Topic: The PlayStation Fan Thread

@Ralizah I shouldn't say "exclude" indies, but I was going on proper retail games specifically, and rarely are indies retail (though that's increasing.) I generally don't include download-only titles when talking systems. Not that I don't play them but it seems most fair to compare physical libraries, as such I've followed actual pre-orerable releases on Vita, and haven't logged into the PSN store (on any Sony system) since probably 2012. Ok, that once for the Second Son expansion...

I don't include indies, including Snake Pass, with Switch's library proper either in context of comparing system libraries (Though Snake Pass is still rumored to go physical, so that might join in the list at some point anyway.)

As for that list, I've played at least half of it, sure. Probably a hair more than half. But much of that list was from the system's first 3 years or so before the PS4 came out and it was dropped like a hot rock from Fukushima. No question it had some quality stuff at the start (Sly 4, you forgot that one!). But after the PS4 launched, there's been only a smattering here and there. I watched the retail pages for years and very little that wasn't anime-licensed emerged at all!

I actually WANTED to love that machine more than 3DS, and at first I did. But....the party ended fast. I'm still bitter at PS4 for that. After the Feb PS4 reveal, Vita became a controller accessory.

@NEStalgia That's the thing with the Vita: it had a VERY weak retail presence, so wide swaths of its library is digital only. So, yeah, if you focus only on physical games, it has had a terrible library for years. On PSN, though? It constantly gets decent games, and not just ones of the loli spanking variety. I've just been too preoccupied with Nintendo these last few years to pay as much attention to the Vita as I otherwise would have.

I value indies on Vita moreso than indies on home consoles because, oftentimes, they're the only portable versions of the games available. And, to those of us who value not having to be tethered to a TV or monitor whenever we play a game (and I know you're one of us!), that's huge. That is transferring to the Switch now: I'll happily buy and play indies on there that I would have ignored on other platforms because I love the versatility of the system.

I'm a massive fan of both Nintendo and Atlus, so I was always going to prefer the 3DS to the Vita, but I still think the latter console has a much better library than people give it credit for.

Well it would be unlikely to run PS2 games anyway. And definitely not PS3 games.

There are plenty of PS1 and PSP games it's missing though. Legend of Dragoon, Chrono Cross, Crisis Core, Kingdom Hearts BBS.

@Ralizah yeah that's the thing. A "digital only" console doesn't exist to me, and unlike the joke of psp go, via wasn't presented that way. So for me who ignores digital stores entirely with the is exception of switch (i mostly ignored 3ds/wiiu digital too) vita consisted of about 4 games a year, all of them licensed anime shovelware. And your above list is pretty much the entire library. Haven't logged into psn store since ps4 launch so i have no idea what arrived there. But the Amazon and gamestop vita games page has been pretty bleak! Id have bought wiff but it was just before Switch landed, soo....

And yeah, I'm one of you! Never been a big indie fan though, short of the exemplary exceptions to the rules.

@NEStalgia I tend to enjoy indie games more than Western AAA games, as a rule. Granted, there are terrible indies and superlative AAA games, but the indie scene is filled with people who, like me, prefer games to be fun and responsive, not clunky cinematic masterpieces. There's also a lot more creativity in that space: you're not constantly playing variations of the same angry white dude running around brutally murdering people.

I'll always broadly prefer Japanese games, though. Which is why something like the Vita appeals to me and I would never even consider buying an Xbox One X.

@Ralizah yeah, other than assassin's creed, mass effect, and deus ex, i generally dont play western aaa anymore. And mass effect is now dead. Oh, and bethesda.... because...

Generally i do enjoy sony first party because like Nintendo, i can count on at least a fun snack did game from them. But thats about the extent if my western. Overall I'm neither big on indie NOR western aaa. I want x1x hardware.....its very slick. Problem is, there's like 4 or 5 games id play on it. ps4/pro hardware is nasty, but there's a collecting of 1st party i like on it. No 4k, no hdr for me....yet pro tempts me for stable framerate

@NEStalgia I might be wrong, but I haven't heard about boost mode doing much to improve the framerate stability of most games on the Pro. I think it still has a pretty weak CPU, because the tech improvements are mostly focused on facilitating higher framerates for 4K sets, which... don't interest me in the slightest.

That's true. Pretty much everything was improved upon. The ending was a little anticlimactic, but it was overall really enjoyable.

I'm excited to play The Last of Us so I can see how it stacks up to Uncharted 4. I imagine I'll like it more, but we'll see.

@NEStalgia If we were talking about anything other than the Vita, I'd punch you in the mouth for genuinely saying "downloadable games don't count" as far as comparing libraries. If it's still something the platform offers, and you do have access to them (I'm assuming you have decent internet judging from the number of responses you've had in a short span of time), it really outta at least count as something people can play and might want to play. I'm fine if you don't care for the vast majority of games on any particular platforms, or even whether or not you play them - they're still a part of that system's library.

