I enjoyed FF16 and the two released parts of the remake but they didn’t become phenomena the way turn based rpgs like BG3, Persona 5 and Clair Obscur did.
I am fine with Squenix going multiplatform but I suspect something else needs to be done if Squenix wants to make their rpgs more appealing to more people.
I fell out of love with the GTA series after 5 (whose campaign disappointed me and whose multiplayer never interested me) but I can’t imagine this delay means anything more than ‘Rockstar is taking its sweet time’.
GTA5 despite my indifference is a mainstay on sales charts and I’m sure a lot of shark bucks are continually being bought.
Whether or not GTA6 has the insanely long tail of 5 is up in the air but a ginormous launch whenever it hits is a certainty.
I don’t pay much attention to announcements of years away games since they often change, slip or even die in the interim.
That being said while I respect Hennig as a writer, writing and leading a project are separate skill sets and Hennig hasn’t managed to get anything out the door under multiple publishers.
I played some Pursuit Force via streaming yesterday. It chugged for a couple seconds in one of the stages but it otherwise felt just like playing it on my PSP back in the day.
No benefit to me (I drive to work) but new, free functionality is nice. I use my Portal on a daily basis to play strategy games on the lving room couch (my Pro is in the den) in the afternoon.
Shrugs I can’t be the only one that remembers how weird some of the old PlayStation ads were. Seems to either work or (more likely) do no harm. I could say much the same about outlandish game ads in general.
I preordered the deluxe edition right after playing the demo (the audio visuals being even trippier than Tetris Effecf was what sold me) but the presence of Astro Bot is nice.
It’s too bad the demo doesn’t support VR but given Enhance’s long track record with VR I have zero concerns in that regard.
Fighting a late game boss in Ghost of Yotei. I’ve come really, really close to winning but just came up a bit short.
Played two rounds with different full squads of randoms in Helldivers 2 in which we took down a Hivelord (a giant acid spewing worm the size of a train, covered in armor heavier than that of a tank which is essentially the boss of wherever it is). There is a suborder for killing 50K of them and it looks like the community is going to achieve it with time to spare thanks in no small part to patriot exosuits being the bonus strategem. The major order for taking one of bug planets is still up on the air though because resistance is crazy high. I’ve seen a swarm of bugs force even squads of well armed Helldivers backwards because ammo is limited and reloading sometimes necessary. On a related note a big part of cave exploring is knowing when to retreat and rearm and/or find an alternate pathway.
I started Propagation Paradise Hotel. It’s clearly an indie game in terms of its visuals but it’s well designed and the controls feel great (it’s a motion controlled VR game which is very committed to its bit). I’m still early in but thus far it reminds me more of RE1 (suspenseful yet cheesy, some action but lots of exploration and light puzzle solving) more than either of the survival horror games I’ve played recently (Silent Hill F and Cronos).
Halloween isn’t a big deal for me anymore but I enjoy horror year round (mostly books but also a few games and movies). Recently I played Silent Hill F and Cronos: The New Dawn. To celebrate the holiday I’m going to pull a horror game out of my backlog (Propagation Paradise Hotel) and start it.
Impressive. This particular game isn’t for me but I’m glad it has found success. Not surprising given all the positive stuff I heard from people who participated in the betas and servers slams and suchlike.
Sony and Nintendo have both made lots of mistakes over the years but both stayed squarely focused on dedicated hardware and their ecosystems in part because gaming is a core and profitable business for both of them.
The Xbox division was a speculative investment for MS and never important for the central division/shareholders. That was beneficial for the Xbox division for a while but that wasn’t going to last forever. MS is willing to extravagantly invest in hot trends but it did not become the biggest, richest company in the world for several years (I think Nvidia passed them recently) by letting divisions bleed infinite money indefinitely.
I have been hearing nothing but good about Arc Raiders for months so while PvP (I know there is an E in there too) isn’t my thing anymore I think it will launch strong.
This weird trend of the people on the internet going for likes and ‘cool’ cred by embracing long dead franchises they probably never touched in the first place never ceases to amuse.
I bought and played all the Killzones bar Mercenaries (which I didn’t see anything in) at launch and the only two I thought were great were 2 (which was partially overshadowed by Sony’s infamous fake gameplay trailer) and Liberation (which almost nobody played).
Helghast designs are great (I often use KZ armor in Helldivers 2) but the franchise doesn’t need to come back. If the most interesting thing that can be said about a franchise is it once was intended to kill another franchise there is clearly nothing to be said.
I am continuing to love Ghost of Yotei. I’ve got over seventy hours in but I trying to tackle everything I can find so half the Yotei Six are still alive though a lot of other, lesser evils have been addressed. The Onryo effect (which terrifies enemies for a few seconds and maybe calls the wolf to you) is a thing of beauty in heated close combat though I am also fine with surreptitiously cutting throats or killing enemies from afar with a bow or a rifle.
Today is Liberty Day in Helldivers. One can visit Earth and watch fireworks from orbit, but you can only read about the parades and public dissident executions. The traditional free gear seems to be tied to a damn near impossible major order though I don’t think for a second we will leave Liberty Day empty handed.
