NEStalgia

@acmiguens ROFL. You joke, but it really isn't that different in size!

@Titntin Yep, the virtual sick bucket is part of the vision! To be fair it's not so much a train as much as it is a tricycle at the speed it's moving 😂

Yeah I can understand you'd see those details more readily, but even so, I suspect if you could do VR and went inside the worlds, even ones you worked on, you'd actually see them in a whole different way. There's something about actually standing in a place that makes the mind process it differently than seeing a picture of it. My jaw is dropping at seeing locals I thought I knew well and could imagine what they really look like if you could go there but when I see it I'm vr, I feel like I've never actually seen it before. Although part of that is being able to see the places off to the sides you normally can't see, and I still find it mind blowing when you see how much is there that you never actually even get to see in flat play because now you get to look around all the corners, so that part isn't new for you 😁

Heck I'm even trying to tolerate the humor of high on life because in VR it's almost salvageable 😆

@themightyant Yeah, honestly I think even the "boss rush" categorization isn't right. Yeah it does highlight those but there's a whole lot of exploration too. And a ridiculous amount of upgrade trees.

@JoyfulFire Not really a souls like. More like Jedi fallen order, it takes the campfire system from souls but it's more of a wide linear character action game other than that. It's probably best described as God of war without all the boring parts, with ffxvi combat but harder, and the souls campfire.

@Titntin just have to say that I'm playing in VR 😂 I'm just picturing this game, a headset, and you... Freaking awesome though. The one thing vr injection has taught me is that most of the cost of modern development is completely wasted until VR takes over mainstream. In 2d it's just impossible to really see or understand the detail put into modern games. When you go inside the game you realize just how much of a real world has been built in a way you can never really perceive on a flat screen. I think if they want to keep making multi hundred million dollar games, they NEED to start forcing VR into the norm. It's just burning money otherwise.

This games really addicting though. It didn't do anything new, at all, it's a retread of familiar ground, but somehow how puts it together in a way that just feels great

@Bigmanfan it's tough. It's not Souls tough though.

Didn't know Sonic was on gp. Might have to bite, but, isn't that the one that's just a remake of generations (which is just a remake of a dozen other sonic games?)

@jesse_dylan There was a rumor of a lost Odyssey or blue dragon remake. It was supposedly going to be at the summer showcase but wasn't, but Phil also said that's not all the games. It's very possible one of those remakes is happening.

@Ralizah lol. Ok ok, you can go all ST and going One Punch or MA glass cannon . Technically the stats are so broken it's amazing they still keep them . Also sucks you can't use both MA and ST archetypes on any character realistically in metaphor since ST or MA aspected characters need to stay in their lane.

I always go the MA route but I'm starting to wonder if it would have been better to try phys. Too late now!

@jesse_dylan @Ralizah 15 of those hours was just steamrolling mooks with the cat mobile in mementos though

It's SMT. You just plunk all the points in MA. Duh, everybody knows that!

@AndroidBango Doesn't that apply to virtually every combo-driven hack and slash though? Soulsborne is B-B-X, B-B-B-B-B-X for like 6 games and people still can't seem to get enough of it. Let alone DMC/Bayo/FFXVI/Nioh/Wukong etc.

@carlos82 @OldGamer999 @Coletrain Yeah, didn't they say during the ABK trials that in the UK they only had the capacity for like 10,000 people or something like that? Maybe it was 100,000 but it was still extremely low. I don't think it's set up to work that well over there. And it's definitely behind GFNow.

My only fear with this game is that it feels even longer than P5R that too 7 months to get through, and the unavoidable SMT difficulty spikes if you build your characters wrong. But loving it all the same!

@PureXbox just tagging to bring @Zebs0666 comment #8 to the fore. Sounds like a serious copyright thing you guys may have to look at.

@BacklogBrad There's a free demo that's basically the entire first chapter if you're curious. I spent like 17 hours on the demo. Dome people do it in 10. But it's a chunky demo for sure.

This was a really good game that got the very short end of the stick mostly because it was forever attached to the disastrous X1 launch, and the meme that there's nothing good about X1 unfortunately got welded to this game along with it, as it's signature launch title.

It also has the problem that it's seen as a game with nothing but QTE, which isn't right. It's a combo action game, the prompts are just there as a convenient legend, but the appearance is that it's all QTE driven. If it had no prompts visible on screen it would be seen like any other combo action game.

