Sony Confirms Spider-Man PS5 Remaster Is Not a Free Upgrade

This is far too confusing for the average customer, and the fact we're having all of this confirmed through a statement sent to Kotaku is mad. Sony's got to step its communication up on stuff like this.

What's going on with Sony?

505 games got absolute stick for this and rightly so, surely you just bundle the upgrade with the season pass/game of the year edition. Sony should be walking a more consumer friendly line than this

Paid TLOU2, HZD, GOW, GOT, etc upgrades incoming.

They are fumbling over this issue and it is a really bad look.

They should offer free upgrades for owners of all their first party exclusives, no questions asked.

@Menchi Arrogant Sony is back.

All very bizarre and not confusing at all! As I’m probably one of the 6 PS4 people to not have played the original (despite buying the GOTY edition ...) I think I’ll just play that version on my PS5 and buy the PS5 version of MM

This is an absolute mess. What’s the point of having BC and talking about patches for PS5 and then selling remasters? Bloody hell, it’s as if Sony are actively trying to undermine their console at this point, and then barely even elaborating and causing news to spread among different publications trying to piece it together.

Locking the remaster behind Miles Morales rather than offering it as a single PS Store purchase is poor. It's one thing to not offer the upgrade for free, but not giving consumers all the choices they could is the let down here. If Miles Morales is a rubbish game (I doubt it but you never know) then I'd have to pay full whack for the remastered version of the original...

Fair enough, though I'm not double-dipping. Still looking forward to the (actually) new game!

@Alexb That happened after the PS2 as well and lool how thay went for the PS3. Glad I main PC.

I'm sorry
So you plan to make this console backwards compatible with PS4 games

Yet you're still remastering PS4 games

And locking one of them behind a special edition of another PS5 game without any other alternatives to buy the game

What the hell is happening

@get2sammyb It won't be enough to justify why they're charging for it. Unless you're doing a full remake, it's not justified.

Especially on games only a few months old

I'm someone who sees absolutely no difference between games run on the Pro and the standard PS4 so the amount of work put into the remaster means very little to me because at the end of the day... it's the same game!

That said I'm sure it will still sell like hotcakes.

This is going like a full cycle wheel.... Now Xbox becoming consumer friendly and sony is slowly deviating......

Hope it's not true.... But.....

This is completely ridiculous, not to mention the fact that the game is only two years old, anyway. Remaster stuff that actually NEEDS remastering, not games that borderline just came out.

This is Ubisoft pre-order levels of unnecessarily complicated for a more casual gamer. Imagine someone's mom going into GAME and hearing this from a member of staff:

"You can play PS4 Spider-Man on your PS5, enhanced in various ways but not on a fully PS5 level. Then you can play Miles Morales on PS4 and then put the same copy in your PS5 and it'll get enhanced properly to PS5 levels. But to get basic Spider-Man upgraded you need to buy a whole new game. And you can upgrade through a certain path to get PS5 Spider-Man but not by buying Spider-Man, but rather by buying Miles Morales on PS4. Also would you like a loyalty card and can I interest you in this Crash Bandicoot toilet brush?"

Bit odd. Starting to see why so many high profile execs jumped ship. What is Jim Ryan playing at. Sort it out.

On its own, this really isnt a big deal, but its yet another bit of bad press that Sony REALLY dont need. Really starting to question my pre-order at the mo. Sony seem all over the shop

Sony is fast becoming the anti - consumer company it was during the PS3 era.. They're damaging their brand so badly at the moment, and destroying all the goodwill created from the PS4 era.. It's so sad to see this continuous downward spiral.. To do this with one of their own exclusives is just bonkers.. "pay more, pay again, pay twice!" or "free with Game Pass" let's see which option the next gen goes for...

It is a bit confusing, but I get it. I’ll get the ultimate edition. And I think they’ll release Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered as a stand-alone eventually.

@TheFrenchiestFry I think Spider-Man: Remastered was meant to be like a "bonus" if you bought the Miles Morales Ultimate Edition — which is why it never got a big announcement.

But Sony's communication on the matter has been terrible, and so we're left with Insomniac telling us it's basically a brand new game, while also not being available as a standalone release. Really, really messy.

Reminder for perspective: Maneater is getting a free upgrade. A shark murder simulator.

But Sony can't be bothered to offer its fans free upgrades, while actively making it harder to get the remaster by bundling it with another title purchase.

This is extremely anti-consumer.

I already pre ordered demon souls, but I’m on the line between miles morales and godfall, this is pushing me towards godfall

LMAO!!!! What kind of idiots thought this would ever be the case? Unless Sony wanted to give away a free brand new game (in which case they would just bundle it) then you will pay for remasters!
Of course Sony have already confirmed that if anyone owns a PS4 version of any PS5 title they will have a free upgrade path, but you don’t get Spider-Man Remastered just because you get spider-man, any more than you got Last of Us Remastered for free just for having the non remastered PS3 version.
Imagine going in to CEX and spending 18 to get old SKU spider-man on PS4 then expecting the brand new ps5 remaster for free

@ShogunRok I can't believe I'm saying this but this is like Activision levels of shady

This gives me severe Modern Warfare Remastered and Persona 4 Dancing on PS4 flashbacks

I seriously think now is not a good time for sony to be doing stuff like this, in one side there's gamepass with a lot of "free" games and free next-gen upgrade, in the other side there's $70 game and non upgrade remaster. This early ps5 sony is a stark contrast with the old early ps4 sony

I get it, spider-man mm (with the remaster) is not just a resolutions & framerate patch but nearly a new game build with every ps5 tech in mind (dualsense, 3D audio, instant loading), I have no problem paying that, but at least make a proper comparison with spider-man ps4 so people can says "yeah it's really an upgrade worth a new game price".

