Sony Digital Release Update!
about 3 years ago
– Tue, Feb 02, 2021 at 10:42:50 PM
Hello again everyone, we hope that you all had a great start to the year. Ours was a bit rocky, but we finally have some good news to share tonight. We have finally been given a release date for the PS4 Digital download!
Sense will be up on the PSN for PS4 (and PS5 through backwards compatibility) on Feb 11-12th (depending on your time zone!), just in time for Chinese New Year!
We are very excited to get this version out unto the market and look forward to getting PS4 digital backers their download codes. Hopefully we don't run into any issues this time, and have gone through the backerkit to recheck that everything is ready to go there for launch day.
We also want to semi-confirm that the game will work on PS5 with backwards compatibility. Unfortunately, we cannot guarantee a PS5-specific version of the game, as we had used an older version of Unity in order to be able to publish Vita. For those who have a PS4, we'd very much like to know how it runs for anyone who has the PS5 though!
For those wondering as well or who were worried, the game is completely untouched on Sony systems. There are no changes, censorship, or anything of the sort. Top Hat worked very hard to ensure that this would be the case.
We have less good news for VITA; albeit nothing terrible. While we had hoped to get the PSVITA digital copy out on the same day as PS4, Sony has, of course, not been particularly helpful here. While we did pass QA and were approved for release we have simply not been given a release window to schedule our date. From what we understand, and we cannot divulge too much, the issue has been an absolute lack of communication from the team which is handling the vita storefront data.
Top Hat is doing everything they can to get Sony to schedule the release, and we hope to maintain that planned Feb 12th date, but we just cannot be sure when Sony will get back to us.
To be very clear though; the PSVITA version has been approved, we are still good to go with physicals (which I believe have gone into production) and digital preorders, we just are having a hard time getting Sony to get the Vita-specific PSN listing up.
PSVITA release is in no way cancelled or anything like that, we just aren't sure if we can get it out same day as PS4. It is completely up to Sony to respond and work something out on their end. We hope to have better PSVITA news in the near future, and as soon as we have a release date for that we will update everyone! We apologize for the continued trouble with Vita, especially with our EU fans, and hope Sony will listen to fans and finish uploading the content to push the storepage out.
We also want to let everyone know that we are still very hard at work on the Nintendo Switch patch and are doing our best to get it out ASAP, we just want to use every bit of time we have until our deadline for physicals to make sure it' addresses as much as possible as well as possible.
We look forward to sharing more good news soon, including a big update on fulfillment for physical items. We finally have our remaining physical items in manufacturing, which is slowed down due to both COVID and Chinese New Year, but we believe we will get everything just in time to get them out in the Spring. More on that soon!
Update Regarding PS Vita + Sony Notes
over 3 years ago
– Mon, Jan 18, 2021 at 02:54:13 AM
Hello Everyone,
Due to many questions regarding the PSVITA physicals and preorders, we wanted to alleviate some concerns, be honest about others, and answer as many of the inquiries we've received as we can.
We will try to do this as concisely and clearly as possible, but if anything still needs clarifying please let us know in the comments below or direct message us.
PSVITA Quality, Patches, and Physicals.
As stated we wanted to be honest and upfront about the issues we faced and what we had to do to get the game to run as steadily as possible on VITA.
The situation was definitely not ideal when Top Hat was put up against an extremely difficult deadline for porting thanks to Sony sunsetting the Vita, as well as virtually refusing to lend platform support to the platform (an issue we're still dealing with as we setup the US digital launch).
This was exacerbated even more so as they could not begin the full scope of process beyond introductory efforts until core development was done in May-June. In late April 2020 we ended up having to re-build the entire game's visuals at lower resolutions due to file size and compatibility issues for consoles; due to miscommunication issues between our team and Top Hat's, certain loading mechanisms were also not ideal for porting off the bat when they received the source coad.
Even after that not yielding results we had hoped, we worked with Top Hat to find any area possible to decrease load times, increase frame rates, and provide the best possible resolution for visuals. Top Hat worked hard to ensure the game was still viable on the platform; long marathon days/nights of development, graphical tweaks, and shader/rendering edits in virtually every scene in the game entailed.
We got the game running, have tested and completed the game, and while we feel it runs well enough to have kept our promise of releasing the game physically and digitally on the platform we recognize it is not where we wanted or had hoped it would be quality wise. Quite frankly, we had less than half a year to do the Vita port and also pass Sony's QA regionally in Asia/US/etc. This extremely staunch deadline and development timeline proved less than ideal, but it was important to both of us to fulfill our end of the detail to the Vita community which helped with the game.
We wanted to show you all some off-screen gameplay to be completely up front about the following aspects;
- While frame rates are lower than other releases, and sometimes unstable, we were able to get the vast majority of the game running between 15-25 fps. There are specific points in the game that have higher asset counts that cause drops, lag, and stuttering. However, the game is still playable albeit rather slow in some areas.
- Animations (Mei's in particular) will look laggy/stuttery at times because they were only animated at 30fps; thus, even when the framerate is steady, the lag looks/appears to be worse with Mei's animation because the framerate of her animations are fractional. Cutscene motion comic animations are also a bit slow, as they already work on a slower timescale than the main game.
