LogicStrikesAgain

So many games i liked:

• The Free Shepperd
• Badger (forgot the title)
• Fate of the Old Republic
• 4loop
• RE9
• Control Resonant!
• Gang of Dragons
• Forest 3 (This looked very interesting, but ended so abruptly without any info)
• Saros
• No Law
• Ace combat 8
• Nioh 3
• Phantom blade zero

But the highlight of the show was of course Highguard! 🙃 /s

Gudnight y’all

I thought this looked very interesting! Want to see more of it

@HonestHick I love how you unironically call other people fanboys 😄

Best TGA in my opinion, densely packed with great games! Probably as good as a TGA is gonna get. I will take off .5 point for picking Highguard as their closing title, but the rest was great so a 9.5/10 for me

Sony’s designs are really a hit or a miss. On the one hand they do things like the Playstation anniversary hardware designs which was awesome, and then you have something like the God of War limited edition controller with the single red stripe. These watches are not doing it for me

Best month in my opinion, and i dont even know what the other games are

Wolverine, Saros, Marvel Tokon, GTA 6 for me.

And possibly Phantom Blade Zero and Nioh 3

Edit: Oops, forgot Resident Evil Requiem

@nessisonett

“Returnal is one of the most disappointing games this generation”

That just broke my hyperbole meter

It’s hard to really judge anything from this. Only thing i can think of is, i’m surprised how far in development they were. I can only imagine how far along other games must be that have been rumoured to be in development before this, like the Horizon co op game. I mean that announcement must be right around the corner by now. Or that Until Dawn sequel.

There must be so many games farther in development than we even know. If only i could have a peek in Playstation Studios’ kitchen….. 👀

@gamepadnomad I get what you’re saying, and that’s totally fine. I dont have any issue with people not buying a Pro, especially when they find it too expensive. Its when they impose their own justifications on others, that’s where it gets weird

@KoopaTheGamer Maybe not on its own, but combined with lowered resolutions and settings it definitely can. I think we can’t underestimate what new architecture can do. Newer RDNA and Zen core architecture are going to be way more efficient in dealing with workloads than the older PS5 architecture

@KoopaTheGamer The architecture will be very different from a PS5, it would be much more efficient of course. And they will not have to target high resolutions. Even upscaling from native 720p to 1080p with all those next gen ML feautures would be pretty easy to do with the rumoured specs i imagine

@Max_the_German I’m no expert, but i cant see why games couldn’t be downscaled enough to be able to run on an handheld that uses around 15-30W. It would be using very different (more efficient) architecture than the PS5.

Sony’s intention here is likely not to put all those devs to work on creating low power modes, which no one will use and that hardly make any difference in power consumption, but in anticipation of this handheld. I can definitely be wrong on this, but let’s just say it’s highly likely

I mean, it was pretty clear from the beginning this was in anticipation for a handheld in stead of for power reduction.

Even if the low power mode still uses 100w, that’s because its using current tech, but the rumoured specs used in the handheld will also draw less power.

Also if the rumoured specs and dock features are correct, and if Sony can subsidize this handheld and release it around $499-$599, then this could be a highly attractive option for anyone who wants to stay in the PS ecosystem

@species Yeah, i dont understand it either. But even weirder to me is when people judge others when they feel the purchase isn’t worth it.

All the time, people buy phones ranging from mid range $600 phones to a high end $1400, cars from 10k second hand to 50k new, gpu cards from rtx2070 to 5090. Whatever fits their needs and budget at the time.

But i’ve never seen people judge each other as much as in the console space for buying a Pro or wanting to buy a PS6.

Like, if you dont want it that’s totally fine, but leave the people who do alone.

It’s like their justification for not buying a Pro has to be imposed on everyone else or something, its very weird

@JustMyOpinion I’ve had no issues as well. 2 controllers, 4,5 years of moderate to heavy use, also young kids using it. Guess i’m also lucky so far

@SuperYlvis I agree with MS publishing their games on Playstation, but saying you’re forced to buy a PS5 is just technically not true, you can still buy a series X even if Xbox games are ported to Playstation.

