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Probably easier to promote indie games when there's not much other third party stuff to promote...

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26 minutes ago, Goafer said:

Probably easier to promote indie games when there's not much other third party stuff to promote...

Yeah I must have missed all that Asssassin's Creed, Red Dead and Fallout 76 promotion on Sony's E3 or PSX stages.

47 minutes ago, S.C.G said:

I'm wondering if those sales for Thimbleweed Park include the physical release from Limited Run games?

Probably not I guess and even if it did, that would probably only up the percentage by 00.1% but still, it's an impressive number of sales all the same.

If anything, it just reminds me that I still need to play Thimbleweed Park as I've heard that it's a fantastic title regardless of platform.

You should definitely play it, I really loved it. Some of the puzzles were typically obtuse towards the end but the whole vibe of the game was fantastic.

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20 minutes ago, Ronnie said:

Yeah I must have missed all that Asssassin's Creed, Red Dead and Fallout 76 promotion on Sony's E3 or PSX stages.

At least we can look forward to Nintendo promoting them all when they get inferior ports of 3 year old games.

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1 hour ago, Goafer said:

At least we can look forward to Nintendo promoting them all when they get inferior ports of 3 year old games.

Not sure the fastest selling console of the generation needs them tbh. Plus aren't reviewers talking about how impressive the Switch can fit current gen games in something that can fit in your pocket? My PS4 meanwhile sounded like it was going to take off every time I went into the map in God of War.

Anyway, this thread is about Playstation. Indie wise the only games I still want to play on mine are GNOG and Swords of Ditto, though apparently the latter isn't very good :(

Edited by Ronnie

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54 minutes ago, Ronnie said:

Anyway, this thread is about Playstation. 

Ah, there it is. The moral high ground, even though it was you that first mentioned the Switch. Classic Ronnie.

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When discussion is about the industry, talk usually turns to what the big three are doing. There's been plenty of Nintendo/Xbox mentions in this thread. Anyway...

Edited by Ronnie

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Speaking of indie games (to bring us back on topic), I've been playing a few over recent weeks. Picked up Dangerous Golf just before Christmas and have really enjoyed the laidback nature of the game. Have been playing it with the missus and it's been great just seeing who out of us can grab the highest score from all the carnage we've created in screen. Such a simple idea but executed really well. Contemplating picking up one of the Danger Zone games but I was never that fussed for the crash mode in Burnout Paradise (I know, sacrilege but I just loved speeding about and trying to nail the races or best times on the streets more) so not so sure about that.

I played and platinumed Subnautica as well a few weeks back and that was a fantastic indie game. One of my favourite games of last year. Even with the crashing issues and bugs that the PS4 version had (most of which were patched out by the time I'd finished up), it was just a great experience. I can either take it or leave it with survival games and resource management but I loved it in this. Exploring the planet in your little submarine, seeing all the different biomes, coming across your first leviathan and it destroying your ship and then rebuilding it and all the other toys you can build. It was great. Was genuinely saddened that I'd finished the story mode as I really enjoyed my turn as Jacques Cousteau. Can't recommend it enough if you're into survival games. Trying to decide on whether The Forest will be a suitable replacement but seems like it's more multiplayer focused.

Also been trying out Mutant Year Zero. Not very far into it but again, I'm really enjoying this. Love me some Xcom style gameplay and this nails that while giving a more narrative push to things. Sure, it's nothing massively original in the story and theme department but it feels a bit more engaging on that front than some of its contemporaries. Can't wait to play more.

For once I don't have a massive backlog of indie games to get through, though I've certainly got plenty of them to play on my PS4 (last I checked, I've about 200 plus indie games that I've bought myself). Seem to be getting mire bang for my buck from them over the last few weeks than some of the bigger games anyway.

@Ronnie, Gnog was a fun little game but it's over really quickly, with very little replayability which is a shame as they could so easily have released new puzzles for it in the format it's in. And yeah, Swords of Ditto was a disappointment for me. So looked forward to it but once I started, I just couldn't get into it because of the "you die, you start over" mechanic. Lovely art style but that's about it really.

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59 minutes ago, Ganepark32 said:

@Ronnie, Gnog was a fun little game but it's over really quickly, with very little replayability which is a shame as they could so easily have released new puzzles for it in the format it's in. And yeah, Swords of Ditto was a disappointment for me. So looked forward to it but once I started, I just couldn't get into it because of the "you die, you start over" mechanic. Lovely art style but that's about it really.

