Kevw2006

@Triumph741 Are they? I'm curious what games they have embargoed an announcement for PC as they usually state on their trailers if it's not available on another platform until a certain date and then you can usually expect it to release on at least PC or Xbox after that. As far as I'm aware everything that was shown at their showcase that wasn't a straight up PS exclusive was announced for other platforms straight after the show finished.

@Pat_trick They also conveniently ignore the fact that MS have and do also engage in the same exclusive content and timed or full third party exclusivity that Sony apparently use to "bully" the market.

I don't have any problems with Sony trying to get a piece of that action, especially if the profits made were to be invested back into making other games better. They may even actually come up with a live service game that's fun to play in itself. My hopes aren't high for what we've seen so far though.

@cburg If you really believe that then that's just sad. Maybe you should go and read up on Microsoft's history, bullying the competition out of the market is how they've got where they are now.

Something to remember is the fact that Microsoft have started selling premium passes to their big "day one" first party game pass releases, with the main carrot on the stick being early access to the game. The premium pass plus the cost of the sub pushes the price up to close to a full release and I'm sure MS are banking at many people not being able to resist that early access.

@Number09 Do explain how you manage to share a game with 20 mates and you can all play at the same time?

@PsBoxSwitchOwner I believe that the last officially stated number was 25 million, but that was quite a while ago now so is likely to be higher. Popular consensus though is that MS would likely have made some sort of announcement when it hit a milestone, such as 30 million.

@Sil_Am I would be expecting to be dipping in and out of a game the size and scope of Starfield for many months after it releases. Once you pass the 5/6 month mark you're at diminishing returns on the value of your sub oif you're subscribed purely to play just that game. If I do decide to play Starfield I will be purchasing it outright and playing it on my laptop.

Sony likes to make money, and lots of it. If their analysis showed that adding first party games to PS Plus on release would make them more money you can be sure they would be doing it already. If MS have somehow managed to make the model work for them then that's fair enough but other companies that it wouldn't work so well for shouldn't be pressured into following suit.

@Nalverus I usually find that Sony are usually pretty clear at marking in the trailers the situation regarding exclusivity on third party games. Normally it will state something along the lines of "not available on other platforms until...", or "console exclusive until..." And if a game isn't exclusive at all then normally it is free to be announced what all platforms it was on following the original announcement. Like I said in one of my earlier posts, Microsoft were so fast to announce all of the games that were in the Sony showcase that didn't have any exclusivity and also coming to Xbox but we still don't know the status of some of the games on the Xbox showcase. I'm willing to stand corrected if evidence of previous examples can be provided but as far as I am aware Microsoft are the only ones that embargo announcements of other platforms for multiplatform releases. I honestly would have minded less if they had just announced it as an exclusive rather than just leaving us all in the dark.

@ArcticSin I see no real complaints about exclusivity, just complaints over things not being clear. Exclusivity is its own thing but why does there need to be cloak and daggers over what platforms a game is going to release on? If it is exclusive then why wasn't it stated on the trailer that was shown? If it isn't then why do we need to wait days or longer to find out?
After the Sony showcase Microsoft didn't hesitate to put out a release showing all of the games that were shown that are also coming to Xbox, but they then put deals in place to block others from being able to do that, it just reeks of hypocrisy that's all. As far as I know it's a practice that only MS engages in and they should rightfully be criticised for it before others start doing it too.

It is a bit concerning but, like others have said, I'm sure if it was an exclusive they would have made it quite prominent in the announcement that it was exclusive. Hopefully all will be revealed one way or another soon.

@Judal27 I didn't even need to watch anything beforehand, as soon as I read that progress carries over into the main game I knew exactly what I was getting and it was going to be a cut scene heavy intro to the game. I was always going to pre-order it anyway but the demo gave me everything I needed to seal the deal.

I feel like the particular section of the game in the demo perhaps wasn't the best part of the game to show off as a demo since as others have said it is a bit cut scene heavy. For the purposes of a demo people want to get a feel for how the game plays and having to sit and wait for ages until you can do anything meaningful will make people lose patience. I do also understand why it is the section that it is though, mainly because that at the start of the game is where tutorials on how to play the game are and also so that story progress can carry over to the full release.
What I would say though is it if you finish the segment of the demo the Eikonic Challenge mode that unlocks has far more actual gameplay in it and gives you a better feel of the gameplay overall. If you are able to stick though to the end of the demo it's well worth having a look at if you're on the fence.

