Sony Consoles and Updates

[regemond]

As a concept, I kind of understand it, but the fact there's no kind of internal memory or a way to play it offline makes it dead in the water for me. I'd play around with it as a curio, but I don't think it's ever going to penetrate in any of the markets it competes with.

 

Without comparing game catalogues, just going on functionality alone, why would I pay £200 for something that NEEDS an online connection to work (something the entire gaming community screamed at Microsoft for when Xbox One was first announced), when I can buy a Switch Lite for the same price and play it offline anytime?

 

Why would I pay £200 for something that NEEDS an online connection to work when I already have that functionality in my phone?

 

If for example, you could load even one game to a temporary memory bank - say Spidey 2 - and play that without a connection, which then automatically saves your progress, data and trophies next time you're on your home network, I honestly think it would be an incredible achievement. But it doesn't. 

 

If and when Sony announce a fully-fledged new handheld console, I'll be there Day 1, as I loved the PSP and Vita. This feels like a stopgap that doesn't really fill any market, and I can see it having a smaller attach rate than PSVR does.

 

On the opposite side of the coin, just because it doesn't match my wants or needs, just because I'm not included in the market it's being aimed at, doesn't mean @DisturbedSwancan't think it's an absolute revelation to his gaming life. If it works for you and it's reliable, then that's great. I can't help but think this is a misstep in the same way the poorly explained Wii U was though.

 

Don't forget, Wii U's MO was a home console with its own screen, giving you the ability to play while family watch TV. Wii U wasn't explained properly as being its own console, the same way a lot of the general public are confused as to whether you actually need a PS5 for this or not. 

 

It had and has promise. I just personally think it's poorly executed.

[DisturbedSwan]

2 hours ago, mfnick said:

I didn’t realise this. Will try that before even giving it another thought. I’ve tried the Xbox through my iPad and it’s terrible so can imagine this is the same. 

 

I would just throw a load of caution into this, that my experience on the iPad/iPhone with Remote Play and a Portal via Remote play have been wildly different. On my iPad/iPhone it was barely serviceable really, stopped a lot, lots of lag etc. whereas with the Portal it has been amazing with little lag, I'm dumbfounded as to why as on paper the two should be almost the same, I expected them to run the same and the lag to render it barely serviceable, but I get hardly any lag and it runs superbly well, I honestly forget it isn't running natively.

 

2 hours ago, one-armed dwarf said:

Well it's what Digital Foundry recommend, and it's a hell of an outlay to just hope that it all works. The thing about this is none of us can replicate whatever your environment is, and if there's a reason why people seem down on this device it's cause it's a high price for something with this level of uncertainty and unpredictability wrt how it scales to users own homes and technology setups. Not cause everyone hates Sony or whatever. Sony can't control this aspect

 

It's a reasonable thing to recommend, I'm just saying as a user with first hand experience here the iPad/iPhone Remote Play setup is wholly more laggy and awful than my PS Portal experience has been. I can't tell you why this is, I don't understand it myself, I've been very pleasantly surprised by it so far, I honestly have to remind myself it's not running natively a lot of the time.

 

I get it's an outlay on will it/won't it run better than an iPhone but from my experience that isn't representative, it's a bit apples and oranges is all. So I'd say buy and then return for a refund if you aren't happy with it would be a better solution. People can hate Sony, no skin off my nose lol, I think the internet as a whole has become an increasingly negative, hateful space in general is all, the reception to the Portal has been way better than I expected personally, review wise. 

 

We seem to be straying into regurgitated arguments already had anyway so I'll leave it there. I had low expectations for it and it has exceeded them by leaps and bounds is all anyway.

[Maryokutai]

You have to filter out the twitter nonsense, but there's objectively reason enough to criticise this product. The Portal has very clear downsides and its featureset is inferior to that of the ten year old WiiU Gamepad due to it only mirroring the PS5s output and not being an extension to it and not being able to directly connect to the main system (this in particular is such a baffling omission).

 

It's a very weird product but somewhere in the Venn diagram of PS users and people with swan gifs as their profile picture are those that will find enjoyment with it. And that's also fine.

[DANGERMAN]

I can see a use case for it, @DisturbedSwanis pretty much the exact example of it. For me, even if I was competing for the TV, I have a pc, Steam Deck, and Switch. Then I'd probably look at a controller and remote play for phone/tablet.

 

Money spare and a reason to need it, it looks like a decent bit of kit 

[one-armed dwarf]

 

[shinymcshine]

Playstation users are to lose all access to bought content from Discovery TV as it leaves the PS Store.

 

"As of 31 December 2023, due to our content licensing arrangements with content providers, you will no longer be able to watch any of your previously purchased Discovery content and the content will be removed from your video library,"

 

Whilst in this instance I imagine it's a bit niche, it doesn't bode well for the consumer in terms of any form of digital 'ownership' (albeit was probably buried deep in font 4 of a 10000 word set of T&C's when you 'bought' it).

 

I wonder if this'll start to affect games in the future too (in particular where there seems here to be no right to redownload/watch anything once its removed from the store and its deleted from your library).

 

I think game licencing is somewhat different that movies/TV, but where studios are being bought then it's not implausible.

