@ECharles reasons exist to separate moral and immortal. Incarcerating someone as a civilian simply on a whim is immoral. Putting someone in jail is societally moral. That's the entire point of the rule of law. You are trying real hard to use words like moral and immoral because immorality is a harder condition to state. Many things that are illegal get made 'moral' with the right justifications. As a society we outlined that benefits for students and seniors were prudent and acceptable. Society meanwhile does not allow companies to offer broad price differences based solely on other categories.
Loyalty programs also fall under schemes acceptable under laws because they are not discriminatory. There is no barrier for entry blocking one person and allowing another. It is entirely on the person wishing to purchase. Effectively the same as schemes such as online purchases being cheaper than in store purchases or vice versa. The impetus is on the customer not the company on whether someone gets this offer.
In the same vein that loans are legal and yet we have usury laws to prevent the bad kind of loans. You can't just say banks give loans therefore all other types of loans regardless of their severity or outcome must also be acceptable.
What Sony is doing is right now is narrowing the field of purchase to online only, collecting data and then using that data to push different prices from person to person. No such practice has ever been allowed on physical business. There are right to refuse service laws but there is nothing allowing a store saying someone gets to pay less at the shops discretion. Either follow the frameworks of the law which says what groups are allowed reductions or do not discriminate. We have laws that allow Exceptions to discrimination laws. This practice does not fall under those exceptions. If it wasn't for how slow governments are to act id expect the lawsuit already. As it stands I predict it will not be far away if things continue to deteriorate on the Sony store policies
It is truly amusing the hoops some people jump through to defend anti consumer practices by their chosen 'team'.
Comparing very different scenarios simply for being in the same general ball park (like senior discounts encouraged by the government to keep the elderly from staying inside and becoming isolated post retirement or the opt in discounts of FREE loyalty programs in stores).
Training your player base to not spend full price to incentivise bursts of good discounts later seems like a great way of making AA third party developers take the hit when people won't pay full price for the £40 game so they get a better discount on the £80 game. Much like Xbox trained their player base to not buy. As many people here like to point at. (This is an example of comparing things simply for being in the same ball park 😘)
It's all well and good saying ' no evidence of price increases' but the reality of the matter is that some people WILL be paying more than someone else purchasing games at the same moment In the same store. It's not something people would stand for in any other aspects of life.
@MasterChiefWiggum if you like the franchise in general the 'fall of reach' prequel book is getting an audio book with the actors for master chief and cortana reprising their roles for it
I'm an all platform gamer with playstation as my main (except rn with fire emblem burning away at my hours). But these comments really make me laugh.
Lots of talk about the 'xbox lackeys' and whatnot on YouTube like there isn't more playstation orientated YouTubers and content creators just on sheer math and probability. Lots of desire to see Xbox fail while Sony continues to abuse it's dominant position in the space with anti consumer moves and silence to the fans. Instead of picking a side and coming out to defend playstation and dunk on Xbox every opportunity maybe try just enjoying games and not looking for pleasure by having tribalistic arguments online. Comments on these sites can be more than that.
@Oram77 not at all. They are all largely disconnected from each other. Persona 5 royale is a noticeable upgrade in story, pacing and quality of life improvements but base persona 5 is still a worthwhile franchise start if royale is unavailable
(That being said persona games are often best experienced with a day to day guide oddly just so you can experience all the character points in one run, it's highly unlikely otherwise. Not to mention it's LONG)
A lot of publisher's have been open in the past that sometimes it's the poorly selling, critically adored passion pieces that generate enormous good will that draw players in for other games from the same group.
These sort of games were what Sony once championed as being the reason to get a playstation and therefore enter the ecosystem. If the deal was the same as for death stranding the pc version would've likely been much later so physnt was still contributing to that. And if it was an Alan wake 2 style award winning game that was paid for by Sony and started as a console exclusive? That's good pr which they not only need but is also a form of currency that tracks into people on the ecosystem and spending from generation to generation
@darylb24 no when you buy from Uvisoft the links to anything bar Ubisoft pc store link you directly to the site of the company. All Ubisoft games for playstation send you to buy it through playstation. Exactly the same for EA. Their stores just link you to the platform store
@NessunDorma I play on every console as well as pc. To match say a ps5 pro with a pc would be around £250 more if you get help looking. To play online on playstation is £60 per year. If you don't buy any games that's 4 years and a month until you would've spent the exact same on playstation.
From there you also have a much much much wider pool of games to play going back decades ago of which can be purchased at a fraction of the price. Looking at recent releases let's say onimusha. On playstation that's gonna cost £60 minimum rn. After 5 minutes of looking I can get it for £35 on pc. That's £25 saved, 1/10th of the difference between ps5 pro and pc.
That's even before all of the other things a pc can do that a playstation can't even just in terms of being able to do work related jobs. Or even the way that early access is restricted on playstation so the likes of palworld and slay the spire 2 got to be global successes without PlayStation.
At this point each of my consoles exists for exclusives, with the exception of the switch which has portability. Soon to be even that isn't as needed once my AYN Thor arrives
@TDHorizon those digital codes are for currency only. You can't directly buy digital games from them for playstation. As a top tier member on shopto it's generally my go to for cheap games physical.
