@somnambulance You're definitely right, live service gams are too risky and I would go so far to say that the gaming market feels saturated (at least to me) with all these live service games.
In case of Quantic Dream games I do wonder, why they always choose Hollywood actors for the cast.
Now, if they could also record my voice and use AI to generate speech and movement then Sony would never need to hire a voice actor or motion capture ever again, as their fanbase is basically endless. 😀
I really don’t understand how so many studios this generation have forgotten how to make games their base wants to play.
Might be because the games they used to make have become to expensive or unsustainable, due to expensive voice actors and motion capturing. For example Quantic Dream games, which have branching stories: They would spend high effort/budget on parts of a game that only a fraction of the players would see.
Hopefully Implicit Conversions can get in touch with them to share knowledge because having PS3 games been made playable again natively will be great.
Based on the roadmap available on the Implicit Conversions website, they have yet to release a PS2 emulator and they are only "dreaming" of doing any work on a PS3 emulator: https://www.implicitconversions.com/roadmap
@Futureshark I would be surprised if MGS4 is just the PS3 version emulated. That version was so tightly tailored to the PS3 hardware that it requires a lot of rework effort to get it running on modern platforms, including PC, Switch 1&2 and Xbox Series X|S.
The game was split into multiple acts so you had to watch a lengthy (several minutes) long installation screen between each act. It uses motion controls for certain things like resetting the Octocamo. There are many references to licensed products like Apple iPod, PSP, Blu-Ray discs, Mac computers, Sony Ericsson phones, Triumph motorcycles, the Cell processor, which need to be renewed or removed.
Also, since Sony didn't manage to release a PS3 emulator for the PS5, it's very unlikely that Konami will create one just for MGS4, which even runs on the Nintendo Switch.
The amount of effort these developers spend on the RPCS3 emulator makes me think that Sony will not bother investing time/money into a PS3 emulation for PS6, which is a shame as the PS3 has some amazing games.
@nomither6 No, I don't think he has it. He has a PS5 and a PS4. As far as I remember, that launch PC further broke down, not sure if it ever got repaired.
He than had to use the Japanese PS3 (MGS4 Limited Edition) which had the X and O flipped for Ok/Cancel and he couldn't finish the tutorial on Dark Void because of that.
A friend of mine had a YLOD on his original PS3 (the one which was backward compatible to PS2 games). He had to send it to repair and Sony's repair service charged him 100+ Euros.
Still didn't stop him from getting the Japanese exclusive MGS4 special edition PS3. 😄
Great opinion article. I'm kind of in the same boat, that I've been interested in the series, but never got to play it. The story over the series is intimidatingly complex. But I feel attracted to the simple combat and the linear structure.
@Markatron84 Add "the best place to play" to your drinking game. It's like the most common corporate speak in gaming nowadays. 😉
“We are always talking about PlayStation should be the best place to play from the user's perspective."
- Sony CEO Hiroki Totoki
“Together with the gaming community, our commitment is to make Windows the best place to game—no matter where you play—by continuing to innovate and deliver experiences that enable players everywhere.
- Ian LeGrow, Corporate Vice President, Windows + Devices
"My focus is to make Xbox the best place to play, return to our roots, ship great things, and become stronger for the future."
- Xbox CEO Asha Sharma
"We want our game franchises to be as big as possible, while making Xbox the best place to play these games."
@LogicStrikesAgain Sure, could be the case that they will check out whats available on the platform. Buy 5-10 exclusive games in the span of the generation, occasionally spend 1-2 months per year on PS Plus. But they have a PC as well, where they can also play thousands of games and their time is limited.
I guess Xbox might have had the same idea. Release a relatively cheap console with Series S, get people to buy it for Starfield or Forza Horizon 5. They'll subscribe to GamePass and try out some games... In the end many who subscribed to GamePass went on to buy those games on other (their main) platforms.
Is that behavior really sustainable for a platform?
Some have worried that the company may take its foot off the pedal now Xbox is no longer a competitor, but it still faces intense pressure from Nintendo and Valve, as well as other forms of entertainment like streaming.
No executive will go on to say "we will lean back and relax, now that one of our main competitors in gaming is not competing with us anymore".😄
He's saying what the investors and the public want to hear: They are working hard to have an attractive platform and generate money.
Their bet is that by selling you a subsidized console they will profit from all the games you buy on the PS Store, taking a 30% cut from all third-party games and all MTX within free-to-play games while also taking 100% from first-party sales, plus all the revenue from selling PS+ (keeping it mandatory to play online and cloud saves), and hardware add-ons such as the Portal or some headset, in the long-term that user they got to buy a PS5 by keeping Wolverine exclusive is way more profitable than selling those games to a PC user in which Valve takes a 30% cut.
They’re pulling out from PC simply because it didn’t fulfill their expectations, most games didn’t even sell 10% of what they sold on console, their frankly naive expectations were that people after getting a taste of Sony’s games on PC they’d go all the way to buy a PS5 (said by themselves multiple times in quarterly meetings) but clearly the PC audience doesn’t work like that, they don’t even want to use other launchers other than Steam let alone spend $600 on another hardware.
That last part basically sums it up. PlayStation (Heman Hulst and Jim Ryan) were naive thinking that PC players would switch to PlayStation as their main platform after playing those games.
And that's the point I'm trying to make: Those who mainly play on PC have no reason to engage with a PlayStation other than occasionally playing PS exclusive games. They can buy and play 3rd party games on PC often for cheaper, no mandatory online subscription and configuration/modding options. They will play free-to-play on PC and buy DLCs and micro-transactions there. So, is it profitable to just sell a subsidized PlayStation console and a first party game to them, if they're not going to spend more money in the ecosystem?
