The only thing worse than social media is the fact that people like this likely GET PAID from the traffic they generate (as someone pointed out, including traffic from the link in this very article). Monetization sounds great in theory, but like so many other things, the unintended consequences have proven to be very, VERY bad for society at large.
People forget a key element here - Microsoft is not interested in maximizing revenue per game. Game developers/publishers are, because they only profit when you spend money on THEIR game, but Microsoft (and Sony and Steam and Apple and all other storefront owners) are interested in maximizing overall revenue. They want us to spend more, collectively, even if that means spending less per game but on more games or services.
They're all setting their prices and services accordingly - whether it's Plus or Game Pass or Steam sales, they're trying to get the most money out of us. If Microsoft were to double their prices and lose less than half their subscribers, that's a net win - especially if the ones they do lose end up buying individual games they would not have purchased as subscribers. It's about total overall revenue, not individual success.
And like a lot of subscription services, they really love the people who are paying but not using. There are probably a lot of GP and Plus subscribers who aren't getting decent value from their subscription, objectively comparing the cost of buying what they play against what they pay. I assume Microsoft and Sony LOVE those folks.
$30/month (with no discounts for annual purchases) means you're not getting much of a discount on those $80 games unless you play at least five of them during the year on/around release day.
I suppose you can tweak the math a bit, it's $20/month more than the basic GP, so playing four day-one releases gives you some savings - so long as you also finish them before they leave the service, of course. If you bought them at least you'd "own" them (understanding that especially with digital sales, ownership doesn't always mean what it used to).
Game Pass isn't at all the same value proposition it was at the start - reality is coming.
Comparing it to Plus is still a challenge, because Plus simply doesn't have a tier like GP Ultimate - or even GP Premium, if we're honest.
I'm all for repairable controllers, whether it's a replaceable battery or replaceable joysticks.
Personally, I haven't had much of an issue with controller batteries. My old PS3 controllers basically don't hold a charge at all any more, so I have some USB cables to play with those. My DualShock 4 have short battery lives, but both those and the DualSense will play while plugged into a power source, so it's less critical.
But my DualSense controllers have ALL had stick drift, most before they're a full year old. I've had some replaced, and those have stick drift again. Dealing with dying batteries are easier than dealing with stick drift, I'd rather they focus on fixing the drift over the battery.
Crazy, CRAZY unlikely idea, but...with Microsoft Flight Simulator getting PSVR2 support, what if FH6 is delayed for Playstation to allow PSVR2 support at console launch?
No, I don't think it's likely...but I can dream big crazy dreams.
An exclusive store could be a cool concept - but it's only cool if it's stuff you really REALLY want to buy AND everyone else knows the merchandise is exclusive so wearing it is proof of your in-game accomplishments.
Since I'm not interesting in buying t-shirts or pins, it doesn't matter if it was free or discounted, exclusive or rare - I'm still not interested.
It's nice for the people who do want to buy that stuff, I guess.
I prefer the rewards program before Stars - a flat percentage back as store credit ($5 minimum) so the more you bought the more you got, with no other incentives or bonuses for jumping through arbitrary hoops, and no virtual or real-life gear.
NICE. I've come close to pulling the trigger on this one, but it felt like it was bound for Plus sooner or later. On the Essential tier is awesome, means I'll "own" it any time I have Plus active.
Okay Sony, do Assassin's Creed Mirage next. Awesome sale right now, just feels ripe for showing up on one of the Plus tiers.
Oh - but an announcement during State of Play is unlikely. The normal announcement date would be next week, on Oct 1 - the Wednesday before the first Tuesday of the month. I predict there will be no announcement of Essential titles during today's State of Play.
This is why you learn some patience, and play something else while you wait for a sale. I'll pick up BL5 on Black Friday, probably - next year. And I'll play a better version than what you're all playing now, too.
The ability to pair your controller with multiple devices is VERY nice - but it's also more complicated than it ought to be. I found it hard to tell which button is associated with which device or to force a button to associate with one device over another. I swap from a PS5 Pro to a PS5 to a PC sometimes, and the functionality works - but it's a bit cumbersome and you almost need a cheat sheet. I see room for improvement - I'd love a small app on the PS5 or PC to manage those pairings and associate them properly.
If you're in a very power constrained environment, perhaps running on generator or battery backup, I could see the benefit...but if you're running on battery backup maybe you have more important things to do than play Death Stranding?
The only practical use case I see is if this is preparing for a handheld device or a "Series S" type device.
I'm waiting for a Black Friday sale...2026. By then it will not only be cheaper (maybe with bundled DLC), but it will be patched and will have better performance.
@RoomWithaMoose Wait, you're telling me a site that is explicitly about Playstation has a pro-Playstation bias? I'm stunned.
It's like waking up one day to allegations one political party is biased against a different political party - surely it can't be true! Snark aside, I genuinely don't understand what point you think you're making - nobody expects pure unbiased editorial from a site for fans of X, they expect some bias in favor of X because it's a site for fans of X presumably run by fans of X.
I'll repeat the summary I said before: Both things can be true at the same time - [subscription services] can be bad for the industry AND good for an individual developer's game.
That doesn't have to mean a pro-Plus anti-GamePass bias (though such a bias might lead to the same conclusion for less-than-logical reasons). I think it's a reasonable conclusion to draw - it's hardly the only thing in life where people make personal choices (perhaps remaining silent about something political to keep their job) that may not be in the best interest of society overall.
