Playstation General

[Mera'din 307]

Playstation Plus games for July are:

Pro Evolution Soccer 2019

Horizon Chase Turbo

 

Also, apparently Sony is discontinuing the trophies = rewards point with their Sony Rewards thing in early November.  Cashed mine in about a month or so ago and was able to add $60 to my Playstation account so free game for me. XD

[webhead 519]

Wow that is all incredibly underwhelming information.

 

[Nick 38]

You son of a bitch...

 

also, meh.

[Eizan 126]

7 hours ago, Mera'din said:

Playstation Plus games for July are:

Horizon Chase Turbo

 

Hey man, that's the Spiritual successor to Top Gear. Its a good game.

 

I maybe bias...

[Galeigh 308]

5 hours ago, webhead said:

 

 

- me trying a new hard liqour

[dr. b 492]

3 hours ago, Eizan said:

 

Hey man, that's the Spiritual successor to Top Gear. Its a good game.

 

I maybe bias...

 

PES ain't a bad game either. I assume these guys just aren't big fans of sprots and racing games  

[MT 915]

7 hours ago, Eizan said:

 

Hey man, that's the Spiritual successor to Top Gear. Its a good game.

Hmmmmm, I may have to look in to this...

[Nick 38]

On 6/27/2019 at 8:16 AM, little birdy said:

 

PES ain't a bad game either. I assume these guys just aren't big fans of sprots and racing games  

 

I've never really been into sports games that much. And haven't ever really been too into soccer in general.

[webhead 519]

So apparently it's actually Detroit: Become Human today instead of PES.

[Nick 38]

Yep :P

 

And apparently the Digital Deluxe Edition of Detroit: Become Human comes with Heavy Rain.

[MT 915]

26 minutes ago, Nick said:

And apparently the Digital Deluxe Edition of Detroit: Become Human comes with Heavy Rain.

Yay?

[webhead 519]

2 games for the price of 1 (free)!

[Mera'din 307]

They gave Heavy Rain for free already last year I think? Bonus for anyone that missed it though I suppose.

[Mera'din 307]

Apparently Konami had no idea that Sony was pulling PES 2019 and it was done last minute by Sony who still hasn't given any real explanation for it:

 

https://kotaku.com/konami-explains-sony-made-the-decision-to-change-ps-plu-1836128623

[Mera'din 307]

IT'S ABOUT GOD DAMN TIME.

https://www.engadget.com/2019/10/02/sony-ps4-cross-play-open-developers/

[webhead 519]

Come on Destiny.

[MT 915]

Playstation 5 = Holiday 2020. There's an article on Wired that talks about some of the changes in the upcoming system. I copied the text because they have some sort of free page limit on their site.

 

Ever since the original PlayStation hit the market in 1994, Sony's series of videogame consoles has stuck to the numbers. No "Super," no "Max," no "Code Red Xtreme"; just PlayStations 2, 3, and 4. With such unwavering consistency, the name of the next iteration has been a question only in the most technical sense—but Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan is still ready to answer it. The console, he tells me, will be called PlayStation 5. "It's nice to be able to say it," he says. "Like a giant burden has been lifted from my shoulders."

So. There you go. PlayStation 5, holidays 2020.

Sony hasn't said too much about the console since April, when WIRED broke the story about development efforts on what was then known only as the "next-gen console." In fact, the company hasn't said anything. Sony skipped games show E3 this year, a void during which Microsoft unveiled details about its own next-gen console, a successor to the Xbox One referred to only as Project Scarlett. Like the PS5, Scarlett will boast a CPU based on AMD’s Ryzen line and a GPU based on its Navi family; like the PS5, it will ditch the spinning hard drive for a solid-state drive. Now, though, in a conference room at Sony’s US headquarters, Ryan and system architect Mark Cerny are eager to share specifics.

Before they do, Cerny wants to clarify something. When we last discussed the forthcoming console, he spoke about its ability to support ray-tracing, a technique that can enable complex lighting and sound effects in 3D environments. Given the many questions he’s received since, he fears he may have been ambiguous about how the PS5 would accomplish this—and confirms that it’s not a software-level fix, which some had feared. “There is ray-tracing acceleration in the GPU hardware,” he says, “which I believe is the statement that people were looking for.” (A belief born out by my own Twitter mentions, which for a couple of weeks in April made a graphics-rendering technique seem like the only thing the internet had ever cared about.)

