbidden west, burning shores, was ps5 only. But if you want to be pedantic, fine. Miles morales, returnal, spiderman 2, helldivers 2 all launching with solid 60fps options on a console which you say is crying out for a pro model. Objectively, you’re wrong. Sorry.
@TrickyDicky99 it isn’t needed, better optimisation is needed. Horizon forbidden west is arguably a better looking open world game on ps5 and can maintain a solid 30fps, 40fps and 60fps depending on your preference.
Giving developers more power so they can perform worse optimisations isn’t a solution. A 4090 has roughly ten times the raw compute power of a ps5, and yet has still struggled to maintain 60fps on some of the worst optimised titles.
There’s also no guarantee that a ps5 pro version of this game would run any better. DD2 has rtx on pc so it’s quite likely the pro version of the game would have some form of ray tracing over the base version. The devs could also choose to render the game at a higher resolution than the base version, both of which would cause large hits to performance. History has shown that devs tend to prioritise visuals over frames on consoles as they’re easier to market than the latter.
A more powerful console wouldn’t guarantee a better performing game.
A terrible time for those employed in the video games industry right now. My thoughts are with those who have been made redundant and I hope that they are able to quickly find another source of employment.
This is yet another indicator that the video games market is struggling to generate the revenue required to support anything outside of the most successful of titles. Companies are seeking to streamline their development cycles, increase efficiencies with regards to staffing numbers and decrease spending by reevaluating their portfolio of current projects.
It’s also clear that Microsoft’s redundancies earlier in the year were a reflection of the state of the entire industry rather than entirely borne out of the acquisition.
Hopefully the industry can transition through this difficult period and emerge stronger and healthier for those employed within it and the fans who support its existence.
@SJBUK until the issue of vr sickness is resolved, which I’m not even sure is possible, vr will always be a niche product. AR has a far greater chance of becoming mainstream as it is inherently grounded in your environment and therefore has no issues with sickness. It’s why meta added colour pass-through to the quest 3 and quest pro, why Microsoft launched an AR device and why it is a major feature of apple’s new headset.
I absolutely agree that people shouldn’t be cheering for the psvr2’s demise or failure, and it’s incredibly sad that some are. The technology isn’t where it needs to be right now for it to be a mainstream product, but that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t exist.
I was very excited when I heard that apple was entering the vr space, not because I want to buy their new headset, but because they have both the money and expertise to realise the technology in the future. I can’t wait to see what apple are doing in the VR/AR space 10 years from now.
@SJBUK I wasn’t surprised by quest outselling psvr2, I was surprised by the ratio of over 30 to 1.
How exactly has Sony been working on ways of improving sales? There hasn’t been any news on first party games since launch, no price cuts or massive marketing promotions. The only thing rumoured is that Sony are looking at making the headset compatible with PC. Which suggests that they are just looking to recoup as much of their investment as possible right now.
I didn’t think ps vita was a failure, but its total sales were eclipsed by ps4 after just one year. This, and the fact that the Nintendo 3ds was completely dominating units sold led to Sony reducing support and eventually discontinuation. We haven’t had a true handheld from Sony since.
Psvr2 is looking an awful lot similar to ps vita right now: A relatively successful gen1 device (psvr1) as with the psp, which led to a successor. The ps5 is proving considerably more successful than psvr2 and the competition, quest, is completely dominating it in terms of sales.
For shareholders, why would they want Sony to continue investing in a market that has shown little growth or return when that money could be spent supporting the wildly successful ps5? Meta have achieved more than any other company within vr and they have struggled for years to make money. Less than 5% of ps4 players purchased a psvr1 and it doesn’t look like that number has changed for psvr2. In fact, given that we haven’t heard anything officially since launch, it’s likely that number has shrunk.
@SJBUK “… as Sony haven’t said” - we’d all know exactly how many units they’d shipped and sold if it were a success.
Sony regularly declare the sales performance of their PlayStation 5 console. We all know exactly how many units they’ve sold - we even know how many units they’re forecasting to ship this year.
Publicly traded companies often don’t reveal sales figures if they’re significantly below expectations. Legally, they only have to present quarterly earnings reports. It’s why Microsoft hasn’t officially revealed the sales figures of Xbox series consoles for the last few years. Sony recently released their sales report for the third quarter ending 31 December 2023, they sold 8.2 million ps5’s during that period, but there was no mention of how psvr2 had performed during the holidays.
We can only speculate about the sales numbers for psvr2 at this point, but an analysis of Amazon US sales figures by the website roadtovr, showed that Meta Quest had massively outsold psvr2 on Amazon over the holiday season. For every 1 unit of psvr2 sold, Quest sold more than 30 units. Obviously Amazon isn’t the only retailer for psvr2, but it’s usually a pretty decent reflection of the whole market.
@Darude84 i had a friend pre order for launch. He was hyped for the headset but got terrible motion sickness from most of the demo’s. He was pretty gutted that he couldn’t get more than a few minutes into horizon. He requested a refund using Sony’s returns form, packaged everything up and was fully reimbursed after Sony had received and checked the item.
The writing was on the wall from the very first gameplay reveal. This is not the game people wanted from rocksteady. The only people in the world surprised by its failure were those that decided the market was crying out for yet another terribly executed live service game.
@AverageGamer I wasn’t aware of this as I’ve not really noticed any artifacting with mine on the few times I’ve hardwired, (I mostly play wireless). Doesn’t psvr2 use usb type c for its wired connection? Wouldn’t it have similar issues on pc unless it ships with DP or HDMI connections?
@ROTTIEMAN16 yes, the blacks are better and fov higher, but I’d rather a slightly smaller but considerably clearer fov with slightly higher resolution over the increased contrast.
The controllers of psvr2 have better haptics, but these would require proper support on pc, and battery life means you have to wait for a recharge should they die whilst playing. Quest 3 controllers have interchangeable batteries.
