Godot25

So they took PS4 version, changed few graphic settings to High to match PC version and they are charging 10€ for it

It explains why there will be no "remaster" on PC. Because PC already have a remaster.

It's a problem on Sony's part.
Yes, there is a difference between Showcase and State of Play. But it's obvious that even Sony doesn't know the difference. Because they are putting huge first party games reveals (Ghost of Yotei, Physint, Saros) in State of Play. And that obviously creates expectations for every future State of Play.
Also it didn't help that they ignored Showcase for two years.

Also, they have insuficient number of studios for game industry where making AAA game takes 5-6 years. Combining it with disastrous pivot to live service where many studios had to scrap years of work, it just feels dry in terms of first party.

Say whatever you want about Xbox, but since they hired that former IGN chap (Tina Amini, I think), format of their showcases have been excellent. You know that Developer_Direct focuses on deep dives into few games. You know that Partner Preview is just about third-party games. And you know that every year you will get huge Showcase in June with new announcement. Plus smaller showcases during TGS and Gamescom with potential of having something during The Game Awards. It's clear, understandable and most importantly, it manages expectations. And that's exactly what current Sony's showcases are lacking.

@Dodoo It's not like you have anywhere else to go. PC is digital for ages. And Xbox will be "all digital" even sooner than Sony.

It's pretty obvious that PS6 will release without BD drive as a standard. But Sony will offer BD addon.

Finance guy is new CEO. It is as good signal for investor as it can be.

But it will be good for consumers? That's another question.

@Petrecis24 I don't think that's the case. If Sony viewed Concord as a Hulst baby, they would fire him. Especially since he wasted billions of dollars to chase live service with Ryan.

This sounds more like "we tried double-CEO way, but it didn't work." And obviously. If you have two people in charge, how you can decide on the matters when they have opposing views?

If, for example, Hulst wanted to push towards PC day one releases day one to boost bottom line but Nishino was against it, who would decide?

Since Sony is pretty inept lately it's good that at least someone will feed PlayStation 5 some goodies.

My Extra sub is expiring on 8th and I won't be renewing. It was either cancel this or Game Pass Ultimate. And GPU is just way better value. But if Sony will give me bigger discount for 12 months, I will probably reconsider.

Please correct an article. Ubisoft did not close Ubisoft Montpellier. They just disbanded PoP team inside a studio. And moved devs to other projects.

Ubisoft Montpellier is still up and running and it's leading developer on Beyond Good and Evil 2.

@breakneck fact that 1 company doesn't know what it's doing doesn't mean that developing live service is a lost cause.

Marvel Rivals and Deadlock are saying hello.

@Chupa_loyzer On one hand Bandai released Elden Ring. But they don't own a studio, which makes it a different situation. They are just publishing game and taking their cut.

Their "storydriven" stuff flopped hard (Unknown 9 Awakening) and one of the reason is that they can't afford to sink 300 million to highly polished AAA story-driven game. Which is exactly a crux of the issue.

Also, it helps that all companies you mentioned are located in Japan (and their studios are usually also in Japan). That means cheaper labor than studios like Naughty Dog, Insomniac, Bend or SSM. Which means smaller budgets. Which means less pressure to sell millions of copies just to break even. Which means less reasons to try and diversify your portfolio with live service games.

@Chupa_loyzer Didn't Capcom happened to release game called Exoprimal? Which is definition of live service?

SEGA is creating Crazy Taxi reboot which is supposed to be live service.

Bandai Namco is hardly creating "AAA cinematic story-driven games." Certainly not these which cost 300 million dollars like Spider-Man 2. And it shows. Unknown 9 Awakening is probably best example. Outside of From Soft. But they are only a publisher of their games and they don't own a studio. So Elden Ring can be hardly used as an argument.

@Johnnycide People just refuse to understand WHY companies are chasing success in live service. Or what is one of the reason, outside of "chasing Fortnite"

It's because cost of AAA SP game development is so high, that publishers need to diversify their revenue stream to a steady one instead of spending 300 million $ and maybe seeing ROI after 5 years for few weeks.

