PS5 General Chat

Are we allowed to just dislike subscription services? Im not sure im allowed to say that without upsetting the Xbox crew who seem to live in this thread?

This isnt exclusive to Xbox Game Pass but includes things like Disney+

I strongly believe these models are not consumer friendly and are purely designed to lace the pockets of the companies that run them. I also don't for one second think that Microsoft will not increase the price of game pass as the service grows and holds more titles. And the users of said subscription will have two choices... pay the rise to still have access to 'their' game collection or to stop the subscription and move back to a purchase titles like the good old days?

What happens when Microsoft falls out with a publisher and they pull their titles? What happens when Microsoft decide they no longer want to stuff cash in the hands of the publishers for them to be happy for their games to be on game pass?

Like I said this isn't exclusive to game pass, it happens with all of the streaming services like Netflix/Prime/Disney etc tv/films get pulled from these services all the time and then don't even get me started on Disney charging people extra to rent Mulan 😩

Just remember these models are designed to make them money and Microsoft know exactly what they are doing.

I was up until recently someone who subbed to the Game Pass on PC but the price rise was just too much and I decided to let my sub end. At some point you'll have to make that same choice and you'll possibly be wondering if you had good value for that service and nothing to show for it.

I think this this thread was started so not to not take the PS5 Discussion OT - The future of PlayStation Subscription services

You can dislike Sub Services yeah, I can dislike Physical and yes i'm part of that silly Xbox crew but thankfully don't live in here. I think most people that bang that drum are ones that actually use the Service and have both consoles or certainly intend to have both by end of the year.

We all know these companies are not charities and they are here to make money.

Personally I feel these subs are consumer friendly otherwise I would not sub to them.
I can cancel at anytime and re-sub at anytime. If I don't like the games then I will cancel.

If a Sub Service is not for you then that's cool, same as Physical Games, Movies and Music is not for me. I sub to Spotify, Netflix, Disney+, TV+, Amazon Video and Games Pass Ultimate. It meets all my entertainment needs.

If games, music or video was pulled from one of these services then I still have the options to buy digitally or maybe they appear on another service. With GamesPass if a game is leaving and I still want access to it then I can buy it Digitally with a discount before it leaves GamesPass. The same would apply for a Price Increase, at the moment £10.99 at full price I think is good value same as Netflix and other services. I normally buy all the 1st Party MS Games so this so far has saved me money even at full price but obviously I know a few ways like many others buying things digitally to save money on this with GameSharing or Cheap Credit or Reward Points. Same applies for other Sub Services that I share with Family. A years Sub for Disney + cost me £25, I don't think I can buy the whole Star Wars Saga on Disc for that price...?!?!

We all know it's about making money but it's also about giving consumers a choice.
This is no different to PSNow or PS+ is it not ?

You can choose to Subscribe or not, no one is forcing you to sign up.
Personally myself and 15 Million+ Subscribers think it's good value, Millions of others don't so thats cool.

And personally I thought the Mulan option was a good idea to Digitally have access to it for as long as your Sub lasts for £20 considering it was not coming to Cinema's and a family of 3/4 could watch it for half the cost of a Cinema trip and they could watch it again and again.
Or people can wait for it to be added to the normal service. Same with Game Sub services, you have the choice, you can buy digitally, subscribe or buy Physically.

It's not for you and that is fine but no reason to knock it same as I don't go into a Game Thread when people are waiting for their pre-order of a game to arrive and knock them for living in the past and to get with the times losers... ;)
 

This article sums some stuff up but I really don’t think it’s all about comparison with what Xbox are doing. A large part of it is Sony just aren’t upfront with their customers. Set expectations at the start and explain what you are doing and there isn’t such an issue. But instead they are trying or seemingly trying to sneak stuff through without telling people. That’s never a good thing to do.
Yeah i feel that is a fair assessment.

Like he says, maybe the loyalty of Sony’s fans will get them through. I just dont know how thats a long term plan - slowly it will erode away if you keep chipping.

SOny have loads of loyal fans - many have already put down 449 quid for a machine they don’t know a lot about. MS have got their own thing rolling, and it does look good. There is no doubt what they are doing. Not about them. I am looking forward to getting my PS5 in what, 7 weeks. You have my cash. I’d just like to hear and see more detail about the machine.

Sony need to just lay out the PS5 on the table now. Get Cerny on to do the deep dive, send out units, show the OS, show why MM is worth the upgrade path Sony has gone with. Show what this SSD does that is a generation leap. ETA for GT7. IF GoW is cross gen.

