Old-Red

I hope some kind of documentary gets made of this from the perspective of the developers and Sony. It would be the only good thing to come from the whole debacle.

I know Sony would never allow it, but someone might find a way into the inner workings of Firewalk to interview the people involved in making it.

Maybe changing the name to Snickers will help them out. Either way Sony are clearly nuts... I'll show myself out.

I'm probably going to pc and whatever Nintendo does next going forward. If Sony do go all digital there won't even be an incentive to pick up any of their stuff late on in the next generation when it's cheaper to collect.

They slowly lost all of the advantages having one of their consoles has this generation. A sad end to my time with playstation, but it was always on the cards I suppose.

I hope they try to relaunch Concord, except they've all got snazzy new hats on. I would genuinely respect them for it.

I wouldn't be surprised if they sold more physical copies of Concord after is was taken offline than they did in the two weeks it was live.

£1399 head strap sold separately

@BeerMonster errrm, £450, not quite double I'll admit, but letting Sony off the hook here helps no one but them.

@Pranwell I think it's more likely that early adopters like me were hoping to cash in their aging console and pick up a newer model to tide them over for another 4 or so years. An upgrade at £700 with no disc drive or stand is insane.

@BeerMonster mate, it's been 4 years. Inflation don't work like that. Are you trying tell me your pay has nearly doubled in that time? Sounds like you've been chuggin' too much of Sony's special brew Alcopup. They're aiming to rinse the whales, nothing more.

@BeerMonster it's a slight upgrade of a four year old console that cost £450 without the extra controller and games. It would essentially be £100 more than I paid four years ago. How is that entitled?

If it was £549 with the disc drive properly attached and the stand, or even better, a less ridiculous shape so it could sit on its side, I would consider selling my original PS5 for and £300 and paying the difference.

It's crazy to think I bought my PS5 at launch for £550 with a spare controller, Demon's Souls and Spiderman.

A big part of it surely has to be Sony seeing scalpers making bank on the consoles early this generation and wanting a piece of that sweet sweet whale pie.

The only one winning in this situation is the Push Square comments section.

For the whales.

@WiiWareWave right? Like, what the actual ****?! Hahaha

This is starting to feel like a scam.

This has got out of hand. It's all becoming dangerous reminiscent of Sega before the Saturn when they kept releasing too many consoles iterations and peripherals, before everyone lost faith in them.

I'm going to stick with Nintendo for a while and won't be buying any Sony stuff new for way into the next generation. They've completely lost my trust this generation. Honestly, we've had what, 5 genuine PS5 first party games and they're trying to carve up the customer base with a £700 fomo machine.

It's borderline offensive.

Dude needs to wind his neck in.

Three levels in and I'm 100% sure it's game of the year.

Nice bait.

I respect the hustle.

That moment when you're one hour into a new game and you realise you're playing the game of the year 🙂

A physical release that highlights the bizarre nature of game collecting and perceived value. A sealed game sold at auction would never be opened or played anyway, so the fact that a Concord disc has no information on it is irrelevant if it's a historic collectors piece. It makes a mockery of the whole collectors market, not that it makes any difference. Maybe Sony should store all the copies and auction them off in 20 years to recoup the game's budget.

It could end up holding value similar to Stadium Events one day. I doubt it, but there a quite a few similarities between the releases.

@get2sammyb agreed, playing Uncharted 2 and Last of Us 1 and 2 are some of my favourite Playstation memories. Would it really be that difficult to set up a smaller division at Naughty Dog to make some titles slightly smaller in scope with more creative art styles like Jak and Dexter though? Ones that don't take 5-8 years to make. I guess it's never that simple or easy. It just seems a shame that everything Sony makes has to be so epic in scale.

I really miss the days when games like Warriors, Manhunt, Puppeteer, Ico etc. were being developed alongside the big hitters.

I understand the points being made, but to dismiss Nintendo's consistently successful reinvention and development of Mario and Zelda seems a bit off. To miss out on games like Galaxy 1&2, Odyssey, Wonder, Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom would be a gaming tragedy.

We also never got further developments of IPs like Jak and Dexter, so we'll never know what heights they would have reached. Saying that, I always like to see studios take risks and make something new.

I think a big issue for Sony is that their studios are stuck making games with ridiculous development times, so the wait for new games has become quite painful. Meanwhile, Nintendo has kind of hit a ceiling graphically, so they can simply focus on gameplay and release more games more frequently. The rate of first party games from the two companies must be close to a ratio of 2:1 over the past five years.

One thing I will say, that by someone finally providing a genuine challenge for the platforming perch with Astro Bot, Nintendo will be pushed to up their game with the next major Mario game. I can't wait to see what they do next after seeing Asobi smash it out of the park.

