Th3solution

@4fold Yeah, I wonder if it would work while traveling abroad. If you haven’t tried it via your phone hotspot, you might give that a whirl the next time the existing WiFi seems insufficient. If I have at least 2 bars of 5G it seems to be perfectly fine.

In fact, as a related side note, the Portal does do a weird thing sometimes where it will intermittently disconnect from WiFi, even at home under a close stable signal, and after some online searches I saw people say something about the connection algorithm or some such and a quick fix is just to connect to an alternative WiFi signal and then connect back again to your regular WiFi and it kind of resets the connection and it’s stable after that. So I use my hotspot for those instances if I notice it disconnects then I hop onto the hotspot for a minute and then back to the home network and it’s smooth and perfect again. A guess a rebooting of the connection, of sorts. It only happens to me like once a month, or maybe less.

@4fold @UltimateOtaku91 Me three, regarding the cloud streaming. When I first got my Portal I really enjoyed it when used for streaming from the PS5, but once the PS+ Premium cloud streaming was rolled out, I rarely use it for console streaming and almost exclusively cloud stream. I get a better, more stable connection usually from the cloud. Granted, my PS5 isn’t hard wired to my router and that led to some instability when streaming from the PS5, but I didn’t have a good solution to hardwire by Ethernet due to where my router and PS5 are in relation to one another. Cloud streaming fixed the issue and also has allowed me to play games while traveling either from a hotel WiFi or by using my phone’s hotspot. Works quite well.

My biggest issue is that this locks me into only being able to play games from the PS+ library on it. My one wish is that they expand the cloud streaming service to include any of the games we own in our library also. I would love that. Surely they are planning to expand to that. You can already cloud stream most of these games to the PS5 so I wonder how much harder it would be to allow us to cloud stream them to our Portal. Come on, Sony! Make it happen! I’ll buy more games digitally (as opposed to physically on disc) if they implement that.

@Oram77 Yeah, apologies if I’m getting the UK pricing wrong, but I feel like the launch price for the disc was £450 and digital was £360. The Pro was weirdly launched there at £700, and quickly reduced, to that £670 neighborhood, I think.

In the U.S. each version is more expensive than the price at launch. They all got a $50 price hike a few weeks ago, and the digital had already received another isolated $50 increase in 2023, for a total increase of $100 since the launch price.

So Disc version from $500 to $550, digital from $400 to $500, and Pro from $700 to $750.

I think Europe has had similar increases also, but unsure of the numbers.

Of course there is the option to get one cheaper than launch if one is willing to get a refurbished one. Otherwise, it’s more expensive to join the generation now vs 2020, in the U.S. for sure.m

Edit: no worries. I just saw your edit after I did my own research and posted that. 😂

The fact that the PS5’s price is going up five years into its lifecycle is what makes this a big ask for the F2P community. They have to save their pennies for $20 skins and season passes. They can’t afford the $500 console. 😅

But honestly, if the generation had followed the usual course and PS5’s were cheaper now, like $300 or even $400, then we wouldn’t be having this problem of such a large PS4-only player base. But the fact is that the cheapest PS5 you could have bought was a launch system 5 years ago.

It’s a curious approach. I wonder how many PC gamers actually use their PC’s for anything other than gaming. Since I’m not a PC gamer I can’t say, but my non-gaming PC needs (Word, Excel, internet browsing, email) are all handled with a low end laptop and my phone. So if the sole reason to spend north of $1000 on a PC is for gaming anyway, then perhaps this idea will work.

I doubt I’ll buy one though. I’ll have my hands full with my PlayStation backlog for many, many years to come. I still have quite a few PS4 games to get to.

