as someone who has been very critical and concerned with the gaming industry over the past 5 years, i actually think this is very good news. we need the big publishers to take a financial hit and acknowledge that they are not only pricing people out of the hobby, but they are sacrificing long term stabilility for a short term gain. this business practice is backwards and not sustainable.
a few quarters like this and i am confident that we will see an MSRP drop from sony and nintendo. the hardware is simply not worth its cost to the average person. we are in a cost of living crisis afterall. i have been saying it forever but even if sony subsidizes the hardware by an additional $150-200 from where it is now, they will more than make that back in software sales within a year or two. obtaining new players into their ecosystem is far more valuable than losing $200 per console sold! that is how the hardware model used to work but sony and nintendo clearly hit their heads too hard and need to re-learn the business i suppose 🤷
sorry, but a sale that drives the console price back to where it was 5 years is laughable. glad people saw through that nonense.
if you are going to charge a premium price for this service, you have to bring the feature sets and entice people. as it stands, people are better off saving their money and either modding an og ps2 to play the absurd number of classics on the platform or emulating to their hearts content... with emulation, you can even get achievements these days. sony's ps2 offering is a complete joke on so many levels. price, library, lack of features... it's all bad.
don't these people realize by now that slipping the term "AI" in any capacity as it relates to game development or art of any kind is going to result in online backlash? you would have to be pretty dense not to know this. larian has a perception problem on its hands now, warranted or not. do not use the words "AI" publically and you will be fine. i feel like jason schreier is playing dumb here and knew of the potential risks in getting into this subject... bad pr is good pr? perhaps, but it's not like larian needs help selling its next game.
@somnambulance agreed. capcom recently stated that they intend to revitalize the mega man franchise with new releases, remasters and remakes so there's a decent chance they are considering doing remakes of the legends games. perhaps after they finish up with all the sprite-based stuff (they should be nearly there now). outside of bringing back the breath of fire series, i doubt there is anything else more often requested by the fans.
@Luigia that would probably be the ps2. console released in october 2000 and received it's last game on november 2013 (Pro Evolution Soccer 2014). the ps4 is getting very close to this 13 years of support marker though and will definitely be surpassing it. technically, the ps3 holds the record though as far as i know. the console released in november of 2006 and got its final game in 2020 (Shakedown: Hawaii), but that is an outlier case. real support had stopped 2 years prior to that
can only imagine how long the ps5 will be relevent for if this is any indication. it's all about the software sales at the end of the day. why would a publisher care which platform their game is being purchased on? i'd argue that the ps4 could handle 90% of indi games being released today... why couldn't the ps4 continue to get ports for another 10 years? the answer is, there is nothing stopping that from happening other than sony itself.
the abysmal sales of ff xvi will haunt s-e for another 10 years it looks like. ff 7 rebirth didn't fare much better. outside of rushing out to remake ff 8/9/parasite eve/xenogears/chrono trigger etc, i don't think there is much hope for this company to turn things around. relying on remakes will buy them some time, but once that well has dried up, s-e needs to solve the fundamental question/problem: what is final fantasy and how can they make the franchise relevent (again) to fans of old and new at the same time?
this game is never coming out... at least, not as a AAA game that people want it to be. maybe this reveal is for more bare bones remasters of older games. that's the talent level over at amazon and embracer.
if dead space as a series didn't sell that well, including the remake, i don't see many publishers wanting to purchase this IP. the remake was apparently quite well done and still greatly underperformed afterall. a publisher with the will and resources could create its own sci-fi horror franchise with disememberment mechanics... it means nothing if you don't have a passionate and competent development studio behind it... with a vision. dead space as an IP doesn't hold much weight in other words seeing as the original developers were dismantled ages ago.
i can't see this "game" ever getting released. microsoft doesn't care about prestige projects in the way sony used to... and you know there will not be any marketing behind it. this is destined to fail so why even back it up if you are microsoft? it's a tough sell even on a sony platform, but on xbox it's DOA. if i was kojima, i would cancel it and put all hands on physint.
@BrownOwl agreed. it's as if the franchise is so mainstream, that it doesn't have real fans or a dedicated following that would be willing to go to bat for it. the movies are incredibly forgettable, cliche and the very definition of syle over substance. i would take it a step further and call the character designs trite and ugly. the movies really do look like video game cut scenes at times. at any rate, the avatar movies aren't in the same league as alien 1/2, terminator 1/2, indiana jones 1/3 or jurassic park as far as the great blockbuster films of our time... in anything but revenue generated anyways. hard to believe cameron has dedicated the past 20 years on this franchise. such a pity.
@PuppetMaster oof, you guys missed the point entirely. not sure how many times i can explain it
sony's output of its own AAA games has been disappointing and that is a result of mismanagement. sony should have released at least 3-5 additional games by this point in the ps5 cycle. do a search on youtube or read the comments in various articles here and you will see that many people share that feeling... that this gen has been fairly diappointing.
now, to make up for sony's poor showing, there has clearly been an emphasis on marketing deals, timed exclusivity and partnerships with chinese and korean publishers of AAA games. as such, games from china in particular are going to be flooding the market now (i never said that is a bad thing per say). the quality of many of these games is questionable, though, and sony really doesn't know what it's getting leading up to release. all sony cares about is getting more AAA games on its platform (at the expense of quality control in some cases) to fill the gaps of its own 1st party releases. so yes, sony is relying on more AAA games from asia to help fill out its release schedule.
that's it. is that too difficult for you to comprehend? 🤷♂️😂
@Boxmonkey no doubt prices will increase. that said, even with a price increase, it will likely work out to be cheaper to have hbo max and netflix content under the same sub, rather than sub to both, netflix and hbo max, seperately. but for those who don't want hbo max content with their netflix account, and are forced to pay a price increase, it sucks!
dont much care for the mortal kombat games anymore... the last 3 games are carbon copies of themselves, except progressively worse in quality. netherrealm is a legendary developer for what it has done over the past 30 years on the whole, but it is a one trick pony. as for harry potter IP and games? decent movies, but do i need more HP in my life? nope.
rocksteady is the only developer from wb games that carries some weight, but their legacy is tainted by suicide squad now. i honestly don't know what the current status of that studio is considering all the management and talent that has since left. it's worth giving them another shot to see how their new batman title turns out. even to this day, the arkham series is probably the best series of games ever made in a comic book universe.
now, if we get into the movie/tv stuff... it is very likely that netflix will only release the biggest blockbusters and prestige films theatrically now... and for limited runs. so from that standpoint, this acquisition is bad news for those who enjoy the movie theatre experience. sub pricing on netflix is bound to increase by a substantial amount as well... unless netflix decides to focus on more tier options instead.
