Topic: The PlayStation Fan Thread

That's always going to be the case though. They're always going to try and push the graphics forward when they get new hardware, meaning whatever the new graphics are will only be achieved with adequate performance.

I've been saying this for ages now. We're never going to get a time when all games run at maximum resolution and 60fps. People keep expecting that to be an achievable target that we should be getting closer to. But it's not. It's a continuously moving target that will likely never be achieved.

@Grumblevolcano Yeah, i imagine it is a more attractive console if you didn't have 1x. Then again the people they're hyping launch to are mostly the people that bought 1x. That's the thing. I bought 1x, i love it, but i bought on the promise ms finally figured it out and cracked the key to a great steady ecosystem. I didn't think they'd seriously release the most expensive console since ps3s dismal launch only to announce in 2 years they're abandoning it. Then they made good on long term support with saying everything will run on both.... Then backed down from that. They seem like there running in circles without a plan, revising on the fly, and x1x feels wiiu/32x like. "Thanks for paying for the r&d of the real machine."

I'm excited that there's an upgrade.... But feel kind of betrayed that x1x really was the cynical worst case scenario of an expensive disposable stop gap, and not a bold step in a new cycle like they led us to believe.

Between wiiu and 1x, Sony's the only one that i don't feel like they lied and ripped me off with ps4..... Except they ripped me off with Vita to launch ps4........

@Dezzy makes me wonder why hdmi 2.1 is still pushed as a thing if no games are really targeting 4k120 and everything is 30fps or 1080/120 anyway. I'm feeling good about my new 4k60 hdmi 2.0 display..... can't wait for my $400 checkerboard box again! Plus $500 vr, of course...

I wonder if Elden Ring will appear at Gamescom Opening Night Live.

I completely forgot about that game...

Heh, it's been awhile since it was 1st teased .... Let's hope it is there!

In similar "everything's a Souls clone" thought, I caved last sale and bought Nioh 2. That was going to be my GoT buy, but Nioh was on sale and GoT isn't yet.

I don't know why I bought it, I never made it past the second boss in the first game But something about it is really addictive. The engine still performs terribly and isn't that pretty. I'm hoping the second one adds some polish. The opening is already much better than the Tower of London in the first. But I haven't even made it past the weapon selection room. So many weapons, so hard to choose. So far I guess I'll go with tonfa and glaive...two extremes? But they're all so interesting. For spirit I had to go magic....I mean your spirit animal is a freaking literal sharknado, how can you NOT choose that?

Speaking of spirit animals, what happened to that game called WiLD? The Rayman creator was behind that project, right? Was that a Ubisoft game? Beyond Good & Evil 2 also disappeared from the face of the Earth. Remember Deep Down? Someone should do a top 10 AWOL games.

@Octane Apparently crowdsourcing development of BG&E2 wasn't going well so they fired all the free employees that paid to work there from Tumblr. Poor Ancel....invited everyone to join his Space Monkey Program, but not enough people wanted to touch his monkey project.

Seriously, though, Ubi did say they have one (or two?) more Forward events, so I suspect the bigger games like that will all be mentioned in the events closer to the holidays and next gen launch. I imagine they don't want to overshadow their big cash cow in AC this holiday though.

That said, WiLD and BG&E 2 are both Michel Ancel projects, so I can't imagine him having the time to work on experimental WiLD and So Far Beyond Good and Evil we Ran Out of Budget 3 Years Before Release Just Rendering the Trailer, at the same time. And I guess that means no Rayman for quite a while.

I was curious about BG&E2 missing from the presentation until Yves (not in his "I'm a Little Teapot" stance for once) came on and said this was only part of the presentation.

Deep Down, on the other hand...yes, Capcom's colossal joke. Ohno had really encouraging words for the future of the game when he said it "hasn't been completely given up on." Then he left the company......

Well, based on the rumored specs, Series S would still be a solid step up over One X in a lot of ways.

But, yes, a new Xbox that can't play new Xbox games sounds like a nightmare. And digital only is going to make it a miss for me, along with a lot of other people who own 360/One game discs.

I don't remember that game, @NEStalgia ....

