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Posted

If true, an Astrobot game would be a major release for me. If this is what is meant when the Sony boss said no major 1st party games would release this year, then count me in. Bring on the so called filler games. :D

 

Posted (edited)
6 hours ago, Dcubed said:

Q3 financial results are out now...

https://www.installbaseforum.com/forums/threads/sony-q3-fy3-2024-financial-results-oct-dec-2023-gn-s-sales-up-by-16-yoy-oi-down-by-26-ps5-hw-at-8-2m-sw-at-89-7m-new-forecast-sm2-at-10m.2418/

Oh, and yes @Sheikah, PS5 is falling further behind PS4, just like I said it would...

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Also relevent...

and also relevent...

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... no major first party titles are planned for release this fiscal year (ending March 31st 2025).

Will be interesting to see if anything changes sales wise as Xbox pulls out of the console market, but yeah... @Sheikah you can stop pretending that I'm wrong now; and accept that Sony are pushing into the PC space to help offset the continuing decline of the traditional console market, and will only be pushing further as time goes on.

Are you aware of the term "cherry picking"?

So you point to specifically one quarter to make your point that PS5 shipments are lagging behind - i.e. quarter 13 (the yellow Q3 cell in the table). Which shows PS5 shipments 8.2 million vs PS4 9.7 million.

But... if you go to literally the quarter right before that one (yellow Q2 cell) the stats are entirely reversed! 4.9 million PS5 vs 3.9 million PS4 shipments.

And add to this - quarter 13 (i.e. fiscal Q3 of 2016) was when they released the PS4 Pro, which inevitably led to an extra boost in hardware sales - even existing PS4 owners like me going out and buying a Pro to replace their old console. A fair comparison then? Of course not. :indeed:

And like I said before, LTD sales comparisons are meaningless given the restricted PS5 supply for the first few years (meaning if anything, the numbers being so close between the two systems shows how popular PS5 is).

Edited by Sheikah
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Posted
1 hour ago, Hero-of-Time said:

If true, an Astrobot game would be a major release for me.

Nope. Not getting my hopes up.
If a new Astrobot game gets released it'll be a PSVR2 exclusive and I will go on a

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Posted
On 1/25/2024 at 7:07 PM, drahkon said:

Whohoo, Balatro has been announced for PS5 (20th of February).

Day one!

I'd have paid more for the demo. Played it for almost 16 hours according to Steam.

I'm gonna buy this for PS5 and Steam Deck! CANNOT WAIT :bouncy:

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Posted

I see a trailer for Wolverine has been found from the Insomniac hack.

Apparently this was used as part of as internal presentation, although some are saying it could be fan made using the assets that were hacked.

Posted

Financial news.

Quote

The company's shares fell after the announcement, with around $10 billion of value wiped off the stock since the forecast cut, according to a CNBC calculation using FactSet data.

But analysts were watching another key metric — the operating margin in the gaming business — which came in just under 6% for the December quarter, according to a CNBC calculation. By contrast, Sony's operating margin was more than 9% in the December quarter of 2022.

"The shipment forecast cut for PS5 is not what is disappointing. What is disappointing is the low level of operating margin, Atul Goyal, equity analyst at Jefferies, said in a note to clients on Wednesday.

The latest quarter's single-digit margin for Sony is present "despite various tailwinds that should have driven up the margins towards 20%," Goyal said, adding that the situation is "extremely disappointing."

These tailwinds include sales of its first-party games, which are increasingly in the form of digital downloads, in addition to its high-margin PS Plus subscription service, which commands around 50% margin, according to Goyal.

Toto said that part of the reason why margins are being squeezed more recently is that software production costs have been rising.

"Spiderman 2," which came out last year and is produced by Sony-owned Insomniac Games, cost around $300 million to make, according to gaming website Kotaku, citing an internal presentation that was leaked after a ransomware group hacked the company.

"So these budgets seemed to have a significant impact on their gaming margin over time," Toto said.

Again, stupidly high budgets for the AAA industry just aren't sustainable. 

Posted
39 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

Financial news.

Again, stupidly high budgets for the AAA industry just aren't sustainable. 

The problem is that the majority of dedicated customers won't settle for anything less. They've been conditioned as much. It's why indies get snubbed in general discourse because of their relatively low budgets.

Probably why they tend to do so well on Switch, the average Nintendo user doesn't give a toss about how pretty a game looks. So without that barrier, those games have more room to showcase what makes them worth purchasing.

Posted

It's almost Balatro day :D

Shame that we have to wait until 5pm CET :( I got tomorrow off and have to wait that long? Do I really have to keep playing the demo?

Anyways, the game is getting great reviews! Can't wait :bouncy:

Posted (edited)

Balatro's Platinum will be time consuming one, if I understand it correctly :D

You gotta win a run at the highest difficulty with each deck (15 decks x 8 difficulties = 120 winning runs), Then you also gotta do this:

image.png

There are 150 Jokers...winning a run at the highest difficulty with a Joker active gets you that sticker.

Anyways, I'm gonna go back to playing this incredible game. See you never, SUCKERS! :p

Edited by drahkon
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Posted (edited)

The AAA clickbait is repeated too much. Sony and Nintendo consoles will be fine. The various 1st 2nd party studios will be fine. Delays happen and are necessary. IMO all of these studios have had ups and downs.

On 19/02/2024 at 8:34 AM, Glen-i said:

The problem is that the majority of dedicated customers won't settle for anything less. They've been conditioned as much. It's why indies get snubbed in general discourse because of their relatively low budgets.