You can buy digital codes for Microsoft, pc and Nintendo but not playstation. These class action lawsuits are for that reason. Sony themselves have complete control over the digital sales on there platform and the developer has little to none. Not being able to buy a game from even the developer themself is the worst
@UltimateOtaku91 just a natural cycle of standard social media pushes. Nintendo had their time between Pokémon stuff and game key cards. Xbox has had a LOT of online hate and it's silly to say otherwise. Right now it's Sony and it will undoubtedly move again.
Of note, Sony is also the only console platform that doesn't allow you to purchase codes for games from other storefronts. All digital purchases are playstation store only. So this is even worse for businesses that sell games
The manor difference is women don't identify as 'gamers' as generally the online gaming world is absolutely abhorrent to them. Try and play any of the most popular multiplayer games with in game chat on with a female in your party and you'd soon see why. The idea that gaming is for boys only only exists because of people who believe it trying to perpetuate it
Honestly seems really backwards to me. If you can't get people that are buying the ps5s at a loss to spend an amount on software to make up the loss you have much much bigger issues. And are also discouraging people from entering your ecosystem going forwards by making the onboarding process more difficult
As a primarily playstation gamer that has also had every Xbox and Nintendo console none of this really phases me. Honestly I'm happy to see fable and especially state of decay 3 on playstation so I can make my ps only friends experience them (and so I can play state of decay 3 with someone at all).
I don't believe any strategy Xbox takes up has any chance at ever making them a console juggernaut. They lost the generation that truly kicked off digital libraries and online friend groups. That's it, done deal, no coming back. All it takes is a handful of players in any mainstream friend group to stick to ps and their friends will stay with them.
Game pass and series s was an attempt to bring back people who struggle financially and hopefully bring their friends along too. What it has really done is make Xbox firmly a '2nd console' for gamers behind their playstation.
@XenonKnight the idea that this latest decision has drastically changed your view on Xbox would actually land if you hadn't been so so anti Xbox/pc here for a long time...
@themightyant I'd imagine it's because these games already started being made for playstation and they want to ease the transition back instead of all at once.
Personally I think they should have continued on their everything is an Xbox strategy. Not because it thinks it's amazing. But because changing at this point is literally going to end up worse. Their entire strategy was to try and eventually win on a platform front. I.e. cloud gaming, streaming, pc hybrid/mobile future of gaming for the mainstream crowd as they see it. This way round they get neither goal
@Oram77 Nintendo do quantity but they more importantly do range. Splatoon 3 alone sold over 12 million, donkey Kong, mario kart world, pokopia and Pokémon za all have sales numbers palatable to share holders for a fraction of the price of Sony first party games. It's a minority of gamers that talk about frame rate and 'quality' in that sense.
Of those alone donky Kong and pokopia I would definitely call quality games so far. As you said Yoshi is currently sitting at an 81 so would also be considered a good game if it holds that figure, fire emblem games are generally bug free and good quality and we have one this year coming, a new Pokémon game that will sell millions regardless of quality because it's what their main audience demographic wants to be playing.
Nintendo may not make photorealistic tech pushing titles often but they sure do better business than Sony imo.
Fully relying on AI to design concepts from the ground up is the most egregious way to use it personally. The ai is just going to take aspects from everywhere it was taught and use it however it desires. It's just not the same as real artists talking about specific influences for their art. It's directly taking aspects and mixing them up in the hopes of being unique enough
Not interested in gta6 myself unless they really fix their gameplay. Rdr2 got away with the slower pace because it fit narratively and thematically. Not so much gta
People who don't like Yakuza just shouldn't play it then. There are so so many games out there being released it seems silly to be trying to stop these Devs from creating games in a franchise that it's fans desperately love coming back to every time
@SleepyNick I think they just hope 'any publicity is good publicity' works out. The first game sold well enough and was considered a good if not great souls like attempt. Considering other games in the genre like lies of p, black myth wukong and stellar outselling them by a noticeable margin they probably think they need something extra to bump early sales figures
@Matroska I'm not disagreeing that men in many other franchise's have been dressed similarly. More pertinent would be how are the men in this game dressed? Are there revealing male clothing? Is there as much fully armoured gear for both genders as there is revealing etc.
Recent studies show that gaming is now almost completely split between male and female and that over 90% of young adults and teenagers of both genders are interested in gaming and see information about it through multiform media.
If they are evenly represented so should the representation of the bodies of both genders. It would be wrong to be ok with massive, peak physical condition men in games with nearly topless armour without feeling the same for female characters (though they represent less peak physical characteristics often and more peak aesthetics, they just overlap in male characters)
Personally I just wear what matches the build I'm going for... That being said I do prefer my end game builds to be with armour that looks like it represents what it provides. I always seem to have less issue with mage characters with lower armour tiers wearing armour that at least looks elemental in design. Give my tanks some ARMOUR and my rogues something that would let them meld into shadow
There is a lot more nuance to it than most surveys are capable of providing. I wouldn't say exclusives do not matter. That would just be factually untrue.
I do think exclusives have never mattered less than they do right now. There was a time when most older gamers were young that the only thing to talk about when it came to games was the ones you could play on your console.
Kids shared experiences with Pokémon and it stuck through a low of life to keep us all invested even as the series exists with a lower quality standard than most.
