HamKnight

Whereas the ‘Headless Chicken’ business model of changing strategy every five minutes is working so well for Xbox…?

@FatalBubbles That's good to know, thanks!

I'm curious what performance is like, because all the previews I've seen for this have been quite erratic with dropped frames

Just wait til Visa hears about this

@The_Elder I agree. The title of the article alone gave me decade-old buzzfeed whiplash

Such gutting news for those developers affected. And I was rooting for Perfect Dark, so that’s such a huge bummer too.

@UncleByron No, I do get it. I perfectly understood what Naughty Dog were trying to do with the character motivations, I just don’t personally feel they executed it well. Definitely don’t need to be getting into prolonged debates about TLOU2 in 2025 lol. I’m happy for you that you enjoyed it!

I always liked it. The gameplay is top tier, graphics stunning, the acting amazing, and I like the story. My main issues are with the way the story is presented. Owen feels underbaked as a character so it’s hard to see why Abby would risk her life just to see if he’s okay, then she goes back for Lev and his sister to check on them because she had a bad dream about them, after having only known them for like 30 minutes? (And yes I get that they are a metaphor for her guilt, but it still comes across as poor writing).
Ellie’s story is tight, well-told and heartbreaking (if you can get past “I’ve murdered hundreds of people today but now I can’t bring myself to kill Joel’s killer”), but Abby’s motivations post-Joel are a bit all over the place.

Was a really good SoP, for me. Good broad range of different genres, plenty I'm interested in.

I am a huge Nintendo fan and even I can't argue with this. There's just no excuse for this level of greed. I'm old enough to have lived through several eras of Cocky Hubristic Nintendo. Each time it's happened, they've been humbled, so I'm really hoping that occurs again here.

This looked awesome! The British accents were… interesting

“We weren’t predatory enough!” - EA, somehow.

@Titntin If Sony have said that, then great. I didn’t catch when they made that statement but I’m not gonna be some pedant demanding “source?!” of people.
Hopefully it all works out!

@Titntin Okay, but I’m not “despairing unnecessarily”. I’m simply pointing out logistical facts that come from so many cancellations. Maybe it will all get plugged and that’s great, but Sony have cancelled a ton of projects lately, and that’s going to have some kind of impact on the upcoming schedule. I’m not worried about it because, if you read my original post, I said it’s serendipitous that Xbox are going to be releasing more games for PS. I think people are reading doom and gloom into my post which was never the intent.

@get2sammyb I didn’t “project” that Sony have cancelled A God of War live service, a Bend Studio live service, a Spider-Man live service, Factions 2, a Twisted Metal live service, supposedly a Horizon live service and multiple Bungie projects. Those are all real things that happened. Logic would dictate that this is going to cause a drought in the upcoming pipeline at some point. And I never said there “has been” a drought, which your original reply mistakenly argued against. I said “upcoming”, meaning “will occur in the future”. And I also never said I was worried about it, either, simply that it is serendipitous timing of Xbox to be releasing more of their games on PS.

@get2sammyb No, I’m talking about the coming drought caused by so many cancellations. There are going to be sizeable gaps in the release schedule where all these axed live services should have been. That’s just logistics.

It’s weirdly serendipitous how Xbox are now going to release more and more games on PlayStation, right when Sony needs them the most, in the upcoming drought caused by so many live service cancellations.

Honestly, I think he needs to go completely. There are better candidates for his job, people who wouldn't be - even partially - responsible for losing the company billions of dollars and years of wasted effort due to mismanagement. Hulst may have picked up the torch from Jim Ryan, but Hulst was the one who ran with it.

This actually makes me legitimately angry. The shocking levels of mismanagement on display here, the years of work wasted, talented single player studios put to work on **** live services! I can’t even comprehend the depths of incompetence that have gone into these decisions. And now the developers suffer, having yet more projects pulled from under them, likely destroying morale, and the customers suffer as we face even more glaring black holes where games should have been in the years to come. I’m just so angry at Sony right now.

PEGI gave Astro-Bot a 7, meaning anyone the age of 7 or above can play it, and that game has a literal Casino level with slot machines in it that the player can use. By PEGI's own logic, wouldn't that mean that children could "transfer that skill" from the in-game slot machines to real life ones?

