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@MoorePs5 Lol of course not, we waited 18 MONTHS for this only for them to say the real showcase is happening later in the year? Don’t be so naive.

Besides, this is branded as “PS Showcase 2023” meaning it’s most likely the only planned for this year, this was it, this was the big one, if you expect more you’re going to get even more disappointed.

They single-handedly destroyed the excitement you got when watching the PS Studios logo, 3 out of 4 games were generic-looking multiplayer games as a service announced with a CGI.

This is exactly the thing I feared when they said they’re going to be investing 60% on live service games, only I didn’t expect to show its effects right now, what a terrible outlook it is after Spider-Man 2 releases.

Live service games, indies, live service games, cool-looking third-parties (MGS3, Alan Wake, AC, DD), live service games, Spider-Man 2 and I failed to mention live service games.

It is disappointing, the single only game of PS Studios that I’m interested in is Spider-Man 2, the WORST thing about this was watching the PS Studios intro followed by a generic multiplayer game, and with yesterday’s news it’s looking really bad.

That fact that in a couple of years 60% of all PlayStation resources will be used for live service games is EXTREMELY concerning, and I’ve been saying it since they day they announced they had dozens of GaaS in development, they’re using a ton of resources into making those games instead of the single-player experiences that they’re praised for, and now we’ve gone from 4 big games per year to just 2.

And yes, we’ll still be getting some of those single-player games but with so much money going to seek out a live service cash cow there’s inevitably going to be less single-player developments, and even worse, if they have just one big hit it with a live service game I don’t doubt for a second that they’ll steer all current developments into that direction.

Forget about Xbox, Activision, or whatever, the true downfall for PlayStation could be this obsession with live service games, it’s obvious they desperately want to own a Fortnite/Warzone/Apex, but for every successful game as a service we’ve seen countless failures across the industry and they’re not learning from it at all.

I’m ultra hyped but trying not to think about it at all nor watching any predictions online, just losing time playing Zelda.

Sony should really take note of this before investing heavily trying to find a cash cow in games as a service, specially with the recent rumors that Sony is pulling away from Deviation games and even that their game might be cancelled, l really don’t like this trend of buying unproven studios only for multiplayer games at the same time they neglect their own studios with unique ideas such as PixelOpus.

Seriously why does this keep happening? 🤣

@Tharsman Sledgehammer is not based in the UK, in fact I don’t think any of ABK studios are based there, however Microsoft does have studios in the UK such as Playground.

@BeerIsAwesome That’s obviously not gonna happen, do you seriously think that after 2 years of scrutiny the regulators will allow MS to buy another publisher? Of course not.

They’ll continue to buy studios for sure, but I don’t think they’ll dare to attempt to buyout another publisher, not even a smaller one such as Ubisoft, if they do regulators would never approve it as they already got Bethesda, Activision, Blizzard and King at that point.

Been saying this for a while, if the EU approves it then this will drag out for another year but the deal will 100% close eventually as the FTC always loses in court and I don’t doubt that MS will circumvent the CMA one way or another even if the appeal fails (there’s no way they’ll drop it if only the UK is the one opposing the merger).

Honestly at this point I wish the CMA also approved it so we’d have reach the end of this drama this month, but now it’s getting dragged out another whole year.

@Rmg0731 I disagree, Origins is by far the better of the RPG-like Assassin’s Creed, but if you didn’t like you’re going to hate Odyssey and Valhalla.

And while I actually enjoyed both Origins and Odyssey, Valhalla is so unnecessarily massive and repetitive (and the story so laughably bad if you followed the lore of the franchise) that it literally burned me out of the franchise, and then Far Cry 6 burned me out of all Ubisoft games, it really feels they’ve been releasing the same games for 10 years only changing the skins and scenery so I’m definitely done with Ubisoft until they actually make a different game.

@UltimateOtaku91 I’m sorry but saying that “others have done it too” doesn’t justify it in the slightest.

This is sad because we’ve seen Sony buying tons of multiplayer studios that haven’t released a single game while at the same time they’re shutting down a studio creators of unique experiences such as Concrete Genie, it just doesn’t seem fair and proves again that resources that could’ve been used to fund single-player experiences is being spent seeking their live-service cash cow.

