The trophy system always felt like a nice touch, a little extra on top for enjoying a game. I can’t imagine anything as meaningless as the trophy being the actual reward rather than the game experience.
@Dogbreath Returnal was certainly difficult in places. Apart from the lack of a pause or mid run save feature, what were the design choices that were so significantly opposed to ‘normal’ lifestyles? I don’t know if personally I equate difficulty with accessibility as you suggest with car seats. I always just thought Housemarque were trying to bring a certain type of arcade experience into their games.
The headphones are interesting however the H9ii whilst an improvement in hardware quality, especially the microphone the connectivity with PS5 is atrocious. The original H9’s are far better in this regard. Interested to see where the H6 lands for PS5 users.
@Boxmonkey What does steam concurrent player numbers have to do with GOTY awards, nominations or anything? Unless there is an award category for most concurrent steam players. Last year’s winner Expedition 33 has currently 8k players, so it’s player count dictates its quality? Thankfully GOTY winners aren’t selected by popular vote or else nothing would win apart from Roblox or some gatcha mobile rubbish.
CFO Lin Tao said earlier this year that Sony aims to offset rising hardware costs by further monetising its existing players.
Yet there are still no PS5 Pro plates. Where is the hyperpop Pro collection. Those plates must be the highest margin accessory they sell yet haven’t managed to get any out.
They make nothing on the PS5 console and in some markets lose money on per unit sales basis. PlayStation makes far more from increasing its customer base, market share and sales through its ecosystem. If Sony could make these for substantially less than its competitors or retail them at hundreds of dollars less without taking a bath they would. It’d be far more profitable for them in the long run. Any price increase to console hardware is bad news for their business model too.
@Sakai Hmmm yeah that’s fine if your margins are decent to begin with and you’re a services company. Absorb it all day long. When you are talking about manufacturing at scale with material input costs the margins are razor thin.
@themightyant Sometimes you wonder though if people pause and think anything through. It’s not even that complicated. Sony secured ram volume and supply contracts years in advance but that would eventually have to be adjusted. They shipped millions of units into the US prior to tariff day. We had a situation where a base Series X with similar memory was retailing for more than a PS5 Pro and Microsoft is a far larger company. Those units have now largely sold through and we are getting new pricing. I’m not even sure if this new pricing was calculated with the increase to current logistic costs. These companies don’t exactly respond quickly. I actually think Sony’s management did well by managing to sell millions of units over the past year whilst everything else increased in price. If the destruction to global oil production, supply and oil price rise continues this won’t be the last price increase.
@Reyzore What do you mean suspicious? Xbox already increased prices across the board months ago. A base Series X with the same memory was more than a PS5 Pro until this announcement. Sony managed bring in millions of units prior to the a.i ram and tariff debacle and now a new logistics oil disaster. Those units have sold through and now we are getting new pricing.
It’s crazy that launch prices are the cheapest. Wasn’t going to pick up a PS6 but might not be able to afford it half way through the next generation. Gaming used to be a relatively cheap hobby.
@bossuche9 The only thing that matters regarding price is the actual game you are buying. Seem irrelevant that the studio used to make indie games. It’s not like Saros is a similar scope to Resogun.
@PuppetMaster You are spot on. People love to proclaim if only there were these smaller PS3 era titles and If only Japan Studio was making games then PlayStation / the industry would be saved. Except no one showed up to buy these games. The sales data is miserable. The AA market dried up and it’s because consumers stopped buying them not because studios wanted to stop making them.
@Boxmonkey Thats a really weird viewpoint. You are upset because you perceive western studios as ‘woke’ or pushing agendas. Idolising studios in Asia isn’t better, working conditions are atrocious, they are basically crunch factories with wages and benefits that you wouldn’t get out of bed for. Honestly the woke nonsense has lost all perspective.
I’m sure I’ve missed a few titles, but I’ve tried to be as even handed as possible. This is meant to be illustrative rather than exhaustive.
My original point wasn’t to argue which generation is better, but to push back on the idea that this generation is somehow far worse. Whether one is better is subjective, but it’s hard to argue that this generation “pales in comparison.” It also raises the question of what defines “good” output. Is it purely the number of titles, ignoring quality and scope? Volume matters, but it’s not the only metric. You’re right that Sony owns more studios now than last gen. However, many of those were acquired or built to pursue live service games, with funding coming additionally from Sony not deducting from PlayStation's previous development budget allocation. At the same time, development costs have increased significantly, games are larger in scope, and they take much longer to make. The live service push is a separate issue and, in hindsight, not a great use of resources.
Finally, on Japan Studio. It’s fondly remembered, but often misunderstood. It wasn’t a single cohesive team, it was a collection of internal teams led by individual creatives. Over time, many of those teams spun off or dissolved. Team Ico, led by Fumito Ueda, saw him depart in 2011. Team Gravity, led by Keiichirō Toyama, followed in 2020. They went onto form their studios and try their luck as independents. Fair play, what do you want Sony to do if people want to set up their own shop. Others, like Team Poly, evolved into Polyphony Digital. What remained was largely unassigned staff and Team Asobi. Sony ultimately dissolved Japan Studio, redistributing staff across internal teams, with many joining Team Asobi under Nicolas Doucet. Ironically, this mirrors how Japan Studio itself was originally formed. It’s also worth noting that Japan Studio didn’t consistently deliver projects on time or achieve strong commercial success. Fumito Ueda hasn’t released a game in over a decade, and Keiichirō Toyama’s Slitterhead, was largely passed by unnoticed. Meanwhile, internal development in Japan continues with Team Asobi producing what is arguably one of the best, and certainly most commercially and critically successful in recent years.
