LogicStrikesAgain

@Oram77 unless they are spamming Microsofts twitter, then its not exactly the same, i’d say. People can discuss things on Reddit or Push Square without it immediately being “port begging.”
It’s not like when they were literally spamming Housemarque directly on their Twitter, demanding a PC port

Really curious to see whether its Day 1 or not, as it might give an indication whether MS has changed their exclusive strategy.

Anyway, i’m ready with my popcorn 🍿

Oversaturation and too high costs of development. Thousands of games release every year, no way that they can all find an audience, theres only so much time people have to spend on games, especially when their attention is already hooked by other types of content like social media etc.

AAA gaming costs have ballooned to incredible budgets, where studios instantly are at risk if a game fails.

The market is likely in the process of correcting itself. Expect closures, mergers and consolidation to continue until market has stabilized into a more sustainable one.

Personally i hope that future includes more of an emphasis on smaller titles, less bloat, less 50+ hr games, shorter development cycles (2-4 year).

I remember it took me like 12 hrs or so to finish MGS2 back in the day, and it’s still one of the best experiences i’ve had in gaming

@ShadowRJ I know, i’m just playin 😉

This must be awful then, seeing as Marathon has an 81 (an 84 on Xbox), and people are calling that game trash.

Just kidding 😎

@themightyant I agree, i’ve said this a bunch of times here as well, except for the Covid overinvestment, which is a good point! The market is indeed oversaturated. Too many games releasing and trying to compete for our attention, and not enough time and money for us to maintain that supply. Game development has also become much too expensive.

So the market seems to be correcting itself. Closures, mergers and consolidation will continue, until the market reaches a point of a more balances sustainability

I’ve had an Xbox since the OG, except for this gen, but i’ve never been interested in the Gears and Halo franchises. I’ve only played Halo once, and only watched other people play Gears, and i respect them as great franchises, but somehow these games have never appealed to me 🤷🏻‍♂️

Everything is getting more expensive in game development, but costumers hate to be presented with the bill

For everyone saying they can’t release the PS6 for cheaper than the current PS5 Pro price, i just wanna remind you that Sony released the PS4 for $399, and the PS5 for $499. Even though the PS3 released at $599.

I’m not saying i’m sure that the PS6 will be cheaper, but there is a precedent.

Also, Pro consoles aren’t subsidized, because they’re not intended to be mass sellers. So i personally think we should be looking to base PS5 pricing, not the Pro, if we want to guestimate the price of the PS6

@Sulleymonster

stop it with these "will the PS6 be greater or less $1000".

well tbf, there hasnt been any article about it being less than a $1000. The previous article was about it possibly releasing with a $1000 price tag, and that got a lot of comments, so there is interest in the topic.

So when a highly reliable and reputabable leaker like Kepler2 insinuates it might release cheaper, then that might be interesting to some. Also, it’s marked as rumours so no need to get so worked up about. Some of us like these little insights, and if people dont like it, everyone’s free to ignore the article right?

@rjejr Lol dude, whatever floats your boat. You seem to have missed a few other points i made though. But as i said, if people want to continue playing on base PS5 when next gen rolls in, that’s totaly fine as well, just keep in mind that it might not be a pleasurable experience, that’s all

@dskatter

The whole point of console gaming is that it is, in general, less expensive and annoying than a gaming PC. (I know there are exceptions, calm down PC master race folks.)
That seems to be no longer the case.

This will continue to be the case though. Even if PS6 launches at $1000, it’ll still be the most affordable high end console, and much cheaper than equivalent PC builds

@Dalamar Not a jab at all. I’m just very curious what people will do if they opt out of next gen gaming consoles

@Bizzy

There's a difference between need and would like.

I understand.

But ever improving graphic tech needs better hardware to play. You can’t expect to play RE9 at 4K60 with full raytracing and high settings on a base PS5 right?