The quest 3 can also be hardwired, so no artefacting or issues as with psvr2. But less graphically intensive games such as beatsabre can be enjoyed wirelessly and played natively without any artifacting.
You can also play augmented reality games thanks to the device’s colour pass-through which is superior to the monochrome low resolution pass-through on psvr2.
As stated by others here, I really don’t think releasing psvr2 on pc is going to make much difference to sales numbers for Sony. The pc vr space is pretty competitive and the quest 3 is a fantastic unit for its price point.
The eye tracking and foveated rendering offered by psvr2 were completely ruined by the use of fresnel lenses in the unit. The sweet spot is so small that foveated rendering makes absolutely no difference to image quality when looking outside of it. The pancake lenses of the quest 3 have a considerably larger sweet spot allowing you to shift your view with your eyes rather than having to move your whole head as on psvr2.
Also, a psvr2 on pc locks you out of all the quest exclusive titles, of which there are many. Were sony to release their PlayStation exclusive titles on pc, they would do so on steam and these titles would also be playable on a quest.
Finally, it doesn’t offer the flexibility of the quest 3 with regards to wireless play - you always have to be tethered to your pc.
Objectively, there’s almost no reason to buy a psvr2 on pc over a quest 3.
@djhegzy I don’t really think those games are representative of what a properly optimised game can achieve on the base ps5. But, I do agree that they look horrible from an image quality perspective when playing in performance mode.
I played horizon: forbidden west on ps5 last year at 60fps and the game looked fantastic, so it is possible to achieve both higher frame rates and impressive image quality. The problem is that in order for this to happen a developer has to invest the appropriate resources in optimisation - something only first party studios seem to be doing on PlayStation.
There are a lot of people using Nvidia’s 4090 gpu that still struggle to achieve decent performance in some pc titles, despite having 10x the raw power of the ps5. Power is relevant to some degree, but it means very little if a game is poorly optimised.
Dragons dogma 2 is a day one for me. I can pre order it on pc for £38 and am fortunate enough to have a gpu that should pretty much guarantee a locked 60fps experience. Will be waiting on a price drop for rise of ronin and probably benefit from some patching.
I struggle to justify £70 on a ps5 title these days when compared to the value proposition on pc - especially as there’s normally quite a big sacrifice in image quality just to get a title running at 60fps. I bought ff16 at launch and, although it was a solid 60 in performance mode, the resolution and image quality was absolutely terrible.
Will be interesting to see ps5 and Xbox sales once switch 2 releases. If the current switch is anything to go by Nintendo will have a hard time keeping up with demand. I wonder if it will be able to catch ps5, as I fully expect it to eclipse Xbox series sales.
Yes, because Microsoft are the only studio cutting jobs in the video games industry right now. Oh, and Activision blizzard always put employee welfare first when Bobby kotick was CEO. Get a grip people. Pretty much every company is cost cutting right now. Sony have done it too, cuts were made across its studios last year in October including 20% of staff at media molecule. The games industry is not in a great place right now in terms of job security and that is reflected across all studios, not just Microsoft.
I don’t doubt that those developers working at Sony studios desire to make the best product they can. Unfortunately for them, they don’t get a say in how much budget they have or how many developers they can hire and how long they can develop for.
I was looking forward to seeing naughty dog’s last of us multiplayer project and I’m sure those working on it were excited to showcase it. Ultimately their desires and passions for were undermined by Sony cancelling the project as they decided it wouldn’t work as a live service title and generate the revenue they required. Frustratingly, the multiplayer in the original last of us was great and I’m fairly sure it was cut from the sequel in favour of being turned into a GaS product which we’ll now never get.
I’m also fairly sure that Microsoft’s decision to release games on other platforms was made by the Company heads rather than the Xbox division. Tom Warren stated yesterday that very few people working at Xbox know what will be announced next week regarding “the future of Xbox”.
@MidnightDragonDX oh, I’m not in the least bit worried about Microsoft. If they go the software only route they’ll sell off or disband any studio/game that doesn’t give them a decent return. I’m more concerned about how Sony will behave in a market free from competition and with barriers to entry so high that even google and apple aren’t interested in investing.
If this is all true, then I’m not sure how microsoft will continue operating Xbox hardware. Gamepass is its point of difference, but numbers seem to have stagnated somewhat and without exclusive titles, why would anyone that doesn’t already have gamepass be interested in an Xbox over a PlayStation?
The big hitters - call of duty and the game formally known as fifa aren’t on gamepass, so there’s no reason for the casual demographic to buy an Xbox. The hardcore value software and it sounds like PlayStation will have everything available on Xbox in addition to the quality of all their first party offerings.
Whoever green lit this at Microsoft either doesn’t understand the implications for their hardware division and services offerings. Or, they’ve somehow negotiated a form of gamepass on both PlayStation and switch, and are intentionally looking to phase out hardware production like sega.
Either way, a console market without Microsoft leaves Sony free to price their hardware and services as they see fit and innovate if and when they want. I wonder if Sony would continue to release software on pc without Microsoft? I guess we could find out soon.
@TandyMiller not a ps one title, but I recently got days gone on pc having missed it when it released on ps4. Enjoying it a lot, great story so far, a bit slow at the start and gameplay isn’t anything revolutionary, but the world building is very compelling. Could never get into state of decay on Xbox including the sequel - days gone feels like the perfect hybrid between it and the last of us.
I would rate it “okay” for my tastes, nothing shown that really appealed. Team ninja games are very very similar in terms of combat and enemy type - I’ve played and finished every one to date, the latest being wo long last year. Not sure I’m ready to jump into another just 12 months after the last.