@LogicStrikesAgain most games i listed are in fact AAA games with high production values. many of them are ps5 and pc only. sony is most certainly forming partnerships with many publishers. 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. the number of asian games hitting the ps5 is no coincidence under the circumstances. had things been different, many of these games would have remained on pc only, but sony is going the extra mile to ensure they hit the ps5 to make up for its void of releases and project mismanagement.
@AhmadSumadi naw, just pointing out sony's over reliance on unproven AAA games from asian territories because it has fumbled and mismanaged its own projects the past 5 years. see my post above. sony should have had an additional 3-5 noteworthy 1st party releases by this point but they don't exist due to being cancelled or because they wasted time and resources on service games (that were also cancelled or failed) that otherwise would have gone into a traditional release.
@LogicStrikesAgain 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 don't blame you for not knowing the extent of this over reliance on asian games because there are a ton and it's hard to keep track of them all. also, i was not referring to sony published games specifically... yes, they published some asian games, but the majority i am listing below are not sony published. that doesn't mean there are not partnerships in place to score exclusivity or timed exclusivity. they are relying on these games to fill the void of their own 1st party releases. at this point, they outnumber sony's own output of AAA releases.
China:
-Genshin Impact
-Honkai: Star Rail
-Black Myth: Wukong
-Black Myth: Zhong Kui
-Phantom Blade Zero
-Wuchang: Fallen Feathers
-Lost Soul Aside
-Where Winds Meet
-Project: The Perceiver
-Swords of Legends
-Project Jinyiwei
-The Legend of Jin Yong's Heroes
-Tides of Annihilation
-Daba Land of Water Scar
-Ballad of Antara
-Blood Message
-The Grass of Genesis
-Lingxu: Return
-The Lost Heaven
-Light of Motiram
-Loulan the cursed sand
-Longevity Yin and Yang
Korea:
-Project TAL
-Woochi the Wayfarer
-Stellar Blade and its sequel
many, many more games in addition to those. other games that i didn't list are only announced for PC at the present time, but will likely make their way to PS5 as well! also, i haven't even listed the india hero project games or most of the china hero project games released and currently in devleopment. i mean, are we really going to praise sony for its 1st party output when this cycle has clearly been its worst showing in 30 years?
@NoNameLad yup. i just built a PC earlier this year and i'm very thankful i did. It would likely have costed me 25% more had i purchased the parts with current market prices. take good care of your PC and you should be able to get 10 years out of it
@NoNameLad there is no law against that because the US government is all in on AI. the current administration will gladly manipulate the stock markets to make money (as we have seen with their tariff strategy). in fact, i will goes as far to say that donald trump became president precisely to make money, not to run the country. in the past year, he has become $3b richer than he was prior. unless there is a government actively against AI investment (i have not heard of any), they will gladly sacrifice their land, energy and water supply to build AI data centers and screw over the average citizen in the process by way of job losses, higher utility bills and absurd inflation on tech components due to massive supply shortages. once the bubble bursts, our investments will crash (unless you invest in options outside of the stock market). we are on our own to fight against this
@BrownOwl we can agree about your latter point — it will change the world and our lives in many ways (i see it being far more negative than positive).
but on the subject of the bubble, the market could very well crash and we will still have a future of AI influence and dependence. both things can be true at the same time. i just don't see how they can go all in to this extent without any fallout in the process if so many AI companies are losing vast amounts of money on a daily basis. the moment the financials take a sharp turn downward, investments will slow and investors will sell and walk away with their millions (or billions). half of this AI nonesense is merely a get-rich scheme for investors and an excuse to keep the markets up at a time that would otherwise be a recession. it is superficial and short term in that sense. 30-50% of the entire stock market is currently tied up by AI stock investments which tells me this is a bubble and gamble of the worst kind.
so yes, AI is here to stay and will alter the world whether we like it or not... but the current rate of development and investments will eventually nosedive and take the markets down with it. once that happens, AI will continue to evolve, but at a much slower pace. just an educated guess of course
@BrownOwl you have no way of knowing that. there's little chance that the AI investments can continue at this aburd pace if there is no return in the short run. i.e. open AI is losing billions of dollars and has no way of turning a profit. if enough AI investment are ***** the bed, the market will crash...eventually.
i want nothing more than AI bubble to burst and these corps to lose billions of dollars of investments. i think its a very possible scenario, seeing that they have no clue where this road leads... they are heading for a wall or a cliff...
that said, i'm starting to look at the shortage of tech components as no accident. i think one of their end goals is to prevent us, average people and customers, from having access to build our own computers, so that we have no choice but to rely on AI and other subscription for work and game related tasks. they want to get the entire population into some sort of AI ecosystem and certainly don't want any stranglers. i think they are underestimating the potential pushback that is coming their way. people such as myself will never give into AI when an option is available. i am happy to spend more time on a task if it means i do it entirely on my own without AI assistance. it is more fulfilling and i stand by my own principles. besides, what is the point of more efficiency in daily work if all that means is your boss will just expect more productivity out of you anyways? it's a fool's errand.
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 (many projects having already disappointed the masses). but it tells me that sony knows how barren its own 1st party output has and continues to be. they had no choice but to throw all these potential games at the wall and see what sticks. if sony had a good roadmap of its own, these asian games would be gravy, but as the main course, all you can do is cringe.
@OldGamer999 agreed. the fight with nintendo has already begun. sony is trying to retain as many japanese customers as possible with the ps5 so that when its handheld (deck-like device) releases, it has a head start with customers in its ecosystem. gaining ps5 users (with subsidized hardware) is not a fool's errand since their software purchases will transition to sony's new handheld which will be heavily targeted to the japanese market and compete with nintendo 1:1. there are far too many people on here claiming that selling ps5's to the japanese market is a waste of time — they simply don't see the strategy. and let's be honest, sony should have created it's native handheld 5 years ago, but better late than never.
