Playstation 5 Console Discussion

[Ashley]

I'm sorry are we supposed to just skip over "flappy paddles"?

[Aperson]

So Omori was supposed to come out on all consoles yesterday.

 

However, despite the fact that the Xbox and Switch got it (the Switch in some regions) the game is mysteriously absent on the Playstation despite the fact that it was supposed to come out yesterday...

[Julius]

48 minutes ago, Aperson said:

So Omori was supposed to come out on all consoles yesterday.

 

However, despite the fact that the Xbox and Switch got it (the Switch in some regions) the game is mysteriously absent on the Playstation despite the fact that it was supposed to come out yesterday...

I don't have an Xbox so can't comment there, but even on the Switch yesterday it wasn't up until later on in the day; I know as I checked a few times because I was curious about the pricing, but it was still only available to wishlist based on its previous reveal(s). 

It's pretty bizarre that it's still not up on the PlayStation Store. Their Twitter asked for a bit of patience a day ago...

...but it's still not anywhere to be seen, despite, like you said, already being up on the Switch and for Xbox. 

Still undecided on what platform I'll play this on, and got a game or two to finish up before I get around to it, but it's been very bizarre to see this go from an underground Japanese indie darling that everyone was praising to getting barely any coverage here in the West the last few months, and now having these launch issues 

Either way, still very excited to get stuck in when I'm ready to! Heard that it's a heavy game, so might be one I need to mentally prep for 

Edited June 18, 2022 by Julius

[Julius]

Late last night I found myself in the mood for The Last of Us, I know Part I is just around the corner, but I've been in the mood to go back for a while, so lazily got to downloading the digital PS+ version of the game instead of throwing my disc in. Wait the 20 minutes for it to download, then boot it up; I figure I'll play Normal+ to pick up a couple of trophies to mark this playthrough, and just because I was looking for a chill time. 

Well, for some silly reason, the option to start a New Game+ playthrough wasn't there, only the option to start a New Game. Double- and then triple-checked that my save from my last playthrough was actually downloaded from the PS+ cloud - it was - but noticed that if I viewed the product in the PS+ Store, it would treat the PS+ and disc versions of the game separately.

Waited the 10 minutes to install the disc version, and what do you know, I can start a New Game+ on that version. 

Just...WHY IS THIS A THING?!

(this is a rhetorical question, I imagine it's an SKU thing, but still: WHY IS THIS A THING?!)

To make it even better, it was late when I started the game, but boy does that disc drive love to sing, even when I cleaned it just a few weeks ago, and even with just a PS4 game  I actually had to put the volume up pretty loud to compensate for this, so feel sorry for the nightmares that the click-clack of Clickers will now be giving my neighbours the next few nights! 

Is this the start of my transition to digital story, I wonder? 

On 18/06/2022 at 9:38 PM, Julius said:

It's pretty bizarre that it's still not up on the PlayStation Store.

Omori is still not up on the PlayStation Store, and the game's Twitter has been radio silent since Friday. I'm sure that a good sign 

Edited June 20, 2022 by Julius

[Julius]

You'd think the new PS Plus going live with PS3 games available only through streaming would mean the PS3 emulation on PS5 rumours stopped, at least for a little while...but no, here we go again. 

From VGC:

Quote

A new patent has suggested that Sony may be attempting to make old hardware, such as peripherals or handhelds, compatible with modern PlayStation consoles.

The patent (spotted by Game Rant) seems to show old Sony hardware, such as old media remotes, DualShock controllers, and even a handheld console, likely to be the PSP Go, being used via emulation with a PlayStation 5.

The image, which can be seen below, shows a DualShock, a Sony Media Remote, what appears to be a PlayStation Mouse, an EyeToy, a PlayStation Move wand and a memory card.

Much of this tech has long been discarded by Sony, with the most modern of the bunch being the PlayStation Move wand, which is still used to control the first iteration of PlayStation VR.

What makes the patent even more interesting is that the peripherals mainly appear to be from the PS3 era, which could suggest that this is part of Sony’s reported effort to emulate the system, which has been relegated to streaming-only as part of Sony’s recent PlayStation Plus rebrand.

While it’s possible to imagine that Sony is exploring how to make this older tech work through emulation, due to none of the equipment, aside from the PS Move Wands, currently being available for purchase, it may be simply a process for emulating the functionality of these items in software, rather than compatibility with the PlayStation 5.

See you next month for more rumours on PS3 emulation 

Edited July 3, 2022 by Julius

[drahkon]

I need this like right now.

