Cashews

@TheCollector316 I was an econ major as well - when I was in school a common item used for inelasticity was cigarettes. I always wonder if that still would apply today...

@Beerheadgamer82 I think if Nintendo just released a traditional docked console it wouldn't be nearly as popular as the Switch. I think for Nintendo to be that successful they need a hook - which they are usually the best at.

Maybe they have picked up quite a few fans over these past few years. But I don't think anyone cares about ray-traced, 60 fps, 4k Mario Wonder.

Personally I wish they'd team with Meta and go hard after VR. It would be crazy risky but that's what they do. I think they'd be the only ones who could pull it off in a real way. Make Mario fully VR somehow - revolutionize the hardware and genre like they did with Mario 64/thumbstick.

what do you think? what's the next step for any of these makers?

@Shepherd_Tallon I wouldnt call it hyperbole - I wasn't trying to get an emotional response or trying to exaggerate. I just wrote it. I was only writing it as a generalization - no news here.

I've always found that video games as a form of entertainment is the only one where most popular always means best. It is where you get everything - horrible shovelware, quirky japanese games, retro games out the wazoo, the big hitters...everything. Being niche for hardware is not a good place to be.

Music, painting/sculpture, food, pretty much everything that isn't gaming being the most popular is very rarely good. Its a funny thing.

@Beerheadgamer82 it is okay. Not great. It was a huge missed opportunity. One would successfully argue the main reason FOR the Switch's success was the pandemic. People were buying Switches and gaming PCs like a people possessed. Until about 18 months ago.

Sony didn't have the inventory to meet demand. That could have been because they just couldn't ramp up production or it could have been because of artificially restricting supply to drive demand - as Sony likes to do during their hardware releases. Who knows in this case - production would have been impacted mightily leading up to the release.

Doesn't matter now - the past is written. sidebar: Sony released in 2020 not 2021.

Of course the Switch is current gen. The Wii U competed against the PS4/Xbone and they ramped up the release date of their current gen hardware - The Switch - because of the Wii U's failure.

PS4/Xbone/Wii U all release within a year of each other. The three now are the current gen. People here are so goofy with that ****.

@TheCollector316 it might be - The schedule is a trickle. You want everything on the machine - not just the big hitters.

@Shepherd_Tallon No of course not - I'm following logic and observation. The console with the most sales always gets the most games. The Switch right now has what? 30-50 releases a week? Some great, some meh some absolute trash shovelware - but Nintendo still gets their 30%. That is the sweet spot. Constant releases. Constant revenue.

@Beerheadgamer82 do you think shareholders care that the Sony didn't have supply during the pandemic? They don't. What they care about is trajectory of this console and it's market share against the more popular console: the Switch. More importantly - what Nintendo plans on doing in the next 18 months.

WGAS about the marketing story of 40M consoles? That is for gamers. Gamers and the business world are two very distinct entities. Sony has projected this out and they are either happy with it or not.

@hbkay

• they are moving units because of a new one coming out.
• Sony is not happy with the number of consoles sold
• Developers are not happy with the number of units sold; so they are not developing for the console

Take your pick it is one of, or a combination of, those three. At the end of the day - who cares how many beans Sony has.

@GADG3Tx87 why would anyone one question "spend Sony out of business"? I'm not sure if you guys get business but the entire point is to defeat the other companies so you are the last one standing.

Do you guys know why the Berlin Wall fell? Why the USSR doesn't exist today (kind of)? It is because the United States spent the USSR out of business in the arms race and the Afgan war.

It is a technique. What you cannot have you take away from the competitor. The court's question was how does it harm the end user. It is not the job of the courts to discover how it hurts the other company, as long as they are not practicing illegal anti-competitive measures(focus on the word illegal here folks) , - as the ever-inept FTC found out the hard way - embarrassing itself once again.

@theMEGAniggle yeah that's why I really don't get these increasingly common sales on the hardware. They just raised the price but now they are discounting it on a fairly regular basis.

I think it will lead up to a busy fall with lots of news from all the makers.

@McBurn correct. See if you can spot the lie in the intro to this article:
"It’s been mercifully quiet on the Microsoft front these past two weeks, and may we underline how beautifully blissful it’s been!"

(hint: it's all the words)

Imagine if all push had to talk about all summer was Spidey 2! lol

@theMEGAniggle well hopefully they feel stupid. They should feel stupid. Paying more for something that has no collectible value is not only stupid - it is validating the scalpers.

No I was talking about the price increase late last year wasn't it?

@Corc11 the last game I consider a bonafide, universally acclaimed game was NIER- and that was because of Platinum.

@PsBoxSwitchOwner I don't disagree. After the PS disaster showcase MS finally picked up some positive momentum. Then they decided the best course would be the crap all over their customers for the next three months.

Sometimes I really wonder if MS is playing a joke on their customers and themselves. They don't seem to want to win.

@Sekijo I'll rephrase then - I care, very much on every level imaginable, that Square Enix is such a bad company today than what they were 10 years ago. Everything they touch turns to mud - and they are only good for remaking their classics. They exist on the shoulders of creativity long past. Every console, every mobile device - multiple iterations. The only thing SE is good for besides those remakes - is making really bad variations of games like Splatoon and Stardew Valley - that fail in execution and in sales.

That said, bring on more NFT chatter and Final Fantasy Six.

@get2sammyb maybe. But to me, just me, it seems like a bad strategy when you are just beginning to pick up some momentum.

How does that make the average customer feel? The customer that bought a new PS5 in 2023 after 2 years of not being able to get a retail priced unit? Then they release a "all new all better PS5 2.0!

It disenfranchises the average customer. It ruins goodwill.

The people on this site are not in any way the average customer. They are a tiny fraction of overall market and it's sentiment.

