KippDynamite

I think they delivered but I wasn't personally hyped about new info. Honestly that Eve game intrigued me the most - mostly just because I've never heard of it before and it looked like it could be decent.

Wolverine will likely be good but CGI teasers do nothing for me.

That game where you can possess animals looked like it could be good but I didn't really get a sense of the gameplay.

God of War looks good but I was expecting that. Not much more they can do to get me to buy it!

"Sony should show good games."

A bold stance. Highly controversial.

Interesting partnership considering Sony laid them off 9 years ago. They were a good crew.

You don't need to have an opinion and take sides on every issue in the world. People online will pressure you to feel the need to "educate yourself" about countless issues and most of them are pointless to get riled up about. Have some thoughts. Move on with your life.

"Sony Will Make You Pay"

Sammy ought to work for Kotaku or Fox News.

I can tell the author liked the game but I learned basically nothing from the review. How does it play? What's it like? I have no idea.

I wish they would hurry up and get it out!

Just kidding.

For the love of all that holy, don't rush development! Don't create a mockery of the same game twice!

Sounds like Liam loved it!

I don't understand why they don't just copy Sonic 1 and 2.

The success of Far Cry 3 has led them to simply copy and paste the gameplay and focus on a creepy villain. It was fun the first time but I feel like I've already played enough of this gameplay loop.

Also Ubisoft is a company that actively protects sexual predators, so I'm disinclined to support them.

I guess I'll wait for the PS5 version.

It took 4 years to make Death Stranding. I'd be surprised if it took them 2 years to work on the Directors Cut. I assume they've been working on something else the past 2 years.

Horizon 3: Spooky East

As long as you can still steal cars by jumping through the windshield then I'm in.

I thought it was alright. Not every show is going to be the best show ever. Some decent reveals but honestly nothing that I'm personally excited about.

Thought it was odd to have an entire trailer for a custom Xbox controller, and then ANOTHER trailer for a custom console. Kind of concerning there wasn't gameplay footage of Halo.

The cuts to the "awards" for games that aren't out yet were super weird

The endless discussion about frame rates and resolution.

It's all a balancing act. The original Super Mario Bros. could run at 32K and 480fps, but the game itself isn't demanding.

If you want certain games to be at a higher frame rate, a simple adjustment is to decrease resolution. Want high resolution and frame rate? Then decrease polygons, AI, or any number of other resources intensive operations.

For this reason there will always, ALWAYS be games where the developers elect 30 FPS, or a "lower-than-standard" resolution.

@xDD90x
To be fair my opinion on this issue is influenced by the fact that I found the gameplay in Red Dead 2 to be extremely boring and I found the story to be bland.

Ride from point A to B by holding a button - you don't even need to steer the horse. Gunfights are boring - just press L2 and the game automatically aims at and follows your targets. Hunting quests seemed cool until I realised that there's no point to them.

I found the story to be very bland. If you've played the first Red Dead then you already know a certain character betrays you, so there is no twist. And it's obvious anyway - he says "guys, we'll do what you want after just one more mission" at least ten times. It's obvious he's stringing you along.

"Hey, by the way, where's all our money?"
"It's in a place only I know of and only I have access to it."
"Okay, cool."

SHOCKER! That guy betrays the group.

The story in the first game had the exact same problem - extremely gullible and naive protagonists.

So yeah, I'm not thrilled by the idea of a remaster of all that.

Oh man, this article is part of the problem. Rather than create new games we're DEMANDING that developers spend their time remastering games they released just three years ago?

Is the complaint that the PS5 version is more than the PS4 version, or that it costs any money at all to upgrade? If it's the former that's a fair complaint, but if it's the latter I think that's entitled - they've made some quality DLC and are charging for it.

Even the latest Zelda charged for a higher difficulty mode, so Sony's competitors aren't completely innocent.

So this is a Microsoft first-party game releasing on PlayStation?

There is a 60 per centum chance that this is all a social experiment studying game journalists and online communities.

Perhaps they could copy the Xbox strategy of announcing games via a CGI trailer 4 years before release.

Another benefit of announcing games closer to release is that they don't feel the pressure to rush to meet a date. This enables them to deliver completed games, and, crucially, it allows them to avoid crunch.

All well worth the price of games media angst.

I guess I'll wait for the PS5 version?

I'll happily pay full price.

Why not include a WWE subscription? Or a subscription to a newspaper?

I think it's a bad business idea to combine subscriptions for two totally different mediums.

If you provide reinforcement for something that someone is already driven to achieve, research suggests you may actually lower motivation. I know myself and many others stop playing a game as soon as we've obtained all the trophies.

