Comments

• By b0a04gl 2025-06-219:307 reply

  persona 5 royal doing 7.25mil and sega still acting like it's some niche anime side hustle. meanwhile they keep pushing sonic into every genre except tax software

  By Hamuko 2025-06-219:501 reply

  We do have a Persona 5 dungeon crawler, a Persona 5 rhythm game, a Persona 5 hack-and-slash game, a Persona 5 tactics game and a Persona 5 mobile game, as well as a Persona 5 TV anime and Persona 5 manga.

  By kubb 2025-06-2113:423 reply

  But still no persona 6 ;(

  By philistine 2025-06-2114:48

  It's their model working as expected. The hand-picked team lavishly designs the main games, never rushing their design. Persona 5 released in 2016, when it was meant to only release on the PS3. Once Persona 6 is out, other work-for-hire studios can work on spin-offs to make the big money.

  By throwaway106382 2025-06-2115:41

  Metaphor is a fantastic detour until then though.

  By PaulHoule 2025-06-2119:49

  It's hard for me to picture how P6 could really be a step forward.

  I played P4G long ago on my PS Vita, bought P5R on Steam a while back and I'm most of the way through it on my Steam Deck right now.

  I love the story and the art for P5R but the game is a bit weak as a game, mainly in the way that other turn-based games (a genre I like) tend to be weak. Except for one battle, status effects mostly don't matter (just wait a few turns and they expire) Games with mechanics that don't matter are just so widespread: I think of Fire Emblem games where the weapon triangle doesn't matter because (i) it is so easy to overlevel characters, and (ii) if your characters is overleveled the weapon triangle doesn't matter.

  P5R is a crazy long game that doesn't make you make any choices about which social attributes you develop or which characters you befriend, new game plus is unimaginable because the game is so long so you feel you have to do everything which makes the game longer. On top of it the game sets deadlines for you to clear various dungeons which are never challenging to hit.

  ... and it's not that it is a bad game relative to other games, it's one of the best, but playing through makes think that people need to make something really different in the area of turn-based games mashed up with visual novels such as shorter games that you have to play through to experience everything or games where every mechanic is meaningful. Back in the PS Vita era there were many games where I would really enjoy the NG+ such as Akiba's Trip 2 in which playthoughs got faster and faster as you got stronger or the Neptunia games which had first rate voice acting in two languages and NG+ meant you could enjoy both.

  By makeitdouble 2025-06-2111:111 reply

  Sega Sammy's content business is only about a third of their total revenue, and that's for all games, anime, licensing deals (LEGO etc.)

  Persona 5 Royal is for all intent and purpose, a side hustle.

  https://www.segasammy.co.jp/cms/wp-content/uploads/pdf/en/ir...

  By h2zizzle 2025-06-2123:581 reply

  >Revenue

  Profit, profit, profit. It was a standalone full-price expansion of an existing game. They made stupid money on that release.

  By makeitdouble 2025-06-223:492 reply

  I hear you, but that's really not where their heart is:

  https://sccgmanagement.com/sccg-news/2025/5/15/sega-sammy-se...

  > Sega Sammy’s new gaming division, which started in mid-2024, became a standout performer. This part of the business includes the US-focused slot machine company Sega Sammy Creation investments in online gaming, and a 45% stake in Paradise City, an integrated resort in South Korea. The division brought in ¥5.4 billion ($36.4 million) in sales and turned a profit, with an EBITDA of ¥1 billion ($6.7 million).

  By h2zizzle 2025-06-2314:41

  If they sold 7 million units at $50 each, of a game that had already been profitable in its original form, then their take-home has to be all of 2% for profit to equal that EBITDA. I'm unconvinced it's as small beans as you're making it out to be.

  By musicale 2025-06-233:02

  Why make slot machine-like gacha games when you can make and operate actual slot machines?

  By chrisco255 2025-06-219:513 reply

  Not gonna lie, SonicTax has a nice ring to it.

  By egypturnash 2025-06-2112:432 reply

  get your refund FAST

  comes with coupons for chili dogs

  By ethbr1 2025-06-2116:57

  And... we've come full circle, back to the 90s.

  By 8345083401 2025-06-2122:13

  100m

  By sdenton4 2025-06-2117:12

  Tell me you don't want this guy working for you, to maximize your return...

  https://labs.google/fx/tools/image-fx/5sc6a32l10000

  By NuclearPM 2025-06-230:28

  Thank you for not lying.

