CP2

@RoomWithaMoose
First of all, I appreciate your respectful responses, regardless of any disagreements. I probably could have done better with the tone of my prior responses.

I actually do not see how I am misconstruing what SeaDaVie said or believes. He seemed to clearly display his support of arrests over nonviolent speech.

I know there are a handful of dumb mistakes that have been made with mis-identification of legal citizens. While it’s not crazy to expect that mistakes are going to happen when you’re dealing with such volume, it’s still no excuse, and anyone harmed/inconvenienced should be properly compensated to try to remedy the mistake.

That being said, you mentioned one of the most extreme examples, and even in your example, you admitted the person was released, confirming they admitted to a mistake. Regardless of the negativity of the mistakes, a handful of mistakes do not equate to all non-white people in the United States losing their freedom. That is a gross exaggeration and fallacy.

All of this is off topic, but we have a serious illegal immigration issue in the US, and this was one of the top two or three greatest issues that led to Trump being reelected. As someone who’s an Independent, “both sides are corrupt”-believing individual who hadn’t voted in over 20 years, this was one of the major reasons I had to vote against Democrats. I love people, and I became a family medicine practitioner for that exact reason. Most Americans, myself included, love our melting pot, but all common sense points to there needing to be an actual system in place with vetting and rules, not a free for all flood through an open border. This is something Democrat Presidents, including Obama and Bill Clinton, unequivocally supported until the Biden admin. Unfortunately, there are 10-20mil or so illegal immigrants that entered our country during the Biden admin. I really don’t know what the right thing to do is. It’s a crappy situation with no perfect solution. Most of them are certainly decent people who came here for a better life, but they also broke our laws, and I never believe in rewarding illegal actions. There is also a serious problem with language barrier, which makes assimilation far more difficult. The list goes on. But we are already far too off topic.

As for the terrorism/Muslim comment, I can’t think of a terrorist act that wasn’t done in the name of Islam. That being said, my search stated that 70-85% of terrorism is don’t by Muslims or in the name of Islam. If that’s true, then that is still a terrible statistic for Islam/Muslims, considering they are a minority of the world’s population,; however, my use of the words “virtually all” could probably be considered inaccurate language, so I should’ve done better.

@GirlVersusGame
It feels like you are denying some established facts. Just because you made it through the Middle East doesn’t mean that it’s untrue that many Muslim countries are guilty of inhumane acts against women and gay/trans people.

Are all Muslims bad? Of course not. There are many that are decent humans. And some of what you say, I definitely agree with, including that people are not necessarily their government. But if you don’t recognize why people have formed their concerns toward the religion of Islam, I feel that you’re not looking at the issue holistically or realistically. Women and gay/trans people are treated like second class citizens or much worse in many Islamic countries. Virtually every terrorist act across the world is committed by Muslims. Listen to interviews of Muslims admitting that all non-Muslims (I.e. the overwhelming majority of the world) according to their religion, deserve death. Listen to the innumerable videos of Muslims stating their detailed and structured plan to immigrate to, and then overthrow, America and Europe. How about the fact that Muhammad, the god and creator of Islam, married a 6 year old? That’s not debatable; it’s fact. How about the videos of Iranians chanting, “Death to America, death to Europe, death to Israel.” Not just government officials; Iranian citizens as well. I mean, this is extreme, abnormal stuff that you don’t see in other religions in current times.

I was defending Islam just 9mo ago—including to a very intelligent friend, who bluntly told me I didn’t know what I was talking about and needed to educate myself on the topic. Well, I did, and sure enough, it completely changed my opinion.

All this being said, anyone with a rational mind recognizes that it’s unreasonable to think all Muslims are bad or extreme. The many violent Muslims make things hard for the many good ones. I agree that is unfortunate and sad.

@Cvantez
This must be a joke post. If not, what an asinine fallacy to push.

@SeaDaVie
The fact that you agree with imprisonment being the appropriate punishment for people posting nonviolent statements on the internet is insane. Your politics really have you drinking the Kool Aid, yet you have the audacity to judge the “other side.” Where does the arresting stop when your government gets to decide what’s offensive and deserving of prison sentences? It shouldn’t matter what side is being arrested; if you don’t see how dangerous this is, that is bats&@# insane, and you’re too manipulated to have a rational conversation. .

@AdamNovice I think that’s broadly inaccurate and unfair. And it feels like this is a weak argument that’s used in place of giving people the benefit of the doubt and digging into the nuances of their frustrations. The majority of people love well written and acted characters, regardless of gender, or even sexual identity.

