nhSnork

Seeing is believing in this kind of scenario. But IF a new Sony portable ever materializes, that'll be pretty much the only gaming hardware I'll be motivated to save up for since NS2 (and obviously besides the latter's Gen 11 followup, but that's an even more distant prospect).

@CKFilms I'm honestly still wrapping my head about the notion of splitscreen couch multiplayer requiring multiple user profiles to begin with. How does that even work? And to what end, just getting scoreboards/trophies apiece?🤔

Not owning or planning to own a PS5 is a bigger obstacle in my case; the only eyebrow raiser about the game itself is the [borderline] lack of party members which the franchise has mostly designed for sequels/spinoffs, but I needn't be advised to "ignore the haters" in its regard - that's what I do in general and that's what has rewarded me with some of my favourites over the years, including FFXIII & Co and prospectively FFXV. Chances are XVI will eventually prove worthwhile for me as well. Dogs bark, the caravan moves on.

Wait, mixed reactions not even about the story but about the IDEA of "a story in an open world racer"? And what else do these people excel at besides getting bored?

Big as Laufey's franchise may be on the VG front, does a Marvel character like Wolverine even need much pushing in 2026 AD?

Already got KCD on Switch and the most of the rest is literally unplayable on my end (unless Sony expanded Portal's "stream any game in your library" perk to PS4's Remote Play app while I wasn't looking - I mean, that would actually make the latter make sense unlike the compelling default offer of streaming a game from a home console in one room to a home console in another🤔😅), but I might poke my nose into Gitaroo Man, and the lineup is objectively juicy overall. That said, I might find myself using the Catalogue to dip a toe into Fallout 76 this month instead - it necessitates an installation, and on top of currently going through a partial Fallout mood, now I can grant free up more storage by kicking Lies of P with a clear conscience.

No hybrid ports either? No purchase, then. Not taking any popular "stick it to the Man" fandom stances here, Microsoft's stuff just tends to be walled off on PC, and unlike with eShop, I'm not keen on jeopardizing my Steam account with region toggles.

@RBMango it's like vocally mourning the Zelda franchise courtesy of Echoes of Wisdom - or even worse because Laufey's gig actually promises to expand the previous games' lore and chronology, so perhaps more comparable to yelling at clouds about no Cloud in Dirge of Cerberus.

But then again, we've all seen an even closer factual example - the healthy and wholesome fandom reaction to Witcher 4 fully focusing on Ciri.

@DartLOD fans are some of the last entities in the Solar System to talk about thin skins.

Both PS4 offerings are also on Switch (and of course, Darktide isn't), but they may serve some demo purpose depending on the filesize.

Objectively, it's Sony's biz and call. Subjectively? As someone not prompted to expect the life/work schedule for proper use of a home console until retirement, I have no personal incentive to agree with this decision, and as someone completely fine with the idea of Zeldas and Xenoblades being multiplat, I have no hypocrisy to account for in my bias. Gamers my age buy the hardware they can actually play games on rather than the platform for a few specific games. I only ever bought a PS4 courtesy of Vita, which the successor ditched for a gameless device steaming in no less than the hotspot-wrenching 720p (although, in all fairness, my MSP just introduced 5G in Minsk, which means I have whole 4-5 months to cough up the money for and enjoy a PS5/Portal combo before the signal quality inevitably deteriorates to 3G levels like its precursor😏). Steam Deck, for all of its hijinks, has been a much more viable option - no coincidence that my first Steam splurge after getting the machine included Horizon Zero Dawn and Days Gone.

