The_Wailing_Doom

@fatpunkslim2
If you say so. He gave me Twisted Metal and God of War, two franchises I adore. That's legendary to me.

Much respect to Jaffe because he's a game industry legend, who gave me two of my favorite franchises, but he gets far more wrong these days than he gets right. He likes being controversial and that clearly fuels his opinions.

I will always respect David Jaffe for giving me both Twisted Metal and God of War, two amazing franchises I love. However, I hear him often when he does the Jaffe x Moriarty episodes on the Sacred Symbols podcast and find myself rarely agreeing with him. He says truly outlandish and short-sighted things, so this could just be another one of those.

Game Pass strikes again.

@Naughtyottsel92

Only dumb, short-sighted people.

I think we have become jaded to things selling in the millions, but 92M is a metric sh*t ton of units. Most people can't imagine that many.

This just in: survey reveals businesses want to make money.

On one hand, I think this is very cool and definitely want one. On the other hand, I just bought a Portal late last year. On the third hand, I could sell my current Portal and get the new model, but I'd be losing some money in the transaction. On the fourth hand, I'd like to see what other improvements may accompany the new screen.

How many hands is that? Am I Goro?

Ace Combat 7 is, well, ace! For those that haven't played it yet, enjoy!

Fun fact: Warhawk, Twisted Metal, and Ace Combat were the three games I bought with my PS1 and all three were excellent.

The PS5 has some life left, so all the economic turmoil and RAM shortages causing a PS6 delay isn't a surprise. I just hope we don't get a weaker/worse PS6 when we do get one because of all of it.

@orvisbean101 @oram77

This is because ABK made about ~$2B in profit annually when Microsoft bought them. In the long term, that meant ABK would pay for itself over the next 30-35 years if profit remained flat. Microsoft had plenty of cash on hand that wouldn't create as big of a return as $2B a year, so they wagered spending the money to boost revenue by ~$8B and profit by ~$2B would be a better investment than holding onto the money.

Additionally, like every company, they believe in infinite growth, so likely expect to break even much sooner by growing profits. There is also the market power Microsoft claimed they needed to survive in the gaming business. Since the entire gaming business made $61B in 2025, that means ABK's average revenue (years 2022 - 2024) was 13% of the total. That's a lot.

Buying up everything seems to have worked for Microsoft. They have five games in the top 20 best selling list while Sony has two. (I'm including "multiple game publishers.")

@nessisonett wins the thread with his logic and rationale.

I have been a Sony shareholder for about a decade now and during that time, they've made many decisions I didn't agree with, some of which turned out OK and some did not. Regarding this announcement, it seems to me as a net positive because TVs are low margin. That gives Sony two options: raise the prices or sell even fewer TVs. Considering raising the price, especially with the cosmic sh*t storm going on in the USA, will also result in fewer TV sales, it's a lose-lose proposition. This joint venture will allow Sony to cut the costs of manufacturing their TVs to make the margins healthier and very well should make the Bravia brand just as good, but cheaper to make and buy. That's in theory, anyway. I hope it works out...

@yazzika
There was a batch of avatars released previously including Atsu and members of the Yotei Six.

I just picked up Armored Core VI as a direct result of this article. I love mech games, though I tend to gravitate to the Battletech ones (i.e. MechWarrior 5: Clans), and I loved the Earthsiege and Starsiege games as a kid, but the occasional Japanese-flavored mech game scratches another itch entirely. I'm looking forward to it.

Snoopy is big in amusement parks. That'll be interesting...

@Zaczumba
They showed off my game off my new most anticipated game: Total War Warhammer 40K!

Well-deserved success. I'd like to see the Portal numbers, too. Those were discounted and I finally pulled the trigger on one.

Industry consolidation is not good for consumers. Period. Maybe there will be some short term benefits ("Yay I can watch Welcome to Derry on Netflix!"), but that's all it'll be, ESPECIALLY if it's done by the dominant entity in a market to further cement their dominance. The long-term damage of one entity having too much market power or becoming too big to fail and subsequently also too big to care, is much greater than the seemingly immediate benefits.

@JoeNobody
That's a Push Square thing that has been driving me crazy for years.

The answer to the headline: NO!

Spider-Man 2, Ghost of Yotei, God of War: Ragnarok, Horizon: Forbidden West, and so many other sequels are epic.

Case in point, I just finished Ghost of Yotei and it is FANTASTIC. I loved every minute of it. I'll be working on the platinum trophy later tonight. It'll be epic.

Stellar Blade, Goat Simulator Remastered*, and Demon Slayer for me on PlayStation and MechWarrior 5: Clans on PC. Feels good.

*The timing of this sale was perfect. My daughter loves playing Goat Simulator 3 with me and we just finished it.