(if true) barely a month away without a peep of marketing behind it? heh, yea, that's not how this is supposed to work. i enjoyed the original, but this is very tough sell. even a perfect remake would struggle considering how niche this genre is... they simply don't make them anymore... actually, they never did. this is a true platforming/puzzle game with some basic combat sprinkled in (weakest element of the game). this remake will bomb and ubisoft will be convinced that the franchise is dead. again. good times
wow, this is head scratching. they milked the shovel knight franchise and banked on royalties by featuring the character in so many other indi games over the years... you would think that they were doing well. there is absolutely no excuse for this other than they are horribly mismanaged and simply got lucky with shovel knight. i'm genuinely shocked by this... the studio might be better off forcing the co-founders out and getting some people in there who know what they are doing. 4 years of development time for a sprite-based indi game is certainly excessive. hope they figure it out, but there are bigger problems that need to be addressed here.
@Repo_Dog let's put it this way: 90% of IPs that are still relevent today started out in the ps1/ps2/ps3 eras... how many new IPs do you count from the ps5 era? that should be all you need to know to make an informed judgement and understand just how impactful sony's earlier consoles were. the AAA space at large was firing on all cylinders. the ps5 is a laughing stock by comparison. the only good thing from this era of gaming is the indi scene, but sony and the AAA space has nothing to do with that
haha. it really isn't as good as many remember it to be. i played it upon release and couldn't get into it... at the time i thought the battle system was a slog, to put it politely.
fast forward 20+ years and i played the game in its entirety a few months ago. lots of potential there but man is this game an unpleasant grind. the encounter rate is very high, yet experience points are dished out at a very low rate so it is difficult to level up outside of boss fights. the battle system is slow beyond belief, and repetitve in all the wrong ways. most of the dungeons are very poorly designed and frustrating to navigate through, especially those in the second half of the game. there is a ton of backtracking! also, you have to exit dungeons the same way you entered in many cases and put yourself through the same dread over again... inexcusable design, even for its era. o yea, the very limited inventory space is outright frustrating to manage.
as for the positives... good vibes, atmopshere and music, generally speaking. servicable story and characters, again, generally sepaking. inventive battle system, so points given for originality, even though it falls flat on its face due to repetition and its mollssses-like tempo. graphics were great for the time... one of the few jrpgs that could contend with squaresoft in the presentation department. great art direction.
so yes, a very flawed game. i couldn't score it higher than a 6.5 or 7 in good conscience. with a more engaging battle system, it could have been a true classic. instead, it remains a fan favourite of those who had never experienced a jrpg before (as a first jrpg, i'm sure it would be quite memorable)... for everyone else who had already been exposed to squaresoft, lod's flaws were too obvious to ignore. that said, i think lod showed a lot of potential and deserves a remake. a complete reimagining of the game with a focus on improving the lackluster elements of the original would be great to see. sony desperately needs a modern 1st party jrpg franchise and there is no better excuse to get back into the genre than a lod remake.
@Repo_Dog
putting the ps5 ahead of the ps1/ps4 and on par with the ps2 is just factually incorrect. all you would need to do is refresh your memory on prior console generations and their game libraries. they all put the ps5 to shame and are simply too vast to have such a misunderstanding so i think people such as yourself are unable to seperate themselves from the moment. your opinion is clouded by recency bias. i will go beyond that and call your list blasphemy. each to their own i guess
@Noone2025 sorry, but you are wrong. sony hasn't cared about japan for the past 5 years, but NOW they do. big difference there. it's literally impossible NOT to care about japan if sony is gearing up to release a handheld device, which caters to the japanese market far more than the western market. if they didn't care about japan, a handheld would be out of the question.
@twitchtvpat yea, the FPS genre had too much competition and neither killzone nor resistance managed to break free and do amazing numbers... but 2-3m copies for each killzone and a bit higher for resistance isn't bad. different era, different genres, different budgets... but i'm not entirely sure how that relates to my post. i think a killzone reboot on ps6 could be cool to see... everything is relative... it might be given a smaller budget than horizon but could be just as profitable, if not more so. sony seems hellbent on chasing live service, so killzone would be a likely candidate in that space (or maybe a socom reboot).
it's a good sign that ubisoft handed the project over to montreal, considering their talent and that they had designed the original game... but it makes me wonder why ubisoft management initially treated this remake as a junk project by having an unproven studio (mumbai) work on it for years, nearly canceling the project in the process? shouldn't this have been a high status remake deserving of top talent and resources? i guess the suits thought they could get away with the bare minimum and save a few bucks in the process haha... with all the delays, project mismanagement and exchanging of studios, they likely had to triple their budget for this... so much for their cost saving strategy. goes to show that greediness can often backfire on you.
with all that said, i don't think this remake has a chance at selling well regardless of the finished product since remake fatigue is a thing now and the original game, while a success at the time of release, didn't exactly set the world on fire. initial sales were so poor, that ubisoft resorted to a promotion where they gave out free games with the purchase of sands of time. the game went on to sell 2m copies but the financial "success" of the game on its own merits remains unknown... how profitable was it considering the free games ubisoft gave away in the process? i really enjoyed the game at the time, but it is for a very specific audience and won't appeal to most gamers in this era. this remake is questionable to say the least.
sony is getting crushed in the comment section on a myriad of topics lately, including how people rate and perceive the ps5, five years after launch etc. (not surprising to see that it is deemd a disappointment by most people with perspective on playstation history).
as others have pointed out, nintendo releases many games in the same franchise but they are not direct sequels. the main difference here is that nintendo often "re-imagines" an IP with each game release... similar to how sony re-imagined the god of war IP for the 2018 release. this is very different than a by-the-numbers sequel that builds on the very same elements as the game that came before it, with only incremental improvements or changes.
the problem with sony is that it is in a rut with its sequels. they are boring, predictable and do little to excite the audience. over the span of a decade, people are essentially playing the same game when so little is altered from the first entry. if ps6 is planned to have a ghost, god of war, horizon and spiderman sequel (built on yotei, ragnarok, forbidden west and spiderman 2's foundation) that is going to be yet anothet blunder. instead, sony should release some new IP's, reboot some old franchises (not seen since the ps1/ps2/ps3 eras) and re-invent the aforementioned franchises above (or let them sleep for another 5+ years) or else people are just going to lose interest. i mean, people already have lost interest, judging by the steep decline in sales that the ghost, god of war, horizon and spiderman sequels have garnered! is this a coincidence?
