Playstation 5 [PS5] [Release November 12 2020]

It paints the picture of "good publisher who cares about their customers" which turns into sales.

So which publisher today has that image or at least are trying to achieve it ?

Its easier to get people on board with the new platform if you make it as easy and seamless and good as possible to upgrade from earlier iterations. Its as simple as keeping the money train that is their online ecosystem going into the future. Its the same as free ps4 pro upgrades from ps4 but sony had far less incentive for people to upgrade for pro than with ps5...hence its even more likely now imo

This is where this the world is nice and easy model breaks down in my view.

How much money / resources should they spend per title to release a free patch to make a game run better on. a new platform. A platform that already can run the released game due to BC. I think that there are serious diminish returns on ROI for this.
How long is that long tail ? Will anybody buy a new watchdog because Ubi spent money on patching Watchdog 2 to run at 4k/60fps on the new consoles?
Or should they spend that money/resources on new games?

Did we get free GTA V upgrade from PS3. to PS4 (I do not remember)? Anybody did anything like this for the last generation transition?

I think mgmt/shareholders care more about "new hits" to inflate the share price.

I guess that MS is in a better position to do this, if they can do it automatically within their BC solution, but still how many of the early adopters have not gone through most of the AAA titles on this gen?

Anecdotally the only games I missed going from PS3 to PS4, was smaller titles like Critter Crunch and Trash Panic etc. None of the AAA games on PS3, did I care for after the release of the PS4.
 
A passion protect with no need for any release quality QA, so its probably not trivial as a financial project.
They basically used the Bloodborne engine for Dark Souls 3. The tests for 60fps mode have already being done for Dark Souls 3.
 
I'm not counting on pubs/devs having the time to tweak their games and Sony having the desire to facilitate the patching process, but I hope Sony at least lets the PS5 masquerade as a PS4 Ultra. Just getting variable res and framerate games to peg their maximums would be a boon. Even if they force some sort of clock compatibility modes, the IPC leap from PS4 to PS5 should be enough to lift ~40fps games to 60 and (shudder) ~20fps games to 30 (I'm looking at you, The Last Guardian).
 
So which publisher today has that image or at least are trying to achieve it ?
Microsoft seems to be hard at work trying to achieve it.
Not sure if any publishers really qualify these days, Blizzard used to but it looks like glueing Activision under their roof has infected them too.
CD Projekt Red seems to be held in pretty high regards overall, they're running DRM free GOG (=we're the good guys) and no-one seems to be afraid of pre-ordering whatever they release.
 
Is there any monetary incentive for that? If yes, what are they?
This happens on PC all the time. Look at games like Titan Quest or Red Faction Guerrilla. The "remastered" versions of those games were just free for people who owned the previous versions. In the case of Red Faction, that's as far as it went. You get a new version with some post effects and the occasional new texture. With Titan Quest, they started making DLC again and released 2 expansions for the new version. Sometimes there's a financial incentive, and sometimes not.

Another example are the Bioshock 1/2 remasters. They were free for PC owners of the originals. Not really sure if there was any sort of financial incentive to do that, I don't believe any DLC was ever released exclusively for the remasters or anything like that.

There have been examples of paid upgrades, also. I know Hard Reset had something like a 90% discount off the remaster if you owned the original, so it was only a few dollars. Bulletstorm famously charged full price, with no sort of loyalty discount for previous purchases. Dead Island also didn't have a discount, and they stopped selling the original versions, which makes sense, except that I own those, and my friends bought the only versions available to play multiplayer, so that didn't work out for us.

Anyway, I don't know why publishers release what amounts to a remaster/upgrade for free long after support is assumed to have ended on PC, but they do it pretty often. Probably about 50% of the time the upgrades are free.
 
So which publisher today has that image or at least are trying to achieve it ?



This is where this the world is nice and easy model breaks down in my view.

How much money / resources should they spend per title to release a free patch to make a game run better on. a new platform. A platform that already can run the released game due to BC. I think that there are serious diminish returns on ROI for this.
How long is that long tail ? Will anybody buy a new watchdog because Ubi spent money on patching Watchdog 2 to run at 4k/60fps on the new consoles?
Or should they spend that money/resources on new games?

Did we get free GTA V upgrade from PS3. to PS4 (I do not remember)? Anybody did anything like this for the last generation transition?

I think mgmt/shareholders care more about "new hits" to inflate the share price.

I guess that MS is in a better position to do this, if they can do it automatically within their BC solution, but still how many of the early adopters have not gone through most of the AAA titles on this gen?

Anecdotally the only games I missed going from PS3 to PS4, was smaller titles like Critter Crunch and Trash Panic etc. None of the AAA games on PS3, did I care for after the release of the PS4.

