@Jaxx420 That's same "***** excuse" as "Ninja Theory was a casualty of Game Pass failure" for Xbox. Mismanagement is name of the game for both companies recently in terms of handling of their first-party studios.
@Redefaul Well, I'm entirely digital. But I cheer for "physical guys" to get what they want from Sony.
But what makes you think that because you are buying physical you are smarter? I thought that choice between physical/digital is about convenience and not an IQ test.
@PSXB Lol it's certainly not about that. If you think Microsoft can't afford few million to see Blade to it's completion, you are delusional.
Microsoft is selling Arkane now, because studio in it's current state (with game being ready to release) have highest value. Because you can say to potential buyer "game needs few million $ to being ready and then you can get revenue from sales."
If they can't find buyer now, they for sure won't find anybody after release of game, because by then studio will be "dead weight" for at least 4-5 years.
Also, as Jason Schreier pointed out. Closing studio in France is insanely expensive because of strong employee protections there. So it's in Microsoft's interest to sell studio instead of closing it.
@WeirdAlUHF334 Why are you praising Sony for "not laying people off"?
Just this year they canned Dark Outlaw Games and Bluepoint Games and they also gutted Bungie.
There is literally no difference between Xbox and PlayStation with how they are treating their employees.
Well. It's still part of "old" already announced layoffs. So I imagine people will on the internet are already picking their pitchforks and acting surprised.
I guess huge part of new "layoffs" will be completion of divestment of Ninja Theory, Undead Labs and Arkane Lyon. Which is around 450 out of 1600 planed.
More interesting are rumors of reshuffle of internal studios, mainly Halo Studios going under Activision's management. Which is pretty great news. I can imagine Obsidian going under Bethesda, since they are working on Fallout game.
@Kakun I don't think Bungie was terrible purchase. Even for that price. Let's not forget that it was during time when even Gearbox was sold for 1,3 billion.
But it was handled terribly. Bungie's management overstretched studio towards too many projects, while their main moneymaker (D2) suffered. And their biggest sin was fact that they did not start development of D3 at the exact moment D2 was finished (The Final Shape).
And while I understand that Bungie had huge amount of autonomy, blame is still also on Sony for mismanaging this studio into oblivion.
It's interesting that this review is talking about bad story and good gameplay, while plenty of other reviews I read have this in opposite. Weak gameplay, but good story.
Regardless. 78 on MC for studio of Insomniac's pedigree is pretty disappointing. 6 from Gamespot and IGN and only 3/5 from VGC and 2,5/5 from Giant Bomb.
It's clearly isn't slam dunk as first Spider-Man.
You know it's pretty bad in terms of amount of exclusives when Sony has to put 4 years old game (GT7) and 2 years old game (Astro Bot) in there just to make 30-seconds trailer.
Well. Sony is stuck between rock and hard place.
Their APU chip Orion for PS6 is reportedly basically completed. So they can either launch PS6 next year with high cost (because of RAM and SSD prices). Or they can wait and risk that this chip will became obsolete when prices of SSD and RAM will finally hit "common sense" ground.
Also, sales of PS5 are falling from the cliff and Sony is still heavily dependant on HW sales.
I would just launch PS6 regardless of price. We will hit looooong cross-gen period regardless. So people who wants better framerates/visuals would be able to just buy it, while other more price sensitive people would just be able to wait.
on one hand it's pretty clear that criticism is way overblown by bad actors (muh DEI, woke etc. idiots). But on the other hand, I'm also quite underwhelmed by this game. Unfortunately it looks quite phoned in fare without interesting mechanics or aspects.
It's good for new Xbox's regime, because in no world they can look at those numbers and say "it's worth porting Halo on PlayStation" So I expect Halo 2 Remake to be Xbox exclusive.
@Oram77 That's true for every studio lol. Especially in AAA space.
Naughty Dog who made Uncharted and first TLOU isn't the same as Naughty Dog today. I remember reading in Schreier's book that after Uncharted 4 14 out of 20 level designers left ND.
Blizzard today certainly isn't same as Blizzard in past.
In terms of Obsidian and Fallout, Josh Sawyer, who was director of FNV is still there and is leading project. John Gonzalez who was lead writer of FNV is also still there. So I would say that this is pretty solid core to build around.
