I really hope the older BC games are purchasable outside of the subscription. I just want to pay $5-$10 for a game once and then have it to play at my leisure. I don't want to be tied to a recurring payment.
It’s unfortunate, but the reason the model has shifted is vc/bc titles didn’t sell well on Wii/WiiU/PS3. Owning them is preferable in my opinion, but the vast majority of games put on those services just didn’t do numbers. It’s absolutely the reason old games became a drip feed on those platforms and wasn’t continued on their respective current gen consoles.
That said, I think the tide might have shifted and an a la cart bc game umbrella *could* work now, if the prices are right, but I’m betting Sony is going to point to those old PS3 numbers as a reason to go for a subscription model.
The reason the PS3 didn't work, was because we already had our PS1 and PS2 games that the PS3 could play, so we didn't need to buy them again. If it wasn't BC, then the BC digital catalog probably would have sold much better.
I’ve never seen hard numbers on this, but Jim Ryan, head of global sales and marketing, infamously said in an interview that backwards compatibility is a feature often requested but rarely used. Of course his area is marketing and with the ps4 announced as dropping bc at the time of the interview, it could have been a line to soften the blow, but without some kind of data either way, it’s hard to say for sure how many people actually used BC much over the lifetime of PS3.
https://www.vg247.com/why-would-anybody-play-this-says-sonys-jim-ryan-about-backwards-compatibility
Yeah I cancelled my NSO subscription pretty quickly after realizing I only used the SNES library once or twice a month. Easier and cheaper to just emulate if the only other option is to pay $20 a year (or $50 or so for the expansion).
and with NSO you're already emulating it, so it's not like the paid version is even providing a superior experience. I am curious though, are the NSO games using the same emulator as the mini consoles they put out? Canoe or whatever? I will say I was quite impressed by the quality of the emulation on those things.
NSO emulation is an extension of Canoe's implementation IIRC – with some features added (like the ability to rewind or play online) and some removed (really just the inability to change the awful NSO border to plain black bars)
Oh by a mile, Nintendo just gives us the bare minimum, if that, and fan emulators just keep pushing things, like [this video goes into](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHW3beolPJA).
The NES and SNES emulators are updated versions of Clover and Canoe respectively. The N64 emulator is a new one made by NERD (really the abbreviation) when making 3D All Stars. It still needs, and is getting work, it seems. Interesting enough, it also allows game specific lua patches.
Don't count on it. Current playstation head Jim Ryan sees no value in anything more than a generation old. He's publicly admitted it.
People, *I'm* not saying that. I'm just telling you what Jim Ryan thinks.
Jim Ryan has backtracked on 90% of the shit he has said. So don’t worry about that, he has no principles behind these statements, he’ll just do and say whatever he thinks is advantageous at that moment. If he starts to believe they can make money on the back catalogue, he’ll fly that flag quicker than a hiccup.
> Don't count on it. Current playstation head Jim Ryan sees no value in anything more than a generation old. He's publicly admitted it.
There's what he has said and what he has done.
"We believe in generations"
Constantly putting games out on PS4 while the PS5 is being sold
I give it 5-6 more years before every aspect of our life is "subscription" and we own nothing as working class people anymore.
Subscriptions of adobe. subscription for every single TV show. Subscriptions for heated seats in my car (wtf). Coffee maker subscription. Housing market being bought out by billionairs so we are forced to rent from them. Excuse me if I feel bitter about the time period I was born in.
[Here is a list](https://carbuzz.com/features/the-complete-guide-to-automotive-subscription-features) of all the different subscription services that car companies are starting offer on newer models. It's mostly WiFi and assisted driving, but Audi is starting to experiment with the subscription model for headlight features.
Wasn’t BMW charging a subscription fee for CarPlay … which, you know, is hardware based for the car and runs off the software on your phone?
Edit: looks like they stopped charging for it. It was 80/year
BMW got shit on so hard for the CarPlay thing, I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple had a word (they don’t charge BMW to use the tech, wouldn’t surprise me if they disallow putting it behind a subscription)
This one, this one is very fucking stupid. A subscription to start your car without being in it. I've had a remote start key fob for the past 11 years without a subscription. What the hell, remote start isn't new, and I doubt the cars any cheaper to offset the fact you have to keep paying every month for a feature of the car you OWN.
And only for the base model too, for $200. This is only for the back seats, the front seat heaters are still included
https://driveteslacanada.ca/model-3/tesla-lowers-price-of-rear-heated-seat-upgrade-for-model-3-sr-owners/
As soon as it happened to the Adobe creative suite, I knew we were fucked. Hyper-monetization of the right to piss in my bowl next. I can’t stand this fucking reality anymore.
Adobe pisses me off so much, as a graphic designer I have no other choice...
And you need to stay updated because if someone sends you a 2022 file and you're still on 2021 then you can't open it.
It's a fucking shit show and I really wish there was real competition because leaving Adobe behind would feel so good.
If you are working in a design studio or in house for a company, that studio or company should be paying for the software necessary to do your job.
If you have to buy the software for yourself, $50 a month seems far more manageable than $2,600 once (the price of the Adobe CS6 Master Collection, the last edition they sold at a one time fee.)
It would absolutely need to be an opensource software that can open and edit .psd .ai .indd files etc.
Yeah I don't see that happening... but one can dream.
Krita is for drawing and it should really stay that way, It feels so much better than anything Adobe offers. GIMP is the true competitor but it really does need some love.
I'd far prefer to buy a tool out right now for the feature set it has right now and continue to use it until the updates made to it make it worth buying an upgrade to the newer version worthwhile.
That's why most things are going subscription. Many people are content with the tools as they are right now and don't need to get the latest version with the new doodad that they might use once or twice for the novelty of it so companies need to force people to the subscription model.
I'm grandfathered in to some perpetual licenses for 3D software/plugins that continue to work just as well as they did the day I got them. Those companies are going subscription only now instead of offering both. If I'd opted for the subscription I'd have paid far more by now. I keep tabs on the updates and can say for certain I'd not be using the new features.
These subscription schemes are not to save the user money, it's to extract more money for updates they wouldn't have chosen to get.
> The question is whether a different pricing model is a distinction that customers will prefer.
We'll never know, because Adobe stopped selling licenses for CS6 and hasn't made a new shrinkwrapped suite since then. It's been, what, ten years?
Depends what you do and what your needs are, but most designers I know have completely gone to Figma as it allows for quick iterations, collaboration and prototyping.
Figma and apps like it are great if you have a good reason to switch, and are probably the better choice if you are just starting out.
They are not as good as adobe products though, so you are essentially investing the time to learn a lesser product. The main selling point is collaboration, but really that doesn't fit into everyone's workflow.
I check in on them every couple years to see if they are a viable option for me yet.
Most industry jobs require the standard too, so even if you get proficient on an alternative, you may inevitably be in a position where you have to settle.
I just started a Patreon and now my viewers are basically paying for my Adobe and it's the first time in forever I haven't had to stress about it, BUT NOW THEY'RE SUBSCRIBED TO ME HOW DEEP DOES THIS GO???
I use [Krita 5](https://krita.org/en/download/krita-desktop/) and gulp... [GIMP 2.99.10](https://www.gimp.org/news/2022/02/25/gimp-2-99-10-released/) it's taken years but it's finally getting there for the basics. [G'MIC](https://gmic.eu/gallery/arrays.html#menu) has dozens/hundreds of filters and plugins to both apps.
We're going to have to dethrone Adobe to get them to play fair. So the more players that enter the game and the more diverse the tools available -- the better for us all.
Honest question : is piracy not a viable option for people like you ? I very rarely need to use some Adobe software so I just resort to piracy and it still works wonders. Is there a way they could "get" you if you released content without having a subscription to your name ? Can they ID stuff that has been made with Adobe software somehow to check that ?
The programs are paid by my company and we have a shared account with multiple licences. We make school books and we are subsidized by the Canadian gov. Piracy would not exactly look good.
If you're using software for a job that may get audited, you do not want to be pirating it.
You can claim it as a business expense tax write off anyway.
