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Penny Arcade - Comic - Alternative Sourcing

DogDog Registered User, Administrator, Vanilla Staff admin
edited May 2021 in The Penny Arcade Hub
imagePenny Arcade - Comic - Alternative Sourcing

Videogaming-related online strip by Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins. Includes news and commentary.

Read the full story here

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Posts

  • WolfosoWolfoso Registered User regular
    I have this exact same feeling with FFVII remake's DLC going exclusively to PS5, while Squeenix being mute about any PC version. I bought the PS4 one, I'd buy again in PC, and the attitude it's driving me nuts.

  • LucascraftLucascraft Registered User regular
    Returnal is really good though. Like. Really. Good.

  • TofystedethTofystedeth Registered User regular
    edited May 2021
    Returnal does sound very much like my jam, but it's hard to meet the buy a system for this game threshold.

    I did it for Destiny 1 and 2, but both were multiplayer games that I had a full crew of RL friends to play with. And a good deal after the system launch time. At last it was for the PS3. Don't remember exactly for the 4, but by then there were other games on the horizon I was interested in (HZD, KH3, FFXV).

    Tofystedeth on
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  • Radiated RoninRadiated Ronin Registered User regular
    Why does this sound so familiar? Oh, it's the plot of South Park's Cartmanland in real life. Sony is saying this amusement park is so much fun, but YOU CAN'T GO!

  • KagatoACKagatoAC Registered User regular
    I went all the way to the hell that was Twitter to get mine, it ended up being Target at 4am to get the drop and buy it online for store pickup :)

  • MarcinMNMarcinMN Registered User regular
    KagatoAC wrote: »
    I went all the way to the hell that was Twitter to get mine, it ended up being Target at 4am to get the drop and buy it online for store pickup :)

    Hmm. Criminal underworld or Twitter. That's a tough call. :)

    "It's just as I've always said. We are being digested by an amoral universe."

    -Tycho Brahe
  • MichaelLCMichaelLC In what furnace was thy brain? ChicagoRegistered User regular
    MarcinMN wrote: »
    KagatoAC wrote: »
    I went all the way to the hell that was Twitter to get mine, it ended up being Target at 4am to get the drop and buy it online for store pickup :)

    Hmm. Criminal underworld or Twitter. That's a tough call. :)

    But, you repeat yourself.

  • lcaruslcarus Registered User new member
    I had a lot of trouble parsing Tycho's first text bubble. Is it missing the word, "games"?
    Was it maybe suppose to be:
    "I feel like launching a system selling exclusive games when you aren't selling systems is sick, twisted behavior on Sony's part." ?

  • RingoRingo He/Him a distinct lack of substanceRegistered User regular
    "System selling exclusive" is supposed to be a singular noun, as in an exclusive that sells systems

    It's a very clunky wordplay and hard to parse

    Sterica wrote: »
    I know my last visit to my grandpa on his deathbed was to find out how the whole Nazi werewolf thing turned out.
    Edcrab's Exigency RPG
  • lcaruslcarus Registered User new member
    In that case, is it not missing a hyphen? Would that not be a "system-selling exclusive"?

  • BropocalypseBropocalypse Registered User regular
    It's not wordplay. A hyphen would be more correct, but on my end I read it fine the first time.

  • dennisdennis aka bingley Registered User regular
    It's not wordplay. A hyphen would be more correct, but on my end I read it fine the first time.

    Well, it is wordplay in the way he flipped "system selling" and "selling systems". But yeah, a hyphen would have helped the line read better.

  • GrendusGrendus Registered User regular
    The alternative is to not sell the game. It wouldn't run on the PS4 without a massive overhaul to get the performance acceptable, and some stuff can't be ported like the loading times. There's just no way to get the PS4 to be able to load an entirely new biome in half a second, the HDD is too slow and there isn't enough VRAM to hold both in memory.