@Ralizah
So, how many confusing names of Xbox products?
Let's see...
Xbox One
Xbox One X
Xbox One S
Xbox Series X
Xbox Series S
Am i missing something ?

@NEStalgia Apparently they updated the website for WiLD earlier this year. Looks like it's still in development. Didn't expect that to be honest.

@Ralizah Unless it's really cheap, I don't see the point. May as well stick with One X if you want a cheap console. At least that one has a disc drive as well.

@Ralizah Replacing a console that was all about native 4k with a console that can't do 4k is still a significant downgrade. It may do better vfx and have a better cpu, but ultimately it downgrades what was the primarily focus of the sales pitch of the prior console. That's kind of a mess. It's like New 2DS. Sure it's more powerful than your old 3DS, but it doesn't have the 3D, or the non-clamshell of the old 2DS. It's sort of a pariah for anyone upgrading - it does some things better, and major tentpoles worse or not at all. Not a bad product, technically, but a VERY odd sidegrade for existing owners.

Imagine Switch Pro coming out that can play Cypberpunk at ultra low settings at 540p. But ONLY plays games at 540p and can't do better? It would be both an upgrade and a downgrade to existing owners. Better vfx, more power, but the overall resolution was a downgrade from what you already had.... That's what an X1X owner is looking at with the rumors of XSeS. At least PS5 discless is still a PS5 and definitely not worse at anything than PS4 Pro....

Never, ever release a console that's WORSE at something than your prior console.....

EDIT: Or, put a different way, imagine releasing a game on PS4 that had beautiful drop-dead gorgeous graphics, and a horrid ear-shredding soundtrack. Now imagine making a different version of the same game with more content, a fixed soundtrack and some QoL improvements but with horrifically downgraded graphics, and selling it at full price? It's kinda like that.

@Octane Honestly, I might just snag an Xbox One S at some point if they go cheap enough as a replacement for the Xbox 360. Better controller + access to Rare Replay!

@NEStalgia Not sure I can agree there, champ. There's absolutely space in the home console market for a cheaper 1080p alternative to the next-gen consoles. It's not even really a "downgrade" if the games it runs are hitting native res on your display.

Stereoscopic 3D was unpopular, so there was also space in the market for a 3D-less handheld from Nintendo that wasn't an uncomfortable wedge.

Please note that New 2DS played all the same games as New 3DS. That's where the Series S fails, if the rumors turn out to be true. Well, that and the lack of a disc drive, but the former is far more damning, IMO.

And if you think DQXI S is "horrifically downgraded," you haven't played it. The lighting/textures are worse, but it's still a very attractive game. Aren't you the one who mocks the fixation on graphical fidelity anyway, or is that only a thing when Halo Infinite looks like an Xbox One game?

@Ralizah Unpopular opinion, but I think Rare Replay is very overrated. But maybe that's because the only games worth playing are Banjo Kazooie and Tooie. But they don't even come close to DKC.

Viva Pinata 1 + 2 are both amazing.

Battletoads and Killer Instinct: Gold are good games as well.

The Banjo games also have a legendary reputation, and I'm eager to try them out. Conker's Bad Fur Day as well. And Perfect Dark.

And there's a whole bunch of older Rare games I'm eager to try out.

@Ralizah I played a ton of Conker's back in the day, but I don't see myself ever returning to it. It feels like a product of its time, but I'm not really nostalgic for it anymore.

Conker is dated as hell with the pop culture references.

With the control update to Jet Force Gemini on Rare Replay I actually find it's one of the better games to play now.

@Ralizah Oh I think there is, or would have been, space for a 1080p "next gen" console....but the problem is from the perspective of 1X owners, it's a downgrade model. I disagree about it not being a downgrade. Like I said before, I believe 4K rendering is actually more important than a 4k display - it has a significant improvement on a 1080p display as well via the supersampling. The net effect is basically like getting 4xFSAA versus not. If you rewind to Crysis PC launch and ran it on a PC that could run it at the same res, but with 4xFSAA on, that would be the winner. Well this is two different res, but the "real world result" is basically like running PC @ 1080 w/ FSAA vs no FSAA.