It's not that simple. 75K sold units at what price? Does it take into account Steam's cut?
Yes, 30% are considered in the calculation.
Does it take into account that some ps players may choose to pirate it on PC, making it a complete loss for Sony?
People who pirate games wouldn't have bought the game game in any case. They are not likely going to pay £ 30+ when they play other games for free. So I wouldn't call pirated games a loss if those games wouldn't have been bought anyways.
The most important part is that it tells people, you don't need to own a ps console to play ps games. Just get a PC and you can play it there, even for free.
I guess that's the problem of it all. That brand identity, that "PlayStation is the only place you can play these games". If PlayStation has no other meaningful USP then yes, they need to rely more heavily on exclusive games.
Each first party game could sell twice as much and it wouldn't make that big of a difference. Sony makes the most revenue from third party games (GTA, CoD, etc), their DLC, and MTX especially from free to play games, hence betting so hard on GaaS this generation. First party games exist to make the console desirable and bring in as many gamers as possible. Obviously their budget can't be infinite, but their main job isn't to make a profit, but to keep gamers on psn.
If the profitability of the games don't matter as much, then I wonder why Sony closed studios like Bluepoint, Japan Studio, Firesprite and layed off hundreds of people in other studios. Those developers could work on a wide range of diverse first party games.
Is it a coincidence that Sony tried to force psn on PC gamers and after it was rejected, they decided to bail? Perhaps...
While the PSN account issue might have aided in the decision, I think Sony would have made this decision even without that. The PC port strategy was done by Jim Ryan, maybe together with Herman Hulst. Since the new Japanese Sony leadership took over, they have been reversing some of those decisions.
So I do agree that the barrier of entry for Sony’s first-party games is getting ridiculously high and unsustainable for +300M budgets, but PC has proven to not be the solution to these problems.
I don't think PC was considered as a solution to unsustainable +300M budget games. As Yoshida Shuhei stated in an interview, it was additional, easy revenue. If porting Marvel's Spide-Man to PC costed 2.3m, it was already profitable after about 75K sold units. The sustainability was expected from the console sales, where Sony decided during the late PS3 / early PS4 era to develop games with similar budgets and scope as Hollywood blockbusters, before even considering PC ports. Selling 6-10+ million units of a game was easy during the PS4 era, where live service games didn't lock in player's attention for thousands of hours.
It's not quite clear why Sony is moving away from PC ports, I think it's because they don't like these new wave of hybrid PC/consoles (Steam Machine, Xbox Helix, Chinese brands) building gaming devices for the living room. The question is though: If someone is gaming on PC and they are interested in Marvel's Wolverine only for example, does Sony actually profit from selling this person a PS5 at a subsidized price and a 1st party game (maybe even bundled with the console), if this person will continue spending their money on Steam instead of PlayStation?
Look, I am not saying that subscription services are good, or the best way for the distribution of entertainment media, including games. But with rising prices for console hardware, games and PS Plus for online, what other options do you see for people who occasionally want to play a few new games for a week or two, if they cannot afford the costs (apart from piracy)?
I honestly think Sony is big mad MS is making a Pc/console hybrid they would allow PS titles to hit Xbox as soon as the PC port goes live. They knew the PC side would make less but give new life to exclusives once the console fervor for a given game wears off. Now that MS could eat into that, they are freaking out.
I don't think Microsoft's next PC/hybrid-device alone would be enough to justify a move away from PC ports for Sony. The device will be very expensive and probably will sell a few millions. But combine that with Valve's Steam Machine which also aims to be played on the big TVs in the living and a price similar to the PS5, not to mention other Chinese mini-PC manufacturers like Ayaneo, and suddenly PC as a platform is more of a threat to Sony's dominance in the living room.
Sony are in a tricky situation and I don't know which strategy would work best for them. On the one hand, they are a hardware manufacturer with a successful platform, so they need to sell as many PlayStation consoles as they can. On the other hand, the games they make and publish are too expensive to keep exclusive to one platform. If a game fails, it's likely the end of that studio. These price hikes are kind of contra-productive in getting more PS5 units sold, further complicating the situation, and maybe they think true "PS5 exclusives" will solve the issue.
@TrollOfWar I never played 40 Winks. Liked the look of it but then the reviews said it was a baby game so I didn't get it.
It's a decent 3D collect-a-thon, where you have to collect cogs and the winks to progress, but the combat is not that great. You are right, it's rather simple and there are better options like Spyro the Dragon or Banjo Kazooie.
I'm playing it on the Evercade VS-R console, because my 3-year-old kid wants to watch.
That era of playstation 3D platform games has a deep nostalgic root in my head, tried so many even obscure ones like Jersey Devil that was hard to track down in the late 90s.
Been playing the Gex trilogy recently and even though it's probably not a set of actual classics they are a lot of fun (well the 3D ones at least)
That's basically the reason why I got into Evercade. I wanted to play the original Tomb Raider games on the go and got a Gameboy-sized Super Pocket handheld (part of the Evercade platform) with the Tomb Raider Collection 1.
There aren't many PS1 games on Evercade and only 1 N64 with Banjo Kazooie & Banjo Tooie releasing later this year. I hope more will come.
@Oram77 I think DualSense support is rare in general from 3rd party studios, not just Xbox/Microsoft, as it requires more effort to implement it properly. It would have much better support if Xbox and the Switch Pro controller also had features like haptic feedback, adaptive triggers, touchpad and a light bar.