On the other hand, Sony games' presence on Steam went on to become a region lock gamble over the last three years regardless. More frixel-bent users voice concerns about the predictably superficial optimization of PS5 titles (Deck is a linuxoid PC, so "optimization" largely remains an expletive in its vocabulary), although I'm personally more immediately in the market for older classics like Gravity Rush 2, Uncharted trilogy and the memetic Bloodborne. Indeed, even the recent PC port of Spider-Man 2 barely turned my head because Sony region-locked both of its predecessors anyway. So the TL;DR is, I'd naturally prefer the PC ports to continue but their portable usability - the very horse I have in this race - has been progressively elusive in practice anyway. If anything, the recent streak of Lego Horizon, Freedom Wars, Patapon and Everybody's Golf compels to hope for more precedents on the hybrid front instead.😄

On PS4 and in the absence of better options, I just might. On PS5, it would be literally unplayable for me.

At another $30 the game becomes fully portable.

Great, even company officials unironically tease info based on "reliable sources" now.😅

@get2sammyb no one is sure and few bother wondering; the bottom line is, Sony chose to "update" the long abandoned figure at the most awkward time and in the most awkward way available, refusing to elaborate on who in the last decade's market was supposed to be buying (and, on the other side of the counter, to be accordingly stocking) a clean unit for a long out-of-stock physical library over a serviced and chipped second-hand with blackjack and hard drives. The machine's own lasting appeal was never the point of debate or contention in last year's raised brows and dropped memes - the commercial viability of the hat-pulled 5 million consoles was. Unless Sony is content with acknowledging that they effectively sold five million consoles for the jailbreaker black market to have a field day with - but perhaps there's picking one's poison in matters of corporate pride as well.😅

In the end, the original 155 million figure continues to live rent-free in the public's heads and Switch officially ran out of things to prove last quarter when it surpasses that figure on a similarly insane library and a modicum of the previous record holder's media perks (some point to a much larger market as well, but it didn't factor in as much for other go-to machines like 3DS and PS4). It's estimatedly the folks most annoyed at Sony in context that would like to see the embel- sorry, updated figure yield for good measure, but the hybrid gamechanger's "assault on gaming history" is already behind us. Not that I rule out the possibility myself - Nintendo likes talking about "third pillars" in uncertain market weathers, and in the current economic messes the topicality of a comparatively cheaper console with an abyss of offered pastimes may still outweigh the production concerns. Ironically, the latter are what got the Gen 9 queen covered by the new price hike as well - but simultaneously attest to the company's belief in it because wouldn't it be an extra incentive to just let the curtains fall and move the remaining stock with the previous pricetags otherwise?

As for PS2, its own legacy is beyond debate either way, some of it already welcomed on Switch among other modern platforms as well. The whole ridicule is more about Sony wanting and failing a PR stunt around the brand's anniversary.

@nomither6 Switch is a hybrid console, but "console" remains the keyword here anyway, the enforced dichotomy between home and portable ones being as dumb today as it was decades ago. Ironically, it's Deck that doesn't fully belong alongside even the likes of DS and Vita, and I can but corroborate that as a Deck owner myself.

@rjejr I have yet to try fishing but I've probably played more NFS-flavoured racers than kart ones by now (unless 1200 hours of Disney Speedstorm have been enough to tip the scales😅), and Hethereau streets seem to favour grip over drift indeed. I'll see what I can do once I start investing in faster cars; I thought I'd be getting an alternate variant of mine in a side quest now, but the latter ultimately didn't go there (coming to a much more wholesome close instead, and the car frankly seemed slower in practice anyway). As for on-foot exploration, it's certainly the way for combing through the city but I like driving overall and default to it when over hoofing/teleporting when I have a specific destination in another part of town. Too bad the pixel-spending grind spots insist on fast travel, so I have to pin and track a marker in their vicinity instead (same with activated phone booths).

I only care so much for home decor as well, but the game still encourages dropping by for the various anomaly furniture with practical effects on the gameplay. Upgrading this furniture can involve outside task prerequisites but still necessitates visiting the apartment in person afterwards, too.

@DestructionAllstars we're all addicts here, my fellow piece of fanship, but going out of one's way to publicly call a fiction work "a loaf of slop" and other such epithets has always been among the more acute symptoms, and there's undeniable irony in accusing others of "word vomit" in the wake of it. And I certainly don't have a modicum of other gamers' burnout with modern open-worlder recipes (having largely grown up on much more restrictive exploration or even screen scrolling options can do that to you😏), but against your kind, I'd be motivated to "defend" even Big Rigs.

