DF Direct Weekly #67: PS5 Slim, Xenoblade Chronicles 3 Switch, Hope for PS+ EU/UK Classic Games?

[@pillington1338]

Will Richard ever stop being surprised by how many DF Direct Weekly's they've done? I hope not.

[@khaledm.1476]

Maybe after they hit 69, it just won't feel the same

[@alexsilva28]

The joke will be that when they reach 100 he will be completely unphased by it

[@RandomGamingMoments925]

30:43 I have mixed feelings about that one. The video itself was great with how he came up with ideas and solutions. Profoundly educational to say the least On the other hand, the use of the word slim is a misnomer. The external brick and water pumping unit are bigger than the console itself. Plus, it can not read discs.

[@IronicSonics]

Omg I love Richards palpatine quotes so much. He needs to do a Halloween special as totally chill emporer

[@alexweinberg3913]

Man, thanks John for the Klonoa demo rundown. Just playing it last week something just felt really bad with the switch port but I couldn't nail it down with my own words, I seriously hope they can do something about it.

[@primemetroid4427]

Monolith has done a lot of work for Breath of the Wild. Xeno 2 was only made by like 40 people because of breath of the wild. They are working on BOTW 2 as well. Btw the dlc Torna fixed a lot of issues from xeno 2 as they had more time with the switch. It improved the look at well as adding much more foliage. Xeno 3 seems to be the next step.

[@ZackSNetwork]

Well said

[@ThibautMahringer]

Xenoblade Chronicles Definitive Edition downgraded the foliage draw distance though. From what we saw it doesn't seem to be as bad in Xenoblade 3

[@WllKiedSnake]

Xenoblade Chronicles Definitive Edition turned out pretty well. Image quality isn't fantastic! But it's a pretty good game and remake with 30 hours of new story. I don't play it without using a Mclassic though as the resolution does go quite low.

[@metroidcypher]

@@ThibautMahringer the foliage draw distance was probably a result of the higher density. There is more grass around you in de compared to the original

[@ThibautMahringer]

@@metroidcypher I know about Wii version having 2D textures as grass, that's why it had better draw distance than DE. But I wasn't comparing DE to original, I was comparing DE to Xeno 2, which also have fully 3d grass but better draw distance (and also worse performance, maybe it's tied to foliage ?)

[@ScrapKing73]

Things that were “obvious” or “of course” this week include: 0:02:09 PS+ launching PAL versions of games in the first place wasn’t a good idea 0:04:05 Developers make strange choices with retro game collections and emulation 0:08:45 Day 1 subscribe for Audi due to Bubsy's inclusion 0:16:57 The current Xenoblade games wanted to go for an anime-ish chara look 0:27:22 Klonoa 2 was a perfect 60 FPS on PS2 0:30:22 The PS5 is friggin’ huge 0:32:46 the DIY PS5 “Slim” water cooling assembly is not small 0:37:10 the DIY PS5 “Slim” needed to be based on the PS5 Digital, otherwise it would have massively increased the size 0:41:31 The next DF Retro will happen and they’ll announce it at some point 0:54:24 Horizon 2 for PS4 has only the PS4 version on the disc 0:56:09 Nintendo could have an external GPU for the Super Switch, if they wanted 1:02:24 With each new hardware generation it’s about upticks in performance 1:04:35 Ray-tracing is the weakness this hardware generation will be remembered for

[@evklinken]

Well obviously!

[@poltergeist7621]

Klonoa 2 was a perfect 60 FPS on PS ONE!!!!! *

[@ScrapKing73]

@@evklinken LOL! I know, right?! :)

[@xGeoThumbs]

20:20 The trees and other vegetation look so much better with TAA. Overall it looks a bit softer, but more complete I guess.

[@Alovon]

I actually think they may have added a Temporal Upscaling solution to XBC3, at the very least how objects not in motion look versus objects in motion have a lot of difference in Image Quality.

