Done this job for eight years, just got a detective spot last month. The bit about requesting spike strips in a car chase is pretty on point. However, I can confirm promotions are not necessarily given based on experience or how many cases you have closed in real life. If only, haha.
I guess it wouldn't have been too much fun if they simulated 4 hours of report writing after every DUI arrest. But seems surprisingly realistic and technical for a game of this type.
Disagree, the bus ride to the store was part of the awesome memories. And who in their right mind is bashing the 90s? I mean, yeah, furbies were creepy I admit. But the rest was awesome.
It's more about the principle of it all. It's pretty shady. I think the whole "they'll shut down the servers someday" is a little overblown myself. It hasn't really happened on a mass scale, at least not yet. And who even knows if they will be alive tomorrow?
So it's about not supporting unscrupulous business practices for me personally. And as far as not getting to play this or that triple-A game, it's all good. I'm like everyone else here, I have a 500+ game backlog, choice isn't an issue right now.
That said, I get it sounds weird to anyone under the age of 25 because they've been all digital since day one. They have no frame of reference, no concept of ownership. To them it's a complete non-issue. And I get that to a degree.
But hey, it's not my fault they had the bad fortune to be born after the year 2000 (never got to experience the 90s, that's a crime) and don't know any better, and I'm not changing my view on the account of Gen Z kids who grew up playing live service games on their phones.
Yeah I check doesitplay to see if the game is playable off the disc, offline, before making any physical purchase. I skip anything that requires a download to actually play. Which is a pretty small percentage on PS5, around 4% I think. And that 4% includes games that are online only, like Concord.
I don't know who started this rumor that all physical games are just game keys now, but I see it repeated every time.
Yeah I really hope Microsoft doesn't infect Sony first party releases with this practice. I'd like to think, possibly somewhat naively, that we have higher expectations over here. I guess you become a little less consumer conscious when your platform of choice is a glorified streaming app anyways.
Just leave that silliness over there, on your side of the fence Microsoft. We got standards.
A hard, no buy from me until it goes under $20 in a digital sale. Won't bother with a game key disc. Same for Forza and Indiana Jones. They'd have been at least a $200 richer by now if they would bother to release games properly.
We subsidize your GamePass B.S. by buying these at full price, maybe put the most minimum amount of effort into it.
I'm talking a bit out of my butt because I don't play on PC and this is beyond my technical knowledge of the game's behind the scenes number crunching and math, but from what I was watching, PC players have already been digging under the hood and found new, lower caps to health and other stats for enemies of a given level.
Maybe this comes more into play after level 26 when you really had to plan around how tanky enemies became while your player strength stagnated.
I'll grant you even if they did tweak the level scaling of enemies, there are still some noteworthy issues with the leveling and item systems that I hope are patched further.
I really wish they just had zones like pretty much every other game does, where enemies are a certain level range in a given area. Would solve all this and you don't have bandits running around in God tier armor, giving you the fight of your life.
What difficulty are you playing on? I've heard the consensus is the difficulty spike from Adept to Expert is massive and a little broken.
I've been sailing through, currently level 19 with a Redguard warrior and nothing at all like what you are describing. Enemies are getting spongier for sure but 4-5 hits does it almost every time. Don't even have the best equipment available for my level, just a very casual playthrough - no min/maxing. Not that there is much min/maxing to do with the changes they've made.
I can see a player getting themselves in trouble around where I'm at if they dump all their level gain stats into non-combat attributes at the beginning. From what I've seen, the enemy scaling is toned down massively but they've done nothing with item scaling, which itself was also problematic. So you still see poor bandits wearing Daedric armor around level 20.
I'll have to wait to get to level 26 to see how re-tuned it all is. I have it on Adept difficulty.
They tweaked the level scaling pretty significantly in the remaster. It's still there, but they've added health and other stat caps to enemies. People that have spent time with the game so far have noted the brick wall you hit around level 26 in the original release is thankfully no longer present here.
There's actually a lot of similar sneaky changes they made players are still discovering, pretty much all for the better. For example, a dungeon that was glitched to be forever locked (no key for the door existed in the game) has been opened up, things like that.
The cool thing about this release is Virtuous did a lot more tinkering under the hood than people first thought.
Voices sound alright. Victor Ireland needs to get off his high horse already and release the localization rights. I love that guy for his work at Working Designs but he sounds like a prickly SOB.
I'll agree the price of the console doesn't seem too nuts. Nintendo plays by its own special rules on pricing, they will never sell them at a loss like the other manufacturers. That's what you call Nintendo privilege. It's fine, it's new(ish) tech, the new shiny thing.
That Mario Kart game price though. Oof. $90+ in Europe? That won't fly (or should I say drive?) very far. I know Nintendo has a large dedicated, longtime user base, but at the end of the day it's a console parents buy for their kids for Christmas, a casual machine. It can't escape that rep as the family friendly option. Mom is gonna walk right on by a $90 game on the shelf come the holidays.
I'm like a lot of you guys, I primarily play on PS5 and use a Switch as a secondary console for the exclusives and portability.
If they are gonna try to angle this thing as "Hey now it gets multiplatform games day and date, way cool!", it'll be interesting to see how that goes.
Like Sammy said, everyone who was into Hitman... already played Hitman years ago at a fidelity higher than this will offer. Needs more first party exclusives, I'm sure they will come in time. This may be a wait 2-3 years for the library to develop situation for me personally.
