MrGawain

As a games show it got a good selection of announcements. Now we get to see how long it takes these games to be released. If they’re plugging the same games next year it will be a failure.

Still doesn’t solve the problem that the software is skewed towards western studios and there’s a lack of the quirky stuff that made Playstation fun and different for the previous generations.

And I doubt a remaster of Horizon Zero Dawn will help that.

The last game tried to focus on the pro tourney player. This one seems to be simplifying to the Nth degree for new players.

Meanwhile I’m neither and happy to have kep to SF4.

Anyone would of thought Sony had shifted it’s focus to western produced titles, pit all their prices up, had a bunch of 1st and 3rd party games delayed and then struggled to produce consoles.

I find I tend to like Japanese style gaming, and I have no desire to hunt after a PS5 to play the bunch of drab, samey 3rd person western sandbox games for seventy quid. Sony aren’t suffering in the West yet with sales as core gamers chase after PS5’s, but at the end of the generation I’m betting they’ve lost a big part of the market by limiting their variety.

I have a theory Sony’s plan to get everyone to move on from the PS4 is to release GOW2 on it.

GOW1 almost melted my PS4, GOW2 sounds like it will finish the job.

The reality is E3 is a big expensive advert, and with industry slowdown and rising costs It's surplus to requirements. I get the feeling from every publisher wanting to sell up that profit margins for these massive games has shrunk and there are less of them, so they're spending less on the marketing.

Logically even without the Pandemic there’s going to be less games released per year in the future. Higher grade graphics, longer development, higher budgets, means that there will be less games which means there won’t be publishers touting 7-10 games a year any more unless you’re Nintendo or a large indie developer. So it makes sense to consolidate these presentations.

I think the first one was fantastic, but the Miles Morales was more of the same and left a lot to be desired. Insomniac are going to need to find a change of setting or new mechanic or excitment for the IP will dwindle.

Odd to have kids cartoon characters and a Game Of Thrones character in the same game. But then you think Warner Bros and remember they’re not the most finicky with their IP.

I own a PS4 and a Switch. if you offer me a game I really want for either, I will buy it.

I do not own a PS5. Currently there is nothing in my wildest dreams that would get me to buy a new system. There certainly isn’t anything they’ve released so far that’s tempted me.

Depends on if they actually have games to show.

@get2sammyb

In reference to Nintendo experimenting more than Sony, I would say they both try to experiment, Sony with VR, Controller tech, and services- whereas Nintendo has experimented with Fitness add ons like the balance board and Ring Fit, Toys To Life, and Cardboard pianos that connect to the game. I think it’s fair to say Nintendo has a lot wackier ideas. Sony is more about taking an current idea and developing it, where Nintendo jump about all over the place.

I’ve thought for a while that certain games made for XBox game pass would be limited, partially due to budget, and because they probably don’t want a 100 hour game dominating players time unless they’re spending money on micro transactions. Also logically you would think Microsoft will only want to drip feed so many games a year in the long run instead of throwing all the Bethesda, Activision and Xbox in-house productions at the wall at once. At the moment Xbox is just stuffing old and new games on it they have that are ready to get the numbers up, but you would think it’ll be more reserved eventually to really make money.

If it makes them all try harder to make a good, value for money product I say it’s a good thing. I’m guessing 2K will be FIFA’s first conversation?

True, it’s releasing at 70, but it’ll be 30 in 3 months.

That isn’t even a joke any more. Here in the UK pretty much every PS5 game price drops like a stone. Even first party games can drop by a tenner after the first fortnight.

I get there aren’t many PS5’s in the wild, but this price point seems to be making Sony less than when games released at fifty-ish quid.

@LightningLeader

Maybe not buy, but there must be some way to get exclusives or partnerships (basically offer a better deal). Currently it looks like MS buying a Japanese Publisher may not be as easy for them as buying the western lot.

I don’t own either a PS5 or a XBX currently, but personally I would still buy a PS5 before an XBX- because PS5 has variety in it’s games in innovation… at least it has in the past. Xbox has just bought more American FPS’s again, all that are competing against each other for mindshare. Admittedly XB has stitched up the dudebro gamers at the moment with COD and Fallout, but those games are always subject to depth in a crowded market. And there is a market that wants BETTER, that Sony has with Spidey and GOW.