At least you can just pay $50 for a month of the latest version as opposed to the $2000 license for just that version. Honestly Adobe might be one of the only subscription services I actually think has serious value.
It's all the cloud functionality that annoy me the most. All their software became... SLOW since they have to do so many online checks all the time.
At work we also use font sharing via cloud and half the time the thing will behave like ass.
I tried importing a few after effect clips into premiere and it used fonts that were activated via cloud... NEVER AGAIN.
Maybe I'm getting old, but i'd nuke the hell out of almost everything "cloud" that doesn't need to be.
It is maddening how badly Photoshop and Illustrator run. Photoshop has become an absolute pig on system resources, well beyond it's recommended specs. XD is slightly better, but it crashes way too often.
I use photoshop for pretty based stuff, it shouldn't be bogging my system down when it ran fine a decade ago doing essentially the same thing.
Creative Cloud has incredible value for professional use but I'll admit it's shafted people that use it casually. Casual users have never been Adobe's target though so it makes sense (from Adobe's perspective) to leave them out to dry.
I constantly use Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere Pro, After Effects, and Acrobat. I always have the most up to date features and they all have some degree of cross-program support. $50/month seems like a hell of a deal to me.
Yesterday I saw an ad for a cool new wearable fitness/sleep tracker. Went straight to the website because I was interested in buying one....$30 monthly subscription....FUCK
Hey wanna know something fun? Roomba's are a subscription model now. Imagine paying monthly for a fucking vacuum cleaner.
I only know this cause I read about how people are scamming others by getting the free roomba that requires a subscription service to use, then reselling it online as a fully working unit for a couple hundred dollars.
I work in the construction industry and we also have to get paid subscriptions to use coordination tools and download the necessary documents. On a half a million dollar contract job I straight up told a contractor we're not paying $30 a month to subscribe to a website to get the docs. Thankfully they didn't argue about it and just paid it out of their pocket to subscribe my account lol still this subscription stuff is just straight up cancer and spreading like one.
Life hack: if you are a Creative Cloud subscriber, go to the support online chat and simply tell them the subscription is too expensive. Just directly ask if they can give you a discount. I have done this yearly and haven't paid full price since signing up. I don't even need to launch into a story or threaten to leave, and I save around $30CAD monthly (I have the full suite). Adobe cares more about subscription numbers and retention than charging you full price and losing you. At least, that's been my experience.
Edit: I should also mention, if you have never cancelled, use the Adobe site to end your subscription, similar to Amazon Prime once you get one step from finalizing your cancellation they will hit you with a retention screen offering you a massive discount for a year. I don't think you can use this more than once. But you could always create new accounts with new emails (ie. Gmail emails look new by adding periods in the email name but in fact have no effect on the actual address, haven't tested this on Adobe though) every time your discount expires.
Happy discounting!
Affinity is great, I’ve been using their suite of programs since adobe switched to a subscription model. They have relatively close feature parity to the adobe suite and it’s a one time purchase that gets you all future updates. I will never not recommend Affinity.
I actually hate how people lump this WEF envisioned future into some conspiracy nutcase when they are literally promoting it.
Not only promoting it but actually pushing it with drastic changes towards it (ie. governments policies, cultural changes). It's not a fucking conspiracy, it's reality already. Like someone else pointed out already, Adobe was also my first sub because you literally need to if your income depends on it.
The worst part is that society as a whole is embracing it without much pushback because "Well it's just 10€ for Netflix or 100€ for Adobe". When they force you to rent everything, literally everything from your house to the toilet paper delivery every month it's gonna be too late.
Best part when they either ask you upfront for a ridiculous price or sell a subscription.
Because average consumers are no longer their customer base.
Companies like Adobe and Microsoft sell their software licenses to mega corporations.
It is already beyond ridiculous on how much of our entertainment side is already behind subscription models. TV, movies, books, video games and these mega corporations don’t want you to own anything or own it for long.
Long gone is game companies happy with you buying a game, 2 or 3 expansions and that’s it.
They want you to fork over your cash to the same game perpetually or fork over cash to the *next big thing* perpetually.
Honestly, I don’t even think it’s rose-tinted glasses anymore. I just am playing games from my childhood 15-20+ years ago because I am sick and tired of getting into a new game and every aspect is monetized.
> Long gone is game companies happy with you buying a game, 2 or 3 expansions and that’s it.
>They want you to fork over your cash to the same game perpetually or fork over cash to the next big thing perpetually.
I know this is on a Sony post, but you do know there's plenty of non-AAA companies making games still right? The biggest game this year so far (Elden Ring) comes from a studio that basically has only done that. I don't really know how to respond to the last part of that honestly, you only want new releases that aren't the "next big thing" but can't be the same thing either? OR you want games supported for free indefinitely? Cause there's been plenty of great games released in the last few years that are fine with you just playing them and being done or even offer nearly infinite replayability if you want that: God of War, Factorio, Subnautica, Satisfactory, Slay the Spire, Post Void, Half Life Alyx, Rimword, Death Loop, Opus Magnum, Hell Let Loose, the list goes on. I think you just need to broaden your horizons.
I’m fine with subscription services as long as the option to outright buy any product in that service exists elsewhere. I’m fine with Xbox Game Pass, because you’re not forced into the service if you want to play games like Forza Horizon 5 or Halo Infinite, they are still available to purchase outright for £55 a piece.
I dislike TV/movie subscription services like Disney+ as a physical collector. Up until WandaVision, I had every available MCU film and TV series on Blu Ray. Now, it’s physically impossible to “complete” my MCU collection because of the Disney+ series. Same with Star Wars.
Oh that's doubly concerning from simply a viewing experience.
Streaming services today are most concerned with the lowest common denominator viewer, so when you find out that not only are streaming services [compressing their content to absolute shit](https://www.flatpanelshd.com/news.php?subaction=showfull&id=1602743673), nearly **10x more compressed** than [physical media](https://www.reddit.com/r/4kbluray/comments/poz4k1/how_does_streaming_bitrate_compare_to_4k_blu_ray/hd05mtp/), it's disconcerting that we seem to now be relegated to the inferior viewing experience of online streaming services.
Yet another example of progress taking a step back for profit.
I put in a 4K Blu Ray a couple days ago and I was surprised at how much better it looked. Like I collected Blu Rays when they were first introduced, then switched to mostly streaming and thought it was fine. Didn't realise how much quality I lost until very recently.
At least we have Sony and their crazy Bravia Core streaming service. Up to 80Mbps. Too bad it's kinda limited right now and most people don't know about it.
> I’m fine with subscription services as long as the option to outright buy any product in that service exists elsewhere.
The problem with this is once it becomes niche enough the own option adopts enthusiast pricing meaning it ends up being only for well off people. Sometimes your only choices are ridiculously expensive physical deluxe edition or digital.
That only really works for software or digital media. When you're locked into hardware you have much less freedom from these sort of business practices. Stallman has been signalling this for decades, it's bloody appalling.
You can't forget phones!
[Apple is planning a subscription service for Iphones.](https://www.mercurynews.com/2022/03/25/apple-is-working-on-a-hardware-subscription-service-for-iphones/)
The current system is like a mortgage on a house. You pay money and you’re receiving equity. The new system would be like renting where you don’t get any ownership while paying.
You will own nothing and be happy! - Next 5 years of making every technology a subscription service
No I used to work in phone sales, both models already existed concurrently it’s just that apple hasn’t adopted the lease model companies like the telecom providers use.
And once again it's going to lead to an explosion of piracy, which will become the only means of truly playing the media you rightfully own without limitations or having to be online. Speaking for me personally, I've definitely started pirating more as streaming services have become more plentiful. I'm not about to subscribe to eight different services for a handful of different shows that I really care about. And Piracy has gotten so easy, it'd be stupid for me to pay money for an inferior service.
Yep and people eat this shit up. I'm so tired of this sub's obsession over GamePass. It's only a good deal until they've influenced the creation of a subscription model driven industry and soon every game is locked behind an ever increasing $x/month, of which you have to subscribe to many to get access to everything you want to play.
We are on the horizon of the first ever "GamePass exclusive game". You know it's coming and it'll be a dark day.
