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Astro Bot Director rules out PSVR2 version but wants to hear from fans about potential PC version

//DEVIL//

Member
Actually I would love to play this on PC. but seeing the PS5 version is 60 fps.. the game is not really about super detailed graphics. more about the fun gameplay. so. its one of those games I do not mind buying on PS5 and do not have to wait for a PC release.

unless it runs like shit on PS5 then I am throwing the console out of the window.
 

BlackTron

Gold Member
I feel the same way about Xbox, probably just going to roll with switch 2 and ps6 next gen

You've come to this conclusion for Xbox and no longer want one, therefore every XGS game you buy on Steam instead of Xbox will both cost a 30% cut and deny them a user in their own platform to monetize further.

If you buy a Switch 2, a case, a Pro controller, a screen protector, and 6 third party/indie games you would have purchased on Steam if you didn't have a Switch 2, and subscribe to NSO-

Then how much has Nintendo really lost by putting Zelda on PC?

It's not just about selling first party games and systems. The services and royalties within the ecosystem are priceless. They grow and defend the ecosystem with "the deal" everyone knows well: no console, no Zelda. It's leverage, of course we as customers don't want them to have that, but as smart business people they're not giving it up.
 

reinking

Gold Member
The creative director of Astro Bot has ruled out the possibility of a PlayStation VR2 version

Kenan Thompson Reaction GIF by Saturday Night Live
 

Beechos

Member
As if we needed any more signs that psvr 2 is dead. Astrobot vr is prob right up there as best vr game among all vr platforms.
 
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Katatonic

Member
That's the problem with VR hybrid games. It makes the potential buyer feel like they're missing something if they don't have VR. It also gives an entry point for bad acting influencers and forum dwellers. Maybe they will announce something later but this game has too much heat right now to be risky with.
 

MDSLKTR

Member


Sony keeps feeding this meme like the evil cosmic sun in 5th element. Down the years it will become as damaging for Playstation as the PS4 game sharing was for Xbox.
 

James Sawyer Ford

Gold Member
If you buy a Switch 2, a case, a Pro controller, a screen protector, and 6 third party/indie games you would have purchased on Steam if you didn't have a Switch 2, and subscribe to NSO-

Then how much has Nintendo really lost by putting Zelda on PC?

I don’t game on steam, but if I did Nintendo could use their own launcher

They don’t make much money on the hardware
 

ProtoByte

Weeb Underling
Here comes the whining about PC ports. I never got why PS5 or console exclusive gamers care so much about PC ports, it literally doesn’t impact you at all.
It impacted Microsoft in an irreversible manner. They're now on they're way out. Losing exclusivity literally and factually reduces the value of the platform.

Coincidentally (/s), when Sony started making room on the budget and schedule for PC ports, we also got the least amount of polish and custom-tailoring of first parties on PlayStation in a long time/ever, and the longest cross gen period for first party exclusives ever. These are real, material, and observable impacts.

thicc_girls_are_teh_best thicc_girls_are_teh_best has already pointed out that Wolverine is taking up to 12 months longer in the pipeline because of work Insomniac is doing on a PC version, and it's not even coming at launch with the PS5 SKU.
 
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dano1

A Sheep
At this point there's really no reason to keep playing on PS5. You can get a lot of benefits playing on PC, and PS5 exclusive titles are probably something from the past.

Hoping for a Death Stranding 2 day one on PC.
What are you even talking about? 15 years ago I might agree with you but now that the PS5 and soon to be PS5 pro that will be more powerful than 95% of PCs out there there is no reason to buy a PC for $2,000. And no hackers in my online shooters !!
 

Wonko_C

Member
That's the problem with VR hybrid games. It makes the potential buyer feel like they're missing something if they don't have VR. It also gives an entry point for bad acting influencers and forum dwellers. Maybe they will announce something later but this game has too much heat right now to be risky with.
If you think this game got it bad you should check every single Batman: Arkham Shadow thread.
 

Zathalus

Member
It impacted Microsoft in an irreversible manner. They're now on they're way out. Losing exclusivity literally and factually reduces the value of the platform.