Lots of anime waifu style Japanese games showcased which aren’t my thing. Death stranding 2 had exception production values, the decima engine is outstanding, and plenty of craziness. I found the first incredibly boring from a gameplay perspective and couldn’t gel with the delivery sim aspects, so sadly, I doubt I’ll be playing the second as I never finished the first. Not many dates provided either.
Happy for those that were hyped from this state of play. I’m still waiting on news from naughty dog to rekindle my PlayStation hype levels.
@JSnow2 so you’re saying that had Microsoft not bought activation blizzard everyone would still have jobs and there’d be no forced redundancies? Bobby Kotick would still be running the company - he was the epitome of profit maximisation above employee welfare.
Everyone is making job cuts in the video game industry right now. It’s moronic to think that with independence and their former CEO in charge that activation blizzard would continue to maintain its staffing levels. Given his reputation, Kotick would be making as many forced redundancies as possible to maintain profits for his shareholders.
@TheCollector316 I agree that consolidation of games publishers by Microsoft definitely isn’t a consumer friendly move. But I am hopeful and relatively confident that the Activision blizzard deal should be the nail in the coffin of any further publisher and studio acquisition's by team green.
If Microsoft do eventually become software centric it will be interesting to see how PlayStation respond to the lack of competition.
Economic theory suggests that absence of competition results in higher pricing and inferior products. Sony’s history suggests that this would hold true. The huge success of the PlayStation 2 resulted in the company’s worst console launch in history with PlayStation 3 and led to a monumental loss of market share.
Conversely, a lot of the changes made during the Xbox one era were entirely due to competition from Sony: roll back on game sharing, removal of Kinect and cheaper base hardware pricing, focus on games and abandonment of Xbox as a media system, launch of a powerful “one x” console variant, the development of gamepass (love it or hate it). None of this was possible without Sony’s competition.
@Bionic-Spencer I mean that’s true, to an extent. But making a game Xbox exclusive now means it launches on pc and Xbox day one, with xcloud soon to follow. Sony exclusives pretty much only appear on ps5 day one barring a few exceptions. There’s no date for the last of us part 2 remaster on pc yet and a lot of fans are still waiting on news concerning the pc release of the demons souls remake. Xbox as a platform is no longer restricted to console, their games are available at launch on both pc and Xbox systems. Disney would be fully aware of this when negotiating exclusivity, as they would Sony’s ps5 exclusivity stance. Their guys run all the numbers before committing to any business deal.
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Re: Sony Doubles Down on Helldivers 2 PSN Requirement by Taking It Off Sale for PC in Numerous Countries
@PapaGlitch at best, it’s a massive oversight by Sony. At worst, it’s a deliberate attempt to exploit some of its customer base. If the game were on sale in an unsupported region, I think it would be pretty reasonable to assume that when this change were implemented, so too would support for psn be added.
Re: Sony Doubles Down on Helldivers 2 PSN Requirement by Taking It Off Sale for PC in Numerous Countries
@UltimateOtaku91 the game should never have been listed in those countries if that were the case. Or the warning should have been more explicit, stating that your access to the game will be revoked at some point in the near future.
Re: Helldivers 2 PC Is Getting Review Bombed Over PSN Requirement
@get2sammyb @get2sammyb I don’t know if valve have the equivalent of the psn outage? I have a psn account, but use PayPal for all my transactions with them. I used to have my bank details saved to my account. Their handling of the outage and failure to quickly notify their customer base that payment data had been compromised means I still don’t trust them with any more of my personal information than absolutely necessary.
My issue isn’t the farming of my data, it’s more the security of my data with that company. Getting a ton of unsolicited spam and phishing emails every day because your email has been stolen from a company with lapse security and safeguarding procedures is reason enough, for some people, to object to a mandatory account sign in that wasn’t present at launch.
Re: Helldivers 2 PC Players Blindsided by Seemingly Sudden PSN Account Requirement
It’s not a big deal for me, but some people are particularly adverse to giving companies they don’t trust personal information such as email, date of birth, name etc.
I’m not sure if such people still remember the psn outage of 2011.Sony essentially tried to cover up the fact that millions of people’s data had been compromised for over a week after the event.
If the requirement for a psn account wasn’t present at launch for helldivers on pc, it’s not surprising that the player base are kicking off. That’s pretty much how they operate lol.
Re: Ghost of Tsushima's Crossplay Patch Has Somehow Ruined the Game with Stuttering
@NEStalgia I strongly disagree with you saying that it’s only non-profit organisations that invest in r&d when increasing sales.
Nvidia, a publicly traded company, have enjoyed huge growth in sales and seen their share price rocket on the back of the AI boom. They’re spending more on r&d now, mostly AI related, despite enjoying more sales.
I do concede that Sony’s desire to spend on r&d is probably hampered by the fact that they’re operating in a fully saturated market. The potential for growth is limited and therefore the returns on investment are likely to be small. Nvidia is clearly operating in a growth market where investment is all but guaranteed to yield higher profits and further growth.
Re: Ghost of Tsushima's Crossplay Patch Has Somehow Ruined the Game with Stuttering
@truerbluer sony making more money from sales in an additional market will be benefiting every console player. A proportion of this extra income will be invested in helping studios with the development of more games. It will also increase the return on a title, making it more likely for the game to get a sequel or the studio to continue developing new titles.
Re: Talking Point: What's Next for Xbox Games on PS5, PS4?
Microsoft games in more places makes complete sense in the current development climate. Taking full advantage of the PlayStation install base to help fund new titles and subsidise gamepass seems to be working well so far. I fully expect more titles to come to PlayStation after a period of exclusivity on Xbox.
Sony have already said that the current cost of development for their triple A exclusives isn’t sustainable, so something is going to have to give. Either the quality, size and scope of their titles will need to go down, the cadence of new games will fall (as is already being seen) or they will need to release their titles on more platforms (day one pc releases, Xbox/switch 2/mobile releases). Will be interesting to see how Sony navigate increased development costs during the remaining lifecycle of the ps5.
