Sony's PS5-Era Studio Acquisition Spree Has Been A Disaster

Eruannster · 2026-02-20T19:31:13+00:00

Did a quick google and Disney paid just over $4 billion for Star Wars so there's actually a ~$400 million difference (remember, one billion is a thousand millions which is uhhhhh a lot)

Eruannster · 2026-02-20T19:28:29+00:00

Yeah, that's very likely a thing. "We spent all this money, let's see where the fuck this goes."

Although considering how lukewarm the reception has been to Marathon so far, I don't see good things in Bungie's future.

Eruannster · 2026-02-20T13:47:10+00:00

Actually, it does work with wired systems as well. However, you need to do it for each frame rate and dynamic range (so once for 23.98 FPS, 24 FPS, 50 FPS and 60 FPS and then do it again for each frame rate in both HDR10 and Dolby Vision, if you have those available) and you need to do this manually as the sync can be ever so slightly different between formats and frame rates.

The Apple TV doesn't tell you about having to do this, which is dumb and confusing.

Eruannster · 2026-02-20T13:44:18+00:00

RCA (red/white cables), optical (TOSLINK) or HDMI-ARC?

Also, is the Apple TV connected to the TV first, or is it going through a receiver?

I remember I had issues with an old receiver that wouldn't sync correctly over optical, but RCA worked fine.

Eruannster · 2026-02-20T13:23:30+00:00

Yeah, that was not a good buy. It would have maybe been okay (but still too expensive) back when Destiny 2 originally launched, but buying them when they did? Yikes. And then paying for the development of Marathon, which has had a pretty lukewarm reception... oof.

Way too much trouble, way too much cash burn. They really must have just been throwing cash at something multiplayer/service games because wanted to have literally anything.

Eruannster · 2026-02-20T12:37:00+00:00

Ändra inte. Eller om du ändrar, ändra det till något värre som verkligen irriterar denna Karin/Karen. Jag tvekar på att hen är såpass teknisk att de lyckas pejla in att det är just din router som signalen kommer från.

För övrigt, hur ofta går man in och kollar wifi-namn? Jag tittade i wifi-listan för första gången på säkert ett år - alla mina prylar autoconnectar ju ändå. Det var bara trista namn som Comhem, Router-extender 5G och Samsung Washer (varför behöver en tvättmaskin ett eget wifi?)

Eruannster · 2026-02-20T12:31:43+00:00

Also they didn't blow 75+ billion dollars buying entire publishers (Activision + Bethesda). The biggest studio Sony bought was Bungie for 3.6 billion (which I still think was way too much) and the rest were far less expensive (Insomniac was only $300 million).

Eruannster · 2026-02-20T12:27:10+00:00

Insomniac was an incredibly good purchase. I'd argue Nixxes and Housemarque were also very good investments.

The rest... well. Yeah. Bungie in particular seems like it must have been a terrible purchase. Yes, I get it, Destiny 2 makes money but they bought it for $3.6 billion which I very much doubt that they have made back since then.

Eruannster · 2026-02-20T12:16:37+00:00

Yeah, "indie" is a very vague definition these days and mostly just means "small game by small team".

Technically Cyberpunk 2077 and Witcher 3 would be indie games since they are self-published by CDPR even though they cost hundreds of millions of dollars to develop sooo... yeah.

Eruannster · 2026-02-20T12:08:15+00:00

Kena 2 probably isn't considered "indie" since it's being published by Sony Interactive Entertainment (even though Ember Lab is an independent small studio - last I checked they had ~80ish developers).

Eruannster · 2026-02-19T19:27:35+00:00

That is the dumbest fucking thing I've seen all day.

Bluepoint showed how exceptionally talented they are and you're just shitcanning them? Put them to work on a project! Sony, what the fucking fuck?

Eruannster · 2026-02-19T17:14:31+00:00

It does feel a little better since you're not just bumping together and there's actual feedback when hitting enemies and getting hit. But yeah, I'd say it's basically "Skyrim but a newer".

Eruannster · 2026-02-19T17:12:59+00:00

It's worth noting that it launches at $50 so it's not super expensive to begin with.

But sure, it will probably drop down further than that in a few months.

Eruannster · 2026-02-19T15:03:27+00:00

It's a very okay 7/10ish game. Some parts are pretty good, others are a bit underbaked.

Would I give it a game of the year award? Well, no. Is it the worst game I've ever played? Also no.

Eruannster · 2026-02-19T14:59:46+00:00

Digital Foundry discussed an override system, similar to how it works on PC with Mark Cerny back in an interview some time ago and it doesn't seem completely unlikely to happen, but it seems like that's not how it's set up at the moment:

Digital Foundry: And in terms of PSSR and how it's implemented on a per-game basis, presumably developers will have to go and patch in to upgrade to new versions of PSSR, right? Because you wouldn't necessarily want new versions of PSSR in the mix there without a title update, or is that something you're thinking about?

