If I were an investor, I’d be worried they aren’t listening to the
wallets with legsconsumers.Most of the ‘‘smart money’’ is just in it for the short term. Get all the value possible out of their position and be the first out. The bagholders will be the same wallets with legs, us, who hold all that shit in our pension funds, IRAs and whatever.
We are very much in a post sustainability mindset when it comes to the investment market. Enshitification is just scrapping the bottom of the barrel to keep the numbers good for another quarter.
I’m shocked
Well… That goes against the theory of economics, Sony will learn the hard way, like they did with memory stick.
I’m starting to think consoles are cooked. The massive jumps in technology between console generations have turned into small incremental steps. The game quality has dropped (independent games and a few others are exceptions). PC’s used to be slow to boot and load a game vs consoles and also required updates to download, but now PCs are quick and updates are mostly automatic. Consoles used to be nice to just turn on and play without thinking about all that other stuff, yet now they require downloads and updates as well. Loading times aren’t much better either. Consoles used to also be very cheap compared to PCs, but now with the “next gen” being around $1000 the price difference isn’t that huge anymore - especially when you factor in modular updates that can be done to a PC to cheaply extend it’s life. One of the last hold outs for consoles were physical games and now they’re taking that away too.
While I don’t think that the next console generation will flop entirely, I do strongly suspect that it won’t be as successful as previous ones have been and will lead to a shift where consoles are just cheap streaming boxes that support a subscription to a cloud gaming service, which will eventually be replaced by a single device that can connect to whichever services you want.
PC gaming will be similar for most AAA titles (and in fact will be one of the devices that can support these services), though indie devs will hold out until the requirement of owning a PC leaves only a tiny market.
That’s an interesting take and I can see things moving in that direction. The problem for the console makers is at that point, anyone can make a dumb box to stream with very cheap hardware.
That means the fight will be over exclusives. It’s going to look like streaming services, huh? $15/mo for PS network, $15/mo for Xbox network… Yuck. At that point I’ll stick to indie games locally on PC.
I think you’re underestimating the number of people who just don’t want to take on the secondary hobby of building a PC in the first place.
Cyberpower. iBuyPower. Even Starforge. There’s a bunch of builders out there to remove that “scariness.”
It’s a personal choice, but if they were willing to spend 5-10 minutes to download something like Bazzite and click the 10 total clicks to install it, you’d achieve a console-like experience too.
The information is out there, it’s just not forcefed to you because of a massive marketing budget.
Considering building a PC is too much, how do you figure that they will week out Linux, choose a distro, and successfully install it.
I built my first PC 6 years ago, before PS5 was released.
My PC can still play new release AAA games at high quality graphics and probably will for a number of years still… when it starts to slack a couple hundred $ and it will be good as new.
Was pricey up front but in the end better quality, more choice, and longer lasting.
I’m curious what PlayStation fans would think about changing from a disc plus download, like it is now, to a cartridge like Switch uses?
I think it would be a thousand times easier to get Sony on board with that idea.
What difference would it make?
I’m struggling to understand what this would achieve as well. They’re objectively more expensive to manufacture.
Well there’s an argument that plays right into their hands. Nothing at all is even cheaper.
Whose side are you on here, anyway?
I’m pro physical media, but real physical media, not not key cards, not code in a box, not requiring an always on connection, not full base game but DLC is a code.
I think all games should be able to work in perpetuity without any external validation or activation across it’s entire life.
Hope that clears things up.
If that’s the case then I hate to tell you that the war left without you, like 15-20 years ago. And we, consumers, lost.
There is/was a time that game size was way bigger than media could conveniently handle. I think we are or will be past that soonish.
I’m not saying you’re wrong, I just think all the outrage could be better applied.
im never buying a sony title again.
Last Of Us 3 would be the only digital game I’d still buy for my PS5.
For the rest, no disc, no buy as I’m moving to Steam/Gog anyway.
“Last of us” :/
They know you won’t leave, you’re all junkies at this point.
I haven’t bought a physical game in years. But I also haven’t owned a PS since 2 so fuck Playstation.
The PS5 probably won’t see any noticeable decrease in game sales, because pretty much everyone who wants one already has one, but I’ll be interested to see if gamers call Sony’s bluff for the PS6 or not.
I don’t have much faith in them turning down the PS6 if the calls to boycott Hogwarts Legacy is anything to go by.
It doesn’t even have to be a morals-based boycott like Harry Potter.
Practically, just as an amoral consooomer, there’s no reason to purchase a non-upgradable, barely-customizable gaming device which is confined to Playstation’s walled garden when you could buy an upgradable, highly customizable gaming device that you can do whatever you want with.
My primary console since my teenage years has always been a Playstation. That will change probably before the PS6 even comes out. I have a PS5, I probably won’t sell it just in case of any interesting exclusives. (Lmao, I know, magical thinking, considering there are still only 6 such games, none of which appeal to me enough to buy them). I’m planning to get a PC and buy everything I can on there instead.
Some reminders of Playstation’s bullshit other than just physical media:
- Removed the ability for you to back up your PS5 game saves to USB, forcing you to buy PS+ or risk losing your save data permanently if something goes wrong.
