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Zero-Cool

Reason revealed as to why Sony will be missing E3..

https://twitter.com/snarkystarkey/status/1063183833170829312?s=19

gizmo

Penn wrote: »

Sony won't be holding a conference (or a Direct or similar) at or around E3 next year. No real reason given.

And with that, hundreds of developers breathe a collective sigh of relief. :pac:

CastorTroy wrote: »

Windows Store has it for €19.99 and 12.99 with Xbox Live Gold. But looking at price of Gold, 1 month costs €1 so could get for 13.99, I guess.
Or use Game Pass which is also currently €1 for 1 month

With the PC version being published by THQ Nordic and the SteamDB listing that's been kicking around for the past few months, I think it's a safe bet it'll be coming to Steam too if folk happen to think it's worth an extra few quid.

CastorTroy

On that, was wondering why there's negativity around the Windows store? Is it just because it's not Steam? I haven't bought anything from it

gizmo

CastorTroy wrote: »

On that, was wondering why there's negativity around the Windows store? Is it just because it's not Steam? I haven't bought anything from it

Technically speaking? Two reasons really, the Store itself has been somewhat temperamental in the past, with some users not being able to successfully download games they've legitimately purchased while others have not been able to download free content, such as Forza 6: Apex, due to the System Requirements checker not accurately reporting their PC specs.

Then there's the format in which games are delivered via the Store, Microsoft's own Universal Windows Platform (UWP). On release, this platform was missing some pretty basic functionality which already existed with traditional Windows applications and were especially useful when it came to games, namely Exclusive Fullscreen Mode, the ability to disable V-Sync and, while not as popular, SLi support. There was also the fundamental problem with the platform for use in games, it ran them in a sandbox environment which meant that again, things that PC gamers were used to doing for years across various titles couldn't be done, in this case, the use of modding tools and interoperability between applications, think the likes of FRAPs and Discord overlays at a basic level, for instance.

While some of these things have been fixed since launch, both the bad press garnered from the above instances at the time and the continued deficiencies in the platform for use in games has led to that negativity you've seen.

Retr0gamer

Sony not having an E3 conference is the right move. E3 has been dying the last few years and the last Sony conference was an expensive failure for them.

There's far better and more efficient ways to communicate with your customers and Nintendo are leading the charge there with their directs which are cheap and effective and reach a lot more people than an E3 presentation.

Sony have their own conferences and will probably move to direct style announcements as well.

gizmo

gizmo wrote: »

Technically speaking? Two reasons really, the Store itself has been somewhat temperamental in the past, with some users not being able to successfully download games they've legitimately purchased while others have not been able to download free content, such as Forza 6: Apex, due to the System Requirements checker not accurately reporting their PC specs.

Then there's the format in which games are delivered via the Store, Microsoft's own Universal Windows Platform (UWP). On release, this platform was missing some pretty basic functionality which already existed with traditional Windows applications and were especially useful when it came to games, namely Exclusive Fullscreen Mode, the ability to disable V-Sync and, while not as popular, SLi support. There was also the fundamental problem with the platform for use in games, it ran them in a sandbox environment which meant that again, things that PC gamers were used to doing for years across various titles couldn't be done, in this case, the use of modding tools and interoperability between applications, think the likes of FRAPs and Discord overlays at a basic level, for instance.

While some of these things have been fixed since launch, both the bad press garnered from the above instances at the time and the continued deficiencies in the platform for use in games has led to that negativity you've seen.

There was also a lot of anti-Microsoft hate around it. Most prominently Tim Sweeney of Epic games:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/mar/04/microsoft-monopolise-pc-games-development-epic-games-gears-of-war?CMP=share_btn_tw

CatInABox

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Sony not having an E3 conference is the right move. E3 has been dying the last few years and the last Sony conference was an expensive failure for them.

There's far better and more efficient ways to communicate with your customers and Nintendo are leading the charge there with their directs which are cheap and effective and reach a lot more people than an E3 presentation.

Sony have their own conferences and will probably move to direct style announcements as well.

I've thought for years that E3 is an anachronism that is totally unnecessary in the age of the Internet. It was amazing while the only way that you could read about games was by buying a magazine, but nowadays, every year I'm left wondering why this game didn't wait a couple of weeks, put out a video reveal and get far more news articles written about it.

Unless a game absolutely smashed it out of the park at E3, it ends up as a footnote in those "10 games you may have missed at E3" articles.

Fair play to Sony on doing this, right call in my opinion.

Retr0gamer

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Sony not having an E3 conference is the right move. E3 has been dying the last few years and the last Sony conference was an expensive failure for them.

