The Sony press conference at E3 yesterday can be called a huge success. They showcased some amazing games coming to PS4 in its first year and sent an important signal to the industry: Sony speaks out against restrictive DRM and used game policies. It seemed to be a good day for gamers, but there was a major downside that was addressed only passively. Online gaming on PS4 requires a PS+ subscription, which will cost you "less than" 5$ a month (most likely 4,99$ and of course 4,99€ in Europe). That is 60$/€ a year. Even if unfortunate for gamers, this move could have been predictable since payed online is already a reality at Microsoft and will continue to be with the Xbox One. The situation we're now in is a battle of standards on one hand (DRM vs. no DRM) and, on the other hand, the acknowledgment of a common standard (pay to play online). Not such a good day after all it seems, but like it is often the case, there are two sides to it.
Let us start with the less obvious one, the positive side. I won't lie to you, I'm not an online gamer. I don't buy FPS games and the only games I played online were DUST 514 (because it is free) and MGO (because it was awesome). Some of the best games on PS3 didn't even have multiplayers (Deus ex, Valkyria Chronicles, Ni no Kuni, Skyrim, etc.). On the other end of the spectrum there are games like Call of Duty that mostly sell because of their online multiplayer modes. The success of this franchise was frowned upon by many as it led to a flood of generic shooters with a color palette consisting of shades of brown. The positive side of payed online might be that it could become a "diverse games tax". Sony will be making a lot of money with the subscription fees of FPS fans. This will allow their studios to take bigger risks and creating more innovative games. The "good" side is that maybe less people will play online this way and that publishers will be forced to focus on making good singleplayer games. It might even lead to the revival of local multiplayer and co-op. On the other hand, that didn't happen at Microsoft with the 360 and frankly I highly doubt that will happen with the PS4. The "positive side" is more of a euphemism here. The only positive thing that will happen is an improvement of performance and services on PSN, but it comes with a price.
The negative side should be more obvious. Sony is making money with something that could still be free, even if not as good as the competitors networks. This way consumers will start to think that paying for online gaming is the norm and there is no alternative. As a consumer this is a huge blow and an unfortunate turn of events. Microsoft was always criticized for it and Sony shouldn't be an exception. It could also lead to the creation of even more generic online shooters, as Sony will also be making money thanks to them. Finally, it simply sucks if you like to play online and liked the free PSN service.
What do you think? Are you willing to pay for possible improvements or would rather have free access to online gaming? Let me know in the comments.
The Final Fantasy VII Rebirth combat director has expressed that he wants the final part in the trilogy to offer players "even more freedom".
I love the game so far but please don’t make the final part a mini game fest
Everytime I get to a new part in Rebirth it’s “mini game time”
Hope ya don't mind me asking since it seems like you've played it, did it feel like a decent step up from the last game or was it more like the best from the last but more polished?
It makes Remake feel like a demo.
9.5/10 imo. And I think the “mini games” did a great job of adding variety to the gameplay. Purely optional as well.
Here's my thoughts
I think it's a big step up from the first instalment, I'm enjoying it way more.
I thought keeping it just in Midgar was silly, it felt dragged out and it didn't have much variation in terms of the scenery.
However with Rebirth, as soon as you get out of Kalm you have a big world to explore and it's great to just wander round and explore.
Now that I'm half way in though, despite still liking what I'm playing, the gameplay loop is now starting to slow down on me. I've got to a new region and I'm like "Yaaay...need to go and find those towers again, oh look another special beast marker, is that a bird I see in the distance? Better follow it to another Mako Crystal"
It's like....you know how Peter Jackson was only supposed to have two Hobbit films then Warner Bros wanted a third film so he stretched the second film out as much as he could so he could keep stuff for the third film making a trilogy? Yeah it feels like that, so these mini games are a part of that overall gameplay loop to keep us going and stretch the game out overall so they have something for the third and final game.
I personally think you could have had the first instalment get you out of Midgar and through to Grasslands / Junon and the second game finishes things off.
I had a weird cycle of love/hate for all the mini games as I played through. At first I really hated the seeming need to check all these boxes while exploring the grasslands. I didn't enjoy the Gilgamesh quest initially, and thought Queen's blood was fine but didn't want to commit to it. The side quests didn't really grab me either.
Then for some reason everything in Junon region changed my mind and I did pretty much everything. I liked most of the side quests, I actually liked playing fort condor (didn't care for it in the intergrade dlc). And my interest for completing these quests stayed pretty much through to Cosmo Canyon.
Then they added that horrible Lifestream memory/battle mini game and I started getting so burnt out of it all. I just wanted to do the story. I didn't do any side quests in neibleheim and beyond except for the summon. I abandoned Gilgamesh.
So what I'm saying is I would like the third part to go back to the focused progression from remake. Keep the mini games to the gold saucer. Start the game snowboarding if you want, but from there keep the story rolling.
That's funny you say that because I did everything in the Grasslands but once in Junon I started to slow down a little until Corel where by the end I was burnt out. I'm still currently going but I'm just doing what I can while things keep getting thrown at me.
I would have preferred half of these mini game side fillers / collectibles for some really beefy side quests that really adds onto the world of FFVII.
