Don Mattrick seems to be the secret CEO of SIE. That explains a lot of recent decisions.

@ShogunRok You don’t have to justify yourself. Combat in The Witcher 3 is not great either, and even fans (like you) acknowledge that. Maybe in a few months, people will complain that many reviews were too positive. Thanks for your sincere review!

@Slayer25c And you don’t think that Sony is now doing the first step to get rid of discs, and the second step would be to get rid of code-in-the-box and all forms of physical sales for PS6?!

I think that we will see Horizon Steel Frontiers getting announced for PS5, after Horizon Hunters Gathering won‘t be an MMORPG any more.

And we will probably see another game announcement with a PS IP from an external developer. The internal studios still have to recover from the live-service experiment, and Sony can’t afford to let its IPs lie dormant.

@LogicStrikesAgain These funny and cynical replies miss the point. You know that it’s not a lack of demand for physical games, numerous articles showed the significant share for e.g. Resident Evil 9. It’s the wish of Sony to remove retailers from the sales chain, so that Sony gets a higher share of the revenue and can better control the prices.

GungHo has several studios which develop console and mobile games. Sony Music‘s control means that Hermen can‘t engage in his favourite hobby, closing studios.

The news here: PS5 Pro almost sold out in the U.S., in anticipation of GTA 6.

Where is the link to this boycott? I don’t get it. Just a poor attempt to emotionally charging up normal news?

Chained Echoes has a great reputation. I‘m not a huge fan of turn-based RPGs, but I will try this.

30 fps is ideal for this game, because the character movement looks so clunky that input latency is not a big issue.

It’s a game you can enjoy while drunk.

I just started Bloodborne for the first time. I always wanted to wait for a remaster, but without Bluepoint, I‘d probably wait forever. And I don’t know whether I want to hack my PS5 to install the unofficial patch from Lance McDonald.

30 fps in Bloodborne is particularly hard to swallow, bevause of the low resolution and bad frame pacing (I can’t unsee it). But from what I can say so far, Bloodborne is a masterpiece, and I don’t want to miss it.

For GTA6 however, there will be a million opportunities in my life to play it with 60 FPS or more, in a complete edition with all upcoming DLCs, for a reasonable price.

I waited for GTA5 on PS5, I can wait for GTA6.

The red 80s Übermacht Sentinel convertible looks great. The missions look great. Dialogues are well written. Rest of the world a bit boring, basic GTA style.

I expected more.

@LiamCroft Clever to repost this for the players on Switch 2!

It gets increasingly clear that both Sony and Microsoft will strip down the RAM and storage sizes, because changes on the SoCs could be nigh impossible at this point without losing years of development and billions of dollars.

It was heavily rumoured that PS6 would get 30 GB of RAM and Xbox 36 GB, both using the new 3 GB chips. Switching over to traditional 2 GB chips, that would reduce to 20 GB and 24 GB respectively. That wouldn’t be much more than the current 16 GB of PS5/Series X and 18 GB of PS5 Pro.

And with the current storage prices, 2 GB is out of reach if prices should remain reasonable. Prepare for 1 GB and download more often than before, especially in the adorably all-digital future to come.

Oh, Bratwurst Land, my homeland. You will find more Döner Kebab and Cantonese food here than Bratwurst, actually.

The depiction of the streets with overly wide red bicycle lanes is quite authentic, though.

Not surprising that PushSquare made a review for the „mature“ Sniper Elite, where you can shoot on balls, but not for „children games“ like Chained Echoes.

These unique Xbox disc IDs were originally introduced to forbid lending on Xbox One via always-online. After the negative response, Microsoft killed the plans, but obviously kept the unique IDs for the discs without using them.

The irony now is that these IDs allow for the new disc-to-digital system. Discs for PS4 and PS5 seem to lack such an identifier, making this system impossible for PlayStation.

I guess that if you would shrink the show to 30 min by cutting the 75% worst showings, the general sentiment would be much better, and people would appreciate the good games more.

I watched the last 20 min. I quickchecked all the announcements and didn’t miss a lot, obviously.

Free upgrade for Witcher 3 is nice!

I read the feature in EDGE on this game. Sounded a lot of fun, and this trailer underlines that.

Basically „No CD“ Projekt Red

These days, PS5 exclusives are mere window dressing.