There's far better and more efficient ways to communicate with your customers and Nintendo are leading the charge there with their directs which are cheap and effective and reach a lot more people than an E3 presentation.

Sony have their own conferences and will probably move to direct style announcements as well.

It's also better to make announcements when you are ready to make an announcement.

Microsoft have a lot going on, Sony have probably already announced everything we're going to get this generation.

gizmo

Deleted User wrote: »

There was also a lot of anti-Microsoft hate around it. Most prominently Tim Sweeney of Epic games:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/mar/04/microsoft-monopolise-pc-games-development-epic-games-gears-of-war?CMP=share_btn_tw

Absolutely. As it happens, the likes of Sweeney's open letter was specifically why I opened my reply with "technically speaking". Both he and Gabe Newell were quite vocal about this at the time and while some of their points were based on certain technical concerns, they were almost essentially philosophically based - should MS have their own walled garden style store given the prevalence of Windows on the PC platform?

In reality, that's almost besides the point as, even if you can dismiss the objections of the guy who wants to sell you his game without handing over 30% of the price to another company or the other guy who happens to run the largest games distribution service in the world and would be in direct competition with such a store, you're still left with a platform that is, arguably, fundamentally unsuited to games given its technical implementation.

CatInABox

gizmo wrote: »

you're still left with a platform that is, arguably, fundamentally unsuited to games given its technical implementation.

Yeah, this is a really good point. It's absolutely amazing for apps like Kodi, drivers and such, but it still sucks for games right now.

Phil Spencer has recently taken charge of it, and has already admitted that it needs an awful lot of work to get it to the point that it's acceptable/useful. Considering his work on turning the Xbox brand around, I'd be confident that he'll do a good job, but it'll be the work of years.

For anyone getting Sunset Overdrive when you get the choice pick the female character. Her voice acting is so much better than the male actors.

FAILSAFE 00

gizmo wrote: »

And with that, hundreds of developers breathe a collective sigh of relief. :pac:
.

More like hundreds of musical artists breathe a collective sigh of relief :pac:

Shoutout to the dude playing the flute for 10 minutes before showing Ghost of Tsushima at PlayStation's last E3 show.

Stone Deaf 4evr

I wonder if this is the death blow for e3, microsoft and EA technically aren't there either, they hold their own venues off site. Kinda makes it a much harder sell, now that they're allowing the general public to attend and charging an admission fee.

gizmo

Stone Deaf 4evr wrote: »

I wonder if this is the death blow for e3, microsoft and EA technically aren't there either, they hold their own venues off site. Kinda makes it a much harder sell, now that they're allowing the general public to attend and charging an admission fee.

It depends really, if you look at the layout from this year's E3, Sony dropping out just means that a quarter of one of the Hall's will need to be filled. The ESA could respond by dropping the price of floor space so other publishers could increase their existing presence there or even encouraging smaller publishers who historically haven't been able to afford it, to join up.

Either way it'll certainly be interesting to see how it goes next year.

Gunmonkey

For me it just means no decision on if I want to torture myself and stay up till 4am to watch the Sony conference anymore!

Shiminay

Seems like a no brainer decision if you're a media giant like Sony and you have the means to put on your own shows in your own way and promote only your own stuff. There's no reason that a Sony gaming event shouldn't be talking up their 4K TV's and their phones and all that jazz. They'd get a far better return on investment.

Stone Deaf 4evr

Shiminay wrote: »

Seems like a no brainer decision if you're a media giant like Sony and you have the means to put on your own shows in your own way and promote only your own stuff. There's no reason that a Sony gaming event shouldn't be talking up their 4K TV's and their phones and all that jazz. They'd get a far better return on investment.

TBH, i wonder is there any real return on the investment that any of these shows cost?

only the hardcore gamers watch it live or even attend. It so much easier to get your message out now via the general internets, compared to the old days where they relied on gaming press to write up articles on what they'd seen.

CatInABox

Well, sounds like Microsoft will have something to announce at the next E3 anyway, apparently they're going to release a diskless Xbox One S next year, at least according to Brad Sams, a Microsoft watcher that I'd regard pretty well.

It'll also have a "Disk to Digital" scheme going on in stores, for anyone that wants to move over. Apparently they're looking at a $100 saving, presumably that comes from a die shrink and other efficiencies as well, because an optical disk drive doesn't cost that much.

See here.

Shiminay

Stone Deaf 4evr wrote: »

TBH, i wonder is there any real return on the investment that any of these shows cost?

only the hardcore gamers watch it live or even attend. It so much easier to get your message out now via the general internets, compared to the old days where they relied on gaming press to write up articles on what they'd seen.

