@A-steak-with-ketchup I understand that, I just don't really understand why it wasn't on PS4 at launch too.

@Scottyy Yes, apparently so, and I missed it in between the 500 articles about how many trophies GTA5 has (55), Korean bands I've never heard of promoting it and a dozen other tit-bits. Thanks for the correction.

Surprised it wasn't always, there's no technical reason not to have it running on PS4.

@Max_the_German @Can-You-Believe-Sith It will be interesting to see if GTA6 uses QSSR, FSR 4.1.2 or even PSSR. Rockstar is large enough, technically minded enough, and running their own engine that they might have their own custom upscaler, similar to how Insomniac previously used their own in-house IGTI upscaler.

I look forward to seeing if this is the case, and/or if there are any major differences between consoles.

@Max_the_German @3Above Crimson desert is likely, they will be on a recent SDK that will be compatible with QSSR, and the devs seem active.

FF7 Rebirth seems less likely as the game likely isn't running on the latest SDK and would have to go through a more thorough round of QA to update. Square-Enix also don't seem to go back to games that often.

@Scottyy Are we really already talking PS6 Pro!!! Probably 5+ years away at this point, if it even happens with hardware pricing. Other than that I agree with your list and cross-gen in general.

It's a small but noticeable upgrade, a sharper more stable image, especially on finer detail in motion. That you can notice it even with YouTube's compression is a good sign.

My friends company did this after so many people were trying to book the days off. They said you can have EITHER the Thursday or the Friday off for free, but not both, unless it was already booked as leave.

Really enjoyed both Jedi games, hoping for a third soon, though Director Stig Asmussen has left to found a new studio Giant Skull that did have a D&D game in the works, but was cancelled.

Always look forward to the Game Awards, despite the silly time in the UK. Usually get to bed around 4am.

@XinGViruS @JohntheRaptor @Bez87 I agree, I doubt it will be buggy at all. But buggy and run well are different things. GTAV almost never held a stable 30fps at launch. See Digital Foundry PS3 & X360 frame rate analysis here

Hopefully Rockstar are aware this just isn’t acceptable anymore.

Mine arrived yesterday. I put in the code late last night and was pleasantly surprised to see the 200+GB had installed overnight.

Honestly I thought the internet infrastructure was going to take more of a pounding.

LOL. Totally agree. Bad choice of clip to show. But while trying to keep expectations in check… I think this will be wonderful.

@HonestHick it’s going to be very interesting to see how both Xbox and PlayStation approach affordable hardware next gen.

I’m not sure I can believe an 18TF Helix S will be $600. It’s got to be a bare minimum of 20 - 24GB of GDDR7X (this gen has 16GB). And with an APU that must be at a small, expensive process node to get a bump; plus nvme storage you are already getting nearer $600 before any other parts, R&D costs, manufacturing, distribution, taxes, retail cut etc.

I can believe that’s what they planned and want it to be, but not what it will be. Neither company wants $1,000+ dollar consoles, it actively works against their business model which thrives off tens of millions units sold, but they also have little to no control over parts prices. Something has to give.

@In-between-games good spot on Big Ben / London, I had missed that. Definitely an interesting idea.

As an aside around the same time The Man In the High Castle was doing Nazis in America there was a show in the UK called SS-GB that did a similar thing in the UK. While it wasn’t the best show imo it did have some utterly memorable shots like this with Nazi Swastikas adorning all sorts of famous British landmarks. Memorable.

This is cool. Wolfenstein is great.

However I adored Indiana Jones, I know it doesn’t appear to have sold that well, but I was really hoping for a sequel, there was such a strong foundation to build off. One of my favourite games this gen.

@Americansamurai1 Gotta hold something back for a resale or upgrade, right? 60fps, first person, updated textures, lighting etc.

@REALAIS Thanks. That makes sense, but not a first person camera you can play as. Right?

@Americansamurai1 No, in fact i'm 99% sure they said first person mode wasn't a thing. This will be "in engine" but probably not doable like this in game. It's a marketing beat. But still mighty impressive.

Looking forward to this. Naughty Dog haven't missed for me. Have high hopes.

@Friendly Isn't it normal that the games that have sold the most have been on sale longer? I wouldn't expect a game released last month for example to immediately jump onto this list unless it was truly exceptional. But it might over time.

@A-steak-with-ketchup Where do you get your global news and world view from? Asmongold?

