I bet it sells okay in the end. I'm sure there will be some use case for it for the hardcore / early adopter crowd. Probably something like better framerate, which is negligible and unimpressive for a lot of people (me), but crucial and all-important to many others. Maybe some VR2 compatibility?
I feel like Xbox had all the cards and everything was in place for them this gen. They had leading infrastructure and tech for their GamePass vision, they had the free cash for big acquisitions, they had a capable console with a cheaper alternative for more casual folks entering the gaming sphere, and they had a distinct goal of broadening console gaming to other devices they seem committed to.
There was just one crucial thing missing: the games. A console needs first party exclusive games - to distinguish its brand from the competition, to move consoles, to establish some sort of identity. This is as true today as it was in '95 when the PS1 carved it's way into the market from nothing, with good games and a distinct, edgier, more "adult" marketing approach to distinguish it from Nintendo. They had an angle they worked to get into the market and the good luck for Sega to make some huge business errors in the hardware space.
GamePass is not an identity. It's not enough by itself. GamePass + high-quality, plentiful first party games = Microsoft is the new king of console gaming. They tripped at the finish line. I don't know what omega-level mismanagement has occurred over the past three plus years to result in not a single standout flagship title being released across a multitude of studios, but it needs to get looked at with a critical eye.
No sane person wants Xbox to disappear from the hardware space, as they reign in Sony's less friendly business impulses.
Oh yeah, a lot of people were happy with the performance boost, especially people who are keen on framerate. I've heard people sing it's praises and get the arguments for 4k and all that.
I owned one. Bought it due to my base PS4 being pretty aged and struggling at the point. I saw hardly any noticeable benefit at all. But that's me, I think it is a niche product marketed maybe more to technophiles, but to my untrained eye I got nothing out of it except jet fan noises that scared my dog haha. I'm not discounting the value of it, just saying it's meant for people who are not me, possibly more observant people than me.
I think the general argument is those games run poorly because they are not optimized well for the system, not because the PS5 is maxed out. We see those games patched later to have better performance in those cases when they are a mess at launch or don't work well.
I personally can't say for sure because I'm not a game dev but I think the base PS5 has a lot more to give, especially by well optimized games released by first parties. Fingers crossed.
That was pretty much THE reason for a Pro, and maybe framerate here and there. Anecdotally, the game specific tweaks I never was too blown away by. I remember Monster Hunter World had a fidelity mode that added more foliage, which was cool. But nothing truly game changing as far as anything I personally played, outside the 4k support (which is a pretty big jump admittedly). I think the benefits of the Pro were pretty overstated... but the triple decker design was neat. Too bad about the jet engine fan.
Some people mentioned it was a pretty big boost for VR games, which is significant if you played a lot of VR.
I kinda feel like I'm nuts but I still can't - really - tell the difference between 30 and 60 fps unless it's compared side by side. I guess I might be crazy and I suppose it is to my benefit I can't tell. I can tell when the frame rate dips but that's about it.
Call me the most unobservant person in the world haha, but I have never understood this whole frame rate obsession thing. I know I'm not in the majority on this but I'd like to see improvements in other areas besides just repeatedly focusing on this specific element. I feel like I missed a whole generation because I missed the memo that framerate is king. We used to talk about new gameplay mechanics and "better graphics" between generations as kids. Now we argue about 10 framerate dips in a 60fps game in hyper-technical Digital Foundry videos.
What the PS4 Pro offered in a nutshell was 4K compatibility. It was needed at the time, as 4K TVs were becoming the industry standard. Granted, the vast majority of games did not actually output true 4k, but it was needed regardless. The PS4 base model hardware was pretty dated the second it launched. By the time the Pro launched it was ancient.
But you are right - in the end, the value proposition for the Pro was 4K and... Pretty much jack all else. The "pro enhanced" modes some games offered were to me negligible and unimpressive.
Yeah could not agree more. I would say the PS5 has room to grow beyond just upping the frame rate and resolution that so many seem to be obsessed with these days. These marginal, barely noticeable (to me anyways) changes that don't affect the end experience all that much.
What PS5 could do - and where I think PS4 held it back - is as you said the game design philosophy, not resolution or graphics. Namely, utilizing the SSD to create new experiences. We saw this in a limited way with Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart's seamless world transitions, although it was later discovered some trickery was involved there. Graphics are scalable, the core game design is not.
What made it apparent the PS4 parity is holding PS5 back for me was God of War: Ragnarok. The design limitations of the PS4 version (loading screens hidden by tedious segments of squeezing through wall openings, etc.) are naturally present in the PS5 version as well, even though they were not needed with the PS5's SSD. I firmly believe the level layouts would be rearranged for the better and "flow" better in a more seamless way, if the PS4 version did not exist. This is just one small example of many I'm sure. Sort of that old argument that the devs develop to the lowest common denominator and scale what is scalable to the more powerful consoles.
It's a shame that the most impressive games for me in the PS5's library are still the exclusives that came out during the launch window, like Ratchet and Demon's Souls and Astro Bot. Something happened about 6 months in where they just chose to make the PS5 like a PS4 Pro+. It never felt like a generational leap outside of the launch games because they ditched exclusivity pretty quickly. I think it was a practical business decision that hurt the PS5's long term prospects in the end.
Amen to that. I don't like the overall direction I'm seeing with the acquisitions, whether it was Tencent, Microsoft, or Sony. I'm glad it's slowing down now.
I like Xbox as a brand. Had a lot of good memories doing Halo LAN parties, playing Morrowind / Gears / etc. Good times.
Despite liking Xbox, I never stopped despising Microsoft as a company. For a whole host of reasons that has nothing to do with their games division. The whole Game pass thing to me is nasty, the buying up huge publishers thing is even worse. I get their overall plan, or vision, or whatever you want to call it... And I don't want it.
I want some competition to be around though. Letting Sony of the leash entirely is a future I do not want to see. Hope they can continue to coexist.
Yeah agree, I feel like this guy in the article is right on the money - the PS5 Pro will be extremely niche and lack the wider appeal of the PS4 Pro. They need more software that pushes the hardware further to make a refresh make sense.
The last three year period was a chance for Sony to make a strong case for a Pro model. In my opinion, they failed (so far). First party software that pushes the system just isn't getting out fast enough or in the quantity needed to sell me on why I need this.
My sentiments exactly. How are you going to sell me on a PS5 Pro when we just left the PS4 / PS5 cross platform era and it seems the base PS5 hasn't been fully tapped into yet.
