Playstation 5 Console Discussion

[Hero-of-Time]

Tekken 2, Mr. Driller and Ridge Racers 2 have popped up on the PSN backend. Guess these will be some of the first games to hit the service.

[Julius]

11 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

Tekken 2, Mr. Driller and Ridge Racers 2 have popped up on the PSN backend. Guess these will be some of the first games to hit the service.

Obligatory:

Interesting that this time we're getting third party games popping up after the first party stuff the last time some games popped up, hopefully means we might not need to wait all the way until their official word for some of the potentially more exciting titles? Hopefully Ridge Racer turning up doesn't negate the possibility that we're going to see the old Gran Turismo games on here, as I'd definitely be in the mood for them - especially if there were trophies - after I finish with 7. 

We're three and a half weeks away or so from the service launching in Asia, so I'm curious to see when and how they show this off and open the floodgates. I think a 15 minute State of Play on the service, showing the UI, confirming the games for launch, showing some footage to help us confirm the quality of emulation/streaming, etc., would probably be the most you need to do. I'm just hoping it's not another PlayStation Blog update...maybe we see something the week after next? 

Edited April 28, 2022 by Julius

[Dcubed]

51 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

Tekken 2, Mr. Driller and Ridge Racers 2 have popped up on the PSN backend. Guess these will be some of the first games to hit the service.

Ridge Racers 2 is particularily noteworthy because that game was never originally released in the US!

Nice to see that they're not letting region exclusivity get in the way of releases. Bodes well

@Julius There is no way that we're getting the old Gran Turismo games on this service.  The licensing costs for all of those cars would be astronomical.

Edited April 28, 2022 by Dcubed

[Julius]

6 minutes ago, Dcubed said:

@Julius There is no way that we're getting the old Gran Turismo games on this service.  The licensing costs for all of those cars would be astronomical.

Damn you're right, I hadn't even thought about that. I think Forza typically has a 5 year deal (or something around that length) for licensing on cars before they're out, doubt it's much different for GT. Not to mention some of the music too 

Sooooooooo...Destruction Derby when? 

[Dcubed]

10 minutes ago, Julius said:

Sooooooooo...Destruction Derby when? 

You joke, but that game actually was re-released on PSN; and was even included on the PS1 Classic, so it's very likely to show up here!

Likewise, we're pretty likely to also get Motor Toon GP, since that got re-released on PSN too.

Personally, I wouldn't expect anything for PS1 that wasn't previously re-released on PSN to show up here.  That list was surprisingly comprehensive though as far as the heavy hitters went though! Apart from the obvious licensing hell no goes (such as the Tony Hawks games, movie licenses and Gran Turismo); pretty much all of the quality PS1 titles actually did get re-released... apart from the Tales of games and the Lunar games unfortunately.  Outside of those games though, the list really left little to be desired by the end!

Edited April 28, 2022 by Dcubed

[Hero-of-Time]

It's a shame things like Gran Turismo, WWF Smackdown and Tony Hawk Skateboarding won't be making an appearance. Games like those are a huge part of the PS1 library. It's why these kind of initiatives won't ever replace actually owing the original discs.

I'm just hoping we get lesser known games on the service, such as Hard Edge, Heart of Darkness, Silent Bomber, Devil Dice, Koudelka and Chase the Express.

[drahkon]

14 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

Hard Edge, Heart of Darkness, Silent Bomber, Devil Dice, Koudelka and Chase the Express.

I don't know what any of this means. The first one is my dingdong's nickname, the second is basically my life, the third is another term for my farts.
Anyways, I'm just looking forward to some obscure PS1 games, which I assume those quoted are  

17 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

Tony Hawk Skateboarding

We did get a (very good) remaster for the first two. I wish we'd get the remaining titles, as well, though.

[Julius]

1 hour ago, Hero-of-Time said:

I'm just hoping we get lesser known games on the service, such as Hard Edge, Heart of Darkness, Silent Bomber, Devil Dice, Koudelka and Chase the Express.

H-o-T, you've just helped me solve one of my longest standing gaming mysteries. 

