Intr1n5ic

@Sakai My theory sounds far-fetched, but a supposed Sony internal email on the industry being shared on the background of a cancelled Spiderman game sounds plausible? 😂

The only way this is legitimate is if it was written by someone from Insomniac, for the team working on the cancelled Spiderman mmo at Insomniac. It makes absolutely no sense for any higher up at Sony to write this using that template, nor does it make sense for them to share concerns about CoD of all things, with Insomniac.

@Sakai Or, it came from some Xbox moron who took footage from the intro screen of a cancelled game and overlaid text in photoshop.

@Sakai Bluepoint is a fellow Sony studio. Studios sharing artwork, concepts, and development tools between each other makes perfect sense. What doesn't make sense is outlining concerns about ABK on a Spiderman background 😂

@Sakai I'm well aware it's being being reported by Eurogamer, IGN ect. I'm equally aware that the "leapfrog" slide is text written over the intro background of a cancelled Spiderman game called The Great Web.

I'm genuinely curious what your response to this question is. Why would Sony send a slide to Insomniac, a game developer, talking about concerns over the ABK acquisition, and write it on the intro background of one of Insomniacs cancelled games?

@Sakai "The slide titled "leapfrog" is very interesting, it's basically an internal document with Sonys thought on ATVI."

You're joking, right? You think Sony created a slide to share with one of it's dev studios on the Activision acquisition, and they used an intro screen from a cancelled Spiderman game as a backdrop with Insomniac written in the bottom right corner?

I pray for the day the internet requires an entrance exam.

Also, f**k these losers. Leaking game information is bad enough, but doxxing people is absolutely disgusting.

@kyleforrester87 Yeah I agree. I did that with the 4 as well and I'll likely do the same this time around.

Jokes aside, I'm a sucker for tech. I'll pick this up just to play the best console version of GTA6 at launch.

@kyleforrester87 No that's RRP, which will undoubtedly be way above what it probably should be.

@kyleforrester87 It’s clearly the three letters on the box, Kyle. God, I hate it when unprofessionals weigh in.

Loving the look of this, it's like Hollow Knight on acid.

@riceNpea @ChrisDeku John Lewis and House of Fraser still have the disc version in stock for £389.99 as well, and EE have the Spiderman 2 bundle for £409.99 if you're a customer.

@JustX Oh for sure, if you were specifically after the digital version then the old stock is almost impossible to find from retailers. Right now though you can get the fat disc version with a game for the price of the new slim digital.

Still, 10% off through Very is a great deal. You got yourself a bargain there. 👍

Just give me Akuma already!

I didn't realise the escapists 2 was on there. I'll give that a go over the weekend.

Depending on your region this is strange timing. There are a lot of bargains at the moment on the old model.

When are we going to start listening to what the same names keep trying to tell us. You don't need an Xbox to play their games anymore.

Why would you pick up a cheap Series S when you can play AAA games on a 5" mobile phone screen, or a more expensive tablet, or a newer Samsung TV with potentially horrible latency and input lag on all of these options. You could also just buy a PC for 4 or 5x the price, or build one yourself similar to the price of the S that might catch fire on ultra low settings for everything other than streaming.

There are so many options available now to experience gaming in an inferior way, compared to the age old tradition of grabbing an easy low price solution in one box and plugging it in to your tv.

@Deityjester Are you moving the goalposts because you were wrong? Now you're saying the first console manufacturer? If that's the case, sure, but that's not what you originally stated. Take Two, and more specifically 2k games, were the first to announce they were raising prices for this gen.

@Deityjester Take Two Interactive were the first to announce price increases for next gen games back in July 2020, they established the new price point for NBA 2K21. Sony and Activision followed suit 2 months later.

@K1LLEGAL I see you chose to completely sidestep everything else I said.

My bad with regard to that email, if he said it 3 years ago then he definitely doesn't have the capacity to apply that kind of healthy industry thinking to any decision making going forward.

What you call "competition", I call an attempt by a megacorporation to buy a controlling majority with their substantial wealth advantage. That's why I find comments talking about longterm healthy futures amusing.