Now imagine future next gen games. You wont get nearly the same fidelity and performance as next gen consoles, and will even lose some features like path tracing etc

@Kang81 Exactly! Some people saying they dont see the need for next gen hardware, dont seem to consider that graphic engines and other tech are also moving forward, and will require stronger hardware to perform properly

@Dalamar

If that will be a norm, then PS5 will be my last Sony's console, plain and simple.

Out of curiosity. Will you go to more expensive alternatives? Or opt out of next gen gaming entirely?

nothing about a console is even close to being worth $1000
at all
Also, i bet the same ppl that are voting yes/maybe are the same ppl that criticized the early ps3 for being “too expensive” despite being worth the price and offering more as a console in its respective time period than any other console ever has. ppl called sony greedy despite each system being sold at a loss, meanwhile the ps5 and ps5 pro were overpriced from the get-go

This sounds a bit contradictory. Maybe i’m reading it wrong. But are you saying the $599 PS3 at launch was worth the price, but the more powerful PS5 that released almost 15 years later for $499 wasn’t?

If you mean that they aren’t subsidizing it like they used to, you have to consider that the current economic climate isn’t the same as 15-25 years ago. With games being much more expensive to develop across the board for everyone, their low profit margins in softwate might not be enough to subsidize their hardware the same way they used to in past generations. Economic landscapes change, and business models go along with it. We can’t always compare things to how it was 15-25 years ago

@rjejr well, you dont have to upgrade. There’s surely going to be a long cross gen period, so you can continue gaming on a PS5. Problem is, games are going to run worse on it, without some of the next gen features. Imagine 720p, lower graphic settings like textures, shadows etc, no new features like path tracing, and perhaps even struggling to hit 30fps consistently for some games. Can’t imagine it being much fun

@vikramsingh Fair enough. But i bet an equivalent gaming laptop would also cost significantly more than $1000, so i dont know everyone will be able to afford that choice though, but it might make sense if you want next gen gaming and happen to buy a new laptop anyway

For everyone saying no, while i totally understand, i am curious. Even though these prices are high, Playstation would still likely be the cheapest high end consoles around. If PS6 will be $1000, i can only assume Helix must be $1500+, and any equivalent PC will probably be in the $2000+.

So my question: If you dont go for a PS6, will you be opting out of next gen gaming for good? Or move to PC? Or stick to current hardware waiting for prices to come down?

@naruball those are good points. But without going too deep into the economics of it all, i’m just going to say that the global economic landscape of today is very different from 20 years ago. And companies might make very different decisions than back then.

Also, the PS3 launched at $599. So if they were already losing money back then on hardware, imagine going back to $499 consoles almost 20 years later. I understand the Cell tech was very expensive, but just accounting for inflation, we’ve been enjoying pretty low console prices for a while. These might just not be the right market conditions for Sony to be willing to subsidize so much anymore, especially when software profitn margins aren’t anything to write home about and will probably even shrink more since games are getting even more expensive to make for every publisher

Their prices are now in line with their main competitor. Seeing how console prices have stayed relatively the same for the past few decades while everything else has soared in price due to inflation, i think this increase is overdue.

Does that mean i’m happy with it? No.

@naruball I mean, you have a point there, and maybe i was being a bit too absolute in my comment, they do have a choice.

However RAM prices havent just increased a little, but doubled or tripled, as well as some othercomponents. At that scale, i think its a bit unrealistic for a company to shoulder those costs. Also, software profit margins are shrinking across the board, and they will have taken that into account. Even Sony has it’s limits with how much it’s willing to subsidize

@Art_Vandelay Well, thats true as well. I guess you do have a point there!

I love how some people blame Sony for this. They were the last one to even hold on to such low prices. It’s not like companies have any choice in this economic climate.

Sure this sucks, but if you follow a bit of news, you can’t expect companies not to react. Component prices have skyrocketed. PC prices have tripled over the last year. They just can’t keep the prices low when the numbers dont make sense anymore. This is not how a business operates, unfortunately.

