RadioHedgeFund

Id put good money on the majority of PS5 owners being the CoD/FIFA crowd who are a welcome part of the industry but don't buy many games. They will have bought the console on name alone.

If Sony want to recoup their mega game budgets then the Xbox and Switch 2 might be the places to do it. They would hardly lose business porting over games older than, say 4 years.

The PSVR2's mere existence was only to show on the fence gamers that the PS5 was more future forwards than the Xbox. This is Sony, a company that made Robot Dogs and Bluetooth RC cars (in 2004) so that people associate it with cool ***** and they sell more TVs.

Never underestimate the value of mind share.

If digital purchases are not ownership then rental seems e better option

It's never good to see a monopoly but it's Nintendo. After putting up with endless forum posts stating 'Nintendoomed' during the GameCube years it's bloody good to not only see them on top again but doing so with a steady release of pay-once titles that emphasise offline fun instead of online moneygrabs.

It's a shame Astrobot is the outlier for Sony because it used to be so easy to recommend a PS3 then 4 for all the family games that were available, from Littlebigplanet to Singstar. Instead they write off $200m on an online game nobody wanted. Imagine how much it would have cost to make a new Buzz title or a Sackboy 2 instead.

Riddle me this: why has every console since the PS3 required a lengthy shutdown process whilst you can just turn off the mains on an Xbox and it’s fine?

Perhaps platforms just need to completely remove user reviews altogether?

Critics exist for a reason.

I still don’t know why they changed their strategy from the PS4 days: use smaller ports, remasters and indie exclusives to fill the void and audience appetites whilst you bring out some decent single player titles. This is what people want!

The PS5 has only sold so well because Microsoft threw their ecosystem in the bin with the Xbox One and the FIFA crowd (a huge pay of the market) will buy it for the brand reliability.

As an Xbox owner who only stayed to keep his 360 collection I thought the PS4 a treasure trove of delight yet there isn’t anything, bar the release of Horizon 3 that autos currently make me but a PS5.

The Switch 2 is likely to out a dent in that plan.

Since they started pulling their own games from storefronts it seemed pretty obvious a streaming service was on the cards. I’m amazed no outlets picked up on this months ago

At this point you’re knee deep in an ecosystem. Sony customers won’t budge to Xbox because they want to keep access to all their old titles.

Microsoft lost the console war the minute Sony posted that game swapping meme. It’s easier for Xbox players to jump this way than the other.

@somnambulance You have the second best portmanteau based username on here!

@somnambulance And you don’t lose any real money when you lose!

I’d be interested to see how deep this partnership goes. Sony doesn’t view Apple as a direct competitor. They allowed the port of games like Flower, Journey and even Death Stranding on iOS whilst under Sony publishing licence for example.

As Sony happily release PlayStation games on agnostic devices like the PC and we know have iOS devices capable of playing PS4 titles I wonder if we will see games like Horizon or Spider-Man on Apple devices?

Probably dying a lot on Fortnite OG.

Fortnite is at its best when it completely embraces its theme. Too many battle passes are just one or two matching skins and a load of junk. The best recent season was the Ancient Greek gods one because they went all in. Although the lack of Zagreus as the guest icon skin was grating, I’m a big Avatar fan so it gets a free pass.

This season looks absolutely sick. And for people that don’t want to play there is still Reload and the upcoming C1 OG cycle.

@Th3solution The mobile version is the worst. Imagine having it available to play in your pocket all day, every day 😰

Clearly the enemies are influenced by Horizon but the gameplay looks a little more PSO2/Monster Hunter.

The whole point of the instant kills in an rpg environment is rewarding player skill rather than just stacking the odds through grinding.

I like the idea that certain enemies can only be killed by certain types of stealth kill. It makes the little bases and hideouts into even more of a puzzle box.

@SleeplessKnight Amazingly it’s actually better!

@LogicStrikesAgain So I can forego a PS5 and just set it up from cold with my PSN account?

Can it be used without aPS5 at all?

To add insult to injury Sony are also asking for £60 for a game that should probably be £30.

@HonestHick Halo Infinite was a cracking title and that didn't help. Fact I'd that as far as new games go the shooter genre has died. Nobody plays anything that isn't Call of Duty, Fortnite or CSGO

@nomither6 Clearly this is not true though. The Legend of Zelda is the biggest franchise in gaming and on a careful 5-year Dev cycle for mainline entries. We haven't seen a sequel to Mario Odyssey in 7 years because they're likely cooking up the next one for the Switch 2 launch.

How do we define AAA anyway? Technically superior? Games that last ages? Big open worlds? Regardless I would probably have listed Tetris Effect as the best AAA title of the last generation because of how bloody good it is. 10/10 from most places yet it's still just the Tetris.

I'm not trying to make out Nintendo as a better company that anyone else. I enjoy Playstation titles and only actually own an Xbox as my main console. But they had a plan for the Switch with regards to the ongoing release schedule and it worked.

Fact of the matter is this generation is weird. Sony are only beating Xbox because of the FIFA and Madden crown just wanting the next PS4 to play their annual games on, Microsoft have had way more exclusives out and aren't ahead in any way and Nintendo might actually topped the PS2 with a sequel to the WiiU.

@get2sammyb I think it's more than the money could have been better spent on a few 7/10 smaller exclusive titles to fatten out the release calendar.

Nintendo knows what it's doing with a fixed budget for games and a 3-year dev period.

This is a bit unfair.

Tomb Raider 1 is a chonky classic
Tomb Raider 2 was too Hollywood
Tomb Raider 3 was too hard
The Last Revelation is the best game in the series
Chronicles has some interesting ideas
The less we say about Angel of Darkness the better.

