RadioHedgeFund

The need for it to be always online was enough for me to ignore it. However games like this get balance updates all the time and you have to roll with the punches. It’s like in a war game when your favourite unit gets nerfed. You either act like a little kid and rage quit or you grow up and take it on the chin.

The PSP has replaceable batteries. Being able to take a few spare cells on a long trip was a godsend.

@djlard If I can enjoy the book on a weekly basis with some friends on the other side of the country/globe with a plot that reacts to our own input as much as changes every few months, why not?

@playstation1995 All the money that bankrolls the big tent pole titles comes what Sony takes in on IAP from other service titles.

Not a lot as it happens. Microsoft know that the CoD market on PS is massive and will be wanting some returns on that deal.

At the same time there isn’t really anything else from Activision they’re going to miss. Overwatch 2? Crash Bandicoot? Spyro the Dragon? Do me a favour.

Microsoft’s big play was King, because $80bn is a small slice of the console pie but a big one on mobile. Those are the revenues they want streaming into their coffers.

What will be interesting is seeing if Sony retaliate. They already took away their only chance of redeeming Halo. I do wonder if they will start to sew up the Japanese market a little more. Square Enix have got to be awfully tempting. Promise to keep releasing games on Nintendo platforms and that will sail through regulation.

@Nepp67 Right? I’m not against it at all but unless it adds anything to the plot (say, Outlander) or adds something to flesh out a character (Game of Thrones) then what’s the point?

If it adds nothing to the story (as in this is to point out its some warped villain or something) then what’s even the point? It’s about as artistic as a porno.

Now can we get a new wipeout?

Given how much they managed to shrink the boards in the current revision the new model might be smaller and cheaper as Sony pass the cost savings onto consumers.

I also wonder if they would release ‘PSFour’ to go alongside it?

@UltimateOtaku91 You reckon? I think they’d make a big effort to rebrand the Series S as a Sega console. Plenty of space for a nice orange swirl. They could have offered every retro Sega title as a Gamepass addition.

It does warm my heart a little to see the top 3 selling games in one week in 2023 be Final Fantasy, Legend of Zelda and Sonic the Hedgehog.

Microsoft still have themselves to blame. They wouldn’t let Square launch FFXIV on the Xbox because they didn’t want them to have a way around taking 30% of that sub fee which Sony were happy to accommodate, for example.

In that case it was a combination of MS burning that bridge and the 20% sales share of FFXV on Xbox. (Stats from UK, not Japan)

Microsoft could have done their homework. It took Nintendo 2 generations to recover from the loss of FFVII to the PS1.

Honestly I’d like Ac!d and the Gameboy Color versions in there as well, if only as a portable Switch release.

@Matroska It’s a completely original work of fiction. I like the newspaper but the Guardian would complain if all the characters had blue skin.

Not unexpected at all. It sounds like they’ve gone back to the 16bit era of warring nations, dungeons and battles. VI is still considered the best in the series and it has no mini games, logical side quests and a compelling plot.

Some will see this as the series moving forward; I see it as throwing off the goofy shackles of the PS1 era once and for all.

Most welcome.

It doesn’t even need live service titles. They could comfortably port the entire PSP library to mobile with save states, rewind/FF and touchscreen controls.

PPSSPP is perfectly playable on most Android devices and iOS would run it easily. Make every game free with an IAP unlock to get around piracy.

Charge £8/$10 a pop and you’re golden.

1. It’s out in a week.

2. If you want to avoid spoilers, use some self control.

Then start putting some better retro titles on each month than Disney PS1 games nobody will play. They’re only porting over games that are on the PS3 store. How about Tomb Raider, WipEout, MGS or Parasite Eve?

@rpawlos15133 I’m all for new games but if they take forever to make pad the calendar with some cheapo remasters and rereleases.

You’ve got Final Fantasy XVI out next week. Cut the Xbox some slack with an exclusive JRPG.

And bringing it to mobile when?