I guess were just going to have to accept that console gaming is not going to be for the masses anymore, or at least be satisfied with lower powered hardware

@Carnage That’s a good point! So things might even get worse 🤦🏻‍♂️

@Art_Vandelay oh yeah, absolutely! Looking at the bigger picture, no one is really in a good position in the gaming market today. Its just very hard to succeed in such a crowded market. Maybe my comment sounded too much as if i thought Sony is doing great or something, but it’s not, the whole market is actually pretty F’ed because of the reasons you also mentioned. I guess i just reacted because they specifically singled out Intergalactic, which again, i think Sony is probably in a slight better position than most publishers, to handle a game failing

@Art_Vandelay Good points btw (post #188). I actually commented not long ago about the gaming market being way too saturated. There are way too many games releasing, and not enough time and money for people to spend on it, so the supply will have to shrink

@Art_Vandelay I mean, you’re right, that’s true as well. I just think Sony is still in a slightly better situation than some other publishers though. Sony can still fall back on their main source of income. Other publishers really need their games to break even, or else they are automatically in a loss. However if Playstation makes enough through third party sales and subscriptions, they could still end up making profits at the end of the day, even if some of their games failed

@Ralizah I think discussing SE’s multiplatform strategy on a gaming news site is a bit different from literally reaching out to the developer (Housemarque) directly and demanding for a port

@Markatron84 we don’t know anything though, who’s to say blundell isn’t the one who F’d up this time. People are so certain to put blame somewhere when we literally have no insight at all to what’s going on behind the scenes

@Lysterao Sure. But these things happen a lot with all publishers. They invest in things, and things get cancelled behind the scenes. That’s just how it goes sometimes in game development. Maybe things weren’t developing as they hoped, or sometimes plans and strategies just shift

There is no need to extend development of game for more than 5 years and even anything longer than 3 is ridiculous

Sorry but saying that ‘anything over 3 years of game development is ridiculous’ is just not realistic, at least not for AAA games. Perhaps if AI is heavily used in every step of development, then we might get there

@Leetware1 I lf you were replying to my first conment. You’re absolutely right. And they should definitely make improvements on all those things. But i find that people like to demand or complain about things they know little about, showing the disconnect of what people want vs the realities of game development costs and running a large publishing company

Maybe shortening games length might help. I personally dont need every game to be 30-50+ hrs long. Also better use of AI in development, reusing assets between studios, improving tech engines(like Unreal Engine MetaHuman, so you dont require expensive mocap tech) , smaller teams, more AA in between, more teams outside of high wage countries etc

there is no reason to for a video game to cost more than many movies

Not sure i totally agree here though. Game development often needs a huge amount of expensive technical skills (programming, system design etc), on top of the creative side, which can definitely be more expensive than movies in some cases

A game like Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, for example, simply cannot afford to fail.

I dont fully agree here. I think Sony might actually be in a slightly better position than other publishers in this regard. Sure, it wouldnt be good if it failed, but they can afford it, because their main source of income are the billions they make from third party sales on their platform.

Meanwhile, third party publishers really need their games to succeed, because that is their main source of income

People hardly understand all the financial realities and business decisions going on behind the scenes of these large companies, but they do like to complain and demand a lot

@twitchtvpat That actually makes sense, with them being the creators of J&K. Somehow that thought has made me even more hyped for Intergalatic hehe

@SMJ They didn’t acquire them. This studio didn’t exist before. Sony created this studo internally, bringing in some former developers from Deviation Stuio after they closed down

So it wasnt a live service game? I wonder why they cancelled it. Oh well, end of the day lots of unannounced games get cancelled all the time behind the scenes. We dont know what they had so far, so can’t really judge if this was a good call or not

I’d like to see a reimagined gritty mature sci fi version of Jak & Daxter

That sound design though! You can feel it in your bones 🔥

@The_ghostmen

if the game was good enough to play the hate wouldn't matter.

I dont think thats necessarily true though. A game can be very good to play, but because it has a lot negativity surrounding it, many people might never even try it because of the narrative surrounding it.

On the other hand, some popular live service titles can actually be very mediocre, but have good initial momentum because of positive perception.

