RadioHedgeFund

@Balosi It’s more the parallel attitude to mobile gaming, that somehow console gaming is special and by releasing it on mobile it will automatically be crap.

@WiiWareWave There are about 250m active consoles on the market, which if we’re being generous is about 125m households as many people own more than one amongst a family, housemates etc. There are 7.2bn active smartphones on the market, each capable of playing most games.

Now take off more casual console gamers, perhaps buying a PS5 to just keep up with sports titles or a Switch for some family gaming and the market for a JRPG like Suikoden is incredibly small. They might sell 2-3m copies (based on Octopath Traveller) but get that many downloads in a day on mobile.

It is, whether we like it or not where the money is. In the non-Japan Asian market consoles are barely a blip. Personally I prefer playing JRPGs on my iPhone just because of the convenience.

There is a lot of entitlement from console gamers who struggle with the idea that they are not top of the food chain. Fact is dedicated gaming devices are a niche, hobbyist industry compared to mobile.

Konami is an Asian company making games primarily for their culturally shared area and the most popular gaming devices there are mobile phones.

I’m not saying the market is perfect nor full of predatory IAP games designed to make money rather than entertain the player but then so is the console space; it’s just here they make you pay upfront for the privilege (Hello, FIFA). One of the best games on console, FFXIV is full of IAP, level skips and a subscription on top of content purchase but that gets a free pass because the store isn’t baked into the game?

But console is also full of great titles of all sorts of shapes and sizes. But then again so is the mobile market too. Don’t be snobbish just because Konami hasn’t saved you a spot at the front of the queue.

Let me play them on my phone and I’ll give you all the money you want.

When the PS4 was riding high the only (only) reason to buy an Xbox beyond supporting your purchases was Forza Horizon. I’d still argue the PS4 (and 5) still have nothing as good.

Of course it’s worth £55.

@HappyGamerGirl It was never about shifting headsets. Just the fact the console is capable of VR made it look more futuristic than the Xbox.

The 2nd game will likely be split in two and fleshed out with you-know-what as the ending to the 2nd season.

It’s kind of weird to think that the only modern console you can play every FF game up to (but not yet including) 16 is an Xbox.

Wouldn’t shock me if they had two titles in development.

If it means Outrun 2026: Coast 2 Coast I’m in.

I’m honestly hoping we get Rare Replay because cross-platform online Perfect Dark 64 is the frikkin dream.

@Deadlyblack Amazingly you can still play the first game cross platform online between PS4, PS3 and Vita!

I mean, people can imagine what they want but in all versions of the game Aeris isn't around for very long. It's quite difficult for Cloud to date a corpse.

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?!