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I try not to comment on or bash foreign politics but this should be an interesting study to watch over the years. I am genuinely interested in how this goes.

I would be livid if it was in my home country.

I hate the psn requirement on other platforms (and all other publisher acct requirements like this) you should only need an account for the storefront you bought the game on. Single player games are basically always online games as being offline takes away the ability to sign in to this bs. My Steam deck isn't really an option for any of their games unless I'm connected to the internet.

Steam reviews are a great feature. As long as it's not based on something wild like female character isnt pretty enough, review bomb campaigns are mostly a positive thing.

@Smash41 if gamepass is only 15% of their revenue then they clearly haven't programmed "their entire userbase."

With the number of publishers abandoning exclusivity deals in favor of multiplat, there has to be data that supports xbox releases. Death stranding obviously won't sell gangbusters at this point but I bet it makes money.

I imagine their support for the ABK deal had a lot to do with Microsoft actually allowing employees to unionize.

It's a win win situation for both xbox and call of duty especially once Nintendo is included. They still enjoy strong sales on other platforms and gamepass receives a boost. More people are playing call of duty than ever before. That franchise everyone thought was fading might actually get bigger than ever.

Playstation seems unharmed so far as well so really just an overall positive for the game/industry.

Hopefully the exclusivity deals are permanently dying off.

Fingers crossed that it's a cool $20 somewhere on black friday. Otherwise i will keep waiting them out.

I can't wait for the pc launches to be day 1. They are getting there.

I dont even buy games at the standard launch price anymore. Aside from the occasional Nintendo game, I usually wait to pay $20-$30 dollars for every game i buy physically. On PC, I usually try to get closer to $10. And with Nintendo I am more likely to skip a game entirely than to fork over $60-$70 on a game I am unsure about liking.

I love Until Dawn but $60 is crazy.

Sony is clearly trying the Nintendo strategy of slightly enhanced remakes of old games at a premium price.

Patents on game mechanics suck. What if dark souls slapped a bunch of patents on their formula? This industry was built on sharing ideas. Genres like "souls-like", "doom-like", etc are pretty literal in their copying of another games formula and the industry is stronger with those copies as each one usually brings at least one new idea to the old formula that becomes standard.

Nintendo is easily my least favorite of the major platforms.

I support mods like this. Hopefully all of their PC games will get something like this.

The modding community on PC is amazing.

Krafton seemed to care when Callisto Protocol didn't make a profit and they cut a bunch of jobs there.

In their defense on giving this game the go ahead. It was a totally different landscape 8 years ago. Had the game taken 3-4 years to make then I think it would have worked out for them.

Pc building is not difficult. This a misconception. If you can turn a screwdriver, you can build a pc. There are thousands of youtube videos that walk you through it step by step, it is simple. If you can follow the instructions on a box of mac n cheese then you can probably follow these step by step guides. People are just lazy.

Once you have one build you just need to upgrade one component or two each time to outpace the consoles. $700 goes a long ways when you no longer need to buy a case, storage, power supply, etc. Those factoring into the console cost will always hold back the specs compared to a pc. The initial build will be more but you won't be asked to pay for another complete build every 4 years.

They do make pre-builds as well.

They should be getting more grief for the vertical stand being omitted and pretending it is a cost saving measure. I would be shocked if that costs them more than a dollar or two each to manufacture and they are pretending like it's worth $30. They couldn't make it more clear that they are just trying to rip people off.

The worst part is you know the disc drive costs them less than $80. It's a price gouge on top of a price gouge. Just like the cheap vertical stand

It will be very collectible. There will be very few copies out there and it's a 1st party game which playstation collectors like to have the complete set of. Not sure where the value will settle but I think it will always be one of the most expensive ps5 discs to collect.

@djlard I would gladly find a spot for a sealed copy of concord on the shelf if I can find a clearance deal of $10ish.

There is a novelty to having it but also we don't really know how this one will age price wise. On the one hand it will likely be unplayable. But there are also reportedly only 25k sold and that estimate includes digital so it's potentialy extremely rare and it is a 1st party Sony game which playstation collectors like to have the "complete" set.

