Porco

incredible work. goes to show that when there is a will, there is a way. sony had no will with the recently released ps5 sku. none whatsoever. here's hoping a real ps5 slim releases by the end of the console cycle... a footprint the size of the series s is clearly viable and possible for sony to achieve.

well, he is right in the sense that we have no choice over the future of gaming and what it brings. it is already headed in one direction and nothing can be done to stop it as the majority of the market has already voted and is fully onboard with the digital ecosystem (according to the data). the big retailers are pulling out of physical media. the big 3 of the gaming industry have been colluding with publishers to make the digital-only future a reality in order to benefit their bottom lines and have full control over game prices and availability. it would surprise me if the ps6 has physical media for it all things considered. for the record, i don't like this future but it is an inevitability. you will have to take matters into your own hands if you care about game preservation (via emulation or modding consoles). i'm good up until the ps4 era on that front.

@nomither6 i'm sure those server farms, of which all digital platforms rely on, aren't burning through excessive amounts of electricity to function

@BranJ0 that is an easy decision. metaphor by a landslide for the simple reason that it is a new property (from the former persona team) that brings new ideas to the table. the past 3 persona entries, while good, are derivitive and suffer from a lack of new ideas. hopefully persona 6 will take things in a new direction. but hey, that is just my opinion

@LordAinsley i mean... there have been 10 ace attorney games. the fans have been eating well over the years. i would assume a new entry is in development to follow-up with all the remakes/remasters, though.

this remake looks pretty good but i wouldn't spend more than $20 or make it a priority when i have already beaten the original, not to mention how similar an experience it is to persona 4 and 5. persona fatigue is real.

also, i think it is a shame that persona 1 and 2, but especially 2, continues to be forgotten and neglected. i would 1000% choose a persona 2 remake over persona 3 since it is in dire need of one and arguably a far more unique experience as compared to the latter persona trilogy that brought the series to the mainstream. hopefully it will be next on the list.

this is the type of game that i can see being free after a few months anyways. no publisher has any business charging for competitive service games if they want a chance at success. if this is one of the reasons ps+ got a price hike, i'm not impressed. game iteself looks like a "poor man's splatoon" but could be passable fun for non-switch owners.

@BigJoze perhaps it will get cancelled over this dispute?

based on all those predictions, it looks like a boring and dire year for ps5 and the AAA industry at large.

a few predictions of my own:

• rocksteady is shut down due to the dumpster fire that is suicide squad in addition to the 9 years of mismanagement at the studio since releasing arkham knight. a once great studio is no more. wb eventually finalizes a deal to sell off its remaining studios and get out of the gaming industry. all future games with wb properties will be lisenced out to various studios similarly to how disney manages it's IP in the gaming space. it is not long before a new "traditional" batman game is announced and the fans go wild.
• sony announces the cancellation of many service games due to a fundamental shift of upper management after ryan's depature as well as project mismanagement. hundreds of millions of dollars is lost but hundreds of millions of dollars is saved from a future where the games release after a full development cycle and fail. as a result of a weak showing of 1st party studios, very soft sales of psvr2 and ps portal, and more people dropping their ps+ subscriptions, playstation will post its lowest annual revenue of the past 5-10 years.
• silent hill 2 and mgs 3 remakes turn out medicore in all respects and garner 6 or low 7s on metacritic. puts a damper on anything else coming out of konami. so much for its revivial.
• eiyuden chronicle: hundred heroes releases and is a big hit. suikoden 1/2 HD/remake releases soon therafter and is a broken mess, further enforcing the mockery that is konami.
• the most talked about games of 2024 end up being DLC/expansions to already released games. baldurs gate 3 and elden ring DLC/expansions are a big success and will shape the future of the industry with more developers opting for expansions rather than sequels as a cost saving measure to unsustainable development costs.
• the 11 year old ps4 has it's last respectable year before waving the white flag with releases such as like a dragon - infinite wealth, granblue fantasy: relink, unicorn overloard and metaphor. metaphor in particular will cause a stirr amongst jrpg fans and be the beginning of a successful, new IP for atlus.