Ellie is another example of a badass female character who is also gay. She’s well written, and people love her. The narrative choices about TLoUp2 are a separate issue, but most people love Ellie. Personally, I can’t stand Aloy, but Ellie is one of my favorite characters in any media of all time.

Elena from Uncharted is not a main character, but people pretty universally loved her. Well-written female, badass, non-sexualized character.

Jesse Faden from Control is another example. Badass non-sexualized female character you hear no one complain about or hate.

These are just the examples I can think of.

@RoomWithaMoose If you make the lead character of a story insufferable to a large swath (possibly majority) of the audience, you’ve made some major errors, no matter what the character’s story arc is intended to be. A character can do unlikable things, but they can’t be consistently or inherently unlikable for a story to be successful. At least IMO and for my tastes. It’s unfortunate, bc her character design is really cool and iconic. She has a ton of potential if they can just freakin write her better.

@Porco Anyone not seeing the favoritism given to this franchise—and the unusual “coincidence” that it’s former studio head has been running PS Studios for many years—is being willfully ignorant IMO.

@Dalamar I actually really liked HZD, but HFW bored me. And I have to agree, Aloy is a terribly written character and quite unlikable—though, to be fair, there’s not a single character in the game I find very likable. The character casting, acting, dialogue, and personalities is one of the biggest weaknesses of the series in my strong opinion.

@Robocod Agreed. Hulst has done an abysmal job, and I’ve wondered for a while as well how he still has his job. Baffling.

I agree with almost everything he said. I’ve been a fan of PlayStation since the PlayStation 1, and the PS5 is the first time I’ve questioned whether I wasted my money on one of their consoles. The only true banger for me of the entire generation so far has been Returnal.

I’ve also never been less excited as a PlayStation fan. Yes, primarily because of the lack of quality story base games many PlayStation fans enjoy most, but also because, as the article cites, there is absolutely no sense of PlayStation community or fandom coming from PlayStation itself: The lack of events, the lack of community outreach, communication with the fans, etc.

I would push back against the article’s notion that PlayStation executives know what they’re doing just because they’re posting record profits. Probably the number one reason PlayStation is doing so well is because Xbox is doing so poorly. Also, what percentage of PS’s profit is due to third-party games that PlayStation did nothing to foster?

I can’t believe I’m even saying these things. PlayStation has genuinely been a part of my identity for the longest time. But I feel almost nothing for the PS5 PlayStation.

If this is anything like the 90s x men game, it will be day one.

@The_ghostmen
Media Molecule actually came to my mind for a comparison as well. This is yet another thing that makes it feel that ND is being grossly mismanaged. The whole TLoU online debacle with them realizing after 4 years of development “oops, this is gonna take a lot of work,” followed by its cancelation, suggests negligence and/or incompetence. I’ve never missed the days of Amy Hennig more than I have lately. Freakin legend. Insane they fired her.

@PuppetMaster
That’s not how it normally works, though. The sequel to an enormously beloved game like TLOU would normally be expected to sell gangbusters, often better than the original, as long as the sequel is not a major let down. Look at God of War 2018 to Ragnarok: 2018 sold around 23mil copies by the time of Ragnarok’s release, and then Ragnarok sold 11mil copies within 2 or so months. And Ragnarok, while still high quality, was considered a worse game than 2018 by many or most people.

Last official data I tracked for TLoUp2 was “>10mil” as of Spring 2022. I added 1mil sales to account for additional time, but that’s certainly a guesstimate. You may be right that the remake sold well, though how many of those sales are from people getting the $10 upgrade like what I did?

Also, it’s been nearly 5y since TLoUp2’s, so sales at this point, outside of likely decent boosts from seasons 2 and 3 of the show, are inevitably at a slog.

@Anthony_Daniels
Your comment, ironically, is quite immature.

Another story focusing on Abby and Liv would be a financial disaster, almost undoubtedly selling less than TLoU part 2, which already sold 11mil to TLoU’s 30mil. Abby is not very likable to most people—or at minimum, no where near the level of characters like Ellie, Joel, Nathan Drake, Sully, Elena, Chloe, Cutter, etc. Her personality was boring and dull, which is impressive considering her legendary actress. Liv was even more dull. How many people’s “top 10 VG characters of all time” lists do you think Abby and Liv would show up on? Or even top 20?