If Sony had dumped PS4 for its new game releases three years ago I could see the argument. They chose not to abandon the PS4 install base which is fine but it hurt the value proposition of a pro model right now.
When the PS4 Pro came out, the base model's limits had been well and truly reached and a Pro made sense. Unfortunately, PS5 was held back by PS4 parity so Sony could tap into that extra install base, and it just hasn't had a chance to grow at the same rate as a result.
Capcom cannot miss. Dominates every genre it releases games for. As far as I'm concerned there's Capcom, and everyone else. And yeah, I include Nintendo and Sony in the "everyone else" category. No other publisher comes close imo.
Shame about the micro transactions, though.
Hate micro transactions but... RE 2/3/4 remake had em. RE8 has em. Street Fighter has em. Monster Hunter has had em. Devil May Cry 5 too. Sorta weird that they even include them as they generally trend towards "time savers" and its usually stuff you can get pretty easily in the game too, outside of the outfits here and there. Not defending, but in the grand spectrum of micro transactions, it's the least offensive sort. It's nowhere near the egregious level of NetherRealm or EA or Activision games in general. Still not ideal though.
On the net, I've really appreciated their free content updates to their games more than I've been offended by their pretty innocuous microtransaction schemes.
Thanks, I really appreciate it. I (naively) hope we can get back to some sense of normalcy someday, whatever normal was pre-COVID.
On a lighter note, here's also to hoping this young lady can go about her life in peace! Life's already stressful enough without strangers calling your workplace. The silver lining of this story to me is while everyone might argue as to the cause of this sort of behavior, every single one of us seems to agree it is unacceptable. There's still a lot of good people out there. We just hear about the troubled ones because good people aren't all that newsworthy.
I can't speak to everything you said, but mental health issues are definitely on the rise. I've worked as a police officer in the US for the last six years and in that short time it's become significantly, noticeably worse. This is just my experience, but I think most would agree. Worked more suicidal calls in the last 18 months then the rest of my time combined. Just in my limited experience, stalking behavior usually has some overt mental health component and is also on the rise. Working on a telephone stalking case right now.
You hate to see it. Not sure what's going on with people...
I love the dirty VHS presentation of those games. I also love found footage horror movies, go figure, and it reminds me of that style.
Man I miss those games. You think if they released Manhunt in 2024 they would have to tone it down a bit? I remember Rockstar was courting the uber violence controversy pretty hard back when that released.
I saw some footage for this game and it actually looks pretty solid. I just really, really wish it wasn't published by Nacon. They are a pretty awful company to their devs.
Thank you, I think the comments on here have been pretty tame and reasonable compared to what I've seen in the past. Usually the only rational thing to do with emotionally charged topics is to not comment, but the PushSquare community has been a lot more tempered and sane than other game sites with stuff like this, so I thought I'd give it a shot. I'm actually pretty impressed with the civility so far, I guess a shout out to the commenters and the mods for keeping it somewhat reasonable is due.
It's a nuanced topic and people unfortunately don't have a lot of patience for discussing those nuances.
"Woke" in the pejorative, negative usage doesn't refer to female leads. It doesn't refer to having a diverse cast. Those things are cool and good if done well, which there are plenty of good examples of good games in that vein.
Whether you agree or disagree, there is a subset of people who believe modern media - sometimes - includes women and a diverse cast to check a box, or to push their own worldview and/or 'virtue signal' without really doing right or understanding the particular ethnicity they are portraying, or without any actual benefit to the story. It is a synonym for pandering. Inclusion for inclusion's sake I guess you could say. It's self-serving, superficial, and gross, whereas the ones done well have diverse characters that organically fit their settings.
Too bad the English language is so fluid and we keep moving the goalposts on that word. Diversity in games is awesome if done well and was around long before the extremist worldviews on both sides of the debate muddied the waters.
It's the asinine new wave feminist movement with its ridiculous excess crashing against people that legitimately hate or dislike women. And all of us in the middle are just standing on the sidelines as these two opposite but equally bonkers worldviews go at it like feral cats.
Remember the Sarkesian versus gamers saga? I thought she was a nutjob but then again so were the people that went after her. Nobody wins and everyone on both sides end up looking like idiots. Everyone's toxic worldviews get validated and the cycle continues because only the loudest, wackiest stuff gets news time. Meanwhile 95% plus of us are just trying to dodge the debate and just enjoy playing video games.
I will also say, I left Kotaku after years of reading because they were editorializing waaaay too much on social issues. There's a crowd and a target market for that type of news, apparently, but I appreciate keeping it straight news and dodging the rampant culture war stuff, which PushSquare wisely does 98% of the time. Game blogs aren't the platform for that type of discussion (trust me, or, if you want proof - look at the comment section of any Kotaku article over the past 15 years. The closest analogy I can think of to describe it is pigs wallowing in mud).
I'm content to wait. Might be a bit of a reach, but I'm fairly sure Bloober Team doesn't "get" Silent Hill. Based on their past games and the SH2 trailer they released. James Sunderland's iconic mirror scene was butchered. Looks like he is about to cry in that shot.
Everything in that game was painstakingly intentional. James' disassociation and "absent" personality, the shot in the bathroom where he has a sort of sneaky smile on his face and secretly is looking at the player. It's treatment of the whole topic of mental health. Really a masterpiece by Team Silent. I guess despite the overtly horrifying monsters and whatnot, there was a lot of subtlety in those stories that puts a game like this far, far out of Bloober's league.
I've come to believe this series was just lightning in a bottle and can never be recreated properly. It was a product of it's time with the exact right people at the exact right time. Chasing the dream of returning to a game that rivals or exceeds the original three entries is sort of a Silent Hill purgatory in itself. Just as delusional and hopeless as James Sunderland's personal journey to find his dead wife. How's that for meta?
PS1 was a legendary system. '97-98 was madness. Things seemed more experimental back then. PS3 was pretty darn good too, but all things considered, I gotta give the crown to PS2.
Seriously though, yeah, if you got a serviceable PC the value proposition is way down for sure. If you have an Xbox and PS5, a huge amount of library overlaps, of course. Those things go without saying! (Not many exclusives)
The single player stuff is not for everyone. I respect that too. If I were big into multiplayer (I'm absolutely not) PC would be my go-to for the reasons you mention.
I looked at the question in terms of, if you could only have one console is it doing alright in the library department? That's why I include the PS4 backwards compatibility. And I think PS5 is doing very well, so far, if you are into the specific thing they are offering. We are eating good here, I think.