Probably why they tend to do so well on Switch, the average Nintendo user doesn't give a toss about how pretty a game looks. So without that barrier, those games have more room to showcase what makes them worth purchasing.

At the end of the day yes of course more people buy the bigger games. Its no different to music, tv or movies. Indies will always have their place.

Helldivers 2 had many years in development for the record and it feels very well play-tested.

 

Edited by Choze
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Posted

I bought myself a PlayStation Portal yesterday after they briefly got restocked at PlayStation's own shop. I don't get to use my TV as much now that I have a family so I'm looking forward to this, I've heard pretty good things and I think it'll be convenient for me. I'm hoping that I don't have any weird connection issues though - hopefully because I sit very close to the router it won't be an issue.

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Posted (edited)
14 minutes ago, Sheikah said:

I bought myself a PlayStation Portal yesterday after they briefly got restocked at PlayStation's own shop. I don't get to use my TV as much now that I have a family so I'm looking forward to this, I've heard pretty good things and I think it'll be convenient for me. I'm hoping that I don't have any weird connection issues though - hopefully because I sit very close to the router it won't be an issue.

I look forward to hearing how you get on with it. It does seem very much to depend on your connection speeds.

In other news...

 

Edited by Hero-of-Time
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Posted (edited)

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For those who missed the now Privated video, HiFi Rush is coming to PS5 on March 19th.  Seems to also include the DLC as standard.

Surprisingly, no Switch version! Perhaps they really are saving it for Switch 2 then?

Edited by Dcubed
Posted
Just now, Dcubed said:

For those who missed the now Private video, HiFi Rush is coming to PS5 on March 19th.

Surprisingly, no Switch version! Perhaps they really are saving it for Switch 2 then?

Rumours are that the Switch version is pretty rough. Makes sense to wait for better hardware.

I've changed the link so it should work now. Not surprised it got taken down as it appears the trailer wasn't supposed to drop yet.

Posted

HiFi Rush is a great game, one of my favourites from last year.

If you haven't played it before, you're in for a real treat.  Well worth your time if you like Stylish Action games :D

Posted
2 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

In other news....

 

Looks like it's been made private now but seriously, the more we see of their plans for other consoles, the more I'm questioning my own sanity.

Why exactly couldn't they reveal the names of any of Grounded, Pentiment, Hi-Fi Rush or Sea of Thieves last Thursday, but then they've had two officially announced today - in the weirdest and most nonchalant way possible, mind you - and had one leak out and confirm it 100%, when it was already 99% confirmed anyways from previous datamines and the like? I guess you'd maybe have deals in place but plans change all the time and they were suffering some major PR blowback, why didn't you wrest your own announcements back? You fools! And you don't even make any big deal out of it in the Direct? No Phil cameo? This is insane. There's no connection there to tell me these games are also on Xbox other than a small logo in the corner. Come on, guys. Do better than that. 

The fact that we're getting Pentiment tomorrow, Hi-Fi next month, and Grounded in April makes me think Sea of Thieves drops in May...at which point, does anyone believe they aren't planning more with potentially four consecutive months of drops on other platforms? 

Also, respect to Bethesda LATAM for jumping the gun. It was the smart move. Muchas gracias mi amigos :D

5 minutes ago, Dcubed said:

Surprisingly, no Switch version! Perhaps they really are saving it for Switch 2 then?

I'm not too surprised by this, I remember questioning if this thing could even run on Switch back when we were talking about GOTYs/TGAs and that Xbox should've got this on everything else and taken a real crack at the big awards with a For Your Consideration-like campaign for the game. Really seems like it depends on a super solid and high frame rate because of the style of game and it's mechanics. 

Switch 2 for sure. 

Posted

@Julius They probably made some marketing deals with Nintendo & Sony respectively which meant that each platform holder had exclusive rights to having the first announcement of each respective game.  Not uncommon amongst 3rd party publishers really.

Posted
Just now, Dcubed said:

@Julius They probably made some marketing deals with Nintendo & Sony respectively which meant that each platform holder had exclusive rights to having the first announcement of each respective game.  Not uncommon amongst 3rd party publishers really.

See, I totally get that, and also I imagine it's likely a case of already having handed off materials, the Direct cut likely being mostly if not 100% complete, etc. 

With how much Xbox leaks these days, though, they seriously need leak clauses in those contracts if that is the case – "if this news gets out ahead of time, we get to pivot it". The hype for and their control over these announcements has been torn from their hands and, as with all leaks, I feel like the announcement/s have been majorly blunted as a result. 

But even if we say that it's the case that there were arrangements already in place, which there likely were...you let Nintendo hype up your ancient legacy titles going to their Online platform but basically give no lip service or great fanfare to your modern, piecemeal offerings? 

That's just bad marketing. They need a new team, seriously, because it was thrown out there so carelessly that Pentiment and Grounded were coming to Switch that it felt like an afterthought. You could argue we already knew about it, but that doesn't change the fact that you're trying to sell the game to an entirely new and separate audience to your own! Completely blew their chance to make a splash with those announcements from my POV. 

Posted
29 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

I look forward to hearing how you get on with it. It does seem very much to depend on your connection speeds.

Yeah, me too. I haven't done much remote gaming so I'll be interested to see what the input lag is like. I won't be using it for twitchy multiplayer games though.

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Posted

So my Portal arrived earlier today, got a good chance to play a few games on it. It's really, really good. The input lag is almost negligible and the screen is really vibrant. The controller basically feels like a normal PS5 pad. I can see myself using this often when I can't access the TV.

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