@IOI I’m going to give this a proper response, as you’ve actually taken the time to lay out your position.
Your original comment was that “output has dipped and this generation pales in comparison to last gen,” and that we effectively got one game per year in 2023 to 2025. That’s where I disagree. You’ve listed a number of games, but the selection feels arbitrary and lacks context by year, which was my original point.
You’ve also omitted second party PS5 titles like Stellar Blade and Rise of the Rōnin. Then you include similar second party games on PS4 like Until Dawn, The Order and Resogun. Whether a game comes to PC is largely irrelevant. Sony financed and published these titles, and they are part of the PS5 lineup. You also include a PS2 remaster on PS4, but omit comparable releases on PS5. For consistency, you do include the Demon’s Souls remake, which is fair.
To keep things objective, here’s a year by year breakdown of first and second party releases with Metacritic scores.
Launch PS4: Killzone: Shadow Fall (73), Knack (54), Resogun (84) PS5: Demon’s Souls (92), Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales (85), Sackboy: A Big Adventure (79), Astro’s Playroom (83)
Year One PS4: Infamous Second Son (80), LittleBigPlanet 3 (79), Infamous First Light (73), Driveclub (71), MLB 14: The Show (81) PS5: Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart (88), Returnal (86), Destruction AllStars (62), MLB The Show 21 (78)
Year Two PS4: Bloodborne (92), Helldivers (81), Tearaway Unfolded (81), Until Dawn (79), The Order: 1886 (63), MLB 15: The Show (80) PS5: God of War Ragnarök (94), Horizon Forbidden West (88), The Last of Us Part I (88), Gran Turismo 7 (87), MLB The Show 22 (77)
Year Three PS4: Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End (93), Ratchet & Clank (85), The Last Guardian (82), MLB The Show 16 (85) PS5: Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 (90), MLB The Show 23 (82)
Year Four PS4: Horizon Zero Dawn (89), Uncharted: The Lost Legacy (84), Gravity Rush 2 (80), Everybody’s Golf (78), Gran Turismo Sport (75), Matterfall (72), Knack 2 (69), MLB The Show 17 (85) PS5: Astro Bot (94), Helldivers 2 (82), Stellar Blade (81), Rise of the Rōnin (76), LEGO Horizon Adventures (70), Until Dawn (70), MLB The Show 24 (80)
Year Five PS4: God of War (94), Shadow of the Colossus (91), Marvel’s Spider-Man (87), Detroit: Become Human (78), MLB The Show 18 (82) PS5: Death Stranding 2: On the Beach (89), Ghost of Yōtei (86), Lost Soul Aside (62), MLB The Show 25 (83)
Year Six PS4: Days Gone (71), Death Stranding (82), Concrete Genie (75) PS5: Marathon (81), Saros (TBA), Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls (TBA), Marvel’s Wolverine (TBA)
@somnambulance Well you’re right about sequels not having the same impact. Personally after playing both I thought the improvements were reasonably comparable.
I am truly fascinated with how Tokon will sell? Like Marathon Fighting games are very much targeted at focused audience. Tokon has everything going for it, pedigree of developers and a well known IP. There have been two recent fighting game titles released that haven’t exactly commercial performed. Fatal Fury and 2XKO and that one by Riot and f2p. We have constant live service games needless negativity, I really wonder where Tokon will land and what numbers it needs to succeed. Or are we going to have the same tired individuals quoting steam numbers on day 3.
@Zeke68 I guess there is some value in aggregating critic scores. The issue is metacritic include some pretty small sites that vary in quality. There is zero value in Metacritic’s user scores as you don’t even have to have been a user to post a review. Imagine a film review score of zero, with the reviewer attributing the score to the cinema seats being uncomfortable and dirty or a game that can’t start on someone’s PC. So usually completely valueless as a metric.
@IOI Untrue. You can go search yourself the list of published games by year by generation.Go actually compare PS4 and PS5 year by year. People love to throw out this statement but its not an accurate or fair representation. Both systems had good and bad years, are we forgetting launch line ups. PS5’s 3rd year was simply awful but for the most part quality and output largely remain unchanged between generations. We are in the 6th year of the console life cycle. PS4 had Death Stranding, Days Gone, and Concrete Genie. PS5 line up consists of Wolverine, Saros, Marvel Tokon, and Marathon. 7th year PS4 had a stellar year which would take some beating but the generational differences are what people make out.
@somnambulance I’d argue GoY was as much of step up as DS2 was from DS1. Faster paced, better graphics, improved combat and a better story, well at least in GoY. Personally I preferred DS1. As much as the improvements were to parts of DS2 it lost that feeling of traversal, isolation and overcoming the elements the first had.
@wildcat_kickz Also single player FPS games just don’t sell very well. You only just need to look at the latest Doom’s sales or the new High on Life title.
@Globo Sure, but as you mentioned Helldivers 2 found an absolutely massive audience. If there was no hunger for live service how did Arc Raiders launched 5 months ago manage 10m+ in sales and a top 10 concurrent consistent player count in a genre that was considered niche. That’s about as hungry as you get these days. So whilst I agree it’s definitely getting harder to crack and pull players away from other games the potential returns means companies will keep trying. Sadly Helldrivers 2 is probably Sony’s most profitable game by now. I don’t think single player games are going away either Sony makes good money on successful traditional releases like Ghost of Yotei. We are just going to have to get used to a regular release cadence of live service games that mostly fail because once in a while we get Arc or a HD2. The numbers don’t lie.