Coincidentally (/s), when Sony started making room on the budget and schedule for PC ports, we also got the least amount of polish and custom-tailoring of first parties on PlayStation in a long time/ever, and the longest cross gen period for first party exclusives ever. These are real, material, and observable impacts.

thicc_girls_are_teh_best thicc_girls_are_teh_best has already pointed out that Wolverine is taking up to 12 months longer in the pipeline because of work Insomniac is doing on a PC version, and it's not even coming at launch with the PS5 SKU.
Microsoft was failing long before they started porting games. As for least amount of polish you don’t suppose the impact of covid and the massive data breach Insomniac suffered contributed to that? Or the fact that the studios with games that had the least amount of polish (Insomniac and Guerilla games) were/are wasting time on GaaS projects? As for Wolverine and other games taking long, once again Covid, data breach, and teams wasting years on GaaS (why do you think Naughty Dog has basically nothing this gen, oh right, all the time wasted on TLoU multiplayer) probably contributed far more.
 

Fabieter

Member
Microsoft was failing long before they started porting games. As for least amount of polish you don’t suppose the impact of covid and the massive data breach Insomniac suffered contributed to that? Or the fact that the studios with games that had the least amount of polish (Insomniac and Guerilla games) were/are wasting time on GaaS projects? As for Wolverine and other games taking long, once again Covid, data breach, and teams wasting years on GaaS (why do you think Naughty Dog has basically nothing this gen, oh right, all the time wasted on TLoU multiplayer) probably contributed far more.

Imagine a thought experiment where Sony had completely abandoned exclusives during the PS3 struggle while Xbox continued to fully invest in them. Do you think history would have played out the same way? I highly doubt it.
 

Zathalus

Member
Imagine a thought experiment where Sony had completely abandoned exclusives during the PS3 struggle while Xbox continued to fully invest in them. Do you think history would have played out the same way? I highly doubt it.
I think if Sony had released PC ports 2-4 years after they debuted on PS3 the impact would have been minimal. A ton of 360 exclusives made their way to PC and I doubt any of that impacted the popularity of the 360.
 

Fabieter

Member
I think if Sony had released PC ports 2-4 years after they debuted on PS3 the impact would have been minimal. A ton of 360 exclusives made their way to PC and I doubt any of that impacted the popularity of the 360.

There were also still a ton of third party exclusive ob xbox and ps3. Some of them are exclusive to those old consoles. Imagine a ps3 situation, no 1p exclusive, no 3p exclusive like mgs4. Ps4 would have been like Xbox one.

So to your original point yes xbox already struggeld when they committed to pc but that was the death blow.
 

ProtoByte

Weeb Underling
Microsoft was failing long before they started porting games.
Not to this degree, but you raise an interesting point. Let's recount what happened.

But TLDR; Everything that has led Microsoft to this point has to do with being a console manufacturer that failed to uphold or purposefully undermining their console as a gaming machine and product.

1. The first signs of Microsoft's trajectory came later in the second half of the 7th gen. After a disastrous launch a year after the 360 and at 200 more dollars, Sony gained ground by bolstering the exclusive game catalogue they had, mostly but not entirely by first parties. It is worth mentioning that the PS3 gen was when the PS 1st party infrastructure now known as PS Studios was created. Xbox had benefited from a few third party exclusives due to being early to the party and having a much easier machine to optimize for, but began to slow down on those fronts and did nothing to retain their lead. They seemed more interested in Kinect, to a degree not even Sony was despite the PS Move being a thing. They were not proactive in the progression and upkeep of their own internal studios. They lost Bungie 2 years in the 360, and closed a handful of others. It is also worth mentioning that Phil Spencer became the head of Xbox Game Studios worldwide in 2008.

2. At the cusp of the internet establishing itself as the ever-present utility/entertainment hub it is now, they reveal the Xbox One in 2013: Its primary function, as far as Mattrick and co. were concerned, was an ever-present general entertainment box meant to permanently connect you to online and allow you to watch TV, Netflix and YouTube. DRM and lol, no used games for you! They don't announce many games of consequence either. The console came out to a somewhat lesser launch to the PS4's, which Sony marketed primarily as a gaming machine, and showcased many titles that appealed to core gamers between their February reveal and E3 2013. Within months, the Xbone starts to lag behind the PlayStation as a direct result of its focus and mandatory/pricey inclusion with Kinect, it's mandatory always online policy (that was dropped before launch just to rear its ugly head at the very end of 8th gen) and its lack of focus on games. Don Mattrick is fired and replaced with Phil Spencer as Satya Nadella succeeds Steve Balmer in 2014.

3. After letting the first party infrastructure rot for more than 5 years, Phil Spencer and Xbox leadership find themselves in a predicament. Forza is mostly okay, but Halo isn't as good under 343i, Gears of War is overplayed and has to slow down dev time with everything else, and literally all of their other studios have declined to the point of embarrassment ie Rare, or have shut down ie Lionhead. They eventually get down to a measly 5 first party studios. Critical acclaim is not achieved. Fans don't like that games as much, because they're worse, and don't have much to be excited about because there's not much announced.