If Sony really want to compete, then they need to tie up Japanese producers Capcom, Square Enix, and Sega to some deals, and go back to supporting their own Japanese studios… basically what Nintendo has done. I’d much prefer to have 5-8 interesting games a year to play, than a million brown paint by numbers clones.

You have to wonder how further tech can advance as these factories can’t produce enough semi conductors/computer chips? I get we’re coming out of lockdown, but we aren’t ready for build twice as powerful computers anyway. All the tech like phones, cars, computers, tv’s need twice as much processing power, and more new tech is demanding computing. I was reading electric car charging stations aren’t being built because they need a lot of computer parts that aren’t available. With shortages of raw materials and factories to produce them, the next gen of tech is going to be high price and not affordable to the average Joe on the street.

The longer shops have no stock, the less bothered I am about the thing. So far there hasn’t been a game released for it that has hooked me to search for the console, as it seems aimed at someone else. I think this may be because Sony is taking a far more Western-centric position on the sort of games it’s developing.

I enjoyed God Of War. I saw the titles (but didn’t 100% it) ejected the game from my hovercraft sounding PS4, put it in the box and haven’t had any desire to play it again. It’s the perfect millennial game as it doesn’t demand to be replayed on a three year cycle like Ocarina Of Time, Arkham Asylum, or Super Mario World.

Lots of games coming in 2 years time for a console you’ll have trouble getting for the next 2 years.

It was a good 2023 preview, but it didn’t sell me on scouring the world for a PS5 in the meantime.

From my own perspective, the PS5 is a prospect that hasn’t matured yet- quite a few games delayed, quite a few reissues of old PS4 games, a couple of solid looking but a niche exclusives. At some point you know it will be the place to play the big graphically impressive games. But until then we’re living in Nintendo’s time as they have a mass of really diverse titles, especially for people who love Japanese style games.

I wonder if Fighting games beyond Smash are popular enough and sell well enough day one to survive a generational cost hike? Microsoft has already dissolved the Killer Instinct team, Tekken has had numerous cancellations and disappointments, and Street Fighter only got made because Sony subsidised it with a new business model that everyone hated. The sudden halt of MK DLC seasons may also back this up.

What Sony needs is a big (ish) game for the end of the year. If they aren’t holding something back or Horizon slips to 2022, then they don’t need a big event to announce nothing.

95% of all entertainment has such a short day in the sun at full price. Why but a £30 film on Disney when in 2 months it’s a tenner on DVD and 4 months it’s added to the streaming service? I get there aren’t too many PS5 owners about, but I think we’re all starting to learn preorders and day one purchases are pointless when £70 game prices drop so quickly.

Beyond quality of either games, there are lots of people that own a Switch in the UK.

How many PS5’s are there? Forty Three and a half at best?

This game opens up the hope we get games based on films from 2009. Here's hoping for The Imaginarium of Dr Parnossus, The Fantastic Mr Fox, and Invictus!

The Japanese like Japanese games.

Sony has shifted it’s business model to produce more western titles, less Japanese developed games.

Playstation 5 currently has very little Japan centric games.

Playstation 5 currently has very few new games.

You can see why PS5 isn’t doing so great in Japan, the question is do they have much coming to change this in the next 12 months?

It was better than the 2020 one!

You have to view it in context. Both Microsoft and Nintendo promised releases this year. I don’t think Playstation needed to be there, but it does have to eventually show stuff so we desire a PS5 or want to keep our PS4’s plugged in.

Because recently I haven’t been bothered about either.

Is it just me or are 90% of XBox exclusives first person, and 90% of PS exclusives are third person? It seems weird it's somehow split that way.

Conspicuous by its absence, Beyond Good and Evil 2....

There was definitely games for lots of people to be excited about, but it did feel like some sort of QVC sales pitch in places as celebrities and corporate reps regurgitated lines they were fed about games they didn’t know much about.

The moment the lady in the suit called the game she was showing off ‘Kickass’ immediately stole any credibility that this was anything but two hours of adverts. I think it shows that what we like about E3 is watching Developers explain how much they decade about the thing they made.

