As much as I really enjoyed Hogwarts Legacy and as much as I detest online live-service games in general, a Harry Potter universe open world online game sounds pretty awesome.
@BeerIsAwesome That’s a great contrasting observation — Suicide Squad and Skull & Bones vs. Helldivers 2. All three have been in development for an age, but vastly different budgets. The jury is still out on the long tails of each of these, but the first few weeks seem like no comparison. I’m not sure why, since I’ve played none of them and probably won’t as the online service arena is not my bag, but from the outside it seems like gamers want fresh ideas. Not that Helldivers is completely fresh — it is a sequel after all, but is a reimagining and just doesn’t feel like a setting that has been beat to death (superhero DC/ Marvel, and pirate seafaring, respectively). I guess alien Sci-fi shooters are a dime a dozen too, but HD2 seems to take a novel approach.
@Intr1n5ic It’s been suggested that Forspoken and maybe even Foamstars were part of a package deal with Sony for the rights to FF7 Remake/Rebirth and FF16 exclusivity. Like, “if you want FF then you have to also take these other games over here that we’re less confident in…”
@Drago201 Yes, every now and then I look at my spam folder and it’s just a total mess of garbage. But the scammers methods are getting better that they can get past some of the filtering protocols.
I’m with you - I block those numbers and then “delete and report as spam” but they just keep coming. Also, about 80% of the phone calls I get are marketing or scammers. If they aren’t on my contact list, I don’t answer. I always regret it if I do.
I don’t know what society needs to do to clean this hogwash up. Imagine how bad hackers and scammers will be 10-20 years from now. They seem to constantly staying one step ahead of the cybersecurity world. See Insomniac hack as evidence of that. Probably some poor employee clicked a link and that’s all it takes.
This looks pretty egregious, but unfortunately is something that happens A LOT. I get scam emails and text messages posing as everyone from AT&T to Amazon. Wanting me to click a link about a recent purchase or bill. It drives me crazy. Most of the scammers are easy to spot because of spelling errors, weird invoice numbers, strange formatting, etc. but I hate that this is the world we live in now where we have to constantly assume every online purchase or interaction is a scam until proven otherwise.
It strange how we just had all these articles about layoffs and the rising cost of games and a bunch of users were coming out saying we focus too much on graphics and performance and that developers need to just make fun games and not worry so much about fidelity and all the costly parts of development… and then those same people come out and blast a game because some of the textures are blurry. No wonder developers are flailing around having to cancel projects because they don’t really know what people want. Some players don’t even know themselves what they want.
Another solid month. Sifu is the real star of the lineup for me, but actually it’s nice to have the F1 and Witch Queen just as something else on the back burner.
Great article, Sammy. It really outlines the state of affairs and puts things into perspective.
Unfortunately people are usually the greatest expense, and so lay-offs are the way these companies trim the fat when poor executive level decisions have been made like overestimating revenues, investing in failed projects and ideas, and chasing trends that are too little, too late.
There’s a lot of classic “survivor bias fallacy” going on that affected their development plans, ie. success of an idea cloaks the similar multiple failures of that idea. So, for every Genshin Impact and Fortnite that we see, there’s dozens that fail miserably. And as someone said above, there’s only so many players and so many hours in the day. Their game development plans had projects that were set to cannibalize each other. Thankfully they discovered that and shut down some of these projects but wasted a lot of time, resources, and good-will in the process.
@Max_the_German @bpomber @Pat_trick The Pure XBox review which has been up for over a year doesn’t have a single comment complaining that “may not be for everyone” is a bullet point on the negative side. I suspect the outcry here is overcompensating to try to seem like we aren’t picking on an XBox studios game on a PS site. But in reality, the XBox review says the same thing.
@PsBoxSwitchOwner The Pure XBox review also had “Starts off slowly, absolutely takes it time in conversations and may not be for everyone” in its ‘Cons’ summary too. So I don’t think this was a PlayStation site specific comment. https://www.purexbox.com/reviews/xbox-series-x/pentiment
@breakneck That’s interesting. (I hadn’t read much of the leak info) I guess I’m not surprised. There’s definitely a difference between total unit sales and profitability. Like movies, games make their money mostly on launch success. Nevertheless, I think any sales that Bloodborne could garner at this point would be icing on the cake. The investment for creating a PS5 patch is likely pretty low, I’d suspect, even if potential sales at a $20 price point wouldn’t make much money.
But like others have said, the flip-side is that a PS5 patch likely cannibalizes potential remaster sales for later.
As others have said, I’d prefer just a PS5 patch, like what was done for God of War, Days Gone, and The Last of Us Part II (before the recent remaster). Just a few little performance optimizations like increase in frame rate and that would be enough for me to play it again. I do think that might be enough to sell a few more copies on PS5 since so much time has passed, although it wouldn’t sell enormous numbers like a full remaster with PC port would. But I might buy the DLC if they did the PS5 patch, so perhaps there some money to be made from it. I never got around to The Old Hunters and a 60 fps patch would be all excuse I’d need to go back to it and try a different build.
I’ve never played a Tales game. It looks like this is a good place to start? I suspect there’s no contiguous storyline in the franchise, but is there game world features and knowledge that would be required for me to enjoy this?
The fact that it’s on Extra lowers the barrier to entry for me to give it a try.
Although I’ve heard this game’s name bounced around, I knew nothing about it until I just now watched this video.
I’m not quite sure based on the video what the game really is, although I can see that the quirkiness of it is likely intentional. Looks a bit like an old PS1/PS2 JRPG with a Western indie coat of paint and a more updated action combat rather than turn based. And there might be some survival mechanics…?
Anyways, my interest is barely piqued after watching the video, but 3D isometric games don’t always appeal to me. I tried Death’s Door last year and didn’t end up sticking with it very long.
