This was never a top tier studio - their games received middling reviews pretty consistently. They never released a game that saw mass appeal or any acclaim beyond a game reaching a limited cult favorite status, like The Getaway games or Blood and Truth. They are right there with Pixelopus and Japan Studio in terms of the role they filled - two other studios which got the axe recently.
And despite that, this closure hurts the most of any yet. London Studio has pedigree as making experimental titles and AA entries - something Sony needs right now, badly. AA games are an endangered species. Nowadays it's either indies or AAA blockbusters that follow a really samey template. We all know the one: Horizon, God of War, Days Gone, Death Stranding, Spiderman.
Now we get barren release schedules between AAA open world cinematic action extravaganzas with RPG-lite elements. It is all so damn cynical. Compare the first party releases on the PS5 to PS1, PS2, and PS3. Where are the Concrete Genies, the Twisted Metals, the Medievils, the Wipeouts, the Motorstorms?
Been playing primarily Sony consoles since PS1. Something is deeply wrong in the house of Sony. I don't like where any of this is going.
Go on, go ahead and shut down Media Molecule already. It's already as good as done and we all know it. So we can get God of War 7: Electric Boogaloo in seven years instead of eight. Gotta make sure the profits grow for the next quarterly results, who gives a damn where the company is in ten years. The shareholders don't care, they will dump the stock from their portfolios as soons as it dips. The execs don't care, they will be retired by then. Why are all the decisions made - TODAY - being made for people who won't be here tomorrow? Money. Money of the short-term variety, is the answer.
When they are consistently high quality, I don't mind they are all sequels to an existing property. Plus, their established IP pool is so deep they could ride that train forever and avoid franchise fatigue. So many dormant series they haven't touched in awhile. Darkstalkers please.
Capcom is one of the few big publishers (maybe the only one) that delivers consistently and with a high bar for quality. Fighting games, horror games, action games, RPGs - all top notch in their genre.
It's like they are the one publisher still living in the 90s golden era while all the other big companies became addicted to crack and live in the streets now.
"Why does Push Square publish so many articles about Xbox.."
Because this is a PlayStation news website, and because Xbox is their most direct competitor this kind of stuff is de-facto relevant and important to PlayStation based on how interrelated their business practices and strategies are. What Xbox does and doesn't do affects Sony in a direct and real way.
Or I guess, based on your comment history, what you wanted to hear was PushSquare staff and users are just really biased and are trying to constantly dunk on Xbox for clicks and in a nefarious effort to promote a 90s-esque console war.
Yes, this. You remember how PS3 got a lot of flack for muddy, washed out color pallettes in AAA games? PS4/PS5 went to this hyper realistic thing recently for AAA. There are definitely these distinct eras of graphical styles throughout the different consoles.
I was referring specifically to graphics but I think the woah moment I was talking about can be other things. Like an ingenious game mechanic. Enemies following your footprints in the snow in Metal Gear Solid or the paint brush mechanic in Okami also hit me the same way. It doesn't need to be just amazing graphics, I think like a lot of people have said the PS5 could offer this through its SSD and integrating that somehow into a novel game mechanic (Rift Apart came close but I'm talking about more than seamless world transitions)
Yeah agreed! For PS2 it was God of War 2 for me. PS3, it was The Last of Us. PS4, it was Uncharted 4. Games that make you go 'woah' (at least graphically anyways). The only game that came close this gen to doing that for me was the Demons Souls remake and Ratchet and Clank of all things, both launch window titles.
I feel the base PS5 is thoroughly untapped at this point and while plenty of good games have released, no 'woah', moments so far. Maybe we can't expect these big graphical jumps between consoles anymore.
They got some marketing geniuses over there I tell ya. Slap 'Pro' on it and you just feel inadequate using anything less. What does it do? Who cares, that's a question an amateur would ask.
I think the post will age okay. A lot of people, particularly in this community, view the GTA series as a soulless cash grab live service abomination that may or may not have caused irreparable damage to the gaming industry by very successfully filling the niche of a mass-appeal, casual game akin to Fortnight for adults.