PS5 Pro support I assume Somy might place it as a requirement. Maybe since PSSR 1 didn't deliver perfect results, the developers just did the bare minimum. Now that PSSR2 offers better results, it will also see more support from developers.
@GeminiX53 streaming music and videos is very very very different from streaming interactive entertainment like games. It requires a full network stack end to end that is stable, reliable, and fullt optimized. This doesn't exist. It never has and it will always be impossible. To do so requires end to end control from the streaming server all the way to the receiving client. Usually there are 30-50 hops, which means there are 30-50 networking devices involved. How are you gonna ensure that the quality is there? ... To have stable game streaming to everyone world wide, the entire world would need to build a new internet.
I think you're overcomplicating it. Yes, cloud streaming games is inferior to running games locally, but people are willing to accept a worse experience if they don't have to spend a small fortune on expensive hardware.
Cloud gaming is already quite popular in regions with advanced 5G infrastructure and high-speed internet, like China, Japan, South Korea and India. Regions with a bad internet infrastructure will likely also not have a PSN support.
People will tolerate all sorts of quality issues of streaming, be it low bitrates, temporal disconnects, input lag, visual artifacts, if they can play the games they want at a low price. Kind of like people 10 years ago were okay downloading the newest movies recored with mobile cameras in cinemas. Maybe AI will help with better compression/decompression of streamed data in the future.
And it's not like lag is new to gaming. You get lag in all online games depending on the location of the server. Doesn't stop people from playing Marathon or Call of Duty online.
... regardless i'd expect a fairly substantial crossgen again anyway.
I agree, I think players who already have a console, will keep what they have as long as those consoles are supported (PS4 and Xbox One still get new indie games 6 years into the current gen).
I could also see some Chinese hardware manufacturers (like Ayaneo, Anbernic and Retroid) releasing cheap (digital-only) consoles which run Linux or Android and could offer access to new games (via Steam, Epic, Google or a proprietary store) at an affordable price.
I see PlayStation like the iPhone brand: Those who want to afford it, will continue to do so. Those who can't or don't want to spend that much, will find cheaper alternatives. And cloud streaming will be a cheaper, viable alternative.
Consoles will not go away in the next 10 - 15 years, but the next gen consoles will probably be for hardcore gaming enthusiasts, not for the casual players.
Not everyone buys a £1000 mobile phone every 2 year. Most people are fine with cheap sub-£400 Chinese smartphones or the smartphones from last generation.
Mobile phones are seen as a necessity where gaming console are more of a hobby. If you had to give up one of the 2, which one would you give up? Which one would most people give up?
@Dogbreath It's also worth noting that casual players wouldn't need to pay £1000 for a GeForce Now Ultimate subscription upfront. They can pay £18 per month when a new game like Call of Duty, EA's FC, NBA or GTA comes out and cancel the subscription once they're done.
I guess in a community like PushSquare full of hardcore gaming enthusiasts, it's unthinkable of playing via cloud streaming, just like music enthusiasts will not appreciate Spotify or film enthusiasts prefer going to the cinema rather than Netflix. They will invest in expensive hi-fi devices to enjoy their favorite content, while casual people will be satisfied with cheaper options. Streaming seems like the most practical, straightforward option, since people already have the "needed" hardware (a smartphone).
EDIT: Cloud streaming is just one thing. Nowadays many smartphones are strong enough to play games comparable to a console experience. Games like Destiny Rising, PUBG Mobile, Fortnite, Genshin Impact, Diablo Immortal. If gamers cannot afford a console, then they will play games on their phones.
15 years ago it was unthinkable that people would watch a movie or play games on a mobile phone. Nowadays, most people spend more time staring at a mobile screen than at a TV.
The PlayStation fans, who are fully invested in the platform, will likely be willing to pay $1000+ for a PS6 to continue playing PlayStation games. The scalper prices at the beginning of the generation has proven that.
Crimson Desert looks like an ambitious game with stunning visuals probably developed with high-end PCs as the target and ports and optimizations for consoles considered at a late stage. The devs could have implemented a 30 fps limit or heavily reduced the scope of the game.
Maybe the devs were hoping for the PS6 to be available by this point. That system will most likely run the game at a smooth 60 fps, so the game is future proof. 😉
I enjoyed this quite a bit last year. It plays a lot like an old PS2 game with it's repetitive arena fights and the linear levels, but the presentation and narrative are a huge highlight. There are some memorable boss fights and songs in this game.
@DennisReynolds @ShadowRJ There are no official numbers unfortunately and the games are or were on GamePass, but by the player numbers on trueachievements.com (where 112k players for Helldivers 2 on TA is roughly 1.6m on Xbox), Persona 5 Royal and Persona 3 Reload have around 1 million players each. Persona 3 Portable and Persona 4 Golden were less successful with less than 500k of players. Persona 5 Tactica has the lowest number of players.
Truth is that JRPGs have always been more successful on PlayStation and Nintendo. Especially with many JRPGs being PlayStation and Nintendo exclusive, players who are interested in the genre chose those platforms by default. But for players who only have an Xbox, this partnership between Xbox and SEGA allowed them to discover games which otherwise they would have missed.
I played Truxton II last year as part of the Toaplan Arcade Collection 3 on Evercade. It was quite hard. Hopefully this new release is a bit less frustrating.
It's amazing to me that this mobile push has been going on for like 10+ years in various iterations and hasn't produced anything.