As already commented elsewhere, I have a limited number of physiological destinations to suggest for unregulated GenAI in art and fiction, but filling in select gaps to avoid extra crunch and pledging to phase it out afterwards at least sounds like a salvageable case. Much sadder is that even the related buzz will likely not make it the last such incident, even if subsequent ones are kept to the projects without global releases.

@rjejr invited characters certainly act like roommates rather than guests.😄 You can place beds in purchased apartments but they only seem to be there for animations like plopping down and napping until the next left stick movement, so you're somehow better off just dropping by phone booths around the city for party recovery. Racing has been solid in my experience (which, to be fair, generally includes beating two NFS titles on Nintendo DS😆), but there's only so much you can squeeze out of the starter car - even doing the last Sunday race under 200 seconds looks like it will require "something sporty, like a tuna"© instead.

I've already said it elsewhere but games like Xenoblade are more outspoken about Japanese game industry's potential in this regard. The only possible deadweight here is feeling obliged to match the exact production scale (be it that of British/American money printer franchise or that of a Chinese freemium) and profit goals bitten by Square Enix. Japanese games can feel like the borderline last resort of "AA gaming" or whatchamacallit with their ability to create more from less, and there will always be a market for that. I'm not unpredictably hooked on NTE myself, even as impatient as to have reluctantly revisited the Android gamepad topic until the hopefully eventual hybrid port, but I'm not perplexed by freemiums' "predatory nature" because I simply don't invest in them (no price for a server-crutched content piece can realistically compete with full-fledged retail games you can haul from eShop or Steam with the same kind of money), and no amount of fond memories in such freemiums can remove me from the market for EoS-immune "one and done" adventures. Fun as post-release content can be, I lack a habit of diving into a video game on the condition of such content's guarantee. Base game backlogs safely exceed my lifetime anyway.😆

@AgentMantis describing the likes of Genshin or NTE as "shallow combat" or "lack of content" is one way to compete for the Most First-World Bullcrap award. Personal resonance is a historically harsh master, but projecting it on the work itself is rarely fruitful and even more rarely dignified.

I'm comparatively lukewarm towards football (unless it's something peculiar like Behold the Kickmen or RPG-flavoured like Captain Tsubasa, with NGC Mario Strikers scratching the itch for more traditional gameplay these days) and Wuchang is literally unplayable for me, but I might take Nine Sols for a spin even despite having its hybrid port wishlisted, so there's that.

@ozkrmz what, PSN? Always has been.

@Fizza and unobstructedly does it on Switch among other platforms.

@JB_Whiting (this was one comment before the system decided to debate its size😄)

As far as Zelda goes... the questionably chosen medium doesn't make it a movie aimed at an older audience per se, but it's not like the "well-established professionals" haven't been known for flinging your own list of accusations towards the latter kind of movies either. Dogs and caravans are a universal and timeless image.

There's only one anatomical orifice for critical reception, whether scathing or awestruck. As for Zelda, I don't consider its fantasy world a manageable environment for live action and don't have enough interest in seeing it to generate any expectations whatsoever. At least Bloodborne has reportedly had better luck; for all I know, I might even end up seeing its adaptation instead someday.

@1UP-HUSKY my backlog priorities haven't had me rewatch the first Mario movie in a year or so, but I still remember what transpired therein. It wasn't TLK or even Sing tier but a worthwhile chronicle in its own right, and I expect the same from SMGM. Remembering stuff is a product of resonance in kids and adults alike; by the time I came across an opinion about The Road to El Dorado having "not a single memorable song", I could quote any of them if woken up at 4 a.m. As for box offices, they're a dice roll this decade, and I don't consider them ultimately indicative either, but if the earned money is channeled into expanding (or, as is fashionable to say online, "milking") the respective franchise and fictionverse further, cheers - regardless of my own affinity. I've never cared much for Minions that Illumination cooks by similar recipes, but those movies' existence is no skin off my back either. And the same would have applied to the studio's take on Mario if it had rubbed me against the fur - to paraphrase a Frozen character, my childhood is not fragile.