Comparatively now I have children in my life who will tell you all about a game. On a console they don't own. Because they watched people talking about it and feel compelled to be involved. Children who decide their console on what is the 'correct' choice based on the internet and their algorithms.
This was never a possibility even 2 generations ago. Sony have such a lead that it in itself is a cultural pressure on anyone trying to decide where to go with gaming. As do Nintendo in their own tangential sphere of gaming. As does pc for it's own. 3 tangential spheres just separated enough to exist separately despite the overlaps.
Looking purely at Microsoft Vs Sony as the two main home console choices. Microsoft lost the generation that the online world took off in. Any decision they make, good or bad, will forever be fighting an uphill battle that didn't exist in similar generations prior.
They continuously tried to beat people to the next 'thing'. All digital, home entertainment system (streaming services), AR, cloud gaming, game streaming etc. but always do so before audiences are even remotely ready for such things to be mainstream. Get backlashed, then often see it become the more common years down the line. As I expect to be the case for 'mainstream' gamers with cloud gaming/game streaming soon
@tangyzesty yeah people vastly underestimate that this and the rise of online groups being the reason Xbox lost the generation that was more important than any other last gen.
Yeah it was starting with the 360/PS3 gen but online libraries and ecosystems truly took off on the outset of the next gen. Microsoft could make dozens of fantastic first party games but for most people that would only ever elevate them to the position of 'second console' and there just isn't as much money in that as you aren't getting the 3rd party sales.
I'm an old gamer who spans every gaming medium. I don't care where I own a game regardless of performance (within my own reason of tolerance). I'll buy it where I find it cheapest or most convenient or I'll buy it wherever I'll be most likely to play with a friend group
@TheArt I'd hardly say E33 was over glazed. Some all time great games just are one and done games. It's certainly no weaker than bg3 imo. I love bg3 but if it had been released with as many bugs and exploits as it had by any of the mainstream western Devs it would've been marked down much more heavily, especially for the act 3 performance (though the majority of players never actually reached act 3 funnily enough).
Personally I'd also lump rdr2, it takes 2 and astro bot (the weakest goty in a long time imo) as one and done games for most players. People put far too much stock in game length as true metrics of 'value' that's why we get so much bloat in gaming and people who like to play as many great games as possible actually loved requiem , pragmata and even E33 as an RPG for not overstaying their welcome
@somnambulance I disagree about the strength of E33 as a game. I just think it's very much a one and done (or two) kind of game for most people because the story beats just hit best that way. Most games I have ever replayed have been for gameplay, co-op, random generation or build crafting. E33 is just pretty linear story wise. RE has more play throughs you can jump into over multiple sessions instead of just absorbing all at once like we did with E33. I also really love that E33 doesn't do all the typical RPG bloat side quests which made it a much more palatable experience and kept the story beats from getting too far apart.
Let's not forget that 2025 had silksong, kcd2, Hades 2 and death stranding 2. Not a super weak year by any stretch
As much as this is my go to site for news it's probably one of the sites I have to take every review with a pinch of salt for. With a few exceptions almost every Sony first party review here is higher than the metacritic average and the rest sit below average. Everything from crimson desert, to the sublime resident evil requiem and pragmata getting 7 or 8s whereas near every Sony title gets a 9 or 10
@MrPeanutbutterz the number of arguments I've had with people who don't seem to fully grasp the scale of Xbox messing up the start of the Xbox one/ps 4 era. The era that truly solidified the idea of a long term library, fried groups, entire eco system. No matter what Xbox does right as it stands for most people with a playstation they will only ever have a chance to be a second console.
No level of 'true' 1st party games (if they somehow decided to ignore pc) is realistically flipping it. Not at the output modern developers are capable of. And certainly not with the level of toxicity present in today's internet culture
@Carnage I love Jeanne d'arc as a game but really wish they didn't leave the man who did horrendous things to children historically as a protagonist. Hasn't helped it age well
Doesn't seem quite the right shape and layout for the Tokyo area of Japan. As far as coastline and lake placements go anyway. Seems like it must be more inspired by with specific locations matching up instead
Starfield wasn't for me largely because i prefer more fantasy sci fi than their more grounded take on it. I can tolerate a LOT of jank in games by virtue of just having been gaming for a LONG time. I typically love Bethesda games as I find them generally comfortable and fairly free in the way you play it.
It's most certainly not a 'trash' game. Generally I don't think bugs or jank make a game trash unless they are game breaking and happen commonly enough to be so. I'll take a janky game with heart over a polished bland game every day
I give it the exact same 7/10 I give ghost of tsushima. And this is the 7/10 that's more a mid tier game than an ok game.
Both had good enough stories buried in them with mediocre traveling and combat. Though 1 has a boring intro and the other it's basically the best part of the game. 1 guess which is which.
If you like deeper sci fi fiction I really did enjoy the way starfield does Ng+ so there is that.
I hope the new updates fix my main issues with it and being it to an 8+/10.
I think people proclaiming this game as trash are being ridiculously hyperbolic because of personal preferences instead of raw game criticisms. It's got issues but fundamentally it is not a bad or trash game
Great game at a refreshing length. A solid 8/10 for me. Most of the low tier metacritic scores on user side just read as near rage bait imo so the 6.8 on there is not indicative of the game at all compared to the 77 critic review
@Herculean not to mention that those he kept have reported working conditions banned in many western countries. Some made to do 12 hour shifts 7 days a week and beds were put into the offices to be booked by employees.