Ellie and Joel are some of the most beloved video game characters of all time. Regardless of the main characters, if you make TLoUp3 not focusing on Ellie—after you already offed Joel in the first 2h of part 2, followed by giving only 50% of the remaining playtime with Ellie–people would be, imo rightfully, pissed off. And unless they crushed it with the new main character and gameplay, it would bomb.

@Oz_Who_Dat_Dare
You’re not the only one. I absolutely loved HZD as well but was surprisingly bored after the first 5h or so of HFW. And you’re right: The sales for HFW are what, less than half of those for HZD? Millions of consumers clearly agree with our sentiment.

The insane level of push for this franchise is unprecedented for Sony, to my knowledge, and it would be unusual to not see the coincidence that this only started after Guerilla’s former studio head became a big PS boss. It feels adjacent to nepotism.

All this being said, I actually have a fair amount of confidence that this online game could be big—as long as they stay solely focused on making a fun game with an addictive game loop that has an attractive art style. With the talent they have, as long as they avoid other distractions, this feels like it has a good chance to be successful.

@wildcat_kickz
Perfectly stated. There’s a lot of delusional and very misinformedarguments in these comments. Tenant has direct ties to the CCP. No one‘s issues with China have anything to do with the Chinese people; it has everything to do with the Chinese government. I have endless criticisms of our US government, but the Chinese government is on a completely different level with their exertion of control and human rights violations. People trying to stir controversy by claiming xenophobia need to grow up. Also, anyone who wants to speak on this topic should research what China has done to the Uyghurs.

I felt quite confused when I read his comment. I kept thinking there was more he must’ve said. This is probably the oddest and most exaggerative articles I’ve read on here. I see nothing controversial about his statement.

@Enuo
Wow, you have a terrible, very uncommon opinion of Jim Carrey

@T-Bone09
Yep, it’s remarkable how blinded people can become when something or someone conflicts with their political views.

@Gunnerzaurus You could play it on the Portal

@Logonogo
Same. Colin kept recommending Push Square and VGC as quality and reputable Game sites, so I switched to both of those sites about two years ago. Would never have done so otherwise.

@Totheteeth Same! One of my favorite games of the past 10 years.

Another Jim Ryan disaster. I’m not a Jim Ryan hater, but it’s quite interesting to see the delayed, slow trickling of some major failures resulting from his decisions. Although, I wonder what portion of blame is owed to Herman Hulst.

I guess it’s just me, but every Dontnod game looks terribly cheesy and boring. I see absolutely zero appeal, but to each their own.

Returnal #1. Still probably my favorite PS5 game. I played Hades for probably 10h and just did not enjoy it. Did a rare thing for me and didn't finished it. As a big Supergiant fan, I was disappointed I didn’t fall in love with it.

@Yousef-
How so, good sir (or madame)? It seemed like you were throwing Elon shade. Either way, it was meant to be a respectful reply.

@Yousef-
You don’t have to like the Cybertruck—I didn’t, either, at first—but you do realize the Cybertruck is the most preordered vehicle in history, right? While you dislike it, there are millions who love it.

@BeerIsAwesome
You either know little on this topic, or you’re being entirely disingenuous. Your synopsis of that situation is very poor and unfair.

The shareholders, who own the majority of Tesla, voted on Elon’s pay package in 2018. Elon agreed to receive no pay, unless he achieved astronomical milestones, including taking Tesla from a $50bil company to a $500bil company. Next to no one expected him to be able to achieve this, but should he do so, everyone would be very happy, as they would make a lot of money from their investment.

Well, he did achieve it. And everyone was wealthier and happier and got what they were promised. But the Delaware judge did something entirely unprecedented and dissolved his compensation package. That’s not supposed to happen; the shareholders are to be the ones deciding things such as this, bc they own the company. So, as of now, Elon literally worked for free from 2018 to 2023, despite delivering on his end of the deal between him and the shareholders.

Well, Tesla shareholders did a re-vote on Elon’s 2018 comp package in 6/2024 under the requested parameters ordered by the judge, and investors voted AGAIN in favor of Elon’s package. I believe 70% voted in favor of it. Despite that, the judge hasn’t responded yet.

In light of the unprecedented nature of the Delaware judge’s ruling, the fact that she changed the rules of how public companies are meant to work in the US, and some of her connections and background, this case has been suspected to be politically motivated.

@NarutosBiggestFan
The only people who are upset about this are those who are strict followers of a particular political religion—people who have been trained how and what to think, rather than taking time and effort to think independently.