Sounds like the game might be better than expected. I still have no temptation to buy it. If it were on PS+ maybe I might try it. I really felt like AC Black Flag was overrated and actually my least favorite from the series. It essentially killed my interest in the franchise until I finally jumped back in with Origins. I already felt like Black Flag’s naval content was excessive, so a whole game of that just sounds like a slog. But more power to those that want to tap into a pirate fantasy! 🏴☠️
I voted “I’m not fussed either way” but the more I think about it, I am leaning “No”. Not because it’s confidential information, but rather because I think it has the potential to distract from smaller games which actually need the bump in visibility.
The PS5 Home Screen UI isn’t all that great, to be fair, with the way it approaches things. In its effort to highlight and curate information that it thinks is relevant to my preferred games, it becomes a mess of random pop-ups about updates on games I don’t play anymore, and thumbnail links to gameplay videos that I really don’t want to watch because I’m actually playing the game and don’t want to spoil bits I haven’t seen yet and don’t really care to see the parts I’ve already played.
I have to constantly go and update my “games followed” list to remove games I don’t care about. It automatically follows a lot of the games I claimed with PS+ (but weirdly not all of them) and so every couple months when I have to do a spring cleaning of my follow list.
But yes, all this hassle with intrusive pop-up highlights about games I’ll never play like Nobody Saves the World or Black Desert is definitely better than getting beat over the head with a “Most Played Games on PlayStation” banner that shows me Fortnite and Madden promos constantly reminding me how far I am from the average gamer’s interest
@gymratAmarillo “…once again someone from the industry thinking they know the concept of universal fun when the concept of fun depends directly of who is playing the game”
This is an oft misunderstood concept. As someone in the industry has said (it wasn’t Neil Druckmann but he alluded to something similar) — “fun” is too diluted of a concept. It doesn’t distinguish the unique psychological experience of gameplay that leads to sustained engagement. And to be fair, I think that’s what Walgrave is trying to say here, that they try to anticipate the specific wants of their diverse player base.
“Fun” is difficult to define, but I like the breakdown by Marc LaBlanc who said there is eight different kinds of fun: sensory pleasure, fantasy, narrative, challenge, fellowship, discovery, expression, submission. And if you think about it, Baldur’s Gate 3 probably taps into every one of those. Compared to a lot of other games that are less widely appealing because they assume people enjoy the same kind of “fun” that they do.
It’s interesting how this passive-aggressive approach from Xbox of “we’re releasing some of our exclusives onto PlayStation so we expect a reciprocal gesture” is coming only after the lackluster results of their own first party output. As they not only released Starfield, Redfall, etc as console exclusives, but even going so far as to cancel existing PlayStation builds that were in progress. Now that those games have performed middling, all of a sudden there’s this narrative that Xbox needs to go multiplatform, so naturally PlayStation should too.
I get that Helldivers 2 is a multiplayer game, and so there’s this idea that ‘more players would make it better’ but it does seem a little suspect to make these demands after the big reveal that Xbox are porting over some of their library
@MrMagic Yeah, I did see GoWR on sale currently (and pretty frequently to be fair), and I have no problem paying for it, but my backlog is big enough that I’ve been fine to wait. Kind of glad I waited since the DLC just released. I actually paid for Spider-Man 2 full price on release and have it sitting unplayed still as I make my way through FF16 which I also paid full price for. And also Baldur’s Gate 3. Not to mention several other new releases that I’ve bought over the last year. So I don’t have an absolute aversion to buying games. I buy one every month or two, depending.
It’s just we all know the sting of finally buying an older game, only to have it drop in price or drop into PS+ the next week. So after first party games are past the 6-9 month point on the market, I tend to just prefer to wait and see, unless I really, really want to play it right away, or really, really think it isn’t coming down price wise. It’s sort of like going to see a movie in the theater after it’s already been out for 2 months. Might as well just wait at that point because it’ll be on streaming or available to own on 4K disc for the price of those two theater tickets. 😄
I will tend to go for a purchase of even an older game if it’s one that I want to show a little extra support for, so usually a smaller game or indie. If it’s a blockbuster then I don’t feel the obligation necessarily.
@liathach You’ve articulated some of my thoughts there. There’s been a substantial drop off in “newish” first party PS+ inclusions. I was just lamenting that I had expected GoWR to be on the service by now so I haven’t bought it yet, it being still full price to boot (when it’s not on a temporary sale). There’s some comments here that say apparently they extrapolated losses by putting HFW on PS+ too soon. (Loss of $85 million?) I don’t know how they could possibly calculate that… maybe by seeing how many people played it on PS+ Extra and then calculate from there? But I don’t know how reliable that metric would be since not all those would have bought it. Also, certainly having access to the base game on PS+ has boosted Burning Shores DLC sales? Maybe this is why they felt obliged to give the GoWR DLC for free since they are still charging full price for the base game. Anyways, as you, I’d like to see some of the older first party games come to Plus, but indeed the cupboard is bare so they have to stretch these out.
I will just say that I only partially agree on the notion that the third party content on PS+ and PS+ Extra is subpar — yes, there’s a lot of garbage on there, but there’s some quality titles still being included. A Plague Tale: Requiem was fantastic, imo. Also Disco Elysium. Both I recently played. I see AC Valhalla is coming this month which is a huge successful AAA game (albeit quite old at this point). Others I’ve enjoyed recently from the service like Humanity, The Quarry, Power Wash Sim, Stray, as well as others I still need to get to like Nier Replicant, Gotham Knights, LiS True Colors, the aforementioned HFW and ACV all are either successful or highly rated.
The real blockbusters on service I’ve mostly played already because I bought them. The real value of the service does seem to lie in those interstitial games that you don’t quite feel like you have to play asap, and can either wait a year, or just discover on a whim. It works for me and I absolutely still get my value. I count 9 games I’ve played from the service in the last year. Not too shabby for $100 (bought and stacked my sub on sale).
And I guess many may interpret my positivity as “corporate cheerleading”, which is fine. I’m not offended per se, I’m just saying I like the service. Am I supposed to lie? 😅 Of course I would like to get TLoUP1 and GoWR and other first party games. Or even get Stellar Blade and Rise of the Ronin on day 1, but I mean, I’d also like to win the lottery but I can’t let it ruin my happiness with what I already have.