  By gfaure 2025-06-2119:431 reply

  Don’t give them any ideas… https://taxheaven3000.com/

  By tumsfestival 2025-06-2123:39

  I refuse to believe that's a real thing. Seems like something you'd see in a Paul Verhoeven movie.

  By musicale 2025-06-233:01

  That's good. Looking forward to Persona 6, maybe on the PlayStation 6 or 7.

  By BobbyTables2 2025-06-2121:13

  I’d love to see Sonic as CPA fighting Dr. Robotnik at the IRS!

  Tails would be a clerk…

• By v5v3 2025-06-218:454 reply

  The real story here is the highlighting of the flawed attempt to redact a document.

  Happens a lot.

  By oxguy3 2025-06-2114:18

  I used to work at a company that requested a lot of documents from municipal governments. We found random people's SSNs on more than one occasion.

  By quickthrowman 2025-06-2113:164 reply

  The only foolproof way I trust is to redact it digitally, print it on paper, and scan it.

  I’ve used bad redaction to my advantage at work to make money, I’m all for other people using bad redaction techniques :)

  By kevin_thibedeau 2025-06-2114:001 reply

  Print single-sided. Otherwise there's a risk that nominally invisible bleed through from the other side can be enhanced. It's better to just convert a PDF to images directly and redact that.

  By mjevans 2025-06-2114:321 reply

  That is the EXACT process I automated the non-redacting parts of using cron jobs and task folders at a past job.

  Flatten everything to a set of just images.

  Have normal human staff draw black boxes over anything to be redacted.

  Compose a new 'PDF' that's a set of 'scanned' images.

  By nkrisc 2025-06-2115:051 reply

  I wonder if using certain kinds of inks could cause slight differences in reflectivity over the redacted text, leaving artifacts that could be used to reconstruct the text in scanned documents? Seems like applying strips of opaque tape over the redacted text might be the most certain method, though maybe overkill after all.

  By 3eb7988a1663 2025-06-2116:321 reply

  This was sort-of the winning solution to an underhanded C contest to redact an image. Hazily remembered, but the winner used a trick where already black pixels got redacted to one color black and already white pixels got to an ever so slightly different black. Reversing the image would then make it trivial to read the original black-on-white text.

  By moefh 2025-06-2119:202 reply

  I remember that one: the two blacks were not slightly different, they were both exactly black but written in different ways.

  The image was in PPM format, which stores the color components of the pixels as ASCII text (so a white pixel is stored as "255 255 255" and a black one is "0 0 0"). To redact the image, the code replaced every digit of the numbers with '0', so white became "000 000 000" and black stayed as "0 0 0". Both are black and indistinguishable if you're viewing the image, but you can tell them apart by looking at the file text.

  Sadly the UCC homepage seems to have vanished, but I found this account from the author: http://notanumber.net/archives/54/underhanded-c-the-leaky-re...

  By mjevans 2025-06-2215:28

  Not 100% sure offhand, but I _think_ the the final step in my process chain (repack everything into a PDF) would have converted the input image formats and thus defeated that type of input. As it was, they were effectively 'redacted' using MSpaint to clobber over the rasterized data, so I was more concerned with minimizing the file size.

  By 3eb7988a1663 2025-06-2121:24

  Ah right. Had to be sneaky enough to escape being outright flagged. A not-quite-black would have failed the test.

  By IshKebab 2025-06-2117:35

  You don't need to be that paranoid. Converting to a raster image format is sufficient.

  By tomp 2025-06-2113:464 reply

  What if you just block out text in PDF, then Print to PDF - does that retain the text behind the black block?

  If it does, then Export to PNG almost certainly removes it (while also removing all other selectable text)

  By capitainenemo 2025-06-2114:001 reply

  That sounds pretty foolproof so long as your black box fill method doesn't fill with a 99% opacity, or a flood fill leaves behind a few invisible anti-aliased pixels, or the merge operation of the black box doesn't result in some multiplication leaving a few bits of difference. Even if you erased the layer below, then filled above, I've had erasures vary in the bits outside the alpha channel messing up games using the texture info.

  Overall, I kind of understand the paranoia even though in principle it does sound pretty foolproof.

  By tomp 2025-06-2114:272 reply

  Wouldn’t all those fears apply to printing as well?

  By capitainenemo 2025-06-2114:35

  The alpha channel ones would not apply to printing, and overall printing is an extremely lossy operation, where all those minute details get washed out in approximate ink levels and the muddiness of the physical world. It might not be totally foolproof, esp for a very accurate print process (don't use your photo printer maybe), but it's probably many orders of magnitude noisier..

