themightyant

@cragis0001 the trouble is after a reasonably strong start on PC Sony’s single player sales have tanked. A reported 700,000 copies for Spider-man 2 is WEAK. If you aren’t making a lot of money on other platforms why weaken your brand?

FYI Forza Horizon 5 reportedly sold 5 million on PS5 and that figure is growing, it will be more now since holiday sales. One is selling exceedingly well and bringing in a lot of revenue the other isn’t.

Yeah cosplay will never take off 😂 (amusing typo)

@Lavishturtle FAR more games are PC only than PS5 only, who is screwing who over?

In a perfect world perhaps it would be better to have no exclusives. But would I have bought a Switch & Switch 2 if Nintendo’s games were on other more powerful consoles? No, of course not. The reality is exclusives are important for platforms in driving sales.

More over would Sony and Nintendo even make ALL these wonderful games if they didn’t have to convince people to buy their machines over another? Unlikely. Breath of the Wild or The Last of Us or Bloodborne might not even exist. Exclusives drive completion and give us some of the greatest games. They still matter, for now.

"Expect a unique, darker, narrative-driven Assassin’s Creed experience, set during a pivotal moment in history."

That gets me more excited, but they have a lot to prove.

I look forward to seeing what they can manage on console, especially the Pro, but it's not a Day 1 game for me, few AAA games are.

@tangyzesty They are only saying that because the pure RPG nerds are some of the most obnoxious gamers, knocking anything that doesn't fit their criteria of what an RPG is. To most people it will be an lighter RPG / adventure game with many RPG elements (semantics).

This looks FAN-BLOODY-TASTIC, however I hope they have improved the gameplay loop in Saros. Dying was one of the most soul destroying things in Returnal knowing it might take over an hour to get back to where you are. It's brilliant but also could have been so much better.

I'm actually surprised they haven't done it already TBH, they are great at supporting their games long term like this. Hopefully it leads to some additional sales.

@SaucyPapi I don't think Microsoft CAN do the same. They have a much smaller console market share than Sony, but they also have a lot more studios, people only buy so many games each year on average, meaning most would likely fail to make a profit. Also Game Pass is cannibalising sales.

In short, Xbox are now too big to make most games exclusive, but they have enough studios to make a few select games exclusive.

It will be interesting to see if/how they manage this under new leadership. But I wouldn't expect this to turn around, the financials just don't work for them.

This makes a lot of sense. Initially their games sold quite will on PC, but sales have tailed off. If you aren't making lots of money off it then it isn't worth the blow to your platform.

It's especially an issue with PC becoming more prevalent, especially with "under the TV" more console like PCs on the horizon, if both Xbox and PlayStation games play on these devices then that becomes more tempting for anyone on the fence.

I think the timing also makes sense, let gamers know ahead of Steam Machine and next gen.

The obvious downside is that now their live service games will be able to make money across all platforms, whereas their single player games will have to make do on PlayStation alone to turn a decent profit, that perhaps makes it harder to green light these in future.

@ZeD I suspect that they are hard at work optimising the game deciding what they have to sacrifice to get a mostly stable framerate, what trade offs are sensible versus others, it's all a balance and can't really be finalised until everything else is in place.

But I can understand people being unsure / worried.

Yet what is guaranteed is the game will run better in 6-12 months than it will on Day 1, as with almost every AAA game, hence I will wait.

@JayJ Live services come in many forms. It isn't one size fits all. Most of these mentioned are either "Freemium" live services or where you pay full price AAA for the base game but there is also a huge number of micro-transactions and ongoing content to keep a HUGE number of players playing and paying. E.g.

For EA in FY 2023 they made $7.3 billion in revenue. One guess where around 74% of it came from ($5.49 billion)... live services. It's quite literally in their financial reports, same in 2024 (73%) and 2025 (73%) most of it from Ultimate Team. Similar story for the other games mentioned.