@EfYI I agree Totoki is purely a business guy, and that's OK, he's in a purely business position not a creative role. If you let creatives run free budgets would overspill, nothing would get finished on time, and likely PlayStation would have folded long ago which wouldn't help us gamers in the long run.

His role is to keep Sony successful, keeping investors and markets happy, grow the company, try and keep staff happy where possible, and generally leaving the company in a better place than when he took over to transition well to the next guy after him. That is the right thing for the head of a global multi-national.

He's not a creative guy, but doesn't need to be, he employs many people in the corporate ladder that are and knows making great games, or movies, that resonate with audiences will be good for business. Hence we have games like God of War: Laufey, Intergalactic, Kena: Scars of Kosmora all coming.

So why are they not just doing what they did before, why not just focus on single player narrative games for example.

History is littered with the corpses of companies that got too comfy doing just one thing, who didn't diversify, or get with the times and are now a footnote in history. Don't put all your eggs in one basket as the old saying goes. Hell, if Sony were still focusing on TVs and portable music players they would have gone under long ago, it was only by diversifying into Gaming, Movies and other areas that they are still around today.

Hence it's also his job - and those he trusts to advise around him - to try and read the future, perhaps the next 10 or more years, and try and position the company so that it doesn't end up like that. Pushing into live service - a massive gap in their gaming portfolio - TV and other things is their way of doing that. Testing out VR, Cloud and other technologies, even if it's just a foot in the door, to make sure they don't get blind sighted and miss out on the next big thing. It won't always work, predicting the future is a fickle business, but it's also the right thing to do. I think the way they handled the live service push was poor, but it was also the right thing to do, from a business perspective.

I know it's easy to point fingers and attribute blame when things aren't going as we would like them to, but it's a hard role. I once ran a company with around 50 people and that was hard and stressful enough, Sony has around 100,000 employees globally, thousands of investors, shareholders and of course millions of consumers to all try and keep happy at the same time, never easy at the best of times.

And it's certainly not the best of times. The global gaming industry has taken a massive downturn post covid with a lack of outside investment and many global events all leading mass layoffs and studio closures. I feel it's far too easy to point the finger and try and attribute blame, and while there may be some to go around I think the reality is more that virtually every gaming company has had to lay off a lot of staff, especially in countries where PlayStation has studios where the cost of living and doing business has gone sky high. It's important to realise this isn't a Sony only thing. Hence, while probably an unpopular opinion among gamers, I think they have done OK to weather this storm. But then most gamers have probably never run a business and employed staff in tough times. Personally I think it could have been a lot worse.

Well deserved award! Decision to scrap discs this early while seemingly around half PS5 players still use them in some way is shameful. Go get em!

One of the all time greats. I most recently did another full play thorough on PSVR 1 and it was one of the most immersive experiences I’ve had in gaming. Felt like the difference between watching a movie and actually being there. It’s a bit janky round the edges - it always was, but it’s more apparent now in 2026 - but still a stone cold classic.

@EfYI it’s complicated because, as you rightly said it’s a slow tanker, and there are a lot of moving parts. I wouldn’t advise singling out individual execs, it’s a team effort, and it’s not always clear where the lines of delineation are, what you can attribute to each, we simply don’t have that level of information. But as you asked, let’s at least have a quick look even if it’s a bit of a thought experiment: (take with a massive grain of salt)

• Nishino only took over as CEO of SIE (aka PlayStation) in 2024, or co-CEO at the time, but before that from 2016 he was SVP of Platform SIE, directly overseeing and steering the design and direction of PS5 before release. He’s been at PlayStation for over 20 years, quickly rising the ranks, hence I think it’s fair to say he has had a strong hand in shaping PS5 and its success, especially as SVP of Platform from 2016 where day to day he was heavily involved in building and planning PS5.
• Totoki has been at Sony for 39 years, but most of that was not as part of SIE / PlayStation. Though he was CSO of the wider Sony group since 2017; CFO since 2018; EVP & CFO since 2020; President, CFO and COO since 2023 - briefly also being CEO of SIE in 2024 until he appointed Nishino & Hulst - and now President and CEO Sony group since 2025. Again as Chief Strategy officer (2017) snd Chief Financial Officer (2018) for the entire Sony group it’s fair to say he has influenced the direction of PlayStation since before PS5, but personally I wouldn’t put as much of PS5s direct success on him as Nishino who was directly working on it day to day. Totoki’s role was much wider than just PlayStation, though as the senior man would have had more say in general direction of travel for the whole business.
• Lin Tao has been at Sony since 2000. For 5 years she worked on PS3 rollout and management before moving to Sony mobile for 8 years. In 2016 she moved to CEO’s office working with former Sony President Kazuo Hirai and his successor Kenichiro Yoshida. In 2022 she became SVP of Finance, Corporate Strategy, and Development at SIE. In 2023-2024 she acted as deputy to Totoki while he took on multiple roles. In 2025 she took over as CFO of Sony group. And in 2026 also took on expanded roles as Director, CFO & CEO of corporate planing etc. Of the three it’s probably hardest to delineate her role in PS5’s specific success, but she clearly had a hand in it, working closely with presidents Kaz Hirai and Yoshida since 2016 and since 2022 having a lot more power to make decisions and shape direction of travel for SiE and then Sony Group.

