Weebleman

@GirlVersusGame my kids think my music taste is abysmal but every so often I catch them humming along to a song or tapping away with the beat so i know the seed is planted. I'm just letting it grow at its own pace. Force it and they will lose interest, but its slowly growing.

My middle kid discovered weezer recently and he is all in on the green album. I'm gonna try and get tickets when they next come round to see how he likes it. I'm hoping that bug bites and I can start bringing him to the smaller, more random gigs.

I'm like you though, my greatest memories are from gigs and festivals growing up. I used to love heading into Manchester of a weekend and hitting the box office in virgin megastore to pick some random gig tickets up. Many of my friends were made at places like the academy or the roadhouse and that just doesn't stand a chance today.

@GirlVersusGame really appreciate the response and completley agree with everything you say. I myself was in the music business a while back and the flow of money was very different. The shift to streaming means that unless youre hitting millions of streams, most of an artists revenue is from touring/merch these days. As you highlighted so well, the cost of touring has gone through the roof. Catch 22.

Add folks like ticketmaster into the mix with the wonderful invention of dynamic pricing, and greed kills the hope of seeing your favourite band for many kids.

I miss the days of going to buy tickets. Or hitting redial on the phone and hoping it gets a dial tone. It sounds old fashioned but at least it was fair and there was no 'wait in the lobby' so it creates a false demand and pushes prices up.

Sadly I don't see it changing for the better.

@MrPeanutbutterz some concert tickets these days are absolutely scandalous. I love music and have been going to see bands live since my first on back in 1994, but I find it hard to justify the cost these days. I tend to go watch folks playing in smaller venues. I will still attend the odd bigger gig, but there are many I just back out of simply because I refuse to pay the ticket price.

Music is for everyone. I'm lucky enough to be able to afford to pay for tickets, I just choose not to as I don't like the way they are pricing folks out of going to see it live.

@themightyant @themightyant UK price is being reported everywhere at £74.99 physical, £68.99 (from what I remember) digital.

@Rich33 donkey Kong looks to be £68.99 in the UK on physical, mario kart is £74.99 physical UK (or there abouts from what I remember)

@themightyant it's buried in there. I spotted that Jeff keeley tweeted it out and found the digital price here..

https://www.nintendo.com/us/gaming-systems/switch-2/featured-games/mario-kart-world/

You have to scroll down al lot.

A LOT.

@Rich33 this is correct. Mario kart World is 89.99 on physical. What on earth.

I love this game. I've been looking for an excuse to replay it so the £10 upgrade fee was justified immediately. Really looking forward to diving back in.

This is going to be hideo kojima secretly teasing silent hills again isnt it!

Who's with me?

@TheKurgan that's the one. Appreciated chief.

@OldGamer999 They did it seperate for another recent release but I can't remember what it was. From the glimpses in that article it seems that pro includes Ray traced shadows and reflections while the standard ps5 and x do not.

Just reading the digital foundry review. Seems they really nailed the visuals and performance. 40fps seems to be the way to go if it's available to you (they don't cover the pro yet).

Good review though, always appreciated.

Jesus christ.

I absolutely loved firewater so, at that price, I highly recommend it.

Also for those teetering on robocop, absolutely worth it at the at price. It plays like an old school fps and the physics are so over the top it's hilarious. Nothing like Exploding heads and groin shots in between throwing baddies through windows.

I really loved this game

@themightyant that's a good shout. I'm gonna hold off for the midnight black one and I may well go for an online purchase to try it out

@themightyant the problem i have is one of my kids will no doubt claim it 😂.

I am genuinely considering it though. I suppose my issue at the minute is time as we are lucky to have various consoles dotted round the house but its finding the spare time to use them. Having a device on hand that let's me carry on my play throughs while away from the console will give me more time to enjoy my games. I take my switch with me when I'm away with work and previously, before cloud was available, the portal didn't seem to like linking to a console outside your home.

I am leaning though. I haven't actually tried one myself so that maybe the tipping point for me.

And that midnight black one is very easy on the eye...

I saw absolutely no value when they announced the portal. Just seemed utterly pointless. Happy to hold my hands up on it and say I was wrong. So wrong in fact that, since they added streaming, I am very very tempted to pick one up.

