I was wondering the reasoning behind the timing this retro review popped up with, but then I realised its topicality boils down to show the PSOne Classic has at least something going for it.
Don't get me wrong: MGS is still a milestone today on its own merits, without any "... for a PS1 game" bovine fecal matter involved. In the PSOne Classic context however, Tekken 3 is the true selling point - in case you're wondering, look no further than comment 36.1.
@kyleforrester87 Tell me about it, anytime I'm given a contract and have to kill some random dictator in a small state, generally overthrowing its government overnight, I sigh and say, "it's gonna be one of those days".
A quick disclaimer in the case my previous sentence is somehow taken seriously:
Playing it on X1, it's a blast (a flawed blast at that, but a blast nonetheless) as said in the review.
Hoping I don't step on anyone's pretty little shoes saying this, but now that I'm playing it, it could definitely use some Switch porting sometime down the line. Aside from the Youtube app showing how gorgeous it would look in handheld mode, it needs to be stated that cartridge support (and downgrading, if you're feeling unpleasant) did wonders for the Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy's load times.
So the delay was for fine-tuning the game? Because in that case, I'm totally okay with it. I'm getting it digital on The Green Cross Symbol Console For Third Party Titles That Don't Come To Nintendo (even the acronym, TGCSCFTPTTDCTN, is kind of a mouthful) and that's gonna suffice until the Switch port is inevitably announced. I'm confident you guys are just as hyped for it - Spyro defined PS1 for me alongside Crash and there's no way an inaccurate lineup will change my mind about it.
I'm still puzzled by the digital-only aspect of Spyro 2 and 3, though. I mean, isn't this trilogy being developed as one single game? Then what's the point in not reusing enough assets for the whole trilogy to fit in a single disc? Unless, of course, this is a deliberate move on Activision's part to combat the used game market. Or not. I don't know, I'm not familiar enough with how this kind of stuff affects used games, so in case anyone cares to elaborate on it a bit, I'm all ears.
@FullbringIchigo Then what are you doing with a Tidus profile pic?
@kyleforrester87 Just how much money do you have?!
@rjejr I like dragging you into messes You not being keen on the idea of the N64 Mini, though, has to be the biggest swerve in NL/PS history. It still saddens me to death that PlayStation - the first PlayStation, the brand's glory years - is now so vulnerable to what we call in Italy "scoring a goal without the goalie" on the N64's part. It would be, as I said, a role-swapped version of how the N64 vs. PS1 war played out. Hell, they could even do some SEGA-esque mean advertising by turning a selling point into a jab: "This one actually has a kart racer in it!".
And I don't know what's more sad about it, if it's the horrible design of the controller itself - truly a cocoon before the butterfly that was the GameCube controller hatched out of it - or the fact that Mario Kart 64 (apparently the inspiration behind the far superior Crash Team Racing) is easily the MK game that aged the worst.
@get2sammyb
I'll give you that, I got the point you were trying to make. Thing is, even with the most of good will I could have put in my article, your facts are another person's sugar-coating. Just as what you said is the way things are, the way I used the term "sugar-coating" is indeed the way things are, as a natural consequence. Quite the vicious circle - a conundrum, if you will.
Of course, my comment could be perceived as whining for that very reason - there's someone out there who, by sheer chance, wanted exactly these 20 games, and reading my comment is either shaking his fist in response or preparing a witty rebuttal (in the latter's case, my money's on @ShogunRok).
I've discussed it with my friend a moment ago, and he said that the offering is great in sampling the era, but at the same time the holes in the lineup are in plain sight. On the plus side, it gives a great "console gaming in the nineties" vibe. On the other... well, let's just say that, should the N64 Classic be real, it's gonna be a rematch that the N64, years later, would come out of on top. @rjejr might agree with me on this last one.
As a last-minute addendum to my previous comment, there's the fact most of today's Sony-owned IPs hails from the PS2 era, so I'm ready to buy the PS2 Classic (next year?) based on this assumption alone - I wouldn't mind finally getting started with the Jak and Daxter and Ratchet and Clank franchises this way (I did give Daxter and R&C Size Matters on PSP a fair chance, but neither quite "got" me). Throw in the three Kingdom Hearts games (or even sans Chain Of Memories) and we've got ourselves a no-brainer of a deal.
If my lousy on-call job on November will be enough to result in a decent December budget, I might still get the PS1 Classic out of either collectionism (which put the NES Classic in my radar as well, although the SNES Classic is the one I actually own at the moment) or the fact I could be able to carry around a 90's gaming room in a suitcase in the near future. As it stands now, however, I'm very on the fence, with the only point in the console's favor being my inner voice saying "but it looked so tempting in the reveal trailer, you wanted it, come oooooooon!".
[EDIT]
For reference, here are the aforementioned YTer's, Caddicarus', thoughts on the whole ordeal. I sense a new video coming up.
"No purple and no oh-range? This list comes off as strange. No point in shaking my fist, I'll just cross this off my X-mas list." (comment on the reveal video)
I wanted to comment on the full list today that it has finally come out, but I didn't see an apologetic Soapbox coming. I should have, though.
While the PS Mini would still be a nice novelty item to have under my Christmas tree, and as much as I'd love it to be my SNES Mini's companion piece, I've seen plenty of missed opportunities in today's full list trailer (IIRC, SNES Mini and NES Mini both had the full list revealed from the get-go, and the fact it wasn't the case with the PS Mini's "oh wow, I can't believe mah eyes" should have been a red flag for everyone) enough for me to cross it off my wishlist. I'm sad to write this, since regardless of my Nintendo heritage I still love my first PlayStation to death, but it's true.
Even by sticking to Sony-owned IPs there were better choices - Kula World and MediEvil come to mind - but even then there's room for improvement: having Crash Team Racing as the only ActiVision title would have made made the console sell itself, maybe a Crash 2 + CTR + Spyro 2 triplet would have turned the tables.