The current major order sets a sadistic one day, 40 million kill target for the constitution (an antique bolt action rifle with a bayonet). Most are ignoring it and using modern weapons but some of us are picking up the gauntlet so it’s not outside the realm of possibility we will defy Arrowhead’s expectations and win the major order.
I played the original Halo many times in local and online co-op but never attended a LAN party and I strongly doubt more than a single digit percentage of Halo 1 owners ever did. It’s true Halo like almost every other ongoing fps eventually came to be utterly dominated by online competitive MP (Halo 4 and Infinite couldn’t even be bothered to include split screen co-op) but Halo 1’s big draw was its excellent co-op enabled campaign.
That being said I suspect another reason for the omission is MS has some sort of online only Halo they are planning, but that’s fine by me since I liked Halo when it was focused on campaigns rather than competitive multiplayer. Very few games successfully do both because online communities are very passionate things that devour everything you put before them and ask why it isn’t better, why there isn’t more and why it isn’t coming faster 😋.
Looks good to me. I played Halo’s campaign in co-op (online and couch) many, many times. Great stuff. Not sure I’ll pick it up the remaster at launch but I’ll pick it up eventually.
I’m not surprised by the low quality of the PS Pro port given the PS5 port itself was a late in the game decision.
As I said recently in the context of the announcement that the PS5 port of the upcoming Forza Horizon would be be late, I think it’s reasonable for developers to initially focus on optimizing for a platform or two rather than port everywhere all at once. Polish/playtesting is very time consuming.
The big patch has finally hit. Not sure how well it fixes the issues PC gamers are having but it buffs a lot of light penetration guns (think rifles and SMGs) and melee weapons and brought back the slightly nerfed but still very nasty burrowing enemies.
I’ve long believed gamers in real life don’t care about exclusivity. A game people view as unappealing won’t become more appealing just because it’s exclusive. 99.9999% of multiplatform games don’t come anywhere near the success of Minecraft, CoD or Roblox.
I’m not opposed to exclusive games by any means. From a tech perspective they often benefit from focus on a platform (or two). As I pointed out in a Forza ‘late PS5 port’ thread spinning a lot of plates can be tough for developers so it’s perfectly reasonable for developers to prioritize rather than port everywhere at the same time.
Along those lines show me a multi format game and I’ll often be able to to show you a subset of its fans (often PC gamers because that landscape is so incredibly varied) lamenting that their system of choice drew the short straw. Still, barring extreme problems most gamers don’t worry too much about tech issues and just play the games they want to play on the system they own.
Not surprised H2 is a hit on Xbox. I have almost 1300 hours in and H2 is just great, chaotic, arcadey fun that is easy to play with randoms (the communication wheel allows one to quickly say the important stuff though of course text and voice are options too).
Playing on PS5 Pro the only problem I run into is the odd crash (3 crashes in 20something rounds in the past week). It was a lot worse a month ago but improved without a patch so I assume there was a server issue that got sorted out. Still PC gamers are having a lot of issues so I hope the patch releases sooner rather than later. The more divers the merrier.
In regards to AA and smaller games the PS5 and every other modern platform has an embarrassment of riches (nods towards games like Clair Obscur, Absolum, Peak, Sea of Stars, Balatro, Silksong, The Last Spell, The Alters, Hades, Stray, Cult of the Lamb, Promise Mascot Agency and Shinobi Art of Vengeance) due to cheap development costs, the low cost of distribution and of course commercial success in the space.
If someone legit only enjoys smaller games that’s cool but I don’t see why one would ignore all the quality smaller games that are out there and get stuck on the fact that the ‘right’ publishers or developers aren’t making them.
Nice. I’m kinda surprised SH’s cumulative sales are so low. Konami is happy with the recent numbers so clearly they are budgeting for the market Silent Hill has rather than burning a big pile of cash to try to mainstream the series. I enjoyed the first four games and the last two.
I knew SH4 was widely disliked but I didn’t know its sales were that bad. I personally enjoyed it and remember the creators were very enthusiastic about it because it was a big deviation from the formula but clearly most SH fans didn’t share their thirst for change, or at least the specific changes The Room made.
I’m 43 hours in and the popularity doesn’t surprise me. Ghost is a fast moving, beautiful game whose world is a joy to explore due to its beauty and its design and whose brutal combat system boasts a lot of depth (playing on hard I’ve had many opportunities to see fights play out differently depending on how one tries to tackle them 😅).
Given all the commercially successful single player games we’ve seen recently (including but not limited to Silent Hill F, Silksong and Cronos:The New Dawn) it’s not a surprise Ghost of Yotei (which improves across the board on its very popular predecessor) has joined their ranks.
Last of all, as I tend to note in sales threads fans people who genuinely enjoy something and want to see more of it should focus on absolute rather than relative performance.
Given the new Ubisoft-Tencent partnership now helming what used to be their biggest IPs (including AC) I think the longtime lead’s departure and more interference by investors mean things will likely get worse.