@johnedwin Don't want to undersell that number, but around 800 from that number weren't laid off in traditional sense, but was spun off.
Compulsion had 120+ employees, Double Fine around 100, Ninja Theory around 140, Undead Labs 120 and Arkane around 300+
Which is still bad obviously...
It probably helped, that rumors were swirling for whole month with increasing severity. There was rumor about divestment of Obsidian and closure of Rare. Even Machinegames and id Software were mentioned because supposedly "everyone not working on The Elder Scrolls and Fallout will be laid off." So in that sense, it's pretty obvious why people reacted with sigh of relief. Because situation wasn't as bad as it we were lead to believe.
It's like with Bungie recently. Because studio announced end of support for D2, everybody knew layoffs were coming. And when they finally came it seemed like people just shrugged of 400 people being laid off.
Part of me thinks that all those rumors about closure of studios was leaked on purpose by Microsoft as a PR path. Because it was certainly accepted better as when Xbox closed Arkane Austin and Tango in 2023 and The Initiative and cancelled Perfect Dark and Everwild last year. Maybe because no game was cancelled. And that's what gamers care about most.
@S1ayeR74 Mate. Kids literally don't care about PlayStation. They want to play Roblox and Fortnite - games that are everywhere, even on mobile. Consoles are for "dinosaurs" like you and me. And we will have basically tree options
stop caring about physical and buy next Xbox or PS6 if we want to play new games
build a PC, but then you also need to stop caring about physical, because there is no physical market on PC
switch to Switch 2 (lol) but with knowledge that there are many AAA games you won't be able to play
You are pretty naive if you think another prince increase for PlayStation 5 isn't coming. Like. Only saving grace of this price increase is fact that Microsoft had a decency to give pretty long heads-up, since you have basically whole month to buy a console for old price.
@Dubplant Yes, there is more money, but there are also more games competing for attention. So even if pie is bigger, slices can be way smaller. Combine that with rising dev budgets and costs in game industry (especially in US), and you have recipe for disaster.
Well, Sony had their turn with Bluepoint, then it was Ubisoft, now it's Xbox and Don't Nod and next month probably Sony again (Bungie). It will be a tough year yet again...
Cool. Now everybody can pretend like they cared deeply about Compulsion, Ninja Theory and Double Fine. But when they released their games on basically every platform (South of Midnight even came out on Switch 2), nobody bought those games. And it's not like those games were not highly regarded and highly rated.
Like. Get real people. South of Midnight sold 16k copies on PS5 (according to Alinea). And that game was in development for 6 years.
And you can't even use argument "Game Pass destroyed those games), because as I said, those games were available everywhere. Kiln and Keeper had 200 CCU on Steam which is just straight up pathetic. Hellblade 2 sold terribly on PS5.
So all three are least surprising closures...Only reason why people can say that Ninja Theory is surprising is because they just revealed their game. Which is pretty ***** from Microsoft...
...and if I'm wrong and all those studios are top tier producing commercial hits, I expect everybody, including Sony to fight for a chance to buy them. But they won't buy them...guess why...
I don't understand this fake outrage honestly.
Sony was doing same circus with PC porting
...it will be on PC case by case basis...
...it will be on PC several years after PS release...
...but no, because it will be on PC one year after release (Spider-Man 2)...
...but no, because Astro Bot and GT7 (which is ancient at this point) are still not on PC without proper explanation...
...it will be on PC day one, but only if it's live service game...
...we are stopping porting of non-live service games entirely...
Does it reminds you of something?
It's pretty easy. If you care about Xbox owned games (including ABK and Bethesda), you know where you can play them with 100% certainty. If you don't care, than okay.
Well. New boss, new rules. I expect share of "console exclusives" will increase in future.
If I only had PS5 and expected TES VI on console as a sure bet, I wouldn't be so sure anymore.
Thanks god I have both consoles.
But it's honestly hilarious how buthurt are people over this decision. Same people that celebrated Sony "pulling" from PC port making.
@Dr_ENT It's UE5 game. Not some kind of custom engine when you need to develop tools to make that kind of port. I doubt that PS5 port would cost that much money tbh.