And then look at the history of outages across just 2025 and 2026, we've had 2 this year already
@Max_the_German I agree there should be a physical working copy, however I think they would prefer it to be post final dlc gold edition rather than set too much of a precedent that you won't get disc version on Xbox but will on playstation if you wait. A good edition on disc later on both consoles makes more sense there. Especially in their pockets if people bought digital then buy physical (not that that's a good way for them to look at it ofc)
@Fiendish-Beaver gears tactics was one of my favourite games of it's type. Really nailed taking the best aspects of xcom and weaving it into gears. I wish it got more expansions and dlcs that change the game like xcom 2
@Fiendish-Beaver with all the content releases it's easily one of the most underrated games to play with friends. An absolutely fantastic set of pve game modes
@Titntin true but the implementations are opposite. Xbox targets you with discounts on genres you have spent on previously. It's 'almost' rewarding. Sony is, from all examples I've seen, giving discounts to lower spenders hoping to make them spend and letting the people willing to spend more (their most supportive base) just continue to do so unrewarded.
Both are bad, but the way they are implemented has different degrees of bad
Period accurate hair with a reasonable reason for a woman adopting a mans haircut means that it doesn't detract at all for me personally. But I literally hadn't even heard of the game before today. Having literally been at a medieval exhibition, and a separate samurai exhibition in the same weekend I came home and was looking for medieval/samurai games to play. Settled on reattempting to get into ghost of tsushima, bounced off it again after another 12 bored hours. Might have tried this if I'd known. But guess I'll wait and see if any patches make it feel better to play
Social media would make you think this game was so much worse than it actually was lol.
Xbox is 3rd on my console list (I have all 3) but I played it. Recognised it was good but wasn't what I wanted from a game at the time and comfortably went to find something I wanted to play at the time (think it was like tactics ogre or something).
The comments section on this site was pretty bad for it. Even now while it sits on 83 on metacritic (yes the user scores are lower but cmon it was getting largely review bombed as the big Bethesda game to be console exclusive) people will still call it bad and praise games I personally found to be worse like stellar blade or rise of the ronin
I simply do not understand how people can call an 8/10 game mid. 7/10 is where if any game hits I at least look into if the pros and cons match my preferences.
Many many games that were 8/10 have been so positively received here. Stellar blade? Black myth wukong?
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Re: PS5 Dynamic Pricing Impacts New PS Store Black Friday Offers, Roughly $5 Variations in Prices
@ECharles reasons exist to separate moral and immortal. Incarcerating someone as a civilian simply on a whim is immoral. Putting someone in jail is societally moral. That's the entire point of the rule of law. You are trying real hard to use words like moral and immoral because immorality is a harder condition to state. Many things that are illegal get made 'moral' with the right justifications. As a society we outlined that benefits for students and seniors were prudent and acceptable. Society meanwhile does not allow companies to offer broad price differences based solely on other categories.
Loyalty programs also fall under schemes acceptable under laws because they are not discriminatory. There is no barrier for entry blocking one person and allowing another. It is entirely on the person wishing to purchase. Effectively the same as schemes such as online purchases being cheaper than in store purchases or vice versa. The impetus is on the customer not the company on whether someone gets this offer.
In the same vein that loans are legal and yet we have usury laws to prevent the bad kind of loans. You can't just say banks give loans therefore all other types of loans regardless of their severity or outcome must also be acceptable.
What Sony is doing is right now is narrowing the field of purchase to online only, collecting data and then using that data to push different prices from person to person. No such practice has ever been allowed on physical business. There are right to refuse service laws but there is nothing allowing a store saying someone gets to pay less at the shops discretion. Either follow the frameworks of the law which says what groups are allowed reductions or do not discriminate. We have laws that allow Exceptions to discrimination laws. This practice does not fall under those exceptions. If it wasn't for how slow governments are to act id expect the lawsuit already. As it stands I predict it will not be far away if things continue to deteriorate on the Sony store policies
Re: PS5 Dynamic Pricing Impacts New PS Store Black Friday Offers, Roughly $5 Variations in Prices
It is truly amusing the hoops some people jump through to defend anti consumer practices by their chosen 'team'.
Comparing very different scenarios simply for being in the same general ball park (like senior discounts encouraged by the government to keep the elderly from staying inside and becoming isolated post retirement or the opt in discounts of FREE loyalty programs in stores).
Training your player base to not spend full price to incentivise bursts of good discounts later seems like a great way of making AA third party developers take the hit when people won't pay full price for the £40 game so they get a better discount on the £80 game. Much like Xbox trained their player base to not buy. As many people here like to point at. (This is an example of comparing things simply for being in the same ball park 😘)
Re: PS5 Dynamic Pricing Concerns Revived by New Sony Job Listing
It's all well and good saying ' no evidence of price increases' but the reality of the matter is that some people WILL be paying more than someone else purchasing games at the same moment In the same store. It's not something people would stand for in any other aspects of life.
Re: Rumour: Next Halo Game Will Be a New 'Mainline Instalment', Casting Doubt on More Remakes
@MasterChiefWiggum if you like the franchise in general the 'fall of reach' prequel book is getting an audio book with the actors for master chief and cortana reprising their roles for it
Re: 'Hundreds' More Xbox Layoffs Reportedly on the Way, Studios to Be Consolidated
I'm an all platform gamer with playstation as my main (except rn with fire emblem burning away at my hours). But these comments really make me laugh.