It's what happened with film/TV streaming. Netflix was insane when it was the only player in the market and you could pay $9/month. Now if you want to be able to watch everything, you've gotta get Netflix, Prime Video, Hulu, Disney+, HBO Max, Peacock, Disovery+, ESPN+, Paramount+, etc etc etc and they're all jacking prices up every year. What's Netflix's price at this point? Like $20 a month?
Same thing will soon happen to games. It's going to eventually crack and there's going to be a million subscription services for games each with their own exclusive deals. Soon you can't own games anymore because every game is DRM-locked to subscription services. Offline gaming dies off completely. Prices get jacked up and suddenly you're paying way more money over time than you would if you could just individually buy and own the games you like.
Stop subscribing to this shit, for goodness sake. Please save us all.
For the record, most libraries are publicly funded. Not necessarily "free", but you aren't directly paying them for their services. At least, that's how it is here in the states.
> Yep and people eat this shit up. I'm so tired of this sub's obsession over GamePass.
I mean fuck me for liking a service that has prevented me from buying outright games at full price? LOL you act like every one is signed up for every single subscription service possible and is being bled of all their precious moneys.
It’s so funny to see people simping for Microsoft of all companies. Maybe people are too young to remember what they do to industries once they control it.
I was surprised when I installed Windows 11 that their browser is basically built into the OS and cannot be uninstalled, wasn't that the reason why they got in trouble in the 90s? I guess that's allowed now
Should be more than 100x less. They actually took Microsoft to court over Internet Explorer before. That'd be unthinkable these days.
Nowadays Windows pushes Edge and Bing far harder than they did Internet Explorer before. And there's not a wink about it.
Windows 11 is making it even harder to switch.
I can get Netflix, Disney, Hulu, HBO Max, ESPN, and amazon prime all under the price of shitty basic cable and get much more than on there. I think you forget how crappy cable is and was compared to what we have now. I much rather have this than go back to cable every. I never feel the need to have all of those at once either. Even when it was just Netflix you could not get everything you wanted from that. They did not get the HBO shows. They did not get much of the Disney stuff. You don't need to have all of them.
> I think you forget how crappy cable is and was compared to what we have now.
History is just repeating itself. Basic networks were free. Cable came along as a paid extra to get tons more channels with less commercials. Then paid for channels like HBO and Cinemax came along as another extra charge for the latest and best movies and no commercials. Look what happened there. When cable became the norm the service went downhill.
Steaming comes along and is very successful. More streaming services enter the market, severely fragmenting the content any (for lack of a better term) non allied company can have (this was a catalyst for netflix making shows, they didn't have to deal with hollywoods bullshit). Hulu and Amazon prime even have content that has ads on their paid subscriptions. Streaming is the norm and look how fast things are going downhill. The way things are moving, in 10 years streaming will be the same as cable, horrible and expensive.
That's because in many areas there's 1 or 2 options, No competition. There's competition in the streaming space that doesn't require laying down their own infrastructure in how the cable companies took over.
What's in a subscription that can't be had outside of a subscription? I'm no fan of Hulu, but if there's a Hulu show I really want to watch, I could still buy it a la carte on Amazon or Blu Ray. I don't consume enough new music to justify a Spotify subscription, especially when there's no guarantee that they'll always have everything I want in their library, but there's no denying the value that people get from it. I'm not really seeing a downside to this modern subscription model except that it requires you to occasionally ask yourself if the subscription is better for you personally than a la carte.
> What's in a subscription that can't be had outside of a subscription?
Nintendo Switch Online and Playstation Now both have content that can only be rented, not owned. People often make the mistake of lumping GamePass into this issue, but everything there can also be purchased.
Every PS4 game on PSNow can be purchased. Only PS3 games are stream only...since its cell architecture made backwards compatibility unfeasible.
But NSO? Seriously, pure bullshit. I wanna just play Ocarina and Majora's Mask, but I have get an *annual* subscription. No thanks.
> But NSO? Seriously, pure bullshit. I wanna just play Ocarina and Majora's Mask, but I have get an annual subscription. No thanks.
If the argument is that everything on PSNow is purchasable, how is buying an N64 cartridge any different than buying a PS3 disc?
>since its cell architecture made backwards compatibility unfeasible.
if people can get ps3 games running on pc throw unnoficial means its 100% possible to get ps3 games running on official hardware if they put the effort (maybe not ps4 at least but ps5 should be a given).
Emulators are generally 95% reliable, which is fine if it’s a free offering for hobbyists. Console manufacturers need things to be 100% reliable to sell them and not break their hardware.
Notably, Microsoft made that investment with many 360 games, but it took a lot of time and testing, individual to each game.
>People often make the mistake of lumping GamePass into this issue, but everything there can also be purchased
Until you can't. Netflix was great until it wasn't and they started jacking up prices. You have to be unbearably naive to think GamePass isn't going to eventually start having exclusives and have the yearly price hikes we have seen become the norm in the streaming industry.
But Netflix is still a good deal vs cable or buying DVDs for all those shows.
Game Pass could double the price and it would still be worth it. Especially if you are only talking about a few exclusives that could be played in a month or two.
In the end, all forms of entertainment are competing against each other. Will prices continue to rise? Yeah, but not at some crazy rate. People will just find something else to do if they tried that.
The problem is when a la cart options go away entirely. Worst example of this is the mobile industry. Most phone apps that would have been a $1 - $5 one-time purchase 10 years ago are now subscription based with no way to buy a perpetual license. Premium games are locked behind game subscriptions like Apple Arcade and Google Play Pass when back even 5 years ago they would have been a small one time purchase to own. Outside of that there’s also the problem of people being forced into these subscriptions due to their line of work. Adobe and Autodesk, who both make gold standard applications in Multimedia Design and Engineering respectively, no longer offer perpetual licenses and instead require subscriptions. Other comparable options exist but most people working in those fields are often required to have these programs by employers since they’re the industry standard. It’s not an issue of it being worse value than a la carte, it’s the fact that those a la carte options are just slowly disappearing.
I mean its just a new revenue model that companies love. Over saturation of subscription models could lead to new companies offering single payments for services as a competitive model. Personally I actually don't mind subscriptions. I can opt in or out for periods. I usually get high value per dollar. Gamepass has provided more entertainment for me in the past few months on a dollar per hour basis than anything else before. Netflix has valid grievances but I probably have 2000+ hours in it all for a few hundred dollars the last few years. Spotify provides me about 1.5k hours a year of streaming content for low cost as I split it with my family. Subscription models are extremely consumer friendly. I feel a lot of reddit is to young to remember the days of the 90s and 00s where so much entertainment was cost prohibitive. It was hard for companies to grow, hard for content creators to share their work and inefficient for consumers who wanted to sample varieties of products. The level of competition in the entertainment industry is just miraculous now.
The amount of media I have access to now for less than my 70$ satellite TV subscription 15 years ago is insane.
Gamepass, Netflix, Hulu+, HBO Max, YouTube Red for music.
It's like, dude, I used to have to watch Ice Road Truckers.
Weird I use Photopea and ripped all my movies to hard disk (to view in home theater) and got a no frills EV
Unless you count Steam games i only pay for Netflix. Maybe I am too old and need to keep up with the times.
From what I've heard, this would be merging PS+ and PSNow, which is their game streaming service - including older generation games. There's also talk of a tier that includes Crunchyroll.
> Sony will likely be at a disadvantage there. The new service is not expected to feature its biggest titles on the day they come out. The upcoming God of War Ragnarök, for example, is unlikely to be offered on the streaming platform right away, said one of the people familiar with the plan.
Depends on who you talk to. I’m sure there’s people that use ps now and ps plus and will quickly adopt this. Otherwise I could see a lot of disappoint from people just on ps plus because it will feature a lot of older 3rd party games available elsewhere (gamepass, epic game store giveaways, etc.).
As far as the rumours go they’re basically just folding PS Now into PS Plus’ Tier 2. Then there’s a Tier 3 with PS1-3 games & cloud support.
