Ainu20

You're just baiting the comment section at this point.

I didn't really interpret that as a joke or tongue in cheek comment. Coming from a former Nintendo exec, that's probably the highest praise you can realistically get.

@Trapdoor Glad I'm not the only one who felt that way. Aside from being a terrible slog, I also felt the writing in Infinite Wealth was awful compared to Gaiden. I wasn't just disappointed with IW, it has actually made me less excited about the future of the series.

@get2sammyb I agree it's wrong to only expect single player games from Sony, a strategy that is becoming increasingly unsustainable. A healthy mix is in everyone's best interest.

Having said that, I think the aversion is largely a reaction to the whole "12 live service games" push by Jim Ryan. The messaging was all wrong, and it was just way too much. It was a PR nightmare that alienated a large part of the player base and made every future live-service project the target of extreme scrutiny and scepticism. It'll take a while to repair the damage that was done.

Like a Dragon: Gaiden was surprisingly great. I went in without expectations due to it being a spin-off, but it's right up there with the likes of Judgement and Yakuza 0 as the best RGG has ever done.

This feels a bit pointless when we already have the excellent Netflix adaptation of Castlevania.

I don't consider GTA to be the pinnacle of video gaming or anything like that, so no, I don't see why I would want to pay more for it. Plenty of other video games have been more valuable to me.

Something about this feels off. It looks like a high res version of CGI cutscenes from the late 90's.

@Godot25 That's not necessarily true, look at Ghost of Tsushima. That was a big single player game that received a free MP component post-launch, and gamers loved it. This sort of thing is an exception, but it shows that it's possible. I think that's exactly the sort of MP content that Playstation gamers would appreciate more of.

On the positive side, if that list is accurate, that means all 12 live service games are accounted for and it looks like there's only 3 more to go, 2 of of which by studios that haven't traditionally delivered single player games for Playstation (Bungie and Haven). Hopefully, that means we're close to the end of this chapter and the worst is behind us.

Probably wishful thinking though.

This is mismanagement on an apocalyptic scale by Jim Ryan and Hermen Hulst. I just don't know what else to say.

@Oram77 I don't see it as hand holding, but as a compromise to limit frustration. Demon's Souls had runbacks that were essentially the entire level, give or take some shortcuts, but its bosses were several orders of magnitude simpler than, say, Sekiro. I wouldn't have enjoyed similar runbacks in that game.

Competing for gamers' time and attention? Obviously yes. Competing in terms of power and performance? Obviously not.

That second statement isn't even worth considering, the form factor speaks for itself. As the name suggests, it's the Switch 2 in every imaginable way.

@Oram77 It's interesting reading that now because, when DS3 had just released, a lot of people were saying the same thing about that game compared to older releases, and especially compared to Demon's Souls.

It feels like From Soft's trajectory has been to keep making bosses tougher and faster with more complex movesets but giving us less punishing run backs in return.

I never thought I'd say this but I actually prefer EA's latest PGA Tour game over the last few PGA Tour 2k games (and by extension, The Golf Club games). If this is just more of the same, I doubt I'm going back to it.

I'm sure it's impressive but all this does is make me a little scared of it. My default reaction to incredibly long or large games these days is being intimidated, as I simply don't know how I'll manage all of them.

@Alexface In all fairness, you're not obliged to get the complete edition, or any other edition beyond the standard. Why would you? We'd all be better off if everyone just bought standard editions of games and only purchased extra content once they'd actually decided they liked what they've played and wanted more.

This and Time Crisis 2 were my favourites to play in the arcades back in the day. House 2 was brutally difficult though. I couldn't imagine playing this without a gun controller, that sounds terrible.

During our Japan trip a couple of months ago we were fortunate enough to find an arcade in Akihabara that had all Time Crisis and House of the Dead cabinets side by side. Many hours and countless 100 Yen coins were spent in that place.

I feel like I'm getting increasingly out of touch with the tone of many of the articles on here. PS5 owners should be shocked that PC versions have a much higher quality and performance ceiling than consoles? Like that isn't the most normal thing in the world?

I just don't get the point of presenting it like this. Surely we aren't all so insecure about our PS5s that we can't handle the news of another version scaling beyond it?