I don't trust any developer that won't let reviewers release reviews until the last minute, or any who won't let them review on specific platforms. Not every time this happens is it as bad as Cyberpunk, but it DOES tell you they don't trust their own game. Listen to them.
I'll wait for a sale - a year or two for a good sale, if I must - and everyone knows that means I'll end up playing a more polished game than what anyone else will experience this weekend.
Never good news when the console version isn't reviewed before release day. I don't know if it will be a Cyberpunk-level fiasco, but then nobody else does, either, right?
I think anyone who preorders is a fool - sorry, nothing personal, it's just not a smart response to the current industry. I'll wait for it to go on sale - even if it's an extra-long wait, when I do start it I expect it will be a much better game than it will be this weekend.
@themightyant I picked up Premium on sale, for none of the benefits you mentioned but because of something else - some PSVR2 titles are available free only on the Premium tier. That list has been shrinking since I upgraded several months ago (it was well over a dozen, now there are only about six titles left).
Yes, I understand the free PSVR2 catalog is a niche feature - but I would argue that streaming and PS1/PS2 games are each also niche features.
If we collectively spend less money because of Game Pass or PlayStation Plus than we would spend without them, that's basically bad for game development as an industry, because that's a smaller pie to pass around. If we spend roughly the same, it may still be a bad deal depending on who is taking how large a cut, and how that compared to other distribution methods. It's only good for the industry as a whole if we, collectively, end up spending more money as a whole OR if a higher percentage of what we do spend goes to the people making the games.
Yes, it's really that simple...for the industry as a whole.
Now, for each individual developer and each individual game, the math is different. There's a reason why you don't see Madden or FIFA free on day 1, but they DO often show up on these services at the end of their season, just before the next version comes out. And there's a reason why indies are more likely to take a deal, get some sure money, and put their game on a service.
Both things can be true at the same time - it can be bad for the industry AND good for an individual developer's game.
I've had my eye on The Invincible for a while now, and didn't pull the trigger on multiple recent sales. Now I'm glad I held off.
That's one of the tradeoffs of Plus (or Game Pass) - even when a game isn't on the service, there's some resistance to picking it up if you think it's a good candidate for the service. Not that I'm complaining, but I wonder if the developers would be happier if I'd picked it up on sale.
@rjejr "So is this 96 straight hours of gameplay?"
I suppose that depends in part on whether or not their servers survive for the entire window. Hopefully the crashes are kept to the racetrack, and not the servers.
They're removing PSVR2 games much faster than they're adding any - despite a ton of PSVR2 games coming out this summer. They had a nice PSVR2 collection, including some for only the Premium tier, but they're all dropping off.
This month it's Pistol Whip leaving, with nothing joining to replace it, AFAIK.
The word you're looking for is "plurality" - that is, "more than any other" and implies less than a majority. That is different from "majority" which means "more than half."
And that whole discussion is idiotic because the US doesn't elect our President on popular vote, anyway, so the difference between majority and plurality is irrelevant.
Looks like there's a demo on Steam, full version releasing there same time as PS5 version.
Seems like a great game for a handheld. If the multiplayer support includes couch co-op, that's got possibilities for the PS5, otherwise I'm not so sure.
But for games like this, a LOT depends on the execution. "I Am Bread" seems like a similarly ridiculous premise, but seems to have done very well. This feels like it's targeting the same audience.
@Styledvinny79 They're releasing new PSVR2 games all the time. It may not have sold as well as Sony wanted, but it's still in the mix (and I'm enjoying mine).
@Kraven The article already said both systems will be backwards compatible with the PS4 and PS5, so I don't know what more you want on that.
As for the comparisons, based on Wikipedia for the base PS5 [edited for a copy/paste error]...
PS6
8 x Zen 6 (or later) cores, compared to 8x Zen 2 cores (same number, newer tech)
40-48+ RDNA 5 Compute Units at 3GHz+, compared to 36 RDNA 2(ish) compute at up to 2.23 (slightly more, somewhat faster, newer tech)
160-bit or 192-bit bus with GDDR7 at 32GT/s+, compared to 256-bit bus with 16GM of GDDR6 at 448 GB/s (significantly faster RAM, smaller bus, notably no mention of amount of RAM for PS6).
Every spec mentioned (except the bus) is an improvement, some dramatic. Presumably the faster RAM will negate the smaller bus, but I'm no expert on that.
For the supposed handheld specs:
4 x Zen 6c cores, compared to 8x Zen 2 cores (half the cores, newer tech, probably lower-power consumption)
12-20 RDNA 5 Compute Units at 1.6-2GHz, compared to 36 RDNA 2(ish) compute at up to 2.23 (half the CU give or take, newer tech, similar speed - if it's going to be similar to the PS5 it will be based on lower resolution and/or improved machine learning upscaling/smoothing)
128-bit bus with LPDDR5X-7500+, compared to 256-bit bus with 16GB of GDDR6 at 448 GB/s (I'm guessing that's still faster RAM, smaller bus, notably no mention of amount of RAM for handheld).
So overall, something like half as powerful as the PS5 in some ways, but the newer tech might minimize that somewhat, especially at lower resolutions (don't put a 4k screen on it). Which lends more credence to the idea that the low power mode in the current PS5 beta is a preview of the handheld's capabilities.
The handheld won't look better than a PS5, maybe nearly as good if the machine learning is really awesome, but probably not. It will likely look reasonably close (maybe even better) to the PS5 in that new low power mode they're introducing.