I didn't think the show was any better or any worse than Sony's. Outwith Starfield and Spider-Man 2 there was nothing in either show that was likely to persuade you to buy either console. Starfield looked great and seems very ambitious, if they pull it off then it will indeed be a contender for game of the year. I'm still getting strong feelings of No Man's Sky whenever I see it though and I do wonder just how populated those 1,000 planets are going to be. Most of the other games we either already knew about and didn't really see much more of, and the new announcements showed so little that I have no idea what the games are actually about.
Ultimately though, both shows lacked that big surprise announcement that would be a real talking point and generate some hype. I guess the Persona announcements were supposed to do that and the early leak ruined the surprise. Although there were already rumours so I don't think that would be really been a mind blowing announcement if it hadn't leaked.

@belmont I think you're right there, I bought a new laptop a few weeks ago and when I first switched it on one of the first screens that I got faced with was wanting me to enable a free trial for game pass.

@Fiendish-Beaver I would love to see a split on what the sales ratio is between the Series S and Series X. I have had a feeling for quite some time now that the Series S sales are far higher than they are for the Series X as I see far more people say they have the S compared to the X. Now granted, this could mostly be due to availability issues and it's just far easier to get your hands on the Series S. However, is that the case because there has been more demand for it compared to the Series X? Microsoft may have been smart in seeing the Series S as a cheaper option that people may buy as to supplement their primary console and use as a "game pass machine". I have some friends that have done this and they probably would never have invested if the Series X was the only option.

@Sakai We can't really be changing the definition of words just because of where they appear in a poll though. Even if it was intended as a neutral option "okay" literally means that you find something satisfactory so does lean towards the positive affirmation.

@Sakai Actually, then poll leans towards a slight positive reaction as "okay" is classed as a positive response. If you look up the definition it is "satisfactory but not particularly good", not a glowing reference but it is still a slight leak towards the positive. That means that 56% of the responses were somewhat positive.

I think "okay" is a fair assessment. I still think more of the disappointment people have is from expectations they had of things that would be shown that weren't, rather then being disappointed about what was actually shown.

@twinspectre90 I read your original comment just fine. Again, name me two games that are the same?

@twinspectre90 Read my comment again, I literally said they have cinematics so I'm not sure how you think I'm saying they aren't cinematic. I asked which games you claim are "samey".
Practically any game with any sort of story to it has cinematics these days but for some reason its only Sony first party games that get called out for it.

@twinspectre90 Which particular games would you say are all "samey"? For example, TLOU, Ratchet & Clank, Ghost of Tsushima and Spider-Man are all very different experiences. I've see this complaint being thrown around a lot on other sites and I just don't see where it comes from. Okay they might all have cinematics but the core gameplay of each game are vastly different from the others.

The article hits the nail on the head, they only need one or two of these live service games to gain any traction and then the rest will be dropped if they aren't making any money.

Played a bit of this earlier today. Graphically it looks like a PS2 game being upscaled on a PS4, this is the PS5 version too. Level design is straight out of the PS1/PS2 era too, climbing is very basic compared to modern games with grappling points mainly being straight lines that are hilariously obvious that you shimmy along. I also exited a cut scene to instantly be told I had failed an objective I hadn't even had a chance to do. Character's names all seem to have "(off)" beside them on the subtitles for some bizarre reason.
I think it was always going to be tough for it to follow Hogwarts Legacy after it turned out so good but no amount of polish is going to put a shine on this turd.

@__jamiie Practically everything that becomes a big hit gets ripped off these days so it's no real surprise. And unfortunately they rarely ever live up to the original either so the signs don't look good for Foamstars. Your Soap Stars suggestion is genius though!

Reading through the comments it seems like people are more disappointed by what wasn't revealed, rather than what was. Okay there wasn't much first party stuff but there were still a lot of games there that looked good. Sony would have got stick if they showed games that were years away from release and people would be constantly looking for updates and then get frustrated if there were any delays.
I also think that we won't see anything of Wolverine until Spider-Man 2 is out. It would be pretty cool if Spider-Man 2 had some form of trailer for Wolverine that showed when you completed it, that would build up a bit of hype for me.

Me expectations weren't particularly high so I didn't really find it disappointing. I was hoping for a nice big surprise announcement that would get some excitement up but it didn't happen. Maybe they are still not quite willing to show their full hand yet.

@Cashews Unfortunately, mobile gaming is big business at the moment. They would be foolish to not be looking to get involved there. As long as it doesn't detract from the current quality of first party output, of course.
There's no desperation about it, it's just keeping up with the times. You mention Xbox but they are doing the exact same things too.

@awp69 and that sort of situation is exactly part of what the CMA was flagging.

I'd personally love to see MAG 2 being announced, seriously.

@KaijuKaiser Personally I do appreciate the heads up on the file sizes just so I can prepare just in case I need to free up some storage space. Although I do agree that it is no longer a surprise that file sizes are topping 100GB fairly regularly these days.