I don't read articles like this and derive enjoyment because of fanboyism, it's because I enjoy watching companies who operate like MS eat s**t.

@K1LLEGAL "It’s kind of mindblowing (and not at the same time) that people will argue from a fanboy standpoint rather than a “I want the video games industry to be healthy long into the future” standpoint."

I can't think of anything more healthy for the longterm future of this industry then what MS have been doing with 3rd party acquisitions for the last few years. I pray, for health reasons of course, that the world's second richest company continues to consolidate and aquire the biggest publishers in the industry.

In case we forget, in the longterm healthy words of Matt Booty, the new President of Content and Game Studios at Xbox - "We (Microsoft) are in a very unique position to be able to go and spend Sony out of business."

It wouldn't surprise me if he tried to introduce a monthly sub for the online multiplayer in the future, copying the mmo model of games like WoW and FF14.

I would love for them to do something in the Warhammer universe, but DoS3 would be awesome as well.

@IOI So you actually don't know what complacent means?

"Are we really going to justify a “light” year in first-party games with overpriced hardware"

Who was justifying it with hardware? I said dev cycles are a lot longer than they used to be and years like this are going to happen more often going forward, especially following a year of several major releases. That has absolutely nothing to do with complacency.

As for the rest, what the new hardware releases mean for you has nothing to do with the overarching point. Complacent has a specific meaning and what Sony have been doing for the past year doesn't reflect that in any way.

@IOI As Sammy pointed out, this year they have released:

• A new PSVR headset
• A new streaming handheld
• A new pro controller
• A new set of audio equipment to preorder, both buds and a
  headset.
• A massive first party game in Spiderman 2, and an
  excellent dlc for HFW.
• As well as the acquisition of Firewalk Studios, Audeze and iSIZE
• And a huge push in both advertising and manufacturing to bring as
  many consoles to market as possible.

All of this was done whilst also fighting MS in Court to try and prevent them from buying up yet another huge chunk of the industry.

You can argue they have been light on first party games this year, but with how long their games take to make these days this was to be expected at some point, especially after a year of GT7, HFW & GoWR.

If you think all of that is evidence of complacency, I would argue you don't know what that word means.

Something to check out over the weekend I guess. Ty for the reminder, Sammy. 👍

@nessisonett "What else would you have disgruntled fans do?"

Go outside and touch grass. This whole reactionary cancel culture nonsense is complete cancer. If people are disappointed in the direction a game is heading and they no longer want to support it, cool, I completely understand that. But when that becomes trying to rally others in to your way of thinking, encouraging people to follow you and potentially harm the livelihood of individuals who are just trying to do their jobs, then you're just an attention seeking a**hole.

I'm noticing a lot of the names who were calling Sony out for these layoffs yesterday are missing from the comment section of todays article. I hope you decide to grace us with your infinite wisdom again.

@Max_the_German Arguably, the best exclusive they've released this generation goes against the point you're trying to make.

Is it worth reporting on new Activision games going forward? It's unlikely this will come to PlayStation if it does get made.

They hinted at this during a previous Q&A and said the accompanying characters will play a larger role in part 3, so like Red XIII, he'll most likely be playable in the next game after his introduction.

@AndyKazama Dragon's Dogma as well. Game holds up really well and there's a lot of fun to be had in that world for only £3.99.

BG3, I'm addicted. I'm even dreaming about it. I woke up the other day to the sad realisation that not only did the legendary hand crossbow that I gave to Astarion not happen, but one doesn't even exist in the game

3rd party timed exclusives need to end. I'd welcome a much shorter window like this if that's the next best option.

Negativity in the pushsquare comment section, that's refreshing.

I enjoyed it. Release date for Helldivers and FF7. A dlc coming to one of the best Tales games very soon. RE4 Vr in December. Spiderman and FF7 looked incredible, I was not expecting Gold Saucer or Vincent reveals, let alone confirmed chocobo open world variants and vehicles.

People just love to cry here. That was an enjoyable state of play and delivered exactly what we were pretold it was going to be.