[Julius]

Updates on SCHiM and Cult of the Lamb too:

 

20 minutes ago, drahkon said:

I need this like right now.

Yeah, Sea of Stars looks fantastic! Glad it's coming to PS 

I'm just hoping it doesn't fall into the usual pitfalls of games so heavily influenced by games recognised as masterpieces, where it puts itself into a position where it's hard not to compare it to its influences, as that's always one hell of an uphill battle. 

[Hero-of-Time]

59 minutes ago, Julius said:

I'm just hoping it doesn't fall into the usual pitfalls of games so heavily influenced by games recognised as masterpieces, where it puts itself into a position where it's hard not to compare it to its influences, as that's always one hell of an uphill battle. 

The guys done an amazing job with The Messenger. Even though that was heavily inspired by the 8bit and 16bit platformers it still managed to be it's own thing. 

 

[Glen-i]

Yeah, I need Sea of Stars. Glad that's coming to Switch!

[Julius]

The rest of this afternoon's indie announcements/updates:

 

12 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

The guys done an amazing job with The Messenger. Even though that was heavily inspired by the 8bit and 16bit platformers it still managed to be it's own thing. 

Haven't played it but I've heard and seen a lot of love for The Messenger, so yeah, fingers crossed – I'm certainly rooting they can pull it off, it seems like a lot of love and passion has gone into this! 

It's just one of those things where you see how the game looks, and that Yasunori Mitsuda is composing, and it's like making a space fantasy today and getting John Williams to score it. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely applaud them for going for it (Square Enix and Tokyo RPG Factory, if this is good, you better be taking notes!), but that definitely invites a lot of pressure and immediately starts the conversation around the game with a very direct and obvious comparison to one of the greats.

Even if the game itself turns out great, with gaming media being what it is today, I think we could see a lot of incredibly reductive downplaying (i.e. "it's a fun time, but it's not Chrono Trigger"), I guess that's my concern (maybe "concern" is a bit strong) – that it won't be fairly judged on its own merit?

Edited July 7, 2022 by Julius

[Ronnie]

7 minutes ago, Glen-i said:

Yeah, I need Sea of Stars. Glad that's coming to Switch!

Nice, didn't realise that!

I'm not usually a fan of turn based RPGs but this one looks great so...?

[Glen-i]

6 minutes ago, Ronnie said:

Nice, didn't realise that!

I'm not usually a fan of turn based RPGs but this one looks great so...?

It seems to be taking a lot of cues from Chrono Trigger, which is notable for it's relatively short length.

Of course, this doesn't mean Sea of Stars will be a similar length, but it's probably worth being aware of.

[Hero-of-Time]

11 minutes ago, Julius said:

Haven't played it but I've heard and seen a lot of love for The Messenger, so yeah, fingers crossed

Pretty sure it's part of PS+ Whopper Edition. Get it downloaded and played.

[Sheikah]

43 minutes ago, Ronnie said:

Nice, didn't realise that!

I'm not usually a fan of turn based RPGs but this one looks great so...?

It really does look great. I'm super excited for it.

[Julius]

The ink has dried and PlayStation have now officially acquired Haven:

Interesting piece from GamesIndustry.biz on Haven:

Quote

The ink has now dried. The team at Haven Studios -- the Canadian game developer led by industry veteran Jade Raymond -- are now officially PlayStation employees.

The two companies announced the planned acquisition in March. And when we spoke back then, it was clear why Sony was interested in buying a team that had only been founded in 2021.

For starters, it's a company filled with established talent, not just Raymond but a whole number of experienced names who were behind major hits such as Assassin's Creed and Rainbow Six: Siege. The developer is also making a live service title, which fits neatly with Sony's stated ambition to push further into online service-based games. And it also sees PlayStation gain a presence in Canada, one of the world's most successful games development countries.

[...]

Today, as the deal is finally confirmed, we've caught up with Haven again. And a lot has changed in just a short amount of time. The developer now has 106 employees -- a rise over more than 50 since October last year -- so it's certainly no small indie team anymore.

And what's more it's made some key engineering hires, and significantly increased its investment in R&D and the cloud.

[...]

To drive this cloud vision even further, Haven has hired Jalal El Mansouri, who was the technical architect on Ubisoft's hit live service game Rainbow Six: Siege before also joining Google in a similar role.