@Rich33 I mean the biggest drawback in 2026 isn’t hardware it’s that GTA6 isn’t a PC launch title. Maybe 2027 who knows, they took 2 years almost port the last one. Hopefully it’s much quicker this time round.
@nomither6 I’m not sure when you say compare to outdated PC specs. I’m unclear where you are pulling this data to make that assumption as it’s not accurate. You can easily pull hardware specs from Valves Steam hardware survey. They are freely available. As of early 2026 the average Steam PC is a capable 1080p machine, running an RTX 3060 or 4060 GPU with 8GB VRAM, 16GB of system RAM, and a 6-core Intel processor. A base PS5 is what slightly better than a 3060 and worse than a 4060. Either way the average PC using steam is below an equivalent PS5 Pro performance. The average PC spec isn’t that high.
@Globo You consistently mention we don’t need live service games and companies should stop making them. The most played games and sales on PS5 last year were live service games as was the case in 2024. Marathon may be too niche but Arc Raiders a live service extraction shooter launched relatively recently sold 10+m copies and gave Nexon is highest revenue and profits on the back of it. So why would companies stop rolling the dice on these games? They’ll stop when people stop playing and stop spending money on them. Companies are do what companies do. I personally feel lucky we still get the amount of decent single player AAA and indies games when you look at how depressingly profitable and cheap to make mobile games are.
@Ajbr8687 I think it’s weird to want any game to fail but a little unbalanced to actively contribute. Let games go out into the world they’ll be good or not, they’ll find an audience or they won’t. It’s hard enough out there without people acting like troglodytes.
@evan23 it was fine. If it was by a different studio and without the associated expectations it probably would have had received more charitable reception and reviews.
@SMJ Kind of cherry picking. PSP sold 10m units and 550k in a single month alone. Nintendo pretty much sells well in Japan irrespective of handheld or not. One word, Pokemon.
It’s not just the games. Sony won’t get back market share till it launches a handheld console. Maybe save the V-tubers budget till thats ready for launch.
@Art_Vandelay Over rationalise and twist the facts. I’m saying the first party output can pretty easily be compared side by side, by generation within a 30 second search. You said the PS4 line up was legendary and PS5 generation pales in comparison to PS4. I’m pointing out without being anecdotal what’s actually been released. Sentiment at that time wasn’t great either some PS4 years, with consumers and inside PlayStation. "Our first-party lineup is a little sparse this year so I think this places an even greater emphasis on getting good third-party support." Andrew House - Head of SIE 2015.
@gaston It’s not ridiculously quick but it’s still a lot of running and turning very quickly. Going up and down ladders etc. I didn’t even last 5 minutes in that VR kayak game.
@Globo Xbox was doing dynamic pricing back in 2022. At the time it was marketed as “Just for You” deals or discounts. The UK legal action has absolutely nothing to with this. Ainu20 is correct with their explanation. Similar suits have been filed against Apple, Value etc in different jurisdictions. The only reason the lawsuit was bought against Sony rather than Xbox is that Sony has the predominant market share in the UK.
@Gremio108 dynamic pricing is usually associated with airline tickets or concert tickets. Products that have a physically limited supply or availability and is affected by demand. I.e if you want to see a popular concert and it’s selling quickly the algorithm on the platform selling the tickets will raise the price, conversely if a show isn’t selling well they lower the price to attract people. Supermarkets do it and is fairly common in lots of industries. What they are calling dynamic pricing on the PSN isn’t exactly that. If you have ever a bought a game on sale that’s dynamic pricing. The major difference is digital games have no physical component. There is no supply constraint with digital games. Due to this aspect I honestly wouldn’t worry about it, it’s not like we all rush to buy GTA6 and price increases to $500 because there isn’t enough digital copies. That isn’t going to happen. Think of it more as targeted sales, so if you account has say Ratchet and Clank and they notice you don’t have Astro Bot they may lower the price on your store. Or FIFA 26 isn’t selling as well as usual in your region so pricing adjustments are made. The story is a bit of a nothing burger, you’re never going to see a game on the store higher than launch price this is really about targeted sales.
@Art_Vandelay That’s not quite fair. You mentioned PS4 output was legendary. Whilst that may be the case it’s actually fairly comparable to PS5, especially when you consider development cycles and budgets as you mentioned. There are lists of first party releases by year and generation online so I won’t list them all here. Take this year for example. In its sixth year the PS4 had Death Stranding, Days Gone, and Concrete Genie. PS5 is set to get Wolverine, Saros, Marvel Tokon, and Marathon. I’m not going to defend Sony’s live service push. It does appear to have been a knee jerk reaction to a period of crazy acquisitions, primarily driven by Microsoft. Shuhei Yoshida spoke about this in one of his post exit interviews. He mentioned his own apprehension about live service games but also mentioned Sony increased PlayStation’s divisional budget to push into that space. So it wasn’t a case of taking funds away from the existing development pipeline. Additional funds were allocated specifically for that purpose. I do agree with you on opportunity cost though. Imagine what those resources could have been used for, not to mention studios spending time on misguided live service initiatives. Hindsight is twenty twenty as they say. My point is that when you step back and look at it alongside broader market trends it isn’t quite as pessimistic as the internet would have us believe. Most of the top selling and most played games have been live service titles for years now. When you look at what Sony has actually released this generation the output hasn’t really paled in comparison with the last. Perhaps with exception of the 3rd year being frankly dreadful on PS5. I don’t think Sony has turned its back on its loyal customers. It’s simply been caught up in the wider industry push towards live service games. Hate culture isn’t the product of a perceived slow first party release schedule. It’s just another lightning rod for it.