    It's not like Sony is running the PS5 as some sort of exclusivity thing, there just aren't enough consoles to meet demand due to chip shortages and scalpers. Not entirely Sony's fault, it's not like they don't want to sell the console, they're making them as fast as they can to tap into that profitable market. So their choice is to either not have any system exclusives for the people who do own the PS5 and leave them playing upscaled PS4 games, or sell the games they contracted years ago when they thought they'd have enough consoles to meet demand.

  • dennisdennis aka bingley Registered User regular
    Grendus wrote: »
    The alternative is to not sell the game. It wouldn't run on the PS4 without a massive overhaul to get the performance acceptable, and some stuff can't be ported like the loading times. There's just no way to get the PS4 to be able to load an entirely new biome in half a second, the HDD is too slow and there isn't enough VRAM to hold both in memory.

    It's not like Sony is running the PS5 as some sort of exclusivity thing, there just aren't enough consoles to meet demand due to chip shortages and scalpers. Not entirely Sony's fault, it's not like they don't want to sell the console, they're making them as fast as they can to tap into that profitable market. So their choice is to either not have any system exclusives for the people who do own the PS5 and leave them playing upscaled PS4 games, or sell the games they contracted years ago when they thought they'd have enough consoles to meet demand.

    If only there were OTHER systems that were in the same generation as PS5...

    I know, it's kind of a glib answer. At the point where they found out Sony had dropped the ball on keeping up with demand, it was probably too late for them to port to Xbox/PC. And Housemarque has a pretty thin record of supporting platforms other than PS.

    Being an exclusive can be a real relief to a developer, as it drastically cuts down on the amount of annoying crap you have to do to keep your game working and not-as-buggy. Hopefully Housemarque got enough compensation from Sony to make up for any lost sales.

  • BropocalypseBropocalypse Registered User regular
    dennis wrote: »
    Grendus wrote: »
    The alternative is to not sell the game. It wouldn't run on the PS4 without a massive overhaul to get the performance acceptable, and some stuff can't be ported like the loading times. There's just no way to get the PS4 to be able to load an entirely new biome in half a second, the HDD is too slow and there isn't enough VRAM to hold both in memory.

    It's not like Sony is running the PS5 as some sort of exclusivity thing, there just aren't enough consoles to meet demand due to chip shortages and scalpers. Not entirely Sony's fault, it's not like they don't want to sell the console, they're making them as fast as they can to tap into that profitable market. So their choice is to either not have any system exclusives for the people who do own the PS5 and leave them playing upscaled PS4 games, or sell the games they contracted years ago when they thought they'd have enough consoles to meet demand.

    If only there were OTHER systems that were in the same generation as PS5...

    I know, it's kind of a glib answer. At the point where they found out Sony had dropped the ball on keeping up with demand, it was probably too late for them to port to Xbox/PC. And Housemarque has a pretty thin record of supporting platforms other than PS.

    Being an exclusive can be a real relief to a developer, as it drastically cuts down on the amount of annoying crap you have to do to keep your game working and not-as-buggy. Hopefully Housemarque got enough compensation from Sony to make up for any lost sales.

    I can imagine that developers also get deals from the console manufacturers for agreeing to only port to their console. Probably stuff like "We'll give you a bigger cut of royalties[or whatever technical term they use] and also a fat commission if you publish your next three games to our console only" and so on. I suspect this is probably the biggest reason Atlus hasn't put Persona 5 on the Switch.

  • dennisdennis aka bingley Registered User regular
    dennis wrote: »
    Grendus wrote: »
    The alternative is to not sell the game. It wouldn't run on the PS4 without a massive overhaul to get the performance acceptable, and some stuff can't be ported like the loading times. There's just no way to get the PS4 to be able to load an entirely new biome in half a second, the HDD is too slow and there isn't enough VRAM to hold both in memory.

    It's not like Sony is running the PS5 as some sort of exclusivity thing, there just aren't enough consoles to meet demand due to chip shortages and scalpers. Not entirely Sony's fault, it's not like they don't want to sell the console, they're making them as fast as they can to tap into that profitable market. So their choice is to either not have any system exclusives for the people who do own the PS5 and leave them playing upscaled PS4 games, or sell the games they contracted years ago when they thought they'd have enough consoles to meet demand.