I am so here for the mass revolt against and implosion of live service games across the industry. Is it Schadenfreude? Probably. Story after story of companies losing boatloads of money chasing GTA success make me happy - they sold out, went for the easy money and lost so, so big. As is absolutely deserved.
A business that chases trends without original ideas deserves the axe. Put all the CEOs who went this direction on the metaphorical firing line. Which is kinda what's been happening lately.
Just two years ago we were talking about SquareEnix and Ubisoft putting NFTs in their games, the height of insanity imo. So many changes in the last two years.
I think the article is more referring to third party publishers like Capcom, Sega, and Namco than Playstation Studios, in terms of software. A lot of people here would argue Playstation haven't exactly been killing it lately - maybe precisely because of how westernized they have become. They've hardly released much that isn't a port in the last two years. Their standout title, Astro Bot, is from one of their few remaining Japanese studios.
Their decision to chase live service and resulting software drought - which many, many people here predicted would happen - is in my view a very Americanized business culture of chasing trends instead of setting them. A very Jim Ryan-esque ethos was at play there.
And yes, I am firmly in the 'Playstation has lost its way' camp. But they will keep making bank.
Funny Japan reeaaally struggled during the PS3 era. Like had a full on identity crisis and even tentpole mainstays like Final Fantasy were faltering with middling releases - even Capcom had their dark days back then, with a high ratio of misses. While the west was crushing it and setting the pace, constantly.
Now, it's looking like a 180 reversal. It's the east's time to shine again. You love to see it.
Interesting. I've always heard the English language is one of the most complex and difficult languages to learn because the emphasis changes the meaning of the sentence or word, as opposed to say Japanese or Arabic where you don't emphasize any syllables, you just pronounce it as it's written.
Fans have been arguing how to pronounce 'Suikoden' correctly for years. I pronounced it SHIH-KOH-DEN growing up but since it's Japanese it's actually pronounced precisely how it's written - so SOOH-EEH-KOH-DIN, with no emphasis on any syllable. Blew my mind.
This is a common boogeyman in collector circles. I'll just say, as someone who owns over 1600 disc-based titles - some older than 30 years - I have never, ever seen or experienced "disc rot". I restore the games myself as a hobby and I'm looking at discs constantly.
I'm sure it's real (everything dies) but waaaay overblown. I'm willing to bet many tens of thousands of dollars worth of retro games it is overstated.
No physical release, no problem. Because it's 100%, unequivocally a no buy. I have an 800+ backlog of games, I'm not the target market for this anyways.
Well, well, well. I hate to be this guy (actually no, I don't), but... called it. The pro model removed a base feature (the disc drive) and charged quite a large amount for that privilege. That coincided with a scalping debacle with the disc drive units sold separately.
I'm doubling down on my earlier bet this won't move anything close to the PS4 Pro, which itself didn't exactly burst doors down in the sales department.
Yeah saw standard out of stock in US, just went for the deluxe instead. Preorders sold out on Limited Run as well which doesn't usually happen on there for an unnumbered distribution release, so seems a lot of demand for this one.
That can't be 100% confirmed until the game actually releases. But for remasters like this, the answer is 99% chance it will be.
Very few PS5 games are not playable offline from the disc - no downloads required. In fact, I only know of one retro remaster ever released that wasn't complete on disc (Spyro Trilogy on PS4), and that was later fixed in a sneaky re-release.
☝️ Database of PS5 games requiring a download to play from a physical disc. Right now, 50 PS5 games in the database (11%) are listed as requiring a download to play - including the ones you would expect, like Concord and Call of Duty and some you wouldn't expect, like Balatro.
Sooooo can everyone in the comments stop saying the discs are just digital licenses or digital keys to download the game in the comments now? No? Okay then.
Most games (89%) are playable off the disc, without internet.
Yeah thank heavens for homebrew. Some of those games lost to time are really the best on the system. Better than the AAA titles is my hot take, which haven't aged as well as the indie gems. Earthworm Jim HD, let's freaking go.
I wish it would let me post a link without getting my comment thrown out. There is a website which tracks all delisted games in each region. In my region (US) it's up to 403 delisted games, whether that's big AA-AAA titles or smaller download only stuff. The number increases every time I check it and keeps going up.
Some noteworthy games which were delisted in 2024 are Battlefield 3 / 4 / Hardline and LittleBigPlanet 3. Not anything I'm personally interested in, but still.
I guess my point is while they kept the PS3 servers running, they are culling the games library. And the games disappear almost always with no warning. Some being download only games never released physically, which are now just lost forever (Soul Calibur II HD, The Simpsons Arcade, Afterburner Climax). And in rarer and disappointing cases, delisting physically released games that are still trapped on PS3 / 360 consoles. There are a surprising amount of games marooned on PS3 which have never been ported forward. I guess Battlefield 3 just joined that list, I wasn't even aware until I looked it up to respond to this. It's a real shame.
I guess I'm getting off topic but yeah, they have been slowly shutting everything down it seems. Not sure what the Asia / UK / Japanese stores look like on that front but assume it's similar. Silver lining is if you previously bought the games you can still download them from your library, for the time being.
That is a strictly online only game that has since been executed by the Sony Gods. My PS2 copy of Final Fantasy XI isn't seeing much play time either now that you mention it.