@Northern_munkey being in the middle of this console cycle, developers are likely considering ps6 specs knowing that their game will take 4+ years to develop. keep in mind that cyberpunk was originally announced in 2012, even before the ps4 released and we all know how that port turned out. they need to be less ambitious on the tech side of things and project manage better if there is any hope of the sequel running well on ps5. hopefully they learned something.

it's crazy how quickly this game went from highly anticipated to doomed and dead on arrival. i think it has passed the point of no return — good or bad, it will fail due to the negative perception that the game has generated (mostly warranted). i'm just waiting for the inevitable announcement of rocksteady being shuttered at this point. the writing is on the wall.

it will be too ambitious for even the ps5 pro. skip the ps5 this time and focus on the ps6 unless you want another dumpster fire launch haha.

yup, those top 10 mobile games are the exception, not the rule. sony will not make that list and will fail like clockwork. why aren't we talking about the other 99% of mobile games that fail? there are literally dozens of service games that launch and shut down within a few months or a year. what makes sony immune to this type of failure? the odds are far greater that sony fails than succeeds in the mobile space. it doesn't take a genius to know that.

she is too feminine for the role of abby. this is a miscast.

i'm a fan of the games. very odd choice of making a movie for a dead franchise, though, unless they have plans of a third game? without studio japan, i don't see how that can happen. that said, i'm curious to see how it turns out. it would do well as an anime more so than live action.

@Oli-Wasp i hope you enjoy the games but i truly believe most interest for this collection is purely based on nostalgia and not on the experiences themselves, outside of the most hardcore fans. it takes a special gamer to overcome and tolerate the frustrating controls and obtuse level design/puzzles of these "classic" games. i'm a retro gamer myself but i find it all to be a tall order. by comparison, tomb raider legend and anniversary are far better and more "enjoyable" games.

aspyr's involvement does not give much confidence. this collection will likely suck and be broken. let us be honest as well... how many people are actually going to play through these terrible games again? they were pretty bad even upon their release 20+ years ago. innovative and influential, yes. but they never played well and have aged wretchedly. enjoy it nontheless because it is the last tomb raider project we are getting for a very long time now that the IP is in shambles.

@JeongersGaming they absolutely do not still work there. most of the staff left with kojima years ago. how else do you explain no games coming out of konami internal studios since metal gear survive in 2018? (leftover remnents from mgs v who have since left the company). i thought this was common knowledge by now? you should greatly lower your expectations

@JeongersGaming very hot take because there is literally nobody left at konami who understands how to make a game, let alone a mgs game, hence why everything they do is outsourced (with the exception of soccer games). a better question would be: what developer would be able to make a new mgs game? i don't think there are many up to the task.

after the mgs 3 remake, nobody will want another remake from konami

@ArashiKageTaro the only source you need is the jenk gameplay trailer and knowing what konami has stood for the past decade or so. we also know the third rate developers they hired for their remakes. by all means get hyped, though haha.

@PixelDragon i don't really understand your question. is that a commentary on my post or did you pose a random question to me? as for resident evil 2 remake, i thought it was well done from a production standpoint. no issues there. that said, claire and leon path's were essentially the exact same so it was a missed opportunity to "remix" the experiences and make them more unique. i thought it was immersion breaking that various doors would be locked even on the second playthrough.

they are going to be 6/7 out of 10 experiences. remaking legendary games is far more difficult than it sounds. konami clearly cut corners with the budget, so better to check expectations at the door with these.

i'll enjoy it on ps4 just as soon as i get through yakuza 3-7 haha... so in 3 years or so.

it is going to be dead on arrival. horizon forbidden west only sold 8m copies and was a disaster for sony as compared to the first entry that went on to sell 24m copies. forbidden west will be lucky if it hits 15m copies at the end of its sales cycle. the ip is not growing to sony's expectations and the franchise is already in decline. not every franchise needs or is worthy of 3, 4, 5 sequels. time for guerilla to tackle a new ip.

i think many of the readers on here are too young to know what a good year in gaming used to look like. 2001 was a killer year for gaming and puts 2023 to shame.
some standouts:

