Apfelschteiner

@themightyant What he should have done, was left the podcast as is, and just done a special if the news actually broke.

@Ken_Kaniff Yakuza, Monkey Ball, Shenmue, yes a lot of great niche games as well as owning Atlus, Football Manager, and a few other studios, Sega also have a great back catalogue of IP.

Really looking forward to playing this when I get round to it.

@Rob_230 At least make it seem like the series will go on with or without him, and if not it's his loss.

Sony should announce that they acquired Xbox Studios. It would be childish, but also the best troll ever.

The best/worst April fools joke was that Yakuza 7 would be using turn-based combat. I was really relieved to realize that it was an April fools, then they decided that it wasn't ;~

@BLNX Exactly, each Sony acquisition is in our interests to keep the developer out of Micro$oft's grubby mitts.
With the acquisition of Bungie, Sony set out another model that companies like Sega and Square could follow and not just make exclusives for PlayStation. It wouldn't make much difference if Sony took those games off of Xbox, but left them on Nintendo.
The only concern I have for Sony acquiring studios like Sega and Square is whether they would continue making the smaller games that both are known for.

@ImGumbyDammit You can quite quickly get to a total of 10 live service games without much effort. Haven becoming a PlayStation Studio makes no difference there because they were already developing a PlayStation/PC exclusive anyway just like Deviation Games and the other one I can't remember the name of. So that is 3 already, then add the now released GT7, and the confirmed Last of Us Factions, and you are already at 5. Not forgetting MLB the Show which comes out every year and Destiny and/or the new IP from Bungie. Add to that highly likely rumoured games such as Ghost of Tsushima sequel with the multiplayer, the twisted metal game from Firesprite, and a multiplayer game that Guerilla are most probably working on then you have at least 10.

@Ken_Kaniff There are different kinds of big. Activision was big in terms of business. but nowhere near as big for fans of gaming. Bethesda was a bigger deal than Activision for most gamers. SEGA would be absolutely huge for us for the history and IP, but in terms of business, SEGA is a minnow compared to some of the giants.

@Uncharted2007 This is no way Sony would green light Shenmue 4. The only company crazy enough to do it would be Sega, and they don't seem that crazy.

@Bingbongboyo Apparently, you were the first to let slip Sony's acquisition of Xbox

Microsoft want to get out of the gaming business and are going to sell out to Sony. You heard it here first...

@NomNom SEGA is the one I want. Just imagine what they could do with the budget and Sony polish!

@Gremio108 That would be better value if they gave us pizza.

@solidox I was thinking the same thing!

@DualWielding There is not enough push back on the trails being in the top tier. But, maybe Sony are just trying to test the water without potentially losing money. They should find that people will buy more games if they can try them, so maybe it will be rolled out to everyone as a basic service if the data supports that.

@DualWielding @Korgon I'd rather have Jim Ryan than Uncle Phil. I'm old school. I don't care for this direct communication between fanboys and the CEO. Xbox seems to be more about the brand of Phil Spencer than anything else.

@Verzion214 I think it's a case of get the negative reactions out of the way, maybe even lower expectations, then impress with the proper presentation for PS+ plus.

@PapaGlitch For the reasons you give Sony are getting rid of the Now branding. The problem was they were first on the scene and the initial concept was for streaming games, but it evolved over time, and now it is just confusing.
Xbox is the challenger brand. With the fact that they needed to catch up and the scale of the parent company of Microsoft, they offered a new model that they hope will be very profitable in the long term (probably once they push the subscription prices right up). In all the time Game Pass has been going there have hardly been any great day one first party games. If the new PS+ service can be more of a match for Game Pass in terms of the third party games, it will be far superior to Game Pass if it is slightly cheaper and has 1 year old PlayStation Studio games compared to brand new (new= broken and/or incomplete these days) Xbox Studios games.
The only way Sony could lose its place in the market is to lose focus on the fact that quality games are what really matter.

