Rich33

"But! In those hours where we’re downing Mince pies LIKE humanity is on the precipice of a self-inflicted apocalypse"

Shouldn't this be "as" not "like" !

What was that Dr Who quote.. "Your species (Humans) has the most amazing capacity for self deception, matched only in it's ingenuity when trying to destroy itself"

As I said in a post yesterday, Gen-AI is going to attract increasingly greater and louder criticism - whether you think this is justified or not.

The reactions are (rightly or wrongly depending on your stance) borne out of fear and hatred.

A sort of hard reset is needed. Including much slower rollout, and convincing people, if true, that it will not lower standards and lead to redundancies of talented hard working people just to save money.

Pushing ahead / people supporting it will only serve to make those with a negative view of it, dislike it even more, drawing in those currently on the fence.

NB. The - it's here, deal with it, argument is not a good idea, and only puts peoples backs up, including those as yet undecided.

Despite what anyone says to the contrary (because in the most part the Pro-AI people are making matters much worse), despite the specific use and scale of use, and despite any positive points, generative AI is going to raise increasingly negative and loud opinions.

The general reaction to it has turned to fear, and pure hatred, and pushing forwards against this is only going to make matters worse in my opinion.

Whilst it may seem counter intuitive to some, if companies as a whole want to use this tech they need to stop using it for now, and start again in small, measured ways whilst being incredibly transparent about what they are doing.

They need to grow consumer trust and slowly convince people that standards wont drop, and that this isn't just being used to replace real hard working and talented people.

A hard reset is what is needed, and companies are going to be routinely vilified, and some disproportionately so, if they continue.

Great to see Lies of P Overture win best expansion too. I loved the base game, but Overture really added to the game as a whole, in a way most expansions simply do not.

After playing overture, I just had to play through the base game and Overture again in a single playthrough (NG+3 I think).

The overall package Lies of P now sits at the very top of my best soulslikes, and above even Fromsofts games.

Well deserved. Easily my game of the year, and nothing else came close. A massive improvement on GoT, and I can't wait to see a sequel to this, or maybe Infamous.

The 'best graphical showcase' was very well deserved too, and I note that DS2 came in 2nd here, which was also amazing in this regard.

@ilyn
Maybe. But I think the Risk with AI is much greater.

As I have said in previous posts too many people/companies asking can we, not should we; also rolling it out into uses it is just not ready for / capable of eg the now common Internet overview, which can bring back erroneous reports of who the UK PM or Chancellor are when you ask a simple question (1 previous result was Starmer & Hunt, the other Sunak and Reeve).
And when it gets it disastrously wrong, its just "oh, well what did you expect, its only AI, it's still being improved" - with no one to take responsibility.

I'm not a big believer in the whole 'consoles are overpriced argument', even to the point of that with the RAM shortage issue, people may well look back next year wishing they had this years prices.
We are never going to see console prices drop over life like they did in previous generations, its just not likely given how complex consoles are these days - just compare the cooling systems of PS4/Pro with PS5/Pro!

However, I do believe this is a damning example of how peoples fear of spending (completely understandable), and lack of ability to spend, has increased over the last few years. US, UK, and I'm sure other countries, economies all seem to be in bad shape this year, and much worse than last year.

Given all that I have seen / heard about this game I just can't get excited in the slightest for this.
Couple that with Xbox's proven lack of technical ability when it comes to PS5/Pro versions and this game won't be anywhere close to getting on my (expanding) wishlist.

This sends a fairly big message to anyone thinking of doing similar, and Sony have sent a strong message here.

I feel that genuine anti plagiarism is going to be needed over the next few years, and this ending so soon is good for the future.

I agree with @StrickenBiged that legal discovery may have been interesting, but a climbdown from Tencent (as big as they are) is probably the best thing here.

@Deljo
I've written at length on this a few times, and have played the game a lot / have read all the books etc.

The whole argument got ridiculous in my opinion - though I suppose I can get why some would still not want to buy it.

However, people really needed to look at the content of the game, which is pretty inclusive, particularly in the area of trans characters but also in other areas too.
In certain ways this is one of the best done inclusive games, as it doesn't rely on 'labels' all the time. Sirona Ryan was also an excellently written character, with a full backstory included if you did the side quests / explored a bit.