Lots of talk about the 'xbox lackeys' and whatnot on YouTube like there isn't more playstation orientated YouTubers and content creators just on sheer math and probability. Lots of desire to see Xbox fail while Sony continues to abuse it's dominant position in the space with anti consumer moves and silence to the fans. Instead of picking a side and coming out to defend playstation and dunk on Xbox every opportunity maybe try just enjoying games and not looking for pleasure by having tribalistic arguments online. Comments on these sites can be more than that.
Re: Poll: 10 Years Later, Is Persona 5 a True JRPG Masterpiece?
@Oram77 not at all. They are all largely disconnected from each other. Persona 5 royale is a noticeable upgrade in story, pacing and quality of life improvements but base persona 5 is still a worthwhile franchise start if royale is unavailable
(That being said persona games are often best experienced with a day to day guide oddly just so you can experience all the character points in one run, it's highly unlikely otherwise. Not to mention it's LONG)
Re: Poll: 10 Years Later, Is Persona 5 a True JRPG Masterpiece?
I love most of the atlus franchises but the persona games in particular often come more under life SIM games with Rpg as the secondary to me.
Shin megami tensei or devil survivor (personal favourites) are more their better RPG structured games. Etrian odyssey being more barebones RPGs too
Re: Sony Stopped Physint Development Over Budget, Exclusivity Concerns
A lot of publisher's have been open in the past that sometimes it's the poorly selling, critically adored passion pieces that generate enormous good will that draw players in for other games from the same group.
These sort of games were what Sony once championed as being the reason to get a playstation and therefore enter the ecosystem. If the deal was the same as for death stranding the pc version would've likely been much later so physnt was still contributing to that. And if it was an Alan wake 2 style award winning game that was paid for by Sony and started as a console exclusive? That's good pr which they not only need but is also a form of currency that tracks into people on the ecosystem and spending from generation to generation
Re: You Might Benefit from a $7.85 Million Payout as PlayStation Settles Anti-Trust Lawsuit
@darylb24 no when you buy from Uvisoft the links to anything bar Ubisoft pc store link you directly to the site of the company. All Ubisoft games for playstation send you to buy it through playstation. Exactly the same for EA. Their stores just link you to the platform store
Re: 'There's a Lot of Resentment for Sony': Sources Go Back and Forth on Publisher Backlash to PS5 Physical Discs
@NessunDorma I play on every console as well as pc. To match say a ps5 pro with a pc would be around £250 more if you get help looking. To play online on playstation is £60 per year. If you don't buy any games that's 4 years and a month until you would've spent the exact same on playstation.
From there you also have a much much much wider pool of games to play going back decades ago of which can be purchased at a fraction of the price. Looking at recent releases let's say onimusha. On playstation that's gonna cost £60 minimum rn. After 5 minutes of looking I can get it for £35 on pc. That's £25 saved, 1/10th of the difference between ps5 pro and pc.
That's even before all of the other things a pc can do that a playstation can't even just in terms of being able to do work related jobs. Or even the way that early access is restricted on playstation so the likes of palworld and slay the spire 2 got to be global successes without PlayStation.
At this point each of my consoles exists for exclusives, with the exception of the switch which has portability. Soon to be even that isn't as needed once my AYN Thor arrives
Re: You Might Benefit from a $7.85 Million Payout as PlayStation Settles Anti-Trust Lawsuit
@TDHorizon those digital codes are for currency only. You can't directly buy digital games from them for playstation. As a top tier member on shopto it's generally my go to for cheap games physical.
You can buy digital codes for Microsoft, pc and Nintendo but not playstation. These class action lawsuits are for that reason. Sony themselves have complete control over the digital sales on there platform and the developer has little to none. Not being able to buy a game from even the developer themself is the worst
Re: Persona 4 Revival Doesn't Add Gay Romance, Despite Fan Demand
@ShadowRJ they've had double the paychecks from me with all the 'upgraded' version each gets I lts about time I get double the playable genders...
Re: PS5 Fans Panic Over 'Lost Games' Clause, But There's More to the Story
@UltimateOtaku91 just a natural cycle of standard social media pushes. Nintendo had their time between Pokémon stuff and game key cards. Xbox has had a LOT of online hate and it's silly to say otherwise. Right now it's Sony and it will undoubtedly move again.
Re: PlayStation Consoles to Stop Getting Disc-Based Physical Releases in 2028
Of note, Sony is also the only console platform that doesn't allow you to purchase codes for games from other storefronts. All digital purchases are playstation store only. So this is even worse for businesses that sell games
Re: Tencent Looking to Offload Game Dev Investments, Even at a Loss
@Boxmonkey but it's been proven that almost as many young women play games as young men. An example investigation but not the only one here
https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2024/05/09/teens-and-video-games-today/
The manor difference is women don't identify as 'gamers' as generally the online gaming world is absolutely abhorrent to them. Try and play any of the most popular multiplayer games with in game chat on with a female in your party and you'd soon see why. The idea that gaming is for boys only only exists because of people who believe it trying to perpetuate it
Re: Sony May Mitigate Hardware Pricing Nightmare by Simply Selling Fewer PS5s
Honestly seems really backwards to me. If you can't get people that are buying the ps5s at a loss to spend an amount on software to make up the loss you have much much bigger issues. And are also discouraging people from entering your ecosystem going forwards by making the onboarding process more difficult
Re: Future Xbox Exclusivity Will Be 'Case-by-Case', PS5 Ports Will Be Revealed Alongside Release Dates
As a primarily playstation gamer that has also had every Xbox and Nintendo console none of this really phases me. Honestly I'm happy to see fable and especially state of decay 3 on playstation so I can make my ps only friends experience them (and so I can play state of decay 3 with someone at all).