@JB_Whiting I, for one, definitely "you do realise that these "so called critics" are working on this very site" and stick to the belief that both NL and PS reviewers can take their reviews and shove them; in case this crosses the boundaries of civility, I will certainly not contest a ban, but if you ever see me say that "game critics matter", then the mods also better immediately ban my account as hacked.😆 I have my own shameful baggage in this accursed field, and even getting a degree in actual critique (aka honest fiction studies where "creative analysis" isn't a fancy hijacked name for verbosely expressed admiration/boredom) failed to promptly put a lid on it way back when; I can't even guarantee no relapse in this regard, but I don't look forward to one and I lack incentive to bridle my general sociopathy towards the yellow-papered buffoonery in question. There are unarguably more deplorable "well-established professions" out there, but it says something when TV Tropes manages to be tangibly closer to serious critique than all the "professionals" involved - and it's a site with reported roots in imageboards! Like I said above, somehow processing the previous Mario movie wasn't rocket science for me either, and I'm neither too much of a kid in my cynical 39 nor too obsessed with the franchise I have played through maybe a half dozen early entries from.

In the end, being underwhelmed by stuff like SMG is nothing to bash either - unlike pseudocritical fanbloid behaviour directed at underwhelming entertainment experiences, especially the one you're expected to profit in any way from. For all of my own obscene fanhead past, I do make attempts to follow the golden rule - "I have the right to dislike what a fiction work does as long as the fiction work has the right to do what I dislike".

Horizon is definitely one of the highlights but long installed on my Deck even after a fair few hours poured into the purchased PS4 original; "remastered" certainly sounds rich in this context. I also have Warriors Abyss on Switch; Monster Train, while wishlisted on eShop, might make for an advance toe dip in this batch but somehow never made it to PS4 despite showing up on XBO. Still, that leaves Motorfest and Wild Arms 4 to actually consider trying, and those two represent two of my fave genres, so hey.

@Areus the game has its own achievement system anyway, I'll wait for it to carry over to the overdue and now even more topical hybrid port.

So... three modes and all of them revolving around the very same frixels PS5 Pro is still expected to qualify as a "pro" experience on the basis of? Did the update at least introduce gyro, previously exclusive to NS2?🤔

Did the game's content shrink to a sliver of its former self over these 20+ years? Nope, it would seem it even gained a few QoL extras instead. Or did its presentation age poorly? Nope, as a myriad of new games channeling similar audio and visuals (often for similar prices at launch) can attest. And shmup RPG hybrids haven't exactly become a crowded niche over time either.

I wouldn't rule out catching up with the game during a later sale myself, but the primary reason behind such cases is a gluttonously oversized wishlist contrasting the capability of my wallet (although non-discounted investments and even preorders still happen), so I lack an incentive to pontificate about developers and publishers' pricing policies.

I'm quite in the market for a gacha game like Genshin, but I'm in the market for them on Switch (including the long-promised Genshin itself), not on button-allergic hi-tec GSM-equipped bookmarks or even higher-tech wall-plugged air moisturizer lookalikes. That includes NTE (which I've only tapped into on mobile for the potential option to send the pre-registration bonuses crossplat later), especially since you can never have too many vehicular openworlders on Switch, and that includes Endfield as well.

And no matter how we feel about market saturation (which impacts such games less due to gameplay similarities and more due to the proverbial live service baggage), the fanbloid terminology is getting old. "Clones" and "copycats" have historically stood between a game and a genre in recurrent cases throughout the medium's history, but neither Genshin nor BotW it was once accused of cloning on its own end ever invented the recipes they were built on.