I still think this is BS as it’s the same guy repeating the same thing over and over while not a single other “insider” has reported on something similar, so it’s just Tom Henderson and his “sources” claiming there’ll be a PS5 Slim with a detachable disk drive (which already sounds unlikely), a PS5 Pro and the most bizarre one a PS5 handheld that only works with remote play.

Also, there’s just absolutely no reason for a Pro system to exist this generation as it’s barely starting 3 years after launch, most games are still cross-gen, there isn’t a push for 8K as there was for 4K in 2016, PS5 hasn’t dropped in price as PS4 did in 2015-2016, it’s even gone up in every region outside the US, so a Pro system would come out at $600 or even $700 which is ridiculous and would even hurt the entire brand (remember that PS3 price reveal).

So long story short, it doesn’t make any sense and it’s BS.

@rjejr In the US the FTC is basically irrelevant at this point because a federal court can override their decision and honestly Microsoft has more solid arguments than the FTC to win at court, so currently it all depends on the EU, if they approve it then this will drag on another year but the deal will close eventually, however if the EU blocks I can’t see Microsoft fighting all 3 regulators and winning so it’d be over.

I’m honestly tired of this, I’d take any result if that meant we’d stop hearing about this a whole other year but so far it doesn’t seem that way.

He might want to tell that to Jim Ryan, it’s honestly a bit concerning when all their recent studio purchases have been for developing multiplayer/live service games, also half of the projects that we know are currently in development are live services, and I know they’ll say that they’re not neglecting single-player games but the fact is those same resources used to make so many games as a service could’ve been used for making more single-player experiences that Sony is widely praised for.

Soooo no point in buying it physical then.
I’ll use my free trial of EA Play to buy this with a 10% discount on the digital store.

I’d be interested only if it’s a real handheld able to play games natively, if it’s remote play o cloud based Sony can shove it up their ***.

@GodofCapcom Honestly yes, if they’re not really going to commit and give PC players a good experience, why bother with this at all, they just irreversibly damaged Naughty Dog’s flawless reputation up until now and put a dent into TLOU IP right when it’s as its most popular, now every single port they make is going to be scrutinized for a good reason and the whole ‘PlayStation PC’ brand is tarnished now.

By the title I thought that someone else also reported on this but no, it’s the very same source that’s just repeating the same thing, many other ‘insiders’ have already said they have no information regarding a Pro system and it honestly doesn’t make sense for this generation, let alone in 2024, also the remote play handheld he’s reporting on also makes little sense for me since Sony just partnered with backbone last year which accomplishes that very same thing.

So given all this I do think Tom Henderson is full of sh** regarding these rumors.

@get2sammyb Honestly I can’t blame him as everything he said is true, however I’m still excited to see what’s coming for PS5 but I definitely don’t have “sky-high” expectations as you described earlier, I really miss those PS4 days with Shawn Layden at the helm.

This is why I’ll NEVER spend a single dime in any live-service game.

I could almost bet they rushed this port so it’d still come out shortly after the show, if they launched it in a few months (as they should have) the hype would be pretty much gone.

@KaijuKaiser Yes, I’ve said the same thing every time people get riled up about this because it’s true, it’s just business between companies but some people genuinely believe that MS bought ABK just to screw with PS users as if it was a personal vendetta lol.

While CoD is indeed a relevant revenue stream it’s not as important as Sony made it seem, and come on, it’s Sony we’re talking about not some indie developer, they have some of the most talented studios in the entire world and owners of one of the best FPS studio in the whole industry, I’m really looking forward to the competition Sony will eventually create, and yes I know they’ll not get to CoD levels of success right away but with the talent they have and proper support it’s definitely possible to get there over time, and who knows what will happen in 10 years, maybe MS screws the franchise and it stops being as relevant as it’s today, literally everything can happen.

Guys, STOP TAKING THIS TOO PERSONAL!

Like seriously, it’s unbelievable how mad some people are that this is going through, your PS5 will not explode because of this, Sony will not stop releasing games because of this, PlayStation ain’t going anywhere because of this.

@ThorsHammer You could also play Frozen Wilds after finishing the main campaign…

YEEEEES!! Thank god it’s not a $30 DLC, already preordered it lol.

Huge BS in my opinion, this feels just like the ‘Switch Pro’ rumors we’ve been hearing every year and it just didn’t happen.

