Topic: The PlayStation Fan Thread

Ok so they're making a "cellphone" version of Ys 8, and it somehow looks way better than all of the previous versions. Looks like a PS4 game. I hope we get this version:

Demon's Souls remake preview (I haven't watched it yet):

Don't know what triggered it, but I just remembered I had a Lord of the Rings game on PS2 (based on one of the movies, though I'm not sure which one). I don't remember much about it other than the fact that I believe I beat it, and it wasn't that long. I think the last level may have had some sort of castle siege theme, but that probably doesn't narrow it down as such things are probably a dime a dozen in games like that.

Totally forgot about it until now, but I think I remember liking it.

Started collecting for my PSP again after about 9 years of it not working due to a swollen battery pack and me recently replacing it

Just got Dissidia Final Fantasy (the original and not 012) complete with manual for like 10 bucks on Amazon prime and in really good condition

Now to complete my FF collection on PSP I just need Tactics War of the Lions, the original Type 0, the physical Japan only release for Final Fantasy III's remake and I might even just get the UMD Video copy of Advent Children if I can find it.

https://www.ign.com/articles/godfall-is-10-cheaper-on-pc-comp...

Man, that PS5 tax sucks. I wonder if it'll apply to Horizon on PS5 as well?

@Ralizah I'm curious if we'll we an xbox tax. I presume, but they have the pockets to play the good guys. And with gp discounts they can steer what people buy.

I remember the same thing early ps360 generation. Console went up to 60 and pc stayed at 50. It was the "console tax" then. The industry said used games sales for console was the reason. Then pc went to 60 anyway.

70 pc prices coming soon unless MS declares their undercutting Sony.

Who buys games on Steam at full price, anyway .... ? Between quite a few having discounts to encourage pre-purchases or launch discounts & going on sale otherwise not long after and Humble, etc, etc, too, I never pay full price for anything there

@BruceCM @NEStalgia Even if MSRP goes up, you can usually preorder a game on PC for a discount. I remember getting RE2 at launch for $44 or so, and I've seen those sorts of prices with a bunch of other major releases on storefronts like Green Man Gaming.

PC gaming pays for itself, if only in terms of the money you save with games, not paying for multiplayer, etc.

As for Xbox, I think their own games won't go up in price, although GP kind of makes that an empty concern regardless.

Yeah & those games that don't do that will go on sale, usually after only a few months, as well, @Ralizah ....

@Ralizah Maybe we'll get another "GCU" type era. Maybe that's what the $70 is all about. Doesn't help me with digital though.

I still don't like the phrase that PC pays for itself though. I'm buying 4 "next gen" consoles for less than one similarly performing new build PC would cost me. I'd pay as much as one of the consoles for the video card alone. Even if I lowball at $2000 for a PC build versus just the XSeX, how many games and subs to I have to buy to make up the extra $1500? And how many of those games purchases would actually save much if I'm buying them 6-14 months later on digital sales? Every time I price compare steam it's either about the same price I paid, slightly less, or slightly more. Even if I assumed a $5-10 net average per game and a $50/yr sub (so far I'm not paying more than that, not including Game Pass since that's for PC too), and not including the savings from "game sharing" since that's an edge case, I'd still end up merely breaking even after 7 years of subs and 115 games. After 7 years (and assuming no component failures....my last PC ate 2 GPUs, 1 PSU, and one Raptor HDD which combined could buy ANOTHER 3 consoles....) I may actually reverse the losses.....but that means I'm 7 years in comparative debt before breaking even. I don't think "pays for itself" is the right metric here. The argument is "but you can upgrade it!" Sure.....lets see if 7 years from now the same mobo will support the same PCIe interface, I/O interface, CPU socket, bus speed, memory architecture etc required to compare with PS6/XSeXY.

Now....1080p gaming PC built on the cheap....maybe. But then we're comparing against a $300 Series S.....

EDIT: That would be awesome if you're right, and I want to see the moment MS actually officially says "MSGS games are $59.99" That would be a big industry freezing move, IMO. Yeah, GP makes it irrelevant for many ,but not on the retail shelf. It makes Sony look bad, but also makes Acti/2k etc look silly next to the platform holder's own games selling for cheaper. Especially when the platform holders games include last gens heavy hitters like Fallout and Doom.

