Will

Games looking very good, looking forward to getting my hands on pretty much everything they showed. Pre-orders not up here but hoping I manage to get one once they are available.

VG Chartz is probably the best you’re going to get, not super accurate but should give you a general idea on things.

I’m ignoring the trailer because I’d rather go in having seen nothing. I’m super excited for this though, cannot wait to see the next part of this story. It’s pretty much the only thing I find worth activating the Disney+ subscription for.

Yeah, sorry I should have been clearer. It’s number one in terms of dollar amount of any August ever. It’s double the nearest August competitor in units for this generation.

That’s only this generation isn’t it? Not all time. Still, crazy numbers regardless.

Looks really nice, from a design perspective I think they’ve done a great job. I’m a huge fan of how the X looks.

I tried to join last time but the site didn’t seem to play nicely with my iPad and I gave up. I think this time round the show is something like 4am here so I’m just going to watch it when I wake up in the morning.

I totally agree for the most part, but if you’ve got one console that is $600 before you’ve added anything to it and another that is $30 a month with a full on library it becomes a much more compelling switch, you can only push customer loyalty so far. There are also Christmas/Birthday presents, kids getting their first console and a whole host of other people that you can’t rely on having huge brand loyalty. I haven’t had an Xbox since the 360, hadn’t even worked out Microsoft’s naming system until a few days ago, and have absolutely no interest in the Xbox but those offers tempted me to give is a look. I’m not price restricted like many others are and we’re heading into really unknown times - pricing will be important. But yeah, I definitely agree with the loyalty thing. It will take some major fuck up from Sony for me not to get a PS5 on day one.

There will be a few things that play into the pricing differences. Probably the biggest one will be Microsoft will work prices out with USD as a starting point whereas Sony will do it based on JPY. I don’t know what the various currencies are doing compared to each other at the moment but somebody could probably look into that and come out with a pretty decent guess as to what that likely ends up as. Secondly they will have internal exchange rates set at the start of the year based on a rough idea of what they think each currency will do over the course of the FY, and all internal accounting will be done using that rate. Similarly someone could take a look at what the rates were around the start of the year to make an educated guess on what those look like and how they might impact it. They won’t actually move around cash until it’s advantageous for them to do so, so fluctuating rates day to day don’t make much of a difference. Thirdly, they will be taking into account what the competition is doing. If you’re rates are all beautifully worked out but it means you have a massive price disadvantage in one country then it really is no good. Based on this alone I’d guess they will probably have similar pricing splits across regions to what Microsoft has done. My personal thoughts on the pricing are still $399/$299, but I could easily see those both being $100 more. I think they will go with one of three ways of announcing it. If they have similar pricing to Xbox they will announce the pricing at the start of the event and the show will be to demonstrate that it’s the same money but you actually have some games to play on a PS5. If they have lower pricing they will show all the games, say how amazing it is as a console then mic drop the price right at the end of the show as the killer moment. If they have higher pricing they won’t announce any price, show how awesome the games are and then let people build hype for the console and drop the price as close to launch as possible. More than likely I’ll be completely wrong on that, but gotta put down a guess at least!

I’d love to see the documents they put together when deciding this stuff. Just think about it, someone had to have the idea, then put together documentation for it, then present it to the execs, who then agreed, and then nobody said anything about it to stop them. In 20 years time there will be a Microsoft giga-leak with this document in it and I can’t wait to read it.

F1 2020 Predictions Game Round 9 Results Lots of stopping and starting, but it finished in the end. Maximum points for this race were: Pole - Hamilton (10) Fastest Lap - Hamilton (10) 1st - Hamilton (25 + 5) 2nd - Bottas (18 + 5) 3rd - Albon (15 + 5) 4th - Ricciardo (12 + 5) 5th - Perez (10 + 5) The results for this round: @BowserBasher - 88 @Will - 73 And the overall standings (previous total in brackets): @will' - 449 (376) @BowserBasher - 328 (240) @Mandalore - 241 (241) @bob - 155 (155) @Nicktendo - 126 (126) @Goron_3 - 75 (75) Russian Grand Prix Predictions: Pole - Bottas FL - Hamilton 1st - Hamilton 2nd - Bottas 3rd - Stroll 4th - Perez 5th - Verstappen

Not too sure what to think on this week’s race. It threw up a few bits of decent action but it was quite processional outside of the restarts. Total madness after the first safety car, not really sure what any of those guys at the back were thinking and it really was quite amateur of them. Thought Bottas might finally have something over Lewis but seems not.

Listening in another piecemeal way, hopefully finish off tonight on my run. One thing I always mean to ask (and couldn't find any answer by searching) is that you always talk about the Discord - is this a server we can join?

I do wonder if Bugsnax is going to be one of those things that is so bad it’s great. Personally I think it’s one of the worst things I’ve ever seen, but it’s still more compelling than anything on the new Xbox.

I’m sure I’ve seen that before. Even aside from the racism side they’re complete and utter idiots. When the police are bundling you in the back of their van, shouting out “you black bastard” is really not going to do you any favors.

How exciting, I feel like a new chapter has begun.

I think they’re either people who don’t actually know anything, but take a bit of an educated guess on things that seem plausible such as this Imran Khan. Or else people read far too much into things posted by people with some legitimacy but no real information to share, such as this Drew Wilson. After that it’s just partners on certain things who suck at keeping up their contractual obligations not to leak things. Personally I don’t pay much attention to the first two, but partner leaks can be fairly interesting sometimes.

Yeah I think the way it all ended up coming out was quite exciting and the info got better and better. While watching that News Briefing I kept thinking about the fact there are no games I’m excited about so even though it’s a great deal there doesn’t seem much point in getting one.

It really sucks that you (and many others) are having to deal with so much. For a lot of people this year is, at best, one to forget, and at worst the very worst year ever. Hopefully things will start getting better soon, and remember everyone here can support each other as much as possible.

I guess at least it’s going into a savings pot though, and pensions are one of the best ways to do it. Glad it went well! Good chemistry with the hiring manager will generally get you most of the way to the job - hoping things work out with it!

Over here they’re starting the roll out of tracing tokens, which work in addition to the app for those without phones. I imagine once they’re sure the system works they will make the token mandatory for everyone. It’s a little big brother-ish but if it means we can ease some of the other restrictions currently in place I’ll gladly carry one around. I do wonder who is making the rules up there. Is it just that you can’t go to other people’s houses but everything else is basically OK? Seems like a waste of time.

Well I would have gone lowercase but now I feel I have to capitalize. Let’s go with a big boy W!

Sorry! Given that @Will hasn’t visited in 14 years and only made one post before that can I just have his username?

I’m still not buying this concept that Sony can’t afford to take a similar loss to Microsoft on the console. At this point they basically have two options, ignore the pricing of MS and position it as a much better offering (maybe difficult given it’s generally accepted the X is a better machine) or they do compete on price and position it as a better overall offer for consumers as they actually have some next-gen games and the entire audience is playing the same content. If I was at Sony I’d be positioning the pricing somewhere in the middle of what Microsoft is doing and then massively push on the fact that the S is not next-gen. Pricing I’d say $400 and $300 will allow them to do that.

That sounds very promising @nightwolf, it’s always a good sign when things like that develop as you’re pre-approved by somebody in the organization. Good luck tomorrow!