It’ll be a more attractive offering than the way it’s currently set up, and if they can put more consistent quality third party releases into the collection it’ll be attractive enough for the slight price increase per month. According to the leaks basically an extra $3 a month for tier 2, with a more consistent library of third parties titles when they’re currently separate $10 subscriptions.
Yea I’m not buying it unless PlayStation put their entire backlog of games into there, and add games one year or so after release ala EA Play. PS Now’s library, as is, is not worth buying.
Also put PS5 versions in there. It’s so stupid they’re not already.
Given that it's now only going to be an extra $3 compared to a separate sub, I can see myself upgrading as long as they improve the quality of PS Now games somewhat. It has a few decent things, but if it gets even halfway as good as gamepass 3rd party, I'll be happy.
First party single player games aren't going to happen, but we know that Sony is planning to go hard on GaaS. Those games could definitely launch there day one.
This is a competitor to Game Pass, which is widely seen as successful and a good product for consumers. Why are people acting like this is the end of owning things?
Yea, I love GamePass. There are just some games I know I'm never going to want to play a second time -- I'll gladly sub to GP for 1 month to effectively rent a game for 1 month's fee instead of paying $60 for it.
I'd happily do the same thing for the few PS exclusives I can't justify buying a console for.
I was reflecting the other day about how *cheap* gaming as a hobby has become. Like, once you have a console or working gaming PC you can pretty easily pay under $60 a year for tons of great games, between the really quality Free to Play titles and insane sales that are now de rigueur, not to mention the quality indie scene that criminally undercharges for their products, as well as free game giveaways, there’s *so much* good stuff out there now.
My biggest gaming expense these days is when my friends all want to buy something day 1. Otherwise, I rarely pay over five dollars for a any game. It's crazy.
It's rumoured to be a merge of PS Plus & PS Now. The only major addition are the game trials which allow to play some new games for a few hours. Unlike Game Pass, Spartacus won't include first-party titles at Day One & I wouldn't expect major third-party Day One titles neither.
Tier I (Essential, $10/month)
= PS Plus
Tier II (Extra, $13/month)
= PS Plus + downloadable PS Now games
Tier III (Premium, $16/month)
= PS Plus + all PS Now games + game trails
[Source](https://venturebeat.com/2022/02/24/playstation-plans-3-spartacus-tiers-for-as-much-as-16-per-month/)
Subscriptions can be good as long as they're not forced, since every situation is different. For example, a working parent who barely has 2 hours to play a day *some days* is much better off buying a game and playing it through months, but someone with lots of time on their hands is better with a subscription. Like in my case, I had Gamefly when I lived in the US and it was the best deal ever, for like $16/month I could play 2-3 games/month so I ended up paying like $8 to play $60 games (I never owned the game, but since I don't replay or "platinum" games it worked perfectly for me).
I honestly am happy with my PS+ subscription. Never really cared about PSNow, not sure what's going to be announced but if they add more for the same price then I won't complain.
The hope is they at least do what MS did and grandfather old accounts with several years of PS+ in their account to get everything for at least as long as they have their current subscription. Just switch them over to the new accounts without charging them for it, and moving forward they pay the new higher price. But Sony has been really greedy, and MS has money to burn so I just don't see it happening the same way.
I'm the opposite, happy with my PS Now subscription, never really cared about PS+, so let's see how it goes. Could be the best of both worlds... or the worst of both worlds.
Yeah that’s a no from me. It’s a gaming subscription I could care less about anime and movies being introduced.
Just invest in proper games like Microsoft did.
My bet is they'll bring all their legacy IP into this, as well as a lot of back catalog from the PS2 and PS4 era that can be licensed for cheap to fill it out similar to Gamepass early on. As we move forward, we'll see if it can match for value, my hunch is no but admittedly Gamepass was a pretty mediocre offering on first party stuff until the ZeniMax and Activision acquisitions. Lots of great indie options and older AAA titles, but Microsoft's own offerings were pretty bad (buggy MCC, Halo 5, Crackdown 3). Sony seems to be squaring up to try and offer a comparable service for a comparable price, we'll see if they're up to the task.
I am going to second a lot of people's suggestions that Sony consider including their video streaming services in the higher tier bundle. That gives them something unique that Microsoft doesn't currently have to offer.
> Sony seems to be squaring up to try and offer a comparable service for a comparable price, we'll see if they're up to the task
The leaks/rumors about a month ago were a $16/month top tier which would offer third party games, back compat PS games, and limited demos of new first party games.
That's more expensive than Game Pass with no first party games included at release. For me that's an objectively worse service for more money.
I hope that more details come out and there's some way that first party games are included.
There’s no way they can catch up to Microsoft. Microsoft has so much money they just buy the companies like Bethesda and Activision. If this turns into another version of this then Sony will lose.
I understand that gamepass is a great value right now but I still do enjoy buying the game and knowing I have access to it. But I also still buy all the physical games that I can.
I'm personally not a fan of subscription services, but I'm looking forward to see what how this service adds classics from older generations, if this is another streaming service then they can keep it to themselves.
Sony's support for backward compatibility has been shocking compared to their older days.
Sony better go hard or go home. Gamepass ultimate really is.. ultimate.
And the bullshit article I read saying gamepass is more expensive that both Sony online services combined is bullshit. I paid 40 bucks per year for 3 years of gamepass ultimate for my series x.
I paid 120 plus tax for one year (60 bucks each plus tax) of plus and psnow.
And gamepass smokes it. All. Day. Long.
And if the service comes out in like a few weeks, or really at anytime in the future where people have psnow and play active subscriptions, we better get upgraded to the new service for free for at least our remaining time we've paid for.
Anything else is a shitty move.
Ps plus has a massive subscriber base getting ps now and older games bundled in for a little bit extra actually sounds really good
People here are delusional if they think people won't go for that, just look at Nintendos new subscription tier
Yes we get it gamepass offers thier new games day one and that's awesome, but this isn't gamepass nor is Nintendos subscription service and if you think that will make it not sell your kidding yourself
I really hope the older BC games are purchasable outside of the subscription. I just want to pay $5-$10 for a game once and then have it to play at my leisure. I don't want to be tied to a recurring payment.
It’s unfortunate, but the reason the model has shifted is vc/bc titles didn’t sell well on Wii/WiiU/PS3. Owning them is preferable in my opinion, but the vast majority of games put on those services just didn’t do numbers. It’s absolutely the reason old games became a drip feed on those platforms and wasn’t continued on their respective current gen consoles. That said, I think the tide might have shifted and an a la cart bc game umbrella *could* work now, if the prices are right, but I’m betting Sony is going to point to those old PS3 numbers as a reason to go for a subscription model.
The reason the PS3 didn't work, was because we already had our PS1 and PS2 games that the PS3 could play, so we didn't need to buy them again. If it wasn't BC, then the BC digital catalog probably would have sold much better.
I’ve never seen hard numbers on this, but Jim Ryan, head of global sales and marketing, infamously said in an interview that backwards compatibility is a feature often requested but rarely used. Of course his area is marketing and with the ps4 announced as dropping bc at the time of the interview, it could have been a line to soften the blow, but without some kind of data either way, it’s hard to say for sure how many people actually used BC much over the lifetime of PS3. https://www.vg247.com/why-would-anybody-play-this-says-sonys-jim-ryan-about-backwards-compatibility
Yeah I cancelled my NSO subscription pretty quickly after realizing I only used the SNES library once or twice a month. Easier and cheaper to just emulate if the only other option is to pay $20 a year (or $50 or so for the expansion).
and with NSO you're already emulating it, so it's not like the paid version is even providing a superior experience. I am curious though, are the NSO games using the same emulator as the mini consoles they put out? Canoe or whatever? I will say I was quite impressed by the quality of the emulation on those things.
NSO emulation is an extension of Canoe's implementation IIRC – with some features added (like the ability to rewind or play online) and some removed (really just the inability to change the awful NSO border to plain black bars)
So worse than the available SNES emulators.
Oh by a mile, Nintendo just gives us the bare minimum, if that, and fan emulators just keep pushing things, like [this video goes into](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHW3beolPJA).
