Topic: The PlayStation Fan Thread

@Octane You could be right. I just remember it being more fantasy-based, is all.

I can see that Hob is up on the PlayStation store already, and has a pretty nice 20% off pre-order price at both £12.79 and €13.99 respectively, which includes a dynamic theme too.

I am slowly making my way through Pyre (it’s currently my favourite game of the year) whilst finishing off the challenges and speed runs in SUPERHOT. Then along comes Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, then Last Day of June, then the Life Is Strange prequel followed by Windjammers.

Unfortunately, because of those games, Hob is going to have to join the back of an already (too) long queue.

@Peek-a-boo Is the 20% off for PS+ members only?

@Octane Looks like it, yes.

I believe it’s £15.99 and €17.99 for non-PS+ members. I managed to buy SUPERHOT, Pyre and Last Day of June for 20% less than the RDP (recommended ‘digital’ price) by pre-ordering them. Hopefully they shall end up being three for three in terms of quality!

@BLP_Software

Sony seems to be outperforming on games sales (relative to install base) even when there's no incentive. I'm guessing that might change when the new Xbox is out.

@Octane I like the really clean artstyle in that game. Very attractive.

Apparently Bioware Montreal being shut down?

Well hopefully EA will pay closer care to their more valued franchises in the future.

^Weird that the only one who got that memo seems to be some random youtube page I've never encountered or heard of before, and literally no one else. I can't even find that press statement they're talking about on EA's page, though I guess they could just make that stuff really difficult for the public to find...

@CanisWolfred

It's a fairly mainstream channel. They have over a million subscribers.

Anyway, it's been repeated elsewhere now:

http://www.pcgamer.com/bioware-montreal-is-being-merged-into-...
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-08-01-mass-effect-andr...

This is why big publishers don't like experimenting with new ideas too often. The stakes are too high. A single failure can ruin a company.

That's true for smaller companies, not a juggernaut like EA.

Mass Effect Andromeda wasn't a new idea. It was just a broken, unpolished and rushed game. Terrible faces didn't help the game either. This was EA's choice though. They could've delayed the game for a couple of months to polish it a bit.

And the game still moved at least 2 million copies if you take digital and PC sales into account.

The game didn't even come close to ruining EA, it just didn't sell X million copies, and soon BioWare shall join the list of Maxis, Westwood and many more.

@Octane It probably didjt break even in revenue. Thats the sad part. We live in a time where a company like EA or Square or Capcom needs multi million sales before any profit.

And people wonder why DLC and MTAs exist with season passes and special editions. Companies like Bioware, Maxis and Westwood are the ones that get knocked.

TBH consumers wouldnt like paying more than $60 per game either. So what do we do?

@BLP_Software I don't think anyone ever dared to sell a game for, let's say, €80. Regardless, if Andromeda wasn't the disaster it was, it probably would've sold a lot better. Make good games, don't rush them.

Also, as far as I know, Mass Effect had a pretty small budget: 40 million. 2 million sales should be enough to cover those expenses. Keep in mind that digital profits go almost directly to EA. Imagine if the game was good and sold twice as much.

If that still wouldn't be enough, reconsider the way you develop your games. I've played better games that had smaller budgets.

@Octane Well as consoles get better consumers want better. Developers need more staff and time to acheive their vision but that costs money and big companies arent fond of that.

Something has to give. Do developers need to be more efficient? Do the companies need to be less risk averse? Do we need to slow down the progression of the industry so we can catch up instead of running ahead without making much money previously to finance the future?

Where does it end? I can see games going back to SNES prices.

@Dezzy I just wish I could find the source of that story. Nothing on EA, Bioware, etc. Granted, I've only been checking July, but the biggest news piece from EA and Bioware's official sites are patch notes and the death of one of their employees. Even if they aren't making it up, it'd mean EA tried to shuffle it under the rug, afraid of some sort of backlash, and that's just frustrating to me. It's not like that studio made more than one game, so I can't even be mad that they're gone. They may have just felt that they were better off consolidating their resources, instead of risking another massive multi-year endeavor on a studio that clearly lacks talent - seriously, the studio was founded in 2009, and after all this time they couldn't even reach the levels of skill in programming, animation, and level design as their Edmonton team had when they released Mass Effect 2, and failed on some basic levels that, while not uncommon for EA, doesn't make for good PR anymore.