Still yet to play it, but I am surprised that Spider-Man 2 edged out Tears of the Kingdom for Outstanding Technical Achievement. I’m not a programmer, but getting ToK to do what it does running basically on a potato is mind blowing, according to what I’ve been told. Still, Insomniac does great work and I have really loved how they have the different RT performance modes in their games to give more technical options.
The other awards SM2 won sound like they’re certainly reasonable, despite the revisionist phenomenon that occurs a few months later after the shine has worn off.
@Jey887 I’m wondering if they haven’t permanently discounted or included it on PS+ yet because of the lack of first party games coming out to replace it. Since the release schedule has been slow, then they probably have to stretch out their PS+ output. And with Xbox struggling to include much first party support to GamePass, there’s probably not much pressure to keep the service stacked with consistent input.
I’m not sure if this was intentional or not, but the in the recesses of my mind I seem to recall that Feb 14th, Valentines Day, is Lara Croft’s birthday, so props for the unveiling of this on such an appropriate day! Happy Birthday Lara!
On subject, I like the artwork of the “new”/“old” style Lara. I can definitely see the inspiration from the original PS1 character design, not only in the iconic outfit, but the facial features do harbor back to what the OG face looked like, in a way, just modernized and up-res’ed.
As a consumer, I don’t necessarily like hearing the new head of PlayStation say this kind of corporate speak when discussing the future of the company. While I recognize the need to keep the company viable financially, at the end of the day all I want is good games! And preferably single player and without microtransactions. 😅
A few from my wishlist have popped up, but nothing earth-shattering. Maybe God of War Ragnarok on sale for $40… but I feel like it should be permanently discounted to that price by now, if not already placed on PS+ Extra… 🫤 I have plenty others in my library to play so I can continue the waiting game.
@DeathlySW @Ravix Yes, I’m thinking along those lines. As someone who lives in the U.S., I don’t really comprehend the full impact of historical relations on the other side of the world (similar to how I feel about the Palestinian conflict) so am uncomfortable formulating any firm opinions. But I do suspect that the comments by Yasuda about Yoshida were less about glorifying the Japanese state’s war crime atrocities and more about defining the influence of one of characters of the time (I’m not sure if Yoshida is actually in the game itself though)
As a comparison for my Western brain to understand it, I also thought of the treatment of the Native Americans over here, or perhaps the atrocities of American slavery (which incidentally is a little more contemporary with the time period for this game). Either subject stirs painful (and relatively recent) historical feelings and controversy, so I think that’s why they are mostly left alone in the video game space and even characters adjacent to the events have to be handled cautiously.
But back on subject with Rise of the Ronin, I was reluctant to commit to the game anyways, and so now I more so want to wait for reviews to see how this all plays out. I doubt the subject matter is mishandled in the game, and honestly I have piqued interest now in learning about the time period in question.
I wonder if this is going to result in a PR mess for Sony in Korea. And right before Stellar Blade was set to become a worldwide coming out party for the Korea-Sony collaboration. Having to pull a major PlayStation console exclusive because of this sticky situation can’t sit well with Koreans.
I’d never claim to know who’s in the right here, but apparently the game is tackling a very touchy subject.
I wouldn’t say that having a magic based AAA single player shooter was the problem, it was the budgeting and projections that sound like they were way off course.
And to have a third of its budget, a full $40 million, to be “marketing and distribution” sounds like an awful lot. I’m not in the know enough to say if that’s typical, but clearly it was too much spent on this project. I don’t remember any significant marketing at all. Where did they spend that $40 million?
I’ve heard decent things about the game and I know Colin really liked it. I’m curious enough to maybe try it one day
I know the poll has only been up for half a day, but probably the most telling piece of data is that only 105 people have responded to the poll so far. For a mainstream release it feels like there isn’t much excitement. So, what I’m detecting most about this game isn’t necessarily praise or disdain, but rather apathy.
After Destruction All-Stars, I’m a little guarded about this. I know the two games aren’t anything alike, but for some reason I’m getting the same vibes
@NieR_Dark Very true about stopping at the first or second ending. The middle of the game is where it does drag a little bit, admittedly, and people jump off before they get to the most epic parts! 😄
I see Square-Enix as being one of the most diverse and experimental companies already. They release such scattershot games of varying quality and differing audiences. And they never seem to be satisfied with how their games sell.
And to be clear, I think in some ways this is admirable. I like developers and publishers to experiment and try new things, and even attempt to tap into smaller gaming spaces. For every dud like Forspoken, we get a classic like NieR Automata. For every disappointment like Valkyrie Elysium or Stranger of Paradise, we get a hit like Final Fantasy VII Remake or Dragon Quest XI. We get highly rated games that don’t particularly sell and poorly rated games that actually sell well. They dabble in online and live service (Outriders, FFXIV) and also in niche genres (Life is Strange, Just Cause).
Sometimes it seems like they just throw it all against the wall just to see what sticks, which can be pretty fun as a gamer to experience. So I hope this new direction with Kiryu doesn’t mean that all we get going forward is the cash cow of Final Fantasy and service games.
@NieR_Dark Yeah, your username and profile pic are definitely a hint. 😄
And I agree with you — there’s a special sauce to NieR Automata that transcends the setting, character design, combat, or even the story, per se. It’s special because of the way the story is told, the magnificent way the music is interlaced, and the deep philosophical undertones that keep you pondering it for days after completing it. The true ending is something that rocked my world and like you say, many little moments even before that.
So I think Stellar Blade is unlikely to quench the thirst for that kind of experience again, but it looks like it might be a fun game in its own right. And if there ends up being NieR type avant-garde experimental design and ideology, then it will definitely be a bonus.
First off, this statement is from an artist, not from anyone who drives the business aspects of the studio.
And I guess I believe him, given this statement comes from an animator at a studio that has traditionally taken forever to produce their games, including the fact we’re about to start the sixth year since their last release and still not a whisper of anything being remotely close to completion over at Bend. Obviously they have their heads down working with no regard to any external pressure to produce.