I don't believe any strategy Xbox takes up has any chance at ever making them a console juggernaut. They lost the generation that truly kicked off digital libraries and online friend groups. That's it, done deal, no coming back. All it takes is a handful of players in any mainstream friend group to stick to ps and their friends will stay with them.
Game pass and series s was an attempt to bring back people who struggle financially and hopefully bring their friends along too. What it has really done is make Xbox firmly a '2nd console' for gamers behind their playstation.
Re: Future Xbox Exclusivity Will Be 'Case-by-Case', PS5 Ports Will Be Revealed Alongside Release Dates
@XenonKnight the idea that this latest decision has drastically changed your view on Xbox would actually land if you hadn't been so so anti Xbox/pc here for a long time...
Re: Future Xbox Exclusivity Will Be 'Case-by-Case', PS5 Ports Will Be Revealed Alongside Release Dates
@themightyant I'd imagine it's because these games already started being made for playstation and they want to ease the transition back instead of all at once.
Personally I think they should have continued on their everything is an Xbox strategy. Not because it thinks it's amazing. But because changing at this point is literally going to end up worse. Their entire strategy was to try and eventually win on a platform front. I.e. cloud gaming, streaming, pc hybrid/mobile future of gaming for the mainstream crowd as they see it. This way round they get neither goal
Re: Poll: Who Had the Best Not-E3 Livestream This Week?
I'd 1000% put sgf first, then Xbox and then playstation. Not based on what id play but more on amount shown all around of decent quality
Re: 'Every Detail Matters': Sony Drops New Promo for $900 PS5 Pro
@Oram77 Nintendo do quantity but they more importantly do range. Splatoon 3 alone sold over 12 million, donkey Kong, mario kart world, pokopia and Pokémon za all have sales numbers palatable to share holders for a fraction of the price of Sony first party games. It's a minority of gamers that talk about frame rate and 'quality' in that sense.
Of those alone donky Kong and pokopia I would definitely call quality games so far. As you said Yoshi is currently sitting at an 81 so would also be considered a good game if it holds that figure, fire emblem games are generally bug free and good quality and we have one this year coming, a new Pokémon game that will sell millions regardless of quality because it's what their main audience demographic wants to be playing.
Nintendo may not make photorealistic tech pushing titles often but they sure do better business than Sony imo.
Re: Lies of P Dev Is Making Headlines, But Not for Reasons Anyone Wants to Hear
Fully relying on AI to design concepts from the ground up is the most egregious way to use it personally. The ai is just going to take aspects from everywhere it was taught and use it however it desires. It's just not the same as real artists talking about specific influences for their art. It's directly taking aspects and mixing them up in the hopes of being unique enough
Re: PlayStation Urges PS4 Players to Upgrade to PS5 for GTA 6
Not interested in gta6 myself unless they really fix their gameplay. Rdr2 got away with the slower pace because it fit narratively and thematically. Not so much gta
Re: Stranger Than Heaven Is a Yakuza Series Origin Story, Out on PS5 This Winter
People who don't like Yakuza just shouldn't play it then. There are so so many games out there being released it seems silly to be trying to stop these Devs from creating games in a franchise that it's fans desperately love coming back to every time
Re: Lords of the Fallen 2's Idea of Female Armour Is Downright Embarrassing
@SleepyNick I think they just hope 'any publicity is good publicity' works out. The first game sold well enough and was considered a good if not great souls like attempt. Considering other games in the genre like lies of p, black myth wukong and stellar outselling them by a noticeable margin they probably think they need something extra to bump early sales figures
Re: Lords of the Fallen 2's Idea of Female Armour Is Downright Embarrassing
@Matroska I'm not disagreeing that men in many other franchise's have been dressed similarly. More pertinent would be how are the men in this game dressed? Are there revealing male clothing? Is there as much fully armoured gear for both genders as there is revealing etc.
Recent studies show that gaming is now almost completely split between male and female and that over 90% of young adults and teenagers of both genders are interested in gaming and see information about it through multiform media.
If they are evenly represented so should the representation of the bodies of both genders. It would be wrong to be ok with massive, peak physical condition men in games with nearly topless armour without feeling the same for female characters (though they represent less peak physical characteristics often and more peak aesthetics, they just overlap in male characters)
Re: Lords of the Fallen 2's Idea of Female Armour Is Downright Embarrassing
Personally I just wear what matches the build I'm going for... That being said I do prefer my end game builds to be with armour that looks like it represents what it provides. I always seem to have less issue with mage characters with lower armour tiers wearing armour that at least looks elemental in design. Give my tanks some ARMOUR and my rogues something that would let them meld into shadow
Re: Gamers Still Pick Consoles for Exclusives, New Data Finds
There is a lot more nuance to it than most surveys are capable of providing. I wouldn't say exclusives do not matter. That would just be factually untrue.