But, if after all that, they still sweep it under the rug when they decide that they're better off merging them with EA Motive so they have a better chance of being useful to them, they're just inviting all of this Westwood/Maxis talk. It's not even the same guys who had worked on Mass Effect 1-3 and Dragon Age, nor is it necessarily a sign that EA doesn't want to take anymore risks, since EA Motive is an even newer studio, and they're working on a new IP. It is a sensible decision, but no one's gonna listen when there's a million people playing telephone, and no word from the horse's mouth to set the story straight.

@CanisWolfred

They probably dont want bad news coming out while the game might still sell.

Like when Nintendo said they weren't killing the Wii U.

Does anyone know who's working on the next Dragon Age? I'm sure they said it was in the works?

Just finished Pyre.

It’s the first game I have played this year that I have no qualms giving a 10/10 to.

Pyre resonates with me way more than Transistor or Bastion ever did, even though I enjoyed the latter two games an awful lot.

The cast of characters are thoroughly enjoyable to converse with and are easy to warm to, the artistic hand drawn visual style is phenomenal, the gameplay is jolly good fun, the lore and world building is both thought provoking and carefully crafted, the voice acting is genuinely superb, and the choices you make does actually affect what happens in the later stages of this game, unlike a certain Telltale studio of late...

My only nitpick is that there are some frame rate drops during the (visually) busy looking battle at times, to the point that it can a little bit problematic.

The kind of games that Supergiant Games creates are some of the very, very few that feels like playing a SNES game to me.

The vibrant colours, the ‘gamey’ gameplay, giving the characters an abundance of personality through mostly static hand drawn images, the greatest OST I have personally had the delight of listening to this year, as well as an unique isometric style battles that blends tactical gameplay with a 3v3 football match.

I wish I could dwell at length about the gripping story and the choices I made however, I fear I am the only person who has purchased, played and completed Pyre on here.

Hopefully somebody else takes the plunge in the not to distance future!

p.s. Those hand drawn flames in the pause menu are hypnotizing.

@Ralizah I thought of you.

The on-and-off ‘Persona Dance’ rumours turns out to be Persona 3 Dancing Moon Night and Persona 5 Dancing Star Night, two new titles that succeed the Vita Persona spin-off title Persona 4 Dancing All Night. They were announced at the Persona Super Live P-Sound Bomb!!!! 2017 event.

Platforms: PlayStation 4 and PS Vita
Release date: ‘Spring 2018’
Website: Persona Dance

@Peek-a-boo Good to hear Pyre is high quality fun! I'll get around to it after completing Bastion and Transistor (both of which I've owned for years but never played for some reason). I'd be fully willing to buy it at launch on Nintendo Switch, but I'm guessing it's a PS4 console exclusive, so I won't hold my breath.

And yeah, Atlus is apparently creating an entire franchise of Persona rhythm games. It's only a matter of time before we get Persona 5 on Ice and Persona 5 Golf. I wonder if they'll have actual plots like Dancing All Night did?

I'm more excited for Persona Q2, personally. More EO is never a bad thing.

The vita...it lives!!! I'll likely get both of the Persona Dancing games on vita for the portability.

@Ryu_Niiyama For a handheld that people declared to be dead years ago, the Vita sure has received a ton of software support.

I always preferred rhythm games on portables since, they usually have that pick up and play sensibility that's good for bus rides and car trips. Plus, I usually use headphones when I'm out, anways.

@CanisWolfred I always found the opposite. Rhythm games require tons of attention and you pretty much have to start over if something distracts you, which makes me not value them as portable games because I only really play them when I'm alone in my house, in which case I could play them on a console anyway.

I don't like the price hike on home console games, though, so if there's no difference, I'll probably just get these on Vita.