But taken from an overarching PlayStation system standpoint, I do agree that Sony first party games are unlikely to immediately drop off on quality, no matter what happens. Nevertheless, over time it would almost certainly affect what kind of projects would be greenlit by Sony, what their budget would be, how they would be monetized, and what the support system for such creativity would be like. Not saying it would definitely end up in a massive collapse of quality, but it’s a long term possibility.
There’s a narrative out there that Xbox is going to leave the hardware space and just become a software publisher, and I’m not sure that’s the immediate plans. I anticipate they will move their first party games to multiplatform after a period of time exclusivity on their own console. So maybe it’s 3 months or 6 months, maybe a year, then they port over a selection of their games. I think that gives them the best chance of keeping their own ecosystem on life support and also making some much needed revenue from game sales.
But I don’t know. We’ll see. If they do take the timed exclusivity approach, and it doesn’t pan out over the next couple years, then maybe they abort the console market for the next generation.
I’ve never used Share Screen, but it sounds like it’s going to be fairly robust.
As a guy who plays 98% solo with headphones on, the only thing here for me is the light dimming feature. That’s nice to have, I guess. Now that I can quiet the launch ‘beep’, I’ll also be suppressing the light. 😅
@lightningbolt79 Push Square staff gave Rollerdrome an 8/10 and Steelrising a 7/10 (which reads like an 8 if they’ve fixed some of the technical glitches at launch), and have given a fairly positive preview impression of Foamstars. So it’s natural they’ll call the month “good”, but the article was clear to report the reader poll felt differently. And the article title isn’t misrepresenting anything — it is blatantly generic (even with a classic play on words for one of the games in the sub-title) So, I’m not sure they’re ignoring anything. It’s pretty clearly acknowledged about the reader’s disappointment, despite it being at odds with the staff’s feelings.
I’m really surprised people think this is a poor selection. I could see myself trying all of these at some point. Granted, Foamstars would only be out of sheer curiosity, as I don’t really think it’s my cup o’ tea. But I think it’s a great PS+ game.
Steelrising and Rollerdrome are games I had my eye on but never quite pulled the trigger on purchasing. That’s the ideal type of PS+ game, in my book. I’m particularly excited to try Rollerdrome, as it looks like a great palate cleanser between larger story driven games.
Did anyone have this on their prediction list this year? I’m honestly surprised this is happening so quickly. Although, as an armchair CEO, I saw after the release of Starfield that the model didn’t look like it was going to work. That was the game that was supposed to turn this thing around for them. The bump in GamePass subscribers must have been negligible.
I do worry that PS+ might decline in its quality as a result of the weakening of GamePass.
But I’m excited that I can hopefully play Hellblade II and Indiana Jones on my PS5.
Mixed feeling on this. On one hand, I really was impressed with TLoU2 and the thought of waiting another 10 years for a third entry is depressing. On the other hand, I am ready to see what ND can do as far as a new IP.
Maybe we can get both rather quickly? A new IP in 2025 and TLoU3 in 2027…? 😅
I do think the tight Naught Dog narrative focus would be difficult to replicate in a open-ish Bloodborne styled setting. The pacing of a story heavy game is tough to nail down when there’s too much openness involved.
In Bloodborne, you have so much leeway in what direction or sequence that you go through the map, and it works for a cryptic or open-ended tale, but I’m not sure it works for a linear story.
Comments 3,733
Re: Significant Discounts Suggest Ubisoft's PS5 Pirate Game Skull and Bones Is Already Struggling
To the surprise of no one.
Coming to PS+ in 3, 2, 1….
Re: Warner Bros' Reaction to Suicide Squad Flop Will Make You Question Your Sanity
As much as I really enjoyed Hogwarts Legacy and as much as I detest online live-service games in general, a Harry Potter universe open world online game sounds pretty awesome.
Re: Reaction: What Is Happening to the Video Games Industry and Why Are There So Many Layoffs?
@BeerIsAwesome That’s a great contrasting observation — Suicide Squad and Skull & Bones vs. Helldivers 2. All three have been in development for an age, but vastly different budgets. The jury is still out on the long tails of each of these, but the first few weeks seem like no comparison. I’m not sure why, since I’ve played none of them and probably won’t as the online service arena is not my bag, but from the outside it seems like gamers want fresh ideas. Not that Helldivers is completely fresh — it is a sequel after all, but is a reimagining and just doesn’t feel like a setting that has been beat to death (superhero DC/ Marvel, and pirate seafaring, respectively). I guess alien Sci-fi shooters are a dime a dozen too, but HD2 seems to take a novel approach.
Re: Helldivers 2 Sales Are Actually Increasing, Again
@Intr1n5ic It’s been suggested that Forspoken and maybe even Foamstars were part of a package deal with Sony for the rights to FF7 Remake/Rebirth and FF16 exclusivity. Like, “if you want FF then you have to also take these other games over here that we’re less confident in…”
Re: Two Games Pretended to Be Helldivers 2 in Sneaky Steam Page Scam
@Drago201 Yes, every now and then I look at my spam folder and it’s just a total mess of garbage. But the scammers methods are getting better that they can get past some of the filtering protocols.
I’m with you - I block those numbers and then “delete and report as spam” but they just keep coming. Also, about 80% of the phone calls I get are marketing or scammers. If they aren’t on my contact list, I don’t answer. I always regret it if I do.
I don’t know what society needs to do to clean this hogwash up. Imagine how bad hackers and scammers will be 10-20 years from now. They seem to constantly staying one step ahead of the cybersecurity world. See Insomniac hack as evidence of that. Probably some poor employee clicked a link and that’s all it takes.
Re: Two Games Pretended to Be Helldivers 2 in Sneaky Steam Page Scam
This looks pretty egregious, but unfortunately is something that happens A LOT. I get scam emails and text messages posing as everyone from AT&T to Amazon. Wanting me to click a link about a recent purchase or bill. It drives me crazy. Most of the scammers are easy to spot because of spelling errors, weird invoice numbers, strange formatting, etc. but I hate that this is the world we live in now where we have to constantly assume every online purchase or interaction is a scam until proven otherwise.