What are your thoughts?

@Balaam_ You also look like you work in a call centre wearing one.

@EfYI "very clearly" LMAO!

It's just opinions. Agree to disagree my man, have a good evening.

@Oram77 Yes. That's the rumour after playtests didn't go well. But it usually doesn't end well when a game tries to change from one business model to another. I'd keep expectations low.

That would be like saying EA Sports titles aren't live services despite the fact that they make more money (70-75% of all revenue) on Ultimate Team than game sales! It's the exact same model for MLB.

Live service doesn't mean it has to go on forever, it simply means you are selling microtransactions to keep players playing and spending beyond what is in the base game. But I accept there are different business models within it.

What is hilarious about things like EA Sports / MLB is they basically sell you the same game every year, with a few tweaks, but also delete all your live service progress to start again. They have their cake and eat it too. Yet millions do it year in year out.

But I agree there are different levels to it. Something like Gran Turismo 7 is live service lite, but still a live service with it's in game shop / currency and events.

physical sales dropped from 1.09 million units to 1.01

So just an 8% decline. Not a lot. The story is more that digital sales boomed, probably in part due to the double pack and triple pack Final Fantasy 7s. You can literally get the next game for £70 or get all 3 for £80. It's a great deal for those who aren't already in.

@IamJT Agreed. Still got my Vita, amazing bit of hardware.

@ChikaBambus I'd agree that this gen has been weaker than PS4 from a first party perspective but, for me at least, the PS4 lineup was probably a high bar with games like Bloodborne, God of War, Spider-man, Horizon, Uncharted 4 etc. Saying it's not been as good as that isn't a bad thing in my book.

I agree there has been an opportunity cost in the live service push, not dismissing that, but what studios have been closed that makes the sort of non-live service games we want to play? Maybe Bluepoint and Pixelopus (Concrete Genie) the rest are all really live service teams. Their existing studios that make the games we like to play are mostly all still there right? Still making games, they just are taking longer.

I still believe it was sensible for Sony to try making SOME live-service games, it was a massive gap in their portfolio, the trouble was the way they went about it, trying to create too many.

But when I look at PS5 in totality it's been a great gen imho, best hardware and no shortage of great games to play, regardless who made them.

@lexilogo Call it what you want, it's the same thing, just semantics. "GaaS", "Live Service", "Service Game", "Live game", "Living game", all the same thing, doesn't change that this was what they were building.

@TrollOfWar I expect most all that is Helldivers 2 on PC as the PC sales for their other games were seemingly around 5% of total sales for each title. i.e. GoW:R around 1-1.5 million; S-M2 around 700k - 1m.

EDIT: Oh! and Stellar Blade, that was comparatively big on PC.

@lexilogo Eh? "live service game" has been in use since the early 2000s with games like Runescape and WoW, it isn't a new term.

I agree, and said above, that Rockstar were surprised by just HOW successful and how long GTA Online lasted, but that isn't the same as thinking it was some throwaway idea.

@wilky Do you have a link? I don't think they ever announced a list, this was just fan guesswork I believe.

But even if we go with that list. 2 have released, 1 is still coming we think (Guerilla Horizon), so no not all cancelled.

@ChikaBambus I see what you are trying to say, but respectfully I disagree.

Game development takes longer now, so we have to wait for longer for each studio to make games, this is just reality. And Sony's output, even in this second half of the gen, has still had excellent games e.g. Astro Bot, Saros, Death Stranding 2, Stellar Blade, Marvel Tokon Souls etc. with GoW Laufey, Intergalactic, Kena Scars of Kosmora, Until Dawn 2 and several others still to come.