@ShogunRok Yes, they should have had a graphic in the blog post, but this is just the first stage of getting the information out there for a launch for a product that isn't coming for another 2 months. It is just to inform the engaged player base, and they will provide a lot more information later on.

@BoldAndBrash Even if he is not American, Jim Ryan is very corporate. There definitely was a fun vibe about PlayStation on the PS4. Hard-nosed business decisions like closing down Japan Studio and pivoting away from Japanese games and live service games make me love PlayStation and gaming less than in the PS4 era. The problem is that now they have some real competition from Xbox, so it is important to be maximizing profit unless they become irrelevant. The thing is that they also have to remember what made them special and remember that some of the most interesting games come from the smaller budget games.

@PenguinL Do you know what is simpler than 2 tiers? 1 tier. Also, Xbox has 3 tiers if you include Games with Gold, so this is very comparable. The big problem is not on Sony's end, it is the gaming news outlets and fanboys who want Game Pass for PlayStation. Sony never gave us any reason to expect that, in fact, they have clearly communicated that they won't be having games day and date of release.
What they are doing doesn't really interest me personally, but there is a clear method to it. They are streamlining the services and Sony recognizes that they aren't going to be expanding the market that much. For all of Microsoft's efforts with Game Pass, they only have 25 million subscribers and they are giving away all their content, so sacrificing a lot of potential full-price sales. There are currently 50 million PS+ subscribers and that seems to be the ceiling of what they can achieve. The idea is to upsell the current PS+ subscribers. It seems like a solid plan.

@Nexozi Games with Gold doesn't let you add the games to your library? I've never heard that before. PlayStation gets it in the ear for every little thing they do, you Xbox gets a free pass on their anti-consumer stuff. Don't get me wrong, sometimes PlayStation deserves the criticism, but it should be fair and balanced.

@PenguinL It's just that it's very annoying to keep hearing people go on about PS3 games. Sony have looked into it and run the numbers and it just isn't worth it. There are people who are getting PS3 games working on PC emulators, and they say it is easy, but what is not easy is getting it to a high level of quality. It would be a major headache and drain of resources to run such a service, and ultimately, it would probably be unprofitable. In general, people don't want to play PS3 games, and if they do they can stream them or they can dust off their old PS3. It was nice that Xbox did allow gamers to play their old games that they owned on disc, but that was probably losing them money. The other thing is gamers are incredibly entitled and a lot of gamers refuse to pay for a service that want to recieve. If you bought a game on PS3, you paid for the game on PS3, you didn't pay to play it in perpetuity on all future hardware. Expectations have changed along with software and hardware design, so everything from PS4 on will be available in future. Sony is also right to charge for PS5 versions of PS4 games if they put significant resources into the game.
So the question is why won't people like you just let it go?

@Stocksy It's the opposite. It's too niche to offer at the lower level because it would just be an added cost for people on the basic tier who don't want it.

@Wasted_Smuggler Sony should put the effort to remake or remaster the remaining games stranded on PS3 that people care about like Resistance, Good of War, and Sly Cooper. I can't think of any other first-party games that should be on PS4/5, but aren't.

@TheCollector316 Yes, all tiers get the monthly PS+ games, but the best games get kept for the premium service. You only have to look as far as Games with Gold to see proof of that. Already PlayStation announced that they will be giving us 2 games instead of 3.

@Wasted_Smuggler The people who really care will play on their PS3. Seriously, they should just do a kickstarter for the fund to emulate PS3 on PS5 and stop demanding that Sony fund their niche request.

A couple of points lower than other sites

@Bentleyma I don't think we can download it if we don't have a PS5. It really appeals to me apart from the turn-based combat and the fact that it's a huge game. So I'm fine without it.

Expect them to keep putting worse and worse stuff on basic PS+ to push people onto the higher tiers. Games with Gold is just a joke now.

I can't help finding magic boring to watch, but sometimes it does feel good to play.

