Actually 30-50 hours doesn’t seem very long to me. I think with the ballooning play times nowadays that’s fairly average for a AAA that’s has any kind of open map or exploration involved. Horror and very linear experiences are still in that 15-20 hour range sometimes, but those are becoming more rare

Yes, as noted by @themightyant @DzarkGaz @RobN the math represented is a tad misleading. 60% of the market didn’t even have physical as an option. 😂 It doesn’t reflect player preference when PC can buy the game either digitally, or… umm, digitally. Guess what? They chose to buy it digitally! 😆

And want to buy RE2 remake? There’s no new discs being printed so 100% of sales are digital after the launch period.

It’s all the illusion of choice. I’m not arguing the definitive and increasing slant toward digital, mind. But come on…. 93% of game sales being physical is like saying 93% of shoes sold are white when 60% of stores in town only stock white shoes, whilst the other 40% stock both white and black.

I’ll give the guy props for responding with more meaningful data in response to people poking holes in his first social media post. (I wish Sony would do this). It now paints a much clearer picture.

I still find it an odd comparison of 2008 to 2026 in the sense that the digital and online infrastructure was archaic in 2008 and so of course digital was an unpopular choice. My memory isn’t long enough to know when reliable internet became the norm, but the PS3 era was not very digital at all. Did the Wii even have online capabilities? I can’t remember.

It’s interesting to see 2014 versus 2015. I think we can learn something from that, as it shows the graph goes down, but then goes back up. You can probably attribute it to the quality of the games that came out in those two years.

@GameCollector84 Ah, yes — I wasn’t aware of the name of the specific fallacy but after looking it up, “The Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy” seems to fit. Thanks for that. 😄 I like learning these logic fallacies. It’s crazy how often people and even large corporations fall for them. This particular bit of data manipulation from Piscatella is probably more about snatching a headline and generating clicks or buzz though. In the case of Sony, one would hope they have a more sophisticated data analytics team, and have not been forthcoming with granular data because they have other motives for killing physical media. It seems pretty clear from the online dumpster fire that whatever small numbers they have attributed to physical sales is not telling the whole story. Do we really think that it’s that tiny of a group of people who liked having physical disc options? The internet outrage would suggest otherwise.

I think another part of the misinterpretation of the sales data is this assumption that a specific consumer buys only physical or only digital, where I think the majority of people do both. So if game A only sells 100k copies physical out of a million, some of those 900K people who bought game A digitally also bought game B on disc. Now you’ve not only ruffled the feathers of the original 100K people, but some of those 900K people who are your digital customers also. I don’t know if we have data on what’s the total number of players who have bought at least one game disc on PS5, but I reckon it’s pretty high. A very large percentage of the player base if affected by this move, and simply saying that only 1000 copies of game X sold physically in one market over one week is just not really telling the whole impact.

I concede that physical media sales are low, but this data is not really all that meaningful. “Only 7 games sold over 100K in the U.S. over the last 6 months.” That’s fairly manipulative wording with veiled data. He’s picking a lower number and lumping the top 7 selling games into a category quantified by the 7th best selling game.

I’m not sure if he’s doing it on purpose to hide the real numbers or whether he’s just that unaware of how numbers work. I mean, it really depends how far “over 100K” these titles sold. Presumably #7 on the list sold right at 100K. That’s a given. #6 sold more than that. #5 sold even more than that. #4 sold even more, and so on…
With what he said for all we know the #1 selling game sold 1 million copies physically in the U.S., over merely 6 months. I don’t think it’s that high, but it could be 500k for all we know? What if he would have said:
“Over 1 million new PS5 games were sold on disc in the U.S. in just 6 months” That sounds like a lot more of a piece of the pie. This is data on just one market (albeit the largest) and for only half a year. And it sounds like it’s easily over a million copies of games, if not much more.

Nice. This is awesome. I’ve felt for a while that this is likely to be a rare occurrence nowadays with the long development cycles and high risk. Glad to see that they have confidence and a roadmap to do this, a PS3 era mechanic.

I’m sad mainly because it’s never good when someone is struggling with their health to the degree they have to step down from a project, so for that reason alone it’s unfortunate.

For selfish reasons I’m also disappointed because this is one of my most anticipated games and surely this means significant delays. I thought the game was much closer to release than this.