But if Asha canned port in this late stage of development it shows that she isn't afraid to make those kind of tough decisions she claimed she wanted to make. So kudos to her
@get2sammyb Why? Sony was doing something, they decided to pivot and canned two PC ports that were in active development Xbox was doing something, they decided to pivot and probably canned GoW PS5 port.
Since this is their next game and after that they are making GOW Trilogy Remake, there is just not enough devs in Santa Monica to sustain another project being in development also.
According to linkedin Santa Monica Studio have around 600 employees.
CD Projekt RED have 500 people just on Witcher 4 and another 170 people on Cyberpunk sequel which is still in pre-production.
It's also missing another additional context. Without Helldivers 2 releasing on PC and Xbox and other first-party games being released on PC, situation would be even worse
Yeah. I'm sure Sony is happy with studio that has not released new game in 6 years and won't for maybe another year or two in one of the most expensive city in the world where dev salary is highest in the industry.
Not to mention fact that this studio is making new IP which is always a risky bet and even their last game broke 200 million $ mark in terms of dev budget.
If Intergalactic budget is less than 350 million $ I would eat my shoes. And considering costs associating with cancellation of TLOU Online I would not be surprised if Intergalactic would need to pull 700+ million to be "worth it"
Was Destiny's 2 end overdue? Yeah.
But ending D2 while not having D3 in works is pure lunacy.
And since Bungie lost their "independence" after Lightfall's failure and Sony took over the board, it's on them.
If they have any semblance of not idiotic thinking, they should have greenlit D3 right after The Final Shape was released. It was pretty clear that it was "Avengers Endgame" moment for franchise and people will start leaving in droves and only D3 will bring them back and even crazier considering fact that Sony paid 3,6 billion $ for that studio.
Instead of logical D2 Final Shape - Marathon - D3 we will get Marathon and if number of players won't pick up, Bungie will be probably gone. Which is almost criminal considering Destiny is billion dollar franchise.
It's crazy to me that people are only talking about Microsoft when talking about mismanaging studios, but current Sony is no better. Their only saving grace is studio that they cultivated in PS3 era.
@themightyant Considering talks between ABK and Microsoft was only around top brass, I really doubt it would leak. Bare in mind, that ***** like that can get you in trouble because of stock prices. Bungie's case was different because Bungie wasn't on stock exchange. So yeah. I doubt Sony knew.
@themightyant Well, it was more like "we are pushing into live service" buy with cheap money. I doubt it had anything to do with Microsoft buying ABK, because Microsoft buying ABK was announced two weeks before Sony announced they are buying Bungie.
@themightyant Let's put aside price hikes and make a fair comparison.
Game Pass Premium costs 12,99€ per month and you have huge catalogue of games, first-party games 1 year after release at worst (outside of COD) and access to cloud gaming
Meanwhile PS Plus Extra is now 15,99€ per month, you have no cloud gaming access and Sony is putting their first-party games into service...almost never. GT7 is still not there 5 years after release and they are also yanking first-party games from service, which Microsoft isn't doing (outside of delisting tied to racing games)
Game Pass Ultimate cost 20,99€, you have huge amount of day one games (even outside of first-party), access to cloud gaming .
Meanwhile, PS Plus Premium now cost 18,99€, and you have all disadvantages that Extra tier has (inconsistent first-party additions), but you have cloud gaming and some old games.
Like, I know that Game Pass is bread and butter for Xbox, while Sony sees PS Plus Extra/Premium as complementary, but as a paying customer I mainly care for "is it worth it?" And Extra was worth it when it was 40% off for whole year. Paying 15,99€ per month for that is laughable. Game Pass Ultimate before price drop (27,99€) was more worth that this.
Well. They warned us when they said that they will secure more money from existing userbase.
On the other hand, it's pretty scummy. They knew they are raising prices to all tiers but they only announced changes to Essential.
To me, that pretty much seals it for me. I'm sorry, but with Xbox Game Pass Premium being better service with exact timeframe of first-party games coming into service (1 year after release) for 12,99€, there is no world where PS Plus Extra is more valuable for 15,99€.