I had to look up Silent Bomber as I swear I'd heard of it somewhere before, and well, I looked it up, and I've never seen that game before in my life. I then had to look up Heart of Darkness out of sheer curiosity about whether or not it connected to Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness (adapted in film into Apocalypse Now and also a clear inspiration in games for Spec Ops: The Line), because that would be a crazy thing to try to adapt to begin with, let alone on PS1. And well, it didn't according to its Wikipedia page. 

But then I saw its cover:

When I was young, every weekend or two I'd go over to my cousins' while my parents got on with being adults, and we'd normally end up watching films or playing games. In the dead of summer one year, she let me borrow a game which definitely seemed a bit on the creepy side for my age, and I couldn't have been more than 5 years old looking back, as I didn't have my PS2 at the time.

Now, the drive from my house to theirs was probably only 5 minutes at a real push on empty roads, but there must have been construction going on, because I was in the back of the car in a traffic jam after being given the game and waving goodbye for what felt like hours (so, in earnest, was probably no more than 20 minutes). The cars were barely rolling along, and so I did what every kid does with a new game and given the time: I looked at the back and front of this game's box over, and over, and over again. It might have been missing it's manual, as I don't seem to recall flicking through one.

I don't know what it was - maybe it was the heat, maybe it was the slow roll, maybe it was me constantly reading the back and flipping the game to its front, or maybe even a combination of the three - but I felt absolutely awful after a short while: I'd somehow managed to get myself motion sick in a car which was barely moving, and it's my first memory of ever getting motion sickness. Heck, I feel nauseous just thinking about it 

Since I "more seriously" got into gaming, I kind of just assumed it was Abe's Oddysee for whatever reason, I think I might have just got the two mixed up in my head somehow, but I'd always sworn the game had a red background to its case, a dog, and some dumb kid on the front. The only real confirmation I needed though was looking up the rear cover:

Yeah, there's no forgetting that 

I looked up the rest and the only one other one I seem to recall - I'm leaning towards having owned it? - was Devil Dice. 

Okay for this one I remember absolutely nothing about this game other than the weirdly covered die 

Man, talk about repressed memories, now I'm stuck trying to think of some more of the lesser known PS1 games I haven't thought about in a long time! 

That's actually why I mentioned Destruction Derby @Dcubed, had no idea it was already up anywhere - hopefully it comes to the service! - but I had a lot of dumb fun with friends sitting on the living room floor playing that game. 

Edited April 28, 2022 by Julius

[Hero-of-Time]

Glad to have helped, @Julius.  

[drahkon]

24 minutes ago, Julius said:

Apocalypse Now and also a clear inspiration in games for Spec Ops: The Line

Wait, Apocalypse Now isn't just your standard shooty-shooty-bang-bang war movie? 
I gotta watch this...

[Julius]

3 minutes ago, drahkon said:

Wait, Apocalypse Now isn't just your standard shooty-shooty-bang-bang war movie? 
I gotta watch this...

No, it's not; and yes, you do!  caps off what l think is arguably one of the strongest decades in an individual director's filmography (Coppola also directed The Godfather, The Godfather Part II and The Conversation in the 70's). 

If you do get around to watching it I'd also recommend checking out Heart of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse, as it does a great job of showing just how much of a challenge it was to film. 

[Julius]

Looks like Worms World Party and Worms Armageddon have also been listed now. 

Don't worry guys, at 340 games to get through with 5 games a day we should have a full list around the start of July 

[Ashley]

I'd never heard of Devil Dice until recently (a Did You Know Gaming video i assume) and it looks interesting. Like a puzzle platformer thing from what I could tell where you stood on top of a die and it rotated in the direction you were facing but you could only move to the next die of the numbers lined up. Interesting concept. 

[Julius]

Bit of an update on the messy situation with PS+ stacking being blocked and the conversion rate to the new tiers:

 

[Julius]

PS5 sales are continuing to slip off the back of supply constraints, selling 11.5 million hardware units of the PS5 vs their initial target of 14.8 million hardware units for the fiscal year. 