@OneManDroid I dunno about that with the PS3. On 360 you needed to buy a charger for your controller, a wireless network card (or upgrade to a new model, revisions S or E) and later a HD DVD add-on if you wanted that functionality. The PS3 was a bluray player out the box, had a built in wireless network card and rechargeable controllers by default. MS also made it so cheaply that 1 in 3 would break.

This new direction they are taking is almost definitely why the better than Jim execs left imo. Imagine being in charge and steering the Sony ship to greatness with (almost) every move and then having every ounce of good will you'd built up get just thrown in the ***** in a few short weeks.

Sony needs to do another stream/video were they just lay all the cards on the table. Tear down of the machine, solid look at the differences in the spiderman remaster, etc... At the minute it feels like theyre hiding things or dont want folks to know something. Im not saying they are but the mess they're making of this just makes the whole thing feel off.

LMAO really?? like sony needs any bad press at the moment. They should have just not release a remaster and be done with it. New customers can play it anyway on the PS5

@get2sammyb Some will be just fps and resolution increases and some will be hefty upgrades but nothing justifies it to me. If it wasn't in the middle of "free next gen upgeades" by almost everyone, with different hardware architecure it'd be a different story.

Especially when the platform holder is allowing everyone else to upgrade their games for free, but not their own.

Edit: Xbox are taking shots at Sony on social media since this came out. They're.spamming their free upgrade message. Rightfully so.

I imagine the same will be true when they port Last of Us II and Ghost of Tsushima then. It's not that surprising, but doesn't look good compared to what others are doing.

Ah Sony...you were doing so well, but this past week MS is destroying you x)
Not interested in this if there isn't a free upgrade

Cue the inevitable outrage 🙄 I’m planning on buying the ultimate edition of Miles Morales anyway when I get a PS5 next year, so I’m not that bothered by this, and I own Spider Man on PS4 currently.

So wait the next gen upgrade of Miles Morales is free... but they couldn’t figure out how to do the same thing with Spider-Man without making it another purchase....

Poor show from Sony.i guess it is all about profit. I'll probably wait til the price goes way down before making a purchase

@nessisonett this next gen with Jim Ryan is an absolute disaster so far...one step front and two back..

@AFCC
? There is a free upgrade. It’s called ps5 boost mode. Also, if you have MM on PS4 you get the PS5 version for free.

Did you think that someone buying a cheap second hand version of the years old PS4 version would get the brand new remaster?

I don’t get you people Insomniac is doing a lot of extra work with this spider man remastered . this isn’t simply just a up res and frame rate boost insomniac actually doing a update and reworking of the games engine insomniac should get paid for their extra work.

@4kgk2 1. We don't even know how much work they put into it, because we're less than 2 months away from release and we haven't seen a single trailer for Spider-Man on PS5. And 2. Just because they put a lot of work into it, shouldn't mean customers have to pay for it if the end results are barely noticeable. Just don't even bother in that case. They should've just increased the fps and resolution and textures and offered it as a free upgrade to everyone.

I wanted too get it but its digital only. I thought i would be able too get a complete physical edition but its not thatso its simple.

"You can upgrade to the PS5 version of Miles Morales for free if you buy the PS4 version. And if you do that, you can pay for an Ultimate Edition upgrade, which gives you access to Spider-Man: Remastered"

In this scenario, do I need the PS4 disc of "Spider-Man: Miles Morales" to be able to play the digital PS5 version of "Spider-Man: Remastered"?

I think we'll need a flowchart for this mess, lol.

Isn't a remaster pointless and confusing, if you can just play the PS4 version via B/C?
Sounds like a way to coax unsuspecting consumers into buying a new copy because of all the confusion.

With great power comes great repackage-ability

I don’t get why people are so angry bout it, games that are getting free upgrades are free because both PS4 and ps5 versions are being developed at once, so its not costing developers more to go back to it. insomniac made the ps5 version long after the PS4 one. If you don’t wanna pay for it again, don’t, play the PS4 version via bc, or even better, play it now on your actual PS4’s in preparation for miles morales on launch day 🤷‍♂️

@ThaBEN No, disc or digital works for all upgrades, free or otherwise.

@Octane you can still play the ps4 version of the game on ps5 if you don’t want to spend the extra 20$ for the upgrades.

@Menchi Yeah but Spidey isn't on Xbox.

😉

As for this news, I think I'll just wait for Spidey 2 on PS5 then, replay the first on my PS4.

They really ought to be upgrading their exclusives for free though. Need to look after us loyal PS gamers especially in the light of what Xbox are doing.

I imagine this is a decision from the higher-ups at Sony not necessarily a PlayStation decision. I reckon the other Sony divisions must be struggling financially and us PS gamers are seen as a cash cow.

It's not good.

The only thing Sony is getting right at the moment is great games. Now obviously this is the biggest reason to own a console but Microsoft with game pass and xbox all access is a very compelling argument to own xbox. If there studios start producing great games then sony for 1st time will run the risk of being outdated and be at best the second console where you only buy and play exclusives games! For all your other gaming needs xbox will have you covered?

I didn't buy PS4 Pro and didn't enjoy the boost it gives to games because I wanted to save that for the PS5. So I'm a PS4 consumer and will be a PS5 one too. They have the architecture ready (evidenced by other publishers giving that update freely).

This feels like they're just punishing me for wanting to enjoy that on PS5 and not getting their Pro console at the time.