Mobile is high-risk and high-reward. Unfortunately some of the past mobile game efforts were lackluster, with games like Uncharted: Fortune Hunter, Run Sackboy! Run! and WipEout Rush.
I believe a mobile game based on an already established IP needs to bring the core experience of the IP into the mobile version. Some successful examples are PUBG Mobile, EA Sports FC Mobile, Call of Duty Mobile, Minecraft Pocket Edition, Diablo Immortal, Genshin Impact.
Maybe Ratchet & Clank: Ranger Rumble, Horizon Steel Frontiers and Destiny: Rising could achieve that sort of success.
@lazarus11 I hope you are aware that by voicing your dislike of Marathon and other multiplayer games in the comments sections it counts as user engagement (interest in the topic) in the website's analytics tools, which in return results in PushSquare writing more articles about Marathon and other multiplayer games, as the interest is clearly high. So, basically you are encouraging PushSquare to write more about Marathon by replying to the comments. 😄
@Balaam_ Trophy hunting is cool and fun, but to me it kind of stopped as the store got flooded with cheap, easy-to-earn-platinum games, which made all of it pointless.
Nowadays, while I still try to unlock as many trophies as I can, I am comfortable knowing that I will not earn everything and I prefer playing a good game with tedious/stupid trophies than a bad/boring game with easy trophies.
I don't think it's as "doom and gloom" as most people see it.
Yes, future hardware will be very expensive and much less people are willing to spend more than $1000+ on a new console. Which leaves many players using on lower spec hardware. That's either current gen, last gen, low-to-mid range PCs, portable consoles, mobile and cloud streaming. Who knows, maybe some Chinese console gets released with a PS4/Series S like quality an attractive price.
That will result in developers targeting those devices. Which wouldn't be so bad in my opinion, as most of us are already satisfied with the visual fidelity in the games we see today. And it wouldn't be such a bad thing, if development budgets are kept in check.
Would be a weird case for platform holders (Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft) if they didn't focus on selling new, expensive hardware, but rather making games profitable (available to as many players as possible).
But I fear that unfortunately games and services will become more expensive and many talented studios will close over the next years. The biggest problem in my opinion are endless live-service games, that will have players locked into their in-game platforms, trying to keep them away from playing something else.
I love the ps3 , i still play it , but people acting like the ps3 was great while calling the ps5 the worst console is kind of crazy , when the ps3 almost killed the sony console since it was difficult to develop games for.
Well, it's all relative. PS3 had a lot of unique and memorable games (like MGS4, Flower, Lost Planet 1/2, Motorstorm, InFamous, Resistance 2/3, RE5, PixelJunk Shooter, Split/Second, Uncharted 2, Bayonetta, The Last of Us, Dead Space, or at least the ones I remember playing) and players will remember the PS3 for those special games. But financially the PS3 was not good: it has an expensive R&D, it was too difficult to develop for, the launch price was too high and the competition from Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii was stronger.
Now the PS5 is from a financial perspective much stronger than the PS3 (especially since Xbox became less competitive and Nintendo has a different focus). But, apart from some exceptions like Returnal, Astro Bot, Elden Ring, Baldur's Gate 3 and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, the majority of the games feel very samey and risk averse. And endless live-service games further delute the perceived quality of the games on the platforms.
I don't think the modern console gaming market (PlayStation and Xbox) will ever be able to return to offer such a sensation. Budgets and trends have gone too much into the wrong direction. But retro gaming (on older hardware or on something like Evercade) can still offer that feeling.
By charging more for games? Increasing subscription prices? Dynamic pricing?
Be prepared for another PS Plus price hike in the next few months.
I believe a "PS Plus price hike" will be just one of many things Sony/PlayStation can do to monetize their player-base more heavily.
They can offer less frequent and smaller discounts to first party games during sales (like Nintendo does). Games will be shorter and have more "story DLCs". More "remasters" released at full price. More risk averse, safe-bet sequels. More 3rd party exclusives (especially from China). First party games will take longer or might never be added to the PS Plus Essential/Extra/Premium subscriptions. Less games will be added to those subscription tiers at the same price.
@themightyant They are making record levels of profit, while gouging their customers even more. Its a terrible look no matter the mental gymnastics used to defend it
They say certain things trying to appease their shareholders, like how "profitable" the PlayStation business is. But looking at the stock price of Sony, it's been trending downward since December 2025: https://share.google/0itGKxWNxc6e1PQVJ
Investors have several concerns right now, ranging from immediate manufacturing costs to the collapse of a major future growth project:
Price hikes of DRAM and SSD components
Cancelled Honda AFEELA EV project
Worsening earnings forecasts
Geopolitical tariffs
Ongoing class-action lawsuits in the UK regarding PlayStation Store pricing
Comments 590
Re: Announced Nearly Half a Decade Ago, Quantic Dream's Star Wars Game Reportedly Still 'Years Off'
@somnambulance You're definitely right, live service gams are too risky and I would go so far to say that the gaming market feels saturated (at least to me) with all these live service games.
In case of Quantic Dream games I do wonder, why they always choose Hollywood actors for the cast.
Re: PlayStation to Start Putting Fans into PS5 Games with New Playerbase Program
Now, if they could also record my voice and use AI to generate speech and movement then Sony would never need to hire a voice actor or motion capture ever again, as their fanbase is basically endless. 😀
Re: Rumour: Naughty Dog 'Floated' the Idea of Uncharted 5 Before COVID
It's been 9 years since Uncharted: The Lost Legacy. Naughty Dog might need to reboot the franchise by this point.