@KawakiisaFraud if sony didn't care about japan, they never would have created a japanese exclusive SKU at a very reasonable price point. they are trying to change the culture in japan, but doing so after many years of neglect will take time. you might ask yourself, why care now? it's simple. sony is gearing up to release its native handheld device and japan will be one of its main target markets (they clearly prefer portable devices over home consoles over there). sony is going head to head with nintendo for the first time in... 10 years? (ever since the vita was deemed to be a failure and sony pulled reasources away from it).
well, this is yet another tactic to push physical game sales away: treat your customers like second class citizens who have supported all your games for decades, just because they purchased them physically... that's a new low for a major publisher. perhaps it has happened before, but considering how loyal the yakuza fanbase is, this is real slime ball behaviour from sega.
i guess there will be a day where physical editions of games don't receive patch updates either huh?
@Coalescence yup. a modded ps3 is bliss with a library of ps1 games in .bin/.cue format. no need to install the pkg files. a modded psp go with the dock is awesome as well if gaming on a crt.
@dodgykebaab agreed. i would argue that there isn't another gaming hub in the entire world as important as japan in terms of sheer cultural significance. that culture still exists in japan and has no equal. sales may be in decline for home gaming consoles compared to what it used to be, but that doesn't mean sales are down across the board. the general population has shifted towards portable devices... like switch. since sony is prepping a portable device of its own, it would be completely foolish to give up on japan... the japanese market will soon transition to sony's new ps handheld which will steal potential sales from nintendo. sony is going to war with nintendo again and significant market share is at stake.
so, i agree, japan is still very important to sony, otherwise they wouldn't have bothered to a) make a new handheld which will be catering to the japanese market more so than the western market and b)release a japanese exclusive SKU of the ps5. i won't be surprised if sony develops a new internal studio or two based in japan as well. under jim ryan, sony disgraced itself. we are nearing the end of sony's worst console generation bar none, but hopefully they will get back on track with the ps6 and their new handheld.
translation: sony just doesn't care anymore. these days, this initiaive is just a PR stunt to shut up the retro game enthusiasts.
sony already released hundreds of classic ps1/ps2 games on the ps3 platform. it's just a matter of extending the ps3 licenses over to the ps4/ps5. this interview sounds like nothing more than damage control for sony in how it has decided to throw the entire program under the bus. it's not like extensive amounts of work is required to re-list the games on modern platforms. if it isn't viable to do trophy support, that is fine. but to say it might not make business sense to essentially add a ROM file to an emulation wrapper at $5-10 a pop is absurd. a couple thousand copies would more than pay for it. in addition to sony not caring, this more has to do with some publishers preferring to (possibly) make their own compliation releases and they are concerned that an a la cart model will eat into their sales. funny thing is that most publishers never actually go through with this and they just leave money on the table.
so... we as gamers will take initiative and emulate the games for ourselves. for free. no worries
parenting is about doing what is best for your kids, regardless of the social pressures and normalization of certain, toxic trends. a good parent will stay clear of these predatory money pits and encourage their kids to play real games.
@StitchJones i already took the 2 extra years into consideration when i said 10 years (assuming the 3rd entry will launch in about 2 years time). it's only been 8 years since zero dawn got released. this is a fact-based argument and doesn't leave much room to subjectivity. trying to justify all the releases by comparing it to annualized franchises is very silly
Comments 2,676
Re: PS5 Wins a Nightmarish November for All Console Hardware in the US
as someone who has been very critical and concerned with the gaming industry over the past 5 years, i actually think this is very good news. we need the big publishers to take a financial hit and acknowledge that they are not only pricing people out of the hobby, but they are sacrificing long term stabilility for a short term gain. this business practice is backwards and not sustainable.
a few quarters like this and i am confident that we will see an MSRP drop from sony and nintendo. the hardware is simply not worth its cost to the average person. we are in a cost of living crisis afterall. i have been saying it forever but even if sony subsidizes the hardware by an additional $150-200 from where it is now, they will more than make that back in software sales within a year or two. obtaining new players into their ecosystem is far more valuable than losing $200 per console sold! that is how the hardware model used to work but sony and nintendo clearly hit their heads too hard and need to re-learn the business i suppose 🤷
sorry, but a sale that drives the console price back to where it was 5 years is laughable. glad people saw through that nonense.
Re: Disappointment as PS2 All-Timer SoulCalibur 3 Launches on PS5, PS4 without Trophies
if you are going to charge a premium price for this service, you have to bring the feature sets and entice people. as it stands, people are better off saving their money and either modding an og ps2 to play the absurd number of classics on the platform or emulating to their hearts content... with emulation, you can even get achievements these days. sony's ps2 offering is a complete joke on so many levels. price, library, lack of features... it's all bad.
Re: Divinity Dev's Comments on Generative AI Trigger a Total Social Media Sh*tstorm
don't these people realize by now that slipping the term "AI" in any capacity as it relates to game development or art of any kind is going to result in online backlash? you would have to be pretty dense not to know this. larian has a perception problem on its hands now, warranted or not. do not use the words "AI" publically and you will be fine. i feel like jason schreier is playing dumb here and knew of the potential risks in getting into this subject... bad pr is good pr? perhaps, but it's not like larian needs help selling its next game.
Re: PS5, PS4 Compilation Mega Man Star Force Legacy Collection Adds 7 More RPGs to Your Stacked 2026
@somnambulance agreed. capcom recently stated that they intend to revitalize the mega man franchise with new releases, remasters and remakes so there's a decent chance they are considering doing remakes of the legends games. perhaps after they finish up with all the sprite-based stuff (they should be nearly there now). outside of bringing back the breath of fire series, i doubt there is anything else more often requested by the fans.
Re: PS4 Will Still Get New Games in 2027
@Luigia that would probably be the ps2. console released in october 2000 and received it's last game on november 2013 (Pro Evolution Soccer 2014). the ps4 is getting very close to this 13 years of support marker though and will definitely be surpassing it. technically, the ps3 holds the record though as far as i know. the console released in november of 2006 and got its final game in 2020 (Shakedown: Hawaii), but that is an outlier case. real support had stopped 2 years prior to that
Re: PS4 Will Still Get New Games in 2027
can only imagine how long the ps5 will be relevent for if this is any indication. it's all about the software sales at the end of the day. why would a publisher care which platform their game is being purchased on? i'd argue that the ps4 could handle 90% of indi games being released today... why couldn't the ps4 continue to get ports for another 10 years? the answer is, there is nothing stopping that from happening other than sony itself.
