Haruki_NLI

"Technically we own the rights"

What do you mean technically, you DO!

As for doing what's best by the game, that's fine. But what about the next one?

Once again, a game from either a random studio or someone from the industry past offers a game that touts itself to be the successor to a popular thing, or gets compared to a popular thing by the press, and it ends up being ass.

This keeps happening, and it will keep happening, and you can see it coming from a mile away.

@get2sammyb May 5 2026 in the corporate strategy & earnings announcement briefing, from Page 23 to 41 of the 45 page document, Sony focuses on using AI across their studios, systems, Mockingbird, performance capture, and more, then turning to working with TSMC and physical image sensors and technology to use AI in physical settings such as cars, robotics, and more.

They then, on Page 42, talk about the components shortages, after glossing it up for half the presentation.

To what extent they are using AI, and how much data center juice they're guzzling, it up in the air, but make no mistake, they want in, costs be damned. It's why they don't really mind raising prices if they can monetize existing users further.

https://www.sony.com/en/SonyInfo/IR/library/presen/strategy/pdf/2026/speech_E.pdf

Are we sure components getting more expensive is no fault of Sony's?

Xbox complained about it last week despite Microsoft being one of the many companies pumping out AI and driving the prices up in the first place!

Next you'll tell me Sony moans about the cost of pressing a disc. Brother it's YOUR format that YOU own!

It's funny. Their response says "No it's not true. He wasn't privy to this contract and the game was clactually mostly funded by our studio owner."

Right. That's nice. That wasn't the question though.

So what about Xbox paying you more money than the games full development budget for exclusivity? No?

Didn't think so.

@DennisReynolds So PS how about at the end of each day you make a super article that covers all the news of the day regarding the disc news instead of doing a 100 different articles every day regarding the disc thing with the comments section containing the exact same comments as the last.

Funnily enough, they won't do this for the exact same reason Sony is cutting off physical game sales: money. Sweet sweet ad revenue on every article.

The game releases on August 28 at $100 or more for the extra special edition.

Or you can wait a week for the plebian edition.

But please buy it at launch. Please. 2K needs the money this year.

@DennisReynolds You really can't think of a reason why I have yet to play it? Notice I didn't say "won't".

It's time. I don't have time. For example, I picked up FF7 Remake in January, I beat it in 39 hours according to my save file. That happened in May. I picked up Pokopia in May, still only on the second area. It's been two months. DOOM: The Dark Ages? Sat on my PC unplayed since launch. The last time I sat down and played a game? 3 weeks ago.

Now, I'm sure you would say "make time". No, not really an option, but that's how life works sometimes.

@DennisReynolds No, I've never played Palworld, and before you jump to conclusions, it's not because of the reasons you'd think.

@DennisReynolds But the journalists told me it was Pokemon with Guns! (Which is probably what set the Pokemon Company off in the first place!).

Though Rare Shiny Pals and breeding for eggs to manipulate stats is....that sounds like Pokemon.

@get2sammyb This is true, but we also need to remember "PlayStation reposted" pops up, and reading comprehension of the wider market isn't exactly strong.

Never forget this site and it's compatriots often get mistaken for the respective brands customer service line after all.

What we are witnessing, is the blowback to the these games reaching across accounts. Remember, the users may not follow the indie game account, but they do follow PlayStation, so when PlayStation retweets/blogs/posts/xeets something, it pops up on those feeds as a PlayStation post.

Which I think really shows this isnt going away, and it sucks the developers are the ones taking the hits, but it is also Sony quite literally running from an oncoming wave of gunfire, and grabbing random people and throwing them back into the path to try and slow it down.

I dont think Gamestop stopped selling games because the market was changing, it was that Gamestop didnt offer any better deals than other retailers, especially on trade ins.

So they had to pivot.

They actually fell victim to the same thing that Sony is trying to kill off: Competition.

Next they'll sell digital only TVs and cameras that you use directly via your eyeballs.

Probably has to do with the EU demanding all electronics have replaceable batteries. The PS Portal and Dual sense controllers all need redesigns soon.