Re: Announced Nearly Half a Decade Ago, Quantic Dream's Star Wars Game Reportedly Still 'Years Off'
@somnambulance
Might be because the games they used to make have become to expensive or unsustainable, due to expensive voice actors and motion capturing. For example Quantic Dream games, which have branching stories: They would spend high effort/budget on parts of a game that only a fraction of the players would see.
Re: 'I Was Convinced It Could Never Be Done': Dev Praises 'Breakthrough' in PS3 Emulation
@AdamNovice
Based on the roadmap available on the Implicit Conversions website, they have yet to release a PS2 emulator and they are only "dreaming" of doing any work on a PS3 emulator: https://www.implicitconversions.com/roadmap
Re: 'I Was Convinced It Could Never Be Done': Dev Praises 'Breakthrough' in PS3 Emulation
@Futureshark I would be surprised if MGS4 is just the PS3 version emulated. That version was so tightly tailored to the PS3 hardware that it requires a lot of rework effort to get it running on modern platforms, including PC, Switch 1&2 and Xbox Series X|S.
The game was split into multiple acts so you had to watch a lengthy (several minutes) long installation screen between each act. It uses motion controls for certain things like resetting the Octocamo. There are many references to licensed products like Apple iPod, PSP, Blu-Ray discs, Mac computers, Sony Ericsson phones, Triumph motorcycles, the Cell processor, which need to be renewed or removed.
Also, since Sony didn't manage to release a PS3 emulator for the PS5, it's very unlikely that Konami will create one just for MGS4, which even runs on the Nintendo Switch.
Re: 'I Was Convinced It Could Never Be Done': Dev Praises 'Breakthrough' in PS3 Emulation
The amount of effort these developers spend on the RPCS3 emulator makes me think that Sony will not bother investing time/money into a PS3 emulation for PS6, which is a shame as the PS3 has some amazing games.
Re: 'We Were Forced to Change': Sony CEO Outlines Shift to Entertainment, and Says PS5 Must Be the Best Place to Play
@nomither6 No, I don't think he has it. He has a PS5 and a PS4. As far as I remember, that launch PC further broke down, not sure if it ever got repaired.
He than had to use the Japanese PS3 (MGS4 Limited Edition) which had the X and O flipped for Ok/Cancel and he couldn't finish the tutorial on Dark Void because of that.
Re: 'We Were Forced to Change': Sony CEO Outlines Shift to Entertainment, and Says PS5 Must Be the Best Place to Play
@nomither6
A friend of mine had a YLOD on his original PS3 (the one which was backward compatible to PS2 games). He had to send it to repair and Sony's repair service charged him 100+ Euros.
Still didn't stop him from getting the Japanese exclusive MGS4 special edition PS3. 😄
Re: Opinion: I Played Kingdom Hearts for the Very First Time, Here's What I Liked and What I Didn't
Great opinion article. I'm kind of in the same boat, that I've been interested in the series, but never got to play it. The story over the series is intimidatingly complex. But I feel attracted to the simple combat and the linear structure.
Re: Remember Those PC Icons on PS5? Sony Removed Them
@Dogbreath And what did they win? 😁
Great story by the way.
Re: 'Marathon Is Gonna Be Game of the Year': Actor Ben Starr Jokes It'll Beat GTA 6 Due to Jennifer English
Maybe Bungie can ask Geoff Keighley to postpone The Game Awards, because I think they are planning to release something big for Marathon next year. 😉
Re: 'We Were Forced to Change': Sony CEO Outlines Shift to Entertainment, and Says PS5 Must Be the Best Place to Play
@Markatron84 Add "the best place to play" to your drinking game. It's like the most common corporate speak in gaming nowadays. 😉
- Sony CEO Hiroki Totoki
- Ian LeGrow, Corporate Vice President, Windows + Devices
- Xbox CEO Asha Sharma
- Craig Duncan, head of Xbox Game Studios
Re: Remember Those PC Icons on PS5? Sony Removed Them
@LogicStrikesAgain Sure, could be the case that they will check out whats available on the platform. Buy 5-10 exclusive games in the span of the generation, occasionally spend 1-2 months per year on PS Plus. But they have a PC as well, where they can also play thousands of games and their time is limited.
I guess Xbox might have had the same idea. Release a relatively cheap console with Series S, get people to buy it for Starfield or Forza Horizon 5. They'll subscribe to GamePass and try out some games... In the end many who subscribed to GamePass went on to buy those games on other (their main) platforms.
Is that behavior really sustainable for a platform?
Re: 'We Were Forced to Change': Sony CEO Outlines Shift to Entertainment, and Says PS5 Must Be the Best Place to Play
@get2sammyb
No executive will go on to say "we will lean back and relax, now that one of our main competitors in gaming is not competing with us anymore".😄
He's saying what the investors and the public want to hear: They are working hard to have an attractive platform and generate money.
Re: Remember Those PC Icons on PS5? Sony Removed Them
@IOI
That last part basically sums it up. PlayStation (Heman Hulst and Jim Ryan) were naive thinking that PC players would switch to PlayStation as their main platform after playing those games.
And that's the point I'm trying to make: Those who mainly play on PC have no reason to engage with a PlayStation other than occasionally playing PS exclusive games. They can buy and play 3rd party games on PC often for cheaper, no mandatory online subscription and configuration/modding options. They will play free-to-play on PC and buy DLCs and micro-transactions there. So, is it profitable to just sell a subsidized PlayStation console and a first party game to them, if they're not going to spend more money in the ecosystem?
Re: Remember Those PC Icons on PS5? Sony Removed Them
@naruball
Yes, 30% are considered in the calculation.