@InvaderFromSpace The mess with Hitman isn't their fault, it was a publishing mess. When Hitman originally debuted, ioi was actually a studio inside Square-Enix, and it was a Square-Enix game. When the game "underperformed" (like everything) Square was actually going to close ioi down, and the ioi management somehow negotiated to buy back their ownership in part because Masuda really liked Hitman.

So then for Hitman 2 they got WB to publish it. But then WB did a lot of nasty things (as WB does), and they weren't pleased with how it was published. So then for 3 they finally decided to become their own publisher, and that's where they are now. So the original versions of those games were from two different publishers, and that's why the newest versions published by ioi directly aren't compatible with those delisted versions. It's a mess, but it's Square-Enix and WB's mess, not really ioi's. If Square had their way, ioi would have been shut down and Hitman 2 wouldn't have been made, while WB was abusing their publishing.

So yeah, it really sucks for consumers, but it's because the first two publishers basically pulled the game, and ioi had to rerelease everything themselves separately.

@jesse_dylan I searched and found no Bond memes for Sarah. How could the internet fail this badly? She actually would be a good protag in a Bond game though!

For Phil we at least have Yakuza Phil:

@Moby I think a lot will be Hitman-esque, and I think that's sort of why it's the right studio for it because the Hitman template is a lot of Bond already. But I think it will feel different because the almost main component of Hitman is the disguise stealing, and the gameplay patterns to get the right disguises, while Bond would have to focus on more traditional stealth which in a way makes it less interesting, but it has to be more traditional by nature. But Bond also traditionally doesn't do a lot of shooting/assasination, it's more sneaking/infiltration and outright running from being detected and using gadgets/gimmicks as an advantage. So the fundamentals I think will be very different.

@jesse_dylan Not Sarah Bond? Captain Obvious is disappointed in you.

@shoeses I agree but considering this is ioi, I think like Hitman they're trying to plan ahead to make a cohesive series by planning it from the start. Since they've proven they have done that extremely well before I'm willing to trust them in applying that same experience again.

I just hope they don't need to repeat having spreadsheets to figure out what you're buying.

Got to say I'm surprised and impressed, I didn't expect that for this game. Not a game for me at all, but they're out doing first party here from the middle of a warzone.

@Medic_alert Yep, Xbox had all the advantages at the beginning of the generation. And then they did..... Whatever they did....

@Medic_alert @GuyinPA75 Technically launch Xbox x had a larger drive than the PS5 for the same price. 1tb vs 8xxgb. PS5 always felt like 13.62oz cup of coffee at that size.

@Grumblevolcano Maybe, or they're pricing it for promo sales since it's better marketing than their other marketing.

Nothing says Christmas quite like generically enhanced armed soldiers!

@Darylb88 Lol yeah. Though this is worse. Sie has one competent CEO of platforms and one incompetent CEO of software. Microsoft has a 2 tier incompetent CEO of software, an impotent CEO of platforms and a competent but impotent CEO over those ceos

@S1ayeR74 Yep. It's all textbook Nadella. Fixate on one thing only and sacrifice everything else to make it happen.

The fact that there's two heads of xbox studios, with one reporting to the other, aside from the head of xbox, and all report to the head of gaming is everything that's wrong with Microsoft.

@S1ayeR74 It wasn't Spencer and his team, it was MS corporate (Amy Hood) that approached ABK first. This was an MS play to strongarm into mobile, and they eagerly sacrificed Xbox, a minimal profit generator, to do it. They'd been desperate for a way to get into the mobile space as they were the only one among their big data peers that were not in it.

ABK is the buyout that killed Xbox. Microsoft spent 70b to buy King to force their way into mobile and leveraged Xbox to get the deal, and killed anything Xbox had going for it that made it special just to facilitate the disposal of all the excess games clutter to make way for mobile.

They'll reboot the brand next gen, but just like X1 they'll be starting from behind, but with corporate looking over their shoulder this time, they won't have the advantage of being the plucky underdog again.

Metaphor. OMFG Metaphor. Thing will destroy me.

That aside I feel like I may put pancake gaming behind me for a long time except certain titles. Getting used to full pcvr means do turning back. Elden Ring, flight sim, racing, Elite, Sniper, LaD Ishin, Assassin's Creed, Hitman I'll jumping around titles like crazy, it's insane. Skyrim....ohh man Skyrim modded. I'm adding the AI mods so you can have full verbal conversations with NPCs.... That's the true next gen right there. DD2 supposedly has a mod but runs very poorly. Cyberpunk.

I probably have 10,000 hours of games just from that small selection of games without ever needing to buy more. It's insane.

