Ralizah

This is amazing free advertising lol

lol so many people jumping to conclusions based on very tentative early data to support a narrative. But just the game launching on Steam is significantly different enough that I wouldn't draw too many conclusions from Steam data related to other games in the series.

The game was never going to bomb. Will it sell enough millions to be properly profitable for Ubisoft? Possibly.

I could see a scenario where the 'controversy,' as with Hogwarts Legacy, actually makes people MORE interested in it, but it remains to be seen.

Nope. Only tried a couple of these games in the past, and I didn't like them when I did.

The setting is fun, but I also have a historical Japanese game in my backlog that I still need to beat (Ghost of Tsushima), so... yeah.

Also, I'm not inclined to give Ubisoft any money after they disbanded the Rayman Legends team.

This is why I like smaller companies like Falcom, Inti-Creates, etc. that know what they excel at, know what their fans want, and stick to that, instead of trying to go big with more expensive and generically designed projects.

Not everything needs to be Uncharted or Zelda. I love creatives who make unique projects that can't be found elsewhere.

I mean, no doubt she's hot, but she's kind and loyal and can beat you to a pulp with her fists. She's also one of the most well-developed characters in the game. Basically the perfect girl. 😛

Coders, musicians, artists, writers, etc. are going to hit hard times going forward. Won't be long before large creative works are LARGELY the products of artificial intelligence, with just some people overseeing things in the background. It won't be perfect, but it'll be good enough to satisfy most people, and we're going to be seeing such a huge increase in output in areas that used to reflect human artistry.

More salt of the earth trades will be fine. AI isn't replacing electricians, plumbers, nurses, mechanics, etc. any time soon.

I expect the emergence of more production houses and publications that explicitly advertise the 'novelty' of human-produced art, though. Smaller ones, but they'll give creatives places to go.

There's no way to really stem the tide of this fundamental transformation of human life going forward. Some people will try, and regulations will be put in place once the public notices how obsolete humans are becoming in a variety of fields and freak out, but this is only going to move in one direction, and it won't be toward less automation.

Living in the future is FUN, innit? <3

This looks fantastic. I'm going to wait for actual gameplay before getting too excited, but it's really nice to see a series besides Fatal Frame utilizing these sorts of themes and imagery.

VR won't go big until a console developer puts their weight behind a huge, risky swing with it.

As long as it's a niche, expensive add-on peddling primarily in gimmick titles, consumers will keep treating it as such.

I love all the comments here that are like: "Yeah, this sucks, and I could speak my mind, but look how much more well-behaved I am for daddy than those PC gamers."

Like... I dunno, when did docility become a virtue?

Imagine a AAA game launching as a finished, polished product for once!

It brings me immense joy to see asian devs thriving and growing while the greedy and creatively stifled Western AAA scene self-implodes hard.

Chickens coming home to roost.

Expected, but I'm sure Sony is still happy to see it. MH was huge in Japan years before it gained worldwide popularity.

And yeah, ain't nothing selling Xboxes in Japan. We saw that in Gen 7 when they made a massive push with the 360 and accumulated little more than resentment from gamers there.

@UltimateOtaku91 As I recall, DQXI S took a LOT of work to port to Switch. The original release was developed on a version of UE4 that didn't even support the Switch, and basically every graphical aspect of the game was tweaked to run better on the Switch.

Not to mention it had a ton of additional content added. I'm not surprised it took so long to come over.

Hope this comes to the U.S., since I really want a PS5 for Astro Bot, and basically nothing else lol

Unsurprising. SEGA was easily the standout publisher last year. Banger after banger after banger.

I could see it working if done right. I agree with the sentiment that it's probably better than a third Horizon game, since I think the gameplay potential of the IP is mostly played out on a single-player level.

@nessisonett "I’m sure the chuds could make their sex doll protagonist of their dreams in a character creator"

In a Sony-published game? Yeah right.

@AdamNovice Mario Kart stays at the top of the charts regardless of whether it's part of an active bundle deal or not. Let's be real.

Sony and Nintendo desperately need a more robust storefront like Steam that allows you to filter this stuff out.

lol Mario Kart

No wonder Mario Kart 9 is the first Switch 2 game we saw in that short reveal.

Looks like Terminator 2 meets 16-bit Contra.

