PlayStation 5 Official Topic - Coming November 2020

[Ryannumber1gamer]

As I said before, Motobug will be streaming the event for SSMB members who wanna watch it together.

[Jango]

I'll be there! I'll have a day off on thursday (no sneaky watching the stream while at work this time)

I want Horizon, Crash, Dad of Boi and my man the Spider.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

Here's a quick and easy recap of everything shown off, for anyone who missed it and just wants the quick and easy highlights instead of watching a full hour stream.

• First things first - the new slogan has been revealed - Play Has No Limits
• GTA V is launching in the second half of 2021 with an enhanced port to PS5. A standalone version of GTA Online is also being developed that will be absolutely free for PS Plus members. The free version needs to be gotten within a three month window though. GTA Online will begin receiving brand new content exclusively to this port.

• One of the first PlayStation 5 Launch Titles is revealed - Spider-Man: Miles Morales - the next chapter of the series that focuses in on Miles' time as Spider-Man in this universe. It's not sure if this is a spin-off to the original Spidey PS4, or a sequel. Release date is Winter 2020

• Next up was the new game in the Gran Turismo series - Gran Turismo 7 - the game showcases new features such as a thing called GT Town, and showcases some of the new gameplay. There's no release date given.

• Following this - Ratchet & Clank Rift Apart was the next game announced - the first game in the series since 2016, this game seems to be a sequel to the original Ratchet series (I.E - Ratchet and Clank, up to Into the Nexus). Several of the events reference other games in the series, and Dr. Nefarious is the villain again. There's new gameplay involving rifts to travel around areas, and some brand new gunplay mechanics. The story seems to be Nefarious using these rifts to take over other dimensions, including one with a new female Lombax.

• Next up is Project Athia - a brand new project being developed and designed by Square-Enix specifically for the PS5 hardware.

• The next game revealed was the first indie game in the showcase - Stray by BlueTwelve Studio, a game set in a futuristic city lost of all life, where you play as a stray cat who must find their way back home alongside a drone that you befriend along the way.

• Following this, we were given a full breakdown of the features that are currently inside of the DualSense controller. 

• These include:
• Haptic Feedback
• Adaptive Triggers
• USB-C Port
• Motion Sensor
• Headset Jack (with 3D Audio)
• Built-In Microphone and Integrated Speaker

After that, it was back to the game reveals, starting with...

• Returnal - a new game featuring a mixture of action, rougelike, and third person shooters - this is going to show off the adaptive triggers with a gameplay style where you can change firing modes by using one adaptive trigger. The world will also change after each death as you fight through this hostile planet.

• Next up was one that was totally unexpected surprise - a brand new game set in the Little Big Planet universe! A full on 3D platforming spinoff created by Sumo Digital where you go on a big adventure either solo or co-op with Sackboy. 

• After that was Destruction All-Stars - a game created by a studio called Lucid - you enter a thunderdome in London, and use a variety of different characters and cars in order to win demolition matches. It looks like you can drive, or run around the arena on foot as well.

• The next game was another indie title - this one being Kena: Bridge of Spirits - an interesting action-adventure game based around discovery and exploring, with combat that looks like a mixture of Horizon Zero Dawn, and God of War.

• Next up was another indie game - Goodbye, Volcano High which...honestly - the trailer gave no indication as to what it is, but according to the PS Blog, it's going to be an end-of-era love story, and generally an adventure game, which deals with the end of civilisation, and the choices you make as you inch closer towards the end. The game is set in the final year of a group of dinosaurs about to graduate from high school, and the choices they make.

• Next up was a trailer for Oddworld: Soulstorm - a re-imagining of Abe's Exodus that's aiming to be what the devs originally intended - the game follows New n Tasty, and will be making usage of several of the PS5's features to enhance the game on PS5, compared to other platforms.

• We then had Ghostwire: Tokyo - releasing in 2021 - you go up against supernatural threats that are swarming and flooding through the streets of Tokyo, after 99% of the population mysteriously vanishes. 