Okay, I'm projecting a bit. I'm sure it will sell bucket loads. But yeah, there is some kind of anti-GTA bent around here. Loved the single player in 5.
I bet it sells okay in the end. I'm sure there will be some use case for it for the hardcore / early adopter crowd. Probably something like better framerate, which is negligible and unimpressive for a lot of people (me), but crucial and all-important to many others. Maybe some VR2 compatibility?
I feel like Xbox had all the cards and everything was in place for them this gen. They had leading infrastructure and tech for their GamePass vision, they had the free cash for big acquisitions, they had a capable console with a cheaper alternative for more casual folks entering the gaming sphere, and they had a distinct goal of broadening console gaming to other devices they seem committed to.
There was just one crucial thing missing: the games. A console needs first party exclusive games - to distinguish its brand from the competition, to move consoles, to establish some sort of identity. This is as true today as it was in '95 when the PS1 carved it's way into the market from nothing, with good games and a distinct, edgier, more "adult" marketing approach to distinguish it from Nintendo. They had an angle they worked to get into the market and the good luck for Sega to make some huge business errors in the hardware space.
GamePass is not an identity. It's not enough by itself. GamePass + high-quality, plentiful first party games = Microsoft is the new king of console gaming. They tripped at the finish line. I don't know what omega-level mismanagement has occurred over the past three plus years to result in not a single standout flagship title being released across a multitude of studios, but it needs to get looked at with a critical eye.
No sane person wants Xbox to disappear from the hardware space, as they reign in Sony's less friendly business impulses.
Oh yeah, a lot of people were happy with the performance boost, especially people who are keen on framerate. I've heard people sing it's praises and get the arguments for 4k and all that.
I owned one. Bought it due to my base PS4 being pretty aged and struggling at the point. I saw hardly any noticeable benefit at all. But that's me, I think it is a niche product marketed maybe more to technophiles, but to my untrained eye I got nothing out of it except jet fan noises that scared my dog haha. I'm not discounting the value of it, just saying it's meant for people who are not me, possibly more observant people than me.
I think the general argument is those games run poorly because they are not optimized well for the system, not because the PS5 is maxed out. We see those games patched later to have better performance in those cases when they are a mess at launch or don't work well.
I personally can't say for sure because I'm not a game dev but I think the base PS5 has a lot more to give, especially by well optimized games released by first parties. Fingers crossed.
That was pretty much THE reason for a Pro, and maybe framerate here and there. Anecdotally, the game specific tweaks I never was too blown away by. I remember Monster Hunter World had a fidelity mode that added more foliage, which was cool. But nothing truly game changing as far as anything I personally played, outside the 4k support (which is a pretty big jump admittedly). I think the benefits of the Pro were pretty overstated... but the triple decker design was neat. Too bad about the jet engine fan.
Some people mentioned it was a pretty big boost for VR games, which is significant if you played a lot of VR.
I kinda feel like I'm nuts but I still can't - really - tell the difference between 30 and 60 fps unless it's compared side by side. I guess I might be crazy and I suppose it is to my benefit I can't tell. I can tell when the frame rate dips but that's about it.
Call me the most unobservant person in the world haha, but I have never understood this whole frame rate obsession thing. I know I'm not in the majority on this but I'd like to see improvements in other areas besides just repeatedly focusing on this specific element. I feel like I missed a whole generation because I missed the memo that framerate is king. We used to talk about new gameplay mechanics and "better graphics" between generations as kids. Now we argue about 10 framerate dips in a 60fps game in hyper-technical Digital Foundry videos.
What the PS4 Pro offered in a nutshell was 4K compatibility. It was needed at the time, as 4K TVs were becoming the industry standard. Granted, the vast majority of games did not actually output true 4k, but it was needed regardless. The PS4 base model hardware was pretty dated the second it launched. By the time the Pro launched it was ancient.
But you are right - in the end, the value proposition for the Pro was 4K and... Pretty much jack all else. The "pro enhanced" modes some games offered were to me negligible and unimpressive.