- Discontinued free multiplayer services, ostensibly to improve the security of their network after North Korea hacked their shit for releasing a movie about assassinating Kim Jong Un (or Kim Jong Il, I don’t remember). Morally, idgaf about mocking North Korea, but economically, I do give a fuck about paying a corporation $80 per year to cover their operating expenses for doing so.
- Discontinued most forms of customization. PS3 and PSP could install full-on user-made themes, or you could make your own, even customizing things like the sound the interface makes when you scroll through it. Now you literally cannot even set a proper background.
- Refused to manufacture their controllers with hall effect joysticks (which prevent controllers from developing stick drift). Both ridiculously-expensive PS5 controllers I bought developed stick drift, and I’m not particularly rough with them or anything, not at all prone to gamer rage lol. I bought a third-party controller (SZ-5005B) with hall effect joysticks and haven’t had any issues since.
I’m sure there’s tons more too. Also the PS5 interface just generally sucks shit, like sometimes my Media Gallery is on my homepage and sometimes it’s not despite me not changing any settings, or just other stupid design choices.
I think a lot less people care about consoles now. People are moving over to mobile, not necessarily solely Android or iOS, but stuff like Switch or Steamdeck.
We’ll see. Boycotting a $1000+ digital only console will be easier than boycotting a $70 game. Will millions buy it? Of course. But shareholders don’t just want SOME of the money, they want ALL of the money. It needs to sell many tens of millions.
Are there analog console titles?
Pinball?
I can’t think of any.
The closest I can think of are games distributed on cassette for 80’s microcomputers like the C64 but I can’t think of anything you’d call a “console” that accepted those.
Fiduciary responsibility or not, Sony is a big company with their fingers dipped in a lot of stuff, and decisions have a lot of inertia. The moment we learned they retooled some factories it was clear this has been in the making for a while and they will not back off. Sony (or at least the playstation division) is compromised and we need to focus on alternative solutions.
Meh, most games are available on PC, and the exclusives that aren’t will come to emulators eventually. It’s worth paying extra for a PC that can run anything you like, including games, especially when you can install Linux and cut a ton of bullshit out of your life.
Got fed u with the fucking stick drift and Sony’s bullshit. Plugged my Rog ally that was taking dust to the TV, put bazzite on it. Now I can play what I want with a 20$ controller.
Playstation can go to hell.
I’m reluctant to buy any digital games on anything but Steam at this point, and that’s because Valve has begrudingly earned my trust over 20 years of use. I do wonder what plans are in place for the point at which Gabe isn’t around to steer Valve.
I have zero confidence in any other game related corporation to have a long term view in mind, and especially not one in which the platform is designed to be consumer friendly.
I would trust GOG too. At least as long as they let you download offline installers.
Putting your trust on any company is already a mistake. The only correct answer is GoG, or other similar DRM free distributions. You don’t have to trust them, because it doesn’t matter what they might pivot to: you still have your downloaded games, and they still work without any connectivity.
Also, when you end up passing away, guess what happens to your steam library? You cannot pass it on to anyone else.
Idk bought 3 games on Steam just the other day and all three came with pop up when I went to install them to let me know that I was only License to use them.
While I bought 3 games on GOG same day and they only asked if I wanted to donate to their fund to keep games DRM free and letting me know that I own all my games I purchased.
Valve might be going to shit.
Is there anyway to backup our games purchased on Steam?
It’s a license to own a copy of the game because you’re not buying the actual game.
A license is ownership. That’s how all software has always worked, same as music and movies.
What remains to be seen is if courts will enforce the ownership in the light of the anti-consumer practices by publishers and developers removing people’s access to that which they have purchased.
This is a great video explaining everything from the guy who started Stop Killing Games.
Is there anyway to backup our games purchased on Steam?
Yes, you can copy the install folders for them. Some can be modified to run without Steam fairly easily, some will need more involved cracks. Generally it’s easier to just redownload the whole game cracked and move your save files over.
Do you or anyone have steps for those cracks. I definitely want to play and keep my games without needing Valve.
You could use something like SteamAutoCracker (SAC) or Goldberg, both are available on Github. A lot of smaller indie games don’t have any DRM, so you can play them without steam or on another computer once you’ve copied the files. For games that have 3rd party DRM like denuvo, you’re better off just downloading a cracked version of a game if it exists, since that DRM is borderline impossible to remove on your own
You can download installers from Fitgirl.
You want the Goldberg Emulator, which is basically a replacement for the steam_api DLL that lets you play those games offline.
Mind you, not all games using Steam DRM will work with it, but many if not most will by just replacing the game’s steam_api DLL with the one from the emulator.
Alternatively, just prefer GOG over Steam for games available on both stores and make sure you download the offline installers from GOG and back them up - GOG itself is not entirely immune to the kind of legal shenanigans that would force them to delist a game from their store and remove them from a buyer’s games collection but, unlike Steam, their setup makes it impossible for such legal orders to stop you from playing that game if you already have the offline installer.