Final Fantasy X
Ico
Silent Hill 2
Grand Theft Auto III
Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty
Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec
Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy
Devil May Cry
SSX Tricky
Advance Wars
The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages
The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons
Super Smash Bros. Melee
Golden Sun
Castlevania: Circle of the Moon
Klonoa 2: Lunatea's Veil
Max Payne
Halo: Combat Evolved
Shenmue II
Pikmin
Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies

i mean, why are we doing even having this conversation? this narrative screams recency bias.

first of all, the article does not make note of the hacker being on the spectrum which gives a little more context to his behaviour. knowing that he is autistic is an important thing to note here.

i don't condone what this person did, but ultimately we are talking about a leak of a video game here, not a secret list of ingredients that will destroy the world. a game, mind you, that will succeed one way or another, whichever way you want to slice it and under literally any cirmstance. the leak did no damage whateosever to the porduct at the end of the day. rest assured, precious rockstar games and take2 will make their billions of dollars in revenue and all will be okay in the world.

@Dominator2885 yea the retrotink 5x and 4k are entirely different products. the 4k has hdmi input which means it can upscale ps3 and ps4 games to 4k resolution, in addition to all the older consoles.

appreciate the release calendar. the ps4 still has a couple years left in the tank. long live the ps4!

they turned a collection of decades-old games into gaas for fixes and patches haha. maybe by 2025 they will have completed development on these shoddy ports and they will play as intended? by then the price will have dropped to $20. what a fail in a long list of failures for konami.

i feel so sorry for those who are new to ff7 and will have such a memorable moment ruined for them. nomura has no business talking about that scene prior to release which has only incited internet chatter and spoilers. i suppose ff7 and its impact wouldn't have been possible in the internet age because people cannot help themselves.

@UltimateOtaku91 depends on one's definition of lackluster. within this context i view the word as: by the numbers, safe, predictable, uninspired, business as usual, void of creativity, boring... take your pick. yes, insomniac has been and will continue to be a boring studio with nothing but marvel properties through until the next decade. if you call that innovative and exciting, all the power to you.

@SarcasticPeanut absolutely. if we can assume that the ps5 pro will mark the middle of the ps5 cycle (at 4 years), then the ps6 would be expected to release in november of 2028. the new ratchet and clank may be an early ps6 release.

@Gunnerzaurus agree with your first point. that said, maybe gaming publishers should be a little bit more transparent and communicate more with the fans going forward instead of taking the cold, stonewalled approach. i feel like some of the intent behind this leak was to spite sony for its way of doing business of late. also, gaging public insterest long in advance of implementing future plans could possibly make for better business decisions. s-e and other japanese publishers routinely make surveys for the fans which can sometimes result in a project being greenlit. it is up for debate whether or not turning insomniac games into what is essentially a marvel studio is going to work out for sony in the end. i believe new ip within the next couple years is of far greater importance and priority for the health of sony internal studios.

@ED_209 certainly i can see a day where your standard AAA release goes from 10-12 hours in length at $70usd to 5-6 hours in length at $50usd. in fact, if the leak comes to fruition, spiderman 3 may be broken up into 2 seperate releases, each at $50 a pop instead of one game at $70. this new business model may be more sustainable for sony going forward (and all publishers in the AAA space in general), unless they find other ways to cut costs and be more efficient with the development cycle.

new ip absolutely needs to be a focal point for sony going forward as many of us are expecing more than uninspired sequels, remakes and superhero games.

@KundaliniRising333 i did see that and it is absolutely insane. i do wonder how many hardware sales have been attributed to spiderman to agree to such an agreement with marvel/disney. the superhero genre does not seem sustainable as fatigue has been kicking in for a while now.

@Ralizah i think sony is going to lose a decent portion of its userbase to nintendo over the next 10 years if the projections are as bad as they appear to be.

@Gunnerzaurus what does it matter if pushsquare publishes any of the details? insomniac has a pretty lackluster release schedule ahead as does sony studios on the whole and nothing is going to change that.

@KundaliniRising333 agreed. and the royalties that marvel is owed for these releases is much higher than i expected as well.
9-18% of digital sales and 19-26% of physical sales go back to marvel, making profitability that much more difficult. i think people are starving for some new properties and ideas. there isn't much to look forward to it seems.