Re: Eagerly Anticipated PS5 Arcade Racer Screamer Leans into Its Anime Influences in March
@HaveTheSauce true, but there is one exception. genki's Tokyo Xtreme Racer which came out a few months back.
Re: Key Square Enix Shareholder Publicly Criticises Weak Game Sales, Company Management
the abysmal sales of ff xvi will haunt s-e for another 10 years it looks like. ff 7 rebirth didn't fare much better. outside of rushing out to remake ff 8/9/parasite eve/xenogears/chrono trigger etc, i don't think there is much hope for this company to turn things around. relying on remakes will buy them some time, but once that well has dried up, s-e needs to solve the fundamental question/problem: what is final fantasy and how can they make the franchise relevent (again) to fans of old and new at the same time?
Re: New Tomb Raider Reveal Confirmed for The Game Awards
this game is never coming out... at least, not as a AAA game that people want it to be. maybe this reveal is for more bare bones remasters of older games. that's the talent level over at amazon and embracer.
Re: Rumour: Dead Space Is 'On Ice', Could Be Sold Off to Help Cover EA's Acquisition Debt
if dead space as a series didn't sell that well, including the remake, i don't see many publishers wanting to purchase this IP. the remake was apparently quite well done and still greatly underperformed afterall. a publisher with the will and resources could create its own sci-fi horror franchise with disememberment mechanics... it means nothing if you don't have a passionate and competent development studio behind it... with a vision. dead space as an IP doesn't hold much weight in other words seeing as the original developers were dismantled ages ago.
Re: Not Even Hideo Kojima Is Sure if Xbox Game OD Will Be Any Good
i can't see this "game" ever getting released. microsoft doesn't care about prestige projects in the way sony used to... and you know there will not be any marketing behind it. this is destined to fail so why even back it up if you are microsoft? it's a tough sell even on a sony platform, but on xbox it's DOA. if i was kojima, i would cancel it and put all hands on physint.
Re: Preview: Avatar PS5 Is Transformed in Third-Person, Expanded in From the Ashes DLC
@BrownOwl agreed. it's as if the franchise is so mainstream, that it doesn't have real fans or a dedicated following that would be willing to go to bat for it. the movies are incredibly forgettable, cliche and the very definition of syle over substance. i would take it a step further and call the character designs trite and ugly. the movies really do look like video game cut scenes at times. at any rate, the avatar movies aren't in the same league as alien 1/2, terminator 1/2, indiana jones 1/3 or jurassic park as far as the great blockbuster films of our time... in anything but revenue generated anyways. hard to believe cameron has dedicated the past 20 years on this franchise. such a pity.
Re: PS5 Action RPG The God Slayer Getting Full Support from Sony, First Gameplay Footage Is Jaw-Dropping
@PuppetMaster oof, you guys missed the point entirely. not sure how many times i can explain it
sony's output of its own AAA games has been disappointing and that is a result of mismanagement. sony should have released at least 3-5 additional games by this point in the ps5 cycle. do a search on youtube or read the comments in various articles here and you will see that many people share that feeling... that this gen has been fairly diappointing.
now, to make up for sony's poor showing, there has clearly been an emphasis on marketing deals, timed exclusivity and partnerships with chinese and korean publishers of AAA games. as such, games from china in particular are going to be flooding the market now (i never said that is a bad thing per say). the quality of many of these games is questionable, though, and sony really doesn't know what it's getting leading up to release. all sony cares about is getting more AAA games on its platform (at the expense of quality control in some cases) to fill the gaps of its own 1st party releases. so yes, sony is relying on more AAA games from asia to help fill out its release schedule.
that's it. is that too difficult for you to comprehend? 🤷♂️😂
Re: Hogwarts Legacy, Mortal Kombat Publisher Warner Bros Bought for $82 Billion by Netflix
@BacklogBrad the amount of censorship would be awful.
Re: Hogwarts Legacy, Mortal Kombat Publisher Warner Bros Bought for $82 Billion by Netflix
@Boxmonkey no doubt prices will increase. that said, even with a price increase, it will likely work out to be cheaper to have hbo max and netflix content under the same sub, rather than sub to both, netflix and hbo max, seperately. but for those who don't want hbo max content with their netflix account, and are forced to pay a price increase, it sucks!
Re: Hogwarts Legacy, Mortal Kombat Publisher Warner Bros Bought for $82 Billion by Netflix
dont much care for the mortal kombat games anymore... the last 3 games are carbon copies of themselves, except progressively worse in quality. netherrealm is a legendary developer for what it has done over the past 30 years on the whole, but it is a one trick pony. as for harry potter IP and games? decent movies, but do i need more HP in my life? nope.
rocksteady is the only developer from wb games that carries some weight, but their legacy is tainted by suicide squad now. i honestly don't know what the current status of that studio is considering all the management and talent that has since left. it's worth giving them another shot to see how their new batman title turns out. even to this day, the arkham series is probably the best series of games ever made in a comic book universe.
now, if we get into the movie/tv stuff... it is very likely that netflix will only release the biggest blockbusters and prestige films theatrically now... and for limited runs. so from that standpoint, this acquisition is bad news for those who enjoy the movie theatre experience. sub pricing on netflix is bound to increase by a substantial amount as well... unless netflix decides to focus on more tier options instead.
Re: Banjo-Kazooie Creator Rare Heaps Praise on PS5, PS4 Fan Game Made in Dreams
inbcredible achievement! i have not played any banjo games, but i would give this a go. hopefully microsoft won't try to remove it
Re: PS5 Action RPG The God Slayer Getting Full Support from Sony, First Gameplay Footage Is Jaw-Dropping
@LogicStrikesAgain most games i listed are in fact AAA games with high production values. many of them are ps5 and pc only. sony is most certainly forming partnerships with many publishers. 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. the number of asian games hitting the ps5 is no coincidence under the circumstances. had things been different, many of these games would have remained on pc only, but sony is going the extra mile to ensure they hit the ps5 to make up for its void of releases and project mismanagement.