But I don't want my critique to be written off as too harsh or, worse, chalked up to me not being strictly a Sony fan nowadays - it had to be written in bold - so I'll go a little deeper in detail. Platforming-wise, the original Rayman is a nice touch, as is Oddworld Abe's Oddysee (which will no doubt please one of the biggest PS-loving, not to mention British much like this very site, YouTube personalities, Caddicarus; and even then, he had more than this in mind); the problem is that they're also not very accessible games - the former by cheap level design, the latter by virtue of being a cinematic platformer - so unless you're a fan of either franchise or you're into a hard challenge, no platformer fan would have much of a reason to get this. As far as fighting games, JRPGs and racers are concerned, however, there's much to love in this one. It could be argued that Final Fantasy VII could be a mean-spirited last hurrah from the Midgar cannon firing squad before the inevitable happens in 2019, but snarky remarks aside, the lineup is varied enough, and Persona is indeed a huge bonus for Atlus fans. The other highlight is part of the initial five, this time in the fighters' department: Tekken 3 istantly makes the Classic the only legal way to play Tekken 3 nowadays, in a vein not too dissimilar to Starfox 2 being the best-known selling point behind the SNES Mini. Racing games are self-explanatory, although the aforementioned Crash Team Racing might have singlehandedly avoided this entire article. The stealth genre is also well represented here, but I'm not that much into it, so what am I exactly whining about here?
(spoiler alert: if you want this comment to end on a PS-friendly note, stop reading now and you've got yourself a positive review)
I'm talking about "all the rest", namely what I'd call the wasted slots - a pet peeve for many people when there's an upcoming gaming product, if "limited slots" are involved - in this otherwise good lineup. There are games that flat-out stole their genre's best example their rightful place in this console, if not their exact same IP's best entry (Grand Theft Auto 1 over GTA 2? The latter is easily the best top-down GTA among the two, so why not choosing that?).
I get the whole "too much good stuff to choose from, 20 games are just not enough" point @get2sammyb is trying to make - I've witnessed similar sugarcoating over at NintendoLife as well, so I can sort of relate - but that should have been even more of a reason to choose carefully the games in the list. I can easily see Intelligent Qube being chosen with a shrug after an unsuccesful phone call to ActiVision. I've spent the entirety of the trailer's length today counting down the numbers - "20, 19, 18...". By the time I reached 10, I was begging any of the titles @Sinton mentioned (in the comment he summed it all up best with) to pop up, to no avail.
The fact the heavy hitters mostly hail from Sony's nature (an underplayed nature then, a sad reality now) as the "big boys' console" - the Pegi 18 on the box is most likely meant to make some kind of statement when it ends up on shelves next to NES and SNES Minis - makes it clear that this was more meant to be an M-rated counterpart to its retro HDMI competition, rather than their Sony equivalent. The fact the first option on the poll, its most positive, is also the least voted - as of this writing, that is - speaks volumes of how hard(er than usual) to defend this is.
The silver lining, of course, is the remote possibility of adding more games on it, maybe a batch of ten chosen from the previous comment from @Sinton I mentioned, but as of now, as much as I wanted one little fling with the triangle-circle-square-cross this December - and I really did - I can't say I feel inclined to cough up a hundred euros for this.
No, seriously. For all of my pro-crossplay comments on the site, I never once suggested anything against the lack of crossplay when developers themselves are against it. I was advocating for said developers to be free to choose what they wanted to do on said matter.
@Lando_ I like to bring the funny over at NintendoLife. Thought I'd do the same here, among the usual zingfest between me and the staff-slash-userbase.
Be careful with that uppercase C in the tagline, @ShogunRok. Crash was not amused when he found out he had to be... "fixed". Some things you just don't say to a poor furred creature.
@get2sammyb Wait, you can mention OoT and get away with it here?
In all seriousness, though, it's a good topic. Personally, I've never had any issues with having to use a guide - I merely appreciate the ability to make it on my own. I kind of reverse-engineered the problem, I guess!
If there's one PS console I'm going to buy for Christmas, it's gonna be this one. That said, I'd put a 2 after each now-Activision-owned mascot you put in there. Spyro 2 was the perfect mix between the first game's fantasy-inspired style and the third's refined gameplay, while Crash Bandicoot 2 is more or less the definitive Crash experience.
Unlike portable or otherwise hybrid consoles, online-only on home console isn't that much of a big deal. Or, at least, shouldn't be. I don't know, I'm just assuming.
@MadAussieBloke, we miss you on NL! Snarking hasn't been the same there ever since you left.
Guys, give MM time. They're like the last remnants of the classic PS feel that lured me in the PS1 world back in the day. They know what they're doing.
I'll be honest: this caught me completely off guard.
Not the article's subject matter itself, but rather its opening line.
@ShogunRok Pick any consumer-friendly feature that's been warmly received on other platforms, remove it from the Sony ecosystem, and you should have months' worth of articles describing why it's not needed before the Blue Giant eventually gives in. Sour-graping, when practiced at length, requires a lot of effort, patience and dedication, so I can't say I envy you.
@JJ2 I'm not advocating for the console wars at all! Anyway, the group-of-people-in-favor-of-crossplay (GOPIFOC) and the group-of-players-against-crossplay (GOPAC) have clearly been at odds on the issue, and the GOPAC has since been in denial of the good effects crossplay is bringing on the table. That's all. Does the lack of "warring" nouns help matters? About the XBL debacle, again, you haven't mentioned whether the account requires spending money or not, which impacts the argument considerably.
@Tasuki Sorry for the late reply - I tend to be away from my PC from time to time, and I don't comment on NL/PS network's articles via phone. That said, the Bayonetta example is true, but I can hardly count it as such given Bayo 1 was "barely last-gen" when the sequel was announced - I chalk my reasoning up to the Wii U being more or less around the PS3/X360's power. Now the Switch port, on the other hand, fits your bill better.
Mad props for the headline referencing Traditions Of The Trade from Codename 47.
By far the best-known mission from the first game, either for the brilliant stealth you could pull off back then or for the amount of mayhem you could get away with.
No wonder it was remade in Contracts.
[EDIT: It was the trailer itself referencing it? Well, mad props to IO for remembering where they stand then.]
@JJ2 Again, mine was more of a catch-all term than anything else! Thing is, people are either for crossplay, or against it. Hence the term "side", or "faction". As for the promotion mode... what do you mean with it? Last but not least, I didn't remember exactly when the Minecraft buyout happened, so there's that. Hope this helps clarify things!
@Tasuki Interesting to see. I've been looking at the behind the scenes details for games only lately, and this is the first time I happen to see an HD remaster of two old games in a third party franchise that are tied to a console for some reasons, so I wanted to understand how much Sony financing the project would affect the whole exclusivity scenario.
@Onion Thanks for being the voice of reason. Being all "told you, crossplay is good for everyone" is definitely as far as my trolling goes, and it's more like playful teasing than anything else.
