Cjam36

The shift to 3d? That was like 30 years ago lol.

I’m not understanding the hype. Isn’t this just a mini PC? So just a Valve branded version of something that exists, is a pretty crowded space, and at least based on specs isn’t doing anything to stand out?

Hot take: None of this sounds all that egregious. Maybe/probably they’re pushing AI too hard but these seem like reasonable use cases (if used intelligently).

Coding? Yeah that’s definitely something I’d think AI could help with. Sounds like at least some teams aren’t using it intelligently and causing viable complaints, but the idea of using AI to aid coding makes sense to me.

Compiling reports? Seems like a textbook example of something AI is usually good at. Just check it and don’t assume everything is perfect

Asking for advice on getting a new job? Sure, why not? Seems completely harmless to me.

Training courses? No, not training to help employees improve their skills and learn new tools! (not to mention learn how to use AI properly and prevent some of these earlier complaints). Seriously, offering courses being viewed as a bad thing seems insane.

I think it’s kind of weird when people get caught up on “sad dad” PlayStation. By my count, there are a total of 3 games from 2 franchises that fit that description - TLOU (only 1), God of War and Ragnarok. You could definitely fit a fourth here if you count “sad mom” but it’s somewhat of a spoiler so I won’t specifically mention it but most people I assume know what I’m talking about. So they’ve used “sad mom/dad” 3 times for 4 games over 12 years now. Doesn’t seem like too big of a deal to me, especially when those 3 storylines are very different and really just have that one common thread.

It is funny though that they turned Kratos into Joel. But it’s just something amusing to poke fun at.

What kind of “insider” analysis is this?

There is an event coming. It’s probably a State of Play like always, but it might not be. It’s probably end of September like they’ve been doing, but it might not be. It might feature these games, but it might not.

Wow thanks for your valuable insight Jeff. Way to go out on a limb with some bold reporting. I never listen to this guy outside of when he shows up in articles like this, but it really seems like he just likes to hear himself talk. What an “I want to say stuff but I don’t want to be called out if I’m wrong” analysis.

I knew Helldivers 2 did great, but 3rd place on the year?! If someone at this time last year predicted that Helldivers would outsell the annual sports juggernauts (Madden, EA FC and NBA 2K) they would've sounded ridiculous. What an accomplishment by Arrowhead!

Empty threats. The bad behavior they're talking about is best left simply ignored (don't give them any attention, it's all they want) or it crosses a line that could be punished under laws that already exist.

@Bionic-Spencer I've generally felt this way most months this past year or so, but there's nothing on this list that was on my radar. It's so subjective, but this month the games added are a net positive over the ones leaving to me.

I've been banging that drum that Plus has been slipping (after a really strong period, to be fair), but this month they get a pass from me.

I'm not going to watch, but I do actually enjoy the awards aspect. I think it's a fun way to look back and celebrate the year that was.

@get2sammyb Not just the biggest flop in gaming history, but as far as I can tell it's the biggest flop in all of entertainment.

Now the only question is what were the expectations from Sony. It doesn't usually feel like a huge deal if a game does decent vs good vs great, but this one really feels like a referendum on sub-AAA/lighter games and could have a substantial impact on what gets greenlit moving forward.

I have no idea what would warrant a success in Sony's eyes for this, so should be interesting to hear!

Just finished playing Jedi Survivor and loved it. Maybe some recency bias, but it's one of my favorite games this generation. Feel like it's pretty underated, which is probably mostly due to the performance issues at launch. But general pessimism around Star Wars may also play a role.

That could also be factoring in here to push the scores down a bit more.

I thought the new movie was awful, didn't do anything well except for that cat. So I'm pretty done with this franchise. It was a cool gimmick at first but I've had enough.

Do we have any idea if this is the rumored HZD remake? It is a remake of the first game, but obviously very different from what we thought when the rumors popped up.

So is this the rumored HZD remake? Or is that something else?

I'm convinced his strategy going into interviews is basically "just say whatever makes you sound like a good, pro-gamer guy and we'll figure out how to contort whatever I say to make sense later."