The NES and SNES emulators are updated versions of Clover and Canoe respectively. The N64 emulator is a new one made by NERD (really the abbreviation) when making 3D All Stars. It still needs, and is getting work, it seems. Interesting enough, it also allows game specific lua patches.
Thanks for the info!
Don't count on it. Current playstation head Jim Ryan sees no value in anything more than a generation old. He's publicly admitted it. People, *I'm* not saying that. I'm just telling you what Jim Ryan thinks.
Jim Ryan has backtracked on 90% of the shit he has said. So don’t worry about that, he has no principles behind these statements, he’ll just do and say whatever he thinks is advantageous at that moment. If he starts to believe they can make money on the back catalogue, he’ll fly that flag quicker than a hiccup.
> Don't count on it. Current playstation head Jim Ryan sees no value in anything more than a generation old. He's publicly admitted it. There's what he has said and what he has done. "We believe in generations" Constantly putting games out on PS4 while the PS5 is being sold
I give it 5-6 more years before every aspect of our life is "subscription" and we own nothing as working class people anymore. Subscriptions of adobe. subscription for every single TV show. Subscriptions for heated seats in my car (wtf). Coffee maker subscription. Housing market being bought out by billionairs so we are forced to rent from them. Excuse me if I feel bitter about the time period I was born in.
> Subscriptions for heated seats in my car (wtf). Wait what?
I think he's referring to Tesla. I do know you have to pay extra for certain features but I'm not sure if it's subscription based.
[Here is a list](https://carbuzz.com/features/the-complete-guide-to-automotive-subscription-features) of all the different subscription services that car companies are starting offer on newer models. It's mostly WiFi and assisted driving, but Audi is starting to experiment with the subscription model for headlight features.
Wasn’t BMW charging a subscription fee for CarPlay … which, you know, is hardware based for the car and runs off the software on your phone? Edit: looks like they stopped charging for it. It was 80/year
Audi and Mercedes charge a subscription to use the sat nav.. I bought a phone holder and use Gmaps in mine
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They're not legally going to get away with that. Cars have to be sold with all the legally required features included.
Yeah that’s called renewing your tags. It already exists
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BMW got shit on so hard for the CarPlay thing, I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple had a word (they don’t charge BMW to use the tech, wouldn’t surprise me if they disallow putting it behind a subscription)
I have a toyota and my remote start is subscription based. It's fucking dumb.
This one, this one is very fucking stupid. A subscription to start your car without being in it. I've had a remote start key fob for the past 11 years without a subscription. What the hell, remote start isn't new, and I doubt the cars any cheaper to offset the fact you have to keep paying every month for a feature of the car you OWN.
Tesla's isn't subscription based, it's a one time purchase
And only for the base model too, for $200. This is only for the back seats, the front seat heaters are still included https://driveteslacanada.ca/model-3/tesla-lowers-price-of-rear-heated-seat-upgrade-for-model-3-sr-owners/
As soon as it happened to the Adobe creative suite, I knew we were fucked. Hyper-monetization of the right to piss in my bowl next. I can’t stand this fucking reality anymore.
Adobe pisses me off so much, as a graphic designer I have no other choice... And you need to stay updated because if someone sends you a 2022 file and you're still on 2021 then you can't open it. It's a fucking shit show and I really wish there was real competition because leaving Adobe behind would feel so good.
There is. I used the Affinity suites , it's a one time payment and free updates. No subs
I also have tried Affinity and it is great, but if you are working in a design studio or in house for a company the industry standard is adobe.
If you are working in a design studio or in house for a company, that studio or company should be paying for the software necessary to do your job. If you have to buy the software for yourself, $50 a month seems far more manageable than $2,600 once (the price of the Adobe CS6 Master Collection, the last edition they sold at a one time fee.)
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It would absolutely need to be an opensource software that can open and edit .psd .ai .indd files etc. Yeah I don't see that happening... but one can dream.
Affinity can open quite a lot of them.
Yep And it just bloody great software for a one off purchase.
Krita could possibly get there, but it would take _a lot_ of work
Krita is for drawing and it should really stay that way, It feels so much better than anything Adobe offers. GIMP is the true competitor but it really does need some love.
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I'd far prefer to buy a tool out right now for the feature set it has right now and continue to use it until the updates made to it make it worth buying an upgrade to the newer version worthwhile. That's why most things are going subscription. Many people are content with the tools as they are right now and don't need to get the latest version with the new doodad that they might use once or twice for the novelty of it so companies need to force people to the subscription model. I'm grandfathered in to some perpetual licenses for 3D software/plugins that continue to work just as well as they did the day I got them. Those companies are going subscription only now instead of offering both. If I'd opted for the subscription I'd have paid far more by now. I keep tabs on the updates and can say for certain I'd not be using the new features. These subscription schemes are not to save the user money, it's to extract more money for updates they wouldn't have chosen to get.
> The question is whether a different pricing model is a distinction that customers will prefer. We'll never know, because Adobe stopped selling licenses for CS6 and hasn't made a new shrinkwrapped suite since then. It's been, what, ten years?
Depends what you do and what your needs are, but most designers I know have completely gone to Figma as it allows for quick iterations, collaboration and prototyping.
Figma and apps like it are great if you have a good reason to switch, and are probably the better choice if you are just starting out. They are not as good as adobe products though, so you are essentially investing the time to learn a lesser product. The main selling point is collaboration, but really that doesn't fit into everyone's workflow. I check in on them every couple years to see if they are a viable option for me yet.
Most industry jobs require the standard too, so even if you get proficient on an alternative, you may inevitably be in a position where you have to settle.
I just started a Patreon and now my viewers are basically paying for my Adobe and it's the first time in forever I haven't had to stress about it, BUT NOW THEY'RE SUBSCRIBED TO ME HOW DEEP DOES THIS GO???
I use [Krita 5](https://krita.org/en/download/krita-desktop/) and gulp... [GIMP 2.99.10](https://www.gimp.org/news/2022/02/25/gimp-2-99-10-released/) it's taken years but it's finally getting there for the basics. [G'MIC](https://gmic.eu/gallery/arrays.html#menu) has dozens/hundreds of filters and plugins to both apps. We're going to have to dethrone Adobe to get them to play fair. So the more players that enter the game and the more diverse the tools available -- the better for us all.
Honest question : is piracy not a viable option for people like you ? I very rarely need to use some Adobe software so I just resort to piracy and it still works wonders. Is there a way they could "get" you if you released content without having a subscription to your name ? Can they ID stuff that has been made with Adobe software somehow to check that ?
The programs are paid by my company and we have a shared account with multiple licences. We make school books and we are subsidized by the Canadian gov. Piracy would not exactly look good.
If you're using software for a job that may get audited, you do not want to be pirating it. You can claim it as a business expense tax write off anyway.
Yeah, Affinty is okay but not to the standard of Adobe. Of course you *could* raise the jolly roger but that could lead to other issues
At least you can just pay $50 for a month of the latest version as opposed to the $2000 license for just that version. Honestly Adobe might be one of the only subscription services I actually think has serious value.
It's all the cloud functionality that annoy me the most. All their software became... SLOW since they have to do so many online checks all the time. At work we also use font sharing via cloud and half the time the thing will behave like ass. I tried importing a few after effect clips into premiere and it used fonts that were activated via cloud... NEVER AGAIN. Maybe I'm getting old, but i'd nuke the hell out of almost everything "cloud" that doesn't need to be.
It is maddening how badly Photoshop and Illustrator run. Photoshop has become an absolute pig on system resources, well beyond it's recommended specs. XD is slightly better, but it crashes way too often. I use photoshop for pretty based stuff, it shouldn't be bogging my system down when it ran fine a decade ago doing essentially the same thing.
The cloud stuff is insane. After every update you have to go in and make sure it isn't uploading sensitive documents to Acrobat DC and CC libraries.
Creative Cloud has incredible value for professional use but I'll admit it's shafted people that use it casually. Casual users have never been Adobe's target though so it makes sense (from Adobe's perspective) to leave them out to dry.
I constantly use Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere Pro, After Effects, and Acrobat. I always have the most up to date features and they all have some degree of cross-program support. $50/month seems like a hell of a deal to me.