I do think exclusives have never mattered less than they do right now. There was a time when most older gamers were young that the only thing to talk about when it came to games was the ones you could play on your console.
Kids shared experiences with Pokémon and it stuck through a low of life to keep us all invested even as the series exists with a lower quality standard than most.
Comparatively now I have children in my life who will tell you all about a game. On a console they don't own. Because they watched people talking about it and feel compelled to be involved. Children who decide their console on what is the 'correct' choice based on the internet and their algorithms.
This was never a possibility even 2 generations ago. Sony have such a lead that it in itself is a cultural pressure on anyone trying to decide where to go with gaming. As do Nintendo in their own tangential sphere of gaming. As does pc for it's own. 3 tangential spheres just separated enough to exist separately despite the overlaps.
Looking purely at Microsoft Vs Sony as the two main home console choices. Microsoft lost the generation that the online world took off in. Any decision they make, good or bad, will forever be fighting an uphill battle that didn't exist in similar generations prior.
They continuously tried to beat people to the next 'thing'. All digital, home entertainment system (streaming services), AR, cloud gaming, game streaming etc. but always do so before audiences are even remotely ready for such things to be mainstream. Get backlashed, then often see it become the more common years down the line. As I expect to be the case for 'mainstream' gamers with cloud gaming/game streaming soon
Re: Gamers Still Pick Consoles for Exclusives, New Data Finds
@tangyzesty yeah people vastly underestimate that this and the rise of online groups being the reason Xbox lost the generation that was more important than any other last gen.
Yeah it was starting with the 360/PS3 gen but online libraries and ecosystems truly took off on the outset of the next gen. Microsoft could make dozens of fantastic first party games but for most people that would only ever elevate them to the position of 'second console' and there just isn't as much money in that as you aren't getting the 3rd party sales.
I'm an old gamer who spans every gaming medium. I don't care where I own a game regardless of performance (within my own reason of tolerance). I'll buy it where I find it cheapest or most convenient or I'll buy it wherever I'll be most likely to play with a friend group
Re: Expedition 33 Gets Free PS5 Content Update as It Turns One Year Old and Surpasses 8 Million Sales
@TheArt I'd hardly say E33 was over glazed. Some all time great games just are one and done games. It's certainly no weaker than bg3 imo. I love bg3 but if it had been released with as many bugs and exploits as it had by any of the mainstream western Devs it would've been marked down much more heavily, especially for the act 3 performance (though the majority of players never actually reached act 3 funnily enough).
Personally I'd also lump rdr2, it takes 2 and astro bot (the weakest goty in a long time imo) as one and done games for most players. People put far too much stock in game length as true metrics of 'value' that's why we get so much bloat in gaming and people who like to play as many great games as possible actually loved requiem , pragmata and even E33 as an RPG for not overstaying their welcome
Re: PS5 RPG Expedition 33 Is One Year Old Today, and There's a Free Content Update to Celebrate
@somnambulance I disagree about the strength of E33 as a game. I just think it's very much a one and done (or two) kind of game for most people because the story beats just hit best that way. Most games I have ever replayed have been for gameplay, co-op, random generation or build crafting. E33 is just pretty linear story wise. RE has more play throughs you can jump into over multiple sessions instead of just absorbing all at once like we did with E33. I also really love that E33 doesn't do all the typical RPG bloat side quests which made it a much more palatable experience and kept the story beats from getting too far apart.
Let's not forget that 2025 had silksong, kcd2, Hades 2 and death stranding 2. Not a super weak year by any stretch
Re: Saros (PS5) - Housemarque at the Peak of Its Powers with Its Best Game Yet
As much as this is my go to site for news it's probably one of the sites I have to take every review with a pinch of salt for. With a few exceptions almost every Sony first party review here is higher than the metacritic average and the rest sit below average. Everything from crimson desert, to the sublime resident evil requiem and pragmata getting 7 or 8s whereas near every Sony title gets a 9 or 10
Re: Mar 2026 USA Sales: Pokémon-Powered Switch 2 Finally Beats 5-Year-Old PS5
I don't have or like cod but all I ever hear online is that it's dead???
Re: PS Plus Value Called into Question as Xbox Slashes Game Pass Price
@MrPeanutbutterz the number of arguments I've had with people who don't seem to fully grasp the scale of Xbox messing up the start of the Xbox one/ps 4 era. The era that truly solidified the idea of a long term library, fried groups, entire eco system. No matter what Xbox does right as it stands for most people with a playstation they will only ever have a chance to be a second console.
No level of 'true' 1st party games (if they somehow decided to ignore pc) is realistically flipping it. Not at the output modern developers are capable of. And certainly not with the level of toxicity present in today's internet culture
Re: 'I Saw How It Was Getting Damaged': Ex-Bethesda Exec Goes to Town on Xbox's Mistreatment
@Carnage I love Jeanne d'arc as a game but really wish they didn't leave the man who did horrendous things to children historically as a protagonist. Hasn't helped it age well
Re: Forza Horizon 6 Japan Map Revealed, Iconic Locations Teased
Doesn't seem quite the right shape and layout for the Tokyo area of Japan. As far as coastline and lake placements go anyway. Seems like it must be more inspired by with specific locations matching up instead
Re: 'The List Is Crazy': Starfield Support and Updates Will Continue Following PS5 Debut
Starfield wasn't for me largely because i prefer more fantasy sci fi than their more grounded take on it. I can tolerate a LOT of jank in games by virtue of just having been gaming for a LONG time. I typically love Bethesda games as I find them generally comfortable and fairly free in the way you play it.