[@metroidcypher]

I've notice in some cutaways when a character performs a fast motion you can se the reconstruction break up. Great solution otherwise looks sharper than the other games for sure

[@FoxbatStargazer]

XC2/XC1DE have TAA, handheld resolution was just mega low with aggressive sharpening

[@Alovon]

@@FoxbatStargazer There is a difference between TAA and Temproal Upscaling. TAA alone is just anti-aliasing via temporal accumulation, it doesn't inhieritnly improve image sharpness/clarity, usually the default thing it does is solve dithering artifacts. The flaw in normal TAA is that it has too little data in motion at low resolutions, thus you have to compensate with sharpening, the flaw that got XBC2 which they've corrected more with Torna and XBC1:DE. TAAU/TSR/DLSS/FSR2 use upscaling and then an accumulation step to enhance the resolution of the image from a lower internal. So they inheirt the good qualities of TAA (More stable thin-elements with less dithering usually), but also enhance the clarity of the image when implimneteted well. A key sign of Temporal Upscaling is difference of perceived resolution for objects in motion versus stationary objects. in the case of XBC3, the environment seems to pixel match to 1080p like DF said, but clearly when you go frame-by-frame in gameplay when characters make sudden movements, the perceived resolution for the characters themselves in those moments seem far lower than 1080p, which TAA at lower resolutions struggles to keep up with motion, thus the TAA-Derived technique of temporal Upscaling suffers because it has less overall data within the frametime target to gather and reconstruct that image with the moving object well.

[@Ghostsonplanets]

Congrats Alov. You were bang on!

[@yellowbat79]

TAA is *such* a good addition to FH5 The vegetation really used to annoy me so did just the overall picture quality. Temporal Anti Aliasing Remedies all of that with minimal ghosting and great sharpness Can't wait to see what Turn 10 can do with this in Motorsport !

[@thanksbetotap]

Would be great to bring that TAA to Horizon 5 on the Xbox Series consoles. Hopefully someone at Playground or Microsoft is listening.

[@spicynachos2762]

FXAA would be great too

[@BlackTone91]

Heard after years of complaining, they didn't do anything with FH3 and FH4 and only now they got it

[@crocodilegamer93]

yes it needs some blur

[@VerticalStrafes]

On PC it’s labeled experimental feature so maybe at a later date

[@tylermartin7245]

@@spicynachos2762 dont they already have fxaa?

[@EVPointMaster]

A NieR: Automata port just got announced for Switch. I'm looking forward to it, not because I'm gonna play it on Switch, but because it's gonna be a hilarious Digital Foundry video.

[@Brogboolius_Maximus]

67 episodes! That's crazy. Getting so close to "nice", boys!

[@JaimeIsJaime]

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) I see you're a man of culture

[@VariantAEC]

You know episode 69 will only be available on their secret Only Fans, right?

[@Brogboolius_Maximus]

@@VariantAEC ngl I'm gonna be disappointed now if that doesn't happen

[@aaliguy9986]

@57:26 Audi is killing it with the editing 😂😂😂

[@hurgcat]

5. 4. 3. 2. 1. mind blown hahahah

[@MarkieMX]

MonolithSoft is a premier development studio. Since Xenoblade on Wii, they've done non stop incredible work.

[@TurnaboutAdam]

Xenoblade Definitive Edition was only okay.

[@MarkieMX]

@@TurnaboutAdam in what way? The original XC is a masterpiece

[@TurnaboutAdam]

@@MarkieMX I thought it was good. But image quality was poor and only 30 fps for a Wii game

[@MarkieMX]

@@TurnaboutAdam fair enough, I still am so impressed with how much they squeezed out of the Wii. But play the Definitive Edition on Switch, it's incredible

[@johnnyc937]

Looking forward to the DF tech review of XC3 next month!

[@AFistfulOf4K]

I don't know why you're saying it would be hard to design a more compact PS5, the XSX already exists. It's not exactly "slim" per se but it's not a sci-fi terabit wi-fi router like the PS5.

[@samuxan]

Having a PAL version of those games is a no brainier. I get that an English speaker doesn't notice but for most games NTSC only have english/japanse as an option whereas PAL versions have support for most European languages. On switch you get the option and most people choose the PAL version because of that

[@shodan2958]

Its good in terms of presentation too, allowing the user to go back and actually see what these games were like in Europe at the time. I would wish that developers would go back and make a special 60hz version of the multi-language European edition but I understand why that may not be possible.

[@kyousouka]

The video mentions that a lot of those PAL editions do not include any languages not found in the NTSC releases, so at least for those, PAL has no upsides. If Sony offered all the available versions as options like Nintendo does, then this wouldn't be the problem it is, as people could choose the version they play based on what's important to them.

