Old-Red

I received my 30th anniversary Pro bundle today. It's beautiful.

As much as I love Erdtree and From Software's games, this is wrong. It shows a clear bias for a friend. If there's a From Software exclusive reveal for Geoffrey in the near future, things will look very suspect. It also seems odd to include it as it looks like a given to win now. Why include it if it's not going to win?

@Weebleman I agree with this. It's all just one big ego trip for Keighley with endless ads thrown in. There's no actual interest in celebrating the people who make the games with half the awards not even shown at all.

I picked one up in the last round of discounts, it's great. I'm tempted to get a second backup headset at this price just for the controllers.

I wish they would start with 60fps as a base, then make the graphics and resolution as good as possible at that setting.

This is annoying, as Sony will see them selling for £200 and think it's fine to charge more going forward. £100 for a disc drive is already too much really.

As others have noted, this is clearly a case of Sony not making enough and trying to force the digital narrative, that 'everyone' is buying digital now.

I think now they've released the physical version they'll be fine.

Sony really need to add a basic tier that lets you play games online for £10 a year. It's crazy I have to pay £70 a year to play games I'm already paying £50+, like Elden Ring, the way they are intended. I haven't played a ps+ game for over a year now, I have more than enough games to play.

Seriously, how did we let them get away with charging £70 a year to play games online? It's so sad.

The whole digital vs physical sales shares are completely disingenuous. They include all micro transactions, dlc, digital only releases and most likely subscription downloads.

I don't think the share is anything close to the narrative the publishers and journalists recieving free codes keep pushing.

Oooof, such a massive waste of time, effort and money.

@LN78 I know, it's insane, but allowing yourself a luxury treat when the opportunity comes up is worth it sometimes. There's also some kind of nihilistic part of me that likes the idea of using a console up for pleasure while everyone else keeps them safely boxed and locked away.

@LN78 haha, crazy as it may be, I'm going to open it and use it. I'll probably be one in a hand full of people that actually gets to enjoy it properly.

I managed to secure a 30th edition bundle, and have to admit my head has been turned by the prices being thrown about. However, I've decided to keep and enjoy it. It's not often you get to own something so rare and I think I'll get on the Pro loop from now on, so there's more games to play when I do eventually get a PS6. If this generation is anything to go by there's not much point in jumping in day 1 anymore.

I don't see how it can be anything but a B-tier monster hunter clone. There's a chance they'll smash it and come up with something new and interesting, but I'm sceptical as usual. Mind you, if they do manage to make a live service game that treats the player with respect in the way Capcom does with Monster Hunter, I might actually give it a try if it's really good.

This is mind-blowing, why hasn't anyone thought of this before? Such a good idea, Trust Kojima.

Ubisoft games are void of creativity and their unappealing approach to design and monetisation has finally caught up with them. Their games hold no value because players don't hold on to them and you can buy copies at a fraction of the price within a month or two of release. People know they can just wait and get most of their games cheap now.

It was interesting that they didn't push any of the live service games. At least this shows they are aware of the stink surrounding them.

Hitman VR looks fun, but not much there for me really. I'm burnt out on open world stuff like monster hunter and ghost of Tsushima though, so it would have taken something really special to get me going. I found GoT really repetitive, but I'm glad for people that are excited for it and MHW will be ready for me to dive into when I'm ready for another epic time sink.

Wow, just wow. So disappointment... much bland.

Sorry state of play more like... but seriously, Sony needs a win and some positivity around its brand right now. Having taken a punt on PSVR2 in the sale, and been very happy to be proven wrong and totally won over by it, some new titles to look forward to on that would go down well for me. I'd also love to see an Astro Bot Rescue Mission update too. I never got to play it on PSVR and it looks great. Maybe it's finally time for Half Life Alyx, ha, I know, no chance.

Money.

I thinks it's possible they went all in and spent a considerable amount making the cut scenes in order to be ahead of the curve. After the disastrous launch Sony probably brought in some people not connected to the project to find out what was really going on and fire some truth bullets their way. When Sony realised they'd been led down the garden path with monumental balls of wool over their eyes, they decided to cut their losses as a tax write off.

I want to know what discussions are going on behind the scenes so much. It's fascinating.

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.