It's most certainly not a 'trash' game. Generally I don't think bugs or jank make a game trash unless they are game breaking and happen commonly enough to be so. I'll take a janky game with heart over a polished bland game every day
Re: Here's Why Starfield Will Be Best on PS5 When It Finally Releases Next Week
I give it the exact same 7/10 I give ghost of tsushima. And this is the 7/10 that's more a mid tier game than an ok game.
Both had good enough stories buried in them with mediocre traveling and combat. Though 1 has a boring intro and the other it's basically the best part of the game. 1 guess which is which.
If you like deeper sci fi fiction I really did enjoy the way starfield does Ng+ so there is that.
I hope the new updates fix my main issues with it and being it to an 8+/10.
I think people proclaiming this game as trash are being ridiculously hyperbolic because of personal preferences instead of raw game criticisms. It's got issues but fundamentally it is not a bad or trash game
Re: South of Midnight (PS5) - The Most Beautiful Simple Game
Great game at a refreshing length. A solid 8/10 for me. Most of the low tier metacritic scores on user side just read as near rage bait imo so the 6.8 on there is not indicative of the game at all compared to the 77 critic review
Re: As PSVR2 Dies a Slow Death, One of Its Best Devs Confirms Mass Layoffs
I've played several great vr games. But releases just didn't keep up
Re: Iconic Devs Say the Industry Feels 'Crashier' Now Than the Actual Video Game Crash of the 80s
@Herculean not to mention that those he kept have reported working conditions banned in many western countries. Some made to do 12 hour shifts 7 days a week and beds were put into the offices to be booked by employees.
And then look at the history of outages across just 2025 and 2026, we've had 2 this year already
Re: Starfield PS5 Won't Play Off Physical Disc without a Download
@Max_the_German I agree there should be a physical working copy, however I think they would prefer it to be post final dlc gold edition rather than set too much of a precedent that you won't get disc version on Xbox but will on playstation if you wait. A good edition on disc later on both consoles makes more sense there. Especially in their pockets if people bought digital then buy physical (not that that's a good way for them to look at it ofc)
Re: See More New PS5 Games from Xbox in Bumper June Showcase
@Fiendish-Beaver gears tactics was one of my favourite games of it's type. Really nailed taking the best aspects of xcom and weaving it into gears. I wish it got more expansions and dlcs that change the game like xcom 2
Re: See More New PS5 Games from Xbox in Bumper June Showcase
@Fiendish-Beaver with all the content releases it's easily one of the most underrated games to play with friends. An absolutely fantastic set of pve game modes
Re: Here's What a Jak & Daxter PS5 Remake Could've Looked Like
17 years since the last entry means it wouldnt trigger my remaster/remake issues...
Re: PS5's Dynamic Pricing Debacle Appears to Extend to the US Now
@Titntin true but the implementations are opposite. Xbox targets you with discounts on genres you have spent on previously. It's 'almost' rewarding. Sony is, from all examples I've seen, giving discounts to lower spenders hoping to make them spend and letting the people willing to spend more (their most supportive base) just continue to do so unrewarded.
Both are bad, but the way they are implemented has different degrees of bad
Re: PS5 Players Seemingly Skip Marathon as Sales Estimates Look Very Weak
@RBMango Paul Tassi has released a Forbes article saying these numbers similarly match what his sources in bungies have told him
Re: Mini Review: 1348 Ex Voto (PS5) - An Intriguing But Disappointing PS5 Console Exclusive
Period accurate hair with a reasonable reason for a woman adopting a mans haircut means that it doesn't detract at all for me personally. But I literally hadn't even heard of the game before today. Having literally been at a medieval exhibition, and a separate samurai exhibition in the same weekend I came home and was looking for medieval/samurai games to play. Settled on reattempting to get into ghost of tsushima, bounced off it again after another 12 bored hours. Might have tried this if I'd known. But guess I'll wait and see if any patches make it feel better to play
Re: Xbox's Starfield Rockets to the Top of the PS5's Pre-Order Charts
Social media would make you think this game was so much worse than it actually was lol.
Xbox is 3rd on my console list (I have all 3) but I played it. Recognised it was good but wasn't what I wanted from a game at the time and comfortably went to find something I wanted to play at the time (think it was like tactics ogre or something).
The comments section on this site was pretty bad for it. Even now while it sits on 83 on metacritic (yes the user scores are lower but cmon it was getting largely review bombed as the big Bethesda game to be console exclusive) people will still call it bad and praise games I personally found to be worse like stellar blade or rise of the ronin
Re: Crimson Desert's Mixed Reviews See Dev's Share Price Drop Almost 30%
I simply do not understand how people can call an 8/10 game mid. 7/10 is where if any game hits I at least look into if the pros and cons match my preferences.
Many many games that were 8/10 have been so positively received here. Stellar blade? Black myth wukong?