As for "snatching exclusives", it's the one side of exclusivity I'm not really a fan of, but this needs some elaboration for the sake of clarity. There are three kinds of exclusivity I respect: 1) exclusivity by IP possession: the one that's sacred to me. Nintendo has Mario and company, Xbox has Halo and company, Sony has God Of War and company. It's the way things are just supposed to be and that's perfectly fine. 2) exclusivity by IP purchase: which leads to point 1. 3) timed exclusivity: "play it first on" is a great compromise between striking an exclusivity deal, and stripping other players of a game. Eager gamers can buy the console if they feel the need to do so, while the patience for waiting is rewarded with ports elsewhere. Then there are two kinds of exclusivity, one on the line between acceptable and annoying and the other far beyond it. 4) funded exclusivity: sad, but understandable, sometimes one of the three giants steps in, in order to make a game a reality. This is what happened with Bayonetta from the second game onwards, as its development has been funded by Nintendo; likewise, indie sensation Cuphead got some extra funding from Microsoft that granted the game Xbox exclusivity, and that appears to be the case with this Castlevania remaster. However... 5) third-party exclusivity by deal: the worst case of all, when a third-party IP is given exclusivity by a mere deal; especially aggravating - in my opinion - when a franchise has been seen on other consoles before (for example, what Rayman Legends almost became on Wii U, Rise Of The Tomb Raider on Xbox One, Street Fighter V on PlayStation, etc.). It's the one kind of exclusivity I can't stand, honestly.
I've always been of the opinion that the big three have to work on their own exclusives. That said, however, at least the "untouchable" PS1-era Final Fantasy games are finally starting to become available on other consoles. As long as everyone gets to play the games that are supposed to trascend systems, I'll be fine with deserved exclusivity. That's my stance on it, as controversial as it might be. Again, what happened with Crash Bandicoot is totally fine, as it is now a third-party IP. I'm not going to ask for Jak and Daxter to be playable with Joy-cons anytime soon if that's what's pissing people off in this thread.
Sorry - I mean it - for the long digression. Back to the reply, it's still a sign of goodwill on Konami's part. Konami and Capcom do seem to seek some kind of redemption after their public image having fallen so far in recent years, and Mega Man 11 is already making the rounds for its unexpectedly excellent quality; I'm more than confident that Castlevania Requiem will prove to be just as good, if a bit of an example of playing it safe given it's still a (couple of) port(s).
Which reminds me of another talking point, with added emphasis in order to make further replies focus on this rather than my previous rant: don't you all think the Kickstarter-funded spiritual successors (Mighty No. 9 and Bloodstained in this case) have served as a bit of a wake-up call for, respectively, Mega Man and Castlevania's original IP owners?
Chime in whenever you want to, I'm open to rebuttals.
@JJ2 Well, to me not having cross-play at all, or worse, not having Minecraft on PS4 in its entirety, could be seen as a greedier move on Microsoft's part given they own the IP (which, contrary to how jokingly I suggested it in another thread, is the equivalent of God Of War becoming available on other platforms; the case could be made about Minecraft not having been born as a MS IP per se, but contrary to other exclusivity cases such as Bayonetta on Nintendo consoles, Rise of The Tomb Raider on Xbox One or Castlevania Requiem on PS4, where exclusivity has more or less been bought, here the IP itself had been bought - seeing Minecraft on non-MS consoles is a luck of itself). So yeah, considering the alternative, it's an update coming to PS4 thanks to PS4 opening itself to cross-play; the XBL account is definitely the lesser of two evils. Besides, to the best of my knowledge, having an XBL account shouldn't cost you any money, so any problem you might have with that - again, should memory serve right - can only be summed up as a matter of principle (or pride) and not much else.
And "faction" is a catch-all term for the two sides that have been taken on cross-play. Uniting gamers across all consoles isn't a bad thing to me, but you do you, of course.
@JJ2
Of course it's possible to have cross-play from all networks. The anti-crossplay faction is under the belief this will quickly derail into microtransaction-fueled, cosmetic-driven anarchist nonsense, but I can chalk that up to denial - namely, denying the fact that now having online multiplayer tied to a single console userbase is going to need a valid reason.
@KleebanKliban Er... yes and no. Between doing an immediate "sacrifice" to make players happy and being the only ones to do so there is a pretty wide gap.
@JJ2 Why should it offend anyone? It was all in good fun...
@Cloud7794 ... which then abruptly stopped. My first comment was a bit of a zing, but most definitely not as inflammatory as some of the more toxic comments against crossplay and port-begging, which gives the impressions that going against whatever Sony advocates is a no-no here. I've always voiced my complaints about Nintendo's wrongdoings over at NintendoLife, most infamously about the Switch Online Service which is itself another nasty beast to deal with altogether (and let's leave it at that, mostly for the sake of staying on topic). That said, your analysis of the situation put another legitimate worry under the spotlight (which, again, proves how much more useful rationality is than a generic "no, you're wrong, shut up"); I, for one, think that scenario would eventually come to pass if cross-play became the norm for every multiplatform game with online play, but even then I doubt anyone except the greediest software houses would do that. Similarly, that could be much more acceptable if fewer games did cross-play (not to mention that, should software houses decide on whether or not to implement crossplay rather than the Big Three, it would give more healthy freedom to the industry as a whole), which at the moment seems the more likely option. I guess time will tell, however.
@Hapuc I guess I can blame this on me being a Ninty guy, they're still kind of old school on most aspects of the gaming spectrum - for better and for worse. If the (cue Jim Sterling voice) tchee-paul-aye industry is that bad out there, then Fallout has become a metaphor for gaming itself: a cartoony, plump guy acting as the friendly mascot of a vault, with a barren wasteland outside.
@DMG361132 Thing is, any development in the gaming industry is, dare I say, shifting. What's true, either as in actually true, said to be true or believed to be true (if not any combination or the latter two cases), can be false in a few months. Obviously, if timed, I'm totally fine with this exclusive. Still, Sony built an enormous marketing campaign over Spider-Man so I doubt that we're seeing Spidey anywhere else anytime soon; however, while Sony funded Castlevania's PS4 development, it should be noted that it's still a port (the meaning of "remastered" got all kinds of blurry with the N. Sane Trilogy...) of an older game, and the announcement of the formerly PS-only Final Fantasy games for Xbox and Switch, the meaning of "historically PS1-only" got kind of thrown out of the window (not to mention that SotN is available on Xbox 360 as a standalone title). Whatever exclusivity is there, I doubt it's gonna last longer than it needs to.
@Hapuc There, the reasoning is based on one community being bigger than the other. Joke's on you - if anything, a unified userbase is an incentive for devs to develop for all consoles, rather than an excuse for not supporting their games at all.