@glennthefrog Honestly it should be standard for any first party live service game. Destiny could desperately use a boost right now. This type of policy is really needed going forward with only multiplayer games going multiplatform and the steam console and next Xbox presumably not requiring a subscription.
@Neonix This is actually a good point. Sony owns the studio so not waiving the PSN subscription seems a bit self defeating. Especially as it’s in their interest to shift units. Ideally they add it to the higher tier subscriptions and in a year give it away free on the base plan. In the meantime ditch the psn requirement.
@Blaze215 That’s so disingenuous. Yeah the game dropped an all time low. Do you know why? In fact there was almost no one on. It had its first scheduled maintenance today and you couldn’t log in. It happens with live service games. It will happen again next week. You don’t want the game to fail but are happy to completely misuse steam concurrent numbers to represent what exactly? If you’re going to quote concurrents as a metric at least do it in good faith. The game had before maintenance ten times the numbers of concurrents as SF6, yeah it’s a live a service game, should we get rid of it. For some greater good? Don’t worry about fighting game fans. FF14 has a mere 6.5k players and a peak 1/3 of Marathon today, not looking good square should probably close it, let’s not concern ourselves with MMORPG fans. I could go on. It’s exhausting reading these type comments about steam numbers. You may not enjoy live service games and that’s fine but believe it or not there are a lot of people who do, from sports fans to mmorpgs and yes even the odd person who enjoys an extraction shooters.
The game is good, excellent even. Of all the upcoming live service games on Sony’s slate, Marathon is the one that most deserves strong support from Sony. It is a very specific type of game aimed at a very specific audience. In some ways it reminds me of GT7. If it is handled correctly, it has the potential to build a loyal, long term player base. That will only happen, though, if the studio is not pushed to broaden its appeal and turn it into something more like Arc Raiders. Bungie has not mandated or forced outlets to hold reviews either. Publications are free to publish whenever they like. Bungie has simply suggested a timeline because of how the launch is structured. As a live service game, the content rollout is staggered across several weeks. There is also an ARG running at the moment, that is kind of exciting if you’re following it, that is expected to last until mid March. Once the community solves it, it will presumably unlock the endgame. Because of that, many outlets seem to be waiting before finalising their reviews. Personally, I would rather read a complete review than one where a reviewer has played only 60 percent of a large RPG and called it a day.
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Re: PS5 Players Flock to Free Game for Ridiculously Easy Platinum Trophy
The trophy system always felt like a nice touch, a little extra on top for enjoying a game. I can’t imagine anything as meaningless as the trophy being the actual reward rather than the game experience.
Re: Saros (PS5) - Housemarque at the Peak of Its Powers with Its Best Game Yet
@Dogbreath Returnal was certainly difficult in places. Apart from the lack of a pause or mid run save feature, what were the design choices that were so significantly opposed to ‘normal’ lifestyles? I don’t know if personally I equate difficulty with accessibility as you suggest with car seats. I always just thought Housemarque were trying to bring a certain type of arcade experience into their games.
Re: Are We Ready to Admit Horizon's Online Co-Op PS5 Game Looks Good Yet?
Visually it looks fine, who the target audience is, quite another question entirely. Maybe it’s going out on Switch 2.
Re: Sony Announces High-End Gaming Monitor for the Uber Sweats
The headphones are interesting however the H9ii whilst an improvement in hardware quality, especially the microphone the connectivity with PS5 is atrocious. The original H9’s are far better in this regard. Interested to see where the H6 lands for PS5 users.
Re: PlayStation Acquires Machine Learning Specialist to Achieve 'New Levels' of Game Visuals
@Grackler Correction, they remade other people’s games. Which everyone seemed to complain about till the remake studio was shuttered.
Re: 'Marathon Is Gonna Be Game of the Year': Actor Ben Starr Jokes It'll Beat GTA 6 Due to Jennifer English
@Boxmonkey What does steam concurrent player numbers have to do with GOTY awards, nominations or anything? Unless there is an award category for most concurrent steam players. Last year’s winner Expedition 33 has currently 8k players, so it’s player count dictates its quality? Thankfully GOTY winners aren’t selected by popular vote or else nothing would win apart from Roblox or some gatcha mobile rubbish.
Re: Feature: PS5 Price - Why Does It Cost So Much in 2026?
CFO Lin Tao said earlier this year that Sony aims to offset rising hardware costs by further monetising its existing players.
Yet there are still no PS5 Pro plates. Where is the hyperpop Pro collection. Those plates must be the highest margin accessory they sell yet haven’t managed to get any out.
Re: Sony Announces Gigantic PS5 Price Increases, Effective from April 2026
They make nothing on the PS5 console and in some markets lose money on per unit sales basis. PlayStation makes far more from increasing its customer base, market share and sales through its ecosystem. If Sony could make these for substantially less than its competitors or retail them at hundreds of dollars less without taking a bath they would. It’d be far more profitable for them in the long run. Any price increase to console hardware is bad news for their business model too.
Re: Sony Announces Gigantic PS5 Price Increases, Effective from April 2026
@Sakai Hmmm yeah that’s fine if your margins are decent to begin with and you’re a services company. Absorb it all day long. When you are talking about manufacturing at scale with material input costs the margins are razor thin.
Re: Sony Announces Gigantic PS5 Price Increases, Effective from April 2026
It’s not going to cheer you up but……PS5 Pro looks like deal. What is it with 1st April.
