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I honestly don’t understand how just months ago they were allowed to “evaluate” and take decisions on another studio’s game (Factions) and now they’re being laid off, I’m increasingly concerned that acquiring Bungie was a bad move for Sony who is widely recognized for their single-player experiences.

9/10, story is amazing but a bit on the short side, side missions were surprisingly great and the open world activities are better than the first game but still repetitive.

Just imagine how PlayStation would be if they let Shawn Layden stayed to lead this generation instead of Jim Ryan…

@Lukasamba Actually we’re seeing an increasing number of games that do require a download even if they are single-player, such as Hogwarts Legacy and Jedi Survivor, some developers choose to put a fully playable version on disc such as all PS Studios and Square Enix for FFVII Rebirth but that merit goes to the each developer who chooses to do it, not the console per se.

While Xbox is certainly not perfect with online DRM their work on backwards compatibility for hundreds of 360 and OG titles shouldn’t be under appreciated and in fact we should keep pushing Sony to do the same thing, I still can’t believe there isn’t a single way to play all the old God of War games on modern consoles, and that’s the case for tons of games.

Not gonna lie, this is concerning as she could be considered one of the founders of PlayStation and the fact that nobody wants to say why she’s going out may point that the rumors about Sony firing her are true.

Yes, quite a few actually, the most annoying one is to finish a section but then nothing triggers the next part of the mission and you’ve got to reload checkpoint and do everything again, that happened 3 times as I was completing the main story.

So far it’s amazing but I’m worried that I’ve only played yesterday and PS5 already says I’m at 50% of the main story, I really hope it’s wrong.

@mrbone You -can- but you shouldn’t as it helps with ventilation and stability, and the fact that all promo images are of the PS5 in vertical position WITH the stand the very least they could do is to include the $5 stand with the console and not trying to sell it separately for $30…

It genuinely shocks me how hard some people try to defend this BS.

Lmao EA just doesn’t let Callisto Protocol have a win, it’s not a coincidence that in the same month Callisto gets into PS+ Dead Space also arrives on EA Play and Game Pass.

I know many people won’t agree but I’m actually excited to see more competition in the gaming landscape, because this will obviously result in both Sony and Microsoft competing more aggressively for our money and to be completely honest that’s what Sony currently needs, they’ve been too complacent and greedy the last couple of years and we need a change, with Jim Ryan gone and a more aggressive Xbox there’s the perfect opportunity to refocus and strengthen PlayStation even further.

And for the people ‘worried’ about MS buying X, Y, Z publishers don’t even think about it, there’s absolutely no way that after acquiring 2 publishers and 21 months of regulatory hurdles another acquisition would be approved, this is it for publishers, but do expect more studio buyouts from both Sony and Microsoft.

I LOVE Splatoon ever since the first one on Wii U so naturally this caught my attention but having tried this for an hour it’s sadly just a poor attempt at a copy of Splatoon when it actually could’ve been a good one.

The potential is there’s since the artstyle looks interesting and I’d say that gameplay could be fun, however currently it feels so janky and slow to play, half the times I’m trying to do something my character takes seconds to react and someone else ‘foams’ me in the meantime, I tried to play with all characters but it’s the same result, also the maps are quite small and unappealing which results in the same battle dynamics and very few variety in battles.

Sadly I’m thinking this is gonna be yet another live-service game that disappears from existence less than a year after launch.

@Deoxyr1bose Splatoon 3 isn’t a live-service but it honestly gets more and better content than any live-service game that I can think of, plus the recently revealed paid expansion looks even better than the base game’s campaign.

I much prefer paying $60 outright for the game and all its content rather than be milked with microtransactions and all of that BS.

Read the room Sony, not even Epic is able to launch and maintain so many of these live-service games…

Everyone liked that

@UltimateOtaku91 Lol prepare to be disappointed…

After getting the platinum for Spider-Man 2.

@get2sammyb Exactly, the best thing about this is that if those features become the standard across more platforms, more and more developers will build them natively in their games.

Do we really need a round up for 5 announcements? Lol

@ShogunRok Given Xbox and Square’s recently renewed partnership I wouldn’t be surprised if both Remake Intergrade and Rebirth make their way to Xbox in 2024.

Not fan of turn-based games so no (just my opinion don’t cancel me lol)

@bindiana And then Sony comes in and discounts it for 10% lmao.

@bindiana No it will not, Black Friday discounts are around 25-30% at max, so with the discount it will end up at basically the same price it is today which is ridiculous.

So which movie trailer we’re getting now? Lmao

Jokes aside, 4/5 recent State of Plays have sucked and after the * amazing * showcase my expectation is at literal zero other than Spider-Man 2 gameplay, which I don’t really want to see more of it since it’s so close and I’d rather wait to play it.