@Hapuc Implying the only way for cross-play online multiplayer gaming for multiplatform titles boils down to microtransactions for cosmetic gaming. What about a FIFA title where matchmaking allows you to play against someone who has a console different than yours? Or Overwatch, for that matter? Would that be the end of the world?
@Flaming_Kaiser
I see the first-comment syndrome is striking here as well, my jab proved to be effective judging by the apparent wording of your comment.
That said, however, as said and repeated, nothing bad can come out of cross-play being a thing, for one.
Even then, should you not give a crap about battle royale games, you have the eternally forgotten option to continue doing so without addressing the issue - why a mere "see, crossplay is good" on my part got you so riled up is beyond me, although as @Hapuc suggests, there seems some kind of "pureblood supremacism" concerning crossplay that I can chalk up as either remnants of fanboying over poorly worded PR talk or just plain elitism over a console based on its own install base. Look, I might be a Nintendo guy (should you even need reasons for that, good news - I got ya covered!), but I know I can give Sony credit whenever it's due.
Cross-play is good for everyone, and should you not feel that way, then joke's on you.
On a more serious note, I see many people here complaining about the need of an Xbox account. To the best of my knowledge, being also an Xbox user myself, an Xbox account should be free to open - what I know for sure is that Xbox accounts and Microsoft accounts are one and the same, so if you have any PC with Windows on it, there you go: e-mail address first, password second, and you should be good to go. Hope this helps!
@DMG361132 (comment #73) Thing is, even in the age of the internet, there are people who are exposed to other franchises by seeing cameos. Given how Smash is famous for taking a common denominator approach and making the gameplay somehow "translate" to a moveset for every fighter in the roster, someone unfamiliar with Castlevania might play the game and be interested in the source material. As of now, the Castlevania series has yet to be introduced on Switch, and - NES via Switch Online Service aside - I'm pretty sure that any casual fan dipping into Castlevania content in Smash will start asking questions. Of all exclusivity deals struck by Sony, this is the most suspicious one to me. I mean, the N. Sane Trilogy - despite Crash now being a third party property - could have stayed on PS4, and yet the exclusivity lasted just one year. As you can tell, however, my fear of coming off as biased hails from me being a NintendoLife user. I've been a PlayStation guy in the PS1 era mainly, and as of now the Kingdom Hearts series is the only reason I own a PS2 and a PSP (with a dash of PSOne Classics in the latter's case). Once the GBA rolled around, with the Spyro and Crash GBA games, I got hooked on the handheld, and first-time exposure to Mario Kart and Super Mario World did the rest. That's my story in a nutshell.
@DMG361132 (comment #74) I sense some timed exclusivity at work, even if that happened to last one year for every game from here on out (I guess that's not entirely implausible). I recall Song Of The Deep and Sunset Overdrive coming out on Xbox One, with the latter being an actual Xbox exclusive, so there's that. At this point I think Insomniac Games is less of a second-party and more of a third-party that just happens to strike many deals with Sony.
@DMG361132
Watch the trailer I embedded in the link and be enlightened. For context, the game the trailer refers to is due for release this December. Connect the dots as you please.
Also, as I mentioned in my main comment, it's not like people are asking about Sony IPs - as in, actual Sony IPs - on other consoles; knowledge about certain IPs' owners is common knowledge by now. That said, I want you and @FullbringIchigo to know that I didapplaud Sony for the deal they struck with Marvel; I'm not entirely biased.
@DMG361132 It's really sad, the impact shareholders have on the industry. Anytime Nintendo announces something less-than-conventional, the stock market people duly empty their collective bowels and someone loses a little bit of hope in humanity.
Comments 277
Re: Soapbox: Why the PlayStation Classic's Game Lineup Could Never Please Everyone
@rjejr
Ouchie ouch! But after so much time has passed, I figured everything was A-OK.
Re: Sony Says Devs Only Have to Ask for Console Cross-Play, Studios Say It's Lying
Welp, @callmegil told me a different story, and I told him the "no crossplay" joke has gotten stale even among Nintendo fans.
Guess some gags just straight-out refuse to die, huh?
Re: Review: Metal Gear Solid (PSone)
I was wondering the reasoning behind the timing this retro review popped up with, but then I realised its topicality boils down to show the PSOne Classic has at least something going for it.
Don't get me wrong: MGS is still a milestone today on its own merits, without any "... for a PS1 game" bovine fecal matter involved. In the PSOne Classic context however, Tekken 3 is the true selling point - in case you're wondering, look no further than comment 36.1.
Re: Spyro: Reignited Trilogy Still Requires Content Download for Second and Third Games
@kyleforrester87
Tell me about it, anytime I'm given a contract and have to kill some random dictator in a small state, generally overthrowing its government overnight, I sigh and say, "it's gonna be one of those days".
A quick disclaimer in the case my previous sentence is somehow taken seriously:
Re: Spyro: Reignited Trilogy Still Requires Content Download for Second and Third Games
@FullbringIchigo
Tidus is a chill dude.
Re: Spyro: Reignited Trilogy Still Requires Content Download for Second and Third Games
@Knuckles-Fajita
Hm. You got a point there.
Re: Cliff Bleszinski Says He'll Never Make Another Game
Cheer up, Cliff, it could be worse.
Re: Soapbox: Why the PlayStation Classic's Game Lineup Could Never Please Everyone
@rjejr
Lo and behold.
Re: Spyro: Reignited Trilogy - A Platforming Treasure Wonderfully Restored
Playing it on X1, it's a blast (a flawed blast at that, but a blast nonetheless) as said in the review.
Hoping I don't step on anyone's pretty little shoes saying this, but now that I'm playing it, it could definitely use some Switch porting sometime down the line. Aside from the Youtube app showing how gorgeous it would look in handheld mode, it needs to be stated that cartridge support (and downgrading, if you're feeling unpleasant) did wonders for the Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy's load times.
Re: Sony Confirms Zero E3 2019 Presence, Will Share New Plans Soon
@ShogunRok
"Me fighting the temptation to post an unnecessarily distasteful troll comment"
Sorry, but ironic echoes are way too good to resist.
Re: Spyro: Reignited Trilogy Still Requires Content Download for Second and Third Games
So the delay was for fine-tuning the game? Because in that case, I'm totally okay with it. I'm getting it digital on The Green Cross Symbol Console For Third Party Titles That Don't Come To Nintendo (even the acronym, TGCSCFTPTTDCTN, is kind of a mouthful) and that's gonna suffice until the Switch port is inevitably announced. I'm confident you guys are just as hyped for it - Spyro defined PS1 for me alongside Crash and there's no way an inaccurate lineup will change my mind about it.