They were important to establish the PS4 as the leading console platform, people built up their libraries, and so they stick to PlayStation with PS5, PS6, … and keep buying currencies for Fortnite, FC, …

That‘s why Sony was not hesitant to use its precious studios for live service nonsense. The defining first-party games were on PS4.

Speaking of: I just started Bloodborne for the first time. Wanted to wait for a remaster, but with the death of Bluepoint, my hopes died as well. Even with its harsh PS4 limitations, a fantastic game!

@ShadowRJ Yes, there was no 3D era with 60 fps and fast loading as the de facto standard. And now it is there, and I don’t want to go back.

PS5 delivers the snappy gaming experience I remember from back then playing on my SNES. Why should we accept less nowadays?

The problem is not that software from the PS Store is licensed. This is also the case with books, CDs etc.

The problem is that Sony could easily reject the digital licence, the software would be blocked on your PS5, and you couldn’t use it anymore. And then it’s your job to sue Sony.

God bless Physical Media.

An power outage on a Tuesday somewhere in the US has a bigger effect on the number of PS5 systems online.

Buy physical versions wherever possible, and digital versions on platforms which allow for competing digital stores or which have not ruled out physical games for the future.

These yummy 30% of each penny you would pay on PS Store, don’t give them to Sony!

Sekiro

I‘ve played other Soulsborne games, but this is really tough. Obviously I am not skilled enough. Bosses take long to get killed, even when using parries and Mikiri counters, but they can kill me when I make one or two mistakes. Annoying, and I think about stopping playing it.

@Fatewalker People still don’t understand that the CPUs of all four gen 9 consoles are almost the same. Yes, even a PS5 Pro is not much faster in this regard than an Xbox Series S.

I‘m waiting for the reactions if GTA6 launches with the same 30 fps / 40 fps setup without a 60 fps mode.

Watch the video, it’s really interesting. Totoki speaks of „excitement“, and only briefly, but not of fun. And he lets no doubt that he sees us PS gamers as accepting the inevitable thorough moneytisation of our hobby.

Oh no, people could buy the game cheaper on retail than on PS Store AND would have more rights like sharing and reselling.

THAT‘S one of the effects of an adorably all-digital future. And Sony makes no secret about it, when saying „how to monetise those users is quite important for us“.

And the worst aspect is how many of you don’t care or follow Sony‘s argument of convenience. It’s about market power and enforcing higher prices, get it!

The reason for the rising sales numbers might be a random game with a November release.

@tameshiyaku I love both the quote and the film!

Totally unique artstyle and gameplay, this Wuchang: Wolong. Incredible!

@get2sammyb Yes, but in big corporations, there is typically no or very limited cross-financing. After some time, each and every unit has to meet the profitability standards. And we all see that first-party titles are unnecessary to boost PlayStation‘s popularity, because it‘s very high, thanks to the huge success of the PS4.

While Nintendo successfully offers a mix of high and medium budget games, with high release cadence, Sony only needs the top-level releases to promote its platform.

In other words: PlayStation needs The Last of Us, but no Dreams. God of War, but no Days Gone. Astro Bot, but no Fairgame$.

Edit: And Microsoft MUST succeed with its studios, because now it’s one of the biggest publishers (or THE biggest?) in the world, because Xbox as a platform lost its appeal. Sony just needs some promotion in form of select top-level games, because its mainly a platform holder at the moment. And if Microsoft can slaughter, Sony (Hermen Hulst in person) can even more.

Bend is on Hulst‘s menu. Would be surprised if this studios survive his tenure.

Paying all of these developers is very expensive, and the financial results for PlayStation of first-party software can almost be neglected at this point.

I‘m certain that we will see a blood bath soon, even more brutal than that at Microsoft. BluePoint was just the beginning. Bend, Haven, Media Molecule, Nixxes, and a few support studios, all on the menu.

An Hermen Hulst will be the slaughterer.

The quality was visible in all trailers. And the very positive tone of this preview makes your preview of Wolverine look even sadder.

And he wouldn’t understand why having no console at home would be a big issue. As long as the TV shows all the icons on the screen and it’s a PlayStation controller in his hands, everything‘s fine.

These corporate guys should celebrate that we have such a positive sentiment about the physical stuff they want to sell us. Without this stuff, platforms can become exchangable more easily.

Just stop buying digital games on PlayStation. COMPLETELY. Buy physical PS5 games. And if a game is only available digitally, buy it on another platform. And unsubscribe to PS Plus.