Re: Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth's Graphical Problems Are Clear in Digital Foundry Report
It strange how we just had all these articles about layoffs and the rising cost of games and a bunch of users were coming out saying we focus too much on graphics and performance and that developers need to just make fun games and not worry so much about fidelity and all the costly parts of development… and then those same people come out and blast a game because some of the textures are blurry. No wonder developers are flailing around having to cancel projects because they don’t really know what people want. Some players don’t even know themselves what they want.
Re: EA Cuts Roughly 700 Jobs in Another Round of Industry Layoffs
Rome is burning.
Re: PS Plus Essential Games for March 2024 Announced
Another solid month. Sifu is the real star of the lineup for me, but actually it’s nice to have the F1 and Witch Queen just as something else on the back burner.
Re: Reaction: The Problem with PlayStation Right Now
Great article, Sammy. It really outlines the state of affairs and puts things into perspective.
Unfortunately people are usually the greatest expense, and so lay-offs are the way these companies trim the fat when poor executive level decisions have been made like overestimating revenues, investing in failed projects and ideas, and chasing trends that are too little, too late.
There’s a lot of classic “survivor bias fallacy” going on that affected their development plans, ie. success of an idea cloaks the similar multiple failures of that idea. So, for every Genshin Impact and Fortnite that we see, there’s dozens that fail miserably. And as someone said above, there’s only so many players and so many hours in the day. Their game development plans had projects that were set to cannibalize each other. Thankfully they discovered that and shut down some of these projects but wasted a lot of time, resources, and good-will in the process.
Re: PS Portal Proving More Popular Than Sony Expected
Ready to buy one now… and can’t find one.
Re: Mini Review: Pentiment (PS5) - A Slow-Burning 16th-Century Murder Mystery
@Max_the_German @bpomber @Pat_trick The Pure XBox review which has been up for over a year doesn’t have a single comment complaining that “may not be for everyone” is a bullet point on the negative side. I suspect the outcry here is overcompensating to try to seem like we aren’t picking on an XBox studios game on a PS site. But in reality, the XBox review says the same thing.
Re: Mini Review: Pentiment (PS5) - A Slow-Burning 16th-Century Murder Mystery
@PsBoxSwitchOwner The Pure XBox review also had “Starts off slowly, absolutely takes it time in conversations and may not be for everyone” in its ‘Cons’ summary too. So I don’t think this was a PlayStation site specific comment.
https://www.purexbox.com/reviews/xbox-series-x/pentiment
Re: Connecting Worlds, the Hideo Kojima Documentary, Is Out Now on Disney+
I don’t have Hulu, unfortunately, but this does look interesting. It’s great press for Kojima productions also.
Re: A Bloodborne Remake on PS6 Might Have More 'Value', Creator Suggests
@breakneck That’s interesting. (I hadn’t read much of the leak info) I guess I’m not surprised. There’s definitely a difference between total unit sales and profitability. Like movies, games make their money mostly on launch success. Nevertheless, I think any sales that Bloodborne could garner at this point would be icing on the cake. The investment for creating a PS5 patch is likely pretty low, I’d suspect, even if potential sales at a $20 price point wouldn’t make much money.
But like others have said, the flip-side is that a PS5 patch likely cannibalizes potential remaster sales for later.
Re: Unicorn Overlord's Gorgeous PS5, PS4 Demo Is Available Now
I actually love the title of this game. It looks to be a solid game too, but just wanted to give props to the name “Unicorn Overlord” 😄
Re: A Bloodborne Remake on PS6 Might Have More 'Value', Creator Suggests
As others have said, I’d prefer just a PS5 patch, like what was done for God of War, Days Gone, and The Last of Us Part II (before the recent remaster). Just a few little performance optimizations like increase in frame rate and that would be enough for me to play it again. I do think that might be enough to sell a few more copies on PS5 since so much time has passed, although it wouldn’t sell enormous numbers like a full remaster with PC port would. But I might buy the DLC if they did the PS5 patch, so perhaps there some money to be made from it. I never got around to The Old Hunters and a 60 fps patch would be all excuse I’d need to go back to it and try a different build.
Re: Tales of Arise Burns Through 3 Million Sales
I’ve never played a Tales game. It looks like this is a good place to start? I suspect there’s no contiguous storyline in the franchise, but is there game world features and knowledge that would be required for me to enjoy this?
The fact that it’s on Extra lowers the barrier to entry for me to give it a try.
Re: Helldivers 2 Honcho Suggests Not Buying the Game, Breaks New Records Anyway
Makes me want to go back and try the first game. I think I already have it in my library through PS+
Re: Little Devil Inside Finally Resurfaces with New Trailer, Kickstarter Update
Although I’ve heard this game’s name bounced around, I knew nothing about it until I just now watched this video.
I’m not quite sure based on the video what the game really is, although I can see that the quirkiness of it is likely intentional. Looks a bit like an old PS1/PS2 JRPG with a Western indie coat of paint and a more updated action combat rather than turn based. And there might be some survival mechanics…?
Anyways, my interest is barely piqued after watching the video, but 3D isometric games don’t always appeal to me. I tried Death’s Door last year and didn’t end up sticking with it very long.
Re: Skull and Bones (PS5) - Solid Sea-RPG Ships First-Rate Naval Gameplay
Sounds like the game might be better than expected. I still have no temptation to buy it. If it were on PS+ maybe I might try it. I really felt like AC Black Flag was overrated and actually my least favorite from the series. It essentially killed my interest in the franchise until I finally jumped back in with Origins. I already felt like Black Flag’s naval content was excessive, so a whole game of that just sounds like a slog. But more power to those that want to tap into a pirate fantasy! 🏴☠️
Re: Talking Point: Should Sony Be More Transparent About PS5, PS4's Most Played Games?