The few new announcements like the Phantom Dust reboot are getting canceled, games like Crackdown 3 and Sea of Thieves are getting delayed into oblivion, third party exclusives are universally flopping (Sunset Overdrive, Quantum Break, Rise of the Tomb Raider) or having embarassing development meltdowns (Scalebound) while multiplats are selling disproportionately worse on Xbox One regardless of genre. Sales have slowed to crawl. The embarrassment and lameness surrounding the Xbox brand increases.

4. Sales of hardware and software are so bad that Microsoft starts porting shit to PC. First, they try Windows Store exclusivity. It doesn't work. Then they give in and go to Steam. That doesn't work either, not in the sense of actually changing the picture for Xbox. They're scraping the bottom of the barrel at this point for a rounding error of the revenue they have and the revenue they want to achieve. You'll notice that of the ~24 billion in revenue PlayStation achieved last FY, their PC revenue topped out at 250 million or so. Barely more than 1%. And just like it was with Xbox, that 1% comes with a cost. Whoever doesn't have the given console at the time the 1st parties start coming to PC will have less incentive to get it later. The people who do have the console may have more incentive to leave. This worsens over time, and that's exactly the effect had on Xbox. It doesn't help that Xbox games decline in polish almost as soon as they start the PC release strategy. Sound like something that's been happening recently?

5. Up until he bought entire publishers to remedy a problem he created and maintained was actually the way the industry was going, Phil Spencer undermined and disregarded the importance of premium AAA single player games. Of course, with multiplayer games that aren't even exclusive to the platform, quality of game doesn't (appear to) matter as much as the appeal to the lowest common denominator does. This mentality informs the greenlighting behavior, development pipeline, and ultimately the quality of Xbox games even to this day.

6. By 2017, Satya Nadella successfully shifted Microsoft into a services company. Azure and Office 365 and the service to maintain them bolstered revenue and profits to a legendary degree. He noticed that Xbox still had not managed to be the extension of the Windows ecosystem he, and ostensibly Don Mattrick and Steve Balmer thought it should be. He brought in Spencer to convince him that gaming is a worthwhile avenue that can be rolled into this now provably successful service model of the company. Enter Xbox Gamepass, the Netflix of games. An attempt to completely restructure the games market. Open platformism, cross gen ports, Cloud compatibility/mobile device functionality, all to uphold the games as the ecosystems instead of hardware itself, and to make that ecosystem a service instead of a product. Only the service isn't growing as fast as it should despite the 1 dollar deals and "best deal in gaming" propaganda and buying sprees of 2nd rate studios with the promise of games that launch 4-5 years after announcement. They buy and buy and buy until they can buy and spend no more, their new gen console is selling at an even slower rate than the Xbox One, their games are shit. Microsoft proper has now stepped in calling the shots, and now they're releasing games not just for PC, but for competing consoles. And you know what? That will just make things worse. Just as releasing games on PC did.

As for least amount of polish you don’t suppose the impact of covid and the massive data breach Insomniac suffered contributed to that?
Coof lockdowns has something to do with it, yes. Data breach, no. Because SM2 released before that, and all of the issues detailed in the leak predate the leak itself. Wolverine taking longer because of parallel PC development was going to happen with or without the leak.

Or the fact that the studios with games that had the least amount of polish (Insomniac and Guerilla games) were/are wasting time on GaaS projects? As for Wolverine and other games taking long, once again Covid, data breach, and teams wasting years on GaaS (why do you think Naughty Dog has basically nothing this gen, oh right, all the time wasted on TLoU multiplayer) probably contributed far more.
I see the GaaS chase as a result of the new mentality at Sony that necessarily includes porting games to non PS platforms. You'll notice that 3rd parties with no incentive to uphold their own hardware started that chase years before Sony with even fewer and smaller examples of meteoric success. It's no surprise that Sony starts to chase the same things as multiplatform publishers when they start porting their IP to multiple platforms.
 
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ArtHands

Thinks buying more servers can fix a bad patch
You can mod VR into Astro Bot when it is released on PC

Or play it outdoor without streaming on the beautiful OLED display of Steam Deck idk
 

FunkMiller

Gold Member
Might as well bring it to PC sooner rather than later. It’s obviously going to happen. Let’s just get to the ‘having a console is completely pointless’ stage of the video games industry that Microsoft have started, and I’m sure Sony will eventually continue.
 

mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
This era of SIE is very much not for me. Every day, it's something else they sloppily mutter from their mouth that just makes me have less and less faith or interest in what they do with their console.