Starting April 1st, our recommended retail price for Nex Playground will increase to $299 USD
Re: Sony Announces Gigantic PS5 Price Increases, Effective from April 2026
@themightyant Sometimes you wonder though if people pause and think anything through. It’s not even that complicated. Sony secured ram volume and supply contracts years in advance but that would eventually have to be adjusted. They shipped millions of units into the US prior to tariff day. We had a situation where a base Series X with similar memory was retailing for more than a PS5 Pro and Microsoft is a far larger company. Those units have now largely sold through and we are getting new pricing. I’m not even sure if this new pricing was calculated with the increase to current logistic costs. These companies don’t exactly respond quickly. I actually think Sony’s management did well by managing to sell millions of units over the past year whilst everything else increased in price. If the destruction to global oil production, supply and oil price rise continues this won’t be the last price increase.
Re: Sony Announces Gigantic PS5 Price Increases, Effective from April 2026
@get2sammyb Did just that, managed to find a deal on a Pro with an optional hard drive for launch price.
Re: Sony Announces Gigantic PS5 Price Increases, Effective from April 2026
@Reyzore What do you mean suspicious? Xbox already increased prices across the board months ago. A base Series X with the same memory was more than a PS5 Pro until this announcement. Sony managed bring in millions of units prior to the a.i ram and tariff debacle and now a new logistics oil disaster. Those units have sold through and now we are getting new pricing.
Re: Sony Announces Gigantic PS5 Price Increases, Effective from April 2026
It’s crazy that launch prices are the cheapest. Wasn’t going to pick up a PS6 but might not be able to afford it half way through the next generation. Gaming used to be a relatively cheap hobby.
Re: Round Up: 'Already a GOTY Contender': 5 Things We Learned from Saros PS5 Previews
@bossuche9 The only thing that matters regarding price is the actual game you are buying. Seem irrelevant that the studio used to make indie games. It’s not like Saros is a similar scope to Resogun.
Re: 'This Is Unsustainable Madness': Modern Video Game Budgets Are Out of Control
@DartLOD I don’t know the Intergalactic looks pretty awesome, conceptually at least. Definitely rather try it than a 5th Uncharted.
Re: 'This Is Unsustainable Madness': Modern Video Game Budgets Are Out of Control
@DartLOD Divisive with whom? Due to the use of “prophet” in the title?
Re: 'This Is Unsustainable Madness': Modern Video Game Budgets Are Out of Control
@PuppetMaster You are spot on. People love to proclaim if only there were these smaller PS3 era titles and If only Japan Studio was making games then PlayStation / the industry would be saved. Except no one showed up to buy these games. The sales data is miserable. The AA market dried up and it’s because consumers stopped buying them not because studios wanted to stop making them.
Re: 'This Is Unsustainable Madness': Modern Video Game Budgets Are Out of Control
@waynesworld Na Concord looks like amateur hour in Hollywood. There are dozens of films that have written off hundreds of millions.
Re: 'This Is Unsustainable Madness': Modern Video Game Budgets Are Out of Control
@Boxmonkey Thats a really weird viewpoint. You are upset because you perceive western studios as ‘woke’ or pushing agendas. Idolising studios in Asia isn’t better, working conditions are atrocious, they are basically crunch factories with wages and benefits that you wouldn’t get out of bed for. Honestly the woke nonsense has lost all perspective.
Re: Despite PS5 Hits, Sony Sinks to 21st in Metacritic's Publisher Rankings
@IOI Continued from above.
I’m sure I’ve missed a few titles, but I’ve tried to be as even handed as possible. This is meant to be illustrative rather than exhaustive.
My original point wasn’t to argue which generation is better, but to push back on the idea that this generation is somehow far worse. Whether one is better is subjective, but it’s hard to argue that this generation “pales in comparison.” It also raises the question of what defines “good” output. Is it purely the number of titles, ignoring quality and scope? Volume matters, but it’s not the only metric. You’re right that Sony owns more studios now than last gen. However, many of those were acquired or built to pursue live service games, with funding coming additionally from Sony not deducting from PlayStation's previous development budget allocation. At the same time, development costs have increased significantly, games are larger in scope, and they take much longer to make. The live service push is a separate issue and, in hindsight, not a great use of resources.
Finally, on Japan Studio. It’s fondly remembered, but often misunderstood. It wasn’t a single cohesive team, it was a collection of internal teams led by individual creatives. Over time, many of those teams spun off or dissolved. Team Ico, led by Fumito Ueda, saw him depart in 2011. Team Gravity, led by Keiichirō Toyama, followed in 2020. They went onto form their studios and try their luck as independents. Fair play, what do you want Sony to do if people want to set up their own shop. Others, like Team Poly, evolved into Polyphony Digital. What remained was largely unassigned staff and Team Asobi. Sony ultimately dissolved Japan Studio, redistributing staff across internal teams, with many joining Team Asobi under Nicolas Doucet. Ironically, this mirrors how Japan Studio itself was originally formed. It’s also worth noting that Japan Studio didn’t consistently deliver projects on time or achieve strong commercial success. Fumito Ueda hasn’t released a game in over a decade, and Keiichirō Toyama’s Slitterhead, was largely passed by unnoticed. Meanwhile, internal development in Japan continues with Team Asobi producing what is arguably one of the best, and certainly most commercially and critically successful in recent years.
Re: Despite PS5 Hits, Sony Sinks to 21st in Metacritic's Publisher Rankings
@IOI I’m going to give this a proper response, as you’ve actually taken the time to lay out your position.
Your original comment was that “output has dipped and this generation pales in comparison to last gen,” and that we effectively got one game per year in 2023 to 2025. That’s where I disagree. You’ve listed a number of games, but the selection feels arbitrary and lacks context by year, which was my original point.
