Topic: The PlayStation Fan Thread

@Octane It will be where most of the cost goes. They have to pay the publisher/developer of each monthly game enough to offset the potential sales they'd otherwise get. It's called the opportunity cost.

"A choice needs to be made between several mutually exclusive alternatives; assuming the best choice is made, it is the "cost" incurred by not enjoying the benefit that would have been had by taking the second best available choice."

Do we put our game on sale and get x amount of revenue, or do we go via PS+ and have Sony pay us what we would earn otherwise and hope more people play our game?

@Octane I doubt Nintendo's implementation will be any more elegant, but at $20/year, it's far less objectionable.

I'd actually be perfectly happy paying $20 for a "PS+ Lite" that just gave you discounts during sales, access to betas, and cloud saves.

@Ralizah I'm pretty sure most would pick the cheaper option if there was one hence eliminating the point of the more expensive option.

@Grumblevolcano And that highlights the entire problem, people don't want to pay for all the extra fluff.

@Grumblevolcano Don't most people opt for PS+ for the free games and online multiplayer, though? Those seem like the "big" things driving adoption.

Is there a concrete reason as to why we have to pay for online for PS and Xbox (and eventually Switch)? The basic explanations I see is to keep secure servers, to help pay for the huge expenses of games, or that there is more too it than that.

It's like why, beyond just giving them money.

@Ralizah I too would welcome ‘tiered’ PS+ options.

I do play some online multiplayer, but only with folks on my friends list. The majority of my PS+ membership goes towards the PS+ discounts/savings, which are admittedly ridiculously good sometimes! The cloud saves is something else I also use. The ‘free’ games are just a nice bonus to me.

Trouble is, PS+ brings in an enormous amount of profit for Sony so, I don’t see them adjusting their options anytime soon, especiallly with nearly 40 million (!) paying memberships. I do hope they cease adding games for the PlayStation 3 and PS Vita sooner than later though, and begin to offer a PlayStation VR game in their place - as well as an additional PlayStation 4 game - instead.

@Ralizah Oops, for some reason I thought your post included online multiplayer into the $20 (i.e. "PS+ Lite" being PS+ without the free games). Online multiplayer is the main reason people buy PS+/XBL Gold.

I tend to think @Peek-a-boo is on the money. The current PS+ set-up is working really well for them, so they're not going to change anything and risk masses of people transitioning to a cheaper tier of the service.

If they do get rid of Vita support, that'll be the permanent nail in the coffin of PS+ for me. I don't care if PS3 support gets dropped, though.

Actually had a great time with Paragon yesterday!

First I decided to take another crack at Solo vs AI on max difficulty again. I was under the impression that it was impossible to beat, since the odds are usually stacked against you, always giving you 2 or 3 ally bots with really bad AI, and the enemies have bonus stats and cards that players don't have access to.

...Turns out it just required teamwork. Which is still difficult, since you're playing with all bots, but there's still tricks to it, and they always try to respond to problem sectors. So long as I paid attention to the map, I generally won.

...Or I just play a DPS character, like Sparrow or Wukong, and bulldoze all their towers. That works, too.

But the highlight was in PVP, when I managed to party up with another good support player. Granted, we actually lost more matches than we won, but the battles we won were hard fought and intense! And the tougher loses just came down to poor communication. People taking different positions they the agreed to during the draft, team members constantly pushing left lane despite getting attacked by an assassin every single time, like clockwork, etc.

We did manage to end it on a high note, however, with a team that really managed to coordinate and work together. Granted, part of it might've been our enemies being disorganized, especially when I swapped lanes with another team member who was struggling. Plus, I think they all went for dps builds, except for one who I guess was supposed to be their designated tank (Ironically he was in the lane I started in, but the other lane had a healing orb I could take to stay in the fight). Even their mage, Gideon, was putting points into agility despite not really benefiting from it. I was playing as Steel, a tank character, and one time I saw my team was going for a jungle boss, and I decided to distract the enemy by diving on top of 3 who were guarding a tower. Gideon actually gave chase, and at first I'm thinking, "oh crap, even with Steel, he can do a ton of damage! He must have a ton of ability power by now!" Instead I'm getting nicked by Multishot - an agility gem. He's barely putting a dent in me, so I just smacked him with my shield and walked away.

I fact, it seemed like I generally did better playing as a tank-y melee character than any ranged mage or dps-focused character. I got more kills when I played as Murdock in an earlier match, mostly because he's a good chasing skill, but there's just something about being able to get into a fight and feeling like I can stay in that fight that really appeals to me. There's one point during that match where I helped out left lane, then took the river to midlane, taking a stealth buff on the way so I could ambush Gideon, then grabbing another river buff that gave me speed so I could help out an ally in right lane - and all without having to return to base. Feels good, man.

A few more people from that match sent me invites, too, so hopefully I'll have more fun matches like that!

Also, sorry if it sounds like I'm yammering about this game too much. I was just really excited. It really felt like a hard day's work paid off, since those solo matches really pushed me to pay attention to the map and my enemies, and now it all really came together!

Catherine is getting remastered for Playstation 4 and (wait for it!) PS Vita as Catherine: Full Body.

Features:

• Development is a collaborative effort between Atlus and Studio Zero.
• The third “Catherine” is named Rin (voiced by Aya Hirano). She is a pianist at Vincent’s regular bar, and has an exceedingly honest and gentle personality. Rin’s involvement in the story will introduce new branches for the other two “Catherines.”
• A large amount of new endings, episodes, anime movies, and sexy events are being added.
• A wide range of difficulties and convenient systems are being prepared.
• There is a new mechanic where you move blocks where multiple are connected. There is also a new mode.
• There are online battles.
• There is cross-save support.

Source: https://gematsu.com/2017/12/catherine-full-body-new-endings-e...

PS Vita is unstoppable.

@Octane Vita really is the cockroach of video game consoles!

Vita means life!

I would have preferred a Switch version, but we're getting portable Catherine, so I can hardly complain.

@Ralizah I guess you could say that a successor is inevitable at this point

Glad I waited on Catherine, then...although, in retrospect, I probably wouldn't care for it, anyways. Intriguing concept, but the gameplay looks boring, IMO...

Combining this info with what type of story this game is, I feel that this is the reason this game got greenlit.

Shared this in the MH thread, but seeing as it is a PS4, I thought I'd post it here too for the PS4 guys to see.

It's even nicer in person than the pics make it out to be...

How pretty

Surprised that 4K doesn't have a giant asterisk next to it.

Still its pretty. Odd that it came before the game.

I don't really like the design of the PS4 Pro. I mean it's not that bad or anything, but it's not great either.

But this... this makes it looks gorgeous.

I now have both special edition Monster Hunter New 3DS XL units- both for MH4U and MH Generations. Now the MH World PS4 Pro... all I'm missing is the MHXX Switch. But I just can't bring myself to spend the money on it. For one, it's kind of ugly. I mean I like the tribal design, but it just seems so low effort. It's not glossy or colored or anything. And the system has no special controllers. Just a symbol on the back of the Switch. Had they made special colored joycons with a design like they did here for the PS4 controller... I would've ordered it along time ago. Maybe one day we'll see a better special edition Switch release for a future game, with special joycons. I'll probably just hold off in hopes of that.

Turns out the plug actually works in US outlets. It uses the same non-polarized dual pin plug the US uses. Japan is 100 volts instead of the 120 volts here, but the power supply unit in the console ranges from 100-240 for all three regions. Which means it will actually work without needing to buy a separate cord. That's cool.