I mean with extreme cases like Cyberpunk 2077, garbage is right. But like in the good old PS1 and PS2 days, we used to play around the glitches and usually wasn't that big a deal. You got what you got on the disc.
The completely unplayable games like Cyberpunk are actually pretty few and far between. You are getting a rougher version - sometimes a little rougher, sometimes a lot, but it's something is what I'm saying.
I'd just point to what's happening to PS3 games on PSN for anyone paying attention. They are still routinely delisting PS3 games on there, as in taking them off the store. Have been for quite awhile. The price of physical copies of said game then shoots through the roof because there is no alternate way to play it outside of jailbreaking, etc.
It's up to personal taste at the end of the day. I'm sure the Gen Z Fortnite crowd isn't really too concerned about if it's playable in 10-20 years. They'll be playing the next big thing. But me, I like old games. I think they are cool and fun, warts and all.
You get the full game on the disc in almost all cases. Sure a pre-patched version, but a playable version nonetheless.
With digital, servers go out (like out permanently I mean), you can play nothing. With physical, you get at least an "early" version of the game. Which would you prefer? Something or... nothing? The choice seems so simple to me. Resell value, tradeable w/ friends, often cheaper depending on when you buy.
But yes, your copy of Black Ops 6 is a glorified drink coaster. Also worth mentioning some limited run companies are releasing versions of games with all patches and DLC on disc.
As far as I'm aware, the doomsday CMOS clock battery issue is still alive and well on the PS4. Meaning, if your CMOS battery in your PS4 dies after the servers stop running, you can't play even physical games I believe.
It's been awhile since I read about it, and the same issue has been patched on PS3 I believe, so someone can correct me if I'm wrong about this. But something to be aware of, because the CMOS clock batteries do need to be replaced every 5-10 years.
Edit: Nevermind, the PS4 issue was patched, I actually have it backwards. The PS3 still needs a one time server authentication after replacing the CMOS battery. Which is even more concerning considering I feel like the PS3 server days are numbered.
I play RPGs to 100% completion. I also work a lot. So months is pretty common for me.
Just platinumed Final Fantasy Rebirth playing off and on for the last year. As another commenter mentioned, don't go for the platinum on this one. The epitome of a PS3 era trophy list, from back in the days when getting trophies was HARD. Blows Dark Souls out of the water in terms of difficulty.
I actually avoid or limit how many open world type games, especially RPGs, I play for this exact reason. Witcher 3 100% took me 3 full years at around 350 hours.
I also avoid certain franchises, like the Persona series, that exist only to torture completionists.
I'll get to Veilguard eventually, just have a huge backlog. It sucks they went with a young adults Disney tone for the new game, because Dragon Age lore might be the most interesting of any series, ever, to me. And part of the allure is just how extremely brutally dark it was. Like cosmic horror levels of death and destruction.
Just a lot of missed opportunities. Tevinter Imperium sections of the game aren't fleshed out, the Blight enemies look like Scooby Doo villains now, the dialogue writing is mediocre to outright awful depending on who you ask. Also homogenizing and simplifying the RPG elements isn't cool with me. Can't directly control your teammates. Lack of party control didn't sit right with me for FFXV and it doesn't for this game either. It all screams they were trying to appeal to a younger audience and forgot the original fans, from the ground up.
I'll still play it eventually to see what they did with the lore but I'm not rushing to go buy it. Or maybe I'll just replay Origins.
PlayStation players subsidizing GamePass. Not to get all console war-y about it but PlayStation customers still actually pay for their games. I was looking at the Xbox physical game sales and it's virtually non-existent at this point.
It's a win-win for everyone, both Xbox and PlayStation customers. PlayStation players get more choice and Microsoft gets another revenue stream to keep GamePass solvent so they can keep their digital rental service going for people that go for that. I don't see an obvious downside.
I guess the only big one is I still believe exclusives establish your brand and draw people in to your ecosystem, and this might work against that. But I guess the common wisdom is exclusives don't matter anymore, it's all about services now, if you listen to the MSoft executives. And when have they ever been wrong?
The players don't like him. Now the shareholders don't like him either. He had his chance and bet it all big on live service. It was a gamble I'm sure he was aware, turns out he bet red and it came up black. This man lost the company an ungodly amount of money.
Whether he is a net benefit or liability for the company over his entire career is a question for the philosophers. I'm surprised he wasn't let go. And by let go, I mean given a golden parachute to comfortably land a CEO spot at some mid tier tech company, Don Matrick style.
CEOs are by their nature bold decision makers and risk takers (and frequently display psychopathic tendencies, but I digress). It turns out the risk always materializes over a long enough timeline.
With this decision I feel the Jim Ryan era of PlayStation, which I disliked for so many different reasons, is finally well and truly over.
One little thought I'd add is games back then - even the best selling ones - didn't move the numbers they do today. 5 million units for a triple A game was an amazing success in the Baldur's Gate 2 days. Now, it's a common sales target for AAA titles.
Bigger market (although it has since stagnated) could explain the increasing sales expectations. 1.5 million today for an around 10-year dev cycle AAA household brand name like Dragon Age with I'm sure an insane marketing budget probably isn't what they were hoping for.
It's alright though, EA will make the money back easily with ultimate team card pack microtransactions.
Haven't played Veilguard yet, and FIFA can suck it.