I enjoyed Modnation Racers’ campaign but didn’t get much out of the UGC (which I played with my kids a bit though they preferred LBP2’s UGC). Maybe if I was playing the best tracks competitively with randoms I would feel differently about it.
Given that Roblox is bigger than Steam I’m not surprised someone is coming for its UGC crown. I didn’t care for base Genshin and while I spent hundreds of hours playing UGC in LBP and later Dreams (damn near perfect IMHO but in hindsight it’s decision to not charge anyone for anything past the point of purchase while noble, was a fatal mistake) so I am sure some talented creators will surface in Genshin.
@Leinad7 The internet abounds with people unhappy with the PS5 and the Switch 2. That is reasonable because tastes vary. Objectively the PS5’s user engagement and game sales are high.
There are big spending gamers who own every platform under the sun and only care about games if they are exclusive to a platform but the vast majority of gamers own one dedicated gaming system, buy roughly ten games a generation and view consoles as game delivery devices. For such gamers the appeal of the likes of Clair Obscur, Unicorn Overlord, Silent Hill, CoD, Helldivers 2, Cult of the Lamb, Black Myth Wukong, Forza Horizon 5, Stellar Blade, Elden Ring, Baldur’s Gate 3, Balatro, Genshin Impact, To a T and Metaphor Refantazio and suchlike has everything to do with the games themselves rather than where else they can or can’t be enjoyed.
All that aside I completely agree with your statement most people won’t but the PS6 early in when it launches in a few years’ time. That has always been the case with dedicated hardware. The majority of sales take place over years, not in the initial months. Price cuts (not a thing this generation sadly) and expanding libraries increase sales over time.
The video mostly went over my head but it sounds like the PS6 is still a few years off, which works for me. Most games live well within the limits of current gen hardware and those pushing the edge don’t seem to be hobbled by it.
@Leinad7 The Switch 2 (like the PS5) is a linear sequel to its popular predecessor which early in its life has benefitted heavily from B/C (Switch sales tanked once rumors of the Switch 2 started swirling). Furthermore the Switch 2 has seen a historically strong launch in part because it launch with more systems available than any prior system (great for gamers and the game industry, bad for scalpers).
Which parts of that statement do you disagree with and on what basis?
As for the certainty of a future PS and the probability of another Xbox, I think there are too many unknown data points (release dates, libraries, prices) to start predicting anything though that has never stopped the internet before.
The internet hating or loving something has little connection to the popularity of the thing in the real world.
Given the massive popularity of the Switch and the fact Nintendo positioned the Switch 2 as a linear follow up (B/C, no big design deviations) it would be shocking if the Switch 2 wasn’t a huge success.
PS5 sales seem to be holding up well given that its price has risen a bit (as opposed to the old console norm of falling sharply).
This rejected protagonist/setting doesn’t sound too far off from that of AC Liberation (which I loved because like Black Flag it revolves around battles at sea). I haven’t played an AC game in years because they cranked them out ridiculously fast on a wide variety of platforms for a hot minute (I tried to keep up for a while) and eventually it became clear there was no coherent plan (kinda like what happened with Star Wars).
I’ve got nothing against the AC games as games but I don’t know if I am ever going to get back into the series.
Ten games per system was what the PS4 averaged and that was considered healthy back then. I get more games than ever are being released but the amount of free time (or money) people have isn’t increasing.
I’m over twenty hours in and having a great time. Combat is really dynamic (me playing on hard has given me the opportunity to fight some of the tougher battles a couple times) and just wandering around on foot or horseback is really fun.
I really loved Populous, Dungeon Keeper and Syndicate and at the time I would have been thrilled if he joined PlayStation studios.
But in hindsight Sony lucked out. I didn’t care much for Fable in part because it wasn’t the game he promised it would be and Molyneux’s tendency to overpromise and underdeliver has only gotten worse since then. He wasted a lot of MS’s money then once they got rid of him started swindling people on Kickstarter and via NFTs.
MS radically increased spending as its console marketshare dwindled post X360. Yes MS can afford to lose a lot more than the Xbox has lost but MS did not get to be one of the biggest, richest companies in the world by letting divisions eat losses indefinitely without having a path to profitability. Eventually upper management/shareholders were going to step in. That time seems to have come.
An honest, thorough review. Nothing it says is out of line with what I’ve seen of the game (and a PSVR2 owning fan of the early Pixeljunks I’ve seen everything posted on the internet about it).
I’m still interested in Dreams of Another but I of course haven’t played it. For the curious below is the most gameplay footage I’ve seen and it is a trailer rather than just video of somebody playing.
@MrStark I think if Vita as a portable rather than a console (though it presaged the hybrid Switch in many ways) but yes, it certainly was a commercial dud.
I agree MS had a lot of good effects on the industry (for my money, the top two are Xbox Live’s single digital ID and storefront and MS encouraging a lot of Western developers and/or indies to enter the console space) and I’ll go a step further and repeat what I said in another recent thread, that they make some really fun games.
However I’ll disagree about competition this generation. In my opinion competition is more intense than ever because game development is cheaper than ever and there are a lot of other ways people have to play games (the cellphone is the all in one device everybody has in their pocket).