Quote

Sony Group Corp. said it would buy back as much as 200 billion yen ($1.5 billion) of its own shares after reporting earnings that missed analyst estimates.

The entertainment group reported operating profit of 138.6 billion yen in the fourth fiscal quarter, falling short of consensus analyst estimates of 148.5 billion yen. The company forecast operating income of 1.16 trillion for the current fiscal year, also shy of estimates of 1.2 trillion yen.

Sony said it would repurchase as many as 25 million shares over the next year, 2.02% of the total outstanding. It also announced a 200 billion yen buyback program a year earlier as it reported results. The company's shares have dropped 27% so far this year, roughly in line with the tech-heavy Nasdaq index.

[...]

Sony's flagship PlayStation 5 game console has suffered supply constraints from component shortages and logistics disruptions. The company has said unfilled demand is strong enough to eventually bring the PS5 back on track to be its fastest-selling console generation, but data from outside firms such as U.S.-based NPD Group Inc. show Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox hardware began to outpace PlayStation in recent months.

Sony will roll out new online services for PlayStation users in June, including an option similar to Xbox's Game Pass subscription offering.

Been rough for the PS5 since its launch. That's what, still shy of 20 million units in its lifetime now - 19.3 million hardware units I think? Wild, but clearly massively constrained by the components shortage. 

I'm curious now just how this will impact PlayStation's planned slate of PS5 (Console) exclusive releases, and I wouldn't be surprised (or really blame them) if titles like Spider-Man 2 ended up being releasing across generations; they need to cover their lost ground somewhere, and I think that's probably the most reasonable way to do so.  

Edited May 10, 2022 by Julius

[Hero-of-Time]

Yeah, it's been very rough for them. Doesn't help that there's very little in terms of true exclusives. I can see why they wouldn't want to release them though. I mean what's the point when people can't even get the console to play them on. Whole thing has been a mess. Not that they could have predicted such shortages, mind you. Scary thing is some analysts are expecting parts shortages to last until 2024.

Honestly, given the price I can get for it, I've been contemplating just selling my PS5 and continuing to use my PS4 Pro, which still gets more use than my PS5.

[Julius]

11 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

Yeah, it's been very rough for them. Doesn't help that there's very little in terms of true exclusives. I can see why they wouldn't want to release them though. I mean what's the point when people can't even get the console to play them on. Whole thing has been a mess. Not that they could have predicted such shortages, mind you. Scary thing is some analysts are expecting parts shortages to last until 2024.

I can never feel too bad for corpheads, but I have to imagine they've been a bit shellshocked having to time and again reduce their sales projections for the PS5. I mean, their very first projection for the PS5 as that it would ship 15 million units from launch through to 31st March 2021, and here we are with the results for the FY ending 31st March 2022, and it's only at 19.3 million units sold. It's impressive given the components shortage, but it's pretty crazy that this time last year their projection was to have 50 million PS5 consoles shipped by 31st March 2023, compared to 40 million for the PS4 in a similar timeframe, and again, here we are with it tracking at - potentially under - the PS4's shipments. 

It definitely screws up their plans for exclusives, like you say it's a bit of give and take right now between having PS5 console exclusives and actually just getting these things out in the wild. With the components shortage I do wonder how it will impact their potential other SKU's - I feel like we'd normally be expecting a Slim right around now, but could be off in saying that? - but yeah, it's messy, and it ain't pretty to watch. Still crazy to me that they waited as long as they did to start selling plates, I feel like they need to grab what they can for the time being and run! 

And, I mean, it's no real reason to fret, but it does come at a time where I think the Series S being in stock consistently and Game Pass looking a better and better deal for an average player does swing some of that momentum away from PlayStation, even though they'd probably be destroying sales records otherwise. 

22 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

Honestly, given the price I can get for it, I've been contemplating just selling my PS5 and continuing to use my PS4 Pro, which still gets more use than my PS5.