Basically the dev team did their utmost to ensure that the game promoted inclusion, and they should have been celebrated for this. Instead, at times, THEIR good work got ignored somewhat.

Also, I cannot think the author would have liked a couple of things the devs added, either - eg the 'ultimate hero spell' (according to the books) expelliarmus, which does no harm except disarm, can be turned by your character into a damaging curse...

@StrickenBiged
1. That would ruin it (at least for a good proportion) - one of the reasons it was so well liked by many is that your free to go / do whatever you wish to next, whenever. Timed missions are enjoyed by some, but hated with a passion by many, and would alienate a good proportion of players. Same goes for the whole can't explore at night without stealth - its ok for an odd mission but would frustrate immensely if used all the time.
2. The combat is pretty deep, particularly later on when you gain things like curse mechanics, though you really need it on the hardest difficulty (which could be harder too) to appreciate it in my opinion. One of the major issues here is it has to keep to lore/canon, at least in the most part. Its actually fairly difficult to come up with a large list of spells they could add without a lot mechanic duplication.
3. Its very Harry Potter though.
4. Agree fully with this one - its one of the weaker aspects.

Really enjoyed this game - I'm actually replaying at the moment (4th playthrough I think).
I think they did an amazing job of creating a proper Hogwarts game, even though there are a couple of weird lore errors here and there (eg why is the Stupefy bolt colour white? It should be red and this is probably the most described spell colour throughout the books behind green for Avada Kedavra!)

I also think that Technically it is very good too - the only issue being loading stutters in some rooms in the castle, but generally it holds a very high framerate.

It also has a fantastic Pro Enhancement - just ignore the new RT mode - the Standard Performance mode is by far the most enhanced mode.

One of my 2 favourite games this entire generation.

NB I highly recommend using max difficulty though, as the combat system in this game is very deep - much deeper than most videos will show.

@themightyant
AC Valhalla was set across most of England (and a few smaller locations) - albeit in a reduced scale. I enjoyed the game, but the scale of the world was lunacy in my opinion.

How much self control do we think Ubisoft will use with gen-AI... their next game will be set across the entire US - full scale of course, with every village, town, and city of the age included.
And if the examples I gave much earlier are anything to go on, and they let AI do some of the story, Mr Orange will be President whatever time period...

@themightyant

On the mass redundancy caused by AI front - I really hope your right.
Your point 2 is part of what I am saying - one of the key ways a government can act is legislation (or compulsory guidance), in order to (subtlety?) keep something like this in check - hence why I added an 'if' (let get out of hand). I 100% agree mass redundancy is not in a governments interest, whether for self serving or altruistic reasons.
Sadly, I don't think companies will control themselves as most (not all), I feel, would do anything to make more money.

In regards gen-AI.
You are quite right about fewer and fewer new ideas - I think we are starting to see this in music with various lawsuits cropping up because there are similar melodies appearing more and more.
I think the fear is that even if we go down the route of lacking imagination / not being able to compete artistically - will certain companies settle for second best if it can save them lots of money (I dont see the user benefitting here).
My comparison here though was primarily in regards to your question regarding what constitutes theft/plagiarism, which I think is much, much closer if we are talking just combination/extrapolation without proper imagination.
Ie inspirations-combination/extrapolation-result vs inspirations-combination/extrapolation-imagination-result.

Just as an aside, I can see a usefulness for AI in improvement of procedural generation of open world landscapes - providing a human checks over / modifies after (to check there aren't trees growing out of the sky etc). Correct me if I'm wrong but procedural generation has been used for years, but AI could improve it.
Unfortunately, given the lack of self control when using AI, games companies are probably going to go back into the 'arms race' to make the biggest most boring open worlds possible.

@themightyant
Oh, I agree legislation needs to be well thought out, but it also can't be left behind by what it is legislating for - otherwise you get into the - "industry says its unfair to legislate as everyone is already doing it" argument.

Maybe they need a basic framework in place first with some generalisation, and which requires companies to do their own Risk assessment / use justification assessment. Then, follow this with more detailed guidance / legislation covering key areas individually after more thought. Thats how regulation works in my industry (Not much actual legislation, but a whole slew of (compulsory) guidance that increases every year)*.