The writing was on the wall. I think most people with any real familiarity with this industry knew. If the publisher is quiet about sales, it is usually underperforming. If the publisher says no DLC planned, that's not a good sign either. They announced that right near release. Why? Because they have the preorder numbers.They already knew.
The metadata and extrapolations you can make from third party websites like psnprofiles were pretty accurate for both Veilguard and Concord it turns out. It seems they can't really hide the sales numbers as well as they used to.
It kills me that everyone was pushing 'Veilguard is the best selling single player release on Steam' articles. Those were so transparently misleading as to be virtually false, as EA just began releasing their games on Steam.
I don't have a bone to pick with Bioware or this game. But video game journalism needs to step it up and stop doing this weird circle the wagon thing every time a game lands itself in the culture war debate. It discredits everyone.
And then you consider the (unsubstantiated but highly plausible) claims of access journalism EA engaged in when it released. Picking and choosing who to send codes to, I think they knew this game was gonna make the wrong kind of headlines. They had to know. Surely it was pegged as review bomb material from a mile away by anyone at EA who has been paying attention the last couple years. It lends credence to the selective distribution of review codes thing for me. It certainly tracks.
And all it took was one random YouTuber (SkillUp) to blow the lid off. What a world. If I want serious impressions of a game now, I go to YouTube and... that's not something I ever thought I'd say.
The one thing I'd say to temper this all is Dragon Age games tend to have a long sales tail, and I'd wager it doubles this number in the next 5-10 years. So don't sign Bioware's death warrant just yet. I mean, I wouldn't blame you if you did but there is hope is all I'm saying.
Multiply the market cap by 10 in five years huh? Forget about a thousand percent, if you can guarantee six percent increases in profit year over year, they will pay you tens of millions of dollars. Go apply!
Comments 872
Re: Mortal Kombat Fans Are Fuming MK1's Support Appears to Be Over
Oh, let me count the ways:
-
As a huge MK fan, this is the first entry I would consider to be solidly in the 'not good' category in a long, long time.
Re: The Precinct (PS5) - GTA-Style Sandbox Is a Dynamic, Addictive Cop Movie Homage
Done this job for eight years, just got a detective spot last month. The bit about requesting spike strips in a car chase is pretty on point. However, I can confirm promotions are not necessarily given based on experience or how many cases you have closed in real life. If only, haha.
I guess it wouldn't have been too much fun if they simulated 4 hours of report writing after every DUI arrest. But seems surprisingly realistic and technical for a game of this type.
I absolutely will not be playing this 😆
Re: The Midnight Walk (PSVR2) - Dark, Melancholic, and Hauntingly Beautiful
Loved Lost in Random. Have been looking forward to this.
Re: PS5 Fans Furious As Microsoft Ships DOOM: The Dark Ages with Just 85MB on the Disc
@Cornpop76
Disagree, the bus ride to the store was part of the awesome memories. And who in their right mind is bashing the 90s? I mean, yeah, furbies were creepy I admit. But the rest was awesome.
Re: PS5 Fans Furious As Microsoft Ships DOOM: The Dark Ages with Just 85MB on the Disc
@Cornpop76
It's more about the principle of it all. It's pretty shady. I think the whole "they'll shut down the servers someday" is a little overblown myself. It hasn't really happened on a mass scale, at least not yet. And who even knows if they will be alive tomorrow?
So it's about not supporting unscrupulous business practices for me personally. And as far as not getting to play this or that triple-A game, it's all good. I'm like everyone else here, I have a 500+ game backlog, choice isn't an issue right now.
That said, I get it sounds weird to anyone under the age of 25 because they've been all digital since day one. They have no frame of reference, no concept of ownership. To them it's a complete non-issue. And I get that to a degree.
But hey, it's not my fault they had the bad fortune to be born after the year 2000 (never got to experience the 90s, that's a crime) and don't know any better, and I'm not changing my view on the account of Gen Z kids who grew up playing live service games on their phones.
Re: PS5 Fans Furious As Microsoft Ships DOOM: The Dark Ages with Just 85MB on the Disc
@antlion
Yeah I check doesitplay to see if the game is playable off the disc, offline, before making any physical purchase. I skip anything that requires a download to actually play. Which is a pretty small percentage on PS5, around 4% I think. And that 4% includes games that are online only, like Concord.
I don't know who started this rumor that all physical games are just game keys now, but I see it repeated every time.
Re: PS5 Fans Furious As Microsoft Ships DOOM: The Dark Ages with Just 85MB on the Disc
@Cypher_Unknown
Yeah I really hope Microsoft doesn't infect Sony first party releases with this practice. I'd like to think, possibly somewhat naively, that we have higher expectations over here. I guess you become a little less consumer conscious when your platform of choice is a glorified streaming app anyways.
Just leave that silliness over there, on your side of the fence Microsoft. We got standards.
Re: PS5 Fans Furious As Microsoft Ships DOOM: The Dark Ages with Just 85MB on the Disc
A hard, no buy from me until it goes under $20 in a digital sale. Won't bother with a game key disc. Same for Forza and Indiana Jones. They'd have been at least a $200 richer by now if they would bother to release games properly.
We subsidize your GamePass B.S. by buying these at full price, maybe put the most minimum amount of effort into it.
Well done, Microsoft.
