Ghost of Tsushima - Review of Not the Director's Cut!

[EricHiggin]

ZyroXZ2 said:

EricHiggin said:

The real difference between older and newer gens of consoles is the older gens were more customized hardware, which made it more difficult to transition from one gen to another. All generational hardware has always increased performance and innovations, for SNY and MS at least.

A PS4 Pro would not be next gen because it's very similar hardware to the PS4, just beefed up. Both even use the exact same controller. The PS5 is different hardware all around, though based on the same x86 core architecture. It's certainly not PS3 different, but it is different enough to clearly be defined as next gen.

MS could've called XB1X, 'XBSX', said it was next gen, and just made a FC policy so all XB1S games worked on 'XBSX' with enhancements. It would've put them in a similar position to when they transitioned from OGXB to XB360, which gave them a considerable lead over PS3 and led to a much more competitive gen. Yet instead, even though they would've clearly had the performance spec crown this time, they followed SNY's mid gen upgrade stance. You can't help but ask, why?

The core base has been around long enough to see and/or know/remember what happened with PS3 and XB1. Both SNY and MS got extremely arrogant and screwed those console gens up bigtime due to greed. Nowhere near enough time has passed for those core individuals to forget this.

Now for casuals who don't pay attention, it's to their detriment if they don't feel the products and/or extra's are worth the price, but that's their problem because it's not like the info isn't out there and easily available. Corporations aren't babysitters and teens/adults aren't babies, or at least that we're led to believe.

Part of the point of being on top is the extra's you get out of it, unless of course you start demanding too much, in which case your people/customers will replace you. Nobody goes to the trouble of becoming a multi billion dollar corporation, who climbs to the top, to just give the best away for the same as the competitions lesser offerings. That's more so how people act in small family units, or communities, but not how people act in a civilization on a grand scale. 

SNY and MS core fans are well aware of the need for greed and are keeping an eye on it. If it get's too out of hand, they'll take to social media and will be heard. Assuming of course their cries aren't considered 'disinformation' and blocked or taken down. If it comes to that we're all screwed, so let's assume not.

As mentioned, the hardware is different, but the application and APIs are really not.  Again, my PC has gone through three different GPU architectures, and yet they all run the same games (just better and better, naturally!).  Trust me when I tell you that after the X360/PS3, the consoles aren't really doing as much custom work as you might imagine (again, with the exception of the PS5's custom I/O SSD setup; which is only barely matched at the top level of PCs using PCIE4.0 NVME SSDs).  This is partly why you see so many "remasters" and "ports", too: it's easier than you think.  All of these graphics engines have a lot of scaling built in, there's just a lot of marketing in the way because, well, marketing is what sells the consoles.  While the PS4P and X1X were, indeed, midgen upgrades that followed along in the "family" of hardware components, you might be surprised that simply swapping in newer hardware in the PS5 and XSX don't exactly create whole new beasts to contend with.  The most custom thing about consoles now is form factor, not hardware.  That, and targeting aggressive price points by way of compensating with mass production, aka "affordable".

And let me just say, I don't trust ANY fanboys to turn on their fav company when it gets out of line.  Most calmer Nintendo fans have long seen where complacency in the fanbase led, and I've known MANY that have simply left Nintendo behind for "greener pastures", if you will.  Fanboys may seem like a vocal minority, but the reality is that there's a larger fiefdom in play that, yes includes casuals, that companies definitely love: they KNOW they'll get their money, so they look at the data, and try to inch their way little-by-little.  Some of us see it ahead of time, but by the time it's a real problem, it's too late.  Companies are smarter than that, Nintendo knows what they're doing.  Never once did I say these companies were stupid.

Case-in-point: I'm a car guy.  The company I buy my piggyback and tuning from is the premium pricing in the market, though they do make quality products.  But they "reward" my loyalty with discounts across each upgrade.  Ergo, I got 15% off the ECU tune because I was running their Pro piggyback tuner.  The VAST MAJORITY of the world of business revolves around building customer loyalty, and MS is clearly doing this through free upgrades and good value services.  It's GOOD business practice to do so: it's not about giving the best away or people being beggers.  People want to feel "benefits" of being part of the loyal fanbase, and apparently "gamers" don't have very good money sense and instead just say, "well I get the games I want, here's my money".  I'd happily NOT buy a game because I don't see the company putting valuable effort behind it because it's my ONLY way of saying, "I love you, but that's not good enough".  It's why I didn't buy Skyward Sword HD DESPITE the fact that some people have now recognized that I used Fi's sound as my intro/outro in season 1 of my channel for YEARS lol

You're making it sound like the x86 direction the console companies have taken is a bad thing, like it's lazy and should mean cheaper everything. Would it be better if PS5 was another PS3 like nightmare architecture? Just because the consoles are x86 now doesn't mean everything get's cheaper. I mean just look at Nin hardware and software and their pricing. If PS5 is 'just an expected step up', then so is the XB S/X. Did RTX not bring a GPU price hike and force you to upgrade for new features?

Fanboys gunna fanboy. PS, MS, Nin. The rest, a significant portion of the core, and semi hardcore casuals will speak up. Enough casuals will naturally follow suit. The companies don't want to fold, but all 3 have given into pressure when it's applied hard enough for long enough. Nin is the toughest to crack by far though.

So what? You're saying the GOT DLC + upgrade should cost $40 instead, but if you're a loyal fan, or maybe have PS Plus or something, you get a $10 discount? PS and MS now have to jack up prices just to have 'discounts' for the core? Nobody knows what the total value of the DLC and upgrade is worth in general since we don't even have it. For all we know it's worth $40 already but only costs $30.