It incentivizes new sales from older games as well if they get upgrades...i know quite a few people who would dip if a 4k60fps patch for Bloodborne dropped in their laps.

I dont expect Sony to have a solution for developers actually going back and patching their games outside of select titles for higher FPS or higher res, but Cerny has already mentioned using the power of the HW to help older games run better just by brute forcing it, and i think that might be enough for them.

But PS4 has a different issue because a majority of games on PS4 are already properly optimized for solid FPS unlike 7th gen with frequent sub 30fps games....and around 1080p is an average number on PS4, again unlike below 720p of PS3..i wonder how many games in total will actually be able to see significant advantages
 
I think Sony should incentive BC @ 60 fps for PS5... maybe this by fixing a politically correct price (maybe 5 or 7 dollars for big titles and 4 or 2 dollars for small titles)... if a title is completely remastered (4K vs 1080p)... maybe a 10 or 15 dollars upgrade fee is justified...
 
Im saying there will be pubs that upgrade games for free

Is there any monetary incentive for that? If yes, what are they?

Publishers with games (e.g. GTA V, Fortnine) with active user bases and micro-transactions bringing in significant revenue will have an incentive to keep their games competitive in technical terms.
 
The way I see it is best chance is games with unlocked frame rates and dynamic resolution getting automatic boost from the improved clocks and then obviously games that are more a service that have dlc or loot boxes obviously getting patched for free.

Also the guy that made no man's sky has said every time they release a big free update sales go up so there's that angle also.
 
Also the guy that made no man's sky has said every time they release a big free update sales go up so there's that angle also.
THIS * 1000000

'Free updates' do make some financial sense. It is not 100% accurate that they are simply 'passion projects' to keep players happy. If that were the case, then MS would not have invested so damn much in making sure that all older games have some sort of 'upgrade' when playing them on newer consoles!
 
Also the guy that made no man's sky has said every time they release a big free update sales go up so there's that angle also.
It depends on the title. If updates did not result in increased sales, he'd have dropped NMS development. NMS as a long-lived exploration title benefits far more than a short solo story game would. People who wouldn't have bought NMS in its initial state were happy to once there was more variety, gameplay, activities, etc. People who didn't buy a game at 1080p30 because it didn't appeal to them aren't that likely to get it just because it's now 4k60 with some slight visual upticks.
 
People who didn't buy a game at 1080p30 because it didn't appeal to them aren't that likely to get it just because it's now 4k60 with some slight visual upticks.
But.. aren't they? Where is the evidence? If anything there is more of a chance of people buying it at a discounted price if it does have a big "4k/60" sticker on them. I for one would buy quite a few older games if I knew I'd get improved visuals, and I know I am not the only one. Or even buy DLCs I wouldn't normally touch, if I knew I would be getting upgrades (AC Origins and Odyssey for example)
 
I know first hand the amount of interest well done ports and conversions can do to drum up interest even from parties previously disinterested or not paying attention to the property in question
 
But.. aren't they? Where is the evidence? If anything there is more of a chance of people buying it at a discounted price if it does have a big "4k/60" sticker on them. I for one would buy quite a few older games if I knew I'd get improved visuals, and I know I am not the only one. Or even buy DLCs I wouldn't normally touch, if I knew I would be getting upgrades (AC Origins and Odyssey for example)
Some will sure, but at the end of the day, why didn't you buy a game? If you didn't want it when it first released because the story didn't appeal or the style wasn't alluring or it didn't look like gameplay you'd enjoy, why would you care about it on PS5 when it has those same reasons to not get it? This is only for one-generation old titles. For older titles, big remakes or missed opportunities makes new versions more appealing. But for games that came out on PS4 that you didn't buy, AC Origins say, will you buy those games for updated visuals over brand new next-gen games with 'updated visuals'? If so, why? Is the sole reason you didn't buy them this gen that they weren't pretty enough? Or did you not have enough time for them, at which point will it be the case next gen that you'll have more time to play old games?
 
Some will sure, but at the end of the day, why didn't you buy a game?
For a whole variety of reasons that would prevent me and many others to purchase the game at full price? I still have games that I have not touched at all, and they were bought at full price. So there are some others where my conscience thought 'hang on a sec, don't buy this now, you have loads still to go through'. I don't think I'm saying anything out of the ordinary.
Heck, I would not have bought FF7 if I knew it had the problems it had, and I have not touched it since the first few chapters. I will only pick it up if they ever fix it (probably never).
I think you're trying to rationalise and narrow down the huge number of reasons people might not buy a game until much later on. And 'visual upgrades' definitely help those who may have skipped a game the first time around!
 
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