[@HiCZoK]

I must be the only one who dont mind ps5 size and looks. I like it

[@jefp65]

No not the only one

[@discodan2265]

I believe there should be more collaboration between devs & modders. The combined expertise could potentially nullify a lot of the problems we are seeing in development today.

[@khaledm.1476]

Not always the case. Some companies rely on modders fixing their games, some use free "fan labour"

[@discodan2265]

@@khaledm.1476 I don't understand what you mean by 'not always the case'. The case of what? Collaboration? Whether paid to help or not was not my point. My point is as stated above. Please read my comment more carefully as what you have replied bears no coherence to my perspective.

[@khaledm.1476]

@@discodan2265 You're right I didn't understand your original comment. I still don't it's too vague what are the problems you're talking about: crunch, bugs, unfun gameplay???

[@phrozac]

TAA is all FH5 needed! I'll take slight ghosting over pixel shimmer any day. Beautiful game.

[@anusmcgee4150]

Disagree, TAA has and always will look like dogshit

[@tylermartin7245]

Is there a way to inject Smaa like in older dx11 games?

[@phrozac]

@@tylermartin7245 I'd assume ReShade though I never tried with FH5

[@JohnDoe-sw2nc]

@@tylermartin7245 you don't need smaa, fh5 has msaa

[@tylermartin7245]

@@JohnDoe-sw2nc Msaa is not a substitute for Smaa

[@johnnyc937]

TBH, I believe XC3 will be still targeting on 720p at max. The things monolith soft wanting to archive in their games making them hard to break the boundary of 720p docked, not until Nintendo finally release a better hardware.

[@vishxification0]

Its about priorities . They did it 720p just fine with X which they cannot hold anymore

[@marctech1996]

I understand feeling disappointed about lackluster Switch ports but at this point I would blame Nintendo more than the devs. We need new hardware. Cross platform developed games will only get worse because devs aren’t even optimizing that much for PS4 and XOne anymore. And next to the PS5 or Series X the Switch is more of a calculator.

[@discodan2265]

I love listening to your perspectives every week scholars. I look forward to every Tuesday here in Au when I listen to DF weekly whilst making Jewellery in my workshop. It's therapeutic and your serious but sometimes jovial banter is the perfect accompaniment to my gem setting 👌 Here's to many more years from the triumphant trio ✨️ 💖 Best gaming/ tech related content on any platform. Love u guys! 💓

[@robertforster8984]

Xenogears for the ps1 had amazing graphics for the time.

[@d3fl3tch4r]

Biggest mistake Squaresoft (imo) ever made was letting the Monolith Soft guys go to Namco. I'd have loved to see the Xenogears universe explored further. Xenoblade Chronicles is a great spiritual successor.

[@IsaacSperrow]

Nah their biggest mistake is still selling a bunch IPs for cheap because they think NFTs is the future.

[@JT5ingh]

If we wanna list Square's mistakes, we'll be here for weeks. There's a reason they've almost died twice as a company

[@bowi1332]

About TLOU: One of the best and simple example of how Part 2 improved upon the original game is how even the enemies' facial animation from Part 2 are better than Ellie's from the original TLOU! Ellie and Joel's faces during their conversations were almost static in comparison to any facial animation in TLOU Part 2! The difference is mind-blowing.

[@arthurcuesta6041]

I think Nintendo's move should be a better connection to the dock in terms of cooling. If they can provide a much improved cooling solution when docked, and therefore a big increase in TDP, the dock would be much better. As it stands the performance increase is simply not enough.

[@Phelaidar]

About the Last Of Us Remake, the average gamer does not care if the cutscenes are pre-rendered or not, and worse, people are not comparing it to the original PS3 version, but the PS4 remaster, which makes the differences even less impressive. Not only that, I think the major flaw in communication about this remake is that it does not look anything better than Last Of Us 2, which is a PS4 game. There was nothing that screamed "next-gen" on what was showed, which makes the $70 tag sound a bit too much.

[@THU31]

Obviously people are comparing it to the remaster, because it is the best version, and you can play it on PS5. To me this is the most pointless remake in history. We need remakes/reboots of games from the 90s and 2000s.

[@lecorsaire2283]

I think the PS5 is a beautiful looking machine in either white or black. As usual expect a significant downgrade in aesthetics for the eventual Slim model. The Xbox One S is the only slim revision of a console that not only looks better than the original design.