@NEStalgia There has been a steady evolution of Final Fantasy games where they have become progressively more action orientated This one seems to have just accelerated the process a bit, but it is no less a Final Fantasy than any of the rest of the mainline series. Each Final Fantasy has it's own style and battle system and they are all very different from each other, even 1-6 are quite different in their own ways. One of the main characteristics of the series is that each game is effectively a stand alone game in its own right that includes certain themes and characters etc. Sure, I'd love it if they went back to a more traditional turn based system but that doesn't mean I'm going to enjoy 16 any less with its action orientated gameplay.

@BlueBeemer But here's the thing, the more devs and publisher's they buy to add more content to game pass, the more likely it is that they will need to raise the sub costs to compensate for this. Would you be happy at your sub costs being raised because MS have been throwing money around left, right and centre? They're a business with shareholders to keep happy after all, despite it appearing like they've gone all consumer friendly lately at the end of the day they are out there to take as much of our money as they can.

@BlueBeemer They don't want to continue to sink money into it while simultaneously spending almost $90 billion in the past few years, yeah sorry that doesn't make any sense.

@Kohaku That's between Square Enix and MS, nothing to do with Sony so I don't know how they can make a deal like that.

@Heavy_Artilery You should really give people a chance to respond before being so condescending towards them. Obviously I haven't forgot about game pass, but please do tell me what game pass has even remotely got to do with Microsoft using their money to invest in the studios they currently own and create their own original ip's, rather than regurgitating out the same old ip's we've been playing for years? I'm fully well aware that Microsoft will benefit from adding ABK's back catalogue and future releases to game pass, but how about them actually using their vast resources to actually create some new and original content and add value to game pass that way. Rather than including games people will be able to play anyway.

@Heavy_Artilery You mean them having access to all of those already existing IP's that they already release on Xbox anyway? That's not thinking bigger, it's thinking smaller. Now if they invested some of that massive money in creating their own studios or ip's then THAT would be thinking bigger.

@Heavy_Artilery They were already in a great position to compete with Sony before buying ABK. But just a couple of weeks ago they were basically admitting that they have bashed on with buying ABK without even properly sorting out integrating Bethesda. They can throw around all the money they want buying things but they really need to sort out what they already have before looking any further.
If you think releasing sub par games while throwing around money elsewhere is acceptable then fair enough.

@Heavy_Artilery Maybe just maybe they should have been investing their money and brains into their existing studios and sorting out any issues or teething problems that there has been with their previous acquisitions before focusing their attention elsewhere.

@Heavy_Artilery nothing has ever stopped MS from competing without the merger. It honestly baffles me how people seem to think this was the only way that MS can 'compete'.

@get2sammyb I think that's the difference between the CMA and everyone else. The CMA is looking beyond the 10 year agreements, whereas others seem to have the view that either 10 years is enough, or MS will carry on offering the deals after the 10 years is up.

@UltimateOtaku91 I wouldn't be so sure about that. Microsoft know that Sony will be desperate to keep CoD on PS for as long as possible so could just offer them a deal for their current share, or less even, and play hard ball on it being a tale it or leave it deal. If Sony refuses the deal then MS can just spin it that they offered the deal and it was Sony that refused it. It could very well be something that was already stated in the 10 year deal that was already on the table, we don't really know what terms were being offered there but I'd be very surprised if they didn't favour MS heavily.

Is this even a debate, it's PS1 all day long. The tune has been ingrained in my mind since the first time I started it up.

@palmab The real value in PS+ comes from paying annually rather than monthly. At £99.99 a year PS + Premium works out at under £8.50/month.

My only real complaint is that I'd like there to be more variety in the monthly games being added to extra and not them mostly following a theme. Otherwise it's excellent value.

@Fiendish-Beaver If I've built up massive library of games on PS4 I still have that PS4 that I can use to play those games if I wish to. Sure it may not be an idea situation for everyone but I still don't see why having a huge library of games built up on a previous console ties me to that console going forward if I can still access them on the very console I originally bought them on.

Why do they even need to 'outconsole' them anyway? They can be successful in their own right, that doesn't mean they need to outsell everyone else out there.

@nomither6 The irony of you using the $ in Sony when MS have literally been trying to throw billions around is fantastic.

@Fiendish-Beaver That's too much of a general statement, it would depend on the genre of those games and whether they appeal to you or not. If those 4 10/10 games that Xbox released were two Forza'a, Halo and Gears and you have no interest in racers or shooters then you aren't likely to switch. If those interested you then you'd maybe consider it, but chances are you already have an Xbox if that's the case. For me Xbox has always struggled to shake off the "shooter" tag that it had from years ago and I suspect others are the same.