You’ve also omitted second party PS5 titles like Stellar Blade and Rise of the Rōnin. Then you include similar second party games on PS4 like Until Dawn, The Order and Resogun. Whether a game comes to PC is largely irrelevant. Sony financed and published these titles, and they are part of the PS5 lineup. You also include a PS2 remaster on PS4, but omit comparable releases on PS5. For consistency, you do include the Demon’s Souls remake, which is fair.
To keep things objective, here’s a year by year breakdown of first and second party releases with Metacritic scores.
Launch
PS4: Killzone: Shadow Fall (73), Knack (54), Resogun (84)
PS5: Demon’s Souls (92), Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales (85), Sackboy: A Big Adventure (79), Astro’s Playroom (83)
Year One
PS4: Infamous Second Son (80), LittleBigPlanet 3 (79), Infamous First Light (73), Driveclub (71), MLB 14: The Show (81)
PS5: Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart (88), Returnal (86), Destruction AllStars (62), MLB The Show 21 (78)
Year Two
PS4: Bloodborne (92), Helldivers (81), Tearaway Unfolded (81), Until Dawn (79), The Order: 1886 (63), MLB 15: The Show (80)
PS5: God of War Ragnarök (94), Horizon Forbidden West (88), The Last of Us Part I (88), Gran Turismo 7 (87), MLB The Show 22 (77)
Year Three
PS4: Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End (93), Ratchet & Clank (85), The Last Guardian (82), MLB The Show 16 (85)
PS5: Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 (90), MLB The Show 23 (82)
Year Four
PS4: Horizon Zero Dawn (89), Uncharted: The Lost Legacy (84), Gravity Rush 2 (80), Everybody’s Golf (78), Gran Turismo Sport (75), Matterfall (72), Knack 2 (69), MLB The Show 17 (85)
PS5: Astro Bot (94), Helldivers 2 (82), Stellar Blade (81), Rise of the Rōnin (76), LEGO Horizon Adventures (70), Until Dawn (70), MLB The Show 24 (80)
Year Five
PS4: God of War (94), Shadow of the Colossus (91), Marvel’s Spider-Man (87), Detroit: Become Human (78), MLB The Show 18 (82)
PS5: Death Stranding 2: On the Beach (89), Ghost of Yōtei (86), Lost Soul Aside (62), MLB The Show 25 (83)
Year Six
PS4: Days Gone (71), Death Stranding (82), Concrete Genie (75)
PS5: Marathon (81), Saros (TBA), Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls (TBA), Marvel’s Wolverine (TBA)
Re: Despite PS5 Hits, Sony Sinks to 21st in Metacritic's Publisher Rankings
@somnambulance Well you’re right about sequels not having the same impact. Personally after playing both I thought the improvements were reasonably comparable.
I am truly fascinated with how Tokon will sell? Like Marathon Fighting games are very much targeted at focused audience. Tokon has everything going for it, pedigree of developers and a well known IP. There have been two recent fighting game titles released that haven’t exactly commercial performed. Fatal Fury and 2XKO and that one by Riot and f2p. We have constant live service games needless negativity, I really wonder where Tokon will land and what numbers it needs to succeed. Or are we going to have the same tired individuals quoting steam numbers on day 3.
Re: Despite PS5 Hits, Sony Sinks to 21st in Metacritic's Publisher Rankings
@Zeke68 I guess there is some value in aggregating critic scores. The issue is metacritic include some pretty small sites that vary in quality. There is zero value in Metacritic’s user scores as you don’t even have to have been a user to post a review. Imagine a film review score of zero, with the reviewer attributing the score to the cinema seats being uncomfortable and dirty or a game that can’t start on someone’s PC. So usually completely valueless as a metric.
Re: Despite PS5 Hits, Sony Sinks to 21st in Metacritic's Publisher Rankings
@IOI Untrue. You can go search yourself the list of published games by year by generation.Go actually compare PS4 and PS5 year by year. People love to throw out this statement but its not an accurate or fair representation. Both systems had good and bad years, are we forgetting launch line ups. PS5’s 3rd year was simply awful but for the most part quality and output largely remain unchanged between generations. We are in the 6th year of the console life cycle. PS4 had Death Stranding, Days Gone, and Concrete Genie. PS5 line up consists of Wolverine, Saros, Marvel Tokon, and Marathon. 7th year PS4 had a stellar year which would take some beating but the generational differences are what people make out.
Re: Despite PS5 Hits, Sony Sinks to 21st in Metacritic's Publisher Rankings
@somnambulance I’d argue GoY was as much of step up as DS2 was from DS1. Faster paced, better graphics, improved combat and a better story, well at least in GoY. Personally I preferred DS1. As much as the improvements were to parts of DS2 it lost that feeling of traversal, isolation and overcoming the elements the first had.
Re: PS5 Players Seemingly Skip Marathon as Sales Estimates Look Very Weak
@wildcat_kickz Also single player FPS games just don’t sell very well. You only just need to look at the latest Doom’s sales or the new High on Life title.
Re: PS5 Players Seemingly Skip Marathon as Sales Estimates Look Very Weak
@Globo Sure, but as you mentioned Helldivers 2 found an absolutely massive audience. If there was no hunger for live service how did Arc Raiders launched 5 months ago manage 10m+ in sales and a top 10 concurrent consistent player count in a genre that was considered niche. That’s about as hungry as you get these days. So whilst I agree it’s definitely getting harder to crack and pull players away from other games the potential returns means companies will keep trying. Sadly Helldrivers 2 is probably Sony’s most profitable game by now. I don’t think single player games are going away either Sony makes good money on successful traditional releases like Ghost of Yotei. We are just going to have to get used to a regular release cadence of live service games that mostly fail because once in a while we get Arc or a HD2. The numbers don’t lie.