And also, you make it sound bad by saying people are forced, when PS5 is literally the cheapest high end console around, at this moment its even cheaper than the new Switch 2

Yeah finally a release date! This game looks quite good, excited to see more from it

Am excited to see all the improvements on PSSR2, cant wait for all the DF breakdowns

Damn, those numbers are prety good 😳

@SuperYlvis

Yeah, Microsoft essentially leaving the hardware race is not good because Sony will be the only one with a premium console. People are basically forced to buy a ps5 if they want a high end console. Competition is always good. Hopefully this doesn’t mean arrogant Sony is back

Quite the opposite really, even though their main competitor seems to have given up this gen, Sony still offers the cheapest high end console and has stayed with $70 games for now, doesn’t seem arrogant at all. But you’re right in that Sony should not become complacent.

People are basically forced to buy a ps5 if they want a high end console

You can buy a Series X. It’s just $100s of dollars more expensive. I guess Sony is forcing us by being the cheapest high end console, how naughty of them

@gamepadnomad That’s totally fine of course, but I can totally see people buying a Pro for GTA6, we just have to stop assuming everyone that does is upgrading from a PS5. And even then, i can totally see people upgrading by selling their PS5 and buying a Pro. I actually dont see what PS6 coming in a few years has to do anything with it. It’s not like they’ll stop supporting the PS5. It just comes down to what people want, need and can afford at that point

I just hope Netflix wont meddle too much and keeps letting HBO do what they do, i like a lot of their shows

Damn, did not expect to hear something like this today 😳

That’s one hell of an acquisition for Netflix, business wise it’s definitely a game changing move

@Porco How did you get to this conclusion?

i suppose nothing will convince you that sony's output has been lackluster the past 5 years and i cannot see how you would call this cycle successful from a AAA software standpoint. agree to disagree.

I was purely reacting to your claim that Sony “relies on chinese and korean games for its AAA output.”

I understand that you feel Sony’s AAA lineup hasn’t been up to your standard. Which is a fair opinion. But that wasn’t what i was reacting to or talking about, that’s a separete discussion. You’re entitled to your opinion.

But it seems like you’re discussing things i havent actually said. So yes, let’s agree to disagree 👍🏼

@AK4tywill I get what you’re saying. Though you have to consider that much of the ideas and designs they had for Sony will probably be reflected here. Especially seeing as this studios CEO was the former art director at London Studio.

And if it looked anything like this, i’m sure Sony would be roasted if they had announced this

Well, what do ya know? Sony made the right call it looks to me.

Somehow i get the feeling that if Sony showed this, they’d get a lot of heat for it.

“Derivative character design, PS3 looking animations, and live service drab”

Curious to see how people react to it now that it’s from another studio 😉

I wonder if the Concord character design critics wil stay consistent here 😅

@Porco

first off, you listed 5 games that are cross gen with ps4... so you can remove those if we are discussing sony's ps5 output.

I thought we were talking about AAA output, not PS5 only titles? Cross gen doesnt stop a game from being AAA.

sony continues to rely on chinese and korean games for its AAA output. it's a very odd strategy since most of these developers are unproven

Regarding your list:
I think my main issue are the words “continues to rely”.

Most games on that list are either:

• not AAA
• multiplatform
• extremely niche projects or unknown
• or havent even released yet

Saying Sony “relied” on these games when half of them dont even exist yet, feels like a stretch. Sony’s actual AAA output has been predominantly from their own studios, or established western/japanese partnerships.

Sony has always made exclusivity deals in the past like Deathloop, Final Fantasy 16, Kena, Ghostwire Tokyo, Forspoken, Nioh 3. Timed exclusivity doesnt mean reliance, it means they want to create variety in their lineup.