Re: PS5 Action RPG The God Slayer Getting Full Support from Sony, First Gameplay Footage Is Jaw-Dropping
@AhmadSumadi naw, just pointing out sony's over reliance on unproven AAA games from asian territories because it has fumbled and mismanaged its own projects the past 5 years. see my post above. sony should have had an additional 3-5 noteworthy 1st party releases by this point but they don't exist due to being cancelled or because they wasted time and resources on service games (that were also cancelled or failed) that otherwise would have gone into a traditional release.
Re: PS5 Action RPG The God Slayer Getting Full Support from Sony, First Gameplay Footage Is Jaw-Dropping
@LogicStrikesAgain 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 don't blame you for not knowing the extent of this over reliance on asian games because there are a ton and it's hard to keep track of them all. also, i was not referring to sony published games specifically... yes, they published some asian games, but the majority i am listing below are not sony published. that doesn't mean there are not partnerships in place to score exclusivity or timed exclusivity. they are relying on these games to fill the void of their own 1st party releases. at this point, they outnumber sony's own output of AAA releases.
China:
-Genshin Impact
-Honkai: Star Rail
-Black Myth: Wukong
-Black Myth: Zhong Kui
-Phantom Blade Zero
-Wuchang: Fallen Feathers
-Lost Soul Aside
-Where Winds Meet
-Project: The Perceiver
-Swords of Legends
-Project Jinyiwei
-The Legend of Jin Yong's Heroes
-Tides of Annihilation
-Daba Land of Water Scar
-Ballad of Antara
-Blood Message
-The Grass of Genesis
-Lingxu: Return
-The Lost Heaven
-Light of Motiram
-Loulan the cursed sand
-Longevity Yin and Yang
Korea:
-Project TAL
-Woochi the Wayfarer
-Stellar Blade and its sequel
many, many more games in addition to those. other games that i didn't list are only announced for PC at the present time, but will likely make their way to PS5 as well! also, i haven't even listed the india hero project games or most of the china hero project games released and currently in devleopment. i mean, are we really going to praise sony for its 1st party output when this cycle has clearly been its worst showing in 30 years?
Re: This RAM Crisis Is Looking Like a Nightmare for the PS6
@NoNameLad yup. i just built a PC earlier this year and i'm very thankful i did. It would likely have costed me 25% more had i purchased the parts with current market prices. take good care of your PC and you should be able to get 10 years out of it
Re: This RAM Crisis Is Looking Like a Nightmare for the PS6
@NoNameLad there is no law against that because the US government is all in on AI. the current administration will gladly manipulate the stock markets to make money (as we have seen with their tariff strategy). in fact, i will goes as far to say that donald trump became president precisely to make money, not to run the country. in the past year, he has become $3b richer than he was prior. unless there is a government actively against AI investment (i have not heard of any), they will gladly sacrifice their land, energy and water supply to build AI data centers and screw over the average citizen in the process by way of job losses, higher utility bills and absurd inflation on tech components due to massive supply shortages. once the bubble bursts, our investments will crash (unless you invest in options outside of the stock market). we are on our own to fight against this
Re: This RAM Crisis Is Looking Like a Nightmare for the PS6
@BrownOwl we can agree about your latter point — it will change the world and our lives in many ways (i see it being far more negative than positive).
but on the subject of the bubble, the market could very well crash and we will still have a future of AI influence and dependence. both things can be true at the same time. i just don't see how they can go all in to this extent without any fallout in the process if so many AI companies are losing vast amounts of money on a daily basis. the moment the financials take a sharp turn downward, investments will slow and investors will sell and walk away with their millions (or billions). half of this AI nonesense is merely a get-rich scheme for investors and an excuse to keep the markets up at a time that would otherwise be a recession. it is superficial and short term in that sense. 30-50% of the entire stock market is currently tied up by AI stock investments which tells me this is a bubble and gamble of the worst kind.
so yes, AI is here to stay and will alter the world whether we like it or not... but the current rate of development and investments will eventually nosedive and take the markets down with it. once that happens, AI will continue to evolve, but at a much slower pace. just an educated guess of course
Re: This RAM Crisis Is Looking Like a Nightmare for the PS6
@BrownOwl you have no way of knowing that. there's little chance that the AI investments can continue at this aburd pace if there is no return in the short run. i.e. open AI is losing billions of dollars and has no way of turning a profit. if enough AI investment are ***** the bed, the market will crash...eventually.
Re: This RAM Crisis Is Looking Like a Nightmare for the PS6
i want nothing more than AI bubble to burst and these corps to lose billions of dollars of investments. i think its a very possible scenario, seeing that they have no clue where this road leads... they are heading for a wall or a cliff...
that said, i'm starting to look at the shortage of tech components as no accident. i think one of their end goals is to prevent us, average people and customers, from having access to build our own computers, so that we have no choice but to rely on AI and other subscription for work and game related tasks. they want to get the entire population into some sort of AI ecosystem and certainly don't want any stranglers. i think they are underestimating the potential pushback that is coming their way. people such as myself will never give into AI when an option is available. i am happy to spend more time on a task if it means i do it entirely on my own without AI assistance. it is more fulfilling and i stand by my own principles. besides, what is the point of more efficiency in daily work if all that means is your boss will just expect more productivity out of you anyways? it's a fool's errand.
Re: PS5 Action RPG The God Slayer Getting Full Support from Sony, First Gameplay Footage Is Jaw-Dropping
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 (many projects having already disappointed the masses). but it tells me that sony knows how barren its own 1st party output has and continues to be. they had no choice but to throw all these potential games at the wall and see what sticks. if sony had a good roadmap of its own, these asian games would be gravy, but as the main course, all you can do is cringe.
Re: Japanese PS5 Sales Slump as New Model Hype Begins to Die Off
@OldGamer999 agreed. the fight with nintendo has already begun. sony is trying to retain as many japanese customers as possible with the ps5 so that when its handheld (deck-like device) releases, it has a head start with customers in its ecosystem. gaining ps5 users (with subsidized hardware) is not a fool's errand since their software purchases will transition to sony's new handheld which will be heavily targeted to the japanese market and compete with nintendo 1:1. there are far too many people on here claiming that selling ps5's to the japanese market is a waste of time — they simply don't see the strategy. and let's be honest, sony should have created it's native handheld 5 years ago, but better late than never.