I'm still puzzled by the digital-only aspect of Spyro 2 and 3, though. I mean, isn't this trilogy being developed as one single game? Then what's the point in not reusing enough assets for the whole trilogy to fit in a single disc? Unless, of course, this is a deliberate move on Activision's part to combat the used game market. Or not. I don't know, I'm not familiar enough with how this kind of stuff affects used games, so in case anyone cares to elaborate on it a bit, I'm all ears.
@FullbringIchigo
Then what are you doing with a Tidus profile pic?
@kyleforrester87
Just how much money do you have?!
Re: Spyro and Crash Bandicoot Trilogy Bundle Spotted on Retailer Websites
Wow. I mean, it's nice to see the bundles puzzlingly first seen in the GBA days back in home console form, but the timing is straight up terrible.
Re: Soapbox: Why the PlayStation Classic's Game Lineup Could Never Please Everyone
@rjejr
I like dragging you into messes
You not being keen on the idea of the N64 Mini, though, has to be the biggest swerve in NL/PS history.
It still saddens me to death that PlayStation - the first PlayStation, the brand's glory years - is now so vulnerable to what we call in Italy "scoring a goal without the goalie" on the N64's part. It would be, as I said, a role-swapped version of how the N64 vs. PS1 war played out. Hell, they could even do some SEGA-esque mean advertising by turning a selling point into a jab: "This one actually has a kart racer in it!".
And I don't know what's more sad about it, if it's the horrible design of the controller itself - truly a cocoon before the butterfly that was the GameCube controller hatched out of it - or the fact that Mario Kart 64 (apparently the inspiration behind the far superior Crash Team Racing) is easily the MK game that aged the worst.
Re: Soapbox: Why the PlayStation Classic's Game Lineup Could Never Please Everyone
@get2sammyb
I'll give you that, I got the point you were trying to make. Thing is, even with the most of good will I could have put in my article, your facts are another person's sugar-coating. Just as what you said is the way things are, the way I used the term "sugar-coating" is indeed the way things are, as a natural consequence. Quite the vicious circle - a conundrum, if you will.
Of course, my comment could be perceived as whining for that very reason - there's someone out there who, by sheer chance, wanted exactly these 20 games, and reading my comment is either shaking his fist in response or preparing a witty rebuttal (in the latter's case, my money's on @ShogunRok).
I've discussed it with my friend a moment ago, and he said that the offering is great in sampling the era, but at the same time the holes in the lineup are in plain sight. On the plus side, it gives a great "console gaming in the nineties" vibe. On the other... well, let's just say that, should the N64 Classic be real, it's gonna be a rematch that the N64, years later, would come out of on top. @rjejr might agree with me on this last one.
As a last-minute addendum to my previous comment, there's the fact most of today's Sony-owned IPs hails from the PS2 era, so I'm ready to buy the PS2 Classic (next year?) based on this assumption alone - I wouldn't mind finally getting started with the Jak and Daxter and Ratchet and Clank franchises this way (I did give Daxter and R&C Size Matters on PSP a fair chance, but neither quite "got" me). Throw in the three Kingdom Hearts games (or even sans Chain Of Memories) and we've got ourselves a no-brainer of a deal.
If my lousy on-call job on November will be enough to result in a decent December budget, I might still get the PS1 Classic out of either collectionism (which put the NES Classic in my radar as well, although the SNES Classic is the one I actually own at the moment) or the fact I could be able to carry around a 90's gaming room in a suitcase in the near future. As it stands now, however, I'm very on the fence, with the only point in the console's favor being my inner voice saying "but it looked so tempting in the reveal trailer, you wanted it, come oooooooon!".
[EDIT]
For reference, here are the aforementioned YTer's, Caddicarus', thoughts on the whole ordeal. I sense a new video coming up.
Re: Soapbox: Why the PlayStation Classic's Game Lineup Could Never Please Everyone
"No purple and no oh-range? This list comes off as strange.
No point in shaking my fist, I'll just cross this off my X-mas list."
(comment on the reveal video)
I wanted to comment on the full list today that it has finally come out, but I didn't see an apologetic Soapbox coming. I should have, though.
While the PS Mini would still be a nice novelty item to have under my Christmas tree, and as much as I'd love it to be my SNES Mini's companion piece, I've seen plenty of missed opportunities in today's full list trailer (IIRC, SNES Mini and NES Mini both had the full list revealed from the get-go, and the fact it wasn't the case with the PS Mini's "oh wow, I can't believe mah eyes" should have been a red flag for everyone) enough for me to cross it off my wishlist. I'm sad to write this, since regardless of my Nintendo heritage I still love my first PlayStation to death, but it's true.
Even by sticking to Sony-owned IPs there were better choices - Kula World and MediEvil come to mind - but even then there's room for improvement: having Crash Team Racing as the only ActiVision title would have made made the console sell itself, maybe a Crash 2 + CTR + Spyro 2 triplet would have turned the tables.
But I don't want my critique to be written off as too harsh or, worse, chalked up to me not being strictly a Sony fan nowadays - it had to be written in bold - so I'll go a little deeper in detail.
Platforming-wise, the original Rayman is a nice touch, as is Oddworld Abe's Oddysee (which will no doubt please one of the biggest PS-loving, not to mention British much like this very site, YouTube personalities, Caddicarus; and even then, he had more than this in mind); the problem is that they're also not very accessible games - the former by cheap level design, the latter by virtue of being a cinematic platformer - so unless you're a fan of either franchise or you're into a hard challenge, no platformer fan would have much of a reason to get this.
As far as fighting games, JRPGs and racers are concerned, however, there's much to love in this one. It could be argued that Final Fantasy VII could be a mean-spirited last hurrah from the Midgar cannon firing squad before the inevitable happens in 2019, but snarky remarks aside, the lineup is varied enough, and Persona is indeed a huge bonus for Atlus fans. The other highlight is part of the initial five, this time in the fighters' department: Tekken 3 istantly makes the Classic the only legal way to play Tekken 3 nowadays, in a vein not too dissimilar to Starfox 2 being the best-known selling point behind the SNES Mini. Racing games are self-explanatory, although the aforementioned Crash Team Racing might have singlehandedly avoided this entire article.
The stealth genre is also well represented here, but I'm not that much into it, so what am I exactly whining about here?
