Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered Has Been in Development for a Year on PS5

Can I just buy it separately on the store for £20/$20

PLEASE

I mean I can see why with the whole face model redo for Peter Parker and that's pretty substantial in of itself

But honestly these other upgrades seem so incremental I bet the majority of the dev time was just on redoing the facial capture. Still not really worth the 80 ish bucks imo

Or I guess 100 with VAT because yay canada

I wonder if Insomniac is interested in remastering the Resistance trilogy

Was expected this,!

I dont get the hate for this remaster. Yes its an extra cost, but its only 20 or 30 pounds/euro's/dollars on top of miles morales, and its entirely optional given MM is being sold seperately. Seems like a storm in a teacup to me.

Yes i understand people thinking this should be a free upgrade, and i really do understand that point of view, but it is what it is and people need to move on now.

So... they wrapped up development on the DLC and then immediately began work on a remaster? Nothing weird about that?

I just want a full PS5 presentation from Sony now as this is getting ridiculous as my console will be arriving in about 6 weeks.

If only they had had a showcase a few weeks ago where they could have presented this remaster properly instead of drip-feeding info on social media. Hmmmmmm. If only....

I don't see myself dipping my toes back into the water for this Remaster. I still have the DLC to play through, but that's it...and I'll either do that on my PS4 or PS5 through backwards compatibility. I will give Miles Morales a go, depending on how it reviews.

Given that the first PS5 stuff we saw was the Spider-Man it feels more like they’ve been using this game of the tech demo and less like it was developed for its own merits.

It’ll be good for those completely new to it, MM will be enough for me.

Also, I hope with the negative feedback maybe they can make Peter more similar to his original look for Spider-Man 2.

@get2sammyb

I agree, but at launch for £50 Miles Morales hold not interest for me as the story is about 8 hours? 🤔

@RBMango i'm expecting a state of play in the next couple of weeks. They are going to have to have something

@Arugula Yup 100%. That time could have been used for a Resistance trilogy remaster or bringing Sunset Overdrive to PS5 but whatever I guess 🤷 I'm already sick of hearing about Spider-Man but I
still wish Insomniac success with Miles.

Very disappointed with how this looks, especially the main character. Hopefully the 30 fps version will be substantially better looking

Haha they might be at risk of wearing people out on Spider-man at this rate dropping info every day about this remaster. I don't think I've heard more about any other PS5 game in the past week.

Just got the Borderlands 3 deal at Best Buy for $8. Just not feeling spending $70 on this Ultimate Edition.

Well if it has all the overpriced dlc included then it's actually not a bad deal. Those dlcs were a bit crap I though coming just a few weeks after the main game.
I'm only interested in MM now though.

I would respect all of this more if they stopped lying through their teeth and just told the truth about this product. Insomniac used to be a highly reputable studio. They should not be forced to carry Sony Corps water for them. It's a horrible look.

They spent a year....on this? Even if spending a year on clouds and reflections for a game that's only 2 years old isn't absurd enough, the numbers don't add up. They spent a year adding DLC to Spiderman (or was that already canned, ripped, and repackaged and they started lying back then?), while simultaneously working on Miles. While simultaneously working on R&C. What studio Insomniac's size can work on four projects for a full year, when one won't even be sold as an independent product.

Lets try this again, Insomniac:
"We spent a ton of time remodeling the main character due to contractual obligations we can't talk about."
"We did most of the work we're talking about for Miles, but were told by Corporate that we had to back-port it into the existing game to sell as a bundle and up-charge full price for it all together."
"We were going to do a frame unlock, but Corporate told us they wanted it in a new SKU only."
"We had Kenny down in the basement work on this during his lunch break. It didn't really take much time, since all of the work was actually part of the Miles project anyway and took about a year. We just bolted it onto the original game later. "

Yes that's supposition and hyperbole....but it's a more honest take with a lot more understand-ability than the gibberish they keep spouting.

To everyone complaining that its not worth 80 dollars/euros etc... boy do I have a surprise for you...

It doesnt cost $80. Here in Canada it costs $24 to get it with the ultimate edition. Base version of Miles Morales is $65. The ultimate edition costs the same as a new Ps5 game at $90.

If you dont think its worth $25 then I cant help you because thats a decision you have to make, but for the love of God stop saying its not worth $80 because nobody is asking you to pay that for this remaster on its own.

If you don't want to pay $80 or whatever it is then you probably already don't want to play MM so you are complaining for no reason.

