KippDynamite

I am the most left-wing, anti-corporate person I know, but c'mon - be serious. This is not a monopoly.

If I make a product then I am allowed to sell that product.

Sony does not have a monopoly because there are a zillion other ways to purchase video games - different formats, different stores, different brands, etc.

If they were selling teleporters and you could only buy a teleporter from them, then that's a monopoly. However, Sony makes a product that is available elsewhere.

I also think the price in online stores is atrocious, and if physical discs ever go away then we have a big problem. But this "monopoly" angle is currently baseless and I would be shocked if a judge thinks there is any merit to these accusations.

I find it outrageous that I can only buy a Dyson vacuum from Dyson!

And did you know that if you want attachments for a Dyson vacuum you ALSO have to buy them from Dyson?

If I want to vacuum my floor they have a complete monopoly on their own product!

Cerny was totally right - it feels great to level up by using your weapons. I don't know why more games don't copy it - though the Elder Scrolls is a notable exception.

"it’s frighteningly slow on the web"

What exactly is scaring you?

If a game is boosted then great, but I'd rather a dev focus on virtually anything else. I love Bloodborne, but the game is 6 years old. I think it's unreasonable to expect an update.

There are a finite amount of devs, and spending time on a game everyone has already played seems like a poor use of resources. Microsoft can focus on this because they aren't making much original content.

If a rich company wanted to know how to make a good video game they'd be wise to study a dev team like Naughty Dog.

The sky is falling!

My PS5 crashes about 30% of the time I use rest mode for PS5 games. This is extremely frustrating to lose progress.

I've used rest mode on PlayStation for many years. It probably only gets turned all the way off when an update resets it. Launch PS4 going strong. I don't see any of this as a big deal.

I guess we'll see. PSVR is far and away the most successful headset so far, but who knows what the future holds.

I don't really understand how this works.

I have a PS4 Subnautica disc. I get this new game for free?

Making Devs do something they have no interest or experience in has proven to be a fatal error time after time. EA have shown this repeatedly.

It's crazy to think that Bobby Kotick sees himself as the "Luke Skywalker" of the gaming industry.

@JJ2
I was playing the Resident Evil 3 remake the other day and while I was aiming there was a large blurry brown spot in the corner. I wondered what was going on. Basically my camera angle while aiming zoomed in extremely close on a metal bar that was part of a storage shelf.

It seems like only a complete madman would complain about such a thing. Clearly the game looks and runs great. I was surprised they bothered to make the metal bar look rusty!

Despite internet gossip, Sony really does take a lot of risk in the games it publishes. In hindsight it's easy to claim that games like Ghost of Tsushima, Horizon, Astro-bot, Death Stranding, etc. were all safe, but before they were released they felt like a gamble. I think the way they minimize risk is focusing on quality. They also seem to practice inter-team collaboration, which helps fix weak areas.

Sony does a great job at releasing high quality first party games with no monetisation gimmicks. No loot boxes, no microtransactions. But they do make a lot of money from third party studios engaging in those practices.

Physical all the way. No risk of losing access. Unless my house burns down.
🔥🏠🔥

Yeah but how many games has Xbox rented?

Just for the sake of PushSquare getting some easy clicks I hope it stays off forever.

"In a now precedented move, Cyberpunk has been unavailable on the PlayStation store for 714 months."

@Voltan
I agree.

Rather than a blanket "I'll buy it no matter what," my approach is more "I'll buy it unless there's some Cyberpunk-style surprise."

Housemarque have only mildly disappointed me once (with the controls in Matterfall) so I'm quite confident I'll like Returnal. They've also been through some tough times despite being an excellent dev team so I'd like to support them even though I rarely buy games at release.

If the metacritic is above 70 I'm planning on getting it. If there is some unforeseen disaster then I guess I won't, but I think it will be pretty good.

I think Live Services are just misunderstood.

But how many sales did they lose due to the issues? I know they lost my sale. I'll buy it when the native PS5 version is stable.

@Jayslow
Housemarque are quick at making games. That's the benefit of AA.

@munstre Microsoft talk about it so much because they have nothing else to talk about. Sony is currently promoting exclusive games.

I personally don't find PSPVP appealing - 20 movies isn't going to tip the scales. That said, I don't find GamePass appealing either.

Sounds ace! I'm just glad to have a real next-gen game to play!

Regardless of who wins what, I had a great time with both games! Highly recommended!

Great interview! Really something to be proud of!

"Someone other than Konami registers trademarks for Metal Gear and Castlevania" would be an infinitely more thrilling headline!

There was hype because The Witcher was good.

For a similar reason, sales of sequels are often heavily impacted by how good the previous game was. Sales of Days Gone 2 would have been an indicator as to how well people liked the first one.

We'll see how well their next project fares.

I wanted to give an accolade to someone in Demons Souls but couldn't figure out how. I don't think you can.

My main PS5 complaint is that it crashes about 30% of the time a PS5 game is put in rest mode. It doesn't happen with PS4 games, only PS5.

Anyone else have this issue?

I don't know how much the skin costs but you can get a full 15 hour expansion for Horizon for $10. It's great!

Honestly I think it's weird when one company invests money in another company. If one goes down it creates a domino effect that can crash industries or even economies.

If this was single player I'd be quite excited, but I just can't muster enthusiasm for a multiplayer game. Seems like a cool idea for a game, though!