Re: Future PS5 Game No Rest for the Wicked Opens to Positive Early Access Reviews
@Nalodart only if he purchases a release date copy on ps5. If ps5 gets early access you’ll be able to buy at a cheaper price and then just wait for the full release. Game will be £40 on PC at release but I don’t know how that will translate to the consoles.
I paid about £28 on pc for early access using an affiliate link from a twitch streamer.
Re: Another Capcom Success as Dragon's Dogma 2 Sells 2.5 Million Copies
@AverageGamer my point was that MH world and rise are bigger games from a sales perspective with more egregious mtx implementation yet none of the outcry. Achievements and trophy ratios are irrelevant to the mtx in those games.
Re: Another Capcom Success as Dragon's Dogma 2 Sells 2.5 Million Copies
@AverageGamer I mean MH world and its expansion has sold over 24 million units to date. I wouldn’t say that’s very niche, in fact it probably ranks as one of the highest selling titles of all time. It’s no GTA or Skyrim, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s in the top 10. It’s capcom’s most successful title ever.
It was the MH title that finally broke the mainstream market.
Re: Another Capcom Success as Dragon's Dogma 2 Sells 2.5 Million Copies
@AverageGamer true, I guess. I bought the game day one on pc and while I don’t like any form of mtx within games, there really isn’t any need to engage with those in this one. There are far better examples of predatory mtx implementation in games than those available in DD2. The poor optimisation at launch is a far bigger issue imo.
MH rise had worse mtx at launch as did MH world, yet I don’t remember those titles receiving the levels of gamer outrage DD2 has. I suspect that the majority of those complaining haven’t even played the game to understand how the available mtx impact gameplay and progression.
Re: Another Capcom Success as Dragon's Dogma 2 Sells 2.5 Million Copies
@AverageGamer sadly it wouldn’t have made much difference. The only people that care about mtx in games are the enthusiasts, casuals buy the game for the box art and the advertising - not the Reddit posts or gaming website coverage.
Re: Poll: What Review Score Would You Give Dragon's Dogma 2?
Scored an 8 for me. There’s a lot it does brilliantly and quite a few issues that prevent it from scoring higher in my opinion:
Combat is up there with the absolute best of the genre and the level of customisation in the character creator is probably the most detailed I’ve seen in video game. The pawns are fun and a different take on a pseudo multiplayer system. You can become quite attached to them and your party during a playthrough. The world is interesting and rewarding to explore in many cases. Some of the side quest stories are genuinely compelling and interesting, often more so than the main questline.
However, some of the questing is quite basic and the single player story relatively short. The enemy variety is awful in terms of repetition, particularly when you get to the late game. Difficulty is also non existent once you get to late game and new game plus, there are no settings to rectify this. New game plus also doesn’t scale difficulty - there are posts on reddit from people in new game plus 2 and 3 describing how random pawns in the world are basically killing mobs and large monsters including drakes before the player can even get to the fight. The storyline is also incredibly weak and full of plot holes, the dragon really seems like an afterthought.
If you could marry up the best of this game with the best of the elder scrolls franchise you’d have the perfect game. Worth playing and I enjoyed my playthrough, a solid 8.
Re: Rumour: PS5 Pro's 'Enhanced' Label Covers Resolution, Frame Rate, Ray Tracing Upgrades
@matekomlosi you’re not getting 4090 performance from a 45% base ps5 gpu upgrade. You won’t be “brute forcing” rather more likely “subtle nudging” a game towards 60 using upscaling to render a non-native 4k image. Either way, it should result in an improved experience over the base console, albeit for a more premium price.
Re: UK Sales Charts: Dragon's Dogma 2, Rise of the Ronin Off to a Weak Start at Retail
@breakneck Not entirely sure how you are coming to that conclusion. The game has a great meta critic score and physical sales have been in decline for years. So much so, that Sony’s 2nd quarter report of this financial year showed physical games accounting for just 4% of revenue vs digital game sales at 21%.
As mentioned by others, lots of people buy the disc for FIFA as they trade in each year for the next iteration. FIFA is also often bundled with hardware along with CoD.
The game had capcom’s most successful single player PC launch of all time on steam in terms of player numbers.
The game is definitely not going to be regarded as a “failure” by capcom.
Re: Big Dragon's Dogma 2 Updates Incoming as Capcom Confirms List of PS5 Improvements
@ROTTIEMAN16 I think they mean the improvement won’t be significant. Dragons dogma 2 isn’t using full path tracing. I’m playing on pc and disabling raytracing improves frame rates by anything up to 20%. If the ps5 version is running at about 30fps, that equates to a 6fps gain - 36fps is a long way from 60 still.
Re: PS5 Pro's Rumoured Spectral Super Resolution Tech Could Be Transformative
@wildcat_kickz no problem. Yes, I think we are just coming at this from different angles.
Sony will have run the numbers and are already committed to the production and sale of a pro unit. Nobody can truly predict the outcomes of a market. I’m pretty sure that Microsoft saw this generation unfolding very differently to the current reality when they were signing off on their series line of consoles.
Either way, it will be interesting to see what the pro console can do and how the market reacts to it.
Re: PS5 Pro's Rumoured Spectral Super Resolution Tech Could Be Transformative
@wildcat_kickz I apologise for my condescending comment, it was rude and unnecessary.
I still contend that Sony, being a publicly traded company, would not wish to present its financials with substantial debts despite having pre budgeted for r&d. I remember Sony selling its headquarters in the US in 2013 to enter into a rental agreement with the new owners in order to flatter its accounts appease shareholders and shore up its market value.
Whether pre budgeted or not, r&d would still impact overall spending by a company, especially in the current financial climate. Budgets are also subject to change.