Sony really started to drop the ball recently

@4kgk2 Thing is, you can't even spend $20 to get the upgrade. It's locked behind Miles Morales.

Sony is screwing up so much even before the generation started. With the game prices being so high in Europe and miscommunication from everywhere, I doubt that the gap between PS5 and Series X is going to be as high as it is now.

Only way this is "confusing" is if you made up your own narrative.

You get BC to keep your old PS4 games, and "some" games could have a free PS5 upgrade.

It has been constant from day 1

If they're putting in the work to make a remaster I believe they got the rights to charge all they want, it's no different than ps3 games that were remastered on ps4. Specially if u can play ps4 version on ps5 with BC. They just announced bloodborne remaster and nobody complaining about that so what's the big deal here? I played and 100% ps4 version and though I loved the game its not a game I would like to 100% again. Now if they remaster GOW 2018 it'll be day 1 for me

🎶Money money money!🎶

Sony making Xbox more and more appealing every day.

@Matroska I'm talking about support for PSP, PlayTV, Eye of Judgment, PS Move, even Vita.. All unsupported or forgotten, all eventually abandoned, and to hell with customers who supported and bought into these.. The PS exclusive price hike, the lack of allowing payable upgrade, the lack of any meaningful console information, the preorder shambles, the poor PS Now offering, the price hike for PS+ whilst reducing amount of games And giving games that are already on PS Now.. All of this adds up to not giving a fig about your customer... It's like MS and Sony are reversing roles for the next gen..

@grahamd why is this so confusing to people? These "free upgrades" are just resolution patches. The spider-man remaster will incorporate the instant loading, 3d audio, haptic feedback and probably Ray tracing. I'm sure we will learn more closer to what is probably a December release. Having said that, I don't think I need to play Spider-man again having played through it twice already.

@JesWood13 inevitable and justified outrage.

I actually got the game real cheap, so I'm definitely going to get this again, been wanting to go through it again and this is no doubt the best way.

Meanwhile, CDPR are putting work into an upgraded version of the 5 year old Witcher 3 for next-gen systems. For free. This is a bad look for Sony.

@OneManDroid those things sold badly, most people weren't interested. Are you angry at Nintendo for dropping support for the Virtual Boy, Power Glove and R.O.B.? Or more recently dropping support for an entire console after a couple of years? What's come out on MS's HD DVD recently, or Kinect? Things that sell badly and don't get much of a following dont make sense to support.

That's nowhere near as bad as expecting people buy batteries and a charger to even use their controllers. Or needing to buy a network addon to even go online if you're too far from your router or don't want a long cable going through your house. Lack of Wi-Fi and needing to buy batteries and a charger to even use the 360 affected everyone. Lack of Eyetoy support affected about 1% of players. The red ring of death affected 33% of players, about 27 million people, because MS made it as cheap as they could. It's ludicrous to compare that to lack of Wonderbook support.

For the "but they put in the work" crowd... putting in the work would have just been making a proper Miles game instead of making half a game and trying to charge full price by packaging it with "new and improved" old spiderman.

Terrible look for Sony. I know people who purchased Spider-Man during last sale, for the sole purpose of waiting to play it on PS5 after upgrade..

This looks REALLY bad in the wake of multiple companies promising free PS5 patches for their games. It's one thing on consoles like Switch/PS4 that couldn't physically play previous-gen games anyway, but this just looks slimy.

They didn't announce it straight away and they have been using the "built from the ground up for ps5" excuse to justify not offering a free upgrade. Next thing you know, they'll slap "remastered" on a PS4 without any upgrade and sell it to you full price.

JFC, Sony. You're freaking going to make people pay for an upgrade of the best-selling PS4 exclusive?!

I'm starting to think they actually deserve the kick in the ass MS is going to give them next gen.

@Matroska link to the Crash Toilet Brush pls

is $ony trying to push people toward Micro$oft?

Play has no Limits*

*some limitations apply

I don't agree with this at all. Very bad idea Sony. I personally don't care too much about upgrades but being able to play my PS4 library matters, which we can.

That being said for the people who do care you SHOULD NOT be locking an upgrade behind a purchase of an 'ultimate edition' of another game for the sake of more money.
Especially when older games like The Witcher 3 are confirmed to be getting a free upgrade, there's no excuse.

@zupertramp that's unfair on Insomniac. They have been clear from the start this is a smaller experience similar to uncharted lost legacy. They are one of the hardest working studios out there and beyond Miles Morales they have also got a new Ratchet ready for release during the launch window.

Miles Morales will not be a quick 2 hour dlc. It will be at least 15 to 20 hours.

And you dont need to buy MM at full price with the spiderman remaster if you dont want it. You can get a cheaper version on its own.

Look the communication from Sony is an absolute mess and they deserve criticism, but i dont think its fair to accuse Insomniac of not putting in the work.

Just my opinion 🤷‍♂️

Hey, Sony? What's going on big guy?

Oh well I guess I'll just preorder the Ultimate Edition of Miles Morales instead.

Yes it's a stupid decision, we should at least have the option of a paid upgrade but I'm not going to lose sleep over it and on the plus side if you've never played it, then for £70 you get 2 PS5 Spider-Man games

@Rob_230 Fair enough although it wasn't really intended as a full-throated criticism. Just think they would have just been better off committing to a full MM title rather than wasting times/resources on a remaster no one asked for. Also they are supposedly working their fingers to nubs night and day on this remaster but it's only worth 10 bucks/quid? Must be a lot of value added to the original to get to such a steep price point.*

Don't get me wrong, I'm not like mad mad. I'm only just barely finishing the original Spiderman and really don't see myself playing it again regardless. I just tend to side with those that would have liked to have had a low cost(or yes even free) upgrade path... y'know as like a show of good faith from Sony. No one can say they wouldn't benefit at the moment.