@Loamy it's such a weird mindest isn't it. Avowed isn't really peaking my interest but I can appreciate it's still a decent game. I may try it at some point and still think it's not for me. I may end up loving it. These people must miss out on so much.

Folks just expect everything and they expect it immediately. Others just want to be grumpy.

Sadly a lot of them have the Internet these days.

You get one side that hates everything just because it's on one particular box. The other side so blinkered that you could have a blank screen and they'd call it a revelation.

I'm just happy to see new games. Do I like them all, no. But there is plenty on the way to guarantee I will like some of them. Which is what we want isn't it, games we enjoy.

I've had my eye on this for a bit. My youngest is keen and it looks like gta for 8 year old, which sounds kinda fun

@ChrisDeku state of play is pretty recorded so, in theory, it can be as long as they want it to be. It's only themselves that sets the time limit.

@themightyant I'm with you on release dates. We got into a cycle were games were announced before there existed anything to actually show at one point. Then it's years of development before we get them. Id much rather see something and then be told it's coming in a shorter time frame.

On that note, the one thing that stood out to me from the state of play last night was that all games bar one (at least that i can think of) were given 2025 release dates. While I wasn't interested in every game, it was nice to have such a short timeframe consistently before they release.

Didn't realise this worked in VR as well. Good stuff.

Gave me an Abes Oddesy vibe.

@SoulReaper-72 you can pick up the ps4 disc pretty cheap and just get the upgrade. I would also like a native physical release but this is kinda half way.

@themightyant the first few hours are a little slow but stick with it and it will surprise you. Especially once your bikes upgraded.

Rahul Kohli is a good guy as well so happy to see him in this

@get2sammyb I'm with you man. Slow start but brilliant when it gets going. The actual world is lovely to explore as well.

@BamBamBaklava89 hugs brother.

@BamBamBaklava89 hey, don't drag me into this

The real question is do you think phil spencer will pop up.

I'm fully expecting to be dissapointed with this as its been a constant theme of these things recently. Happy to be wrong as that means there's good stuff on the way, but yeah. Going in low feels like it's for the best.

There is a lot of grown ass people throwing their toys out over one day.

It's hardly the end of the world is it.

Sold. And some other words because the word sold is to short apparently. Way to give it a complex you judgey bunch.

I cannot wait for this and the more they keep it like the originals, we'll, the better it will be.

@Titntin this is my thoughts, however you made the point far more eloquently than I could muster.

@ATaco Gamepass in its current format will never be on PS. Simply because of 3rd party games. Sony wouldn't want to lose the sales from any 3rd party game that's on GP.

Now, a MS only version similair to EA or Ubisoft, that I can see happening.

I suppose folks will just have to, erm, entertain themselves until it arrives.

@K1LLEGAL Let's not forget that while Spiderman used to be multiplatform, it was offered as exclusive to Microsoft to develop before Sony. An offer they declined. So it was offered to Sony and the rest is history.

@graymamba he has sold his series x at least three times by my count.

@Rich33 completley agree. You are also correct in that it was a COD dev I believe that made that comment. Something to do with how PSSR interacts with noise filters that took one person half an hour to clear up.

@DennisReynolds @Rich33 I probably should have been clearer in my comment as it wasn't intended to be a dig at Sony, just a thought that made me chuckle.

I know some use pssr really well, it's still just weird seeing the xbox logo pop up. Especially when it's likely they will get a boost. Strange times was more the point I intended over anything.

@themightyant and this is the main reason I picked up the pro. The back end of the generation is likely where it will start to shine through, rather than existing titles getting it added.

Similar to you, i will likely dip into a few months of gamepass to check them out and, if there's any i really enjoy, pick them up at a discount for the pro later down the line.

It would be quite entertaining if a MS studio managed to get PSSR running better than one of Sonys own.

@Fritz167 I know. I was just making a (poor) joke about when everybody was insisting it was Kojima being sneaky.

@Fritz167 you mean Hideo Kojimas new game? 😉😂

@nessisonett this is more likely due to most of this generation both Sony and MS have been kicking the ball in their own net. MS just seem to be ahead on the score sheet at the minute.

What an utter waste of these studios and ip. The whole gaming world is in the absolute pits idea wise these days.