Well, this game just went from a ‘no thanks’ to a ‘’maybe I should pick that up’

I have definitely noticed a drop off in my DualSense that came with my launch PS5. It won’t last a full weekend gaming session anymore. Probably lasts 3-4 hours whereas my newer one last 6+ hours. I can still use the old one but it’s mildly annoying and inconvenient to swap out. Unfortunately I think I made the rookie error of leaving it at full charge for extended periods of time when not in use. Apparently it’s healthier for the battery to stay between 20-80% charged. I don’t understand the technical aspects of it all. It would be nice for Sony to implement a charging feature where you can set it to stay in that sweet spot and only charge to full 100% when you are really needing to, like phones do now. Or, have this replaceable battery solution when we wear out the original one.

Meanwhile, they’re testing out a patch for Bloodborne where energy saving mode can run the PS4 title at 15 fps and 480p.

@PuppetMaster Thanks, mate. We simul-posted but you can see my comment above that despite perhaps not being a record setting franchise, I think it’s quite influential and culturally significant.

@PloverNutter Yeah, that’s really interesting. It goes to show that a game’s sales doesn’t always reflect its influence on the market, or its longevity in the minds of gamers. I have no doubt that Silent Hill has affected game development, especially in the horror sphere, more than many games that have sold better.

And Resident Evil really is the juggernaut of the genre. There’s a huge gulf between it and everyone else.

I’m surprised the whole franchise only accounts for 10 million sales. Seems bigger than that.

I don’t have a dog in the fight between these military shooters and don’t know the difference between ‘Advanced’ and ‘Modern’ Warfare but his statements do seem harsh, especially from the guy who’s last big game, Callisto Protocol, was an epic disappointment by most accounts, and certainly commercially.

Nevertheless, I don’t have first hand knowledge but there’s probably some truth to what he’s saying, whether it’s full of spite or not. There’s some small cracks in the armor starting to manifest in CoD, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see it have a downturn.

I like the confidence. Time will tell if that’s true though. Hamaguchi seems to have underestimated the fickleness of gamers. 😅 I’ll be very surprised if everyone will love it.

I’m more fascinated by the other titles in the lists. I knew Yotei was going to be successful, even having not played it myself yet. The crazy thing is South Park charting. Even with a steep sale price it’s amazing that charted since the game is from 2017, way back in the middle of the last console generation. I’m not as surprised at RDR2 and Hogwarts, which although are also older games, are more evergreen titles. Even Far Cry makes a little sense. But kudos to South Park 😅

The second list of revenue is really the more important one though, as selling a ton of copies at a steep discount adds less to the bottom line as selling fewer copies at full retail. In that list AC Shadows is the big surprise. A rising tide lifts all ships maybe? I wonder if Yotei helped Shadows sell since people are often comparing the two.

@graymamba Ditto for me. I’ll probably buy it within the first year, if not at launch. But I’d be perfectly content to put the new generation off for a few more years. Plenty to play with my PS5 right now.

It was funny though the way one of the other users put it on the other article comments (I’m paraphrasing) —

We are at a point where new console development is faster than new game development. It’s almost true! A game takes 4-5 year development time, on average. Sometimes longer. And new console generations are still coming out every 7 years.

How is a game developer supposed to keep up? If they don’t start development in the first 2 years of a console’s release then by the time their game is ready it’s already on an outdated console generation! Game studios will need to start getting their PS7 dev kits within the next 4 years in order to be ready for the PS7 launch!

@8thDoctor Exactly. That’s what I’m trying to figure out. Like you say, in order to hit the rumored price point, either PS5 Pro will be more expensive than the PS6, or PS5/PS5 Pro need to have some price cuts. They literally just increased the prices of both PS5 models. Why would they increase prices (with all the negative PR it involves) and then turn around and decrease prices? Are component and manufacturing costs and economic factors really going to change that much in a year? Increase prices $50 and then a year later cut them by $150… 😅

@Alpha_Pulse Yeah, I mentioned this in another article, but I don’t have any other really expensive hobbies - I don’t golf or have animals or travel much, etc so gaming is my main ‘treat myself’ hobby and honestly it’s a lot cheaper than many of the things my peers do. $700 for a Pro could easily be blown at the blackjack table or on a weekend trip. And I can use that console for thousands of hours of entertainment for many years. I know some people will call it a false comparison, but for me it’s been worth a couple hundred dollars.

