Grumblevolcano

Very good SoP. Some nice reveals there the Mega Man DLC for Sonic Racing CrossWorlds and Deus Ex Remastered. It also seems that SoP continues the path of 1st party games being within about a year from reveal. Saros was revealed in February 2025 and ended up with a March 2026 release, Wolverine re-reveal in September 2025 for a Fall 2026 release.

The show was also paced well with the exception of a few parts like the speakers and GoW controller.

I'm guessing:

• Starts with MH Wilds expansion
• Some other 3rd party presence being: RE9, Sonic Racing CrossWorlds, Phantom Blade Zero, Jet Set Radio, FFIX remake, Nioh 3, Lumines Arise, Onimusha Way of the Sword
• 1st party presence being: Saros, Marvel Tokon, Infamous Second Son Remastered, Horizon Online, the final game being Wolverine
• Mark Cerny has a segment dedicated to the 2026 PSSR upgrade for PS5 Pro
• PS+ teases for October - December

Regarding my prediction of Infamous Second Son Remastered, the PS4 original was removed from PS+ Extra/Premium earlier in the year and last year had a similar situation with Horizon Zero Dawn where a remaster followed the removal.

@Don The graphics are fine to me, the issues I have are about availability on the current consoles (currently the full trilogy is only playable on XB1/Series X|S regarding newer consoles) and that the Xbox exclusive DLC is still Xbox exclusive.

Trilogy remaster is the best way to make the games available on PS5/Switch while at the same time finally making the Xbox exclusive DLC available on non-Xbox hardware.

It would be disappointing if it was via the classics lineup to be honest, Legend/Anniversary/Underworld really needs a trilogy remaster including the Xbox exclusive DLC.

Sony teases the future PS+ Premium lineup at each SoP so if it's via the classics lineup it'll likely be announced at the supposed September SoP.

Makes sense, this is the last Fall/Holiday season before GTA6 releases (unless the delay rumour Pure Xbox reported on turns out to be true) so plenty of people will pick up PS5 now in preparation for that game (also Sony will probably increase the price of PS5 again next year).

I could see it be this week considering last year SEGA used SoP to announce the Sonic 3 movie DLC for Sonic X Shadow Generations.

If SEGA wants to have all the Sonic Racing CrossWorlds Season Pass guest franchises revealed prior to the launch of the Digital Deluxe edition (September 22nd), a PS event this week would be a way to achieve that.

Is this perhaps more about PC/mobile? I noticed the PC ports really slowed down after TLoU 2 Remastered and Days Gone Remastered in April. All there is incoming at the moment is Marathon, Fairgame$ and Marvel Tokon.

I saw Patapon 1+2 Replay very high up in the eshop charts back in July so I guess the message Sony would get is that Switch/Switch 2 is a good place to port Japan Studio franchises to. I could see Gravity Rush be announced for Switch 2 in tomorrow's Direct for example.

I wonder if RDR2 would've been 2nd if it had a PS5 version.

My predictions are:

• Metaphor announced for Switch 2 in the Direct
• A game which really shows off Switch 2 features like Trauma Center for mouse controls announced in the Direct (the already announced Two Point Museum could fit here)
• A Yakuza game announced at the RGG event
• One of the Game Awards 2023 revival games announced at State of Play

Hopefully the disc drive allows you to play physical PS6 games, would be a huge shame if PS6 games are digital only and the disc drive only exists to play backwards compatible PS4/PS5 games.

I think this scenario showcases perfectly why digital preorders are a good thing. You don't have to deal with digital store crashes, you can just play the game at launch because it's already downloaded.

I'm looking forward to finding out more about 007 First Light. If they're having a game specific SoP now maybe the release is early on in 2026 like February?

Makes me think the handheld would be around the same price as Switch 2 and then the home console is more expensive than PS5 Pro.

@Porco I think Sony's aggressive pricing strategy will be GTA6 PS5 hardware bundles next year like $399 for PS5 digital edition + GTA6 download code for Days of Play.