*Edit: Lord knows this post is already long enough but to expand more on this, the fact that you can only buy it with MM is probably what most rubs me the wrong way. I feel like things like this are done specifically to skew and obscure the actual value and ultimately trick people into thinking, hey, what's 10 more lemme just get the ultimate edition. It's car salesman tactics and it's unsavory in my view.

Edit #2: I was off on the price so that's my bad. Apparently it's 50 for MM alone and 70 for ultimate launch edition.

I dont understand why people get so upset..chances are if you have already bought spiderman and played it to death then in all honesty are unlikley to buy the ps5 remaster..nobodys making you buy it.i have played around 35 mins approx and then decided i would wait and play it on the ps5 so i play the pro version hopefully..by the time i actually get round to getting spiderman mm it will probably be dirt cheap so then maybe i'll consider the remaster..we have backwards compat and we have remasters..did anybody think that remasters would ever go away? Its all about choice and sony is giving everybody a choice..expensive choices yes but at least you can decide for yourselves..stop the bitching..

Shouldn’t be free but an upgrade should be absolutely available.

This gen is becoming a messy buzzkill.

What are both Sony and Xbox playing at?

It’s seems an exercise in how much can we milk the gaming community for and get away with it!

Not a fan of it.

I wouldn't mind if they charged a small price for the upgrade in case it really is a meaningful upgrade. But asking us to buy the full game again is awful. I'll pass it.

@michaelf Count me as number 2 of the 6. My copy is still sealed on my shelf since November. This is despite this game being my most anticipated one ever. I'm still playing through the backlog; currently up to 2016, so was getting close to this 2018 title. Now, I'm just going to wait until I get a PS5 to play the remaster. Anyway, I have a big enough backlog to tie me over and I want to experience this game in all its glory. I'll probably sell my PS4 copy along with my PS4 Pro once I can confirm that I won't lose anything in the transition to PS5.

@Menchi I see this coming.

This is kind of disappointing... I mean, on one hand they deserve to be paid for the additional work they did to enhance the game, but on the other hand, the competition is doing the same at no additional charge with Gears 5, among other titles. The least they could do is offer a discounted paid upgrade path. But to not even offer the title as a standalone?! That's just taking it too far...

@mvhess The free upgrades aren't just resolution patches though. The PS5 versions of games like AC: Valhalla, Black Ops, etc. are making full use of the consoles feature set, they're not just the PS4 versions in 4K.

I thought it is quite simple and a nice bungie bonus. Expecting a free remake to 2 year old games is a joke and would be bad buisness on Sony's part. It's entitlement gone mad!!!

Stingy springs to mind. This could easily be a free add-on with the Miles Morales edition.

Kinda put me off buying it miles Morales all together now.

And then you see CDPR giving a free next gen update for the Witcher 3.

Arrogant Sony is back and it's not a nice look.

@Loftimus it's not really when cdpr are updating the Witcher for free and let's be honest here..

A huge amount of assets in miles Morales will be reused Spiderman assets and vice versa. I'd happily pay for miles Morales with the provisio I don't need to pay to get Spiderman updated if they're planning on giving it away. Would have saved themselves aggro by just completely ignoring Spiderman.

So at the end all that talk about backward compatibility is a sheiteload....

First Bloodborne, then this... Paid remastered is the way to be...

Really really bad messaging from Sony. If you’re going to announce this at least show us the actual difference in a video or screenshots or something! Make us believe it’s worth the extra money.

Every article I read like this makes me glad I’m skipping PS5 until next year, Sony don’t deserve my hard earned money right now.

Wow... just offer the game upgrade... this kinda stinks

@Matroska very well said. Sony’s messaging is woeful at this point.

This is terrible. I'm not getting Miles Morales as I have no interest in it. Locking this behind it is a terrible idea. This is terrible. Sony is making mistake after mistake. They should be glad some exclusives are so good because this is the peak of bad business practices, communication, and too much greed right here. Somebody at Sony can't think straight or logically about things to save their life.
I still can't believe they have the audacity to force the ultimate edition of Miles Morales for this. I figured it would be a stand-alone for sure, what I wanted to get. Now I will probably just enjoy Demon's Souls and the playroom.

Jim Ryan is the worst thing that has happened to Sony, I would never wish for anyone to lose their jobs except for him. From the constant lying and mix messaging to sending the only thing PlayStation has of value, exclusives! to other platforms I don't know how much longer I can stomach his horrible leadership.

This is rubbish Sony. The game didn't need a remaster. It just needed to run at 60 fps. So Sony have wasted Insomniacs time on making a brand new game by trying to milk the Spiderman brand. Remasters. Sony's answer to gamepass it seems? Haha. The ***** show of 2020 continues.

Preorders for PS5 are going very well and people will need PS5 games to play on it. Beginnings of generations are always rough in that regard so MM will sell like hotcakes, whether we like it or not. Goodwill, however, is a limited resource and Sony has been straining it gently recently. I am super happy about what Microsoft is doing, it's all good for the consumer IF it helps keep the competitiveness alive. Sony will need to respond at some point but at this moment in time, they don't really have to.

Love or hate them, Sony are Sony of late.
Business decisions are made and PR spun.
They have sold millions of PS4 and will probably repeat the same with PS5, Preorders where wild.
At this stage they can easily afford to lose a little communication focus and also be a little cheeky. When you bench press say 150kg at the gym, you get away with flexing your muscles.