The bigger problem with the Vita from what I've gathered stemmed more from stores not stocking a lot of retail games, coupled with the cost of entry + cost of memory cards, ultimately limited what came to the market. It's a shame, as far as I'm concerned, but it could've been a lot worse.

I know I've had plenty to play on the Vita, but then again, I also tend to cast a wide net, so to speak. I know my tastes and haven't really been disappointed, but I've learned that I shouldn't argue the quality of a library with others. So if you genuinely took a look at the Vita's library and decided that there ultimately wasn't much for you, and maybe have a little buyer's remorse, fine. That's your well-informed opinion.

However, it's looking a lot like you took only a cursory glance at what was available, and now have decided that the Vita caters to creeps and weeaboos, while also purposely excluding a large chunk of the library just because they're downloadable games, despite there being a lot of them, including some well-respected games (albeit most of them are multiplats, as are most Indie games. Little guys gotta cast a wide net). And a Vita owner, and user, I feel disrespected. I certainly have made it a point to avoid anything that looked like it was pandering too hard to anime fans and/or fetish freaks - the latter I don't really have much tolerance for in anime, let alone games, and the former can get really cynical in their approach.

It's one thing to decide something's not for you, but it's another to make sweeping kneejerk judgments about others, especially if you have to add asterisks in order to validate them. And if you still have your Vita, however, but aren't using it because there aren't enough retail games that interest you, why don't you at least look into the Indie games available (if you have a decent memory card, I mean)? At least then it'll seem less like a waste of money, and you might have a lot of fun things to play in your off-hours, maybe lunch break at work, or on a long flight, etc. Just saying.

@Ralizah I wrote a whole reply and it got lost....grrrrrrrr...

Yeah, I'm too near-sighted to play on TV...even the big 100" projector is too fuzzy to me without glasses, and glasses for gaming sucks, so I prefer a monitor mounted on a swivel arm. That means i have to stay in weight class keeping me at 23" or less usually. It also means 4k is an option but HDR is not, so a new screen is meaningless to me for a few years at least. I do have a 4k laptop and I have to admit even 230p youtube videos look better, close-up, scaled to 4k. You'd think the opposite would be true. Just smoother.

But yea, I think x1x is promising better visuals at 1080p, but Pro, I don't know how they're playing that...they say better framerate but sony advertising is sony advertising. I'd only want a Pro for better framerates at 1080, maybe better visuals (mostly for 1st party and assassin's creed), and the faster loading times it SUPPOSEDLY has. If it's just 4k it's a waste. Mixed reviews by fanboys as to if 1080 is better or not.

@CanisWolfred Oh, I have a Vita. In fact I have two. I was hyped about it when it came out, it was to be my favorite machine until it fell apart when PS4 launched. As for download...it probably depends on age. "Back in my day" the library was retail. The library was what was on the shelf. I will never (ever) be able to take a downloadable library very seriously. That's not to say none of it can interest me etc. but I'll never be able to view it as a direct equivalent to retail. And being in the current Nintendo sphere, neither do they, so it kind of perpetuates my existing view. That said, at this point I'm kind of past Vita...Switch has moved in and blown it away, and while I never had interest in any indies on Vita, I have had more interest in them on Switch than any other platform for whatever reason. Probably the Nindies presentations/media handling more than anything. Still not a big indies person though. The system may offer certain download games, but it's also not fair to compare a system that consists mostly of downloads to the multiple systems that have shelves full of games at retail/online. Maybe it's harsh to ignore the downloads, but it's not much more harsh to ignore that it utterly lacked retail games. Even downloadable retail games!

Looking (closely monitoring, looking for ANYTHING to buy) the retail library for years, there was virtually nothing at all of interest that wasn't exceedingly niche since 2014 or so. Maybe download had something, but retail didn't. Ultimately it was a system with a physical media slot and little in the way of physical media after the first few years. WiiU managed to best it at retail. That's not a compliment

It’s that time of the month. The new copy of Edge has dropped through my letterbox.

Super Mario Odyssey is the cover art (I got the Dinosaur issue, which is an exclusive cover for subscribers. I would have preferred the Koopa Troopa cover, but hey-ho!).

Reviews:

Nex Machina – 9
Valkyria Revolution – 3
Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood – 8
Ever Oasis – 6
Black The Fall – 7
Monument Valley 2 – 7
Micro Machines – 6

And there’s 40 pages dedicated to all the E3 games they played too. It’s a good read, even if two thirds (or more) of the games won’t be out until next year sometime.

In other news, Ni no Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom is delayed two months and a bit from the 10th of November until the 19th of January.