Another thing that needs consideration when legislating is that massive job redundancy caused by AI will eventually crash entire economies if let get out of hand. Its ok saying let's spend on AI and then we can reduce our workforce to make more money, but that doesn't work when so many people are out of work that no one has the money to buy your products...

As to your generative AI question - the part right before your 'line' - I suppose the difference here is how it works. The human mind takes inspirations, and creates with these various inspirations, via imagination. Does gen-AI work in the same way or does it combine/extrapolate the work of others with the key part missing being the imagination? (Including problem solving imagination). Probably too deep a conversation for a Wednesday afternoon lol.

Edit added section in brackets marked *

@themightyant
No problem.
I suppose that my feelings come down to 3 main things:

1) too many times all that is being asked is "can we", not "should we". AI can be a useful tool, but nothing more, and some are already trying to use it for things that they just outright should not be. Generative AI is a very slippery slope that needs to be both transparent and very much controlled.

2) it isn't close to the level it needs to be yet, even in functions that it has been available for some time eg internet searching. It still makes ridiculous errors, and this whole PM/Chancellor thing shows that it can easily come up with different info depending on how the question was worded and when the question was asked - no answer I read the other day mentioned Sunak as PM, it was only the Chancellor part it got wrong for example. @FuriousMachine summed it up well here.
I fully get the argument that it will improve over time, but the big problem is that the current (widespread) use of AI appears to far exceed its current capability, and that can be dangerous.

3) The use of AI appears to be FAR outpacing legislation. What I read in a news article about Mr Orange's order to prevent US states legislating against it even in the absence of US wide legislation, was just concerning, and I dont think I have heard much here in the UK.

@themightyant
I can't get it to replicate what it said the other day when I was looking using any of the searches I probably would have used. Though it stating today that Sunak is PM is probably better. These things do have a tendency to change over time though as it was definitely Starmer and Hunt the other day.

On a game related front, if I am looking for something 'guide' related the 'AI overview' often is a complete load of rubbish, explaining mechanics completely wrong - even where said information can be correctly found in the 1st few normal search results.

@themightyant
No, definitely not "bait" - I don't go in for that crap.
I was using my phones Internet which defaults to google, and the AI answer at the top described Starmer as PM and Jeremy hunt as Chancellor in the same answer. I even showed it to my partner and we had a good laugh at it.

I was searching for something along the lines of "who lives at number 10 downing street" - just tried this and it thinks Rishi Sunak is the current PM.

EDIT NB This is the 'AI Overview' at the top of the main page.

@get2sammyb
And we know that Icebergs, even their tips, have the ability to sink the unsinkable...

On a side note, the other day I was googling where the (British) PM lives now (out of curiosity as I heard it was Number 11 again), and the AI response went into Jeremy Hunt being the Chancellor and living at number 10.
If it can't even get right the 2nd highest post in government....

@Voltan
Maybe there are plenty more 'announcements' yet to be made, but its the tone of their communication that concerns me in terms of 'who' it is actually aimed / focused at.
I mean, you can appeal to both audiences (hence why I mentioned SF6 and WT mode), but it could backfire and they appeal to none.

This game in my opinion does not really know who its targeting.

It looks like it should be targeted to a more casual audience, but doesn't have even remotely enough SP content or characters announced yet to satisfy this audience.
However, I do see a massive gap in the market here.
I am definitely part of this 'casual' market when it comes to fighting games, and the last I bought was SF6 - purely because of the World Tour mode.

On the other hand they sound like they are far too desperate to attract the hardcore audience, which is already well served these days.

If they are not careful they will end up with no real audience for it...

@TrollOfWar
There is not a doubt in my mind that exclusivity to PS5 generates far more hype, interest, and coverage for PS5 owners than a game which isn't exclusive.
Of course you can name a few exclusive games, some of which were deeply flawed, that didn't sell huge numbers of copies - this doesn't mean that they wouldn't have sold far less on PS5 if they had not been exclusive. For all we know, those games may have sold double what they would have done if not exclusive - its all relative.

If a dev team is having trouble scaling back to Series S and Switch 2, it would make perfect sense for them to 'self impose' a period of exclusivity on PS5 consoles in order to generate the hype / interest and hopefully sell more on PS5, whilst continuing to work on other versions in the background.

Maybe they already know they can't scale far enough to S2, and the amount of work needed to get it running well on Series S may not make Xbox versions a priority at all, considering likely sales.