I own 16 consoles and a PC I collect for, so I have to mentally frame it in terms of if I just had a PS5, would I be happy? I would! The overall end user experience and package (controller, UI, third party games, exclusives, etc.) has cumulatively amounted to the best time I've had in gaming since I started in 1994. Just edges out some of the amazing 6th Gen consoles for me, so far. Could change.
Strauss Zelnick, Bobby Kotick, and Randy Pitchford should form like a power rangers super squad, except their super powers would include microtransactions and doing lines of coke.
I'm one of those weird people that played Call of Duty for the campaign. I stopped like 5 entries back but they were bombastic fun in a Michael Bay sort of way. Heard this campaign is pretty dismal.
Activision had a way of running its huge franchises into the ground back in the day by releasing too many games too quickly. Guitar Hero comes to mind. That game was a cultural phenomenon back in the day.
I think CoD has some gas in the tank but I'd guess in the next ten years it will be sitting next to Guitar Hero, unless it can reinvent itself somehow.
I'll never understand why Konami took a flag ship franchise (Silent Hill) and passed it around to every C-tier dev after Silent Hill 4. And now it's Bloober Team's turn to desecrate the corpse.
I know it's already been said but waiting on Bloober to make a good Silent Hill game is like trying to get 5 star cuisine at McDonald's.
The MGS compilation port was super lazy I heard, and they are not going to bother redoing any of the voicework for the MGS3 remake. Konami has got me very skeptical right now.
Third party games have been absolutely insane. Capcom has ripped the crown from Sony first party devs this generation, and I'm just not sure they can do anything wrong at this point. And the indie titles have been on point too. Would like to see more AA experimental stuff overall though.
For every generation since the PS1, my four favorite devs has always fluctuated between Konami, Capcom, Nintendo, and Sony. Capcom is winning this round for me by a country mile. And the others (excluding Konami, RIP) aren't anything to laugh at either, so that's really saying something.
I say it's a super solid start. Japan Studio going away sucked, and I'd echo the overall sentiment that while I believe there is more diversity in Sony's first party lineup then they get credit for (3 platformers, a destruction derby game, an arcade rogue-like shooter, a racing game, a souls game) there are too many open world or semi-open world action games with RPG-lite elements.
I would put God of War, Horizon, Miles Morales, Spiderman 2, as well as the Ghost of Tsushima, Death Stranding, Last of Us, and Uncharted PS5 ports all in the same broad category, and it is becoming saturated.
We could use horror, flight sims, western and Japanese-style RPGs, car combat, first person shooters from Sony. We have most of that from third parties but I want to see some different genres from first party devs.
I think if you look at the system just in terms of its "exclusives," a very specific type of person could say the library isn't too hot. I wouldn't agree, but some people might not dig what Sony is offering, especially since they focus on 2-3 specific genres.
But the library includes third party stuff too. Capcom, FromSoft, etc. have been on fire. Indie games have been plentiful and amazing as well. I'd say AA stuff is the biggest casualty of this gen, but there is some of that too in games like Evil West and Psychonauts 2. Just not as much as I'd like, but if you include PS4 back compatibility you have a positively gargantuan library representing every genre and taste. We are absolutely spoiled this gen.
My feeling is there aren't many games that have that "wow" factor in terms of purely graphics, although I'd nominate Ratchet and Clank and the Demon's Souls remake as being among the prettiest games I've ever seen on any system.
I want to see the cross gen period ended so we can get something that really pushes the needle forward like Uncharted did for the PS3 generation.
All these conversations about a PS5 Pro are pretty presumptuous to me, considering it seems they haven't even unlocked the potential of the base model system yet.
First console was the PS1 and owned all the Sony systems since. I've never enjoyed a console as much as I have the PS5. Demon's Souls out of the gate was nuts.
If anything, with the advent of services like PS Plus, I feel pretty paralyzed by choice more than anything. Demon's Souls, Ratchet and Clank, Returnal, Horizon, Gran Turismo 7, God of War Ragnarok... It's been a ride.
Could go on about the amazing third party stuff. Final Fantasy XVI, Elden Ring, Dead Space, Resident Evil 4, Cyberpunk 2077 2.0, and so much more. Then all the awesome indie titles like Inscryption, Cult of the Lamb, Sea of Stars, Stray, etc... it's just sort of mind boggling.
Cross gen lasted way too long for my liking though and slowed progress down.
Agreed MGSV was the weakest story-wise of the main entries and didn't care for it in that respect, and having Hayter in the role wouldn't have changed a whole lot considering Big Boss doesn't really have too many speaking lines. I thought this change in particular (how quiet he is compared to previous games) is a valid and pretty clever reference to the plot twist other commenters have mentioned.
I have a weird cognitive dissonance where Hideo Kojima made my favorite game of all time, but I'm not a fan of his newer stuff. He kind of became aimless later on, which became apparent in MGSV. The themes in V (vocal cord parasites, connection between language, identity, and culture) are rich topics, which were so undercooked compared to the previous razor-focused themes of past entries. It was a very rambling, almost college-freshman-research-paper level attempt at the subjects. He didn't seem super motivated to actually explore the themes beyond a superficial level. I think you are right, he didn't want to work on the series anymore but Konami wouldn't let him pursue other stuff, and it showed. In his defense he was trying to move on from the series since MGS2. I can understand wanting to move on.
What I can't understand is his apparent disdain for Hayter. Legitimately nice, down to earth guy. I've heard it said Kojima never liked Hayter's gravelly voice direction he lent to Solid Snake / Big Boss character. All I'm saying is it must have REALLY steamed Kojima that Hayter became more synonymous and iconic to the series than Kojima himself. A guy with an ego like that, it's got to hurt a bit.
I would hazard a guess if Kojima had a more focused vision for MGSV, ran it with a tighter budget, kept Hayter in, re-worked the boss fights, had a better and more distinctive antagonist, and nailed down the themes more, he would still have a place at Konami regardless of what their exact disagreements were.
And regarding Death Stranding, I don't subscribe to the whole this is actually a walking simulator complaint. And like MGSV, I don't think it's a bad game overall - it just isn't great. Main complaint against Death Stranding is the same I had with MGSV, that being it doesn't really explore the themes it tries to very well, or tries to do to many at once. Bites off more than it can chew with its story. Kojima's story telling edge has dulled for me personally, and that was his X Factor back in the day. Compare Death Stranding's story themes with how focused MGS1's messaging on nuclear deterrence and proliferation was. His thematic story telling lost a lot of its coherency and focus over time. His stuff seems pretty shallow now in comparison.
P.T. was amazing and I really regret we couldn't get a chance to see what Kojima could do if given free reign in the horror genre.
