Friendly

It’s fitting for Sony in this day and age, where they’ve abandoned the Vita, abandoned the PSVR2, really turned down their first party output for their main console (Playstation 5), to now also release a AAA game on PC and Mobile without simultaneously releasing it on PS5.

Hades 2. It’s THAT good

Not on my bingo card, but on my blacklist from now on, though.

Fifa just released, so….

@naruball this is a direct price increase

I know like 4-5 youngsters (nephews and neighbours) who needed to get a ps5 and just play minecraft or fortnite on the machine…

Well, Sony’s recording record breaking numbers, so we’re clearly paying for them somehow.

Which live service success stories does Sony have?

Concord please!

Can’t wait

@darylb24 it sure is. Remove any PS4 game, and it leaves only a handful of games in here. Most of them remasters of PS4 games.

Concord is even there on the list as filler material…

Sony really screwed up with their live service gamble and their removal of experimental studios.

@ATaco that’s the Peter Principle for you.

Ceo’s and managers usually suck.

@MFTWrecks yes, you’re right. Do you know the Peter Principle?

It says that everyone rises till their level of incompetence in a company. So all managers are incompetent (unless they have chosen to turn down promotions).

Maybe Sony should put the studios they have to good use first instead of all the live service crap they were forced to create in the past few years.

Well, we can expect an increase in controller prices to cover the costs again, just like last time

It’s nothing short of a delusional statement when Nintendo currently clearly has a larger market share, even with ‘gaming audiences’. Especially in their ‘home market’ even though that has long gone now.

It shows how Sony has changed in the last 5-10 years. Too boastful for my liking.

@SMJ exactly.

@johncalmc 32 you mean? 😉

@Frmknst no, 500 million users played xbox / microsoft games. Thus xbox active users.

Minecraft and candy crush are for instance also part of the mix. Still very impressive numbers though.

I don't know what he's talking about.

SNES is an upgraded NES
GBC is an upgraded GB, GBA is an upgraded GBC.
Gamecube is an upgraded N64.

These new wacky experiences may definitely still come. The tech is there for developers to work with.

Nintendo did it loads on the Switch, with for instance Labo, Mario Kart Circuit and all Wario Ware games. They can do that again.

Also, most genre defining games in the last 8 years have been made by Nintendo. I am not able to point out a single totally new experience by the competition, except Elden Ring, Cyberpunk 2077 and maybe Baldur's Gate 3 (though I haven't played that one. Also not counting the Indie scene)

Yeah baby, live service crap.

Sadly, you have lost your way ten years ago, $ony, when greedy CFO’s took over, and it will take a while to find it again. Although you seem to have completely lost your home region (Japan) because of it.

$ony.

Greedy, greedy company.

@Cikajovazmaj all games come to playstation and pc anyway.

@LogicStrikesAgain apart from Yotei, we haven’t seen anything substantial from any of those.

Bit of cgi. That’s it.

@themightyant yet they keep increasing the prices. Sony’s not so much ‘for the players’ anymore.

‘For the payers’ meme makes more sense every fiscal quarter. You could also say ‘for the shareholders’.

@trev666 3d party even because that studio also makes games for other platform holders.

@Friendly guess they DID read through this comment section.

So Microsoft doesn’t have any first party exclusives, but neither does Sony.

Sony copying Nintendo?

They would never…

If Sony reads through this comment section, they’ll make sure to cancel the project asap.

Queue in the Astrobot Kart, Astrobot Party, Astrobot Tennis, Golf and Baseball and of course, the new classic, Paper Astrobot games.

@wildcat_kickz journalism has turned into getting traction as much as possible. The more likes, the more valid your article or ‘opinion’. There is still some journalism with fact checking, but most social media platforms and websites can’t bother with the time that takes.

@Rudy_Manchego I think you’re mainly referring to the Sony gaming infrastructure, with your comment, right? Mobile, indie and Nintendo’s infrastructure are both way different. Nintendo funds its bigger projects with a lot of experimental smaller ones in between, and gives space to indie devs on their platform too. Works for them. You’re correct that Sony put all their eggs in one basket only, just as they did with their narrative 3d action adventure games, which I’ve become sick and tired of during last gen.

@get2sammyb Sony themselves got rid of the smaller experimental studios and only wanted to invest in blockbusters and now live service games only.

Maybe they should have continued experimenting with new experiences, rather than betting on one horse only. The only reason they’re still afloat is 3d party support ánd the loyal fanbase. This fanbase doesn’t even mind price hikes on controllers to fund failed live service games.

@DennisReynolds @Drago201 sure, they have competition, which is great. They also had that back in the sonic/Spyro/Crash/Banjo days. Competition is good for us consumers.

But Astrobot didn’t bring the genre forward (yet), there’s no mechanic or feature that Nintendo has not done themselves or that hás to be implemented in the next 3D platformer because otherwise the game is lagging behind. It might actually lack a bit in the moveset department. Bob Wulff describes my opinion well in below video:
https://youtu.be/KnDDHR-OMxw?t=2796&si=-yZcZKHWQD7SDGoF (50:32 onwards specifically)

Again, it’s great, I liked it a lot, and it’s good that there’s competition. But Nintendo doesn’t have to adopt anything from the game in their next Mario game.

I also hope Sony will acknowledge it as a success, and move away from their attempts at live service high price games.