[@JT5ingh]

I disagree, ps3 slim and super slim both look significantly better than the original Foreman grill. PS4 slim did look worse tho. I don't mind the PS1 slim or ps2 slim as they're such an actual huge decrease in size that any aesthetics don't matter at that point

[@JT5ingh]

@Smelly Wrestling Geek how dare you! Step into the ring and let's fucking go

[@vanceg4901]

Seeing many Sonic Orgins reviews praising the game not even mentioning the many issues it has. Thankfully DF has John to spot the crud.

[@tloz171nfs]

54:35 This is why I didn't mind paying 10 more dollars for the PS5 version. Also: Installing from disc is many many times faster than my internet would perform.

[@allanw]

The work for that PS5 slim is in stark contrast with LTT's custom tooled parts

[@bernchyu1181]

Yes thank you. Many games aren't labeled for internet or download to play with disk/cartridge. I wish gamestop would make a section for no internet required to both send distributors a message and ease of use for visitors. Personally, I try to avoid games that require internet or if they have microtransactions.

[@PickeringSamuel]

I'd love to see you cover Wreckfest on the switch

[@Kiwiiizzz]

Highlight of my day Love listening to your input

[@kristoferstoll587]

TAA in FH5 works great except for when watching replay's or moving the camera to the side of the car in 3rd person while driving. When the car is moving at speed the wheels turn white. It's quite an annoying artifact of the TAA implementation.

[@Keivz]

Can be mitigated by turning motion blur to short or off. I don't get white wheels myself (play at 4K) but they look extra blurry with the motion blur on

[@Lackooo84]

The biggest problem with this new PS+ is that the best games are missing from the library. Metal Gear, old Resident Evils, Dino Crisis, Dead Spaces, Silent Hills, etc.. where are you!?!?

[@powerfrenzy]

I'm happy to blame Jim Ryan for having the dismissal of retro games and what the appeals is baked right into his core foundations.

[@VanTesla]

Jim Ryan past comments on backwards compatibility and older games, doesn't do any favors for the poor showing currently. I could easily see it as a possible form of self sabotage as to later say "see I was right and nobody wanted to play older games"... Mind I more in the belief it is incompetence, putting minimum resources into it currently and doing it so much later vs competition. Hopefully it gets better, but my opinion on Sony/Playstation has been low for a couple years even if I still play on the platform.

[@jzilla1234]

Microsoft deal killed tony hawk 3 and 4?

[@Wogle]

Imagine having the varied talent of Vicarious Visions (or Blizzard Albany as they're unfortunately now known) at your disposal and deciding the best use of that talent is as a support studio on Diablo games...

[@billybadass7718]

It’s a damn shame really

[@andshrew]

FYI the PAL PS1 games on PS4/PS5 do have support for more than just English. For the games which had specific regional language releases within Europe these new emulated releases on PS4/PS5 actually contain all of the individual disc images and the emulator will automatically pick which disc image to load based on the language your system is set to. It will default to English if you have your language set to something for which there isn't a specific language disc image available. For example Ape Escape, Syphon Filter and Abe's Oddysee have 5 languages supported (English, French, German, Italian, Spanish), and Resident Evil has 3 languages supported (English, French, German).

[@ScrapKing73]

The Switch Lite also broke the reason behind the Switch’s dual existence. I agree with not releasing a substantially more powerful Switch-based home console, but just as they released a handheld-only Switch, why not release a console-only Switch? It’d presumably be even cheaper than the Switch Lite, or could be sold at the same price as the Lite but offer docked-mode performance, more storage, and two cartridge ports for convenience. I have no interest in a Switch or Switch Lite, but if the price were right I might have interest in a Switch console.

[@TheMonkeyBloke]

You are right, but it's less likely. Only for business reasons though. The portable nature of the existing SKUs help the multiples per household goals Nintendo have stated.

[@khaledm.1476]

@@TheMonkeyBloke Well they could have a family console and individual consoles. If only Nintendo could figure out cross save properly it could be great. Right now it sucks :/

[@Loundsify]

I think the issue is the Screen doesn't add that much to the cost of the Switch, maybe $40 at most. So a home only console like the PSTV (Vita TV) would just be a commercial flop and not worth the R&D to design such a device. The Wii super slim sold very poorly as well so I just can't see Nintendo wasting resources on it. I do think we'll get a Switch 2 announcement this winter.