Anyways, I guess I just rambled a lot to say I agree with all your points haha. As a lifelong fan of MGS and for all parties involved - I am glad Kojima has moved on. He was making so many missteps with the MGS series by the time he left, I think it was clear it was past due.
No, the reasoning for casting Sutherland as 'Venom Snake' had nothing to do with the plot twist you are referring to.
We know this is true because they kept the Japanese voice actor the same for MGSV as all the previous games. Pretty much debunks that theory.
The real reason Hideo Kojima cast Sutherland isn't well understood by really anyone besides I guess Kojima. It was the worst creative decision he ever made. Some say he really just wanted to work with Sutherland, as he has long had a sort of fanboyish relationship with western cinema and TV and wanted to work with a "big name", so to speak.
Whatever his reason, it's well documented Kojima basically stone walled David Hayter prior to MGSV's release. Hayter was never contacted by the studio or Kojima. Never given so much as a thank you, according to Hayter himself. Never notified he wouldn't be voice acting Snake in MGSV. Arguably THE most iconic voice actor in the history of the medium, stonewalled.
Konami is guilty of plenty of bad calls, but firing Kojima was never one of them. Kojima is a narcissistic, arrogant jerk and it's really apparent from his many interviews. Most recent of a dozen examples being him blaming Death Stranding's less than stellar critical reception on the audience just not getting it.
Doesn't change the fact he made some pretty good games though (didn't care for Death Stranding in the slightest, but nobody can deny MGS1 and 3 are gold). He just went a bit off his rocker later on. Think he bought too much into his own "I'm a genius / auteur" narrative the industry was constantly spinning around him.
I mean, I was - literally - laughing at the fact Kojima's name scrolls across the screen like 15 times before each and every main story mission while playing MGSV. It's ridiculous.
So have they backtracked on the digital only release thing yet? I'll buy it if it releases in a physical edition, otherwise they don't get a single cent. Could have had my $60-70 from me, day one.
I get it, I'm just one guy... Too attached to physical, move on with the times, yadda yadda. But hey, that's 70 bucks they could have gotten but now won't. Money is money, just release a digital version and a physical edition at 10 bucks more. Easy. But they hesitate because the reasoning they provided for going all digital is an outright, verifiable, and completely transparent lie. It is in fact a DRM measure hiding in plain sight under the thinnest of pretexts.
Wish we had good enough data to figure out how much money they lose on physical reselling and compare that to the 15-25%(?) of people who just won't touch this until a massively steep discount hits.
The beep is life. The beep is the only thing that prevents me from falling into the abyss. The all-consuming power of the beep helps me keep my chakra centered and is also known to have a positive influence on energy levels and overall health, based on peer-reviewed studies.
Shame because I feel like these medium budget AA games are the number one casualty of the current era of video game development. Too bad this one couldn't nail it.
Ever since this game was announced, people have been asking 'Why Gollum'. And as a massive lifelong LOTR fan and reader, I can't help but agree the whole premise was questionable from the beginning. Literally hundreds of characters from the lore I'd put in front of Gollum to feature in a game.
Comments 872
Re: PlayStation Fans Torn on Prospect of PS5 Pro
I bet it sells okay in the end. I'm sure there will be some use case for it for the hardcore / early adopter crowd. Probably something like better framerate, which is negligible and unimpressive for a lot of people (me), but crucial and all-important to many others. Maybe some VR2 compatibility?
Re: Xbox Planning to Release the 'Majority' of Its Exclusives on PS5
I feel like Xbox had all the cards and everything was in place for them this gen. They had leading infrastructure and tech for their GamePass vision, they had the free cash for big acquisitions, they had a capable console with a cheaper alternative for more casual folks entering the gaming sphere, and they had a distinct goal of broadening console gaming to other devices they seem committed to.
There was just one crucial thing missing: the games. A console needs first party exclusive games - to distinguish its brand from the competition, to move consoles, to establish some sort of identity. This is as true today as it was in '95 when the PS1 carved it's way into the market from nothing, with good games and a distinct, edgier, more "adult" marketing approach to distinguish it from Nintendo. They had an angle they worked to get into the market and the good luck for Sega to make some huge business errors in the hardware space.
GamePass is not an identity. It's not enough by itself. GamePass + high-quality, plentiful first party games = Microsoft is the new king of console gaming. They tripped at the finish line. I don't know what omega-level mismanagement has occurred over the past three plus years to result in not a single standout flagship title being released across a multitude of studios, but it needs to get looked at with a critical eye.
No sane person wants Xbox to disappear from the hardware space, as they reign in Sony's less friendly business impulses.
Re: Devs Allegedly Pondering the Point of Sony's PS5 Pro Upgrade
@MomsSpaghetti
Oh yeah, a lot of people were happy with the performance boost, especially people who are keen on framerate. I've heard people sing it's praises and get the arguments for 4k and all that.
I owned one. Bought it due to my base PS4 being pretty aged and struggling at the point. I saw hardly any noticeable benefit at all. But that's me, I think it is a niche product marketed maybe more to technophiles, but to my untrained eye I got nothing out of it except jet fan noises that scared my dog haha. I'm not discounting the value of it, just saying it's meant for people who are not me, possibly more observant people than me.
Re: Devs Allegedly Pondering the Point of Sony's PS5 Pro Upgrade
@gameus_erectus
I think the general argument is those games run poorly because they are not optimized well for the system, not because the PS5 is maxed out. We see those games patched later to have better performance in those cases when they are a mess at launch or don't work well.
I personally can't say for sure because I'm not a game dev but I think the base PS5 has a lot more to give, especially by well optimized games released by first parties. Fingers crossed.
Re: Devs Allegedly Pondering the Point of Sony's PS5 Pro Upgrade
@MomsSpaghetti
That was pretty much THE reason for a Pro, and maybe framerate here and there. Anecdotally, the game specific tweaks I never was too blown away by. I remember Monster Hunter World had a fidelity mode that added more foliage, which was cool. But nothing truly game changing as far as anything I personally played, outside the 4k support (which is a pretty big jump admittedly). I think the benefits of the Pro were pretty overstated... but the triple decker design was neat. Too bad about the jet engine fan.
Some people mentioned it was a pretty big boost for VR games, which is significant if you played a lot of VR.
Re: Devs Allegedly Pondering the Point of Sony's PS5 Pro Upgrade
@RicksReflection
I kinda feel like I'm nuts but I still can't - really - tell the difference between 30 and 60 fps unless it's compared side by side. I guess I might be crazy and I suppose it is to my benefit I can't tell. I can tell when the frame rate dips but that's about it.