Strange days indeed.

Tbh I thought the article was Clickbait garbage. Do they not understand what anti-consumer actually means?

One can not be a fan of a couple of the decisions, and I’m still miffed about Horizon II, but jeez get some perspective. This is much ado about nothing and reeks of journalist with their nose out of joint because they don’t have the information they crave or a PS5 in hand.

I don’t think they’ve communicated particularly well, but hey preorders are completely sold out.

Not offering a remastered version of a game free, when the original will still be playable and presumably enhanced through BC, is not anti-consumer. You don’t want to buy the directors cut with additional commentary, we’ll it ain’t a forced upgrade. If you’ve never played it before then just buy the PS5 version.

Saying you believe in generations isn’t anti-consumer, nor is having a couple of cross-gen games somehow invalidates that. And again it’s not “anti-consumer”.

The cross-narrative of a subscription service being consumer friendly is ridiculously naive. It’s a damn sight more complicated than that. Gamepass offers great value just now, but where does it go? Is Halo Infinite as GAAS but initially free via GP definitely consumer friendly? I don’t have an answer but it’s open for debate.
 
Tbh I thought the article was Clickbait garbage.
well that’s a surprise - i didn’t see coming 🤷🏻‍♂️

Sony themselves see tha value of a sub service - that’s why they did Now. The only issue is they don’t have the clout to make it work. Hence after many years Now has a couple of million subs and GP is now past 15 million in a couple of years.

but none of that changes the fact that just like PS5, you can buy all the games and ‘own them’ - as for the meme about sustainability - yeah billions spent buying studios, ip, a clear commitment from the CEO, billions in RD for two new machines, but yeah, a forum chap as ‘concerns’ about sustainability ? 🤔

TBH how sustainable is Sony’s first party model given how the landscape has changed and is still changing? Amazon in the fight too now it seems

GoW took 5 years and 500 million quid. It sold 13 million copies to an install base of 100 million. And it has been selling with big discounts. It’s on hits too


What happens if the install base is half that -?500 million and 5 years to sell 8 million copies?

TLoU2 took years and millions. 110 million consoles - less than 15 million sold.

Many Sony only gamers on here don’t even play the first sorry stuff! Which I found very surprising. So many owners not not Spider-Man or waiting for death stranding you come to now!

and that’s when a game works - The order, driveclub amd others still take dev time and lots of cash but don’t go anywhere?

It’s high risk and when you have the Console units it works like this gen - amd Sony has that form the start this gen. And they played it well too. If the PS5 doesn’t sell really well out of the gate...
 
presumably enhanced through BC,
Have Sony confirmed that now then?

I presume it too but 7 weeks before launch has it been confirmed by Sony? I thought they had only commutes to make ‘most games work’
 
‘Anti consumer’ is such a reductive phrase.

Sony and Microsoft are two different businesses with different models and different pressures. However, I don’t believe that either of them are out to hurt their customers!

I don’t feel that Sony are trying to screw over anyone by charging for the work they’ve done on the upgrades. Microsoft are clearly taking a hit on the work their studios are doing on upgrades, but those are costs that will have to be borne somewhere.
 
‘Anti consumer’ is such a reductive phrase.

Sony and Microsoft are two different businesses with different models and different pressures. However, I don’t believe that either of them are out to hurt their customers!

I don’t feel that Sony are trying to screw over anyone by charging for the work they’ve done on the upgrades. Microsoft are clearly taking a hit on the work their studios are doing on upgrades, but those are costs that will have to be borne somewhere.
Rip off price for the mem cart being one!
 
That’s not a Microsoft product.
I think they might have had a hand it 👍🏻 Partners with Seagate. Got an Xbox logo on.
Ostensibly it’s Xbox.

Fortunately, like most people I’m happy to move my games between SSD and HDD for the first year maybe - I’ll be doing that on both consoles until MS carts drop in price and Sony tell me which and how much are on the white list.

Nb ms didn’t keep the same $ conversion for the mem cars like the didn’t with the console. Obvs. If you have the console you’ll probs need a drive at some point 👍🏻

it’s all business. The issues come when people start to see these companies as their friend or on their side. We love their games but they are a business.
 
Tbh I thought the article was Clickbait garbage. Do they not understand what anti-consumer actually means?