@Dan12836666 This is such a hilariously out of touch statement that it's not even funny. Just say that you are not interested and stop trying to paint it as a "people's will" Objective fact is that most popular games on planet Earth are live service games. From Fortnite, through Call of Duty to EA Sports FC, Roblox and Minecraft.
tbf. In case of Barlog's new game I'm kinda glad it was leaked. Because I expected entirely new IP and that had me kinda excited. Knowing now that it would be set in God of War universe, I know I need to manage my expectations heavily.
@somnambulance They are not. Currently it's Marathon and supposedly Destiny 3 which is probably years away. Their another new game codenamed Gummy Bears was carved from Bungie alongside new studio teamLFG. All other projects of Bungie were canned.
What a disaster purchase for Sony. Their entire shopping spree from 2020-2023 is one big disaster. And one studio they should have bought (Arrowhead) is independent and making next game without Sony's involvement
I remember Jim Ryan saying that Bungie brings more value for Sony than ABK purchase for Microsoft lol.
Comments 844
Re: Ghost of Yotei Dev Sucker Punch Hit with Layoffs as Leadership Eyes Next PlayStation Project
@Jaxx420 That's same "***** excuse" as "Ninja Theory was a casualty of Game Pass failure" for Xbox.
Mismanagement is name of the game for both companies recently in terms of handling of their first-party studios.
Re: Physical Copies Barely Register for Capcom, Plans for 95% Digital Sales
@Redefaul Well, I'm entirely digital. But I cheer for "physical guys" to get what they want from Sony.
But what makes you think that because you are buying physical you are smarter? I thought that choice between physical/digital is about convenience and not an IQ test.
Re: Microsoft Gives Dishonored Dev More Time to Find a Buyer, Needs a Partner to Finish Blade
@PSXB Lol it's certainly not about that. If you think Microsoft can't afford few million to see Blade to it's completion, you are delusional.
Microsoft is selling Arkane now, because studio in it's current state (with game being ready to release) have highest value. Because you can say to potential buyer "game needs few million $ to being ready and then you can get revenue from sales."
If they can't find buyer now, they for sure won't find anybody after release of game, because by then studio will be "dead weight" for at least 4-5 years.
Also, as Jason Schreier pointed out. Closing studio in France is insanely expensive because of strong employee protections there. So it's in Microsoft's interest to sell studio instead of closing it.
Re: Ghost of Yotei Dev Sucker Punch Hit with Layoffs as Leadership Eyes Next PlayStation Project
@WeirdAlUHF334 Why are you praising Sony for "not laying people off"?
Just this year they canned Dark Outlaw Games and Bluepoint Games and they also gutted Bungie.
There is literally no difference between Xbox and PlayStation with how they are treating their employees.
Re: Newest Wolverine PS5 Update Wipes Out Scent Trails to Collectibles
Now if they could patch underwhelming and shallow combat and pretty bad story, it would even be a great game...
Re: 'Hundreds' More Xbox Layoffs Reportedly on the Way, Studios to Be Consolidated
Well. It's still part of "old" already announced layoffs. So I imagine people will on the internet are already picking their pitchforks and acting surprised.
I guess huge part of new "layoffs" will be completion of divestment of Ninja Theory, Undead Labs and Arkane Lyon. Which is around 450 out of 1600 planed.
More interesting are rumors of reshuffle of internal studios, mainly Halo Studios going under Activision's management. Which is pretty great news. I can imagine Obsidian going under Bethesda, since they are working on Fallout game.
Re: Marathon's Future Questioned as Bungie Delays Big Update and Scraps Seasonal Schedule
@Kakun I don't think Bungie was terrible purchase. Even for that price. Let's not forget that it was during time when even Gearbox was sold for 1,3 billion.
But it was handled terribly. Bungie's management overstretched studio towards too many projects, while their main moneymaker (D2) suffered. And their biggest sin was fact that they did not start development of D3 at the exact moment D2 was finished (The Final Shape).
And while I understand that Bungie had huge amount of autonomy, blame is still also on Sony for mismanaging this studio into oblivion.
Re: Marathon's Future Questioned as Bungie Delays Big Update and Scraps Seasonal Schedule
Congratz Sony. You managed something neither Microsoft or Activision achieved. You literally killed Bungie...
