@AdamNovice Not frothing here. Extraction shooters aren't really my cup of tea though. And that's the problem Marathon has. It's trying to be something it was never really meant to be, at least not as a standalone title.
Players were expecting either a remake of the original trilogy (when first the current Marathon was first announced) or a new storyline with similar gameplay. Had players been given both the game almost certainly would have fared better than the one trick pony it became has.
@Mindless_Demon I'd much prefer there not be "exclusives" in terms of platform. I'd rather have one really kickin' console platform and PC for those inclined (or able to afford) to build their own system and just have the studios making highly optimized games for those two environments. I'd be all over Nintendo's franchises on PC if they ever went that route. Sadly that's just a pipe dream...
I honestly can't say there's anything that really makes me want to go and buy PS games currently. I've got the OG disc version of the PS5 (dodged a bullet by getting it just a couple months before they revised it to have worse cooling and a louder fan profile), which I got so I could enjoy a smoother experience from my PS4 collection.
I've had the console powered on a grand total of just under ten hours in five years. Most of that was to playtest the improvements for Path of Exile, which I genuinely felt was a good upgrade. But nothing Sony has put out in the last ten years has screamed "go buy a new PS now!".
Do I have a gaming PC? Yes. It ***** all over my PS5, though I'm not idiotic enough to even pretend it was a budget friendly undertaking even factoring in how good it performs visually and/or the fact I got my parts before the RAMpocalypse (the 4090 alone killed any chance of it having anywhere near the same bang for the buck a PS5 or even PS5 Pro would have). I didn't get this PC built for bragging rights I built it because most of the games I want to play are on PC and have the most accessibility options there.
I have a Switch 2, the first Nintendo offering I've plunked down for since the GC, and only because there are enough Nintendo franchises spanning both the Switch and Switch 2 that it was justifiable from a "future game purchases" standpoint. Sony, as mentioned before does not have that going for it, nor has it since the PS2 days. There were only two PS3 games that I had which I missed playing that weren't out on PC: Tales of Xillia (1 and 2, the latter of which is going to be released multi-platform in the future) and Castlevania: Harmony of Despair, the multi-player CV game that only released on PS3 and XB360. The rest were at least readily available on PC in a form that played well.
In the end it isn't really the hardware I hate. The PS5, even the base edition, is more than perfectly fine for gaming. It's that Sony has become so anti-consumer and has nothing that begs me to stay in their ecosystem.
The whole "we're not making our franchises for PC anymore outside of live service diarrhea" is essentially a nothing burger to me. It simply means that I'm not really part of their audience anymore.
Here's the ugly truth regarding the subject of this article: Had Sony not continually shot itself in the foot by being as anti-consumer and tone-deaf as they have been the last decade, people would probably not even have batted an eyelash at this. When third party supports their franchises better, for longer, and with more options to suit your needs/desires, there's not a whole lot Sony has to redeem itself. Microsoft is in the same boat with how they handled (read: botched) their venture with bringing games to the PS5 that have been XBox exclusives up until recently.
Oh, and Windows 11 sucks. Hardcore. Criticize Sony all you want (and there's plenty to criticize these days), but having the shittiest spyware compilation as your daily driver isn't one of those criticisms. PC users may consider their hardware as master race, but not our primary operating system. That's one area us PC goonies get to ride the Epic Failboat™.
@DualWielding You might be surprised just how much that isn't an option for the average consumer these days. Optical drives have been a dying breed on the PC side for years. The drive I got mere months ago for a (very high) price of $235 so I have an external with which to rip future DVD/BD collections to my PC's 20 TB HD is now over $500.
The real reason this will never happen though, is because generic (a.k.a. able to be used in PCs) drives can be modded via firmware hacks that could pose significant risks to consoles that normally rely on unchanging hardware to act as both a gatekeeper and singular point of entry.
Unless there's an official addon, the best one can hope for is a trade in program to ease transitioning to the digital era. One would hope that laws get put in place to prevent turning actually owned copies into steam style digital licenses that can be revoked via delisting/server shutdown/studio shutdown. This becomes more of an issue moving forward due to how AI is gobbling up every kind of storage available, making it very costly to permanently store more and more games as time marches on.
@Queesh That's definitely an odd one, yes, especially since 1440p has always been a kind of red-headed stepchild when it comes to proper resolution support on the PS5. I think this monitor is aiming more at the budget PC builder that uses controllers in a lot of games.
@trev666 At that price point, yes. If you're expecting OLED with the features this display has (and 240 Hz at that) at $350, that's still a ways off. It's also too low a price point for mini-LED, which is the next best thing to OLED.
Also, regarding IPS specifically, many TVs use IPS for their wide viewing angle and better overall color gamut. VA panels, as their name implies, have far narrower viewing angles before color washout starts happening. When used in TVs, the type of IPS panels are almost always H-IPS these days as they have very good contrast and less blooming due to their subpixels being closer together and vertically aligned instead of shaped like a chevron.
If they'd come out with this a year ago I'd have gotten it. Not so much for fighting games, but just for comfort so I could play RPGs with the controller (this) on my table. Unfortunately for Sony, I got myself a Qanba Dragon last year and most assuredly won't be getting another stick.
I'm curious if they were able to use Sanwa parts at this price point or if we're looking more Hori level of parts.
Comments 6
Re: Marathon's Future Questioned as Bungie Delays Big Update and Scraps Seasonal Schedule
@AdamNovice Not frothing here. Extraction shooters aren't really my cup of tea though. And that's the problem Marathon has. It's trying to be something it was never really meant to be, at least not as a standalone title.