 

• We then had what seems to be another launch title - Jett: The Far Shore - a narrative-driven adventure game where you visit and explore a oceanic planet. 

• We then got a reveal trailer of the gameplay in the first known PS5 launch title - Godfall. It looks to be an hack and slash action game, from what I see, and looks a bit similar to God of War.

• The next game shown off was another indie title - Solar Ash, where you explore a huge open world filled with mysterious enemies, and a lot of enemy encounters.

• Up next was a rather big title - we got the unveiling of Hitman 3, the conclusion to the Hitman series started up back in 2016. 

• Another surprise announcement - a new Astrobot game is being developed to showcase the features of the PS5, and the DualSense controller. Named AstroBot's Playroom, it's going to be an interesting spinoff to the VR title.

• Another indie title - Little Devil Inside - a game where you are a butler in the Victorian era, who is also charged with going on increasingly more insane and utterly dangerous missions for your employer. 

• NBA 2K21 was shown off which was...lol. Yeah, not even any gameplay here. It's a launch title (surprising no one)

 

• The next indie title - another launch title for the PS5 - and made by the Octodad developers - Bugsnax - another narrative driven adventure game.

• Up next was another major title, and one that many had been speculating and excited about - Demon Souls (the predecessor to Dark Souls) receiving a remake by both Bluepoint Games, and Japan Studio.

•  A super cool FPS announced by the same team who gave us Dishonoured - Deathloop - a game where two assassins are locked in a time loop to battle each other over and over again, and a party has been created with the specific goal of killing you, you learn more about the loop every time you die, and use it to proceed. You're free to use any approach you want to complete missions and go at your own pace. Confirmed to be a launch title as well. 

• Up next was a title a lot had been thinking would be announced - Resident Evil 8: Village. It promises to be the conclusion to Chris' story, and is set in what appears to be an old-time village, filled with werewolves. It's set for release in 2021.

• Following Resi 8, we got a brand-new Capcom IP called Pragmata, coming in 2022. Not much is known about it as of yet.

• Wrapping up the game announcements, we got the most obvious reveal, since it was already leaked - Horizon: Forbidden West. The story follows Aloy after the events of the original game, as she travels America in this futuristic world, forced to encounter new dangers and new enemies as she does so.

And finally, we come to the most known reveal of the night, due to how many memes are floating around it as is - the design and features of the PS5 itself. 

• There's two different models - a regular model, and a digital model (I.E - no disc drive)
• HD Camera
• Pulse 3D Hardphones
• Media Remote
• The console can be stood up, or sat down on it's side, the stand works for both.

So with that, our current PS5 library from the reveals is looking like this.

Launch:

• Godfall
• Spider-Man: Miles Morales
• Bugsnax
• Jett: The Far Shore
• Astro's Playroom (Comes preinstalled on the PS5)
• Fortnite
• Deathloop
• Observer: System Redux
• Cyberpunk 2077 (Likely, at least)
• NBA 2K21
• Outriders
• WRC9
• Madden 21
• Assassin's Creed: Valhalia 

2021: 

• Hitman 3 (January)
• Resi 8
• Ghostwire Tokyo
• Solar Ash
• Goodbye Volcano High
• Stray
• Metal: Hellslinger
• Lord of the Rings: Gollum
• GTA V

2022: 

• Pragmata

No Release Year:

• Horizon Forbidden West
• Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart
• Destiny 2
• Warframe
• Rainbow Six: Siege
• Gran Turismo 7
• Demon's Souls
• Project Athia
• Returnal
• Sackboy: A Big Adventure
• Destruction All-Stars
• Little Devil Inside
• Kena: Bridge of Spirits
• Oddworld: Soulstorm
• Chivalry 2
• Paradise Lost
• Dirt 5
• Chorus
• Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines

[Wraith]

This has been on my mind since it ended. This is probably Sony's best presentation even if it doesn't beat out the amount of big budget "hype" reveals from their previous ones. This is a more diverse lineup of games that I'm used to from them. Almost every trailer had a gameplay segment in contrast to their more pitiful showings. 