@MFTWrecks I'm in the same boat. With this change in service, Sony is heavily incentivizing me never to buy a game from them again and reduce my overall spend on their games. It really depends on how they run the service. If first-party games are rotated, that will make it unlikely to appeal to me because I want to play games when I get round to them, not on a timer.

@mrtennis1990 I'm still hoping to get one, but don't need the stress of trying hard to get one. My PS4 is annoying me, it's high time to get a new console. I can't take loading screens knowing that the PS5 exists!

@nessisonett Does he say that he did it, or rather did he just say that it was decided on? That tweet makes it seem like he's trying to steal her credit. It appears to me that he is just telling a generic story. Quite frankly, most people don't care who decided this, names are just unnecessary information when we know the game, but not the developers.

@kyleforrester87 It depends entirely on their intention. If they wanted Rivet to be a direct equivalent in another dimension, then Ratchet or Ratchette would have been a more suitable name like in Catherine, where Catherine and Katherine are alter egos.
If they wanted a distinct character, then Rivet is more appropriate. Neither is a bad choice, it's just about what is more suitable.

@Richnj He has the same surname, as does my wife. Also, the idea of Ratchet and Ratchet is basically the same as Catherine and Katherine and Rin in Catherine.

It's difficult to know whether these games had no popular appeal or if Sony just didn't bother to promote them. This is a great game, but it seems really reasonable to shut down online functionality on old games that have hardly any players.

@michaelf I'm the same as you, although I might just ignore the subscription entirely. Games are not too expensive as they are. I suppose the concept is to get more people paying less and therefore make more money. Microtransactions will probably be used more and more to maximize revenue, which is reasonable if people are paying less, but ruins the experience.
I would be quite happy if this model could push games to be shorter, because I'd be happy with a 40 hour game being a 20 hour game and a 20 hour game being a 10 hour game if they cost less.
Ultimately I think the main concept of subscriptions is to normalize a certain amount being taken out of your account every month without you noticing, so even if you barely use the service you probably won't cancel.

@Richnj Her-cules got a good chuckle from me! Are you suggesting that Pac-Man and Ms Pac-Man get divorced?
If I introduced you to my brother. He exists independently from me, but your point of reference is me. Just because two people have a relationship or even an arbitrary connection, such as you met them both for the first time at the same time.
Having said that, I'm not going to ignore the fact that Ms Pac-Man is a creation of a female version of Pac-Man. If you made a male version of Lara Croft, then the man would be the secondary, except culturally we never have an urge to balance things up with a male version of a female character (but that would be really interesting). Rivet being call Ratchet would be as if Samuel and Samantha both go by the name Sam.
I'm not too worried if something is demeaning to a cartoon character though.

The Game Pass model is just a race to the bottom. It always is when cost is made more important than quality. If Sony stop making quality games, I will stop playing them. I don't care how cheap they are.

@SeanOhOgain The euro prices are the same as the dollars

@sentiententity Exactly. I'm never going to get these services because I still have a tonne of games in my backlog that I actually selected for myself, and probably a few more on regular PS+ that I would play if I ever ran out. Gaming is already a very budget hobby if you have some patience. I don't need this, but it would probably appeal to new gamers.

@Kang81 I can't think of a single game from PS3 that isn't on PS4 that I care about.

@michaelf Your attitude is logical, basically reduce the amount you spend on games by subscribing and buying much less if any other games. This is what they are incentivizing and that is why I don't understand the business logic behind it.

@Dalejrfanfreak It sounds like they are shortening the window for new game releases until they come out on PS+.

@Snake_V5 The PS1, 2, and 3 games should be permanent additions (at least first-party games)

@belmont If Sony want me to play PS1, 2, and 3 games, they can remaster them and put them out on PS4/5.

@kyleforrester87 I don't agree with your take, but I definitely think it would be too confusing/interesting for the two characters to have the same name.

@Richnj Rivet is still the female Wombax, so basically the female version of Ratchett in the same way as Ms Pacman. Ms. Pacman had a very different character to Pacman. She had a bow and lipstick, much deeper characterization than Pacman.