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@OldGamer999

I think I disagree on the current released AAA-games' quality at least until I've understood your metric a little better.

For me, it is a tale of two cities. It is the best of times, and the worst of times. Games have reached a cinematic level of excellence and fidelity, and the medium has allowed much diversity in terms of artistic storytelling and innovative game design. But game development has, to some extent, stagnated in terms of the game designs of this medium has largely been recycled (and improved upon) without, somewhat reductively perhaps, the same speed of evolution as the hardware which coincidentally also has entered a phase of diminishing returns in terms of improvement in fidelity and detail. In essence, games are continuously getting 'better' but, and there is a but!

Many developer studios has degraded or expired in such a degree that I attribute it to an external malice consisting of Greed and Theft (anthropomorphized names for corporations and AI creation tools and the algorithms that expunge their output.)

I am by the by really enjoying my time as a Banisher: The ghosts of New Eden, which may or may not explain my occultist approach to video game commentary.

Greedy, evil corporations seek to rid themselves of the job market that vested upon them the great riches of gaming culture, and we're standing by where we should regulate to protect our creators and artists.

Instead of acting in time, the representatives are filling their pockets, whilst people are eating up absolute drivel in the form of gaichas, live service shooters and otherwise predatory sausage factory, now AI-assisted, repeats of last year's menu.

All the while time honoured developers are disappearing before our very eyes. In their stead, daddy's little boy will inherit 'their' IP (unfairly gobbled up by mega corps) and have scores of AI agents working for their one-man companies, regurgitating old ideas in a veritable physical and mental wasteland that shrinks until they publish only to themselves.

No, it's a daft idea that will be punked by PlayStation. It is known.

LEASING hardware is the dumbest thing you could do. Please don't!

BUY a console for say 399 your currency - it will RETAIN value more or less (MORE if you adopted early).

I bought a digital edition PS5 at launch and sold it after 4 years for virtually the same whilst picking up a demo-model of a PS5 Pro for the same price (almost).

When I sell the PS5 Pro I will probably get more than what a PS6 costs. That's a big maybe, but my expenses are brought down greatly.

I have yet to play "most" of the second half + DLCs.

I planned to prolong my first time playing into the dlc and GOTY season, so that I can nerd rage when justice isn't done😊

Right now, The Vanisher's: Ghosts of New Eden is rocking my household. Amazing game!

Please try this game especially on PS5 Pro. Seriously good 😊

I just played the opening via PS Plus on a PS5 Pro with a gorgeous LCD TV.

This is an amazing game that looks absolutely stunning. Combat is fun. The story is gripping and the choices are so hard. I made it to the Mire Swamps in a playthrough on the portal but this game deserves the best setup to be perfectly honest.

I bought the only DLC today because I got it for such a bargain via the service.

BIGGEST game recommendation I can make is that it is AA feeling like AAA - 9/10 for me with no technical issues at this stage in the support of the game.

I am very happy for the selection of titles apart from GTA which everyone owns.

The headliner for me is 'Thank Goodness You're Here!'

The others sound great too!

One should think they could sell even more of their big titles with this number of potential customers.

Marvel: Tokon
GT7 dlc
Astro Bot dlc
Pragmata
RE various news

A buttload of third party gachas/anime paying for a spot in the sunshine.

I use it a lot - it comes in clutch when you visit family.

It even has me slightly wondering if I should sell the PS5 Pro, and just stack up on 1 year subs to premium once it is either black friday or Days of Play.

Sony isn't too worried about this as most people don't know that it makes the console superfluous.

@GirlVersusGame

I just finished it - good voice work, and an okay, entertaining story with room for laughs, but I am not a trophy hunter. I ended up with about half the board crossed off, so I am quite happy to leave it there. The game respected my time and that is perfect for PS Plus.

I've been testing out the new features of my Portal. I have tried more games than I'd care to mention.

Killer Frequency - cozy little game that I intend to finish.

The Last of Us 2: Remastered - In my playthrough, the whole game lasts 30 minutes. It is open ended: Joel and Ellie are living their best lives and Abby's ugly face is smashed in by the first and last Zombie in the game. 10/10.

EA: WRC The Rally game. I like the music and that there are 'moments' from real life to emulate. But I spend more time rolling the car around than staying on track. It is more difficult than GT7 which is hard enough.

@Neither_scene

It will run so many frames your eye lids will melt right off your face.

Edit: I had a less dumb response about FOMO (if below 60), but if I am dumb enough to boycut out of disappointment over their treatment of real people, I guess you are dumb enough to wait 3 years for 10 frames.

@LazyDaisy

No, Nintendo is going to be affected by the juggernaut release, assuming the evil overlords can squeeze enough lifeblood out of their decimated workforce to get the game to market.