A Miles Morales Spider-Man game was a treat I didn't expect for years. I suspect it's more of the same considering it's out so soon, I'll gladly take more of Spider-Man PS4 with my favorite character in modern marvel canon at the helm.


I was excited at the prospect of PS5 basically erasing loading screens from the equation but I didn't expect games to really do anything fun with it for a few years. Sony, instead, lead out the gate with this.





It usually takes a while for a new console to justify it's existence for me but this got the gears turning in terms of what's possible now right off the bat.

Sackboy and Astrobot joined this game to lock in 3 new 3D platforms for next gen from SONY. They were the last people I really expected to back the genre but here we are. 

Hitman 3, Deathloop, and Demon souls were other highlights that I'm going to pick up for sure, but my best of show has to go to Kena. Probably not as groundbreaking as the bigger games shown off but a Zelda/Avatar esque action adventure game set in a uniquely beautiful fantasy world with tight hack n slash mechanics, platforming and puzzle solving is completely, utterly my shit and I'll get it day one unless it's terrible somehow.

My only concern about the machine is the price. If that was going to be good news I bet it would have been revealed today. I don't mind waiting a year or two too much, but I've also never wanted a Playstation this bad out of the gate...ever?

 

[KHCast]

53 minutes ago, Windy and Ripply said:

I was excited at the prospect of PS5 basically erasing loading screens from the equation but I didn't expect games to really do anything fun with it for a few years. Sony, instead, lead out the gate with this.

I’m still gonna be reserved on this claim until more games show this off. I’m still a bit cynical this could end up being another “play games as they download” situation for a majority of the titles.

 

also I said this on twitter but I’ll just post what I said here in regards to the digital only version of the console, cause it being “cheaper” is offset by a lot of things to take into account still

“If you want to make a Digital only system to mimic PC’s, then mimic PC’s customer friendly practices like not dumping everything on the player to download, or offering fair and reasonable refund policies, or not having spotty servers, or not having paid online “

the company notorious for dodgy online services and servers(to the point hackers were able to get in and get some customers information including credit card numbers) I just can’t trust with a always online needed, digital version of a games console. Especially when there doesn’t seem to be a immediate as advantage for anyone that doesn’t have the fastest and most reliable internet, and even for them...

[Wraith]

I think it's a completely valid option to provide a digital only box. A lot of people I know have gone digital only as of last gen and most of my PS4 library is digital. 

I just think the price difference should be appropriate, as losing access to blu rays and used games are pretty significant features to sell a console without. 

[KHCast]

16 minutes ago, Windy and Ripply said:

 

I think it's a completely valid option to provide a digital only box.

 

Fundamentally it’s a fine idea. It’s just Sony hasn’t really in my eyes fostered much trust or justified it given their track record. Trusting a game company because hype is never smart especially when they haven’t ever really Fostered that trust for the reasons I listed. They wanna make PC’s without the PC’s customer friendliness /convenience

 

as a whole, digital still has a lot of hurdles before it can even hope to become the standard that kills off the current way we distribute and play games on consoles 

[Ryannumber1gamer]

The only issue I see with a digital box is the pricing. Not of the box itself, but the games. We still live in an era where despite the fact that printing the discs and producing the cases and all are eliminated, for some godforsaken reason - digital games are still more expensive.

It's always just consoles too for some reason. Cyberpunk and Avengers are both £50 on Steam - the same as it costs for the physical copies, yet on PlayStation, it tends to be £55, if not £60. Digital licenses should not be more expensive than getting a game digitally. 

[Tornado]

It usually costs more on consoles to buy games digitally, and Sony in particular tends to refuse to drop prices of older games. Nintendo admittedly does it too, but the difference is that games on Nintendo platforms have always held their value better, whereas games on PSN can cost $40 or 50 after 9 months when you can wander into Wal-Mart or Gamestop and get it for 20 or 30.