Every successful publisher on the market have a combination of live service cash-cow which then create ability to create high profile AAA "traditional games"
EA: Apex + FIFA + Star Wars Jedi/Black Panther/Iron Man
Take-Two: GTA Online + NBA + BioShock/Judas/Mafia
Microsoft: Minecraft + COD + Sea of Thieves + DOOM The Dark Ages/Fable/Perfect Dark

Publishers who don't have success in live service segment tends to struggle in today's world. See Ubisoft (yes, they have Siege, but it's on last legs honestly). That's just a reality that some people refuse to acknowledge.
If you want polished, AAA production values story-driven games without MTX, publisher just need to have other revenue streams. Hence live service.

I don't envy their positions. They need to bring some cool ideas as fast as they can if they don't want to be shut down.

I would not be surprised if both teams suffered pretty big layoffs. Sony in their current mood won't allow 150 devs of Bend to just sit there and wait for new project to ramp up.

@Ainu20 "Gamers loved it" is fine. But question is how much it cost and how much money it brought back.

Also, budget of GoT was pretty modest. 60 million $. It was game created in time, when budgetary concerns about AAA game development weren't as strong as they are now. Current AAA budgets are 200+ million$. So we are obviously talking about different periods of time.

Sucker Punch doubled number of devs since release of GoT. Add in 5 years of development.

@Cry_Zero That's just 0% chance that this will happen. Games are just too expensive to justify development of "addon MP modes" for SP games.

Just look at COD budgets to get an idea. Only juggernauts of gaming market can afford to develop games with multiple modes and styles of play. Fortnite, COD. That's it.

Even BF dumped SP campaign for 2042 because it just so expensive.

Good sign is that Fairgame$ seems on track, since it was not cancelled.
Bad sign is that after Concord I have no faith in PS Studios management to know what would be a great live service game. So it could be dumpster fire.

It really looks like Helldivers 2 success was coincidence and not carefully crafted experience with huge chance of success.

So, Naughty Dog wasted 3 years on game that will never see light of day. Because of that we will be happy if they will manage at least one release during PS5 gen.
Bluepoint managed to release one remake during PS5 gen, but this will be only game on PS5.
And Bend? They released game in 2019 and they will be glad if they will squeeze another game in this decade.

What a ***** show. And best thing is that guy responsible for this (Hulst) was promoted to become head of PlayStation. Talking about failing upwards.

@Drago201 That's the part we don't know. Because from what Kelly said, it could be taken as a budget for particular COD game but with post-launch support which usually takes one year. Because then it is replaced by another COD game.

@thefourfoldroot1 Not to argue very much, but Spider-Man 2, which is SP only game (COD games usually have campaign, MP and Zombies mode), built on foundations of Spider-Man 1, with huge number of reused assets cost more than 300 million dollars.

So is 700 million for game with three separate modes, Battle Royale etc. really that much?

I have feeling that people really don't have a clue how much AAA games cost currently.

@rjejr Who exactly needs to be "saved"?

Modern Warfare 2 earned 1 billion in sales in first 10 days. Not counting MTXs. Despite insane budgets, COD is also insanely profitable.

Fearmongering from Sony "Microsoft is gonna pull COD from PlayStation" was always obvious *****.

Anybody with more than few brain cells could see this from miles away. COD has 2500+ devs attached to it. There was no way Microsoft was going to kamikadze COD brand even without contract.

Alanah Pearce just talks too much...

I wonder when she will left Sony, since she said that she will never play/make any game that is using AI during development

Outside of terrible name for this game (which is first for modern ND), I kinda dig the vibe. That product placement is terrible, but I'm most intrigued by ND saying that they are creating deepest combat in history of ND. Which is great, because TLOU and Uncharted were mediocre at best in terms of gameplay depth.

@get2sammyb Do you really need to be THAT sensitive about criticism of TLOU 2 story? No, people who think that TLOU 2 story was bad are not "weird about it." Their opinion is as valid as yours. So labelling them because they don't like something that you do is weird in a first place.

Also, arguing with "Druckmann also wrote TLOU 1" is ignoring huge "Bruce Straley factor"

Got mine from Xbox yesterday 607 hours spent (not bad). I wonder how many hours I spent with Helldivers 2 and few other games I played on PS5

That's actually smart from them.
Kadokawa has plenty of business ventures that are not exactly raking money. So selling anime and gaming business only makes absolutely no sense for them since they are biggest moneymaker. Keeping rest only and they will be left with just bad business outlook.