(spoiler alert: if you want this comment to end on a PS-friendly note, stop reading now and you've got yourself a positive review)
I'm talking about "all the rest", namely what I'd call the wasted slots - a pet peeve for many people when there's an upcoming gaming product, if "limited slots" are involved - in this otherwise good lineup. There are games that flat-out stole their genre's best example their rightful place in this console, if not their exact same IP's best entry (Grand Theft Auto 1 over GTA 2? The latter is easily the best top-down GTA among the two, so why not choosing that?).
I get the whole "too much good stuff to choose from, 20 games are just not enough" point @get2sammyb is trying to make - I've witnessed similar sugarcoating over at NintendoLife as well, so I can sort of relate - but that should have been even more of a reason to choose carefully the games in the list. I can easily see Intelligent Qube being chosen with a shrug after an unsuccesful phone call to ActiVision. I've spent the entirety of the trailer's length today counting down the numbers - "20, 19, 18...". By the time I reached 10, I was begging any of the titles @Sinton mentioned (in the comment he summed it all up best with) to pop up, to no avail.
The fact the heavy hitters mostly hail from Sony's nature (an underplayed nature then, a sad reality now) as the "big boys' console" - the Pegi 18 on the box is most likely meant to make some kind of statement when it ends up on shelves next to NES and SNES Minis - makes it clear that this was more meant to be an M-rated counterpart to its retro HDMI competition, rather than their Sony equivalent. The fact the first option on the poll, its most positive, is also the least voted - as of this writing, that is - speaks volumes of how hard(er than usual) to defend this is.
The silver lining, of course, is the remote possibility of adding more games on it, maybe a batch of ten chosen from the previous comment from @Sinton I mentioned, but as of now, as much as I wanted one little fling with the triangle-circle-square-cross this December - and I really did - I can't say I feel inclined to cough up a hundred euros for this.
Re: Guide: Where to Buy and Pre-Order the PlayStation Classic Mini Console
We're still in the dark about that list of games, aren't we?
Re: Diablo III Cross-Play May Not Be Happening After All
I'm perfectly fine with this.
No, seriously. For all of my pro-crossplay comments on the site, I never once suggested anything against the lack of crossplay when developers themselves are against it. I was advocating for said developers to be free to choose what they wanted to do on said matter.
Re: Dragon Quest XI PS4 Patch 1.01 Defeats a Few Bugs and Fixes a Specific Crash
@Lando_
I like to bring the funny over at NintendoLife. Thought I'd do the same here, among the usual zingfest between me and the staff-slash-userbase.
Re: Dragon Quest XI PS4 Patch 1.01 Defeats a Few Bugs and Fixes a Specific Crash
Be careful with that uppercase C in the tagline, @ShogunRok. Crash was not amused when he found out he had to be... "fixed".
Some things you just don't say to a poor furred creature.
Re: Soapbox: Can You Truly Appreciate a Game with Walkthroughs?
@get2sammyb
Wait, you can mention OoT and get away with it here?
In all seriousness, though, it's a good topic. Personally, I've never had any issues with having to use a guide - I merely appreciate the ability to make it on my own. I kind of reverse-engineered the problem, I guess!
Re: Sony Looking to Crank Up Communication with Fans
If you guys get a PS counterpart to Nintendo Directs, you're in for a treat every two-three months. Good stuff.
Re: Guide: The Best PSone Games We Want on a PlayStation Classic Mini
If there's one PS console I'm going to buy for Christmas, it's gonna be this one.
That said, I'd put a 2 after each now-Activision-owned mascot you put in there. Spyro 2 was the perfect mix between the first game's fantasy-inspired style and the third's refined gameplay, while Crash Bandicoot 2 is more or less the definitive Crash experience.
Re: Red Dead Redemption 2's PS4 Trophies Will Force You Online
Unlike portable or otherwise hybrid consoles, online-only on home console isn't that much of a big deal. Or, at least, shouldn't be. I don't know, I'm just assuming.
@MadAussieBloke, we miss you on NL! Snarking hasn't been the same there ever since you left.
Re: Why Is Dreams Taking So Long to Release?
Guys, give MM time. They're like the last remnants of the classic PS feel that lured me in the PS1 world back in the day. They know what they're doing.
Re: Obsidian Entertainment Likely to Leave PlayStation Behind
Fair enough.
Re: Reaction: Sony Has Been Very Busy Behind the Scenes
@Flaming_Kaiser
Implying Nintendo is safe from my criticism merely based on the fact I'm a Ninty fan.
Pats on the back when they're due; dope-slaps otherwise.
(Additionally, save files stay on the cloud for six months after the subscription expires.)
Re: Reaction: Sony Has Been Very Busy Behind the Scenes
I'll be honest: this caught me completely off guard.
Not the article's subject matter itself, but rather its opening line.
@ShogunRok
Pick any consumer-friendly feature that's been warmly received on other platforms, remove it from the Sony ecosystem, and you should have months' worth of articles describing why it's not needed before the Blue Giant eventually gives in. Sour-graping, when practiced at length, requires a lot of effort, patience and dedication, so I can't say I envy you.
Re: Guide: All Sony First-Party Studios and What They're Working On
Now this is a list of exclusives I want to hear about: type 1 exclusivity.
Re: Spider-Man PS4 Is the Best Selling Western-Made Sony Game Since Crash Bandicoot 3 in Japan
Success entirely deserved. Had I been a PS4 owner, I'd be beaming with pride. Stay gold, Insomniac!
Re: Minecraft's Better Together Update Could Yet Come to PS4
@JJ2
I'm not advocating for the console wars at all! Anyway, the group-of-people-in-favor-of-crossplay (GOPIFOC) and the group-of-players-against-crossplay (GOPAC) have clearly been at odds on the issue, and the GOPAC has since been in denial of the good effects crossplay is bringing on the table. That's all.
Does the lack of "warring" nouns help matters?
About the XBL debacle, again, you haven't mentioned whether the account requires spending money or not, which impacts the argument considerably.
Re: Castlevania Requiem Exclusive to PS4 Due to 'High Quality Port' Partnership with Sony
@Tasuki
Sorry for the late reply - I tend to be away from my PC from time to time, and I don't comment on NL/PS network's articles via phone.
That said, the Bayonetta example is true, but I can hardly count it as such given Bayo 1 was "barely last-gen" when the sequel was announced - I chalk my reasoning up to the Wii U being more or less around the PS3/X360's power.
Now the Switch port, on the other hand, fits your bill better.
Re: Hitman 2 Reveals the Tools of the Trade
Mad props for the headline referencing Traditions Of The Trade from Codename 47.
By far the best-known mission from the first game, either for the brilliant stealth you could pull off back then or for the amount of mayhem you could get away with.