Yikes! Not sure this is a tactic that makes sense, as I’m concerned about ill effects on the developer.

There was a similar example in sports not too long ago where the team’s general manager made a trade decision that the fanbase didn’t like and the fans booed and chanted incessantly during games such that it affected the team’s performance and was a huge distraction so the owner finally fired the GM so that the team could just move on. It worked there, so maybe this can work too since now indie and partner studios are getting caught in the crossfire. And even innocent bystanders like Push Square!

@RobN Yes, the question is: What is the appropriate tipping point for “cutting off the tail”? Every new technology replaces an old one, but we don’t jump into the future right away until the populace is ready, the infrastructure is built, the legislation is prepared, and the economy can handle it. There’s a parallel discussion we keep having around these parts about AI assisted game development. It’s a similar issue. Just because something is the future doesn’t mean we need to do it yet.

I don’t believe that Sony are losing money on discs now. I don’t think there’s a rush or urgency to stop discs from that standpoint. I realize they are trying to get in front of it to avoid future losses, but based on Sony’s track record for have no clue about predicting gaming trends, despite them having all the data they clearly have shown they are horrible at strategizing certain trends. Billions of dollars poorly spent on things that were really, really bad ideas. So I don’t have faith in their bean counters’ data analysis.

Nice. I’ve been considering Rise of the Ronin and Avatar.

@Fiendish-Beaver As an advocate for the continuation of physical media, I actually think your idea of charging extra for physical is a reasonable compromise. Like @ShadowRJ says, I’m not sure the cost and profitability effects are quite what people claim, but the concept of paying more for a disc is something I could swallow. It would solve some of the issues of manufacturing costs, and it would also accelerate the natural move toward the digital future, but would be less of a force feed approach. I think we’d see the second hand market start to dry up and people would simply just migrate over time. The enthusiasts would still pay for their discs though, and so most people would be satisfied. There’s many people who still buy Deluxe editions, collector’s editions, and extra fees for early access, so clearly the extra tax on physical is just one step further and people will pay it.

As you mention, an even better compromise would be a slight bump in price for a disc and a concurrent slight discount for digital. That would go over quite well, I think. So for example maybe I can buy Intergalactic for $85 on disc, but I can get it for $60 digitally. And maybe the digital copy has 3 days early access or something. There’s a lot of ways this could have been rolled out and avoided this dumpster fire.

@Oram77 Yup. It’s all about timing, buddy.

I think the camp that is not bothered by this move is of the mindset that “the digital future is inevitable and that we should just embrace the future… why stay stuck in the past… leave the Stone Age and join the Bronze,” etc., assuming that because something is the future that one should abandon the present. It doesn’t always work that way. We see it right now with the automobile industry, and the way things are headed, sure electric cars are the future. Many wish to give up fuel powered cars, but these things have to go in stages and there’s a timeline that fits for technology. At times when people try to force change too quickly, it can cause good ideas to fail. There’s a sociology to it all that goes beyond numbers and spreadsheets. (Artificial intelligence would be another example of this social phenomenon too, imo) In a vacuum one decision might make sense (like electric cars should replace gasoline powered cars) but we don’t live in a vacuum.

Obviously this little issue is a microcosm, not on the order of automobiles (or stone tools, as I’ve seen mentioned). It’s more on the order of Betamax, Google glass, or other small things that were before their time but failed. The adoption of digital media is certainly a smaller scale. But just because it makes sense for the world to do something a certain way doesn’t mean that the actual people it affects will tolerate it or like it. And in the most extreme examples, the push back for forcing a population too quickly will actually backfire and hamper progress rather than press it forward. I think that’s what happened in 2013 with Xbox being too ahead of the times and it ruined them. It also happened to electric cars as well, back in the 90’s. We could have had electric cars way sooner but the rollout failed (for various reasons) and set us back 30 years.

And to be clear — I don’t think this decision by Sony will kill the company or gaming in general, but I do think the timing and rollout has been absolutely abysmal. The evidence of that is right in front of us with the outrage. In an alternate timeline, this could have been handled deftly and the gamers could have even embraced the concept of throwing their discs away over time. Instead we have this.