But the current press does watch it and reports on it and does their marketing for them for the weeks following the event which is what it's stated goal is It was never a consumer show, it was always meant to be a trade only show and was a means to sell to the various retailers for the coming years. Every games related outlet on every platform does an E3 Round Up of some sort.


However, if Sony says they're gonna do their own thing at their own time and place, those same outlets will almost certainly cover that too.

super_furry

I'd happily buy a cheaper disc-less system if I was in the market for a console. 99% of my purchases are digital now.

Retr0gamer

The influence of the traditional gaming press has been eroded away in recent years and being replaced with influencers and vlogger personalities.

Why spend so much on a swanky event for them when you can reach them and a bigger audience with a Nintendo direct style approach.

ERG89

super_furry wrote: »

I'd happily buy a cheaper disc-less system if I was in the market for a console. 99% of my purchases are digital now.

I'd rather not especially when games are pushing 70-80 GB now before all become 4k by default in the future which . If they are cutting out a disc drive for cost I don't expect them to increase the size of the hard drives. Even 1 TB now aint much. With Hitman 2, Red Dead and Spiderman that's around 250GB now. With just 3 games with add-ons.
Plus you've only got 1 store on consoles to browse which is often more expensive than physical media.


Anyway:


https://twitter.com/IGN/status/1063537557949042689?s=19

I quite liked the Castlevania series; its not amazing but an easy watch.

EoinHef

Games dont run off the disc anymore though,install size will be the same with or without the disc.

super_furry

EoinHef wrote: »

Games dont run off the disc anymore though,install size will be the same with or without the disc.

Exactly. Discs are just security checks that spin up at the start of a game now, everything runs off the hard-drive.

Anyone built a PC recently ? I have. Blu Ray drive cost me less than €20. MS buying in huge numbers would cost them buttons. So I'd imagine removing the disc drive wouldn't see a great reduction in price but maybe allow for smaller consoles or something.

ERG89

EoinHef wrote: »

Games dont run off the disc anymore though,install size will be the same with or without the disc.

Even with the long installs on PS4 it's still a lot faster than a 60 GB download; plus it won't disappear from the shelf like downloads can from stores. Plus if you buy a turkey of a game you can always sell or trade it; you ain't stuck with it.

Retr0gamer

It's not about buying digital games. It's about selling subscriptions which are far more lucrative.

I expect streaming services rolled out as part of ps plus and game pass. Hell even Nintendo are doing this already with games in Japan that out class the specs of the switch but can be streamed to the device.

Netflix for games is the future on consoles.

FAILSAFE 00

Retr0gamer wrote: »

The influence of the traditional gaming press has been eroded away in recent years and being replaced with influencers and vlogger personalities.

Why spend so much on a swanky event for them when you can reach them and a bigger audience with a Nintendo direct style approach.

Nintendo though was never a hit at E3. It was like the forgettable stand in the back of a trade show. E3 has always been about the big boys, Xbox, PlayStation, and PC. What I am saying is they never made much of an effort compared to the big boys at E3.

Nintendo direct definitely suits their little niche so that works for them.

The audience at E3 grows year on year as well as streaming figures for viewership. E3 is a great place for games/platforms to go head to head to impress us.

Its a shame that PlayStation quit this year making it a handy win for Xbox. Every platform has dry patches where nothing much is going on but PlayStation decided to run for cover. I give Xbox credit for taking the punches and still going as to not disappoint the fans.

ERG89

FAILSAFE 00 wrote: »

The audience at E3 grows year on year as well as streaming figures for viewership. E3 is a great place for games/platforms to go head to head to impress us.
Its a shame that PlayStation quit this year making it a handy win for Xbox. Every platform has dry patches where nothing much is going on but PlayStation decided to run for cover. I give Xbox credit for taking the punches and still going as to not disappoint the fans

The biggest game at the show this year (Cyberpunk) wasn't even shown to the public properly until after Gamescom which said a lot about E3 2018, which felt like a needless event as so little felt new.
Sony wasted money on stageshows that bulked out the time as much as anything & Microsoft showed little to justify buying an X a mere 6 months after it was released unless you want to play even more Forza, Gears & Halo.
A big issue now is who wants to sit down to watch something that takes nearly 2 hours anymore when other shows like a direct can do it in half the time without dry executive talks or fluff.
I think letting more fans into the show has kinda made it worse as it means less access for everyone which a lot at the show let it be known.

Dr. Bre

Retr0gamer wrote: »

It's not about buying digital games. It's about selling subscriptions which are far more lucrative.

I expect streaming services rolled out as part of ps plus and game pass. Hell even Nintendo are doing this already with games in Japan that out class the specs of the switch but can be streamed to the device.

Netflix for games is the future on consoles.

A Netflix for games would be a great idea !