Looks like the September SoP is probably September 23rd then.

@wiiware I think PvP not being on the disc might be about there being no bot matches for PvP so when the servers shut down the PvP will be unplayable irrelevant of whether it's on the disc or not.

@MFTWrecks Scope of the event, showcases are more a roadmap for the future of PS meanwhile SoP tends to look more short term.

The last showcase was the infamous one in May 2023 where all the PS Studios games present except Spider-Man 2 were live service.

Geoff's hype trailer for ONL confirmed that Ghost of Yotei will be at the event:

As Sunbreak was announced 6 months after MH Rise released, maybe a September SoP announces the MH Wilds expansion and then it's present here?

I think the "one more thing" will be Silksong.

Interested to see more about Titanic Scion, I liked the first Daemon X Machina and the new game is one of the very few Switch 2 3rd party games that are fully on the cart.

@AdamNovice I think the whole situation about Steam on the next gen Xbox complicates things about what Sony are willing to port over as in that scenario, Sony's exclusives are on Xbox by default as a result of the PC strategy.

Theoretically this'll mean little because if the next gen Xbox has Steam, you'll be able to play Sony's exclusives on Xbox anyway. I just hope future announcements have better timing, the Helldivers 2 Xbox announcement should've been delayed a week or so.

@Fiendish-Beaver I could see it being the parity clause that resulted in E-Day. Start on Gears 6, discover that the vision has to be compromised too much to get the game running on Series S with feature parity so pivot to a more linear game (E-Day). By the time Gears 6 releases, the game would be coming to PC/next gen only so the Series S problem is no longer present.

@UltimateOtaku91 I think the next Direct would be more of an indicator of what 3rd party support looks like for Switch 2. Nintendo commonly saves 3rd party reveals for Directs and there's been very few Switch 2 3rd party announcements in general post-April 2nd (a few Switch 2 editions of games coming to Switch 1 and Virtua Fighter 5).

The sooner Nadella is gone from Microsoft the better.

They waited until FH5 released before announcing Gears of War Reloaded so I think Halo's PS5 debut will be announced after August (probably October at Halo World Championships considering the teases about that event).

My guess is that a Direct has Sea of Thieves, CoD (BO6 or BO7) and Starfield/DOOM The Dark Ages/Indiana Jones. Then Gamescom gets Flight Sim 2024 alongside more info on already announced stuff.

I guess it's because Sony's upcoming 1st party lineup isn't large enough (in terms of quantity) to have a booth at Gamescom.

A theoretical Sony Gamescom 2025 booth would've been Ghost of Yotei and a bunch of 3rd party games meanwhile with there being no booth, the 3rd party games may still be at the event anyway.

In contrast Sony's Gamescom 2019 booth had quite a sizeable number of 1st party games like Dreams, Concrete Genie, MediEvil remake and Death Stranding.

I don't think they'd have added new content to the game recently after a very long gap of nothing new if it wasn't coming to new platforms soon. The question becomes who will announce it, Rockstar (via a standalone trailer), Nintendo (via a Direct) or some other source?

I'm leaning towards Nintendo Direct Partner Showcase.

I think they're waiting on Nintendo, very few 3rd party games have been announced for Switch 2 after the initial batch in the April 2nd Switch 2 Direct but naturally if FFIX remake existed Square Enix would want to announce it for Switch 2.

Didn't the FTC trial already provide the evidence that Game Pass was unsustainable?

The timing of this game announcement is disturbing as it distracts from this week's horrific Xbox news. Xbox execs won't have any accountability for their actions and instead the big message of this week becomes about whether Sony is going 3rd party by bringing Helldivers 2 to Xbox.

PS+ was at its best during the PS3 era, just an optional bonus on the side while online multiplayer was free.

I wonder if Elden Ring will be here considering the Switch 2 version hasn't gotten a release date yet and the extra content is coming to the other platforms.

