Topic: The PlayStation Fan Thread

@NEStalgia telling like it is doesn't necessarily mean youre a pessimist and vice versa.

Already playing a bit of Horizon Chase Turbo, pretty fun so far!

@J-Plap

Not happening. All of the remaining first party Sony games for the PS4 have already been announced. Death Stranding this year and then TLoU2 and Ghost of Tsushima in 2020.

I think Horizon 2 will be a PS5 launch exclusive though.

@NEStalgia Realistically, Sony's success with PS5 is mostly down to momentum, pricing, and marketing. The "core gamers" who whine about censorship online are a loud minority, and most of them will still buy games they're interested in regardless. Even if more Japanese companies are snuggling up to the competition at events like E3, those games are STILL going to release on PS5 anyway. Same with those indies and smaller developers they were not-so-subtly throwing shade at.

If PS5 struggles early on, I think it'll be due to two factors:
1) Pricing. The rumored tech in PS5 is really impressive for a console. No way they're going under $499.99 at launch. That's a big ask for a brand new console. The hardcore gamers and tech enthusiasts will recognize it as a bargain for the included tech, but normal people don't care about stuff like that.
2) The success of the PS4. It's still a very viable platform and, thanks to its ubiquity, companies will continue to develop games with its specs in mind. Why update to an expensive new console when the latest and greatest games are still releasing on something you already own? Some of the market demand for a 4K viable Playstation device will have been satiated by the PS4 Pro, too.

One thing to consider is also launch-window exclusive support. Playstation's first-party exclusives have enjoyed a major reputational boost this gen, with games like God of War and Horizon: Zero Dawn being considered some of the very best games of the generation and selling tens of millions of copies. If Sony comes out of the gate with a bunch of ambitious-looking first-party software, it could tip the balance in their favor.

Also worth considering that Sony is considering snapping up big developers to keep their games off the hardware of competitive manufacturers.

@Ralizah Momentum is just it though - they're doing all they can to break momentum. They have numbers now, and the online complainers are a vocal minority, but it all adds up to a lot of negative "vibe" around the product. XBone's launch failure was a "vocal minority" as well but it was enough to plague the internet with negative information which crippled the launch even after the bandaged it. Sony's building towards that same moment (again.) And depending on what games Sony is playing at with publishers some of those Japanese publishers may not be putting their games on PS5 at least right away. It's clear Sony is making (possibly questionable) alliances with the likes of Ubi/EA/Acti/Bethesda/WB/Squeenix - but Squeenix seems to be in a Sony revolt right now internally outside the already promised 7R. The fact they mention "niche" and "high margin" makes it clear the market they're going for. The fact they themselves aren't targeting mass market numbers with PS5 says a lot about a massive shift in the product to a market they perceive (not necessarily a market that exists.)

>$500 on a console is a massively sinking ship, right at launch. It'll be laughed off the stage by all by the biggest "ponies." Inevitably someone jumps up and says "but inflation!" No, luxury/entertainment goods don't get to play the inflation game. The average consumer has less discretionary income than in the past because of inflation. That means they need their toys to be cheaper, not pricier. But that does play in with Sony's talk about essentially a premium market of high margin buyers. Trouble is, what portion of that market isn't already rocking water cooled SLI GTX Titans or better? They're doing the Sony thing. Old Sony. The thing that almost imploded their TV business. They once again see themselves as the elite premium product worth the highest price tag. That mentality is the reason Playstation (the cheap product) has been floating the rest of their company for over a decade...... it's a failed strategy their upper management never changes. Sony Style(TM) hasn't been a thing since the 80's Walkman ended. But they haven't figured that out yet. $600 for a console sounds more absurd in 2019 than it did in 2006. As an optional premium model, $500 was pushing it for XBox. $600 is just silly for a base model. The economy hasn't been friendly toward consumer spending since then, and the promise of technology (realized in most other areas) is ever decreasing costs, not ever increasing costs.

If MS does undercut them it's going to be hilarious, even if the tech is inferior as a result. Sony will have that "profitable niche" while MS will have numbers - a reverse of this gen.