People who pirate games wouldn't have bought the game game in any case. They are not likely going to pay £ 30+ when they play other games for free. So I wouldn't call pirated games a loss if those games wouldn't have been bought anyways.
I guess that's the problem of it all. That brand identity, that "PlayStation is the only place you can play these games". If PlayStation has no other meaningful USP then yes, they need to rely more heavily on exclusive games.
If the profitability of the games don't matter as much, then I wonder why Sony closed studios like Bluepoint, Japan Studio, Firesprite and layed off hundreds of people in other studios. Those developers could work on a wide range of diverse first party games.
While the PSN account issue might have aided in the decision, I think Sony would have made this decision even without that. The PC port strategy was done by Jim Ryan, maybe together with Herman Hulst. Since the new Japanese Sony leadership took over, they have been reversing some of those decisions.
Re: Remember Those PC Icons on PS5? Sony Removed Them
@IOI
I don't think PC was considered as a solution to unsustainable +300M budget games. As Yoshida Shuhei stated in an interview, it was additional, easy revenue. If porting Marvel's Spide-Man to PC costed 2.3m, it was already profitable after about 75K sold units. The sustainability was expected from the console sales, where Sony decided during the late PS3 / early PS4 era to develop games with similar budgets and scope as Hollywood blockbusters, before even considering PC ports. Selling 6-10+ million units of a game was easy during the PS4 era, where live service games didn't lock in player's attention for thousands of hours.
It's not quite clear why Sony is moving away from PC ports, I think it's because they don't like these new wave of hybrid PC/consoles (Steam Machine, Xbox Helix, Chinese brands) building gaming devices for the living room. The question is though: If someone is gaming on PC and they are interested in Marvel's Wolverine only for example, does Sony actually profit from selling this person a PS5 at a subsidized price and a 1st party game (maybe even bundled with the console), if this person will continue spending their money on Steam instead of PlayStation?
Re: 'The Solution Is to Get Rid of Consoles': Analyst Predicts $1,000 PS6 and a Transition to Game Streaming
@Flaming_Kaiser Yet, Netflix has 301 million, Disney Plus has 131 million and Spotify has 290 million subscribers, who spend a "fortune on subscriptions where they don't own anything" and they seem to be okay with that.
Look, I am not saying that subscription services are good, or the best way for the distribution of entertainment media, including games. But with rising prices for console hardware, games and PS Plus for online, what other options do you see for people who occasionally want to play a few new games for a week or two, if they cannot afford the costs (apart from piracy)?
Re: Remember Those PC Icons on PS5? Sony Removed Them
This is shocking news! 😱
Re: Fans Reckon PS Studios Website Adjustments Hint at Sony's Move Away from PC
@Moby
I don't think Microsoft's next PC/hybrid-device alone would be enough to justify a move away from PC ports for Sony. The device will be very expensive and probably will sell a few millions. But combine that with Valve's Steam Machine which also aims to be played on the big TVs in the living and a price similar to the PS5, not to mention other Chinese mini-PC manufacturers like Ayaneo, and suddenly PC as a platform is more of a threat to Sony's dominance in the living room.
Sony are in a tricky situation and I don't know which strategy would work best for them. On the one hand, they are a hardware manufacturer with a successful platform, so they need to sell as many PlayStation consoles as they can. On the other hand, the games they make and publish are too expensive to keep exclusive to one platform. If a game fails, it's likely the end of that studio. These price hikes are kind of contra-productive in getting more PS5 units sold, further complicating the situation, and maybe they think true "PS5 exclusives" will solve the issue.
Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? - Issue 627
@rusty82
It's a decent 3D collect-a-thon, where you have to collect cogs and the winks to progress, but the combat is not that great. You are right, it's rather simple and there are better options like Spyro the Dragon or Banjo Kazooie.
I'm playing it on the Evercade VS-R console, because my 3-year-old kid wants to watch.
That's basically the reason why I got into Evercade. I wanted to play the original Tomb Raider games on the go and got a Gameboy-sized Super Pocket handheld (part of the Evercade platform) with the Tomb Raider Collection 1.
There aren't many PS1 games on Evercade and only 1 N64 with Banjo Kazooie & Banjo Tooie releasing later this year. I hope more will come.
Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? - Issue 627
Re: Everyone's Talking About DriveClub Again, PS4's Underappreciated Racer
I had a good time playing this on the PS4. Up there with Project Gotham Racing as one of my top favorite racing games. A shame it didn't do so well.
Re: Here's Why Starfield Will Be Best on PS5 When It Finally Releases Next Week
@Oram77 I think DualSense support is rare in general from 3rd party studios, not just Xbox/Microsoft, as it requires more effort to implement it properly. It would have much better support if Xbox and the Switch Pro controller also had features like haptic feedback, adaptive triggers, touchpad and a light bar.
PS5 Pro support I assume Somy might place it as a requirement. Maybe since PSSR 1 didn't deliver perfect results, the developers just did the bare minimum. Now that PSSR2 offers better results, it will also see more support from developers.
Re: Here's Why Starfield Will Be Best on PS5 When It Finally Releases Next Week
Nice of Bethesda to have spent additional effort on adding support for DualSense and PS5 Pro. Most PS5 players will appreciate the additions.
Re: Uncharted Fans Think a Social Post Is Evidence of New PS5 Entry
Can't wait for it to release sometime around 2030. 😅
Re: Fans Reckon PS Studios Website Adjustments Hint at Sony's Move Away from PC
If someone on Twitter/X wrote it then it's definitely a clear sign what PlayStation is planning to do.
