Old-Red

@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
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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.

It says a lot that a large majority of these games/IPs were multiplatform games that Microsoft took away from other platforms, whilst generally overseeing a decline to most of the studios they poached. They really have added very little to the industry on the whole.

Microsoft bringing games back to PlayStation after going to much effort to take them away means little to me personally.

I think that if both Sony and Microsoft put half the money, time and effort they've wasted on all this noise during this generation into making good video games instead, we'd have a hell of a lot more good video games to play.

What with Sony wasting a crazy amount of time on a load of live service games nobody asked for and Microsoft crashing about the industry like a bull in a china shop, whilst adding absolutely nothing, it feels like both companies have lost the plot.

Roller drone is superb, glad it's going to get a bump in traffic and more recognition.

@ChrisDeku ha, worth it.

@ChrisDeku there's a slight irony here where you've become the arrogant commentor smugly belittling others for having an opinion whilst saying nothing of use and wasting their own and everyone's else's time in the comments section... so, check I guess haha.

Sad truth is these games will be the first to go independent of platforms and be playable straight from TVs eventually, leaving a huge whole in the market. This will accelerate the end of platforms as we know it, which was inevitable I suppose, once game streaming reaches an acceptable level anyway.

I'm sure there will always be passionate studios and designers that will continue making interesting games. I just hope they manage to get enough exposure when they make something fun.

This is pretty funny to be fair, if not embarrassing. They might have well just given it best Spiderman game of the year.

@Titntin I was talking more about the actual content of the games themselves. Yes they are sequels, but they have all brought in new ideas, mechanics and creativity. Spiderman 2 is the exact same game I've played twice already and that's all Sony had offered this year. My issue isn't with sequels, it's with creativity and I don't see Sony making any genuine GOTYs any time soon with their current strategy.

Don't get me wrong, I'm enjoying Spiderman 2 (mostly cause i didn't pay for it), but if it costs that much time, money and effort to make something so similar to the last two they're focusing on on the wrong elements in my opinion.

@ChrisDeku I suppose I didn't want to let Sony and Microsoft off the hook for generally doing more damage than good for the industry in what has been one of the most amazing years for games ever. A lot of people have lost their jobs in 2023 due to greed and mismanagement.

In the spirit of the actual topic I'd say my top PlayStation games this year have been:

1: Armoured Core 6
2: Resident Evil 4 Remake
3: Spiderman 2
4: Final Fantasy 16
5: Jedi Star Wars: survivor

I haven't got round to Baldur's Gate 3 or Alan Wake 2 as I'm waiting for the physical releases next year and finding the time to actually play them.

@ChrisDeku you make some valid points, but it doesn't change that fact that I feel like I've got so much more from a console on its last legs than one that should be at its peak and in full flow.

I'm not a Sony hater, I'm just disappointed with how complacent they've become whilst chasing the live service trend that no one asked for. Both Zelda and Mario have so many new ideas and such creativity that dismissing then as retreads isn't really fair.

As for Warioware, it's not a game I'm personally interested in, but I'm glad it exists and they still release something different from the rest of the market. I'm sure I'll pick it up for cheap one day and get a few hours of fun out of it with a few mates and some beers down the line.

@naruball "Pretty sure Sony is far from embarrassed considering that it's dominating the market."

This is precisely my point, they should be. The fact that they feel like they're doing it right whilst laying off so many people across their studios is upsetting.

"Both brilliant games that hardly anyone played. Not sure what "would have gone a long way" refers to. At the end of day, other than a few hardcore gamers, everyone else couldn't care less about them (unfortunately)."

They would have gone a long way to actually adding something back to the industry whilst creating more jobs and raising their reputation for experimenting with some low risk new ideas. It's not all about realistic looking retreads of the same tired blockbusters.

Armoured Core is probably the best game I've played on the ps5 this year. I borrowed Spiderman 2 from a mate and started it yesterday. It's fun, but nothing special, more of the same really. Sony should be pretty embarrassed about their output this year, as should Microsoft. Nintendo has wiped the floor with both of them. The sheer amount of quality games on the switch has be staggering.

The switch has had:

Fire Emblem Engage
Metroid Prime Remastered
Pikmin 4
Bayonetta Origins: Cereza Bayo Spin off
Advance Wars 1&2 remake
Warioware: Move it
A load of new Mario Kart dlc
Xenoblade 3 dlc
Zelda Tears of the Kingdom
Mario Wonder
Mario RPG remake

I'm probably missing a few others too. It makes you wonder what the others are doing. How can they mismanage their studios so badly while another can release so many good games in one year? The decision to close Japan Studio by Sony was so unbelievably short sighted. A couple of games like Puppeteer or Gravity Rush would have gone a long way.

Hopefully this will make publishers think twice about the stupid current trend of announcements for announcements. I sympathise with those involved, but why not just release the trailer as the announcement?