How is Sony “relying” on titles like Project Jinyiqei, Linxu: Return, Blood Message, The Grass of Genesis or Longevity Ying Yang? People hardly even know of these games

Not too mention that titles like Tides of Annihilation and Wuchang: Fallen Feathers are third party multiplatform releases, without any funding or exclusivity for Sony whatsoever.

And again regarding their China Hero, India and MENA Projects. I wouldnt say they rely on those projects for their AAA output. Those are mostly indie games, not meant to represent the main AAA output of Sony

@Porco

sony continues to rely on chinese and korean games for its AAA output. it's a very odd strategy since most of these developers are unproven

What do you mean? Sony has never relied on chinese and korean games for its AAA output.

The China Hero Project (like the MENA, and India Project) are actually there to help smaller studios in those countries with game development, publishing and marketing, this is not to rely on them for AAA games. It’s actually even mostly indie games that come out of it.

Sony relies mostly on either their own studios, and on partnerships with western or Japanese studios for their first party AAA games, not Chinese and Korean.

Demon Souls
Spider man: Miles Morales
Sackboy: A Big Adventure
Returnal
Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart
God of War: Ragnarok
Gran Turismo 7
Horizon Forbidden West
Spider Man 2
Astro Bot
Concord
Helldivers 2
Rise of the Ronin
Stellar Blade
Death Stranding 2: On The Beach
Ghost of Yotei
Marathon
Marvel Tokon
Saros
Intergalactic
Wolverine

Just one of those is from a Korean studio

I like how Sony partners with studios to diversify their lineup of games. And as always, i’m not going to make assumptions and just be cautiously optimistic until we see me more of it. But yeah, this sounds good, cant wait to hear more

@Rich33 I think a big part of it is the small percentage of people actually able to use these features, combined with the long development timelines games have nowadays.

While Sucker Punch might have added it in 2 months, a lot of that probably had to do with the game being so well optimized in the first place.

Many other games already launch with performance issues in the first place, so adding an uncapped option on top of it, which already requires a lot of testing on its own, could easily add another 4-6 months to the development if the game was poorly optimized in the first place. Also some games might just not have the headroom to warrant un uncapped option.

That’s probably why many studios dont even bother with it, especially with the small target market.

Regarding Astro Bot specifically, i think likely Sony looks at their data to decide whether it makes sense for them to implement options like uncapped fps. They probably look at sales numbers, and look if people that bought Astro Bot are using 120hz tv’s or Pro consoles, before putting teams to developcertain options.

Ofcourse, this is all just my speculation

@Rich33 Yeah, the uncapped option itself is actually pretty mind blowing. Just seeing that much overhead when the game already runs a stable 60fps with RT is kinda crazy.

But yeah, even though i’m not sure how easy it actually is to implement, it does seem like a relatively easy thing to add.

Maybe their main priority was always just on creating a solid 60fps game, and this didnt come in to their development timeline until much later.

Still glad they decided to add it in anyway, as many games dont even have an option like this

@Rich33 Also, i think if people are upset about games not being optimized or finished, they should definitely focus their frustrations towards other studios. Playstation studios is actually known for delivering polished, well optimized, finished games, with many graphical options like 40fps and vrr, something many studios dont even offer.

On the other hand, many other studios this gen have launched games in terrible states, full of bugs (sometimes unplayable), poor peformance, no 40fps options, no uncapped, and sometimes much need bug fixes take them months to a year post launch to adress.

If people really care about it, they should blame those games, not the studios that are doing it right.

This game, for launching so well optimized, and adding NG+ and uncapped options not even 2 months after release, should be the last game people voice their frustrations at, in my opinion.

(This was not directed at you btw, just some general thoughts of mine on this issue)

@Rich33 I get what you’re saying. Personally, i dont know exactly how easy it is to add an uncapped option, so i cant really get into that.

But the main thing i was responding to were his claims that the game is “clearly not finished and optimized” because it lacked an uncapped option. If i had to guess, maybe 95% of console games dont even come with uncapped options. Saying these are all unfinished and unoptomized is just misunderstanding game development in my opinion.