Quite a feat
Re: Diablo 5 and a New Starcraft Game Revealed, But Will They Be on PS6?
Diablo V probably yes, since it will be live service game
StarCraft has certainly less chance...
Re: Sony Stopped Physint Development Over Budget, Exclusivity Concerns
Good news for Xbox that Sony kindly covered huge portion of game's budget. It will now be easier to make it exclusive lol...
Re: Marvel's Wolverine (PS5) - The Ultimate Wolverine Simulator
It's interesting that this review is talking about bad story and good gameplay, while plenty of other reviews I read have this in opposite. Weak gameplay, but good story.
Regardless. 78 on MC for studio of Insomniac's pedigree is pretty disappointing. 6 from Gamespot and IGN and only 3/5 from VGC and 2,5/5 from Giant Bomb.
It's clearly isn't slam dunk as first Spider-Man.
Re: Sony Cancels Physint Development, Xbox Picks Up Project
Removed
Re: 'These Moments Don't Happen Anywhere Else': Sony Touts PS5 Exclusives After Abandoning PC
You know it's pretty bad in terms of amount of exclusives when Sony has to put 4 years old game (GT7) and 2 years old game (Astro Bot) in there just to make 30-seconds trailer.
Re: PS5 Console Exclusive Phantom Blade Zero Poised for Gargantuan Launch
"PS5 Console Exclusive Phantom Blade Zero Poised for Gargantuan Launch..."
...on PC
Re: Sony Still Hasn't Decided When to Launch PS6, Says CEO
Well. Sony is stuck between rock and hard place.
Their APU chip Orion for PS6 is reportedly basically completed. So they can either launch PS6 next year with high cost (because of RAM and SSD prices). Or they can wait and risk that this chip will became obsolete when prices of SSD and RAM will finally hit "common sense" ground.
Also, sales of PS5 are falling from the cliff and Sony is still heavily dependant on HW sales.
I would just launch PS6 regardless of price. We will hit looooong cross-gen period regardless. So people who wants better framerates/visuals would be able to just buy it, while other more price sensitive people would just be able to wait.
Re: 'It's a Relentless Onslaught': Wolverine PS5 Dev Responds to Unprecedented Criticism
on one hand it's pretty clear that criticism is way overblown by bad actors (muh DEI, woke etc. idiots).
But on the other hand, I'm also quite underwhelmed by this game. Unfortunately it looks quite phoned in fare without interesting mechanics or aspects.
Re: Halo's No Match for Activision's Barebones Digital-Only Black Ops PS5 Ports
It's good for new Xbox's regime, because in no world they can look at those numbers and say "it's worth porting Halo on PlayStation"
So I expect Halo 2 Remake to be Xbox exclusive.
Re: Obsidian Is Officially Making a New Fallout Game
@Oram77 That's true for every studio lol. Especially in AAA space.
Naughty Dog who made Uncharted and first TLOU isn't the same as Naughty Dog today. I remember reading in Schreier's book that after Uncharted 4 14 out of 20 level designers left ND.
Blizzard today certainly isn't same as Blizzard in past.
In terms of Obsidian and Fallout, Josh Sawyer, who was director of FNV is still there and is leading project. John Gonzalez who was lead writer of FNV is also still there. So I would say that this is pretty solid core to build around.
Re: Halo's Physical PS5 Disc Won't Play without a Download
Imagine expecting full game on disc from Xbox lol.
People should have know better by now...
Re: Backlash Against Sony's Disc-Free Future Continues as Petition Passes 200,000 Signatures
Sony: "Oh no...anyway"
Re: 5 Xbox Studios Impacted in Microsoft Layoffs, But No Games Cancelled
@johnedwin Don't want to undersell that number, but around 800 from that number weren't laid off in traditional sense, but was spun off.
Compulsion had 120+ employees, Double Fine around 100, Ninja Theory around 140, Undead Labs 120 and Arkane around 300+
Which is still bad obviously...