No wonder it was remade in Contracts.
[EDIT: It was the trailer itself referencing it? Well, mad props to IO for remembering where they stand then.]
Re: Minecraft's Better Together Update Could Yet Come to PS4
@JJ2
Again, mine was more of a catch-all term than anything else! Thing is, people are either for crossplay, or against it. Hence the term "side", or "faction".
As for the promotion mode... what do you mean with it?
Last but not least, I didn't remember exactly when the Minecraft buyout happened, so there's that. Hope this helps clarify things!
Re: Castlevania Requiem Exclusive to PS4 Due to 'High Quality Port' Partnership with Sony
@Tasuki
Interesting to see. I've been looking at the behind the scenes details for games only lately, and this is the first time I happen to see an HD remaster of two old games in a third party franchise that are tied to a console for some reasons, so I wanted to understand how much Sony financing the project would affect the whole exclusivity scenario.
Re: Castlevania Requiem Exclusive to PS4 Due to 'High Quality Port' Partnership with Sony
@Onion
Thanks for being the voice of reason. Being all "told you, crossplay is good for everyone" is definitely as far as my trolling goes, and it's more like playful teasing than anything else.
As for "snatching exclusives", it's the one side of exclusivity I'm not really a fan of, but this needs some elaboration for the sake of clarity. There are three kinds of exclusivity I respect:
1) exclusivity by IP possession: the one that's sacred to me. Nintendo has Mario and company, Xbox has Halo and company, Sony has God Of War and company. It's the way things are just supposed to be and that's perfectly fine.
2) exclusivity by IP purchase: which leads to point 1.
3) timed exclusivity: "play it first on" is a great compromise between striking an exclusivity deal, and stripping other players of a game. Eager gamers can buy the console if they feel the need to do so, while the patience for waiting is rewarded with ports elsewhere.
Then there are two kinds of exclusivity, one on the line between acceptable and annoying and the other far beyond it.
4) funded exclusivity: sad, but understandable, sometimes one of the three giants steps in, in order to make a game a reality. This is what happened with Bayonetta from the second game onwards, as its development has been funded by Nintendo; likewise, indie sensation Cuphead got some extra funding from Microsoft that granted the game Xbox exclusivity, and that appears to be the case with this Castlevania remaster. However...
5) third-party exclusivity by deal: the worst case of all, when a third-party IP is given exclusivity by a mere deal; especially aggravating - in my opinion - when a franchise has been seen on other consoles before (for example, what Rayman Legends almost became on Wii U, Rise Of The Tomb Raider on Xbox One, Street Fighter V on PlayStation, etc.). It's the one kind of exclusivity I can't stand, honestly.
I've always been of the opinion that the big three have to work on their own exclusives. That said, however, at least the "untouchable" PS1-era Final Fantasy games are finally starting to become available on other consoles. As long as everyone gets to play the games that are supposed to trascend systems, I'll be fine with deserved exclusivity. That's my stance on it, as controversial as it might be. Again, what happened with Crash Bandicoot is totally fine, as it is now a third-party IP. I'm not going to ask for Jak and Daxter to be playable with Joy-cons anytime soon if that's what's pissing people off in this thread.
Sorry - I mean it - for the long digression. Back to the reply, it's still a sign of goodwill on Konami's part. Konami and Capcom do seem to seek some kind of redemption after their public image having fallen so far in recent years, and Mega Man 11 is already making the rounds for its unexpectedly excellent quality; I'm more than confident that Castlevania Requiem will prove to be just as good, if a bit of an example of playing it safe given it's still a (couple of) port(s).
Which reminds me of another talking point, with added emphasis in order to make further replies focus on this rather than my previous rant: don't you all think the Kickstarter-funded spiritual successors (Mighty No. 9 and Bloodstained in this case) have served as a bit of a wake-up call for, respectively, Mega Man and Castlevania's original IP owners?
Chime in whenever you want to, I'm open to rebuttals.
Re: Minecraft's Better Together Update Could Yet Come to PS4
@JJ2
Well, to me not having cross-play at all, or worse, not having Minecraft on PS4 in its entirety, could be seen as a greedier move on Microsoft's part given they own the IP (which, contrary to how jokingly I suggested it in another thread, is the equivalent of God Of War becoming available on other platforms; the case could be made about Minecraft not having been born as a MS IP per se, but contrary to other exclusivity cases such as Bayonetta on Nintendo consoles, Rise of The Tomb Raider on Xbox One or Castlevania Requiem on PS4, where exclusivity has more or less been bought, here the IP itself had been bought - seeing Minecraft on non-MS consoles is a luck of itself).
So yeah, considering the alternative, it's an update coming to PS4 thanks to PS4 opening itself to cross-play; the XBL account is definitely the lesser of two evils. Besides, to the best of my knowledge, having an XBL account shouldn't cost you any money, so any problem you might have with that - again, should memory serve right - can only be summed up as a matter of principle (or pride) and not much else.
And "faction" is a catch-all term for the two sides that have been taken on cross-play. Uniting gamers across all consoles isn't a bad thing to me, but you do you, of course.
Re: Minecraft's Better Together Update Could Yet Come to PS4
@JJ2
Of course it's possible to have cross-play from all networks. The anti-crossplay faction is under the belief this will quickly derail into microtransaction-fueled, cosmetic-driven anarchist nonsense, but I can chalk that up to denial - namely, denying the fact that now having online multiplayer tied to a single console userbase is going to need a valid reason.
Re: Castlevania Requiem Exclusive to PS4 Due to 'High Quality Port' Partnership with Sony
@DMG361132
I thought I was being reasonable, as trolling to me is something more like the second image in the article, but you do you.
Re: Minecraft's Better Together Update Could Yet Come to PS4
@KleebanKliban
Er... yes and no. Between doing an immediate "sacrifice" to make players happy and being the only ones to do so there is a pretty wide gap.
Re: Minecraft's Better Together Update Could Yet Come to PS4
@JJ2
Why should it offend anyone? It was all in good fun...
@Cloud7794
... which then abruptly stopped. My first comment was a bit of a zing, but most definitely not as inflammatory as some of the more toxic comments against crossplay and port-begging, which gives the impressions that going against whatever Sony advocates is a no-no here. I've always voiced my complaints about Nintendo's wrongdoings over at NintendoLife, most infamously about the Switch Online Service which is itself another nasty beast to deal with altogether (and let's leave it at that, mostly for the sake of staying on topic).
