arstechnica.com

Tagger, do games w Microsoft asks many Game Pass subscribers to pay more for less

I think it’s a pretty good deal. As a dad who has limited amount of time to play, I’ve had an Xbox for 16 months and bought it with game pass.

In that time I’ve played > 50 games and played about 15 of them to the credits.

In that time I’ve not actually bought a game. At the new price of $20 is have paid $320 which is the cost of about 5 or 6 games, Maybe 10 or a 11 if I’d aimed for sales.

nexussapphire,

I mean console games are always more expensive. There’s always something amusing about getting about 20 good games for five bucks on PC. Also epic games is still trying to bribe us with free games.

Tagger,

Cool story, I’ll take the extra expense for not having to use the limited time I have to manage updates and driver issues.

I like that my console just works

nexussapphire,

What drivers issues, don’t consoles require just as many updates? I distinctly remember console update taking upwards of a half an hour to install like 300Mb. Refusing to update would log you out and disable digitally purchased games. It often killed the mood when I just wanted to play some games after work, the steam deck filled that spot nicely.

Besides I use Linux so my drivers are built in and updates are unintrusive and take no time to apply. I have it set to remind me once a month, I get a little icon in the taskbar and I apply them before shutting down. It takes like two minutes.

I’m not judging if you like console but modern consoles are just as annoying as any other internet appliances. They need updates, they need regular Internet access to work, they can’t really do anything else, when it shits the bed your expected to throw it away get a new one, and often have tack on a monthly fee for basic features.

I need a computer so instead of splitting the cost between a computer that won’t be too slow to do any real work and a $500 game console I just get a more powerful computer and justify the cost with the money I’m saving.

absquatulate,

That does sound like a pretty good deal. The thing is, it used to be a fantastic deal. And judging by the way they are acquiring multi billion studios and IPs left and right it’s clear as daylight that they want to monopolize the market and keep the subscription model for a long time, which means the deal will get ever worse. So yeah, this pricing change was definitely expected.

Didn’t mean to diminish your experience, sorry.

Tagger,

Yeah, I can see that and I do worry about how the ‘deal’ with over change and how frustrating it could be to have seen the deal diminish already

Anticorp,

That doesn’t sound like a limited amount of time to play.

Tagger,

I know right. I get about an hour a day and was quite shocked as I just went back through my achievements to see how much I’d actually played in that time.

hedge, do gaming w From Infocom to 80 Days: An oral history of text games and interactive fiction
@hedge@beehaw.org avatar

deleted_by_author

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  • ID411,

    Yeah - I think people do have slightly rose tinted spectacles.

    They were engrossing, but sometimes obtuse - and parsing instructions was really frustrating.

    obywatelle, do wolnyinternet w [ENG] Jeden z inżynierów Facebooka zmuszony do rezygnacji po ujawnieniu praktyk mizoginistycznych w miejscu pracy
    @obywatelle@szmer.info avatar

    No, na zachodzie bez zmian. A podobno to ta straszna kąkol kultur premiuje negatywną selekcję i forsuje baby bez kompetencji na wysokie stanowiska. :)

    alyqz, do astronomy w Mystery object waits nearly an hour between radio bursts

    So maybe a binary system causing the signal to only periodically wobble into earth’s path wile missing for mist of it?

    downpunxx, do astronomy w The Hubble Space Telescope has lost a majority of its gyroscopes

    ground control to major tom, your circuits dead, there's something wrong, can you hear me major tom

    XTL,

    We can’t really say that we’re

    Surprised

    It’s a shame

    There’s always something that gets compromised

    umbrella, (edited ) do games w 11 years after launch, 49M people still use their PS4s, matching the PS5
    @umbrella@lemmy.ml avatar

    deleted_by_author

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  • kratoz29,
    @kratoz29@lemm.ee avatar

    And a disappointing slim model too… (I was waiting for the slim one).

    umbrella, (edited )
    @umbrella@lemmy.ml avatar

    deleted_by_author

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  • kratoz29,
    @kratoz29@lemm.ee avatar

    I think it looks ugly, you need to buy the dock thingy separately?

    And it is more expensive than the og model lol (without the dock).