It could be a savvy business move to try to keep people hooked and not focused on external reinforcement.

Or it could be laziness.

First one was ace.

In many metroidvanias (and even in adventure games like Zelda) you come across a barrier with an obvious solution. A path is covered by a boulder. "I bet I find bombs soon." Yup.

But Axiom Verge constantly surprised me with new weapons and abilities that I'd never seen before and couldn't have predicted.

Looking forward to the sequel!

In the past 50 years of home consoles, the PS4 is the second-best selling system of all time.

Maybe it's time they see themselves as competent trend-setters instead of trying to copy the business models of their competitors . . .

Opening Night Live is a pretty bad name.

Are people here honestly surprised that they need to take off the cover to install an INTERNAL SSD?

Sony has already posted illustrated instructions.
https://www.playstation.com/en-us/support/hardware/ps5-install-m2-ssd/

-Pull the cover off.

-Take off one screw.

-Plug in the drive.

-Put back together.

A pretty simple process that allows for non-proprietary cards for the next 7 years.

@Athrum
One of the major themes in the game is how a focused obsession can take over and negatively effect someone's life, and that such might even happen to a player of Returnal.

I genuinely think they haven't added saving because it compromises the artistic vision. If the only way to beat it is to do so in one sitting then players will get overly engrossed, which is what the developers are trying to express.

I must have read about 20 "news" stories anticipating an app that will show trailers for an unknown game.

No one outside of gaming would understand what I just wrote.

The way industry professionals talk about the industry is quite different than the way it is discussed on websites such as this.

Though I personally think it is a short-sighted business move, Sony is putting games like Days Gone on PC in order to increase sales and revenue. But, according to people like Jeff Ross (co-director of Days Gone) this is mostly from an angle of creatives being better able to convince business people that the games are financially viable. If the game reaches certain sales and revenue figures then the studio is more likely to be able to make another game. It's hard to get high numbers when the game is only sold on one format.

This is also a major reason for the price increase to $70. People like Herman Hulst can tout bigger numbers to the business people at Sony in order to get more games green-lit and developed.

In this interview Sean also says the reason for the price hike is to make individual games more financially viable since business people are looking at rising costs of development without substantially more customers.

He says consolidation is the enemy of diversity and outlines how difficult it is for an indie studio to get into gaming. It just requires too much money. So when there is actually an indie dev who raises the money and makes a game, they get bought and consolidated into a larger company. He says this stifles creativity and reduces diversity in the types of games people play.

We see this stance reflected in Sony's actions. Though they have acquired a couple of studios, they have also closed some. Rather than buy up certain studios they've struck publishing and funding deals with them. Herman Hulst has said things like "it doesn't necessarily matter what the business arrangement is - we just want good games made."

Websites such as this seem to constantly say Sony is out of touch because of the price hike and games going to PC - and perhaps they're right - but they seem to be missing these major dynamics at play in the industry.

Incidentally, Layden also says for the past 30 years the console space has only ever had about 200-250 million customers. Though the industry has gotten more money out of this customers (via microtransactions), the numbers have not grown. He also estimates GamePass would need about 500 million subscribers to work out, and without really saying so seems to predict that it will crash and burn.

"Leaked?" Really?

Not "announced?" Are we that desperate to paint Sony as incompetent?

You can't leak information that is rightfully yours to give.

I guess we'll first have to see if the first two Director's Cuts are any good.

I would be even happier is EA hadn't completely screwed up the original trilogy with bad business decisions and game-altering microtransactions, which ultimately led to the closure of the original studio and the sacking of everyone involved. Nice for EA to see the error of their ways? But do they?

These types of development problems seem more prone to live service games - they've got a setting and theme going, but after 8 years they don't even know what the gameplay is supposed to be? What's the goal? What do you even do? It seems these are often afterthoughts when designing a live-service game.

Compare this with something like Returnal - clear controls, clear purpose, clear gameplay loop, and developed within a couple of years by a relatively small team.

Interesting read.

This is exactly why Sony says they are careful and considerate about which studies they partner with or purchase - some studios are a complete mess, have toxic cultures, and simply can't deliver a good game despite near endless resources.

I think I'll wait for reviews. I like Metroidvania's but I have no idea if this will be any good.

Sports games are the cesspool of anti-customer practices in the video games industry - yearly updates, full-price games with microtransactions, gambling advertised to kids by professional athletes . . . It's all gross.

PES needs to adapt because it's been "losing" for 15 years, but other sports games make crazy profits with the current model. The other day there was an article that mentioned that over 25% of all money made by EA is made by FIFA microtransactions (including loot boxes). This is on top of a game people have already paid for. EA has no incentive to change this.