That said, your analysis of the situation put another legitimate worry under the spotlight (which, again, proves how much more useful rationality is than a generic "no, you're wrong, shut up"); I, for one, think that scenario would eventually come to pass if cross-play became the norm for every multiplatform game with online play, but even then I doubt anyone except the greediest software houses would do that. Similarly, that could be much more acceptable if fewer games did cross-play (not to mention that, should software houses decide on whether or not to implement crossplay rather than the Big Three, it would give more healthy freedom to the industry as a whole), which at the moment seems the more likely option. I guess time will tell, however.
@Hapuc
I guess I can blame this on me being a Ninty guy, they're still kind of old school on most aspects of the gaming spectrum - for better and for worse. If the (cue Jim Sterling voice) tchee-paul-aye industry is that bad out there, then Fallout has become a metaphor for gaming itself: a cartoony, plump guy acting as the friendly mascot of a vault, with a barren wasteland outside.
Re: Castlevania Requiem Exclusive to PS4 Due to 'High Quality Port' Partnership with Sony
@DMG361132
Thing is, any development in the gaming industry is, dare I say, shifting. What's true, either as in actually true, said to be true or believed to be true (if not any combination or the latter two cases), can be false in a few months.
Obviously, if timed, I'm totally fine with this exclusive. Still, Sony built an enormous marketing campaign over Spider-Man so I doubt that we're seeing Spidey anywhere else anytime soon; however, while Sony funded Castlevania's PS4 development, it should be noted that it's still a port (the meaning of "remastered" got all kinds of blurry with the N. Sane Trilogy...) of an older game, and the announcement of the formerly PS-only Final Fantasy games for Xbox and Switch, the meaning of "historically PS1-only" got kind of thrown out of the window (not to mention that SotN is available on Xbox 360 as a standalone title).
Whatever exclusivity is there, I doubt it's gonna last longer than it needs to.
Re: Minecraft's Better Together Update Could Yet Come to PS4
@Hapuc
There, the reasoning is based on one community being bigger than the other. Joke's on you - if anything, a unified userbase is an incentive for devs to develop for all consoles, rather than an excuse for not supporting their games at all.
@JJ2
Now you're making me blush!
Re: Minecraft's Better Together Update Could Yet Come to PS4
@Hapuc
Implying the only way for cross-play online multiplayer gaming for multiplatform titles boils down to microtransactions for cosmetic gaming. What about a FIFA title where matchmaking allows you to play against someone who has a console different than yours? Or Overwatch, for that matter? Would that be the end of the world?
Re: Minecraft's Better Together Update Could Yet Come to PS4
@Hapuc
And now we have an opening quote for the slippery slope fallacy article on Tv Tropes, thank you!
Re: Rocket League Cross-Play Seems Likely on the PS4
I told you so.
Re: Minecraft's Better Together Update Could Yet Come to PS4
@Flaming_Kaiser
I see the first-comment syndrome is striking here as well, my jab proved to be effective judging by the apparent wording of your comment.
That said, however, as said and repeated, nothing bad can come out of cross-play being a thing, for one.
Even then, should you not give a crap about battle royale games, you have the eternally forgotten option to continue doing so without addressing the issue - why a mere "see, crossplay is good" on my part got you so riled up is beyond me, although as @Hapuc suggests, there seems some kind of "pureblood supremacism" concerning crossplay that I can chalk up as either remnants of fanboying over poorly worded PR talk or just plain elitism over a console based on its own install base. Look, I might be a Nintendo guy (should you even need reasons for that, good news - I got ya covered!), but I know I can give Sony credit whenever it's due.
Cross-play is good for everyone, and should you not feel that way, then joke's on you.
On a more serious note, I see many people here complaining about the need of an Xbox account. To the best of my knowledge, being also an Xbox user myself, an Xbox account should be free to open - what I know for sure is that Xbox accounts and Microsoft accounts are one and the same, so if you have any PC with Windows on it, there you go: e-mail address first, password second, and you should be good to go. Hope this helps!
Re: Castlevania Requiem Exclusive to PS4 Due to 'High Quality Port' Partnership with Sony
@DMG361132 (comment #73)
Thing is, even in the age of the internet, there are people who are exposed to other franchises by seeing cameos. Given how Smash is famous for taking a common denominator approach and making the gameplay somehow "translate" to a moveset for every fighter in the roster, someone unfamiliar with Castlevania might play the game and be interested in the source material. As of now, the Castlevania series has yet to be introduced on Switch, and - NES via Switch Online Service aside - I'm pretty sure that any casual fan dipping into Castlevania content in Smash will start asking questions.
Of all exclusivity deals struck by Sony, this is the most suspicious one to me. I mean, the N. Sane Trilogy - despite Crash now being a third party property - could have stayed on PS4, and yet the exclusivity lasted just one year.
As you can tell, however, my fear of coming off as biased hails from me being a NintendoLife user. I've been a PlayStation guy in the PS1 era mainly, and as of now the Kingdom Hearts series is the only reason I own a PS2 and a PSP (with a dash of PSOne Classics in the latter's case). Once the GBA rolled around, with the Spyro and Crash GBA games, I got hooked on the handheld, and first-time exposure to Mario Kart and Super Mario World did the rest. That's my story in a nutshell.
@DMG361132 (comment #74)
I sense some timed exclusivity at work, even if that happened to last one year for every game from here on out (I guess that's not entirely implausible). I recall Song Of The Deep and Sunset Overdrive coming out on Xbox One, with the latter being an actual Xbox exclusive, so there's that. At this point I think Insomniac Games is less of a second-party and more of a third-party that just happens to strike many deals with Sony.
Re: Minecraft's Better Together Update Could Yet Come to PS4
The pro-crossplay faction would like to say: you're welcome.
Re: Castlevania Requiem Exclusive to PS4 Due to 'High Quality Port' Partnership with Sony
@DMG361132
Watch the trailer I embedded in the link and be enlightened. For context, the game the trailer refers to is due for release this December. Connect the dots as you please.
Also, as I mentioned in my main comment, it's not like people are asking about Sony IPs - as in, actual Sony IPs - on other consoles; knowledge about certain IPs' owners is common knowledge by now. That said, I want you and @FullbringIchigo to know that I did applaud Sony for the deal they struck with Marvel; I'm not entirely biased.
Re: No, Enabling Cross-Play Isn't as Easy as People Like to Think, Says PlayStation Boss
@DMG361132
It's really sad, the impact shareholders have on the industry. Anytime Nintendo announces something less-than-conventional, the stock market people duly empty their collective bowels and someone loses a little bit of hope in humanity.