And I agree — the Pro is nicer looking, smaller, quieter, and lighter than my launch PS5. The extra hard drive memory space also makes the sticker shock a lot easier, especially now that the base model is more expensive and they cut the hard drive back to 825 GB.

I will be curious to see how they price the PS6 though. Predictions are that it will land somewhere between the Pro and the base, pricing-wise. The global economy, inflation, supply issues, tariffs; and many other factors are all in play too, so I’m not sure it’s going to be less than the Pro is, after all. We’ll see.

The last few generations I’ve been on board with a launch console. Even though I recently double-dipped for a PS5 Pro, I’ll probably still get a PS6 within the first year of release. I’m a sucker like that.

But as I have a 4K OLED VRR TV, I do really want to get the most out of it. After just a short few weeks with the Pro, whenever I go back to my base PS5, it definitely feels like an inferior experience.

The turnaround from PS5 Pro to PS6 feels a little short, but actually 2 years is still quite a long time. Between now and then we’ll have Wolverine, Saros, Intergalactic, Marathon, Fairgames (maybe? 😅), not to mention lots of third party stuff like GTA6, Resident Evil Requiem, Pragmata, Marvel Tokon, Bond First Light. And who knows, maybe we’ll get Judas, AC Hexe, FF7-3, Witcher 4, and Elder Scrolls 6. That’s not even counting loads of promising titles like Phantom Blade 0, Tides of Annihilation, and Crimson Desert which could be the next ‘Clair Obscur’ surprise darling. Folks, the next two years will have plenty of opportunities to use your PS5/PS5 Pro. Heck, I still have dozens of games that have come out in the last couple years that I still need to get to.

I’ll definitely get my moneys worth out of my PS5’s by fall 2027.

I think a lot depends on the economic situation in 2 years time. People are struggling to afford the increasing prices of consoles now. We’re only a couple weeks away from major price increases on the existing consoles and services and gamers are grappling with even that. There’s new layoffs and closures every month in the industry. How can a company manufacture a better product without incurring great expense in the current economic environment? And it doesn’t seem like things are getting better anytime soon.

@graymamba Yeah, as we’ve kicked around the ‘Souls-like’ term for a while and you came up with that initial list, I figured we could save the main page commenters the trouble and give them that entry from the forum’s “Manual of Terminology and Definitions in Video Games, ver. 4.7.23.001”
😜

Since there’s discussion here, I thought I’d promote one of the definitions of what constitutes a Souls-like, as proposed by our very own Souls aficionado @graymamba
I think it’s a really good basis to clarify the genre.

A Souls-like has:

1. Souls: (or the equivalent proxy) that is earned by defeating enemies and is used as both xp and currency.
2. Corpse-run: on death the accumulated souls proxy is dropped and the player has one chance to earn it back.
3. Bonfires: (or the equivalent proxy) a rest stop that restores player health etc. but also respawns enemies.
3. Labyrinthine level design: an intricate game environment that contains shortcuts that can be opened to expedite travel.
4. Deliberate combat: combat where button-mashing has no place.
5. Badass boss fights: yup not exclusive to souls-likes… but a souls-like must have them.

Probably not comprehensive, but I think a good starting foundation for use of the term. Note that difficulty wasn’t included in this list and I would debate that it’s not a core component of a Souls-like, partly due to difficulty being largely subjective anyway.

And in my limited experience with Code Vein (I dropped off it after a few hours), it fits all the aforementioned criteria.

@Metonymy “I really want to hop off the sword and swing it at something!”
That would be a good start! 😄

@Metonymy Yes, I noticed that too. SotS is definitely the most advanced of their games as far as gameplay goes. It’s still mostly an artistic and contemplative experience, but they have managed to make it a little more ‘fun’ than the previous efforts. I think The Pathless did a good job as well and it felt good to play. I actually stuck around to get the platinum in that Pathless, which is something I don’t think I’ll do with SotS. I’ve never felt inclined to replay Journey or especially not Abzu, despite being glad I experienced them once though.