Re: Plenty of People Are Playing Expedition 33 on PS5, Despite Having to Actually Buy It
@Ichiban
Your mother is a wise, wise woman.
Re: The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered (PS5) - The Largely Fantastic Revival of a Landmark RPG
I'm talking a bit out of my butt because I don't play on PC and this is beyond my technical knowledge of the game's behind the scenes number crunching and math, but from what I was watching, PC players have already been digging under the hood and found new, lower caps to health and other stats for enemies of a given level.
Maybe this comes more into play after level 26 when you really had to plan around how tanky enemies became while your player strength stagnated.
I'll grant you even if they did tweak the level scaling of enemies, there are still some noteworthy issues with the leveling and item systems that I hope are patched further.
I really wish they just had zones like pretty much every other game does, where enemies are a certain level range in a given area. Would solve all this and you don't have bandits running around in God tier armor, giving you the fight of your life.
Re: The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered (PS5) - The Largely Fantastic Revival of a Landmark RPG
@KundaliniRising333
What difficulty are you playing on? I've heard the consensus is the difficulty spike from Adept to Expert is massive and a little broken.
I've been sailing through, currently level 19 with a Redguard warrior and nothing at all like what you are describing. Enemies are getting spongier for sure but 4-5 hits does it almost every time. Don't even have the best equipment available for my level, just a very casual playthrough - no min/maxing. Not that there is much min/maxing to do with the changes they've made.
I can see a player getting themselves in trouble around where I'm at if they dump all their level gain stats into non-combat attributes at the beginning. From what I've seen, the enemy scaling is toned down massively but they've done nothing with item scaling, which itself was also problematic. So you still see poor bandits wearing Daedric armor around level 20.
I'll have to wait to get to level 26 to see how re-tuned it all is. I have it on Adept difficulty.
Re: The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered (PS5) - The Largely Fantastic Revival of a Landmark RPG
@KundaliniRising333
They tweaked the level scaling pretty significantly in the remaster. It's still there, but they've added health and other stat caps to enemies. People that have spent time with the game so far have noted the brick wall you hit around level 26 in the original release is thankfully no longer present here.
There's actually a lot of similar sneaky changes they made players are still discovering, pretty much all for the better. For example, a dungeon that was glitched to be forever locked (no key for the door existed in the game) has been opened up, things like that.
The cool thing about this release is Virtuous did a lot more tinkering under the hood than people first thought.
Re: Enjoy Pure PS1 Nostalgia with Lunar Remastered Collection's Story Trailer
Voices sound alright. Victor Ireland needs to get off his high horse already and release the localization rights. I love that guy for his work at Working Designs but he sounds like a prickly SOB.
Re: Reaction: Switch 2 Looks Solid But the Many PS5, PS4 Ports Won't Spook Sony Yet
@NotTelevision
I'll agree the price of the console doesn't seem too nuts. Nintendo plays by its own special rules on pricing, they will never sell them at a loss like the other manufacturers. That's what you call Nintendo privilege. It's fine, it's new(ish) tech, the new shiny thing.
That Mario Kart game price though. Oof. $90+ in Europe? That won't fly (or should I say drive?) very far. I know Nintendo has a large dedicated, longtime user base, but at the end of the day it's a console parents buy for their kids for Christmas, a casual machine. It can't escape that rep as the family friendly option. Mom is gonna walk right on by a $90 game on the shelf come the holidays.
Re: Reaction: Switch 2 Looks Solid But the Many PS5, PS4 Ports Won't Spook Sony Yet
I'm like a lot of you guys, I primarily play on PS5 and use a Switch as a secondary console for the exclusives and portability.
If they are gonna try to angle this thing as "Hey now it gets multiplatform games day and date, way cool!", it'll be interesting to see how that goes.
Like Sammy said, everyone who was into Hitman... already played Hitman years ago at a fidelity higher than this will offer. Needs more first party exclusives, I'm sure they will come in time. This may be a wait 2-3 years for the library to develop situation for me personally.
Re: The Witcher, Cyberpunk 2077 Dev Commits to 'Cutting-Edge Single-Player' Games Amidst Live Service Madness
I am so here for the mass revolt against and implosion of live service games across the industry. Is it Schadenfreude? Probably. Story after story of companies losing boatloads of money chasing GTA success make me happy - they sold out, went for the easy money and lost so, so big. As is absolutely deserved.
A business that chases trends without original ideas deserves the axe. Put all the CEOs who went this direction on the metaphorical firing line. Which is kinda what's been happening lately.
Just two years ago we were talking about SquareEnix and Ubisoft putting NFTs in their games, the height of insanity imo. So many changes in the last two years.
Re: Japan's Game Industry on Impressive Rise as Western AAA Development Struggles
@Jimmer-jammer
I think the article is more referring to third party publishers like Capcom, Sega, and Namco than Playstation Studios, in terms of software. A lot of people here would argue Playstation haven't exactly been killing it lately - maybe precisely because of how westernized they have become. They've hardly released much that isn't a port in the last two years. Their standout title, Astro Bot, is from one of their few remaining Japanese studios.
Their decision to chase live service and resulting software drought - which many, many people here predicted would happen - is in my view a very Americanized business culture of chasing trends instead of setting them. A very Jim Ryan-esque ethos was at play there.
And yes, I am firmly in the 'Playstation has lost its way' camp. But they will keep making bank.