It probably helped, that rumors were swirling for whole month with increasing severity. There was rumor about divestment of Obsidian and closure of Rare. Even Machinegames and id Software were mentioned because supposedly "everyone not working on The Elder Scrolls and Fallout will be laid off." So in that sense, it's pretty obvious why people reacted with sigh of relief. Because situation wasn't as bad as it we were lead to believe.
It's like with Bungie recently. Because studio announced end of support for D2, everybody knew layoffs were coming. And when they finally came it seemed like people just shrugged of 400 people being laid off.
Part of me thinks that all those rumors about closure of studios was leaked on purpose by Microsoft as a PR path. Because it was certainly accepted better as when Xbox closed Arkane Austin and Tango in 2023 and The Initiative and cancelled Perfect Dark and Everwild last year. Maybe because no game was cancelled. And that's what gamers care about most.
Re: Reaction: PlayStation's Burned Through the Last Remaining Goodwill of Its Fans
@S1ayeR74 Mate. Kids literally don't care about PlayStation. They want to play Roblox and Fortnite - games that are everywhere, even on mobile.
Consoles are for "dinosaurs" like you and me. And we will have basically tree options
Re: Reaction: PlayStation's Burned Through the Last Remaining Goodwill of Its Fans
So what?
What are players going to do? Switch to Xbox lol?
PlayStation is in comfortable position to do whatever the ***** they want.
People will cry and then they will be first in line for PS6...
Re: PlayStation Consoles to Stop Getting Disc-Based Physical Releases in 2028
Kinda shocked. I expected Xbox to be first one to do this. Especially since physical:digital ration on Xbox is higher than on PlayStation.
But. It's just the way industry evolved.
Re: PS5 Costs Too Much, But These New Xbox Price Increases Are Just Absurd
You are pretty naive if you think another prince increase for PlayStation 5 isn't coming. Like.
Only saving grace of this price increase is fact that Microsoft had a decency to give pretty long heads-up, since you have basically whole month to buy a console for old price.
Re: Rumour: Gaming Industry 'Bloodbath' Imminent, as Sony, Microsoft, and More Brace for Mass Layoffs
@Dubplant Yes, there is more money, but there are also more games competing for attention. So even if pie is bigger, slices can be way smaller.
Combine that with rising dev budgets and costs in game industry (especially in US), and you have recipe for disaster.
Re: Rumour: Gaming Industry 'Bloodbath' Imminent, as Sony, Microsoft, and More Brace for Mass Layoffs
Well, Sony had their turn with Bluepoint, then it was Ubisoft, now it's Xbox and Don't Nod and next month probably Sony again (Bungie).
It will be a tough year yet again...
Re: Hellblade Studio Hunting for Buyer, Days After Announcing New Game for PS5
Cool. Now everybody can pretend like they cared deeply about Compulsion, Ninja Theory and Double Fine. But when they released their games on basically every platform (South of Midnight even came out on Switch 2), nobody bought those games. And it's not like those games were not highly regarded and highly rated.
Like. Get real people. South of Midnight sold 16k copies on PS5 (according to Alinea). And that game was in development for 6 years.
And you can't even use argument "Game Pass destroyed those games), because as I said, those games were available everywhere. Kiln and Keeper had 200 CCU on Steam which is just straight up pathetic. Hellblade 2 sold terribly on PS5.
So all three are least surprising closures...Only reason why people can say that Ninja Theory is surprising is because they just revealed their game. Which is pretty ***** from Microsoft...
...and if I'm wrong and all those studios are top tier producing commercial hits, I expect everybody, including Sony to fight for a chance to buy them. But they won't buy them...guess why...
Re: Future Xbox Exclusivity Will Be 'Case-by-Case', PS5 Ports Will Be Revealed Alongside Release Dates
I don't understand this fake outrage honestly.
Sony was doing same circus with PC porting
...it will be on PC case by case basis...
...it will be on PC several years after PS release...
...but no, because it will be on PC one year after release (Spider-Man 2)...
...but no, because Astro Bot and GT7 (which is ancient at this point) are still not on PC without proper explanation...
...it will be on PC day one, but only if it's live service game...
...we are stopping porting of non-live service games entirely...
Does it reminds you of something?
It's pretty easy. If you care about Xbox owned games (including ABK and Bethesda), you know where you can play them with 100% certainty. If you don't care, than okay.