That's disappointing on two levels:
1) It would've been really nice for there to have been a PS5/Switch 1 physical version
2) While the absence on newer Nintendo hardware could be resolved via Gamecube NSO (Switch 2), PS players are left out unless Sony finds some way to do native PS3 games on PS5

@OldGamer999 If you make physical games more expensive than digital, you're essentially trying to force people into the digital only future. Same thing about the existence of Key Cards/Discs instead of putting the game on the cart/disc.

How companies act if the digital only future arrives is a problem in itself but the focus should be on trying to prevent the digital only future from happening in the first place.

If they won this, wouldn't Sony just make physical more expensive than digital like what Nintendo's done with Switch 2 1st party exclusives outside NA (e.g. physical DK Bananza is £66.99 while digital is £58.99)?

@somnambulance @LofiPie27 I think release pacing will be a big challenge regarding sales of an individual title. Tactics in September, FF7 Remake in winter, Rebirth probably in 2026, the 3rd part could be early 2027 coinciding with the PS1 game’s anniversary. Add in the elusive FF9 Remake somewhere and you may end up with a FF release approximately every 3 months, for example:

• September 2025 - Tactics
• December 2025 - FF7 Remake (Switch 2/Series X|S)
• March 2026 - FF16 (Switch 2)
• June 2026 - Rebirth (Switch 2/Series X|S)
• September 2026 - FF9 Remake (PS5/PC/Switch 2/Series X|S)
• January 2027 - 3rd part of FF7 Remake trilogy (PS5/PC/Switch 2/Series X|S)

Sounds like an effective way to avoid GTA6. Let Switch 2 players catch up on recent releases like P3R and Metaphor before GTA6 followed by P4R releasing on all platforms coming out a sizeable gap after GTA6.

Makes me wonder if PS6 doesn’t support PSVR or PSVR2 much like how Series X|S doesn’t support Kinect.

I think PS6’s biggest challenge will be price, I don’t see either next gen device (PS6/next Xbox) being cheaper than PS5 Pro and considering crossgen has essentially been confirmed for similar length as PS4 during the PS5 generation I think the most common combo years into the PS6 generation will be PS5 + Switch 2.

@Scarface82G1 I think they will have an upgrade path because they increased the price of the PS4 version. Same tactic Sony used for Horizon Zero Dawn.

@Dman10 Considering the timeframe, I could see it being announced in a Direct and then the other versions being announced outside the Direct at the same time. Legends Z-A and Splatoon Raiders news does make general Direct seem less likely at this point but a Partner Showcase would still solve Switch 2’s upcoming 3rd party drought.

I don’t think they have learned from Concord because of Marathon and Fairgame$.

I also have a bad feeling that Nintendo will make Mario Kart World go full live service (battle passes + cosmetics store) at some point post-launch resulting in even more live service chasing from other companies much like how many companies went chasing open world as a result of BotW.

@AdamNovice Nintendo’s usually the source of the annual Just Dance reveal and considering Switch 2 was almost completely absent from both SGF + Xbox showcase, I think it’s a safe guess at this point that there’s a June Nintendo Direct.

That was a rough show, though what I was hoping for the most was a release date for Sonic Racing CrossWorlds which happened. September is very packed.

It was a very good SoP, both in terms of announcements themselves and the pacing. It also makes me wonder what Sony saved (if anything) for SGF, it’s not Ghost of Yotei because next info is July SoP and it’s probably not DS2 either because that game has its own event this month.

I think OD will be the Xbox exclusive coming to PS announced at SGF. DS2 has its own event which suggests Kojima’s presence at SGF is for a different reason.

@DonkeyFantasy I could see them releasing CoD 2025 as $80 DLC for Black Ops 6 as a way to get out of their commitment to releasing CoD day 1 on Game Pass. It would also explain the PS5 Black Ops 6 hardware bundle and the rumours of Black Ops 6 coming to Switch 2.