Yeah could not agree more. I would say the PS5 has room to grow beyond just upping the frame rate and resolution that so many seem to be obsessed with these days. These marginal, barely noticeable (to me anyways) changes that don't affect the end experience all that much.
What PS5 could do - and where I think PS4 held it back - is as you said the game design philosophy, not resolution or graphics. Namely, utilizing the SSD to create new experiences. We saw this in a limited way with Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart's seamless world transitions, although it was later discovered some trickery was involved there. Graphics are scalable, the core game design is not.
What made it apparent the PS4 parity is holding PS5 back for me was God of War: Ragnarok. The design limitations of the PS4 version (loading screens hidden by tedious segments of squeezing through wall openings, etc.) are naturally present in the PS5 version as well, even though they were not needed with the PS5's SSD. I firmly believe the level layouts would be rearranged for the better and "flow" better in a more seamless way, if the PS4 version did not exist. This is just one small example of many I'm sure. Sort of that old argument that the devs develop to the lowest common denominator and scale what is scalable to the more powerful consoles.
It's a shame that the most impressive games for me in the PS5's library are still the exclusives that came out during the launch window, like Ratchet and Demon's Souls and Astro Bot. Something happened about 6 months in where they just chose to make the PS5 like a PS4 Pro+. It never felt like a generational leap outside of the launch games because they ditched exclusivity pretty quickly. I think it was a practical business decision that hurt the PS5's long term prospects in the end.
Amen to that. I don't like the overall direction I'm seeing with the acquisitions, whether it was Tencent, Microsoft, or Sony. I'm glad it's slowing down now.
I like Xbox as a brand. Had a lot of good memories doing Halo LAN parties, playing Morrowind / Gears / etc. Good times.
Despite liking Xbox, I never stopped despising Microsoft as a company. For a whole host of reasons that has nothing to do with their games division. The whole Game pass thing to me is nasty, the buying up huge publishers thing is even worse. I get their overall plan, or vision, or whatever you want to call it... And I don't want it.
I want some competition to be around though. Letting Sony of the leash entirely is a future I do not want to see. Hope they can continue to coexist.
Yeah agree, I feel like this guy in the article is right on the money - the PS5 Pro will be extremely niche and lack the wider appeal of the PS4 Pro. They need more software that pushes the hardware further to make a refresh make sense.
The last three year period was a chance for Sony to make a strong case for a Pro model. In my opinion, they failed (so far). First party software that pushes the system just isn't getting out fast enough or in the quantity needed to sell me on why I need this.
My sentiments exactly. How are you going to sell me on a PS5 Pro when we just left the PS4 / PS5 cross platform era and it seems the base PS5 hasn't been fully tapped into yet.
If Sony had dumped PS4 for its new game releases three years ago I could see the argument. They chose not to abandon the PS4 install base which is fine but it hurt the value proposition of a pro model right now.
When the PS4 Pro came out, the base model's limits had been well and truly reached and a Pro made sense. Unfortunately, PS5 was held back by PS4 parity so Sony could tap into that extra install base, and it just hasn't had a chance to grow at the same rate as a result.
Capcom cannot miss. Dominates every genre it releases games for. As far as I'm concerned there's Capcom, and everyone else. And yeah, I include Nintendo and Sony in the "everyone else" category. No other publisher comes close imo.
Shame about the micro transactions, though.
Hate micro transactions but... RE 2/3/4 remake had em. RE8 has em. Street Fighter has em. Monster Hunter has had em. Devil May Cry 5 too. Sorta weird that they even include them as they generally trend towards "time savers" and its usually stuff you can get pretty easily in the game too, outside of the outfits here and there. Not defending, but in the grand spectrum of micro transactions, it's the least offensive sort. It's nowhere near the egregious level of NetherRealm or EA or Activision games in general. Still not ideal though.
On the net, I've really appreciated their free content updates to their games more than I've been offended by their pretty innocuous microtransaction schemes.