I voted “I’m not fussed either way” but the more I think about it, I am leaning “No”. Not because it’s confidential information, but rather because I think it has the potential to distract from smaller games which actually need the bump in visibility.
The PS5 Home Screen UI isn’t all that great, to be fair, with the way it approaches things. In its effort to highlight and curate information that it thinks is relevant to my preferred games, it becomes a mess of random pop-ups about updates on games I don’t play anymore, and thumbnail links to gameplay videos that I really don’t want to watch because I’m actually playing the game and don’t want to spoil bits I haven’t seen yet and don’t really care to see the parts I’ve already played.
I have to constantly go and update my “games followed” list to remove games I don’t care about. It automatically follows a lot of the games I claimed with PS+ (but weirdly not all of them) and so every couple months when I have to do a spring cleaning of my follow list.
But yes, all this hassle with intrusive pop-up highlights about games I’ll never play like Nobody Saves the World or Black Desert is definitely better than getting beat over the head with a “Most Played Games on PlayStation” banner that shows me Fortnite and Madden promos constantly reminding me how far I am from the average gamer’s interest
Re: Baldur's Gate 3 Devs Call Out State of the Industry from DICE Awards Stage
@gymratAmarillo “…once again someone from the industry thinking they know the concept of universal fun when the concept of fun depends directly of who is playing the game”
This is an oft misunderstood concept. As someone in the industry has said (it wasn’t Neil Druckmann but he alluded to something similar) — “fun” is too diluted of a concept. It doesn’t distinguish the unique psychological experience of gameplay that leads to sustained engagement. And to be fair, I think that’s what Walgrave is trying to say here, that they try to anticipate the specific wants of their diverse player base.
“Fun” is difficult to define, but I like the breakdown by Marc LaBlanc who said there is eight different kinds of fun: sensory pleasure, fantasy, narrative, challenge, fellowship, discovery, expression, submission. And if you think about it, Baldur’s Gate 3 probably taps into every one of those. Compared to a lot of other games that are less widely appealing because they assume people enjoy the same kind of “fun” that they do.
Re: Upgraded PS5 Pro Planning to Be the Best Place to Play GTA 6
If they are ramping up production for a Pro this year, maybe that is why I can’t find a PS Portal.
Re: Xbox Fans Petitioning for Helldivers 2 to Launch on Xbox
It’s interesting how this passive-aggressive approach from Xbox of “we’re releasing some of our exclusives onto PlayStation so we expect a reciprocal gesture” is coming only after the lackluster results of their own first party output. As they not only released Starfield, Redfall, etc as console exclusives, but even going so far as to cancel existing PlayStation builds that were in progress. Now that those games have performed middling, all of a sudden there’s this narrative that Xbox needs to go multiplatform, so naturally PlayStation should too.
I get that Helldivers 2 is a multiplayer game, and so there’s this idea that ‘more players would make it better’ but it does seem a little suspect to make these demands after the big reveal that Xbox are porting over some of their library
Re: Sony May Have Made the Right Call Not Copying Xbox Game Pass with PS Plus
@MrMagic Yeah, I did see GoWR on sale currently (and pretty frequently to be fair), and I have no problem paying for it, but my backlog is big enough that I’ve been fine to wait. Kind of glad I waited since the DLC just released. I actually paid for Spider-Man 2 full price on release and have it sitting unplayed still as I make my way through FF16 which I also paid full price for. And also Baldur’s Gate 3. Not to mention several other new releases that I’ve bought over the last year. So I don’t have an absolute aversion to buying games. I buy one every month or two, depending.
It’s just we all know the sting of finally buying an older game, only to have it drop in price or drop into PS+ the next week. So after first party games are past the 6-9 month point on the market, I tend to just prefer to wait and see, unless I really, really want to play it right away, or really, really think it isn’t coming down price wise. It’s sort of like going to see a movie in the theater after it’s already been out for 2 months. Might as well just wait at that point because it’ll be on streaming or available to own on 4K disc for the price of those two theater tickets. 😄
I will tend to go for a purchase of even an older game if it’s one that I want to show a little extra support for, so usually a smaller game or indie. If it’s a blockbuster then I don’t feel the obligation necessarily.
Re: FromSoftware Now Seemingly Sole Owner of Elden Ring IP
Is there’s still some rumoring out there that Bloodborne 2 is actually what BluePoint are making?
Re: Sony May Have Made the Right Call Not Copying Xbox Game Pass with PS Plus
@liathach You’ve articulated some of my thoughts there. There’s been a substantial drop off in “newish” first party PS+ inclusions. I was just lamenting that I had expected GoWR to be on the service by now so I haven’t bought it yet, it being still full price to boot (when it’s not on a temporary sale). There’s some comments here that say apparently they extrapolated losses by putting HFW on PS+ too soon. (Loss of $85 million?) I don’t know how they could possibly calculate that… maybe by seeing how many people played it on PS+ Extra and then calculate from there? But I don’t know how reliable that metric would be since not all those would have bought it. Also, certainly having access to the base game on PS+ has boosted Burning Shores DLC sales? Maybe this is why they felt obliged to give the GoWR DLC for free since they are still charging full price for the base game. Anyways, as you, I’d like to see some of the older first party games come to Plus, but indeed the cupboard is bare so they have to stretch these out.
I will just say that I only partially agree on the notion that the third party content on PS+ and PS+ Extra is subpar — yes, there’s a lot of garbage on there, but there’s some quality titles still being included. A Plague Tale: Requiem was fantastic, imo. Also Disco Elysium. Both I recently played. I see AC Valhalla is coming this month which is a huge successful AAA game (albeit quite old at this point). Others I’ve enjoyed recently from the service like Humanity, The Quarry, Power Wash Sim, Stray, as well as others I still need to get to like Nier Replicant, Gotham Knights, LiS True Colors, the aforementioned HFW and ACV all are either successful or highly rated.
