Topic: The PlayStation Fan Thread

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@gcunit A long story in NEStalgia's eyes. Be very afraid.

@Dezzy The industry, and the consumers that defend the price increast as "inflation" seem to severely underestimate the market contraction that introduces. Change the price, and people start considering their spending more, and reeling in that spending. But that benefits the AAA publishers, who won't see as much attrition. They can make their 1 or 2 games a year and people will buy them. It's the B publishers who get hit but the spending drop.

OTOH, I can't imagine that they're all going ot throw their hands in the air and go "well, new gen, no more sales!", I think the sales are built into the new price, and they intend to milk the day 1 whales who, lets face it, would pay $150, then drop the price to $60 within a month or two on most games, and then start the deeper cuts. It probably just keeps the race to the $19.99 bargain bin held back by 6 months or so compared to last gen. Especially once the increase shows a drop in sales volume, they're not going to just sit there and go "ok, we're moving less units, this is fine."

@Anti-Matter It's smart business, it's only "weaker" (in theory) in that it only outputs 1080p (or 1440p. I keep downlplaying it because most games will probably prioritize 1080p, and if running on a 4k TV, 1080p will look better after scaling than 1440p, so 1440p really only benefits supersampling for 1080p TVs and people playing on gaming monitors that are 1440p.) Today, most premium TVs sold are 4k only, but there's still the whole budget market that's selling 1080p TVs still, and most TVs in homes are still 1080p. For anyone not planning to upgrade to 4k all that excess hardware is a waste. Sony's a TV mfr. It makes sense for them o push the idea of TV tech as the end all. Microsoft is targeting that mass market with a cheap console designed for their "obsolete" tv.

@status-204 I think the big thing is the 2021 lineup and the idea that i you don't get one now, backorders will be unavailable for who knows how long (think Switch) and then you won't be able to play those games when you want them, but you won't be saving money because the machine will be the same price, you'll just have it later than sooner. For me personally it's also the fact that one of my PS4 Pros gets flakey and starts blacking out and/or beeping like it's ejecting a disc, but without even using discs. I tried to buy a spare PS4 Pro in the form of a KH3 Ltd Edition through Gamestop last year for that reason, and was among those they cancelled the day before the preorders were supposed to ship because Sony shorted their allotment and they oversold their allotment (and sold the online preorder allotment in stores when it was supposed to be an online-only preorder window, echoing yesterday's disaster.) In the short term, every game should benefit from the new SSDs, so I still have a lot of PS4 exclusives I haven't even cracked open yet that will now play without loading times. That's kinda nice.

Also, for anyone that didn't have a Pro, it's a decent upgrade to your existing games that they'll now run as though you bought a Pro, but you're also getting the next gen system. Honestly it's a shame that they're not going to use the power to give an extra bump the way XBox does, but it's possible they'll add that later like they did with the Pro and "boost mode." Especially since they don't actually believe in generations anymore after Microsoft stopped believing in generations and Sony's just trying to do whatever MS does but worse.

@Anti-Matter @Octane RE Astro's Playroom. It's possible it's real. Asia sometimes gets those odd physical editions of otherwise digital only games for who knows what reason. It's probably not real and is an error, but it could be real. Still the game is free, so paying money just to get a physical box doesn't make much sense.

@redd214 Yeah, I know Sony Direct is limited 1 console, disc or digital, per person. I can't imagine the main retailers weren't intending to/supposed to limit 1 per customer (one of the times I tried to order it did tell me it's limited to one per customer, but I don't know if that was if it was trying to add 2 of the same type, because I was just pushing all the buttons at that point.) It feels like an order I'm not "supposed" to have been allowed to place with 2 consoles in one order. If this were Game Stop I'd be certain they'd cancel the whole order, unannounced, and say "it was limit one, your order is invalid even though we let you place it." But it's not Game Stop, so there's reasonable hope Usually I try to get my preorders from different retailers.

For Switch I did get to separate orders for gray on the same day within minutes. That was stressful. (And then one red/blue at Target hours later, LOL) But with Switch, it's Nintendo so we all knew it would be limited.

As for digital, yeah, that was a given the cheaper console would be the big seller, by far. What I'm shocked about, though, is that stores are getting far less digital versions? That's stunning considering I can't imagine that not being the console Sony wants to push the hardest. Especially with the game price increase. I'd have thought there'd be 6:1 digital so consumers "have to" buy digital. I knew it would sell out fastest, but never thought it would be the shortest supply.

I'm hoping all that plays well for buying SeX instead of SeS. The mad rush is going to be on S for sure and in bigger volume than we see with PS5 discless. But MS is going to be cranking out tons of S knowing it's a mass market seller, too, while I imagine X is going to arrive in much lower numbers. Yesterday was a nightmare of preordering, that miracle last minute BB discovery was great, but today I feel like last night must have been some crazy wild party all night and I can't remember my name.

I never did get an "offer" from the Sony signups. I guess I don't have enough trophies or something? I can't imagine what criteria that was based on. It was a great idea, but they really shouldn't have been doing that "selectively" based on undisclosed criteria. It adds to the mess of this whole thing. A preorder based on checking a valid existing customer account to fend of scalpers was a genius move. But doing it like this and handpicking candidates based on "some information" they want to see is pretty ugly.

Then again BB emailed me at 8:30 that preorders were now available...hours after they'd already sold out (or kind of did...but then didn't since I was able to order at like 3:00am. )

@MrGawain Yeah, the preorder debacle will go down in infamy on this one I think. Yeah, Walmart started it and because the world consists only of followers every other company joined in, as though they were afraid they wouldn't sell their inventory 10 hours later. But it was Sony's job to control their distribution partners and they failed by having no actual plan in place and dropping everything last minute (like a random tweet announcing when preorders are.) MS announced this stuff last week, even if it was leak induced. How could Sony fail at that when they were actually provided a template? People are saying it's not Sony's fault what retailers did...but did you notice Walmart didn't open up XBox preorders a week ago when they could have? There's a reason here that XBox street date is being honored and Sony's is not. And that difference isn't the retailers.

I almost get the sense there's a retailer mutiny. Maybe Sony's been jerking around and screwing over the retailers and they're getting restless and unwilling to play by Sony's rules and mandates. Waiting until tomorrow may be "not like us" at Walmart. But using the customers and creating a distribution crisis to ding a vendor they want a war with is very "like them." I definitely think there's a corporate war going on behind the surface at least between those two entities, and this preorder mess was the public display.

If I were Sony now, I'd be looking at seriously shorting Walmart's future shipments. I know Walmart is all powerful, but I'm sure Amazon wouldn't mind having extra inventory. Besides, the walmart in-store crowd is going to be all about SeS anyway. or PS4.

If I were MS right now I'd be putting every retailer down to a little chat about how preorders will go down. I suspect it will still be a disaster, but at least it'll be an orderly disaster. And it won't be after they shadow drop it after saying they'll give notice. I'm not looking forward do doing this all again on Tuesday.