Call me the most unobservant person in the world haha, but I have never understood this whole frame rate obsession thing. I know I'm not in the majority on this but I'd like to see improvements in other areas besides just repeatedly focusing on this specific element. I feel like I missed a whole generation because I missed the memo that framerate is king. We used to talk about new gameplay mechanics and "better graphics" between generations as kids. Now we argue about 10 framerate dips in a 60fps game in hyper-technical Digital Foundry videos.
Wild stuff. I'm old.
Re: Devs Allegedly Pondering the Point of Sony's PS5 Pro Upgrade
@DennisReynolds
What the PS4 Pro offered in a nutshell was 4K compatibility. It was needed at the time, as 4K TVs were becoming the industry standard. Granted, the vast majority of games did not actually output true 4k, but it was needed regardless. The PS4 base model hardware was pretty dated the second it launched. By the time the Pro launched it was ancient.
But you are right - in the end, the value proposition for the Pro was 4K and... Pretty much jack all else. The "pro enhanced" modes some games offered were to me negligible and unimpressive.
Re: Devs Allegedly Pondering the Point of Sony's PS5 Pro Upgrade
@nhSnork
Yeah could not agree more. I would say the PS5 has room to grow beyond just upping the frame rate and resolution that so many seem to be obsessed with these days. These marginal, barely noticeable (to me anyways) changes that don't affect the end experience all that much.
What PS5 could do - and where I think PS4 held it back - is as you said the game design philosophy, not resolution or graphics. Namely, utilizing the SSD to create new experiences. We saw this in a limited way with Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart's seamless world transitions, although it was later discovered some trickery was involved there. Graphics are scalable, the core game design is not.
What made it apparent the PS4 parity is holding PS5 back for me was God of War: Ragnarok. The design limitations of the PS4 version (loading screens hidden by tedious segments of squeezing through wall openings, etc.) are naturally present in the PS5 version as well, even though they were not needed with the PS5's SSD. I firmly believe the level layouts would be rearranged for the better and "flow" better in a more seamless way, if the PS4 version did not exist. This is just one small example of many I'm sure. Sort of that old argument that the devs develop to the lowest common denominator and scale what is scalable to the more powerful consoles.
It's a shame that the most impressive games for me in the PS5's library are still the exclusives that came out during the launch window, like Ratchet and Demon's Souls and Astro Bot. Something happened about 6 months in where they just chose to make the PS5 like a PS4 Pro+. It never felt like a generational leap outside of the launch games because they ditched exclusivity pretty quickly. I think it was a practical business decision that hurt the PS5's long term prospects in the end.
Re: Xbox Planning to Release the 'Majority' of Its Exclusives on PS5
@colonelkilgore
Amen to that. I don't like the overall direction I'm seeing with the acquisitions, whether it was Tencent, Microsoft, or Sony. I'm glad it's slowing down now.
Re: Xbox Planning to Release the 'Majority' of Its Exclusives on PS5
@WolfyTn
Yeah opinions are like... Well, you know 😆
Fallout New Vegas was so good. The 4 came in and well... Yeah. Wasn't a fan compared to their previous stuff.
Re: Xbox Planning to Release the 'Majority' of Its Exclusives on PS5
@colonelkilgore
I like Xbox as a brand. Had a lot of good memories doing Halo LAN parties, playing Morrowind / Gears / etc. Good times.
Despite liking Xbox, I never stopped despising Microsoft as a company. For a whole host of reasons that has nothing to do with their games division. The whole Game pass thing to me is nasty, the buying up huge publishers thing is even worse. I get their overall plan, or vision, or whatever you want to call it... And I don't want it.
I want some competition to be around though. Letting Sony of the leash entirely is a future I do not want to see. Hope they can continue to coexist.
Re: Xbox Planning to Release the 'Majority' of Its Exclusives on PS5
I really miss the 360 era. Lot of good Xbox exclusives. I don't know what changed between them and now, but something has got to give.
Re: Devs Allegedly Pondering the Point of Sony's PS5 Pro Upgrade
@gymratAmarillo
Yeah agree, I feel like this guy in the article is right on the money - the PS5 Pro will be extremely niche and lack the wider appeal of the PS4 Pro. They need more software that pushes the hardware further to make a refresh make sense.
The last three year period was a chance for Sony to make a strong case for a Pro model. In my opinion, they failed (so far). First party software that pushes the system just isn't getting out fast enough or in the quantity needed to sell me on why I need this.
Re: Devs Allegedly Pondering the Point of Sony's PS5 Pro Upgrade
My sentiments exactly. How are you going to sell me on a PS5 Pro when we just left the PS4 / PS5 cross platform era and it seems the base PS5 hasn't been fully tapped into yet.
If Sony had dumped PS4 for its new game releases three years ago I could see the argument. They chose not to abandon the PS4 install base which is fine but it hurt the value proposition of a pro model right now.
When the PS4 Pro came out, the base model's limits had been well and truly reached and a Pro made sense. Unfortunately, PS5 was held back by PS4 parity so Sony could tap into that extra install base, and it just hasn't had a chance to grow at the same rate as a result.
Re: Dragon's Dogma 2 (PS5) - The Apex of RPG Adventuring
Capcom cannot miss. Dominates every genre it releases games for. As far as I'm concerned there's Capcom, and everyone else. And yeah, I include Nintendo and Sony in the "everyone else" category. No other publisher comes close imo.
Shame about the micro transactions, though.
Hate micro transactions but... RE 2/3/4 remake had em. RE8 has em. Street Fighter has em. Monster Hunter has had em. Devil May Cry 5 too. Sorta weird that they even include them as they generally trend towards "time savers" and its usually stuff you can get pretty easily in the game too, outside of the outfits here and there. Not defending, but in the grand spectrum of micro transactions, it's the least offensive sort. It's nowhere near the egregious level of NetherRealm or EA or Activision games in general. Still not ideal though.
On the net, I've really appreciated their free content updates to their games more than I've been offended by their pretty innocuous microtransaction schemes.
Re: Rumour: Dragon Age: Dreadwolf Will Finally, Finally Release Later This Year
Love the Dragon Age series.
But Bioware is not Bioware anymore. Most of the people who released all those iconic games are long gone from the company.
They just laid off another round of 50 people, including some of their last veteran employees.
Re: Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth Now Has Its Own Official Sony TV
Oh yeah? I'll be playing while wearing my officially branded FF 7R underwear.
Checkmate.
