ZeroSum

@MrPeanutbutterz yeah dude. Rubber ducks squeak when thrown, and can be used to distract enemies!

Oh yeah, been looking forward to this for awhile. It hopefully breaths new life in to...

Oh wait, I need to go loot for some more ducks in Arc Raiders.

I'll probably look at the update when it launches.

I grabbed Ride 4 after seeing the PS5 promo video (where all the HUD was removed, making it look life-like) and subsequently learned that motorbike sims like Ride are very difficult if you're not a rider yourself.

Please tell me this is going to be PC and Mobile only, so Guerrilla Games can have their own "Don't you guys have phones?" moment! Please! Please!

With GamePass cannibalizing MS' CoD profits, and the majority of profit coming from PlayStation sales, I wonder how much it'd hurt MS if Sony prevented the next CoD from releasing on PlayStation... hypothetical of course as we know that would never happen.

It's also reported that Jared Kushner's investment group, Affinity Partners, is also involved in this deal. Not only would it allow the Saudis influence on gaming, but we could get some Trump thrown in as well!

@Oram77 exactly.

For those that don't know, this is exactly what Bungie have been doing for years - complete X, Y and Z, and be rewarded with the ability to buy something exclusive.

This is Sony taking note from Bungie, and I don't see it doing well.

Aww man! Spoiler warning, eh!?

I'm just at the point in Ragnarok where we learn Kratos might die!

I guess that surprise has been ruined for me now! Jeeeeez

@Czar_Khastik Tom Holland is washed out. He's yesterday's news. They'd get far more sold out showings with Timothee Chalamet playing Kratos!

As someone whose start in gaming was loading games from cassette tapes, followed by floppy disks and then cartridges, this reduction of storage doesn't bother me.

Gamers today are very concerned about storage because they like to download as many games as possible, but it's really only a recent advance that allowed us go from only being able to load 1 game at a time (PS1 and earlier), to being able to pre-load a portion of the game to speed up loading (PS2) to being able to fully store the game digitally on internal storage (PS3). The thing is most of us only play a handful of games, I'd venture less than 5, at a time. 825GB is more than enough space for most gamers, and NVMEs are cheap enough to be an option if you "have to" download games you probably won't play for more than an hour a week.

This is beautiful! It's simultaneously the "we have Snake at home" meme and also a magnificent representation of Konami attempting to carry on Kojima's work without him! You couldn't mock Konami as hard as they've mocked themselves with this!

I keep thinking I should make a UK PSN account to claim it, but then I realise that'd include creating a new email to register the PSN account with, and I lose interest.

I watched a few early reviews of the game around the time of launch and they weren't good, so even if it's free I think I'll pass.

@Whyarewestillhere initially I'd guess they stopped using the FOX engine because although Konami own it, Kojima developed it. When Konami decided to yeet Kojima, Kojima took his team with him to form Kojima Productions.

If given the choice of bringing on new devs that you have to train to use a bespoke game engine or starting fresh in an engine that's intended to be accessible to all, the bespoke engine loses out.

It just sucks that UE5 is generic - it wasn't built to specialize in one genre, like the Decima Engine is for open-world or the Gran Turismo engine is for racing. If you want to use a proprietary engine that is built for a specific genre, you need the staff that know how to use it efficiently.

There are two different threads here; Sony aren't concerned about the quantity of live-service games, but more so the quality. This quality over quantity can only be a good thing for us as gamers.

The second thread is Sony's push to expand its IPs across media, which has already happened, most notably with The Last of Us, which is a great series. If Sony take their time and focus on quality over quantity, it can only be a good thing for us.

@TrollOfWar "By definition a live service game is a game where a development team is actively working on adding content and updates after the release." but in today's world that is pretty much every game, as the majority get support in patches and expansion post-release. And this is why it's hard to reconcile some games as being live-service.

The definition changes depending on who you're talking to and what game.

Personally I'd lean in with the Wikipedia definition of it being games that rely heavily on monetization through microtransactions (and DLCs) for revenue to sustain them.

Breaking News - the only original mode in "new" MGS game delayed due to developers not having someone else's homework to copy.

Now allow me to mark cars on that list that I need, like the Ferrari 330 P4 '67, so that I get notified in-game when it's in stock.

It's alway struck me as dumb that the only way to be notified in game if a certain car is in stock, is to mark the car when it is in stock.

@TrollOfWar thanks!

But that doesn't help.

By that definition live-service is a type of game that has a continuing revenue model built around a constant stream of content being added to the game, either in paid DLCs or paid cosmetics. Destiny 2 meets this criteria by having cosmetics only available for silver (which can only be purchased with real money) in the Eververse store, and the paid expansions and season passes.