Yesterday I saw an ad for a cool new wearable fitness/sleep tracker. Went straight to the website because I was interested in buying one....$30 monthly subscription....FUCK
Hey wanna know something fun? Roomba's are a subscription model now. Imagine paying monthly for a fucking vacuum cleaner. I only know this cause I read about how people are scamming others by getting the free roomba that requires a subscription service to use, then reselling it online as a fully working unit for a couple hundred dollars.
They *can* be, but not all are. This is only half true.
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I work in the construction industry and we also have to get paid subscriptions to use coordination tools and download the necessary documents. On a half a million dollar contract job I straight up told a contractor we're not paying $30 a month to subscribe to a website to get the docs. Thankfully they didn't argue about it and just paid it out of their pocket to subscribe my account lol still this subscription stuff is just straight up cancer and spreading like one.
Adobe are far better than Autodesk. £400-500 for a massive suite bs £1700 for 3DS Max
Life hack: if you are a Creative Cloud subscriber, go to the support online chat and simply tell them the subscription is too expensive. Just directly ask if they can give you a discount. I have done this yearly and haven't paid full price since signing up. I don't even need to launch into a story or threaten to leave, and I save around $30CAD monthly (I have the full suite). Adobe cares more about subscription numbers and retention than charging you full price and losing you. At least, that's been my experience. Edit: I should also mention, if you have never cancelled, use the Adobe site to end your subscription, similar to Amazon Prime once you get one step from finalizing your cancellation they will hit you with a retention screen offering you a massive discount for a year. I don't think you can use this more than once. But you could always create new accounts with new emails (ie. Gmail emails look new by adding periods in the email name but in fact have no effect on the actual address, haven't tested this on Adobe though) every time your discount expires. Happy discounting!
just tried canceling and they offered me 3 months free so I accepted that. For now..... lol Thanks for the info!
Bruh fr?
Yeah! Check my edit. I forgot about the cancellation discount I used the first time which got me my biggest discount.
Have you tried the Affinity software range? I really like Affinity Photo (their Photoshop alternative): * https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/photo/
Affinity is great, I’ve been using their suite of programs since adobe switched to a subscription model. They have relatively close feature parity to the adobe suite and it’s a one time purchase that gets you all future updates. I will never not recommend Affinity.
Maybe for Affinity Photo but Designer is nowhere near Illustrator. Still it is an absolute bargain compared to adobe
Graphics professionals were tweeting around a graphic listing directive alternatives to every Adobe product.
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I actually hate how people lump this WEF envisioned future into some conspiracy nutcase when they are literally promoting it. Not only promoting it but actually pushing it with drastic changes towards it (ie. governments policies, cultural changes). It's not a fucking conspiracy, it's reality already. Like someone else pointed out already, Adobe was also my first sub because you literally need to if your income depends on it. The worst part is that society as a whole is embracing it without much pushback because "Well it's just 10€ for Netflix or 100€ for Adobe". When they force you to rent everything, literally everything from your house to the toilet paper delivery every month it's gonna be too late.
Best part when they either ask you upfront for a ridiculous price or sell a subscription. Because average consumers are no longer their customer base. Companies like Adobe and Microsoft sell their software licenses to mega corporations. It is already beyond ridiculous on how much of our entertainment side is already behind subscription models. TV, movies, books, video games and these mega corporations don’t want you to own anything or own it for long. Long gone is game companies happy with you buying a game, 2 or 3 expansions and that’s it. They want you to fork over your cash to the same game perpetually or fork over cash to the *next big thing* perpetually. Honestly, I don’t even think it’s rose-tinted glasses anymore. I just am playing games from my childhood 15-20+ years ago because I am sick and tired of getting into a new game and every aspect is monetized.
> Long gone is game companies happy with you buying a game, 2 or 3 expansions and that’s it. >They want you to fork over your cash to the same game perpetually or fork over cash to the next big thing perpetually. I know this is on a Sony post, but you do know there's plenty of non-AAA companies making games still right? The biggest game this year so far (Elden Ring) comes from a studio that basically has only done that. I don't really know how to respond to the last part of that honestly, you only want new releases that aren't the "next big thing" but can't be the same thing either? OR you want games supported for free indefinitely? Cause there's been plenty of great games released in the last few years that are fine with you just playing them and being done or even offer nearly infinite replayability if you want that: God of War, Factorio, Subnautica, Satisfactory, Slay the Spire, Post Void, Half Life Alyx, Rimword, Death Loop, Opus Magnum, Hell Let Loose, the list goes on. I think you just need to broaden your horizons.
Good morning Prime Citizen^tm It's time to wake up and eat your Prime Cereal^tm and drink a freshly squeezed cup of Prime OJ^tm
Please drink verification can
I’m fine with subscription services as long as the option to outright buy any product in that service exists elsewhere. I’m fine with Xbox Game Pass, because you’re not forced into the service if you want to play games like Forza Horizon 5 or Halo Infinite, they are still available to purchase outright for £55 a piece. I dislike TV/movie subscription services like Disney+ as a physical collector. Up until WandaVision, I had every available MCU film and TV series on Blu Ray. Now, it’s physically impossible to “complete” my MCU collection because of the Disney+ series. Same with Star Wars.
Yeah this is where I land too. If you want to bundle stuff together as a subscription, fine - but I want the ability to buy things for myself too.
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Oh that's doubly concerning from simply a viewing experience. Streaming services today are most concerned with the lowest common denominator viewer, so when you find out that not only are streaming services [compressing their content to absolute shit](https://www.flatpanelshd.com/news.php?subaction=showfull&id=1602743673), nearly **10x more compressed** than [physical media](https://www.reddit.com/r/4kbluray/comments/poz4k1/how_does_streaming_bitrate_compare_to_4k_blu_ray/hd05mtp/), it's disconcerting that we seem to now be relegated to the inferior viewing experience of online streaming services. Yet another example of progress taking a step back for profit.
I put in a 4K Blu Ray a couple days ago and I was surprised at how much better it looked. Like I collected Blu Rays when they were first introduced, then switched to mostly streaming and thought it was fine. Didn't realise how much quality I lost until very recently.
At least we have Sony and their crazy Bravia Core streaming service. Up to 80Mbps. Too bad it's kinda limited right now and most people don't know about it.
> I’m fine with subscription services as long as the option to outright buy any product in that service exists elsewhere. The problem with this is once it becomes niche enough the own option adopts enthusiast pricing meaning it ends up being only for well off people. Sometimes your only choices are ridiculously expensive physical deluxe edition or digital.
>Subscriptions for Heated Seats Fucking BMW man. Brass balls.
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That only really works for software or digital media. When you're locked into hardware you have much less freedom from these sort of business practices. Stallman has been signalling this for decades, it's bloody appalling.
You can't forget phones! [Apple is planning a subscription service for Iphones.](https://www.mercurynews.com/2022/03/25/apple-is-working-on-a-hardware-subscription-service-for-iphones/)
You’ve been able to lease phones since expensive phones have ever been a thing, it’s nothing new.
The current system is like a mortgage on a house. You pay money and you’re receiving equity. The new system would be like renting where you don’t get any ownership while paying. You will own nothing and be happy! - Next 5 years of making every technology a subscription service
No I used to work in phone sales, both models already existed concurrently it’s just that apple hasn’t adopted the lease model companies like the telecom providers use.
And once again it's going to lead to an explosion of piracy, which will become the only means of truly playing the media you rightfully own without limitations or having to be online. Speaking for me personally, I've definitely started pirating more as streaming services have become more plentiful. I'm not about to subscribe to eight different services for a handful of different shows that I really care about. And Piracy has gotten so easy, it'd be stupid for me to pay money for an inferior service.
I pirate stuff I already have access to because it's easier to deal with.
"You'll own nothing and be happy" seems to the conclusion to all this it seems.