Re: Call of Duty: Warzone's Latest Update Appears to Have Buckled the Game
@Pingusbumhole
Please accept my deepest apologies for this error.
Is that the one you hit a ball with a big mallet through the hoops?
Re: Call of Duty: Warzone's Latest Update Appears to Have Buckled the Game
@Mikey856
Hey, hey now! Don't be calling out the Madden / Call of Duty Bro Gamers like that. They are a proud people. Their K/D ratios are insane.
They are people too!
Re: You Should Get 'Comfortable' with Not Owning Your Games, Suggests Ubisoft Exec
Suddenly I'm supposed to alter my tastes to align better with Ubisoft's long-term business strategy? Nah, that doesn't work for me.
I'll just keep doing what I like to do if you don't mind, random exec of a disgraced publisher.
Re: Marvel's Spider-Man's Mary-Jane Face Model Calls for an End to Unacceptable Behaviour
@riceNpea
Thanks, I really appreciate it. I (naively) hope we can get back to some sense of normalcy someday, whatever normal was pre-COVID.
On a lighter note, here's also to hoping this young lady can go about her life in peace! Life's already stressful enough without strangers calling your workplace. The silver lining of this story to me is while everyone might argue as to the cause of this sort of behavior, every single one of us seems to agree it is unacceptable. There's still a lot of good people out there. We just hear about the troubled ones because good people aren't all that newsworthy.
Re: Marvel's Spider-Man's Mary-Jane Face Model Calls for an End to Unacceptable Behaviour
@riceNpea
I can't speak to everything you said, but mental health issues are definitely on the rise. I've worked as a police officer in the US for the last six years and in that short time it's become significantly, noticeably worse. This is just my experience, but I think most would agree. Worked more suicidal calls in the last 18 months then the rest of my time combined. Just in my limited experience, stalking behavior usually has some overt mental health component and is also on the rise. Working on a telephone stalking case right now.
You hate to see it. Not sure what's going on with people...
Re: GTA 5's Michael Voice Actor a Big Fan of GTA 6 Protagonist: 'Lucia's Hard, Man'
@PixelDragon
I love the dirty VHS presentation of those games. I also love found footage horror movies, go figure, and it reminds me of that style.
Man I miss those games. You think if they released Manhunt in 2024 they would have to tone it down a bit? I remember Rockstar was courting the uber violence controversy pretty hard back when that released.
Re: GTA 5's Michael Voice Actor a Big Fan of GTA 6 Protagonist: 'Lucia's Hard, Man'
@Northern_munkey
Agreed! And I wish I could give you some upvotes for the Manhunt call out!
Re: Underrated PS5 Shooter RoboCop: Rogue City Teases New Game + Update
I saw some footage for this game and it actually looks pretty solid. I just really, really wish it wasn't published by Nacon. They are a pretty awful company to their devs.
Re: GTA 5's Michael Voice Actor a Big Fan of GTA 6 Protagonist: 'Lucia's Hard, Man'
@Northern_Munkey
Thank you, I think the comments on here have been pretty tame and reasonable compared to what I've seen in the past. Usually the only rational thing to do with emotionally charged topics is to not comment, but the PushSquare community has been a lot more tempered and sane than other game sites with stuff like this, so I thought I'd give it a shot. I'm actually pretty impressed with the civility so far, I guess a shout out to the commenters and the mods for keeping it somewhat reasonable is due.
It's a nuanced topic and people unfortunately don't have a lot of patience for discussing those nuances.
Re: GTA 5's Michael Voice Actor a Big Fan of GTA 6 Protagonist: 'Lucia's Hard, Man'
"Woke" in the pejorative, negative usage doesn't refer to female leads. It doesn't refer to having a diverse cast. Those things are cool and good if done well, which there are plenty of good examples of good games in that vein.
Whether you agree or disagree, there is a subset of people who believe modern media - sometimes - includes women and a diverse cast to check a box, or to push their own worldview and/or 'virtue signal' without really doing right or understanding the particular ethnicity they are portraying, or without any actual benefit to the story. It is a synonym for pandering. Inclusion for inclusion's sake I guess you could say. It's self-serving, superficial, and gross, whereas the ones done well have diverse characters that organically fit their settings.
Too bad the English language is so fluid and we keep moving the goalposts on that word. Diversity in games is awesome if done well and was around long before the extremist worldviews on both sides of the debate muddied the waters.
It's the asinine new wave feminist movement with its ridiculous excess crashing against people that legitimately hate or dislike women. And all of us in the middle are just standing on the sidelines as these two opposite but equally bonkers worldviews go at it like feral cats.
Remember the Sarkesian versus gamers saga? I thought she was a nutjob but then again so were the people that went after her. Nobody wins and everyone on both sides end up looking like idiots. Everyone's toxic worldviews get validated and the cycle continues because only the loudest, wackiest stuff gets news time. Meanwhile 95% plus of us are just trying to dodge the debate and just enjoy playing video games.
I will also say, I left Kotaku after years of reading because they were editorializing waaaay too much on social issues. There's a crowd and a target market for that type of news, apparently, but I appreciate keeping it straight news and dodging the rampant culture war stuff, which PushSquare wisely does 98% of the time. Game blogs aren't the platform for that type of discussion (trust me, or, if you want proof - look at the comment section of any Kotaku article over the past 15 years. The closest analogy I can think of to describe it is pigs wallowing in mud).
Re: Maybe Don't Expect an Elden Ring DLC Release Date at The Game Awards
Excited about this. Really dug the Dark Souls 3 expansion.
Re: Bloober Team Says Silent Hill 2 PS5 Is Progressing Smoothly, Working to Attain the Highest Quality
I'm content to wait. Might be a bit of a reach, but I'm fairly sure Bloober Team doesn't "get" Silent Hill. Based on their past games and the SH2 trailer they released. James Sunderland's iconic mirror scene was butchered. Looks like he is about to cry in that shot.
Everything in that game was painstakingly intentional. James' disassociation and "absent" personality, the shot in the bathroom where he has a sort of sneaky smile on his face and secretly is looking at the player. It's treatment of the whole topic of mental health. Really a masterpiece by Team Silent. I guess despite the overtly horrifying monsters and whatnot, there was a lot of subtlety in those stories that puts a game like this far, far out of Bloober's league.
I've come to believe this series was just lightning in a bottle and can never be recreated properly. It was a product of it's time with the exact right people at the exact right time. Chasing the dream of returning to a game that rivals or exceeds the original three entries is sort of a Silent Hill purgatory in itself. Just as delusional and hopeless as James Sunderland's personal journey to find his dead wife. How's that for meta?