Gran Turismo 7 has none of that. The only qualifier GT7 meets is that it has optional microtransactions, microtransactions that it also makes redundant by providing some high paying races. Everything in the game is accessible relatively easy without spending any money, all DLCs are free, nothing is tied to real world currency, so it's fair to say that Gran Turismo 7 isn't built around a continual revenue model supported by DLCs, cosmetics etc.

If GT7 is to be included in live-service, then so must any game that has optional microtransactions or DLC, regardless of cost and purpose.

@rjejr I also have a hard time reconciling GT7 and MLB The Show as live service games, and I think this is in part due to media now slapping "live service" on anything that has an always-online requirement.

GT7 is a predominantly single player game, only 12% of players have unlocked the "Sport Mode Debut" trophy for completing an online race. Online racing is not the main attraction for GT7, the single player events are.

Yes the game requires you to be online, but it doesn't have seasons with their associated "miss this season and you'll miss this content" FOMO, nor does it have tracks that are only available for X amount of time. It's a predominantly single player game that gets free updates.

Sony need to bring Bungie in. They've had more than enough time playing on their own for people to confidently say Bungie don't know what they're doing.

As for Marathon - I want to be excited for the game as I'm itching for my next extraction shooter fix, but I think it's going to have problems due to having a price attached to it. In a few weeks we'll have Delta Force release (Aug 19th) and Arc Raiders likely before Marathon, both being F2P games. If either of those games turns out to be good, that "premium" purchase cost for Marathon seems a lot less inviting than free admission for Delta Force and Arc Raiders.

Looks like the usual pre-made proof-of-concept trailer to me. Show footage of the game actually being played and it'll be more interesting. A bunch of fixed scenes just isn't it.

A beta that you don't have to pre-order the game to access, or register your personal details in some dark corner of the web and sign 45 NDAs to participate in!?

What is this?! Some kind of attempt at being player-friendly?!

Contemplated Lies of P a few times, but soulslike don't really click with me, but at least I'll now be able to play with "the P organ" for free.

In general though this is a firmly "blah" month.

Last time I changed my avatar was about a week ago, when the Ghost of Tsushima avatars were released.

@JPEGMakima you partially got it, but not reading or ignoring rules is not indicative of level of talent, it's a question of integrity.

IF they read the rules and thought they could get away with it, it's lack of integrity. If they didn't read the rules, it's a dumb move, possibly a mistake.

Artistic talent isn't related to someones ability to read and adhere to rules.

Oh look! People on the internets assuming they know the level of someone else's talent and judging them for it!

The base of it is that the artist in question could have been creating for years, could have hundreds of sketch books filled with great pieces, and chose to embrace AI to see what can be done. We don't know if the artist is talented, we don't know if this is the first time or the millionth time they've used AI to create images, so assuming to know and making disparaging comments based on assumptions is both childish and boorish.

People need to understand that even though you think the internet is anonymously, even though you think it means you can make rude comments without consequence, the comments are still a reflection of YOU, not the person you're commenting on.

Totally agree. It needs to be either/or, and I'd prefer it lean more into the cel-shading style, just not with all those dumb/over the top icons and such from NFS Unbound.

@Veritas7Ax oh I agree.

It's $100CAD on sale, but even at that "deal" of a price I have to stop and ask myself if I'd actually play it past 5-10 hours, which I likely wouldn't.

I was so, so close to buying FH5 yesterday, but then I noticed the DLC packs are $60 each, and as I wanted to play the Hot Wheels stuff, $130 is just too expensive. With all DLCs your near enough $200.

@nessisonett really?

The AC games are infamous for having excessive amounts of busy work, but I thought GoT managed to find a good balance between story content and side content.

I can't remember the last AC game I actively enjoyed straight through (maybe Black Flag?) and finished, whereas I had no issue sticking to GoT from start to finish.

It's almost as if the best time to buy a CDPR game is 5-10 years after release...

Nope. Never use them. Investigations early on showed that the power consumed by the PS5 for streaming was significantly higher than previous consoles, and why use a PS5 to stream to a TV, when I could just use the TV and not have the PS5 also consuming electricity?

In the age of internet connected TVs that can stream content directly, connecting another device to the TV to do what the TV can already do is asinine.

Cyberpunk has the same issue as Skyrim - most players will quite likely end up as stealth netrunners! 😂

@SeaDaVie "highest ever revenue" doesn't really count for much.

If I provide a service for $1 a month and have a million subscribers, I make $1 million a month. If I increase the cost to $2 a month but lose a quarter of my subscribers, I still make $1.5 million a month and so can report record revenues for my service even after losing customers.

If Sony reported an increase in subscribers, that'd be different, but reporting an increase in revenue while doing multiple price increases is hollow.

As console gamers do we really care abou Steam reviews? Yes, I know the game is poorly optimized across all platforms, but referencing a PC exclusive platform to show PC gamers aren't happy with the game feels disjointed or disconnected. What do Playstaton gamers say about the game? What do console news and reviews sites think of it? I would find that information far more relevant and worthy of mention here, on a Playstation-centric site, than reviews and opinions on a version of the game that I'll never play.