[@editing5157]

What Monolithsoft achieve on Switch is really impressive. Of all the Switch studios, this is the studio I would most likely to see targetting advanced hardware. I think they could hang with anyone on the more powerful systems. The sense of scale in these games is unmatched, and the detail is still very impressive given the hardware

[@boneheadnumber1409]

I like to imagine the cdi power supplies are rare because there’s a task force that ensures they are all destroyed to prevent anyone from booting a cdi on.

[@Beaut_Beau]

John, there is still something weird going on with your mic - it almost sounds like a deep robotic copy of your voice is echoing what you are saying. There has been a few videos in a row with this issue now.

[@mitchelmarvin8040]

I love how there is no LED neon light on any of yall backgrounds ❤️ no yelling, no what is up you guys XD ❤️🥂

[@wwfww]

1st order for the day for big videogame companies should be to watch DF content !

[@flyingplantwhale545]

Hey John. For Switch, even games that’s don’t specify a required download on the box, and I mean even the major 1st party games, cannot he launched unless you download a mandatory update. I don’t know if that was always the case, but when I bought a new switch, I couldn’t actually launch stuff like BOTW and Mario titles without a download.

[@Stefan_Payne]

the Problem with PAL on PS4/PS5 can be solved easily with a Firmware update: Just let them output 50Hz and call it a day...

[@shakshaka8355]

Phil spencer is the only person that sells you a hard copy of a game with no game on it, and digital foundry not a surprise seems pretty ok with it!!

[@R17759]

Tell that to the guy who says they are PlayStation biased on this very video.

[@miikasuominen3845]

Well, we Europeans (well, actually Finnish people are not taken as European... But we are!) have been shafted all the time. First this 50Hz thingy and did you know, that MS blocked HD etc. on original Xbox, for us Europeans? We had to chip our machines (or softmod) to get on same level... Why? Somebody tell me a proper reason... Because there weren't one...

[@Kapono5150]

They always look like they have many regrets in their thumbnail pics

[@thestud2]

It is a bigger problem, all software should switch to open source. Most open source options are better than close source. When something open source it is easier to add on and have a whole community making it better.

[@existentialselkath1264]

I genuinely don't understand why you'd want TAA in a racing game. I get that msaa doesn't handle the foliage quite so well as it should, but why replace that with TAA that doesn't handle motion as well as it should? Even frostbite, which generally has pretty good TAA, really struggles to keep a clean image in the need for speed titles, not to mention the ue4 assetto corsa spinoff where TAA genuinely destroys the image. I understand the use for TAA for deferred rendering where msaa isn't feasible, although some games still have terrible Implementations, but forza has always had a great history of high quality msaa at a low performance cost. Not to mention forza has always avoided ssr on cars and only recently implemented large scale ssao because they've always strived for the cleanest artifact free image possible. At the end of the day, even if I don't understand it, I'm glad people have the option. I just desperately hope it doesn't become forced for motorsport 8 Edit: I'm pretty sure TAA is used on top of 4x msaa anyway. Just fyi

[@Alovon]

I think it's moreso becuase TAA helps overall image quality when implimented well if using lower-resolutions versus MSAA. Now bad TAA can destroy image quality (XBC2), but good TAA (DLSS, Whatever XBC3 is using) can greatly improve IQ.

[@existentialselkath1264]

@@Alovon TAA is absolutely horrible at lower resolutions. If your playing at 4k, making it about as soft as a 1440p image to remove aliasing could be acceptable. But playing at 1080p often ends up looking like 720p or worse in motion, it's unacceptable. Not to mention the even worse quality when running at lower framerates, which you're more likely to be doing if you have more budget hardware to go along with a budget monitor anyway. And that's all without the ghosting that constantly has a trail of previous frames behind the cars. And not in the nice smooth motion blur kinda way.

[@Alovon]

@@existentialselkath1264 well again, it depends on the implimentaion, good TAA doesn't really have those qualities, EX: DLSS or Insomniac's Temporal Injection, or again whatever the heck XBC3 is doing

[@existentialselkath1264]

@@Alovon this isn't dlss. This is standard TAA with a possible mix of msaa. It still has major ghosting, and it still softens the image a ton in motion. You can point to whatever solution you like, but as I said originally, even great implementations like the battlefield games have struggle to handle racing games when implemented into need for speed because everything is rapidly moving by necessity. Dlss might be an improvement if it could run at native resolutions. It certainly handles ghosting better than most games (though not perfectly), but it still softens a lot in motion.