The signs are not good. It'll have to offer something pretty special to overcome the negative sentiments associated with what's been sacrificed to make all these live service games. I don't like wishing things to fail, but I'm so sceptical when it comes to the basic premise of these types of games and their initial intentions.

As with Concord, nothing I've seen in the trailer for Fairgame$ suggests they're offering anything new or interesting. Why couldn't it be a single player mission based heist game with co-op, similar to Goldeneye or Perfect Dark? Maybe not completely original, but with a lot of effort put into some new ideas or mechanics would be so much more appealing. What I'm suggesting might just be Payday, I've never played it so I can't say.

In all seriousness, they're trying too hard to create an artificial zeitgeist. It simply doesn't work like that. If they really wanted to create a successful live service game they should have employed a large number of small dev teams on small budgets to create lots of live service titles with solid gameplay and foundations, then released them on steam, before investing more heavily in the ones that gain some momentum.

There's something so simultaneously arrogant and naïve about the way Sony have approached this push for a massive money maker. It's so sad that all these wonderfully talented people have wasted years of their lives making games so devoid of any creativity. It's like watching a beautiful stream come to a complete standstill and slowly turn stagnant.

They most certainly did not stick the landing.

Man, this comments section really took off!

@jrt87 orrrrrrr it'll be the single most valuable trade item when society collapses and physical video games become the main currency.

1 loaf of bread = 2 loose PS1 Destruction Derbies and a CIB Xbox 360 Halo.

@zebric21 this is absolutely going to be one of the rarest physical releases in Playstation history. I might get a copy to frame in celebration of the death of live service games.

I know live service is going nowhere in reality, but it feels like there might be a slight shift in a positive direction. It'll be the first and last live service game I invest in. There's something quite poetic in that.

@Bobobiwan "I'm really tempted to quickly get a physical copy right now.

You know, just for collector's sake.

And in twenty years, I'll sell it on Ebay and will be able to buy a new house."

...or a replica concord.

@naruball "A remaster that is almost identical to the original game, with the same issues, no effort made, costing as much as a new game would be a better example of a cash grab."

You seem to be missing my point whilst also attempting to be pedantic. That's exactly what I'm accusing this of being. Except they didn't have anything to do with the original source material they pinched all their ideas from.

@naruball they went round thinking "the kids like this don't they?" stealing left right and centre in the hope they'd make a gross ass cash cow. If that's not cynical and devoid of any creativity I don't know what is. Just cause it took them 8 years to do it makes no difference. If anything it makes it worse.

Whilst I feel sorry for the devs that had to work on this, it's probably the best thing that could have possibly happened for the industry and gaming in general.

Publishers will think twice about designing cynical cash grabs by committee going forward. It'll be especially satisfying to see Astro Bot smash it this weekend.

Looking forward to the next article:

Top Ten Concord players

1. PSXlover
2. Overwatch_killed_my_mum_27
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9. J.Ryan
10.

That's a big issue with live service games. If they bomb they essentially die completely. At least if a single player game bombs it's possible to enjoy it regardless of how well it does. There's also a chance it will become a solid legacy title or successful franchise if it's a good game.

Speaking with friends in the industry, the general consensus is that initially spending big on a live service game is a huge waste of money. It's much better practice to invest a smaller amount on developing a more simple game with solid foundations that you then build on it if it takes off. Going in with 8 years of development and investing $300m without even testing the waters first is borderline insanity.

@ShogunRok this is a valid point that still seems baffling. I wonder if anyone will ever have the audacity to release a game that rises in price as it gradually gets patched until it works properly.

@TrickyDicky99 exactly this. Sony seem to have completely forgotten the concept of loss leading games, that offer a pool of interesting titles, giving people something to pick up when they buy the console. I think dropping the smaller Japan Studio titles was a bigger mistake than anyone realises too, as it offered an extra bump of interesting titles to look out for in second hand shops and sales, inadvertently helping the industry tick over a little more, create innovation and keep people like me more invested. I barely even look at PS5 shelves when I pop into a game shop anymore.

"The PlayStation maker needs live service to bankroll its extortionately expensive single player narratives, but its core audience has utterly rejected the idea and it needs evangelists to standout in a sector already well-dominated by juggernaut brands."

A well written article, but this comment is quite ill judged. As far as I know their single player games usually, if not always, make a profit. Plus, if their major push into live service were to be successful, there's very little chance they would invest any of that money into single player story driven games. If anything it would make them spend less on the games we love. They didn't exactly put any of the billions they've made into interesting smaller titles, like the ones Japan Studio made did they, and it's not like any of those projects were high cost or risk. The more these leechy live service borefests flop, the better for the industry and us gamers in my opinion.