@SplooshDmg
But as noted above by others, Sumo has a market value of something like 150 million. We hear of companies selling for maybe 20% above market value, but 900% above value? It's crazy.

There has to be some sort of tax reason or something else for these dollar amounts. 1.3 billion dollars?! That's insane.

Insomniac sold for less than a quarter of that. The studio that made Spider-Man, a spin off, and Ratchet within the past couple of years sold for less than a quarter of Sumo Digital which recently shook the world with . . . Sackboy: A Big Adventure. It makes literally no sense.

But at least Tencent can claim another $1.3 billion in expenses.

Loot boxes are gambling - even organized crime has caught on.

I would love a PSP2. The first one sold something like 80 million units.

But realistically Sony are focused on VR as their gaming side project. It's working well for them.

Any platform holder that has to divide their resources between a home console and portable console will need to make sacrifices. Sony focused on their home consoles and gave a reduced effort to handhelds. Nintendo focused on handhelds and their home consoles had fairly poor content for years - few GameCube games and mountains of Wii shovelware

Nintendo came up with an elegant solution - make a handheld, make it also plug into your TV, and market it as a home console that you can take on the go. This way they can focus on both markets with one machine.(though I personally think it is not very portable in a practical sense - one of the joysticks broke the first time I transported it.)

I think the only way Sony could manage is if they straight up copied Nintendo. It could work. But I doubt they'll compromise the power of their home console to accommodate a portable version.

Rarely does a game cause me to change my mind about philosophical or sociopolitical issues. What do we make of rules in time of war? Should anything be allowed, or should we ban things such as nukes and nerve gas? What if you are defending yourself against an invading force? If we allow things or ban things, how does that effect the populace and our culture?

Ghost of Tsushima addresses these issues expertly, in my opinion. The gameplay melds perfectly with the themes of the story - another rarity in the craft of video games. You experience first-hand the pros and cons of obeying or defying rules of war via the combat approach you choose to take.

The gameplay is fun and engaging. The wind mechanic is an elegant solution to some pervasive problems in most open-world games (over-reliance on mini-maps, etc.). The art style and graphics are beautiful. Side quests actually felt more like side stories with their own story beats.

What an achievement! Ghost of Tsushima pushes the medium forward. Games like this are why people love PlayStation.

These tech companies always underestimate how easy it is to break into gaming.

If I already have a controller I’m not going to plug it into my TV to use Netflix – I’m going to use the system the controller is used with.

Perhaps gaming via Netflix will be awesome, but considering the flaws of every other game streaming service I am extremely skeptical. If I can stream new, excellent games for no extra money and the experience is flawless then that sounds great, but there is almost no chance of that happening.

Also, how will Netflix accomplish this financially? My understanding is that though Netflix is very popular it struggles to turn a profit. How will they fund game studios and additional licence fees without any additional revenue?

And to hear that they hired an EA exec who also used to work for Oculus and (yikes!) Zynga circa 2012, doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence. Zynga stock decreased over 80% in 2012.

Yeah but think of how much it could've sold if they compromised the experience and sold it on PS4 as well.

That was sarcasm.

This data supports my argument that of the 8 million people who will buy the next Horizon, almost all of them will also want to play it or will play it on PS5. Compromising it to work on the PS4 is a bummer.

That was a pretty interesting interview and his remarks run counter to many of the narratives propagated on social media and websites such as this one. Worth a read!

@DertieBertie @mucc

Sony is taking a bizarre approach of announcing and showing games only when they have actual gameplay to show, and only updating us about said games when there is something new to show or a release date to announce. Such arrogance!

They should follow the classic, tried-and-true formula of announcing a game 5 years before release, then show a logo, then show a CGI trailer, then have lots of buzz on social media that there is going to be another CGI teaser, then announce the release date, then have their E3 gameplay trailer leaked, then show the leaked trailer, then delay the game, then have another gameplay trailer with downgraded visuals, then delay the game again, then engage in crunch for 8 months, then release the game with a day 1 patch but the game is still buggy, then release a Road Map which explains how they'll fix and finish the game, then charge for a Season Pass which ultimately delivers the content that should have been in the game in the first place.

This "show a game when it's ready and deliver it in a finished state without crunch" nonsense just proves that Sony has let the success of the PS4 go to their heads!

#FireJimRyan
#BringBackKenKutaragi
#ScottRhodeSeemsCool

EDIT: Wait, has discourse gotten so bad that people can't tell I'm being sarcastic?

The controller features are awesome but not every game needs them. If someone take the time to get it right then the game will be better, but in not planning on that happening with every game.

It would be nice if more games properly used the cards. They have a lot of potential!