Your stating this has been in development for a year? The detail level looked bad, as well as the lighting. Too many details missing, the face looked completely bland compared to the PS4 version. There are objects missing in the background, cars, trees, and some inside the lab. The lighting looked washed out, the colors were off. Take a look at the side by side comparison video, it's easy to notice. Not saying I won't buy the game, but I hope they get it fixed before they ship it. Other than that, it looked good in 60fps.

@NEStalgia I get where you are coming from, but I honestly think you are also greatly underestimating how big insomniac actually is.

Its not unusual for them to have numerous projects on the go as they are a large team.

@Juanalf hopefully bluepoint will tackle a Resistance remaster. I'd rather Insomniac crack on with Spidey 2, a brand new Resistance or something new after Ratchet launches. Bet they are working on PS VR 2 aswell

I don't quite understand what all the fuss is about. Is this a new thing or since when are game developers required to put out free upgrades to 2 year old games. It seems like this is marketed to people that skip the original. What other two year old single player story based game is putting out an enhanced version for free.

@FlawlessG The Witcher 3 and that's 5 years old.

@Dange Even Ubisoft is giving out a free upgrade for Rainbow Six Siege.

What people are missing here is that the free upgrades that are being provided are not the same as remasters.

The upgrades are using the new hardware to push the frame rate and 4k. A remaster is actually doing work to textures and assets.

@FlawlessG Pretty much all of Microsofts first party games for the last several years, Witcher 3, the PS4 Pro and X1X patches for first half of last generation games which covered pretty much every major game from every major and minor publisher.

Most games are made for PC and are made for high end PC, then just turn the settings down for consoles. "Patching" it mostly involves releasing a new build with the default settings set up a notch versus where they were set in the original console release. There's little "work" involved, it's just changing the values and letting the scalable engine run with additional options/resolution settings, or possibly referencing higher resolution models/textures that were already made for the PC part of the game, they just have to distribute them for console.

If Insomniac hadn't built all that into their game already for a game that released after the PS5 was already announced.....they are using some woefully dated game development ideas in their projects, and consumers shouldn't be paying for their blunder. It's a case where less is more. If such minor updates weren't part of the original project and aren't financially justifiable without charging for it, then it probably wasn't a great use of time and money to spend a year working on it (starting mere months after the final DLC for the main game released.)

@torne Those assets should already have existed. If they did not, that's not enhancement, it's fixing a failure in Insomniac's design process at customer's expense.

And one also has to ask, looking at these picture, the actor switch (their choice, not consumer's benefit) aside, do any textures and assets look enhanced in any way that affects the real appearance of the game? The main feature on sale here is 60fps, bumped up draw distance, texture filtering, lighting (only if not using 60fps.) These are all features that a "free patch" accomodates. The core here is a "remaster" for a 1 year old (when they started the "remaster", apparently) can not and should not be a thing. You don't "remaster" a thing you just finished working on! You remaster things that have been in the vault a while and are dated. If you just finished it and then start "remastering" it right after, there's nothing to remaster, you're just saying you never finished development on it to begin with before you sold it.

@NEStalgia if you dont like it dont buy it... end of story. Nobody is forcing you to buy it.

There is no gun to your head saying you have to buy this or else. If you want to play the ps4 version boosted on the ps5 that is your call to make.

@Arugula I'm not sure you should, or anyone should look at it as a waste of resources. Firstly for Sony, doing what they did, converting the game was proof of a few concepts, and for Insomniac themselves it will have been a learning exercise, and will have fed into the studios knowledge about the new hardware. It's quite common as an exercise in studios to try and get older games up and running on new hardware and see where you can push it, with the comfort of a finished product, and then analyse system usage. I bet it's what CDPR did with the Witcher 3, it's just that rather than leaving this stuff as internal and valuable learning exercises, it now gets pumped out as a remaster. So it's cash for learning, which makes sense from a profit stand point, but I can't help thinking Microsoft's approach to just putting the work out as free updates for games will earn them more good will... but is that bankable?

@Spoonman-2 I haven't seen any article from insomniac that projects Miles Morales to be 8 hours in length. It's not going to be as long as their first Spiderman, but it's still an open-world game.

I would bet there will be substantially more than 8 hours of content, unless you're talking about speeding through the game and only completing the main story missions.

@Rob_230 50% of the people on this site love to be haters. It'e kind of absurd actually. It looks amazing, I agree.

Would love to see some of you lot in charge of a video game company based on these comments!

@torne Nobody is complaining that this is a mandatory upgrade to play. The complaint is they are being misleading and deceptive in exactly what they are attempting to sell, because being honest about what they are selling would not indicate reasonable value. However the more they attempt to create justification for the value of the product by spinning a web of half truths and outright lies (pun intended), the worse the arguments look now that we can see what they're actually selling.