The resultant flood of games is great for gamers but has been very tough for developers and publishers (more games are released in a week than the average gamer buys in a year and most get no coverage and people don’t buy what they are unaware of). Furthermore games people enjoy tend to take big chunks of their time and be given months or even years of postlaunch support from developers (and on the PC side modders), which is great for gamers and the lucky game(s) not so great for those seeking attention. The two things the gaming internet loves most are celebrating popular successes (often a tautology) and dancing on the bones of high profile failures but many solid to great games die without anyone noticing. Cough Rant over 😋.
I don’t think every entrant being competitive is the key to a thriving console industry (clear losers in what was at the time a healthy industry include Intellivision, Jaguar, Wii U, Saturn, GameCube, Dreamcast, SMS and 3DO).
Losers doesn’t inspire in the same way winners do but they do teach lessons even if those who developed the commercially unsuccessful system decide not to continue developing hardware.
So far I’ve been playing a lot of Ghost of Yotei (on hard which means my character has died more times than I care to remember particularly in the duels) and a little bit of Frostpunk 2, GT7, Helldivers 2 and the VF5 open beta.
I’m sure the leadership/shareholders were okay with losing money in the short term when they believed it would win them dominance but once it became clear all the tens of billions burned hadn’t even stopped the sharp post X360 market share erosion they ended the gambit.
Sports games have been hugely popular since videogames began. In the 2600 days there were the likes of Pong, Realsports Volleyball, California Games, Ice Hockey and Boxing. A bit later in the NES/SMS era there Mike Tyson’s Punchout, Bases Loaded, Double Dribble, Ten Yard Fight, Track and Field. John Montana Football and Blades of Steel.
If one has no use for sports games that is fine but it’s silly to pretend that there hasn’t always been a ginormous appetite for them. It’s increased over time as games have developed the ability to put full teams and distinct players onscreen but it has always been there.
Last but not least as I pointed out in another recent top sales thread what should be important to people who choose to focus on sales is commercial success/profitability not success relative to everything else out there.
If you honestly enjoy a genre you should be happy when a developer in said genre announces the game has met or exceeded expectations and they will continue work in the genre, not be upset that some other game in some other genre outsold it.
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Re: Don't Expect Any PS5 Exclusives from Square Enix in the Future
I enjoyed FF16 and the two released parts of the remake but they didn’t become phenomena the way turn based rpgs like BG3, Persona 5 and Clair Obscur did.
I am fine with Squenix going multiplatform but I suspect something else needs to be done if Squenix wants to make their rpgs more appealing to more people.
Re: GTA 6 Delayed Again, Pushed Back to November 2026
I fell out of love with the GTA series after 5 (whose campaign disappointed me and whose multiplayer never interested me) but I can’t imagine this delay means anything more than ‘Rockstar is taking its sweet time’.
GTA5 despite my indifference is a mainstay on sales charts and I’m sure a lot of shark bucks are continually being bought.
Whether or not GTA6 has the insanely long tail of 5 is up in the air but a ginormous launch whenever it hits is a certainty.
Re: Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra Piles on PS5 Delay Misery
I don’t pay much attention to announcements of years away games since they often change, slip or even die in the interim.
That being said while I respect Hennig as a writer, writing and leading a project are separate skill sets and Hennig hasn’t managed to get anything out the door under multiple publishers.
Re: These Are All 2,800+ PS5 Games You Can Stream Directly to PS Portal Now
I played some Pursuit Force via streaming yesterday. It chugged for a couple seconds in one of the stages but it otherwise felt just like playing it on my PSP back in the day.
Re: Ghost of Yotei Can't Beat Battlefield 6 as EA's Shooter Dominates PS5 in October
I love Ghost of Yotei but I am glad other games enjoyed strong debuts as well.
Re: PS Portal Gets So Much Better Today in Huge UI, Cloud Streaming Update
No benefit to me (I drive to work) but new, free functionality is nice. I use my Portal on a daily basis to play strategy games on the lving room couch (my Pro is in the den) in the afternoon.
Re: 'It Happens on PS5': New PlayStation Adverts Mark Five Years of PS5
Shrugs I can’t be the only one that remembers how weird some of the old PlayStation ads were. Seems to either work or (more likely) do no harm. I could say much the same about outlandish game ads in general.
https://youtu.be/YWmbUMStlGI
https://youtu.be/xRwgdZxYL-E
https://youtu.be/gqkNPcUMffU
Re: Exclusive: Your First Look at Astro Bot in Lumines Arise, and How the Crossover Happened
I preordered the deluxe edition right after playing the demo (the audio visuals being even trippier than Tetris Effecf was what sold me) but the presence of Astro Bot is nice.
It’s too bad the demo doesn’t support VR but given Enhance’s long track record with VR I have zero concerns in that regard.
Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? - Issue 605
@Westernwolf4 Thanks. I finally got past that boss.
Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? - Issue 605
Fighting a late game boss in Ghost of Yotei. I’ve come really, really close to winning but just came up a bit short.