    QuikxSpec,

    No real advantage compared to the regular

    redshift,

    It’s not slim. I was waiting for a slim version, like I usually do with PlayStation. Now I’m just writing off the PS5 entirely.

    1984, do astronomy w Daily Telescope: The most distant galaxy found so far is a total surprise
    @1984@lemmy.today avatar

    I just see white dots.

    paddirn,

    That’s how alot of these discoveries seem like. Partly it’s just science reporting hyping up anything that happens, but then for many of these astronomical discoveries, it’s just a couple of pixels on a screen. And then somehow they can infer all sorts of things about it based on that. It’s just mind-blowing to think of all the data they can get from that about stars that are millions of light years away.

    1984, (edited )
    @1984@lemmy.today avatar

    I would like to understand how they infer these things without becoming a science major. Is it just math equations based on what they think is the distance to the planet and then more math based on what they think the atmosphere is, and so on? Because they can’t actually see the planet.

    XeroxCool,

    I can’t explain this one, but I’d like to offer some other identifiers used. When searching for likely planets, they observe stars for wobble in their position. Large planets like jupiter and Saturn have some hefty pull on our own star. The common orbital point between them, called the barycenter, is still inside the sun, but their great distance apart pulls that barycenter closer to the edge of the sun. Our sun has a pretty notable wobble as a result. That’s the kind of thing they look for elsewhere. If there’s no other star causing the wobble in a binary system, then it must be a planet pulling it.

    By estimating the mass of the star by various observations of color, brightness, and brightness variation, they can do some “easy” algebra to calculate the size of the affecting planet. From there, they can scan for radiation frequencies in the darkness where they think a planet is sitting. Water has a frequency, hydrogen has a frequency, oxygen has a frequency, helium, etc. By stuffing objects close to home, we can extrapolate that info and apply it to further objects with some confidence. This is how organic compounds were discovered in Venus’ atmosphere.

    A lot of it is based on what we have at home, meaning we’re largely looking for what we have and then identifying it as the same. There is uncertainty about some details, but that’s how it always goes with science. It’s always being updated. It’s takes a lot of creativity to imagine what else might be out there and to devise how to look for it. Black holes are a pretty notable example. Since they’re not observable directly, what do you look for? Well, you look for other things being eaten and hope the matter is hot enough to throw a lot of radiation. 80 years ago, they were just an idea. Now we have images of a few galactic-center black holes. Some have been observed free floating through space by distorting the apparent position of stars behind it. Do we absolutely know it was a black hole? No, but that’s what solid theories can identify it as given the darkness and huge mass required to cause that kind of effect. But, as a result, estimates for dark and cold objects vary greatly because they’re the hardest to observe. There’s talk of finding more “hot jupiters” than expected, but it’s totally valid that maybe wevre just missing the cold Jupiter’s because they’re hard to see.

    We keep looking and we keep writing it down.

    Dariusmiles2123, do games w 11 years after launch, 49M people still use their PS4s, matching the PS5

    I really don’t regret buying my ps5, but I could totally still be on ps4 as I’m mostly playing games from the previous generation or available on it.

    But at one point, there’ll be quite a few games which wouldn’t be able to run on ps4. The question is when.

    I also feel like we don’t need to have more beautiful games than Last of Us 2, so I hope one day we’ll stop focusing so much on better looking games.

    deafboy,
    @deafboy@lemmy.world avatar

    I also feel like we don’t need to have more beautiful games than Last of Us 2

    Remember when FarCry was released, and people were compairing the ingame screenshots with real photos? We all thought “Man, this is it. It can’t get any better than this”.

    EddoWagt,

    I certainly did that with Gran Turismo 6 on the PS3

    Dariusmiles2123,

    Well I’m not against games becoming more impressive visually per se, but against the fact that because of this games are becoming way more expensive to produce and companies are now risk averse.

    But yeah I might have said « this is it » in front of quite a few games 😅

    candid,

    GTA 6 is looking to be the first title that will need the newer hardware. That’s all I can think of off top.

    Dariusmiles2123,

    Yeah probably. Cyberpunk was another example even if it came way earlier in the lifecycle.

