PlayStation Nation |OT| Playing Astro Bot on the Horizon Until Dawn

[coolbeans]

DonFerrari said:

coolbeans said:

I mean...

"Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart is a game that utilizes dimensions and dimensional rifts, and that would not have been possible without the Solid State Drive of the PlayStation 5."

Even if we're to grant Smith's mindset, the SSD-only marketing has literally been debunked.  I think you're being way too lenient here.

The way to run the game as intended without the SSD of PS5 (which is yes in comparison to PS4) is to over compensate on PC with a lot more RAM and CPU/GPU and still perform worse than the PS5 version, so nope I don't think Insomniac was lying.

Alright.  Once again, if you use words like X thing (game, feature, etc.) "...would not have been possible without the Solid State Drive of the PlayStation 5..." during your game's hype train and that's shown to be proven incorrect later on, don't act surprised when anyone slings mud at their face.  We're talking about a game already Steam Deck approved at launch (capable of running on SD cards).  No amount of convenient post hoc qualifiers can erase what now comes off as fanboying from a developer.

I did some more digging and it seemed like Rift Apart's Game Director, Mike Daly, tacitly agreed and made a more measured observation: "You could make a game like [the new] 'Ratchet & Clank' on the PS4, but just visually speaking, you would have to dial back a ton in order to get it to run."  Unsurprisingly, that grounded response came out after the game's release.  It's unfortunate that Insomniac's own clarification hasn't been circulated as widely as the "not possible without PS5 SSD" line.  

Whether you want to say it is/isn't a "lie," the moral of the story should be this if you're a developer: show excitement for your next game without leaning into console-wars hyperbole.  That's Jim Ryan's job.

Last edited by coolbeans - on 27 July 2023