Played two rounds with different full squads of randoms in Helldivers 2 in which we took down a Hivelord (a giant acid spewing worm the size of a train, covered in armor heavier than that of a tank which is essentially the boss of wherever it is). There is a suborder for killing 50K of them and it looks like the community is going to achieve it with time to spare thanks in no small part to patriot exosuits being the bonus strategem. The major order for taking one of bug planets is still up on the air though because resistance is crazy high. I’ve seen a swarm of bugs force even squads of well armed Helldivers backwards because ammo is limited and reloading sometimes necessary. On a related note a big part of cave exploring is knowing when to retreat and rearm and/or find an alternate pathway.
I started Propagation Paradise Hotel. It’s clearly an indie game in terms of its visuals but it’s well designed and the controls feel great (it’s a motion controlled VR game which is very committed to its bit). I’m still early in but thus far it reminds me more of RE1 (suspenseful yet cheesy, some action but lots of exploration and light puzzle solving) more than either of the survival horror games I’ve played recently (Silent Hill F and Cronos).
Re: Poll: Do You Play Horror Games Around Halloween?
Halloween isn’t a big deal for me anymore but I enjoy horror year round (mostly books but also a few games and movies). Recently I played Silent Hill F and Cronos: The New Dawn. To celebrate the holiday I’m going to pull a horror game out of my backlog (Propagation Paradise Hotel) and start it.
Re: PS5 Extraction Shooter Arc Raiders Is Looking Like a Hit as Servers Immediately Struggle
Impressive. This particular game isn’t for me but I’m glad it has found success. Not surprising given all the positive stuff I heard from people who participated in the betas and servers slams and suchlike.
Re: 'We Want to Be Everywhere, on Every Platform': Microsoft CEO Once Again Commits to PS5
Sony and Nintendo have both made lots of mistakes over the years but both stayed squarely focused on dedicated hardware and their ecosystems in part because gaming is a core and profitable business for both of them.
The Xbox division was a speculative investment for MS and never important for the central division/shareholders. That was beneficial for the Xbox division for a while but that wasn’t going to last forever. MS is willing to extravagantly invest in hot trends but it did not become the biggest, richest company in the world for several years (I think Nvidia passed them recently) by letting divisions bleed infinite money indefinitely.
Re: Arc Raiders Wants You to Play into the PS6 Generation and Beyond
I have been hearing nothing but good about Arc Raiders for months so while PvP (I know there is an E in there too) isn’t my thing anymore I think it will launch strong.
Re: Random: Fans Can't Believe Halo Is Coming to PS5 Before Killzone
This weird trend of the people on the internet going for likes and ‘cool’ cred by embracing long dead franchises they probably never touched in the first place never ceases to amuse.
I bought and played all the Killzones bar Mercenaries (which I didn’t see anything in) at launch and the only two I thought were great were 2 (which was partially overshadowed by Sony’s infamous fake gameplay trailer) and Liberation (which almost nobody played).
Helghast designs are great (I often use KZ armor in Helldivers 2) but the franchise doesn’t need to come back. If the most interesting thing that can be said about a franchise is it once was intended to kill another franchise there is clearly nothing to be said.
Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? - Issue 604
I am continuing to love Ghost of Yotei. I’ve got over seventy hours in but I trying to tackle everything I can find so half the Yotei Six are still alive though a lot of other, lesser evils have been addressed. The Onryo effect (which terrifies enemies for a few seconds and maybe calls the wolf to you) is a thing of beauty in heated close combat though I am also fine with surreptitiously cutting throats or killing enemies from afar with a bow or a rifle.
Today is Liberty Day in Helldivers. One can visit Earth and watch fireworks from orbit, but you can only read about the parades and public dissident executions. The traditional free gear seems to be tied to a damn near impossible major order though I don’t think for a second we will leave Liberty Day empty handed.
The current major order sets a sadistic one day, 40 million kill target for the constitution (an antique bolt action rifle with a bayonet). Most are ignoring it and using modern weapons but some of us are picking up the gauntlet so it’s not outside the realm of possibility we will defy Arrowhead’s expectations and win the major order.
Re: Halo PS5 Is Great, But Why Doesn't It Have Competitive Multiplayer?
I played the original Halo many times in local and online co-op but never attended a LAN party and I strongly doubt more than a single digit percentage of Halo 1 owners ever did.
It’s true Halo like almost every other ongoing fps eventually came to be utterly dominated by online competitive MP (Halo 4 and Infinite couldn’t even be bothered to include split screen co-op) but Halo 1’s big draw was its excellent co-op enabled campaign.
That being said I suspect another reason for the omission is MS has some sort of online only Halo they are planning, but that’s fine by me since I liked Halo when it was focused on campaigns rather than competitive multiplayer. Very few games successfully do both because online communities are very passionate things that devour everything you put before them and ask why it isn’t better, why there isn’t more and why it isn’t coming faster 😋.
Re: Halo Confirmed for PS5, Remake of First Game Out in 2026
Looks good to me. I played Halo’s campaign in co-op (online and couch) many, many times. Great stuff. Not sure I’ll pick it up the remaster at launch but I’ll pick it up eventually.