I know Sony want to drip feed older titles from the PSN to the top tier but it wouldn’t kill them to offer some big PS1 titles, would it?

They’re just porting over games you can buy on the PS3. They’re sat on Suikoden 1+2, FF1-9, MGS, WipEout, Motörhead, Castlevania, Alundra, Front Mission 3, Parasite Eve 2 and a pile of other games.

And we get Herc’s Adventures.

Seriously Sony.

Apple have built more of a generic computing device than a dedicated entertainment one.

Our only comparison is gaming and it's Apple Arcade Vs the PS5 software Library which isn't really much of a competition.

You can also buy a PS5, VR2 and every game worth owning and still have enough change for a MacBook for the price of the Vision Pro.

@Shadcai I hope it's a 2 minute cut scene. That was the second worst part of VII to Midgar itself.

All I wanted to do was escape the damned city and journey the world map. Seeing it in an advance US players guide in the UK blew my mind as a kid in 1997.

I finally escape Midgar and they make me play an hour-long flashback before I can go anywhere? No thanks.

Most people know that a preorder is largely a waste of time unless you're ordering from a website that will historically ship it to you a few days early.

It could be argued that PSVR2 has served its job.

Sony wants the PS5 synonymous with forward thinking Gaming and just having it as a capability makes it look better hardware than the Xbox.

It doesn’t need to sell: it just needs to exist.

That’s not much comfort is you bought one and there are no games but still. I’d imagine more than a few titles will be arriving after the Apple headset reveal on Monday.

It would not have killed Guerilla to add the new outfits to the PS4 version.

Help us all if Destiny 2 is what they are trying to emulate. Destiny tried it's hardest to emulate diablo 3 and repeatedly fell short in the simplicity of its mechanics. Diablo 3 is a wonderfully streamlined title, from it's skill unlocks to its transmog mechanics and Destiny gets it wrong every step of the way.

The lack of offline play in number 4 would rip at least 3 marks off the review for me.

No thanks. Id rather enjoy the game at my own pace, even if this is a decade down the line.

In other words I will still be playing Diablo 3 well after the servers for 4 have been turned off and all your progress was for nothing. Games that require an internet connection to be played should be banned.

I can still load up my character from Phantasy Star Online on the Dreamcast and have a play; will the same be said of Diablo 4 in 20 years?

I also wonder if this explains the lack of an Xbox version? The Series S is a punchy console but maybe Square didn't want to have to scale it back to fit it on the little box that could?

@practicein2021 As soon as they release one that fits under my TV I'm in.

Since I saw this in Edge years ago my overriding thought was 'who wants to play a game as Gollum?!'

The answer remains nobody.

Rather than attempting to loot box players to death with poor mobile ports Sony should just buy up Android PSP emulator PPSSPP and then link it directly to the PSP PS Store.

Players would be able to access all their old titles, buy new ones and play them all on their phones. This would generate some goodwill from the community and generate a tidy income. All those titles are built for portable play in mind so don't need any tweaking.

Backbone One Android Release + nonsensical PS App controller support update + PS Direct this week = mobile PS+ game streaming coming this week?

@TheCollector316 I wouldn’t let that put you off. Halo hardly has what could be called vast enemy variety and that’s a classic. Ditto the original doom titles. And what of Uncharted and its endless waves of goons?

Repetitive waves of goons are only so if you try and burn through the whole game in one sitting, play it one level per night and savour it.

The main sites seem to have skipped over this but Sony recently added controller support for their PS App on smartphones. This seems like a weird addition until you factor in that maybe we are getting mobile PS+ streaming revealed this Wednesday (and maybe that rumoured streaming handheld too?)

Then release some games aimed at that market but give them a worldwide audience. Western gamers lap up some of the crazy stuff that comes out of Japan. We all love the single player epics and online world but who is Sony paying anymore to come up with games like Locoroco or Super Rub-a-Dub?

I'd like to nominate the non-listed PSP.