Needless to say, I'm there.

@naruball I guess my thing is that I think a game should be appealing apart from the VR element.

I want a game that makes me think: "I can't wait to get a headset to experience this!" Not: "Oh, this is kinda whatever, but I bet it's kinda cool in VR."

The closest we've come to that is a few flat games with VR support like Tetris Effect and the recent mainline RE games. But I want software like that which is built for the ground up for VR. Like, imagine if the recent Astro Bot game was a fully built-for-VR game?

But 90% of the VR games I see I wouldn't play off a headset, which is a problem for me.

My issue is I still can't point at any VR games and say: "I need to play that!"

Aside from the first Astro Bot game, which is PSVR1 exclusive lol

Valve seems happy with how the Deck has been received. Even if it's not moving massive volume, I'm willing to bet it's increasing purchases and engagement a fair deal per customer.

Speaking only for myself, of course, I can say my yearly spending on Steam has increased massively since picking up a Deck OLED. It's nice not to feel trapped at my computer anymore when I want to play a PC game, and laptops just don't have a form factor that makes them truly portable for me. The Deck is what I needed to feel fully at home with Valve's increasingly wonderful ecosystem.

I'm sure Valve is excited to start shipping out SteamOS on competitor's hardware as well. Even if you're not buying hardware FROM THEM, you're still getting funneled into their ecosystem, which is where the real profit lies.

Among other reasons, this is why I think nothing of trailers and reveals without gameplay. Anyone can post a CG cartoon short online and announce an intention to make something, but until you're deep enough in development to have actual gameplay to show off to the public, who can say what'll happen to a project? It's such an easy thing to shut down storied developers and nuke projects mid-development when you're an American tech or media giant run by soulless corpos who lack any long-term vision whatsoever.

@ShogunRok Yup. The only real benefit is you get to be "part of the conversation," for whatever that's worth.

With Monster Hunter, though, the next mainline entry will be supported and actively discussed for years upon years, so even if you wait for a price dip and some patches, there's no real downside. You just get a more complete version at launch.

Live service games like Genshin with events and pulls and whatnot make sense to play soon after launch, but you're only paying for the microtransactions. So do, ironically, games that launch in an almost totally polished state that don't really go down in price for a long time, which barely exists outside of a few Nintendo staples.

Day one is largely just smaller devs for me now. Certain AA Japanese ones, and a few Western developers working on interesting, risky, or niche projects that need as much support as possible.

I still need to play World lol

Will probably be grabbing this when the inevitable MR/story expansion releases in a year or two. Way more monsters at release, and it'll have whatever patches it's going to get to stabilize performance across all platforms.

It's Monster Hunter. Base game story mode is the tutorial. Post-release endgame content and this game's equivalent of Sunbreak/Iceborne will be where the majority of hours are spent.

@nessisonett 😂 Careful now, you don't want to make more "unconstructive" comments.

Even if it was a better port and more successful, though, I have noticed a lot of bristling about PC players not 'deserving' Playstation ports or something. I think a lot of hardcore Sony fans get a bit offended that Playstation Studios is just one publisher among many on PC, and that bad releases will be rewarded with low sales.

That said, I don't necessarily disagree that Sony's tentpole sp games should never have launched outside the PS ecosystem. They're devaluing it, frankly. PS5 is very skippable for anyone with a halfway modern gaming PC.

The same won't be true for Nintendo. They know better than to sacrifice long term brand integrity for short term gain, which is why you won't be seeing Mario on Steam.

This game had almost no promotion leading to to the launch of the PC port and, as I recall, wasn't even preorderable on Steam. The port was also kinda botched on release.

I'm truly shocked it's not selling well. 😂

Cleaning up the achievements in Slay the Princess on Steam.

Will probably also begin playing Class of '09: The Flipside this weekend.

Counterpoint: Sony knows how to put on an exciting show. It chose not to, for whatever reason, so people are expressing disappointment, and that's perfectly valid.

If you enjoyed it, that's fine. It's also fine to point out that it exists in the context of a wider web of marketing.

But this show, in my opinion, did a terrible job of speaking to people who haven't bought in to the ecosystem or who have but maintain concerns.

Sony doesn't need to be protected from criticism. The people running these events need to figure out how to not disappoint their base.