@KundaliniRising333 I may not start it until after it's gone from Game Pass. One drawback of Game Pass (and of Sony's Catalog for the middle and top tier of Plus) is the limited duration games spend on them - if you don't jump in right away, it can leave before you finish.
@KundaliniRising333 One difference is that I'll be able to play Lies of P for as long as I keep a Plus membership (even after lapses in membership), whereas it will be leaving Game Pass.
The other is that with Plus, I can play on my PS5 instead of on my Series S (which is getting pretty dusty, never being turned on any more).
@Porco I understand, but they run the risk that people will do what I do - just stop clicking on those articles in the first place, because the experience is so bad. Do that on enough types of articles, and you start losing traffic overall.
@get2sammyb "However, it's obviously REALLY hard to make an outstanding game that people are going to fall in love with."
Absolutely. And for all I know, this game might end up being one of them.
It's been out less than six months. I know studios expect to make all their money in the first few days or weeks, but if you're not investing in a massive advertising campaign that few can afford, I'm not sure that's realistic. Maybe over time it will gain an audience and get more attention and become successful - or maybe it will be drowned by the flood of new releases and be forgotten.
I actually played a bit of this - I don't recall if there was a demo (maybe with Plus Premium?) or what, but I played a bit. And it was interesting, but I didn't go too far before I put it down and picked up something else. I may go back some day, maybe.
The point, if I have one, is that there's no guarantee you'll make money making video games. I think to be successful, studios are going to have to be willing to fund several losers in the hopes that when they get a winner, they can make enough off it to cover their losses. You're going to have to take chances if you're going to stand out - because if your game doesn't stand out, I don't know how likely it is to make enough to keep the lights on.
oversupply of new releases = too many new games. True enough. Nobody can play everything.
increasingly selective consumers = not everyone wants the same thing. Combine that with the first, and with so many games we can afford to be choosy.
This all checks out. I'd throw in the fact the the successful live service games dilute the amount of time people have for all the other games, in general.
Make a great game that people love, and it may not roll out of the gates with a million sales, but it WILL gather steam and get attention. Make a mediocre game that looks like all the others, though, and you'd better have SOMETHING to make you stand out from the crowd.
@BennyTheCat I don't know about this game specifically, but in general the ability to run at 40fps has nothing to do with VRR - it has everything to do with 120Hz support. As long as your PS5 can detect the 120Hz it ought to appear as an option - but I can't confirm that, as I have both 120Hz and VRR.
That 2600 version of Pac-Man was truly awful - and I say that as someone who played the heck out of it. So much screen flickering, graphics and maze that were nothing like the arcade, it was an abomination.
@Pacific Fair enough. I don't think the message of free content months or years after release is nearly as loud or as impactful on purchasing patterns as rising prices and buggy launches. It's more about bringing the title back into the news cycle (with a positive spin) to encourage sales and play.
Though I should be careful arguing too strongly about waiting to buy games until they're discounted, because I see publishers starting to resist discounting their games for longer. I want to continue to encourage sales and discounts - as well as encouraging higher-QA before release.
Stars is great if you're 12 years old and the collectible shelf on your phone is the coolest thing ever. Webkinz were great when my kids were 12, too, back in the day - though those came with real-world plushies they could play with.
It was worth poking at Stars once or twice a month to grab whatever free points they had to get enough to cash in for PSN wallet funds. Otherwise it was a childish waste of time. I never understood who Sony thought the audience was for this.
@Pacific I consider myself a well-adjusted person, who thinks it's nearly idiotic to buy at launch.
No matter how good the game is, if you wait a little while you pay a lower price for a patched version, regardless of whether extra content is added later or not. Perhaps for online multiplayer it's worth getting in early, but all the examples in this article are single player games, and all of them were better (and cheaper) a couple months after release than they were on day one. Every single one.
I understand wanting to support a game to get more games like it - you do that with paying for them when they go on sale, too, to show they have a long tail. But when you preorder or buy day 1, you encourage the release of half-baked games that need weeks or months of patches. I hate that, and have vowed to never again preorder anything no matter how excited I am for it. I wait for the reviews, wait for the patches, and wait for the sales. Extra content is just icing on the cake.
This article format is fine for 10 or 20 suggestions, but when you get up to 80+ it's not so good.
What if you had a first page that just had the list - title, sale price, retail price - and each title was a link to the subsequent page with the summary detail? Keep five pages of listings, with a sixth page as the new first page that just shows the entire list as concisely as possible.
For a few apps that don't have a good way to manage multiple accounts (Fandango Now, formerly Vudu, is the primary example in my case), having one account on the TV and another on the PS5 is a solid option. My wife's account and my account each have a few things the other's doesn't, so swapping accounts by swapping which device we use to watch works well.
So some people are disappointed that this game looks too much like the last game, and the sequel ought to be more different than the original.
But you know if they seriously messed with the formula, some people would be disappointed that the sequel looks nothing like the last game, and complain the developers changed all the things that made the previous game good and added nothing worth having.
You ask why we can't have nice things - this is one reason why, because players as a whole cannot agree on what "nice things" are in the first place. How do you expect anybody to deliver?
There's an interesting mix of serious and BS arguments mingled together here. It may depend on what local laws are if a particular argument is serious or BS.
Let's say they shut down the servers, but release the software so you can host your own server. And let's say a year later, a critical vulnerability in a software library they used for the server is exposed, and anyone running the server software could be hacked unless it's patched. The developer doesn't want to be on the hook for patching it - that's why they released it for free in the first place. But could some laws make them liable anyway? Surely it's unreasonable to insist they release the source code itself so the community can patch it, but what other options might they have?