Yeah I would be playing Gnog just for the art style and puzzles really, I'm fine with it being quite short. As for Swords of Ditto, what a waste of such a gorgeous art style, shame the game design can't match it.

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Speaking of indie games (to bring us back on topic), I've been playing a few over recent weeks. Picked up Dangerous Golf just before Christmas and have really enjoyed the laidback nature of the game. Have been playing it with the missus and it's been great just seeing who out of us can grab the highest score from all the carnage we've created in screen. Such a simple idea but executed really well. Contemplating picking up one of the Danger Zone games but I was never that fussed for the crash mode in Burnout Paradise (I know, sacrilege but I just loved speeding about and trying to nail the races or best times on the streets more) so not so sure about that.
I played and platinumed Subnautica as well a few weeks back and that was a fantastic indie game. One of my favourite games of last year. Even with the crashing issues and bugs that the PS4 version had (most of which were patched out by the time I'd finished up), it was just a great experience. I can either take it or leave it with survival games and resource management but I loved it in this. Exploring the planet in your little submarine, seeing all the different biomes, coming across your first leviathan and it destroying your ship and then rebuilding it and all the other toys you can build. It was great. Was genuinely saddened that I'd finished the story mode as I really enjoyed my turn as Jacques Cousteau. Can't recommend it enough if you're into survival games. Trying to decide on whether The Forest will be a suitable replacement but seems like it's more multiplayer focused.
Also been trying out Mutant Year Zero. Not very far into it but again, I'm really enjoying this. Love me some Xcom style gameplay and this nails that while giving a more narrative push to things. Sure, it's nothing massively original in the story and theme department but it feels a bit more engaging on that front than some of its contemporaries. Can't wait to play more.
For once I don't have a massive backlog of indie games to get through, though I've certainly got plenty of them to play on my PS4 (last I checked, I've about 200 plus indie games that I've bought myself). Seem to be getting mire bang for my buck from them over the last few weeks than some of the bigger games anyway.
[mention=4353]Ronnie[/mention], Gnog was a fun little game but it's over really quickly, with very little replayability which is a shame as they could so easily have released new puzzles for it in the format it's in. And yeah, Swords of Ditto was a disappointment for me. So looked forward to it but once I started, I just couldn't get into it because of the "you die, you start over" mechanic. Lovely art style but that's about it really.
I would love to play Subnautica, but don't think I would get very far due to my thalassophobia. The game looks terrifying.

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On 06/01/2019 at 4:56 PM, Ronnie said:

I don't think crowded storefronts are the reason Thimbleweed Park as one example sold 10x more than on PS4. People are buying indie games on Switch because it's simply a better console to play them on. Game runs the same (in most cases) but the hybrid nature of the console instantly makes it better.

That is not the point I was making though...

I said that part of the reason there are more indie releases on Switch is because there is ample past material to port.

Yes, it's form factor helps (its also why the Vita was an indie darling) when it comes to sales/appeal etc but my point was about why the release numbers are different.  As do factors such as Nintendo being more open to them now.  It is due to multiple factors, but absolutely one reason is because of store front discoverability.  It has been talked about as a potential problem (and the number of titles has doubled since that article), devs have spoken about their discoverability worries and it is clearly something Nintendo is trying to address...just not in the eShop. This isn't a criticism of Nintendo, it's a problem that all platform holders (of successful platforms anyway) have gone through. It's working well for them at the moment, but if the market continues to flood and there's only three options to browse games (New, Coming Soon and Reduced) then by the time the PS5/Xbox Two come out the support could dry up. Not end, but they won't be the young console with the growing market any more.  They will be where Sony is now.

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7 minutes ago, Ashley said:

That is not the point I was making though...

I said that part of the reason there are more indie releases on Switch is because there is ample past material to port.

Ok?

I never really suggested or questioned that there were more indie releases on Switch. Just that the Switch is seen as the place to play indies these days.

9 minutes ago, Ashley said:

Yes, it's form factor helps (its also why the Vita was an indie darling) when it comes to sales/appeal etc but my point was about why the release numbers are different.  As do factors such as Nintendo being more open to them now.  It is due to multiple factors, but absolutely one reason is because of store front discoverability.  It has been talked about as a potential problem (and the number of titles has doubled since that article), devs have spoken about their discoverability worries and it is clearly something Nintendo is trying to address...just not in the eShop. This isn't a criticism of Nintendo, it's a problem that all platform holders (of successful platforms anyway) have gone through. It's working well for them at the moment, but if the market continues to flood and there's only three options to browse games (New, Coming Soon and Reduced) then by the time the PS5/Xbox Two come out the support could dry up. Not end, but they won't be the young console with the growing market any more.  They will be where Sony is now.