So it's boom or bust. On the other hand if Sony actually bought them they would likely try to get rid of those unprofitable business ventures. Which means pretty substantial layoffs. Which would be hard since Japanese labour laws are pretty unforgiving.

@Flaming_Kaiser Well. It was second still best selling game in 2023 after Hogwarts Legacy and it's 5th best selling game in 2024. In US of course.

Not bad for "a joke"

@ChrisDeku "and that’s the worst performing CoD in like a decade."

You have a source for that info? Because last time I checked, MW3 performed worse than MW2 (obviously, since that game broke all records), but it still sold better than Vanguard, for example. And Vanguard came out 2021 if I remember correctly.

Also, MW3 was developed in 18 months, so despite worse sales, ROI must have been pretty good for ABK. But that's besides the point.

"It’s meaningless in any wider discussion of the game." Bro, main audience for COD is US. It imperative for COD games to perform good in US, because that's literally the key to success.

@ChrisDeku BO6 is already third best selling game in 2024 in US, despite being on the market for 6 days (since chart was created at the end of october)

I'm sure that's comparable to Hi-Fi Rush

@themightyant Yes, BO6 is part of COD HQ, but it's dumb to think that Activision can't track number of players/playtime/number of matches in separate clients inside HQ. Since they can track...anything.

What we know

• BO6 was easily best selling game in October and it already shot to third place of best selling games in 2024 (despite it releasing on 25th) just behind EA Sports College Football and Helldivers 2 (in US)
• sales of BO6 were 23% higher than MW3 despite it's inclusion in Game Pass
• in Europe, sales of BO6 were 6% higher than MW3, but 28% lower than MW2. But of course there is Game Pass factor to consider
• BO6 created record in number of 24 hours signups to Game Pass in history of service
• sub services (primarily Game Pass) grew up 16% YoY in US thanks to Black Ops 6
• more than half of Xbox console users in US played Black Ops 6 during October. 38% of PS users in US played BO6 in October. According to Circana, no game usually crosses 30% mark.

Is it really that hard to think that BO6 really achieved records in number of players, played hours and number of matches based on this evidence?

@KyushuTrail It's probably the fact that core gaming community on this website (and many more) just talks about how bad COD is and how nobody is playing it.
Meanwhile COD games are best sellers every year.

@OldGamer999 I didn't know that paying 19,99$ per month is free...

@MrMagic ...you (conveniently) forgot to mention that majority of those games are from 2017 or even sooner, when Steam wasn't as big as it is now.
Also, I counted 7 LEGO games with 5k+ peak CCU on Steam. Which is almost 10x more than LEGO Horizon Adventures managed to pull.

Like...nobody expected game to hit Lego Star Wars Skywalker Saga numbers. But I expected at least 5K CCU considering Horizon is pretty big franchise and Steam has 100+million MAU...

@PuppetMaster Pretending like PC audience don't care about LEGO games is pretty disingenuous. Especially since LEGO Star Wars The Skywalker Saga hit 82k peak on Steam.

And even way less popular LEGO games got to 4-8k CCU range. So no matter how you slice it, 600 CCU is pitiful performance.

@colonelkilgore Considering Sony sent devkits to devs at the start of the year and AAA games takes 5-6 years to develop....you will encounter games with "PS5 Pro in mind" in time when PS6 will come out...

We are still getting games that are based on PS4. And it is year of our Lord 2024. 4 years after PS5 came out.

@bighal Maybe the problem is your thinking that reason why Microsoft bought ABK was to increase Xbox console marketshare... Especially when they offered a contract to confirm COD releases on other platforms...

It's hilarious that people think that Microsoft cares about stagnating market where even Sony can't increase their position in.

If Microsoft cared about their console marketshare, they would never started porting their games on other systems.

Definition of a win win

Well. They fired more than 1000 people and shut down one studio (London Studio, because Firewalk and Neon Koi happened in current quarter). So obviously their bottom line will look better.

It's not rocket science.

I honestly think that we have different expectations when someone is talking about "game changer"

Are you really expecting Totoki to say anything else?

