Comments 379

Re: More Red Dead Redemption 2 PS5 Port Speculation Emerges

Questionable_Duck

@Liamsufc1 NateTheHate is one of the most credible insiders out there, he was the first to leak Xbox going third-party, starting with Hi-Fi Rush in 2024, the first to reveal when the Switch 2 will be revealed (January 16, 2025), and the first to claim FF16 and FF7 Remake will come to Xbox and Switch 2 this year.

He's had a near-flawless track record lately, so if he says RDR2 is getting a next-gen port this year, then it's almost certainly happening. You can refuse to believe if you want, but it will just make you look silly in the end.

Re: Director of The Last of Us' Axed PS5 Multiplayer to Start New Studio in Japan

Questionable_Duck

@Oram77 Instead of turning Naughty Dog into a live service studio, Sony could have opened up a second Naughty Dog studio specifically to maintain TLOU Online instead of spending $400 million on Concord.

I don't know why they couldn't do both at the same time. It didn't have to be one or the other. Look at Respawn, they're able to release singleplayer games at a regular cadence and support Apex Legends as well.

It's also baffling that Naughty Dog wasted multiple years and millions of dollars on TLOU Online without realizing that they would have to support it post-launch.

Re: 'I Much Prefer PS Plus' Lifecycle Management Strategy': Devs Chime in on Xbox Game Pass Impact

Questionable_Duck

@Fiendish-Beaver Fair, the companies will make more money if everyone bought every game at full price, but I still find that a strange take. Only in the gaming industry do we have people that say consumers are directly responsible for layoffs due to being price conscious. Whenever Mars Inc. lays off thousands of employees, you don't see people pointing a finger towards those that only bought M&Ms and Snickers bars at heavily reduced prices.

Now, I will have to correct you with the Chris Dring stuff. Dring didn't say that Game Pass is profitable when the sales of first-party games are included. He said that Game Pass is profitable, in spite of the loss of sales that Microsoft's first-party games exhibit. The "lost revenue from Xbox's first-party studios" isn't enough to make Game Pass unprofitable, according to Dring.

Dring initially thought that Microsoft didn't take this into account, but it turns out they did. As he states, "sources have reached out to tell me that even when you include lost revenue associated with first-party party games (not just unit sales, but microtransactions), Game Pass is still profitable."

Re: 'I Much Prefer PS Plus' Lifecycle Management Strategy': Devs Chime in on Xbox Game Pass Impact

Questionable_Duck

@Fiendish-Beaver Now that is one nonsense take, blaming Game Pass users and people trying to save money for being responsible for the actions of a trillion dollar corporation.

I'm curious, have you ever expressed the same hostile attitude toward PC gamers who brag about getting everything at deep discounts on Steam? Are the people who only buy games at heavily reduced prices responsible for layoffs? Or is it the greedy shareholders who want infinite growth?

Of course, Chris Dring just retracted his statements and clarified that Game Pass is indeed profitable, even when you factor in the cannibalization of first-party game sales, but I'm sure people will still somehow try to insist that it isn't profitable. Dring is reliable when he's saying something bad about Game Pass, but unreliable when he's saying something positive.

Re: Anime Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2 Officially Announced by Studio Trigger

Questionable_Duck

Edgerunners is such a weird show for me. I vividly remember everything that happened in the series, I love the art style/music/tone of the show, and some of its scenes are still stuck in my head, but I didn't love it nearly as much as some other people did. In my opinion, Edgerunners was too short, and the events in the show happened so fast that it was hard for me to make a real connection with the characters. It was basically just a four-hour movie rather than a TV show. I think it needed to be two seasons long in order for the ending to really impact me.

Re: Gran Turismo's Primary Console Competitor May Be No More

Questionable_Duck

I know some people will immediately dismiss what he says here, but Jez just said during the Xbox Two podcast that Microsoft hasn't indefinitely shelved the Forza Motorsport series, according to his sources. There is still a team at Turn 10 that's working on the latest Forza Motorsport game, and although Forza Horizon is taking priority, there is no plan to stop making Motorsport games altogether.