Re: Rumour: Prince of Persia: Sands of Time PS5 Remake Out as Early as 16th January
(if true) barely a month away without a peep of marketing behind it? heh, yea, that's not how this is supposed to work. i enjoyed the original, but this is very tough sell. even a perfect remake would struggle considering how niche this genre is... they simply don't make them anymore... actually, they never did. this is a true platforming/puzzle game with some basic combat sprinkled in (weakest element of the game). this remake will bomb and ubisoft will be convinced that the franchise is dead. again. good times
Re: Octopath Traveler 0 (PS5) - Perfectly Fine JRPG Action
had no idea this was based off a mobile game. well, that sucks. this can probably be skipped and isn't considered canon.
Re: Shovel Knight Dev Might Live or Die Based on the Sales of Mina the Hollower
wow, this is head scratching. they milked the shovel knight franchise and banked on royalties by featuring the character in so many other indi games over the years... you would think that they were doing well. there is absolutely no excuse for this other than they are horribly mismanaged and simply got lucky with shovel knight. i'm genuinely shocked by this... the studio might be better off forcing the co-founders out and getting some people in there who know what they are doing. 4 years of development time for a sprite-based indi game is certainly excessive. hope they figure it out, but there are bigger problems that need to be addressed here.
Re: Poll: Five Years of PS5 - How Would You Rate Sony's Console?
@Repo_Dog let's put it this way: 90% of IPs that are still relevent today started out in the ps1/ps2/ps3 eras... how many new IPs do you count from the ps5 era? that should be all you need to know to make an informed judgement and understand just how impactful sony's earlier consoles were. the AAA space at large was firing on all cylinders. the ps5 is a laughing stock by comparison. the only good thing from this era of gaming is the indi scene, but sony and the AAA space has nothing to do with that
Re: Mark Cerny 'Loved' Legend of Dragoon, But Admits It 'Can't Possibly Be as Good' as He Remembers
haha. it really isn't as good as many remember it to be. i played it upon release and couldn't get into it... at the time i thought the battle system was a slog, to put it politely.
fast forward 20+ years and i played the game in its entirety a few months ago. lots of potential there but man is this game an unpleasant grind. the encounter rate is very high, yet experience points are dished out at a very low rate so it is difficult to level up outside of boss fights. the battle system is slow beyond belief, and repetitve in all the wrong ways. most of the dungeons are very poorly designed and frustrating to navigate through, especially those in the second half of the game. there is a ton of backtracking! also, you have to exit dungeons the same way you entered in many cases and put yourself through the same dread over again... inexcusable design, even for its era. o yea, the very limited inventory space is outright frustrating to manage.
as for the positives... good vibes, atmopshere and music, generally speaking. servicable story and characters, again, generally sepaking. inventive battle system, so points given for originality, even though it falls flat on its face due to repetition and its mollssses-like tempo. graphics were great for the time... one of the few jrpgs that could contend with squaresoft in the presentation department. great art direction.
so yes, a very flawed game. i couldn't score it higher than a 6.5 or 7 in good conscience. with a more engaging battle system, it could have been a true classic. instead, it remains a fan favourite of those who had never experienced a jrpg before (as a first jrpg, i'm sure it would be quite memorable)... for everyone else who had already been exposed to squaresoft, lod's flaws were too obvious to ignore. that said, i think lod showed a lot of potential and deserves a remake. a complete reimagining of the game with a focus on improving the lackluster elements of the original would be great to see. sony desperately needs a modern 1st party jrpg franchise and there is no better excuse to get back into the genre than a lod remake.
Re: Splinter Cell Remake Gets Its Original Game Director Back
if the development cycle is as seamless as the prince of persia remake, splinter cell remake is going to be fantastic!
Re: Poll: Five Years of PS5 - How Would You Rate Sony's Console?
@Repo_Dog
putting the ps5 ahead of the ps1/ps4 and on par with the ps2 is just factually incorrect. all you would need to do is refresh your memory on prior console generations and their game libraries. they all put the ps5 to shame and are simply too vast to have such a misunderstanding so i think people such as yourself are unable to seperate themselves from the moment. your opinion is clouded by recency bias. i will go beyond that and call your list blasphemy. each to their own i guess
Re: PS5 Sales in Japan Quadruple as New Model Launches
@Noone2025 sorry, but you are wrong. sony hasn't cared about japan for the past 5 years, but NOW they do. big difference there. it's literally impossible NOT to care about japan if sony is gearing up to release a handheld device, which caters to the japanese market far more than the western market. if they didn't care about japan, a handheld would be out of the question.
Re: Geoff Keighley's Cryptic Post Has Fans Speculating Wildly About The Game Awards Announcement
tomb raider franchise under embracer and amazon is dead. i thought all the layoffs going on at CD made that clear
Re: Talking Point: Does PS5 Have a Sequel Problem?
@twitchtvpat yea, the FPS genre had too much competition and neither killzone nor resistance managed to break free and do amazing numbers... but 2-3m copies for each killzone and a bit higher for resistance isn't bad. different era, different genres, different budgets... but i'm not entirely sure how that relates to my post. i think a killzone reboot on ps6 could be cool to see... everything is relative... it might be given a smaller budget than horizon but could be just as profitable, if not more so. sony seems hellbent on chasing live service, so killzone would be a likely candidate in that space (or maybe a socom reboot).
Re: Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 Is Already on Sale Just Two Weeks After Release
haha desperate measures i guess... don't want those investors running now do we. hopefully this is the beginning of the end for COD as we know it.
Re: Leaked Footage of Prince of Persia: Sands of Time Remake Almost Two Years Old, Ubisoft Confirms
it's a good sign that ubisoft handed the project over to montreal, considering their talent and that they had designed the original game... but it makes me wonder why ubisoft management initially treated this remake as a junk project by having an unproven studio (mumbai) work on it for years, nearly canceling the project in the process? shouldn't this have been a high status remake deserving of top talent and resources? i guess the suits thought they could get away with the bare minimum and save a few bucks in the process haha... with all the delays, project mismanagement and exchanging of studios, they likely had to triple their budget for this... so much for their cost saving strategy. goes to show that greediness can often backfire on you.
with all that said, i don't think this remake has a chance at selling well regardless of the finished product since remake fatigue is a thing now and the original game, while a success at the time of release, didn't exactly set the world on fire. initial sales were so poor, that ubisoft resorted to a promotion where they gave out free games with the purchase of sands of time. the game went on to sell 2m copies but the financial "success" of the game on its own merits remains unknown... how profitable was it considering the free games ubisoft gave away in the process? i really enjoyed the game at the time, but it is for a very specific audience and won't appeal to most gamers in this era. this remake is questionable to say the least.