Let's put it another way. Spiderman, comic books, and Marvel do not interest me even slightly. However I eagerly bought the PS4 game for the exclusive reason that the studio making it was Insomniac, and Insomniac has never let me down. For me to be criticizing this particular studio so pointedly, when it is a studio I default to giving the benefit of the doubt to the point of buying a game I don't even really care about the world of simply because I trusted, correctly they would make a fantastic game, is an indication of how badly they're going about this entire debacle.

@Kidfried well I'm glad you appreciate some of my comments. Not sure I can see both sides, I think it's more that I just have a different perspective. In about 5 to 6 weeks though I'll be back full-time so I guess you'll hear less from me, which I'm sure will please some no end.

@NEStalgia Yes, they’re working on many projects at once. They didn’t say they spent most of their time in that year on it, just that they worked on it over a year. They probably have things they are using on this and Miles Morales and did them side-by side. They also were using Spider-Man test and show the wired article back when that happened long ago. They’ve most likely been working on this for a year, but not as a main focus.

@torne I agree its only £50-52 for miles morales and a further £18-20 ontop for the remaster its only a smaller amount, I agree its not the full price for just the remaster you get two games.

@NEStalgia honestly from your comments there is nothing that can be said or have been done to this remaster for you to be okay with it.

Thats cool and its your prerogative, BUT sitting here saying that Insomniac are being disingenuous and misleading and liars is nonsense. This was never meant to be a standalone release, it was meant to be an entry point for people that didn't play the ps4 version or who want to have it as a ps5 game.

Insomniac doesn't owe anyone anything, let alone giving away work that they have done for free.

You can spin it all you want but the free upgrades for ps4 games are going to be less than what this remaster is. There is a reason you have barely seen any screenshots of the free upgrades, because the main focus of them is pushing 60fps and not really improving anything visually.

@Arugula man if I had a dollar for every old game I got up and running on new hardware as a studio learning exercise... I'd have $2's... lol. But it is quite a common thing to do. It's work that never used to see the light of day, just something studios did to figure out where the kinks were in new SDKs / hardware. Normally conducted by the tech team. Now it involves a lot more departments, and somebody shoves it out the door and slaps a price on it. I can understand why some consumers think it sucks as a practice, I really do, but from the other side of things I think if a studio can get money for old rope you've just cleaned up a bit why not? Helping the bottom line while learning from a studios perspective just makes a lot of sense.

@God_of_Nowt I do think our industry has a bit of a problem communicating openly with customers though. Would it really take all that much to be a little open about the crap we get up to? We hide away and let the PR teams employ special effects studios to produce CGI rendered films of games that will never exist, well, not in that form any way. E3 always used to make me shudder when I knew a game was going to be "shown" for the first time. Then came the crushing knowledge that you'd never achieve what that special effects studio put out in a million years and you'd get the "downgraded" comments when the game was finally shown. I've looked at this "remaster" of Spider-Man, as I'm sure you have, and the frame pacing looks damn solid, and the LoD into the distance is pretty insane actually, as are the higher quality assets being used pretty much throughout. However, I can say, that maybe sitting on your sofa 6' to 10' away... maybe it won't be as noticeable to your average gamers. So I get it.

@ShogunRok I don't have a dog in this fight so this is a sincere question. If you were running the show would you have them spend a year on the remaster or focus more on MM/Spiderman 2?

@NEStalgia You do realize Insomniac has multiple teams working on 3 games at the same time right? This is surely the smallest team so a year on these improvements is actually not only reasonable while developing Miles Morales and Ratchet and Clank at the same but impressive

@torne Last I heard, they have around 350 employees. Plus I'm sure they have independent contractors working along with them to speed up development times.

@Ha1frican this is one of the points people are missing. Insomniac is not just some small studio. They have multiple teams working on multiple things. Honestly I wouldn't be surprised to hear that they have a VR game and spiderman 2 in the works as well. Thank you for helping to point this out.

As others who clearly know more about game development than I do have said. This remaster was done originally as proof of concept for the ssd. Instead of shelving it, they put in a years worth of work and added it on to miles morales as an INCENTIVE for people.

The overal gaming population these days is entitled and toxic and think they are owed something when they arent. Honestly its exhausting.

@RedShirtRod I can answer that, it's not an either or situation. The work anyone does within their profession adds to their practical knowledge, praxis is vitally important in design work, and in particular games, iteration and incremental learning from this absolutely will have fed into both Spider-Man Miles Morales and Spider-Man 2. Any learning taken from this will absolutely speed up development of and improve Spider-Man 2... especially with the analysis tools Sony make available.