There's more than just New, Coming Soon and Reduced. There's a Featured section which Nintendo use to highlight the big titles and a Bestselling section that gives a top 10 (or is it top 20?) of the whole store and just the digital exclusives. Yes the store is being flooded with shovelware but whenever I turn my Switch on the sidebar highlights the best new games and I know where to look to get to the quality games. But yeah, it's absolutely a problem, for every store.

Basically, all I said was that the indie scene had moved to Switch since it's release, that's all really.

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The other 2 console makers had their financial briefings yesterday. Today Sony announced their numbers.

Quote

Insane numbers for a console in it's 5th year. It really shows the importance of both strong 3rd party support and online system. What's even crazier is that the price of the console could easily come down further. No wonder Sony aren't in a hurry for the next generation to start.

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Another day, another report (this time from  HobbyConsolas, in Spain) about how the PS5 might have backwards compatibility for PS, PS2, PS3 and PS4 games — though this time, it’s based on a patent by Sony Japan. 

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Sony Japan has just registered a new patent that allows the retrocompatibility of the hardware with previous consoles. It is a system to be applied in a future machine, PS5, and that allows the CPU of the new console to be able to "interpret" the central unit of the previous machines. The author of the development was Mark Cerny, the architect who designed the PS4 structure, and the patent, which has been filed under number 2019-503013, briefly explains what it consists of. 

The aim is to make the applications designed for the previous consoles (legacy device) run perfectly on the most powerful hardware, and is focused on eliminating the synchronization errors between the new consoles and the behavior of the previous ones (PS4, PS3, PS2 and PSX). For example, if the CPU of the new console is faster than the previous one, data could be overwritten prematurely, even if they were still being used by another component. 

Thanks to the new system, PS5 would be able to imitate the behavior of the previous consoles, so that the information that arrives at the different processors is returned in response to the "calls" of the games. The processor is able to detect the needs of each application and behave as if it were the original "brain" of each machine, cheating the software. This technology does not prevent PS5 could also have additional processors to have compatibility with machines whose architecture is difficult to replicate, as in the case of PS2. 

In this blog you can see the most detailed information of the patent, with the diagrams in Japanese. Yesterday we explained the SRGAN process that allows you to perform "remastering by emulation" (another of the elements that Sony has patented, and converts images in SD resolution in 4K using artificial intelligence.

 

Edited by Julius

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Personally, the only thing the PS5 has to have is PS4 BC. Anything beyond is extra goodness for me.

I can't see the PS5 having true BC with all previous consoles. Either this is a non-story or it's just preparation for an expanded PS Now.

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6 hours ago, drahkon said:

Personally, the only thing the PS5 has to have is PS4 BC. Anything beyond is extra goodness for me.

I can't see the PS5 having true BC with all previous consoles. Either this is a non-story or it's just preparation for an expanded PS Now.

Yeah, for sure. It would certainly help with the transition between generations on the consumers’ end.

I think that the healthy competition which Xbox has brought to the table thanks to its backwards compatibility this generation does mean that PlayStation can’t just rest on their laurels when it comes to BC with the PS5, but I agree with you that it might not take the same form as it has with Xbox (i.e. true BC), because while it’s certainly a nice thing to have, I don’t think that it’s necessarily going to be a system-selling feature when PlayStation is currently firing on all cylinders when it comes to console exclusive game development, be it third or first party.

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I don't want to upgrade to a PS5 if it comes out soon...

...but if Sony manage to make the console fully compatible with physical PS1, PS2, PS3 and PS4 discs without compromise, then I think I'll have to. :D

Plus it's always in the back of my mind that I still have my original launch model PS4, which is working fine now but for how long?

I wonder if this patented technology is using FPGA in any way to accomplish what it's suggesting with the backwards compatability?

