The Sony news and discussion thread

[Marlew]

From a different angle, their back catalogue is vastly superior to Xbox and NSO is a bare-bones service with less care or features than a bargain bin retro comp. There are twice as many PS+ subs as GP subs, I expect this will be massive.

Important to remember also that MS BC service is very restricted and didn't offer me any of the Cave/shmup titles that I bought on 360 and couldn't play.

GP has no appeal to me because there are so few top tier exclusives on the system, so I flogged my XSS. Every so often, I put an XSX in various online baskets and then I'm like...what exactly will I play? FH5 again...and then...uhh...Flight Sim...I don't care for the indie landfill or mid-tier sales fodder that pads out the service.

Ohhh, just clicked...is this because you want to play your copy of Einhander? Fair play. Me too!

[Rhaegyr]

Not too impressed with Sony's offering but then again I'm guessing they can't afford a Gamepass equivalent as they don't have the money that Microsoft does. The naming convention of the tiers is bloody daft too.

I'll stick with my shitty exclusives and indie landfill!

[Magical_Isopod]

Game Pass will only get better as Xbox studios start producing exclusives. After Horizon: Forbidden West, I've honestly kind of lost faith in Sony's ability to produce great games. They seem to have fallen into the same trap of homogenized, assembly-line game design as the other big publishers, and I have zero interest in their so-far-announced first party offerings.

And to be clear, I'm not an Xbox fan by any means, it was always a secondary platform for me. But I see what they're doing with older games and Game Pass and I applaud it.

PS Now still sucks, it just has a different name. And I do reiterate - there's absolutely no reason Sony can't do a "validate and download" system for BC when they have the games ready to go in an emulation wrapper. It's just inexcusable. I really don't see how anyone can go to bat for that.

[Marlew]

Game Pass will only get better as Xbox studios start producing exclusives.

I honestly can't remember how many years ago I first heard this sentence.

After Horizon: Forbidden West, I've honestly kind of lost faith in Sony's ability to produce great games.

I'd suggest you play any of the other PS5 console exclusives.

I should say for clarity that I don't have any interest in playing older games on my PS5 and the data suggests that there's microscopic BC activity compared to the column inches and forum rhetoric. It might score brownie points among a certain niche audience but the shit munchers aren't generally interested.

[Magical_Isopod]

Might I remind you that this forum is not NeoGaf, and describing gamers as "shit munchers" while employing console wars talking points is kind of not exactly Gucci 'round these parts.

[Alex79]

PS Now still sucks, it just has a different name. And I do reiterate - there's absolutely no reason Sony can't do a "validate and download" system for BC when they have the games ready to go in an emulation wrapper. It's just inexcusable. I really don't see how anyone can go to bat for that.

I don't think PS Now sucks, I had it for a year a while back and thought it was terrific value. PlayStation has the quality, Xbox has the quantity. And whilst I have no intention to pick up a PS5 this side of Christmas, and am enjoying Gamepass a great deal, Sony exclusives are far, far better than anything Xbox is putting out in my opinion.

Ultimately it doesn't matter though, both services can exist and serve slightly different needs. If I had a PS5 I'd probably try this new service, but not at the same time as Gamepass.

And yeah, I hope that in the next year or so we start seeing some of these MS acquisitions paying off too.

EDIT: I can't defend PS3 game streaming, though. It was never great when I had PS Now, and I do think Sony ought to have tried harder with BC this gen - it's literally the sole reason I went with Xbox first this time around.

[Marlew]

Might I remind you that this forum is not NeoGaf, and describing gamers as "shit munchers" while employing console wars talking points is kind of not exactly Gucci 'round these parts.

It's somewhat affectionate shorthand for 'mainstream consumers' rather than gamers but I just wanted to differentiate them from people like us who discuss gaming subscription services on forums.

Really, they're not bothered about you, who wants to play his old PS1 games for free. Nor are they interested in me, who thinks all subscriptions are often a sunk cost fallacy of 'consuming because I pay for it' over 'enjoying what I want'. I'm sure plenty of people get value from GP but I bet they'd enjoy some new top tier Xbox games a lot more.

As for console war talking points, I don't know what they may be. I only talk about games on here and with a small handful of people on Twitter, mostly from here. I replied to this because your complaint about Sony BC directly tallied with my experience of Xbox. I can't play my 360 games, all of which are unsupported, so I'm not inclined to celebrate their generously comprehensive offering. As a consequence, I own two Japanese 360s (one spare, boxed) which I hope will last for as long as I'm interested in playing those games. Fortunately, quite a few are now available on the PS4 and Switch, so I'll be able to play them in the inevitable event of RROD...heh...