So if it's "simple as that", I guess the directors of the other (at least timed) exclusives said "nah screw the Playsation gamers, let's keep our game exclusive."

"...more information on the future of the series will be unveiled at a later date."

Well good to know the plan isn't to let the series fade into oblivion.

I don't really think a studio providing help to another studio while their next project is being figured out is a bad thing. This sounds entirely normal and healthy.

It's an optimistic pie in the sky type prediction, but I think there's a chance this gets shadow dropped during the showcase. There was an early year sizzle reel trailer from Playstation that seemed to show games off in release order which seemingly placed Concord around this time. Don't remember the exact details and it could've been at the end with just TBA 2024 games or been delayed since, but there's some reason to believe it could happen.

This is a strong candidate to shadow drop/get an "available now" announcement during the showcase. I believe there was some sizzle reel type trailer from the start of the year that seemed to show the games off in release order that would've placed Concord around June. It's all lining up.

If you're really worried about data and privacy, it's extremely easy to just make up information when you make the account. I'm pretty sure they just ask for some very basic info, it's not like they require you to put in your SSN or credit card info. Who cares if they have have a fake birthday for a fake name in a random state?

This doesn't seem like a big deal to me. The Season Pass is really just bundling future DLC; typically at a discounted rate to incentive purchasing it up front, but it's unclear if that's true here. If you're confident you want all the DLC, it makes a lot of sense to buy it. I happily bought the Season Pass for Spider-Man for this reason.

Then there's the bonus mission, which I get being annoyed about but don't really agree it's a problem either. In all likelihood, it's a small bit of filler content you won't miss at all if you don't have it. I guess I just don't have a problem with Day One DLC, as long as the main game still feels complete without it. If that content feels essential though, different story.

Seems like he's going to be the "bad guy" who's going to run a tight operation, make some tough calls and get the ship back in order (financially at least). Once the financials are straightened out, the path will be clear for a "nice guy" to come in and lead the way with a clean state. Heard this theory a while back and think it makes a lot of sense.

@Keyblade-Dan
Pretty much my thoughts. They may be right, but it just rubs me the wrong way when someone else does something that annoys gamers and CDPR has to come out with a big "we would never..." statement. They did this pretty frequently before Cyberpunk and it annoyed me then, now after their own disaster it feels extra wrong.

I got absolutely nothing out of that. Nobody can say so much with so little substance like Phil Spencer.

There's clearly an internal struggle at Microsoft about what to do about exclusivity. Going to be fun to watch!

He's of course being deliberately dumb, but just to point it out for anyone that actually thinks he believes this: The point is to get people to buy your console so you can get the 30% rip on all the other software. Helldivers 2 could make more money if it were on Xbox/Switch, but it's offset by getting/keeping people in your ecosystem and taking 30% of all the other games they'll buy. So who does it help? Sony, by using it to entice people into the ecosystem.

Not the least surprised they said nothing. Glad I didn't watch. If you read between the lines though (as you tend to have to do with Xbox), this is just the start where some (most? all?) software eventually goes multiplat.

I kind of hate articles like this. Kotick certainly sounds like he had problems and a lot of criticism is fair, but some of this strikes me as sour grapes and wanting to pile on and join the mob.

Kotick made COD worse? Seems like he did something right, as he oversaw its rise and hold at the top of the industry for almost 20 years. Not to say he never made a bad choice, but I think COD has overall been managed quite well.

Kotick didn't do enough to help the Overwatch 2 team prepare for review bombing? Bad games get panned, no changing that. Make a better game to prevent the bombing in the first place (which also falls on him, just saying this is weird criticsm).

The man did some ***** things, but let's be fair with the criticism. He had an insanely successful run leading Activsion. That wasn't all luck and he deserves credit for the incredible success the company had during his tenure.

I'm sure this has been asked before, but why doesn't Circana release numbers (either units or dollars)? If they have rankings, surely they must have have the numerical data to back it up. Are they not allowed? It would be so much more interesting to see the numbers. Of course Call of Duty was 1st, that's not surprising or interesting at all. But how did its performance compare with past iterations?

