A PS4 Thread: Because You Had to Play "Knack"

and DIE-HARDMAN is all-time top tier, obviously

yup, i'm in for this nonsense.

guilty gear tier name

INTERNET HEARTMAN is up for grabs.

It's kinda amazing, given that the PS5 is right around the corner, how many heavy hitters are, well, hitting in the next year or so. Death Stranding, Doom Eternal, Last of Us 2, Ghost of Tsushima, Cyberpunk 2077, the (other) new From Software game (Norse mythology? Great Rune?) ...

End of a systems life tends to be its most fertile time, historically.

I always assumed a new system arrives with a bunch of must-buy exclusives.

If by a bunch you meet two or three, sure

I wonder what surprises they have in store, then. The PS5 is being predicted for 2020, right? I wonder what the initial anchor will be. Grand Theft Auto?

the PS4's big launch exclusives were Knack and Killzone Shadow Fall, to give you an idea of what to expect

if only there were a thread title to remind us of the feebleness of most launch lineups

no console gen is truly over until atlus decides it is, anyway

The new one is apparently backwards compatible right? I don't know enough about this stuff, what are the features that usually differentiate one generation from the next, as opposed to,say, the PlayStation versus the PlayStation Pro?

(lol knack)

just much improved specs for fancier looking games, plus it sounds like they're going with a SSD this time around and using 'no loading times' as their big marketing angle. which to be honest is a stronger sell than graphics at this point.

don't buy a new console at launch though if you have the previous one, it's never work it until like 2 years in when the third parties finally stop releasing cross-gen

worth*

Don’t forget the inevitable really pretty puzzle game that comes out with a console launch!

But yes, launch titles are almost inevitably graphical and audio showcases and maybe a title or two where they get them to release a tweaked version that’s also on the last gen.

probably ghost of tsushima will be crossgen as the eye candy game

I always love the new puzzle game :)

I think Nintendo is the only console that ever has decent launch titles, and that's 100% because of Mario. What I've read is that the transition to new hardware is pretty challenging, though you'd think that bigger developers have the resources to wrangle those challenges (of course they also have much different financial concerns than smaller developers, like they can't dick around trying to figure out how to work with a new architecture when they have to hit quarterly milestones).

The new one is apparently backwards compatible right? I don't know enough about this stuff, what are the features that usually differentiate one generation from the next, as opposed to,say, the PlayStation versus the PlayStation Pro?

According to the Wired article, it's supposed to be backwards compatible, yes. One big difference between the intergenerational vs intragenerational is that new-gen consoles run on different hardware architectures, which, without getting into systems weeds, is kind of like a difference in spoken languages and the things that such languages facilitate (Romance languages are a lot easier to rhyme in, fr'instance).

What I've read is that the transition to new hardware is pretty challenging, though you'd think that bigger developers have the resources to wrangle those challenges

I’m sure financial viability plays a big part here too, probably bigger than the difficulty issues. You don’t want your big budget next gen game to arrive too early, because you’ll end up selling to a much smaller potential market, bound to be better to wait until the new platform is properly established. “Writing for new consoles is hard” is often just the excuse that gets rolled out for this, I think.

Especially this time round, current console architectures are very similar to each other and as I understand it aren’t set to change fundamentally through this changeover.

Some* people liked the launch Zelda this time.

*all and then eventually Josh

I’m taking about third party devs. Obviously priorities are different for first parties.

the launch zelda was a crossgen game though. the new consoles will be launching with games like that, just not big exclusives

PS4 has at least 3 more years on it especially if you like japanese games. remember that persona 5 and yakuza 0 were ps3 games, the ps3 gen only ended 2 years ago

Again, from a position of complete ignorance (what else is new?), assuming the PS5 comes out in 2020, I don't see the incentive as of yet for someone who has a PS4 - Pro or otherwise - to upgrade to a PS5, at least not any time soon. There are still awesome games coming out on the PS4, they seem to run super-well on the PS4, there are awesome games being readied for the PS4 for the next year (at least), and the most appealing reported feature of the PS5 is ... that it's backward compatible. When Nintendo puts out a new system it seems to be totally new, even radically so. But the PS5, as much as I/we know about it, seems to be a slight upgrade to the PS4 that doesn't necessarily do anything new or needed. Or is the idea that whatever it can do that the PS4 can't do is being held close to the vest, and when it comes out people will see the potential? Yeah, I don't know, current graphics and processors and whatever seem pretty cool to me. Will it just be ... faster load times? Is that what bugs people?

