Richnj

@PenguinLtd "I think governments have left it too late to stop these monopolies"

For the last 40 years, western governments have been run on Neolib principles. They actively want monoplies.

"preorder bonus"

Gonna FOMO you in to giving us money before we provide a product, and before you can get a review.

@kcarnes9051 Fortunately, we have a product for people who can't afford the new Sony products, it's called the Xbox Series S and literally any other game.

Can an 8 still be considered a masterpiece?

"The company's really been splashing the cash this year."

Making the most of that paid upgrades, £70 releases, and increased console price, cash.

@ATaco It's meant to accentuate the horror of the thing you are facing.

I'd need one smaller.

It's the only console that won't fit in to my console unit.

Still love that people think that when Sony make more money from live service and mobile games, that that money will then go towards traditional games, instead of, you know, more live service and mobile games, that makes more money.

-Sony has been "Americanising".

-Americans suck at getting trophies.

-Sony has been making plats easier to obtain.

Well this is starting to make sense.

I like trophies and achievements. It gives me extra incentive to go back to games or stick with them a little longer. Getting more out of my purchase. I've just gone back to replay Killzone HD and Resistance 3 in order to obtain their plats, and I may not have done it had I not had some arbitrary challenge unticked.

And more importantly, I enjoyed myself doing it, which is the point of games in the end.

If I was making games I'd be looking at releasing on all platforms anyway, but especially right now, if I were a Japanese dev, I'd make sure the Switch and PS4 got my games.

@Banjo- Mate, I've been cutting my own hair since the lockdowns, and I regret not doing it sooner.

I am however, unable to build my own PS consoles, but I do have other alternatives.

I'm sure both the hairdresser and Sony are happy for everyone to use the alternatives.

I'd also like to take this opportunity to reaffirm my support of cross gen games.

@Dezzy70 Ha, £50 off the Series S, or a Series S in black with a disc drive would be the only way I'm upgrading.

@naruball Sorry, I meant of the three console producers. MS, Nintendo, and Sony. Apple users are stupidly loyal.

Nintendo users are also very loyal too, but I point the fact that they do have "failures" in the industry, like the Gamecube and Wii U. The closest Sony have to that is the Vita, but that was a different market. Nintendo isn't guaranteed a certain level of success.

There was also this;

https://www.pushsquare.com/news/2020/01/playstation_fans_are_the_most_loyal_according_to_a_recent_study

@Robocod "Jim Ryan is convinced the Apple/Ninty type branding on PS will generally overcome any heat"

That is traditionally true though. The PS3 and PS5 have been their most criticised consoles, and the PS3 still did very well, and the PS5 is still doing very well.

The PS userbase is by far the most brand loyal of the three.

"Increasing production costs"

This is a laughable defense when the USA isn't getting an increase. Sony can clearly eat that cost, and continue to make most of their money through software sales. Or you know, just make the users eat that cost (during a cost of living crisis no less).

@naruball "I'm sorry, but there is no excuse for this. They keep making record profits and they used to sell consoles at a loss since 1995. What changed now?"

I'm enjoying that we finally agree on something lol.

@Beerheadgamer82 I'm sorry but "if it makes you happy, buy it" is exactly the problem that @KundaliniRising333 is talking about.

The lack of critical consumption from gamers (and in a more general sense) is what leads to some very nasty things. Hell, we had articles on these sites talking about how Ubisoft was abusing staff to make their games, then the next were about how Assassin's Creed was making more money than ever before, then about how things at Ubisoft haven't changed.

Because gamers went "yeah, that bad, but game make me happy so, abuse it is!"

Curious that Destiny 1 didn't have this problem but Destiny 2 did.

Wonder also if the vaulting of content had any affect on DLC sales (since, you know, who is going to want to buy content that might be locked away later) and that is at all related to this?.

@Beerheadgamer82 Yes, the end issue can be applied to everyone, but the lawsuit we are talking about right here has selected Sony because of their unique position in the market.