With that in hand, back to the PS5's solid-state drive, which Cerny first extolled for the way it can turn loading time from a hassle to a blink. It’s not just the speed that makes the SSD formidable, he says, but the efficiency it offers. Think about the hard drive in a game console, spinning like a 5400-rpm vinyl record. For the console to read a piece of information off the drive, it first has to send out the disk head—like a turntable needle—to find it. Each “seek,” as it’s known, may only entail a scant handful of milliseconds, but seeks add up. To minimize them, developers will often duplicate certain game assets in order to form contiguous data blocks, which the drive can read faster. We’re talking common stuff here: lampposts, anonymous passersby.

But data adds up too. "If you look at a game like Marvel's Spider-Man," Cerny says, "there are some pieces of data duplicated 400 times on the hard drive." The SSD sweeps away the need for all that duping—so not only is its raw read speed dramatically faster than a hard drive, but it saves crucial space. How developers will take advantage of that space will likely differ; some may opt to build a larger or more detailed game world, others may be content to shrink the size of the games or patches. Either way, physical games for the PS5 will use 100GB optical disks, inserted into an optical drive that doubles as a 4K Bluray player.

However, game installation (which is mandatory, given the speed difference between the SSD and the optical drive) will be a bit different than in the PS4. This time around, aided in part by the simplified game data possible with the SSD, Sony is changing its approach to storage, making for a more configurable installation—and removal—process. "Rather than treating games like a big block of data," Cerny says, "we're allowing finer-grained access to the data." That could mean the ability to install just a game's multiplayer campaign, leaving the single-player campaign for another time, or just installing the whole thing and then deleting the single-player campaign once you've finished it.

Regardless of what parts of a game you choose to install and play, you'll be able to stay abreast of it via a completely revamped user interface. The PS4's bare-bones home screen at times feels frozen in amber; you can see what your friends have recently done, or even what game title they might be playing at the moment, but without launching an individual title, there's no way to tell what single-player missions you could do or what multiplayer matches you can join. The PS5 will change that. "Even though it will be fairly fast to boot games, we don't want the player to have to boot the game, see what's up, boot the game, see what's up," Cerny says. "Multiplayer game servers will provide the console with the set of joinable activities in real time. Single-player games will provide information like what missions you could do and what rewards you might receive for completing them—and all of those choices will be visible in the UI. As a player you just jump right into whatever you like."

He says this like he says many other things: knowing he'll fend off any follow-up question that ventures beyond what he wants to talk about. Like, What does the UI actually look like? Or, How big will the SSD be? Or even, Is that a microphone? Which is exactly what I ask when Cerny hands me a prototype of the next-generation controller, an unlabeled matte-black doohickey that looks an awful lot like the PS4's DualShock 4. After all, there's a little hole on it, and a recently published patent points to Sony developing a voice-driven AI assistant for the PlayStation. But all I get from Cerny is, "We'll talk more about it another time." ("We file patents on a regular basis," a spokesperson tells me later, "and like many companies, some of those patents end up in our products, and some don’t.")

The controller (which history suggests will one day be called the DualShock 5, though Cerny just says "it doesn't have a name yet") does have some features Cerny's more interested in acknowledging. One is "adaptive triggers" that can offer varying levels of resistance to make shooting a bow and arrow feel like the real thing—the tension increasing as you pull the arrow back—or make a machine gun feel far different from a shotgun. It also boasts haptic feedback far more capable than the rumble motor console gamers are used to, with highly programmable voice-coil actuators located in the left and right grips of the controller.

Combined with an improved speaker on the controller, the haptics can enable some astonishing effects. First, I play through a series of short demos, courtesy of the same Japan Studio team that designed PlayStation VR's Astro Bot Rescue Mission. In the most impressive, I ran a character through a platform level featuring a number of different surfaces, all of which gave distinct—and surprisingly immersive—tactile experiences. Sand felt slow and sloggy; mud felt slow and soggy. On ice, a high-frequency response made the thumbsticks really feel like my character was gliding. Jumping into a pool, I got a sense of the resistance of the water; on a wooden bridge, a bouncy sensation.

Next, a version of Gran Turismo Sport that Sony had ported over to a PS5 devkit—a devkit that on quick glance looks a lot like the one Gizmodo reported on last week. (The company refused to comment on questions about how the devkit's form factor might compare to what's being considered for the consumer product.) Driving on the border between the track and the dirt, I could feel both surfaces. Doing the same thing on the same track using a DualShock 4 on a PS4, that sensation disappeared entirely. It wasn't that the old style rumble feedback paled in comparison, it was that there was no feedback at all. User tests found that rumble feedback was too tiring to use continuously, so the released version of GT Sport simply didn't use it.