I think a few governments might step in if Sony were to put this into a real world application.

I wonder if the console shortage in 2021 will mean that certain games will be delayed (looking at God Of War) to wait until there’s a player base for it to sell lots of copies? Ratchet and Clank looks like a true next gen game, but it will only sell in ratio to how many players there are.

Do you really need a PS5 just to play Fortnite on?

So basically they’re now independent of Sony.

Not necessarily a bad thing.

PS5 games may release at £70, but looking at game prices now after 5 months I think it’s pretty obvious they’ve yet to have that many games people want. Godfall, Watchdogs, Dirt, Rainbow Six, Mortal Kombat, Fenyx, all under £30, Demons Souls now down to £55.

I can see eventually 3rd party publishers taking a £50-£60 price start again as gamers move away from buying day one.

Beyond pricing, availability, drift issues, and future business models for both companies, I currently have no interest in purchasing either machine as neither have any worthwhile games now, and the near future doesn’t look better either.

Realistically Sony don’t need to pay money to align their YouTube broadcast with E3 apart for goodwill with all the other publishers.

Also I wonder if they really want to promise marvels when no release date these days is certain. Better to be under their own schedule when they’re confident they have something to say.

The reason games are going up by 17% is because developers think we need games to be 17% longer, 17% more graphically intensive, and 17% more clogged down with cutscenes. BIGGER IS BETTER!

I would argue most people don’t make it halfway through a triple A story game, and by cutting the length by 10-20% of these games instead of making them bigger, you would get a cheaper game which could be made quicker, have less glitches and bugs, have less exhausted developers, and a leaner game that doesn’t outstay it’s welcome.

Case in point (although I haven’t played it) what people said about Cyberpunk 2077.

For me this is a real negative in buying a PS5 in the future, and I may just stick with my Switch. My gaming preference is for Japanese gaming with a focus on colourful, weird games with unique mechanic and tight controls that take themselves less seriously than their western counterparts. It’s the reason I have no interest in an XBox at all. If the PS5 is going to have 6-8 less Japanese games this gen, I question if there is enough exclusive games from Square and Capcom I like to warrant the purchase of a PS5?

Metal Gear Solid is way too Japanese for any studio or company outside Japan to produce it. Capcom, Platinum, Namco, Sega, or Square Enix are probably the only options.

A Direct or State of Play is an advert. You can only have one if you have something to sell in the near future. Nintendo had very little to sell last year, so they didn’t have a Direct.

Don’t worry about Playstation not having a state of play, worry about them not having many games.

I get the feeling that in Japan more than anywhere else, big Japanese produced software sells consoles. Games like Final Fantasy, Persona, Resident Evil, Bloodborne, Monster Hunter, Animal Crossing, Splatoon, and Mario have sold a lot of consoles. At the moment the PS5 has Demon Souls.

In the west I get the feeling there is a percentage of the customer base who will buy a console before any real exclusives are there to drive interest.

Basically any game could be delayed past 2021- just look at how Halo was delayed 10 months already. But then, isn’t that better than a Cyberpunk situation?

Star Wars is a story- A Fairytale in Space. EA has reiterated time and again it would prefer not to make story heavy games.

To me this partnership is like Telltale Making a Usain Bolt game.

As someone who owns an original PS4, I can’t help but see the PS5 as a PS4 pro-pro with a new controller at the moment. I guess that tallys up with this architecture being like a PC and new consoles now just being more powerful versions of the last one.

I don’t think we can say we’re in a new generation until a game comes along that can only be played on the PS5, and does something we didn’t think possible before.

Seeing the current landscape, I think I'm not going to expect anything to release in 21 until it's a fortnight out.

I do question if making a game so large and detailed is actually worth it if it just brings more performance issues? I get these developers are always shooting for the moon, but is any of this stuff actually making the gameplay or the story any better?

If anything all the money they spent on it has just caused people to dislike the game. I worry if this signals problems for other developers as they start to overstretch to use the PS5’s power.

I think it's not so much for the player, but so as not to upset anyone sitting with you who sees you playing a game with rude bits.