Prices on sealed copies are listed above the original $40 price tag on Amazon. One seller is listing their 15 copies for $75 each. I guess I'm not the only one who saw a potential collectors item. I will hold out hope for best buy or target to clearance at $10- $20.

At least they are refunding.

Not sure if it's encouraging that they were willing to cut the loses so early and move on or if I'm concerned at the lack of any attempt to save it. What does this mean for the next Sony live service game? I will be very hesitant to jump into the next one if the chance of them killing it is looming even in the launch weeks.

The odds of the studio shutting down has to be higher than the odds that they revive this or are granted a new project.

AI is not taking away her "ability to feed her children." In the unlikely event that AI takes the job of even the most prolific voice actors, society provides plenty of other ways to earn an income. I would use the Joe Biden's sound advice for coal miners losing their job of "just learn to code" but it sounds like AI is making monumental leaps to simplify that field as well.

For me they are dying. Pc is more accessible than ever. I would much rather build a PC and plug that into my living room tv. Or use my ROG Ally or Steam deck as my "console."

The big question mark will be what does next gen look like. For one they will be even more expensive (probably closing in on $700 US) and they will still face the similar issue of the most played games (Apex, warzone, roblox, etc) working just fine on ps4 and ps5. There is also no marketable upgrade they can push, the narrative for ps5 pro is what? Ray tracing will be 15% better? Who cares?

The value of a home console from any of the 3 has never been lower in my opinion. This generation has sucked big time. The much rumored playstation pc app will probably be where I play their games in the near future.

I like the ubisoft formula but I'm not a fan of star wars. I plan on playing it but waiting for a steep discount.

I already wait for games to hit the $20 to $30 range. I would wait years or outright skip GTA6 instead of paying more than $30.

There is way too much to play already to spend $70+ on a new release. Waiting for sales more than doubles the games for my budget and since I am buying faster than I can finish them, there is no need for me to spend on a new release.

I would love a pc version of this game. Steam deck compatible please!

I don't see how it will be saved. New players see the player counts. There are already people saying they get long wait times. It looks like a complete waste of $40 for any new players right now.

The first step needs to be the inclusion with all tiers of ps+.

Hopefully they reconsider the entry price on future live service attempts. Learn from this one and move on. A lot of the live service player base expects the games to be free to play and a lot of people who pay $40+ for a game dont want a live service game. They priced out the free to play crowd while offering an unappealing game to the pay up front crowd.

Skull and bones has 8x the 24 hour peak. Suddenly that game looks pretty good.

A $40 price tag, a non existent player count, and a high chance of Sony hitting the kill switch early, I am staying far away from this one.

It didn't look particularly appealing to me to begin with but it quickly went from a maybe to a heck no.

They made a game for the free to play crowd then priced them out of the launch. The players happy about there being no battlepass/microtransaction are not the audience this gameplay loop was intended for. Now neither audience wants anything to do with this.

(Since reports are putting crazy statistics like 90% of black myth wukong players are in China, I don't know if that game is really the sole issue harming concord.)

Makes sense for them to keep the mystery of which games they choose. I expect them to be vague about it going forward.

Sony does the same thing with pc. Until they get to all games day 1 on pc, they will remain cagey about it.

It's about time. It's kind of shocking how long it has taken to include such a basic feature for a modern store front. It should have been done years ago.

I think it only gets worse for bungie going forward. The talent they used to have has eroded beyond repair. It will never be as good as it used to be. Sony isn't really getting much with this purchase.

It would be interesting to see how this affects morale at bungee. The layoffs obviously hurt morale but also losing that independence. The studio is already a shell of what it used to be but I wouldn't be surprised if some of the remaining employees aren't looking at other job postings where they are available. Seems like a lose lose for all involved.

I enjoyed that game. I would gladly play a sequel.

Railway empire and railroad tycoon are surprisingly great franchises. This game sounds promising.

I dont typically like hero shooters but marvel being free to play and having characters i know and like makes me at least want to try that one.