The ubiquity of the PS4 will be a factor, but....honestly I think a sane PS5 would have not been hampered by the PS4. The idea that it sounds like they're going for an insane launch will make that a major factor until the inevitable "oops we're sorry" price cut PS3 got. And again they idea they seem to want to position it as a premium market option just sounds silly when the entire success of PS has been mass market since the start. It's as though they're encouraging PS4 to continue indefinitely themselves, unless they're planning to take a MASSIVE hit and sell at extreme losses....something they vowed not to do again after PS3.

The exclusives will be there and will tip the balance in their favor (though I still have so-so feelings about the praise Sony's 1st party games get....I still feel like they are held to different standards than other games, much Like Nintendo games are/used to be....the faults are intentionally overlooked because the baseline is "Sony games are so good.") but that's only so good as the price point. If the price is out of mass market reach those games get severely curtailed sales as well, critical praise be darned. I wonder if they can afford to sell those big budget AAAA blockbusters to a tiny niche audience of extreme enthusiasts? No doubt NOT discounting those games (like Nintendo) is part of that strategy from now on. But they're trying to rewrite the entire (successful!) PS business model into a whole other business model they're inexperienced in (or worse demonstrated maximum failure in in other sectors) to do so....for no apparent reason beyond fear of Stadia, it would appear.

Sony has deep pockets, but as deep as they are, they don't have the play money Microsoft has to go buying random companies. They could buy a few, but theres limits to their buying spree. MS can get away with raising the price of Office 365 by $3 and then buying out EA with money left over.

@NEStalgia Your point about niche complaints adding up to a negative vibe online aren't untrue, but I think it's a scale thing. A LOT more people cared about Microsoft's attempted shift with the Xbone, I think. You hear a lot about Sony's policies online, of course, but, like complaints about NSO, they're not severe enough to really change anything. The only way Sony's policies would hurt them is if they attempted to force Western AAA devs like Rockstar and CDProjektRed to abide by them, and we all know they're not going to do that. They'll let you oogle and then murder strippers in the next GTA even as they force Japanese devs to censor out the bikinis in every anime fanservice game (assuming they even exist after the Olympics; Western forces have already attempted to get Japan to "do something about" its "problematic" entertainment, and that pressure is going to increase massively next year once the entire world turns its gaze toward their little island nation again).

If Microsoft is smart, they'll wait for Sony to fully unveil their plans for PS5 before doing the same with Scarlett or whatever the Nextbox is called. Undercutting Sony pretty drastically is their best strategy for ensuring early dominance next gen.

Sony doesn't have unlimited funds, but they do realize that their success is entirely dependent on their gaming division. I have the feeling they'll be going full EGS for next gen: not buying the companies, necessarily, but paying for timed exclusivity on a lot of the biggest upcoming games.

@NEStalgia Sony never got slapped down as hard as they should in the gaming industry. Even the PS3 came ahead of the 360. Plus, Sony fanboys are even more insufferable than Nintendo fanboys, which is a huge feat. They're going to defend and pull Sony ahead most likely.

We got played. Although, personally, I'd actually take the soccer game over Quantic Dreams' cinematic garbage...like, Sony would have to pay me to allow Heavy Rain back into my inventory...

@Ralizah With PS4 the negativity hasn't reached critical mass because there's nothing to hang onto it. No hook making it stick. It's still the most popular machine, still very cheap, still with tons of cheap highly regarded games, with still the most used content available, etc. etc. Which is to say, despite the negative vibe appearing, there's no hunt by the masses to find out "what's wrong with it" because everything is ok on the surface. That changes the day PS5 is revealed. Then people go to look for "what's not to like"....they may go in with a price tag induced bias....then they see the existing negativity. Then they amplify that negativity. It won't catch up to them until the damage is ready to be done. Not because the masses care at all about censoring, cross play, or anything else. But because they're looking for something to hate about the new product. And will readily find it when they look.

Yeah, I'm seriously worried about the Olympics in Japan. If Japan overly westernizes the last bastion of any kind of real civilization is gone. While I'm certainly not Japanese and thus would never be accepted there, I also realize I'm in no way part of this "civilzation" either...merely an observer. The idea of it being an empire that touches every corner of the earth short of China is terrifying. It almost makes China look inviting. Almost.

The only up-side is the Japanese are incredibly stubborn. I'm envious. They've even bested me at that.