I watched the video by People Make Games on it (a channel I clearly need to keep an eye on) and it makes my blood boil. The way people are taken advantage of and their mental health is being destroyed, all against a backdrop of record profits in the largest entertainment industry on the planet, is sickening.

Let's be clear though, Ubisoft have had/still have their own demons to exorcise, but this is not a Ubisoft story. This is about a studio that has done outsourced work for many of the biggest players in the industry, including Sony, Microsoft, EA, Sega and more. And it's probably safe to assume there are plenty of other studios like it.

The last half decade or so, we've seen increased focus on working conditions at high profile developers, which is obviously a good thing, but the issues across the industry clearly go way beyond that. We can only hope we'll start seeing a similar amount of attention for the conditions at outsourcing studios in the future.

@Ralizah I don't think the Lego game in any way reflects interest in the main franchise. They're very different things targeting a completely different audience. I could definitely see a God of War based one failing as well. Successful Lego games have always been based around well known IP with much greater reach than those games: Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Harry Potter, LOTR, etc. Lego Horizon was simply a mismatch.

Mario and Zelda are a different matter. They're in a class of their own with many decades worth of guaranteed quality and an appeal so wide it goes well beyond video games.

Obviously Sony try to promote Horizon as much as they can, it's one of their most successful franchises at the moment. Whatever andecdotal evidence people try to use against it, both the critical and commercial figures only point one way. Maybe franchise fatigue will set in at some point, but right now there aren't really any signs pointing in that direction, beyond some very vocal people on the internet.

Speaking about very vocal people on the internet, they are not interesting. I do wish this site would stop giving them attention. On the other hand, I'm commenting on it, so I guess I'm part of the problem.

The whole symmetric vs asymmetric placements of joysticks never really registers with me, and I switch back and forth on a regular basis between the Dualsense, Switch Pro Controller and the Xbox One controller hooked up to my PC. Never understood why people feel the need to proclaim one or the other as superior. Both placements feel perfectly fine to me, and it's all just personal preference anyway.

"Card-based mobile game". Well that had my interest killed before the article had a chance to get going.

In isolation his comment is obviously perfectly fine. But as a response to that original post, it doesn't come across particularly well. Something he must've known while he was typing it.

Another day on the internet, huh? I remember being very excited by the possibilities in the late 90s. This wasn't quite how I imagined it.

Mario Kart 8 is just insane, how is that still selling this much?

Let's be honest, it's not exactly a close race between those two in terms of who is most likely to exit the console market. Microsoft is already pivoting away from traditional console business anyway.

@Oz_Who_Dat_Dare I'm not going to discredit any of your experiences or claim that what you're saying doesn't exist. I'm sure it does and I do think people casually emphasising the perceived weirdness of Asian countries is harmful.

But I simply don't see that in her reaction. Could I see her say the same about Western devs? Yes. We're used to seeing devs and performers get emotional when they win, so I could see the opposite striking her as unusual, regardless of who it was.

Whatever your personal feelings, it still boils down to you throwing accusations her way based on, at best, very shaky grounds. Which is just as harmful.

@Oz_Who_Dat_Dare This is what I meant by you over-analyzing everything. How was she patronising in her video, and what is so difficult to understand in what she said? She literally said she just found it surprising, because she didn't think studios cared that much. That's all. Seriously.

On top of that, she praised them for their amazing achievement.

Yes, clearly an awful Western journalist out to diminish Asian devs with her strange takes!

@themightyant Yup, I suspect most people don't bother to watch the video (which was really just a small fragment from a longer stream) but just jump on the news bit. She said things like it clearly meant a lot to them, they did an amazing thing and that it was fair that they looked upset. Somehow that got misconstrued as her bashing or shaming the studio or whatever. Edit: ah I see you've posted the full thing now

Can only agree with your conclusion, as usual. People suck.

I still don't get why some people feel like Game Science has somehow been poorly treated by Western media. The game got an 81 metascore, which is pretty damn strong, and got five nominations at TGA, of which it managed to take home two.

The game was clearly celebrated in the West, just not as much as in China, but surely there's nothing wrong with that?

@Oz_Who_Dat_Dare You seem to have a habit of over-analyzing everything. There was nothing weird about Alanah Pearce's video, she just gave her take on what she felt was an unusual occurrence, i.e. the public reaction by Game Science's CEO and seeing a member of the team cry.