Re: PS5 Pro Is Definitely Not the Best Place to Play The Outer Worlds 2 at Launch
I’m not surprised by the low quality of the PS Pro port given the PS5 port itself was a late in the game decision.
As I said recently in the context of the announcement that the PS5 port of the upcoming Forza Horizon would be be late, I think it’s reasonable for developers to initially focus on optimizing for a platform or two rather than port everywhere all at once. Polish/playtesting is very time consuming.
Re: Sony Game Helldivers 2 Is Proving a Monstrous Success on Xbox
The big patch has finally hit. Not sure how well it fixes the issues PC gamers are having but it buffs a lot of light penetration guns (think rifles and SMGs) and melee weapons and brought back the slightly nerfed but still very nasty burrowing enemies.
Re: Xbox Boss Believes Sony's Strategy of Console Exclusives Is 'Antiquated'
I’ve long believed gamers in real life don’t care about exclusivity. A game people view as unappealing won’t become more appealing just because it’s exclusive. 99.9999% of multiplatform games don’t come anywhere near the success of Minecraft, CoD or Roblox.
I’m not opposed to exclusive games by any means. From a tech perspective they often benefit from focus on a platform (or two). As I pointed out in a Forza ‘late PS5 port’ thread spinning a lot of plates can be tough for developers so it’s perfectly reasonable for developers to prioritize rather than port everywhere at the same time.
Along those lines show me a multi format game and I’ll often be able to to show you a subset of its fans (often PC gamers because that landscape is so incredibly varied) lamenting that their system of choice drew the short straw. Still, barring extreme problems most gamers don’t worry too much about tech issues and just play the games they want to play on the system they own.
Re: Sony Game Helldivers 2 Is Proving a Monstrous Success on Xbox
Not surprised H2 is a hit on Xbox. I have almost 1300 hours in and H2 is just great, chaotic, arcadey fun that is easy to play with randoms (the communication wheel allows one to quickly say the important stuff though of course text and voice are options too).
Playing on PS5 Pro the only problem I run into is the odd crash (3 crashes in 20something rounds in the past week). It was a lot worse a month ago but improved without a patch so I assume there was a server issue that got sorted out. Still PC gamers are having a lot of issues so I hope the patch releases sooner rather than later. The more divers the merrier.
Re: PS Portal Still a Huge Success as Sony Reportedly Preps PS6 Handheld
I mostly play on my tv, but I use my Portal as a second screen device in the evenings (mostly for strategy games).
Re: Former God of War Dev Says Major Studios Should Make Smaller Games to Complement the Big Ones
In regards to AA and smaller games the PS5 and every other modern platform has an embarrassment of riches (nods towards games like Clair Obscur, Absolum, Peak, Sea of Stars, Balatro, Silksong, The Last Spell, The Alters, Hades, Stray, Cult of the Lamb, Promise Mascot Agency and Shinobi Art of Vengeance) due to cheap development costs, the low cost of distribution and of course commercial success in the space.
If someone legit only enjoys smaller games that’s cool but I don’t see why one would ignore all the quality smaller games that are out there and get stuck on the fact that the ‘right’ publishers or developers aren’t making them.
Re: The Silent Hill 2 Remake Now Represents a Quarter of the Series' Total Sales
Nice. I’m kinda surprised SH’s cumulative sales are so low. Konami is happy with the recent numbers so clearly they are budgeting for the market Silent Hill has rather than burning a big pile of cash to try to mainstream the series. I enjoyed the first four games and the last two.
I knew SH4 was widely disliked but I didn’t know its sales were that bad. I personally enjoyed it and remember the creators were very enthusiastic about it because it was a big deviation from the formula but clearly most SH fans didn’t share their thirst for change, or at least the specific changes The Room made.
Re: Ghost of Yotei Is Sony's Biggest PS5 Launch Since Spider-Man 2 in Europe
I’m 43 hours in and the popularity doesn’t surprise me. Ghost is a fast moving, beautiful game whose world is a joy to explore due to its beauty and its design and whose brutal combat system boasts a lot of depth (playing on hard I’ve had many opportunities to see fights play out differently depending on how one tries to tackle them 😅).
Given all the commercially successful single player games we’ve seen recently (including but not limited to Silent Hill F, Silksong and Cronos:The New Dawn) it’s not a surprise Ghost of Yotei (which improves across the board on its very popular predecessor) has joined their ranks.
Last of all, as I tend to note in sales threads fans people who genuinely enjoy something and want to see more of it should focus on absolute rather than relative performance.
Re: Assassin's Creed Boss Leaves Ubisoft Just Weeks After Tencent's Development Reshuffle
Given the new Ubisoft-Tencent partnership now helming what used to be their biggest IPs (including AC) I think the longtime lead’s departure and more interference by investors mean things will likely get worse.
Re: PS6 Manufacturing Scheduled to Get Underway in Early 2027
Interesting rumor. I’m going to start setting aside a dollar a day. Hopefully that will cover the PS6 and a full priced game or two.