With regards to cost of development for ps5 pro, you are in agreement that it would add to the current zero development costs for the PlayStation 5 pro. You also understand that PlayStation, while using similar architecture to pc, has completely different development tools? Xbox uses direct x on both Xbox and pc, which makes porting games considerably easier. It’s also why naughty dog’s in house pc version of the last of us part one remake performs so terribly on pc and why Sony purchased Nixxes software to specialise in porting games to pc.
A PlayStation 5 pro is great for the people that want it. But it is not just a “free” extra choice for the people that don’t want it. Depending on price it is unlikely to generate any extra revenue of significance.
PS4 pro only accounted for 20% of PlayStation 4 sales and was sold as a 4k device during a time of relative economic prosperity. PS5 is already sold as a 4k device and 8k tvs are practically non existent. Most casual gamers are happy with 30fps and don’t have a clue about 60fps yet alone 120fps. We’re also still in times of economic uncertainty so I don’t think ps5 pro will come close to achieving a 20% split market share with the base console.
Re: PS5 Pro's Rumoured Spectral Super Resolution Tech Could Be Transformative
@wildcat_kickz I guess you don’t understand finance and accounting. Yes the money should be made back eventually, but in the short term budgets will have been reduced to reflect these increased costs. Shareholders are accepting of increased r&d costs in the short term provided they have been offset by savings in other areas. Particularly in the current economic climate. The recent job losses at Sony studios, reduced first party output and cancellation of projects are evidence of this.
No, it will not be “free” to properly utilise the capabilities of the new system, unless Sony is planning for developers ignoring the ps5 pro and only considering the gpu rendering budgets of the base system. It will entail extra costs, irrespective of scale, that would not exist were it not for the ps5 pro.
Hopefully you can finally understand this quite obvious conclusion.
Re: PS5 Pro's Rumoured Spectral Super Resolution Tech Could Be Transformative
@NeonPizza you’re completely missing the point. The PlayStation 5 pro isn’t some “free” system that Sony have just plucked out of thin air and put on sale. Sony would have spent money on research and development (probably considerable money), and later money on marketing. They don’t have an unlimited budget and this would have and will come at the cost of other budgetary expenses, most likely game development. It is not a “free” system and just a case of extra choice. It comes at a cost which will have an impact on those that will be sticking to the base system and therefore getting zero benefit from a pro. It will also entail extra development time and costs in order to fully utilise the feature set of the pro, not the machine learning upscaling, but the ray tracing features and possible frame rate increases (which can cause issues with in game physics and cutscenes).
People are objectively correct to have concerns and issues with the development and launch of a pro system if they’re not planning on upgrading.
Re: PS5 Pro's Rumoured Spectral Super Resolution Tech Could Be Transformative
@get2sammyb I think that is the issue. Everyone frequenting this website is an “enthusiast”, and make up a very small proportion of the total player base. Reading through the comments, a lot of these people aren’t interested in the prospect of upgrading to a pro. If you’re struggling to convince your core market of the need to upgrade then you’ve clearly missed the mark.
If this model doesn’t sell particularly well are we actually going to get third party devs to properly use its feature set? If they do, does it mean that the base model suffers from poorer optimisation as per Microsoft’s series s? How much are Sony planning on selling this for? PSVR2 and PlayStation portal aren’t exactly screaming value for mass market casual console player.
From a company view, I think it’s a misstep. Sony are dominating the market right now, there’s no need to release a more powerful system which will have extra R&D costs to recoup. This isn’t going to move the needle in terms of install base and the money would be better spent on first party titles, especially given the current release schedule.
This will also erode the impact of a future ps6 as the technical jump will be less from the pro vs the base system. There’ll be a lot of people that decide they’re happy to keep the pro model for a few more years after the ps6 release, maybe even opting to wait for the ‘inevitable’ ps6 pro. This then slows the adoption of the ps6 and restricts development as new titles remain multi platform for longer and are bottlenecked by the current cpu of the pro and base systems.
Re: Rumour: PS5 Pro Is Up to Three Times Faster Than PS5 as Specs Surface
@jt887 totally agree, especially with respect to GTA VI. Rockstar have never targeted 60fps at launch on console or provided performance options.
Red dead redemption 2, their latest open world entry, had a 30fps cap across the base Xbox one, one s and one x, despite the huge gulf in gpu power, slightly higher cpu clocks and increased ram. The one x just provided a higher resolution output and improved graphical fidelity. GTA VI will be a better looking 30fps title on ps5 pro, and I shall be happy to wait for the pc release and the definitive version.
Re: Rumour: PS5 Pro Is Up to Three Times Faster Than PS5 as Specs Surface
This isn’t going to be cheap if these specs are accurate and if the PlayStation portal pricing is anything to go by - $200 for a streaming device with an 8” 1080p lcd screen. I’ll be pleasantly surprised if the ps5 pro ships for anything less than $699. This will be an enthusiast device and Sony won’t be looking to take much of a hit on its cost as, like ps4 pro, it won’t come anywhere close to the sales volume of the base system.
Unlike the majority of people in the comments, I’m not committing to buying something without knowing the price point. Especially when Sony’s latest hardware release, portal, doesn’t exactly scream value for money.
Re: Persona 3 Reload: Episode Aigis Expansion Pass Price Revealed at £29 / $35
@MikeOrator whilst I agree with you, there is, however, one benefit to pre ordering digitally and that’s the ability to preload.
If you’re planning on buying digital but have poor internet speeds a pre order often allows you a few days to download a game ready for launch.
I used to live in an area that had no access to fibre, the fastest download I recorded was 2.6mbps. It would take me days to download a game, made worse by the fact that any other internet based activity such as streaming a video would steal most of my available bandwidth. This would leave nothing for the download, essentially pausing it.