I haven't seen the DF preview, but using Wuchang as an example doesn't sound hopeful - it runs terribly on Series S (DF even called the fps mode the 'lesser evil' - 10:06 timestamp on their review) and looks awful imo too. The only version I would consider buying of that game, even on offer, is the PS5 Pro version.
Plus we know different dev teams have vastly different levels of ability.

Maybe this game is a paid for exclusive dating back a few years or more - I don't know.
But in general terms (which is what I was talking about), I think Sony are less interested in paying 3rd parties for exclusivity these days (after the self implosion of Xbox). Though for the reasons I have stated, and for marketing / tech support as pointed out by @PuppetMaster , we may still see 3rd party exclusives for the remainder of this generation.
Of course Sony may be looking to go in to deals which also prevent sales on PC, but I doubt we will see that until PS6.

@PuppetMaster
Certainly makes sense too - particularly if the deal includes marketing and tech support.

I just don't see it being a simple case of Sony purchasing too many exclusives in the current market - though mid 2023 would likely be plausible as (if I remember correctly) Xbox were still active competition back then.

For what its worth though, I haven't read anything that convinces me that Sony had any part in console exclusivity for BMW.

I am starting to wonder whether in cases like this there is an actual 'deal' in place with Sony, or if it is self imposed to try to generate more sales.

If the devs are having difficulties scaling it down to Series S, and particularly Switch 2, coupled with potential low sales on Xbox, its perfectly plausible that they are the ones imposing console exclusivity (and will work on Series S / S2 if even possible in the meantime) - in order to try and drive higher sales / coverage on PS5.

Or, maybe this is an 'old' deal with Sony - but it doesn't seem as likely that Sony would have 'inked' a recent deal for this game for just console exclusivity (maybe if said deal kept it off PC too, I could see a point).

@Leinad7
Ive played both GoT and GoY, and thought GoY was in a different league altogether. I thought GoT was OKish, but GoY was 10/10. And, in my opinion GoY should have won GOTY, amongst other awards - the fact that it won 0 however, just shows the bias against it or for other games.

Edit: oh and there are other games that deserved awards that didn't get anything, including KCD2.

And this is why I will never watch these game awards.
9 awards for CO and none for the infinitely better GoY (amongst others as well) is just ridiculous.

So, either:

MS/Xbox Fallback Plan 1: say nothing is changing when massive changes are planned, but still try and convince people otherwise.

MS/Xbox Fallback Plan 2: Say it's "Too big to fail" / "everything is amazing", and stick heads in sand.

Slightly worried this is going to be RE6 all over again...

Ghost of Yotei is an easy win with nothing else even close.

The list is missing Lost Soul Aside, which whilst nowhere near my 1st pick, would have been on my list.

@Hyena_socks
I'm talking about where the company shuts the site and moves the work elsewhere ONLY BECAUSE of union involvement in the site. Some companies will go this far and there is no stopping them - they will of course not state this reason publicly.

In some cases, particularly if the company is large and multinational, too much union involvement and a company could easily shut the site down and move the work to a different country which has no real unions.
This may well be the best solution as far as the company is concerned, and can be a major loss for the country, not just the workers.

The choice can easily become - keep out of any union and keep your job, or lose your job - in which case having union help for severance is not really a plus point.

Both GOWR and GOW2018 are both easy 10/10 games for me, with Ragnarok being the slightly better of the 2. The fact that they are cinematic masterpieces is one crucial part of what elevates them above most other games.

For me, the previous games were just ok, but 2018 is where the series really became special.

One thing people need to be very careful of relying on / joining unions, even here in the UK, is that if the company does not want this, it is all too easy for them to simply shut a site, and move the work elsewhere - sometimes even to a different country.

@Apkorv
1) Is this game even launching on PC? (And I don't mean eventually, because eventually PS6 will be out and play it >60fps).
2) A number of dev teams have shown it is perfectly possible to target 80fps+ in AAA games on PS5 CPU's, they just have to design the game suitably.

@Chip-Douglas
They might have excessive usage on the CPU, but its not like they were originally making this for PS6 and could easily have designed around the PS5 CPU.