Re: PS5 Leads Resident Evil Requiem Sales as 'Consoles Are Dead' Chat Falls Flat
@Rich33 I mean the biggest drawback in 2026 isn’t hardware it’s that GTA6 isn’t a PC launch title. Maybe 2027 who knows, they took 2 years almost port the last one. Hopefully it’s much quicker this time round.
Re: PS5 Leads Resident Evil Requiem Sales as 'Consoles Are Dead' Chat Falls Flat
@nomither6 I’m not sure when you say compare to outdated PC specs. I’m unclear where you are pulling this data to make that assumption as it’s not accurate. You can easily pull hardware specs from Valves Steam hardware survey. They are freely available. As of early 2026 the average Steam PC is a capable 1080p machine, running an RTX 3060 or 4060 GPU with 8GB VRAM, 16GB of system RAM, and a 6-core Intel processor. A base PS5 is what slightly better than a 3060 and worse than a 4060. Either way the average PC using steam is below an equivalent PS5 Pro performance. The average PC spec isn’t that high.
Re: PS5 Leads Resident Evil Requiem Sales as 'Consoles Are Dead' Chat Falls Flat
@PuppetMaster Pragmata looks awesome.
Re: PS5 Players Seemingly Skip Marathon as Sales Estimates Look Very Weak
@Globo You consistently mention we don’t need live service games and companies should stop making them. The most played games and sales on PS5 last year were live service games as was the case in 2024. Marathon may be too niche but Arc Raiders a live service extraction shooter launched relatively recently sold 10+m copies and gave Nexon is highest revenue and profits on the back of it. So why would companies stop rolling the dice on these games? They’ll stop when people stop playing and stop spending money on them. Companies are do what companies do. I personally feel lucky we still get the amount of decent single player AAA and indies games when you look at how depressingly profitable and cheap to make mobile games are.
Re: PS5 Players Seemingly Skip Marathon as Sales Estimates Look Very Weak
@DualWielding Not even close.
Re: Review in Progress: Marathon (PS5) - Bungie's Extraction Shooter Is Brilliant, and It Only Gets Better
@Ajbr8687 I think it’s weird to want any game to fail but a little unbalanced to actively contribute. Let games go out into the world they’ll be good or not, they’ll find an audience or they won’t. It’s hard enough out there without people acting like troglodytes.
Re: Starfield's PS5 Release Seems Practically Inevitable at This Point
@evan23 it was fine. If it was by a different studio and without the associated expectations it probably would have had received more charitable reception and reviews.
Re: Sony Decides VTubers May Be the Best Way to Save PS5 in Japan
@SMJ Kind of cherry picking. PSP sold 10m units and 550k in a single month alone. Nintendo pretty much sells well in Japan irrespective of handheld or not. One word, Pokemon.
Re: Sony Decides VTubers May Be the Best Way to Save PS5 in Japan
@Rodimusprime13 You’re right. Switch is portable the others aren’t. I don’t think it’s just the size as the Series S sales are even more miserable.
Re: Sony Decides VTubers May Be the Best Way to Save PS5 in Japan
It’s not just the games. Sony won’t get back market share till it launches a handheld console. Maybe save the V-tubers budget till thats ready for launch.
Re: Review in Progress: Marathon (PS5) - Bungie's Extraction Shooter Is Brilliant, and It Only Gets Better
@Art_Vandelay Over rationalise and twist the facts. I’m saying the first party output can pretty easily be compared side by side, by generation within a 30 second search. You said the PS4 line up was legendary and PS5 generation pales in comparison to PS4. I’m pointing out without being anecdotal what’s actually been released. Sentiment at that time wasn’t great either some PS4 years, with consumers and inside PlayStation.
"Our first-party lineup is a little sparse this year so I think this places an even greater emphasis on getting good third-party support." Andrew House - Head of SIE 2015.
But sure let’s go with feels like.
Re: 'No One Is Buying This on PS5': PC Port Begging Already Unbearable as Sony Switches Strategy
Wonder what it will be like when GTA6 comes out.
Re: 'No One Is Buying This on PS5': PC Port Begging Already Unbearable as Sony Switches Strategy
@Neither_scene I have a nice PC, I still went and purchased a switch to play Nintendo games. Hardware wasn’t a factor, I had no choice.
Re: Review in Progress: Marathon (PS5) - Bungie's Extraction Shooter Is Brilliant, and It Only Gets Better
@gaston It’s not ridiculously quick but it’s still a lot of running and turning very quickly. Going up and down ladders etc. I didn’t even last 5 minutes in that VR kayak game.
Re: Poll: Has PS5's Dynamic Pricing Debacle Changed Your Relationship with the PS Store at All?
@Globo Xbox was doing dynamic pricing back in 2022. At the time it was marketed as “Just for You” deals or discounts. The UK legal action has absolutely nothing to with this. Ainu20 is correct with their explanation. Similar suits have been filed against Apple, Value etc in different jurisdictions. The only reason the lawsuit was bought against Sony rather than Xbox is that Sony has the predominant market share in the UK.
Re: Poll: Has PS5's Dynamic Pricing Debacle Changed Your Relationship with the PS Store at All?