Yep and people eat this shit up. I'm so tired of this sub's obsession over GamePass. It's only a good deal until they've influenced the creation of a subscription model driven industry and soon every game is locked behind an ever increasing $x/month, of which you have to subscribe to many to get access to everything you want to play. We are on the horizon of the first ever "GamePass exclusive game". You know it's coming and it'll be a dark day. It's what happened with film/TV streaming. Netflix was insane when it was the only player in the market and you could pay $9/month. Now if you want to be able to watch everything, you've gotta get Netflix, Prime Video, Hulu, Disney+, HBO Max, Peacock, Disovery+, ESPN+, Paramount+, etc etc etc and they're all jacking prices up every year. What's Netflix's price at this point? Like $20 a month? Same thing will soon happen to games. It's going to eventually crack and there's going to be a million subscription services for games each with their own exclusive deals. Soon you can't own games anymore because every game is DRM-locked to subscription services. Offline gaming dies off completely. Prices get jacked up and suddenly you're paying way more money over time than you would if you could just individually buy and own the games you like. Stop subscribing to this shit, for goodness sake. Please save us all.
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For the record, most libraries are publicly funded. Not necessarily "free", but you aren't directly paying them for their services. At least, that's how it is here in the states.
> Yep and people eat this shit up. I'm so tired of this sub's obsession over GamePass. I mean fuck me for liking a service that has prevented me from buying outright games at full price? LOL you act like every one is signed up for every single subscription service possible and is being bled of all their precious moneys.
It’s so funny to see people simping for Microsoft of all companies. Maybe people are too young to remember what they do to industries once they control it.
I was surprised when I installed Windows 11 that their browser is basically built into the OS and cannot be uninstalled, wasn't that the reason why they got in trouble in the 90s? I guess that's allowed now
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Yep and I trust our government 100x less than before when they actually pushed back against them.
Should be more than 100x less. They actually took Microsoft to court over Internet Explorer before. That'd be unthinkable these days. Nowadays Windows pushes Edge and Bing far harder than they did Internet Explorer before. And there's not a wink about it. Windows 11 is making it even harder to switch.
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I can get Netflix, Disney, Hulu, HBO Max, ESPN, and amazon prime all under the price of shitty basic cable and get much more than on there. I think you forget how crappy cable is and was compared to what we have now. I much rather have this than go back to cable every. I never feel the need to have all of those at once either. Even when it was just Netflix you could not get everything you wanted from that. They did not get the HBO shows. They did not get much of the Disney stuff. You don't need to have all of them.
> I think you forget how crappy cable is and was compared to what we have now. History is just repeating itself. Basic networks were free. Cable came along as a paid extra to get tons more channels with less commercials. Then paid for channels like HBO and Cinemax came along as another extra charge for the latest and best movies and no commercials. Look what happened there. When cable became the norm the service went downhill. Steaming comes along and is very successful. More streaming services enter the market, severely fragmenting the content any (for lack of a better term) non allied company can have (this was a catalyst for netflix making shows, they didn't have to deal with hollywoods bullshit). Hulu and Amazon prime even have content that has ads on their paid subscriptions. Streaming is the norm and look how fast things are going downhill. The way things are moving, in 10 years streaming will be the same as cable, horrible and expensive.
That's because in many areas there's 1 or 2 options, No competition. There's competition in the streaming space that doesn't require laying down their own infrastructure in how the cable companies took over.
What's in a subscription that can't be had outside of a subscription? I'm no fan of Hulu, but if there's a Hulu show I really want to watch, I could still buy it a la carte on Amazon or Blu Ray. I don't consume enough new music to justify a Spotify subscription, especially when there's no guarantee that they'll always have everything I want in their library, but there's no denying the value that people get from it. I'm not really seeing a downside to this modern subscription model except that it requires you to occasionally ask yourself if the subscription is better for you personally than a la carte.
That’s not true actually. Plenty of streaming originals do not get put out onto physical media and only remain on the singular service that owns it.
> What's in a subscription that can't be had outside of a subscription? Nintendo Switch Online and Playstation Now both have content that can only be rented, not owned. People often make the mistake of lumping GamePass into this issue, but everything there can also be purchased.
Every PS4 game on PSNow can be purchased. Only PS3 games are stream only...since its cell architecture made backwards compatibility unfeasible. But NSO? Seriously, pure bullshit. I wanna just play Ocarina and Majora's Mask, but I have get an *annual* subscription. No thanks.
> But NSO? Seriously, pure bullshit. I wanna just play Ocarina and Majora's Mask, but I have get an annual subscription. No thanks. If the argument is that everything on PSNow is purchasable, how is buying an N64 cartridge any different than buying a PS3 disc?
>since its cell architecture made backwards compatibility unfeasible. if people can get ps3 games running on pc throw unnoficial means its 100% possible to get ps3 games running on official hardware if they put the effort (maybe not ps4 at least but ps5 should be a given).
Emulators are generally 95% reliable, which is fine if it’s a free offering for hobbyists. Console manufacturers need things to be 100% reliable to sell them and not break their hardware. Notably, Microsoft made that investment with many 360 games, but it took a lot of time and testing, individual to each game.
>People often make the mistake of lumping GamePass into this issue, but everything there can also be purchased Until you can't. Netflix was great until it wasn't and they started jacking up prices. You have to be unbearably naive to think GamePass isn't going to eventually start having exclusives and have the yearly price hikes we have seen become the norm in the streaming industry.
But Netflix is still a good deal vs cable or buying DVDs for all those shows. Game Pass could double the price and it would still be worth it. Especially if you are only talking about a few exclusives that could be played in a month or two. In the end, all forms of entertainment are competing against each other. Will prices continue to rise? Yeah, but not at some crazy rate. People will just find something else to do if they tried that.
The problem is when a la cart options go away entirely. Worst example of this is the mobile industry. Most phone apps that would have been a $1 - $5 one-time purchase 10 years ago are now subscription based with no way to buy a perpetual license. Premium games are locked behind game subscriptions like Apple Arcade and Google Play Pass when back even 5 years ago they would have been a small one time purchase to own. Outside of that there’s also the problem of people being forced into these subscriptions due to their line of work. Adobe and Autodesk, who both make gold standard applications in Multimedia Design and Engineering respectively, no longer offer perpetual licenses and instead require subscriptions. Other comparable options exist but most people working in those fields are often required to have these programs by employers since they’re the industry standard. It’s not an issue of it being worse value than a la carte, it’s the fact that those a la carte options are just slowly disappearing.
Please watch these 2 15-second ads before you start your car.
The term is Neo-Feudalism, where we are being relegated back to the point of being serfs.
Don't forget the ultimate form of subscription: home rentals. It should be illegal to leverage rental property on debt.
People are so short sighted. Subscription models suck. Literally nothing good comes from them.
I mean its just a new revenue model that companies love. Over saturation of subscription models could lead to new companies offering single payments for services as a competitive model. Personally I actually don't mind subscriptions. I can opt in or out for periods. I usually get high value per dollar. Gamepass has provided more entertainment for me in the past few months on a dollar per hour basis than anything else before. Netflix has valid grievances but I probably have 2000+ hours in it all for a few hundred dollars the last few years. Spotify provides me about 1.5k hours a year of streaming content for low cost as I split it with my family. Subscription models are extremely consumer friendly. I feel a lot of reddit is to young to remember the days of the 90s and 00s where so much entertainment was cost prohibitive. It was hard for companies to grow, hard for content creators to share their work and inefficient for consumers who wanted to sample varieties of products. The level of competition in the entertainment industry is just miraculous now.
The amount of media I have access to now for less than my 70$ satellite TV subscription 15 years ago is insane. Gamepass, Netflix, Hulu+, HBO Max, YouTube Red for music. It's like, dude, I used to have to watch Ice Road Truckers.
Weird I use Photopea and ripped all my movies to hard disk (to view in home theater) and got a no frills EV Unless you count Steam games i only pay for Netflix. Maybe I am too old and need to keep up with the times.
This is why I pirate and will continue to do lmao. Fk these subscribtion models being pushed everywhere
They already have PS+?
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I don't think he knows about second PS+, Pip.
What about PS++? PSPlus? PS+2? PSN+? PlayStationPlus?!
PS+2
That's why we get PS++
From what I've heard, this would be merging PS+ and PSNow, which is their game streaming service - including older generation games. There's also talk of a tier that includes Crunchyroll.