But more than anything I never really understand separating first party games from the rest. When I look at PS5 as a whole there are more great games than I can EVER keep up with being released now on PS5, across all publishers, therefore why get upset and in the weeds if one publisher is slower? I know during PS4 - PS1 there were times when it felt like I had played everything I really wanted to, not so with PS5. I can't keep up.

Do you REALLY have so little to play? Is playing on PS5 really so disappointing?

@EfYI Err.. you do realise those same execs have made PS5 the most profitable generation ever for Sony. Your words ring hollow.

I understand YOU may be unhappy with some decisions, and I can understand that, but don't conflate things.

@wilky No not all were cancelled, although many were, and some have been a success like Helldivers 2, MLB the Show (every year), Gran Turismo 7. Others like Marvel Tokon Souls it's too early to tell, Marathon is still alive, and there are still games in development like Horizon Steel Frontiers. It's not a complete bust.

While I wouldn't go as far as to call it a wasted generation for those devs - games are cancelled the whole time, whether single player or live service, you still learn and get paid - I do think as players the opportunity cost, and what we could have had instead is disappointing.

But it's also important to put this into context, I don't think it's been as bad for Sony as some like to think. For example in their financial reports for Q1 FY2025 Sony stated:

Live Service Games made over 40% of Sony’s First-Party Revenue that quarter

@Shepherd_Tallon It was YOU! You were the bad JuJu!

I am interested to see if GTA6 makes any impact on PS5 sales. A year ago PS5 was only 2.1 million units behind PS4 when launch aligned, but price increases for PS5, versus price decreases for PS4, has meant it has fallen to 5.1 million behind PS4.

Of course PS4 was the fastest console ever to get to 100 million at that point, so it's still a hell of an achievement for PS5, especially considering all the challenges it faced. Stock shortages, price increases, actually decent competition, etc. etc.

Obviously wasn't around for the PS3 hack, or PS3's stuttering start nearly folding PlayStation, PS Vita flop and other far worse dips.

I said this the other day. It was always likely to sell around 2 million per month this quarter (based on launch aligned PS4 sales) and we are 40 days into this quarter and it only needed 2.1 million sales.

@TheArt I think you are misinterpreting this. I agree they didn't think GTA Online would be as big as it ended up being - you aren't going to predict your live service is going to be one of the top 5 globally and go on for 13+ years - but Rockstar still thought it would be big and clearly invested a lot of time, money and marketing into making that outcome happen, even if some of the devs were less optimistic.

Of course when it ended up being even larger than even they expected, one of the most played live services, they changed their plans and ditched single player DLC sadly.

@TheArt That's one developers view, but that was clearly not in line with Rockstar's expectations considering the amount of time, money and marketing they threw at GTA Online.

I think the reality is games like GTAV are such large productions, with thousands and thousands of developers, that someone like Matt working on one element, like scripting in his case, may not have the whole picture of all the other parts of the game like online and severely underestimated it.

Largest media release of all time only being available digitally... shock horror, broke records... who would have guessed?

Yes and no. Less than 0.4% of eligible PS Plus Premium members will be in the tens of thousands of users. Not really enough to keep it going imho, money better spent elsewhere.

For rough numbers: There are around 48 million PS+ subscribers, around 22% of subscribers are on eligible Premium tier, and < 0.4% of that is approx. less than 42k players who used it... not a lot.

Though I agree it was underbaked and under-marketed, would have been more if they focussed on it, but it's clearly not in line with their plans.

@Svark Agreed, splitting the DLC in 2 just tells me to wait.

@nessisonett Totally agree about Bluepoint, I made a similar point on the other article. I feel we are missing some key information here, it's clear the working relationship with Bluepoint had broken down by the end with multiple reports of Bluepoint going through several rounds of pitches that were all rejected. It seems they no longer saw eye-to-eye on what to make. Perhaps one day we will get more information.

@TheArt yes and no. Something like GTA Online was not some chance hit, it was meticulously planned at massive expense. Same for massive games like Apex Legends, Genshin Impact, most gacha’s etc.

Where I do agree is that it feels like a bit of a dice roll whether your live service actually succeeds, or not.

I also agree that some of the most successful live services started out as something much smaller and grew into something much bigger over time e.g. Fortnite, Minecraft, Rocket League etc. they weren’t planned to be as big as they are today.

FWIW my mate played the play test and mostly enjoyed it, but also said it was going to struggle to find an audience and wasn’t sure what the long term would feel like, how it would keep players returning.

Though he also raved about Marathon at launch, absolutely loved it, thought it would be next big thing, so he’s not always the best judge.