Understand people will flock to this Playstation exclusive and be less likely to spend time/money on other things.

I definitely have to get this game. Out of the X-MEN Wolverine was my all-time favorite growing up.

@LifeGirl

Trial by social media can stick it?

Is this stickable?
"Ubisoft had/has literal rapists in their offices and releases broken microtransaction filled slop every couple of months."?

I don't really buy Ubisoft games anymore*, but I've noticed how their corporate culture has been criticized heavily for a decade now.

*It seems in this dystopian corporate hellscape there are almost no studios left to trust.

@LifeGirl

No, a worried coworker who is afraid to even talk them says so in this case.

@lazarus11

"Last week, my colleagues who were in the studio were each individually messaged by HR for a short friendly meeting, under the friendly guise of "Hey, are you free for a quick chat?"

Upon attending this meeting they were handed an envelope with a short letter stating that their employment had been terminated for "gross misconduct" regarding posts made in Discord.

They failed to provide any evidence when asked, nor was any stated in the letter. And did not divulge any other information or reasoning - "and no other reason"

They refused their right to Union representation in the disciplinary meeting (which is against UK employment law) and were frogmarched out of the studio with the meeting lasting less than 5 minutes.

For colleagues who were not in the Studio that day, they received a phone call from HR that lasted less than 2 minutes telling them they were fired and that they'd receive the same letter as above. I am aware of one employee who had a panic attack at this moment, and HR hung up on them during this panic attack not caring at all about their wellbeing.

These colleagues of mine were hard workers who have spent many many years at R* in critical roles. With colleagues who have been at R* for more that 18 years and none of them have ever had a disciplinary in that time. They are not easily replaced and will certainly affect us in making our project deadlines.

These are very senior artists, animators, QA testers, designers, programmers and producers. Including Leads. All super talented people who were proud of their work over multiple R* titles, and all they wanted was the best for R* and their fellow colleagues.

Some of these members were off sick, recovering from surgery or on paternity leave. Fired without pay, losing their careers and putting them into hardship in the lead up to Christmas, and even potentially losing their VISAs to work in the UK."

This is the worst thinkable addition right now.

I am super pissed at R* for their endless greed and sheer evil, and now Sony FOR THE THIRD TIME offers gtav? Worthless.

This is satire better than what gtavi will offer....

***** the company management and HR henchmen. They deserve to be relieved of their daily quota of oxygen.

@Oram77

He was like that even before the brain injury, so best just laugh at it like a bad joke.

This is because they fired 40 important employees unfairly.

They need to walk this back - I hope their arms are forced.

@IOI

I thought so too until I actually tried it. I prefer it. Sure, the argument is there to say your other devices are also capable of doing it with the remote play app which is excellent.

But, this thing is not going to lose its value, so I can just resell it. It is a riskless investment.

@Artois2

I don't know, Artois.

The French and American revolution seemed like good ideas at the time.

Bummer - I wanted to buy FF7: Rebirth and other Square games. Now, I have to cancel them too.

With M$ cancelled, EA, Square and probably others I am forgetting there aren't many games to actually buy left.

AI is ruining the industry and business men who hardly deserve to breathe are thriving. It is going to make me abandon the medium for good.

Someone should.... remove the bad guys. All of them. We, the people, should do it or they WILL do (and are doing it) to us.

Believe Union reps.

Business men are lying scumbags most of the time.

For the same price of a Switch 2 you can buy a Portal and 3 years of Premium with access to its libraries.

I know there isn't storage but instead the graphics are better.

Is there a black PS2 option?

My gutfeeling is that this is orchestrated to justify the removal of physical media.

I guess the math would look different if we account for the reselling and reuse of physical media - and if accounting for initiatives like cloud streaming the math would move even more to the scale of physical medias.

Lastly, if big business were interested they could have innovated the process of interactive media, but I think the callousness of capitalism is to blame for the glaring omission.

@SeaDaVie

Well, that settles it. I will never try this artificially generated game.

A man has standards!

Well, looking forward to "Vertical stand bought separately" I guess.

Well, I've been chiming in on the quality of the service, and said for me it has been great in terms of the games. A lot of titles I wanted to try.

I've only played Blue Prince and KCD: 2.

I'll vote for KCD: 2 but are looking forward to see who takes the crown this year.

I guess it is deserved the Persona 5: Royal Edition keeps on selling to the masses that haven't tried it yet.

It is a great game that would climb very high on my all-time favorite games. And you don't have to adjust for nostalgia - this one has solid turn based combat and an engrossing narrative full of hard choices. I think many of the 13 million gamers are still on a (second or third) playthrough.