I do wonder what the next step is for Giant Squid. They have a definite style and game approach. SotS evolved the gameplay and made it more kinetic and interactive. But the whole ‘embody a voiceless mysterious person and cleanse the world gradually by traveling through and interacting with scattered totems whilst beautifully composed music plays in the background and animals run around as you restore nature’ can only go so far. I suppose the same could be said about any gaming genre when you boil it down to its core, but I’d like to see the “Journey-like” genre advance to the next step. Maybe a more concrete story, or divergent narrative paths? We’ll see.

@Fiendish-Beaver That’s interesting. I know very little about game development, but I guess both could be true — the dev kits are out there but the technology they will be capable of using isn’t fully implemented yet? And with the time that games take to develop now, it’s possible dev kits are going out but that the console won’t be releasing until games are ready with it in… 3 years or so? “A few” years usually I interpret as at least 3.

Finishing up Sword of the Sea now and have played Abzu, Journey, and The Pathless. All are quality games although maybe a wee bit overrated. Generally 7-8/10 games, but they absolutely fill an important niche in the market.

Like others have said, I don’t really think Sony would make a lot of money from owning Giant Squid, but it would be representative of their commitment to the independent and artistic side of game development. Which, to be fair, has traditionally been a key part of the PlayStation DNA; producing or backing things from smaller studios like — PixelOpus, Team Ico, Ember Lab, Giant Sparrow, Supermassive, Arrowhead and of course their more “artistic” or niche first party like Media Molecule and previously Japan Studios and London Studios. As well as working with smaller titles for support, promotion and/or timed exclusivity for games like Bound, Stray, Tchia, Tetris Effect, Humanity, etc. I think Sony doesn’t get enough credit for supporting the smaller developers and niche games, although I have to agree they have abandoned the practice somewhat in recent years.

Oh, and a brilliant tagline, Sammy. 😂 I really like that one.

I’ve often felt it strange that the American Civil War has almost no video games based on it. It’s a very interesting subject to explore. But I also can see how people would not be able to handle it in today’s society. No matter how things are portrayed, someone would be unhappy with the portrayal. It’s a no-win situation.
So we might as well roll out yet another game where we can safely fight Nazis because that’s safe.

I don’t have any expensive hobbies like golfing or travel, so I have a decent amount of funds to spend on gaming, although I’m not affluent by most metrics. Still, I buy maybe one or two full priced games a year. But I buy 4-6 games on sale or pre-owned. I also subscribe to PS+ Premium. With that and a handful of purchases per year, I’m drowning in gaming options, despite avoiding all F2P games like the plague.

I know the mega-enthusiasts like the Push Square regulars are what keep the industry afloat, and I do try to put my money behind projects that probably need the support more, and I wait and buy the big blockbuster games on sale. Usually.

Wow, are you kidding me? That’s a really strong headliner. Really happy with this, if true.

@RoomWithaMoose You had me worried with “kinda suck[s]” but “aggressively average” is something I can still take a flyer on.

@Elfuggingjefe Seems the story is rather divisive. As someone who really loved other disparaged game stories like The Last of Us Part 2 and MGS V: The Phantom Pain, it might just click with me. 😄

That settles it. Forbidden West is my next game.

I do wonder how many people are going to skip Tsushima and just go straight to Yotei. My assumption is that there’s no narrative connection and so they can be played independently.

I really enjoyed Tsushima, and so I would recommend people play it, but I could see a situation where someone is severely time limited and wants to skip it.

@Rich33 Indeed. I rarely feel I’ve wasted money and often feel like I’m getting more than I deserve. I do bargain shop though and only buy 2-3 games at full launch price per year, nowadays. GoT was one I bought at launch, but Yotei will have to wait, probably just until the first good sale (Black Friday?) due to my backlog overflowing at present so I wouldn’t get to playing it for several months anyway. But yes, I do plan to (hopefully) enjoy it eventually!