  I think if you're really concerned, you'd print it once, apply physical black tape on it (or cut out with a razor), then scan that :)

  By Akronymus 2025-06-2114:36

  Printing would presumably have enough imprecision to mask those.

  By tonyedgecombe 2025-06-2210:06

  >What if you just block out text in PDF, then Print to PDF - does that retain the text behind the black block?

  Possibly depending on the application you use to print and the printer driver. Acrobat has some unexpected behaviours when printing.

  By bqmjjx0kac 2025-06-2113:212 reply

  > I’ve used bad redaction to my advantage at work to make money

  You've certainly piqued my curiosity. Can you say any more?

  By quickthrowman 2025-06-2114:381 reply

  I sell construction work. Sometimes my customers will have me price up something that someone else priced to them and they will send me a competitor’s redacted scope letter with the pricing blanked out so I can bid ‘apples to apples’ aka the same scope of work.

  I’ve unredacted proposals using the ‘unflatten’ command in Bluebeam Revu (which is by far the best PDF editor) which allowed me to underbid my competitor and win the job (and at a higher price than I would’ve submitted).

  Definitely an ethical grey area, but an edge is an edge ;)

  By aeonik 2025-06-2115:455 reply

  I really don't think this is grey, I think these cases have clear legal implications, though I'm not a lawyer. You are circumventing redaction, regardless of how boneheaded it is, the intent was clear.

  I'd not do this if I were you.

  By quickthrowman 2025-06-2116:49

  The information was in the document they sent me, they should’ve removed it completely if they didn’t want me to see it. The situation is identical to them mailing me a paper copy with a black piece of paper scotch taped over the price.

  There are zero legal implications, it was a private contract. My customers regularly tell me the exact price that my competitors have submitted to them and that isn’t illegal.

  Probably there are legal implications for attorneys circumventing redaction in legal documents but construction proposal letters have no protections against unredaction.

  By dghlsakjg 2025-06-2117:551 reply

  Morally gray, sure.

  Legally, I can't see what's wrong with using information that you have, even if the other party didn't intend for you to have it. Lawyers themselves will use information in court that was accidentally sent to them by a counter-party, and that the other lawyer never intended them to have.

  By Spooky23 2025-06-2212:24

  It may be technically an issue with some government bids, if you need to file an affidavit certifying you had no such knowledge.

  But how would they prove it? And, doing so would reveal that they fucked up in the first place by sending it to you.

  By IshKebab 2025-06-2117:36

  I would be really surprised if there was a law against this, and even if there was who really cares? As long as you don't make it super obvious (like consistently bid 1p under the competition) nobody will know.

  By aprilthird2021 2025-06-2123:07

  There's no way there's a legal case that can be made against him imo

  By rogerrogerr 2025-06-2114:21

  Probably trading of some sort?

  By uncircle 2025-06-2118:03

  I should go sell to an intelligence agency a malicious PDF editor that covertly shares the plain text version any time someone uses the block out tool.

  There are billions of PDF files out there, but the ones are being redacted are the most valuable of the lot.

  By remram 2025-06-2120:44

  Did they mean to redact though? The slide makes it seem like they are hidden because they are being adjusted, not because they are secret.

• By deafpolygon 2025-06-216:599 reply

  It’s amazing how valuable of an IP Sonic is. It still sells consistently well after all those years.

  I’m surprised even more at the P5R sales! I might actually have to give it a real try— tried it a couple years ago (P5 non-R) and didn’t really take to it, but I was put off by the whole anime vibe.

  By haiku2077 2025-06-217:092 reply

  If you don't like the anime style, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is directly inspired by Persona's combat system but has a more mature tone. I liked it a lot, and it's 97% positive reviews on Steam, so you're likely to enjoy it too.

  By v5v3 2025-06-218:381 reply

  >It’s amazing how valuable of an IP Sonic is. It still sells consistently well after all those years.

  There have been ongoing movies and tv shows so each generation of kids grows up with Sonic.

  By nateburke 2025-06-2113:181 reply

  Growing up I never had exposure to video games, so I didn't really know about Sonic until my son saw his face on some toy and IMMEDIATELY had questions. Who is that, what's his name, what does he do, ....

  I think there's something about Sonic's face that is timeless, innate, prehistoric even.

  By ninetyninenine 2025-06-2122:37

  It’s just cool. Cooler than Mario which is a fat plumber. Think of it as the difference between a Lamborghini (sonic) vs. VW beetle (Mario)

  Sonic wins on aesthetics and style while Mario is popular entirely because of the quality of the games that have cemented Mario as timeless.