Re: Fans Bring PS3 Favourite ModNation Racers Back from the Dead
I enjoyed Modnation Racers’ campaign but didn’t get much out of the UGC (which I played with my kids a bit though they preferred LBP2’s UGC). Maybe if I was playing the best tracks competitively with randoms I would feel differently about it.
Re: The Metaphor: ReFantazio Anniversary Event Was Just Atlus Trying to Sell a New Digital Edition
I was fine with Metaphor before the big non-event and I am fine with it afterwards.
Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? - Issue 602
I played a a lot of Ghost of Yotei and a little bit of Helldivers 2. Yotei’s combat is glorious, gory fun.
Re: Genshin Impact Wants to Be the Only Game You Ever Play on PS5
Given that Roblox is bigger than Steam I’m not surprised someone is coming for its UGC crown. I didn’t care for base Genshin and while I spent hundreds of hours playing UGC in LBP and later Dreams (damn near perfect IMHO but in hindsight it’s decision to not charge anyone for anything past the point of purchase while noble, was a fatal mistake) so I am sure some talented creators will surface in Genshin.
Re: Aug 2025 USA Sales: Massive Month for Single Player Games, PS5 Can't Catch Switch 2
@Leinad7 The internet abounds with people unhappy with the PS5 and the Switch 2. That is reasonable because tastes vary. Objectively the PS5’s user engagement and game sales are high.
There are big spending gamers who own every platform under the sun and only care about games if they are exclusive to a platform but the vast majority of gamers own one dedicated gaming system, buy roughly ten games a generation and view consoles as game delivery devices. For such gamers the appeal of the likes of Clair Obscur, Unicorn Overlord, Silent Hill, CoD, Helldivers 2, Cult of the Lamb, Black Myth Wukong, Forza Horizon 5, Stellar Blade, Elden Ring, Baldur’s Gate 3, Balatro, Genshin Impact, To a T and Metaphor Refantazio and suchlike has everything to do with the games themselves rather than where else they can or can’t be enjoyed.
All that aside I completely agree with your statement most people won’t but the PS6 early in when it launches in a few years’ time. That has always been the case with dedicated hardware. The majority of sales take place over years, not in the initial months. Price cuts (not a thing this generation sadly) and expanding libraries increase sales over time.
Re: Konami Is on a Roll! Wins Back-to-Back Players' Choice Awards on PS Blog
I only played through the new SH one time so far (too many games and too much work) but based on my playthrough Silent Hill F is dark, twisted stuff.
Re: PS6 Out 'in a Few Years' as Sony, AMD Discuss the Future of Games
The video mostly went over my head but it sounds like the PS6 is still a few years off, which works for me. Most games live well within the limits of current gen hardware and those pushing the edge don’t seem to be hobbled by it.
Re: Aug 2025 USA Sales: Massive Month for Single Player Games, PS5 Can't Catch Switch 2
@Leinad7 The Switch 2 (like the PS5) is a linear sequel to its popular predecessor which early in its life has benefitted heavily from B/C (Switch sales tanked once rumors of the Switch 2 started swirling). Furthermore the Switch 2 has seen a historically strong launch in part because it launch with more systems available than any prior system (great for gamers and the game industry, bad for scalpers).
Which parts of that statement do you disagree with and on what basis?
As for the certainty of a future PS and the probability of another Xbox, I think there are too many unknown data points (release dates, libraries, prices) to start predicting anything though that has never stopped the internet before.
https://gamerant.com/nintendo-switch-lifetime-sales-2025-slowing-down-forecast/
Re: Aug 2025 USA Sales: Massive Month for Single Player Games, PS5 Can't Catch Switch 2
The internet hating or loving something has little connection to the popularity of the thing in the real world.
Given the massive popularity of the Switch and the fact Nintendo positioned the Switch 2 as a linear follow up (B/C, no big design deviations) it would be shocking if the Switch 2 wasn’t a huge success.
PS5 sales seem to be holding up well given that its price has risen a bit (as opposed to the old console norm of falling sharply).
Re: Rumour: American Civil War Assassin's Creed Game Cancelled Due to Fear of Controversy
This rejected protagonist/setting doesn’t sound too far off from that of AC Liberation (which I loved because like Black Flag it revolves around battles at sea). I haven’t played an AC game in years because they cranked them out ridiculously fast on a wide variety of platforms for a hot minute (I tried to keep up for a while) and eventually it became clear there was no coherent plan (kinda like what happened with Star Wars).
I’ve got nothing against the AC games as games but I don’t know if I am ever going to get back into the series.
Re: People Don't Buy Anywhere Near As Many Games As You Think
Ten games per system was what the PS4 averaged and that was considered healthy back then. I get more games than ever are being released but the amount of free time (or money) people have isn’t increasing.
On a personal note I buy roughly a game per month but I get that’s very unusual.
https://www.pushsquare.com/news/2019/01/ps4_has_a_very_high_software_attach_rate_average_player_owns_around_ten_games
Re: 'As Long as You're Having Fun, We Don't Care': Ghost of Yotei Dev Comments on Open World Freedom
I’m over twenty hours in and having a great time. Combat is really dynamic (me playing on hard has given me the opportunity to fight some of the tougher battles a couple times) and just wandering around on foot or horseback is really fun.