Make of that as you will.

Re: PS5 Fans Divided Over Helldivers 2 on Xbox Pivot

Questionable_Duck

@Reeneman Arrowhead, however, confirmed that they have no say on what platforms Helldivers 2 can go to, since Sony owns the Helldivers IP. They said last year that Phil Spencer and Sony would have to "duke it out" to bring this game to Xbox. This was entirely a Sony decision.

Re: PS5 Fans Divided Over Helldivers 2 on Xbox Pivot

Questionable_Duck

@Lock_Dock122 Maybe because the baseless claims that no one buys games on Xbox are, in fact, baseless. If what you were saying was actually true, then no third-party publisher would even bother porting their games to Microsoft's consoles.

If Helldivers 2 sells well on Xbox and Sony decides to port another one of its live service titles to the platform, then I think this argument will be well and truly dead. At least when it comes to AAA titles.

Re: PS5 Fans Divided Over Helldivers 2 on Xbox Pivot

Questionable_Duck

Let's be real, the people complaining about this on social media will not impact Sony's decision-making in the slightest. 99% of PlayStation owners will not leave PlayStation, no matter what old games Sony brings to Xbox.

Sony could bring God of War 2018 to Xbox (not that I think they will), and most PlayStation owners wouldn't budge whatsoever. Why would they switch to Xbox or PC to play a limited selection of old PlayStation games?

Re: Reaction: Helldivers 2 on Xbox Signals Another Unexpected But Not Overly Surprising Shift in Strategy from Sony

Questionable_Duck

@wildcat_kickz Exactly, even if Sony brings some of their games to Xbox, even single-player ones, PlayStation players are not gonna say "screw it, I'm going to Xbox."

Most of Microsoft's games will be on PlayStation day-one, and even if every Sony game was a timed exclusive, most people would still prefer to play games on PlayStation, since they will get access to them earlier. If you're on PlayStation and have a large digital library on the platform, it makes no sense to switch to Xbox and get access to less games, as well as wait for Sony games to come to your platform.

Re: Reaction: Helldivers 2 on Xbox Signals Another Unexpected But Not Overly Surprising Shift in Strategy from Sony

Questionable_Duck

Microsoft is doing such a bad job at selling Xbox consoles, that I think Sony has concluded it won't be detrimental to them to port their games to the platform.

If you still intend to stick with Xbox at this point in time, despite Xbox exclusives being a thing of the past, you probably are not gonna switch to PlayStation anytime soon.

So Sony probably thinks, why bother forcing them to get a PlayStation when we can just port the game to Xbox a year later instead? That way, Sony can still make money on the Xbox holdouts.

Re: PlayStation Is Bringing Helldivers 2 to Xbox, Out on 26th August

Questionable_Duck

@Oram77 Tbf the sales figures for FF16 on Xbox were determined by looking at the number of reviews the game had on the Xbox store, which wasn't a very reliable metric to judge by.

It was the 11th best selling game on Xbox in the US Store at launch, which while not amazing, I think is decent for a 2 year old port of a controversial FF game.

Re: PlayStation Is Bringing Helldivers 2 to Xbox, Out on 26th August

Questionable_Duck

@ButterySmooth30FPS Why do they have to appease Arrowhead, though? It's not like Sony is publishing their next game. Since when did Sony ever appease a company they were working with?

You think, if Insomniac asked nicely, they would let Spider-Man come to Xbox? Of course not.

I think this argument will be well and truly finished when Sony ports another game to Xbox in the near future. Probably Marvel Tokon.

Re: Brazilian Gamers Infuriated by Sudden PS5 Price Hikes

Questionable_Duck

@MrPeanutbutterz What does that have to do with anything? You reckon Sony hasn't already made their money back from Demon's Souls, or that there are still people at Bluepoint that are working on the game?