Yes, I've been saying the same for a long time, MS would be insane to go first....Sony has ALWAYS won by going last. It's their strategy. MS has the "most poweful console" with 1X....they need to be in no rush to go first and can afford to wait Sony out - the first time Sony has had to deal with that.

If they attempt to do the EGS thing that would be....interesting. The alliance between MS and Nintendo would be a major issue for them. MS would easily make big noise about that, and use their clout (and pockets) to keep things open. Never thought I'd be rooting for monopoly Micro$haft as the good guy...but for once they're in that position. However brief it may be (I have to go gag now.)

Of course paying for timed exclusivity only works as long as the payoff is worth it to publishers. And for that to be worth it Sony needs to sell some of their $700 disposable toys.

@EvilLucario Indeed they never got slapped down hard enough....though PS3 was an embarrassment. It's hard to take their spin that PS3 outsold 360 seriously considering they sold it at a mammoth loss for years, plus whatever R&D losses they took on that second Cell they scrapped and bought in with nVidia at the 11th hour, plus reduced software sales in the key period as a result. It only "pulled ahead" when it was selling for peanuts, games were discounted, and X360 was already discontinued while they were still selling budget PS3 Ultra-Slim (made of 100% post-consumer recycled newspapers!) I'm not sure if it counts as a win if your competitor already stopped playing and you're in the bargain bin next to your new actual product.... PS3 hurt them bad enough that they played it super safe with a weak-ish PS4 and didn't sell for a loss. But they do need to be hit harder...might happen this time. They had a weak one-hit wonder from a very disorganized MS at the time, that was split with itself on bailing from the industry. This time they have a very organized and committed MS, with a large spending spree on studio expansion and a new online infrastructure (that Sony may be renting from them?) - Sony seems single mindedly focused on Stadia (for the same reasons they actually thought PS Now was the future even though it wasn't) and seems to be only half paying attention to Microsoft (and their sudden organization, and their probably better than Stadia competitor), and has completely written off Nintendo (pretty folly while Switch gains traction still.)

I agree with the Sony Fanboys thing....they are...they're obnoxious. It makes me embarrassed to own a Playstation. OTOH I think most of the PS4 crowd are the XBox dudebros who jumped ship after XBone reveal, not loyal PS fanboys.

The thing that drives me up a wall about Playstation-centric communities online is their complete unwillingness to recognize the toxic elements in their own communities.

Also, having posted in gaming communities all over the net, I can tell you that, while Nintendo fans generally get lobbed with accusations of behaving in a cult-like way and only buying games put out by Nintendo... in general, I've found that most hardcore Nintendo fans usually own another console. It's not at all uncommon for hardcore Sony fans to ONLY buy Playstation-brand consoles, though, and ignore the competition entirely.

This cult-like behavior extends to problems with games on their consoles as well. If something doesn't run perfectly on a Nintendo system, you hear about it all over the web. It's the end of the world. Same, to a lesser extent, with Xbone versions of games.

Somehow, though, there's a deafening silence when it comes to performance deficits on Playstation consoles. Whether it's games like TW3 running at only 30fps. Whether it's something like the Far Harbor DLC in Fallout 4 having to remove the fog effects from the PS4 version entirely. I could post more examples, but you get the idea: it's suddenly an understandable result of tech limitations when it happens on a Playstation console, even as hardcore ponies run around to other communities making fans of the competition try to feel about about enjoying a 720p version of a game that happens to run at 1080p on the Playstation console.

There was a minor uproar over the censorship thing, but, by and large, they're willing to accept, and oftentimes even support, such moves to avoid the cognitive dissonance that would result from acknowledging that their master was doing something unabashedly bad. Same thing with issues like Sony's recent stubbornness about cross-play: a perfectly valid complaint about one of Sony's policies becomes re-contextualized as an attack on Sony by competitors who want to bring them down. It's not at all uncommon to see people in these communities actually say that they're glad they don't have the ability to play with people on other platforms. It's like the PC master race meme, but real, and COMPLETELY undeserved.

This obviously isn't all Sony fans. Hell, I've been a fan of the Playstation brand for longer than I've been a Nintendo fan. And it's very true that there are problems in online Nintendo communities. But, whatever those problems are, they're generally more severe in Playstation-centric ones, and, worse yet, they go unaddressed.