If Nintendo can provide exact specifications of the new versions and set out a timescale months in advance, then the wealthier Sony with less to redesign certainly can.

But they won't because transparency is rare.

Also I expect the fight stick to get a price increase.

@DennisReynolds She's saving Xbox.

Just not the people in it.

The brand, not the people making it.

He's right, and Sony said as much in the past year with their financials. The goal is the make more money off of existing users, effectively the mobile strategy, get some whales in there.

And that's horrifying. That is pure late stage capitalism at it's finest. "They'll get two jobs" level of of it no less.

But likewise, as we repeatedly see, Sony has to reinvent PSN. The fact someone can social engineer someone at customer services into relinquishing an entire account with just a little bit of not hard to work out receipt data is INSANE. The fact the network is riddled with tracking bugs, store bugs, everything, is insane. This stuff was built almost 20 years ago, and it is starting to show.

What about refunds? What about the retailers they say they will support with digital purchases for customers in store somehow, despite currently not offering that AT ALL and getting dragged through the courts for it? Do we REALLY believe they will do that if they currently don't already?

Are you seriously telling me Nintendo of all draconic companies got digital game sharing down? Really? But Sony can't?

What about existing physical libraries? Is it just "You'll buy it again"?

So many unanswered questions and this is the true problem: Sony has previous with cocking up their digital side in either funny, worrying, or devastating ways....and I don't think that will change.

Remember, you may also arbitrarily (And maybe illegally) get additional discounts depending on whether or not they like you today and if the wind blows north east on the second Tuesday in July in 1954.

Sounds like someone needs a pay day.

See you in a couple years Troy when they re-re-remake the first game again, now adorably all-digital.

Until then I'm sure there's some more sad dads you can play.

The scary part is that being digital only and games only getting bigger, means the systems needs more on board storage. That's getting more expensive by the day as well. Do you launch with just 1TB again and pass the cost off to consumers to buy VERY expensive SSDs again?

Given the missing punctuation, one of the paragraphs reads like PushSquare is publishing the game.

@Swandivetotheasphalt Sony notably only allows sales via invite, as noted over the past two years, and while publishers set their own prices, if Sony gets away with higher prices on the store, why wouldn't other publishers follow suit?

Giving Sony complete control of prices right after they shut stores, delist content far more regularly than they should, get sued for removing sale of digital codes at retailers leaving their store as the ONLY option (So no, I dont believe them when they say retailers will offer games), and started doing their legally dubious undisclosed dynamic pricing experiment....

Nah, gaming is on the way out, hardware and games themselves are now pricing people out by the day.

Does that digital figure also include DLC, micro transactions and other add ons or is that just full game purchases exclusively? There is room for some fiddling here.

And this version actually has a full physical release....on the most expensive physical format. Wild.

The Vatican? Haiti? Venezuela? Antartica? Borneo? Bermuda? What about the little 1 mile island countries?

So lemme get this right.

Xbox started with nothing, bought a few studios to make their big tentpole games that hold up a tent with just three pegs, expanded their lineup with a wider array of studios and games going into the 360, cut it all down to only focus on the big boys by the end of it, realized that didn't work out for the Xbox One, spent billions rebuilding that same style of portfolio up, and now are cutting it all down again because it didn't work and only having a few big studios and games is the solution which didn't work last time?

Time is a very short cycle huh. They'll rinse and repeat before the successor to whatever Helix is comes out.

Maybe they, and the rest of the Western studios, need to learn to just get games out with a reasonable budget and timescale? It seems more and more developers struggle with that, with public cancellations of announced projects, delays after delays, going broke with each release.

Just a though: make games. Sell games. Keep going.

@get2sammyb Release a PC version, turn the resolution settings down, turn off Raytracing especially, do some spec specific tweaks and you have the game at 60fps. Might only be 1080p, or 1440p, or use DLSS, and not have all the visual features, but it's GTA6 running at 60fps

My PC could do it, it just takes cutting out all the crap that doesn't matter that's forced on on console versions.