 

https://www.pushsquare.com/news/2023/12/playstation-users-set-to-lose-hundreds-of-tv-shows-they-paid-for

 

[DANGERMAN]

Can you watch it elsewhere? 

 

Weird situation though, I always think this is massively counterproductive on the publisher's part. The more people lose content the more likely the government is to step in 

[one-armed dwarf]

This happens a lot with digital distribution with video content. Amazon deleted my entire collection of digital purchases when I moved cause for whatever reason there's a lot more sensitivity around geoblocking video content than games, cause of how the rights are distributed among different entities across regions I guess. I complained and got a full refund, but it's why I've started getting back into physical media, blu rays and 4k movies (not for games tho, as that's impossible on PC now). Cause a lot of the classic films might just be impossible to track down at a certain point, short of piracy which even still requires people to actually have copies to seed to other people. 

 

Streaming platforms are also a rubbish alternative as they will be optimised mostly towards stuff that's recent, their own original content or the very popular classics. BFI Player and Criterion Channel an exception perhaps (but these are also geoblocked outside certain countries, need a VPN)

[shinymcshine]

The other thing with digital streaming (and okay, it's slightly off topic) is where content is modified - like when they delete certain scenes/episodes as they contain what is now considered offensive or inappropriate material (rather than just flagging it and letting the viewer make a choice) - or they've made changes to a soundtrack as they don't want to relicense the original music.

[OCH]

8 minutes ago, shinymcshine said:

they've made changes to a soundtrack as they don't want to relicense the original music.

One of the reasons why games such as Mother/Earthbound and shows like Murphy Brown are rarely even touched since initial release. It's a legal minefield.

[one-armed dwarf]

I think what happens there maybe is that streaming platforms are using the TV edit, eg the TV edit of BTTF removes a brief scene of a porn magazine. They probably also do that terrible shite where they pan and scan from the original 2.35:1 (or whatever) ratio and everyone has a huge head super zoomed in for certain scenes

 

Another reason to flog the streaming! Not just a Sony issue.

[Maryokutai]

I recently stumbled across this website (whose owner unfortunately said they would stop updating after this year) that archives all those games that have silently been removed from digital storefronts and it's an alarmingly high amount with currently almost 1900 games.

 

I found out about it after replaying Skylar & Plux earlier this year, a decent Jak & Daxter clone that only really came together on current-gen because its unlocked framerate was all over the place on last-gen. Wanted to post about it here, went online to check if it was maybe in a deal or something and nada. Apparently even the developers were unaware the publisher pulled it. Fun times ahead.

[one-armed dwarf]

Funny enough I was looking for Cryostasis the other day cause I wanted to buy it. Couldn't find it on steam or GOG and now I know why

 

Time for torrents I suppose

[Maryokutai]

On PC it's mostly a big inconvenience, but on these walled garden consoles it's very worrisome. We're still at a point where you'd be able to get most stuff on physical media but not for long. If fear even if governments step in, like Dangerman suggests, the best thing we can hope for is online stores renaming the 'buy' button into a 'rent' button.

[one-armed dwarf]

Coincidental to the above question, a wave of people were accidentally permanently banned on PSN yesterday, losing their entire games library

 

https://www.theverge.com/2023/12/4/23988621/sony-playstation-account-ps5-bans-permanent-suspension

 

Sounds like for some that may be resolved, but oof

[DisturbedSwan]

Everything back to normal now it seems, must've been a weird 2-3 hour glitch somewhere along the line.

 

 

[Nag]

Playstation one's here now... there's a lot going on in it.

 

https://wrapup.playstation.com/en-us/

 

 

 

 

[one-armed dwarf]

Did not see a thread for the online game, so assuming it doesnt exist. TLOU Online is cancelled

 

That sucks cause part 2 was a mechanically excellent game, but their reasoning here is hard to disagree with given how aggressively Sony are apparently looking to compete in the live service space. Putting their big marquee SP-centric dev on life support duty for a live service game which might not even become a huge hit wouldn't be a good move

 

https://www.naughtydog.com/blog/an_update_on_the_last_of_us_online

 

Really just sort of feel though they should have settled for something smaller scale like Factions. Not everything has to be this massive big bucks gold rush

 

This does mean however that a big niche exist for The Day Before to make it's mark, if they decide to return to the steam store. It's clearly the next best thing after all

[one-armed dwarf]

Also sounds like a PS5 pro might be coming soon, Jeff says September 2024 but also seems confused as to maybe it being 25 instead.

 

Big feature is proprietary reconstruction techniques, ala DLSS/FSR, and much improved RT via dedicated hardware. FSR sucks, so it would be great to have something better than it. Also would be nice to get something other than mirror reflections for RT

 

 

[Maryokutai]

The upcoming Part II remaster would have been a good opportunity to include some kind of multiplayer mode, like in the olden days. Just something people hop on and off for a few years. But I think today both the industry and consumer base look at multiplayer games like something that needs to consume your life, so maybe there's no space for stuff like that anymore.

 

In that sense I agree it's a good thing that it's dead. When you look at how much talent and time has ultimately been wasted by great studios doing stuff like Avengers and Suicide Squad, it's reassuring to know that Naughty Dog won't be tied down in the same way for almost a decade.