Thanks, I really appreciate it. I (naively) hope we can get back to some sense of normalcy someday, whatever normal was pre-COVID.
On a lighter note, here's also to hoping this young lady can go about her life in peace! Life's already stressful enough without strangers calling your workplace. The silver lining of this story to me is while everyone might argue as to the cause of this sort of behavior, every single one of us seems to agree it is unacceptable. There's still a lot of good people out there. We just hear about the troubled ones because good people aren't all that newsworthy.
I can't speak to everything you said, but mental health issues are definitely on the rise. I've worked as a police officer in the US for the last six years and in that short time it's become significantly, noticeably worse. This is just my experience, but I think most would agree. Worked more suicidal calls in the last 18 months then the rest of my time combined. Just in my limited experience, stalking behavior usually has some overt mental health component and is also on the rise. Working on a telephone stalking case right now.
You hate to see it. Not sure what's going on with people...
I love the dirty VHS presentation of those games. I also love found footage horror movies, go figure, and it reminds me of that style.
Man I miss those games. You think if they released Manhunt in 2024 they would have to tone it down a bit? I remember Rockstar was courting the uber violence controversy pretty hard back when that released.
I saw some footage for this game and it actually looks pretty solid. I just really, really wish it wasn't published by Nacon. They are a pretty awful company to their devs.
Thank you, I think the comments on here have been pretty tame and reasonable compared to what I've seen in the past. Usually the only rational thing to do with emotionally charged topics is to not comment, but the PushSquare community has been a lot more tempered and sane than other game sites with stuff like this, so I thought I'd give it a shot. I'm actually pretty impressed with the civility so far, I guess a shout out to the commenters and the mods for keeping it somewhat reasonable is due.
It's a nuanced topic and people unfortunately don't have a lot of patience for discussing those nuances.
"Woke" in the pejorative, negative usage doesn't refer to female leads. It doesn't refer to having a diverse cast. Those things are cool and good if done well, which there are plenty of good examples of good games in that vein.
Whether you agree or disagree, there is a subset of people who believe modern media - sometimes - includes women and a diverse cast to check a box, or to push their own worldview and/or 'virtue signal' without really doing right or understanding the particular ethnicity they are portraying, or without any actual benefit to the story. It is a synonym for pandering. Inclusion for inclusion's sake I guess you could say. It's self-serving, superficial, and gross, whereas the ones done well have diverse characters that organically fit their settings.
Too bad the English language is so fluid and we keep moving the goalposts on that word. Diversity in games is awesome if done well and was around long before the extremist worldviews on both sides of the debate muddied the waters.
It's the asinine new wave feminist movement with its ridiculous excess crashing against people that legitimately hate or dislike women. And all of us in the middle are just standing on the sidelines as these two opposite but equally bonkers worldviews go at it like feral cats.
Remember the Sarkesian versus gamers saga? I thought she was a nutjob but then again so were the people that went after her. Nobody wins and everyone on both sides end up looking like idiots. Everyone's toxic worldviews get validated and the cycle continues because only the loudest, wackiest stuff gets news time. Meanwhile 95% plus of us are just trying to dodge the debate and just enjoy playing video games.
I will also say, I left Kotaku after years of reading because they were editorializing waaaay too much on social issues. There's a crowd and a target market for that type of news, apparently, but I appreciate keeping it straight news and dodging the rampant culture war stuff, which PushSquare wisely does 98% of the time. Game blogs aren't the platform for that type of discussion (trust me, or, if you want proof - look at the comment section of any Kotaku article over the past 15 years. The closest analogy I can think of to describe it is pigs wallowing in mud).
I'm content to wait. Might be a bit of a reach, but I'm fairly sure Bloober Team doesn't "get" Silent Hill. Based on their past games and the SH2 trailer they released. James Sunderland's iconic mirror scene was butchered. Looks like he is about to cry in that shot.
