Intr1n5ic

@sanderson72 Do you think being abusive deserves a response?

A new Obsidian Fallout is what I've wanted since New Vegas, so on the one hand this is great news, but damn I really love Grounded. I know they've said development will continue but I fear the overall quality of 2 is going to suffer as a result of what's happening. I'll still support it in August, I just hope it doesn't get abandoned.

Forget release date, knowing Bethesda it will be at least a couple of years after release before it's worth jumping in.

@Rich33 I'm enjoying it. I'm not sure they got the feel of Bond right at this stage, but I am liking what they've created.

Always good to see IO have success though, they've had a rough history so I'm glad it worked out for them.

I'm gonna stick the kettle on and finish 007 First Light.

@DennisReynolds My guess is they're expecting a lot of negative press around Microsoft in the coming week, perhaps they think it will help overshadow this. People are fickle and love to jump on something new to be outraged about.

@Rich33 Yeah you're right, I completely glossed over the point that it's basically business as usual without the disc. Still, I'm hopeful this paves the way for a competitive market in discounted store credit.

@Swandivetotheasphalt I completely missed this point in the previous article, that's obviously how they'll try and circumvent it.

Perhaps, and I say this with wishful thinking, this will potentially open up competition for platforms like Shopto instead.

@Swandivetotheasphalt

Of course I'd just have preferred the nintendo approach and raise all the prices of physical games and make digital gamea cheaper. This feels a tad extreme. I sense they're jumping the gun a bit.

Almost certainly the better option, but I can't imagine this not making digital cheaper, at least in the UK. Do you think the regulatory bodies here will allow them to restrict an alternative route to market?

@AI-Generation Microsoft have laid off over 2500 people since acquiring Activision, and the numbers for who will be next haven't even been disclosed yet.

This isn't a competition, the loss of jobs is tragic in any circumstance, but it certainly looks a lot worse when it's off the back of spending 90 billion buying them all up.

And of course Sony will be raising prices at some point, their manufacturing is directly affected by AI chasing scumbags, of which Microsoft are a major player.

Edit - I stand corrected, it's apparently twice as many as I thought.

The sad part is this now looks inevitable, and when Sony's hand is forced there will be a ton of people talking about corporate greed and how their prices are inexcusable.

Sony don't have a horse in the AI race, they're not stockpiling components for their huge data centres and destroying the market, they are essentially at the behest of far bigger players who will dictate what is necessary for them to not lose money on their hardware.

Our hobby is being destroyed by trillionaire s***munchers.

That new PS app icon does look cool.

As above, shopto is the way to go if you want to get a nice reduction on the ultimate edition, they don't currently have any promotion running though so it's worth waiting.

@darylb24 If anyone is displaying bias here it certainly isn't me, you along with several other regulars rush to a PlayStation site to defend Xbox and Microsoft at every opportunity.

It's baffling to me that anyone is defending this crap. Instead of a friend or partner being able to just press start on a second controller, they have to f*** around setting up a Microsoft account if they don't have one, creating a profile, setting up passwords, verifying emails, just to play a couch co-op game. If Sony ever implemented this I'd be saying the exact same thing.

Fortunately, it's now been clarified that those on PS don't have to pay, but anyone wanting to play with you still needlessly has to set-up two accounts because of Microsofts stupidity.

@darylb24 Again, the entire issue here is two people sitting side by side both needing to have individual Microsoft accounts to play together. As you need to be online to log in to those accounts on PlayStation, they're treated as online requirements which require a subscription.

We could get in to the whole conversation of why this game needs a connection at all for local co-op or solo, but I'll ask you this instead, why is Microsoft making it's own player base sign in to two seperate accounts to play splitscreen with each other?

@darylb24 They have created the problem by making two people require individual Microsoft accounts when playing on the same system, that's ridiculous. The only one who should need an account is the person whose console you're playing on, this is just another way for them to talk about engagement numbers.

@darylb24 How is this Sony's infrastructure if the cause of the problem is having to log in to an online Microsoft account?

@KundaliniRising333

Love how everyone is blaming Microsoft despite Sony doing the same ***** with baldur's gate 3..

This isn't true though, did you come to that conclusion by reading one tweet in this article?

Local co-op for Baldurs Gate 3, as in two people playing on one console together, doesn't require PS Plus at all, you just join up at character creation. A subscription is required to group up online when playing on seperate systems.

I don't think delaying it has any benefits, the components won't get cheaper, the ai chasing billionaire and trillionaire scumbags will ensure that, and the longer they wait, the older the tech inside becomes.

I genuinely don't care about any of this, but I do enjoy watching the same names run defence. I hope Banjo makes a guest appearance.

Summer Game Fest

@LtSarge I agree with a lot of this, but a huge part of what weakened their brand was releasing on PC, and if they're not addressing that, this means nothing. A massive market still have no reason to buy an Xbox.

If acquiring COD didn't send customers rushing to the stores to buy hardware, this certainly won't, even if it looks fantastic.

They've created a problem for themselves that they can't reverse. The PC market don't want their hardware, a large percentage of their customers don't want to buy their software and expect it on a subscription, and they are all over the place with their messaging trying to remedy that and increase revenue.

I think exclusives are important, but they lost that draw with simultaneous PC releases. It will be interesting to see how this plays out for them.

@Bamila Yeah, about that...