@HonestHick is that really true though? Admittedly, I've not bought a new PS5 game since Elden Ring, but I did borrow Spiderman 2 and Star Wars Survivor and every game I've played up to this point has at least had a performance mode that runs at 60fps. The only games I know of that are stuck at 30fps are Red Dead Redemption 2 and Bloodborne, and they're PS4 games.

It might be because I'm getting older and time is speeding up, but it feels like this generation has barely started or scratched the surface of what the console is capable of. I personally think Sony and other publishers should focus on improving games instead of chasing the diminishing returns of where tech has got to. If making games costs so much now, isn't it time everyone slowed down a bit and put time into making great games until costs become a bit more sustainable?

I'm the camp of, hang on, forget about pushing a new expensive console that provides an incremental upgrade, where are the new bleedin' games? Show me the games!

Unfortunately the industry has become like a snake eating its own tail. I would like to support Remedy, but I have so many games to play as it is and would be stupid to buy if for full price, especially when there was no physical release. It's almost like the industry need to crash in order to catch up with itself. A bit like society in general really.

The quality of the legacy dungeons and castles for multiplayer and replayability are what's important to me in their games, so seeing them really refine this in Shadow of the Erdtree bodes well for the future imo. I'm glad they seem to understand what the best parts of their games are and I hope they focus more attention on this going forward.

As much as l like the boss fights they create and design, some of the best bosses they've ever made still sit in Demon's Souls, and I'd like to see some more like the Tower Knight, Old Monk and Armor Spider in their future souls games.

So, after poo pooing PSVR2, I did the wise and logical thing everyone would do and bought one on a whim when I went to a retail park for DIY supplies. I mostly held back because PSVR made me really sick when I tried it's few years ago, but thought at this price I can try it and worst case I could return it if it still made me sick.

After an initial adjustment period, this headset doesn't make me sick at all really, and I'm happy to eat a whole heap of humble pie. Playing GT7, Resi 4, Rez, Moss and a few others, it might have salvaged this generation for me personally. It's not perfect, but it has completely rejuvenated modern gaming for me in the space of a few days. It's such a hard sell when customers can't really understand what it's all about without dropping a load of cash. Shame it looks like Sony have backed off, but with what games there are already and the fact they everything on it is completely new for me it's actually worth the price at the £330 I paid. It also helps that pretty much every game worth having for it is heavily discounted at the moment.

Long story short, I was wrong to dismiss it and I'll happily admit that. Driving in GT7 with PSVR2 and a wheel is probably worth the money alone.

If it could play all the PSVR games too it would be worth considering, but when a product's price is nearly slashed in half and I'm still not interested you know there's something amiss. It could've had the potential for a very valuable collectors piece, but there aren't even any physical copies of games to collect for it.

What games are there actually worth playing on this anyway?

It's weird how the animation makes it look like an interesting story based co-op shooter a bit like Borderlands without the annoying juvenile humour.

It's crazy to me that one person (Jim Ryan... I suppose it's not quite that simple, but it did seem like he was championing the sudden switch to mass GaaS development) was able to steer a multi billion corporation down the sh@tter, going all in and chasing a fad that's been wrung dry a long time ago whilst completely disregarding the whole customer base their success and foundations were built on. I guess the lesson here should be to never listen to any radical ideas from a person in a position of power as they approach the end of their tenure.

This debate is tired and old. Fromsoft got to this point and these sales numbers by finding a gap in the market and honing the mechanics, playstyle and difficulty to the point of great success.

As has been stated many times, there are multiple ways to make the games 'easy' by summoning other players, over levelling, discovering a bosses weakness (which is the main puzzle element of the games similar to mega man) or even cheesing the game. If people want to breeze through soulsborne games all they have to do is read guides or watch videos on how to do it. They main challenge/mechanic is working out how to make the games easier.

Not sure how feasible it is, but seems to me that smaller indie studios being bought out by massive corporations need to start putting clauses in place that allow them to walk away with their IPs if their new owners decide to shut them down.

It's starting to look more like an IP grab/competition cull at this point. Double Fine, Obsidian and Ninja Theory must be sweating buckets as they finish their current games. At least one, if not all are almost guaranteed to be shuttered within a year of their next release.

So our souls might be mended.

This basically ended up being Microsoft sitting awkwardly on a bunch of stools, reminding everyone that they couldn't make anything substantial, so they just bought half the industry in order to control it instead.

I can't imagine it actually happening, but it would be for everyone's benefit if Sony and Microsoft agreed to slow down a bit. This race to the top is bankrupting companies and putting people out of work fast. I'd really like a more sustainable approach taken in general, and for studios to focus on making great games on a more affordable budgets, a bit like Nintendo.

Maybe joining forces with hardware and focusing on software really would be the answer. The competition should be in the games being made and released and not the boxes we play them on.