Everything in that game was painstakingly intentional. James' disassociation and "absent" personality, the shot in the bathroom where he has a sort of sneaky smile on his face and secretly is looking at the player. It's treatment of the whole topic of mental health. Really a masterpiece by Team Silent. I guess despite the overtly horrifying monsters and whatnot, there was a lot of subtlety in those stories that puts a game like this far, far out of Bloober's league.
I've come to believe this series was just lightning in a bottle and can never be recreated properly. It was a product of it's time with the exact right people at the exact right time. Chasing the dream of returning to a game that rivals or exceeds the original three entries is sort of a Silent Hill purgatory in itself. Just as delusional and hopeless as James Sunderland's personal journey to find his dead wife. How's that for meta?
PS1 was a legendary system. '97-98 was madness. Things seemed more experimental back then. PS3 was pretty darn good too, but all things considered, I gotta give the crown to PS2.
Seriously though, yeah, if you got a serviceable PC the value proposition is way down for sure. If you have an Xbox and PS5, a huge amount of library overlaps, of course. Those things go without saying! (Not many exclusives)
The single player stuff is not for everyone. I respect that too. If I were big into multiplayer (I'm absolutely not) PC would be my go-to for the reasons you mention.
I looked at the question in terms of, if you could only have one console is it doing alright in the library department? That's why I include the PS4 backwards compatibility. And I think PS5 is doing very well, so far, if you are into the specific thing they are offering. We are eating good here, I think.
I own 16 consoles and a PC I collect for, so I have to mentally frame it in terms of if I just had a PS5, would I be happy? I would! The overall end user experience and package (controller, UI, third party games, exclusives, etc.) has cumulatively amounted to the best time I've had in gaming since I started in 1994. Just edges out some of the amazing 6th Gen consoles for me, so far. Could change.
Strauss Zelnick, Bobby Kotick, and Randy Pitchford should form like a power rangers super squad, except their super powers would include microtransactions and doing lines of coke.
I'm one of those weird people that played Call of Duty for the campaign. I stopped like 5 entries back but they were bombastic fun in a Michael Bay sort of way. Heard this campaign is pretty dismal.
Activision had a way of running its huge franchises into the ground back in the day by releasing too many games too quickly. Guitar Hero comes to mind. That game was a cultural phenomenon back in the day.
I think CoD has some gas in the tank but I'd guess in the next ten years it will be sitting next to Guitar Hero, unless it can reinvent itself somehow.
I'll never understand why Konami took a flag ship franchise (Silent Hill) and passed it around to every C-tier dev after Silent Hill 4. And now it's Bloober Team's turn to desecrate the corpse.
I know it's already been said but waiting on Bloober to make a good Silent Hill game is like trying to get 5 star cuisine at McDonald's.
The MGS compilation port was super lazy I heard, and they are not going to bother redoing any of the voicework for the MGS3 remake. Konami has got me very skeptical right now.
Comments 685
Re: Poll: Will the Rumoured PlayStation Showcase Be Announced Soon?
The thumbnail photo actually got me to laugh out loud. Well done.
Re: PlayStation London Studio Shares a Farewell Message Following Closure
This was never a top tier studio - their games received middling reviews pretty consistently. They never released a game that saw mass appeal or any acclaim beyond a game reaching a limited cult favorite status, like The Getaway games or Blood and Truth. They are right there with Pixelopus and Japan Studio in terms of the role they filled - two other studios which got the axe recently.
And despite that, this closure hurts the most of any yet. London Studio has pedigree as making experimental titles and AA entries - something Sony needs right now, badly. AA games are an endangered species. Nowadays it's either indies or AAA blockbusters that follow a really samey template. We all know the one: Horizon, God of War, Days Gone, Death Stranding, Spiderman.
Now we get barren release schedules between AAA open world cinematic action extravaganzas with RPG-lite elements. It is all so damn cynical. Compare the first party releases on the PS5 to PS1, PS2, and PS3. Where are the Concrete Genies, the Twisted Metals, the Medievils, the Wipeouts, the Motorstorms?
Been playing primarily Sony consoles since PS1. Something is deeply wrong in the house of Sony. I don't like where any of this is going.