Look, I fully accept YOU might not use the live service service elements and just treat them as single player offline games, that's fine, they are designed to be able to be played that way too. But they are also designed and designated as live services by EA and the industry at large, it's where they make most of their profit, this isn't new news. (edited)

@JayJ No mental gymnastics required lol. EA Sports, COD, GTAV Online make vast sums of money through MTX, battle passes and/or ongoing updates to keep players playing... and spending... that's what a live service is!

Having a single player or offline mode doesn't prevent them also being live services, that isn't dishonest, it's just a basic fact. Not sure why you can't see what is plain as day. Reminds me of the quote. "The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was to convince the world he didn't exist".

I genuinely wonder why the gaming demographic is so negative all of the time?

@LogicStrikesAgain Honestly I think it’s 2 main reasons:

1. Gamers have been conditioned that if they complain very loudly about something online, sometimes gaming companies will take a step back. It’s like children who moan loudly knowing parents will cave and give them what they want.

2. Media, including this site, but especially social media grifters have primed the audience to make everything into a culture war. Controversy breeds engagement and clicks, articles are written deliberately to enflame. In some ways I can’t blame them, it’s the job, sadly negativity sells, its humanity’s problem. It isn’t new, or limited to gaming.

Want single player games? Then instead of just enjoying the thousands that release every year - more than anyone could ever play - we are now sold the illusion that these are dead or dying. You are now expected to complain about multi-player games you wouldn’t even play too.

—

Of course I do think there are often valid reasons to complain too, but these are the main reasons for the negativity specifically.

LMAO. As if these games don’t make more profit from their Ultimate Team micro transactions than game sales. Just because YOU may not spend on these modes doesn’t stop it being a live service, I don’t spend money in Genshin Impact, only play single player, doesn’t stop it being a live service.

As for COD and Battlefield 6 they have seasonal updates, a battle pass and micro transactions to support ongoing development.

What do you think a live service is??? Just try googling “is [GAME] a live service?” will give you all the answers you need.

Everyone acting like there are no new super-successful live service games. For reference 9 of the top 10 top selling games in the USA last year on PlayStation were live services, the only single player game was Ghost of Yotei. And this list doesn’t include many successful new F2P games like Where Winds Meet or other paid games like Arc raiders. Sadly enough still break through.

We all know physical is DECLINING, but declining is not dead. It’s still around 25% of unit sales. That’s not including second hand, game sharing, lending etc. it’s still a MASSIVE part of gaming in PS5 overall.

EDIT: also consider most games, which are smaller, ONLY release digitally. Despite this physical is STILL around 25% of total unit sales globally. That's actually pretty impressive imo. Still going strong.

@Reeneman They said March for PSSR2 toggle, so in the next 4 weeks. They'll probably drop it on a random tuesday in a blog post.

I have been firmly on the "it will be delayed again" bandwagon, but with each little leak like this I'm slowly starting to believe it might... perhaps... still hit this year.

I LOVE Uncharted. But that story was told, not every franchise needs to go forever, in fact they are often better if they don't.

If it does come back it really needs to reinvent itself similar to how God of War did in 2018, or how Mario or Zelda frequently does, it can't just be more of the same 20 years later.

It wasn't a good first image but Jaffe is a performative clown playing up to the crowd for clicks.

It shouldn't be all that shocking. It's clear something difficult went down with Bluepoint whereby the two parties couldn't agree what to put them to work on. It's really disappointing but these things also happen in business.

@somnambulance I suspect Sony tried to poach the most talented staff from Bluepoint.

I still think it's a worthwhile experience, there's little else like it, but It was also really disappointing compared to BGS prior games.

I played for 100+ hours, It's a time sink, but didn't love it or hate it.

Wish I hadn't seen this TBH. Just takes the excitement away from any reveal. It makes some sense as there felt like there was a large gap missing. (not that this is necessarily a problem). I also trust SSM and Corey Barlog.