@InsertUsername exactly my point. This isn't just a small 10 person indy operation. Their team is large and it is split over multiple projects.

Thats how we have miles, the remaster, and ratchet coming so quickly. With spiderman 2 probably 1-2 years out as well.

@torne I have a sneaky suspicion you might see another Insomniac game in-between Ratchet & Clank and Spider-Man 2. Probably in 2022. Insomniac are a very large studio, I know for certain they're at least 300 strong, but have been recruiting like crazy over the last 2 years since that figure was revealed to me, so @insertUsername probably isn't far off when they say they're probably 350 strong at least. However, more than 10 people will have worked on this. But what people don't grasp is that in modern studios now it's normally only a very small nucleus that works solely on any project, and the rest are just floating resources that flit between projects. There's also external support studios and freelancers who get roped in to do things. Insomniacs network of support will probably extend to other first party studios as well. However, none of that matters, in and of itself this remaster will have value not only to the studio in terms of income, but knowledge.

@torne if it turns out you are correct, than Sony's showing this gen will be quite a bit below industry standards.... Hopefully you are not correct.

It looks good and they should have shown more and more. Show the ray tracing in motion. This game obviously needs a new tech trailer with side-by-sides highlighting each feature cause otherwise people don’t get it. It took me a minute to realize why distant shadow detail was missing (dynamic system vs baked). Show don’t tell.

@God_of_Nowt yeah... RT is da bomb, might come back and bite a few people hard. Have you seen the DmC5 RT implementation? I cracked up. It's overkill and actually makes the scenes look faker. This is the problem with most new graphical techniques, people want to see them, whereas truth be told if they're adding to the image quality of any given frame holistically and synergistically you probably shouldn't have it jump out and poke you in the eyeballs. But... it's same as it ever was. I have to say RT does have the capability to reduce asset bloat though in terms of "junk maps" and shadows and multiples of models in different lighting conditions... but yeah, it's not a cure all that'll make games intrinsically better.

Well worth a measly £15-£20 for a 60fps spider man full game. Anyone who says otherwise is high.

@SirAngry I should rephrase my question. If you were in charge, would you have your team make this remaster and sell it as an upgrade? I have zero knowledge on the engineering side and my business experience isn't in the gaming industry. Makes total sense to get your team experience but would you make it so costly that you'd need to charge for it?

@FlawlessG The fuss is it's the internet and frustrated people need to let everyone know how frustrated they are. They get a sense of accomplishment.

@RedShirtRod yes. Because studios do this stuff any way at the start of a new generation. The groundwork was already there, the game already existed. So once you've got it up and running, added in the higher quality assets, tested your RT solutions and new BVH etc. etc. etc... well, you're not far off of a polished releasable product. So why not go the extra mile? You might even give the project management of certain aspects to junior staff members to finish it off and mentor them through it. That will be an invaluable learning experience for the staff, and a massively useful resource to draw on when trying to push out the next game on time. One of the things the games industry is shockingly bad at is project management, and the more people within a studio with experience of managing targets in an agile environment the better. There are too few people in most studios to keep a close eye on all the spinning plates and more importantly who just don't understand the impact of not hitting one target has on 5 others. I see worth in it for a developer.

@God_of_Nowt don't bother trying to convince @NEStalgia of anything. Their comments over the past week on anything spiderman related have been incredible negative. I am not sure if they are just intentionally trolling for the sake of it, or if they are just willfully blind to anyone else's opinion or facts from people within the industry.

Nowhere did I say that this game represents the quality of future remasters or brand new games yet they just latched on to what they wanted and made a blanket statement about the future of the ps5.

@God_of_Nowt was the sender of the video an employee of a studio whose name is an gaming implement more commonly associated with boardgames? To be honest I understand why the DmC5 team went overboard with the RT, and actually some of the diffuse lighting is really quite nice, they were slaughtered for their "reflections" in the original, or more precisely the lack thereof. I know a few people in other studios were happy they were having issues getting RT working on XSX though, because it made them feel happier about their failures to do likewise. Microsoft need to rapidly improve their GDK.

@God_of_Nowt it's also important for people to grasp that stuff like this keeps people in the studio and gainfully employed. The ramping down at the end of projects where hundreds of staff are made redundant isn't sane. It sucks for the staff, and the studios lose a lot of experience, so shifting staff between multiple projects that have core teams is just better for everyone, apart from shareholders... but if you pardon my French... **** 'em!!!

@God_of_Nowt to me the anger just isn't worth it. If I find value in it ill buy it. I already know I enjoy the game. I already planned on trading my ps4 copy in towards the ultimate edition of miles so to me i am offsetting the cost, and getting a higher quality game that I enjoy, along with a brand new entry in the series.