The lawyer said “We believe Sony has abused its position and ripped off its customers.”

Doing whataboutisms isn't going to change that. I have no idea no people here are going to do to themselves if the courts find in favour of the plaintiff.

@Flaming_Kaiser being a big company =/= market leader

@Beerheadgamer82 There's also 3rd party publishers who Sony have a direct relationship with.

@Beerheadgamer82 Sony, xbox, and Nintendo aren't the only ones in the gaming industry.

@Flaming_Kaiser The argument will be that because Sony is the market leader, they have the unique power to influence the entire market. And that conditions within the market are directly caused by Sony.

@Dudeman1 There's a lot to cover so I'm just going to focus on one thing "GT7".

Did GT7 not sell well? Because if it sold well, and wasn't on a subscription service, and you "don't need to spend a penny" why does it have extra microtransaction monetisation at all?

@GagaOooLaLa Well this is also why I hate professional gaming reviews and am a big advocate for trials for every game.

Players deserve to try out games they are going to buy, and games deserve a chance to be played by everyone.

@invictus4000 It is all about being woo'd by visuals. We are on about a group that doesn't think TLOU remastered is worth £16, but that TLOU pt1 is worth £70.

@Dudeman1 "I don't see how a subscription service can make that any better or limit a consumers spending"

Because a live service game doesn't require a sub service to make money. If you are making a live service game, locking it behind a $60 or $15pcm paywall is dumb. Any game that wants to succeed with a live service model (that isn't GTA) would do better by being F2P, and completely bypassing the need to be on a sub service.

We aren't looking at the same market here.

"The reality is that if you have a game that would have cost $60 at retail and now you're putting it on your $15 a month service you have to make that money up somehow"

That would be by having 100 million subscribers who might try your game instead of a max of 10 million that would pay an upfront cost that may or may not include heavily discounted prices. You are lowering the risk for people to try your game, and you could potnetially have a much larger audience and an audience who pays more long term.

Days Gone was played by like 9 million players, but it was a "failure" because it couldn't get those numbers at launch, with launch day prices. If this game had been on a sub scription service, it would have been considered a success.

"The entire music industry revenue was cut in half because no one buys music anymore."

But is music still being made?

@Dudeman1 This would be like saying that Netflix is the end to movies, once everybody stops going to the cinema.

Subscription services are actually a protection against live service games. With every company looking for ways to monetise games after release, sub services allow that without the game destroying model of live service games. They'd allow a game to just exist in it's original form but still be monestised.

I'd even go further and say subscription services could improve live service games. As it sets a spend limit to how much can be clawed from the consumers of that content. Making it pointless to fill games with endless and daily busy work to unlock pointless cosmestics. Instead, devs can focus on actual rewarding and fun content (that keeps customers subscribed) and customers can just enjoy the content instead of making it work. It would work out to be a better experience for everyone (except the greedy company executives).

It's sad to think of all the effort Bungie put in to creating the look of Destiny before it released, and this is where it's going.

"So much for the platform holder paying to keep games off the subscription, eh?"

"It raises the question: how has the Japanese giant managed to negotiate a licensing deal where it has zero control over where its product is ultimately distributed?"

I'm loving the flip flopping between "Sony isn't blocking game pass games" and "why didn't Sony make sure they could block this game going to Game Pass".

"Hideo Kojima’s genre-defying title, in which they’ll reconnect a fractured America, one step at a time"

If only connecting the fractured console fanboys were so easy.

@Neverwild "You still try to bash Sony and if you really think they blocked all big games going to gamepass then it is just sad"

I'm criticising the practice, not Sony in particular. The fact that people on these forums can't tell the difference speaks more to your fanboyism, not mine.

"No Sony cant get full exclusive on some games since they are big enough to sell good."

If they are big enough to "sell good" why does Sony still block subscription releases?

"Xbox had marketing deal on Elden ring but that is not on gamepass, how is that?"