Sony making all the greedy choises... and with GamePass and SmartDelivery on the other side of the street...
Not smart at all.

i'm starting to lose interest in ps5.

i am a long time playstation fan and have been there since the beginning. but unless spiderman ultimate edition is getting a ton of new game content (outside of the technial graphics and performance upgrades), then sony can **** off with this. all owners of the base ps4 game should get the upgrade free of charge if sony has any respect for its audience. it sounds like there will be ZERO peformance upgrades when playing the original game on ps5 via b/c and that is as anti-consumer as 505 games and the control fiasco. sony should get grilled here without reservation from the fans and news media alike.

@Mpquikster
It’s really amazing how some people are refusing to understand,

ALL SONY GAMES WITH BOTH A PS4 AND PS5 VERSION ALLOW A FREE UPGRADE TO THE PS5 VERSION!

Hence Spider-man MM gets a free upgrade.

There is no Spider-Man Remastered on PS4 because the PS4 can’t run it! Hence no upgrade, free or otherwise, is possible.

Buying a two year old Spider-Man game, probably cheap second hand at this point, does not and should not entitle you to a fully remastered new SKU.

@thefourfoldroot exactly. So, so much entitlement going around. MM isn't being sold as a full price PS5 game. We're getting a Last of Us Remastered/GTA V level of next gen upgrade on an already amazing existing game for fifteen quid. Amazing how many people are pretending not to understand this.

They will change their mind and release it towards end of next year its happened with other developers and their games they change their tune in the end

@get2sammyb then I am not 100%sure what a remaster is intended to be.... There have been a lot of them on current gen, from ps3 era, that were basically a resolution boost with high res textures and that was all...

I am now superconfused on what will be a ps4 that runs like a ps4 game on ps5, a ps4 game that gets a free booster update for ps5 (as it looks Microsoft will do) and a ps4 game that is a (almost) full price ps5 remastered...

@KathyQ
Great for them to do that. Fantastic thing for them to do. But I don’t feel entitled to getting their many man-hours of work for free.
Of course we don’t know if it’s a full remaster as with Spider-Man, or them just moving a few sliders to improve FPS and/or resolution.

@deathaxe In Brazil, Miles Morales alone costs as much as PS4 games on launch due to the next-gen prices (R$ 249.99). If I were to buy a remastered version of a game that I own all the DLCs for, that would cost me R$ 349.99 which is waaaay too much for a shorter game than Spider-Man plus upgrades to a game I already own.

Again, I'd like it for free like any other gamer, but I'm willing to pay if the upgrade is meaningful. Not this price though.

You don't "remaster" a 2 year old game. The idea of trying to sell a brand new game as a remaster, at all, is utterly insulting.

They absolutely should not have released it at all if they were going to treat it like this. And how did they think refusing to mention this for months would go down?

This Sony is not 2013 Sony. Not by a long shot. This combined with everything else they've done this launch paints PlayStation as the exploitation console this gen. They really need to fix this ugly image before MS cashes in. It's a disgraceful mess.

@Menchi yup. I'm not going to buy got for several years now to see if there's a remaster. Maybe it'll be free in plus by then. : Lol

It's just more freakin stupidity from Sony, one after the other.

I called this early on, and I was accused of being paranoid. Maybe I was, but my paranoia was obviously well founded.

I'm going to continue holding back on Ghost of Tsushima and TLOU2, because I'm sure their paid remaster are in the queue.

Bloomin' eck', what a mess. This whole remaster nonsense is getting old fast. Just move on and make new games. They should've just given people the free upgrade and included it in the Miles Morales package considering at 8 hours it's already a bit of a rip off at £50.

Soooooooo I have to pay an extra £18 to play the Ps5 version?, when I already own Spider Man on Ps4???
SPIDER-MAN: MILES MORALES £51.99
SPIDER-MAN: MILES MORALES ULTIMATE EDITION £69.99

Spider Man Miles Morales isnt even a FULL LENGTH GAME and they want £50??? You should get Spider Man with it for free

Uncharted Lost Legacy was only £29.99 at release and thats rumored to be around the same length as Mile Morales!?!

@get2sammyb not bothering to get a feel for the market, or researching likely consumer reaction, running on assumptions, and sticking to forcing old business model ideas in a time of change.....yup, lazy....

@nessisonett clearly this is what was meant by believing in generations. Apparently they meant continuing to freeze games in time and reselling them as new to keep the library to standards. If that's sonys idea of generations, i really love Microsoft's idea of not generations. Like pc has done since the 90s...

Sony can go whistle, I am NOT buying (Technically a expanded DLC) Miles Morales for £50.
I WONT DO IT

AND, you can bet your life......... Spider Man Ps5 will NOT be £18.00 on the Playstation store IF its on there

This is the image of the whole ps5 in my head now. It's not a good image. Meanwhile ms is giving an image if "buy new hardware, upgrade everything!"

Whether Sony liked it out not, ns has dragged consoles into pc like policy. If Sony wants to play at the table with the x86 pc consoles, they need to accept that and stop pretending this is a 90s consoles where each hardware unit is a beginning from scratch. It makes ps look like a Nintendo without Mario. That ship has sailed and Sony's still trying to book passage.

@Col_McCafferty Jim Ryan reports directly to the president. The president is the former cfo. A professional been counter only. Kaz hirai "retired". And layden quit after rumored conflict with Ryan over sie restructuring and globalization. This is Ryans show, alone. And i fear what the game development will be like for games made in his watch.