    If only there were OTHER systems that were in the same generation as PS5...

    I know, it's kind of a glib answer. At the point where they found out Sony had dropped the ball on keeping up with demand, it was probably too late for them to port to Xbox/PC. And Housemarque has a pretty thin record of supporting platforms other than PS.

    Being an exclusive can be a real relief to a developer, as it drastically cuts down on the amount of annoying crap you have to do to keep your game working and not-as-buggy. Hopefully Housemarque got enough compensation from Sony to make up for any lost sales.

    I can imagine that developers also get deals from the console manufacturers for agreeing to only port to their console. Probably stuff like "We'll give you a bigger cut of royalties[or whatever technical term they use] and also a fat commission if you publish your next three games to our console only" and so on. I suspect this is probably the biggest reason Atlus hasn't put Persona 5 on the Switch.

    Oh, they definitely do. I'm just saying I hope it goes a bit above and beyond the normal if it's causing them to lose the sales because there's not enough consoles.

  • rahkeesh2000rahkeesh2000 Registered User regular
    "Losing sales" is an odd term when they are selling more PS5s than expected. Like yes, there are potential game sales they are missing out on now, but its not like they are falling short of whatever sales were projected when they started this project.

  • dennisdennis aka bingley Registered User regular
    "Losing sales" is an odd term when they are selling more PS5s than expected. Like yes, there are potential game sales they are missing out on now, but its not like they are falling short of whatever sales were projected when they started this project.

    My impression was that the supply side was leaving a lot of the people who would normally buy the console unable to buy it. Maybe that's a bad impression. But look at someone like Jerry, who is unable to buy it. That seems a bit out of the ordinary. But who knows, maybe because of the pandemic a lot of people who wouldn't ordinarily would buy it bought it. It's hard to believe the scalping could be solely responsible for not just an inability to meet demands of all buyers, but buyers who would normally have bought this console just like they bought all the others. I know there's also a chip shortage, but they claim they've sold way more systems than expected. I still wonder how those translate into expected sales of something like Returnal.

  • BropocalypseBropocalypse Registered User regular
    edited May 2021
    I bet if they'd even only sold three of them they'd still say they sold more than expected just to look good to stockholders.

    Bropocalypse on
  • dennisdennis aka bingley Registered User regular
    I bet if they'd even only sold three of them they'd still say they sold more than expected just to look good to stockholders.

    Exactly. I've seen that happen any time a company is having supply problems. That's why I'm a bit skeptical.

  • Chris FOMChris FOM Registered User regular
    This stuff isn't all that hard to look up. Sony's selling massive numbers of PS5s, but because of COVID demand has been beyond anything anyone could have predicted. And also because of COVID nobody can ramp up supply much beyond what's already contracted because manufacturing capabilities are already maxed out.

    https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2021-04-17-ps5-the-fastest-selling-console-in-us-history

  • dennisdennis aka bingley Registered User regular
    edited May 2021
    Chris FOM wrote: »
    This stuff isn't all that hard to look up. Sony's selling massive numbers of PS5s, but because of COVID demand has been beyond anything anyone could have predicted. And also because of COVID nobody can ramp up supply much beyond what's already contracted because manufacturing capabilities are already maxed out.

    https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2021-04-17-ps5-the-fastest-selling-console-in-us-history

    From that article:
    According to market research group NPD, Sony's console is the fastest-selling ever in the US in both unit and dollar sales. That's lifetime sales with five months on the market.
    [...]
    The PS5 sold 4.5m units globally in 2020. In February, Sony said it was on track to sell over 7.6m PS5 units by 31st March 2021.
    (emphasis added)

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_4#Sales
    Okay, so we can compare pretty easily here, since both the PS4 and PS5 were released in November, just 3 days apart (PS5 was three days earlier).
    On January 7, 2014, Andrew House announced in his Consumer Electronics Show keynote speech that 4.2 million PS4 units had been sold-through by the end of 2013

    So the PS4 sold 4.2m units in the same period the PS5 sold 4.5m units. That's a 7% bump. It might be worth noting that the global population increased 8.3% from 2013 to 2020.

