C'mon, did they really point out Mara in SMT?![]()
Yeah lol. Also close to nude Bayo pics as well.
C'mon, did they really point out Mara in SMT?![]()
Well.... I have been hearing some rumors on that front and that the FTC might act on the deal to kill it. They might not be the only ones on that front, UK and EU regulators don't seem to be at ease with this merger.So they’re throwing hail-marys in the faint hope regulators will quash the ABK acquisition outright using negative sentiment around big tech (which, given how Sony themselves entered the games industry, is pretty fucking rich, but that’s neither here nor there).
They should have had a pic of Ghondor's potty mouth too lol.Yeah lol. Also close to nude Bayo pics as well.
They don't need to buy anyone because they're still securing the stuff that matters to them i.e Final Fantasy.I doubt Sony would try to buy any Japanese 3rd party publisher
I think Sony would only attempt to buy Square Enix if Microsoft ever made an offer. Otherwise, there's not much reason.They don't need to buy anyone because they're still securing the stuff that matters to them i.e Final Fantasy.
I think Sony would only attempt to buy Square Enix if Microsoft ever made an offer. Otherwise, there's not much reason.
Yeah, that's true. It will be interesting to see what comes of that.SIE opening up its individual studios to external investors pretty much signifies that this will happen sooner or later. Sony and tencent seem to be the target audience
Considering most of SQEX stuff comes to Switch and soon Drake, I wouldn't say their main audience is exclusively on Sony's consoles. I'd even go as far as to believe they'd see higher sales on some of their AAA games if they also released on Switch (or Drake after it launches) day and date, so things aren't as clear cut as they appear.SE* opening up its individual studios to external investors pretty much signifies that this will happen sooner or later. Sony and tencent seem to be the target audience
Nintendo is a target too I'd bet, given their continued investment specifically in DQ and Asano projects over the years. I'm pretty sure we'll see them infusing some cash into CBU2. And honestly, Nintendo even has a history of this sort of 3rd party investment (Mobile21, Flagship, Monegi, GDS, etc). Actually PlayStation does too a little (Cellius) and even Xbox soft of (Feelplus).SE* opening up its individual studios to external investors pretty much signifies that this will happen sooner or later. Sony and tencent seem to be the target audience
Considering most of SQEX stuff comes to Switch and soon Drake, I wouldn't say their main audience is exclusively on Sony's consoles.
Unless that AAA is PS5 exclusive, it should, as it will release on the Series S and that'll mean it will be more than very possible to port it to Drake. That leaves only the games Sony pays to keep from others, like FF.Their triple A stuff probably is thought, and FF.
Unless that AAA is PS5 exclusive, it should, as it will release on the Series S and that'll mean it will be more than very possible to port it to Drake. That leaves only the games Sony pays to keep from others, like FF.
It'll be comparable in some aspects, it'll have better RT performance too and should get better IQ just from games being rendered in 1080p and DLSS'd to 4K, though in other aspects it'll be weaker, which is expected. I don't believe MS will stop mandating Series S development anytime soon, otherwise they'd burn badly their Series S costumers, which are millions.Then again, as the gen gets more taxing and current-gen only games increase the Series S specs will likely become a liability. Unless the next Switch is stronger than the Series S which I'm not sure of.
the Resistance series sold in the 1-2 million range per entry.
It'll be comparable in some aspects, it'll have better RT performance too and should get better IQ just from games being rendered in 1080p and DLSS'd to 4K, though in other aspects it'll be weaker, which is expected. I don't believe MS will stop mandating Series S development anytime soon, otherwise they'd burn badly their Series S costumers, which are millions.
How would the Series S be more of a "liability" than at present? Would the Series S affect the fun level of any video games any more or less in a few years than at present? I get that it might affect pixels and FPS but does it affect fun? I'm playing Nier Automata on the Switch and have looked at side by side comparisons with the PS4 version. If a graphics enthusiast points out draw distances, FPS, etc. I would see the differences. Still doesn't affect that I'm having as much fun on my Switch as a PS4 player did because at the end of the day Nier Automata is a fun video game.Then again, as the gen gets more taxing and current-gen only games increase the Series S specs will likely become a liability. Unless the next Switch is stronger than the Series S which I'm not sure of.
Since the specs of the SoC have been already leaked, it doesn't seem like it'll be weak at all, it'll be comparable to the Series S. As for the engines, they are built for scalability nowadays, so it's not like they'll be locked to PS5 and Series X. Devs have a much easier time porting games now than before. This is also something to consider, in the past (PS2/PS3 era and before) games had to be made specifically for any given hardware and porting them was very hard work, even porting them to stronger hardware had devs dealing with much different architectures and caused them all sort of problems they don't have to deal with now (the PS3 was a particularly hellish machine to work with because of the Cell). That meant that many times it was better to keep a game exclusive than to port it to another console, it just wasn't worth the effort and money spent. Nowadays, with the flexibility of engines, specially their scalability, it's much, much easier to port games and cheaper too. That's also why we can see those "impossible ports" on Switch and why we will see a lot of ports on Drake, as well as devs keeping games being made on the Series S.No, I'm not saying they will end the mandate, but it's clear that it will have issue with more demanding games, and if the Switch 2 is weak in the wrong areas, which is likely given how Nintendo likes to cut corners in parts of their hardware, the games that do suffer most on Series S will suffer as much or worse on their machine, and that would put it in a different situation than what the Switch 1 went through. As the Switch one was stronger than the Wii U, and Xbox One and PS4 games were downgraded but still got a good or playable experience without too much compromise. This gen we have seen cracks with the Switch and Series S. Once the Xbox One and PS4 are dropped for games going all-in next gen I think that's when we are going to start seeing problems.