@Ralizah Given 343 stated they're keeping quiet about Halo Infinite until E3 2020, I think it's safe to assume the proper Xbox Scarlett reveal will be at E3 2020. So unless Sony reveals the PS5 at E3 2020, the PS5 reveal will come first.

@CanisWolfred I'm not expecting to be head-over-heels for Detroit, but it's interesting, at least. I'm curious to see how it'll turn out. Old sports games, on the other hand, are the most disposable things on Earth after printed encyclopedias in the Age of Wikipedia.

@NEStalgia The endgame of multinational capitalism and unchecked corporate growth has always been the complete destruction of cultural diversity worldwide. In that respect, Japan's fate has been sealed from the beginning. In twenty years, I don't believe there will be a hugely appreciable difference between visiting New York, London, or Tokyo. The only holdouts will be regions held in thrall to religious or political extremism, like North Korea and much of the Middle East.

@Ralizah I'm not too convinced Japan will go that way. They've been tied to the west for a long long time. Yet always adopt western things in their own weird way. And the worst chapters in their history have always been due to attempting to adapt Western ideas. It seems to be in their nature to go their own weird way and not quite cave to trends. Maybe it can't hold forever.

That said, I also can't imagine "multinational capitalism and unchecked corporate growth" has much longer to live either. It worked as long as there was room for growth. Otherwise it's just a pretty name for "empire." And bad things tend to happen within empires. I expect full blown open Fascism at a minimum, Communist revolution at a maximum, or dark age collapse/conquest by China somewhere in between.

Honestly the religious and political extremists sound remarkably inviting compared to the bright future of homelessnes and Panera Bread as far as the eye can see.

And I really don't see a $700 PS5 doing well in that climate either.

@Ralizah "This obviously isn't all Sony fans. Hell, I've been a fan of the Playstation brand for longer than I've been a Nintendo fan. And it's very true that there are problems in online Nintendo communities. But, whatever those problems are, they're generally more severe in Playstation-centric ones, and, worse yet, they go unaddressed."

Except Smash. The Smash community is far worse than the Playstation fanbase, right @Octane?

@NEStalgia Oh yeah, I agree. That's why I thought the beginning of this generation was literal dog****. PS4 sucked, Xbox One sucked, Wii U also sucked overall (even if I love the games that DID come out). The only thing that was good overall during that time was the 3DS. Part of why PS4 was good was because the other two options sucked.

@Ralizah Pretty much. Fanboyism is a problem everywhere, but still.

@NEStalgia I still remember when I suggested that they should cut down the roster to about 30, and focus on new characters instead of the same old ones... *shivers...

@EvilLucario I think at the least Sony realizes that's why PS4 did so well....which is why this time they feel the need to control content. That combined with their hubris in hardware and their inexplicable fixation on competing against streaming may come back to bite them.

I bought a launch day PS4. I didn't actually USE the console after "new toy month" for at least 2-3 years. It's got more use in the past year than in all the years before it! No way I'd buy a launch PS5. Switch on the other hand was day 1.

After MS's implosion at launch I was all aboard the Sony hype train and mocking MS. But I have to say starting with 1S and Phil's rise they've turned the ship around, and Spencer has brought a really chill vibe to gaming that's been missing. It's very laid back, "whatever", Banjo in Smash, Sure! Want Minecraft? How about Lucky. We'll just show other consoles at our show...no biggie... they just have this easy going foil against Sony's corporate "objective driven market exploitation" strategy they wear on their sleeve. If they both play their roles into the next launch I can see a mass exodus back to 360 era. Then MS will get arrogant again and Sony will claw back fans. (And steal credit cards again....)

@Octane OMG YOU SURVIVED?!?!

The thing about Smash is that you can only play the "EVERYONE IS HERE!!!" card once. Nintendo doubled down on the scope creep with Ultimate, and it worked beautifully, but where do you go from there?

Personally, all I want from Smash Ultimate now besides more substantive gameplay modes like Smash Run is a full-on encyclopedia that chronicles every single video game character and reference in the game.

@Ralizah I'd be interested in Detroit: Become Human if I...hadn't already watched the entire thing on Youtube one day. Also if it didn't come with Heavy Rain. That's like getting a Mercedes sedan that comes with a free skunk.

@CanisWolfred Hey, skunks make for good pets!