Concord has a nearly palworld level of knockoff guardians of the galaxy characters. I can't see myself buying that at $40.

I was already leaning heavily towards passing on this one. Now that I know that there won't be much of a player base I'm committed to not paying a cent for this. It needs to be free to play or have a really good launch (seems very unlikely) for me to reconsider.

I'm not paying $40 for this game. It should be free to play. Hopefully it finds an audience but im sitting this one out.

After watching numerous streams and listening to podcasts discuss it, I think I am okay with passing on this one.

It seems like this should be free to play. I haven't played it but I'm not seeing a reason to pay $40 to play this.

@IamJT it is fair to judge the player count as the goal of a live service game is longevity and not initial sales. Sony will definitely take the big sales numbers but I think they want this to be a longterm money maker and that is looking a lot more questionable than it was a month or two ago.

From a consumer standpoint I would much rather sony add 1st party games to their subscription day 1. Having the choice of buying the game or having the subscription is important. Especially with their recent refusal to discount games substantially, I am much less likely to play their games if the only way to play them is $50+. I simply let some of their games come and go without even considering them.

I love gamepass ultimate tier. I try so many games I never would have played otherwise. Since I only play a few playstation exclusives, I do not play 3rd party there either. Where gamepass has me constantly on my xbox I also opt to buy a lot of 3rd party there. For all the hubbub about why own an xbox when you could just own a pc, I actually regret the ps5 more when I feel I could have just played the few games I want to play on pc a little later than the console launch.

From a business perspective sony probably made the "right choice" (most profitable choice) but since I am only a consumer I would much rather they went the other direction. Gamepass is the main reason I am mostly pc/xbox this gen.

I'm impressed it has lasted this long. I'm also hesitant to predict what 2 generations from now will look like. It very well could be a sony branded pc at that point.

I'm glad I avoided the psvr2. The price, needing to be tethered to the console, and my psvr1 library getting left behind were too much for me. I opted for the meta quest 3 a few months ago and have been enjoying that decision.

I doubt there is a psvr3.

It is strange that they showed this game at sgf and Nintendo direct but not at their own show. PS also had a show a few weeks before mlb the show came out this year and they passed on the easy opportunity to show their own game then as well. Both of those ps shows had a weak reception online and it seems like they could have made them a little better with little effort. They seem to treat their shows as marketing obligations to 3rd party with no regards for viewer reception.

Otherwise I'm super pumped that they are publishing on nintendo, i will probably purchase it there to support the effort. Hopefully they will release more games on other platforms.

@3Above I think the biggest reason they closed the studio was that they bought bethesda for the other studios and IP. tango was just kind of there. Similar to toys for Bob where they make decent games with very narrow margins in the best case scenarios. xbox was really only interested in the rest of the acquisition. I'm not that surprised they closed it and I dont think hi fi had much to do with it.

I don't doubt that xbox was impressed with the critical reception of Hi Fi but this studio lives in that upper end of AA and low end of AAA. That area seems to be the main target of cuts.

Xbox seems to be the only one going for the e3 spectacle of old. They had a great show in 2023 and this year's was an all timer. I'm starting to wonder if 3rd parties are going to view xbox as the showcase they prefer to show their games at.

@K1LLEGAL I think it is a pretty good game too. I just don't think the mass audience was ever going to be into it. I'm not surprised it isn't making waves on ps5 either.

@3Above Hi Fi Rush didn't do very well even with the gamepass subscribers that didnt have to pay for it. It's such a niche genre being a rhythm based beat em up that not even the universal praise seems to help it. It's a shame but I don't think it can be considered a runaway success like many claim.

3m player count seems solid but with 30million gamepass subscribers that wouldnt have to pay anything other than time to play it is kind of a let down. Then looking at achievements for those who did play it, not even 50% of xbox users unlocked the achievement for beating the first level with about 12% finishing the game. So there definitely seems to be players bouncing off early.

I might opt for the switch version just to support the multiplat effort. I hope playstation does more of this going forward.

The real challenge will be demonstrating to nintendo that putting some of its smaller franchises on pc,ps,xbox etc would actually benefit them and the brand.