The copyright issue is less compelling, but has a point, including one they don't make here. If the server software for, say, Little Big Planet (which had huge issues with hacking) was made public and people used it to make porn content which was then publicly posted, the damage to the IP (not to mention Sackboy's psyche) could be significant.
If local laws target the software publisher when copyright issues are raised, recreating Mario Kart in LBP could also come back to bite the publisher. That's not liability they want to take on if they're not in control of the server to remove infringing content - if they're on the hook for damages, they need a way to mitigate that risk.
It sounds like a simple problem - just don't kill games! - but it's not as simple as it sounds. There are liability issues and possibly licensing issues that could make this a lot more complicated.
I don't play a lot of online games, but I absolutely completely and totally HATE that Plus is required for online games. It's idiotic. It's a cash grab. It's wrong.
The other features are nice. I love the cloud saves (even more with the PS5 removing any other backup option - again, something I totally hate that's very anti-consumer). I enjoy the free games monthly that you more or less own, at least more closely than you do for the catalog titles, even if there are only a half dozen titles a year I really truly enjoy. I upgraded to the Premium tier for the PSVR2 titles they added to the library - but this list of those titles has shrunk ever since I upgraded, so I'm not sure I'll renew at this price. We'll see.
I've got mixed feelings about the streaming with Premium, but I do enjoy the trial versions of games.
It's just such a mixed bag - some thing I like, some I don't, the value isn't consistent...but it's good enough, most of the time.
My OG ROG Ally can launch a title I purchased from Steam or GOG or Microsoft or Epic or EA or Ubisoft (and launch any of them from the same ASUS built-in GUI, or from other software such as Playnite), and it can stream games from my PS5. It could launch a Sony title I purchased from Steam, if I owned any such games from Steam.
The only new thing here is the XBox logo on the software initiating the process. The only people reacting this with anything but a yawn or a shrug are people who don't understand it, or stupid fanboys who think this scores a point for...someone, I'm not sure who.
I fell out of the first one pretty late in the game. I want to go back to it and finish it, but it's going to be painful to jump back in with no muscle memory to a game that's nearing the end, so I keep putting it off.
But I don't want a summary of the ending, I want to play it myself, so I'll be avoiding DS2 until I get around to finishing the first one.
@Uromastryx PSVR2 has been consistently priced at $350-400 since November of last year, other than a brief blip in January returning to the "normal" price. That's not more than the console.
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Re: Ghost of Yotei's London Billboard Is One of the Coolest Ads We've Seen in Ages
Look closer - not just a mark on the wall, bricks from that gap lying on the ground!
Are those real bricks, or art attached to the wall?
Re: Don't Be Like This GTA 6 'Fan' Who Flew to Scotland Just to Harass Rockstar Staff
The only thing worse than social media is the fact that people like this likely GET PAID from the traffic they generate (as someone pointed out, including traffic from the link in this very article). Monetization sounds great in theory, but like so many other things, the unintended consequences have proven to be very, VERY bad for society at large.
Re: PS Plus Looks Better Than Ever After New Xbox Game Pass Price Rises
People forget a key element here - Microsoft is not interested in maximizing revenue per game. Game developers/publishers are, because they only profit when you spend money on THEIR game, but Microsoft (and Sony and Steam and Apple and all other storefront owners) are interested in maximizing overall revenue. They want us to spend more, collectively, even if that means spending less per game but on more games or services.
They're all setting their prices and services accordingly - whether it's Plus or Game Pass or Steam sales, they're trying to get the most money out of us. If Microsoft were to double their prices and lose less than half their subscribers, that's a net win - especially if the ones they do lose end up buying individual games they would not have purchased as subscribers. It's about total overall revenue, not individual success.
And like a lot of subscription services, they really love the people who are paying but not using. There are probably a lot of GP and Plus subscribers who aren't getting decent value from their subscription, objectively comparing the cost of buying what they play against what they pay. I assume Microsoft and Sony LOVE those folks.
Re: PS Plus Looks Better Than Ever After New Xbox Game Pass Price Rises
$30/month (with no discounts for annual purchases) means you're not getting much of a discount on those $80 games unless you play at least five of them during the year on/around release day.
I suppose you can tweak the math a bit, it's $20/month more than the basic GP, so playing four day-one releases gives you some savings - so long as you also finish them before they leave the service, of course. If you bought them at least you'd "own" them (understanding that especially with digital sales, ownership doesn't always mean what it used to).
Game Pass isn't at all the same value proposition it was at the start - reality is coming.
Comparing it to Plus is still a challenge, because Plus simply doesn't have a tier like GP Ultimate - or even GP Premium, if we're honest.
Re: Rumour: New PS5 DualSense Controller Will Feature a Removable Battery
I'm all for repairable controllers, whether it's a replaceable battery or replaceable joysticks.
Personally, I haven't had much of an issue with controller batteries. My old PS3 controllers basically don't hold a charge at all any more, so I have some USB cables to play with those. My DualShock 4 have short battery lives, but both those and the DualSense will play while plugged into a power source, so it's less critical.
But my DualSense controllers have ALL had stick drift, most before they're a full year old. I've had some replaced, and those have stick drift again. Dealing with dying batteries are easier than dealing with stick drift, I'd rather they focus on fixing the drift over the battery.