"Jalal joined us two weeks ago now to be principle architect for the studio, and also head of R&D. He's really going to be working with Leon [O'Reilly], our CTO, on shaping this vision. Both things that are going to be short term critical to operate our first game in a more efficient way, and then also some more forward-thinking stuff that we think will pay off, which is worth investing in now."

Haven is aiming to be a studio built for the modern world of games development. It was formed during a pandemic, with staff working remotely, and by people who know a thing or two about cloud technology.

[...]

And the company's R&D work has also caught the attention of Mark Cerny, the lead system architect behind PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5, although this isn't necessarily related to the cloud.

"So [Mark Cerny] is one of the main reasons we're investing so much in R&D, and in this very senior engineering team," Raymond teases. "It's not just tied to cloud but also some more forward-thinking R&D. I'm not able to say too much now, but that's obviously one of the other things that's been a big attractor and is exciting to our team with PlayStation. Of course Mark Cerny is kind of like a rockstar, too, so being able to collaborate with him is really exciting.

"And the fact that Jalal is joining... there are a lot of bold ideas that we're looking forward to exploring."

[...]

By the time our interview came to an end, we'd barely mentioned the game that Haven is actually building. We'd spent most of our time talking R&D and cloud and handling hybrid working, and how those things fit together.

But then perhaps the project itself isn't the most interesting thing about Haven right now; it's more about how it's being made, and what the team is developing alongside it. After all, it's this that has caught the attention of some of the more technically minded people within the PlayStation organisation.

There's clearly more to Haven than meets the eye.

And I give it all of four seconds before we see responses to the tweet about Xbox not yet getting Activision-Blizzard over the line 

Edited July 11, 2022 by Julius
I was wrong, it took two seconds

[Hero-of-Time]

Sounds like they are already doing well as part of the PS family. It's just a shame I have zero interest in cloud gaming and live service stuff as it seems that's where their focus is at.

[Julius]

PlayStation has announced PlayStation Stars, a new loyalty programme: 

Quote

Today, I’m pleased to reveal PlayStation Stars, a brand new loyalty program that celebrates you, the player, for being on this ever growing gaming journey with us. PlayStation Stars will be free to join when it launches later this year. Once you become a member, you’ll earn rewards by completing a variety of campaigns and activities. Our “Monthly Check-In” campaign simply requires you to play any game to receive a reward, while other campaigns require you to win tournaments, earn specific trophies, or even be the first player to platinum a blockbuster title in your local time zone.

All PlayStation Stars members will have opportunities to earn loyalty points. Points can be redeemed in a catalog that may include PSN wallet funds and select PlayStation Store products. As an additional benefit, PlayStation Plus members enrolled in PlayStation Stars automatically earn points for purchases on PlayStation Store. 

Also, as part of PlayStation Stars, we are unveiling a new type of reward called “digital collectibles.” Collectibles are as diverse as our portfolio of products and franchises. They are digital representations of things that PlayStation fans enjoy, including figurines of beloved and iconic characters from games and other forms of entertainment, as well as cherished devices that tap into Sony’s history of innovation. There will always be a new collectible to earn, an ultra rare collectible to strive for, or something surprising to collect just for fun. 

We hope this new program brings to mind past gaming memories while making you excited for the future with PlayStation: commemorating the gaming eras we created together, charting new paths to explore, and bringing players together for global celebrations. This is just the beginning for PlayStation Stars, and the program will continue to evolve over time. We’re currently doing some early tests on this program before launching it later this year in phased regional rollouts.

The digital collectibles part kind of sounds like it wanted to be NFTs, but apparently isn't:

Can't help but wonder if the plan was for these digital collectibles to be something like NFTs, but given the absolute collapse of the NFT market over the last few months, they pivoted? Just given everyone and their mother was trying to push it for a hot second there. 

Anyways, for me, don't really care about the digital collectibles or missions (I feel trophies is already enough? And things like Astro's Playroom is where I'd want those kinds of digital collectibles thing going on with references to the history of PlayStation), but PS Plus members getting loyalty points just from buying digital games is great, it's something I really like about Nintendo's eShop and is much more appealing to me than just having generic PS Plus Double Discounts. 

Also, I wonder how the "first to earn a Plat in a local timezone/area" would work? Because in reality the first person will probably be a reviewer/influencer with early access to the game. Even if they didn't launch the competition until launch date or whenever, they could just save a final trophy for it and then pop it when it goes live? 