Look i’m not saying hate caused it to fail, but early momentum and online discourse can definitely impact a game. Launching while everyone was yelling DOA was always going to be an uphill battle.

The kind of hate Marathon got can definitely create a distorted perception, even if the game turns out to be solid, which it did.

Not saying Marathon is purely a victim of bad press, but in this case, since the hate on this game has been extreme, it likely had an impact on its initial succes.

Having said that, Marathon definitely has many bigger reasons, like being a very niche genre, for not being a huge succes though

@TrollOfWar Those are actually good assessments of both games’ reception after release. But what i mean is that these games got an unusually high amount of hate before release. People were relentless, even people who weren’t even interested in the slightest, were spamming every article that the game is garbage and needed to flop. Most reasons werent even about the game itself, but rather a bias against the publishers strategy. Some people just wanted it to fail out of spite.

That kind of negative momentum can distort peoples perception, even if the game turns out to be pretty good. It wasnt the same hate like Mindseye or Cyberpunk for releasing in horrible states either, because both Concord and Marathon released in a technically excellent state.

And thats fine, people can hate all day if they want. I’m jus sayinf that level of negativity can impact people’s perception, and some who ignored the game might’ve otherwise tried it if it didnt have such a negative air surrounding it, that’s all.

Just to be clear though, Marathon has many bigger reasons, like the ones you mentioned, for not being a huge succes, but this is likely one factor that also contributed

@RBMango

Regarding Fairgames, I do hope it fails because it looks like the worst kind of hot cynical garbage with a grotesque, pompous, and hypocritical "eat the rich" tone. It that's the tone they're going with, I absolutely do want that to fail out of sheer spite

Dont get me wrong, thats your prerogative. But i think it also makes my point perfectly clear. That before Sony releases a live service game, before people have played it, heck sometimes even before we’ve seen any gameplay, there are people out there that already want these games to fail, and not because the game is bad, but more out of spite than anything else

@Rich33 I agree, even though i quite like the artstyle myself. But this is indeed a very niche genre, something their audience probably wasnt really into. But alas, they bought Bungie with the caveat that they would manage themselves, and they were already heavy in development for Marathon so Sony just had to go along with it

@Rich33 I don’t think Helldivers 2 quite enjoyed the same level of hate Concord and Marathon received though. But you’re right, i certainly dont want to imply that perception is the only reason a game succeeds or not. I’m just saying, especially with live service titles, perception is an important factor

@RBMango Oh i agree with you on the sales part, 1.2m is definitely not enough, no disagreement there. But it’ll probably continue to grow, the question is how much.

I was referring to people hating on the game before they’ve even played it. Heck, even before the first alpha gameplay released some people were already wishing for it to flop. Granted some may have been from the groups you describe, but many also seemingly jumped on the bandwagon.

Just look at that post above with the concordian timeline meme. People know nothing about and havent even played fairgames and hunters gathering, but are already actively ridiculing and wanting it to fail. I’ve seen that meme pass by like 5 times already in other comment sections, lol.

There are way worse games out there, and every week a new live service title gets announced by scummy publishers, but nothing seems to garner as much hate as Sony’s live service games, doesnt even matter if its a quality game or not.

In the end, it is what it is, i’m not gonna stop people from hating on a game if thats what they wanna do with their time. I’m just saying that the excessive hate this game has received most certainly will have had an impact on people’s perception of the game, that’s all

@RBMango

Sorry, this isn't "haters caused this game to fail

It’s definitely not the sole reason, that’s true, it’s also simply just a very niche genre. But perception is also very important with these live service games though. And all the excessive hate will have had an impact on it. Its a perfetly good game, but it just didnt get a fair start with all the negativity surrounding it.

Apparently the game isnt bad at all. It currently sits at 82 on Metacritic, and a 89% Very Positive from 23k+ Steam user reviews. This site gave it a 9/10, and even the tweet in the article says the game underneath is a “MASTERWORK of design”. It certainly doesnt deserve all the hate it getting. But even in this comment section people are almost celebrating its downfall, or at least ridiculing it. Honestly, very weird behaviour in my eyes