Everyone getting so worked up about this existing and insomniac daring to charge for it, after people like you who clearly have industry knowledge try to educate them that this is still normal work that gets done and would have existed anyways but is now ready for an actual release as an incentive to those who want to see a great game with more bells and whistles blows my mind.

Not everything is geared towards everyone, and not everyone is going to see value in everything. But the people attacking insomniac and claiming its lazy half asked work and a clear example of how doomed the ps5 is need to chill out.

@God_of_Nowt @SirAngry Makes sense. Like I said, I'm not experienced in the gaming industry so it's hard for me to understand the criticism on people's opinions. It's common in my industry to spend huge sums of money training people on new equipment and strategies. It's also common for this never to reach to consumers as not to affect each company's image. It's cool to get an understanding of similar situations from others. Thanks!

@torne it's a general problem with humanity right now. So many people think:

1) Everything is about them.

&

2) If it's not, it damn well should be.

We've all become generally more narcissistic as a society, and probably selfish too, but I guess that goes hand in hand. Not every game is for me. Not everything is about me, quite frankly I'm glad it's not because I have neither the time nor the money to play all the games.

@RedShirtRod I think a key thing to point out here is that this will be a polished product. Insomniac won't put something out that doesn't meet their standards, and believe me when I say this, Insomniacs standards are very high and they have a lot of respect within the industry. They don't want to do any material damage to that, and I'm sure they won't.

Not knowing anything about your industry, or even what it is, but if during your staff training it turned out the collective efforts of your staff on this training exercise was damn near close to a saleable product, with just a little extra push wouldn't you at least consider pursuing it?

@God_of_Nowt

"Do you ever wish you couldn't see all the flaws people like us do?"

No, because my sunny nihilistic disposition and acerbic wit wouldn't exist, and that's a world I'd probably want to live in. What a horrible thought.

Sony have nailed the PS5's development environment. They just have. Honestly squealed like a little girl when I first got my hands on it a realised I didn't have to learn too much new stuff, and just how easy it was to... well... make things work. Then almost a year later we got Microsoft's efforts and I had a nervous breakdown... purely coincidental I'm sure. It actually was coincidental, but it didn't help. lol. They'll fix it I'm sure, and I know some people who say "it's fine", but I don't know any one who loves the development environment they've put out.

@SirAngry honestly I'm the same way. I dont have time to get so worked up about my hobby.

I pride myself on being able to see things from 2 points of view, but right now I am struggling to see why these people are so upset about this game that they don't need to buy.

Maybe they are worried this might be one of the 1% of games that is not backwards compatible? But if that is the case then they need to ask themselves is sony is really going to make it so that the most popular superhero game ever, and one of their most acclaimed exclusive titles just gets left behind like that? The answer is no... plain and simple.

@naruball Do you get a sense of accomplishment telling everyone that you are frustrated with people that are letting everyone know that they are frustrated? if their comments are useless so are yours 😒

@God_of_Nowt I feel that in my soul. I actually quit most social media recently because I was tired of seeing "my opinion is more valid than yours".

IT IS EXHAUSTING.

Sometimes I wish i could bite my tongue and not engage but I feel this need to educate people when I know they are wrong. I can also sit back and accept when I am wrong without crying foul.

Its both a blessing and a curse sometimes.

@torne Your actual quote was " free upgrades, because the main focus of them is pushing 60fps and not really improving anything visually. "

If you intended that to imply something other than that the other updates Sony is providing free for other games will do little more than unlock frame caps, then it did not covey that, and my reply would not be accurate.

@God_of_Nowt I'll start by saying that I've found your perspective interesting in various threads, so please don't construe any of this stuff hostile toward you, but i think we're taking about opposite things. My comment to torne was in response to what appeared to be them asserting that the other free patches will be little more than frame unlocks... Not that the industry is substandard, but that if true, sonys update output would prove substandard to the rest of the industry's, hopefully, yours included.