Re: Japan's Game Industry on Impressive Rise as Western AAA Development Struggles
Funny Japan reeaaally struggled during the PS3 era. Like had a full on identity crisis and even tentpole mainstays like Final Fantasy were faltering with middling releases - even Capcom had their dark days back then, with a high ratio of misses. While the west was crushing it and setting the pace, constantly.
Now, it's looking like a 180 reversal. It's the east's time to shine again. You love to see it.
Re: Random: You've Been Pronouncing Balatro Wrong (Probably)
Interesting. I've always heard the English language is one of the most complex and difficult languages to learn because the emphasis changes the meaning of the sentence or word, as opposed to say Japanese or Arabic where you don't emphasize any syllables, you just pronounce it as it's written.
Fans have been arguing how to pronounce 'Suikoden' correctly for years. I pronounced it SHIH-KOH-DEN growing up but since it's Japanese it's actually pronounced precisely how it's written - so SOOH-EEH-KOH-DIN, with no emphasis on any syllable. Blew my mind.
Language is interesting.
Re: Disc Rot Already Afflicts Your Physical Game Collection
This is a common boogeyman in collector circles. I'll just say, as someone who owns over 1600 disc-based titles - some older than 30 years - I have never, ever seen or experienced "disc rot". I restore the games myself as a hobby and I'm looking at discs constantly.
I'm sure it's real (everything dies) but waaaay overblown. I'm willing to bet many tens of thousands of dollars worth of retro games it is overstated.
Re: Forza Horizon 5 Will Require a Microsoft Account to Play on PS5, Raising Preservation Problems
Yeah no. I'm good Microsoft.
No physical release, no problem. Because it's 100%, unequivocally a no buy. I have an 800+ backlog of games, I'm not the target market for this anyways.
Re: Fans Are Fuming Warner Bros Patented the Nemesis System But Isn't Using It
I'm no patent law expert, but this patent should never have been allowed. Way too broad a concept.
Nintendo level hostile IP overreach. Can't decide which is more dumb, this or Nintendo trademarking "It's on like donkey kong".
Re: Warner Bros Games Closes Multiple Studios, Wonder Woman Cancelled
Not too psyched about what Mortal Kombat has become under WB.
Also there goes the Nemesis system concept WB somehow managed to patent... now no games can use the idea.
Re: Sony's Pricey PS5 Pro Is Now Being Outpaced by PS4 Pro Launch Aligned in the US
Well, well, well. I hate to be this guy (actually no, I don't), but... called it. The pro model removed a base feature (the disc drive) and charged quite a large amount for that privilege. That coincided with a scalping debacle with the disc drive units sold separately.
I'm doubling down on my earlier bet this won't move anything close to the PS4 Pro, which itself didn't exactly burst doors down in the sales department.
Ohhhh Sony.
Re: Soul Reaver 1 & 2 Remastered Gets Physical PS5 Editions in June, Pre-Orders Live Now
@IntrepidWombat
Yeah saw standard out of stock in US, just went for the deluxe instead. Preorders sold out on Limited Run as well which doesn't usually happen on there for an unnumbered distribution release, so seems a lot of demand for this one.
Re: Soul Reaver 1 & 2 Remastered Gets Physical PS5 Editions in June, Pre-Orders Live Now
@Bramble
doesitplay.org
That can't be 100% confirmed until the game actually releases. But for remasters like this, the answer is 99% chance it will be.
Very few PS5 games are not playable offline from the disc - no downloads required. In fact, I only know of one retro remaster ever released that wasn't complete on disc (Spyro Trilogy on PS4), and that was later fixed in a sneaky re-release.
I really wouldn't worry.
Re: Soul Reaver 1 & 2 Remastered Gets Physical PS5 Editions in June, Pre-Orders Live Now
Looks like out of stock for the standard PS5 edition already? 🤔
Re: Embattled US Retailer Trolls Customers for Picking Digital During PSN Outage on PS5, PS4
doesitplay.org
☝️ Database of PS5 games requiring a download to play from a physical disc. Right now, 50 PS5 games in the database (11%) are listed as requiring a download to play - including the ones you would expect, like Concord and Call of Duty and some you wouldn't expect, like Balatro.
Sooooo can everyone in the comments stop saying the discs are just digital licenses or digital keys to download the game in the comments now? No? Okay then.
Most games (89%) are playable off the disc, without internet.
Re: Embattled US Retailer Trolls Customers for Picking Digital During PSN Outage on PS5, PS4
@Lanmanna
Yeah thank heavens for homebrew. Some of those games lost to time are really the best on the system. Better than the AAA titles is my hot take, which haven't aged as well as the indie gems. Earthworm Jim HD, let's freaking go.
Re: Sony Quietly Pulls 'Eslop' Titles in Face of Mounting Pressure
The worst aspect of trophy hunting has been the proliferation of these games. Glad to see it's being noticed somewhat.
Re: Embattled US Retailer Trolls Customers for Picking Digital During PSN Outage on PS5, PS4
@Aladin_Run
Grass is overrated.
Re: Embattled US Retailer Trolls Customers for Picking Digital During PSN Outage on PS5, PS4
@PuppetMaster
I wish it would let me post a link without getting my comment thrown out. There is a website which tracks all delisted games in each region. In my region (US) it's up to 403 delisted games, whether that's big AA-AAA titles or smaller download only stuff. The number increases every time I check it and keeps going up.