That's just one example that had me thinking about it, but these updates would be substantially more interesting with the data backing up the ranks.

That's an impressive tear Sony is on, but jeez do they look like they could be ripe to get knocked down. As great as Spiderman 2 is, 2023 as a whole has been light for first party. Now with Wolverine seemingly set for 2025, next year looks completely empty of first party single player games unless they announce and release something in the next 12 months. As far as I can tell, that's never even happened even within 18 months outside of new console launches. That would be a rough two year stretch.

Sony has certainly earned the benefit of the doubt when it comes to first party output and Microsoft pretty much the opposite of that, but they could really make Sony look bad if their 2024 slate hits and there's no big surprise from Sony. And yes, this is like the 10th year in a row you could say something like that, so they'll probably just keep getting crushed.

Hilarious that they're trying to present this as "see how nice we are?" It's literally the least they can do after promising this in court to get the deal done.

Sounds awesome, loved the first one and pumped for more! The biggest surprise for me reading through is that MJ is back! I think I might be the only person who liked her missions; I thought they were fun little spots to breakup the core gameplay loop.

Sounds like some execs are looking for new growth drivers as Disney+ is looking like it wont achieve nearly the profits initially expected. While I'm not sure how much they actually make off licensing their properties, I would think that's the preferable option. Low or no risk involved, can spread the popularity of their IP and still focus on their core strengths. I wouldn't hate the idea of buying/founding some smaller teams and doing both, but that doesn't sound like the approach they're taking.

That quote from Capcom doesn't mean anything. He's not going to say "Glad to hear Microsoft is interested in acquiring us, looking forward to further discussions" Nobody is interested in being bought until they are.

If you look at the actual leaked email chain, the funniest thing is probably that the email chain is actually called "Games". I just find that hilarious.

I'm hoping for a new Little Big Planet next. There's a varitey of opinions on why the game never caught on, but in my eyes the biggest issue is the game didn't have even a fraction of the charm of LBP.

Mostly want to add to the Onward love. I thought it was a great, A-tier Pixar movie (Luca too from the Covid era). Would recommend it to anyone who generally likes Disney.

As for the movie, weird casting but they're the most bankable stars in Hollywood right now so it'd almost certainly be a hit.

I got to see an early screening through AMC and thought it was excellent. Agree with the reviewer it gets better as it goes. Considering this is based on a true story, there was definitely some moments early that seem exaggerated if not entirely made up and had me feeling pretty meh on the movie. But it really picked up and in the end was fantastic and far exceeded my expectations. Highly recommend it!

So if Playstation spending reached its highest June total in 15 years, that means June 2008 was higher (as well as all other years between). Interestingly, this was still firmly in the struggling PS3 era. Seems pretty shocking that's the best June they've had.

I don't think the Microsoft buying spree is great, but I'm more concerned with what's going on with Playstation internally. Their first party development has an incredible track record so they deserve the benefit of the doubt, but their seeming ambitions to become Ubisoft is concerning (and I say that as someone who actually kind of likes Ubi). It's not hard to see the focus on GaaS going poorly over the next 3-4yrs, and that's at least as great of a threat as what Microsoft is doing.

Nobody is interested in being bought and everyone values their freedom until someone offers to pay a premium price. I don't blame Sega, but it's one of those "what else are they going to say" type of quotes.

It was definitely cool to hate on the game, but probably was well deserved. As I recall in their leadup to launch, when other games would have issues and get caught in the games media's crosshairs, CDPR loved to come out and claim they would never do such a horrible thing. Especially if you're going to flex on other studios like that, best be ready for the backlash when you screw up.

This is the way. Economically sustainable by charging those who are most excited for a launch. Those who are less interested can wait for it to hit Plus and try it out there if they have some passing interest.

This guy makes a terrible argument. Comparing what "some" NFL players make "as much as" to what the average college player will get is silly. Basically comparing Patrick Mahomes to the backup safety at Boise State.

Seems like greed from the player's association to shake out every last dime. This despite that I'd guess 98% of players would just be happy they got to be featured in the game and would be thrilled with $500.