 

 

 

 

 

Sony was also the one who made it a point to make PR materials directly mocking Microsoft about the disaster of the XBone's initial launch information.

[Wraith]

7 minutes ago, Tornado said:

It usually costs more on consoles to buy games digitally, and Sony in particular tends to refuse to drop prices of older games. Nintendo admittedly does it too, but the difference is that games on Nintendo platforms have always held their value better, whereas games on PSN can cost $40 or 50 after 9 months when you can wander into Wal-Mart or Gamestop and get it for 20 or 30.

 

I regularly find the vast majority of Playstation exclusives on sale on the store. A lot of them have been permanently $20 for a while now because of the Playstation Hits line. I'm not sure where this is coming from.

[KHCast]

2 hours ago, Ryannumber1gamer said:

The only issue I see with a digital box is the pricing

Not their notoriously shitty servers? I am surprised people are willing to throw their trust in Sony on this STILL after multiple fuck ups on their end in regards to their servers and services. Again like I said, they want to mimic PC’s, with no PC player first convenience. That’s a pretty big “issue” 

[Ryannumber1gamer]

Just now, KHCast said:

Not their notoriously shitty servers? I am surprised people are willing to throw their trust in Sony on this STILL after multiple fuck ups on their end in regards to their servers and services. Again like I said, they want to mimic PC’s, with no PC player first convenience. That’s a pretty big “issue” 

I haven't had much of an issue of PSN's servers impeding my ability to download games, so that's not the main issue on my mind. 

Don't twist my words to make it sound like I'm just randomly putting trust into Sony when I'm against the digital box anyways. Servers are an issue, but not the core one to me. To me, pricing has and always will be the problem with making consoles replicate PCs, and especially when it comes to an all digital marketplace. Any money you save getting a cheaper model will be offset by paying far more for digital games.

[KHCast]

26 minutes ago, Ryannumber1gamer said:

To me, pricing has and always will be the problem with making consoles replicate PCs

It’s /A/ problem but not the only problem imo when it comes to console distributors attempts at making systems that can compete with the PC market. If they really wanted to compete with it in my eyes, they’d offer more flexible digital refund policies, or drop the whole paid online, those two in my book are the things holding a all digital future back for console owners from becoming a convenient accepted norm. That and internet providers not being ass and being super selective and snobbish with what areas of the world get decent internet, which makes it a middle finger to many to make a all digital always online needed version of the system the cheaper one, but that’s another beast entirely. 
 

Following those two main concerns I’d say pricing of games, more stable servers, and not dumping all data on the player to download, should be things addressed for sure, cause realistically, those 3 I don’t see changing for a while. Especially price. EA at one point said games needed to be cheaper, a lot of game devs have said that (while saying their own game NEEDED the 60 dollar piece tag) and when these companies make their own digital storefronts...oh look, the prices typically shoot up or stay the same. They don’t have to change the price point, and they know it, so they won’t. Their games still sell incredibly, and they get on top of the base sales all the extra monetization. I sadly do not see prices being made better in this coming Gen.

[Tornado]

1 hour ago, Windy and Ripply said:

I regularly find the vast majority of Playstation exclusives on sale on the store. A lot of them have been permanently $20 for a while now because of the Playstation Hits line. I'm not sure where this is coming from.

5 minutes of Google searching reveals:

Gran Turismo Sport PSN: $20

Gran Turismo Sport Wal-Mart: $10

Gran Turismo Sport Gamestop: $10

 

Killzone Shadowfall PSN: $20

Killzone Shadowfall Wal-Mart: $10

Killzone Shadowfall Gamestop: $10

 

Uncharted Lost Legacy PSN: On Sale for $10 from $20

Uncharted Lost Legacy Wal-Mart: "On Sale" for $10 from $20, but the price will most likely never actually go up to $20 again because the $10 price is effectively a permanent sale until inventory is gone because that's usually how Wal-Mart handles sales of software after a few years.