@theMEGAniggle you'd think but they just raised the price. Seems odd. I guess the price point people were comfortable with was the old price. Christmas season will be an interesting one for the big three.

@CallMeDuraSouka that seems like the logical path. The console sales are never going to approach Switch sales - the software sales are in the toilet. They need to move more software units so they need to give away the razor to sell the blades so to speak.

So from the China showcase Sony walks away with no actual dates. The whole thing reads like an investment scam.

No question that they are doing fire sales on the PS5. For what reason remains a mystery.

@itsfoz They have to know people simply wait on Ubi games to hit a lower price on "sale". At some point they have to dig in and keep their games at the retail price for longer than a few months.

That is what they are doing here. They have to re-establish brand and pricing.

gl they used to be really good.

@NinjaNicky Unless you want to be competitive now. I can pay $7 for this game 3 years from now and pretend I have someone to play against. His name is Harold and we are best friends.

A demo for an almost decade old game getting it's own article and 27 (28) comments is impressive.

I've yet to hear about, see or read about a Chinese game worth playing - so it is on them to impress. I expect nothing except Devil May Cry without any personality or gameplay. But I am open.

As long as the focus is on quality and fun - this sounds like good idea at the lower price point.

But really instead of game length and comparing it to other games Ubisoft needs to really focus on making a good game people will enjoy. The company seems to be running on bad algorithms lately.

@Loamy I'll take any MH announcement on any platform that isn't mobile. I could not care any less if this mobile fails.

@Soulless666 skip to around minute 36.

I like the cel-shaded look. The game looks pretty fun to me.

@lacerz It should be a good move for the game's overall health. I hope it's cross platform - cross-platform is the best.

I doubt I'll play it though. MMOs are too much a time sink and life-killers.

@dskatter i got it now. I mis-understood the whole deal at first. Seems like a good deal from all perspectives. Cheers.

@Jamesblob Maybe no one else is responding because they are on the floor laughing, gasping for air on that gold.

@Porco someone mentioned on purexbox the possibility SE is using this newsbit as leverage for a sony buyout.

It is a valid idea.

@WizzNL i can agree with that. this one might be an exception though. The timing is strange to me. Then again, FF11 did come out on the 360 a long time after it's initial release. We shall see I guess.

@Jamesblob are worms in the dirt lower or higher than plain dirt?

@number1024 okay. I played FF11 the day it came out on the PS2 and many MMOs before that one. I get it just fine I promise.

14 is very old at this point. I'm sure the base has dwindled over the years and they need some fresh blood. How do they do it? Take some MS money > put it on gamepass > sell a bunch of other junk

I can see it. We'll know for sure soon enough. cheers.

@get2sammyb 14 is old as dirt. A free tial is nothing. Less than nothing in the Fortnite F2P era. MMOs always do free trials and you get free lootboxes and here is a pink ninja fox costume if you log in stuff. It barely registers with most people any longer.

Square is going to have to go bold if they want to right this ship imo. we shall see.

@Dragonsbane I don't know. It's a very old game. They have to find a way getting it into people's hands.

If they aren't under Sony contract to do otherwise I expect an announcement that 16 is going to the X in the next month or so. Before the next quarterly stock meeting - which should be a glorious disaster.

I wonder if they are going to sell this full package for the Xbox. And I wonder if it will be a gamepass title? A gamepass mid-tier MMO would be interesting.

Tidus is the only one I can think of that had a decent plot twist. As far as I am concerned, FFX was the last decent writing Final Fantasy ever had.

It is funny that blogs still call these leaks.

@Impossibilium games have been doing this for a decade minimum. They are giving trinkets, which cost them nothing, to people for signing up.

You may have heard of this technique: it is called marketing. Marketing is where you try to sell your "product" (that's the thing you want people to buy) on the "market" (a market is a place where you buy things. Some people buy things on telephones now!!!!)

@Loamy totally separate from that.

@Sil_Am sales will not remain the same over the course of a console's lifetime. That has never happened and never will happen. They will always slow down as it ages out. The PS5 is halfway done. I can see it around 70 maybe. Which is pretty good for this thing.

Do the xbox or playstation have one game that isn't some grimdark demonfest? This art style is becoming very tired, very quickly.

"Thank you so much to our community of gamers — without you this would have been an impossible task."

Correct. It is mathematically impossible to sell 40 million console units without people buying those units.

It is Monster Hunter so I am going to give it a go. I really don't like to tax my phone with heavy games/location trackers like this but I am willing to give Capcom a shot. If it drains my battery quickly I will delete it post haste!

@ear_wig Venom was created before McFarlane. The black spidey suit was the first Venom (kind of) - the symbiote suit - before Todd's time. Todd made the big hulking evil spidey like Venom. He didn't write it though. But he drew the vision. Issue 300 - super famous comic book with an iconic McFarlane cover. McFarlane work on spiderman was legendary - the webbing used to be so detailed and the positions he could draw him in looked full of action. It was his best work imho.

Although I never paid much attention to him after he stopped drawing for Spawn in the 90s. I didn't find him to be much of a detailed writer. Great artist though.

Decent, fun marketing.

I'd like to know which Venoms he didn't approve of more.

Obviously the Spidey 3 movie but what else.

I will be watching for sure.

@Beerheadgamer82 could be could be...

I will say this about movie reviews right now. You'll notice they never really go into a movie any more. The movie is in real danger of destroying itself now. The reviewers have clearly been circling the wagons and not really bashing anything lately, They are nervous it might all go away - with good reason.

The whole "barbenheimer" thing was so obviously contrived - but people were happy to run with it because they need SOMEthing at the moment. Barbs might have saved the whole damn industry honestly.