Politics are so charged that someone says something you so much as disagree with, and they’re “a piece of sh**.” That can happen with both sides, but the Elon Musk hate is such contradictory BS. I challenge anyone to name a single human being on this planet that is doing more for humanity than Elon Musk. Take a look at some of his companies. Tesla: Makes electric vehicles and solar energy in order to reduce oil dependency and carbon emissions and save the f*#%ing planet; Space X: Makes rockets (far better than NASA) with the goal to colonize mars and elsewhere for us to become a multi-planetary species for when earth is no longer viable for life; Neuralink: Creating brain chips to improve or even cure brain and spinal injury previously deemed untreatable—as well as, eventually, to combat the dangers of unchecked AI that the most intelligent people in the world have long feared will cause human extinction; Starlink: Provides internet to everyone no matter location, including, most importantly, locations previously incapable of receiving internet service; The Boring Company: Creates underground tunnels to reduce traffic congestion in the most crowded cities; X: Purchased to protect free speech, bc he knows free speech is among the most pivotal components of America, and dictating free speech beyond the bounds of the law is dangerous.

He also co-founded Open-AI, but it’s turned into something antithetical to his original goal for it (open source and without the goal of profit).

But people choose to ignore all these things, bc Elon disagrees with DEI or gender transitioning in children—or whatever else. Never mind that Elon rarely speaks against something without having reasonable points to support his argument, e.g. no one should be hired based on immutable characteristics like race or gender, but rather on the basis of merit and qualifications. I mean, who can reasonably argue with that? But people will continue to listen to their news sources that lie to them in the name of profit and continue to maintain a deep hatred for, and speak vitriol against, the very man who’s working beyond any other to save humanity and our planet.

I’m sure people will assume I’m some extremist to discredit me in their mind and perpetuate their confirmation bias, but the reality is that I’m an Independent who recognizes Democrats and Republicans are both corrupt and self-serving and has deep criticisms of both sides.

I’m glad Sony is getting pushback from people about their silence. I’m 38yo and a near-lifetime PlayStation fan, but in the past several years, I’ve never been a more bored PlayStation fan. There’s just been very little hype and only a handful of games that I have truly loved. Thank goodness for Returnal.

@crossbit
Yep, exactly this. I truly don’t understand how a single person can like Phil Spencer at this point and not see through his disingenuous BS. He is so fake, it’s quit pitiful.

@S1ayeR74
I agree with much of what you said. PS has been twiddling their thumbs for freakin years, now, and I don’t think I’m the only one getting pretty tired of waiting to find out why I should be excited for my PS5. And Xbox releasing that objectively impressive showcase only rubs salt in the wound.

That being said, I don’t regret buying my PS5. Up to this point, PS has mopped the floor with Xbox Series with quality exclusives.

Yep, it blew. I went in with very low expectations and still came out disappointed. PlayStation fans are tired of being given little to no reason to be excited by first party for the past 3 or so years.

@Atreus97 Exactly what I’ve been thinking for a while. I feel like I’ve lost my “zest” for gaming/PS. I haven’t felt excitement for PlayStation in actual years at this point. Used to look forward almost daily to the next news and shows, but now I feel dead inside. JK, but seriously, PlayStation has done NOTHING in terms of fan service for years, and I’ve grown fatigued constantly anticipating just to be perpetually let down.

We said a YEAR ago that there was no way PS wouldn’t have a first party blowout at their showcase, bc it had been so atypically long since they showed anything of substance. And that showcase was garbage for first party. And now a year later, still nothing. That’s kind of insane.

I went into yesterday’s SoP with such low expectations due to these years of disappointment, and still I somehow came out disappointed and terribly underwhelmed.

I think the PlayStation morale may be at an all time low—even lower than the PS3 days. At least then they were doing great with first party and the news that came with it. Was exciting. PS5 has been freaking boring.
/rant over

Wish they would’ve shown a still shot of the full table at some point, but I saw enough to know I would consider buying something like that. Haven’t felt super positive about Sony for the past few years, but it looks like they killed it with that pinball table.

What a shame. So far in my play through, it’s an amazing game. Sam Lake is one of the best video game writers in existence, possibly the best.

@breakneck yes, my game of the gen, too! Can’t believe it beats out GoWR for me.

@Ludacritz
Fully agree.