Whatever it is, I'm definitely interested to see if it can deliver such an expectation which would be a good enough selling point for a reasonable amount of their user base. :peace:

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Shawn Kayden, talking to Game Informer about PlayStation missing E3 this year:

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Either your show is optimized around the consumer experience, à la Tokyo Game Show, à la Gamescom, or you’re a trade experience like CES or the Motor Show, or E3. The Motor Show I understand because cars are heavy and getting them all together in one place is a massive undertaking, but we’re gaming. We live in the ether. We’re digital. We’re everywhere at once. So what is the role of an event that occurs at, frankly, an arbitrary date in June? How does that work for all the stories you want to tell? This year, coming to 2019, I’ll be honest – we just didn’t have a new story to tell. And when Sony rings the bell for everyone to come ‘round, they have an expectation for something that is completely new and amazing. We looked at the lineup and we can probably only give fans a lot of updates on things they already know, so how does this work for us?

So rather than raising fans’ expectations for them to think, “Oh what’s Sony going to be saying at E3?” We decided we would step away.

If we jump from the trade show thing to the consumer show… I do think the bridge will appear. We did PSX, we didn’t know what that was going to be like. We did it for the 25th anniversary of PlayStation, but we got lucky. If you build it, they will come. That’s the conversation we’re having in real time right now with the ESA. Just because PlayStation is not at E3 2019 doesn’t mean we won’t be there in 2020.

Pretty much confirms that they simply didn't have anything major to show outside of the already announced games, and not wanting to commit to E3 in June in particular probably means, as has been talked about before, that they still haven't committed to a rollout structure and promotional campaign for the PS5's launch. 

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Yeah it was obvious they were struggling for content last year, let alone this year coming up. I'm sure they'll be back in 2020 with a new console on the horizon.

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50 minutes ago, Ronnie said:

Yeah it was obvious they were struggling for content last year, let alone this year coming up. I'm sure they'll be back in 2020 with a new console on the horizon.

It got me in the mood to watch some of their E3 press conference from last year again, and while there are some great showings for games like TLOU2 (I'm still in shock at how good that game looks, especially the animations), it definitely had some pacing issues, and not too many surprises ::shrug:

Hopefully their skipping E3 this year drives Xbox and Nintendo to try to knock it out of the park! :D

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Going to trade in Black Ops 4  for Far Cry New Dawn today. I'm in the mood for a single player shooter and the game seems right up my alley. Haven't played Far Cry 5 so I'm not bothered by the reimagined map.

Apex Legends is all I need for my multiplayer fix so it seems like a good idea to trade in CoD :D 

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Really enjoying Far Cry New Dawn. Haven't played much but I love scavenging, crafting and exploring. Playing on the highest difficulty which makes for some pretty intense battles. Preparation (i.e. recon) is key.

@Tales you're playing this, too, aren't you? Would you be up for getting the co-op trophy out of the way sometime? :D I think it's just a matter of completing three expeditions with a co-op partner.  

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Was going to ask you the same. There are a couple of challenges too I want done, but they might go hand in hand with the trophies. Just message me later. I will be playing it all day

Edited by Tales

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4 hours ago, Tales said:

Was going to ask you the same. There are a couple of challenges too I want done, but they might go hand in hand with the trophies. Just message me later. I will be playing it all day

If I see you online, I'll invite you to a coop session. I'll probably only have time for the 3 expeditions. 

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Great vid. :D 

I agree with a lot of Rob's choices for this list. I hate speed running, multiple playthroughs and multiplayer trophies.

It's funny he showed Devil May Cry because I will never platinum any of those games either. I'm looking forward to Devil May Cry V but I don't even have to look at the trophy list to know I won't be even going for the platinum on that.

Big respect to anyone who managed to platinum MGS4. That thing is an absolute nightmare.

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11 hours ago, Hero-of-Time said:

I hate speed running, multiple playthroughs and multiplayer trophies.

Same. However, speed runs can be fun if I reeeeaaally enjoy the game.
What I also don't like: Missable trophies. Especially in (J)RPGs. If a game takes 50 hours to complete and you miss one collectible that you can't get after a certain point...FUCK YOU :D 

Thankfully I'm not really after Platinums anymore. Only if I thoroughly enjoy a game. Examples right now would be Far Cry New Dawn and Crypt of the Necrodancer. The latter, however...probably impossible for me but I'll try.

 

Anyway, speaking of Far Cry New Dawn. I didn't know that...

Spoiler

...there's some supernatural shit going on in this world. I thought that it was only a post-apocalypse survival affair. But now I have a double jump and a super-stealth ability? Nice :D 

 

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