Easily my favourite console of all time and I would argue the first console that truly ushered in the modern age of gaming. I cannot speak for other regions but in the UK it had the web browser, direct DLC downloading, downloadable demos, a multimedia emphasis and an actual useable OS rather than just a memory management system. The fact it was on a handheld was even better. In 2005 it was a slice of the future.

I don't have the console anymore but I quite happily emulate all my existing discs and PSN purchases on PPSSPP on Android.

Its a great top list missing only IMO Lumines which I consider the best falling block puzzle title ever made. Honourable mentions include Outrun 2006, Test Drive Unlimited (They squashed the whole of Oahu onto a UMD) and Phantasy Star Portable 2, the only good installment* since the Dreamcast original.

The console was also peak Sony, by which I mean that lovely way they release pieces of consumer electronics that look so cool, are way ahead of their time and cost an absolute fortune. By this I mean the Location.Free capability that meant with the right hardware you could (in 2006) watch Live TV from your home anywhere in the world streamed to your PSP. I also had all the dorky addons like the camera, GPS module (which had Sat-Nav software in Europe!) and the buggy-but-clever Talkman game.

@get2sammyb Microsoft will be hoping those Call of Duty players stick around and try something else as it wouldn't be costing them anything extra which then lumps them in for another month.

Personally I don't like what the sub model has done to even Microsoft's first party games. Look at the way Forza Horizon, despite being playable 100% offline has morphed into an ongoing service title with constant updates to drive subscriptions.

If you look at the comments over on PureXbox the majority of People complaining about the AB deal being opposed are just sore they will have to pay for Call of Duty instead of getting it 'for free' in their existing sub.

The gamers on twitter might remember saying the same thing about the original. When Destiny 2 launched it was a breath of fresh air because they stripped out all the bloat; now its buried under its own systems again.

Worse is the new player experience. You can't just play through every story campaign in order from a menu because Bungle vaulted them all. There are no attempts at onboarding, No explanation of terminology or lore. 'Jump into a weekly nightfall playlist' isn't very helpful. Even something which should be simple like transmog is too over the top. Diablo 3 and Horizon get it so right!

Q: can you use the water wing back in FW?

Fair play if Sony don't want to add the actual environments to the PS4 version but the new equipment/outfits would have been fine as a free update, maybe expanding on thr champions medals NG+ feature.

The PSVR2 doesn't need to sell well. Don't know its an expensive hobbyist item but it's mere presence makes the PS5 look more futuristic and capable than the Xbox Series and for Sony, that's all that matters.

Building an ecosystem of potential add ons is classic Sony, from the Eyetoy to the PSP, Buzz to Singstar; it enriches their potential market and customer base.

I quite enjoyed the XV transmedia experiment. Really to get the whole game story you had to:

• Play Episode Ardyn (the last piece of DLC!)
• Watch Kingsglaive (effectively a 2 hour into movie)
• Play the game but complete the DLC packs at certain points and play the online portion before the endgame.
• Watch the YouTube anime skits in your own time
• Buy the hardback 'Dawn of the Future' book that novelises all the cancelled DLC packs to finally rewrite the ending.

That's a lot to take in.

@RadioHedgeFund I have never pirated a game I could buy new that recompenses the original creators, physical or download.

I will continue to download abandonware ROMs of older titles that are no longer on sale for current devices where the only person who loses out is a collector on eBay charging a sky high resell price.

£130 for Vandal Hearts? Er, no.

No offline play. No solo adventurer against the tides of evil. No sale.

Cloud gaming is an important piece of the future conversation whether we like it or not. I cannot speak for PlayStation but Xbox streaming in a browser is brilliant. I often play Fortnite with zero ping over such connection. At home I have 500mb but at my regular hotel it ranges from 120-50mb and that works really well as well.

One thing the SF movie doesn't get enough credit for, despite being delightfully naff is how it manages to crowbar in every character from the game somehow. That alone is pretty impressive.