Re: Timed PS5 Exclusive Final Fantasy 16 Is Almost Ready for Primetime on PC
“Naturally, [the PC specifications] are looking to be somewhat high.”
Translation: “Naturally, we’re cutting corners with optimisation.”
Re: Dragon's Dogma 2 PS5 Frame Rate Controversy Rumbles on as Previews Give Conflicting Reports
@TrickyDicky99 my mistake, I was confusing demons souls with miles morales. Which launched with a solid 60fps and looked great.
If you think a ps5 pro is going to magically transform every game running at 30fps on base ps5 to 60fps, you’re going to be extremely disappointed. A pro version of ps5, will be very similar to the ps4 pro in terms of upgraded capabilities: It will smooth out frame rates with games that have performance modes and will likely target higher native resolutions, possibly with the addition of some extra graphical features like ray tracing. I wouldn’t be surprised if some games have checkerboarded 8k modes seeing as Sony have 8k TV’s to sell. Pointless imo, but plausible given that the ps4 pro was used to help Sony market 4k.
Re: Dragon's Dogma 2 PS5 Frame Rate Controversy Rumbles on as Previews Give Conflicting Reports
@TrickyDicky99 it’s arguably a better looking game than a “current gen” dragons dogma 2. The dlc for forbidden west, burning shores, was ps5 only. But if you want to be pedantic, fine. Miles morales, returnal, spiderman 2, helldivers 2 all launching with solid 60fps options on a console which you say is crying out for a pro model. Objectively, you’re wrong. Sorry.
Optimisation is the issue.
Re: Dragon's Dogma 2 PS5 Frame Rate Controversy Rumbles on as Previews Give Conflicting Reports
@TrickyDicky99 it isn’t needed, better optimisation is needed. Horizon forbidden west is arguably a better looking open world game on ps5 and can maintain a solid 30fps, 40fps and 60fps depending on your preference.
Giving developers more power so they can perform worse optimisations isn’t a solution. A 4090 has roughly ten times the raw compute power of a ps5, and yet has still struggled to maintain 60fps on some of the worst optimised titles.
There’s also no guarantee that a ps5 pro version of this game would run any better. DD2 has rtx on pc so it’s quite likely the pro version of the game would have some form of ray tracing over the base version. The devs could also choose to render the game at a higher resolution than the base version, both of which would cause large hits to performance. History has shown that devs tend to prioritise visuals over frames on consoles as they’re easier to market than the latter.
A more powerful console wouldn’t guarantee a better performing game.
Re: Unannounced Games from PlayStation Studios Have Been Cancelled
A terrible time for those employed in the video games industry right now. My thoughts are with those who have been made redundant and I hope that they are able to quickly find another source of employment.
This is yet another indicator that the video games market is struggling to generate the revenue required to support anything outside of the most successful of titles. Companies are seeking to streamline their development cycles, increase efficiencies with regards to staffing numbers and decrease spending by reevaluating their portfolio of current projects.
It’s also clear that Microsoft’s redundancies earlier in the year were a reflection of the state of the entire industry rather than entirely borne out of the acquisition.
Hopefully the industry can transition through this difficult period and emerge stronger and healthier for those employed within it and the fans who support its existence.
Re: Video: One Year Later, Is PSVR2 Doing Enough?
@SJBUK until the issue of vr sickness is resolved, which I’m not even sure is possible, vr will always be a niche product. AR has a far greater chance of becoming mainstream as it is inherently grounded in your environment and therefore has no issues with sickness. It’s why meta added colour pass-through to the quest 3 and quest pro, why Microsoft launched an AR device and why it is a major feature of apple’s new headset.
I absolutely agree that people shouldn’t be cheering for the psvr2’s demise or failure, and it’s incredibly sad that some are. The technology isn’t where it needs to be right now for it to be a mainstream product, but that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t exist.
I was very excited when I heard that apple was entering the vr space, not because I want to buy their new headset, but because they have both the money and expertise to realise the technology in the future. I can’t wait to see what apple are doing in the VR/AR space 10 years from now.
Re: Video: One Year Later, Is PSVR2 Doing Enough?
@SJBUK I wasn’t surprised by quest outselling psvr2, I was surprised by the ratio of over 30 to 1.
How exactly has Sony been working on ways of improving sales? There hasn’t been any news on first party games since launch, no price cuts or massive marketing promotions. The only thing rumoured is that Sony are looking at making the headset compatible with PC. Which suggests that they are just looking to recoup as much of their investment as possible right now.
I didn’t think ps vita was a failure, but its total sales were eclipsed by ps4 after just one year. This, and the fact that the Nintendo 3ds was completely dominating units sold led to Sony reducing support and eventually discontinuation. We haven’t had a true handheld from Sony since.
Psvr2 is looking an awful lot similar to ps vita right now: A relatively successful gen1 device (psvr1) as with the psp, which led to a successor. The ps5 is proving considerably more successful than psvr2 and the competition, quest, is completely dominating it in terms of sales.
For shareholders, why would they want Sony to continue investing in a market that has shown little growth or return when that money could be spent supporting the wildly successful ps5? Meta have achieved more than any other company within vr and they have struggled for years to make money. Less than 5% of ps4 players purchased a psvr1 and it doesn’t look like that number has changed for psvr2. In fact, given that we haven’t heard anything officially since launch, it’s likely that number has shrunk.
Re: Video: One Year Later, Is PSVR2 Doing Enough?
@SJBUK “… as Sony haven’t said” - we’d all know exactly how many units they’d shipped and sold if it were a success.
Sony regularly declare the sales performance of their PlayStation 5 console. We all know exactly how many units they’ve sold - we even know how many units they’re forecasting to ship this year.