It won't follow it, but maybe precede it by a week.

@Enuo Got to get it in somehow, they can't use the Pornhub stats anymore since the PS5 Web Browser isnt user accessible.

Gonna need to send an intern out for more packs of printer paper to restock!

@Oram77 We also compared a 6 year old machine to a new one in November, but back then that comparison was favourable, although only week on week. For the period it was the opposite.

Suppose it only suits if the narrative matches what you want.

Ah yes. More of Hermans minions.

@gomersoul They're also one of the companies jumping at AI, this making the problem for themselves.

@WolfyTn They aren't the ones making it. It's part of their Gear Project initiative, where a handful (literally a handful) of project managers and planners go off and make a concept for a game. Sometimes it's done by a small internal team, other times like this, it's outsourced to multiple external studios.

This is the latter.

@Rich33 That's nice. However I, the customer, determine what is or isn't a price I am willing to pay for a good or service.

If I see the game costs me, the customer, the one paying, £70, but the same individual in another country $70, I am not a happy chap when the exchange doesn't equal out close enough.

£70 is not equal to $70 though. If anything, they raised the US price to match the ones we've been saddled with for 6 years. Sony, TakeTwo and Xbox are the ones who shafted us with £70 in the first place.

This is all I've heard about this game so yeah....it was done for attention. You don't put out a trailer at Summer Games Fest and build up the suspense of Tupac showing up if it's NOT for attention.

Why is Philippines spelt with a Ph but the national identifier spelt with just an F?

Was one by a guy with a lisp?

Bit weird to go through the effort of doing this here on PS5, but they're putting in the effort for MW4 on Switch 2 and NOT doing this quick and dirty port job there.

Sometimes the industry does confuse me.

@get2sammyb Cool that you're receptive to it. It can work but sometimes it's a bit much. But it's nice to have a nice personal touch in gaming these days.

Also can vouch for those biccies.

I noticed it, and it also unfortunately came with a a new article style that began to be prevalant with NTE coverage, namely, rampant subheading breaking the article up and reading less like a first person piece and more like an ad read.

You can't go first person and then have articles look like a list of speaking points, it reeks of inauthenticity, but with work, it should balance out.

It's one thing to stand out from AI, it's another to go so far in the other direction it also feels....weirdly unnatural? It's hard to describe.

Nevermind, I think I got it. You want it to be more like a personal back and forth but the article structures make it feel less like a human wrote it, if that makes sense.

And like @TheDarts said, there's a lot more focus on what social media thinks, which works well with what you guys think in this new personal writing style....but we don't come here for social media takes. If we wanted that, we'd go sit on the cesspits and get it, you know? Might be best keeping that to your own social media accounts where it belongs.

Someone needs to find this guy and give him a stern talking to, so to speak.

@somnambulance The problem Beast of Reincarnation has is everyone, including this article, lists Game Freak as the developer, when they themselves have said no, they designed the game and planned it, but the actual game bit is being made by multiple unknown studios with no more than a handful of Game Freak staff actually working on it in any capacity.

@wildcat_kickz Gonna say, this seems like a valid use for AI. Mood boarding especially is a drag, and in this respect is no different than doing that and having loads of references to existing art and real world objects.

It just quicker.

If the final thing is made by AI, then it misses that human touch of imperfections and can seem odd. There's a line here for me, and it's at using it for the final product. But anything to speed up the boring bits is fine by me. Those were the worst back when I studied game development.

God am I glad I jumped ship from that in 2018.

I thought it was because people like Nate and Jeff were information theivess and stood to make bank from leaking things?

@somnambulance There's definitely a problem with leak culture, in that every first party thing here was leaked. Star Fox, Xenoblade Switch 2 Editions, Switch Sports Resort, Zelda....

I thought he was stuck as a Crash side character

The real big story was how for what feels like the first time, big third party games got announced for Nintendo at the same time as the other platforms, at an event that wasn't Nintendo's.

That's unheard of.

Ratioed? Uuhhhh