Sounds like they hadn't really figured out what they wanted to do with Remake and this one is more of what they thought of doing which is probably why they're dragging it out to make a trilogy. Disappointed to hear it has towers cause man do i hate towers lol. It's been a while since I've played the first and it'll be a while longer to play the sequel, but it sounds like I'll enjoy it. 7 really impressed me especially after being disappointed with 15, felt like Square finally realized that FF was THEIR big franchise again.
How many hours are you into it at this point?
My friend got like 20-30 in and pretty much quit because of its mini game era. He loved and basically binged through Gran Blue compared to Rebirth
As long as it comes out on PS5 to have the entire series on one platform, do whatever you want
The combat is my favorite thing about Rebirth. Would be really cool if they can improve it even more.
I hope after FF7 Square will either give a new FF game the remake treatment. Or give some of their older titles a remake treatment like Chrono Trigger, Chrono Cross, even Xenogears.
Wccf tech writes: "Kingdom Come Deliverance 2's scope was impacted by the Xbox Series S hardware limitations, as developers could only make a game that was 25% bigger than its predecessor."
This is the issue with things like this
Xbox Series X is apparently to MS the worlds most powerful console
However the Series S is obviously a limitation because it’s underpowered and developers have to go for parity.
So what’s the point of the world’s most powerful console if you are holding third party developers back? They aren’t going to push themselves if they have to think about the weakest console.
The issue wouldn’t be as bad if it was just Xbox but you are also affecting the PS version aswell
I think developers need to start just taking advantage of a console and if one of them can’t do X Y and Z then f*** them…why should the others suffer. What’s MS going to do? The bigger the franchise the least chance MS are going to tell them to f*** off. Baulders Gate 3 seemed to have stood their ground and suddenly their “strict” parity rule didn’t really matter. We suddenly got super optimisation efforts for the Series S that got things sorted.
I agree, and the sad part is use normal folk saw it the second they announced their plans.
Agree 100% this is why I didn’t want the M$ Monopoly, now PS5 version will be held back too.
If PS5 Pro comes out and Series S is still a thing it’ll be interesting what differences and what devs choose to do. Really hoping Rockstar pushes the PS5 pro with GTA6 and we get the best version possible.
Good ole S indeed. Everyone knew this all along. S was holding games back...Now where the hell is Orchard i want a word with him.
More info from the author of the article, I think: https://www.reddit.com/r/ki...
Quote:
"1) I was told this info from the producer of the game Martin Klíma.
2) He specifically said the game will have only one mode.
3) And this mode is 4K 30 on PS5/XSX and 1440p 30 on XSS.
4) He said that the game is already running north of the 30 FPS cap so the performance should be stable on launch, much better than KCD1.
5) The limitation was XSS because of the 10GB memory. He said that's why they wanted to make the game 25% larger.
6) Speculation on my part: the output resolution is probably upscaled and the reason why there won't be a 60 FPS mode is because it'll most likely be very CPU heavy, like Dragon's Dogma 2 for example."
Doesn't seem like they're adding a 40fps mode on PS5/Series X for launch even if they can handle it.
I'd much rather have 1440p/60fps or even 45fps. Having just one, even with the Series S in mind, is disappointing.
Remember when xbots were adamant that the series s won’t hold back the gen?
Microsoft just needs to let go of the mandatory parity. Who cares if your grandma doesn’t understand that a game cannot be played on the S. It’s not like it she can buy you a physical game for it anyway. Before buying the game put up a notice that it only works on series X. If you’re buying for a friend-allow for a refund.
Bam. Everyone is happy. Most series s owners are for casuals that want Game Pass anyway and most likely don’t purchase most games.
If the developers want it to run on S, let them figure it out.
“During the event, the Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 producer also revealed that on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, the game will run at 4K resolution and 30 frames per second“
Another “creative decision” right? 🤦♂️
Since you're not an amateur and clearly know more than them, can you over there and help get the game running on the S without having to sacrifice their true vision. Us gamers would really appreciate you using your wisdom for good 🙏
Thousands of games run just fine on S.
But Kingdom Come is the game that can’t. Must be one hell of a game!
Thousands of games run on PS4 and on Switch. If developers want them to run on those systems. Fine. Those two platforms still get new games. Sony isn’t making studios also make a ps4 pro version, or Nintendo a wiiu version. Microsoft technically is.
If games like Alan Wake 2, GTA6, COD, hellblade all run on S, no excuse for this 100x smaller and 100x worse looking game to be held back.
Custom Controller Company HexGaming launched a Kickstarter campaign for their latest pro controller, Hex Phantom. - IS
The money MS gets from Live allows them to pay-off 3rd parties to screw Sony from getting timely dlc, or gives ms the advantage to buy whole games exclusively from 3rd parties.
Also we will need better servers, as downloads will be much bigger, more data transfering over the net (due to f2p games and mmo's announced for the ps4).
If Sony is gonna compete, they need to make more money. MS is greedy and lazy. They pay off others instead of making their own games. Sony needs money to advertise their games (lack of money might have played a part in why sony didnt advertise ps3 games much)
So if sony is going to be able to squash ms, it will cost money.
If u dont want to pay, then stick to your ps3 or pc. The company needs to make a profit, and this is a great way to do it. Because charging people only $399 for a console this powerful probably wont make sony much money. But the subscription cost of ps plus can help them break even and even make a profit. PLUS we get free games monthly.