Re: 'These Are Not Timed Exclusives': Xbox Says Gears of War, Clockwork Revolultion Are Never Coming to PS5
Well. New boss, new rules. I expect share of "console exclusives" will increase in future.
If I only had PS5 and expected TES VI on console as a sure bet, I wouldn't be so sure anymore.
Thanks god I have both consoles.
But it's honestly hilarious how buthurt are people over this decision. Same people that celebrated Sony "pulling" from PC port making.
Re: Rumour: Gears of War: E-Day Was Coming to PS5, Xbox Only Just Cancelled Port
@Dr_ENT It's UE5 game. Not some kind of custom engine when you need to develop tools to make that kind of port. I doubt that PS5 port would cost that much money tbh.
But if Asha canned port in this late stage of development it shows that she isn't afraid to make those kind of tough decisions she claimed she wanted to make. So kudos to her
Re: Rumour: Gears of War: E-Day Was Coming to PS5, Xbox Only Just Cancelled Port
@get2sammyb Why?
Sony was doing something, they decided to pivot and canned two PC ports that were in active development
Xbox was doing something, they decided to pivot and probably canned GoW PS5 port.
Sounds like exactly the same situation to me...
Re: Rumour: Gears of War: E-Day Was Coming to PS5, Xbox Only Just Cancelled Port
Well. She told us. Plan is the plan until it isn't...
Re: 'One of the Best Showcases I've Seen': 70% of PS5 Fans Loved State of Play
It was best showcase in recent years.
Which is more about how bad past showcases have been honestly.
Re: 'We Have Many More Stories to Tell with Kratos': Sony Confirms New Games with God of War's Protagonist
So...see you in 2035?
Since this is their next game and after that they are making GOW Trilogy Remake, there is just not enough devs in Santa Monica to sustain another project being in development also.
According to linkedin Santa Monica Studio have around 600 employees.
CD Projekt RED have 500 people just on Witcher 4 and another 170 people on Cyberpunk sequel which is still in pre-production.
Re: PS5 First-Party Sales Have Fallen Sharply, But It Doesn't Tell the Full Story
It's also missing another additional context.
Without Helldivers 2 releasing on PC and Xbox and other first-party games being released on PC, situation would be even worse
Re: With PC Ports Scrapped, Sony Brings Back 'Only on PS5' Disclaimer
See you in 2029 when Sony will again reverse course lol...
Re: 'Absurd': Social Media Misquotes Journalist, Erroneously Claims Sony Is Angry at Naughty Dog
Yeah. I'm sure Sony is happy with studio that has not released new game in 6 years and won't for maybe another year or two in one of the most expensive city in the world where dev salary is highest in the industry.
Not to mention fact that this studio is making new IP which is always a risky bet and even their last game broke 200 million $ mark in terms of dev budget.
If Intergalactic budget is less than 350 million $ I would eat my shoes. And considering costs associating with cancellation of TLOU Online I would not be surprised if Intergalactic would need to pull 700+ million to be "worth it"
Re: Reaction: I'm Sad It's Over, But Destiny's End Was Overdue
Was Destiny's 2 end overdue? Yeah.
But ending D2 while not having D3 in works is pure lunacy.
And since Bungie lost their "independence" after Lightfall's failure and Sony took over the board, it's on them.
If they have any semblance of not idiotic thinking, they should have greenlit D3 right after The Final Shape was released. It was pretty clear that it was "Avengers Endgame" moment for franchise and people will start leaving in droves and only D3 will bring them back and even crazier considering fact that Sony paid 3,6 billion $ for that studio.
Instead of logical D2 Final Shape - Marathon - D3 we will get Marathon and if number of players won't pick up, Bungie will be probably gone. Which is almost criminal considering Destiny is billion dollar franchise.
It's crazy to me that people are only talking about Microsoft when talking about mismanaging studios, but current Sony is no better. Their only saving grace is studio that they cultivated in PS3 era.
Re: Bungie Is Not Making Destiny 3, Dev to Be Rocked by 'Significant' Layoffs
@themightyant Considering talks between ABK and Microsoft was only around top brass, I really doubt it would leak. Bare in mind, that ***** like that can get you in trouble because of stock prices.