So, somehow, you miss the Steam sales where, say, Assassin's Creed Odyssey Ultimate was 80% off, @NEStalgia ....? OK, that game has been on similar digital sales on the stores for PS & XBox but not as often as it is in UPlay or Steam
Then, for consoles, don't you expect at least one mid-gen upgraded version for each, as well? But then half of what you seem to talk about with PCs is high-spec work requirements, more than the demanding games

@NEStalgia Considering you can build a PC that well exceeds the performance of an Xbox Series X for around $1000, I'm not sure where you're getting the extra $1000 from. Maybe your concern would be valid if sales never happened/you could only buy components at their highest historical price/etc., but we both know that's not the case.

It costs more, but a few things help, like being able to build it piecemeal over the course of a year, and, as I said, finding components on sale. Meanwhile, you can avoid costly subscriptions entirely. find games for $10+ on average cheaper than you would on consoles, etc.

And, yeah, if you don't care about 4K, you can definitely squeeze in at a cheaper price point with a more mid-range video card. Something in the $300-ish dollar range like the RTX 2060 will likely play pretty much everything at high/ultra settings at 60fps in 1080p.

And, frankly, you can opt for a cheaper processor and probably not suffer much in performance. A Ryzen 5 3600/3600x will handle pretty much everything gaming-related..

All of my games will run beautifully as soon as I build a new tower, where Series X will be reliant on games having uncapped framerates until the "next-gen" patches will come out. Moreover, games like The Medium will still be capped at 30fps on console arbitrarily, whereas PCs that only cost a few hundred dollars more will be able to run the game at higher framerates.

And, frankly, PCs have access to such a wider variety of software. XSeX being partially backwards compatible with older games is cool, but it can't even begin to compare to the range of software available on a PC.

@NEStalgia Man, someone has been RIPPING. YOU. OFF.

Let's go through those component prices one by one, shall we?

$150+ PSU

No. Just no. My current one cost... $50, I think. A more "premium" one can be had for $80 or so. Why on earth would you pay that much for a PSU? And, anyway, unless you built your computer a long time ago, it's possible your current one might still work. ESPECIALLY if you're not getting some super-powerful card.

$100+ chassis

I mean... you should already have one? Unnecessary cost.

$200ish mobo

You CAN spend this much, but why would you? You can get it separately for $70 - $100, or included with a CPU for a discount, oftentimes.

$200+ CPU

Well, that depends on what you get. My new one will be more along the lines of $170 or so. But this price point seems fair, yeah.

$200+ ram

WHAT.
I'm getting 16GB of fast RAM for $60. Where on Earth did you get $200 from?

$200+ SSD

lol no. My new one, which is 1TB in size, will cost roughly $100. I mean, you CAN buy bigger sizes at a premium, but you could also buy a bunch of those memory cards for Series X and blow up your budget as well.

$100+ Win10

lol It's a free upgrade to Win 10 Home if you own Windows 8.1. Maybe Windows 7 as well, but IDK. Even then, let's say you're still on Vista or something because you live in the stone age, Win10 sells for $10 online pretty frequently.

The only component that really stings with PC builds are the GPUs, and even then, this new gen of GPUs offers awesome performance for the money. Or, like I said, you can buy a card for hundreds of dollars less that'll handle pretty much everything well.

@Ralizah I mean the last gaming rig I built was probably 2010 or so, though it was a combo productivity/gaming box and was Xeon based with ECC ram, so, I'm pretty sure I spent over $500 on RAM alone. Different use case, but still.

PSUs....I was getting the platinum+ certified ones for better thermals because my rigs were overheating, non-stop, no matter how many fans I'd throw in that thing. Keeping temps low was a priority. Chassis. I never ripped apart a current rig to build a new one...personal preference. But I don't want to have down-time with no games while I wait to get everything running on a new one. That goes back to that time aspect. Not strictly "necessary." I do happen to have a very nice Lian Li case sitting unused because that 2010 machine unfortunately has an Intel CPU that misses an instruction set requried for my productivity software now, so it isn't going used. Though I recall too many times that ever so slight changes in the ATX standards kept rendering chassis obsolete as well. And two of them I had to dremel out to get the board to fit.

At least back in the day I always needed bleeding edge mobos for the newest chipsets that supported the newest storage, or GPU or whatever. Maybe you can get away a hair cheaper now.

Also, though the last machine I built with 16GB fast ram was in like 2002..... granted it wasn't a dedicated gaming rig, it was necessary for productivity...but....I mean today I wouldn't really build anything with any less than 32GB....and that's kind of thin, to me. Non-gaming bias, maybe.

I said a machine comparable to the consoles. That means nvme 3/4 SSDs. The new PS4 similar one is $230. The XB ones are $220. Maybe on PC you can do $200 for an equivalent one. That will decrease, but today, that's where it is.