See, the difference between Demon's Souls and energy, food, real estate, etc. is that only one of these products has already made a profit, and no one is working on said product anymore. The food manufacturer is still manufacturing new food; they haven't made a profit on the new stock they just manufactured. The energy distributor is still distributing new electricity; they haven't made a profit on the new energy they just distributed. The real estate seller hasn't sold their real estate yet; they haven't made a profit on it at all.

Honestly, comparing old digital games to stuff that is still consistently being manufactured is almost a form of whataboutism. You insist that what Sony is doing is normal and not unique to them, but that just isn't true. As I said before, most companies (aside from Sony and Rockstar, the latter of whom just raised the price of RDR2 in the UK) do not raise the price of their old video games because old video games are not affected by inflation.

If I saw Nintendo raising the price of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe to $80 in Brazil or Bandai Namco raising the price of Tekken 7 to $70 in the UK, then I'd agree with you. But that isn't happening.

Re: Brazilian Gamers Infuriated by Sudden PS5 Price Hikes

Questionable_Duck

@MrPeanutbutterz Are you really comparing old digital video games to food, electricity, housing, fuel, etc.?

Those are physical products, and in the case of food and fuel, they often get restocked. When you go to a supermarket, you are not going to pay current market price for a 5-year-old box of cheese, since they don't even offer 5-year-old boxes of cheese in the first place.

Sony deciding to raise the price of a 5-year-old digital copy of Demon's Souls is equivalent to that 5-year-old box of cheese. In the video game world, almost no company ever raises the price of old games. That applies to new games only. This would be like if you paid $80 for an Xbox 360 game, or something.

Unlike the housing, fuel, food, and electricity providers, Sony has already made all of their money back from Demon's Souls. They objectively have no good excuse to raise the price of an old game, since MS and Nintendo don't even do that. No offense, but it's baffling that you're trying to defend Sony's decisions.

Re: Brazilian Gamers Infuriated by Sudden PS5 Price Hikes

Questionable_Duck

@MrPeanutbutterz It very much is unique to Sony. Most companies do not raise the price of their old games on a regular basis, due to market fluctuations. Those price increases normally apply only to new games, not old ones.

There is no valid excuse to raise the price of a 5-year-old game like Demon's Souls remake in Brazil.

Re: Brazilian Gamers Infuriated by Sudden PS5 Price Hikes

Questionable_Duck

@UltimateOtaku91 Not the same thing at all, actually. As is stated in the article, Sony increased the price of both first- and third-party titles on the Brazilian PS Store, including old games. Microsoft and Nintendo almost never raise the price of old first-party games in markets where currency fluctuates.

Like, you can still get Halo 5 for dirt cheap in some regions, the price of the game has never been raised.

Re: UK's Death Stranding 2 PS5 Physical Sales Displace Mario Kart World, But Down 66% Compared to Predecessor

Questionable_Duck

@dskatter I understand that subscription services makes determining the success of a game more difficult, but it's worth noting that just because a company uses the term players instead of sales, it doesn't mean that the game didn't sell or something.

Like, a few weeks ago, Saber Interactive revealed that Space Marine 2 had around 7 million players or something, but an employee at the company noted that those players all came from sales.

Either way, back to AC Shadows, I think it's safe to assume that most of those players are from people who purchased the game, not from Ubisoft+ subscribers. Ubisoft+ simply isn't popular enough to significantly skew player count numbers. If AC Shadows was on Game Pass, though, half of the players could very well have been from GP subscribers instead of sales.

Re: You Can Now Launch First-Party PlayStation Games Through the Xbox PC App

Questionable_Duck

This will only be significant if the next Xbox has access to PC games, while also being fully backwards compatible with the Xbox Series X/S. If the next Xbox is literally just a PC, like the ROG Xbox Ally, and it can't play Xbox games (which Microsoft has already confirmed it will), then I doubt Sony would even care that their games are playable on an Xbox-branded device.