PS5 is not going to be a 'slight upgrade' to the PS4. but as i said, you should always wait a few years to upgrade, the second half of any console's lifecycle is where the majority of the good games come out.

don't worry dude you will get good value out of your ps4. and think of your backlog! don't give in to video game FOMO, particularly since, as everyone here is saying, you won't be missing out on anything until a few years after launch.

me, I'm thinking more to the streaming future. if I had an xbone I might be there already

i just bought a ps4 this year and mostly to play upcoming games, so my money is where my mouth is too

it would take something really unexpected to get me to buy a PS5 before 2023, like FF16 as an exclusive or something of that sort

Oh, trust me, I've got no FOMO. I bought a PS4 Slim, couldn't be any happier and/or can't even see what the Pro offered that I don't have or that I thought I needed. Conceivably, something like (and I'm guessing, since I haven't played the original yet but, knowing me, will probably love it) Bloodborne 2 could do it. But the PS4 is so many miles beyond anything I've played before that I've got a long way to go before I run out of road. (That metaphor worked!)

I've been skipping generations and doing fine - I have one of the PS3s that can play both PS and PS2 games, and will consider upgrading to a PS5 around 2023 or possibly even later

Josh, rundown of the specs here: https://www.techradar.com/news/gaming/consoles/ps5-release-date-news-and-features-1213409

New generations also have faster processors, which means, among other things, better and better hair physics.

I'm also not getting PS5 at launch. The only reasons that I can think of doing that would be because you like being an early adopter or you think the launch version will have features that subsequent editions won't (eg launch PS3s bring backwards compatible with PS2s).

Another interesting to but if true:

The company is also promising that when the PS5 does roll around, it’ll be a slower transition, with multiple new games releasing for both the PS4 and PS5 — at least at the start.

https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/16/18401209/sony-playstation-5-details-8k-graphics-ray-tracing-ssds-ps4-backward-compatibility

*tidbit

This also has the ring of Truth:

You don’t want your big budget next gen game to arrive too early, because you’ll end up selling to a much smaller potential market, bound to be better to wait until the new platform is properly established. “Writing for new consoles is hard” is often just the excuse that gets rolled out for this, I think.

the biggest spec upgrade this coming gen will be the CPU, the PS4/XB1 CPU was already low end in 2013 when those consoles released and is a big bottleneck for doing stuff like more advanced enemy AI or open world simulation or even just getting more games running at 60fps rather than 30. we won't see the former until after the transition period though obviously as those aren't things you can downscale for the old hardware.

the slow transition thing is always the case, they're just being honest about it there. pretty much every known major game in the pipe right now (except maybe bethesda's space RPG) will still be releasing on PS4, and that'll include everything that's about to be announced at E3 next week as well.

iirc the game that drove a shitload of original playstation sales was FF7 and it came out two years after the console

Skimmed that Verge pice. 8k video, 3D audio ... I could give a fuck, tbh. There's really not much more I'd want than what the current gun gives me, I guess, esp. if something like Last of Us 2 plays as well as it seems from what little they have shown. I mean, even more open open worlds and even more advanced AI? I'm not even sure what this would look like, but I do know (again, from my limited vantage) that the thing that lets so many games down is not the graphics and the sound but the writing and *story*. As I always ask the guy that accosts me at Costco about new TVs and their insane specs, "but does it make bad TV shows *better*?"

a good TV definitely makes a lot of bad content better

weed's cheaper than a good TV

My new TV was pretty cheap! And no, it does not make bad TV better, in fact, it makes bad TV worse, imo, because you can see every nook and cranny of every bad, caked on by necessity make-up job. Haven't played Spider-man on it yet, that should be a good test. But Zelda and the other Nintendo games look fine.

I remember, many years ago, at the advent of consumer HD, going to a giant electronics mega-barn in Omaha, Nebraska, just to bask in the novelty, and the salesperson there kept pushing an HD TV. The pitch was basically "sports, sports, Becker (with Ted Danson), sports, Becker ..."

Big ol sale: https://blog.us.playstation.com/2019/06/06/days-of-play-deals-hit-playstation-store/

I've been introducing my kids to the PS4. So far their favorite games are Pacman (shocker), Cars 3: Driven to Win (another shocker), Wipeout Omega (HELL YES) and... Woah Dave! (?????)

https://www.humblebundle.com/games/indie-playstation-rebundle-2019

eh, should i bite for Talos?

no

There are a handful of old and/or sequel games I'm curious but almost 100% ignorant about - Fry Cry 3, Bioshock Collection and Borderlands (3 comes out soon). Are these all just shooters? Are they any good or worth getting cheap? The first two have a couple of vague red flags about them, like seeming too bro-like or, in the case of the latter, Ayn Rand-y. Right? What can anyone tell me about them?

I bought the remastered Shadow of the Colossus for $12. Game looks great, if a little limited in scope (if not scale!).

i don't think any of those are particularly worth playing in 2019, the good elements of them have all been absorbed into better games by now