 

 

 

We can play "compare the anecdotes" all day if you like, but it's certainly never seemed like Sony cuts prices for games at the rates that brick and mortar stores do for the same games in the same time period (and they definitely don't for Gran Turismo games); and that's when they still nominally need to compete with them despite an extra ~$10-20 of built-in profit, which is something they don't have to do with an all-digital console in the first place.

[Sean]

An all-digital variant just screams to me "yeah they're totally gonna phase out the standard edition in a few years." Unlike with PC I've always been extremely wary about buying digital games on consoles due to how much control companies have over your account and where you can buy your games. Plus even if the digital variant is cheaper I can't imagine that someone who buys a lot of games would be saving any money in the long run.

[KHCast]

I’m also slightly concerned about game preservation going forward if physical game consoles die out. Cause we’ve seen how many of these companies “respect” games as art form, and they’ve often taken down titles for one reason or another(even if they’re super petty *coughkonamicough*), so removing the physical aspect of game ownership worries me since that only benefits the companies and their control over the market. 

[Wraith]

34 minutes ago, Tornado said:

 

 

We can play "compare the anecdotes" all day if you like, but it's certainly never seemed like Sony cuts prices for games at the rates that brick and mortar stores do for the same games in the same time period (and they definitely don't for Gran Turismo games); and that's when they still nominally need to compete with them despite an extra ~$10-20 of built-in profit, which is something they don't have to do with an all-digital console in the first place.

A quick Google search doesn't tell the the whole story(my quick Google search tell me God of War is 5 dollars cheaper on PAN rn and I picked up RE7 for 10 dollars cheaper the other night.) . In my experience actually owning Sony hardware the prices for tend to seasaw between the two since games as little as a few months old tend to go on sale frequently on all store fronts. This isn't to argue against the idea that digital games should be consistently cheaper, btw. I believe they should be. It's just not the difference you're making it sound like and that's well worth highlighting  

 

 It's a huge difference from your original post, which compares Sony to Nintendo in regards to never dropping the price of their original games. I've passed on the majority of Switch exclusives this generation because of the high price points and lack of sales but I've always been able to wait 6-9 months on a Sony exclusive and get it for cheap off of the store. Sometimes you have to wait for a sale but those are frequent. 

[Tornado]

8 minutes ago, Windy and Ripply said:

It's a huge difference from your original post, which compares Sony to Nintendo in regards to never dropping the price of their original games.

That's not what my original post actually said, since I compared Sony's mindset to Nintendo's but noted that the prices don't drop as fast as brick and mortar seem to as opposed to not dropping at all, but I'm glad you're so good at finding sales.

 

[Wraith]

26 minutes ago, Tornado said:

That's not what my original post actually said, since I compared Sony's mindset to Nintendo's but noted that the prices don't drop as fast as brick and mortar seem to as opposed to not dropping at all, but I'm glad you're so good at finding sales.

 

If the prices are dropping at all, then the mindsets can't be similar, since Breath of the Wild is 3 years old and still hanging around it's launch price point. 

 

 

53 minutes ago, Sean said:

An all-digital variant just screams to me "yeah they're totally gonna phase out the standard edition in a few years." Unlike with PC I've always been extremely wary about buying digital games on consoles due to how much control companies have over your account and where you can buy your games. Plus even if the digital variant is cheaper I can't imagine that someone who buys a lot of games would be saving any money in the long run.

 

39 minutes ago, KHCast said:

I’m also slightly concerned about game preservation going forward if physical game consoles die out. Cause we’ve seen how many of these companies “respect” games as art form, and they’ve often taken down titles for one reason or another(even if they’re super petty *coughkonamicough*), so removing the physical aspect of game ownership worries me since that only benefits the companies and their control over the market. 

These are fair points. PC is the most reliable way to guarantee ownership and preservation so I tend to invest there on smaller games if I can. I'd I've never had the money to drop on a full fledged gaming PC though so I'm just kind of hoping Sony keeps their act together until I do. 