The original was a ton of fun. Everyone in my family had copies, and we all played together through the endgame and DLC. Will be grabbing for PC if it runs well on Deck, since I'm sure the Switch version will be... iffy.

Yeah, they really should've mentioned this in the SoP.

It's incredibly funny that Microsoft is mass-porting their catalogue to PS5, but Sony won't even allow a cameo of a long-dead PS franchise to appear in the Xbox version of a game.

Although tbh Sony should've been even more protectionist. If it actually kept its exclusive games, I'd already own a PS5, and probably have a PS+ sub of some sort.

@TruePlayStationGamer That would take actual effort.

They quite literally gave me another reason not to buy a PS5 lol

Really looking forward to play Stellar Blade <3

But yeah, that was dire. Sony's so lucky their direct competition is so incompetent.

Ooo, they should bundle this with the Astro Bot PS5 controller as well. That would be... incredibly tempting, I won't lie.

@Futureshark

"It also plans to make sure the game runs smoothly in ultra-mobile PC environments, such as the Steam Deck or the Asus ROG Ally."

Always encouraging. Should be even for people who don't own one, since it means they're putting the work in to make sure it runs great across a range of hardware.

That + a launch discount would really propel sales of the PC version at launch.

@PsBoxSwitchOwner Actually ran it this morning and it crashed lol

My computer exceeds the recommended specs, so I'm hopeful it'll be smooth enough when the time comes!

Cool beans. Didn't get the chance to try this out last time, so I'm interested to see how it runs on my PC (even though I know the launch improvements apparently won't be present in this build).

The original was atmospheric and had a bit of a horror tinge to it. Something that disappeared as the series went on.

Really hope the new game returns to that vibe.

The way it always should've been.

Fully expecting the tribalistic sort around here to start crying about this, though, as if this is anything other than a positive development.

I basically never buy Western games on release anymore, but if this reviews well and doesn't have any glaring tech issues, I'll be there day one on PC. It really, really stands out compared to its peers.

Regardless of what they say, it's obviously Tifa, for so many reasons.

AI can and should be used to reduce the workload when it comes to stuff like brainstorming ideas for the environments of these games. As an ASSISTIVE tool, generative AI can be fantastic.

Like any other major technology, it'll reshape the economy, jobs will be lost or transformed, and people will be reactively suspicious of the new. But AI is probably here to stay, and that inevitably will inform how major creative works like blockbuster films and video games are created as well.

I'll be buying in to support this very cool Western attempt at a JRPG-style game, although the release timing means it'll have to wait to be played until I'm done with Lunar.

April is looking to be an awesome month.

@Ainu20 That is interesting.

It makes you wonder if Horizon would have enjoyed a stronger night that year at TGA if BotW hadn't been on the ticket, for sure.

That said, if the winners tend to align with critical consensus, the evidence would still suggest Mario Odyssey would've taken it, considering how highly it scored. Which does make me wonder if BotW somehow soaked up the votes that would've otherwise gone to Odyssey, actually.

We'll never know, but it's interesting to think about.

I was surprised how decent the other AVGN platformers were, and this looks to continue that trend.

Very fun how many NES and Game Boy cartridges have been releasing the last few years, too.

@playstation1995 Like what?

Horizon Zero Awards?
Persona 5 was excellent, but too Japanese to really win the big award.
NieR: Automata was excellent, but couldn't even beat P5 for best RPG.

The big award that year was a competition between competing teams at Nintendo.

Currently the one game making me wish I had a PS5. I guess one of two if you count Astro's Playroom.

I don't know if I'd like it as much as Odyssey or Galaxy, but Team Asobi is doubtlessly one of the most creative teams in Sony's first-party roster, and I hope they keep creating amazing, Nintendo-inspired 3D platformers.

@playstation1995 Odyssey almost undoubtedly would've if Breath of the Wild hadn't launched in the same year, tbh. Nothing else in 2017 came close to being as celebrated as that particular one-two punch from Nintendo.

This is the problem with announcing games so early in development.

If it's more than two years out from a projected release, I don't want to hear about it.

I won't even pay $69.99 for a game on principle. At the base price, at least. Let alone this insanity.

Anyway, I still have yet to put more than a few hours into GTA V, so I don't see any reason to rush to the newest one when it comes out.