@Titntin That's a cool take to hear on Avatar! I actually bought it a few weeks ago on ubis store because it was dirt cheap in their fall sale and although I care so little and avatar I've never even seen the movie the game world looked interesting enough. It's in the backlog though. With like 5 AC games....

Otoh while I had zero interest in outlaws, the vr modder guy just released an outlaws VR mod.... Judging by how awesome elden ring and got is in his mod, that's gonna be a must!

(Side note about Ubisoft launcher I actually almost liked it until I found out it logs you out on every machine when you log in on a different one, including console, and makes you type your password every time.... And they tricked me with a 40% sale on Rocksmith only on PSN and the ad hyped that the subscription is valid on every platform. What they didn't tell you is that you have to keep logging in on PS to validate your subscription every time you launch on PC. Wish I could refund and pay full price to avoid that. Could just play on console but audio interface is pc only, and ubis cable that works on console just sucks)

Want to revisit Star Craft so badly, but no mouse or keyboard setup. But MSFS24 with VR..... My HOTAS is ready!

@Ralizah Yeah massively stupid that suddenly and for no reason, one once more basically stops working just for one fight. Worse they made the fight totally depend on max baton pass bonus, just for one flight, when you may very well not have spent calendar days playing darts. Insanely dumb. If I'd played darts and stocked up on one off elemental items you can cheese it.

@Ralizah lol yeah I hated that thing with a passion.. I tried for days, nearly gave up the game. Tutorials said that the hardest mode actually was the easiest lol but the final round in hard I think I didn't have something I needed to do it in the hardest mode. I think I ended up having to do it in casual/story mode and that took a million tries too, but that's the one I got lucky and got past it on so my save file was junk after that. But it was better than missing the rest of the game.

Square Enix won't be there that's for sure. Com they're finally getting to this. Not cool it's literally days after I cancelled GPU and switched to PCGP 😂

@OldGamer999 Yeah I think this is a case where the traditional "non AI" scaler in the TV is already a very good scaler, so any improvement from a better scaler might be minimal. Just because ai scalers can have superior results doesn't mean really good scalers never existed before. Back in the day the scaler in an AV receiver was a big part of it's price tag, and component rack scalers were in the thousands for the custom theater crowd. High end scalers aren't new, just ai powered ones that actually do a bit better for cheaper. If the TV has a particulary good image processing engine inside, then yeah having a batter scaler on the console may yield marginal results. Buying a new PlayStation mostly to get a good scaler may not be that useful if you already bought a good scaler at the output.

The only difference then is that as long as the game has a performance mode at low resolution, it can get you mostly the same place, but if the game only has a 30fps mode on base PS5 but a 60fps mode for pro then you're stuck.

And studios will pull that (+1 for PC, just set what you want, they don't get to tell you ) but yeah when you get the option, you already have a high end scaler in the chain. You don't need another. Unless the games force you to.

@Jenkinss IDK if I'd the games are "young adults" necessarily. But even if so that's just Studio Zero, not Atlus as a whole. SMT games vary from dark to seriously disturbing, DDS is dark, Catherine is.... Well, lol... 😂

@Ralizah Except Okumura. F" that stupid battle. Almost quit the game there.

@OldGamer999 DF has been testing Rebirth, not Remake. Remake was a late PS4 game, it runs fine. Rebirth is the explicitly horribly optimized UE engine PS5 exclusive. . Maybe they've tested remake, too, but PS5 already handled remake fine. The one they keep making all that noise about is rebirth where performance mode looks like Vaseline on the lens (games fault not hardware.)

That said yes, pssr, dlss, is a good scaler with the AI logic but at the end of the day it's still just a scaler and if you already have a great Scaler at the output, you're just buying 2 high end scalers. Is pssr or dlss even better? Probably, but by how much? Hard to say.

That's why I'm annoyed at the pro at that price point. Is a scaler, a minor performance bump, and a forced SSD upgrade.

Now, should you cancel? Depends how much the money is worth to you. Will you get somewhat of a boost? Yes. Do you already have a good scaler in your output chain? Yep. Is the difference in appearance (knowing it'll be variable difference depending on game?) worth it? Depends how particular you're going to be.