Re: Forza Horizon 6 Announced, But Not on PS5 at Launch
Crazy, CRAZY unlikely idea, but...with Microsoft Flight Simulator getting PSVR2 support, what if FH6 is delayed for Playstation to allow PSVR2 support at console launch?
No, I don't think it's likely...but I can dream big crazy dreams.
Re: PlayStation's New 'Rewards' Program Goes Down Like a Lead Balloon
An exclusive store could be a cool concept - but it's only cool if it's stuff you really REALLY want to buy AND everyone else knows the merchandise is exclusive so wearing it is proof of your in-game accomplishments.
Since I'm not interesting in buying t-shirts or pins, it doesn't matter if it was free or discounted, exclusive or rare - I'm still not interested.
It's nice for the people who do want to buy that stuff, I guess.
I prefer the rewards program before Stars - a flat percentage back as store credit ($5 minimum) so the more you bought the more you got, with no other incentives or bonuses for jumping through arbitrary hoops, and no virtual or real-life gear.
Re: PS Plus Essential Games for October 2025 Announced
Hmph. My prediction that they wouldn't announce the list this early, with two weeks before they drop, aged poorly.
Re: First PS Plus Essential Game for October 2025 Leaked
NICE. I've come close to pulling the trigger on this one, but it felt like it was bound for Plus sooner or later. On the Essential tier is awesome, means I'll "own" it any time I have Plus active.
Okay Sony, do Assassin's Creed Mirage next. Awesome sale right now, just feels ripe for showing up on one of the Plus tiers.
Oh - but an announcement during State of Play is unlikely. The normal announcement date would be next week, on Oct 1 - the Wednesday before the first Tuesday of the month. I predict there will be no announcement of Essential titles during today's State of Play.
Re: 'Quit Game and Restart': PS5 Pro Has the Worst Version of Borderlands 4
This is why you learn some patience, and play something else while you wait for a sale. I'll pick up BL5 on Black Friday, probably - next year. And I'll play a better version than what you're all playing now, too.
Re: PS5 Firmware Update Out Now, Brings Power Saver Mode, DualSense Controller Pairing
The ability to pair your controller with multiple devices is VERY nice - but it's also more complicated than it ought to be. I found it hard to tell which button is associated with which device or to force a button to associate with one device over another. I swap from a PS5 Pro to a PS5 to a PC sometimes, and the functionality works - but it's a bit cumbersome and you almost need a cheat sheet. I see room for improvement - I'd love a small app on the PS5 or PC to manage those pairings and associate them properly.
Re: PS5's New Power Saver Feature Confirms Its First Supported Games
If you're in a very power constrained environment, perhaps running on generator or battery backup, I could see the benefit...but if you're running on battery backup maybe you have more important things to do than play Death Stranding?
The only practical use case I see is if this is preparing for a handheld device or a "Series S" type device.
Re: Poll: Are You Playing Borderlands 4?
I'm waiting for a Black Friday sale...2026. By then it will not only be cheaper (maybe with bundled DLC), but it will be patched and will have better performance.
Unless it hits Plus between now and then.
Re: 'It Saved the Game': Sword of the Sea Dev Praises Sony, Explains PS Plus Deal
@RoomWithaMoose Wait, you're telling me a site that is explicitly about Playstation has a pro-Playstation bias? I'm stunned.
It's like waking up one day to allegations one political party is biased against a different political party - surely it can't be true! Snark aside, I genuinely don't understand what point you think you're making - nobody expects pure unbiased editorial from a site for fans of X, they expect some bias in favor of X because it's a site for fans of X presumably run by fans of X.
I'll repeat the summary I said before: Both things can be true at the same time - [subscription services] can be bad for the industry AND good for an individual developer's game.
That doesn't have to mean a pro-Plus anti-GamePass bias (though such a bias might lead to the same conclusion for less-than-logical reasons). I think it's a reasonable conclusion to draw - it's hardly the only thing in life where people make personal choices (perhaps remaining silent about something political to keep their job) that may not be in the best interest of society overall.
Re: Site News: Where's Our Borderlands 4 PS5 Review?
I don't trust any developer that won't let reviewers release reviews until the last minute, or any who won't let them review on specific platforms. Not every time this happens is it as bad as Cyberpunk, but it DOES tell you they don't trust their own game. Listen to them.
I'll wait for a sale - a year or two for a good sale, if I must - and everyone knows that means I'll end up playing a more polished game than what anyone else will experience this weekend.
Re: Round Up: Borderlands 4 Reviews All on PC, No PS5 Verdicts Anywhere
Never good news when the console version isn't reviewed before release day. I don't know if it will be a Cyberpunk-level fiasco, but then nobody else does, either, right?
I think anyone who preorders is a fool - sorry, nothing personal, it's just not a smart response to the current industry. I'll wait for it to go on sale - even if it's an extra-long wait, when I do start it I expect it will be a much better game than it will be this weekend.
Re: 8 PS Plus Extra, Premium Games for September 2025 Announced
@themightyant I picked up Premium on sale, for none of the benefits you mentioned but because of something else - some PSVR2 titles are available free only on the Premium tier. That list has been shrinking since I upgraded several months ago (it was well over a dozen, now there are only about six titles left).
Yes, I understand the free PSVR2 catalog is a niche feature - but I would argue that streaming and PS1/PS2 games are each also niche features.
Re: 'It Saved the Game': Sword of the Sea Dev Praises Sony, Explains PS Plus Deal
The math here is really simple.