    SomeGuy69, do games w 11 years after launch, 49M people still use their PS4s, matching the PS5
    @SomeGuy69@lemmy.world avatar

    I don’t support a company that decided to increase price instead of reducing it. Also PS games are expensive. Then there was also non available and you had to put yourself on a year long waiting list, when at then end I said “nah, I don’t need it”. It’s Sony’s own fault I don’t have a PS5 yet.

    ampersandrew,
    @ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

    To be fair on the price increase thing, this is the first time in the history of video games that the cost to produce the hardware went up over time.

    lud,

    And inflation is insane nowadays.

    Personally I’m gonna stick with my desktop and Deck

    ampersandrew,
    @ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

    Well, it was insane in the middle there. Maybe it’s worse where you are, but in the US, it’s back almost to where it’s supposed to be.

    lud,

    Maybe but that doesn’t mean that the value of currency has returned to where it was. Unless there has been some deflation that I’m not awake of.

    ampersandrew,
    @ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

    No, there hasn’t been, but there is a distinction between currently experiencing high inflation and previously experiencing high inflation in the middle of a hardware product’s life cycle.

    Dariusmiles2123,

    Yeah and don’t forget that even with the inflated price, a ps5 is cheap compared to a pc as powerful.

    SomeGuy69,
    @SomeGuy69@lemmy.world avatar

    No it’s not. PlayStation costs money if you want to go online, PC not. PlayStation games are a lot more expensive than on PC and you lose access to your gamed with every new generation unless you want to store your old console. Also generally PC sales are much deeper then on the controlled PlayStation store. To believe your console is cheaper is really not true.

    Dariusmiles2123,

    On PlayStation you can still buy second hand games because of the disc drive. I don’t know if PC still have a blu-ray drive anymore.

    You can still get a lot of new games on ps4 which is a cheap console.

    I guess that for some people having a gaming pc is cheaper, but for me having a ps5 and a weak pc is cheaper.

    It depends on the user…

    SomeGuy69,
    @SomeGuy69@lemmy.world avatar

    Why should the PC not have a blu-ray drive, it has all the freedom a console lacks. But I don’t remember the last time I needed one, because I can get just a few month old games for 5 bucks. So I didn’t even bother buying a drive. I buy games for 45 bucks while on console they cost 80 and more, on release day.

    Yeah add the cost for the week PC on top, another reason why PC is cheaper, as you’ll likely need a PC regardless.

    Not playing online would be the only reason why PS is cheaper and if you buy no games and only lend them from others. Price of PlayStation plus PS+ gets you a good PC if you use it for 5+ years, which most do.

    Dariusmiles2123,

    Maybe if you see it that way. But just thinking about how much you need to upgrade your PC or tinker with it for everything to work is too much for me.

    I already don’t like the fact that on ps5 you have to choose between performance and fidelity modes, so imagine if I had to choose settings on a pc.

    Also on consoles, you just know a game is gonna work perfectly, which is not always the case on pc.

    But PC is better for some players and console are better for some others.

    I sometimes consider jumping to PC gaming, but I see too many inconveniences for now.

    scripthook, do games w 11 years after launch, 49M people still use their PS4s, matching the PS5
    @scripthook@lemmy.world avatar

    I just recently bought a PS4 for $150. So being able to play most modern games (with the exception of any new games 2025 or later) is a pretty good deal :)

    timo_timboo_,

    Yeah, I’m planning to get a PS4 or maybe PS4 Pro as well. It’s a great deal considering the large library of games, many of which can be bought physically for relatively cheap.

    Zatore, do games w 11 years after launch, 49M people still use their PS4s, matching the PS5

    I have a PC for all my games except one, Bloodborne. I have a PS4 and that’s the only thing I’ve used it for.

    Pirky, do games w 11 years after launch, 49M people still use their PS4s, matching the PS5
    @Pirky@lemmy.world avatar

    Something to keep in mind: Official support for the PS2 was only 12 years. The PS4 is now at 11 years.
    It will most likely have a longer officially supported life than the PS2.

    Stovetop,

    It’s definitely easier to have that degree of support when you’ve got a common architecture now. There has never been a console generation before this where you had literal years of overlap with games releasing on previous and current gen, because it didn’t require much extra work to maintain additional versions. They were already doing that with the “Pro” consoles before anyways.