So yeah, XSeS is basically, for 1080p display players, like saying "kinda like your old box but without FSAA enabled." Which is something of a downgrade. Only applies to 1X owners but it still puts it in odd placement.

Now I will say, especially as a monitor-player that's something I notice strongly (the XB thread had a whole thing of me going back and forth with FH4 with performance mode (1080p/60) and graphics mode (4k/30) on a 23" 1080p display. There was no question to me, everything was better, despite the worse framerate in a racing game, at 4k on the 1080 display. The FSAA, the lack of shimmers and jaggies almost entirely was not insignificant for the visuals. 4k rendering does improve 1080p graphics.

That said, I recently bought that 27" 4k/60 HDR10 display. Now, most people play on a TV, and on a TV, I really can't tell the difference between 1080p and 4k, so I agree with you there, though I still think that 4k RENDERING matters while a 4k DISPLAY does not due to the supersampling. However up close on a monitor, I have to say I'm now a 4k display believer as well. Losing the screen door effect when up close is great! However there's a funny truth to this:

4K rendering matters - no matter if you have a 4k display or not. 4k gets double the pixels, 1080p gets supersampling - the best AA I've seen.

4K displays matter, if you're using a monitor or sitting near a TV.

However, 4k rendering onto a 4k display really doesn't matter that much. Case in point, Splatoon 2 looks better in every way on my 4k display, despite rendering at 1080p/60. I do have an mcable on the Switch so it's doing some filtering and brightness enhancements (like the Darbee Darblet (discontinued) I run on the BD player/streamer) but it's not doing any scaling, the monitor's internal scaler is doing the pixel doubling. That game's art style, as well as W101's lends well to pixel doubling without artifacting.

So a 4k display matters up close even for 1080p content. A 4k renderer matters even on a 1080p display. But 1080p content looks better on a 4k display, and 4k content looks better than 1080p content on a 1080p display. And non-cinephiles probably could never tell the difference between 1080p and 8k when sitting a proper distance from a television, for the same reason stadium screens look like solid displays from the stands despite having the worlds worst PPI. So yeah, SeS would be a downgrade for 1X owners, even if running 1080p. It's awkward, and is no doubt why there isn't a 1080p PS5. "Here's something somewhat worse than the Pro in some areas" isn't a great look.

As for DQXI, do keep in mind I'm running the PS4 Pro version, so the difference between it and Switch is even more glaring. I ran both side by side the other day.....it's.....not subtle (and those comparison youtube videos mostly show the original Japanese release where the Pro version was more or less broken - they fixed it after that.) The PS4 version on base PS4 is really really beautiful. It's a very immersive world to roam around in, very scenic and picturesque to just take in. The Switch version is just a 3D JRPG. It looks ok, but looks kind of dated. (It's gorgeous handheld, but, docked, it leaves a bit to be desired - it's not an immersive world, it's just a video game world.)

So it really is a difficult call having to choose between the extra story, sound, and QoL versus the picturesque beautiful game. I'm not sure if I'll still have Game Pass in December. If I do, I'll have to take up your idea of seeing if DXQIS regains any of that magic at the higher res and triple tip on it - but I'm expecting foliage and the like is still going to suck. So I really am caught between play the more immersive version of the "complete version" - and I'll end up probably not playing it at all for a long time as a result. GG Square!

@Octane I kind of agree, Rare Replay (and Rare in general) are overrated. Their stuff was interesting at the time, but all of the classic stuff was a product of it's time. IMO Rare was better at world/character building than they ever were at good video games. Their DKC games were amazing, and Goldeneye was important....but the rest was not all it was hyped to be unless you were an N64 kid, and there really wasn't much else to play. But B&K had an amazing world and characters....it's worth fighting through dated gameplay to experience that "place." Same for Conker. It's woefully dated and controls like garbage, but the place and humor are fun. FWIW, there's a remake of Conker exclusive to XB that updated it and the controls considerably. It was an OG XB game - it's not in Replay, but it's sold separately on BC (and is 1X/SeXSeS enhanced, with better controls. Still woefully dated but not as bad.) Perfect Dark is a 90's shooter. It feels like 90's shooter. That's not a compliment. PD0 is good though.