Daily Briefing: Friday 25th February

Elden Ring’s Launch On PC Is A Disaster, But... Still Incredible?

Elden Ring’s launch on PC has hit a peak player count of 764,835 - six times higher than the previous series’ peak with Dark Souls 3. However, it’s currently sitting with 40% of reviews as negative, primarily down to performance issues on PC - frame rate problems, an egregious stuttering issue that Digital Foundry claims is down to FromSoft’s poor use of DirectX 12, and even issues with EasyAntiCheat stopping the game from launching. Unfortunate given the Souls series’ history on the PC platform and the game’s otherwise incredible reviews.

• FromSoft need to skill up their engineers - almost every single release has been plagued with performance problems ranging from frustrating to making games unplayable. They’re disrespecting their audience and their own work by releasing it in such a shoddy state on PC.

PlayStation Game Pass Rival Detailed (Unofficially)

In more news dripfed to us from Jeff Grubb’s Grubbsnax show, Sony’s ‘Spartacus’ replacement for PS Plus and PS Now is “probably getting pretty close to this actually launching”. He claims there are three tiers, with placeholder pricing at $10, $13 and $16. The $10 tier is just PS Plus as it is now - cloud saves, online play, monthly games and discounts. Moving up to $13 will add a ‘downloadable game catalogue’ like PS Now currently offers - but you don’t get to stream them, just download them. $16, then, will give full game trials like EA Play, access to stream the catalogue and classic games. He’s unsure what ‘classic games’ means but it’s theorised that it means downloadable PS1, PS2 and possibly PSP titles - PS3 and Vita emulation is still a big question mark, so unless Sony have made leaps and bounds internally, they will be only be availabe to stream, if they’re included at all.

• We’ll have to wait and see until they announce what it actually is - Grubb said it sounds like ‘something’ will happen at the end of this month, but it may be internal milestones rather than a public announcement. Bloomberg said Spring is the target launch, so we should hear soon. Generally speaking, this is an exciting prospect that could leverage PlayStation’s uniquely rich history to combat Xbox’s attractive Game Pass offering - but it all depends on what games will be available.

The Conflict In Ukraine Could Impact Semiconductor Production - Prices May Spike Further

Ukraine is a key supplier of neon and neon gas, which are critical components of semiconductors and lasers used in chipmaking, supplying more than 90% of US semiconductor neon. Russia is the source of around 35% of palladium supply, which is also used in semiconductor consumption. According to JP Morgan, Intel specifically source 50% of its neon from Eastern Europe. Effectively, this could serve as another disruption to global tech supply chains, slowing or halting production until sourcing is shifted to other suppliers.

• It’s an abysmal time for tech manufacturers and consumers, between COVID and ground conflict, disruption continues at the most important level of the entire operation - the supply. Look after your graphics cards, and try to get an extended warranty on them.