@thefourfoldroot1 Agreed, and also one week after people spent at least $70 into Spider-Man 2 or Mario Wonder (which releases the same day), so honestly they should’ve delayed at least a couple of weeks after October 20.

@NoToSheep I understand this is a PS blog but the hate towards Xbox and every other platform that is not PS is getting absurd.

I see this as he actively looking out to have more games in the Xbox ecosystem therefore pleasing Xbox gamers and I can only WISH and dream for Jim Ryan to care the same way about PS gamers.

I remember Shawn Layden and Jack Tretton used to do the same thing to bring some acclaimed games to PS3/PS4, just remember that E3 2010 when they got Gabe Newell to announce Portal on PS3 (after being very harsh on the platform) and NO ONE ever said they were “desperate”, they were looking out for PS customers in a way Jim Ryan has never done once, and yet many of you choose to criticize Phil Spencer…

I find it odd that it was the PlayStation division to make this acquisition rather than the whole of Sony, who already has a best-in-class audio/headphones division.

@UltimateOtaku91 Exactly, all cloud licensing would have to be done through Ubisoft and Microsoft wouldn’t have a say in any of this deals (but of course they would get paid as they’re still the owners of the games, just not the streaming rights).

@UltimateOtaku91 Not really, this doesn’t seem to affect customers in the slightest, Game Pass subscribers will be able to download or stream ABK games, the only difference is that Microsoft will have to get the license through Ubisoft, making sure that Xbox Cloud Gaming isn’t the only streaming platform to have those games.

So this also opens the door for someone like Sony to get the rights to stream all ABK games in PS Plus Premium through Ubisoft.

@PixelDragon That’d be the worst thing to happen in the video game industry, I seriously don’t get why there’re fanboys who want a brand to have absolute supremacy when the best scenario is to have more competition across the market.

Currently PS and Nintendo don’t compete directly with each other, so leaving PS the absolute control of the current gen market is a dreadful scenario, we’ve seen time and time again Sony being complacent when they are the market leader, just look at the great sales they have and compare it with the latest showcase, they’re already being complacent so just imagine how they’d be without any competition whatsoever.

@IslandLogic Since the Bungie acquisition announcement I’ve been saying that while it has potential Sony overpaid for them and it wouldn’t be a good fit for PS Studios, and honestly nothing we’ve seen suggest otherwise, specially with the TLOU Factions debacle.

Honestly this whole “going back to the series’ roots” is a huge load of BS, the game looks exactly the same as Valhalla/Odyssey/Origins albeit (allegedly) shorter and smaller map, gameplay looks the same, structure looks the same, even the menus and UI looks the same.

@__jamiie Lol you see what they’ve done with the GTA Trilogy and this game but you still hope for more?

If it happens it’s going to be a straight up port with nothing more, but I honestly don’t think it’s gonna happen.

@Atreus97 I don’t think it’s gonna reach that price anytime soon, the GTA Trilogy has only been discounted 50% at most so applying the same logic here it’s gonna be $25 eventually but no less at least for a couple of years.

@TheCollector316 Jeez are you still that bitter that this deal is going through?

Sorry but no, CMA blocked only because of cloud gaming, they didn’t have any concerns in the console and PC markets, and everyone agreed that it was unreasonable to block the whole merger based on a market that is currently almost not existent, sure there might be some legitimate concerns, but the EU tackled them by making an agreement with Microsoft which is actually beneficial for every company currently pushing for Cloud Gaming.

There’s a reason as to why 40+ countries approved the merger, some even unconditionally, and that is because it’s not anticompetitive, sure PlayStation might stop getting long-running franchises (not CoD) but the same thing happens to every platform as everyone has their own exclusives, I’m actually excited to see PlayStation compete more aggressively with Xbox since in recent years they’ve been rather complacent, and honestly everyone who’s not a fanboy should be able to see it.

@StrawberryTurtle Lol you just had to throw some hate at Microsoft when this is totally unrelated to them, really don’t know how people can be so toxic basically 24/7…

I actually hope this is the kind of things that they can improve under Microsoft, at the very least they listen more to the community feedback than Blizzard which currently seems so keen on upsetting their own players.

This was a great game but they definitely oversold it, in all the trailers and gameplay they made you think you could switch worlds or levels in seconds leveraging the power of the almighty SSD and it’s not like that at all, those transitions we saw are either cutscenes or just a level within a level (like going down a pipe in Mario games), but you still have to load every level and world albeit a really short load on PS5, but I see how this game doesn’t really require the SSD as they made us think.