  By nottorp 2025-06-217:173 reply

  > directly inspired by Persona's combat system

  That means they're both QTE based?

  By zerocrates 2025-06-2122:37

  Setting aside the big argument on whether Clair Obscur counts as turn-based, Persona 5 definitely does: it's more classically/rigidly turn-based than even the Final Fantasy games that use ATB.

  By weiliddat 2025-06-217:302 reply

  Turn based but with QTE elements

  By PixelForg 2025-06-217:47

  And you can even parry! In terms of parrying, for me it is harder and more satisfying than Sekiro's parry system(which was my number one game in terms of combat, now Clair Obscur has taken it's place).

  By nottorp 2025-06-218:313 reply

  How is it turn based when you get timed prompts to "press button not to die"?

  By TeMPOraL 2025-06-218:39

  How is hamburger not a salad when there are veggies in it?

  Proportions matter.

  By haiku2077 2025-06-219:312 reply

  When you select what action you want to do, the combat is paused and the game displays a menu.

  Executing the action, dodging and parrying, and shooting ranged weapons all happen in real time.

  It works really well in practice, combining both strategic and twitch gameplay.

  By nottorp 2025-06-219:431 reply

  Of course, if you like twitch gameplay, and if you can stomach twitch gameplay being labeled as "turn based".

  I might agree with the former but I don't like false advertising.

  By burch45 2025-06-2110:221 reply
  I think the false advertising does great disservice to Clair Obscur. It turns off people who don’t like turn-based combat and ends up disappointing people who do like turn based combat. I very nearly bounced from what is a great game because it was not at all what I was expecting with respect to combat.
  Clair Obscur’s combat would be better described as dodge and parry based as that is the primary mechanic. In terms of lineage, the combat is much closer to PunchOut than Final Fantasy 6.
  It’s really fun if that is what you are expecting though.
  By nottorp 2025-06-2111:521 reply
  Yes but their Steam page says:
  "Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is a ground-breaking turn-based RPG with unique real-time mechanics, making battles more immersive and addictive than ever."
  Turns out the real time mechanics aren't unique. Not sure I want "addictive" battles or "addictive" gameplay either. Isn't that the realm of free to play?
  By chriskanan 2025-06-2112:251 reply
  The game is only about 30 hours and has no micro transactions. It is addictive until you beat it. Easily game of the year.
  By nottorp 2025-06-2112:461 reply
  I know what it is, i read the reviews and decided to skip based on QTEs [1] :)
  I still don't understand how "addictive" is a positive term.
  [1] To preempt some complaining, I haven't touched an Ubisoft or EA title in at least 10 years. So it's not like I'm an AAA "consumer" that skips the darling indies.

  By tmtvl 2025-06-220:34

  Sounds a bit like Legend of Dragoon. I should play that game again some time, leaving it unfinished is a shame.

  By npodbielski 2025-06-217:561 reply

  You do not have to Parry. You do not have to dodge. Most od the game you can tank and heal or resurect.

  By bigstrat2003 2025-06-2118:103 reply

  I don't think that's true. I played the game and without doing some serious level grinding, you take too much damage for it to be viable to ignore the dodge/parry mechanic.

  By haiku2077 2025-06-2120:51

  There are multiple guides on Youtube for both normal and expert. In practice some grinding in the first area is helpful and some fights are RNG heavy, but the majority of the game is actually really well balanced for it, especially since you get Pictos/Luminas and weapons specifically designed for that playstyle.

  Personally, I killed Simon on my second try by rebuilding my party to intentionally die to his attacks, proc some key Luminas and trigger the start of a high damage combo. The game rewards creative builds and lateral thinking.

  By npodbielski 2025-06-2211:36

  I played the game twice. First on normal then normal on NG+. I suck at both, parry and dodge and was able to do beat everything beside simon. So I think it is not necessary but game is much easier if you can counter.

  By xdfgh1112 2025-06-217:02

  If you're put off by the anime vibe then there's no point trying it at all, you won't like it. It is a very anime game

  By hnlmorg 2025-06-217:421 reply

  Sega is one of those companies quietly pumping out content for a loyal fan base. They don’t get as much limelight as Nintendo do with their IP, which is a shame because Sega’s games are definitely on a par with the stuff Nintendo release.

  > It’s amazing how valuable of an IP Sonic is. It still sells consistently well after all those years.

  It’s not as surprising when you consider Sonic is also mascot who they’ve ploughed millions into.