Not only was this game (and most of Sony’s first party) praised for being so well optimized, i also consider it finished if a game was developed with 60fps RT in mind, and when they delivered that.

If studios decide to do something extra like patch in an uncapped option, or DLC, or NG+ for that matter, i consider all of that as extra bonus, and not as a sign that a game was not finished or not optimized

@Neonix It’s all good, i guess we just see things differently. Enjoy whatever you choose to play 👍🏼

@Neonix Adding a post launch patch doesnt mean the game wasnt finished. An uncapped option is not a requirement for a game to be considered “optimized”, it’s just an optional enhancement.

The game launched polished, bugfree and had a stable 60fps with RT at launch, which is what optimized means.

Only a few studios besides Sony’s first party even bother to add an uncapped version, so i dont know what youre getting so worked up about. And calling people sheep really doesnt add anything to the conversation

@Neonix This game was actually very well optimized at launch, much like many of Sony’s first party games. It was a stable 60fps game with ray tracing on the Pro.

This uncapped patch is just an extra, which most studios dont even bother to do btw

@Dalamar Mocking others’ taste, how constructive. Why dont you enlighten us with your superior taste? 😉

11/15, i ranked 155th

Still my favourite Final Fantasy game. Everytime i hear that soundtrack, chills….

Also, can we acknowledge that these arent “just” sequels, some of these games are some of the best(selling) games of this gen, scoring very high on Metacritic:

• God of War Ragnarok: 94
• Spider man 2: 90
• Horizon Forbidden West: 89
• Gran Turismo 7: 87
• Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart: 88
• Helldivers 2: 82
• Death Stranding 2: 90
• Ghost of Yotei: 86

If you think some of those sequels played it safe, thats fine, but these are still all very good games, GOTY contenders even.

To call this a “problem” seems like a dumb take, when they’re as good as they are.

Also, Sony did publish 8 (semi)new IP’s like:

• Returnal
• Astro Bot
• Destruction All Stars
• Rise of the Ronin
• Stellar Blade
• Concord
• Lost Soul Aside
• Sackboy: A Big Adventure

Let’s compare that against the amount of new IP’s published by other publishers this gen:

• Square Enix: 10
• EA: 7
• Xbox: 7
• Ubisoft: 6
• Take Two: 5 (only smaller indies)
• Capcom: 1?
• Activision Blizzard: 0? (Couldnt find any, too busy churning out yearly CoD’s to focus on new IP, i guess)
• Nintendo: 0? (Not much data, but i couldnt find anything)

And we see that most big publishers haven’t published many new IP’s this gen as well. Heck, Sony published more new IP’s this gen rhan any other publisher except SE.

And again i say: Sony gets unjust heat for things every publisher does

Again i think Sony gets heat for something every publishers does.

To remind everyone how many (mainline) iterations some franchises from other publishers have:

• Call of Duty: 24
• Mario: 24
• Zelda: 21
• Halo: 8
• GTA: 6
• Borderlands: 4
• Gears of War: 5
• Forza Motorsport: 8
• Forza Horizon: 6
• Civilization: 7
• Mafia: 4
• Final Fantasy: 16
• Dragon Quest: 11
• Resident Evil: 9
• Street Fighter: 6
• Tekken 8
• Mortal Kombat: 12
• Assassins Creed: 14
• Battlefield: 6
• Far Cry: 6
• Pokemon: 9
• Sonic: ~15

And that’s just counting mainline titles, not spin offs etc, because some would be 100+ if we counted those.

Not to mention some publishers releasing their yearly sports or racing game, which are usually almost exactly the same game as the previous year like Madden and FIFA having 32+ entries!

And just to juxtapose those numbers against the games mentioned in this article:

• God of War: 2, or depending how you count 5
• Spider Man: 2
• Ghost of Yotei: 2
• Horizon: 2

Yeah, Sony has a sequel problem…..