@ShogunRok "Sony has CONFIRMED that the upcoming Marvel's Spider-Man: Remastered on PS5 will not be available as a free upgrade to those who own Marvel's Spider-Man on PS4"

Does this mean it was Sonys idea, not to do it? Or the developers? How much influence/input do publishers have with/over developers?

@Orpheus79V I'm not referring to games coming out this fall that are built for cross gen. We're talking about a game that was built specifically for ps4 that is over 2 years old

I am bummed by this. I mean, I am not going to sit here and bash Sony for it's decision, but I do think that when comparing Microsoft's strategy vs Sony's strategy for next-gen, this is another win in the PR department for Microsoft.

I get that ray tracing is getting added, character models are getting updated, etc. I get that man hours are put into place for this.

However, Microsoft also has lots of man hours into upgrading Gears 5 to have some ray-traced effects, improved textures, and getting multi-player to run at 120fps (on 2 different hardware profiles - X and S). Yet, Microsoft seems to have found a way to make progress transfer, Achievements transfer, etc. It's basically a single SKU for multiple platforms.

It's just an optics thing, really. It just looks very...well...greedy.

Is every Sony studio going to now use "well it's more than an up-res" to justify charging for any potential PS5 TLOU2, Ghost of Tsushima, Days Gone, etc.?

It's just...disappointing.

Anyone else just see Spider-Man enhanced for PS5 getting released on PS plus within 12 months anyway. Could see them doing this for PS plus with their other PS4 games too, possibly Horizon. Think I’ll just chance it and just get MM on its own for now✌️

This game came out two years ago and it's getting a remaster. This is insane. Will we be getting a remaster of it in 2021 as well? If it's just improved loadtimes, sharper graphics, and some more stuff in the environment they really need to reevaluate what they are doing. Releasing it as a free patch through backwards compatibility like many Xbox titles do would be more proper for such a small upgrade.

This should have been an upgrade for the standard PS4 title and that's it. Even they could have charged a 10$ upgrade if the game is updated and people should have been happier ... But cut the BS you didn't invent the wheel again with the game, is the same game you made 2 years ago just using higher textures added effects and better models, you didn't make another Spider-Man game. I said it in another article that looks like this gen we will have again a lot of "remasteres". Why make PS4 BC in the first place if you want to monetize on all this games all over again. Thanks 👍 JIM ... Looking forward for Shadow Of the Colossus re-re-remaster ... NOT

@710King absolutely. I think some Sony-only gamers are getting stuck on the "but that's the ps4 version not the ps5 version" because they don't have a frame of reference of how the world outside works. There aren't hardware bound "versions" if games in the pc world. And the consoles joined the x86 world last gen and jumped into getting pc games. Microsoft embraced that. Sony is visibly resisting it and thinking like 1999. They, and some fans think each hardware needs its own version, which defeats the value of x86 consoles at all.

Imagine if Ubisoft sold "assassin's Creed odyssey: remastered" as a new game this year? Imagine if square sold kh3 remastered next year. They idea would be preposterous and theyd be there laughing stock of the internet. Yet he here sony is doing precisely that and some defend it.

It is not a remaster. You simply can not "remaster" a 2 year old game already meant for a 4k console. Each console isn't unique anymore, theyre all custom pcs. Adding effects and features isn't a remaster, it's an update. New textures shouldn't exist, it was already 4k. New models shouldn't be needed, they should have already made higher poly models the first time though, and if they didn't, they're a poorly planned studio, which i doubt is true of insomniac, but consumers shouldn't pay for their failures if they are.

The infuriating part goes beyond Spiderman. It signals how they intend to run ps5. Ports and remasters of bc games as new games. Like switch but for no actual reason. And it puts a chill effect on buying their games. Why buy got or stranding or nioh if they're probably just going to resell it?

Paystation 5. It Only Invoices Everything.

@PhhhCough Sony owns insomniac. It's Sonys decisions at play here all the way.

It's weird that we haven't seen anything from this Remaster and it releases with Miles Morales in a month and a half. I still have my original Spider-Man disc that I can toss into the PS5 to play through again in the future so I'm not really bothered with this remaster.

@Deadlyblack when they will launch a side by side we will get the promised puddles back. It will not be a big difference was allready a very good looking game. Other than more NPC, some ray tracing, faster load times ... For sure no global illumination. That's why they didn't release nothing. I think insomniac is just embarrassed. Sony just pushing them to release the PS5 version of the game they used to show the PS5 SSD speed in the press conference last year.

@Menchi Where? Tried to find

Hey, atleast we might get to see those puddles now 🙃😂

jim ryan knows nothing about gaming culture or what classifies as pro consumer behavior. to show gratitude to your loyal customers, you have to throw them a bone every so often. if that means giving them a free ps5 upgrade should they own the base ps4 game, so be it. these types of gestures go a long way to please your audience and the good word can spread quickly over the internet. it is also good PR and the right thing to do if you want to keep customer trust high.

is jim ryan tone deaf? you bet. does he pay attention to gaming trends and the things NOT TO DO to avoid a backlash? heck no. does he even play videogames? not likely. he is doing his job in the same way bobby codec does his job — in the coldest manner possible and exclusivley with spreadsheets and dollar signs. it is very clear that the innerworkings of sony have gone downhill ever since he got his promotion. layden left the company after his great contributions in a very abrupt way. as the days go on, it is easy to see why. nobody just vanishes (with no announcement in advance) from a company after working there for 30 years unless things get real bad. can we assume ryan is going to run this company in a cuthroat manner and undermine all the good work over the ps4 generation? seems likely. this is just the beginning.

here is what ryan has done over the past 6 months:

1. began plans to port console exclusives to pc which will inevitably de-value console gaming, hardware and sony's very own ecosystem. you better believe sony will eventually port its entire backlog to pc, giving less and less of a reason to own a ps4/ps5.