I can tell the new version is better, but honestly I think it's a bit of a waste of time and money. The differences aren't that meaningful to me. But to each their own.

As noted above, the author of this article wrote this just a few days ago:

"They're putting all their eggs in their biggest sellers, as simple as that. God of War, Spider-Man, Uncharted, The Last of Us, Horizon. It's all-in on these franchises now it seems."

If anyone is stoking this narrative, it's PushSquare itself. It's possible the author completely changed his mind in the past couple of days, but it's also possible it's all internet drama for clicks. Or both.

MLB The Show 21
Returnal
Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart
Destruction AllStars
Sackboy: A Big Adventure
Demon’s Souls
Astro’s Playroom
Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales
Ghost of Tsushima

Every single one of those is a niche, risky title apart from MLB and Spiderman.

Returnal stars a middle aged, non-sex-object woman. It's also a big budget rogue-like.

Ratchet and Clank is a mascot platformer, a genre supposedly well past it's prime.

Destruction All Stars is an unknown multiplayer car battler.

Sackboy is another mascot platformer starring a character mildly popular 11 years ago.

Demon's Souls was a fringe game when it was released and, though it is more popular now, it's still pretty niche.

Astros Playroom is another mascot platformer with a new mascot.

Ghost of Tsushima is a new IP based on real history and - SHOCK! - it has political themes.

Of the big 3, Sony is probably the most diverse and takes the most risks.

Crunch happens when release dates are announced too early and I think Sony is taking that seriously because they've lost a lot of talent due to crunch.

That said, they still delayed Returnal. But only by a month.

Following are some reasons why I think it has a cult following:

The game has 5 acts, and the first is undoubtedly the weakest. I think a lot of critics literally didn't finish the game and didn't realize this.

Deacon - who starts out as kind of a douche bag stereotype - actually grows in a realistic way. So do other primary characters. He's not your best friend by the end of the game, but he grows to be very likable.

I liked how there was a different world philosophy in each of the 5 main factions, and I thought the game effectively explored the pros and cons of these philosophies. Most post apocalyptic games portray only psychopath murders surviving for long, but I appreciated that this game explored other possibilities. It's message that democracy and empathy can survive an apocalypse is, I think, I good message.

The game actually has surprises. If you check the map at the start of the game, you think you can see the whole map, but you can't. It's surprising when the next area opens up. And this happens again later in the game with another huge and interesting area.

Similarly, you think you've seen the enemies the game has in store, but after a dozen hours you've only seen maybe 20%. It's a pleasant surprise when you stumble across new enemies.

The horde mechanic is genuinely great. I remember randomly, literally, running into one while going from point A to B. When just 5 freakers can easily kill you in act 1, it's overwhelming to suddenly run into 100 of them.

Though you can feel pretty powerful in the game, there are a lot of scary "horror" moments like when you are quietly exploring a cave with 50 freakers - any mistake will lead to your death.

Unless you improvise, which the game allows and encourages. You can get factions to fight each other, creatively use distractions - all sorts of possibilities.

In the big scheme of things, a few (fixed) bugs and animation issues seem trivial.

He also emphasized that Sony likes to remove user error, and some non-proprietary memory cards would be too slow to run the games properly. So they made a proprietary card to make sure everything worked, but wouldn't eat the cost. Dumb moved all around.

Another enlightening remark was that, with regard to why the Vita "failed," the official consensus at Sony is that they don't know why it failed. Everyone disagrees.

Yeah, he seemed alright.

A very bad and short-sighted decision. Console platforms need variety and diversity, and Days Gone was actually pretty good and easily set up for a sequel.

I've been pretty slow to come around to this position, but I think PlayStation needs to change up it's leadership.

So . . . we should all buy Returnal (at that dumb price) to show Sony we want original IP instead of remakes?

I was extremely disappointed to read that Days Gone 2 won't be happening - that is a dumb decision. It definitely has better odds at success that another new IP that might take another 7 years to deliver.

The Bloomberg article outlines some corporate dysfunction, but I can also see the other perspectives as well. Why does this support team think a remake of a game THAT WAS JUST REMADE is a good idea? I don't know the numbers involved, but the article suggests the budget was way higher than other remakes - why?

Why trust a studio that has never made a game over a studio that consistently delivers?

They were told to help Naughty Dog finish TLOU2, and then afterwards they got help FROM Naughty Dog AND a budget for their project. Maybe they could have looked for the silver lining in the situation instead of quitting?

Am I missing something?

Yuji Naka has a lot of cred because he played a major role in creating the first Sonic. But honestly - has he done anything truly good within the past 25 years?

He seems like a "golden child" of the industry and he probably doesn't deserve that status. Maybe he'd be a great addition to a team, but with more competent people running the show.

@ShogunRok Oh man, if GamePass comes to PlayStation then there is LITERALLY no reason to buy an Xbox, ever.

@get2sammyb " If they're making more money from this deal than they would have forecast for the product anyway, then: a) Game Pass is sustainable,"

Actually, it shows the opposite. If Microsoft is willing to pay more than it would normally make, that's almost the definition of unsustainable.

I don't know all the details in a situation like this. Is it possible MLB mostly funds or subsidizes the Sony studio, which is why they are publishing the game?

Either way I totally agree that the optics are bad. But honestly, without this article I never would have known about it.