Especially with all the new engines that are going to come out that specialize in working with the new home consoles that we haven't really seen much of yet. A lot of developers were doing cross-gen until those were ready, or where in the case of some like Unreal 5 for example, have already been working on games for it.
How would the Series S be more of a "liability" than at present?
I'm playing Nier Automata on the Switch and have looked at side by side comparisons with the PS4 version. If a graphics enthusiast points out draw distances, FPS, etc. I would see the differences.
As for the engines, they are built for scalability nowadays,
I don't think Drake will be farther from the PS5/XSX than the Switch was from the PS4/XBO, so it'll be fine. Same with the Series S for obvious reasons. The funny thing is that even if some game that runs at 1080p on the Series S has to be at 720p on Drake, with DLSS, it'll be possible to render it at 1440p, giving it an edge in resolution. It should have better RT capabilities and maybe match the PS5 in that thanks to the RT cores, but we will have to wait and see for that. DLSS updates may even aid in the RT for Drake in the future, giving it an bigger advantage over other consoles too. So even if it has to render less geometry and have smaller draw distances than the Series S, it'll still have some other perks. Ah right, another one could be RAM, if it comes with 12GB it'll have more RAM than the Series S.Because we haven't seen more graphically demanding games yet that push the front and backend as hard as they should. If the Series S is starting to struggle now with later cross-gen games than all-in next gen is going to be a problem. Resolution will be a minor issue because of similarities in architecture and at worse you likely won't see below 1080p unless devs try to push features that S can't handle.
But for everything else, it's not going to be pretty. But this was obviously early on when you think about it. In 2020 when the Series S was new and for the first many months there was a clear decision people had to make between the Xbox One X and the Series S. The One X is technically weaker hardware however, the One X ran some games better or just as well at the time due to being the console developers focused on the most, it's architecture in synch with many of the dev engines and tools used, and it had a disc drive. You didn't see much difference between the S and X early on and some people actually did choose the X over it. Wouldn't be until maybe summer of 2021 where I saw major titles showing a growing gap from what the One X could do to the S in larger numbers, and then a bit after that it was clear the One X had it's time. But at the same time this happened the S started to struggle more.
I understand based on the words from MS who the S was intended for and what their target audience was, but I think they could have added a bit more umph to the S's architecture.
The Switch and Series S when they launched aren't going to be in the same position when real game development comes to push next gen consoles. When Xbox One and PS4 were the focus the Switch wasn't that far behind, the Series S wasn't that far ahead, and the new consoles were receiving a lot of cross-gen stuff.
This is about to change drastically. I think 2023 will be the first year were you're going to see where we are heading.
For porting purposes, sometimes a little more work than just scaling things back in the options menu is necessary, plus optimization for any given hardware, that's how The Witcher 3 was able to run on Switch.Only to a certain extent. We are already seeing on PC that scaling has a limit, and a decent cheaper rig is having more problems than before, and when games start taking advantage of more recent architecture and graphics cards I expect the minimums to increase. Right now the only sure thing about scalability is resolution, not so much everything else. Right now we are already seeing a FPS cut and we still aren't where we see a harder hardware push yet on PC or home console.
As for Japan specifically well, none of this matters there because it's been a rising portability country since the Wii/PS3, and Sony has made a lot of silly mistakes or let their hubris put them into a bad position. They still need to work on the software situation in the country and there are reports several of their units are not actually staying in Japan when sold. Once the demand lowers, sales will crater because of a lack of anticipated software, and low software sales overall may cause devs domestically to go to Switch or release on multiple consoles, where in the past they may have only released on the PS systems.
From the recent Media Create thread, courtesy of @Oregano
A survey of 2000 elementary and junior high students conducted in Sept.-Oct. about what their gaming choices.
http://news.yahoo.co.jp/articles/699a9c6d6e22a9f9ce73fd553e8a12e473d55e02
76% of respondents play the Switch. Only 13% play either the PS4 or PS5.
Granted, this not PS's modern target audience, but I'm assuming that there was a strong interest in PS1 and PS2 from this audience given the sales numbers then.
Someone more knowledgeable than me can chime in here but the survey went through elementary and junior high which means it includes kids up to 15 years old. I would have assumed that junior high group(13-15yo) would have been a large part of the PS1,PS2 and PSP audience.
13-15 year-olds grew up with PSP/PS3/PS4, not so much PS1/PS2 (especially PS1).Someone more knowledgeable than me can chime in here but the survey went through elementary and junior high which means it includes kids up to 15 years old. I would have assumed that junior high group(13-15yo) would have been a large part of the PS1,PS2 and PSP audience.