[ThirdDrawing]

Streaming games sucks. We could have had full BC, but Sony decided to make us pay for a substandard service instead.

I'd suggest you play any of the other PS5 console exclusives.

I should say for clarity that I don't have any interest in playing older games on my PS5 and the data suggests that there's microscopic BC activity compared to the column inches and forum rhetoric. It might score brownie points among a certain niche audience but the shit munchers aren't generally interested.

What are the exclusives exactly? Ratchet and Clank and Demons Souls? And I suppose Ghostwire Tokyo. Everything else I can think of is also on PS4.

This rubbish myth about BC being minute is only because it's so difficult to get companies to include BC anymore.
If it were freely available, you would see more activity.

[Marlew]

This rubbish myth about BC being minute is only because it's so difficult to get companies to include BC anymore.
If it were freely available, you would see more activity.

What do you believe the myth to be? You agree that BC is a niche interest while putting the cart before the horse, i.e. There's little interest because of little availability, rather than little availability because of little interest. I'm curious what you know that Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo are missing.

Less than a third of 360 games and only five percent of original Xbox games are backwards compatible. So, why are we all queueing up to trombone Phil? He never even left the job half finished. I'll call it a quarter, to be generous. Why do you think that might be? Is it because of the soaring success and popularity of the programme?

We don't need to speculate. In their words, they "reached the limit of [their] ability to bring new games to the catalog from the past due to licensing, legal and technical constraints." In layman's terms, it's not worth the cost. To Microsoft. The second richest company in existence. Third in a three-horse console race. It's not worth it to them.

In the end, it seems they are on a similar page to Jim Ryan who famously said 'cunts don't use it, so we're not paying for it'.

[Magical_Isopod]

Most of the games anyone gives a damn about are available on Xbox backwards compatibility. The ones that aren't covered generally fall into one of a few categories:
- No reason to support (annual sports games, etc.)
- Publisher is in a zombie state (like Valcom, publishers of Raiden Fighters Aces)
- Licensed content (Licensed music for which the license expired, licensed IP that the original publisher no longer holds the rights to - like Activision's Spider-Man games, etc.)

None of these are "Microsoft doesn't want to spend the money." Except maybe in the last example, but that's less an issue of money and more an issue of bad American copyright law and exclusivity deals.

And it still doesn't excuse the fact that a "validate and download" system is easy and inexpensive to implement. Read the disc, cross-reference the data, unlock the game in the store page. Cost and effort are not a barrier here. The sole barrier is will. Even if the appeal is niche, the minimal development effort required would be worth the expense.

[Marlew]

To you, but as I said, they're not arsed about you.

[ThirdDrawing]

What do you believe the myth to be? You agree that BC is a niche interest while putting the cart before the horse, i.e. There's little interest because of little availability, rather than little availability because of little interest. I'm curious what you know that Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo are missing.

Less than a third of 360 games and only five percent of original Xbox games are backwards compatible. So, why are we all queueing up to trombone Phil? He never even left the job half finished. I'll call it a quarter, to be generous. Why do you think that might be? Is it because of the soaring success and popularity of the programme?

We don't need to speculate. In their words, they "reached the limit of [their] ability to bring new games to the catalog from the past due to licensing, legal and technical constraints." In layman's terms, it's not worth the cost. To Microsoft. The second richest company in existence. Third in a three-horse console race. It's not worth it to them.

In the end, it seems they are on a similar page to Jim Ryan who famously said 'cunts don't use it, so we're not paying for it'.

They're too cheap to do it. That's the long and short of it.

The amount of retro gamers who go out of their way to buy, sell, and maintain both old games and old systems is big enough that more people would use it if it were available.

It's a hell of a lot better than streaming games. If Sony had adopted something like Microsoft's ID system for games, I would have picked up PSNow in a heartbeat. Now I'll never get it.

And it's only "niche" because it's been implemented in such a crap manner with such a haphazard assortment of games.

[Alex79]

I've bought more 360 games on my Series S than newer games so far.

[Marlew]

ThirdDrawing, you keep making reference to 'streaming'. Do you think PSNow is a streaming-only service?

I won't repeat the points I've already made to the points you've already made. It doesn't matter if we agree.

Evoking the retro gamer scene works against the argument you're making. Playing on the original hardware is specifically a large part of the appeal to that niche audience.