Also it's pretty funny you're accusing her of passing judgement without knowing the people involved, when your next post is implying she made that video because of her past employer. Pot, kettle, etc.

@UltimateOtaku91 Doing console exclusives isn't antithetical to what he's saying here. The most important thing is that they retain creative independence and aren't constrained by corporate oversight. He also left that studio not too long after Tencent started sniffing around.

@UltimateOtaku91 That's a strangely cynical comment about someone like Kamiya, who has always valued his creative freedom.

We don't really know Ben Starr's range yet, but I'm looking forward to finding out. He was excellent in FF16 and on top of that, he quickly became one of the coolest people in video gaming with all his podcast appearances and interviews. He was basically a one-man marketing campaign, in the best way possible.

It's all well and good posting an article about toxic detractors on Push Square, but the sad reality, as evidenced by this very comment section, is that the situation on here is just as bad as anywhere else. The comment sections have become cesspits.

This is no longer a fun and welcoming space to talk about video games, and that's pretty depressing.

People seem to find fault with everything these days. From Soft's catalogue of bosses is arguably the greatest in the history of our medium, the idea of a game giving us a greatest hits compilation sounds fantastic.

There was a time when such ideas would be celebrated by gamers. Can we please go back?

@Bentleyma Not without first informing the entire internet that it's not for them. Preferably as loud and as often as possible.

Sucker Punch unsurprisingly jumps out as the most stylish one. Astro's is the most joyous and Stellar Blade's looks really cozy. Top efforts.

@Xbox_Dashboard It's not just one journalist's show, it's a vote decided by a large, international panel that contains most of the noteworthy gaming publications. It's about as close to an aggregate global vote as you can get, which is why it's widely recognised as the biggest award show in the industry.

Vincke's words were clearly about the current state of AAA game development, a large part of which takes place in Western countries. Clearly something must've been lost in translation over in China.

This whole episode is another reminder of how pathetic the gaming community is in general, though.

I'd say Okami sequel was the biggest shock announcement and I would've picked that, if it weren't for new Naughty Dog IP. Can't help it, I love their games, and that just about edges it.

@datdere_yute_club I will never understand comments like this. They obviously showed more than "two games that are worth playing and the rest looked like sh*t". Just because they don't interest you personally, doesn't make them unworthy.

What is it with people being unable to acknowledge that other tastes exist? I see it more and more often, not just on here but everywhere on the internet. The world does not revolve around you, many people love something that you don't and yes, their taste is just as valid as yours.

"A game nobody wanted". People on the internet sure do love to speak for everyone. The world doesn't revolve around you.

@Oz_Who_Dat_Dare Concord's marketing was a tone-deaf disaster but to counter that, Astro Bot's marketing has been flawless and I also thought the Ghost of Yotei trailer was incredibly well done.

I just like to look at Playstation Studios as having two sides now: whatever the hell the side is that has Concord and stuff like Fairgame$ on it, and the rest of it with all their traditional single-player studios. I still have plenty of confidence in the latter.

@Oz_Who_Dat_Dare No I saw that, but people saying it's inspired by those seem fairly harmless. That doesn't mean they're saying it must be good.

@Oz_Who_Dat_Dare I don't really see any of what you're saying. People aren't pretending that this trailer is anything more than it is. As for Sony's games consistently falling short and the fanbase refusing to acknowledge that, well, I feel like I'm not really living in the same reality as you are. But that's ok, just means we have a different opinion.

@Dom_31 If you're feeling completely disconnected from internet discourse surrounding this game (or basically anything in general), welcome to the club. All this relentless negativity.

I touhght it looked cool, the retro sci-fi atmosphere works for me and the little snippet of action at the end has me intrigued about what sort of gameplay we're getting. That's enough to satisfy me for now, I hope we'll see more of it soon.

@Oz_Who_Dat_Dare Expectations are coloured by what a studio has done before, that goes without saying. That doesn't mean it's blind adoration, it just means people are willing to give the benefit of doubt for now. Naughty Dog have deserved that much.

When further footage and details emerge, we can start to have a more defined idea about how we feel about it. For now it's fine to just reserve your judgement. Personally I'm just happy to see new IP by them.