I think that this is the most sensible decision that Square Enix could have made, given that in a space of two weeks from the 27th of October to the 10th of November, the following Assassin’s Creed Origins, Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus, Call of Duty: WWII, Need For Speed Payback, LEGO Marvel Super Heroes II and Star Wars Battlefront II will all be released in this ridiculous two week period (!)

Ni no Kuni II would have literally drowned in the sea of those big name games.

Continuing the subject of release dates, Gran Turismo Sport is FINALLY due out on the 18th of October; four weeks after Project CARS 2, two weeks after Forza Motorsport 7 and three weeks before Need For Speed Payback.

Talk about a long overdue return for a handful of driving/racing games to choose from.

Last but not least, Destiny 2 is being bundled with an all-new glacier white PlayStation 4 Pro.

Seeing as a standalone PS4 Pro costs $399/€399/£349, it is a good value bundle at $449/€449/£399.

The Destiny 2 bundle includes a physical copy of Destiny 2 (that you can sell, if you’re that way inclined) as well as an Expansion Pass - or a season pass, in other words - that’s worth $100/€100/£80, thus saving $50/€50/£30.

It shall be available to buy on the 6th of September in limited numbers.

p.s. For those of you who like LEGO, like myself, some chap from Naughty Dog has put this model that is inspired by The Last of Us up onto the LEGO Ideas website. It’s pretty good!

Im surprised so many games land end of October. Thatll be true for Sonic Forces if history is repeated.

I was kinda hoping Sonic Forces would sell well but it has no hope on Switch against Mario and no hope elsewhere against everything else.

And as for Mario itself on October 27th, looking at the lineup everywhere else? RIP that game. Do you want your one Switch game for the month or all these PS4 and Xbox One games? Plus 3D Mario just doesnt get the numbers, 2D Mario would at least do respectably against the others but 3D is significantly more niche.

@BLP_Software Switch owners will happily go out and buy Super Mario Odyssey, knowing that they won’t get any of those big name third party games (except LEGO Marvel Super Heroes II) in October and November.

Multi-format owners? It depends.

As you said so yourself, historically, the 3D Mario games don’t sell quite as well as its 2D siblings however, a game like Super Mario 3D World on a ‘failure’ still managed to sell 5.60 million copies, which is a shy over 40% of total Wii U owners. Only Mario Kart 8 and Super Mario Bros. U did better numbers.

Speaking of Super Mario Bros. U, it actually only sold 800,000 more copies, surprisingly so.

Here’s the numbers for you to look at: - Nintendo Financial Data

Most companies would do anything for numbers like those!

Super Mario Odyssey will be fine. It probably won’t reach the number one position in multi-format charts, but it will definitely have long legs and continue to sell for the remainder of the Switchs’ lifespan.

@Peek-a-boo

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Yes, I'm sure when it sells 10 million+ copies when many good games struggle to reach 1/20 of that I will be thinking about niche it is because it didn't sell 20+ million.

Just like how Mario Kart Wii was so niche because it didn't sell as well as Wii Sports.

@kkslider5552000 3d mario is a smaller market product than 2d mario and on a new small base system when the others are rocking on?

Logic dictates but i also said Zelda would be outsold by Horizon

So is the loser of those massively hyped, massively selling, AAA open world games also niche? Like, do sales automatically dictate which one is niche? Is it a contest where the loser is branded as niche for life? I need to know this! We must find the most popular video game of all time, to know the single video game that is completely lacking "niche-ness". THE ONLY VIDEO GAME TO NOT BE OUTSOLD BY ANOTHER VIDEO GAME, THUS THE ONLY VIDEO GAME TRULY LACKING NICHE!!!

I expect Mario Odyssey will set records for how quickly it sells, much like BotW did. In Japan and the U.S., Switches are selling about as fast as Nintendo is making them, and the vast majority of these owners are going to be ridiculously excited for Odyssey. Almost nobody is going to buy a Switch in the first year and not get this beautiful looking Mario game because the annual AAA rotation is doing its rounds again.

Is this the fabled third party support Switch owners are supposed to be hoping to get? I mean, I'm sure most of these will sell well, but, aside from Wolfenstein (The New Order was fun: not entirely worth the $30 I paid for it, but a good deal longer and more entertaining than most modern shooters), I wouldn't even pay $10 for this bunch of games. Looks like the line-up I would expect to see on a Walmart clearance shelf in half a year, or piled up in a big metal bin in the middle of a Gamestop.

I will admit: I would have been interested in Nex Machina, but its absence is hardly a buzzkill for me. Just means more time for other games.

I don't think 3D Mario can be considered niche at all, lol. Odyssey will probably be one of the Switch's best selling games.

I feel like this is a troll post...

We'll see in a few months time when the game breaks sales records and becomes one of the best selling Switch games.

@Peek-a-boo Where did you find that TLOU set? I'd love to get something like this myself.