[@Alovon]

@@existentialselkath1264 I feel you are overexaggerating DLSS's motion softening (Only bad DLSS implimentations have problems like RDR2's), and again, good TAA has the same pretty decent motion retention IQ-wise Also anyway, in a racing game motion-blur is in play so wouldn't any motion softening if reigned in a good TAA solution sort of blend in with the motion-blur?

[@Wizartar]

1:20:20 This would be such a great way to make Triple Buffering better! Also since the game is already at 60hz say, it's not really going to add much to latency over what v-sync would... assuming the motion vector stuff was fast enough

[@MrSancezzio]

I've always preferred physical games, especially for those I'm excited about, but I do buy a lot of digital also. The issue of the game not actually being on the disc is something that's been an annoyance for myself since getting a Series X. I have a 32mbps connection so when I put the disc in and it requires the full download which can be up to 100GBs, I know I can't even play the game until the next day. On top of that, it does concern me about when Microsoft servers go dark, which might be in decades, but will that mean I can't play the Series X version of Elden Ring?

[@augustofretes]

“The call of duty salt mines” is one my favorite phrases ever.

[@gabor-toth]

In my opinion, this console generation will be remembered for the memory limitations, the barely useful ray-tracing capabilities and bad framerates in UE5 games.

[@mikem2253]

Opposite for me. I’ll remember it as the generation of graphic/framerate options and the best back compat yet.

[@gabor-toth]

@@mikem2253 I have a bad feeling about the performance of UE5 games on these consoles. And since most developers will adopt that engine, I'm wary of what it will mean for graphics options.

[@fafski1199]

I dare say also missing dedicated hardware acceleration for ML & AI features, will also become a limiting factor, later on in their lifespans. Also both the low amount of storage capacity & the speed of the SDD's, especially on the Series S, could also be an issue. They'll undoubtedly look pretty antiquated, towards the end of the generation. By then there could be PCIe 7.0 12TB+ 8-lane SSD's running @ 256GB/s (around 50x as fast as the PS5's). However, even then it'll probably not be quite as bad as the HDD's, in the last gen consoles. I guess the amount of memory could be a slight issue in the future, especially if trying to render a "large" game in high resolutions like 4K. However, that all depends if they are even capable of managing native 4K, towards the end of their lifespan. Looking at how they currently struggle in games now, I highly doubt they will be capable by then, at least in AAA titles. Good news though is the CPU should hold up fairly well this time around and the GPU, at least while it's doing plain rasterization at a moderate resolution, should still be OK towards the end. RT towards the end, will only be used very sparingly, for spot effects.

[@mikem2253]

@@gabor-toth Isn't Fortnite already running UE5? Anything is scalable, and if it isn't, its a bad design.

[@lordfuckpuppy]

I really don't think UE5 will be an issue for anything except Series S

[@notchristiankunze]

Hey DF crew, it would be awesome if you did a video on Blade Runner: Enhanced Edition, by Nightdive. Just like you guys I'm a huge fan of Nightdive, but I feel like the final product could use a little more polish. Like allowing black pillarboxing instead of that weird metallic pattern and fixing the menu controls. The menu controls are simply atrocious! And they could be easily fixed if they would allow us to navigate the menu using the mouse cursor like we already do in gameplay.

[@mechanicalmonk2020]

I'm genuinely convinced that the next Switch will be an x64 machine and not ARM. I'm also convinced that there will be no backwards compatibility.

[@sambagogo777]

"...developers make these strange choices." Pretty sure it's not always the actual developers who are making these decisions.

[@TheNerd]

Luckily with TAA beeing present in Forza 5, you can drive against your own ghost at all times now. Best upgrade ever 😍

[@shabberto]

Been smashing returnal the last few days with my boyfriend. Stunning game.

[@jonwayne70]

I don't understand why people get hyped by cut scenes either. I remember when Brink was shown back in the day and just by the cut scene I was completely hyped. I went out and bought it day 1 and took it back day 1 (it barely worked and looked nothing like the trailer). After that I learned a lesson: never get hyped over cut scenes.

[@CHIEF_420]

🧂

[@joshmiller7870]

Guy in middle looks like Pauls Hardware but overtaken by stress worry.

[@BDreGameplay]

Alex just needs to go full on Conan O'Brien hair.

[@iMikeZero]

I didn't get this one in my Podcast feed. Had to catch the KZbin version.