13-15 year-olds grew up with PSP/PS3/PS4, not so much PS1/PS2 (especially PS1).
Snagging an audience from a young age is always a good idea.I wonder if all the kids growing up playing Nintendo games will become a consistent playerbase for Nintendo consoles going forward
I think it is probably more accurate to say that people followed wherever Final Fantasy/Dragon Quest went and stayed for Biohazard and Gran Turismo. It's no coincidence that nearly all the best selling games early on with the PS/PS2 were sequels established well before.I grow up with Nintendo too, but people will jump ship immediatly for better offer like SFC > PS1 era.
That offer will be CERO Z FF16 trust me.
I don't think it's about keeping the player base totally locked down so much as it is keeping Nintendo as a prominent brand.I wonder if all the kids growing up playing Nintendo games will become a consistent playerbase for Nintendo consoles going forward. Seems like it was a strategy that would make sense, but it is not a given considering that Nintendo floundered on the late 90s-early 00s.
And adding to this: Steam and PC seem to be gaining ground in the Japanese market as well, with many JP third parties publishing their games on Steam. PS will have also lost their niche as the place to play higher-end games on.If Nintendo keeps up the hot streak there with their next hardware offering and keeps any interest in PS5 at bay, a full 2 decades will have passed with a weak PlayStation and constant diminishing brand awareness
Would love to see the supply issues finally sorted out so we can really see what the demand is in Japan and Asia.
And adding to this: Steam and PC seem to be gaining ground in the Japanese market as well, with many JP third parties publishing their games on Steam. PS will have also lost their niche as the place to play higher-end games on.
Yeah I hope they implement reasonable regional pricing schemesThe keep increasing dollar is also not helping at all.
Yeah I hope they implement reasonable regional pricing schemes
And Nintendo never loses portable side, even against sonyThe reason Nintendo floundered in the 90's and 00's was because some mega conglomerate decided to enter the market and pulled some (virtually all) key developers/franchises that were exclusive to Nintendo's previous platforms over to theirs. This is unlikely to happen again because of decisions later made which changed the demographics of many of those once popular (still fairly popular) IPs to being of a much older demographic.
In their attempt to kill Nintendo, they really goofed by not taking a two front approach, which gave Nintendo a safe haven to grow their IPs at the low end handheld market. By the time they finally did decide to attack on that front, they had made bad decisions on the home front and couldn't dedicated enough resources, and had not accounted for Nintendo's creativity (and the appeal that creativity would have amongst some people) in hardware design.And Nintendo never loses portable side, even against sony
People forget but Nintendo refocused their R&D in part due to the threat of PlayStation in handhelds. Beforehand their home and portable hardware lines were largely segmented by dev groups (RD1 vs EAD) and even franchises. PSP opened the door to EAD (Super Mario, Zelda, Mario Kart, Animal Crossing, etc) really expanding directly to DS/3DS too.In their attempt to kill Nintendo, they really goofed by not taking a two front approach, which gave Nintendo a safe haven to grow their IPs at the low end handheld market. By the time they finally did decide to attack on that front, they had made bad decisions on the home front and couldn't dedicated enough resources, and had not accounted for Nintendo's creativity (and the appeal that creativity would have amongst some people) in hardware design.
Disruptive strategy (ds) and Blue oceanIn their attempt to kill Nintendo, they really goofed by not taking a two front approach, which gave Nintendo a safe haven to grow their IPs at the low end handheld market. By the time they finally did decide to attack on that front, they had made bad decisions on the home front and couldn't dedicated enough resources, and had not accounted for Nintendo's creativity (and the appeal that creativity would have amongst some people) in hardware design.
You know, now that the FTC is suing to stop this... I have to take a step back and ask: If this suit is successful and this merger is stopped, what does Sony do then?
Because this leaves a rather huge hole in it's strategy, in that it is dependent on a title like Call of Duty that can be taken from the platform at any time. That doesn't change that if this merger is stopped. So, what now?
@Terrell I am curious of your thoughts on this.
Except it is also possible to be foreclosed by an independent company choosing not to make any new games in that franchise. If the risk is so high that Sony needs the IP, that’s still a broken business model. There are also ways to foreclose without buying a company such as exclusivity deals that last long enough to where recovery is impossible even if it later comes.If an IP/publisher output is deemed too big to be foreclosed, then it likely stops most platform companies and big tech companies from buying EA, T2, Epic, ATVI, maybe Ubisoft and foreclosing others.
Also the biggest competitor to Playstation is Xbox and so the damage of foreclosure is only high if MSFT buys said IP, which will not be possible if the ATVI deal is blocked.
This line, in this thread, is darkly ironicAlso the biggest competitor to Playstation is Xbox and so the damage of foreclosure is only high if MSFT buys said IP, which will not be possible if the ATVI deal is blocked.
The simple truth is that Playstation is not dependent on Call of Duty to be successful. So they don’t really have to do anything.Because this leaves a rather huge hole in it's strategy, in that it is dependent on a title like Call of Duty that can be taken from the platform at any time