4 ms·

> Software is treated as a second-class career in most major corporations. There's less cultural prestige with being a software engineer. While I can't comment

> Software is treated as a second-class career in most major corporations. There's less cultural prestige with being a software engineer. While I can't comment on the latter half of this statement, the first still rings true even today. The PlayStation 5 came out and featured a completely new system interface, and there have been numerous complaints about everything from navigation to moving saves forward from the PS4 to the PS5. Microsoft, Sony's biggest competitor in the space, chose to iterate on their interface, and while there are still some complaints, keeping the same wheel let them focus on things like easing the transition between hardware boxes via game updates and syncing saves. For example, if you want to move a save game from a PS4 to a PS5 running an updated version of the game: - Start the game on the old PS4, and make sure the save is synced to the cloud service. - Install the PS4 version of the game on the PS5. On launch, the system didn't do a very good job of distinguishing the two versions of a game. - Launch the PS4 version of the game on the PS5, just to pull the game down from the cloud service. - Launch the PS5 version of the game on the PS5, so it can ingest the now-local cloud save. Microsoft set up some system-level infrastructure to handle installing the "correct" version of the game (useful since they're selling two boxes with different specs) and has always handled save games as cloud saves, so moving between platforms can be as simple as "install game, start game", provided the developer/publisher hasn't opted out of the upgrade infrastructure (so they can sell an upgrade path).

filoleg 5y ago
What you are describing definitely happens, but it is 100% up to the specific game dev implementation. Some games indeed require that weird dance with "launch ps4 game on PS5, launch it, download ps5 version, launch ps5 version, etc." But plenty of PS4 games that got corresponding PS5 versions don't require that, and getting your PS4 saves on PS5 version of the game is as simple as just launching the PS5 version and continuing from there, without any dances surrounding PS4/PS5 version swapping (assuming you have your PS4 save files either locally or in the cloud). Which makes me reasonably believe that it isn't an issue inherent to PS5, but to how the specific games implemented that save file import functionality between PS4 and PS5. Despite that example you used being a bit flawed, I totally agree with the rest of the general points you've made.
- ascagnel_ 5y ago
  Some games have been patched to resolve the issue; however, that's something the developer needs to do (and QA), so it won't happen on every game. Compare it to what Microsoft does (developers get that functionality by default), and it's frustrating as a user. Along the same lines, Sony also has issued different title IDs for bundles vs. the base game. Horizon: Zero Dawn[0] is one such example; I had the disc version, beat that game, and then wanted to play the expansion when it was made available free-of-charge last year. However, the free version was a different title ID (CUSA10237) than the disc version (CUSA07326), and neither was updated to pull the save file from the other version, so I was stuck restarting the game from scratch instead, losing about 60h worth of progress. This isn't a hardware issue, it's entirely in that Sony hasn't made the proper investments in their backend or system software to make these transitions seamless.

filoleg 5y ago

What you are describing definitely happens, but it is 100% up to the specific game dev implementation. Some games indeed require that weird dance with "launch ps4 game on PS5, launch it, download ps5 version, launch ps5 version, etc." But plenty of PS4 games that got corresponding PS5 versions don't require that, and getting your PS4 saves on PS5 version of the game is as simple as just launching the PS5 version and continuing from there, without any dances surrounding PS4/PS5 version swapping (assuming you have your PS4 save files either locally or in the cloud). Which makes me reasonably believe that it isn't an issue inherent to PS5, but to how the specific games implemented that save file import functionality between PS4 and PS5. Despite that example you used being a bit flawed, I totally agree with the rest of the general points you've made.

ascagnel_ 5y ago
Some games have been patched to resolve the issue; however, that's something the developer needs to do (and QA), so it won't happen on every game. Compare it to what Microsoft does (developers get that functionality by default), and it's frustrating as a user. Along the same lines, Sony also has issued different title IDs for bundles vs. the base game. Horizon: Zero Dawn[0] is one such example; I had the disc version, beat that game, and then wanted to play the expansion when it was made available free-of-charge last year. However, the free version was a different title ID (CUSA10237) than the disc version (CUSA07326), and neither was updated to pull the save file from the other version, so I was stuck restarting the game from scratch instead, losing about 60h worth of progress. This isn't a hardware issue, it's entirely in that Sony hasn't made the proper investments in their backend or system software to make these transitions seamless.