This looks really intriguing! Excited for a new IP from Naughty Dog.

Castlevania Symphony of the Night is a game I still go back to regularly to this day.

I think the real question is Will the membership upgrade be eligible for Game of the Year?

I enjoyed the two mainline Horizon games (though I had some big issues the second one's story), but this is too much Horizon coming out of Sony in too short a space of time. It's going to generate apathy toward the IP if they're not careful.

A huge problem is that it has become almost impossible to have a meaningful discourse on this game. People spewing genuine bigotry are being used as the poster children for any and all criticism, drowning out any more nuanced or thoughtful takes.
I will always be extremely skeptical of Ubisoft’s motivations because of their very public track record on anti-consumer practices together with the numerous workplace allegations they’ve amassed over the years. When this skepticism of giant corporate entities simply gets lumped, uncritically, in with “bias”, it dissuades thoughtful discussion.

Would love to play the Ori games on PS5.

In the AAA space I would say he's right.
And it's a shame. A real shame.

Sony: “Throw your money down the pssr”

@RedRiot193 Haha, thanks!

@naruball By “all” of the context I mean “all” of the context that I’ve already spoken about in my previous posts. You are ignoring those in order to make your counter-point. This is arguing in bad faith. It’s not my job to keep reiterating the same points over and over because you choose to ignore them.
And your points about BLM and France’s black population only strengthen my argument. Why did Ubisoft not highlight black main characters and black stories in their games before BLM? Why did it take such a horrible event for them to suddenly care? They’ve had decades of game-development to do this, but they didn’t. If you choose not to interpret this as disingenuous corporate decision-making that that is up to you.
And do not accuse me of bias. I’ve kept my talking points as impersonal as possible. Ubisoft’s terrible track record with staff, with anti-consumer practices, and yes - with jumping on bandwagons only in the wake of a horrible event - are not “fitting my narrative”. These are all real things that have actually happened, and I very much take them into account when judging a company’s conduct.
So again, do not accuse me of bias. You don’t know me.
If you’re going to continue to ignore crucial parts of my responses in order to form bad-faith counter-arguments then there is no point in continuing this. I’ve made my points. You haven’t really engaged with them, but I’m not going to accuse you of being a certain type of person, because I don’t know you, and I’m above that.

@naruball "but you can't be cynical and do something that won't be beneficial to you"
So you don't think that the inclusion of a black main character in a Japanese setting, that just so happened to occur in the wake of the events of 2020, is not a cynical decision? Where were all of Ubisoft's black main characters before 2020?
You know games take a few years to make, so decisions take time to bear fruit. We are just now beginning to see that these decisions are not all successful as you mentioned in your reply, but back when they were originally made, it's quite obvious that Ubisoft thought this would be a money-making idea. Maybe it still will be for them, but I suspect Shadows will underperform.
Knowing a corporation’s history of conduct is hugely important when assessing their intents. All of the context surrounding Ubi’s decision to include Yasuke as a main character points to disingenuous intent.
If the claim that the character was swapped out turns out to be false, I absolutely accept that, but I have heard it in multiple forums and I weigh that information together with their Thomas Lockley debacle and all of the other blunders they have made on researching this game - and, again, knowing Ubisoft (the entire point of my original post), this is hardly beyond the realms of possibility, is it?
This isn't about what I personally like or dislike, so don't make this personal.

@naruball More than one thing can be in the social consciousness at any given time.
And yes, I do think Ubisoft's conduct is cynical bandwagon-jumping. There are already others here who have pointed out the Samurai character was swapped out after events of 2020. This directly speaks to my original point.

The issue for me was never Yasuke's inclusion, it's always been Ubisoft's intent - the climate and context in which this decision was made. This is a company renowned for terrible workplace practices, greedy anti-consumer pushes and statements like "get used to not owning your games". All of this context matters when assessing Ubisoft's intent to include Yasuke. It very much paints a picture not of interesting creative decisions and storytelling but of cynical, disingenuous corporate bandwagon-jumping.