[Magical_Isopod]

I've bought more 360 games on my Series S than newer games so far.

Right? I have XB1 - I'll get a Series X someday - but I have been going out and "upgrading" like PS3 era games to 360 versions BECAUSE of the upgrades. And there's some digital ones, and games I picked up that I'd previously slept on. And Xbox isn't stupid, they DID re-releases of some of these games in physical form when they came to BC. So to suggest that the interest isn't there is just... Not based in fact.

[Magical_Isopod]

ThirdDrawing, you keep making reference to 'streaming'. Do you think PSNow is a streaming-only service?

I won't repeat the points I've already made to the points you've already made. It doesn't matter if we agree.

Evoking the retro gamer scene works against the argument you're making. Playing on the original hardware is specifically a large part of the appeal to that niche audience.

Someone prefering to play Morrowind or Blinx on original hardware is getting an inferior experience. Your argument would be true if performance were identical, but the Xbox method of BC comes with big upgrades. I'm not sure you really know that you're talking about on this topic.

[ThirdDrawing]

ThirdDrawing, you keep making reference to 'streaming'. Do you think PSNow is a streaming-only service?

The PS3 games that are going to be added to the new tiered service are streaming only

PlayStation Plus Premium**

Provides all the benefits from Essential and Extra tiers
Adds up to 340* additional games, including:
PS3 games available via cloud streaming
A catalog of beloved classic games available in both streaming and download options from the original PlayStation, PS2 and PSP generations

It doesn't specify whether the other games will have both streaming and download options for the same game or whether some will be streaming and some will be download. My guess is the latter.

Some people like playing on original hardware. Some people would rather have an all-in-one system so to speak. I think an all-in-one would be more popular than Sony and MS think it would be.

I've bought more 360 games on my Series S than newer games so far.

Right? I have XB1 - I'll get a Series X someday - but I have been going out and "upgrading" like PS3 era games to 360 versions BECAUSE of the upgrades. And there's some digital ones, and games I picked up that I'd previously slept on. And Xbox isn't stupid, they DID re-releases of some of these games in physical form when they came to BC. So to suggest that the interest isn't there is just... Not based in fact.

When I am not living overseas, or maybe the next time I'm visiting home, I'll be doing the same thing.

[Magical_Isopod]

When I am not living overseas, or maybe the next time I'm visiting home, I'll be doing the same thing.

Keep an eye on their digital deals, too. There's some pretty deep discounts. I got Killer is Dead for $4, and Crazy Taxi for $2.50. Stuff like that. I find every month has new 75%+ off BC digital games, and they're cheap enough that it's like... Why not save the cash versus physical?

[Alex79]

ThirdDrawing, you keep making reference to 'streaming'. Do you think PSNow is a streaming-only service?

I won't repeat the points I've already made to the points you've already made. It doesn't matter if we agree.

Evoking the retro gamer scene works against the argument you're making. Playing on the original hardware is specifically a large part of the appeal to that niche audience.

Someone prefering to play Morrowind or Blinx on original hardware is getting an inferior experience. Your argument would be true if performance were identical, but the Xbox method of BC comes with big upgrades. I'm not sure you really know that you're talking about on this topic.

Whilst true that it's generally easier to play games on modern hardware wherever possible, and thinking about stuff like the NES and SNES games on the Switch with their save states and rewind features, there are still a lot of people who'd prefer to play on original hardware. There just is. It's not just the game, it's the pad, the sound of the cart slotting in, the feel of the button as you turn the console on, the old skool TV picture... That's the whole point for a lot of people.

[Marlew]

My guess is the latter.

Because you don't want to understand the word 'both' and you're determined not to waste a good frown. Pick a position and bend reality to suit your feelings. How contemporary.

I actually laughed that you don't have an Xbox despite the irresistible temptations of backwards compatibility. I honestly couldn't write a more satisfying punchline to draw this to a close.

Many thanks.

I'm not sure you really know that you're talking about on this topic.

Having owned both a Series X and Series S, I'm comfortably more informed about backwards compatibility and upgrades.

On retro hardware, you actually made the exact same skewed point that I was addressing. Gaming on retro hardware is about the hardware itself as much as the games. The idea that these collectors might throw it all on eBay to buy an Xbox is very funny. Mea culpa, Phil.

And we got another superb bonus punchline that the backwards compatibility upgrades haven't actually prompted you to buy an Xbox Series console, eighteen months after launch. If true believers like yourself haven't taken the plunge, God help the shit munchers!