- There are load times between rooms like the switch version; these load times vary, but one specific loading screen is an issue. Between the bar and the basement transition at the beginning of the game, the load time is of around 30 seconds. As we far as we know, this is the only screen with this long of a load time. Other load screens throughout the game are slightly longer than the Switch version, but most will be the same 3-5 seconds. This was one thing we and Top Hat simply could not optimize due to the sheer scope of assets and setup of rooms across the project; we apologize for this.
- Because Sony platforms have specific graphical shader requirements, a few of our shaders had to be replaced with similar ones; however, further, the Vita's memory could handle the loading of even our lower-end 1024x1024 texture resolutions, so we had to heavily compress them. On the vita itself this doesn't actually present much of an issue, but the textures and sprites are visibly of much lower resolution if mirrored to a TV.
- ALL game content is still present in the Vita version; there is no censorship or changes in either the Vita OR PS4 versions. However due to Sony's tight deadlines and the difficulty we had getting the game approved, we were unable to patch the game before the physicals are made. The scope of the game will match the PC ver. 1.03 which is the currently available version on Steam. We have plans to try to at least release one digital patch to try to match any additional fixes from the upcoming Switch patch as well as attempt - if possible - to increase performance even more. However, in all honesty given Sony's extreme lack of attention to the platform, we are still unsure if we will have the opportunity to patch the game further on the Vita.
Below are some examples of how the vita runs, off screen, so you can see it running as it will be in your hands (note: the screen appears slightly darker because of the camera being used - also sorry for the messy background!);
We did our very best, everything we could to fulfill our promise of putting Sense on Vita and fulfilling the physical. We honestly tried as hard as we could and the situation was never optimal, so we apologize if you are not satisfied with the result.
That said, we will be providing EVERY PSVITA backer, digital or physical, with a free DRM-free PC download code (or PS4 digital download code upon request instead). We will be sending out a google survey in the near future for those backers to choose.
You will still get your PSVITA code and/or physical if desired, as well as unannounced bonuses we are working to add in for backers. We want to make this right, again while the game runs well enough to pass QA from SONY we are not satisfied with the quality and want you to be able to experience the game as it is meant to be.
With that said, here is some more information about the PS4 release;
PS4 Physicals and digital release
- Other than some slight rendering changes due to Sony's shader compatibility (i.e. shadows and lighting), the PS4 version runs smoothly and is comparable to the PC version of the game.
- Once again, there are no content changes on the PS4 version. It is identical to Switch and PC.
- We will have more information on the PS4 physical copies, and we will be doing everything we can to make them in parity with East Asia Soft's Vita and Switch physicals. Unlike the Vita physicals, these will be like the Switch physical and will include any patches which come out before the Physicals are fulfilled.
- We expect that the PS4 Digital version will be out WITH the PSVITA digital same day (in US, EU, and Asia), and have already scheduled a tentative release date which we will reveal soon!
CERO/ Japanese release
While this does not effect very many of our backers (about 5), our console version was initially refused rating in Japan because of CERO guidelines. While this is not final, appealing this is quite costly and not something we believe we can do before sending out backer goods. You also know our opinion on censorship here. While it is still possible to come to Japan on console in the future, it is not something we can give an estimate on.
All Japanese backers who wanted a console-digital version will be refunded. This only effects digital versions, as our physicals are all region free and thus will be fine.
We hope to be able to resolve this issue sometime this year, but are unsure if the demand is there at this point. Again, this ONLY effects Japanese console-digital releases (CERO territory). Everything else is fine.
We will have more updates soon regarding physical items and fulfillment/shipping details.
Thank you all again for your support, we are doing everything we can to keep every promise we can and be honest with you in that process.
East Asia Soft Physical Preorders available Jan 14!
over 3 years ago
– Tue, Jan 12, 2021 at 03:45:43 PM
Hey everyone! Tell your friends!
East Asia Soft today announced that their physical LE copies of the game will go up for preorder on January 14th at 10am EST! Their physical LE will be limited to 800 copies on PSVITA, and 2000 on Nintendo Switch, while standard switch copies will be an open preorder.
Check out their press release
This LE version IS different than the KS Collector's Edition which was offered. KS backer's version has a the premium CE Box with special art by Hiragana, the 50 page hardcover artbook, the OST, and of course the game (which is the same as the EAS LE!). We are working out bonus items to put in the box as well, like stickers and postcards).
Further, we are working out a plan to differentiate our game cases from EAS's and are close to settling on a really cool holo-foil sticker (we'd let you stick this on yourself though!), but once we we have decided on that we will let you all know!
ALL Switch physical copies WILL include patch 1.01 to address some visual errors, load times, and bugs. That patch will be coming soon and we will share more about it asap!
We will have another update about physical items and when they will ship in the near future as well!
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Regarding anyone still waiting on their Nintendo Switch Codes, we have reached out to nintendo for help and are still waiting on a response. As soon as we get them we will post another update and do our best to let everyone who reached out know. I deeply apologize for the wait on that and we are doing our best to fix the issue.
Thank you all for your support. We have come so far thanks to you and we are so excited to finally be able to announce this!