@Oram77 In one of the articles Sammy mentioned (and I’m totally paraphrasing here and throwing in my own thoughts) that since there’s been a natural trend toward digital over the last several years and the market is moving that way on its own and so the argument could be made that the move toward digital would occur over time anyway at the current trajectory, so why accelerate and cause all this kerfuffle? “Sony doesn’t need to force what’s naturally occurring” was the quote I think.

It was going to happening on its own. Now they’ve just made themselves the bad guy and irreparably damaged longstanding loyalty. If the analysts are all correct, digital would continue to grow and squeeze out physical anyway.

As far as when is the time to pull the plug on manufacturing then? Well, based on the firestorm created I do agree it was too soon. And we wouldn’t need to guess and predict a day for it happen because the market would determine that day over time.

@Wormwood23 Although @Bizzy gave some well informed responses, I couldn’t help but notice this:
“Sony has done their due diligence… They knew all of this was coming long ago and have full predictive models guiding their decisions... It's all… in the strategic plan.”

😂 Hopefully not the same executive strategic decision makers who bought Bungie for $3.6 billion, bought Firewalk studio and then closed it a year later and spent millions on Concord, bought and closed Neon Koi two years later without releasing a game, bought and then closed Bluepoint before it could release a game as a first party, has had 9 of 12 major live service projects either fail spectacularly or be shut down and never released, billions and billions of dollars flushed into nothingness….

Forgive me if I have lost faith in Sony’s ability to “do their maths” and have “good predictive models.”

In my opinion this is better than nothing. Obviously my preference would be to keep the option of having a tangible transferable and playable disc, but if that’s not going to happen, a compromise whereby you can still use your discs to transfer to a digital license is better than nothing. It would lessen the blow of getting a digital only PS6 later on if you can have all your PS4 and PS5 library come with you into that console.

The issue is that according to a few users up there, Sony didn’t have the foresight to implement a unique identifier onto each disc like MS did, so for them to do the same is probably going to be tricky, if not impossible. As a further compromise we might get a special discount where you can get a digital copy of your game you have on disc for a small fee, similar to how they were charging for the cross-gen games $10 to upgrade from the PS4 to the PS5 version. Doing this would suck but at least you don’t completely lose the ability to play that game. And for Sony, sure people could take advantage of the system and lend out their copy of Wolverine to 10 people who would use it to buy it digitally for $10 and so they lose out on some sales, but it’s a better PR move than shutting players out.

@Random_play05 Yeah, I figured Xbox might welcome the opportunity to take the heat off of their catastrophic layoffs and cancellations. I keep thinking about how deftly Sony responded to the Xbox One DRM debacle in 2013 with that Shuhei video handing the disc over and it single-handedly turned a tide of an outraged public opinion toward PlayStation. This would be a similar opportunity for Xbox to clown on Sony and win player support

There’s a lot of people who seem to have a lot of conviction and I have no doubt there will be PlayStation fans who abandon the platform in favor of something else like PC.

There’s also a lot of people commenting who seem to have a crystal ball and know better than the polls and comments and are prognosticating that no one will leave.

The reality will probably be something in between. I have no doubt that gamers who are already on the fence and have been considering PC will have been nudged by recent events to abandon PS.

We shall see. Market forces will dictate things going forward. I mentioned elsewhere that Nintendo and Xbox have a real opportunity here. Sony are handing them a break on a silver platter. If I’m not mistaken the new Xbox is supposed to have Steam and other storefronts built in, or maybe I’m misremembering. I haven’t followed it that closely. But they ought to market that like crazy, and the physical to digital ownership model and the refund policies and other customer friendly aspects they have going on with their digital storefronts. Perhaps they will, but the fact Xbox doesn’t seem to have tried to capitalize and kick Sony while it’s down means that maybe they know Sony has some similar digital store modifications that it’s about to counter with to put some salve on this wound.

And I suspect Sony is probably putting together some adjustment to try and compromise with the players, like offering better refund policies or maybe the physical to digital ownership model. I sure hope so. Otherwise, I don’t know that I’ll jump into PS6 right away. Not because of a boycott or anything like that, necessarily, but because it just doesn’t feel like the same ecosystem to me with the way things are going and honestly I have an enormous backlog of PS5 and still some PS4 games that can keep me busy for at least 5 years. By then, hopefully the dust will have settled on all this madness.