Who cares? When AI reaches superintelligence before alignment is fixed we’re all F-ed anyway. Better start working on those bucket lists

As a console its been pretty great! I especially love the loading times this generation. Everything, from games and general use is much faster then last gen. In terms of games i think its been pretty good as well, although i do notice it’s getting harder to be surprised by novel experiences.

I know many conflate the question of what do they think of PS5, with how they found Playstation Studios the last 5 years, so i’ll give my two cents on that as well i guess.

Even though i think their first party games have generally been pretty great, i do miss a few more gen defining titles. Their bad approach to live service has had a real negative impact on their output, and even if they’ve corrected course since then, unfortunately game development take so much time that that’s not going to be apparent immediately.

Having said that, i’m not gonna judge a whole generation while it’s still going. We have a few more years left, and the games they have announced i am actually very excited for, and i do realize that there are many more games that are yet to be announced. So i’m excitecly looking forward.

End of the day, PS5 and it’s full library of games have been pretty great for me

@CupidStunt Exactly, good point! From that point of view it is indeed particularly nasty

@LikelySatan

you are at the reaction to the reaction part of the controversy cycle. You can just take someone's word for it when they answer your question.

I dont really get what you mean tbh. I do take someones word for it. If people hate it, then they hate it. I’m not silencing them, or saying they’re wrong. This is not about me not believing people. I dont care if people say it because they mean it, or because they just want to troll.

People can dislike what they want, but all this constant negativity and doomposting is getting a bit tiring that’s all.

But by all means, people continue doing what they want, i will continue finding it a bit over the top 😉

@RoomWithaMoose Thats allright. Funnily enough if we were to go into the topic of how Sony approached live service, i really do agree with everything you said. I personally hve no interest in many live service titles out there, but i have no qualms with Sony trying to venture in to that space, especially if they can bring with them some of that Sony quality game making.

But alas, there approach was typical of a naive and inexperienced publisher in the space, and frankly was a pretty poor way of going about things. I do feel they have pivoted and made some correction, it just unfortunately take a bit of time to see them fully get back on their feet again.

But yeah, just to reiterate, this wasnt really about their dumb handling of it, but rather the people that just dont want them to do any type of live service period.

I respect their opinion, thats not what im arguing against. I’m just confused why they single Sony out, when the worst offenders of live services are some of these other predatory publishers, but somehow Sony usually gets the brunt of it.

Oh well, i’m all ranted out for today. I do appreciate the nuanced discussion 👍🏼

@RoomWithaMoose I get all that, that’s why i said that their approach was bad. They did handle it very poorly. But thats unfortunately how things sometimes go in business, things dont always pan out, then you react and pivot.

But i was reacting to someone who said “Let it be the final nail in the coffin for the live service debacle”. That definitely reads like they dont want Sony to do any live service, and many feel the same way. Which is fine btw, i just dont understand the singling out of Sony, when literally every other publisher gets a pass.

My comment wasnt really geared toward you, you actually have a nuanced take, which i totally agree with. I was really just reacting to the crowd that just doesnt want Sony to do any live service at all

And i agree with everything you’ve said btw

@dskatter

But hey, that's also just my opinion!

Good! And you’re entitled to it 👍🏼

Dont really know what to say, i’m sorry you dont like it. There’s many games i dont like. I just dont make a scene about it, like some people do literally everytime a Marathon article comes out.

To be clear, i dont care that you and others want this to fail. Personally, i’ma bit indifferent, but still curious. But some are excited about this game, so i just dont understand why people are so dramatic about constantly wanting this to flop. It’s literally every comment section, its a bit over the top and after a while all this doomposting just gets a bit tiring that’s all

@nessisonett I dont understand why people dogpile on Sony doing live service. Sure they messed up their approach, but many seem to be averse about them doing any live service at all. Do people not realize that literally every other publisher has multiple live service titles?

Why single out the one publisher that hardly has any live service titles at all, and probably is one of the last publishers to even give it a real go?

Seems to me like people are piling up on the wrong publisher here, somehow Sony is the only one getting heat for this, when other publishers have been doing this for way longer, and are far more agressive and predatory with their live service approach