Some noteworthy games which were delisted in 2024 are Battlefield 3 / 4 / Hardline and LittleBigPlanet 3. Not anything I'm personally interested in, but still.
I guess my point is while they kept the PS3 servers running, they are culling the games library. And the games disappear almost always with no warning. Some being download only games never released physically, which are now just lost forever (Soul Calibur II HD, The Simpsons Arcade, Afterburner Climax). And in rarer and disappointing cases, delisting physically released games that are still trapped on PS3 / 360 consoles. There are a surprising amount of games marooned on PS3 which have never been ported forward. I guess Battlefield 3 just joined that list, I wasn't even aware until I looked it up to respond to this. It's a real shame.
I guess I'm getting off topic but yeah, they have been slowly shutting everything down it seems. Not sure what the Asia / UK / Japanese stores look like on that front but assume it's similar. Silver lining is if you previously bought the games you can still download them from your library, for the time being.
Re: Embattled US Retailer Trolls Customers for Picking Digital During PSN Outage on PS5, PS4
@ATaco
That is a strictly online only game that has since been executed by the Sony Gods. My PS2 copy of Final Fantasy XI isn't seeing much play time either now that you mention it.
Re: Embattled US Retailer Trolls Customers for Picking Digital During PSN Outage on PS5, PS4
@Cornpop76
I mean with extreme cases like Cyberpunk 2077, garbage is right. But like in the good old PS1 and PS2 days, we used to play around the glitches and usually wasn't that big a deal. You got what you got on the disc.
The completely unplayable games like Cyberpunk are actually pretty few and far between. You are getting a rougher version - sometimes a little rougher, sometimes a lot, but it's something is what I'm saying.
I'd just point to what's happening to PS3 games on PSN for anyone paying attention. They are still routinely delisting PS3 games on there, as in taking them off the store. Have been for quite awhile. The price of physical copies of said game then shoots through the roof because there is no alternate way to play it outside of jailbreaking, etc.
It's up to personal taste at the end of the day. I'm sure the Gen Z Fortnite crowd isn't really too concerned about if it's playable in 10-20 years. They'll be playing the next big thing. But me, I like old games. I think they are cool and fun, warts and all.
Re: Embattled US Retailer Trolls Customers for Picking Digital During PSN Outage on PS5, PS4
You get the full game on the disc in almost all cases. Sure a pre-patched version, but a playable version nonetheless.
With digital, servers go out (like out permanently I mean), you can play nothing. With physical, you get at least an "early" version of the game. Which would you prefer? Something or... nothing? The choice seems so simple to me. Resell value, tradeable w/ friends, often cheaper depending on when you buy.
But yes, your copy of Black Ops 6 is a glorified drink coaster. Also worth mentioning some limited run companies are releasing versions of games with all patches and DLC on disc.
Re: PSN Downtime Raises Fresh Questions About PS5's Future Functionality
@Shepherd_Tallon
Thanks for the correction! I think I had it backwards, it's the PS3 that still has this issue right? Or was that fixed too? That would be good news.
Re: PSN Downtime Raises Fresh Questions About PS5's Future Functionality
As far as I'm aware, the doomsday CMOS clock battery issue is still alive and well on the PS4. Meaning, if your CMOS battery in your PS4 dies after the servers stop running, you can't play even physical games I believe.
It's been awhile since I read about it, and the same issue has been patched on PS3 I believe, so someone can correct me if I'm wrong about this. But something to be aware of, because the CMOS clock batteries do need to be replaced every 5-10 years.
Edit: Nevermind, the PS4 issue was patched, I actually have it backwards. The PS3 still needs a one time server authentication after replacing the CMOS battery. Which is even more concerning considering I feel like the PS3 server days are numbered.
Re: Wonder Woman Game in Turmoil, Is Still 'Years Away from Release', New Report Claims
Are these the people that trademarked the "Nemesis System"? I'll pass.
Re: Rocksteady Lining Up New Single Player Batman Game After Suicide Squad Disaster, It's Claimed
The Rocksteady ship has sailed for me. WB corrupts everything it touches.
Re: Poll: How Long Does It Take You to Beat a Big RPG?
I play RPGs to 100% completion. I also work a lot. So months is pretty common for me.
Just platinumed Final Fantasy Rebirth playing off and on for the last year. As another commenter mentioned, don't go for the platinum on this one. The epitome of a PS3 era trophy list, from back in the days when getting trophies was HARD. Blows Dark Souls out of the water in terms of difficulty.
I actually avoid or limit how many open world type games, especially RPGs, I play for this exact reason. Witcher 3 100% took me 3 full years at around 350 hours.
I also avoid certain franchises, like the Persona series, that exist only to torture completionists.
Re: Browse a Colossal Library of Classic US Video Game Magazines Now
So cool. They have 130 issues of PSM magazine. I know what I'm doing tonight.
Re: BioWare Downsizing as It Focuses on Next Mass Effect, Some Staff Moved to Other EA Teams
I'll get to Veilguard eventually, just have a huge backlog. It sucks they went with a young adults Disney tone for the new game, because Dragon Age lore might be the most interesting of any series, ever, to me. And part of the allure is just how extremely brutally dark it was. Like cosmic horror levels of death and destruction.