I wouldn't say that this would be a threat to PlayStation, per se, but the only thing that could significantly change Sony's business model is an Xbox console that can natively play both Xbox console games and PC games. If that does happen, then Sony would almost never be able to sign third-party exclusivity deals ever again.

And by, third-party exclusivity deals, I mean stuff like Silent Hill 2 Remake or Honkai: Star Rail: PlayStation exclusive games that are available on PC day-one and aren't published by Sony. Of course, third-party exclusives like Stellar Blade would still exist, so long as they're Sony-published. Aside from that, though, third-party publishers are not releasing their AAA games exclusively on PS5 (without a simultaneous PC release) anymore.

Re: Resident Evil Requiem PS5 Was Open World, Online in Early Tests

Questionable_Duck

@Alps_Stranger There's plenty of games that change drastically midway through development and turn out great. Take Infamous, for example. Sucker Punch originally envisioned Infamous as a cartoony Animal Crossing simulation game, but then they changed their minds midway through development. A similar thing seemingly happened with Resident Evil 9.

The "changing midway through development" thing typically only results in bad games if the original version of the game was already finished and the devs were trying to salvage its scraps. From the looks of it, it doesn't seem like the multiplayer open world version of RE9 was close to being completed.

Re: Sony Sued for 'Abusing Its Dominant Position in the Console Market'

Questionable_Duck

@SeaDaVie You're right about the setting prices stuff mentioned in the lawsuit, my bad.

Even still, it is not exactly the same. I have pointed out pretty clearly in my previous comment that the impact it has on consumers is completely different. You refuse to acknowledge this, for some reason.

You want to get Sekiro on PlayStation right now? Tough luck, you're gonna have to pay $60 to play the game without waiting for a sale.

You want to get Sekiro on Xbox right now? Good news, you can get the game from CDKeys for a fraction of the price that it currently costs on the Xbox Storefront. Sekiro's digital Xbox version is £12.99 on CDKeys, but it's £59.99 on the official Xbox storefront.

And I have no idea why you're bringing up code-in-a-box releases? Why would a gamer who's looking to buy a digital code from a third-party retailer care about the fact that they're not getting the game physically?

Re: Sony Sued for 'Abusing Its Dominant Position in the Console Market'

Questionable_Duck

@SeaDaVie Again, price setting isn't important because that's not at all relevant to the lawsuit. Like, read the Eurogamer article that's linked at the end of this Push Square post. Nowhere does it say that Stichting Massaschade & Consument is suing Sony because they're setting prices of third-party games.

Link: https://www.eurogamer.net/sony-sued-in-netherlands-over-sony-tax-and-its-perceived-monopoly-on-digital-sales

As the Eurogamer article points out, Stichting Massaschade & Consument said that "Sony is the sole provider of digital content on the world’s most popular gaming console." The problem that Stichting has with Sony is that "PlayStation players are entirely dependent on Sony and its prices due to its closed ecosystem."

This problem doesn't exist on a platform like Xbox. While all digital Xbox game sales do technically go through Microsoft, as you said, Xbox players are not entirely dependent on Microsoft and its prices due to its closed ecosystem. As I pointed out in my previous comment, Xbox players can get reduced prices on digital Xbox games through third-party retailers, without having to rely on sales on the Xbox storefront.

Take Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice GOTY Edition, for instance. In the UK, Sekiro currently costs £59.99 on Xbox. However, on CDKeys, you can get a digital Xbox code of the game right now for £12.99. This is not possible on PlayStation, because Sony doesn't allow third-party retailers to resell digital PlayStation games.

The money you save on PSN gift card discounts is negligible compared to the money you save by getting digital games from third-party retailers outright. You are never going to get a $50 PlayStation gift card for $25, for example.