One can not be a fan of a couple of the decisions, and I’m still miffed about Horizon II, but jeez get some perspective. This is much ado about nothing and reeks of journalist with their nose out of joint because they don’t have the information they crave or a PS5 in hand.

I don’t think they’ve communicated particularly well, but hey preorders are completely sold out.

Not offering a remastered version of a game free, when the original will still be playable and presumably enhanced through BC, is not anti-consumer. You don’t want to buy the directors cut with additional commentary, we’ll it ain’t a forced upgrade. If you’ve never played it before then just buy the PS5 version.

Saying you believe in generations isn’t anti-consumer, nor is having a couple of cross-gen games somehow invalidates that. And again it’s not “anti-consumer”.

The cross-narrative of a subscription service being consumer friendly is ridiculously naive. It’s a damn sight more complicated than that. Gamepass offers great value just now, but where does it go? Is Halo Infinite as GAAS but initially free via GP definitely consumer friendly? I don’t have an answer but it’s open for debate.

Thing is most of Forbes articles are clickbait. They raised some relevant points but their comparison failed. I'd agree that you can't start comparing amazing gamepass value and calling anything short of it anti-consumer (though the literal definition of anti-consumer is not favourable to consumers, so its a bit open to debate).

The re-master debacle (and large sections of the gaming media have picked up on this not just Forbes) is not a good look. The communication of it has been poor and I think you can probably say that Sony's approach and Nintendo's to these things are anti-consumer - you can argue that its down to people whether they buy or not but its a horribly messy situation to try and hide the lack of a free upgrade. The Spiderman 'remaster' and Gears 5 Series X version are virtually identical in the upgrades they are getting....

As for a subscription model - the thing about gamepass that does make it a very consumer friendly approach is not the insane value - that can change - but its the fact that its not locked to an ecosystem. You can sub and play on your phone, tablet or PC and eventually I suspect TV, Switch and......so on. That means its very consumer friendly in that it isn't designed as an incentive to be locked into a piece of hardware. You can sub and un-sub and enjoy the benefits of the flexibility that brings. I think if the move was gamepass as a route into xbox you'd say its good value and no more. But Xbox is a route into gamepass...so...that's where the really pro-consumer bit is.
 
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I think this this thread was started so not to not take the PS5 Discussion OT - The future of PlayStation Subscription services

You can dislike Sub Services yeah, I can dislike Physical and yes i'm part of that silly Xbox crew but thankfully don't live in here. I think most people that bang that drum are ones that actually use the Service and have both consoles or certainly intend to have both by end of the year.

We all know these companies are not charities and they are here to make money.

Personally I feel these subs are consumer friendly otherwise I would not sub to them.
I can cancel at anytime and re-sub at anytime. If I don't like the games then I will cancel.

If a Sub Service is not for you then that's cool, same as Physical Games, Movies and Music is not for me. I sub to Spotify, Netflix, Disney+, TV+, Amazon Video and Games Pass Ultimate. It meets all my entertainment needs.

If games, music or video was pulled from one of these services then I still have the options to buy digitally or maybe they appear on another service. With GamesPass if a game is leaving and I still want access to it then I can buy it Digitally with a discount before it leaves GamesPass. The same would apply for a Price Increase, at the moment £10.99 at full price I think is good value same as Netflix and other services. I normally buy all the 1st Party MS Games so this so far has saved me money even at full price but obviously I know a few ways like many others buying things digitally to save money on this with GameSharing or Cheap Credit or Reward Points. Same applies for other Sub Services that I share with Family. A years Sub for Disney + cost me £25, I don't think I can buy the whole Star Wars Saga on Disc for that price...?!?!

We all know it's about making money but it's also about giving consumers a choice.
This is no different to PSNow or PS+ is it not ?

You can choose to Subscribe or not, no one is forcing you to sign up.
Personally myself and 15 Million+ Subscribers think it's good value, Millions of others don't so thats cool.

And personally I thought the Mulan option was a good idea to Digitally have access to it for as long as your Sub lasts for £20 considering it was not coming to Cinema's and a family of 3/4 could watch it for half the cost of a Cinema trip and they could watch it again and again.
Or people can wait for it to be added to the normal service. Same with Game Sub services, you have the choice, you can buy digitally, subscribe or buy Physically.

It's not for you and that is fine but no reason to knock it same as I don't go into a Game Thread when people are waiting for their pre-order of a game to arrive and knock them for living in the past and to get with the times losers... ;)

I completely agree with you. Again my point was aimed at people telling me this is a game changer and the future for gaming etc. And people who are seemingly not pro a game sub service are the ones getting some stick for having that view point.