2. decided against free (enhanced) ps5 upgrades for owners of the ps4 version of the game.

3. increased AAA 1st party games by $10usd across the board in a time where many people can hardly afford the console, let alone a bunch of excessively priced games to go along with it ($100cad taxes in for us canadians). the industry has now reached a breaking point with regards to software pricing and sony of all publishers is leading the way. should we believe that special editions, mtx, dlc and strong sales is not enough to recoup development costs and make a healthy profit? no, it is all nonsense. god of war (2018) has zero mtx in it, yet we were told it was a big success for sony. it sold 10m copies. sony themselves proved that you can respect the player AND make a healthy margin on a game. yet, here we are... the customer is yet again subsidizing development costs for publishers when there is no need for it. the problem with the gaming industry at large is poor project management and overly ambitious aspirations that have become unsustainable. be more efficient and scale back when needed. that is the only way to keep the inustry sustainable. without question, this model is going to break down at the current price point.

4. decided to charge buyers of the optical ps5 an additional $100usd in order to push physical media out as soon as possible. throwing physical collectors under the bus and making them subsidize the digital sku is essentially what sony is doing here and it stinks. optical ps5 should have been priced at $449usd (or digital sku priced at $449 vs $499 optical sku) — simple as that. at this rate, digital skus will sell at a ratio 3:1 (or higher) and this will be the last console generation with physical media.

5. probably one of the most detrimental things to next generation gaming — decided to hold back advancement of ps5 games with cross gen titles. we were told 6 months ago that ps5 would be a true next generation console and that ryan believes in "generations". yet, just last week, in a very sly way, we were told that horizon forbidden west would be getting a ps4 port, but not to worry since horizon was developed from the ground up to take full advantage of the ps5 capabilites. we all know this is a lie. ryan was just trying to take advantage of microsoft when it was down (on the same idea of "cross gen support") and fooled everyone into believing it to create faux ps5 hype. don't be surprised if god of war, gran turisomo 7 and other sony exclusive games will find their way to ps5 AND ps4 over the next couple years. we won't see true next generation experiences outside of possibly ratchet and clank for a while. had cross gen support been announced at the beginning, this wouldn't have been so bad, but the deception and manipulation from ryan has been unreal.

6. check back next week

@Porco I don't follow the inner workings of Sony too closely. Did all that censorship stuff and sudden Americanization of the company, whilst alienating European fans and treating Japanese devs like crap happen after this Jim Ryan took over?

@Brasilkilla "They just announced bloodborne remaster and nobody complaining about that so what's the big deal here?"

They didn't. That was a real rumour that is realistically real in this reality.

I didn't read all the comments but Gamestop has the Ultimate for 70 and regular at 50. As for Sony and it's missteps we need the Shu-man back Jim Ryan is crap as far as communicating goes period.

@zupertramp who says they're making half a game?

@Porco the rumor mill, as far as you can trust it, said at the time layden quit due to conflicts and power struggles with ryan over changes to sie. Hirai "retiring" as he did didn't seem right either. It was right after he committed to working in Hollywood half the time after the hacking/doxing leak to correct Columbia... Then soon after he "retired" and moved the cfo (ken yoshida) into his spot, and kodera stepped aside for ryan, e3 vanished, then psx vanished, and here we are having paid for a box we still know little about and they're already charging us to add lighting patches to a game they sold us 2 years ago. I didn't think things inside were this bad until now, but i was very apprehensive back when this was happening, and now i know why.

The media needs to hook into this. Fans and media took Matrick down in a year and xbox came back swinging with a great leader and hard work. Sony can do the same if fans and media hold them to it and don't cave.

@RainbowGazelle yup. Started under kodera with ryan as vice. Though i don't know that I'd call it Americanization. Microsoft, the American company is playing the long game the Japanese way. Sony maybe went "hollywoodification" and they seem to run by the quarterly, not the long game now.

Even without digging into all that is wrong with this launch just watching his lack of interest beyond hearing his own "made for the board room" speeches in the event videos it's clear he's a disaster that sees the brand through the lens of sales projection charts and partner contracts, not an understanding of the product or market, and his love of not turning things over to someone that does shows the kind of"happy" workplace he must run. Then again, that's classic 90s Sony. They've never been a pleasant or customer friendly company. PlayStation just happened to be very un-sony-like under several great leaders.

A new hardware launch should feel exciting. This feels like a sentencing, and we're being read our parole terms, one kotaku interview at a time.

We were awaiting greatness, but all we got was Jim Ryan.

@NEStalgia Sorry, when I said "Americanization ", I meant changing Sony's developer support so they only worked on American time and forced Japanese developers to communicate in English and during the night there. That sorta stuff. I didn't explain it that well.

@TheFrenchiestFry
Jim Ryan's idiocy is what's happening.

@thefourfoldroot not enough imo.

@AFCC
Not enough what? Free stuff?
Buy a cross gen game on PS4 from Sony snd you get the new gen one free. What’s not enough about that?

@grahamd yeah, and GTA V. How many people paid full price for that game twice? Millions I would presume since it didn't go on any kind of sale for the longest time. I'll be curious to see what the price is for the spiderman 'upgrade'

@grahamd TLoU remaster was a different scenario, in that it was a true port of a game because the architecture of PS3 was wildly stupid and games couldn't be ported off it without, basically, having to be remade. Which is why we still don't have PS3 BC on PS5, and why games like FFXIII trilogy are BC on XBox but not Playstation - the engine was abandoned and is trapped on PS3 architecture, while XBox's PPC architecture allowed simpler BC for its version.