The real blockbusters on service I’ve mostly played already because I bought them. The real value of the service does seem to lie in those interstitial games that you don’t quite feel like you have to play asap, and can either wait a year, or just discover on a whim. It works for me and I absolutely still get my value. I count 9 games I’ve played from the service in the last year. Not too shabby for $100 (bought and stacked my sub on sale).
And I guess many may interpret my positivity as “corporate cheerleading”, which is fine. I’m not offended per se, I’m just saying I like the service. Am I supposed to lie? 😅 Of course I would like to get TLoUP1 and GoWR and other first party games. Or even get Stellar Blade and Rise of the Ronin on day 1, but I mean, I’d also like to win the lottery but I can’t let it ruin my happiness with what I already have.
Re: Marvel's Spider-Man 2 Wins Big at DICE Awards, But Baldur's Gate 3 Takes Game of the Year
Still yet to play it, but I am surprised that Spider-Man 2 edged out Tears of the Kingdom for Outstanding Technical Achievement. I’m not a programmer, but getting ToK to do what it does running basically on a potato is mind blowing, according to what I’ve been told. Still, Insomniac does great work and I have really loved how they have the different RT performance modes in their games to give more technical options.
The other awards SM2 won sound like they’re certainly reasonable, despite the revisionist phenomenon that occurs a few months later after the shine has worn off.
Re: More Than 2,000 PS5, PS4 Games Discounted in Massive PS Store Sale
@Jey887 I’m wondering if they haven’t permanently discounted or included it on PS+ yet because of the lack of first party games coming out to replace it. Since the release schedule has been slow, then they probably have to stretch out their PS+ output. And with Xbox struggling to include much first party support to GamePass, there’s probably not much pressure to keep the service stacked with consistent input.
Re: Looks Like This Is the New Lara Croft in PS5's Next Tomb Raider
I’m not sure if this was intentional or not, but the in the recesses of my mind I seem to recall that Feb 14th, Valentines Day, is Lara Croft’s birthday, so props for the unveiling of this on such an appropriate day! Happy Birthday Lara!
On subject, I like the artwork of the “new”/“old” style Lara. I can definitely see the inspiration from the original PS1 character design, not only in the iconic outfit, but the facial features do harbor back to what the OG face looked like, in a way, just modernized and up-res’ed.
Re: 13 More Games Coming to PS Plus Extra, Premium This Month
I missed Valhalla the first time around. Maybe I’ll get to it this time. Probably not.
Re: PlayStation Chairman: There's Room for Improvement When It Comes to Business
As a consumer, I don’t necessarily like hearing the new head of PlayStation say this kind of corporate speak when discussing the future of the company. While I recognize the need to keep the company viable financially, at the end of the day all I want is good games! And preferably single player and without microtransactions. 😅
Re: More Than 2,000 PS5, PS4 Games Discounted in Huge New PS Store Sale
A few from my wishlist have popped up, but nothing earth-shattering. Maybe God of War Ragnarok on sale for $40… but I feel like it should be permanently discounted to that price by now, if not already placed on PS+ Extra… 🫤
I have plenty others in my library to play so I can continue the waiting game.
Re: Rise of the Ronin's Korean Release Cancelled Following Commentary Controversy
@DeathlySW @Ravix Yes, I’m thinking along those lines. As someone who lives in the U.S., I don’t really comprehend the full impact of historical relations on the other side of the world (similar to how I feel about the Palestinian conflict) so am uncomfortable formulating any firm opinions. But I do suspect that the comments by Yasuda about Yoshida were less about glorifying the Japanese state’s war crime atrocities and more about defining the influence of one of characters of the time (I’m not sure if Yoshida is actually in the game itself though)
As a comparison for my Western brain to understand it, I also thought of the treatment of the Native Americans over here, or perhaps the atrocities of American slavery (which incidentally is a little more contemporary with the time period for this game). Either subject stirs painful (and relatively recent) historical feelings and controversy, so I think that’s why they are mostly left alone in the video game space and even characters adjacent to the events have to be handled cautiously.
But back on subject with Rise of the Ronin, I was reluctant to commit to the game anyways, and so now I more so want to wait for reviews to see how this all plays out. I doubt the subject matter is mishandled in the game, and honestly I have piqued interest now in learning about the time period in question.
Re: Rise of the Ronin's Korean Release Cancelled Following Commentary Controversy
I wonder if this is going to result in a PR mess for Sony in Korea. And right before Stellar Blade was set to become a worldwide coming out party for the Korea-Sony collaboration. Having to pull a major PlayStation console exclusive because of this sticky situation can’t sit well with Koreans.
I’d never claim to know who’s in the right here, but apparently the game is tackling a very touchy subject.
Re: Immortals of Aveum Cost $125 Million, Branded a 'Truly Awful Idea'
I wouldn’t say that having a magic based AAA single player shooter was the problem, it was the budgeting and projections that sound like they were way off course.
And to have a third of its budget, a full $40 million, to be “marketing and distribution” sounds like an awful lot. I’m not in the know enough to say if that’s typical, but clearly it was too much spent on this project. I don’t remember any significant marketing at all. Where did they spend that $40 million?
I’ve heard decent things about the game and I know Colin really liked it. I’m curious enough to maybe try it one day
Re: Poll: What Review Score Would You Give Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League?
I know the poll has only been up for half a day, but probably the most telling piece of data is that only 105 people have responded to the poll so far. For a mainstream release it feels like there isn’t much excitement. So, what I’m detecting most about this game isn’t necessarily praise or disdain, but rather apathy.
Re: Foamstars (PS5) - PS Plus' Sudsy Shooter Is Good, Clean Fun
After Destruction All-Stars, I’m a little guarded about this. I know the two games aren’t anything alike, but for some reason I’m getting the same vibes
Re: Stellar Blade Director Says 'Korean NieR' Comparison Is a 'Great Honour'
@NieR_Dark Very true about stopping at the first or second ending. The middle of the game is where it does drag a little bit, admittedly, and people jump off before they get to the most epic parts! 😄
Re: Square Enix President Orders Development Review to Improve Quality of Future Games
I see Square-Enix as being one of the most diverse and experimental companies already. They release such scattershot games of varying quality and differing audiences. And they never seem to be satisfied with how their games sell.