I'm really considering hopping off the bus after this generation, even if just for a while to see how things play out from a distance, because I've become very disillusioned with Sony over the last couple of years. Their prices are becoming insane, and the prospect of more and more remasters of games that just came out is not exciting to me. I know they have a couple of interesting things coming down the pipeline, but I think they're going to have to do a lot better if they want to retain all that good will they built up over several decades.

I wonder, if not enough people buy the Pro, would Sony go back to supporting the base PS5 as their main seller and just let the Pro lapse?

This is really just pushing me away from PlayStation as a brand, if this is where they're headed. I've always been a Sony and Nintendo kinda guy, but I can do without the former if they're determined to go full corporate greed. PC has never been for me, it's great for those who are into it, but I've never wanted the hassle of building one, updating parts and drivers, troubleshooting etc. I just want to park my rear on the sofa at the end of a long day and just turn on a console and chill out for a while. I was with Sony from the PS1, plugged into a CRT, with the original FF7 and MGS. but I won't be following them into a future of barefaced, unrepentant greed.

I love when Phil says "all of us" but he actually means "just us"

Really the only concerning thing for me is the character animations that still look stiff as a board. The rest of the game looks fine enough, but those animations look like they belong to a much older generation of games.

@IamJT Wait, you're right. My apologies!

I think Yasuke’s story sounds like a fascinating one from a historical standpoint, and the idea of that story being explored in video game form is super interesting. And while there are definitely some stinking hot takes swirling around the internet regarding his inclusion in this game, I don’t think we should sweep all of the criticism away as simple bigotry, purely because this is Ubisoft we are talking about; a company that has historically placed monetary greed above all else, a company known for terrible anti-consumer, industry-worsening business practices. I think it’s entirely justified to be skeptical and critical of their decisions. Did Ubisoft just suddenly grow a moral conscience in this one instance, when it came to representation, or was it a hollow, disingenuous attempt at patting themselves on the back? Again, this is Ubisoft we’re talking about.

Just the fact that this article was published alongside a glut of other Concord-centric articles all at the same time here on PS speaks volumes.
Attempting to dismiss genuine and constructive feedback as 'haters' is something I'd have thought was beneath this site.

I’ll give one thing to Xbox, they know how to spin!

No, but seriously, who did they poll?
Even taking British tastes and generational gaps into account, this list still makes zero sense.

I'm wondering if a lot of people, including Sony apparently, have already forgotten just how difficult it was to buy a PS5 for the first - what - year or two years of its life?
That plus the longer-than-usual cross platform period with the PS4 has really compounded this feeling that the base PS5 has only just hit its stride.

"Ubisoft has never been one to shy away from new and upcoming technology"
in their neverending quest for corner-cutting, penny-pinching greed.

@Grumblevolcano I must have completely excised that one from my memory!

@somnambulance That was it - Fairgame$ was the forgettable one that I, uh, forgot about lol. Don't think I ever heard of Concord in the first place!

As an exercise, I've been trying to keep track of all these live-service games Sony said they were making - initially 12 but we know that some have been axed now.

So we've got Naughty Dog's Factions thing - Axed
This alleged Spider-Man LS - Axed
A Twisted Metal LS - Axed
Not sure if Helldivers 2 counts?
Guerrilla are making a Horizon LS, still alive I believe.
Does Foamstars count?
There was some truly forgettable LS announced at the start of that State of Play maybe a year ago - the terrible SoP.
Bungie are still making Marathon.

Those are the ones I can think of off the top of my head, though I'm sure I've missed some, and some from that list probably don't count.

I’m not even into women and I don’t see the problem here. It’s an 18 rated game with a sexy character. Devs are allowed to make whoever they want, players are allowed to buy whatever they want. It’s aimed at consenting adults who are allowed to make their own choices. Let them.
I’m looking forward to reaching the light at the end of these puritanical times we’re in at the moment.

While the conversation is swirling around the future and sustainability of AAA gaming at the moment, I think projects like this are such a great example of where things can go - an art style that is so strong it easily competes with the flashiest graphics of its peers, while not having to bankrupt the studio.