@DennisReynolds what makes it better specifically? What has Nintendo to learn from Astrobot?

@DennisReynolds sorry, Dennis, but Nintendo has nothing to learn from Astrobot. I played it, it’s absolutely great, but not (better than) a Nintendo Mario 3D platformer.

It’s a great tribute to everything Playstation though. Nostalgia did hit hard, and I’m sure it did with others on this forum too.

@Overmind @judal27 86 on metacritic bad.

Which would probably be bumped up to a 90+ on more modern hardware

@Jay767 cause of price hikes to milk the consumer more and more.

A merry Christmas to you too! And thank you for all the hard work of last year! 😊

They found some votes somewhere

@LogicStrikesAgain i understand the context you’re trying to bring. But yes, the publishers you mention act the same. I’m also staying away from their practices as much as possible. Haven’t bought an EA game for years, except an ‘EA original’ branded game. Same with acti-blizz, even though I was a big fan of WoW and Starcraft back in the 00’s. Gaming landscape has indeed changed, and I’m turning away from all the companies that mostly or only seem to be focussing on profits.

And unfortunately that also does include Sony nowadays. And yes, I have a PS1, 2, 3, 4, psp and vita. But I can’t support their current practices. And I do not feel that I’m missing out, the only PS5 exclusives that have allured me a little into buying a PS5 are FFXVI and FFVII reintegrade. But they’ll be multiplat soon, I think, I’m sure they’ll come to the next Nintendo platform because of its reach in Japan.

@gaston yes, you are correct. Buzz has become very important. The lifestyle. It generates a continuous trickle of $$$ to investors.

Then again, that’s with every medium. They just want to be inside your head all the time. I think there are also some rules on (game) news websites for instance that one should not post many articles within a few minutes, but spread it out over the whole day to make sure people come back.

I am one of those persons, checking PS and NL multiple times a day…

@LogicStrikesAgain your comment seems to suggest i’m not looking at it from a bigger picture. I disagree, i’m actually comparing it to the sony of 10 years ago, and to their competitors. Also, i don’t see why i’m not allowed to criticize the leading figure if he’s part of the group that makes the decisions. And ‘gaming prices going up’ as an excuse that it’s fine that Sony is closing down studios…. I hope you understand that the prices go up only because of the decisions made by these larger companies. Nobody has ever forced them to go into 8 year development cycles or take these massive live service risks. They are the ones setting the standards and who are closing down the smaller studios with smaller development cycles (e.g. Japan Studio). That’s not a trend that magically happened without their consent. Current Sony is more foreign than Japanese, and owned by mostly American capital management firms. And it shows.

Anyway, as a summary: most recent earnings call, Sony made the largest profit ever, yoy 184% increase, with quarterly margins of 12+%. And as a reaction: they increase the price of their controller.

Yes, sony’s in an active state of milking the consumer. In every way they can. And I don’t want to be the direct object.

@LogicStrikesAgain there's growth, and there's milking. There's a reason Sony's been focusing on live service games, price hikes, golden PS5's, shutting down studios and larger profits for shareholders ever since he became CFO. Not really working out now for the consumer, is it? Only 6,5% of last quarter's games sold on Playstation were 1st party because the offering hasn't been to what it used to be on PS4, PSVR2 has been forgotten, services have never been so expensive (absolute and relative), and we got a 700+ dollar console, relatively one of the most expensive playstations ever (2nd behind PS3).

Just my 2 cents though.

Yes, Sony’s a business. But hopefully the narrative will change a bit for the consumer’s better in upcoming years.

I'm also curious whether Sony will be able to support 2 systems this time. They forgot the Vita existed pretty quickly. And they have also mostly forgotten about the PSVR2 it seems.

If a Sony handheld releases I will hold off for at least a year to see where they plan to go with it.

Good, competition drives the market forward.

I hope Sony will get some more competition on the higher specs market. They’ve become arrogant and have developed anti-consumer practices. And their CFO is ‘addicted to growth’, as he says.

@LogicStrikesAgain ‘scale of the move.’ Nothing so far has been lost for Sony fans with the actiblizz purchase btw. Every game has been multiplatform so far. So it was an outcry that playstation owners would ‘lose’ stuff based on nothing.

So, consumer has gained nothing gained, lost nothing. Except tons of layoffs. And lost creativity. Again.

@LogicStrikesAgain good you’re calling it hypocrisy, cause it absolutely is.

I don’t see why anyone is defending sony here. Because again: it doesn’t bring any consumer anything, other than the feeling that their purchase is ‘winning’ or similar dumb reasoning.

Unless you’re a person that likes seeing headlines next year again of ‘x amount of persons laid off here, studio y shut down there.’

@MeanBeanEgg what is unfair about keeping games at launch price for most of the year?

Btw, there’s a black friday sale going on, a lot of first party nintendo games are 33-70% off, both physical and digital.

@TeiGekiLord people in general were cheering because of game pass. Not because of the consolidation. And also: Not me. I don’t care about CoD for instance. I already own Starcraft, Starcraft 2, Warcraft III and Diablo. No need for the rest of Actiblizz to be on gamepass for me.

So I do not see where you get that from.

I am not for big corporates gobbling up smaller ones, because there will always be layoffs and apart from the higher ups nobody will benefit from it.