And to be clear, I think in some ways this is admirable. I like developers and publishers to experiment and try new things, and even attempt to tap into smaller gaming spaces. For every dud like Forspoken, we get a classic like NieR Automata. For every disappointment like Valkyrie Elysium or Stranger of Paradise, we get a hit like Final Fantasy VII Remake or Dragon Quest XI. We get highly rated games that don’t particularly sell and poorly rated games that actually sell well. They dabble in online and live service (Outriders, FFXIV) and also in niche genres (Life is Strange, Just Cause).
Sometimes it seems like they just throw it all against the wall just to see what sticks, which can be pretty fun as a gamer to experience. So I hope this new direction with Kiryu doesn’t mean that all we get going forward is the cash cow of Final Fantasy and service games.
Re: Stellar Blade Director Says 'Korean NieR' Comparison Is a 'Great Honour'
@NieR_Dark Yeah, your username and profile pic are definitely a hint. 😄
And I agree with you — there’s a special sauce to NieR Automata that transcends the setting, character design, combat, or even the story, per se. It’s special because of the way the story is told, the magnificent way the music is interlaced, and the deep philosophical undertones that keep you pondering it for days after completing it. The true ending is something that rocked my world and like you say, many little moments even before that.
So I think Stellar Blade is unlikely to quench the thirst for that kind of experience again, but it looks like it might be a fun game in its own right. And if there ends up being NieR type avant-garde experimental design and ideology, then it will definitely be a bonus.
Re: PS5, PS4 First-Party Devs Won't Get Complacent Even if Competition Degrades
First off, this statement is from an artist, not from anyone who drives the business aspects of the studio.
And I guess I believe him, given this statement comes from an animator at a studio that has traditionally taken forever to produce their games, including the fact we’re about to start the sixth year since their last release and still not a whisper of anything being remotely close to completion over at Bend. Obviously they have their heads down working with no regard to any external pressure to produce.
But taken from an overarching PlayStation system standpoint, I do agree that Sony first party games are unlikely to immediately drop off on quality, no matter what happens. Nevertheless, over time it would almost certainly affect what kind of projects would be greenlit by Sony, what their budget would be, how they would be monetized, and what the support system for such creativity would be like. Not saying it would definitely end up in a massive collapse of quality, but it’s a long term possibility.
Re: Microsoft Has Apparently Been Stocking Up on PS5 Devkits as Xbox Pivots
There’s a narrative out there that Xbox is going to leave the hardware space and just become a software publisher, and I’m not sure that’s the immediate plans. I anticipate they will move their first party games to multiplatform after a period of time exclusivity on their own console. So maybe it’s 3 months or 6 months, maybe a year, then they port over a selection of their games. I think that gives them the best chance of keeping their own ecosystem on life support and also making some much needed revenue from game sales.
But I don’t know. We’ll see. If they do take the timed exclusivity approach, and it doesn’t pan out over the next couple years, then maybe they abort the console market for the next generation.
Re: New PS5 Firmware Beta Improves DualSense Sound, Adds Share Screen Interactions
I’ve never used Share Screen, but it sounds like it’s going to be fairly robust.
As a guy who plays 98% solo with headphones on, the only thing here for me is the light dimming feature. That’s nice to have, I guess. Now that I can quiet the launch ‘beep’, I’ll also be suppressing the light. 😅
Re: Another Three PS Plus Essential Games Are Yours to Download Now
@lightningbolt79 Push Square staff gave Rollerdrome an 8/10 and Steelrising a 7/10 (which reads like an 8 if they’ve fixed some of the technical glitches at launch), and have given a fairly positive preview impression of Foamstars. So it’s natural they’ll call the month “good”, but the article was clear to report the reader poll felt differently. And the article title isn’t misrepresenting anything — it is blatantly generic (even with a classic play on words for one of the games in the sub-title) So, I’m not sure they’re ignoring anything. It’s pretty clearly acknowledged about the reader’s disappointment, despite it being at odds with the staff’s feelings.
Re: Another Three PS Plus Essential Games Are Yours to Download Now
I’m really surprised people think this is a poor selection. I could see myself trying all of these at some point. Granted, Foamstars would only be out of sheer curiosity, as I don’t really think it’s my cup o’ tea. But I think it’s a great PS+ game.
Steelrising and Rollerdrome are games I had my eye on but never quite pulled the trigger on purchasing. That’s the ideal type of PS+ game, in my book. I’m particularly excited to try Rollerdrome, as it looks like a great palate cleanser between larger story driven games.
Re: Xbox Set to Announce Multi-Platform Plans Next Week
Did anyone have this on their prediction list this year? I’m honestly surprised this is happening so quickly. Although, as an armchair CEO, I saw after the release of Starfield that the model didn’t look like it was going to work. That was the game that was supposed to turn this thing around for them. The bump in GamePass subscribers must have been negligible.
I do worry that PS+ might decline in its quality as a result of the weakening of GamePass.
But I’m excited that I can hopefully play Hellblade II and Indiana Jones on my PS5.
Re: Sounds Like Naughty Dog's Next Game Won't Be The Last of Us 3
Mixed feeling on this. On one hand, I really was impressed with TLoU2 and the thought of waiting another 10 years for a third entry is depressing. On the other hand, I am ready to see what ND can do as far as a new IP.
Maybe we can get both rather quickly? A new IP in 2025 and TLoU3 in 2027…? 😅
I can dream.
Re: The Last of Us 2 Began Life as Open World Melee Epic Heavily Inspired by Bloodborne
I do think the tight Naught Dog narrative focus would be difficult to replicate in a open-ish Bloodborne styled setting. The pacing of a story heavy game is tough to nail down when there’s too much openness involved.
In Bloodborne, you have so much leeway in what direction or sequence that you go through the map, and it works for a cryptic or open-ended tale, but I’m not sure it works for a linear story.