Given your indecision on these things this generation my gut says, if you don't get it you'll find annoyances in games and wish you got it. If you do get it you'll get fed up with it not delivering enough difference for the money and sell it. 50/50 after that if you buy another one or not. 😂

@HarmanSmith Yeah, Royal was really weird, and while the end result is fantastic, I really don't understand why they did it the way they did it where you have to replay the whole entire game, even if you buy twice to see the new stuff. It's nicely cohesive, but it doesn't make much sense for people that played it already. Basically it has that new semester after the main game ends, and yeah, they had to weave in the new characters so that you can rank up their relationships and also have them feel like part of the main game so it all blends when you get there. I like the end result, but I would not have liked that had I finished the game prior. I bought it twice. Physical Take Your Heart edition PS4 (Morgana plushie!!), digital P5R on PS4 that I never played, and then finally got the new 60fps version on Xbox/PC and it took me 7 months to play through the whole thing lol. Metaphor may end up being worse! I'm hoping they treat it like P3R with proper DLC next time. I get why they did what they did with Royal. They had a vision for how to add it into a bigger cohesive game, but it just sucks for existing players. Make it DLC, and add a way to just play the new stuff while people playing the whole game get it woven in, like be able to just play the activity events with the new characters as a stand-alone sequence if you have a save game state that's past them. I love and hate Royal for that reason.

@HarmanSmith LOL, yeah, I hate that Atlus does that. I wouldn't mind if it were DLC, but no, you have to rebuy and replay the whole game! At least Vengeance you didn't have to replay the OG campaign. IDk if they'll do that this time. Royal was absolutely WEIRD for P5. At least for the other ones the new content was part of a platform jump (Switch only to multiplat etc.) Maybe they'll get their act together and sell DLC instead of a whole new version of the game this time.

A JRPG review on an Xbox site is, by itself, a moment to cherish forever. Excellent review as always, PJ.

I don't buy games at full price ever as a rule, and have a ton of Atlus games already only barely started (P3R, SH2, SMTV), but after spending 17 hours in the demo, I was hooked and just had to get more. Ended up pre-ordering on a $9 discount.

@OldGamer999 Well, keep in mind the ratio of game pass attachment to consoles. That multi year recurring revenue can easily make the ROI work out. Plus Phil hinted no more hardware subsidy, and we see Sony already doing that, so I think even with small sales numbers, the revenue, and brand value created by consoles existing probably works out for them. But I don't think they'll push it as the purpose of the brand just line surface isn't pushed as the purpose of windows, it's just an easy on ramp to access it. And then stick with windows. I think the handheld is where they'll make their push. Sony has the TV market locked up and honestly the TV market is smallish. Phil previously said there's no point competing will Nintendo in handheld but I think Nintendo opened the door to a new type of handheld in the Deck and Ally. I think how the handheld does will inform their hardware strategy going forward

@OldGamer999 I don't think it's next year, I think next year will be the (dockable) handheld and start the brand reboot through the new form factor, and ride the Switch 2 hype train with a competitive platform. That way they can ride Nintendo's handheld wave with an "adult" platform that's similar, and has GP, and try to be the value option etc and not have to take on Sony's entrenched market directly. I think the "console" will be a year or two after that to better time with Sony, and in theory have a more established base through the handheld to market to.

I definitely think they're not going to try to sell the platform by the "exclusive games" route and will aim more for the "platform services" route, consistent with how they market their other platforms. I agree, it's more like Surface Pro. It'll never sell more units than HP, but it's not meant to. It's meant to do thing thing it does very well as an option in the ecosystem. I expect/hope they meld the platform with PCs. It makes sense, was always supposed to be the point of XB from the start, and really makes it a much more appealing ecosystem when you have "PC/Xbox=everyone" and Sony/Nintendo doing their own little bespoke thing. Part of the larger whole definitely suits MS more than little corner products disconnected from the rest of their services. Heck, it's why I bought back into XB to begin with was because it was "PC like but cheaper and simpler", though I ultimately went back to true PC.

IDK that "Halo" means much anymore. Halo started as a game. Then they tried to make Halo into the "CoD killer" for online MP. Then they forgot about the game. Then they made Infinite to match the trends of the last gen, but released it mid through this gen. Now it's owned by the CoD company. I'm not sure what they do with Halo from now on.

@Balaam_ That summarizes every single gaming hardware forum thread ever.

@OldGamer999 They've given upon Series at this point. Awful as it sounds, that's the right thing to do. This generation is nearly over for them and Series lost all momentum. It would cost a fortune to try to dig it back out of its ditch and the effort would be unlikely to succeed. Business-wise the only solution even if they wanted to make a hard play for the console space again is just coast the end of the gen out, stop spending money on it at all, and "reboot" the brand with the next platform launch. It's ugly, but it's really the only practical strategy at this point.