[@iownu92]

Agree. Calling it “PS5 Slim” is misleading when you see the size of the giant power supply and water cooling unit underneath the table.

[@cikame]

They should have made Blizzard a support team for Vicarious Visions.

[@griffgames9538]

Report & block the fake DF prize spammer in the comments folks.

[@DatCorrupted]

Why they did my boy Alex like that in the thumbnail 😭

[@astrea555]

Can't wait for John's XB3 video

[@ZackSNetwork]

The Switch does not have thunderbolt technology so you could at least get %70 the performance of the eGPU. Also Digital Foundry forget to mention tremendous CPU bottleneck even if it were possible. The CPU in the Switch is a lot weaker than the Jaguar CPU in the 8th generation consoles.

[@kidShibuya]

Why aren't people mentioning that the PS5 "slim" is actually far larger than a normal PS5?

[@hababacon]

TAA can make games look blurry. If the FPS or resolution drops too low you get ghosting. Forza needs to keep resolution close to Native resolution. I like my visuals sharp, not mushy and or blurry.

[@ActionJaxonH]

It's not getting worse on Switch, it's getting WAY better. You just skip all the great games. Like Zombie Army 4, Demon Slayer, Wreckfest, Mario Strikers, Monster Hunter Rise Sunbreak, etc.

[@wodensthrone5215]

Its subjective on what everyone considers a great game, I only like monster hunter out of all of those that you mentioned but its also on PC and thats where I play it.

[@ANewtypeCentury]

Klonoa's Switch performance? The downside of Nintendo's "We're not in the performance arms race" stance, an unfortunate cost primarily 3rd party developers must pay. Seeing as miracle ports have mostly stalled out, with many games getting either cloud versions or skipping the Switch entirely, I don't think Nintendo's PR saying Switch is only halfway through its lifecycle holds water. Sticking with not even last-gen equipment isn't inherently bad per-se, but it's definitely having negative consequences for developers, and I think it's fair to hold Nintendo accountable for said choice when it results in such a negative impact for games on their systems.

[@bern9642]

well the problem with more powerful hardware is that developers with games with simple graphics cheap out. klonoa should have no problem running 60fps on the switch and that's the problem. XSX and PS5 are just brute forcing it. klonoa running 60fps won't be a miracle port just a normal game edit: it's like saying games that run poorly on PS5 and XSX, maybe Microsoft and Sony should have released PS5 pro or PS6 already so they don't run poorly.

[@flyingplantwhale545]

Yeah I’ll have to agree. The console had good momentum with a bunch of ambitious current gen games coming to Switch on a regular basis. It’s barely the case now. Who knows.. that direct mini might still have something in store? .. probably more rogue-like indie junk tho.

[@ANewtypeCentury]

@@bern9642 Respectfully disagree. Between PC, PS5, and Xbox Series, that represents most of the market. Nintendo is making the best choice for themselves, not 3rd party developers. Forcing devs to sink tons of money & extra effort into native Switch ports or having to make it the lead development machine when they might not want to for legitimate reasons - wanting to aim for better graphics, using more memory, sales are better on a different platform, etc - is not some minor inconvenience, but a huge ask.

[@bern9642]

@@ANewtypeCentury i agree with you 100% but not with klonoa. Sometimes a bad job is just a bad job. Another example is a Trek to Yomi. XSX shouldn't struggle to run that game. It's just a bad job. I agree with everything you said, companies don't have to sink so much resource just to make a game run on the switch but not with klonoa. That's a studio failing to do the bare minimum. Are studios not gonna optimize their games anymore because a more powerful machine can run it well? Because that's true for every single game Edit: and the switch will sell more klonoa games than the PS5, series s/x and PC combined. For klonoa, the switch is the majority. I get it the switch is underpowered but it's not the minority at all and anyone who games knows it.

[@Wobbothe3rd]

Bro, the Switch has been out for more than 5 years. It uses pretty advanced tech (nvidia maxwell, basically) for the context of a 15 watt mobile unit. Even right now in 2022 the Steam Deck needs much more space and fans to get modern graphics features - with an often lower resolution than many Switch games. It wouldn't matter if Nintendo was in the performance arms race or not, nothing released in march of 2017 that was available for mobile could possibly have been able to run modern games in 2022 without the compromises we see here.

[@Krytern]

I honestly don't think 50hz is that big of a deal.