Stellar Blade it is! I've been waiting for the standard edition to go on sale and it's at its historical low now!

The timing of the worst Call of Duty coming out right after the best Battlefield is very favorable for EA. I've always liked Battlefield better and it's nice others will get to break free of Call of Duty and find out why.

@DonJorginho
Daaaang. I have been playing Helldivers 2 longer than I thought. I thought it came out February of this year. (I'm American, so 2025 has felt like two years.)

Thanks for the correction.

Helldivers 2 not GOTY is a travesty.

Edit: The game came in 2024, not 2025. Doh! Thanks for the correction below.

@Darude84
Indeed. It is a much bigger threat. You did have technological developments in the past that would displace jobs, but, until AI, there hasn't been a technological development that could displace almost all the jobs that don't require physicality (though that will happen eventually, too).
Technological displacement is not a new thing, but at this wide scale, it is.

As usual, Congressman Khanna is right. There does need to be something standing in the way of mass job displacement or eventually every job that can be replaced with AI will be instead of AI being a useful tool to increase productivity of those jobs.

The price point certainly helped. On Steam, the game launched for $30, but for a couple of weeks before launch, the game was 10% off, too.

@DadJKP
Thank you for the clarification.

People were boycotting the game (or claiming to) because the protagonist was a woman? How embarrassing!

I'm holding out for the standard edition of Stellar Blade to go on sale. Right now, the complete edition is 20% off, but I don't want all those cosmetics.

@RoomWithaMoose
Someone rational. How refreshing. I keep saying something similar. People act like they should get three AAA games tailored exactly to their tastes every month for ~$7.

I occasionally listen to Moore's Law is Dead and I have noticed a pattern of playing the odds with his claims. Saying the Xbox is more powerful than the PlayStation is a 50% chance to be right. Depending on how you spin it, you could even claim that when it's not entirely true like when the console is more powerful in a some ways, but not in others. Take everything he and everyone else says with a grain of salt.

Buying Bungie was a big mistake. Sony could have bought over a dozen studios the caliber of Insomniac (or at least for the same price) and had plenty of money left over.

Not a single person with a brain is shocked the ABK acquisition resulted in game cancellations, studio closures, mass layoffs, and lost revenue, and giant price hike. All those things were as 100% predictable as they were avoidable, but the Microsoft judge didn't want to do the right thing.

Not a single person with a brain is shocked the ABK acquisition resulted in game cancellations, studio closures, mass layoffs, and lost revenue, and giant price hike. All those things were as 100% predictable as they were avoidable, but the Microsoft judge didn't want to do the right thing.

@johncalmc
You nailed it.

@PCMasterRace
It's a certainty they will increase the price now. As long as the service is still cheaper than Game Pass, they can get away with it.

The self-inflected wounds of stupid tyranny continue.

Is Austin Evans still a raging Xbox fanboy?

In any case, it's hard to blame Sony for cutting costs AND a price increase given the checks notes self-inflicted "economic uncertainty." Microsoft didn't take such cost cutting measures and had to implement a much larger price increase.

I was planning on getting Battlefield 6 in the future, but likely not now. The only EA games I buy are the Hazelight games. This whole thing is a shame.

My tax dollars are already going into the Trump family's pockets. I am not going to willingly give Kushner any more on top of that.

I welcome this. If anything, it will cut down on e-waste!

@DNortonX You must be thinking of something else.

Xbox had controllers that ran on AA batteries. They charged as much for their controllers as Sony charged for theirs which had more features AND came with a rechargeable battery. Xbox sold their rechargeable kits for $20 separately.

For the items sold through this "rewards" program to actually be rewards, they need to be less expensive. Sell it for cost or slightly above cost. The exclusivity of the merchandise is not the big selling point they think it is.

In short, it's not an awful idea but it's executed terribly.

Supply chain disruptions, shifting production to more expensive areas to avoid tariffs, and the inability for manufacturers and suppliers to plan ahead effectively are all ways that tariffs increase costs for us besides the direct cost of the tariffs themselves. This is why tariffs are generally a lose-lose, especially when implemented so widely and without any sensible strategy. There is, of course, much bigger concerns, but I worry the PS6 is going to be delayed, gimped, or more expensive than it should be because of all the damage tariffs are causing.

"If you buy a game at launch, you are paying the most amount of money for the worst version of a game." -TotalBiscuit

@Artois2
Indeed, but monetary fines are generally a deterrent.

"[Sony] now wants $150,000 in damages and access to all the game's materials so they can be destroyed."

This just seems so low. Tencent is one of the richest companies in the world. I'll be surprised if they don't have that much money under their couch cushions.

@Rich33
I think I'll still give this game a try on an easier difficulty. The game looks appealing visually and conceptually. I just don't know if I want the stress.