Another neat month overall even if nothing on the menu is likely to make its way to my PS4, be it for want of an appropriate port (but I've already put Lords of Apocalypse on Vita anyway) or for preference of Switch ones.

"Analysts" and execs still haven't got the memo about the kind, spread and affordability of infrastructure required to make game streaming actually competitive with consoles. Most people - and, as a likely result, most devs including the entire indie segment - will just stick to older hardware which has sufficed for creating any imaginable kind of full-fledged video game experience for the last 10-15 years.

@naruball and it enters the debugging phase but still doesn't have an established title.

That moment when even the genuinely console-focused Nintendo lasts longer in mobile gaming than a consumer tech giant with literal smartphones among its products.

Gaming leaks 101 - once the clickbaits about a specific "impending" release reach the critical mass, you can always fall back on the equally rumoured cancellation/hiatus as per equally reliable and equally anonymous sources. "Switch Pro" says hi. And "solid track records" send one's mind to nothing but ye olde saying about broken clocks in this regard.

I'd rather have an update on Integrum Masterpiece, a rare case of a "Nintendo Switch 2 Edition" I'm interested in for fairly obvious reasons.😏

No, it hasn't been announced yet, which only fuels my interest.

"1080p High Quality mode"

Is that some kind of 5G flex I'm too Eastern European to understand?

Push Square is really eating good with the amount of clicks and comments generated over a week's worth of articles without a single source.😆 But the poll results are predictable indeed - chances are there aren't many Deck owners frequenting this site, and to those with the time to dedicate to a PS5, an equally home-tied port (barring a proportionally capable laptop but those are likely no cheaper) must appear rather redundant.

A franchise spanning decades has an audience spanning decades, more news at 6.

Even humouring such drivel for a second... "easily pushed 4K, 120 fps and improved ray tracing"? And that's everything a Gen 10 home console is supposed to offer? This doesn't sound entirely dissimilar from wasting components and resources on AI-generated cats.

Literally Unplayable™

I mean, we're talking the company that introduced system level button remapping on PS4 while making Vita's Remote Play deal with a recurrent awkward default scheme that overrides the thing.

@get2sammyb Nintendo's own platform retains the advantage of being the only portable console for what can currently seem like two generations in a row, appealing to the most nostalgic markets for Marielda and other classics (older people with only so much time to spend in front of a TV screen). And as long as TotK etc are on said portable consoles, they can also be on Amazon Alexa for all I care.

Home console exclusivity matters for gamers in the school/college, first world work schedule and retired demographics. The exclusivity of the otherwise absolute headturners like Xenoblade X and Tokyo Mirage Sessions never drove me to buy Wii U because I couldn't take the experience with me downtown where I tend to be stuck most of my non-sleeping hours. Same reason I was never in the market for the generally neat Switch projects like Labo or MK Home Circuit. And PS5's lack of Vita support (or Sony's estimated memory of the machine, for that matter) means that the company's pastgen portability remains chained to prohibitively higher resolutions on a much less functional but equally expensive device even on the streaming side. Meanwhile, for all of its linuxoid fine print, Steam Deck has at least offered a more legit compromise, to the point where my first Steam splurge after getting the thing included a then-discounted Days Gone and a full-priced Horizon Zero Dawn. I can even afford slowly chipping away at the latter's various trials these days - something I wouldn't have even considered during my first toe dip on the game's native platform prior.

Of course, Bloidberg can wipe themselves with their routinely anonymous "people familiar with the company's plans", but even hypothetically, I would only cheer for Sony giving up their PC porting efforts if that meant a harder pivot towards Switch/NS2 (a much less farfetched notion in the wake of Freedom Wars, Patapon and Everybody's Golf, the latter titles' publishing duty delegation notwithstanding). Bias is a harsh master, and Sony still has no proper alternative to offer (outside the oh so rumoured "handheld PS6" whose value remains in the domain of nether region hygiene just like this discussion's topic until an actual friggen announcement).

Once again, no amount of exclusivity can sell hardware to people who can't expect to consistently use it. It's a game console, not a singing Santa Claus doll.