Re: Metaphor: ReFantazio One-Year Anniversary Event Announced, 'Special Message' Teased
I’m hoping for additional content but as the article says a Switch port is more likely.
Re: Peter Molyneux Very Nearly Became a First-Party PlayStation Dev
I really loved Populous, Dungeon Keeper and Syndicate and at the time I would have been thrilled if he joined PlayStation studios.
But in hindsight Sony lucked out. I didn’t care much for Fable in part because it wasn’t the game he promised it would be and Molyneux’s tendency to overpromise and underdeliver has only gotten worse since then. He wasted a lot of MS’s money then once they got rid of him started swindling people on Kickstarter and via NFTs.
Re: PS6 May Go Uncontested as Rumours of Next-Gen Xbox Cancellation Force Microsoft to Comment
MS radically increased spending as its console marketshare dwindled post X360. Yes MS can afford to lose a lot more than the Xbox has lost but MS did not get to be one of the biggest, richest companies in the world by letting divisions eat losses indefinitely without having a path to profitability. Eventually upper management/shareholders were going to step in. That time seems to have come.
Re: Mini Review: Dreams of Another (PS5) - A Disjointed, Abstract Curio and Little More
An honest, thorough review. Nothing it says is out of line with what I’ve seen of the game (and a PSVR2 owning fan of the early Pixeljunks I’ve seen everything posted on the internet about it).
I’m still interested in Dreams of Another but I of course haven’t played it. For the curious below is the most gameplay footage I’ve seen and it is a trailer rather than just video of somebody playing.
https://youtu.be/gE5Wfc99voE
Re: Xbox Squandered Over $300 Million Putting Call of Duty in Game Pass
@MrStark I think if Vita as a portable rather than a console (though it presaged the hybrid Switch in many ways) but yes, it certainly was a commercial dud.
I agree MS had a lot of good effects on the industry (for my money, the top two are Xbox Live’s single digital ID and storefront and MS encouraging a lot of Western developers and/or indies to enter the console space) and I’ll go a step further and repeat what I said in another recent thread, that they make some really fun games.
However I’ll disagree about competition this generation. In my opinion competition is more intense than ever because game development is cheaper than ever and there are a lot of other ways people have to play games (the cellphone is the all in one device everybody has in their pocket).
The resultant flood of games is great for gamers but has been very tough for developers and publishers (more games are released in a week than the average gamer buys in a year and most get no coverage and people don’t buy what they are unaware of). Furthermore games people enjoy tend to take big chunks of their time and be given months or even years of postlaunch support from developers (and on the PC side modders), which is great for gamers and the lucky game(s) not so great for those seeking attention. The two things the gaming internet loves most are celebrating popular successes (often a tautology) and dancing on the bones of high profile failures but many solid to great games die without anyone noticing. Cough Rant over 😋.
Re: Xbox Squandered Over $300 Million Putting Call of Duty in Game Pass
@MrStark Thanks for the clarification.
I don’t think every entrant being competitive is the key to a thriving console industry (clear losers in what was at the time a healthy industry include Intellivision, Jaguar, Wii U, Saturn, GameCube, Dreamcast, SMS and 3DO).
Losers doesn’t inspire in the same way winners do but they do teach lessons even if those who developed the commercially unsuccessful system decide not to continue developing hardware.
Re: Xbox Squandered Over $300 Million Putting Call of Duty in Game Pass
@MrStark So you don’t see the Switches, streaming services, mobile or PC as competitors for the PlayStation in the gaming space? Why not?
Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? - Issue 601
So far I’ve been playing a lot of Ghost of Yotei (on hard which means my character has died more times than I care to remember particularly in the duels) and a little bit of Frostpunk 2, GT7, Helldivers 2 and the VF5 open beta.
Re: Xbox Squandered Over $300 Million Putting Call of Duty in Game Pass
I’m sure the leadership/shareholders were okay with losing money in the short term when they believed it would win them dominance but once it became clear all the tens of billions burned hadn’t even stopped the sharp post X360 market share erosion they ended the gambit.
Re: Sports Games Rule PS Store in September, Sweeping Silksong and Borderlands 4 Aside on PS5
Sports games have been hugely popular since videogames began. In the 2600 days there were the likes of Pong, Realsports Volleyball, California Games, Ice Hockey and Boxing. A bit later in the NES/SMS era there Mike Tyson’s Punchout, Bases Loaded, Double Dribble, Ten Yard Fight, Track and Field. John Montana Football and Blades of Steel.
If one has no use for sports games that is fine but it’s silly to pretend that there hasn’t always been a ginormous appetite for them. It’s increased over time as games have developed the ability to put full teams and distinct players onscreen but it has always been there.
Last but not least as I pointed out in another recent top sales thread what should be important to people who choose to focus on sales is commercial success/profitability not success relative to everything else out there.
If you honestly enjoy a genre you should be happy when a developer in said genre announces the game has met or exceeded expectations and they will continue work in the genre, not be upset that some other game in some other genre outsold it.