Looking forward to seeing what this is. But also a little disappointed it isn't a completely new IP with no restriction. But this is old news/rumour it's just being reconfirmed by another source.

Such a unique game. RIP Pixelopus!

@HRdepartment the worst part of Returnal is the soul destroying feeling of dying on a run where you were doing so well but lose around 1-2 hours of progress suddenly with very little to show for it. It’s soul crushing and you have to pick yourself up to go again.

My biggest issue with the game is that most of it is quite easy if you are methodical, take your time to explore and make good choices leveling up your character. But then you come to a room that is just rock hard and you die in seconds. You lose all that progress in moments. It’s rough.

I think it does a really poor job of training you for those difficulty spikes because there is very little content in the middle. I still think it’s utterly brilliant, but I also think it’s overly brutal. I need to have a think about how that balances out in my final evaluation.

@KingPev I was stuck on the 5th biome for days and many runs. It is soul destroying. And then yesterday morning in my first run I breezed through it, and the 6th and finished the game. I then beat it again next run.

I haven’t fully formed my opinion on it yet, but it is love/hate. I’m not surprised only 1 in 9 finish it (just 11% of players)

Just finished Returnal. At it's best it's one of the best games i've played this generation. At it's worst it's one of the most soul destroying games i've ever played. Hopefully Saros can fix some of the worst parts and retain the magic, because when it's good it's unbelievably great.

In news that I didn't want to hear for $500. This only makes it worse. Though I suspect we don't have the full prctire.

I’ll get to it in due course but I’m a few games behind. No rush.

Sony completely own the rights to Bloodborne so there's nothing that FromSoftware could have done to block a remake.

@SMJ it’s often not that simple, you can own the rights to something but there can be stipulations in the contract that the original creator still has a say or first refusal. This is quite common in media.

Looking forward to this one. Hopefully it improves on the few flaws in the first game.

This is fantastic, and even better that it's a system level toggle.
PS5 Pro keeps getting better.

Is that 2% revenue really worth hurting your brand, and losing players to the Steam box and Next box.

@UltimateOtaku91 It could be argued that it's HELPING your brand, by bringing new players to these franchises that will make them more popular. That might sell more games, sell more consoles (a lot of PC players also play on console and this might make them more likely to want a PlayStation) and increase interest in cross-media like TV shows, movies, books, comics etc.

I suspect it's a bit of give and take, but I don't believe it's as simple as "losing players to the Steam box and Next box".

For people interested in the financials of this. Since Sony started reporting "other software" in Q1 2022 this accounts for:

• 2.13% of ALL PlayStation revenue
• 4.05% of revenue from games (incl. DLC / MTX)

So it may not seem a huge part of their business. But that is still around $2 billion USD in revenue over 15 quarters, so it's not small change either. For reference that's about 57% of what Physical media made in that same timeframe.

That said their single player games are only a portion of that total which includes major PC successes like Helldivers 2.

FYI "Other Software" is defined as:

"revenue from sales of first-party titles and other titles published by Sony Interactive Entertainment, including add-on content, on platforms other than PlayStation® consoles."

@RoomWithaMoose Eh? Now I just think you're trolling.

My point was there are plenty of games to play, AND Sony has been making single player cinematic games, they haven't stopped unlike your Nintendo example. So why are we complaining about a lack of them? Shrugs

@RoomWithaMoose But Sony haven't stopped making them. They've delivered at least 11/12 "cinematic single-player games" in the 5 years since PS5 released with another 3+ scheduled for this year. That is about in line with their output of PS4 going by the Eurogamer link Max linked to. I counted around 13/14 titles you might call "cinematic single-player games" in that timeframe on PS4.

I can always understand anyone being personally disappointed but saying something provocative like “Where the f*ck are the great cinematic single-player games?” that doesn't hold up to even the most basic scrutiny is always going to get pushback, and quite rightly. Frankly it just shows expectations are out of whack.