If we collectively spend less money because of Game Pass or PlayStation Plus than we would spend without them, that's basically bad for game development as an industry, because that's a smaller pie to pass around. If we spend roughly the same, it may still be a bad deal depending on who is taking how large a cut, and how that compared to other distribution methods. It's only good for the industry as a whole if we, collectively, end up spending more money as a whole OR if a higher percentage of what we do spend goes to the people making the games.
Yes, it's really that simple...for the industry as a whole.
Now, for each individual developer and each individual game, the math is different. There's a reason why you don't see Madden or FIFA free on day 1, but they DO often show up on these services at the end of their season, just before the next version comes out. And there's a reason why indies are more likely to take a deal, get some sure money, and put their game on a service.
Both things can be true at the same time - it can be bad for the industry AND good for an individual developer's game.
Re: 8 PS Plus Extra, Premium Games for September 2025 Announced
I've had my eye on The Invincible for a while now, and didn't pull the trigger on multiple recent sales. Now I'm glad I held off.
That's one of the tradeoffs of Plus (or Game Pass) - even when a game isn't on the service, there's some resistance to picking it up if you think it's a good candidate for the service. Not that I'm complaining, but I wonder if the developers would be happier if I'd picked it up on sale.
Re: Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds Beta: All Start Times, How to Play, and What's Included
@rjejr "So is this 96 straight hours of gameplay?"
I suppose that depends in part on whether or not their servers survive for the entire window. Hopefully the crashes are kept to the racetrack, and not the servers.
Re: Forza Horizon 6 Setting Seemingly Leaked Well Ahead of Reveal
@Anke I loved FH4 [set in England]. I've played several of them, including FH5, but 4 was my favorite by a mile.
Can I tell you what was different about it, especially compared to FH5? No, not really. But it worked for me in ways FH5 didn't.
Re: These 8 PS5, PS4 Games Will Leave PS Plus Extra in September
They're removing PSVR2 games much faster than they're adding any - despite a ton of PSVR2 games coming out this summer. They had a nice PSVR2 collection, including some for only the Premium tier, but they're all dropping off.
This month it's Pistol Whip leaving, with nothing joining to replace it, AFAIK.
Re: PS5 Price Increases Confirmed for USA, Effective 21st August
The word you're looking for is "plurality" - that is, "more than any other" and implies less than a majority. That is different from "majority" which means "more than half."
And that whole discussion is idiotic because the US doesn't elect our President on popular vote, anyway, so the difference between majority and plurality is irrelevant.
Re: PS5 Price Increases Confirmed for USA, Effective 21st August
I bit the bullet and picked up a used PS5 Pro a few weeks ago, and this makes me glad I didn't wait any longer.
I actually wish I'd done it when they were on sale for $50 off this spring or early summer, but glad I didn't wait any longer.
Re: Henry Halfhead Is Probably the Most Unusual PS5 Game You'll See Today
Looks like there's a demo on Steam, full version releasing there same time as PS5 version.
Seems like a great game for a handheld. If the multiplayer support includes couch co-op, that's got possibilities for the PS5, otherwise I'm not so sure.
But for games like this, a LOT depends on the execution. "I Am Bread" seems like a similarly ridiculous premise, but seems to have done very well. This feels like it's targeting the same audience.
Re: Rumour: Leaked PS6 Specs Reveal Affordable, Power Efficient Next-Gen Console
@Styledvinny79 They're releasing new PSVR2 games all the time. It may not have sold as well as Sony wanted, but it's still in the mix (and I'm enjoying mine).
Re: Rumour: Leaked PS6 Specs Reveal Affordable, Power Efficient Next-Gen Console
@Rich33 Wow - serious copy/paste error on my part. I'll go back and tweak my post.
Re: Rumour: Leaked PS6 Specs Reveal Affordable, Power Efficient Next-Gen Console
@Kraven The article already said both systems will be backwards compatible with the PS4 and PS5, so I don't know what more you want on that.
As for the comparisons, based on Wikipedia for the base PS5 [edited for a copy/paste error]...
PS6
8 x Zen 6 (or later) cores, compared to 8x Zen 2 cores (same number, newer tech)
40-48+ RDNA 5 Compute Units at 3GHz+, compared to 36 RDNA 2(ish) compute at up to 2.23 (slightly more, somewhat faster, newer tech)
160-bit or 192-bit bus with GDDR7 at 32GT/s+, compared to 256-bit bus with 16GM of GDDR6 at 448 GB/s (significantly faster RAM, smaller bus, notably no mention of amount of RAM for PS6).
Every spec mentioned (except the bus) is an improvement, some dramatic. Presumably the faster RAM will negate the smaller bus, but I'm no expert on that.
For the supposed handheld specs:
4 x Zen 6c cores, compared to 8x Zen 2 cores (half the cores, newer tech, probably lower-power consumption)
12-20 RDNA 5 Compute Units at 1.6-2GHz, compared to 36 RDNA 2(ish) compute at up to 2.23 (half the CU give or take, newer tech, similar speed - if it's going to be similar to the PS5 it will be based on lower resolution and/or improved machine learning upscaling/smoothing)
128-bit bus with LPDDR5X-7500+, compared to 256-bit bus with 16GB of GDDR6 at 448 GB/s (I'm guessing that's still faster RAM, smaller bus, notably no mention of amount of RAM for handheld).