If they're already teasing PC players about "their input", just know a PC/Steam version is already in the works. SIE just want the paypigs to shell out for $70 at launch by tricking them no such other version is in development, that's all.

My hype and interest in the brand (at least in terms of the console) couldn't be any lower at this point, but I'm sure they'll find a way to make it even lower. But hey, at least "it's not Xbox", right? That's good enough from what some others keep telling me.

Lol.

I just want them to show the PS5 Pro and their 1st party games. WHY CAN'T THEY SIMPLY DO THIS?!
 

MrJangles

Member
Should make Sony a nice bit of wonga as I'd assume most PC owners buying it (me for one) will also have to fork out for a PS5 controller.
 
While 100% true, even if they only broke even on hardware I still wouldn't do it. It's giving too much importance to hardware profits as a reason they should or shouldn't go PC. It's not completely irrelevant, but it may as well be with what else they stand to lose.

Oh absolutely. The way Nintendo's got it set up right now, they have virtually complete vertical integration of their IP and the sectors those IP exist in. That allows for optimal quality control and synergy of those IP properties. The only areas this isn't 100% the case are with films and theme parks, but the former seems good enough with their current arrangements, and the latter is a very close partnership with Universal. Plus, with the Nintendo Museum, it seems Nintendo aren't shy about perhaps venturing in that given space even more independently.

All of those synergies, maximized thanks to the vertical control Nintendo can leverage, enhances the market viability and customer response to the products they release. There's a sense of culture associated with it all, so people come to think of them as having significant meaning. There may be a time here or there they hit a snag somewhere, but it's rare. SIE are trying to do a lot of this as well and in ways maybe they're ahead of Nintendo when it comes to film & TV show transmedia synergy, but I don't feel its as cohesive.

And the main reason why, is because there's too much product within their main channels (gaming software) that they are relinquishing peak vertical control over, and that's perhaps coming at the expense of the console. If not in sales (yet), then in terms of pockets of people who are increasingly displeased with the direction related to how SIE are prioritizing their own console hardware with what software they manage to release. If SIE could just fix the issues in that area, and expand on their 1P offerings (don't bank so much on GAAS, have more unique GAAS, more AA traditional games, more revivals of legacy games, less presence of groups like SBI involved in game dev, either scale back on PC ports to not devalue the console or couple the PC initiative with your own launcher/storefront, etc.), they'd be just about perfect.

Nixxes took a whopping 1 year to port HFW from PS to PC and we’re supposed to assume that Insomniac will be the ones porting Wolverine and that back in 2023, they already started the job for a game that will in all likelihood hit PCs in 2028?

Furthermore, the fact that the leaked build is playable on PC doesn’t make it a PC build in development either. We saw a PC build for Bloodborne and there was even one for Pikmin way back in the GC era. Games are built on PCs. There are always PC builds of sort. Doesn’t mean they’re intended for future use or are being actively worked on. Nixxes will begin proper work on the PC build likely in 2026/27.

This math doesn’t add up.

Okay then, how do you think there's a PC build of Wolverine already in existence? You think that's on Nixxes, a full 2 years before the game even releases on PS5? I know guys like yurinka yurinka have tried saying that game dev is on PC and in part it is, but not in the way where there's a PC binary compiled and running to test the game before adjusting setting for the console. Those PS5 devkits exist for a reason.

What you're saying about PCs being involved in the game dev process to some extent, I don't disagree with that. Same with yurinka there. But in the case of Wolverine there are a LOT of assets and code just conveniently there to compile a PC version on Windows that wouldn't be there if some part of PC dev proper hadn't already started by now. They're just probably on an older build that moves at a more glacial pace. Then they get to some point, stop there, and put all the focus back on the console version. After that's when they probably hand off what they have to Nixxes who builds out the rest of the PC version.

That's how I'm assuming it goes, anyway. Keep in mind, again with Wolverine, DX12U uses different API calls than whatever API suite the PS5 has. So there are going to be massive differences in code. You can't get a PC build of something like Wolverine up and running the way modders managed to, as quickly as it did, without there already being code and API calls for DX12U and Windows in there.
 

yurinka

Member
Okay then, how do you think there's a PC build of Wolverine already in existence? You think that's on Nixxes, a full 2 years before the game even releases on PS5? I know guys like yurinka yurinka have tried saying that game dev is on PC and in part it is, but not in the way where there's a PC binary compiled and running to test the game before adjusting setting for the console. Those PS5 devkits exist for a reason.
PS5 games are made on PC, so they can test there WIP version to see in a basic barebones version if the specific stuff that dev is making in that moment works. It's faster, easier, more practical and cheaper than to use devkits/testkits only.

