MrPeanutbutterz

@UltimateOtaku91 I'm still wondering what a next gen Xbox will even look like? Some sort of legacy device to play your existing library will probably be it.

@Deljo It's been that way for some time. And considering they went ahead and bought the largest third party publisher... a large chunk of ABK's value is bound to them being multiformat. Just having the likes of CoD on Xbox would never make financial sense.

While I agree with you that it's nice to have the different consoles under the telly to enjoy their differences, there's been very little difference between Xbox and PS for a long time. The last time they were different with unique-ish libraries was the late days of the 360/PS3. Truly unique experiences? We have to go back to the PS2/Xbox/GameCube days.

@Deljo How so?

Nah, the utterly tone-deaf guest characters have soured this franchise for me.

@DaveTheRave I want to echo the same sentiment. Hands down the best physics in a GTA. That first proper mission in V where you steal a car as Franklin and you race, my heart sank at how bad the physics felt vs. IV's.

Lost sale here with the THPS4 shenanigans.

Dunno if I could play this, because it would remind me of how pure gaming used to be, and how simple life used to be.

Preem, if you l know what I mean.

@Coffeeglitch I mean, can I walk into my local Lego stockist and buy this right now, or is this an unofficial bespoke creation delivered to one of the head honchos of the studio making the game?

@ThroughTheIris56 Swapping him for a visually similar character ain't it either.

At least ND stuck to their "Joel is done" narrative.

@marktehshark69 If you think the writing in the original The Last of Us game is "terrible", then I'm more than curious to know what you think is good...

@EYEBALL On what planet should Call of Duty be cancelled? It prints them money. You're aware why trillion dollar corporations like Microsoft exist, right?

@carlos82 They've launched a platform with literal key cards. Sure, their games are on cartridges for now, but this is a push to normalise that delivery method.

They've also priced Mario Kart World (the Switch 2's tentpole title) in such a way that makes buying it separately rather unattractive vs. buying the console bundle. And what's in the bundle? Because it isn't a cartridge...

@Max_the_German How are you not getting this? It's newsworthy for two reasons - after the backlash online to Microsoft putting a key on the disc and people saying "I'm not buying that", this is their antidote. This is good news for people who are into physical collecting. Yes, it should be the norm and shouldn't be news-worthy, but this is the current state of the industry.

And like it or not because this is how sites like PushSquare - who cover a fast-changing medium - generate hits. DS2 is the biggest/newest game right now, this is moderately news-worthy, therefore yes, they're gonna seek those SEO hits and write an article about the thing that's currently front and center of the news cycle.

@IamJT You'd think, but here we are. I find a lot of people into videogames seem to exist in their own bubble, and when crap like this - a thing that happens in any industry subject to consolidation - there's somehow surprised Pikachu face all-round.

@Max_the_German Switch 2 key cards...

All part of the consolidation/enshitification that goes with Microsoft buying up so much of the industry that far too many people were clapping like lobotomised seals for.

@Max_the_German Have you not been paying attention to the last few months of Microsoft releases? And Switch 2 key cards?

@Questionable_Duck So you reckon everyone at Sony works for free and aren't subject to the same price rises as the rest of us? And their overheads to run the company aren't subject to those same rises? The cost of food, real estate, energy, etc. all affect these companies too. They don't exist in a vacuum.

I'm not defending, I'm just not blissfully unaware of what's going on right now which is - just to reiterate - not unique to Sony. It's everything, and everywhere.

@wildcat_kickz Don't forget our house special, it's called a Tricky-Dicky Screwdriver...

I've gone from "I feel old, as the new face of PlayStation has zero appeal to me personally" to "actually, going off the comments in the thread, I don't feel too old as I've heard of her".

@N0CYmr0k

To me one very visible indicator is how a capital city of any country looks like. Rio doesn't look very developed and half of it are slums.

Yeah so about the fact that Rio isnt the capital of Brazil...

@Questionable_Duck So you're saying that you're still paying pre-pandemic prices for bread, milk, cheese, electricity, pints, housing, fuel, etc.?

@KundaliniRising333 What is it about people using gaming forums being blissfully unaware of the price of literally everything else going through the roof?

This isn't unique to Sony, or games, or electronics, or leisure goods, or entertainment media.

