The_Wailing_Doom

$10 to not have to play a game on an Xbox seems fair...

"Obviously Sony is being squeezed by economic factors out of its control, but these largely impact the cost of manufacturing hardware, and so it’s easier to justify price increases to the consoles themselves. Online services make less sense."

I just want to note that another reason Trump's stupid tariffs made zero sense is they increase the costs of EVERYTHING, including seemingly unrelated things. The servers cost more money, the electricity to run them costs more money, the maintenance costs more money, the transportation of the parts costs more money, etc.

Add in RAMageddon and the Epstein war and you have a recipe for everything to get more expensive to make, more expensive to run, and more expensive to maintain. It's a cascading effect.

The price increases are not justified because we all know the price won't go back down when the costs presumably do, but CAPATALISM says Sony must always make more money than the previous year and this drives prices up since they can't just eat the increased costs and still make more money.

Due to "ongoing market conditions." Orange and felonious market conditions.

@Propaperpusher
I'm not your therapist or anything, but if you don't like Returnal, you won't like Saros. The gameplay is very similar. Saros is far more accessible, however, because there are modifiers in the game and there is a setting to let you equip positive modifiers without having to balance them with negative ones.

The stories of both games are interesting, but abstract. They both make you wonder when the credits roll.

I get it. My gaming is more limited now, so I stopped playing Soulslike games. I don't need the stress.

The sun is forever.

@twitchtvpat Saros is far more forgiving and, for me, more enjoyable as a result. I hope the same is true for you if you try it.

I have been playing Helldivers a few times a week (or more) since launch. The game has never been better than it is now. Along the way, there have been some questionable decisions by the developers, but the whining of the community embarrasses me. There is not a single thing they won't complain about.

PS5 is still selling commendably well despite the massive economic challenges Sony must navigate along with the rest of us trapped in the dumbest timeline.

@pushl7,
You got a few responses and not one let you know that in Saros, you don't start over at the beginning of the game. Unlike Returnal, there is a fast travel system. So, when you die, you return to the hub area to increase your stats, then you can teleport right back to the beginning of the biome (level) you were in. All the shortcuts that were opened up remain and the run should be easier since you know what to expect and your character should be stronger (since you can increase stats in the hub).

I enjoyed Returnal, but Saros is far more forgiving. (There's even a setting to make the game easier by giving your character a bunch of free buffs without having to balance them with debuffs.)

cc: @berry48 @gaston @TimeDelayedGamer

This game is going to be amazing. Returnal was an excellent game despite my apprehensions about the genre. I have no reason to doubt Housemarque being able to make Saros even better.

I don't think this is calling PS+'s value into question at all. It's still a fantastic service with a reasonable price.

In other news, I like how the idiots that wanted the ABK acquisition to go through so they can get Call of Duty on Game Pass got screwed twice. First there was a massive price increase and now some of that price increase was undone, but Call of Duty isn't on Game Pass. Is this karma?

Nice shout-out for Days Gone. It's a good game that's underrated, partly because it was initially reviewed before the day one patch. It's even better now that it is remastered for the PS5.

Enjoy!

I hate being on the dumbest timeline.

@GigaGaia
Is it cheaper than ever? RAM prices are going up, we're in tarrified inflation hell, and the prices of everything is going up. I'd love to be wrong, but I don't see how PS5s are cheaper to produce now.

If anything, I would have expected no price reductions through this generation, but the price increases are a surprise to me.

This does not bode well for the PS6.

Damn. It is so wrong one traitorous felon can screw up the world economy so badly!

I enjoyed the original Lords of the Fallen on PS4, so I'm sure I'll enjoy this.

I think this warbond was made for me. I love SMGs and fire. An SMG with an alternate flamethrower mode and a heavy flamer sounds lovely! I also really like mortars, but never take them because they are too lethal to players, too. A gas version sounds great!

Translation: It's a PC.

Playing as Faye? If I'm going to play as someone other than Kratos, it better be Thor or Freya.

With this game installed on my PS5 Pro, I HAVE THE POWER!!!

@PuppetMaster @8thDoctor

I think it has to do with Marvel since there are dozens of costumes (or more) per character they can draw from without just coming up with costumes from scratch and it's also sort of expected for comic book stuff.

The deluxe edition of this game seemed to be the best value because it only lacked cosmetics, but will have all the upcoming additional fighters. This is the first time I've genuinely wanted a costume, though. I may have to rethink things...

This is something I wish Steam did. You only see the current price and the current MSRP, but you don't know how much of a deal that is versus the launch price in the event the game got some MSRP price cuts.

Remaking or remastering Bloodborne or making a sequel is 100% what Bluepoint should have done if Sony had any brains.

Disgraceful is the perfect way to put it. Mismanaged and then shut down for being mismanaged. Bluepoint could have been cranking out banger after banger after banger after banger (Sheamus reference) if they were allowed to remake beloved PlayStation classics or create new things.

@scottXedgar
Yes, he does, and so do the others like him regardless of how their fanboyism leans.

Man, Alejandro comes off as really pathetic.

Somehow, Matt Booty is still there AND promoted? Nobody hates Xbox more than Microsoft. Jeez.

If I like Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night and the God of War series is among my favorite series ever, are the odds that I'd like Sons of Sparta, too?

Nooooo!!!! This is great mismanagement. Bluepoint could have been remaking all sorts of Sony bangers or coming up with something new. They were such a good studio!!!

At the next shareholders' virtual meeting, I'm bringing this up and I'm going to call them out on the stupidity.

@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.