Don't need to test it in devkits and testkits until later, once the game is way more complete and there are PS5 specific things that can't be tested on PC (like achievements, to check performance in console, maybe some PS5 specific visual our audio tech thing, game interaction with PS5 OS/API/PSN, how the game behaves with some things like ejecting the game disk when it's loading from it, how the game behaves if you pull the LAN cable or change the console language while playing it or are in a critical spot of the game, and a very long etc). This is when and why there are devkits and testkits (plus debugging and profiling reasons) that Insomniac will use when needed.

On a separate way, there's a lot of PC specific things that Insomniac won't implement (will be done by Nixxes or whoever ports it to PC) for the PC port unless somebody else already baked part of it to tne engine before for a previous game: things like supporting the most recent versions of DLSS and similar, fix potentials issues caused with recent drivers, optimize the controls for keyboard and mouse, implement / fix related issues with ultrawide support, fixing all the bugs that the game may have in many different CPU/GPU/memory/storage/audio cards/etc. combinations, to optimize it to run decently in these different settings, to add additional settings and add things like versions of the textures in different resolutions to make it more scalable, to implement Steam API specific stuff like achievements and a very long etc.

What was leaked was not the PC port of the game, they (Nixxes, Iron Galaxy etc, not Insomniac) don't start to work on it until the game is published and got some patches on PS5. Specially when the PC port won't be released at least a couple years after the PS5 version. What was leaked was what Insomniac devs had to test the WIP PS5 version -back then in vertical slice stage, wasn't even the game- on their PCs, not the PC port.
 
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TintoConCasera

I bought a sex doll, but I keep it inflated 100% of the time and use it like a regular wife
Theay really should bring it to PC.

Not only does the game look like a big "Sony games" advertisement, but it's also the perfect way to boast the Dualsense sales among PC users.
 

Megatron

Member
Eh, it won’t do great numbers on PC. A 2+ year old port of a platformer on PC isn’t exactly something that sells well. It would certainly be enough to make a profit from the porting costs, so no real point in not doing it eventually.
It won’t do great numbers on PS5 either, so they need to get it on more platforms. This will probably do Gravity Rush-type numbers.
 

SF Kosmo

Al Jazeera Special Reporter
A PC version of this game is a weird idea, even thematically, the whole thing is themed around PS hardware. But it also uses the gyro haptics a lot, it would lose something in the process. I say this as someone who mostly games on PC.
 

Magic Carpet

Gold Member
A PC version of this game is a weird idea, even thematically, the whole thing is themed around PS hardware. But it also uses the gyro haptics a lot, it would lose something in the process. I say this as someone who mostly games on PC.
I tried a level without the gyro and it worked just fine. It remapps to the sticks in options. I think the game will work on most PC gamepads.

edit-I've only played up to the big Octopus boss and so far nothing has used the touchpad, yet. Does anyone know?
 
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Holammer

Member
A PC version of this game is a weird idea, even thematically, the whole thing is themed around PS hardware. But it also uses the gyro haptics a lot, it would lose something in the process. I say this as someone who mostly games on PC.
You can play with a DualSense and the next gen Xbox controller will feature haptics and gyro.
Add a Gordon Freeman bot and a few Vaio references and call it a day.
 

BennyBlanco

aka IMurRIVAL69
If they're already teasing PC players about "their input", just know a PC/Steam version is already in the works. SIE just want the paypigs to shell out for $70 at launch by tricking them no such other version is in development, that's all.

This notion is so absurd. You make it sound like nobody would buy it if it wasn’t an exclusive. The overwhelming majority of people do not give a shit whether a game is exclusive or not, which is why multiplats like CoD are always the best selling games. What you’re saying makes no sense. You genuinely believe people who want to play this wouldn’t it they knew a PC port was in the works? Why?
 

SF Kosmo

Al Jazeera Special Reporter
You can play with a DualSense and the next gen Xbox controller will feature haptics and gyro.
Add a Gordon Freeman bot and a few Vaio references and call it a day.
The market of people playing on PC with DualSense controllers who don't also own a PS5 is not an especially large one.
 
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