Coming This Week To Digital Foundry (Week 31, 2023) (Patreon)

Hi there everyone, welcome to your latest update of what's cooking here at Digital Foundry. Alex is taking a well-earned break this week after last week's heroics with Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart, but there's still plenty going on that should be of interest! Let's get straight into the staff breakdown!

* John is on the final hours of the Road Rash DF Retro episode, and has already shared a sampler with select retro tier supporters for feedback. This one should be complete within the next day or so. After that, he's looking for a smaller project to get his teeth into. Any suggestions?

* Tom did indeed complete the Exoprimal RE Engine sponsored video last week, and it should be running soon. Beyond that, he's circling back to Pikmin 4 - and I've helped him out by tracking down a Wii U copy of Pikmin 3 for those 'gen on gen' comparisons.

* Oliver has just handed in the first draft of his next Steam Deck video, which examines the latest duo of 'Steam Deck Verified' launches - Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart and Remnant 2.

* Rich (ie me) is back on the handheld trail, with a look at the 7840U-based AyaNeo 2S and the OLED-boasting AyaNeo 1S, with a dash of new Asus ROG Ally data. I'd really like to get this out of the way, but it's a tough one to crack.

A bit of news to share: most likely this week, we're going to launch a DF Clips channel. You may have seen the concept before with LMG Clips, and in this link, Linus basically explains better than I can why it's worth doing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWvwDSehc7o&t=1285s

There are actually other reasons why it's worth Digital Foundry doing this. While cutting up DF Direct Weekly into chunks will make a 60-90 minute show more accessible for the more general YouTube audience, there are actually elements of our usual, longer form videos that can be excised into a smaller chunk and hopefully find a new/different audience too. For example, the Ratchet/PS4 HDD video was baked into an hour-long let's play. John's tweet showing the content ended up doing 6.7m views!! It's nuts not to break out juicy bits, but we don't want to do it on the main channel.

The other reason? You'll have noticed that our commercial activity on Digital Foundry is nowhere near as high profile - or indeed as successful - as basically all of our peers in the tech space. The DF Supporter Program is crucial for keeping the lights on!

Opportunities are coming our way but when the demand from, say, a VPN is for a 60-90 second sponsored message within the first three minutes of the video, that's simply unacceptable - it would totally ruin the overall video. We're trying harder here to make the business more sustainable but in the short term at least, it just makes sense to try to get a higher 'return on investment' on the work we do. I'll be posting more about this soon but it would be great to get some early subscribers on board!

Do let us know of anything you'd like to see! Baldur's Gate 3 is on the radar but unlikely to be looked at until Alex returns. I'm also highly intrigued by the new PS5 exploit that allows for PS4/PS4 Pro 60fps patches and other mods to be run. I don't have a compatible, exploitable 4.03 console but there's already a Gravity Rush 60fps mod that looks great. Bloodborne, DriveClub and others are likely en route! https://twitter.com/illusion0002/status/1685859253842522112

Have a great week!