New mobo, new win license. Unless it's a retail license (I buy those for other reasons) - OEM licenses of Win used to be $100 with hardware purchase (but tied forever to that mobo). Maybe they've dropped the Windows prices.

It's still not a cut and dry build no matter what though.

And to be clear, we're still talking about a PC that will rival or exceed a Series X right (we won't compare against PS5 because so far what we're seeing the thing is a total dog and the entire budget went into a prototype SSD nobody will actually take advantage of....) PS5U. Great games, but you don't buy one for the hardware.....

Heh, if you prefer the consoles, I'm not really trying to change your mind, @NEStalgia .... I do think you overestimate the costs of PCs theses days, where medium settings are equivalent to the consoles & I really don't expect to be spending another £500 on mine in the next 5 years If you really wanted to consider that option, I'm sure some here could better help you work out the likely costs?

@NEStalgia Even my current 8GB of RAM works fine for my rig. You certainly wouldn't need more than 16GB for gaming applications, or especially general use purposes.

An equivalent SSD to what's in the Series X might be more costly, yeah. But it's also unnecessary. I've compared the speeds on SATA vs NVME drives, and, for gaming purposes, it's not worth the extra expense.

I feel like you're comparing the new consoles to enthusiast PC builds, which... yeah, enthusiast builds will cost more. But you can always snag cheaper components that will lower the total build price by quite a bit.

Of course, pound for pound, you'll be getting more bang for your buck with consoles when it comes to pure hardware. Which is why consoles are perfect if you just want to buy a few new games each year and not have to mess with anything.

As a platform, though, with access to a massive number of games, that's upgradeable, that's "future-proof," etc.? PC can't be beat.

Hardware-wise, I find PS5's super fast SSD to be a more interesting investment than what's in the Series X, even if it won't end up mattering for the majority of games. Sony, like Nintendo, will probably develop a number of games to flex its hardware gimmicks.

The winner in each gaming generation, no matter the scenario will always be PC.

Especially now that Microsoft is leveraging it as part of its Xbox ecosystem in addition to PlayStation beginning to release first party games on PC, in addition to PS third party exclusives like Nioh and Danganronpa showing up as well, it really is the ultimate all rounder platform and the cost for the most decent cards for most AAA titles is going down each day, especially for the 10 series GPUs, not to mention how cost-effective AMD's CPUs and GPUs are for the performance you get out of them.

@Ralizah Well, I mean to me, the only point of PC is "enthusiast" PC. Unless you're going "budget PC" and targeting a stock commodity desktop and throwing in a low-mid gfx card. But I never did "budget PC" because as you say, pound for pound, you're getting more hardware for the money with consoles, or less money for similar hardware with consoles. If I set up a PC and I drop below 30fps with maxed sliders, the PC isn't good enough. Call it OCD. Or CDO. Which is more alphabetically correct. With consoles I plug it in and get the game as intended for the machine. One and done.

I agree about the X SSD not being worth the extra expense, but the point of this exercise was still to compare a build similar to the consoles, not to compare the best value build versus consoles.

So far I'm liking what I'm seeing with XB asd a middle ground. It's basically a PC, locked to one store. Some of the "PC enthusiast" things like mods are missing, but even on PC I never really delved into that. I find the PS5 SSD "interesting" as a concept model. I just don't find it practical or interesting. I do think Sony will experiment with the gimmick over time, and it might create some memorable moments. But I don't think it will do anything nearly as radical as the R&D cost would require to justify. I think it was a misstep letting Cerny go all the way down whatever rabbit hole he thought was intellectually curious. R&C uses it well, but I don't think that would have been impossible without it, either. Sony, like Nintendo is for the unique games and, yes, the gimmicks, while XB is a cheap PC with tons of convenience (and better for anything third party.) Though I wonder how far into the gimmicks even Sony will go since they're targeting PC now, too. DualSense.....ugh. So much gimmick. I love the form factor and see it as a happy upgrade from DS4, but.....why the gimmicks?

@BruceCM I can't imagine not upgrading a PC for 5 years. Maybe it's evened out (but with the new nvme stuff and all I can't imagine it.) Back then in 8 months it felt dated. In 2 years it felt obsolete, and in 3 years it can barely run anything decently above 20fps with any decent settings. And upgrading just the video card always meant the whole machine because the graphics bus or memory bus was changing every year and a half or so. Even if it's better now, I can't imagine it being that much better.