  The movies will have definitely reignited some interest into Sonic too

  By ekianjo 2025-06-219:101 reply

  > Sega is one of those companies quietly milking IP dry for a loyal fan base

  That's more like it

  By hnlmorg 2025-06-219:411 reply

  When you look at pretty much every other brand out there, Sega aren’t nearly as aggressively milking their IPs.

  They’re not even in the same league as Nintendo, Disney, Lego, etc. And when you look at other games companies from the same era (Capcom, Atari, etc) then you’d see that Sega are still releasing original content too vs the same rehashed shit that people buy purely because of the name.

  Then on the other end of the spectrum you have companies buying studios and letting those games rot (like EA). Studios encouraging micro-transactions (Microsoft with Minecraft, EA, Roblox, Epic, etc) and even underage gambling with loot boxes. Shit that has no place in gaming. It’s Also Sega are one of the least aggressive companies out there “defending” their IP against fan-made content.

  Sega are a massively underrated brand in today’s gaming landscape.

  By egypturnash 2025-06-2112:461 reply

  Look, as far as I'm concerned the continued existence of Atari is worth it solely because they keep on giving money to Jeff Minter to reinterpret their eighties coin-ops as weird psychedelic trips, not all of them work but they keep him and Giles and his sheep fed and give him time to tinker with his own weird games.

  Any other decent Atari rehashes are pure lagniappe.

  By chrz 2025-06-2216:161 reply

  I didnt understand anything of what you said

  By egypturnash 2025-06-2316:01

  Play Polybius, the recent I, Robot remake, and TxK/Tempest 4000 and my meaning will become clear. For extra credit also play the original 80's I, Robot and Tempest.

  By jhanschoo 2025-06-2113:01

  I have an incomplete P5R playthrough languishing somewhere, and I really should admit that I'm too old to care about playing a game that's focused on teenagers dealing with common teenage interpersonal problems and growing up from them for 90+ hours.

  By stevenwoo 2025-06-2113:591 reply

  I felt that way about the setting but once I got into it, it's possible to play and enjoy it as a variation of the card combat/collecting mechanics of Pokemon and that opens one to try Shin Megami Tensei V and maybe min maxing the other stuff in the game.

  By lanfeust6 2025-06-2117:03

  SMT is more my speed as I hate the sluggish pace of the lifesim stuff. As Atlus games go, Catherine got it right. Perfect pacing throughout.

  By ineedaj0b 2025-06-217:261 reply

  it sold well because i've bought a copy on every console. i'd play for 30 mins, get bored, and quit. it finally took after i played for 5 hours straight. i finally got 'it'. try playing it on break at work. you've really got to get a few hours in because the game's first level is basically a huge tutorial.

  By Keyframe 2025-06-219:383 reply

  Power of the brand! I wonder how that (change) reflected on FIFA / FC for Electronic Arts.

  By hnlmorg 2025-06-2110:31

  People always bought FIFA for the EA brand rather than the other way around.

  Much as I dislike the modern era EA, it’s hard to argue that their Football / Soccer games are duds. And EA have always been liberal about their branding so everyone knew that FIFA was an EA game.

  By Hamuko 2025-06-2110:19

  I've been under the impression that EA keeps selling football games, and the more lucrative microtransactions, pretty much the same as ever. Meanwhile FIFA has no games out on the market at the moment, with 2K Sports reportedly having the license at the moment with no games out.

  By chickenzzzzu 2025-06-219:48

  EA is still doing fine financially, despite some duds. It turns out people buy fun, not names.

  By mackal 2025-06-2114:01

  Those numbers are for both original and remaster.

  By amiga386 2025-06-219:202 reply

  Sonic fans spend money regardless of game quality.

  It's the same reason for the decade-long glut of capeshit. Hollywood found that (people who were then) teenage boys could be relied upon to show up for a superhero film, no matter how bad, provided it starred their favourite characters.

  By hnlmorg 2025-06-2110:37

  Same is true for most big games franchises though.

  People continually buy the next EA sports game even though it’s basically just the old game but with the year incremented.

  People still spend £50 on new copies of 10 year old Nintendo games like Mario Kart 8. And let’s be honest, the last great Mario game released was Super Mario Galaxy.

  If there’s one thing you can guarantee, it’s that people will waste their money on stuff they like. And if there is one truism that HN commentators forget, it’s that software doesn’t need to be academically perfect to be good software for their particular target audience. In the case of games, it’s being more enjoyable than the alternative of not playing that game. Which, frankly, is a pretty low bar a lot of the time.

  By chgs 2025-06-219:53

  To be fair there were very few misses in Marvel until covid.