@rjejr I’m honestly a bit worried that they just don’t want to reveal the price, this leads me to think it might be a $30 or even $40 expansion, if that’s the case I’ll definitely not get it until it goes on sale.

We all know it’s TLOU Part III, although I really want to see a new IP from Naughty Dog.

It honestly feels so weird that they don’t even want to reveal the price nor any details about it, at this point it’s likely that it’s getting delayed because we’re one month away and there’s nothing to indicate otherwise.

I think this is it, we’re very near to the definitive end for PS3 and Vita, if this isn’t resolved I’m just gonna soft-mod both my consoles as there’s way too many games stuck on those platforms, specially PS3.

@Tharsman But companies never get acquired at the current market cap, Sony would need to offer a premium price in order to convince investors which would result in 7 to 9 billion.

For context, when Microsoft announced the acquisition of ABK their market cap was around 50 billion and they’re buying it for nearly 70 billion, so they were paying an almost 40% premium for it, I’d imagine that Square Enix investor would want a 30% premium at least resulting in 7 billion which currently Sony doesn’t have (they could still get 51% of it tho).

Lol people, this is them essentially confirming they’ll not acquire ANY publisher, with 5 billion alone they can’t buy Square Enix, Capcom, Sega or any publisher of that size.

They will continue to buy studios and maybe make some strategic investments like the ones with Epic, but no big acquisition.

Damn, that version must be really rough for being delayed twice now, I can only imagine how the Switch version is going to look like.

@BeerIsAwesome Someone woke up a little salty today huh lol

This is the best news for Square Enix, clearly the last 10 years have not been very good, specially in the last couple of years they’ve taken so many baffling decisions.

However, I do think that Sony will announce SE acquisition once the ABK deal goes through, there are way too many hints that it’s actually gonna happen.

Let me grab popcorns for the comments…

Lol and I’m currently playing through all God of War games on my PS3, currently on Ascension with 2 and 3 left (saved the best for last).

Already preordered the Deluxe Edition and I don’t want to know any more about the game, I won’t read these previews nor reviews, I just want to play it ASAP.

This is essentially them axing the studio, and yes, it was expected at this point, FFXV was a development hell from start to finish (and they didn’t even finished it), Forspoken was a last ditch effort for the studio to show what they’re capable of but it flopped so hard that it’s currently been 2 weeks at half the price, not even a month after launch.

I guess this also means dropping the Luminous engine for good, and that’s probably the best news about this as it never really worked out.

Surprised that Microsoft also launched it for PS5.

@rjejr I’m really hoping it’s not $30 bucks as previously rumored, that’d be half the cost of the game…

I’m willing to say this is the worst event Sony has ever put together.

Played for 5 hours but not anymore, the game is simply not enjoyable, it has good graphics but every aspect of the gameplay is clunky, and while the story seems interesting the dialogue is borderline unbearable. Crispy critters everyone!

@stvevan On that I agree, don’t even dare to raise some questions about Game Pass as you’ll get swarmed in seconds, but honestly every community has its radical users.

I just felt this article unusually ‘salty’ compared to what we normally read on this site and made worse by the fact that so many people are being very ‘passionate’ about this, and I really don’t understand why, yes Activision is a massive publisher and Microsoft is gaining a lot by buying them but Sony is a juggernaut in the gaming industry as this data shows and they will be totally fine without Activision as their partner.

@awp69 Exactly, I’m disappointed in Push Square for not only engaging in this toxic discussion but actively encouraging it, they are writing this as if Microsoft buying Activision was a personal battle against Sony and their fans but it’s not, this acquisition is far more than Call of Duty I’m surprised no one has even mentioned King or mobile gaming once in all this discussion.

As I said in another comment, stop taking this too damn personal, Activision wanted to be acquired, if it wasn’t Microsoft it’d have been someone else, and I’m SURE that if Sony had the resources they’d have bought ABK and people here would be celebrating it, but since it ended up being Sony’s main competitor people here make it seem as if they’re about to destroy gaming for everyone, just look at this data, you can rest easy that Sony will be fine even after the deal is closed.

I’m losing it with the comments lmao, Sony will be fine when the deal goes through, your PS5 will not explode the day this deal is done.

Stop taking this soooooo damn personal.

@extragood It was also on PS3, X360, Xbox One, Series X|S and PC so it’s obviously not all from PS4 and PS5 alone.