Part of me wants to say you're crazy - and, well, I still just might, just because if you do that it could be a bit of a hassle tracking a PS5 down for a while  - but I completely get where you're coming from. At the moment within the next 12 months what is there in terms of true next-gen PS5 exclusives? Maybe I'm forgetting something but I think it's just Final Fantasy XVI (which, you know, I still feel could work its way onto the PS4) and the long rumoured The Last of Us remake (which surely has to be next-gen exclusive, but then is it being bundled with Factions, and if so aren't they completely limiting their player pool by having it be next-gen exclusive?). 

At the moment my PS5 is a very expensive blu-ray player and a way to get a boosted PS4 experience, it's very bizarre, but I do have a lot of PS4 games on my shelf anyways so it's tough to complain  

[Sheikah]

3 hours ago, Hero-of-Time said:

Yeah, it's been very rough for them. Doesn't help that there's very little in terms of true exclusives. I can see why they wouldn't want to release them though. I mean what's the point when people can't even get the console to play them on. Whole thing has been a mess. Not that they could have predicted such shortages, mind you. Scary thing is some analysts are expecting parts shortages to last until 2024.

Honestly, given the price I can get for it, I've been contemplating just selling my PS5 and continuing to use my PS4 Pro, which still gets more use than my PS5.

You'd be better off selling your PS4 Pro like I did. I managed to sell it on eBay for 270 quid when I bought my PS5, thereby meaning I effectively paid 180 quid for a PS5 without losing any function. Being able to play games at better framerate/resolution as well as pretty much silently is worth it for me, as well as getting to play the occasional games like Returnal and Demon's Souls.

Given the chip shortages I can't see the price of PS5s coming down meaningfully for a long time, so if you did want to pick up another down the line it'd likely still be 450 quid.

Edited May 10, 2022 by Sheikah

[Hero-of-Time]

Yeah, but you can sell them for £475+. I would be making a profit.  

As for selling my Pro, it has too many TV apps on it that I use. I don't think all of them are on the PS5 yet. Plus, I much prefer the PS4 interface over the one on PS5.

[Julius]

16 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

As for selling my Pro, it has too many TV apps on it that I use. I don't think all of them are on the PS5 yet. Plus, I much prefer the PS4 interface over the one on PS5.

Don't forget folders and themes! 

Stares blankly at PS5

[Hero-of-Time]

It baffles me that all 3 console makers are terrible when it comes to bringing UI features forward from their previous console. Why do they have to start from scratch instead of building on what they had? 

[Ashley]

Hmm i wonder how much is the underlying architecture being different enough that they figure "may as well start from scratch". Or maybe they know how much some people just moan that the DualShock controller "never changes" and figure people would do the same. 

[Dcubed]

19 hours ago, Hero-of-Time said:

It baffles me that all 3 console makers are terrible when it comes to bringing UI features forward from their previous console. Why do they have to start from scratch instead of building on what they had? 

Xbox Series uses exactly the same OS as the Xbox One; all of that console's features were carried forward 100% intact from day 1.  First time that's ever really happened since consoles started getting proper OS' built-in, and it's great! More of this please, no need to reinvent the OS wheel each time! (the fact that it took Switch almost 6 years to get folders is a joke!)

As for selling your PS5 HoT? I'd say that you're probably better off just selling the PS4 Pro at this point and using the built-in video streaming apps on your TV (or whatever "smart" device you have hooked up) instead.  Chances are that they're much better than the apps on these consoles anyway.

Edited May 11, 2022 by Dcubed

[Hero-of-Time]

Given how I disliked the Xbox One's UI, that's the one time I would have liked them to reinvent the wheel! Bring back the 360 blades!

I wouldn't even class what the Switch got as folders. It's some kind of weird middle ground.

[Sheikah]

1 hour ago, Dcubed said:

As for selling your PS5 HoT? I'd say that you're probably better off just selling the PS4 Pro at this point and using the built-in video streaming apps on your TV (or whatever "smart" device you have hooked up) instead.  Chances are that they're much better than the apps on these consoles anyway.

I can definitely recommend a Chromecast for that. Really good app support and generally much easier/quicker to search for and select content than when using a controller.