Playstation 5 Console Discussion

[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.

[drahkon]

Don't care about Shadow Fall mp, but this probably means that you can't play Intercept with friends anymore.

That sucks.

Well...*removes the game from my "Planned 2022" list*  

Edited July 22, 2022 by drahkon

[Julius]

New beta out today for any beta testers:

The important one: Gamelists (basically folders...kind of);

Quote

• Gamelists
  • In your Game Library you can now create gamelists, which make organizing your games even easier.
  • To start, go to the [Your Collection] tab and select [Create Gamelist]. Choose games to add to your gamelist, then decide what to name it.
  • You can have up to 15 gamelists and 100 games per gamelist. All games under the “Your Collection” tab of your Game Library can be added to a gamelist, including disc, digital and streaming titles.*** You can also add the same game to multiple gamelists.

Unfortunately, sounds similar to the current solution on Switch, which is to bury it inside your Library rather than throwing it up front and centre on the home screen  

Still, it's better than nothing – hopefully we don't need to wait too long for a wider release! 

Edited July 28, 2022 by Julius

[drahkon]

6 minutes ago, Julius said:

The important one

I think 1440p is way more important for most.

Definitely for me. I was looking for a new and larger gaming monitor but it either had to be 1080p or 4k and the latter versions are ridiculously expensive. 
With 1440p HDMI output I might get a new monitor sooner rather than later.

 

[Julius]

11 minutes ago, drahkon said:

I think 1440p is way more important for most.

Definitely for me. I was looking for a new and larger gaming monitor but it either had to be 1080p or 4k and the latter versions are ridiculously expensive. 
With 1440p HDMI output I might get a new monitor sooner rather than later.

Oh yeah, I totally agree. 1440p is going to be great for most gaming with a monitor these days, I'm honestly surprised it's taken nearly two years for it to even end up in beta! 

I've just been asking for folders for forever, so may have some deeply ingrained bias resulting in my previous statement 

[drahkon]

Just now, Julius said:

I've just been asking for folders for forever, so may have some deeply ingrained bias resulting in my previous statement 

I know, I know  

I'd love folders, too. The solution presented in beta is not going to cut it for me.

I don't understand what's so difficult to just have folders on the main screen  

[Julius]

3 minutes ago, drahkon said:

I'd love folders, too. The solution presented in beta is not going to cut it for me.

I don't understand what's so difficult to just have folders on the main screen  

Yeah, it being the same solution as it is on Switch now is very underwhelming. It's something, but it's not exactly great, as while it achieves some level of (hidden) organisation, who exactly is this helping and what problem is this fixing? Digital games are still getting buried 

Like you say, it can't be that hard to implement having them appear on the main screen, and it's nuts that the PS5 is missing features which are still available on the PS4. 

The same can be said for themes; I think it's actually pretty embarrassing that they continue to award PS4 themes for things like the end of year recap without having them available on PS5. 

[Dcubed]

13 minutes ago, drahkon said:

I know, I know  

I'd love folders, too. The solution presented in beta is not going to cut it for me.

I don't understand what's so difficult to just have folders on the main screen  

Folders are just not currently in fashion within the tech world; they’re considered to be “too complicated” and “too techy” for the average user by today’s tech bro companies (who seem to think that the average person is too dumb and disorganised to figure out how files work on a computer, and that people just want to use a search function to find anything).  Everyone is trying to be hip & modern (even Nintendo!), so they’re all trying to conform to this current tech industry “ideal” with their OS designs.

Edited July 28, 2022 by Dcubed

[drahkon]

Anybody interested in the firmware beta?
I got a code which I can apparently share with 4 others  

[Julius]

16 minutes ago, drahkon said:

Anybody interested in the firmware beta?
I got a code which I can apparently share with 4 others  

I'd be interested please, as even not-folders are better than no folders!