@cuttlefishjones Or it just doesn't tax the Pro - which is what's stated in the article. Those cooling fans are snake oil.

@Nepp67 Care to furnish proof of people not cleaning being the main culprit?

And care to explain why my spotless PS5 and buddy's brand new out of the box for FF16 console only ever had this issue with FF16?

Occam's razor, fella.

@Nepp67 Your console not going nuclear doesn't change the fact that FF16 is a well known unoptimised mess. There's countless people online with my exact experience.

Up or down, you can't infer that it's down to poor cleaning like you said it is.

@Nepp67 Wrong. FF16 is an unoptimised mess. Made my console howl, yet not a single game before or since makes so much as a peep.

A mate bought one brand new for FF16, and it made that unit howl too. Hasn't heard the console since that game.

@Northern_munkey Ah. Myself and a buddy tired some Dirt Rally after a load of cans one night. Terminal damage after the fifth corner? Don't mind if I do 😆

@Northern_munkey Yeah to be fair that's how it's usually used, and its use in the article isn't how you typically see it.

Hope you're having a good weekend.

@Northern_munkey I think folks are misunderstanding how the word abject can be used. It basically means extreme failure.

@Northern_munkey They're going for worst of the worst, lowest of the low, zero redeeming features, therefore it's an abject game.

@IamJT You'd think for a form of communication that was originally (and still is massively) all text-based that people using it would have a modicum of reading comprehension, but sadly here we are on the internet in 2025.

@Oz_Who_Dat_Dare An "abject game". It's like right there in the title.

@Woods-PS Take a deep, deep breath and re-read their name...

An all-time classic, but also utterly exhausting. Finished TLoU 1 nine times in nine years, only rolled the credits on Part 2 once.

The very definition of an incredible experience that at the same time isn't a particularly fun one.

@tameshiyaku Hoping the Metroidvania GoW game is true!

@LogicStrikesAgain Thank you for the sane post. Particularly about profit. It's like some people decided to spend Business 101 smoking down behind the bike sheds because yes, the for-profit business whose products you enjoy won't continue making those products if it's not (sufficiently) profitable.

Healthy sales/profits for the company = healthy ecosystem for the end users.

@tameshiyaku They took creative risks because games took a fraction of the time and money to develop. Release a dud? That's okay, there's still stacks of other games for make up for it.

I agree though, miss those days now for sure.

@Mergatro1d Nah this happened for me too. Clicked in the app, and there's the elite version.

@tameshiyaku You may want to read up on how for-profit multbillion dollar corporations operate if you think Sony are in it to deliver a gaming utopia.

@sanderson72 Not here in Ireland at least. PS3 launched at €630 (in 2007 money), PS5 was €500 in 2020 money.

This ain't it I'm afraid, chaps.

@GalacticBreakdown I'll hard disagree there, the majority of videogame writing is absolute trash.

@Americansamurai1 At this rate my mate getting Rise of the Robots for Christmas 1994 looks like a better purchase than Bungie's.

@Ainu20 Ironically, someone dismissing this as "lazy" is using a wholly lazy narrative.

@Propaperpusher

Imagine if they stop writing books with stories?
Imagine if movies stop having stories.

Not comparable at all. At a push a movie can be a visual spectacle with an awful/non-existent story. Storytelling is pretty much the entire hook of the written word. This is a videogame, and the hook (well the main one at least) there is the gameplay - I don't think anyone who was enamored by Super Mario Bros. on the NES was in it for the storytelling.

I mean, the writing is generally so bad in gaming to begin with as all it does is act as a vehicle to justify the gameplay. Control's story is little more than a poor episode of The X-Files.

Not unless you think "our princess is in another castle" is in fact some sort of cerebral artform.

@PuppetMaster Guess it's part of the "gotta rage at something" minset.

I - no doubt like yourself and most other players - shrug at the ones I'm not interested in and get back to labbing!

@Keyblade-Dan Yeah let's not play one of the best fighting games ever made because there's an optional extra costume that's easily ignored (especially when you can set what costume your opponent displays regardless of what they have equipped).

@TruestoryYep FalsestoryNope. I really DGAF about who develops the game. I mean, there's approximately zero Microsoft games I want to play, and all of one Sony game (Ghost of Yotei).

And my backlog is still very much a thing anyways and I'm barely arsed playing anything from it.