That difference has been a long time coming. Product manager Toshi Aoki says the controller team has been working on haptic feedback since the DualShock 4 was in development. They even could have included it in PS4 Pro, the mid-cycle refresh—though doing so would have created a "split experience" for gamers, so the feature suite was held for the next generation. There are some other small improvements over the DualShock 4. The next-gen controller uses a USB Type-C connector for charging (and you can play through the cable as well). Its larger-capacity battery and haptics motors make the new controller a bit heavier than the DualShock 4, but Aoki says it will still come in a bit lighter than the current Xbox controller "with batteries in it."

How game studios will use all these new features—from previously known ones like the SSD and ray-tracing acceleration to newer ones like the controller and real-time UI—is still a matter of some speculation. While a number of studios already had their PS5 devkits, the controller prototypes began rolling out much more recently, and no one is ready to name specific titles they're developing for the PS5. "We're working on a big one right now," says Marco Thrush, president of Bluepoint Games, which most recently worked on last year's PS4 remake of Shadow of the Colossus. "I'll let you figure out the rest."

That doesn't mean they're not exploring. "The SSD has me really excited," Thrush says. "You don't need to do gameplay hacks anymore to artificially slow players down—lock them behind doors, anything like that. Back in the cartridge days, games used to load instantly; we're kind of going back to what consoles used to be."

"I could be really specific and talk about experimenting with ambient occlusion techniques, or the examination of ray-traced shadows," says Laura Miele, chief studio officer for EA. "More generally, we’re seeing the GPU be able to power machine learning for all sorts of really interesting advancements in the gameplay and other tools." Above all, Miele adds, it's the speed of everything that will define the next crop of consoles. "We're stepping into the generation of immediacy. In mobile games, we expect a game to download in moments, and to be just a few taps from jumping right in. Now we’re able to tackle that in a big way."

That sort of tackle gets a lot easier, Jim Ryan knows, when a burden has been lifted from your shoulders. So say hello to the PlayStation 5, officially. Maybe one of these days we'll all learn what the thing actually looks like.

[dr. b 492]

I guess "PlayStation 4 U" didn't do well with focus groups, so PS 5 it is

[Vic Boss 612]

Now with Blast Processing

[Psycho666Soldier 283]

 

[MT 915]

"A quick update on backward compatibility – With all of the amazing games in PS4’s catalog, we’ve devoted significant efforts to enable our fans to play their favorites on PS5. We believe that the overwhelming majority of the 4,000+ PS4 titles will be playable on PS5. We’re expecting backward compatible titles will run at a boosted frequency on PS5 so that they can benefit from higher or more stable frame rates and potentially higher resolutions. We’re currently evaluating games on a title-by-title basis to spot any issues that need adjustment from the original software developers. In his presentation, Mark Cerny provided a snapshot into the Top 100 most-played PS4 titles, demonstrating how well our backward compatibility efforts are going. We have already tested hundreds of titles and are preparing to test thousands more as we move toward launch. We will provide updates on backward compatibility, along with much more PS5 news, in the months ahead. Stay tuned!"

 

Source

[webhead 519]

Good, sounds like it's not going to roll out slow as fuck like 360 games did but basically they're checking everything real quick and then making fixes or planning to make them when needed.

[Nick 38]

The PS+ Games for April have been announced:

• Uncharted 4: A Thief's End
• Dirt Rally 2.0

[MT 915]

Dualshock 5 design has been revealed

 

 

 

[Vic Boss 612]

Looks like you can strap it to your backpack and blast off to outer space with it

[Psycho666Soldier 283]

That shape better have some better grip or something, because the PS4 controller was pretty much perfect.

 

I also concur that it would look much better being all black.

[Mera'din 307]

6 hours ago, Psycho666Soldier said:

That shape better have some better grip or something, because the PS4 controller was pretty much perfect.

 

I also concur that it would look much better being all black.

 

^ This.

 

It looks like a modified design of what they originally said was going to be the PS3 controller (the weird batarang looking thing). This looks bulkier than I would want it to be, but maybe it'll be okay. Hard to tell how big it actually is without a comparison but it looks more like an XBox controller than a Playstation one as is.

[webhead 519]

That is what it is.  It looks weird because it is more XBOX controller shaped.  I knew something seemed off.  I don't HATE it but I do hope they make an all black one (or black/red ).

[Psycho666Soldier 283]

Of all the things changing, they didn't fix the most vital thing:

 

 

Careful setting your controller down, kids.

[webhead 519]

>setting the controller down ever

Pfffft

[dr. b 492]

I like the white with black style better than all black... but setting aside colours, it does look weird in shape. My first thought was the Xbox controller. 