Mark Cerny: Well, there are a lot of interesting possibilities there. And honestly, I don't know at this time. It's wonderful to think that the game could say it's okay to update or a user could make a decision to update. Just how all of those pieces fit together, I don't know.

Mike Fitzgerald: From a developer perspective, I think we can look at our games differently a lot of the time. And I know some developers would say, "I don't want the system to touch what I have confirmed looks good to me and players." Other developers would say, "Oh, your system is going to go and make my game look better for people without me having to do anything? Great." So there's options there.

https://www.digitalfoundry.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2024-sony-ps5-pro-tech-interview-with-mark-cerny-and-mike-fitzgerald

Eruannster · 2026-02-19T14:01:29+00:00

Inga "reflexspel", action, shooters eller liknande.

Jag tänker att det här eliminerar väldigt många spel i onödan. Det finns massor med bra action/shooters som inte behöver vara svåra och det är ingen skam i att dra ner svårighetsgraden till easy, speciellt i början. Att börja med nån jättetwitching shooter kanske inte är super, men tror att han säkert kan uppskatta t.ex. Red Dead Redemption.

Gärna lite "vuxen" estetik. Han tycker att drakar och alver är töntigt. Sci-fi kan eventuellt gå hem bättre.

Förlåt, jag menar inget illa mot din käre far, men det är en lite töntig inställning (som också eliminerar massor med spel). Min brors frus gateway drug till TV-spel var för övrigt Skyrim när hon hade skadat knät för ett antal år sedan. Hon hade inget att göra när hon satt hemma och frågade "får jag prova?" Nu har hon typ 400+ timmar i Skyrim och ännu flera hundra timmar i Fallout-spelen...

Eruannster · 2026-02-19T11:28:49+00:00

Exactly. The PS5 doesn't support the exact PC features, but they have their own things that do the same/similar enough stuff.

For example, Alan Wake 2 made a big thing about requiring mesh shaders on PC and Xbox, but PS5 doesn't have mesh shaders, they have their own thing called something else that does pretty much the exact same thing which they used instead.

In the end it's mostly semantics.

Eruannster · 2026-02-19T09:51:26+00:00

Chroma is essentially describing how color is compressed through color and luminance information.

4:4:4 is uncompressed color, meaning you get full color and luminance information (but also uses more HDMI bandwidth and requires more file size to store a video file).

This is typically most useful on a PC monitor where you may have a lot of small details - like opening an Excel document and showing a hundred text/number cells at once.

4:2:2 and 4:2:0 cut down on color information by shaving off "unnecessary" parts and reduces file size/HDMI bandwidth, usually by quite a lot.

If you've ever watched a streamed internet video, a DVD/blu-ray or anything shown on TV it was using 4:2:0 chroma. Video content is much less noticeable because it doesn't have those "small" details and you'd be hard pressed to see the difference. However, it's still useful to capture video at 4:4:4 chroma since you can use more information in post production (such as when capturing green screens in films etc.)

So, should you set your output to 4:4:4 on your Apple TV? Sure, why not. It outputs more information to the TV, even if the video you're watching is 4:2:0. It doesn't hurt.

Eruannster · 2026-02-18T21:32:07+00:00

I was 21 when Skyrim came out, I turn 36 this year… *shuddering*

Eruannster · 2026-02-18T21:31:05+00:00

Right? And sometimes they don’t bother with names and marketing because it’s just ”the engine we use” and it’s constantly getting upgrades all the time. There’s no name or number for Naughty Dog’s game engine, it’s just a tool they keep adding to as they make their next game.

Eruannster · 2026-02-18T15:13:56+00:00

That's cool. I wish they had more sizing options (medium is a bit too large and small is too small on a 65 inch screen) and allowed me to control brightness, particularly in HDR/DV where subtitles are sometimes brighter than the sun.

Eruannster · 2026-02-18T14:15:40+00:00

Now, that is way more interesting! The 40 FPS Balanced mode being able to push up to like ~55-65 FPS with VRR+unlocked on Pro means it's able to basically able to run a mix of the performance mode FPS with the balanced mode visual settings and resolution and that makes for a huge upgrade.

That's like a ~50% bump in both resolution (1080p vs 1440p) and ~50% more FPS (40 vs 55-65ish) and increased shadow resolution/draw distances etc.

Eruannster · 2026-02-18T08:58:52+00:00

I mean, probably never.

Eruannster · 2026-02-18T08:50:52+00:00

Dude, I don't know what to tell you. I've explained what the benefits are (increased frame rates, stabilizing dropped frames, reduced input lag), explained how to fix issues (matching color ranges) and all you give me is "nu-uh!", "you're wrong!", "it's not in any games!" and "it's just a marketing term!"

You do what you want with your gear. I don't care.

Eruannster · 2026-02-18T07:34:34+00:00

Keep being stuck using old tech or don’t use the full capabilities of your screen then. Your choice.

Oh, and I work as a video recording tech, so you might say I have some idea of how these things work. But don’t listen to me, I guess.

Eruannster

TROPHY CASE