@BrettAwesome I get why they wanted to move away from a Tenchu/Tsushima/Onimusha backdrop. Yasuke was a historic character whose story has never really been told before. Just like Adelain in liberation I think it a bold artistic choice rather than a box ticking exercise.

The price for a niche, enthusiast device that wasn't meant to sell in large numbers isn't that bad.

The issue is Sony thinking they can get away with it going forward. Thanks in no small part to Apple, we live in an age of 'reassuringly expensive' that has gaslighted people into thinking cheaper products must be inferior. Taken from a cold start with no prior affinity I'd question for example whether anybody really needs a phone better than a Pixel 8a (say).

If Sony convince the market that £700 should be the going rate for the Playstation 6 then we're in trouble.

Then again the Switch may well go on to becoming the best selling console of all time so what do I know.

Sony doesn’t need to see growth in old franchises; it needs to keep its audience happy. There is nothing wrong with only having 3-4 tent pole first party releases per year if you have cheaper, smaller titles to fill the void.

Would it really cost that much to remaster Uncharted? Motorstorm? Wipeout 2097? How about porting some dead PS3 games whilst we’re there? I could go for a rerelease of Calling All Cars or Rub A Dub.

At the time I really didn’t like it at all. They swapped anime for the cast of Hollyoaks and casting spells made your stats go down.

However time has been kind to VIII and it’s become my favourite game in the series! Triple Triad is a delight and you can really abuse the draw system by converting rare cards into powerful spells. The world is really fleshed out, with governments and politics. It’s less ‘videogamey’ than the nonsensical world of FFVII where a Totalitarian British Gas decided to make Captain America and as a result more believable.

The collegiate atmosphere is brilliant and yes, it has the best soundtrack in the series.

I’m amazed the games actually ‘stream’. Most of these titles are so small they would download in seconds and just live in your RAM until you turn off your device. This way there would be no lag or glitches with only the same data needing to sync back to the server.

I love new IP. The industry cannot recycle ideas forever. But come on!

Make a new WipEout: sell 3m copies
Make a new Locoroco: sell 3m copies
Make a new Patapon: sell 1m copies

It’s not rocket science here. These are smaller niche IPs that sit well alongside the big budget titles. Make them!

"Sony needs a cash cow, because its single player games are costing too much and taking too long to make."

Its called smaller titles. Not every single player game needs to be Horizon or God of War. They funded the PS4 games through extensive remasters of old PSP and Vita titles and smaller games like PS All-Stars.

The PS5 has thus far been a letdown for those of us who loved Sony's quirky, smaller titles and its older franchises. WipEout HD proved that quality can be done on a budget and Omega sold 2.5m copies. Loads of PS3 games still languish: why not do a 4K remaster of Calling All Cars or Super Rub-a-Dub with loads of new levels? Remasters of Motorstorm?

They think too much in percentages. Consoles are far from dead, but as the mobile slice of the pie explodes in size it makes consoles look like they’re shrinking.

@BecauseBecause 2 is loads better than 1; it’s just it still has a ‘duct taped together’ feeling.

Does inflation really have an impact on game development? Wages go up of course as do the electricity bills. But it’s not like making a game uses some finite physical resource constricted by supply chains and shortages. Software and code is ‘infinite’.

Some people will say graphics cards are the fuel of game development, to which I would say only based on your platform of choice. Eric Barone didn’t use a cutting edge rig to build Stardew Valley.

That is to also say I paid £60 for Majora’s Mask in 2000 and £60 for Tears of the Kingdom in 2024

Timesplitters 2 wasnt really much better than the original, stringing together a loose campaign to pad out its exhaustive multiplayer.

Future Perfect gave it an amusing story and some spit and polish on top of the still top-notch multiplayer. Easily the best in the series.

And yet none of the trilogy have a multiplayer as good as Perfect Dark. I always found that curious.

There’s only one thing I need to know: did they bring back David Hayter?!

These are the same PS*’s that only seem to exist for some digital collectors mumbo jumbo, right? Or can you exchange them for currency like Nintendo Gold Points?

I think he means that there is a large number of entitled console gamers who think the industry revolves around them. Any game not catering to their tastes and whims is dismissed as ‘casual’. The majority of the games-playing public see it as a feature on another device, not a thing unto itself.

I smell pre-rendered gameplay footage. Why is it randomly switching between first and third person?

Great. Now they’ll make even less.

They could start by just enabling all the old campaigns so you can play the whole Destiny 2 story from start to finish.

Why not just make a classic multiplayer title with death match, team death match and some sort of co-op mode?

Halo Infinite never worked as a live service title but my word it’s still a hell of a lot of fun just jumping into a game of Slayer or Firefight.

A $Billion is a lot of money to stop Microsoft buying them to reboot Halo.

“Did you ever think the sluggish PS Store on PS3 would remain online in 2024 BCE?“

I know Ken’s claims about the Cell were pretty wild but I never knew it could do time travel!

What’s he moaning about? Microsoft had a ton of free marketing this very weekend!

A better option would be to animate it. Get Studio Mir onboard to create the visuals and involve the original creators in writing the scripts. They could do a dual-timeline story fleshing out the world of Sobek and Faro alongside Aloy’s time. It would be a lot cheaper to make.

Beloved is a strong word. It was a comfortable 7/10 at the time but not really memorable.

I really wanted to love Sekiro. The setting and story looked wonderful. But the only way I could even make it past the boss in the prologue was to just leg it.

These games don’t need an easy mode to cater for crap players like myself. They need some cheat codes so we can practice without dying! It wouldn’t hurt to put an invincibility cheat in there would it?

Ignoring the obvious difference in console sales for a second it’s kind of ironic seeing Sony turn to backwards compatibility to fill in a sparse release schedule after Microsoft did the same thing with the Xbox One!