Re: Poll: Do You Think PS5 Can Outsell PS4 with Its New Price Point?
Maybe announcing another price increase will help it sell more units. People will panic and rush to buy a unit before the next price change. 😄
Re: Tell You What, This Parkour Platformer for PS5 Looks Sublime
@UltimateOtaku91 Sounds like selling points. 😄
Re: The Last of Us Multiplayer Was 80% Complete Before Cancellation, Spent 7 Years in Development
Wow, 7 years of development... I wonder how many millions it costed?
Re: 'The Solution Is to Get Rid of Consoles': Analyst Predicts $1,000 PS6 and a Transition to Game Streaming
@Neonix
I think you're overcomplicating it. Yes, cloud streaming games is inferior to running games locally, but people are willing to accept a worse experience if they don't have to spend a small fortune on expensive hardware.
Cloud gaming is already quite popular in regions with advanced 5G infrastructure and high-speed internet, like China, Japan, South Korea and India. Regions with a bad internet infrastructure will likely also not have a PSN support.
People will tolerate all sorts of quality issues of streaming, be it low bitrates, temporal disconnects, input lag, visual artifacts, if they can play the games they want at a low price. Kind of like people 10 years ago were okay downloading the newest movies recored with mobile cameras in cinemas. Maybe AI will help with better compression/decompression of streamed data in the future.
And it's not like lag is new to gaming. You get lag in all online games depending on the location of the server. Doesn't stop people from playing Marathon or Call of Duty online.
Re: 'The Solution Is to Get Rid of Consoles': Analyst Predicts $1,000 PS6 and a Transition to Game Streaming
@solocapers
I agree, I think players who already have a console, will keep what they have as long as those consoles are supported (PS4 and Xbox One still get new indie games 6 years into the current gen).
I could also see some Chinese hardware manufacturers (like Ayaneo, Anbernic and Retroid) releasing cheap (digital-only) consoles which run Linux or Android and could offer access to new games (via Steam, Epic, Google or a proprietary store) at an affordable price.
I see PlayStation like the iPhone brand: Those who want to afford it, will continue to do so. Those who can't or don't want to spend that much, will find cheaper alternatives. And cloud streaming will be a cheaper, viable alternative.
Consoles will not go away in the next 10 - 15 years, but the next gen consoles will probably be for hardcore gaming enthusiasts, not for the casual players.
Re: 'The Solution Is to Get Rid of Consoles': Analyst Predicts $1,000 PS6 and a Transition to Game Streaming
@solocapers
Re: 'The Solution Is to Get Rid of Consoles': Analyst Predicts $1,000 PS6 and a Transition to Game Streaming
@Dogbreath It's also worth noting that casual players wouldn't need to pay £1000 for a GeForce Now Ultimate subscription upfront. They can pay £18 per month when a new game like Call of Duty, EA's FC, NBA or GTA comes out and cancel the subscription once they're done.
Re: 'The Solution Is to Get Rid of Consoles': Analyst Predicts $1,000 PS6 and a Transition to Game Streaming
I guess in a community like PushSquare full of hardcore gaming enthusiasts, it's unthinkable of playing via cloud streaming, just like music enthusiasts will not appreciate Spotify or film enthusiasts prefer going to the cinema rather than Netflix. They will invest in expensive hi-fi devices to enjoy their favorite content, while casual people will be satisfied with cheaper options. Streaming seems like the most practical, straightforward option, since people already have the "needed" hardware (a smartphone).
EDIT: Cloud streaming is just one thing. Nowadays many smartphones are strong enough to play games comparable to a console experience. Games like Destiny Rising, PUBG Mobile, Fortnite, Genshin Impact, Diablo Immortal. If gamers cannot afford a console, then they will play games on their phones.
15 years ago it was unthinkable that people would watch a movie or play games on a mobile phone. Nowadays, most people spend more time staring at a mobile screen than at a TV.
The PlayStation fans, who are fully invested in the platform, will likely be willing to pay $1000+ for a PS6 to continue playing PlayStation games. The scalper prices at the beginning of the generation has proven that.
Re: 'No Mode Is Properly Optimised on Base PS5': Crimson Desert's Console Performance a 'Mixed Bag'
Crimson Desert looks like an ambitious game with stunning visuals probably developed with high-end PCs as the target and ports and optimizations for consoles considered at a late stage. The devs could have implemented a 30 fps limit or heavily reduced the scope of the game.
Maybe the devs were hoping for the PS6 to be available by this point. That system will most likely run the game at a smooth 60 fps, so the game is future proof. 😉
Re: South of Midnight (PS5) - The Most Beautiful Simple Game
I enjoyed this quite a bit last year. It plays a lot like an old PS2 game with it's repetitive arena fights and the linear levels, but the presentation and narrative are a huge highlight. There are some memorable boss fights and songs in this game.
Re: Persona 6 Reveal Rumours Return, and Mega Xbox Showcase Is the Catalyst
@DennisReynolds @ShadowRJ There are no official numbers unfortunately and the games are or were on GamePass, but by the player numbers on trueachievements.com (where 112k players for Helldivers 2 on TA is roughly 1.6m on Xbox), Persona 5 Royal and Persona 3 Reload have around 1 million players each. Persona 3 Portable and Persona 4 Golden were less successful with less than 500k of players. Persona 5 Tactica has the lowest number of players.
Truth is that JRPGs have always been more successful on PlayStation and Nintendo. Especially with many JRPGs being PlayStation and Nintendo exclusive, players who are interested in the genre chose those platforms by default. But for players who only have an Xbox, this partnership between Xbox and SEGA allowed them to discover games which otherwise they would have missed.