There’s a decent chance that the other market forces will do more than the petitions and boycotts. I expect (and hope for, honestly) pressure and competition from the PC storefronts, Xbox, and Nintendo, all of which already have things in place that are more attractive than Sony’s PS store and its lack of competition, lack refunds, poor security, glitchy network, and spotty customer service. If I were Xbox, I’d be smelling blood in the water and come up with a promotional video akin to the 2013 Shuhei Yoshida ad and show some kind of quick jab about the Xbox store that could go viral in a similar way. I don’t think Xbox will bring back discs but I think they have something already about an owned disc converting into an owned digital copy, or something like that. If Xbox were smart, they’d take advantage. Especially since it could take the eyes off if their poor PR currently due to layoffs

I’m thinking amount it. If my 2024 self saw me say this, then he’d blow his lid, but I’ve started to think seriously about it after the last few PlayStation debacles. Closing BluePoint and killing physical games are the things that have stung the most.

Considering PC feels dirty, but I’m now open more and more. And this from me, the PlayStation apologist extraordinaire.

Honestly, what might happen is I just stick with my PS5 Pro for several more years. I have an enormous backlog, and I will have the freedom and choice to peck away at that backlog (which will include many more games over the next year and a half) with both discs and digital libraries. There’s so many good games on my list right now, it should carry me for 4-5 more years easily. By then I can circle back and play the classics again. My PS5 can likely take me to the grave.

@GoodOlDubs Well said. I think your comment sums up a lot of my thoughts.

@CheesyOatcake Ah yes, I love a large nicely well-organized bookstore! The feel and smell of a new book is all part of the satisfaction.

Sadly, B&N stores are not as common as they were before Amazon and e-books, but the ones that survived are the really large ones and there’s definitely a market for them still. I have discovered many books simply through browsing B&N and picking them up and scanning over them. Some I never would have found through a digital only storefront. I know gaming is not the exact same, but there’s definitely similarities.

As for the Portal, yes I’m a big fan of it also, even though I don’t travel often. It’s still a nice option for lounging in the bed and I actually prefer cloud streaming to remote play streaming. And that’s an example of a reason I’ve bought a couple games lately digitally instead of (or in addition to) buying them on disc — I want to have the ability to cloud stream them. Big AAA highlight games that I know I don’t want to cloud stream I will often purchase physically though, if the price is better.

@CheesyOatcake Thanks, mate. I’m with you — I do buy a lot of digital games when it makes sense, but I also like to buy physical when it makes sense. I’ve gradually shifted more and more towards digital, but over the last week I’ve actually used 4 different physical discs during my play sessions.

I’m ready to admit that buying digital has certain benefits but I’d like to make the decision based on the better value proposition for me personally. Whether it be price, convenience, or the ability to stream to my Portal, there’s definite reasons to buy digital sometimes, and I would rather Sony explore on expansion of those perks rather than simply forcing us to give up our discs and our trips to the local shop to browse the shelves. To me, that’s good smart business — offer your customers a reason to buy from you, rather than forcing their hand.

In the subject of retail stores, I do enjoy going into a store and looking at what’s there, picking up the cases and looking at the box art, reading the back of the box, and having the tangible experience. Sometimes I’ll visit with the person working the store, talk a little bit about games and swap recommendations. There’s still a place for it. Brick and mortar retail isn’t completely dead. I do the same for books and going to the bookstore (Barnes & Noble or also local used bookstores). It’s a fun part of the experience to see, browse, and hold the items rather than buying everything digitally from the couch.

“My personal opinion is that Sony doesn’t need to force what’s naturally occurring.”

I really like this statement, and I think the outcry has proven that Sony is going about this a little too soon. Eventually physical media would die out naturally, I suspect, but ripping the band-aid off in this manner has only spoiled goodwill amongst the fans and also retail partners. I would have preferred the approach of Sony making digital purchasing more and more attractive and nudging people that direction rather than unilaterally removing the physical option. They could start following some of the consumer friendly practices that Steam and Xbox are doing in their digital storefronts, for example

Will it affect Sony’s bottom line? Probably not. Will it affect my personal pocketbook and my personal enjoyment of the hobby? Absolutely. I’m not here to play games to please Sony or prepare for some future that would come anyway. I’m here to like the things I like and participate in gaming the way I prefer. Sony is taking some of that away from me and so I feel like it’s not unreasonable to be disappointed.