Publicly traded companies often don’t reveal sales figures if they’re significantly below expectations. Legally, they only have to present quarterly earnings reports. It’s why Microsoft hasn’t officially revealed the sales figures of Xbox series consoles for the last few years. Sony recently released their sales report for the third quarter ending 31 December 2023, they sold 8.2 million ps5’s during that period, but there was no mention of how psvr2 had performed during the holidays.
We can only speculate about the sales numbers for psvr2 at this point, but an analysis of Amazon US sales figures by the website roadtovr, showed that Meta Quest had massively outsold psvr2 on Amazon over the holiday season. For every 1 unit of psvr2 sold, Quest sold more than 30 units. Obviously Amazon isn’t the only retailer for psvr2, but it’s usually a pretty decent reflection of the whole market.
Re: Video: One Year Later, Is PSVR2 Doing Enough?
@Darude84 i had a friend pre order for launch. He was hyped for the headset but got terrible motion sickness from most of the demo’s. He was pretty gutted that he couldn’t get more than a few minutes into horizon. He requested a refund using Sony’s returns form, packaged everything up and was fully reimbursed after Sony had received and checked the item.
Re: Poor Suicide Squad Sales Disappoint Publisher Warner Bros
And in other news, water is wet.
The writing was on the wall from the very first gameplay reveal. This is not the game people wanted from rocksteady. The only people in the world surprised by its failure were those that decided the market was crying out for yet another terribly executed live service game.
Re: Sony Testing PSVR2 Compatibility on PC, Aiming for This Year
@AverageGamer I wasn’t aware of this as I’ve not really noticed any artifacting with mine on the few times I’ve hardwired, (I mostly play wireless). Doesn’t psvr2 use usb type c for its wired connection? Wouldn’t it have similar issues on pc unless it ships with DP or HDMI connections?
Re: Sony Testing PSVR2 Compatibility on PC, Aiming for This Year
@ROTTIEMAN16 yes, the blacks are better and fov higher, but I’d rather a slightly smaller but considerably clearer fov with slightly higher resolution over the increased contrast.
The controllers of psvr2 have better haptics, but these would require proper support on pc, and battery life means you have to wait for a recharge should they die whilst playing. Quest 3 controllers have interchangeable batteries.
The quest 3 can also be hardwired, so no artefacting or issues as with psvr2. But less graphically intensive games such as beatsabre can be enjoyed wirelessly and played natively without any artifacting.
You can also play augmented reality games thanks to the device’s colour pass-through which is superior to the monochrome low resolution pass-through on psvr2.
Re: Sony Testing PSVR2 Compatibility on PC, Aiming for This Year
As stated by others here, I really don’t think releasing psvr2 on pc is going to make much difference to sales numbers for Sony. The pc vr space is pretty competitive and the quest 3 is a fantastic unit for its price point.
The eye tracking and foveated rendering offered by psvr2 were completely ruined by the use of fresnel lenses in the unit. The sweet spot is so small that foveated rendering makes absolutely no difference to image quality when looking outside of it. The pancake lenses of the quest 3 have a considerably larger sweet spot allowing you to shift your view with your eyes rather than having to move your whole head as on psvr2.
Also, a psvr2 on pc locks you out of all the quest exclusive titles, of which there are many. Were sony to release their PlayStation exclusive titles on pc, they would do so on steam and these titles would also be playable on a quest.
Finally, it doesn’t offer the flexibility of the quest 3 with regards to wireless play - you always have to be tethered to your pc.
Objectively, there’s almost no reason to buy a psvr2 on pc over a quest 3.
Re: Upgraded PS5 Pro Planning to Be the Best Place to Play GTA 6
@djhegzy I don’t really think those games are representative of what a properly optimised game can achieve on the base ps5. But, I do agree that they look horrible from an image quality perspective when playing in performance mode.
I played horizon: forbidden west on ps5 last year at 60fps and the game looked fantastic, so it is possible to achieve both higher frame rates and impressive image quality. The problem is that in order for this to happen a developer has to invest the appropriate resources in optimisation - something only first party studios seem to be doing on PlayStation.
There are a lot of people using Nvidia’s 4090 gpu that still struggle to achieve decent performance in some pc titles, despite having 10x the raw power of the ps5. Power is relevant to some degree, but it means very little if a game is poorly optimised.
Re: Dragon's Dogma 2 Has Been Dropping Great New Gameplay Videos
Dragons dogma 2 is a day one for me. I can pre order it on pc for £38 and am fortunate enough to have a gpu that should pretty much guarantee a locked 60fps experience. Will be waiting on a price drop for rise of ronin and probably benefit from some patching.
I struggle to justify £70 on a ps5 title these days when compared to the value proposition on pc - especially as there’s normally quite a big sacrifice in image quality just to get a title running at 60fps. I bought ff16 at launch and, although it was a solid 60 in performance mode, the resolution and image quality was absolutely terrible.
Re: PS5 Goes for the Kill with New Discounts in Europe
Will be interesting to see ps5 and Xbox sales once switch 2 releases. If the current switch is anything to go by Nintendo will have a hard time keeping up with demand. I wonder if it will be able to catch ps5, as I fully expect it to eclipse Xbox series sales.
Re: Microsoft's Recent Layoffs Contradict Activision Blizzard Buyout Pledges, Says FTC
Yes, because Microsoft are the only studio cutting jobs in the video games industry right now. Oh, and Activision blizzard always put employee welfare first when Bobby kotick was CEO. Get a grip people. Pretty much every company is cost cutting right now. Sony have done it too, cuts were made across its studios last year in October including 20% of staff at media molecule. The games industry is not in a great place right now in terms of job security and that is reflected across all studios, not just Microsoft.
Re: PS5, PS4 First-Party Devs Won't Get Complacent Even if Competition Degrades
I don’t doubt that those developers working at Sony studios desire to make the best product they can. Unfortunately for them, they don’t get a say in how much budget they have or how many developers they can hire and how long they can develop for.
