For the payers!
Sony To Gouge American Playstation Owners
Playstation Plus’ “free” monthly games just got a whole lot more expensive this week, with news that Sony is about to jack up the price for Playstation Plus subscriptions for North American and Canadian users. This generation has been wonderful for Sony. Not only do they have the most successful gaming console on the market, but they also have their snouts in the paid online trough – and now they plan to gouge their users still further by massively hiking the price of a service that should be free in the first place. The price of a twelve month subscription is being raised by twenty percent, from $49.99 to $59.99. Meanwhile, the price of a three month subscription is being raised from $17.99 to $24.99, while the price of a one month subscription is remaining as is at $9.99. Things are even worse for Canadians who are getting properly fucked by Sony, with the price of a twelve month subscription going up by forty percent, from $49.99 to $69.99. Meanwhile the price of a three month subscription is being raised from $17.99 to $29.99, and the price for a one month subscription is being raised from $9.99 to $11.99.
“PlayStation Plus strives to enrich your PlayStation experience through a world-class service built for our fans. This marks the first time that PS Plus membership prices will increase in the U.S. and Canada since the launch of the service in 2010. The new pricing reflects the current market conditions while enabling us to continue providing exceptional value to our members. As a member, you will continue to enjoy the benefits and features that enable shared experiences, such as online multiplayer, free games, and exclusive discounts. You will also continue to get exclusive benefits such as online game save storage and discounts across the PlayStation digital services.”
Sony is quite right to point to ‘current market conditions’ as being to blame for the price hike, as megabytes have been hard to come by ever since the great data famine of 2015. No wait, that is not something that actually happened, and Sony are just being greedy pricks. But hey, they had to do something to pay for the calamitous flop that is their Ghostbusters reboot.
[PICTURED]: A whole lot of potential, and not much else.
No Man’s Sky – Most Discoveries are not Permanent [Rumour]
Oh good grief! It is quite difficult to imagine how the situation surrounding the release of No Man’s Sky could get any worse than at present, yet somehow the universe has conspired to make the game’s launch even more disappointing than previously thought. Over the course of the last couple of days it has emerged that the majority of discoveries made by the player are not permanent, and will start self-deleting after about two weeks. The discovery of planets and solar systems are permanent, and the names given to them by the player will be uploaded to the game’s servers into perpetuity [at least until the game eventually goes offline]. On the other hand, the discovery and naming of animals and vegetation appears to be impermanent, and this data seems to be wiped after roughly two weeks have elapsed – which is certainly one way to cut down on the data that Hello Games are required to store on their servers. This discovery was made by a Reddit user by the name of Dark_Nexus, and the post has since gained a lot of attention.
“So as I got closer to the center I thought to my self I should head back home good thing I set a waypoint on my starting planet to find my way back. I finally made it back after many hours and I found out all my discoveries were wiped and it said I discovered it on the 11th when I started on the 9th.. I check a few neighboring stars I discovered and their discovers were wiped.. So none of my named animals plants were ever saved. The system name and planet names were saved but everything elts was wiped. I’m kinda sad that after heading back that all that I discovered was never really saved except the system and planet names.. Edit:Thanks for the replies, seems like I have to re explore my starting system all over again! Thanks HG!”
The situation is still far from clear-cut at present, as some users have expressed doubt that Hello Games would do something so brazen, and have instead suggested that this may be the result of server connectivity issues. The limited functionality of No Man’s Sky at launch is very much a known quantity at this point, as the game is still missing several key features, which has been responsible for attracting a lot of negative attention. However, there is a wide chasm of difference between Hello Games leaving out key features because their development was running behind schedule and Hello Games deliberately gimping key features for shits and giggles. That is to say that it is a little difficult to wholly believe that they would deliberately hobble the scope of their game by doing something like this. Regardless, if this does turn out to be true then the good news is that it is not likely to effect too many people, as the number of active players on Steam has dropped by roughly ninety percent since launch. As follows the launch of most games, PC users who played at the beginning seem to have stopped playing as frequently.
Final Fantasy XV doesn’t look even remotely as polished as some of the earlier footage.
Final Fantasy XV’s DLC Farce Continues
Square Enix is a ridiculous company. Lusipurr.com has previously covered the way that they announced Final Fantasy XV‘s season pass like a premature ejaculation, blurting out its existence in a press release before they were even able to specify what DLC content it would cover. Final Fantasy XV was given a season pass not because it made sense, but rather because Square Enix felt that it was the kind of game that ought to have a season pass, and so one was announced before the team even had a plan for their future DLC. The mere existence of an unnecessary season pass is obnoxious enough, but what really puts the cherry on top of this shit-sundae is the fact that the season pass will not even cover all major pieces of DLC, rendering the term nonsensical. The season pass is only intended to cover the first six pieces of DLC, and all of the game’s subsequent DLC will have to be purchased separately. When asked whether the six pieces of DLC covered by the season pass was all that Square Enix intended on releasing, Hajime Tabata replied:
“That won’t be all. The ones that we’ve announced are the ones were decided that we’ll certainly do.
Should we decide on DLC that isn’t included in the Season Pass that is currently selling, then that’s how it’ll be. Although there are still many parts that are uncertain.”
In other Final Fantasy XV news, Tabata this week revealed that the game’s level design is not 100% open world as was initially thought. Rather, the first half of the game features an open world design, while the second half features more of a traditional linear level design – setting it apart from most traditional RPGs, which tend to open up a bit more near the end.
“The entire game structure for Final Fantasy XV consists of both open-world and linear parts. The first half keeps going as an open-world, but the story in the second half’s is led by a linear path. That way, you won’t get bored of an open-world as the rest of the game tightens, so we made it in a way that you’ll also get to advance through it as you have in conventional Final Fantasy games. If you play through the first half and only the main route of the second half, I believe the estimated play-time sits at around 40 to 50 hours.”
Honestly, this definitely is not the worst news ever. One had worried that an open world focus may have resulted in a ton of WRPG message board busy-work, but now it seems like this initial concern was unfounded. At any rate, it is nice to be able to report on some positive Final Fantasy XV news for once.