You've essentially just said "PS had a marketing deal with RE8, but it wasn't on PSPlus, how is that?". It's not a response to my issue. Because it was a marketing deal and not a Game Pass deal? This isn't the same thing. "Did the Elden Ring marketing deal block its release on PSPlus?" That's the question you should be asking.

"You Xbox fans have said all developers want their game on gamepass"

Did I say that?. How about you talk with me and not some monolith you've built up in your mind.

@Neverwild "if you really believe it would have been on gamepass day 1then you are dreaming."

I'm not saying that, and you're missing the point. Clearly Sony is concerned about it, or they wouldn't have started to include this section in to their deals. They have singled out subscription services in their marketing deals to undermine those subscription platforms.

If Sony wanted full platform timed exclusivity, they could have done that, but they didn't.

"Big third party games dont go on streamin service day 1.

Which big third party gsmes has been on gamepass day 1?"

But is that because big third party games just don't do Game Pass day 1?, or is it because Sony has a lot of marketing deals with big third party titles because Sony is the market leader and can do that?. We won't know.

'big third games don't do game pass day 1, therefore it's ok for Sony to prevent big third party titles from being game pass day 1'. It's self fullfilling logic.

"a notion that’s already misleading, as the Redmond firm is really referring to bog-standard marketing deals"

How can this be true.

Game Pass only launched like 5 years ago. So either the "don't launch on a competitor's subscription service" is rather new to marketing deals, or, what?, that was always part of the deals, even before the sub services were a thing?

Or are you refering to launching on a competitor's platform?, in which case, how does a game like RE8 launch on xbox even though it was part of a marketing deal that prevented a Game Pass release?

What do we call that "everything but Game Pass exclusive"?

What gets me about Embracer is there doesn't seem to be a strategy beyond "buy everything we can get our hands on".

@naruball "I'd say the premium tier may one day be worth it"

Right, but one day, not today. People who are going in fresh, or have the sub end soon will be putting down money now. How do we rationalise telling people to pay today for content (maybe) tomorrow?.

"Just not for me."

This is the reasonable opinion. You are making an assessment based on what you want. But I'm pretty sure that anyone criticising Premium right now are doing the same. They are making an assessment of the value of the service based on their desires/needs, and finding it lacking, and I don't think it's fair to tell undermine their assessment.

Because honestly, these people are the ones paying the most money to the service. They need to be catered to just as much, if not more, than the other tiers. If Sony doesn't make that tier worthwhile, people will leave (along side those, like yourself, who are leaving regardless) which could further hamper the tier because no one is subbed to it.

I don't know, maybe we'll get months where only premium is updated. It would be interesting to see how that would go over with Extra or Essential subs.

@Shepherd_Tallon "give it a chance", "I might stick with extra"

If you really believed in "give it a chance" you'd go for the premium subscription.

By going for Extra you are conceding the criticism. That Premium, as it stands, is not worth the money it is asking.

Seems odd to tell others to stick it out (pay the money towards the top tier) when you won't.

"the Dead Space-inspired title"

It's more of a spiritual sequel, since Schofield created Dead Space.

I mean, trials should be standard in all games and available to all, but to offer less than an hour (less than advertised no less) to people who pay top dollar is beyond a joke.

@Bleachedsmiles Yeah, the Nemesis (WB Games) and the Insanity (Nintendo) systems were the two I knew about, and that get any acknowledgement.

There's also Bluehole's attempt at copyrighting the Battle Royale genre.

But until you, I hadn't heard bout Sony and Death Stranding's mechanic. It really should have been covered here.

@Bleachedsmiles "Sony now owns the patent to 'stranding' gameplay"

I can't believe that corporations still do this. All of Sony's big franchises borrow heavily from other games, and they have the nerve to patent game mechanics.

Remember that this comes off the back of the news that Sony are paying devs to keep their games off of Game Pass.

Like I said, Sony are spending money to make both Game Pass and PS Plus worse.

