Hello there - so, first of all, a quick update on the delivery of DF Direct Weekly #267. We pushed back taping in order to cover Summer Game "Fest" and the news is we've pushed it back again in order to get a Direct Special on the Xbox Showcase out as soon as we can. We're expecting the Xbox video to quote-unquote drop today (we taped this morning), with Direct #267 arriving tomorrow. Sorry about the delays there, it's been quite difficult to keep up with the pacing of events!
EDIT: And we've just learned there's a Nintendo Direct tomorrow! We'll figure out what we're doing with that once we've seen it.
Anyway, the #content meeting did happen as per normal this morning though and while a lot of stuff is still under embargo, I can give you a rough outline of what's going on!
Rich (ie me) promised you some original content a while back and you'll see the first video from me on these lines this week. Since the Assassin's Creed Unity back compat plus video, I've been intrigued by PS5's support for PS4 games and how they can be enhanced. We should be seeing better results, right? We haven't just gone down the rabbit hole on this one, we've dug our own massive, gaping chasm here and are intent on burrowing down to the core of the topic. Bottom line: it took a lot of work but we've got Bloodborne running on PS5 with the kind of stuff you've only seen before on the ShadPS4 emulator. How we did it and the hoops we needed to jump through - that's quite a story and I can't wait to talk more about it. The first part of that content should publish this week. And this is the tip of the iceberg.
John has a couple of projects on the boil, but of the stuff we can talk about, he's continuing to work on his Batman Arkham Knight retrospective. If all goes to plan, there should be another episode of the DF Retro Super Show this week.
Tom is going to take a quick look at the Onimusha demo but after that, he's returning to the Dark Souls 2 path tracing mod.
Oliver has been somewhat busy of late having delivered five (!!) videos last week. Expect Xbox special, DF Direct and DF Q+A this week and then a return to prior projects he started up but got distracted from. iPhone 17 Pro vs Switch 2 is one such project, along with the extremely delayed but still fascinating PS4 vs PS5 breakdown, featuring every major PS4 triple-A release.
Alex - no update here. Alex is on leave until his back has improved and everyone is happy that he can return to work without further complicating his condition.
I wanted to take the opportunity to thank DF Discord members BourbonOperater, Flagman64 and lenslocked for keeping me up to speed on developments with the AMD BC-250. For those that don't know this is essentially an old workstation mining board that ended up getting dumped on eBay and other outlets. What's curious about it is that it's essentially a fully operable PC built on the PlayStation 5 APU.
Its initial usage was limited owing to reduced clocks and only 24 compute units. However, its BIOS has been unlocked, CPU and GPU have been overclocked and now it's possible to use all 40 compute units. Four more than PS5, which has four fused off for yield purposes.
Right now it's possible to get a BC-250 - or even home-made console versions of it - that run Linux and play pretty much any PC game via Steam/Proton. I've had one of these boards for months but never done anything with it. I can't promise instant coverage, but I'm looking to get a fully console-ised version up and running and I can't wait to see what can be done with it. It's a fraction of the cost of Steam Machine, but how well can it game? I'm very curious to find out.
OK then, that's the update for now. Expect a further surprise or two later this week but for now, feel free to comment, ask questions and all the usual stuff! I hope you have a lovely week!