Just a lot of missed opportunities. Tevinter Imperium sections of the game aren't fleshed out, the Blight enemies look like Scooby Doo villains now, the dialogue writing is mediocre to outright awful depending on who you ask. Also homogenizing and simplifying the RPG elements isn't cool with me. Can't directly control your teammates. Lack of party control didn't sit right with me for FFXV and it doesn't for this game either. It all screams they were trying to appeal to a younger audience and forgot the original fans, from the ground up.
I'll still play it eventually to see what they did with the lore but I'm not rushing to go buy it. Or maybe I'll just replay Origins.
Re: Xbox Was December's Biggest Publisher, and 64% of Its Sales Were on PS5, PS4
PlayStation players subsidizing GamePass. Not to get all console war-y about it but PlayStation customers still actually pay for their games. I was looking at the Xbox physical game sales and it's virtually non-existent at this point.
It's a win-win for everyone, both Xbox and PlayStation customers. PlayStation players get more choice and Microsoft gets another revenue stream to keep GamePass solvent so they can keep their digital rental service going for people that go for that. I don't see an obvious downside.
I guess the only big one is I still believe exclusives establish your brand and draw people in to your ecosystem, and this might work against that. But I guess the common wisdom is exclusives don't matter anymore, it's all about services now, if you listen to the MSoft executives. And when have they ever been wrong?
Re: Sony's Stocks Fly As Market Responds to New Corporate Hierarchy
The players don't like him. Now the shareholders don't like him either. He had his chance and bet it all big on live service. It was a gamble I'm sure he was aware, turns out he bet red and it came up black. This man lost the company an ungodly amount of money.
Whether he is a net benefit or liability for the company over his entire career is a question for the philosophers. I'm surprised he wasn't let go. And by let go, I mean given a golden parachute to comfortably land a CEO spot at some mid tier tech company, Don Matrick style.
CEOs are by their nature bold decision makers and risk takers (and frequently display psychopathic tendencies, but I digress). It turns out the risk always materializes over a long enough timeline.
With this decision I feel the Jim Ryan era of PlayStation, which I disliked for so many different reasons, is finally well and truly over.
Re: Former Rockstar Animator Doubtful GTA 6 Will Run at 60fps on PS5
Former animator at Rockstar.
Okay.
Re: Silent Hill 2 Has Been Massively Successful on PS5, PC
Really an amazing remake. Bloober really outdid themselves.
Re: Hermen Hulst No Longer PlayStation Co-CEO, Still in Charge of First-Party
So a demotion for Hulst and a (sort of) promotion for Nishino, and the CFO moves up.
Good. I imagine Hulst is feeling grateful to just keep his employment there. Cleaning house.
Re: Dragon Age: The Veilguard, FC 25 Underperform, Force EA to Lower Financial Forecast
@Wiceheid
I'll check out Jade Empire.
One little thought I'd add is games back then - even the best selling ones - didn't move the numbers they do today. 5 million units for a triple A game was an amazing success in the Baldur's Gate 2 days. Now, it's a common sales target for AAA titles.
Bigger market (although it has since stagnated) could explain the increasing sales expectations. 1.5 million today for an around 10-year dev cycle AAA household brand name like Dragon Age with I'm sure an insane marketing budget probably isn't what they were hoping for.
It's alright though, EA will make the money back easily with ultimate team card pack microtransactions.
Re: Dragon Age: The Veilguard, FC 25 Underperform, Force EA to Lower Financial Forecast
Haven't played Veilguard yet, and FIFA can suck it.
The writing was on the wall. I think most people with any real familiarity with this industry knew. If the publisher is quiet about sales, it is usually underperforming. If the publisher says no DLC planned, that's not a good sign either. They announced that right near release. Why? Because they have the preorder numbers.They already knew.
The metadata and extrapolations you can make from third party websites like psnprofiles were pretty accurate for both Veilguard and Concord it turns out. It seems they can't really hide the sales numbers as well as they used to.
It kills me that everyone was pushing 'Veilguard is the best selling single player release on Steam' articles. Those were so transparently misleading as to be virtually false, as EA just began releasing their games on Steam.
I don't have a bone to pick with Bioware or this game. But video game journalism needs to step it up and stop doing this weird circle the wagon thing every time a game lands itself in the culture war debate. It discredits everyone.
And then you consider the (unsubstantiated but highly plausible) claims of access journalism EA engaged in when it released. Picking and choosing who to send codes to, I think they knew this game was gonna make the wrong kind of headlines. They had to know. Surely it was pegged as review bomb material from a mile away by anyone at EA who has been paying attention the last couple years. It lends credence to the selective distribution of review codes thing for me. It certainly tracks.
And all it took was one random YouTuber (SkillUp) to blow the lid off. What a world. If I want serious impressions of a game now, I go to YouTube and... that's not something I ever thought I'd say.
The one thing I'd say to temper this all is Dragon Age games tend to have a long sales tail, and I'd wager it doubles this number in the next 5-10 years. So don't sign Bioware's death warrant just yet. I mean, I wouldn't blame you if you did but there is hope is all I'm saying.
Re: Shuhei Yoshida on PSVR2: 'I'm Sorry'
@JAMes-BroWWWn
Multiply the market cap by 10 in five years huh? Forget about a thousand percent, if you can guarantee six percent increases in profit year over year, they will pay you tens of millions of dollars. Go apply!