I was looking forward to seeing naughty dog’s last of us multiplayer project and I’m sure those working on it were excited to showcase it. Ultimately their desires and passions for were undermined by Sony cancelling the project as they decided it wouldn’t work as a live service title and generate the revenue they required. Frustratingly, the multiplayer in the original last of us was great and I’m fairly sure it was cut from the sequel in favour of being turned into a GaS product which we’ll now never get.
I’m also fairly sure that Microsoft’s decision to release games on other platforms was made by the Company heads rather than the Xbox division. Tom Warren stated yesterday that very few people working at Xbox know what will be announced next week regarding “the future of Xbox”.
Re: Xbox Set to Announce Multi-Platform Plans Next Week
@MidnightDragonDX oh, I’m not in the least bit worried about Microsoft. If they go the software only route they’ll sell off or disband any studio/game that doesn’t give them a decent return. I’m more concerned about how Sony will behave in a market free from competition and with barriers to entry so high that even google and apple aren’t interested in investing.
Re: Xbox Set to Announce Multi-Platform Plans Next Week
Here’s hoping that every fanboy celebrating Microsoft’s demise finally gets to enjoy that monopoly they’ve been asking for.
Spoiler: you’ll be wishing Microsoft had stayed in the game after a few years of a competition free Sony
Re: Rumour: Xbox's Indiana Jones Game Also Being 'Considered' for PS5
If this is all true, then I’m not sure how microsoft will continue operating Xbox hardware. Gamepass is its point of difference, but numbers seem to have stagnated somewhat and without exclusive titles, why would anyone that doesn’t already have gamepass be interested in an Xbox over a PlayStation?
The big hitters - call of duty and the game formally known as fifa aren’t on gamepass, so there’s no reason for the casual demographic to buy an Xbox. The hardcore value software and it sounds like PlayStation will have everything available on Xbox in addition to the quality of all their first party offerings.
Whoever green lit this at Microsoft either doesn’t understand the implications for their hardware division and services offerings. Or, they’ve somehow negotiated a form of gamepass on both PlayStation and switch, and are intentionally looking to phase out hardware production like sega.
Either way, a console market without Microsoft leaves Sony free to price their hardware and services as they see fit and innovate if and when they want. I wonder if Sony would continue to release software on pc without Microsoft? I guess we could find out soon.
Re: Poll: How Would You Rate the Latest State of Play Showcase?
@TandyMiller not a ps one title, but I recently got days gone on pc having missed it when it released on ps4. Enjoying it a lot, great story so far, a bit slow at the start and gameplay isn’t anything revolutionary, but the world building is very compelling. Could never get into state of decay on Xbox including the sequel - days gone feels like the perfect hybrid between it and the last of us.
Re: Poll: How Would You Rate the Latest State of Play Showcase?
I would rate it “okay” for my tastes, nothing shown that really appealed. Team ninja games are very very similar in terms of combat and enemy type - I’ve played and finished every one to date, the latest being wo long last year. Not sure I’m ready to jump into another just 12 months after the last.
Lots of anime waifu style Japanese games showcased which aren’t my thing. Death stranding 2 had exception production values, the decima engine is outstanding, and plenty of craziness. I found the first incredibly boring from a gameplay perspective and couldn’t gel with the delivery sim aspects, so sadly, I doubt I’ll be playing the second as I never finished the first. Not many dates provided either.
Happy for those that were hyped from this state of play. I’m still waiting on news from naughty dog to rekindle my PlayStation hype levels.
Re: Microsoft, Activision Cut 1,900 Jobs in More Video Game Layoffs
@JSnow2 so you’re saying that had Microsoft not bought activation blizzard everyone would still have jobs and there’d be no forced redundancies? Bobby Kotick would still be running the company - he was the epitome of profit maximisation above employee welfare.
Everyone is making job cuts in the video game industry right now. It’s moronic to think that with independence and their former CEO in charge that activation blizzard would continue to maintain its staffing levels. Given his reputation, Kotick would be making as many forced redundancies as possible to maintain profits for his shareholders.
Re: PS5 Sales Absolutely Explode in Europe as Sony Single-Handedly Drives Industry Up
@TheCollector316 I agree that consolidation of games publishers by Microsoft definitely isn’t a consumer friendly move. But I am hopeful and relatively confident that the Activision blizzard deal should be the nail in the coffin of any further publisher and studio acquisition's by team green.
If Microsoft do eventually become software centric it will be interesting to see how PlayStation respond to the lack of competition.
Economic theory suggests that absence of competition results in higher pricing and inferior products. Sony’s history suggests that this would hold true. The huge success of the PlayStation 2 resulted in the company’s worst console launch in history with PlayStation 3 and led to a monumental loss of market share.
Conversely, a lot of the changes made during the Xbox one era were entirely due to competition from Sony: roll back on game sharing, removal of Kinect and cheaper base hardware pricing, focus on games and abandonment of Xbox as a media system, launch of a powerful “one x” console variant, the development of gamepass (love it or hate it). None of this was possible without Sony’s competition.
Re: PS5 Sales Absolutely Explode in Europe as Sony Single-Handedly Drives Industry Up
@Bionic-Spencer I mean that’s true, to an extent. But making a game Xbox exclusive now means it launches on pc and Xbox day one, with xcloud soon to follow. Sony exclusives pretty much only appear on ps5 day one barring a few exceptions. There’s no date for the last of us part 2 remaster on pc yet and a lot of fans are still waiting on news concerning the pc release of the demons souls remake. Xbox as a platform is no longer restricted to console, their games are available at launch on both pc and Xbox systems. Disney would be fully aware of this when negotiating exclusivity, as they would Sony’s ps5 exclusivity stance. Their guys run all the numbers before committing to any business deal.