As for the specific topic of this article, I do wonder how this decision will affect PlayStation’s brand recognition and presence in the market going forward. Obviously they think it will not adversely affect their market share. But forgive me for not having faith in the decisions made by Sony’s corporate executives lately. I used to believe that they knew what they were doing, that is, until they closed down beloved studios recently and spent billions on dead end projects that most of us could have told them would fail.

I feel like there has been a few games over recent years where a game started out as a digital only release and then later released physically to boost its sales numbers. Alan Wake 2 was one I think, and I feel like there’s other notable examples even outside the indie scene. So even beyond the misleading 85% number (which doesn’t factor in digital only releases and therefore skews the numbers) there’s certainly sales boosts for the developers of these games when they release on both formats.

I love having the choice. I buy digital probably around 60-70% of the time now, but I like the ability to use my disc drive when it makes sense, such as finding it cheaper, wanting the tangible copy for collecting or display purposes, being able to lend or resell it, etc.

@Cutmastavictory Lol, what… games aren’t the same as milk!? 😜

There indeed are many reasons I don’t game on PC, and many reasons someone else might… and digital only is just one of many.

But my point is, when people say, “I don’t know why people are upset because PC already does this” it implies we care about the ecosystem’s health, which is not what we care about — we care about our customer experience. I don’t care if Sony will survive this decision… I’m still allowed to like what I like. It’s just such a weird PC master race thing to say that we should like it because they have been doing it for years. It’s completely illogical.
Just like my analogy.

Edit: think of this this way — change something you like about PC and make it the way PlayStation does it and then see how you like it. So if PC suddenly makes you pay for online, and all the PS players say to you “I don’t know what the big deal is… we’ve been paying for online for ages and we’re still enjoying our games just fine.”
You still would hate the fact that the system was changing something about the ecosystem to make it more like the ecosystem that you don’t use.

It’s such strange logic when people say “I don’t know what the big deal is — PC has been doing this for ages.” I mean, that’s part of the reason we use a PlayStation and not a PC! 😂

It’s like getting mad when you go to your favorite supermarket for the nice organic milk and they have stopped offering it and it’s now the regular stock milk product you don’t like, and when you’re mad about it your buddy says “What’s the big deal, Walmart’s been selling that lousy milk for ages.”
I don’t want the Walmart milk otherwise I’d have been shopping there the whole time! I want my organic milk!
(Okay, I don’t drink organic milk actually but it’s the analogy that came to mind first… 😅)

Ouch! PlayStation! Et tu Brute? I feel like I’ve been stabbed in the back.

I can’t believe I’m saying this as a PlayStation faithful since PS1, but if Xbox keep physical media I’m going to have to consider it. Those words taste bitter in my mouth, but I really do hate this. Not that I don’t buy loads of digital games too, but I want the option to do both.

@rjejr No sweat, just a thought. If your internet is good and you don’t mind leaving your machine on for a while then it’s no biggie. If Wolverine’s install size of 120 GB and your PS5 is saying estimated time remaining to completion is 19 hours, then consider trying it. 😄

@twitchtvpat Yeah, that’s true, although personally I wasn’t one of those who paid over retail, and I just had the patience and luck of getting my first PS5 legitimately. Still, I know a lot of people did pay $700-1000 for a scalped PS5. I do think there was a completely different economic environment then compared to now, and the raw numbers of those who paid over retail is probably a lot lower than we think. A more accurate prediction might be the decline in PS5 sales seen in recent months after the price hikes.

Still, a new PS6 with bells and whistles will tempt the high rollers to spend, just as they shelled out for scalped PS5’s. I think it all depends on the actual console and what it offers above and beyond the PS5 (Pro in my case). If there’s not a large boost in performance or some great exclusives that aren’t available on PS5, then it will be a slow burn for most people. Which is fine for Sony as long as software keeps selling on PS5. But the pricing will blunt the ‘splash’ that the PS6 could have generated otherwise

Definitely not for me, but I had no interest to begin with and surely not now. Although to play devil’s advocate, I think the games can be cheaper on Steam and if you’re already playing some in PC and have a Steam library then you can recoup some of this high cost by spending less on games.