Bungie's case was different because Bungie wasn't on stock exchange.
So yeah. I doubt Sony knew.
Re: Bungie Is Not Making Destiny 3, Dev to Be Rocked by 'Significant' Layoffs
@themightyant Well, it was more like "we are pushing into live service" buy with cheap money. I doubt it had anything to do with Microsoft buying ABK, because Microsoft buying ABK was announced two weeks before Sony announced they are buying Bungie.
And deals like that obviously take time to make.
Re: Bungie Is Not Making Destiny 3, Dev to Be Rocked by 'Significant' Layoffs
If Sony think they can sustain Bungie on Marathon alone without D3, they are dumber then I thought.
Re: PS Plus Price Increases Also Hit Extra, Premium Tiers - Here Are All the New Prices
@themightyant Let's put aside price hikes and make a fair comparison.
Game Pass Premium costs 12,99€ per month and you have huge catalogue of games, first-party games 1 year after release at worst (outside of COD) and access to cloud gaming
Meanwhile PS Plus Extra is now 15,99€ per month, you have no cloud gaming access and Sony is putting their first-party games into service...almost never. GT7 is still not there 5 years after release and they are also yanking first-party games from service, which Microsoft isn't doing (outside of delisting tied to racing games)
Game Pass Ultimate cost 20,99€, you have huge amount of day one games (even outside of first-party), access to cloud gaming .
Meanwhile, PS Plus Premium now cost 18,99€, and you have all disadvantages that Extra tier has (inconsistent first-party additions), but you have cloud gaming and some old games.
Like, I know that Game Pass is bread and butter for Xbox, while Sony sees PS Plus Extra/Premium as complementary, but as a paying customer I mainly care for "is it worth it?" And Extra was worth it when it was 40% off for whole year. Paying 15,99€ per month for that is laughable. Game Pass Ultimate before price drop (27,99€) was more worth that this.
Re: PS Plus Price Increases Also Hit Extra, Premium Tiers - Here Are All the New Prices
Well. They warned us when they said that they will secure more money from existing userbase.
On the other hand, it's pretty scummy. They knew they are raising prices to all tiers but they only announced changes to Essential.
To me, that pretty much seals it for me. I'm sorry, but with Xbox Game Pass Premium being better service with exact timeframe of first-party games coming into service (1 year after release) for 12,99€, there is no world where PS Plus Extra is more valuable for 15,99€.
Re: PS Plus Price Increase Announced by Sony for New Members
Cool. They got rid of their main competitor, so now they can do whatever the ***** they want.
Re: One Year Later, DOOM: The Dark Ages DLC Is Nowhere to Be Seen
It's pretty much obvious that DLC will be revealed either during Xbox Game Showcase in June or during Quakecon in August (I think it's in August)
Re: SEGA Cancels Super Game Project and Moves Away from Live Service
@Dan12836666 This is such a hilariously out of touch statement that it's not even funny. Just say that you are not interested and stop trying to paint it as a "people's will"
Objective fact is that most popular games on planet Earth are live service games. From Fortnite, through Call of Duty to EA Sports FC, Roblox and Minecraft.
Re: God of War Boss Cory Barlog Appears Furious After PS5 Game Leak
tbf. In case of Barlog's new game I'm kinda glad it was leaked. Because I expected entirely new IP and that had me kinda excited. Knowing now that it would be set in God of War universe, I know I need to manage my expectations heavily.
Re: Bungie Was a $765 Million Thorn in Sony's Side in 2025
@somnambulance They are not.
Currently it's Marathon and supposedly Destiny 3 which is probably years away.
Their another new game codenamed Gummy Bears was carved from Bungie alongside new studio teamLFG.
All other projects of Bungie were canned.
Re: Bungie Was a $765 Million Thorn in Sony's Side in 2025
What a disaster purchase for Sony.
Their entire shopping spree from 2020-2023 is one big disaster. And one studio they should have bought (Arrowhead) is independent and making next game without Sony's involvement
I remember Jim Ryan saying that Bungie brings more value for Sony than ABK purchase for Microsoft lol.