Max_the_German

I don’t see a contradiction between „renewed commitment to console“ and publishing on PlayStation. Because PlayStation is a console, isn’t it?

I understand this renewed commitment to console as „We will not only make PC games, but will release on consoles as well“. The obvious goal is to make Xbox something like Steam, one of the most important market places for PC games. Both companies, Microsoft and Valve, will offer console-like PC hardware, like Xbox Rogue Ally, Steam Deck, Steam Machine.
The differences: Microsoft will have many studios and a great output of games as a publisher. And Microsoft will publish priced games on consoles.

@LogicStrikesAgain Yes, all electronic devices are affected by RAM prices. But the African population rises, the wealth there is increasing, and people will buy PCs for their homes.

Maybe you would be surprised to find out on Steam what the typical PC specification of Steam users is. It is not high-end!

@Oram77 No, I avoid X to preserve my sanity.

I think that Phil Spencer will be remembered as the person who made Microsoft the biggest games publisher in the world and started the process to make Xbox a PC brand, similar to Steam.

What’s clear to me is that there are 8 billion people on earth, and consoles business isn’t growing, while PC is. We will see what the future brings.

@Oram77 AI is not the impression I got when reading this paragraph. Business models are about how to make money, not about how the product is made. „New ways to play“ sounds awful like „live service with permanent monetisation“ to me.

But I have no doubts that Microsoft will use AI to accelerate the development process. AI slop though? Who wants to pay for slop?

@Oram77

Quote from the new CEO of Microsoft Gaming, Asha Sharma:

„We are witnessing the reinvention of play. To meet the moment, we will invent new business models and new ways to play by leaning into what we already have: iconic teams, characters, and worlds that people love.“

Sounds a lot like „Live service game, based on God of War, developed by Bluepoint“ but for Xbox IPs and studios.

I thought that Studio Santa Monica wanted to make a Norse trilogy?!

Sony could give Bloodborne Remastered (a remake isn’t needed) to Virtuos, buy them and close them five years later.

I‘m waiting for the announcement of a third Horizon live service game. Hermen seems to love his IP.

Demon‘s Souls from 2020 was also the last hurrah of Japan Studio.

Something at Sony Interactive Entertainment died with the release of the PlayStation 5.

@KilloWertz

If it were that easy to manufacture RAM with competitive costs, more companies would do it. But this requires years of experience and enough orders feom the market.

Imagine that a new manufacturing site is built for a billion dollars, and suddenly the AI bubble bursts. This one billion dollars would be a bad investment!

@Oram77

Sony could ask Microsoft to make an PS6 exclusive for launch…

I thought that AI data centres use classical hard disk drives like any other data centre, due to the lower prices per Byte.

So these are bad news (not the only ones today).

My financial tip: When you hear „China attacking Taiwan“ in the news, run to the next electronics shop and buy all iPhones your credit card allows. You could sell them a few months later for a multitude of their original price!

@TrollOfWar

You mean, user AdamNovice is now angry on Sony, but will buy the next Horizon game Digital Premium Edition day 1 with a smile? Hermen thanks a lot.

@Gbarsotini

Naughty Dog was also forced to make a live service game, which was then cancelled by Bungie. It’s not ND‘s fault!

„If there's any kind of positive to take from this, it at least sounds like Sony is trying to relocate Bluepoint employees to other PlayStation teams.“

Sounds like a safe Haven to me.

That‘s also bad news for Austin as a location for video game development.

Retro Studios made the tragically bad Metroid Prime 4; Nintendo is likely investigating what to do with this expensive studio.

Sony could „inspire“ Nintendo…

Sony‘s playing fair game$ with its best studios.

Hermen, step down.

"Bluepoint Games is an incredibly talented team and their technical expertise has delivered exceptional experiences for the PlayStation community. We thank them for their passion, creativity and craftmanship."

Ar*eholes

What a waste of talent and passion. We were all happy when Sony acquired Bluepoint, and now this crap.

That sounds genuinely unbelievable to me.