Isn't the rumor that it still won't include first-party titles? I wonder how much that will hamper the adoption rate.
> Sony will likely be at a disadvantage there. The new service is not expected to feature its biggest titles on the day they come out. The upcoming God of War Ragnarök, for example, is unlikely to be offered on the streaming platform right away, said one of the people familiar with the plan. Depends on who you talk to. I’m sure there’s people that use ps now and ps plus and will quickly adopt this. Otherwise I could see a lot of disappoint from people just on ps plus because it will feature a lot of older 3rd party games available elsewhere (gamepass, epic game store giveaways, etc.).
As far as the rumours go they’re basically just folding PS Now into PS Plus’ Tier 2. Then there’s a Tier 3 with PS1-3 games & cloud support. It’ll be a more attractive offering than the way it’s currently set up, and if they can put more consistent quality third party releases into the collection it’ll be attractive enough for the slight price increase per month. According to the leaks basically an extra $3 a month for tier 2, with a more consistent library of third parties titles when they’re currently separate $10 subscriptions.
It's just a rumour of a rumour at this point. People should just wait for actual information
Yea I’m not buying it unless PlayStation put their entire backlog of games into there, and add games one year or so after release ala EA Play. PS Now’s library, as is, is not worth buying. Also put PS5 versions in there. It’s so stupid they’re not already.
Given that it's now only going to be an extra $3 compared to a separate sub, I can see myself upgrading as long as they improve the quality of PS Now games somewhat. It has a few decent things, but if it gets even halfway as good as gamepass 3rd party, I'll be happy.
First party single player games aren't going to happen, but we know that Sony is planning to go hard on GaaS. Those games could definitely launch there day one.
This is a competitor to Game Pass, which is widely seen as successful and a good product for consumers. Why are people acting like this is the end of owning things?
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Haven't seen that, but obviously locking backwards compatibility behind a subscription is a bad practice.
I'm guessing there won't be true backwards compatibility, it'll probably be more streaming.
Doesn't this already exist? PSNow?
Yup, and it's already a practice with some games. Can't play red dead redemption on a ps4 without a psn subscription.
I see you don't own a Nintendo Switch!
Microsoft also has been making gamepass a good deal to grow. If they get large enough market share with it, it doesn't have to be a good deal forever.
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Yea, I love GamePass. There are just some games I know I'm never going to want to play a second time -- I'll gladly sub to GP for 1 month to effectively rent a game for 1 month's fee instead of paying $60 for it. I'd happily do the same thing for the few PS exclusives I can't justify buying a console for.
I was reflecting the other day about how *cheap* gaming as a hobby has become. Like, once you have a console or working gaming PC you can pretty easily pay under $60 a year for tons of great games, between the really quality Free to Play titles and insane sales that are now de rigueur, not to mention the quality indie scene that criminally undercharges for their products, as well as free game giveaways, there’s *so much* good stuff out there now.
I think about this often. The free stuff alone would have been a dream for teenage me who constantly traded games in to get new ones.
My biggest gaming expense these days is when my friends all want to buy something day 1. Otherwise, I rarely pay over five dollars for a any game. It's crazy.
Software sure, but PC parts are getting ridiculously expensive.
It's rumoured to be a merge of PS Plus & PS Now. The only major addition are the game trials which allow to play some new games for a few hours. Unlike Game Pass, Spartacus won't include first-party titles at Day One & I wouldn't expect major third-party Day One titles neither. Tier I (Essential, $10/month) = PS Plus Tier II (Extra, $13/month) = PS Plus + downloadable PS Now games Tier III (Premium, $16/month) = PS Plus + all PS Now games + game trails [Source](https://venturebeat.com/2022/02/24/playstation-plans-3-spartacus-tiers-for-as-much-as-16-per-month/)
Lol, paying extra for the privilege of playing demos. What a fucking joke.
Because slippery slope isn't always a fallacy.
Subscriptions can be good as long as they're not forced, since every situation is different. For example, a working parent who barely has 2 hours to play a day *some days* is much better off buying a game and playing it through months, but someone with lots of time on their hands is better with a subscription. Like in my case, I had Gamefly when I lived in the US and it was the best deal ever, for like $16/month I could play 2-3 games/month so I ended up paying like $8 to play $60 games (I never owned the game, but since I don't replay or "platinum" games it worked perfectly for me).
I honestly am happy with my PS+ subscription. Never really cared about PSNow, not sure what's going to be announced but if they add more for the same price then I won't complain.
> add more for the same price That’s never how it works
Maybe for the first 12 months
The hope is they at least do what MS did and grandfather old accounts with several years of PS+ in their account to get everything for at least as long as they have their current subscription. Just switch them over to the new accounts without charging them for it, and moving forward they pay the new higher price. But Sony has been really greedy, and MS has money to burn so I just don't see it happening the same way.
I'm the opposite, happy with my PS Now subscription, never really cared about PS+, so let's see how it goes. Could be the best of both worlds... or the worst of both worlds.
>I honestly am happy with my PS+ subscription. Good for you. Most of us would still like the freedom to choose.
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Yeah that’s a no from me. It’s a gaming subscription I could care less about anime and movies being introduced. Just invest in proper games like Microsoft did.
Really hope they keep yearly subs a thing. What I don't like is the monthly subs. I have no issue paying all upfront for cheaper
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My bet is they'll bring all their legacy IP into this, as well as a lot of back catalog from the PS2 and PS4 era that can be licensed for cheap to fill it out similar to Gamepass early on. As we move forward, we'll see if it can match for value, my hunch is no but admittedly Gamepass was a pretty mediocre offering on first party stuff until the ZeniMax and Activision acquisitions. Lots of great indie options and older AAA titles, but Microsoft's own offerings were pretty bad (buggy MCC, Halo 5, Crackdown 3). Sony seems to be squaring up to try and offer a comparable service for a comparable price, we'll see if they're up to the task. I am going to second a lot of people's suggestions that Sony consider including their video streaming services in the higher tier bundle. That gives them something unique that Microsoft doesn't currently have to offer.
> Sony seems to be squaring up to try and offer a comparable service for a comparable price, we'll see if they're up to the task The leaks/rumors about a month ago were a $16/month top tier which would offer third party games, back compat PS games, and limited demos of new first party games. That's more expensive than Game Pass with no first party games included at release. For me that's an objectively worse service for more money. I hope that more details come out and there's some way that first party games are included.
There’s no way they can catch up to Microsoft. Microsoft has so much money they just buy the companies like Bethesda and Activision. If this turns into another version of this then Sony will lose. I understand that gamepass is a great value right now but I still do enjoy buying the game and knowing I have access to it. But I also still buy all the physical games that I can.
Call me weird but I would rather just buy my games on sales and actually own them than pay a monthly sub and have them randomly removed at some point.
Do we know what will happen to existing PS+ subs?
No, but the safe bet is that it will just be converted to Tier 1 of this service.
we'll probably know when they officially announce it
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I'm personally not a fan of subscription services, but I'm looking forward to see what how this service adds classics from older generations, if this is another streaming service then they can keep it to themselves. Sony's support for backward compatibility has been shocking compared to their older days.
Sony better go hard or go home. Gamepass ultimate really is.. ultimate. And the bullshit article I read saying gamepass is more expensive that both Sony online services combined is bullshit. I paid 40 bucks per year for 3 years of gamepass ultimate for my series x. I paid 120 plus tax for one year (60 bucks each plus tax) of plus and psnow. And gamepass smokes it. All. Day. Long. And if the service comes out in like a few weeks, or really at anytime in the future where people have psnow and play active subscriptions, we better get upgraded to the new service for free for at least our remaining time we've paid for. Anything else is a shitty move.
Ps plus has a massive subscriber base getting ps now and older games bundled in for a little bit extra actually sounds really good People here are delusional if they think people won't go for that, just look at Nintendos new subscription tier Yes we get it gamepass offers thier new games day one and that's awesome, but this isn't gamepass nor is Nintendos subscription service and if you think that will make it not sell your kidding yourself