[@StopHim]

John L is hot

[@KisameSempai]

wut the new Klonoa switch can't hold 60fps... good lord I was so excited for this game... :(

[@ScrapKing73]

Nintendo missed the boat by not releasing a Switch Plus a couple of years ago, one that offered docked performance but in handheld mode. No software fragmentation that way, as software is generally already designed to target the docked mode performance level! It’s probably too late to do that now, as simply upgrading to docked-level performance in handheld mode isn’t enough of an upgrade after 6+ years of waiting!

[@griffgames9538]

The mobile ampere sequel part wasn't ready yet.

[@Stefan_Payne]

PS5 consumes between 10-20% more than the PS4 PRO... So if they wanted, they could have done a PS5 in a similar format than the PS4 PRO but at also similar noise levels. We wanted quiet consoles, thats what they delivered. Thats why its so big. Because you an either do BIG and quiet or small and a bit noisy... Its astonishing that people are not aware of that.

[@weatherby1982]

i like how big the ps5 is.

[@anonymous_coward]

No mention of poor frame pacing and stutter for Q5?

[@trevortrevor4209]

I am happy to hear that John will do a video about Sonic Origins. Iwas very excited to be able to play Sonic 1 and 2 but this compilation looks disapointing.

[@Schraiber]

I agree with Alex that I actually prefer the art direction of the Wii game to the Switch games. I think this is a rare opinion and I'm glad that I'm not alone in it

[@crit_nerd1255]

Fair the main benefit to the new style is that the characters are more expressive which is why it changed. Also personally the original looked a little too muddy but your opinion is completely valid.

[@CassidyListon]

I watched that DIY video of that guy making his own PS5 "Slim". 🤔 It's an interesting "first draft" or prototype, but he used way too much copper to make it. If Sony attempted to mass produce it, the World would run out of copper. Additionally: moving the radiator to the external power source makes the power box HUGE like it displaces just as much volume as a regular PS5 on its own. It's a neat science experiment, but ultimately impractical as is.

[@griffgames9538]

Need to finish it. Did he manage to integrate the expansion SSD slot in the slim case? Currently that slot benefits fully from the Kraken IO chip, and has just enough heatsink/air flow to stay at safe temps.

[@CassidyListon]

@@griffgames9538 ummm 🤔 actually I don't think he left room for that?

[@rowanunderwood]

You guys keep bringing up frame interpolation without mentioning that its already here (in the here and now!) Both major VR api's have really excellent frame interpolation, with SteamVR now supporting 6x frame rate improvement (yes you read that correctly.)

[@mctapoutos7426]

Someone needs to remake Tomba! I was amazed as a teen playing it on psx.

[@Loundsify]

definitely wait for Zen4 and AM5 motherboards. Will you guys be doing a tech dive on the Portal 1&2 Switch port?

[@GeneFJacket]

Jim Ryan once very publicly questioned why anyone would want to go back and play PS1/PS2 games because they look "ancient". It's great that they're adding the NTSC versions now, but anyone could have told them to do that from the beginning, but they tried to no-effort things with bare-bones emulation and lesser PAL versions of titles and got rightfully called out for it.

[@Ciara0]

Alex's response at 27:05 killed me lmao, WHAT

[@stephonhines3013]

Lol

[@livingcorpse5664]

I'm surprised HDR isn't being used more. Not that every game needs it but there are some big money maker games that developers know is a cultural pheromone and they go through the trouble of giving them 120fps option and ray tracing option and even try to make both options running at the same time an possible but then just leave HDR out.

[@WheeledHamster]

That's not a PS5 slim, it appears like that but then there's the power unit and the cooler hanging out of there defeats the purpose.

[@bern9642]

the custom ps5 slim ain't slim at all.

[@metroidcypher]

Just a reminder that the bad image quality of xenoblade 2 had to do with the zelda teams incompetence at open world, making them take over half of the developers working on xc2. Only 40 developers were left to work on xenoblade 2 with some outsourcing

[@skreign]

gamepass would benefit heavily with tony hawk being an exclusive.

[@l11l1venom1l11l]

John, is that Socket in the background? I recognize the gameplay, but the title screen looks off.There's a #1 at the end of the title itself.. da heck??

[@garymoon6230]

Chronicles 3 looks like an essential buy for switch owners to enjoy and show off.

[@mctapoutos7426]

Europe should be recognised for all the language's, ok we communicate mostly in English that's true but its not our universal language.