Re: Almost 40 Years After the Original, Toaplan's Truxton Will Be Revived on PS5
I played Truxton II last year as part of the Toaplan Arcade Collection 3 on Evercade. It was quite hard. Hopefully this new release is a bit less frustrating.
Re: PlayStation Studios' Mobile Push Seems Dead as Layoff Reports Continue
@Stragen8
Mobile is high-risk and high-reward. Unfortunately some of the past mobile game efforts were lackluster, with games like Uncharted: Fortune Hunter, Run Sackboy! Run! and WipEout Rush.
I believe a mobile game based on an already established IP needs to bring the core experience of the IP into the mobile version. Some successful examples are PUBG Mobile, EA Sports FC Mobile, Call of Duty Mobile, Minecraft Pocket Edition, Diablo Immortal, Genshin Impact.
Maybe Ratchet & Clank: Ranger Rumble, Horizon Steel Frontiers and Destiny: Rising could achieve that sort of success.
Re: 'We're in It for the Long Haul': Bungie Rejects Rumours It Could Move on from Marathon After Unremarkable PS5 Sales
@lazarus11 I hope you are aware that by voicing your dislike of Marathon and other multiplayer games in the comments sections it counts as user engagement (interest in the topic) in the website's analytics tools, which in return results in PushSquare writing more articles about Marathon and other multiplayer games, as the interest is clearly high. So, basically you are encouraging PushSquare to write more about Marathon by replying to the comments. 😄
Re: One Player Just Unlocked PlayStation's Impossible Platinum Trophy
@Balaam_ Trophy hunting is cool and fun, but to me it kind of stopped as the store got flooded with cheap, easy-to-earn-platinum games, which made all of it pointless.
Nowadays, while I still try to unlock as many trophies as I can, I am comfortable knowing that I will not earn everything and I prefer playing a good game with tedious/stupid trophies than a bad/boring game with easy trophies.
Life is too short to play bad games. 😉
Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? - Issue 626
Re: Feature: PS5 Price - Why Does It Cost So Much in 2026?
I don't think it's as "doom and gloom" as most people see it.
Yes, future hardware will be very expensive and much less people are willing to spend more than $1000+ on a new console. Which leaves many players using on lower spec hardware. That's either current gen, last gen, low-to-mid range PCs, portable consoles, mobile and cloud streaming. Who knows, maybe some Chinese console gets released with a PS4/Series S like quality an attractive price.
That will result in developers targeting those devices. Which wouldn't be so bad in my opinion, as most of us are already satisfied with the visual fidelity in the games we see today. And it wouldn't be such a bad thing, if development budgets are kept in check.
Would be a weird case for platform holders (Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft) if they didn't focus on selling new, expensive hardware, but rather making games profitable (available to as many players as possible).
But I fear that unfortunately games and services will become more expensive and many talented studios will close over the next years. The biggest problem in my opinion are endless live-service games, that will have players locked into their in-game platforms, trying to keep them away from playing something else.
Re: Sony Announces Gigantic PS5 Price Increases, Effective from April 2026
@twitchtvpat
Well, it's all relative. PS3 had a lot of unique and memorable games (like MGS4, Flower, Lost Planet 1/2, Motorstorm, InFamous, Resistance 2/3, RE5, PixelJunk Shooter, Split/Second, Uncharted 2, Bayonetta, The Last of Us, Dead Space, or at least the ones I remember playing) and players will remember the PS3 for those special games. But financially the PS3 was not good: it has an expensive R&D, it was too difficult to develop for, the launch price was too high and the competition from Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii was stronger.
Now the PS5 is from a financial perspective much stronger than the PS3 (especially since Xbox became less competitive and Nintendo has a different focus). But, apart from some exceptions like Returnal, Astro Bot, Elden Ring, Baldur's Gate 3 and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, the majority of the games feel very samey and risk averse. And endless live-service games further delute the perceived quality of the games on the platforms.
I don't think the modern console gaming market (PlayStation and Xbox) will ever be able to return to offer such a sensation. Budgets and trends have gone too much into the wrong direction. But retro gaming (on older hardware or on something like Evercade) can still offer that feeling.
Re: Sony Announces Gigantic PS5 Price Increases, Effective from April 2026
@MinervaX76
I believe a "PS Plus price hike" will be just one of many things Sony/PlayStation can do to monetize their player-base more heavily.
They can offer less frequent and smaller discounts to first party games during sales (like Nintendo does). Games will be shorter and have more "story DLCs". More "remasters" released at full price. More risk averse, safe-bet sequels. More 3rd party exclusives (especially from China). First party games will take longer or might never be added to the PS Plus Essential/Extra/Premium subscriptions. Less games will be added to those subscription tiers at the same price.
Re: Sony Announces Gigantic PS5 Price Increases, Effective from April 2026
@The-punishr
Great plan! The PS3 has many amazing games which are a lot of fun to play. 👍
Re: Sony Announces Gigantic PS5 Price Increases, Effective from April 2026
@themightyant Fully agree with you.
Re: Sony Announces Gigantic PS5 Price Increases, Effective from April 2026
@Sakai
They say certain things trying to appease their shareholders, like how "profitable" the PlayStation business is. But looking at the stock price of Sony, it's been trending downward since December 2025: https://share.google/0itGKxWNxc6e1PQVJ
Investors have several concerns right now, ranging from immediate manufacturing costs to the collapse of a major future growth project: