Stepan

I was hyped by arcticle in Retro Gamer, then downloaded the demo on PS5 as soon as it was available and it was big disappoinment, visuals are interesting, but the handling didn't suit me at all, so it was deleted right away. Arcade racers are all about the smooth handling for me.

Yay, what an early Christmas gift!, the only problem being the game is getting bigger and bigger on PS5's storage, may be time for additional SSD or PS5 Pro for me .

@Tasuki Why last Sony console if you do like it?

As a longtime fan I have to say they are doing just what Mr. Yokoyama says they won't. With LaD8 they moved most of the story overseas and also hired stars like Danny Trejo, who was heavily used for marketing. Pirate Yakuza is completely Hawaiian. So, they are already starting to lose the original appeal of japanese game made for japanese players. I don't blame them, they obviously want to make something new every time and find more and more players. Still, Stranger than Heaven is no.1 on my wishlist and I really hope it can bring back the excitement one felt when playing PS2 and PS3 Yakuza games.

One more thing, funny is that Mr. Yokoyama said almost exactly the same about new Virtua Fighter project. He stated that if the game turns out to not be good and exciting, they can just stop the development anytime. And now he says they can even dissolve the team if LaD games won't stay true to their origins.

@mattitudemf @T-Bone09 Of course there will be add-on disc drive, but my point was: if majority of PS6 owners won't even be able to play discs, why bother with investment into discs-based PS1-PS3 back compatibility. That is sound argument, isn't it?

This story of Mark Cerny very much reminds me similar tale of Astrobot's Nicolas Doucet, who also said that he pitched himself to Japan Studio, because he thought he is the right person. Mr. Doucet even said he completely skipped his bosses in Europe and wrote straight to Japan.

@PuppetMaster I don't want to crush your hope, but I am afraid PS6 won't take discs at all.. At least that seems to be the trend.

Hm, what they intend to do with the series... , could it be.. doing more remakes and side stories?

I mean, really, the story of latest installments still circle around the end of proper yakuza clans and even in the real world, the clans are getting smaller nowadays. So, it would make sense to stay in the past with remakes or stories from older times.

@PuppetMaster Small indication would he that Hirogami has 65 reviews on PS Store, which is really not much, almost on par with Dreams of Another, which seems like a major flop.

But, it is also worth mentioning that Hirogami was just a side project of several Bandai Namco employees not official Bandai Namco game!

@themightyant Thanks for making things clear!

So many news about Yakuzas 0, 1, 2 and 3! But, am I the only one left unimpressed with all the remasters and remakes? I played most of the games when new and now somehow can't get excited about them. I get the series became quite popular nowadays, but I wish SEGA started to diversify it's portfolio. Maybe on Game Awards, there will be some news on Power Surge.

About Asa gao - Morning glory name, I don't get what are these 'perhaps obvious reasons'?

Great! I have never played any title from Shutoko Battle series, but I loved Genki's Kaido Battle on PS2, so I this is on my Wishlist now!

@LikelySatan A few years ago, I felt the same about GT7. You can do literally nothing without connection. But then I just backed down, purchased the game and enjoy it very much. When you get over the fact it is online service game and not traditional game on disc, you realize it is really well put together.

And, the servers are really robust, some games (for example Tekken 8 in my experience) can't estabilish the connection from time to time, whereas GT7's online service is very stable and reliable.

For me, this doesn't feel like a game, but a chore. Maybe if there was more story to it, but this looks just like manipulating cans and reading boring lines. Yes, I know it was inspired by Shenmue and Shenmue games can also be a little repetitive, but they are backed by very strong story, characters and places - none of that seems to be here.

They are really leaning into making GT7 'game as a service'. The new tracks and this mode looks like they were planned for next game in the series, but they maybe realized it is better to invest into GT7 and wait for PS6 with new installment!

@bossuche9 Ok, but Yen depreciated almost 50% to dollar during 2020-2025! Considering that, the new price is super low.

New mode for GT7 and confirmation of Tokyo Xtreme Racer on PS5 are great, but I would hope for some new game from japanese Sony or SEGA. Well, I eagerly await Game Awards now!

Yeah, they definitely took the inspiration from Nintendo, which does the same with Switch 2. I hope it works, because the battle against Switch and mobile in Japan is really tough.

@Vyse_the_Legend Well, it depends on the love the brand will get from players/customers!

@awp69 REVO World Stage is 22,3 GB download and includes everything, even all the DLCs (except 30th Anniversary pack), you just need to 'activate' or buy them.

@Jrs1 True, 30th anniversary pack should have been available separately at the same price point as older DLCs, let's hope for sale soon.

@KingPev I am button basher, but I still enjoy Virtua Fighter in single player or locally

@PuppetMaster I bought for the third time, 10 dollars equivalent really isn't that much. And it is not bad value, this price even includes new set of costumes (different from paid swimsuit set).

@awp69 Yes, the whole thing is noticeably sharper, be it characters, stages or menus. And textures are definitely more detailed with slightly richer colours. There is even motion blur effect, which was not present in PS4 verison. Online-wise, there is new rollback netcode, but I really can't judge that, because I play only offline. And also crossplay, that was not present on PS4, because the game was not available elsewhere

@cainhurst94 Right, but seeing these numbers, I can't help but think how new Crazy Taxi would fare - not as big name as Sonic, but the project seems even more ambitious and would require solid online player base to succeed. And I don't know if that's in SEGA's Power [Surge].

Is one million for first month really that good? Sonic is SEGA's biggest brand after all, and Mario Kart sells in 10s of millions..

At first, the project seemed interesting and different. Then I saw the gameplay and it started to fall apart - the concept looks quite shalow - I can picture minigame like this as a part of another game. And this review nails it.

@AinsleyE With Virtua Fighter 5, SEGA chose quite friendly PS5 upgrade price, so why not here?

Will I play it on PS5? For me, it very much depends on what else is unveiled at RGG Summit - if we'll get Stranger than Heaven or other new title (or Yakuza 3 PS5 remake?) next year, I'll give 0 a pass..

When the gameplay teaser for New Virtua Fighter was released during EVO, they said that there will be more information about the project at Tokyo Game Show, so that would align with this presentation. I surely hope there will be more that Virtua Fighter covered there, at least Yakuza 0 Director's Cut for current gen platforms (take that, Switch 2 ).

Madagascar stage sure looks nice but that Miary girl is a bit too cartoonish with those big eyes.. and other things. Since it's Madagascar, she is probably vanilla-queen this time?

I agree, it looks superb and those hit effects are very clever! Just a shame we are getting souped up VF5 Ultimate Showdown at the end of October and not at least demo of this!

It seems strange for Infinte Wealth to hit only 1.66m, beacuse they officially celebrated million copies sold in the first week. And then, there were many price drops and sales which obviously should beef up the sales.

I don't know, PS5 games, I played most of these games years ago on PS4 - it's time for sega to go seriously current gen!

Don't get me wrong, I am a huge fan of Yakuza games from the beggining, but this comment about creating “games from games” matches the series perfectly

It just seems that under Mr. Utsumi's lead, all the ambitious projects like Crazy Taxi, Jet Set Radio and Virtua Fighter are announced way earlier that it would make sense, with all these games apparently still many years away..

Kunitsu-gami is definitely my number one PS5 Capcom game!

I would also point out that some Codies employees were laid of just after WRC release in December 2023, so at that time, the future of EA WRC already became uncertain.

It r(e)ally looks bad for this genre, Codemasters also hired many people from Evolution Studios when Sony closed them, so it was such a powerhouse at this point.

I am just curious how will it turn out with F1 series now. It definitely seems that they are laying off developers rather than beefing the F1 team.

I can't comment on the concet itself, but I am quite disappointed by how Sony handles the cancelling/changing of dates. In my country, ticket sales are 'paused' for some two months, but with three weeks to concert date, there are still no official informations what is going on, no email, no press release.. They just leave everyone who bought tickets in the dark..

Good timing! I was just playing with Kid A Mnesia in the last couple of evenings and thought about what other music-based title to play..

The team deserves respect for reacting so swiftly! They put a lot of all-nighters I suppose. But as casual offline player I am not able to see much change with the exception of greater maximum health.

Concerning live service, maybe there is space for other genres than shooters? But I suppose online RPGs or racers are always more niche than big sandbox actions.

@RubyCarbuncle Part of me miss this as well, but on the other hand, games were so pricey back then, that I was mostly playing only demo versions. Now, there are lots of great games on PSN for the price of OPS2+DVD mag.

@MrHabushi Aha, I haven't seen this option yet. It would be great in Tekken for example, which occupies 10s of GB with story videos you needn't to see anymore.

@Oz_Who_Dat_Dare
I think there was also promise that it would be possible to choose which 'parts' of the game you want to keep on disc, like deleting single player campaign component after finishing it. That would be great for some games.