Yeah it was kind of sucky to re-sell it, but there was literally no other way of delivering the game to the platform, and on top of that it was a recent release that comparatively few PS4 buyers actually had yet because PS3 wasn't a great seller until after its life cycle ended and PS4 was out, and they released the budget super-slim.

This is very different. Post PS4, PS is a PC now, just like XBox and PC. The games automatically move forward, just as they do on PC. There's not a TLoU situation where the game just came out but won't run on new consoles without selling a new version. And this is a platform that most customers are going to be upgrading from the prior popular console and already bought the game. The old game runs fine on new consoles, and is already a 4k quality game with 4k textures thanks to Pro. There's not much to "remaster" from one 4k console to another. If they bumped up model detail and improved lighting and added some effects, that's great. If they decided to change the engine because they wanted to, that's fine. Playstation is a custom PC with a walled garden digital store now. And the fans have moved on to thinking in PC terms. And Microsoft is finally stepping up their messaging to demonstrate XBox is in that mindset as well. That means improvements to games unless it's a total remake like Demon's Souls are patches that are free for the continued sales of the product.

Why enhance games for free? Because it's not "free", it's continued support as you continue selling your game. The idea is that you don't sell PS4 Spiderman in one box, and PS5 Spiderman in another box like 90's consoles. The idea is you sell Spiderman - if someone's playing it on a PS4, if someone's playing it on a PS5, they get the relevant graphics for their platform of choice, but you keep selling Spiderman - sales don't stop on it. And the PS4 "version" doesn't get locked away in a vault of the past. It's Spiderman, as they sell it now, running on a PS4 with the level of detail that machine outputs. Or running on a PS5 with the level of detail that machine outputs.

Sony's mindset is still in "generations" This is last consoles version, this is this consoles version, they're 2 different games! At first I thought they were ripping us off. But the more I think about it I think this is just the first visual sign of how entirely out of touch they are and how disconnected their thinking about modern games is from the past 7 years. I don't think they actually know that there's something wrong with this pricing model. Either that or they're really trying to stuff the genie back in the bottle and go back to the past.

@RainbowGazelle Ah yeah, that..... I do believe that was also Ryan, though it started under Kodera. Those two were a tag team, though, and "fill in the blanks" of what went down gives the impression Ryan was kind of stabbing people in the back to climb the ladder for a while from the shadows.

@naruball Maybe that's a little hyperbolic but my understanding is that it's not quite a full title. Which is why it's not full price unless you get the superfluous bells and whistles edition.

@NEStalgia i agree with your sentiments. people need to wake up and realize that all the poor ps5 messaging and decision making to this point is likely due to ryan's leadership. the next step for ryan will be to force unnecessary mtx and dlc into 1st party sony games and extract every dollar from us going forward. he is just getting the ball rolling...

@Porco Yep. I also do believe that under his leadership, Sony is going to have it's first "Crackdown 3" moment. All the games were seeing now went into production before he took the reigns and restructured everything to the point of most of everyone that mattered quitting. That includes most of the 2021 games. But by 2022 we're going to start seeing some "Jim Ryan Games." Those mtx filled ones you're referring to. And I fear we'll see our first incomplete unpolished 1st party Sony game in that time frame and makes us wonder what Sony's all about now. They'll rebound. But it's going to have to hurt them first. Like PS3 launch did.

@thefourfoldroot what do you mean? It's clearly not the case in Spider-Man

@AFCC
I’m confused as to what you are talking about.

If you buy MM on PS4 you get the free upgrade of MM on PS5. That’s already been confirmed.

If you are talking about Spider-MSN Remastered, that isn’t going to be on PS4 because the whole point was to use the extra features available on PS5.

If you are referring to the old Spider-Man game released a couple of years ago (the non remastered game you can pick up for almost nothing second hand) then, no, I’m afraid you can’t use that as a magic key to get the Remastered Spider -Man on PS5. Obviously.

@thefourfoldroot I was talking about the Spider-Man game from PS4 should be upgradable FOR FREE for PS5

@AFCC
? You think all remasters should be free? Why? I think the £20 they are asking is fair.

@thefourfoldroot first because this is not an old game at all! There is not that much they will improve imo, unless they did the game from the ground up. Second, many games are doing free upgrades for free, including Cyberpunk, the most anticipated game of the year.

@AFCC
Cyberpunk are not making a remaster several years after release, which cost more, they are making ps5 settings concurrent with last generation development.

@Matroska lol true and well said. Yet I'd be happy with the ps4 version of mm and get the free upgrade due to having the complete edition on ps4 anyways.but we need to confirm weather sony will give us an option of getting the spiderman remaster at a reasonable upgrade price like the 20/25 bucks as I wouldn't mind having it on ps4 and also full version on ps5. But to think we are being charged 70 pounds when most of us spent that on game and dlc, so technically speaking people will be spending 140 pounds on two versions. Utter chaos buy sony. Just give us mm and let us upgrade for the so called 20 quid difference. Even talking about it gets me confused.

@Bobskie77 atleast we will have it for both gens but still it's alot of money when people want other games. I bought cyberpunk for it to be delayed again when I so wanted to it to be be my next gen rpg on release. I've ordered black ops so atleast I no where i stand with that. But again demon souls I'm waiting for on the the psn store and godfall I'm optimistic about, due to the price also and being online only. Sounds like a ubisoft devison tactic.