Players were expecting either a remake of the original trilogy (when first the current Marathon was first announced) or a new storyline with similar gameplay. Had players been given both the game almost certainly would have fared better than the one trick pony it became has.
Re: 'These Moments Don't Happen Anywhere Else': Sony Touts PS5 Exclusives After Abandoning PC
@Mindless_Demon I'd much prefer there not be "exclusives" in terms of platform. I'd rather have one really kickin' console platform and PC for those inclined (or able to afford) to build their own system and just have the studios making highly optimized games for those two environments. I'd be all over Nintendo's franchises on PC if they ever went that route. Sadly that's just a pipe dream...
Re: 'These Moments Don't Happen Anywhere Else': Sony Touts PS5 Exclusives After Abandoning PC
I honestly can't say there's anything that really makes me want to go and buy PS games currently. I've got the OG disc version of the PS5 (dodged a bullet by getting it just a couple months before they revised it to have worse cooling and a louder fan profile), which I got so I could enjoy a smoother experience from my PS4 collection.
I've had the console powered on a grand total of just under ten hours in five years. Most of that was to playtest the improvements for Path of Exile, which I genuinely felt was a good upgrade. But nothing Sony has put out in the last ten years has screamed "go buy a new PS now!".
Do I have a gaming PC? Yes. It ***** all over my PS5, though I'm not idiotic enough to even pretend it was a budget friendly undertaking even factoring in how good it performs visually and/or the fact I got my parts before the RAMpocalypse (the 4090 alone killed any chance of it having anywhere near the same bang for the buck a PS5 or even PS5 Pro would have). I didn't get this PC built for bragging rights I built it because most of the games I want to play are on PC and have the most accessibility options there.
I have a Switch 2, the first Nintendo offering I've plunked down for since the GC, and only because there are enough Nintendo franchises spanning both the Switch and Switch 2 that it was justifiable from a "future game purchases" standpoint. Sony, as mentioned before does not have that going for it, nor has it since the PS2 days. There were only two PS3 games that I had which I missed playing that weren't out on PC: Tales of Xillia (1 and 2, the latter of which is going to be released multi-platform in the future) and Castlevania: Harmony of Despair, the multi-player CV game that only released on PS3 and XB360. The rest were at least readily available on PC in a form that played well.
In the end it isn't really the hardware I hate. The PS5, even the base edition, is more than perfectly fine for gaming. It's that Sony has become so anti-consumer and has nothing that begs me to stay in their ecosystem.
The whole "we're not making our franchises for PC anymore outside of live service diarrhea" is essentially a nothing burger to me. It simply means that I'm not really part of their audience anymore.
Here's the ugly truth regarding the subject of this article: Had Sony not continually shot itself in the foot by being as anti-consumer and tone-deaf as they have been the last decade, people would probably not even have batted an eyelash at this. When third party supports their franchises better, for longer, and with more options to suit your needs/desires, there's not a whole lot Sony has to redeem itself. Microsoft is in the same boat with how they handled (read: botched) their venture with bringing games to the PS5 that have been XBox exclusives up until recently.
Oh, and Windows 11 sucks. Hardcore. Criticize Sony all you want (and there's plenty to criticize these days), but having the shittiest spyware compilation as your daily driver isn't one of those criticisms. PC users may consider their hardware as master race, but not our primary operating system. That's one area us PC goonies get to ride the Epic Failboat™.
Re: PS6 Will Be a Digital Console, And Sony Has Huge Questions to Answer About Backwards Compatibility
@DualWielding You might be surprised just how much that isn't an option for the average consumer these days. Optical drives have been a dying breed on the PC side for years. The drive I got mere months ago for a (very high) price of $235 so I have an external with which to rip future DVD/BD collections to my PC's 20 TB HD is now over $500.
The real reason this will never happen though, is because generic (a.k.a. able to be used in PCs) drives can be modded via firmware hacks that could pose significant risks to consoles that normally rely on unchanging hardware to act as both a gatekeeper and singular point of entry.
Unless there's an official addon, the best one can hope for is a trade in program to ease transitioning to the digital era. One would hope that laws get put in place to prevent turning actually owned copies into steam style digital licenses that can be revoked via delisting/server shutdown/studio shutdown. This becomes more of an issue moving forward due to how AI is gobbling up every kind of storage available, making it very costly to permanently store more and more games as time marches on.
Re: Sony's $350 Official PS5 Monitor Has a Very Cool Gimmick for Gamers
@Queesh That's definitely an odd one, yes, especially since 1440p has always been a kind of red-headed stepchild when it comes to proper resolution support on the PS5. I think this monitor is aiming more at the budget PC builder that uses controllers in a lot of games.
@trev666 At that price point, yes. If you're expecting OLED with the features this display has (and 240 Hz at that) at $350, that's still a ways off. It's also too low a price point for mini-LED, which is the next best thing to OLED.
Also, regarding IPS specifically, many TVs use IPS for their wide viewing angle and better overall color gamut. VA panels, as their name implies, have far narrower viewing angles before color washout starts happening. When used in TVs, the type of IPS panels are almost always H-IPS these days as they have very good contrast and less blooming due to their subpixels being closer together and vertically aligned instead of shaped like a chevron.
Re: Sony's FlexStrike Fight Stick Launches Alongside PS5, PC Fighter Marvel Tokon This August
If they'd come out with this a year ago I'd have gotten it. Not so much for fighting games, but just for comfort so I could play RPGs with the controller (this) on my table. Unfortunately for Sony, I got myself a Qanba Dragon last year and most assuredly won't be getting another stick.
I'm curious if they were able to use Sanwa parts at this price point or if we're looking more Hori level of parts.