Since it was announced, I've been waiting with baited breath for the Playstation Vita. So I've been interested to see the reactions of gamers around the web to information as it comes out, particularly related to the issue of the Vita's proprietary memory format.
For those of you who don't know, the Vita has no onboard flash storage. Instead, Sony has opted to go with a Vita specific proprietary memory card that attracts a pretty hefty price tag. The capacity ranges from 4-32GB, and while Australian prices are yet to be announced (my home territory), they start at $25US for the 4gb and some $100US for the 32gb. Given that the console requires memory for most launch games, and given its large potential online suite, you pretty much need a memory card to use it. Effectively, this will add between $25-$100 to the cost of your Vita, and suddenly the price tag isn't all that attractive.
That said, I think I understand Sony's motives here (though I can't say I agree with them). You see, I believe Sony is banking on the Vita being hacked. They learned from experience with the PSP, and PS3, that in this day and age, hacking will be a reality, and that means pirated software and multiple millions lost in software sales.
The PSP was nearly killed alone because of piracy. Sure the hardware sold well, but as an avid PSP gamer I can tell you there was really a dearth of quality titles, and it all had to do with piracy. after nearly 6 years on the market, PSP has less than 15 standout titles. Developers simply didn't want to put in the money and man hours making games where their profits would be largely eaten away by piracy.
What has this got to do with the Vita's expensive memory 'solution'? Well a lot really (I think anyway). You see, the proprietary format is essentially an insurance policy for piracy. For every Vita sold, Sony can guarantee they'll sell one form of memory card or the other along with it, whereas, because of piracy, they can't guarantee they'll sell software with every Vita too.
The Vita is being sold at a loss, and Sony will be very dependent on software sales to turn a profit. If they can't sell software, they know they'll be selling memory. So when the Vita gets hacked, and I say when, Sony knows that hackers will still need to fork out money to Sony to play all those illegally downloaded games. If they can get some money out of the hackers, it's better than none.
But whats the result of all this? Honest gamers like myself, and many of you are paying for it, and paying a lot. Not to brag, but I can afford a Vita, and all the memory they can throw at me, and games too. It's not an issue for me, and won't stop me dropping the cash at launch. But it will stop many people, as they either can't, or are unwilling to pay the premium.
So there's a payoff, and you can be sure Sony know a lot of people will be upset about this. But they're also not targeting kids who are saving their pocket money weeks on end who will whine most. This is going to be a hardcore gamers handheld, who generally are older, have jobs and disposable income. Sure we won't be happy about it, but I bet many of us will pay for it. Problem is, probably not as many of us as Sony would like...
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.
"Thousands of games run just fine on S.
But Kingdom Come is the game that can’t. Must be one hell of a game!"
Kingdom come 2 runs just fine alright. Its the SCOPE that they want. They had to cut it because of the stupid S series. Hellblade2 ran just fine too..but im pretty confident if it was just the X in mind, the scope of the game would have been much bigger.
Custom Controller Company HexGaming launched a Kickstarter campaign for their latest pro controller, Hex Phantom. - IS
The opinion that Sony decided to use a proprietary format to claw back revenue from the potential threat of piracy has some validity but isn't anything new. In fact often I am left scratching head as to why this a hot topic only now months before the launch the Vita in Western markets.
Why is this a concern when the Sony PSP also uses a proprietary format, "Memory Stick Duo" which realistically still today attracts a price premium per megabyte, the idea that Sony might throw in a proprietary format should have sunk in already.
You might argue that MS Duo has third party brands sold at a discount, unlike the Vita memory cards now, but is this a fair point considering the system isn't even out yet, do you really think there will be no third party cards. You might also argue that the MS Duo accepts cheap Micro SDs via an adapter where as this will be impossible for the Vita, yes, but such adapters really only became widespread a few years back, and certainly "Transflash" as Micro SDs were called back then incurred very high price premiums.
Give the Vita sometime, those who don't care about the price would have purchased one already, and those who consider price to be a concern will get their chance eventually.
But wouldn't hackers just make a sony card with a micro sd slot ala Vita r4 card?
I don't understand why you Americans complain so much about expensive things and at the same time buy tons of Apple stuff which is unreasonably expensive and needs to be replaced over and over again. If I buy Vita, I'll buy one memory card and it will last for years.
By the time it is out here, there will either be an adapter like there is for current psp to convert to a cheaper format E.g SD. Or generic cards made in china. I mean your point shows it money racket so there is no doubt it will happen very fast.
Corporations like to price gouge on their needless proprietary warez. Sony's no exception.