Death Stranding 2. Taking my time with it. Doubled back to Mexico as soon as I could just to get the upgraded boots, and instead found myself trying to max out the 5 stars with the Mexico distros and preppers.

A little bit of GT7 Sport Mode. They've got the Honda Civic race car around Tokyo Express Way, which is always a riot of a combination.

Other than that doing some reading as I decided awhile ago to read the Dark Angels chapter books from the Black Library. However, having just read the list of recommended books, it may be too many books for the years I have left on this earth. Who really has time to read 100+ books!?

Playstation Gamers "Microsoft buying up developers and making games exclusive to Xbox is bad for gamers"

Also PlayStation Gamers "Sony should keep as many games exclusive to PlayStation as they can because the brand relies on it and it's good for us PlayStation gamers!"

🤨

"You cannot cut your way to growth" is a favoured phrase of a VP at the company I work for. However, my employer also has the predilection to buy smaller companies, so cuts do actually happen, and every time a "this is for company growth. We thank those being cut" email goes out.

And that's the rub here - it's pitched as a move necessary to increase growth, to improve products and services, but that's just the usual smoke and mirrors. What we're seeing is a company that spent way too much money, that's seen profits fall below expectations, so is cutting jobs to save money and artificially boost year-end revenue by reducing operating costs.

In the gaming industry, Nintendo seem to be the only company that understand that you can't cut your way to growth.

What I'm reading is that the PS6 will be very, very expensive and quite likely unaffordable for a lot more gamers.

The company I work for is aiming to "lead the way" in responsible AI deployment, which means we all have access to it and it's use in day-to-day tasks like writing emails is promoted, so I have no issue with this example at all.

For this example, you'd have to hire a writer that knows some stuff about space in order for them to write text that sounds convincing, or they'd have to research it, OR you can give them access to an AI with which they can give it a prompt describing roughly what they want written, deploy the AI to do it and then check it afterwards. It doesn't mean the writer has lost their job, it means their job just got easier. This is using the AI as an assistant, not as an employee.

@Rob_230
"Have dusted mine out multiple times (first time I have ever had to do that in 30 plus years of gaming, where i have never had overheating issues before)"

You're not doing yourself any favors if you only clean/dust/maintain them when things start to go wrong! 😂

That's like only taking your car in for a service when a wheel falls off! By that time damage is already done.

Anyway, I cleaned and moved my launch PS5 yesterday as I noticed it kicking out a lot of heat Friday night. With the weather getting warmer, having a console kicking the heat up a few more degrees makes gaming less attractive. I don't want to warm the room up more!

It does propose an interesting dilemma.

Physical media is often cheaper because the retailer purchases the stock from Sony, at that point they can follow the RRSP or make their own. If the market average for a game physically is $5 cheaper than the digital version, should the digital market be forced to follow the physical pricing?

When it comes to used games it's a different dilemma. Used are often cheaper because they're used. Someone else has had the media and so it's not brand new. With digital that isn't a possibility, so should digital always carry new game pricing? The move to physical discs being download keys muddies the water further as, when you insert a used game in to your console, you're downloading the same version as is sold on the digital store, but having paid less for it.

At the end of the day I don't see this going anywhere - Sony have the right to list games at whatever price they like, and the physical/used market exists for players to purchase from at a lower price if they want, making this case moot.

@Anya-chan you don't need to know any of the lore or characters. The game itself tells you what you need to know.

As for the update - I may have to give this a spin later on!

To think - Microsoft were winning the FTC case against the Activision/Blizzard acquisition and tried hard to make a defense around the premise that it'd be good for everyone involved.

So far it's cost a lot of people their jobs and caused Xbox to all but abandon console exclusivity in favour of trying to make my "Internet of Things" oven an Xbox.

Microsoft's competitors and Bobby Kotick are the only ones that have won anything here.

I'm betting first half of the game is all sci-fi action, gripping set pieces, ship battles in space and fighting proto-molecule monsters. Second half is spent sitting at a table discussing the politics between Earth and the Belters, and gets very dull.

Jusant will be it for me as I already own D4 and have no interest in fighters. For everyone that's excited to play D4 for the first time, I hope you get the Butcher spawn in the first dungeon you go in to! 😂

VR games with latency lag... 🤢

@get2sammyb as a Canadian, I must admit I'm also often mistaken for a Candian 😋

Team Sonic Racing was a PS Plus title in March 2022, I'd be surprised if that alone didn't contribute to a million of those sales at least, and it's actually a decent kart racer to boot.

I want to register for the beta, but my EA account that's linked to my PSN has an old deleted email address registered on it, and EA Support won't unlink it! 😂😂😭