To the broader points though, you said you're not advocating for our against the price... But the entire crux of the debate is the price. Nobody is arguing they can't tinker with, learn from, or redo some features for their own internal purposes. Remaster may be what's is referred to internally, but it as a more significant connotation when used commercially than what this represents. If they offered it for free that would be great. If they didn't offer it and used it only as an internal learning tool, that would be fine. If they charged a small upgrade fee ..5 or 10..applied to all existing copies that would be passable. Not great but passable. But they're selling this minor set of enhancements it learning exercises as a full fat commercial "remaster" of an already new game for 20 atop another game. The sales model, not the product alone makes this problematic. So you can't separate the pricing from the discussion of dissent. The price and what it's for is the dissent. I realize your perspective is going to be defending the industry perspective, but if the consumer perspective isn't voiced loudly and publicly, we both know the bean counters at the top of the industry will never adjust course, be it too improve industry practice or consumer practice (continued below for a bit more perspective that may resonate more with you)

@God_of_Nowt continued on why the pricing is problematic to consumers... And should be problematic to the industry as well:

This game is a perfect example, anecdotally actually. I mentioned above that i highly value insomniac. Well above most other studios. Sorry, yours included, probably! I'm buying the ps5 at launch specifically for r&c. The prior r&c was one of the most stand out fun experiences of the generation. It wasn't a technical or cinematic marvel. It was simply uncanny fun. Like sunset overdrive also was.

I also said i don't care even slightly about marvel or Spiderman. But i preordered it at launch WITH season pass, which i rarely ever do, because I trust the team to deliver uncanny fun. On a brand i don't even care about.

Now, as someone in the industry, people that trust your name and buy your game and season pass at launch, trusting in you is what you want to see, right?

Now how does punishing that behavior help? This comes down to Sony more than insomniac no doubt. I doubt insomniac has free reign on pricing. I imagine, originally this product was meant to provide value not controversy. After all, i paid, what, $80 2 years ago for the full package? This package presents everything I paid for, enhanced,and the new dlc selling for $50 (that's a different problem but i degress). For $10 less than i paid originally, a newcomer gets a better version of what i got plus the thing i have to buy for 50. That's incredible value right they're for new players. Meanwhile as a day 1 full price supporter, i get told "sorry, you don't get the improvements at all, not even for a tiny dlc fee, pay up again like a new buyer."

Not only does it tarnish faith in the company of also puts a chill effect on future sales. Sales for future late gen games... Why buy new when the remaster bundle will be withheld unless i rebuy next console? That applies to ps5 games released in 5 years. It applies to other ps4 games. Tsushima, tlou2, stranding.... Why buy those games currently, when we've now been shown the "better" version may be resold. Especially when "better" isn't a drastic improvement worth double dipping? Why not wait and be sure to get the best experience that may or may not come, later? And by then, cheaper? Or find a new shiny thing and just never buy at all?

And is that effect what you want to see from consumers in your industry? It's bad for everyone but the bean counters who gleefully shut down studios then they fail to meet this quarters expected results.

If this game was meant to be a value bundle for new players, everyone should have been upgraded to the enhanced version. At minimum an upgrade dlc at a small sum could have been sold. But as is, for the pricing, this should have been a dramatically improved result for what they claim commercially it represents, or out may have been better to not release this "remaster", and simply value bundle the original game for newcomers.

The practice of touching up a game for me technical features isn't the problem. It's the business decision of trying to present that as a commercial product separate from what was already purchased despite our not being significantly improved.

@NEStalgia actually our perspective probably won't be defending the industry. Those inside it know better than most the scummy practices involved. I regularly lambast the business practices of the industry, and where some of the big players within gaming are trying to steer the industry, it's truly lamentable to me.

However, as much as I can see people not grasping what they've done here as being all that much work, I can assure you that a hell of a lot has gone into this product. Just watching the animations within the combat and the lining up of impacts and physics response to impacts tells me they've done a hell of a lot under the hood. But, as I've said above, from the consumers perspective I absolutely get it. Most of this stuff won't be noticeable to many. So don't buy it. Sony and Insomniac might get the message.

I am actually with some of the so-called "whingers" on this one, like Control and 505 Games, it smacks a bit of greed when the trend this generation has mostly been towards offering free upgrade paths for games. In the context of what is happening in the wider industry it's not good, certainly isn't as consumer friendly as the competition and many third parties. I just think the ranting around it is becoming a tad hyperbolic, by all means voice your displeasure, but it's happening, and no amount of moaning on Push Square or Twitter will change it. Not buying it might make Sony rethink their strategy... but unless it's proving cathartic and is doing your mental health good... well... just be like Elsa and let it go...

@NEStalgia So fairly a new thing at least in my perspective. I haven't purchased a game since Bloodborne. (My 15 year old hijacked my PS4 5 years ago) So was there a higher res PC version of this made when it originally came out? If so it should just be a patch for existing owners. If not I understand them trying to recoup some of their development cost. But also agree it was a waste of time ether way should have just used that time towards new products.

Man, the comments section is such a bummer lately

@NEStalgia nowhere in my quote did I imply that this was the cap. I simply implied that the free upgrades for existing ps4 games are meant to improve framerates to 60fps and are not the same as a remaster.