At the very least, Playstation exclusives now come to PC after a few years. Still not ideal but it's a start. 

[Jango]

1 hour ago, Sean said:

An all-digital variant just screams to me "yeah they're totally gonna phase out the standard edition in a few years." Unlike with PC I've always been extremely wary about buying digital games on consoles due to how much control companies have over your account and where you can buy your games. Plus even if the digital variant is cheaper I can't imagine that someone who buys a lot of games would be saving any money in the long run.

I can guarantee that in cases like Brazil, where video games have nearly an extra of 70% of their price worth of taxes, buying digital games saves a LOT of money. Sales or any price drop are very rare when it comes to physical games down here, while digital sales are much more frequent and digital games have less taxes too. 

The PS5 digital version is the perfect world to me. Nearly 90% of games on PS4 are digital aswell. I'm really glad that Sony did that TBH.

[Sean]

But you can buy digital games on the physical variant too. I don't know what Sony's end goal here is other than to eventually drive off physical as a future option for consumers, and I'm not liking it.

[Tornado]

3 hours ago, Windy and Ripply said:

If the prices are dropping at all, then the mindsets can't be similar,

In fact, they can. I even provided the context for how they were similar in relation to the rest of the industry, and noted that the difference was Nintendo games stayed inflated in general across the board whereas that's definitely not the case for Sony stuff in retail. That you took what I said as "Sony makes their games cost $60 in perpetuity like Nintendo" is still not actually what I said.

Edited June 14, 2020 by Tornado

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

4 hours ago, Tornado said:

In fact, they can. I even provided the context for how they were similar in relation to the rest of the industry, and noted that the difference was Nintendo games stayed inflated in general across the board whereas that's definitely not the case for Sony stuff in retail. That you took what I said as "Sony makes their games cost $60 in perpetuity like Nintendo" is still not actually what I said.

Ah, so sort of similar to the case of Sony also being notorious for inflating indie game prices as well.

[Jango]

15 hours ago, Sean said:

But you can buy digital games on the physical variant too. I don't know what Sony's end goal here is other than to eventually drive off physical as a future option for consumers, and I'm not liking it.

Sure, but when you think about it, why would I have to pay more for a blu-ray reader I wouldn't even use... Ever. 

I think it's more than just a conspiracy theory about Sony wanting to slowly kill physical media. They never waved at possibility as far as I know, but correct me if I'm wrong. There are some other studios that did that tho'.

I think the actual reason why they made a digital version, presumably cheaper, is because... The PS5 is gonna be expensive as shit

[Ryannumber1gamer]

20 minutes ago, Jango said:

Sure, but when you think about it, why would I have to pay more for a blu-ray reader I wouldn't even use... Ever. 

I think it's more than just a conspiracy theory about Sony wanting to slowly kill physical media. They never waved at possibility as far as I know, but correct me if I'm wrong. There are some other studios that did that tho'.

I think the actual reason why they made a digital version, presumably cheaper, is because... The PS5 is gonna be expensive as shit

The money you save on buying a digital-only console will be off-set by having to pay far higher prices for digital titles, because Sony and Microsoft always artificially up the prices for no reason. Even right now - The Last of Us Part 2 is being sold physically for £50, if not less - if you shop around. It's £55 on the PlayStation Store.

Cyberpunk 2077 and Square-Enix's Avengers is even more ridiculous, costing £60 each for the regular editions, when on Steam, and physically - they're being sold for £50, as always.

There's zero reason or justification for this. Digital games is literally throwing a game up on a server and selling a license for people to download said game. There is no reality where digital gaming should cost more than a physical game. Where if you sell it physically, you have to deal with printing and distribution costs. 

At the rate things are going with digital games, especially when Sony's concerned - if you went fully digital, you'd end up spending far, far more than you would just shelling out the extra money for the version with the disc drive. And on top of that, the disc drive doubles as a 4K Blu-Ray player as well, meaning it's also a media solution.