To be fair, PS+ Premium does seem to be somewhere between the GamePass Premium and Ultimate, as far as benefits, and that’s about where it fits pricing-wise. PS+ Premium doesn’t get day 1 first party releases. But it does seem to have a bigger library and more perks than the GP Premium.

Still, this does worry me that it’s going to give Sony an excuse to increase their prices. Might be time to stock up and stack an extra year or two!

@Rich33 Oh and it’s absolutely valid that a game sometimes clicks and sometimes doesn’t. Happens to all of us. Certainly many highly rated games never worked for me — the CDPR games for example (both Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk didn’t click), the original Resident Evil 4 (I loved the remake though), the Hitman games, AC Black Flag, Dishonored, to name a few off the top of my head as games I simply couldn’t get into, but came highly praised. Sometimes it’s a ‘time and place’ thing, of course. I fully expect that if I can ever get back to it that I should really like the Witcher 3 but at the time I just became so overwhelmed and put off by a sea of question marks popping up on the map and so I tapped out. Dark Souls is an example of one I wasn’t enjoying the first time around and so abandoned after a few hours but went back to it a few years later, loved it, and I am a big fan of the series now.

I think your GoT situation sounds like what I had with Journey. I thought it was fine… even good. But 9’s and 10’s? I didn’t get it. Seemed quite overhyped. Now playing the spiritual successor Sword of the Sea I think they did a better job of making the game fun and engaging, and I actually like it better. Hopefully the same happens for GoY for you. And if not, that’s ok too. 🤷🏻‍♂️ Although its $70 down the drain 😅

@Rich33 Yeah, it’s tough to tell because the footage and descriptions of Yotei do seem similar to Tsushima, so if one didn’t like GoT then I wonder if GoY will hit better. I suppose it depends on what aspects of GoT fell flat for you. If it was the quest structure or the emphasis on stealth, then Yotei might resonate a lot better with this spyglass/search-for-clues type of mission approach and lesser stealth options.

For me, GoT was a really great experience. Not perfect, my any means but a better alternative to Assassin’s Creed than Ubisoft had given us for a while. I think the art direction carried it a lot also. So beautiful. The wind guidance was a bit gimmicky but I’ll admit I really loved the small attempt at innovation and the whole connecting to nature type of vibe. The feeling of movement in an organic environment was quite satisfying to roam around in. The open world trappings were less bothersome to me because of so many of the things that the game did so well. I can’t remember what I gave it at the time, but it was probably an 8-9 for me.

My concern with Yotei is the story. The PS review mentions the story to be better than the first game which I hope is true, but a ‘revenge tale’ sounds so well worn at this point in gaming and I just can’t imagine a game doing a more visceral revenge tale than TLoU2. Revenge as the sole motive for going on a killing spree just doesn’t sound narratively interesting to me, but I’ll withhold full judgment until I play it.

@Pat_trick @Oram77 Yes, very true. Sometimes the uproar even ends up bringing added attention to a game and helps it perform better sales-wise . 😅

I had been meaning to get to those Dark Pictures games. Perhaps I can squeeze one in before they leave. I’ve only played Little Hope and it was decent enough.

I will be curious to see how the game sells. Tsushima was a hit, and I think outperformed Sony’s expectations. I think that was mostly because it was an awesome game, but I also think it benefited from that weird timeframe when it came out right after The Last of Us Part II and I think a lot of gamers who were bitter about TLoU2 bought Tsushima as a way to send a message to Sony. As weird as that sounds, I think we forget what a dumpster fire that TLoU2 release was and every crazy person in gaming was having a fit and I think GoT benefited. (Of course TLoU2 went on to do perfectly fine commercially).

Now the script is flipped and there’s talk of boycotting Yotei for things we won’t necessarily get into on this comment section. But it does feel like the high review scores like this and Push Square’s own review will likely carry the game to success. And of course people in Japan likely couldn’t care less about the crazy issues in the States, so they should show up in droves to support Yotei.

Loved Hogwarts Legacy. Love the LotR franchise. For some reason though, I have little faith in this game.