@TheCollector316 Talk about being over dramatic…

Regulators did try to stop this but the unequivocally conclusion was that this deal is not anticompetitive, and in fact it will spark way more competition in a market where Sony has comfortably been the market leader for the past decade and many of us argue they’ve been too complacent about it, I’m open to see new competition as we’ll be the ones who benefit the most when Sony starts to compete more aggressively.

And of course there’s plenty to keep them for buying more publishers, after spending 70 billion dollars do you think they’ll look to spend another 50B in buying EA or Take Two? Of course not.
And even if they do, after clearing this there’s absolutely no way that regulators will allow them to buy another big publisher like that, sure, they will continue to buy smaller studios, but this is it for publishers.

After a year with PS Plus Deluxe (as in my country we don’t have Premium) I’ll definitely be downgrading again to the Essential tier, Premium/Deluxe has almost been a ripoff with bare minimum additions to the classic catalogue, and while Extra has great value I found that most of the games I want to try out I already have them purchased whether on PS5 or Xbox and there’s not many new games (such as Stray or T’Chia) to keep paying for that tier.

@AdamNovice Honestly that’s not plenty, and Firesprite is actually making a live-service game too, the fact that we currently know more about live-service projects than single-player ones is very concerning and the recent showcase only validated my concerns (showing 3 PS Studios live services and only one single-player game).

I’m honestly way more concerned about Sony’s current obsession with live-service games than Microsoft acquiring Activision, they are putting aside the type of games that gave Sony the prestige they currently have in favor of seeking their Fortnite and we just know for a fact than 95% of the games that tried this fail spectacularly and close their servers within months of being launched.

And honestly having seen what Sony is bringing to the table from the showcase I’m not hopeful at all.

@kyleforrester87 Exactly this, currently I do feel that Sony lacks competition and they’re being too complacent about it, but people here are more concerned to what happens to a big corporation who is already a juggernaut in gaming, instead of focusing how will it impact us.

Just think about it, if Microsoft starts eating up some market share from Sony it will force Sony to compete more aggressively by benefiting US, PS users, but some people are so blind to their fanboyism that they care more about the financial performance of a corporation rather than our own financials lol

Of course it’s going to have an impact, but not at all concerning, Sony is a juggernaut in gaming, they will absolutely find a way to keep being the market leader for the rest of this generation at the very least, and in fact I’m way less concerned about Microsoft-Activision than Sony themselves with their current obsession seeking a cash cow in live-service games.

I was kinda excited for this because of the smaller scale and “back to the basics” approach they described, but since watching the gameplay demo it fell completely flat, this looks exactly the same as Valhalla/Odyssey/Origins albeit in a smaller map, and after Valhalla burned me out I’m just done with this formulaic generic-feeling games.

Also this releasing just before Alan Wake 2, Spider-Man 2 and Super Mario Bros. Wonder there’s zero chance I’ll consider playing this even if it somehow got into PS Plus or Game Pass.

All this investment only to develop live-service games… :sighs:

I’m torn between 9 and 8, it’s fun, the combat feels great, story has been amazing, characters are interesting, but there’s some clear issues.

Pacing is the worst of any recent game that I can think of, an epic mission is immediately followed by 2 hours of doing absolutely nothing but running errands that doesn’t advance the story at all, side quests are also mostly bad since most are even more errands without offering worthwhile rewards, and finally the map and traversal itself feels outdated as it sometimes feels exactly like FFXIII being a step back from FFXV and FFVII Remake.

Overall I’d say a great game but I did expect more and currently I don’t think it’s worth to call it a GOTY contender with so many other great games already released and planned for later this year.

@YonkoBuggyTheClown Yeah honestly Pure Xbox hasn’t been better, both sites are trying to radicalize their readers to push more views and while understandable (the sites are also a business) it just creates a toxic community I frankly don’t want to be a part of.

I have to applaud The Verge’s coverage of all this, not only they’ve had all the information available at the moment, they tried to avoid bias to either side as much as possible, just pointing out the information and leaving it to the reader to form an opinion about it (except when the FTC made wild claims that needed to be point out).

@awp69 Yet another clickbait article by Push Square regarding this whole thing.

I’m honestly very disgusted about how Push Square has handled all the information that has come out from the trial, grim comments have come out from both sides (Sony and Microsoft) however here they’re trying to radicalize it to extremes, as if Microsoft had a personal vendetta against all of Sony’s users when it’s nothing like that, it’s just business and Sony has said and done pretty nasty stuff too.

Another live service, another failure…

Please take note about this Sony.

Can’t wait to see Tom Holland playing Jin Sakai!

@Ken_Kaniff It doesn’t matter how much it sells it will be below Square’s expectations because of course it will.

Seriously I don’t know how they set their expectations because every single game ends up “underperforming”, even something like FFVII Remake.