No Switch/NS2 at launch, but unironic mobile ports to drive vehicles on the touchscreens of? And then gamers label racing titles unplayable without analog triggers with a straight face.😏

Given crossplat support out the gate, I pre-registered just in case, but so far the only viable device for this game is Deck, and its relationship with freemium launchers is a dice roll that bears casting literally every update.

The golf has a hybrid port anyway (unlike, sadly enough, Slime Rancher 2 which can feel odd for a Unity indie whose prequel is already on Switch), but while I have the other two on other platforms as well, they could easily make the month by themselves overall. ESO is a bittersweet sight in particular - I bought it on my main account years ago after finding the free trial event somewhat manageable with Vita's controls, then double-dipped on Steam with a laptop before eventually taking that version to its true home on Deck... and THEN begrudgingly uninstalling it because the launcher kept throwing a tantrum with almost every update and demanding 80 Gb of "repairs" (last time it happened, the repair button didn't even go away after I reinstalled all ~120 Gb, the very final straw that got the game shelved). This edition's promise of "every expansion until [2024's] Gold Road" sounds like it would access more of Tamriel than my PC playthrough had unlocked (with Bethesda stuff region-locked on Steam these days, I only got a couple regions from anniversary quests and giveaways), but going back to PS4 for it, with a start from scratch and similarly massive install/update sizes to face on a machine where I have to plan big downloads on top of cramming them in (my PS4 isn't usually plugged in if I can't hope to get a tangible session out of it)... mixed feelings, mixed feelings everywhere.

MHR is certainly not something I'd install here over the full package with blackjack and Sunbreak Switchside, but it's easily among the year's IGC highlights already. Out of curiosity, though, does it have gyro? PS4 and PS5 ports are infamous for often ignoring the controller tech, but in a temporary Switch exclusive like this, you'd think the devs would have to deliberately disable this feature, and it really enhances the gameplay.

I've been plenty concerned since SJS became a skeleton crew of its former self. A lot of that studio's output was peak PlayStation regardless of how many PlayStation fans and their wallets it managed to distract from photorealistic blockbusters. At least Astro Bot has happened in the following years, but the jury's still out on whether it's a rebound or a bottled lightning.

Press F for PixelOpus, too. For all I know, we may be extremely lucky to still have Media Molecule around.

Any serious reaction to a rumoured delay of a rumoured release evokes confusion. PS6 was established as a distant prospect the moment PS5 Pro was announced. PS5 itself only came out four years after the preceding "upgrade", three years into the ongoing Gen 9 - so why is PS6 expected anytime before 2028?

"I challenge you to dig out your crusty old PS4 and spend one full week with creaky 30fps games and glacial loading times."

I only don't spend one full week because affording that long on a home console before retirement is easier said than done in general. But I do unshelve my PS4 from time to time and spend what I can dedicate to it just fine - most recently, on a portable 11.6" screen to boot.

@Oram77 well, it does seem too early for the next Xenoblade entry, so...😏

I'm not through with the first Spider-Man yet (and it would have to be a sideload after never coming back to local Steam - heck, even Forbidden West and Stellar Blade have apparently gone poof from the latter instead), but Solar Crown is a crueler tease in its platform limitations here - with the long announced Switch port still unaccounted for and the first TDU refusing to function on Deck, I would have certainly been tempted to dip a toe here, but what will you do when even Venba lacks a PS4 port.😏 Well, Venba IS on Switch, as are Neva and the first two MHS games (the latter already in my own hybrid library to boot), so all of this leaves... Season to check out? Fine by me.

I rarely have much to say about a home console game focusing on online multiplayer, but I won't lose any more sleep over its existence than I did over the similarly dramaticized Metroid Prime: Federation Force. Even despite Sony's mood swings of the previous generation, more solo Horizon content is doubtlessly happening in due time, too.

@ButterySmooth30FPS and courtesy of neural networks, even the latter may be up for debate now.