    Hell, PS4 players are still going to get the highly anticipated Shadow of the Erdtree DLC for Elden Ring in a few weeks.

    Yokozuna, do games w 11 years after launch, 49M people still use their PS4s, matching the PS5
    @Yokozuna@lemmy.world avatar

    I’m over here in the corner enjoying the metal gear collection on my PS3

    Kolanaki,
    !deleted6508 avatar

    Why oh why is MGS4 the only one not on any other system? It can’t even be streamed on PS4 or 5. 😩

    iagomago,
    @iagomago@feddit.it avatar

    iirc it’s a “fault” of the PS3 architecture which makes it practically impossible to emulate. We’ll have to see if the second part of the remastered MSG collection will eventually port it.

    Dariusmiles2123,

    Well I don’t see why you couldn’t emulate it on a ps5. People are doing it on pc so I guess it’s more that Sony doesn’t care and don’t want to invest in it.

    It’s one side where Microsoft is better than Sony, retrocompatinility.

    I’m still playing a lot of ps4 and ps3 games, so I hope my ps3 is gonna stay fit for purpose in the long term 🤞

    billwashere, do games w 11 years after launch, 49M people still use their PS4s, matching the PS5

    I have a PS5 and I still do because I can’t afford $500 for the PSVR2 upgrade and I like playing Beat Saber.

    v4ld1z, (edited ) do games w 11 years after launch, 49M people still use their PS4s, matching the PS5

    If any of you guys have a PS4 lying around gathering dust, consider jailbreaking it. Depending on the firmware, it is pretty easy to do and opens up a lot of possibilities. Surely better than being neglected :)

    Edit: Firmwares up to 11.00 are jailbreakable as of recently. 11.00 is from around late 2022, so if you have a console that hasn’t been in use since then, there’s a good chance you can jailbreak it. Base model, Slim, or Pro - doesn’t matter

    dependencyinjection,

    Best uses of a jailbroken one?

    PotatoKat,

    Bloodborne 60fps

    v4ld1z,

    Sadly, only around 40ish fps on a base model but very cool nonetheless. The framerate and semi-smoothness kinda puts it in an uncanny valley territory for me since it looks smoother but also not smoother at the same time coming from PS5 performance. Lies of P runs a lot better in comparison even though it’s graphically more demanding, I assume

    v4ld1z,

    Well, obviously piracy if you’re into that. Apart from that, using cheats for games, dumping your physical games and having a permanent copy you can use without the CD and an active license (probably possible with a digital game too I assume? not sure), applying patches like a 60fps patch for Bloodborne, emulation of PS1, PS2, PSP and a bunch of other consoles etc etc.

    Running Linux if you’re that kind of person :P

    dependencyinjection,

    Piracy is interesting. Are the HDD replaceable. Could you add a NAS.

    v4ld1z,

    The HDD is replacable and afaik, you can insert an SSD too. Not sure about the sizes, but an internet search should point you the right direction.

    Not familiar with NAS. Isn’t that some kind of server?

    dependencyinjection,

    Thanks ill Google it.

    NAS is Network Attached Storage. Typically a rack of drives connected to the network.

    ClockworkOtter,

    What kind of possibilities?

    v4ld1z,

    Well, obviously piracy if you’re into that. Apart from that, using cheats for games, dumping your physical games and having a permanent copy you can use without the CD and an active license (probably possible with a digital game too I assume? not sure), applying patches like a 60fps patch for Bloodborne, emulation of PS1, PS2, PSP and a bunch of other consoles etc etc.

    Running Linux if you’re that kind of person :P

    ClockworkOtter,

    Nothing too surprising, but nice nonetheless. Cool

    samus12345, (edited )
    @samus12345@lemmy.world avatar

    It requires an old-as-hell 9.0 firmware or below, right?

    v4ld1z,

    Actually not anymore. There’s been a recent breakthrough that led to a new exploit up to 11.00 being possible now. 11.00 is from, like, late 2022 I think? Obviously not an option if your PS4 has been in regular use recently, but I lucked out and got an 11.00 console from a friend of mine who hadn’t been using the PS4 for a while.

    If you’re on a newer firmware, there is no way of reverting back to 11.00, unfortunately, unless you’re up for some soldering.

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