I’ve been of the opinion that a delay is perfectly fine with me. 2028 at the earliest. I think the article nails it when he says that a PS6 (and its games) could be the most awesome things ever but if there’s no one able to experience it, does it even matter? Recent history has taught us that cheaper less capable hardware with much lower end tech and fewer games (Nintendo Switch) can outsell a superior technological product.

I’m sure the PS6 is/will be awesome, but it could die a slow death if the price of entry is prohibitive.

I’m also not a fan of the new release schedule, even though I very rarely am playing a PS+ game on day 1 of its inclusion to the service. It just feels disjointed.

The only positive is that we at least know the whole month’s games all at once and can plan ahead; I worry that the next step would be they announce the two weekly games in real time the day they release and we have to wait each week to find out what’s coming. That would be even worse. So given the option I’d take a monthly announcement over that.

@rjejr Its a bit of a tangent, but allow me share some newfound knowledge — I don’t know why I’m just now learning this, but I discovered recently that installing a game on your PS5 from a disc will still download the game file from the internet in some cases (I guess when there’s a patch also…? Not sure but it seems like often this happens) which slows the install way down. So before installing from disc, temporarily disable your PS5’s internet connection and it usually will speed up the install time drastically once it’s forced to do it fully from the disc only.

Phranque is growing on me. I also feel better about it since it’s been part of the concept and lore from the beginning. I really do feel like all these characters will have interesting and meaningful mythical counterparts and clever stories woven from legend.

I really think the promotional video was great, but I know there’s a lot more we still don’t know. It’s amazing that so many people have written the game off based on such a small sampling. The blend of old classic GoW combat with the new combat is great idea and one that I hope sticks the landing.

I’ve proposed this before but I’ll repeat it in hopes someone from Sony is watching —
It seems clear that a more customizable type of subscription model would attract a lot of users. Many want just online. Some of us are happy to give up the online but want the game catalog, cloud streaming, and cloud saves. They could keep the same 3 tiers but let us mix and match and leave off the services we don’t want. I’d be thrilled if I could pay $50 less per year and give up the online play access but keep all the other parts of my premium subscription.

I really don’t like first person shooters, but I liked Immortals of Aveum. I agree with a lot of the comments so far — characters and story are ‘meh’ but the gameplay and concepts are good enough to carry the game as one that is worth a spin.

Special shoutout to the graphics and performance. If you have a HDMI 2.1 TV then you can get frame rates up close to 120 fps with the game using frame generation, even with just a base PS5. I was playing just on my old PS5 at the time and with VRR enabled the frame rates were usually 70-90 but did regularly go over 100, iirc. I wonder if the Pro helps to pump out the a consistent 120, I’m not sure. It’s worth checking out if you’re into that kind of thing. Personally I don’t usually care much about the technical details of game performance, but I know a lot of enthusiasts are into that, so may want to check this one out.

Sounds great. I really loved Control, and I’m playing Alan Wake Remastered right now (loving it much less 😅) and looking forward to trying AW2.
Remedy need to be studied by the industry. A team of 300 people can consistently churn out good games and seemingly stay financially viable. I think it will only be 3 years between AW2 and Control Resonant (with FBC Firebreak in between!), which is insane in today’s industry where a good AA or AAA game seems to take a minimum of 5 years, even when it’s a sequel.

@GirlVersusGame Yes, all fixed on my end. 👍🏼

@nomither6 Yeah, I felt very strong Spider-Man vibes from the footage too. Even the way Wolverine leaps and moves around so quickly during combat. It seems kind of cut-and-paste with the way Spidey and Miles moved. For them it made sense because they are smaller, agile, nimble, quick. But not sure it’s quite like Wolverine moves. Granted the psychotic level of slicing up human bodies is something their Spider-Man games didn’t have 😂, but otherwise it has a strong SM foundation to it with the addition of the blood & guts. And I guess that’s fine… but it wasn’t what I was expecting or necessarily wanting from this game. I’m still trying to keep an open mind though.

It won’t likely affect me, since I’ve always got a backlog game going and I don’t usually jump into a PS+ game on day 1. It still seems needless, from a consumer standpoint.