@nessisonett
You hear about this remarkable and unprecedented advancement in technology that allows a quadriplegic to regain just a small portion of his prior functioning, and this is the stupid, purposeless comment you make? I came into the comments wondering if it was possible for someone to somehow twist this news into negativity—bc, you know, some deranged, often Kool-Aid drinking liberals just can’t help hating on Elon Musk—but I was really hoping for the best. But our politics and media are just too effectively toxic. It really is sad (and pathetic) seeing the hatred of people so severely blinding them that it outweighs their desire for a bettered earth and human existence.

Love my Portal—more than I expected.

Glad to see more and more things trying to spread the news of how severe and common human sex trafficking is. This is one of the most egregious atrocities in the US and across the world, yet US media—most of which claim to be so caring and virtuous—never mentions a word about it. Too nonsensical to be anything but intentional and coordinated.

Anyway, rant over. I’ll happily support Mukti, and I’m excited for the other four as well. Love that we’ll be getting games inspired by Indian minds and culture!

I debated even getting a Portal, but I like it more than I ever thought I would. Thing is badass.

Man, Phil Spencer’s blatant fakeness and disingenuousness will never stop making me feel a little gaggy. He really tries to act like him and Xbox are Jesus of the video game industry.

I’m about 1/3 of the way through, and this game is fantastic so far. Deserves way more sales than this, but it’s really promising it sold 300k/a 33% increase in sales in the past 6wk!

I would make a high wager that they’ll release a physical version at some point, but they want to make sure the digital sales have reached an insignificant number with a steady decline first. Gotta get that higher margin.

@theSpectre
They have said definitively that that will not be going back to Uncharted or Jak.

I really wish people would start re-considering their mindset on single player games. With the Insomniac leak, I think it revealed that the Spider-Man remaster cost $75mil. That’s more than many movies. And the UD remaster seems to involve even more work than that. There seems to be a sense of entitlement for an ultra-cheap upgrade for remasters or remakes, but they still cost a lot to do.

The Last of Us part 2 remaster likely cost $100mil+ and included an entirely new game mode, but so many people were outraged until they found out they could pay only $10 for it. Making things worse, TLoUp2 really didn’t do great, financially, relative to its $230mil or so budget—esp when you consider the quick and massive price drop to $20 and $30.

People will pay crazy money for live service paid content (often far more than $70) and won’t complain about it, but if a very expensive AAA single player game tried to add MTX for something like costumes, people would lose it.

My biggest concern is that people don’t seem to see the writing on the wall for AAA single player games. Sony was really the primary champion of them, but even they started shifting toward live service games, bc the money just isn’t there for AAA SP. And when they try to find additional ways to bring in money for these games, people rage. But if we don’t start opening our minds to AAA SP games finding additional or alternative monetization, then it seems we won’t get many or any at some point in the future due to massively ballooning budgets. See: Shawn Layden’s prediction.

I guess my biggest wish is that, even if people found something cost-prohibitive or a financial turn off (unless utterly egregious), they would just decide not to buy it, rather than be so loud and cause or contribute to a rage pile-on.

/rant over

@DualWielding
I feel like it’s illogical to think this will be any less than $70, based on the patterns we’ve seen:

1. The only PS5 game Sony hasn’t made $70 was Miles, but with how well it sold, I’d bet they’ve regretted that.
2. TLoU Remake was $70.
3. There was major backlash over TLoU part 1 being $70. Then, it sold millions of copies.
4. TLoU part 2 really didn’t sell great, relatively speaking—compared to TLoU part 1 especially, but also to other recent PS exclusives; so, I’m sure Sony would love to make as much money as possible on this remake.
5. Sounds like they’re adding a good bit of new stuff.

Or, I could be wrong.

I will gladly buy this at $70. I’m not saying everyone has to, but I find the complaining and “outrage” very frustrating. Does no one realize that Sony’s single player cinematic type games are dying—or at least becoming much less common? The business model simply limits profitability per player when compared to GAAS games. There’s a reason Sony is one of the only ones doing them.

If we want to keep getting these SP games, people have to stop the outrage at things like this. At the bare minimum, charging $70 for a remaster or remake—esp one with a new game mode and new extra content—is no worse than charging $20 for a simple Fortnite skin that probably took a few hours to make.

@OldGamer999
Why does it seem like your comment about MSFT having so much money for acquisitions was supposed to be a brag about Xbox? Microsoft’s pattern of buying everyone in sight for Xbox is far from brag-worthy. After 4 generations, the fact that they still can’t make good games, let alone games like Nintendo and Sony, is inexcusable.