I am noticing waning battery life from my 2 controllers I’ve had since shortly after launch. I can still get a full 3-4 hour session on one charge, but I used to get at least three times that. Of course I think a lot of it comes down to the specific game. I have the haptics and adaptive triggers set to the max and some games utilize those a lot and that really does drain the battery much quicker.

So I’d be up for a removable battery because I figure within the next 6 months mine won’t make it through a long session.

Another weekend and another stroll through Faerûn. I have also started Sword of the Sea, which I’m enjoying. Those two should keep me busy enough. I have lots of other non-gaming projects to do as well, much to my chagrin.

I was frankly critical of the Stars program, especially early on. However, that was leagues better than whatever this is. I’m holding out hope that this isn’t the replacement for Stars, rather a whole separate thing and ‘Stars 2’ will be something more along the lines of earning cash rewards, store credit, or other useful rewards like a free month of PS+ or whatnot. My issue originally with Stars was the rewards for getting trophies was not very good, you had to spend money in the PS store to get substantial credit and points. I’m still holding onto [an admittedly shrinking] physical game library, so there’s a lot of games I purchased but didn’t get any credit. That and the silly campaigns were not implemented well. But I’d take it all back instead of this!

@BlAcK_Sw0rDsMaN I do plan to pick GoY up at some point but I don’t think I’ll play it at launch. My backlog is pretty full and I have a few other samurai and feudal Japan/Asian themed games I’m also interested in and I prefer bouncing around to different settings usually rather than staying in one thematic space. But this one is reviewing quite well so it might move up to the top of the list when I’m ready for something in that genre.

But yes, between DS3 and a few other games slated for the year, it’s looking like 2026 before I get to Yotei.

@ButterySmooth30FPS @Rich33 Good to see that there are others out there who agree with me that we’ve never quite had the treasure trove of games as we do today. Most gamers (at least those on enthusiast sites like here) say this generation lacks games, lacks innovation, lacks new IP, and I think we’ve never had such a balance of options as we do now. Yes there’s lots of garbage out there, but we have access to most all the prior generations’ games as well as new ones constantly coming out. There’s not enough time to play everything I want to play. My backlog just keeps getting bigger and bigger and I’m losing ground every month. It’s an embarrassment of riches, in my opinion.

Thanks for the review and it’s great to see the game holds up to the hype and anticipation. It’s one I’ll definitely get around to, but not sure I’ll pick it up at launch. I know people are going to complain that it’s a sequel that iterates and evolves rather than reinvents, but it seems to have done so in the best way possible, and I’m happy it seems to have turned out so well. And finally a good showing for the Pro!

I was absolutely obsessed with Returnal. Played it at release before the nerfing, having to leave my console in rest mode if I wanted a break while I had a good run going. Despite the brutal difficulty, I loved the game and hold it as one of my favorite PS5 experiences. Actually, one of my favorite gaming experiences, full stop.

I booted it back up recently because I never got around to trying the Tower of Sisyphus and the gameplay loop immediately clicked again. I’d say it’s the most satisfying pure gameplay this generation.

So Saros being heavily Returnal inspired is actually perfect.

@CVCubbington I did notice that most of the game trailer were taken from PS5 Pro gameplay, so I’d say you’re in a good place. For those rocking the base PS5, there’s no guarantee the visuals will look as good.

Very Good to Excellent. Not sure what people can complain about. There was a nice variety on display and some fantastic looking games coming.

Saros, Wolverine both looks excellent. The Disco Elysium looking sequel (Forgot the title and PS doesn’t have an article on it — “[Something] Parades”), Code Vein 2, and Crimson Desert all look really, really promising also. Then the next tier for me is the GT7 update and the Flight Simulator, both are things I could see dipping into when the mood strikes.
Lots of people should be excited about the Battlefield and the Metroidvania games, but those aren’t my cup of tea.
All that and then the fantastic PS+ announcements.
I don’t know why people think this was poor. I’d rate it as great at least, but closer to excellent.

AW2 and Cocoon… this is probably the best month in a long time. Very nice.