Still, I much prefer this to the alternative where they do a weekly PS+ announcement with the release. That would be way worse. At least this way, I know there’s a game coming to the service in 3 weeks and can plan accordingly. If I didn’t know then I might accidentally have bought that game sometime in the next 3 weeks. 😅

This is a great month, although I already own KCD and have yet to play it, and I already played FF16. But I’m pleased to have LiS Double Exposure, since I’ve been meaning to get to that.

@itsfoz Lol, my initial impression with seeing the article subtitle was a little more realistic, but still disappointed that it wasn’t what I thought it would be — Baby Steps

@The_Elder Lol, that’s exactly what came to my mind too.

Final Fantasy 7: Regurgitate

I don’t watch these things live on account of real life going on most of the time. I miss not being able to participate in the realtime reactionary chat, but it means that I don’t have a problem with the pacing. 😄
I watch only the trailers that interest me and do so at my own pace.

Laufey for sure. Wolverine was okay but it didn’t live up to my own internal hype. TR Legend of Atlantis was my second favorite. I was pleasantly surprised by Until Dawn 2, as it wasn’t a game that I was all that enthusiastic about (despite liking the first game) but the trailer was actually pretty good, imo.

@AdamNovice I agree that, in my humble opinion, Kratos was not a good character in the original series. He always struck me as one-note, raged without nuance, and generally not relatable. The 2018 game really made me care about the character and his story. Of course this is all just my personal opinion, and many people tell me that the tragic, enraged Kratos who was running around mad at everyone (and having sex regularly on the side 😅) is a very deep and disturbed character with a profound arc. If so, I missed it while I was playing those games.

There’s a whole psychology to unpack here, because I know some of the Jaffe comments may be related to engagement baiting and said for shock value, but I also acknowledge that a person who is the creator of a given IP will likely have strong feelings to see it taken in a direction that they don’t agree with. So he’s definitely entitled to his opinion.

Regardless, I really liked the look of the game. And, although we have very little to go on at present, to me it looks like it totally fits within the GoW universe and is actually a really clever idea of where to take it to make things fresh and yet familiar.

I think the game will do just fine and not be a “Forspoken-like” critically or commercially. Will it “not do well for what they expect it to do”? Hard to say. Is Sony expecting 20 million sales? Probably not. The game should be a success and will sell millions though.

I mentioned this elsewhere, but for me the over-the-top nature of the blood and gore wasn’t necessarily my issue with the design as much as it was the way each combat encounter was comprised of Wolverine continuing to pummel, impale, and slice up an enemy who was clearly already a corpse. 😅 Everyone had to be stabbed 50 times and then decapitated to make extra sure they were dead. I guess Logan has anger control issues, so perhaps it’s a narrative fit. It also created a tonal double-take because there was so much Spider-Man DNA to the animations and the graphical assets, but completely different from Peter and Miles with their happy-go-lucky attitude, and how they don’t really kill anyone and just disable them, or knock them out. So to see the same character animations followed by disemboweling and butchering dozens of people in a row was quite a shift in tone! 😂

I agree with Sammy that this is a fascinating idea and a really interesting side storyline idea with great potential narratively. There’s so many directions they can take it, so here’s hoping they nail the concept. But then I thought the MCU multiverse was a cool construct too, and that quickly fell into disarray. There’s something very fanciful and appealing about mixing characters and arcs from different universes together and then watching the narrative chaos that can be drummed up. Nevertheless, Despite my excitement for the game and optimism for the setting and ideas, I do agree with @IntrepidWombat about some of the tonal whiplash that felt out of place, especially Frank the gelatinous cube. I haven’t done a google search to uncover his (its?) mythical origin and hopefully there is some cool tie-in about Frank being some mystical Aztec character from ancient folklore or something, but the style and feel of the character felt out of place, at least in the small slice of the game we got to see. I was less bothered by the Pokemon-esque little pet-like creature that looked like an homage to Nix in Star Wars: Outlaws. As Nix was one of my favorite things about that game, I’ll withhold criticism for the little guy for now. 😅

Overall though, for me this was the best thing to come out of the SoP, closely followed by Tomb Raider and Control Resonant. I actually was slightly disappointed by Wolverine.