So much for "PS5 Pro will be only console able to run GTA VI at 60FPS"

It's pretty clear that keeping same CPU will be main bottleneck for games like GTA VI, DD2 etc.

So second game coming to Xbox is question of "when" not "if"

Not expecting day one launch though. But maybe one year PS5 exclusive.

There is literally no downside to make this port.
RTS on console is niche genre. Nobody will buy a console brand "because they have RTS games." So it's essentially free money for Microsoft since they don't have competition in this space.

I expect Age of Empires 4 and Age of Mythology Retold to follow.

@Rob_230 How it would be better exactly?
How it would be smart for Microsoft to say "all first-party games will come to PlayStation 5 12 months after Xbox release?" What if they then decide that it won't happen? People will then bitch that they cancelled their plans.

By keeping things internal, they are allowing themselves flexibility. They can adapt to numbers and situation on the market. If you will say something definitive, people will hold you to that promise. I would argue it's dumbest thing they can do.

And if you are Xbox user (PC or console), why do you even need to know that? You are 100% getting all first-party games and into Game Pass. Xbox has no obligation towards PlayStation users. They will get games Microsoft will decide they are going to get in time Microsoft will decide is appropriate. If you are "switching platforms" you can burn yourself. But it's your problem at the end of the day.

It's same thing with Sony and PC ports. PC players expect that all games will come, but there is no 100% guarantee (like Demon's Souls for example). So they just need to wait. Sometimes it's 1 year, sometimes it's day one, sometimes it's never. Because Sony has no obligations toward PC players.

Sometimes I have a feeling that "all Xbox games will come to PlayStation" is statement that PlayStation fans are wishing into existence and projecting onto Xbox. Because Xbox have never said that. They just said "more games will come." Which is kinda huge difference.

@get2sammyb Obviously
They are betting that they can get additional revenue from releasing games on other platforms while keeping their console audience at least intact. That's why ports are coming slowly. Because they need to observe and learn.

That's why you will never hear definitive "all games will sooner or later come to PlayStation," because even Microsoft doesn't know. I would not be surprised if they didn't currently know if they will release The Elder Scrolls VI on PlayStation 5 day one.

And for this exact reason I'm baffled by people who thinks that it's given that all Xbox games will come to PlayStation, like it's a sure thing.

@Enuo Yeah. Sure it's a "cost of Game Pass"

Especially since Cyberpunk and Final Fantasy XIV have this paid tech too

Well. It's their choice of course.
But I would rather play tight story-driven shooter with incredible atmosphere as opposed to bloated open world with bad story (i'm sorry, but Forbidden West story was just bad).

And I noticed several people doubting statement, that digital is way more prevalent on Xbox as opposed to PlayStation.

Here is your proof.

But I disagree with a statement that this is a reason why PS5 Pro is shipping without disc drive.

PS5 Pro is without disc drive because:
A: Price of console would be insane 899€ (in Europe at least). It's just easier to market 799€ console as oppose to 899€ console. Especially since Sony got a lot of ***** even for 799€.
B: Sony wants to test market reaction - how many people will actually buy a disc drive. Yes, PS5 had version without drive, but since PS5 in first few years on market was on short supply, people bought a version that they could get their hands on. Not which preference they have.

I fully expect that PS6 will be also released without BD drive, but players will be able to buy one and plug it same way as they do with PS5 Slim/PS5 Pro

It's kinda insane that people are impatient enough to wait few days. Clearly it's working and publishers are exploiting that.

It's also funny, how this is working with Microsoft and Game Pass. Yes, you get day one first-party games, but you kinda don't since several of them (like Starfield last year, Age of Mythology and Indy this year) have Early Access period tied to premium edition upgrades. So you are both paying for the game (around 30 bucks) and you are also paying for subscription. Kinda genius. But in evil way.

But it is what it is. People showed that they are willing to pay for that *****, so publishers will continue to do it. It's our fault a the end of the day.

@NattyKing I haven't bring up Xbox once time.
I just said that Sony will have hard time hitting their 18 million PS5 sold guidance if sales will continue this trend.

So, I don't know if you are just dumb, or you need to talk about Xbox all the time...