    From the same source, global PS4 sales numbers:
    7.0M (as of April 6, 2014)

    That's 3 total more days of sales time than the same period for the PS5 since the PS5 started 3 days earlier. That makes an 8.5% bump. Again, global population increased 8.3%. Of course, you could also factor in that the PS5 released in Australia, Japan, New Zealand, North America, Singapore and South Korea on November 12, but the PS4 released in North America on November 15, Europe, South America and Australia on November 29, and Japan in February 22. PS5 got a big head start for these numbers.

    All in all, I'm not sure the numbers are quite as mind-blowing as is being described. It doesn't seem to be selling that much better than the PS4, if you adjust for population inflation. Yeah, that's not a perfect scale because it doesn't say if more population grew in poorer areas that couldn't afford a console. But North America (by which I mean not including Central America) grew by about 5%.

    What really seems to be the bigger factor now is the scalpers making it hard to find systems, and the supply shortages making it hard to get replacements to the market (thus giving incentive to scalpers).

    Scalpers having an effect on software sales:
    PS5 Scalpers Are Hurting Software Sales
    “The PlayStation 5 could miss a critical chance to get into a good hardware-software upward spiral,” said Kazunori Ito of Morningstar Research. “The peak of the platform will likely be low and the platform’s total revenue earned won’t be as strong as we hoped for.”
    Evidence of Sony’s trouble is clear in what’s known as the tie ratio, or the number of games sold for each console. A healthy ratio for a new console is around one, meaning each person who buys a machine also walks away with at least one game. The figure is important because the PlayStation 5 is sold at a loss, while games are lucrative.

    So far, Sony appears to be seeing sales of about one game for every three devices -- compelling evidence scalpers are hoarding the consoles.
    (emphasis added)

    That was written in December. I can't find anything to say it's turned around since then. Sony released great software sales numbers, but they lumped PS4 and PS5 together, which could be to hide weakness in sales. When scalpers hold PS5s, they don't buy any software. When scalpers sell PS5s at hundreds of dollars more, actual game buyers have hundreds of dollars less so spend on games. The whole reason consoles sell at a loss is to make it up in software sales. The scalpers are negating that loss-leader strategy.

    I've already said enough, so I'll end with this:
    Can Returnal Sales Figures Be Blamed on PS5 Shortages?

    No easy answer there, just a lot of guesses. But it's possible that the PS5 shortage, combined with the pocketbook-draining scalpers could be affecting games that are further from release. There just might not be nearly as much leftover cash at this point. And the longer Returnal fails to take off in sales, the more competition it will have from the new hot games that are released later. One thing is for certain: they'll never be fewer PS5 games for it to compete with.

    dennis on
  • DratatooDratatoo Registered User regular
    Yeah, I am with Tycho on this one, especially with the similar situation on GPUs: "bUt YoU OnlY hAvE To jUMP thrOugh a fEw hOOps" - you mean giving someone money and might or might not receive a box full of rocks or picture of said product.

  • V1mV1m Registered User regular
    Dratatoo wrote: »
    Yeah, I am with Tycho on this one, especially with the similar situation on GPUs: "bUt YoU OnlY hAvE To jUMP thrOugh a fEw hOOps" - you mean giving someone money and might or might not receive a box full of rocks or picture of said product.

    Yeah this. I already worked hard to earn the money for a video card or whatever. I am not willing to put in the almost the same amount of work to spend it. Not when there are other things I can get instead.

  • shadowysea07shadowysea07 Registered User regular
    I mean it is easy to get a ps5 if you really really want one but you have the pay those scalper prices or home shopping network and other retailers 200+ over msrp prices.

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