I thought it looked great, looking forward to it.

@Member_the_game I'm not either to be honest but I found myself enjoying it in this setting.

If you want to tone some of that stuff down, you can start a custom game and turn off things like hunger, thirst, spoiling food and weapon/armor degradation. You still get the same full story experience.

Like you said, it's free so definitely worth a punt.

@Member_the_game If you haven't played it before give Grounded a try, it might surprise you. I incorrectly wrote it off as a kids game when I first saw it and paid it no attention, but after grabbing it in a sale last year, it's one of the best survival/exploration games I've ever played. The whole garden sandbox is great to run around in, and the base building is genuinely superb and has a lot of scope for creativity. It's absolutely worth a try for anyone who thinks it's not for them.

@SMJ Like release Saros, Marathon and Wolverine this year?

I did but I don't wanna turn my pro on in this weather, it's already 33c in the room it's set up in.

@Drago201 There are sales on continuously throughout the year that benefit subscribers, nobody promised you they would include the specific games you want. You should message the publishers or devs of said games and ask them why they never request to be discounted.

@Drago201 Other than their own games, Sony don't decide what goes on sale.

I can guarantee them at least one sale if they remaster The Warriors.

@Questionable_Duck I'm curious about this as I don't know the numbers, but were those sales higher than what they sold on their own platform?

I understand where you're coming from with this and it's funny because I feel the same way about a game you rate highly.

I decided to download the Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter demo yesterday, I saw how well it scored here and its overall positive reception online, but holy s*** the dialogue is doing my head in, there's so much pointless waffle and the pacing suffers as a result. Maybe I've just outgrown these games.

@Skinny-Pete Yeah that's a fair point, I was surprised at how well Oblivion did though.

@Skinny-Pete Sea of Thieves sold extremely well, and Oblivion Remastered shifted over a million units despite being a broken mess.

I actually agree with this, and if they care about their hardware going forward it's something they should re-evaluate. I've been vocal in the past about my thoughts on them purchasing 3rd party publishers and making those exclusive though.

As mentioned, seeing as Forza alone has made them hundreds of millions, I think there will be a few higher ups who will be objecting to this request.

Exclusives are hugely important for brand identity, and when selling hardware is a vital part of your business, it becomes even more crucial to have titles that draw people to your platform. I think releasing on PC is harmful to that, and I personally believe it's been a significant factor in why Xbox's hardware sales have tanked. They fixed their issue of having no games last gen, but created a whole new one by giving an entire market no incentive to buy their consoles. As a trillion dollar software first company they can bankroll that decision, but a similar trajectory would be devastating to Sony's model where hardware is a priority.

The full game is currently on sale until the 27th, 25% off on my store.

They paid I believe 1.8 billion to acquire, and 1.8 in staff retention packages. I'm obviously just an armchair critic but I don't think this acquisition was a bad idea on paper, the reasons and direction they've allowed them to take are certainly panning out to be though.

They should have gone all in on Destiny, that ip had the potential to be absolutely massive longterm. They had a fervent fan base that deeply cared about the game, and the whole FPS raid model is unrivalled in that genre. The universe and lore probably could have been spun off in to tv and film as well. Sony should take the reins here, put a plan in motion to revert some of the ludicrous and greedy practices the Bungie executives implemented in those games, and get them fully focused on Destiny 3.

I've no idea what they do with Marathon, it's a great game but unfortunately doesn't seem to have resonated with a large enough audience.

@Enuo Yeah they didn't make it useless thankfully.

I'll be interested to check out the power generator change when I get home, it's a trait I look for on every run. Admittedly, it was a bit strong, I just hope they haven't gone too far the other way with it.

Get off social media people, it will do wonders for your mental health.

Saros for me, I'm loving it. The movement and gunplay have been refined and it feels excellent to play. I played Pragmata and Hades 2 as well and I thought they were both great, but there's something special about Housemarque games.

Beat me to it @Ken_Kaniff, I completely agree.

I think exclusivity is still massively important when trying to incentivise people on to your platform. Established franchises are great for brand identity and it's been strange seeing some of them come to PlayStation, even though I understand the reasons why.

I don't think the recent gamepass change, or what we're seeing here, if it comes to fruition, has anything to do with the fans or their requests though. I think they're in PR overdrive to get people onside before their new hardware launch.

"Well, to be honest @__Seraph, I don't think that's any of your business."

@Dogbreath

How do similar games handle skills, powers and interaction?

With button combinations, the same as this.

The point you made was that the basics are completely unintuitive and that's just not true is it. Have you played it?

@1970sGamer @Dogbreath It's a terrible analogy because it doesn't reflect the game at all.

The basic inputs are all standard, left stick to move and right is camera, L1 is block and R1/R2 are light and heavy, square is climb, circle is roll/dodge, x to jog or double tap to run. The only thing that takes some learning are the skills and powers, and the initial interaction with highlighting items and npc's, but none of it is difficult.

@IOI The crow boss? I thought my pro was gonna catch fire during that. Probably the worst example of bad optimisation I've experienced so far, it's been pretty solid outside of that.

I'm loving it though, controls were fine after a couple hours, and my main complaint with storage has been fixed.

@Stocksy Understandable. I should add, I do agree the perfect scores are red flags. From what I've seen of its shortcomings, I don't know how you could arrive at a perfect score. I'm excited to start exploring it tonight though.