Re: Poll: Are You Happy with Your PS Plus Extra, Premium Games for November 2023?
Wait Klonoa 2? That's a PS2 game and it was never re-released, except in the Fantasy Reverie port, which is also releasing on Premium.
So... does that make Klonoa 2 the FIRST PS2 game they've added to the service since it launched?
Re: Talking Point: As PS5 Turns 3, How Are You Feeling About It?
@F1at8mot0
PS1 was a legendary system. '97-98 was madness. Things seemed more experimental back then. PS3 was pretty darn good too, but all things considered, I gotta give the crown to PS2.
Re: Talking Point: As PS5 Turns 3, How Are You Feeling About It?
@nomither6
So we agree on nearly all points then! Salud!
Seriously though, yeah, if you got a serviceable PC the value proposition is way down for sure. If you have an Xbox and PS5, a huge amount of library overlaps, of course. Those things go without saying! (Not many exclusives)
The single player stuff is not for everyone. I respect that too. If I were big into multiplayer (I'm absolutely not) PC would be my go-to for the reasons you mention.
I looked at the question in terms of, if you could only have one console is it doing alright in the library department? That's why I include the PS4 backwards compatibility. And I think PS5 is doing very well, so far, if you are into the specific thing they are offering. We are eating good here, I think.
I own 16 consoles and a PC I collect for, so I have to mentally frame it in terms of if I just had a PS5, would I be happy? I would! The overall end user experience and package (controller, UI, third party games, exclusives, etc.) has cumulatively amounted to the best time I've had in gaming since I started in 1994. Just edges out some of the amazing 6th Gen consoles for me, so far. Could change.
But of course, mileage varies.
Re: AI Could Make Grand Theft Auto NPCs 'Really Interesting and Fun', Says Take-Two CEO
Strauss Zelnick, Bobby Kotick, and Randy Pitchford should form like a power rangers super squad, except their super powers would include microtransactions and doing lines of coke.
Re: UK Sales Charts: Everyone Hates Modern Warfare 3, But It's Still Number One
I'm one of those weird people that played Call of Duty for the campaign. I stopped like 5 entries back but they were bombastic fun in a Michael Bay sort of way. Heard this campaign is pretty dismal.
Activision had a way of running its huge franchises into the ground back in the day by releasing too many games too quickly. Guitar Hero comes to mind. That game was a cultural phenomenon back in the day.
I think CoD has some gas in the tank but I'd guess in the next ten years it will be sitting next to Guitar Hero, unless it can reinvent itself somehow.
Re: Konami Is Creating a New Silent Hill Production Team
I'll never understand why Konami took a flag ship franchise (Silent Hill) and passed it around to every C-tier dev after Silent Hill 4. And now it's Bloober Team's turn to desecrate the corpse.
I know it's already been said but waiting on Bloober to make a good Silent Hill game is like trying to get 5 star cuisine at McDonald's.
The MGS compilation port was super lazy I heard, and they are not going to bother redoing any of the voicework for the MGS3 remake. Konami has got me very skeptical right now.
Townfall looks interesting though.
Re: Rumour: Dragon Age Dreadwolf Really Is Set to Release in 2024
BioWare has honestly got me worried, but Inquisition was really solid so we shall wait and see.
Re: All The Game Awards 2023 Nominees Announced, Baldur's Gate 3 and Alan Wake 2 Lead the Way
C'mon Geoff, we know it's Baldur's Gate versus Zelda this year.
Re: All The Game Awards 2023 Nominees Announced, Baldur's Gate 3 and Alan Wake 2 Lead the Way
Cool to see Dredge get some nods
Re: Talking Point: As PS5 Turns 3, How Are You Feeling About It?
@KundaliniRising333
Third party games have been absolutely insane. Capcom has ripped the crown from Sony first party devs this generation, and I'm just not sure they can do anything wrong at this point. And the indie titles have been on point too. Would like to see more AA experimental stuff overall though.
For every generation since the PS1, my four favorite devs has always fluctuated between Konami, Capcom, Nintendo, and Sony. Capcom is winning this round for me by a country mile. And the others (excluding Konami, RIP) aren't anything to laugh at either, so that's really saying something.
Re: Talking Point: As PS5 Turns 3, How Are You Feeling About It?
I say it's a super solid start. Japan Studio going away sucked, and I'd echo the overall sentiment that while I believe there is more diversity in Sony's first party lineup then they get credit for (3 platformers, a destruction derby game, an arcade rogue-like shooter, a racing game, a souls game) there are too many open world or semi-open world action games with RPG-lite elements.
I would put God of War, Horizon, Miles Morales, Spiderman 2, as well as the Ghost of Tsushima, Death Stranding, Last of Us, and Uncharted PS5 ports all in the same broad category, and it is becoming saturated.
We could use horror, flight sims, western and Japanese-style RPGs, car combat, first person shooters from Sony. We have most of that from third parties but I want to see some different genres from first party devs.
Re: Talking Point: As PS5 Turns 3, How Are You Feeling About It?
@nomither6
I think if you look at the system just in terms of its "exclusives," a very specific type of person could say the library isn't too hot. I wouldn't agree, but some people might not dig what Sony is offering, especially since they focus on 2-3 specific genres.
But the library includes third party stuff too. Capcom, FromSoft, etc. have been on fire. Indie games have been plentiful and amazing as well. I'd say AA stuff is the biggest casualty of this gen, but there is some of that too in games like Evil West and Psychonauts 2. Just not as much as I'd like, but if you include PS4 back compatibility you have a positively gargantuan library representing every genre and taste. We are absolutely spoiled this gen.
Re: Talking Point: As PS5 Turns 3, How Are You Feeling About It?
@Shaunholio
My feeling is there aren't many games that have that "wow" factor in terms of purely graphics, although I'd nominate Ratchet and Clank and the Demon's Souls remake as being among the prettiest games I've ever seen on any system.
I want to see the cross gen period ended so we can get something that really pushes the needle forward like Uncharted did for the PS3 generation.
All these conversations about a PS5 Pro are pretty presumptuous to me, considering it seems they haven't even unlocked the potential of the base model system yet.
Re: Talking Point: As PS5 Turns 3, How Are You Feeling About It?
First console was the PS1 and owned all the Sony systems since. I've never enjoyed a console as much as I have the PS5. Demon's Souls out of the gate was nuts.
If anything, with the advent of services like PS Plus, I feel pretty paralyzed by choice more than anything. Demon's Souls, Ratchet and Clank, Returnal, Horizon, Gran Turismo 7, God of War Ragnarok... It's been a ride.