@RoomWithaMoose My point is I think people focus FAR too much on the output of platform holders and whether it meets some arbitrary mark they have decided. When really what we should be interested in is are there enough great games to play on our platform. Hence if you have no shortage of games to play, where's the issue?

Additionally everyone also seems to accept the fact that game development is taking much longer for every studio; but at the same time acts shocked when a studio's output is down. Shock horror, who would have guessed. You can't have it both ways.

Frankly I think some people just want any excuse to be mad.

@Max_the_German No, not really Sony have always tried lots of different things, this isn't new at all. Sometimes people forget that during PS3 and PS4 era:

• Sony released a lot of smaller non-cinematic games, in fact most were these smaller games, the big games were the minority.
• Sony also made a lot of great multi-player games like Resistance 1-3 Killzone 1-4/SF, Motorstorm series, PS All Stars Karting, LBP Karting, Driveclub etc.
• they always tried a lot of new tech Camera, Move, VR, Headphones, Vita, PSP etc.
• their so called "single player studios" like Naughty Dog, Insomniac, etc. also made a lot of popular multiplayer modes to their games.

Frankly if the only reason you bought a PS4/5 instead of an Xbox was for "cinematic single-player games" then you have been ignoring most of what PlayStation has been about all this time. That is just one part of it.

@PuppetMaster Never said it was a bad game, just that people might reasonably have expected more than a 65 from Sony / God of War.

Was just thinking about Arkham Knight and all it needs is a 60fps, upres patch, i'd even pay for an upgrade. (But not the whole game again) It still looks fantastic to this day.

Fingers crossed Rocksteady survives to make another classic.

@Max_the_German Are you ACTUALLY short of games to play? Because I can't even remotely keep up with all the great games coming out.

I have no idea but I did just put a cheeky low bid on a PSVR1 on eBay.

@ButterySmooth30FPS We each like what we like and if you likes Mindseye all power to you. I quite enjoyed Anthem. But that's not to say Metascores aren't meaningless they offer a useful glimpse at what the wider audience thinks of a game.

Looks amazing. Looking forward to the book series too which releases translated to English in July

@ButterySmooth30FPS I think many people do want smaller projects from Sony but perhaps not unreasonably they wanted a bit more than a 65 on Metacritic. That's nearer Redfall than Red Faction.

That street scene in the rain reminds me of Watch Dogs fake trailer finally running.

@clvr Fair enough. I was probably a bit overly defensive because you see the same tiresome comments in every gacha game thread from people that don't even play them. I mean (scrolls up):

"Gacha games are a cancer on the industry" or (I paraphrase) "I would rather die due to alcohol, drugs and gambling than play gacha games." It's ludicrous hyperbole. Plus you called my take "shallow". lol

But mentioning gambling is interesting, because gacha (in games) isn't gambling. In gambling typically you are not guaranteed to win anything. Whereas in most gacha games not only are you guaranteed to win but you are also guaranteed to get precisely the thing you want to get after X pulls in most cases. It might be sooner, but you always have that guarantee, hence you can plan and budget accordingly. Including, it must be noted, free credits as I don't spend at all anymore. This is very different to both typical gambling AND an improvement on typical loot boxes which like Pokemon / Magic / Sports cards that have absolutely no guarantees.

My point is in terms of gambling specifically many other games with loot boxes need to be addressed well before these games.

Can it still be prohibitively expensive? Sure if you feel you have to have everything. But as someone that is entirely F2P in these games now you also don't have to spend a penny and get most characters for free. You just can't have them all, same as in life.

Playing Returnal now and it's mostly glorious. But there are some really frustrating aspects. When RNG or a hard room ruins a run and you have to go back to the start losing hours of progress I almost want to give up. It takes far too long to get back to where you were, assuming you want to be reasonably powered to take on the fight. That's a HUGE negative I hope they remedy in Saros.

I hate the term "a round of layoffs" as though we are expecting another to cycle around soon. It's probably accurate but very depressing. Good luck to all involved.