Edited July 14, 2022 by Julius

[Sheikah]

45 minutes ago, Julius said:

PlayStation has announced PlayStation Stars, a new loyalty programme: 

The digital collectibles part kind of sounds like it wanted to be NFTs, but apparently isn't:

Can't help but wonder if the plan was for these digital collectibles to be something like NFTs, but given the absolute collapse of the NFT market over the last few months, they pivoted? Just given everyone and their mother was trying to push it for a hot second there. 

Anyways, for me, don't really care about the digital collectibles or missions (I feel trophies is already enough? And things like Astro's Playroom is where I'd want those kinds of digital collectibles thing going on with references to the history of PlayStation), but PS Plus members getting loyalty points just from buying digital games is great, it's something I really like about Nintendo's eShop and is much more appealing to me than just having generic PS Plus Double Discounts. 

Also, I wonder how the "first to earn a Plat in a local timezone/area" would work? Because in reality the first person will probably be a reviewer/influencer with early access to the game. Even if they didn't launch the competition until launch date or whenever, they could just save a final trophy for it and then pop it when it goes live? 

This sounds really neat, like an extra incentive to do challenges. Sounds right up your street @Hero-of-Time.

Edited July 14, 2022 by Sheikah

[Hero-of-Time]

53 minutes ago, Julius said:

Can't help but wonder if the plan was for these digital collectibles to be something like NFTs, but given the absolute collapse of the NFT market over the last few months, they pivoted? Just given everyone and their mother was trying to push it for a hot second there. 

Anyways, for me, don't really care about the digital collectibles or missions (I feel trophies is already enough? And things like Astro's Playroom is where I'd want those kinds of digital collectibles thing going on with references to the history of PlayStation), but PS Plus members getting loyalty points just from buying digital games is great, it's something I really like about Nintendo's eShop and is much more appealing to me than just having generic PS Plus Double Discounts. 

I thought the same thing as soon as I read digital collectibles. Seems kinda suspicious.

Digital collectibles would be cool if implemented correctly. They should bring back PlayStation Home and make it so you can kit out your place with bits and bobs via the challenges being completed.

8 minutes ago, Sheikah said:

This sounds really neat, like an extra incentive to do challenges. Sounds right up your street @Hero-of-Time.

Yeah, this is the kind of thing that appeals to me. No way I'll be able to get a platinum first though. The closest I ever came to doing that was 2nd place on Yooka Laylee and the Impossible Layer. Other than that I don't think I've been anywhere close. 

[Ronnie]

About time Playstation offered something like this!

I've a love/hate relationship with achievements. They're pretty addictive and I myself have gotten plenty of Platinums in the past but what's addictive isn't always healthy for the industry.

2 hours ago, Julius said:

Can't help but wonder if the plan was for these digital collectibles to be something like NFTs, but given the absolute collapse of the NFT market over the last few months, they pivoted? Just given everyone and their mother was trying to push it for a hot second there. 

That was my first thought as well, definitely feels like it could be that. On the other hand collectible figurines have been a thing in games for a while, like in Smash, so could be an innocent inclusion like that.

2 hours ago, Julius said:

Also, I wonder how the "first to earn a Plat in a local timezone/area" would work? Because in reality the first person will probably be a reviewer/influencer with early access to the game. Even if they didn't launch the competition until launch date or whenever, they could just save a final trophy for it and then pop it when it goes live? 

Could be you have to start playing the game from launch date/time.

[Hero-of-Time]

Bungie deal is done and dusted.

Seemed to have went through pretty fast.

[WackerJr]

24 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

Bungie deal is done and dusted.

Seemed to have went through pretty fast.

They say they’ll continue to great multi format games, although I wonder how long that’ll last.  Another big-name developer though, and I’d be pretty pleased if I were Sony right now with this deal.

[Hero-of-Time]

3 minutes ago, WackerJr said:

They say they’ll continue to great multi format games, although I wonder how long that’ll last. 

Yeah, I wonder that as well. The same goes for some of the studios that MS have acquired. Both Sony and MS know that these acquisitions will be ruffling feathers within communities (quite rightly so) and so saying that they will continue with multiformat release kinda keeps thing sweet. For now at least...

[Dcubed]

Well, for Microsoft, they don’t have much of a choice in the matter.  If they want the Activision deal to close? They need to prove that they’re not creating a de facto monopoly; so they need to appease the FTC by making themselves out to be “the good guys” who won’t be cutting out their competition…

Sony however? They don’t need to make such moves, since their purchases are of a much smaller scale.

[Hero-of-Time]

A bit scummy only giving people a few weeks notice, especially when Shadow Fall has just become part of one of the tiers in the PS+ line up.