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@MrFrosty "id Tech" YES, I don't understand why Microsoft is not leveraging id Tech across the company. They bought one of the very best engines, arguably even better than Unreal, and could have it license-free as an internal engine.......and they are not leveraging it at all?! I would have thought buying the engine tech was a major reason for purchasing Bethesda.

Starfield is one of those "why did they make this?" games. Their studio invented a deep, rich, lore-soaked gaming world in TES. Much as studios don't want to be a one trick pony, the heavy world they created and the scope of making games in it kind of necessitates it. Then they bought Fallout which then caused enough problems trying to balance that with their TES series. Ok so then they're a 2 trick pony that can't really find time for both tricks. Then for some reason they decided to create a sci-fi space game with too much scope to ever fit, at the cost of BOTH their major worlds. Just....why would they plan to do that to begin with?

@GamingFan4Lyf "Fans really, really, really want a new game engine."

And given times modders will remake the game in one!

Dang, I never buy full price games but I'm so tempted. I already have too many Atlus games barely started to even consider finishing. P3R, P5 Strikers, Soul Hackers 2, SMTV, and yet, that demo seriously hooked me on this much more than I expected and I'm so tempted.

@UBERSICKO Xbox has the marketing, but they didn't market it very well. They sent it in the TGS blast emails and all so it's there, but they don't really have marketing that reaches outside the customer base, they didn't highlight it outside "Japan games"....heck they're barely marketing CoD.... Xbox marketing just sucks, and this game didn't get the marketing they paid for, even though they did some.

Plus most of Atlus' install base is on PS (or Nintendo but this game's not on Nintendo (yet)), just historically, predating Xbox' existence.

@FarmDog08 Persona is all about the social sim aspect, it's the core of the game as a genre bend between social sims and dungeon crawlers. SMT is pure dungeon crawler with no social element. From the demo, I'd say Metaphor takes a line between. They include some amount of Persona's "you can take one action every half day and some of that involves interacting with a character to build a bond" but it's not emphasized as the core game like Persona. But it's also not pure, raw, dungeon crawl like SMT either.

Phase 1: Bungie before they snapped the cord
Phase 2: Number Two.
Phase 3: Rebrand and outsource!

I did my part to support Ubisoft. Mirage, Avatar, pop: lost crown PC are cheaper on Ubisoft store than on the key sellers and they have a weekend promo for $15 off your cart 😂 have to use their launcher anyway so literally no down side.

@Jaxx420 Yeah, they pushed those things so hard, for so long it surprised me.

Then there's some games like FFXV that aren't xpa, aren't cross buy, but are still cross save.

It's all so messy.

@CutchuSlow "Devices" so I'm thinking more the Firesticks, Kindles, Kindle Fires, etc. Those little reorder buttons you put on the laundry detergent, the automatic amazon garage door opener thingies, that kind of stuff probably. Maybe gaming/Luna controllers too, but I think this is more about general devices than gaming, considering even at MS he worked on Zune and tablets after Xbox.

@WildConcept6 Yep, all known and agreed (Though I didn't realize the rest of the world didn't have that same experience. I didn't know Whatsapp was standard in EU, and I thought Line was only texting, not voice/video.

I use Apple products on occasion, mostly old cheap phones to use for music players and the like. Mostly because some apps only exist on it, or are only stable on it while crashing all the time on Android because the maintainers just don't care about non-Apple (looks at SiriusXM.) But yeah otherwise, I wouldn't touch Apple with a 100ft pole for all those reasons. And it makes me sad watching both Sony and Nintendo try to become like Apple.

@HarmanSmith Yeah, I just caved and bought Vengeance on Steam. It wasn't the best sale ever, but it's Atlus and considering it matches the lowest price I've seen for P3R, I think it'll be a while before it was a better sale. I kicked in the extra $7 to get deluxe with all the DLC, even though I have a hard time getting into the game, because, I'm an Atlus sucker.

Yeah, I heard some reviews say the prologue was a 5 hour demo, but there's just no way. If you're grinding back MP with mage, and especially if you do the optional dungeon (I did the dungeon but had to run past some monsters because I was out of MP and no way to refuel in there, and left the dungeon after realizing I was getting 1-shot by the boss. In the full game I think that dungeon is meant to be tackled AFTER the story dungeon, but in the demo the demo ends when you beat the miniboss in the story dungeon so you can try it first. Story dungeon has a 10-day deadline, that side dungeon has no deadline at all so you can do it late-game if you want.

Yeah, I'm convinced Refantazio is as long as or longer than P5R and that already set records for how long it is.