Whether you think this remaster is worth it is again your prerogative and you are entitled to buy or not buy it. Claiming this should have been free or not exist at all is nonsense because this is not the same as the free upgrades being provided.

Thats it, thats all there is to it.

I honestly think Sony should have bundled this remaster with the console. As it is everyone and their dog feels either a bit let down or like they're being taken for a ride. If they had just given it to all the early adopters it would have bought them a hell of a lot of good faith and press as well as shown off what the new console can do.

It could have been a fairly cheap way to make people feel really good about swinging in to the new gen instead of going in feeling unsure about whether they're making the right choice or not. I also feel that Miles Morales is wildly overpriced at £50 for what is essentially an 8 hour dlc expansion. Sony are a business though and this route is the one that will bring them the most money while people ride the hype train. Heck, they've got me on board with Demon's Souls at £70. They know exactly what they're doing.

@God_of_Nowt Good point on the time not wasted. I would be fine with the ps4 version too but didn't purchase. PS4 games look visually phenomenal to me still. Im still rocking a 1080 plasma hoping to upgrade TV before launch. Biggest reason for upgrading to PS5 for me is because I need a second console and why not get the newest. I preordered demon souls and was thinking about spidy ultimate because I haven't played the first one. Like I said in my original comment I assumed this was being marketed to people like me. I would be fine with the original for the extra $30 a package together.

I really look forward to play Spidey remastered again, a whole new experience in 60 FPS. But first I need to get a PS5, no chance till now. I think that closer to release there will be more consoles.

@Spoonman-2 this. I don't understand why they are being anti consumer and locking it behind SM:MM ultimate.

This is a system selling game.

@JJ2 MM IS the overpriced dlc...😉

@God_of_Nowt @SirAngry First off, great conversation, all! Second, I read your replies last night and am responding a day later, so I'm probably skipping and missing a few things. Also, Battlefield betting? Ooof... And third, I'll probably have to split this in three, even 4 posts, but there's tons to say and not enough characters. FWIW, I supsect the NLife sites added the comment size limit specifically with me in mind, though Ant has never confirmed it......so there we are.

I'll start at the end , and say, in response to the idea from both of you about "letting it go" and "letting it ride on its own merits" etc, we all know it doesn't work that way. People are sheep. The suits know people are sheep. This happening at the start of a gen isn't a coincidence, it's a trial balloon. The execs want to see how it's received, they want to see how dangerous "blowback vs blowoff" is, and where the numbers line up from the sales. If this shows a gain, they'll do it again, and again, and other companies will do it. It's not a single game's story. The timing coinciding with the console is very much a broader market test. The dear "sheep" tend not to have their own opinions. They come here, and Twitter, and Amazon reviews and YT to find out what their opinion is. They can't see a meaningful difference themselves, but they see the headline screaming "GENERATIONAL LEAP!" - they're told they're supposed to see the difference and it's amazing! They'll believe it, even if they really don't see it. They read the comments to see what everyone else thinks (unlike Sony, they "read the room" ), to make sure they think the "right" thing. If Everything is Awesome here, then they accept this abuse as ok and go on supporting it. If they see the villagers are restless, they may see this is not ok, and others don't think it's ok, and they won't be ok with it too. Then they'll spread that on to another place, and another place. Consumers aware they're getting abused can't let these things "ride on their own" - every test balloon must be shot down, and every next test balloon must be shot down, because it's not simply about Spiderman alone, it's about the field test of a business practice that must be killed with fire before it has a chance to become "industry standard." This must be painful for Sony, so that they, nor other publishers, would dare take the risk of trying it again. Just as happened with EA's lootboxes, and Matrick's XBox One, and other such industry missteps. It can't be "let go" - every time the price model is mentioned it must remind all involved that the model is not acceptable, until it is gone, but that requires not letting the marketing execs set the "sheep's" expectations, which is their goal. No, it's not a crusade against the game or even the practice, but bad business practices need to be an annoying splinter that can't be decoupled from conversation about the products they apply to. We all know that is essential, else the suits count their beans and determine the strategy a net positive and start planning more of it.

That being said, I don't think most people are truly directing their anger toward Insomniac. In response to this particular article, yes, I pointed out dissatisfaction with Insomniacs attempts to defend this, but I also started by saying that Insomniac should not be forced to carry Sony Corps water at all, and have been specifically targeted at Sony for this, and other policy failures centered around this launch, and the fact that Insomniac seems to be being made the scapegoat for much of it, where Sony hides in their shell and says nothing and Insomniac appears forced to do the interview rounds and drop the bad news like they're being used as the PR fallguy test dummy for the hardware policy and communications failures far beyond this one game. The ire directed at Sony, not Insomniac appears to generally be standard in most threads except this one, and even here that was the theme, in my posts at least.