Re: Talking Point: Does PS5 Have a Sequel Problem?
sony is getting crushed in the comment section on a myriad of topics lately, including how people rate and perceive the ps5, five years after launch etc. (not surprising to see that it is deemd a disappointment by most people with perspective on playstation history).
as others have pointed out, nintendo releases many games in the same franchise but they are not direct sequels. the main difference here is that nintendo often "re-imagines" an IP with each game release... similar to how sony re-imagined the god of war IP for the 2018 release. this is very different than a by-the-numbers sequel that builds on the very same elements as the game that came before it, with only incremental improvements or changes.
the problem with sony is that it is in a rut with its sequels. they are boring, predictable and do little to excite the audience. over the span of a decade, people are essentially playing the same game when so little is altered from the first entry. if ps6 is planned to have a ghost, god of war, horizon and spiderman sequel (built on yotei, ragnarok, forbidden west and spiderman 2's foundation) that is going to be yet anothet blunder. instead, sony should release some new IP's, reboot some old franchises (not seen since the ps1/ps2/ps3 eras) and re-invent the aforementioned franchises above (or let them sleep for another 5+ years) or else people are just going to lose interest. i mean, people already have lost interest, judging by the steep decline in sales that the ghost, god of war, horizon and spiderman sequels have garnered! is this a coincidence?
Re: PS5 Sales in Japan Quadruple as New Model Launches
@KawakiisaFraud if sony didn't care about japan, they never would have created a japanese exclusive SKU at a very reasonable price point. they are trying to change the culture in japan, but doing so after many years of neglect will take time. you might ask yourself, why care now? it's simple. sony is gearing up to release its native handheld device and japan will be one of its main target markets (they clearly prefer portable devices over home consoles over there). sony is going head to head with nintendo for the first time in... 10 years? (ever since the vita was deemed to be a failure and sony pulled reasources away from it).
Re: PSA: The Original Yakuza 0 Will Be Delisted Forever When Director's Cut Drops on PS5
nothing is delisted forever when the original pc and ps4 files will be preserved on the internet... forever
Re: Yakuza 0, Kiwami, Kiwami 2 Get Discount PS5 Upgrade Paths, But Only for PS4 Digital Owners
well, this is yet another tactic to push physical game sales away: treat your customers like second class citizens who have supported all your games for decades, just because they purchased them physically... that's a new low for a major publisher. perhaps it has happened before, but considering how loyal the yakuza fanbase is, this is real slime ball behaviour from sega.
i guess there will be a day where physical editions of games don't receive patch updates either huh?
Re: Poll: Five Years of PS5 - How Would You Rate Sony's Console?
ps1: 10/10
ps2: 10/10
ps3: 8/10
ps4: 9/10
ps5: 6/10
Re: 'I'm So Happy': Japanese Players Rejoice Over Finally Buying Cut-Price PS5
great. now bring this price over to the west. the ps5 is stupidly expensive here too!
Re: 'Financial Viability Is a Big Deal': Emulation Studio on Why More Retro Games Aren't Coming to PS Plus Premium
@Coalescence yup. a modded ps3 is bliss with a library of ps1 games in .bin/.cue format. no need to install the pkg files. a modded psp go with the dock is awesome as well if gaming on a crt.
Re: PS5 Sales Collapse in Japan as Sony Readies Overdue Rescue Plan
@dodgykebaab agreed. i would argue that there isn't another gaming hub in the entire world as important as japan in terms of sheer cultural significance. that culture still exists in japan and has no equal. sales may be in decline for home gaming consoles compared to what it used to be, but that doesn't mean sales are down across the board. the general population has shifted towards portable devices... like switch. since sony is prepping a portable device of its own, it would be completely foolish to give up on japan... the japanese market will soon transition to sony's new ps handheld which will steal potential sales from nintendo. sony is going to war with nintendo again and significant market share is at stake.
so, i agree, japan is still very important to sony, otherwise they wouldn't have bothered to a) make a new handheld which will be catering to the japanese market more so than the western market and b)release a japanese exclusive SKU of the ps5. i won't be surprised if sony develops a new internal studio or two based in japan as well. under jim ryan, sony disgraced itself. we are nearing the end of sony's worst console generation bar none, but hopefully they will get back on track with the ps6 and their new handheld.
Re: 'Financial Viability Is a Big Deal': Emulation Studio on Why More Retro Games Aren't Coming to PS Plus Premium
translation: sony just doesn't care anymore. these days, this initiaive is just a PR stunt to shut up the retro game enthusiasts.
sony already released hundreds of classic ps1/ps2 games on the ps3 platform. it's just a matter of extending the ps3 licenses over to the ps4/ps5. this interview sounds like nothing more than damage control for sony in how it has decided to throw the entire program under the bus. it's not like extensive amounts of work is required to re-list the games on modern platforms. if it isn't viable to do trophy support, that is fine. but to say it might not make business sense to essentially add a ROM file to an emulation wrapper at $5-10 a pop is absurd. a couple thousand copies would more than pay for it. in addition to sony not caring, this more has to do with some publishers preferring to (possibly) make their own compliation releases and they are concerned that an a la cart model will eat into their sales. funny thing is that most publishers never actually go through with this and they just leave money on the table.
so... we as gamers will take initiative and emulate the games for ourselves. for free. no worries
Re: New Report Finds Almost Half of US Kids Are After In-Game Currency for Christmas
parenting is about doing what is best for your kids, regardless of the social pressures and normalization of certain, toxic trends. a good parent will stay clear of these predatory money pits and encourage their kids to play real games.
Re: Horizon Sales Update Cements It As One of Sony's Strongest Franchises
@StitchJones i already took the 2 extra years into consideration when i said 10 years (assuming the 3rd entry will launch in about 2 years time). it's only been 8 years since zero dawn got released. this is a fact-based argument and doesn't leave much room to subjectivity. trying to justify all the releases by comparing it to annualized franchises is very silly