I'm a bit burnt out on these type of games but I do like the art style. I'll probably check it out at some point.

I've wanted to check out Odin Sphere for years and never got around to it, looking forward to that.

Wishful thinking perhaps, but I would love to see BG3 at the top of that list for September. Hopefully it was well supported on console because Larian deserve it.

I'm happy to hear this, Sabotage deserves it. From what I've played so far it's an excellent game. It reminded me of Golden Sun and how engaged I was when I first played that many years ago. Sadly, I've had to put it on the back burner for the time being because BG3 has consumed my life, but I'm looking forward to finishing it.

@Fiendish-Beaver Agreed. I can't remember the last game I played that I rated as highly as this, like yourself, it might well have been DOS 2. I thought Returnal was incredible from recent years but it's apples and oranges.

@Fiendish-Beaver I dunno, I haven't played it myself, but after watching a lot of different streamers and seeing some of the complaints about Starfield, I don't think it stood a chance against TOTK either.

It's a 10 for me as well, it's so good, and the PS5 version looks and runs great. I wasn't sure how they were going to handle the abilities but they did an amazing job on the customisable radial wheels for all the skills.

My only complaints so far, it doesn't look like you can check how many camp supplies you have without going back to camp and initiating a rest, which isn't ideal. On PC this info is on your hotbar. The second is just preference, but I wish the long hold on the touch pad opened my character sheet rather than my journal.

@naruball I don't disagree. I think the lack of reasoning to justify it and also the timing of the announcement was extremely poor. Communication as ever from Sony is awful.

The increase for us in the UK on extra is 19%, which understandably is a big jump for some. I can only speak for myself on that, but I purchased my 12 month sub during black Friday last year and I feel like I heavily underpaid for what I received from it. Had it been the full £84 I would think the same.

@naruball It's definitely not for all tiers, specifically essential and premium, but when I look at what I've received on extra over the past 12 months, I really don't think £1.33 more a month is an unreasonable increase.

Baldur's Gate 3 from 5pm

I'll give the patched up Saints Row a chance, but this is clearly a pretty poor month for essential.

@andy24king Because they're not a trillion dollar company who can bankroll their subscription service with profits derived from outside their gaming division.

I happen to think extra is fantastic, I got a ton of value from it over the past year and I'll probably grab another year over black Friday using some shopto workarounds. I'm playing Sea Of Stars right now which is a quality game, it would of cost me £29 without extra. More of that and I don't really give a ***** about the increase, I still feel a little over £8 a month represents insane value for money (even less with shopto).

The premium cost increase is ridiculous though, I can't say anything redeeming about that tier, and I can't wrap my head around the timing of these announcements in general.

Anyway, you're wasting your time getting angry on here talking about it. Speak with your wallets if you're genuinely aggrieved. Sony seeing a significant drop in their subscription numbers is the best way to get their attention.

I'm really enjoying it so far, it's a great game.

@Kienda "Of course servers cost money, but they charge because they can, not because they must."

Yes and no. Consoles provide a baked in service to access online gaming through their infrastructure. PC is different in that you have full control over how you connect to others. Any attempt to try and charge people for that isn't going to fly when you have complete system access that allows you to configure it yourself.

You're correct in stating that all three if them starting charging because they can, but now that it's been established, what's required to maintain it costs money. It's not just servers, it's everything that comes with that. There will be thousands of individuals employed to work on the backend of these services for each company. All of those moving parts incur operating costs, and as console owners these are unfortunately passed on to us if we want to use them.

I'm not defending it, it was certainly introduced to generate more income, but there's a lot more going on than just server costs.

@Kienda "But the only benefit to paying for online multiplayer is to line the shareholder’s pockets of multi-billion-dollar corporations."

There's a bit more to it than that. Online services require huge infrastructure to operate and maintain which all incurs costs. Servers, security, staffing, maintenance etc. They covered those costs up until roughly 14 years ago when the company went through a period of significant financial losses in different markets. Everything was restructured shortly after. Providing this service at a cost to the consumer was a necessary change that needed to happen.