Lest not we forget those of us calling for Jim Ryan's head for weeks.... Sure, he's not the only person responsible.....but Ken Yoshida is a Japanese president and Japanese presidents don't fall on their swords unless the company is bankrupt. So functionally, Ryan has to be the fall guy, in corporate terms. And in practical terms....yeah, we have enough to go on that it's kind of a one man strategy these past few years, and it's not a good one.

And as for all the rest, we're pretty much in agreement. Beyond that this project would have been done for learning purposes, most of the involved work was simply a necessity for Miles.... It's double-charging to a large degree. But there's a difference between "the work was a useful test project", "the work is actually kind of cool to add to the retail product" and "hey lets brand this a commercial remaster and charge for it as a new retail product despite little to no functional difference to the consumer!" Some will say the problem is bundling it, but that's not the only problem. Re-charging $20 for minor improvements for a "remaster" of a brand new game, stand-alone or not, is simply not acceptable. I know you'll say "but the improvements took a lot of work" - but that's not the issue. I could spend spend months designing my own font to write this post in, but at the end of the day, it's the same post and the font won't be noticed by some and virtually nobody will feel it's a meaningful improvement to the post, no matter how much an improved font it is. Doesn't mean the font didn't take a lot of work. Doesn't mean I didn't learn lots of things in designing the font. But I'm not silly enough to believe it has any value to you in reading the post. Let alone charging you for it....

Now to Sony's probable credit, as I said, I don't believe originally this was meant to be a cash grab. I do believe this was supposed to be an amazing value bundle for newcomers. $20 for the base game + season pass is a great value for a new player over the (outrageously overpriced) stand alone DLC. I think that, originally, was meant to be a fantastic value. Ok, that's super cool! What went wrong was then someone along they way deciding to turn that value product into a money maker to inspire repeat purchases. Releasing an update, at all, and gating it off to only the new bundle customers - then trying to encourage existing customers to upgrade to get the benefits of the new hardware they just bought that the new players get access to.

The HAPPY scenario is a bundle: MM + Spiderman PS4 on one disc! (or code because it's 2020 and we do this cheap) And Spiderman PS4 runs with new PS5 features on PS5s! Yay, everyone wins! Spiderman owners that buy a PS5 get improvements to their game, new customers get a value and an updated version of an older game, Sony sells lots of copies of Spiderman, Insomniac doesn't need to wear flame retardant clothing to work, Stan Lee isn't spinning in his grave. Everyone wins!

Instead they inexplicably decided to use that value bundle to push a repurchase of the game, so that the total package costs new players $70, and costs existing customers $150. "Take your white router and shove it" is the reaction I have to that. Funny how a pricing choice turns a goodwill high value bundle into a tarnished brand.

But the timing is also a part. If this were a remaster of, say, Killzone Shadowfall, a launch title that's 7 years old and looks kind of dated by new game standards, has no Pro patch.....I don't think there would be the outcry. I still don't think it would be tremendously commercially viable. 8th gen games reached a point where the need to "remaster" them really is not that visible. Diminishing returns at least to current tech, considering the biggest limitation to them wasn't their look, but their performance while running at that look, and simple hardware advancements solves that. Ok, it's an old game...if I want it improved, I rebuy it, cool. You don't do that with a 2 year old brand new game. To say "we just launched it, you just bought it, but now we've added some enhancements in the past year, and if you want those you pay again like new!" That's where this gets iffy. The combination of pricing and timing. Again, do they do that to Tsushima, too? We launched it in July, but if you want the December update for PS5 owners you're gonna have to pay $40 for the new PS4 Selects Enhanced edition? Do we get used to paying more for games, adding season passes, and then rebuying them every year for the "latest version?" No doubt execs are looking at the FIFA Legacy editions and thinknig "well, it works for them!" And then we have streaming entering while this is the backdrop. That's not good.

There's so much more in the conversation I can expand on, why the Dish comparison doesn't work, etc. but I'll have to cut it short for here, as it's already 3 posts, but the short of it is, we agree mostly across the board. The right party is the one being accused, not Insomniac (they're looking bad by helping Sony dig the hole though, now.), it can't be left to rest though. It needs to be condemned until they can make a statement of some sort that they're not doing this again. A nod and wink that they got "caught" and learned their lesson. Like pulling ads from UFC. And not running illegal gambling operations worldwide with lootboxes.....

Anyway, once again, great conversation, all!