@Chip-Douglas
It is - I literally cannot play games that aren't 60fps (or that dip too often / too hard). I wouldn't play a 'bad' game either, but I could play and enjoy a mediocre game at 60fps.
I can't believe that they are incapable of designing/achieving 60fps in 2026/7 (whenever it launches)

If GTA6 isn't 60fps, there will be literally hundreds of games I would rather play...

Is it just me, or is it Capcom's policy for male protagonists in this series to grow a beard at a certain age?
(Nothing against beards, just an observation)

@Czar_Khastik
You are certainly not alone in this, but I do worry that we are 'too far down the rabbit hole now' and things will likely get worse, for a while at least.

@Czar_Khastik
I think that is a criticism that can be levelled at most fighting games these days - they are just not very good for casual fans.

I have played many across the years, but I do not have the time, or inclination, to study/practice 1 character to that degree anymore.

I thoroughly enjoyed SF6 (which I bought on sale) purely because of the World Tour mode, but other than this I think fighting games in general have forgotten what made them 'fun', and got lost in a quagmire of balancing and layered systems.

Bring back the Bloody Raw games and let me turn into a werewolf before smacking my human sized Rabbit opponent 30ft through the air!

@Northern_munkey
I swear one of these days I am going to set myself up a whole bunch of PC site accounts, and comment on EVERY SINGLE ARTICLE about new GPU / CPUs / RAM / SSDs etc etc "No point in this as I already own a PS5 Pro, which is much less hassle / more powerful than the average PC, and cheaper - particularly as I already own it!"

@Bizzy
You are probably right - I will 'touch wood' and shut up now lol.

@tangyzesty
That's the curious thing with 'luck' isn't it.

Have I been exceptionally lucky with pads this gen, or have you been unlucky?

@LogicStrikesAgain @species

Talking generally here, it is normally caused by someone wanting something, but not being able to have it - and I don't just mean because they can't afford it, but maybe because they can't justify the price to someone else (eg a partner), or any other myriad of reasons depending on what said 'thing' actually is.

They then rebound into being highly (and often vocally) negative about said thing.

One of the easiest ways to tell if this is the case, is that if someone has genuine negative feelings they will normally only express them rarely and as part of a wider point, or if asked.
The above tends to generate almost a 'need' to be regularly and vocally negative - often stating that the thing in question is 'unnecessary'.

I don't know why this article has suddenly added stick drift as a major talking point, but I have worn out 4 controllers this gen, and all 4 were through the batteries finally giving up through normal (over) use - ie takes longer to charge than the charge lasts.

I have not had to replace 1 pad through stick drift in all this time.

Last gen, I regularly had to replace pads through stick drift indicating that either I have been ridiculously lucky this gen, or the PS5 pads are far superior in this regard.

@Frmknst
"Literally not a single end consumer sees or will see any difference"

I'm a single end consumer.

I can easily see the positive difference PSSR makes in the bulk of enhanced games, where the devs have done their job properly.

If this PSSR upgrade is even only partially as good as is being suggested/rumoured it is going to be very noticeable (to me, and others), and will top off this great mid gen refresh very nicely.

@gamepadnomad
I sort of agree - though I think GTA6 will boost Pro sales, its going to be very late in the generation so might not have a massive effect.

Though the current RAM issue could easily push PS6 back a year or more, so may have changed the landscape a bit.

Far better to buy the excellent PS5 Pro now (or as I did at launch) so you get to enjoy it for longer!

Really like my PS5 Pro. MUCH bigger/better upgrade(s) than the PS4 Pro in my opinion, particularly on non enhanced games. The 2Tb storage is useful too.

@graymamba
Glad you are enjoying it. There are some really good enhancements in a lot of 3rd party games.
Sadly those very few 3rd party games where the devs have done a poor job get an incredible amount of media attention, and the far more common excellent upgrades get very little media attention.

@OldGamer999
I don't think Sony are making a penny on the Japan only models - they may even be subsidising for all we know.

@OldGamer999
And yet despite dropping the price, sales of the new Japan only cheaper digital variant dropped quite a lot in the last set of data from Japan.
In fact, if I remember right, Pro sales were almost the same as the Japan only cheaper PS5.
Price is not everything.

On the other hand, A short term price reduction will usually generate good sales purely as people know that price will not be available again for some time.

@PuppetMaster
Yeah. I can't say I'm not interested - just very wary until we have something concrete.