shinratdr

I didn’t say it was a lie, I said I think it’s inflated the way I already explained. Also, the fact that they are lower than other publishers indicates they will see a bigger impact from this than others.

Physical media is making a resurgence in other areas. Vinyl, DVD, 4K BluRay. Not a big one, but it’s on a backswing. I’m not doubting video games are lower every year because they are still in their initial era.

We’ll just have to agree to disagree on the impact. I think the knock-on effect will be bigger than they anticipate. Obviously they agree with you that it won’t impact anything. I think it will, for all the reasons I just went over. It’s not a 1:1 relationship between sale and impact. When people don’t have the console because it doesn’t attract them, they can’t make any sales. So they won’t lose one sale from me, they’ll lose the console sale and dozens of physical and digital games.

This is exactly what Microsoft went through with cutting BC, trying to kill physical media, and trying to play their dominant hand and we all know how that worked out. Turns out it’s more than the sum of its parts. Sony might succeed, it’s a different era. But it certainly gives a lot of weak spots for competitors to target.

I do buy digital and have for decades, but primarily for PC. I don’t for console because that’s the last thing I wanted a console for. I have no intention of abandoning the hobby, but this is my last reason to buy a PlayStation. They offer nothing that isn’t done better on a gaming PC.

I saw the 85% stat they are pushing. I honestly don’t believe it. I strongly believe they are pumping that number up by counting PlayStation Plus redemptions and smaller games in that total. I would be much more interested to see what the actual Physical vs. Digital sales are for a single new release title on day one. I would guess the split is much closer to 70/30. That might be higher in markets where internet access is less robust. This will also piss off retailers and distributors, which now are expected to sell low-margin consoles without high margin games. They chose such a far off date in purpose, to see the feedback and test the waters. I doubt this will come to fruition. Physical media is seeing a resurgence as trust for these companies to maintain services is at an all time low.

On that note, companies need to be careful taking industry wide trends and extrapolating from them with no nuance. That’s why I worded my first comment carefully. I am not anti-Digital at all, but I buy a console for collecting exclusives. I have hundreds of digital Steam games and some digital PS5 games. You know how many digital PS6 games I’ll have? Zero, because I won’t own one. Like backwards compatibility, the benefit of it can’t be quantified by how much time people use it vs. cost of development. Physical media is a draw, even if it is not always taken advantage of. I’m not boycotting, I’m genuinely no longer interested.

This is the kind of decision that looks great on a balance sheet when you have no competition. But when your hardcore audience stops buying, collectors that buy extra releases and collectors editions stop collecting, retailers stop pushing because they can only sell one low margin box, and your competitors see your weakness and double down on it, it might not turn out so great.

I can’t speak to market trends, but I can say this 100% makes my PS5 my last Sony console. I’ve bought every one, and the only reason I continue to buy them is so I can collect exclusives on disc for my collection.

A digital only console is just a bad, expensive gaming PC. I already have a good expensive gaming PC, so I’ll just buy games digitally there.

Without casting aspersions on RE5 & RE6, this isn’t all that surprising for two reasons:

1. They don’t really need remakes. We are entering the HD era of games here, and RE5 was not an early entrant of that era like some of the similar remakes we are seeing, like Dead Rising and Oblivion. They have been porting them to recent consoles, they have modern control schemes and are very accessible. You COULD remake them, but you wouldn’t be achieving much.

2. They don’t appeal to the audience that modern Resident Evil has been cultivating. They lean far too hard into action, and modern RE has been defined by incorporating both. They have nailed this almost every time, releasing a near flawless string of new entries and remakes that their entire audience can consume and enjoy.

I’m biased because they are my two least favourite entries by far, but even trying to set this aside this gels with what I’m seeing from Capcom. Especially with the announcement of CVX, a game that I would never have expected them to remake. If that does well and keeping this in mind, you should expect REmake 2, RE0 Remake and RE10 before getting your hopes up on 5 & 6.

I have to wonder why, exactly. My hunch is that this really only appeals to people who want a console-like experience but refuse to buy a console and are willing to pay a huge premium for worse performance to do so.

I don’t even think this is a bad idea, if you have an extensive Steam library then it might be the smart long term financial decision and it’s nice to have a set-it-and-forget-it option for gaming on your TV that can leverage that. I don’t think anyone who buys this will be unhappy with it.

I just think this is a very small market, and most other people have a gaming PC already, would prefer better performance or would save the premium price and just buy a console.

If this can get down to $1000CAD and they introduce a $2000-$2500CAD model when component pricing is sane again that has actual 4K60 performance then this has potential to upend the industry. As it stands I can’t recommend it to anyone.

This is a tough price point for any crowd. The spec of a PS5 at twice the price? Enthusiasts want better specs, and console gamers want a better price.

This is a swing & a miss. The initial order will sell out on speculation and because component prices are garbage so it will have a small run. I’m not so hopeful for future batches unless they can at least match the price of the PS5 Pro.

Except a PS5 Pro is $1100CAD and this is $1500CAD ($2000CAD if you match storage with the PS5 Pro, which is 2TB.) That is a huge jump. This is too underpowered for enthusiasts, and too expensive for console only gamers. Early indication is that it’s also underpowered vs a PS5 Pro, so I think it’s underpowered even for console gamers.

I know why they have the price pressure they do. But I can’t say I’m not wildly disappointed. This had the potential to end the console market entirely and now it’s looking like another also ran.

I was almost definitely going to buy this. At this price vs performance, I don’t think I’ll even put my name on the list. Much of this is out of Valve’s hands, but maybe they should have just scrapped it until pricing is better. This might be worse than nothing.

One thing I will say is I love the form factor. If was looking to build a living room PC this would be a serious contender because the design is great. But it’s just not enough to pay $1500 for a PC that matches the spec of my $800 PS5.

Bethesda ported Skyrim to 4 successive console generations across 15 years and made a VR version, all of which had very minor enhancements. In that time they made zero other Elder Scrolls games.

Nintendo made one enhanced port across 28 years, and is now making a remake. In that time they have made countless Zelda games.

This is not even remotely the same situation.

I had Quake 3 Arena running on my N95, when the phone was still relevant, someone ported all 3 Quakes to it and they ran really well. I know people are glazing it in this thread but it was such a great example of why Nokia died.

It had a proper PowerVR GPU, same one as the iPhone. Should have been great… except the OS didn’t even use it. Most games neglected to as well. When they did use it, like with NGage or OVI titles they worked great, but the OS and apps felt as dated and laggy as ever thanks to S60.

Had great Bluetooth support, full A2DP when iPhones couldn’t even change volume over Bluetooth. But Bluetooth headphones had limited battery life, usually only 1-2 hours in that era. What happens when they die? Auto-pause? No, IMMEDIATELY play your music over the loudest speaker in the world in the middle of the subway.

Why put in such advanced hardware and not take advantage of it properly? Because the OS & Hardware teams didn’t talk to each other. Apparently hardware would dictate features, OS would code to support them and nobody was looking at the big picture.