[Psycho666Soldier 283]

Honestly, I just the design looks odd with the alternatives.  I can't quite put my finger on it, but something about it looks tacky.  I think another color other than white, or making black the dominant color, would be solid.

 

But yeah, ditto on the Xbox thing.  That was the very first thing that came to mind, and when you already have one of the best controller designs ever, why alter it so much, especially towards something that has historically been playing catch-up as far as comfortable controllers.

 

Otherwise, my only real concerns when it comes to controller design is comfort and a good d-pad.

[Vic Boss 612]

One of the XBox controllers (the Elite?) has widely been considered the best controller so they're probs just getting as close to that as they can

[Psycho666Soldier 283]

That's not the Elite one from 360, right?  I still think that one is garbage.

[Vic Boss 612]

Nop, apparently it's the one on the Xbox One

[webhead 519]

https://www.xbox.com/en-US/accessories/controllers/elite-wireless-controller-series-2

 

This is the one you're talking about?  It's also hideously expensive so there's that.  Lol.

[Psycho666Soldier 283]

Jesus, that thing is almost 200.  

[Vic Boss 612]

Ye, I think it's that one.

[Galeigh 308]

I also like the white. Wanna see how the console looks tho.

[Mera'din 307]

The only thing I can think of as a reason for the bulkier design is because of all the haptic response vibration shit they're supposed to be doing with it. Which hoenstly, as interesting as that sounds, I don't know that I care enough for them to alter the feel of the controller THAT much for it. Hopefully you can just synch a PS4 controller to the thing as an alternative if it feels too weird.  

[webhead 519]

3 hours ago, Mera'din said:

The only thing I can think of as a reason for the bulkier design is because of all the haptic response vibration shit they're supposed to be doing with it. Which hoenstly, as interesting as that sounds, I don't know that I care enough for them to alter the feel of the controller THAT much for it. Hopefully you can just synch a PS4 controller to the thing as an alternative if it feels too weird.  

This is about the response I expected.

 

We'll see once we get it in our hands.  USB-C and a much better battery (supposedly) are really all I needed to see.  The battery life on the PS4 controller is garbage compared to others.  Gotta say though I kinda wish they'd done what Microsoft did with letting you just use batteries.  Sell it to us with an integrated battery that can be removed and replaced with regular/rechargeable batteries.  Was probably never going to happen but would have been nice.

[Mera'din 307]

I never had much issue with battery life in mine initially. However, they did seem to start losing charge life a lot faster than others. All my PS3 controllers are still fine, but I've legitimately had to buy replacement batteries for 2 PS4 controllers at this point and switch them out which would be fine except you can only find cheap 3rd party replacements that don't work worth shit.

[MT 915]

 

PS5 SSD "far ahead" of high-end PCs

[Galeigh 308]

They say that every time and every time it's wrong.

[Mera'din 307]

That's because it's probably true at the time. For like 5 min. And by the time they reveal the actual specs (let alone launch it), they've fallen back behind like a year prior. XD

[MT 915]

 

[Vic Boss 612]

So it's Assassin's Creed: Japan + Infamous Alignment system?

 

Dual audio?

 

The VA of Zoro from One Piece is in it?

 

I was worried because there was reports that there was no fast travel or waypoints but that just showed the game has both.

 

Gonna be an A+ bargain bin pick-up

[MT 915]

Here's direct feed footage of what Geoff Keighley showed a few days ago on his Summer Games Fest thing, all supposedly running realtime on a PS5. It's basically a showcase of Unreal Engine 5. 

 

 

[Mera'din 307]

PS5 event is going right now. Some interesting things to see (NEW SPIDERMAN) but haven't seen the console itself yet.

 

They sure spent a lot of effort making like 2 dozen different ways of animating stylized variations of the PS logo their button logo thing though. XD

 

Edit: Showed system at the end. After like 3 mins of overblown obfuscation. Definitely went for more of a style angle than XBox. Looks fancy. Like some sort of modern art fixture or something. Will be a "digital edition" with no disk drive. No idea how much that will effect the price. If the amazon UK leak thing is to be believed there will be a 1TB and 2TB option with the latter being around $750. No date shown either. I'm sure they'll put all of that in a press release or through interviews before much longer since this was all about hype and not the disappointing reality to follow.

[Mera'din 307]

EDIT: Since I fucked up posting the trailers the first time and didn't want to kill anyones device, I reposted all the trailers properly with spoiler tags on my next post and deleted the ones here.