@Gremio108 dynamic pricing is usually associated with airline tickets or concert tickets. Products that have a physically limited supply or availability and is affected by demand. I.e if you want to see a popular concert and it’s selling quickly the algorithm on the platform selling the tickets will raise the price, conversely if a show isn’t selling well they lower the price to attract people. Supermarkets do it and is fairly common in lots of industries. What they are calling dynamic pricing on the PSN isn’t exactly that. If you have ever a bought a game on sale that’s dynamic pricing. The major difference is digital games have no physical component. There is no supply constraint with digital games. Due to this aspect I honestly wouldn’t worry about it, it’s not like we all rush to buy GTA6 and price increases to $500 because there isn’t enough digital copies. That isn’t going to happen. Think of it more as targeted sales, so if you account has say Ratchet and Clank and they notice you don’t have Astro Bot they may lower the price on your store. Or FIFA 26 isn’t selling as well as usual in your region so pricing adjustments are made. The story is a bit of a nothing burger, you’re never going to see a game on the store higher than launch price this is really about targeted sales.
Re: Review in Progress: Marathon (PS5) - Bungie's Extraction Shooter Is Brilliant, and It Only Gets Better
@gaston You must have a stomach of iron! I couldn’t imagine Marathon in VR. I’d be nauseous in under 2 minutes.
Re: Review in Progress: Marathon (PS5) - Bungie's Extraction Shooter Is Brilliant, and It Only Gets Better
@Art_Vandelay That’s not quite fair. You mentioned PS4 output was legendary. Whilst that may be the case it’s actually fairly comparable to PS5, especially when you consider development cycles and budgets as you mentioned. There are lists of first party releases by year and generation online so I won’t list them all here.
Take this year for example. In its sixth year the PS4 had Death Stranding, Days Gone, and Concrete Genie. PS5 is set to get Wolverine, Saros, Marvel Tokon, and Marathon.
I’m not going to defend Sony’s live service push. It does appear to have been a knee jerk reaction to a period of crazy acquisitions, primarily driven by Microsoft. Shuhei Yoshida spoke about this in one of his post exit interviews. He mentioned his own apprehension about live service games but also mentioned Sony increased PlayStation’s divisional budget to push into that space. So it wasn’t a case of taking funds away from the existing development pipeline. Additional funds were allocated specifically for that purpose.
I do agree with you on opportunity cost though. Imagine what those resources could have been used for, not to mention studios spending time on misguided live service initiatives. Hindsight is twenty twenty as they say.
My point is that when you step back and look at it alongside broader market trends it isn’t quite as pessimistic as the internet would have us believe. Most of the top selling and most played games have been live service titles for years now. When you look at what Sony has actually released this generation the output hasn’t really paled in comparison with the last. Perhaps with exception of the 3rd year being frankly dreadful on PS5.
I don’t think Sony has turned its back on its loyal customers. It’s simply been caught up in the wider industry push towards live service games. Hate culture isn’t the product of a perceived slow first party release schedule. It’s just another lightning rod for it.
Re: Review in Progress: Marathon (PS5) - Bungie's Extraction Shooter Is Brilliant, and It Only Gets Better
@glennthefrog Honestly it should be standard for any first party live service game. Destiny could desperately use a boost right now. This type of policy is really needed going forward with only multiplayer games going multiplatform and the steam console and next Xbox presumably not requiring a subscription.
Re: Review in Progress: Marathon (PS5) - Bungie's Extraction Shooter Is Brilliant, and It Only Gets Better
@Neonix This is actually a good point. Sony owns the studio so not waiving the PSN subscription seems a bit self defeating. Especially as it’s in their interest to shift units. Ideally they add it to the higher tier subscriptions and in a year give it away free on the base plan. In the meantime ditch the psn requirement.
Re: Review in Progress: Marathon (PS5) - Bungie's Extraction Shooter Is Brilliant, and It Only Gets Better
@Blaze215 That’s so disingenuous. Yeah the game dropped an all time low. Do you know why? In fact there was almost no one on. It had its first scheduled maintenance today and you couldn’t log in. It happens with live service games. It will happen again next week. You don’t want the game to fail but are happy to completely misuse steam concurrent numbers to represent what exactly? If you’re going to quote concurrents as a metric at least do it in good faith. The game had before maintenance ten times the numbers of concurrents as SF6, yeah it’s a live a service game, should we get rid of it. For some greater good? Don’t worry about fighting game fans. FF14 has a mere 6.5k players and a peak 1/3 of Marathon today, not looking good square should probably close it, let’s not concern ourselves with MMORPG fans. I could go on. It’s exhausting reading these type comments about steam numbers. You may not enjoy live service games and that’s fine but believe it or not there are a lot of people who do, from sports fans to mmorpgs and yes even the odd person who enjoys an extraction shooters.
Re: Review in Progress: Marathon (PS5) - Bungie's Extraction Shooter Is Brilliant, and It Only Gets Better
The game is good, excellent even. Of all the upcoming live service games on Sony’s slate, Marathon is the one that most deserves strong support from Sony. It is a very specific type of game aimed at a very specific audience. In some ways it reminds me of GT7. If it is handled correctly, it has the potential to build a loyal, long term player base. That will only happen, though, if the studio is not pushed to broaden its appeal and turn it into something more like Arc Raiders.
Bungie has not mandated or forced outlets to hold reviews either. Publications are free to publish whenever they like. Bungie has simply suggested a timeline because of how the launch is structured. As a live service game, the content rollout is staggered across several weeks.
There is also an ARG running at the moment, that is kind of exciting if you’re following it, that is expected to last until mid March. Once the community solves it, it will presumably unlock the endgame. Because of that, many outlets seem to be waiting before finalising their reviews. Personally, I would rather read a complete review than one where a reviewer has played only 60 percent of a large RPG and called it a day.