@drakenpwn

It has a 60 fps mode. It is not rock solid, but good enough for most of us:

https://www.digitalfoundry.net/reviews/avowed-ps5-pro-features-are-thin-on-the-ground-but-the-port-is-solid

@1970sGamer

Rich people are not crazy but eccentric.

Seriously, have you read about a post from Elon Musk some two weeks ago, where he says in a sad voice that money doesn’t make happy? He seems to be a poor guy, without love in his life. I wouldn’t change with him.

Todd Howard, what a weird guy

RPG is often such a hollow term these days. When Guerilla Games called Horizon: Zero Dawn an RPG, I knew that everyone can call there games RPGs as well, as long as there are quests and some kind of system to level up different stats.

@PuppetMaster

Sony and Nintendo compete: for time, attention and money of the customers.

If RE9 were releasing not day 1 on Switch 2, or if that version were too heavily compromised for my taste, I‘d have bought the PS5 version, and Sony would‘ve earned 20 euros or so. But I bought it for Switch 2 (as part of the RE Generations Pack), and Nintendo got these 20 euros.

Phil Spencer said that YouTube, Netflix, Tiktok and Instagram are the biggest competitors for the video games business, and I find this thought at least interesting. In such a world, Nintendo and Sony are the toughest competitor possible.

@PuppetMaster Because even worse than an Arrogant Nintendo is no real competition for Sony at all. People are used to pay higher prices for games on PSN than on Steam and accept it. An Arrogant Sony, without real console competition, could rise its revenue share from 30 to 35 or 40%, and games released on PSN would get even more expensive. Having another platform holder as a corrective to prevent such excesses is good.

@PuppetMaster I said there is the danger of Arrogant Sony and the existence of Arrogant Nintendo. I can’t see why this should be no admitting that Arrogant Nintendo exists.

@PuppetMaster Oh no, I pulled the wrong trigger, by mentioning the danger of Arrogant Sony without mentioning the existence of Arrogant Nintendo. I don’t like this „we against them“, and whataboutism is lame.

@zebric21 Because RAM is produced by specialised chip manufacturers. The philosophies are totally different: Sony LETS produce complex consumer electronics and service platforms. Chip manufacturers produce billions of small chips with high yield and super low margins and sell the to other companies.

And even if Sony would produce RAM chips, they would be sold to the customers which pay the most, and these are the AI companies.

@UltimateOtaku91

I think that both companies will increase the prices for their systems, and people will accept it. I don’t see a Switch 2 Lite in the near future due to the high hardware component costs (Nintendo couldn’t offer it for a price people would expect, based on the prices of Switch 1 Lite).

A „Switch 2 Home“ seems more likely than a „Switch 1 Home“ ever was, due to the more competitive hardware performance. Without screen and docking station and with a cheaper cooling system and charger (the Switch 1 charger could be sufficient because there wouldn’t be playing and recharging at the same tine), manufacturing costs could be reduced. And the magnetic Joy-Cons could be charged much easier on a home console, without the need for sliding in and out.

I hope for a huge success of Switch 2, which includes great third-party support like what we see from Capcom with RE9 and Pragmata: release on the same day as for PS5, with acceptable image quality and 60 fps (or at least 40 fps).

Without good competition, Sony will turn into Arrogant Sony again. It was the competition of Gamepass that brought us the fantastic PS Plus Collection. But Xbox is no serious competitor as platform holder anymore, and if the Steam Machine will be priced at 900 dollars, PC is neither. Nintendo is the only platform holder which realistically can prevent Sony to freak out.

@Oram77 Yes, it’s a bummer that Pokopia will be on game key card, regardless being a „mid-price“ game. But I still can’t believe that Nintendo would do this for a 230 dollar game.

My lesson here: Generic stuff like Concord and Highguard has no chance. Unique stuff like Arc Raiders has one.

My big question now: Marathon has a unique artstyle, but is it also mechanically distinct enough to succeed?

I like that Sony included both a physical disk with a nice steelcase for the real collectors and a code for those without a disk drive, but for that price, I find it only fair. Wait…

After 821 votes, the average date of the poll is November/December 2028 (with „2031 or beyond“ calculated as 2031).

