Comments 270

Re: Soapbox: PS5 Pricing Is Setting Releases Like Returnal Up to Fail

PapaGlitch

@TG16_IS_BAE no you were suggesting people should work harder to get more value out of their games, and I was just pointing out that some people can get everything they want to get out of a game in a shorter amount of time, and replaying it over and over again would not be satisfying to them. I get your initial point that people should expect game prices will rise with inflation and higher budgets but the solution isn't necessarily to just grind through games to artificially lengthen your time with it if it is unlikely to satisfy you as much as a new experience. Which, bringing it back to the matter at hand, is why it is perhaps a misjudgement on Sony's end to expect people to pay a significant amount more for new games, no matter how justified the rise may be. It is likely to drive consumers to more cost effective alternatives such as gamepass, especially in the current climate.

Re: Soapbox: PS5 Pricing Is Setting Releases Like Returnal Up to Fail

PapaGlitch

@TG16_IS_BAE length absolutely comes into it, but it isn't the be all and end all. I love narrative heavy games and play them for the experience. I am unlikely to play them again as I know the story beats, but the experiences stay with me more than grinding through 300 hours of a generic RPG, and therefore are worth so much more. I'm not saying it doesn't come into it, but length is one of the last things I personally consider in a game, and although it's good for you if you are happy to play the same thing over and over again, it's mad to expect everyone to do the same as presumably they are looking for different experiences than you are.

Re: Soapbox: PS5 Pricing Is Setting Releases Like Returnal Up to Fail

PapaGlitch

@TG16_IS_BAE order 1886 was 6 hours long for £50 and the old SNES RPGs could last 100s of hours. Generally games are longer now but not always; I don't think using a game's length is necessarily the best factor in deciding its monetary worth. I would 10x more for Journey than Assassins Creed, because although was far shorter I found the experience to be far richer

Re: Soapbox: PS5 Pricing Is Setting Releases Like Returnal Up to Fail

PapaGlitch

@JohnKarnes blimey, it was only a couple of days ago I was being blasted on PureXbox as a Sony fanboy! You don't need to be an XBox fan to point out that the existence of Gamepass puts Sony at a very precarious position when it comes to titles like this. Personally I think Now is almost as good and could be great if Sony got properly behind it, but I'm concerned Sony do not have the money MS do to absorb the massive initial losses MS are presumably taking.

@get2sammyb while you're almost certainly right that GamePass is a loss leader right now, you have to imagine MS know what they're doing with it in the long run. I imagine they see themselves as Netflix, which until very recently was running at a significant loss but through streamlining and a number of small incremental increases in price arr now in a very strong position where people signed up when it was cheap and now just keep it going at the higher rate. If people buy XBoxes off the back of it as well, they will be even less likely to give up the subscription. If MS achieve this I worry Sony will find themselves in a very tricky situation.

Re: Soapbox: PS5 Pricing Is Setting Releases Like Returnal Up to Fail

PapaGlitch

@God_of_Nowt for a consumer that's fine, and likely the approach I would take. The concern, however, is that too many people will understandably think the same, resulting in very low release day numbers. Devs will have their budget set by a publisher largely based on how their previous game sold, and if they're not selling very well at launch, then publishers will not have confidence

Re: Soapbox: PS5 Pricing Is Setting Releases Like Returnal Up to Fail

PapaGlitch

@get2sammyb I agree that surely Gamepass's current offering cannot be viable in the long term, but then MS (who I assume hire people far better equipped than I to work out the economics of it all) certainly seem to be putting all their eggs into the subscription basket. After all, the last year they've been selling Gamepass first and consoles second.

Regardless, as you said the fact that such subs exist really put games like these in a quandary, and it really feels like Sony need to allow better flexibility in its pricing. They know the next Horizon and GOW will sell at £70, they would have done the market research, but they simply must be willing to adapt their pricing in a game by game basis otherwise new, unproven IPs will fail to sell, and the creatives at the studios may well defect to other, potentially greener (pun intended) pastures

Re: Hands On: Quit Bitchin'! PS4 Pro Is a Big, Beautiful Step Forward

PapaGlitch

@get2sammyb I'm loving my VR, but disappointed so many of the games make me nauseous. Do you have any idea if the Pro, with more stable frame rates, could help this at all? And did you notice any performance enhancements with the VR in general beyond visual (eg. The shaky motion when still and what not).

Also, I've got a 2tb hard drive in my vanilla PS4 - guessing it won't be as easy as swapping them over and keeping the data? I assume it will need to be reformatted...