That is the only message that COULD Sony let reconsider the decision: shrinking monthly sales on PS Store (when ignoring GTA6). Everything else is just a waste of emotional energy and pathetic.

@LogicStrikesAgain That’s still bad design. Imagine that you could beat the Asylum Demon in Dark Souls with the broken knife, without getting killed as an inexperienced player. You wouldn’t learn anything.

But the game tells you that this is not the way to do it, that you are too weak, and that you should leave the arena to come back later with a much better weapon, attacking from a much better position.

@Psnfanboy79 If the game fails to tell to many experienced gamers how you could beat a boss, it’s the fault of the game.

„You need only push forward to experience it.“

Yes, that’s what this guy in one of this videos showed.

Edit: It’s that video: https://x.com/diegosousabyte/status/2088233170843939098?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2088233170843939098%7Ctwgr%5E76d4c7e9a096847591b41b7a894e42ebcbf33bf2%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pushsquare.com%2Fnews%2F2026%2F08%2Fits-a-relentless-onslaught-wolverine-ps5-dev-responds-to-unprecedented-criticism

@Mindless_Demon Regarding GKC: I think that Nintendo saw the very high costs for a Switch 2 cartridge and that many publishers chose the smallest (and cheapest) cartridge with „Additional download required“ for Switch 1. And then it became clear that Switch 2 games will only have a significant physical presence without code-in-the-box if there is a cheap hardware-based GKC.

GKC stengthened the physical market, not weakened it.

@Mindless_Demon We both know that both PlayStation and Switch are dominated by „casual gamers“. And while Switch still has a higher share of physical games, also due to the higher share of children, who often get new games as presents for Chrismas and birthday, PlayStation „casuals“ are predominantly digital buyers for sure.

And we both know that the share of buyers of physical games is higher for the group of „enthusiasts“ or „core gamers“. They are willing to pay more for their hobby. And getting physical games in Europe, Sony‘s most important market, is still pretty easy, just check your local MediaMarkt.

You seem to be a quite resonable person to me, and all knowing this: Why do you still claim that even fans of physical media aren’t buying them?

@Mindless_Demon Your statement is still BS.

I buy both physical and digital versions. Digital if it is really cheap and I‘m not super-excited for it. My last example: AC Unity for 5 euros.

Physical if I really care. Last examples: new copy of Indiana Jones, used copy of Sekiro. Especially Indy was expensive, and it even doesn’t have all the game data on the disc, but the Switch 2 version (which HAS all the data of the base game on the cartridge) just doesn’t run good enough for me.

Speaking of Switch: I bought a new physical copy of Outer Wilds, imported from France, for 50 euros, despite being available on the eShop for 18 euros at the moment. I haven’t played it before, but I really care for it. The cartridge contains both the base game and the expansion, and so it’s not the early release version but a polished version with all the major bugs patched out.

But you don’t care about what I say and do, because you‘re not really interested, keeping on giving ignorant statements without having a clue.

More than 50% of all RE9 sales in France and Japan were on discs.

@Mindless_Demon Your statement is not true, and you know it. Why do you tell it?

What do you think: Will we get sole news for the Witcher 1 Remake and Witcher 4? Or should the new Witcher 3 DLC be CDPR‘s star of its show?

This looks like an interactive Pixar movie. Computer graphics are reaching a level I always wished as a child.

I find these videos great, because they emphasise on the presumably low mechanical and intellectual complexity of this game. People make always fun of the stupidity of Marvel movies; movies you can (and should?) enjoy while drunk.

This game will be the equivalent of popcorn cinema. Very approachable for a huge share of people. And just fine for them.

I prefer The Dark Knight over Avengers, and I‘m not alone.

@dschons I‘m interested in this interview, but I couldn’t find it. The search function on his patreon seems quite useless. Would be great if you could tell me more information so I can find it. Thanks

@Northern_munkey „ moss was a ps4 game and was not psvr enabled“ What are you talking about?

„Polyarc’s picturesque PlayStation VR platformer Moss is so lovely that you’ll want to snatch your duvet and snuggle up inside its fantasy world.“
https://www.pushsquare.com/reviews/ps4/moss

Super-reliable ChatGPT guesses total porting costs between 400k and 800k USD. I demanded DualSense with Adaptive Triggers and keeping 60 fps. Flat2VR Studios seems to have the right expertise for tasks like this.