So overall, something like half as powerful as the PS5 in some ways, but the newer tech might minimize that somewhat, especially at lower resolutions (don't put a 4k screen on it). Which lends more credence to the idea that the low power mode in the current PS5 beta is a preview of the handheld's capabilities.
The handheld won't look better than a PS5, maybe nearly as good if the machine learning is really awesome, but probably not. It will likely look reasonably close (maybe even better) to the PS5 in that new low power mode they're introducing.
Re: PS Plus Essential Games for August 2025 Announced
@KundaliniRising333 I may not start it until after it's gone from Game Pass. One drawback of Game Pass (and of Sony's Catalog for the middle and top tier of Plus) is the limited duration games spend on them - if you don't jump in right away, it can leave before you finish.
Re: PS Plus Essential Games for August 2025 Announced
@KundaliniRising333 One difference is that I'll be able to play Lies of P for as long as I keep a Plus membership (even after lapses in membership), whereas it will be leaving Game Pass.
The other is that with Plus, I can play on my PS5 instead of on my Series S (which is getting pretty dusty, never being turned on any more).
Re: 99+ PS5, PS4 Games to Buy in PS Store's Updated and Expanded Summer Sale
@Porco I understand, but they run the risk that people will do what I do - just stop clicking on those articles in the first place, because the experience is so bad. Do that on enough types of articles, and you start losing traffic overall.
Re: 'Increasingly Selective Consumers' to Blame for Underperformance of Blades of Fire
@get2sammyb "However, it's obviously REALLY hard to make an outstanding game that people are going to fall in love with."
Absolutely. And for all I know, this game might end up being one of them.
It's been out less than six months. I know studios expect to make all their money in the first few days or weeks, but if you're not investing in a massive advertising campaign that few can afford, I'm not sure that's realistic. Maybe over time it will gain an audience and get more attention and become successful - or maybe it will be drowned by the flood of new releases and be forgotten.
I actually played a bit of this - I don't recall if there was a demo (maybe with Plus Premium?) or what, but I played a bit. And it was interesting, but I didn't go too far before I put it down and picked up something else. I may go back some day, maybe.
The point, if I have one, is that there's no guarantee you'll make money making video games. I think to be successful, studios are going to have to be willing to fund several losers in the hopes that when they get a winner, they can make enough off it to cover their losses. You're going to have to take chances if you're going to stand out - because if your game doesn't stand out, I don't know how likely it is to make enough to keep the lights on.
Re: 'Increasingly Selective Consumers' to Blame for Underperformance of Blades of Fire
oversupply of new releases = too many new games. True enough. Nobody can play everything.
increasingly selective consumers = not everyone wants the same thing. Combine that with the first, and with so many games we can afford to be choosy.
This all checks out. I'd throw in the fact the the successful live service games dilute the amount of time people have for all the other games, in general.
Make a great game that people love, and it may not roll out of the gates with a million sales, but it WILL gather steam and get attention. Make a mediocre game that looks like all the others, though, and you'd better have SOMETHING to make you stand out from the crowd.
Re: EA Sports FC 26 Is Finally Trying to Give Everyone What They Want
Try to make everyone happy, make nobody happy. Check. That's EA.
I don't even like soccer (sorry...football), but I can tell you how this is going to go.
Re: Ridiculously Good Looking Terminator 2D Delayed Due to Physical PS5, PS4 Release
Had no idea this existed. Interesting.
I'm never opposed to waiting for a game to be polished before it's released. Get it right so the first impression is excellent.
Re: VRR Gives Cyberpunk 2077 a Massive Performance Boost on PS5 Pro, Up to 120FPS
@BennyTheCat I don't know about this game specifically, but in general the ability to run at 40fps has nothing to do with VRR - it has everything to do with 120Hz support. As long as your PS5 can detect the 120Hz it ought to appear as an option - but I can't confirm that, as I have both 120Hz and VRR.
Re: Interactive PS5, PS4 Archive Atari 50 Expands with Classic Namco Games
That 2600 version of Pac-Man was truly awful - and I say that as someone who played the heck out of it. So much screen flickering, graphics and maze that were nothing like the arcade, it was an abomination.
But it was still fun.
Re: Reaction: Sony's PS5 Games Keep Getting Better After Launch, and Often for Free
@Pacific Fair enough. I don't think the message of free content months or years after release is nearly as loud or as impactful on purchasing patterns as rising prices and buggy launches. It's more about bringing the title back into the news cycle (with a positive spin) to encourage sales and play.
Though I should be careful arguing too strongly about waiting to buy games until they're discounted, because I see publishers starting to resist discounting their games for longer. I want to continue to encourage sales and discounts - as well as encouraging higher-QA before release.
Re: PS Stars Program Marks Its Eventual Shut Down with One Last Collectible
Stars is great if you're 12 years old and the collectible shelf on your phone is the coolest thing ever. Webkinz were great when my kids were 12, too, back in the day - though those came with real-world plushies they could play with.
It was worth poking at Stars once or twice a month to grab whatever free points they had to get enough to cash in for PSN wallet funds. Otherwise it was a childish waste of time. I never understood who Sony thought the audience was for this.
Re: Reaction: Sony's PS5 Games Keep Getting Better After Launch, and Often for Free
@Pacific I consider myself a well-adjusted person, who thinks it's nearly idiotic to buy at launch.
No matter how good the game is, if you wait a little while you pay a lower price for a patched version, regardless of whether extra content is added later or not. Perhaps for online multiplayer it's worth getting in early, but all the examples in this article are single player games, and all of them were better (and cheaper) a couple months after release than they were on day one. Every single one.