X-COM 2 I am finishing up another run where I tried to be live with deaths, but ended up using space magic to ensure everyone's survival and now the team is overpowered. Also, I sadly played even more of Slay The Spire too. The games that absolutely CANNOT disturb me as I try to clear my backlog 😂

Divinity 2: OS So glad to have started this. A very fun and very deep RPG. The story, playing as a good The Red Prince is good. I still need to finish (and replay) BG3. My problem is that I alternate games a lot these days. Trying to clear both my backlog and the PS Plus library as a father is not feasible.

I actually alternated into Yakuza: Like A Dragon (a lot in here are playing it too right now!) which is just a fun crime story for me. The gameplay so far is weak, but I want to see what the game does as I have only played like 1/3 through a Judgment game, but is otherwise not exposed to this franchise. It feels like everything can happen and just now it pulled an Arthurian legend on me whilst being very self-referential about it being a rpg game.

@JohntheRaptor I honestly believe you. Sometimes you have to keep at it at first

Another person said it best earlier in the comments: PushSquare is also a competitor in the time made available for gaming at least for me right now.

But all sorts of activities are gaming competitors.

So, M$ is just talking, flooding the zone with tone deaf explanations. However, I looked at an LG G5 TV just to dream (I don't want to spend that much) and it advertised Xbox GamePass. You didn't need anything else, and right now Sony is not doing exactly that. M$ is banking on ubiquity and being the easiest choice anywhere.

Best of luck to them😊

There ought to be enough room in the world for all the gaming companies to find their footing.

This is another game I thought I would love, but I quickly gave up on it due to its primitive graphics and convoluted systems. There's so many games of genuine quality competing for my time out there.

One day, perhaps, I too will be a Banner Lord but it is not this day!

Nice to see a good rally racer. I will at least try it, I think. The rest is not for me really. Couldn't get into Stray.

@HonestHick

Wrong again!

Playstation has exclusives.

Let us with media and stream all our games, thank you!

Don't mind if I do?

Cool! I might try it out.

Geez, a lot of love for Stray in here...

I thought it was boring🫣

@Striker21

Your first paragraph is simply your opinion as you boil millions of users different to one definition that fits .... M$' reasoning for bowing out.

I have an Epic, PlayStation and Good Old Games library - how is this possible if "[n]o one wants to risk losing their library when switching to another platform or deal with the hassle of managing multiple libraries across different stores and services?"

It takes just one example to break down your entire argument.

Your second paragraph is another opinion disguised as 'fact' - that great games cannot move consoles. Wait and see when GTA 6 is only available on PS5. Wait and see - you'll realise that great software does move hardware and that Phil is merely excusing his way out of robbing people of their livelihoods in the name of greed.

M$ can just kick Steam off Windows and Steam will lose their entire business. Not that it wouldn't hurt or be subject to litigation, but Apple did something similar to Epic. Nothing is set in stone, and M$ is just too greedy these days to make great business decisions for the benefit of many.

@Striker21

Interesting perspectives, Striker!

I have one comment:

... tying us forever to a platform?

Dude, I built myself libraries all life that I lost access to whether they be digital or physical medias. Now a days, most people accept that they have several libraries across accounts and devices. It is strength of tomorrow that moves units and ties people to platforms. Right now, M$ seems unable to project a promising future.

Phil chose 1 of the many factors that go into the strength of Sony's brand when he said Xbox lost. He could have said commercials in Champions League or the quality of Sony's first and second party output or many other reasons.

It is a bad excuse to pull out and leave Xbox employees, studios and their employees, journalists and influencers winning their bread talking team green floundering, wondering who they are and what they should do.

Xbox mainly lost profit because they trained their audience into renting their libraries for pennies. They were bankrolling the gaming habits of Xbots for this entire generation. This new strategy of getting paid isn't that rough considering how generously they've served people stacking their subs via alternative means.

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

M$ will be a nice feather in Sony's hat. But will it benefit Sony having M$ as a vassal, or will the lack of competition actually mean less of an influx of new user, new hardware adopters and people who buy (Sony) games day one?

I think that PlayStation should wage war on Nintendo next. They're now the main competitors, and they offer children's games and worse console experiences. If Playstation can deliver a handheld then they can begin to poach (potential) Nintendo customers.

The console war has ended, long live the new console war!

I tried progressing in Baldur's Gate 3, but I have thousands of quests and no clear direction. The city hides its secrets well...

Instead I jumped into Divinity 2 and I am actively choosing my Portal as it is so cozy.

I might play Alan Wake 2 a little more, but I think I had enough of Silent Hill 2 after just two hours.

What else... I could push further into the Burning Shores of The Forbidden West. Such a gorgeous game.