@Dudeman1 "MS horrible industry practices of consolidating the industry by buying out 3rd party"

Industry consolidation is always happening. It's not unique to MS. Embracer group bought up Deep Silver and THQ, EA bought up Codemasters, Square and Enix merged to become Square Enix, Bandai Namco was created by the merger of, you guessed it, Namco and Bandai. Other publishers hit hard times and either sold off (Midway to WB), went bankrupt (Acclaim), or exist in name only (Atari).

The only thing unique to MS in this regard is that they are a platform holder.

"So Halo going from a full price game packaged with tons of multiplayer content to a free 2 play game that launched with 4 maps and barely any modes but plenty of cash shop items isn't indicative of their push to subscription based content?"

No, Halo 5 launched in a similar state. It was extremely bare in content and features, but featured plenty of micros. Halo Infinite MP going F2P was because of Halo 5's failure to attract an audience.

MS had already commited to the nasty microtransaction route and was messing up Halo prior to GP. These aren't related issues.

The PS4 itself deserved the sales. It was good hardware and good software.

Still, 50+ million units for Xbox is still good. And it never really affected 3rd party support.

I also don't expect the actual console sales to suddenly flip. The Xbox Platform is bigger than the consoles themselves this gen. So trying to directly compare consoles sales won't tell you the health of a platform anymore.

@Bleachedsmiles Poor devs live on the street now. Like the Stray cats they once made a game about.

@Flaming_Kaiser Obviously the idividual artist copied the work to present to his bosses, and the bosses had no idea where it came from. Then the bosses approved the work and the company published it.

The individual artist and the work they produce still respresents Activision. Therefore, Activision stole the art work.

I don't know if the guys above see Acti has a separate entity as its workers or what.

@Grimwood What do you think happened?

Ok Y'all, I stayed up too late because of this comment section. I'm leaving you with this.

'Microsoft explains: "Considering that exclusivity strategies have been at the core of Sony's strategy to strengthen its presence in the games industry, and that Sony is a leader in the distribution of digital games, Sony's concern with possible exclusivity of Activision's content is incoherent, to say the least."'

To everyone angry at MS for being "hypocrites" and all that, you need to read and understand what you read before getting angry. MS is ok with paying for exclusives. Of course they do it. They do and are happy to do it. They were, at not point, saying that it was bad of Sony to do. They were saying that it's hypocritical of Sony (the market leader) to complain about someone paying to make content exclusive, when that's exactly what Sony does.

They were just responding to Sony's comments.

The real question is: Are you ok with Sony throwing money about to hurt a rival service, instead of just using that money to add to the service Sony provides to you?

@Tharsman And we have to be honest, even if Sony thought Game Pass was the best value service on the planet, they wouldn't say it publicly. Their market share and stock price would plummet.

@UltimateOtaku91 I think there's a big difference between buying a company with the intent to fund and run its business, and just paying companies, who don't even need your money, to block them from releasing on a competing service.

Activision are scum, through and through. Capcom and SE are greedy too. I'd let Bethesda off a little since they were smaller, and they did deals for brand new and risky IPs. Sony could take that hit better than Bethy.

There's a difference between a dev who needs that money to be able to make that game, and Acti taking money for COD of all things.

@AdamNovice Kinda like Stalker 2, I'm not sure Titanfall or Rise of the Tomb Raider would have been made without MS.

Titanfall ran out of funds, and EA looked for a partner, and after Sony ignored them, MS picked it up.

https://www.pcinvasion.com/sony-is-the-reason-titanfall-is-a-microsoft-exclusive/

And not everyone at SE was happy with the new direction and if it wasn't for MS' support of the first and second game, the trilogy may not have been made at all.

https://www.polygon.com/2015/8/5/9104411/rise-of-the-tomb-raider-xbox-exclusive-microsoft-support-square-enix

These are a far cry from Sony paying a well funded and absolute guarantee like COD from appearing on a streaming service to protect their wallets.