Sounds like a very reasonable launch date!

I‘m glad that we are not (yet) in a world ruled by the lowest common denominator. Not every piste has to be blue.

I want PS5 games which are developed with focus on this platform. I don’t want a cross-gen period with PS5 games running with 30 fps and poor image quality because „you have the option for great looking 60 fps with PS6“, at least not until 2029.

And games like Soros just look good enough to me. Who needs path-tracing?

@Oram77 I see that Sony acquired Bungie due to their expertise in live service games. And Bungie saved Sony some money, by giving advice to terminate the development of the Last of Us and God of War live service games.

But 3.6 billion dollars are a huge sum, and this must be earned with the new products, which have to cover also the costs for development and maintaining of these new games.

And acquiring a studio for their expertise means acquiring the people. But what if the most enthusiastic people leave? That’s what happened with Dice and Ubisoft, and we got The Alters, Arc Raiders and Clair Obscure.

I don’t see black and white here, and I know that balanced discussions is something you don’t expect in a comment section like this. So I appreciate you thoughts about D3 and the role of Marathon.

It will be unfair, because Bungie is more than Marathon, but people will contrast the success of this game with the 3.6 billion dollars Sony paid for Bungie‘s acquisition.

Do you see a game here which justifies the acquisition of Bungie for that price?

@shiningpikablu252 As a day 1 buyer of the GBC, I can confirm that back then, digital game distribution was limited to ROM downloads. I hoped that „…“ at the end of the paragraph made it clear.

The same story as with the Yakuza remaster: Publishers can decide to remove old games to avoid confusion for customers, who could wishlist or even buy an old game instead of the announced, yet unreleased new one.

I find this approach reasonable. There would be also an article here in case somebody manages to buy the old games and finds out they have no PS3 to play them. I prefer the news that people can’t (falsely or not) buy decades old games.

Edit: Konami made the same move on the Nintendo store. The GBC game Metal Gear Solid: Ghost Babel is still listed, but there you can’t buy and download it for your GBC…
https://www.nintendo.com/en-gb/Games/Game-Boy/Metal-Gear-Solid-Ghost-Babel-265999.html

@get2sammyb

Why does it feel crazy to you? With handhelds becoming more popular for „big games“, these games will be designed for PS5 with 60 fps (to achieve 30 fps on handhelds).

Chances for long support were never as high as now!

Nobody knew in advance how good the show would be, so this can’t be the reason for the high viewership numbers.

The reasons are in my opinion:

• Long show with many games, most of them with 2026 release dates
• Great Konami presentation
• People want new single-player games for their PS5s, and this show had plenty of them.

I hope that we will see more single-player games from PS Studios in near future. But this show was the best what Sony could make in thr moment.

@PinderSchloss

I think it should increase „replayability“, an important metric for the publishers. From what I‘ve read about this topic, most developers are happy if many players finish the game once. Only a small fraction of players replay a game.

I think the negative reaction is mainly because of imprecise marketing and to a lesser extent because you have to complete the game in single-player mode first.

Couch co-op still is a great way of gaming, and there are people out there who buy this game specifically for that experience.

I prefer „Late Access“ and wait for several months. This gives me the „ripe“ version with the most important patches for a lower price.

Only PS Plus members get these three weapon skins.

Does this imply that also non-members can play Marathon? Or does it mean that EVERYONE will get these skins?

Returnal felt outright unfair sometimes. I ran 10 minutes to the place were I died before, to be killed in less than 10 seconds over and over again.

I am used to long backruns (?) in Souls games, but Returnal was overstretching my nerves.

But as much as I liked the core Returnal gameplay, I don’t know whether I‘ll give Soros a chance or not.

The best thing about this show:

The vast majority of presented titles have a „2026“ as release date attached to them. There are 13 titles with a release date in the first half of this year.

(I had to ask ChatGPT to sort them for me by release date, every website lists the games as shown in thr show.)

I don’t miss the E3s where trailers were shown 2 or 3 years in advance.

Konami is backer than ever before.

Great show!