Could go on about the amazing third party stuff. Final Fantasy XVI, Elden Ring, Dead Space, Resident Evil 4, Cyberpunk 2077 2.0, and so much more. Then all the awesome indie titles like Inscryption, Cult of the Lamb, Sea of Stars, Stray, etc... it's just sort of mind boggling.
Cross gen lasted way too long for my liking though and slowed progress down.
Re: Embracer COO Announces Departure Following 'Rough' Year for Company
@Exerion76
Sir, this is a Burger King.
Re: Solid Snake Voice Actor David Hayter Fronts New Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Promo
@InsaneWade
Agreed MGSV was the weakest story-wise of the main entries and didn't care for it in that respect, and having Hayter in the role wouldn't have changed a whole lot considering Big Boss doesn't really have too many speaking lines. I thought this change in particular (how quiet he is compared to previous games) is a valid and pretty clever reference to the plot twist other commenters have mentioned.
I have a weird cognitive dissonance where Hideo Kojima made my favorite game of all time, but I'm not a fan of his newer stuff. He kind of became aimless later on, which became apparent in MGSV. The themes in V (vocal cord parasites, connection between language, identity, and culture) are rich topics, which were so undercooked compared to the previous razor-focused themes of past entries. It was a very rambling, almost college-freshman-research-paper level attempt at the subjects. He didn't seem super motivated to actually explore the themes beyond a superficial level. I think you are right, he didn't want to work on the series anymore but Konami wouldn't let him pursue other stuff, and it showed. In his defense he was trying to move on from the series since MGS2. I can understand wanting to move on.
What I can't understand is his apparent disdain for Hayter. Legitimately nice, down to earth guy. I've heard it said Kojima never liked Hayter's gravelly voice direction he lent to Solid Snake / Big Boss character. All I'm saying is it must have REALLY steamed Kojima that Hayter became more synonymous and iconic to the series than Kojima himself. A guy with an ego like that, it's got to hurt a bit.
I would hazard a guess if Kojima had a more focused vision for MGSV, ran it with a tighter budget, kept Hayter in, re-worked the boss fights, had a better and more distinctive antagonist, and nailed down the themes more, he would still have a place at Konami regardless of what their exact disagreements were.
And regarding Death Stranding, I don't subscribe to the whole this is actually a walking simulator complaint. And like MGSV, I don't think it's a bad game overall - it just isn't great. Main complaint against Death Stranding is the same I had with MGSV, that being it doesn't really explore the themes it tries to very well, or tries to do to many at once. Bites off more than it can chew with its story. Kojima's story telling edge has dulled for me personally, and that was his X Factor back in the day. Compare Death Stranding's story themes with how focused MGS1's messaging on nuclear deterrence and proliferation was. His thematic story telling lost a lot of its coherency and focus over time. His stuff seems pretty shallow now in comparison.
P.T. was amazing and I really regret we couldn't get a chance to see what Kojima could do if given free reign in the horror genre.
Anyways, I guess I just rambled a lot to say I agree with all your points haha. As a lifelong fan of MGS and for all parties involved - I am glad Kojima has moved on. He was making so many missteps with the MGS series by the time he left, I think it was clear it was past due.
Re: Solid Snake Voice Actor David Hayter Fronts New Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Promo
@Ocelot
No, the reasoning for casting Sutherland as 'Venom Snake' had nothing to do with the plot twist you are referring to.
We know this is true because they kept the Japanese voice actor the same for MGSV as all the previous games. Pretty much debunks that theory.
The real reason Hideo Kojima cast Sutherland isn't well understood by really anyone besides I guess Kojima. It was the worst creative decision he ever made. Some say he really just wanted to work with Sutherland, as he has long had a sort of fanboyish relationship with western cinema and TV and wanted to work with a "big name", so to speak.
Whatever his reason, it's well documented Kojima basically stone walled David Hayter prior to MGSV's release. Hayter was never contacted by the studio or Kojima. Never given so much as a thank you, according to Hayter himself. Never notified he wouldn't be voice acting Snake in MGSV. Arguably THE most iconic voice actor in the history of the medium, stonewalled.
Konami is guilty of plenty of bad calls, but firing Kojima was never one of them. Kojima is a narcissistic, arrogant jerk and it's really apparent from his many interviews. Most recent of a dozen examples being him blaming Death Stranding's less than stellar critical reception on the audience just not getting it.
Doesn't change the fact he made some pretty good games though (didn't care for Death Stranding in the slightest, but nobody can deny MGS1 and 3 are gold). He just went a bit off his rocker later on. Think he bought too much into his own "I'm a genius / auteur" narrative the industry was constantly spinning around him.
I mean, I was - literally - laughing at the fact Kojima's name scrolls across the screen like 15 times before each and every main story mission while playing MGSV. It's ridiculous.
Re: Alan Wake 2 Devs Took Inspiration from Resident Evil, Wants Players to Feel 'More Vulnerable'
So have they backtracked on the digital only release thing yet? I'll buy it if it releases in a physical edition, otherwise they don't get a single cent. Could have had my $60-70 from me, day one.
I get it, I'm just one guy... Too attached to physical, move on with the times, yadda yadda. But hey, that's 70 bucks they could have gotten but now won't. Money is money, just release a digital version and a physical edition at 10 bucks more. Easy. But they hesitate because the reasoning they provided for going all digital is an outright, verifiable, and completely transparent lie. It is in fact a DRM measure hiding in plain sight under the thinnest of pretexts.
Wish we had good enough data to figure out how much money they lose on physical reselling and compare that to the 15-25%(?) of people who just won't touch this until a massively steep discount hits.
Re: Poll: Will You Be Muting Your PS5's Beep?
The beep is life. The beep is the only thing that prevents me from falling into the abyss. The all-consuming power of the beep helps me keep my chakra centered and is also known to have a positive influence on energy levels and overall health, based on peer-reviewed studies.
Re: Gollum Dev Daedalic Entertainment to Focus on Publishing After Disastrous Launch
Shame because I feel like these medium budget AA games are the number one casualty of the current era of video game development. Too bad this one couldn't nail it.
Ever since this game was announced, people have been asking 'Why Gollum'. And as a massive lifelong LOTR fan and reader, I can't help but agree the whole premise was questionable from the beginning. Literally hundreds of characters from the lore I'd put in front of Gollum to feature in a game.
Re: Alan Wake 2's Digital-Only Release Allows for a More Polished Game, Says Remedy
Yeah, this stands up to scrutiny