I already pointed out that I was a Game Pass subscriber and recently dropped it because the price almost doubled for me. That's not to say I wouldn't return in future if I felt the offering was worth the price. But people seem to think how Game Pass is now will always be like this. These things adapt and change and at some point Microsoft will want a return on the acquisitions of these game studios. At the point subscribers will have decisions to make.
 
Have Sony confirmed that now then?

I presume it too but 7 weeks before launch has it been confirmed by Sony? I thought they had only commutes to make ‘most games work’

I’m assuming it’s one of the top 100 games ranked by play time.
 
Some folks who work for XBox really are thick. Although we are living through the current US President’s view of the world, I’d have thought any link to a slaver by a US based $1.5T company, whether fictitious or not, was a dumb ass marketing move. There are lots of pictures of folks looking smug out there so to link a picture of what appears to be Leo from Django Unchained to their views of PS5 SpiderMan seems pretty tone deaf to me?
 
I don’t get this whole remaster thing, it’s what Sony has ALWAYS done, now all of a sudden because Microsoft don’t do it it’s been labelled as anti consumer? Well if you don’t like it don’t buy it, or just play the original game on BC on the PS5 and at least you can use the faster load times.
 
I don't necessarily think they are "anti-consumer" in their own right - but the comparison to MS' approach this (pre-)gen is an obvious one to make.

There are (at least) two ways you can fall behind the competition: Either the competition improves, and you fail to follow suit - or your own business practices just get worse, while the competition either stays the same or improves.

In this case, MS have stepped up their game, Sony are doing what they have always done, and by contrast, they look "bad".

Of course, nothing is decided yet, both consoles are selling out at launch. For the moment, though - and I never thought I'd ever be saying this - Microsoft are, in my opinion, looking like the more consumer-friendly of the two.


...still not buying an XsX, mind... :D
 
I sure hope your assumption is right 😊

It may not be, best guess with info we have. Sony comms have been crap, they have so much they should be telling us. Haven’t seen UI, launch titles that we’ve seen hardly anything from, enhancements to last gen games as opposed to remasters. If they’d communicated the last point there would be less of a fuss regarding the Spider-Man remaster.
 
Thing is most of Forbes articles are clickbait. They raised some relevant points but their comparison failed. I'd agree that you can't start comparing amazing gamepass value and calling anything short of it anti-consumer (though the literal definition of anti-consumer is not favourable to consumers, so its a bit open to debate).

The re-master debacle (and large sections of the gaming media have picked up on this not just Forbes) is not a good look. The communication of it has been poor and I think you can probably say that Sony's approach and Nintendo's to these things are anti-consumer - you can argue that its down to people whether they buy or not but its a horribly messy situation to try and hide the lack of a free upgrade. The Spiderman 'remaster' and Gears 5 Series X version are virtually identical in the upgrades they are getting....

As for a subscription model - the thing about gamepass that does make it a very consumer friendly approach is not the insane value - that can change - but its the fact that its not locked to an ecosystem. You can sub and play on your phone, tablet or PC and eventually I suspect TV, Switch and......so on. That means its very consumer friendly in that it isn't designed as an incentive to be locked into a piece of hardware. You can sub and un-sub and enjoy the benefits of the flexibility that brings. I think if the move was gamepass as a route into xbox you'd say its good value and no more. But Xbox is a route into gamepass...so...that's where the really pro-consumer bit is.

If we’re going to talk about stuff that’s really anti-consumer we could talk about “embrace, extend, extinguish”
 
It may not be, best guess with info we have. Sony comms have been crap, they have so much they should be telling us. Haven’t seen UI, launch titles that we’ve seen hardly anything from, enhancements to last gen games as opposed to remasters. If they’d communicated the last point there would be less of a fuss regarding the Spider-Man remaster.
100% with ya. It is surprising to see - The comms issues - Sony have glided like a swan for a few years now.

100% they must have loads to show us. Loads and load. I just don’t know why now 7 weeks form launch, round one of the preorders sold out in seconds , just tell us. Even if it isn’t ideal (like Xbox mem cards) - reckon they time has come now to just get things rocking again. And given how little they have said there must be loads to get things rocking again with I am sure.
 
Amazon UK now has PS5 AC Valhalla release date as 12th November instead of 31st of December. Which is handy :laugh:
 

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