I understand wanting to support a game to get more games like it - you do that with paying for them when they go on sale, too, to show they have a long tail. But when you preorder or buy day 1, you encourage the release of half-baked games that need weeks or months of patches. I hate that, and have vowed to never again preorder anything no matter how excited I am for it. I wait for the reviews, wait for the patches, and wait for the sales. Extra content is just icing on the cake.
Re: 88+ PS5, PS4 Games You Should Buy in PS Store's Huge Summer Sale
This article format is fine for 10 or 20 suggestions, but when you get up to 80+ it's not so good.
What if you had a first page that just had the list - title, sale price, retail price - and each title was a link to the subsequent page with the summary detail? Keep five pages of listings, with a sixth page as the new first page that just shows the entire list as concisely as possible.
Re: Sony Says PS5 Is the Best Place to Watch in TV Centric Ad
For a few apps that don't have a good way to manage multiple accounts (Fandango Now, formerly Vudu, is the primary example in my case), having one account on the TV and another on the PS5 is a solid option. My wife's account and my account each have a few things the other's doesn't, so swapping accounts by swapping which device we use to watch works well.
Re: Poll: Are You Sold on Ghost of Yotei?
So some people are disappointed that this game looks too much like the last game, and the sequel ought to be more different than the original.
But you know if they seriously messed with the formula, some people would be disappointed that the sequel looks nothing like the last game, and complain the developers changed all the things that made the previous game good and added nothing worth having.
You ask why we can't have nice things - this is one reason why, because players as a whole cannot agree on what "nice things" are in the first place. How do you expect anybody to deliver?
Re: Industry Body Representing Publishers Like PlayStation Says Stop Killing Games' Proposals Would Be 'Prohibitively Expensive'
There's an interesting mix of serious and BS arguments mingled together here. It may depend on what local laws are if a particular argument is serious or BS.
Let's say they shut down the servers, but release the software so you can host your own server. And let's say a year later, a critical vulnerability in a software library they used for the server is exposed, and anyone running the server software could be hacked unless it's patched. The developer doesn't want to be on the hook for patching it - that's why they released it for free in the first place. But could some laws make them liable anyway? Surely it's unreasonable to insist they release the source code itself so the community can patch it, but what other options might they have?
The copyright issue is less compelling, but has a point, including one they don't make here. If the server software for, say, Little Big Planet (which had huge issues with hacking) was made public and people used it to make porn content which was then publicly posted, the damage to the IP (not to mention Sackboy's psyche) could be significant.
If local laws target the software publisher when copyright issues are raised, recreating Mario Kart in LBP could also come back to bite the publisher. That's not liability they want to take on if they're not in control of the server to remove infringing content - if they're on the hook for damages, they need a way to mitigate that risk.
It sounds like a simple problem - just don't kill games! - but it's not as simple as it sounds. There are liability issues and possibly licensing issues that could make this a lot more complicated.
Re: Mass Xbox Layoffs Begin, Everwild and Perfect Dark Both Reportedly Cancelled
Didn't M$ go on a video game company buying spree back in 2000, just to sell/close most of the studios a few years later?
I suspected history would repeat itself, and here we are.
Re: Poll: 15 Years of PS Plus - What Do You Think of Sony's Subscription Service?
I don't play a lot of online games, but I absolutely completely and totally HATE that Plus is required for online games. It's idiotic. It's a cash grab. It's wrong.
The other features are nice. I love the cloud saves (even more with the PS5 removing any other backup option - again, something I totally hate that's very anti-consumer). I enjoy the free games monthly that you more or less own, at least more closely than you do for the catalog titles, even if there are only a half dozen titles a year I really truly enjoy. I upgraded to the Premium tier for the PSVR2 titles they added to the library - but this list of those titles has shrunk ever since I upgraded, so I'm not sure I'll renew at this price. We'll see.
I've got mixed feelings about the streaming with Premium, but I do enjoy the trial versions of games.
It's just such a mixed bag - some thing I like, some I don't, the value isn't consistent...but it's good enough, most of the time.
Re: You Can Now Launch First-Party PlayStation Games Through the Xbox PC App
Yawn.
My OG ROG Ally can launch a title I purchased from Steam or GOG or Microsoft or Epic or EA or Ubisoft (and launch any of them from the same ASUS built-in GUI, or from other software such as Playnite), and it can stream games from my PS5. It could launch a Sony title I purchased from Steam, if I owned any such games from Steam.
The only new thing here is the XBox logo on the software initiating the process. The only people reacting this with anything but a yawn or a shrug are people who don't understand it, or stupid fanboys who think this scores a point for...someone, I'm not sure who.
Re: Poll: Are You Playing Death Stranding 2?
I fell out of the first one pretty late in the game. I want to go back to it and finish it, but it's going to be painful to jump back in with no muscle memory to a game that's nearing the end, so I keep putting it off.
But I don't want a summary of the ending, I want to play it myself, so I'll be avoiding DS2 until I get around to finishing the first one.
Re: The Next Mind-Bending Game from the Team Behind Manifold Garden Is Coming to PSVR2
@Uromastryx PSVR2 has been consistently priced at $350-400 since November of last year, other than a brief blip in January returning to the "normal" price. That's not more than the console.
Re: Heading Out, a Super Stylish Narrative Driving Game, Is Coming to PS5
@JayJ said "the politics need to be addressed" - do you mind elaborating briefly on that? What kind of politics?