@GamingFan4Lyf you forgot to mention the disaster that was gotham knights and the disaster to be suicide squad. you are 100% correct that there is a downward trajectory as it relates to marvel ip and the superhero genre on the whole (including wb), mostly due to fatigue and lack of creativity.

to be honest, it is a pretty standard lineup of games from insomniac. no real surprises there other than the fact insomniac has essentially become the new disney of the gaming space. i think it is a very sad trend for playstation studios to be playing it this safe. all that is left from sony as a whole is more sequels and gaas projects for the next 5-10 years. this stinks!

@Hundred_Hand_Slap i doubt sony puts that much faith on a failing studio like bungie to call the shots. the game was mismanaged for 5 years. knowing how much power druckmann has at the studio, i'm surprised he isn't getting the bulk of the blame here.

well, i hope we don't need to hear about ex naughty dog employees praising their cancelled game for the next 5 years. this to me sounds more like damage control to preserve the studios image or a way of expressing their discontent over what sony did to their precious game. in either case, i doubt the rug was pulled from under their feet and druckmann had his part to play in all this.

i think the average sony fan was sick and tired of hearing about this project for so long without even as much as a trailer to show for it. move on naughty dog and get your **** in order. you are slipping as a studio and need to earn our trust back. unfortunately, the last of us 3 won't cut it. naughty dog absolutely needs to hit a home run with a new IP before the ps5 cycle comes to a close.

@EfYI i believe we are coming at this from very different perspectives. as is the case with every console i purchase, it should give me numerous reasons to do so. simply put, sony has failed in selling me on a ps5 thus far for a myriad of reasons. resolution and frame rate boosts with cross gen or ps4 games are nice to have but not a be all factor in my buying decision. ps5 has been a disaster so far in the areas that more people should care about — innovation and new experiences. it has been nothing but remakes and sequels, many of which have become stale in their game design. this card was already played with the ps4 and i'm over it. i can only count on one hand the games that were designed specifically to take advantage of the ps5 hardware. that is a failure by any metric, but especially when you consider the fact that we are going into year 4 of the console. this is a problem attributed to the AAA industry as a whole to be clear, but sony can and should focus on new IP already. the news about its gaas plans only makes this situation that much worse. i don't see a bright future for the platform unless things get shaken up with new management and they pivot hard in the opposite direction. remains to be seen.

i play games from all eras including: nes/snes/genesis/ps1/ps2/ps3/ps4/psp/vita/gba/ds/3ds and modern indie games of all types. obviously, graphics do not matter to me. the quality of the games do. i already have a backlog of hundreds of games that can keep me busy for many years.

so yea... ps5 console exclusives are in low supply. the ps5 console exclusives that we do have are not "must-plays" for me personally. the future of the ps5 does not look bright. i'm having a good time going through my ps4 backlog which will include many new releases such as metaphor next year (i think 3rd parties will be supporting the ps4 for another three or four years at this rate). the price point is a problem considering we are going into year 4 and sony is using cheaper components. the slim warranted a decent price drop. i won't vote with my wallet all things considered.

great to hear.

the completionist sounds like a true scumbag who cheated his own fans for a decade, using the sympathy of his deceased mother to bring in the donations. despicable stuff. just to be clear, ign did not break this story — it was a youtuber who goes by the name of Karl Jobst. search his name for the videos that document the situation in its entirety and in great detail. the completionists' youtube career is likely over now.

@EfYI you sound more like a tech enthusiast than an actual gamer.

if we are being honest, sony has done very little the past 3 years to earn the top spot by such a landslide.

@JeongersGaming no splitting would be necessary. ps5 and ps4 games would natively run on the device, just at lower resolutions, framerates etc. similar to pc games running on the steamdeck.

@andrewsqual in the article, the series x/s were grouped together and ahead of the portal. so the order would likely be: ps5, series x, series s, switch, followed by the portal far, far, FAR behind. this was an article about nothing. we don't even know if the steamdeck was factored into this data. i wouldn't be surprised if the steamdeck outsold the portal in its sleep.