I wonder if any of those studios secretly regret selling out to Microsoft now. Not much point in security if there's no one to play your games. I'm kind of glad to see Xbox's underhand tactics not working as planned, but total domination from Sony would also be an unfortunate outcome.

Honestly, if I was Sony, I'd take Call of Duty off Playstation completly to negate the Activision buyout, and provide an alternative. A bold move, but maybe the best one in the long run, and a massive eff-u to Microsoft. If Sony don't have Bungie working on an exclusive COD replacement then they're doing it wrong.

The major shift for me is that I now play a lot more of my physical collection and buy far fewer games than I used to in general because of the digital shift, so I imagine this is also affecting physical sales if other physical collectors are similar to me.

I still buy Nintendo published games on release, as I know that the game will at least be playable as physical media in the future and generally release in a good state. However, with PlayStation games in general and especially digital only releases like Alan Wake 2 and Balder's Gate 3 I just think I'll wait until I actually want to play it. This also means I get the games cheaper and patched in a better state, ideally as a physical game of the year edition.

I do wonder if I'm a complete outlier in this regard as well as a gaming fossil fogey. Either way, it's becoming clear that game players / collectors like me are on the way out. At least I'll finally get to see if I was right about prices of physical games going through the roof when the publishers start gouging us after they finally get complete control over game prices.

I think the lack of 6 being mentioned and the next grand theft auto instead seems to suggest they might drop the numbering system.

They could probably get away with simply calling it Grand Theft Auto and establishing it as a platform going forward, similar to Fortnite.

I am looking forward to it though, Rockstar usually release their games in a solid playable state and an excellent game to play.

Online play really needs to be made free again. At the very least, there should be a £10 a year option for online only. The whole subscription service thing has gone sour.

Nintendo employees help them make great games and massive profits > increases pay across the board. There's a reason they are so successful in the long term and continue to put out games of such high quality. All with games that still cost under £50 new. Just saying.

Nintendo aren't saints, and admittedly their stance on unions and contract workers is shady, but at least they mostly realise that the people they employ and their customers are human beings and not simply resources to milk and exploit.

I'm happy for them to just continue making new IPs with slight development/tweaks on the soulsborne formula. FromSoftware have positioned themselves in the envious situation where the studio making the game is enough to build hype.

I completely forgot they raised the price of the base sub. It's infuriating that online play is still locked behind the subscription. With no interest in 90% of the ps+ games, I wish I could drop it all completely, and probably will if I can't find any year subs for under £40 next time mine runs out.

No game is worth £70, even £50 is pushing it. I've completely stopped buying PS5 games on launch now. I wonder if the price hike was worth it in the end. One benefit of it being so short is that I'll be able to play it for free in a week or so thanks to being able to borrow a physical copy.

I especially like all the people on the media side of the industry larking on about how wonderful digital is and how unbelievable it is that people still buy physical games. Must be nice to get all those free game codes whilst helping to push up the price for the rest of us. Thanks for that xxx

@__jamiie @HonestHick I can't wait for the follow up to Achievements and the next thrilling installment of Friends List. Also looking forward to the dlc expansion for Adverts on my Dashboard. I think both of you have done a stellar job of taking a moment to consider how little Microsoft have actually added to the video game industry. Thank you xxx

Can we all just take a moment to consider how little Microsoft have actually added to the video game industry...

I'll borrow it off a friend in the Xmas break. I don't really buy PS5 games on release anymore, if at all. I can't actually remember the last one I bought on release... Ratchet and Clank maybe. The £70 price hike killed all the hype I had. Just made me feel like a mug when I booted up a game after paying that much.

@ShogunRok is there a way to change the text colour/style? It messed with my eyes big time when I played it before, to the point where I stopped reading anything. It had this weird burn-in effect that I've never had with any other game.

It's by far the most disappointing Sony exclusive this generation imo, and the only one I didn't finish. Different strokes I guess.

Maybe Aloy's constant repetition of "I'll save this for later." Had a subconscious effect, outside of driving me nuts.

I'm surprised how much I like it. I was expecting a solid 7 possibly 8, but it's an easy 9 for me. It rewards repeated plays on missions and feels great when you start tearing through levels and bosses like a knife through butter. If Zelda wasn't so epic it would probably be my goty.

Exciting. It genuinely looks awesome. I've chosen to go for this instead of Baldour's Gate 3 for now. It'll be nice to play something a bit different with a fresh gameplay loop. I'm a bit burnt out on massive RPG style games, so this has come along at just the right time for me.

Cool, I'm waiting for a physical version, so it's good to know they'll at least be an Asian version. They usually work internationally, here's hoping.

Knowing Lariat I'm expecting them to wait to be satisfied and the game fully patched before a western physical release. Maybe even limited run.