Go on, go ahead and shut down Media Molecule already. It's already as good as done and we all know it. So we can get God of War 7: Electric Boogaloo in seven years instead of eight. Gotta make sure the profits grow for the next quarterly results, who gives a damn where the company is in ten years. The shareholders don't care, they will dump the stock from their portfolios as soons as it dips. The execs don't care, they will be retired by then. Why are all the decisions made - TODAY - being made for people who won't be here tomorrow? Money. Money of the short-term variety, is the answer.
I love the smell of capitalism in the morning.
Re: Capcom Hits Record High Profits for Seventh Year in a Row
@naruball
When they are consistently high quality, I don't mind they are all sequels to an existing property. Plus, their established IP pool is so deep they could ride that train forever and avoid franchise fatigue. So many dormant series they haven't touched in awhile. Darkstalkers please.
Re: Capcom Hits Record High Profits for Seventh Year in a Row
Capcom is one of the few big publishers (maybe the only one) that delivers consistently and with a high bar for quality. Fighting games, horror games, action games, RPGs - all top notch in their genre.
It's like they are the one publisher still living in the 90s golden era while all the other big companies became addicted to crack and live in the streets now.
Re: Alan Wake 2 Yet to Recoup Dev, Marketing Expenses as Tencent Raises Stake
I'm just one nobody, but speaking for me only I would have bought it at full price if they had released a physical edition.
Re: PlayStation Studios: All Sony First-Party Developers and What They're Working On
I'm seeing quite a few studios that haven't put out anything in many years and have nothing formally announced.
Re: Random: Vladimir Putin Considers Creation of Russian Gaming Console
Maybe they should do an educational game about good safety practices around windows.
Heard it is a bit of an issue for them over there.
Re: Game Pass Woes for Indie Devs as Microsoft, Epic Funding Reportedly Drying Up
@lightningbolt79
"Why does Push Square publish so many articles about Xbox.."
Because this is a PlayStation news website, and because Xbox is their most direct competitor this kind of stuff is de-facto relevant and important to PlayStation based on how interrelated their business practices and strategies are. What Xbox does and doesn't do affects Sony in a direct and real way.
Or I guess, based on your comment history, what you wanted to hear was PushSquare staff and users are just really biased and are trying to constantly dunk on Xbox for clicks and in a nefarious effort to promote a 90s-esque console war.
I dunno, pick one.
Re: PlayStation Fans Torn on Prospect of PS5 Pro
@Andy22385
Hey that's exciting! I haven't played it (really liked the first one) but now it is definitely on my radar. I think it's on their Extra service right?
Re: PlayStation Fans Torn on Prospect of PS5 Pro
@nomither6
"bring aesthetic/artstyles back to games"
Yes, this. You remember how PS3 got a lot of flack for muddy, washed out color pallettes in AAA games? PS4/PS5 went to this hyper realistic thing recently for AAA. There are definitely these distinct eras of graphical styles throughout the different consoles.
I was referring specifically to graphics but I think the woah moment I was talking about can be other things. Like an ingenious game mechanic. Enemies following your footprints in the snow in Metal Gear Solid or the paint brush mechanic in Okami also hit me the same way. It doesn't need to be just amazing graphics, I think like a lot of people have said the PS5 could offer this through its SSD and integrating that somehow into a novel game mechanic (Rift Apart came close but I'm talking about more than seamless world transitions)
Re: PlayStation Fans Torn on Prospect of PS5 Pro
@Hyena_socks
Yeah agreed! For PS2 it was God of War 2 for me. PS3, it was The Last of Us. PS4, it was Uncharted 4. Games that make you go 'woah' (at least graphically anyways). The only game that came close this gen to doing that for me was the Demons Souls remake and Ratchet and Clank of all things, both launch window titles.
I feel the base PS5 is thoroughly untapped at this point and while plenty of good games have released, no 'woah', moments so far. Maybe we can't expect these big graphical jumps between consoles anymore.
Re: PlayStation Fans Torn on Prospect of PS5 Pro
@Ghostngoblins
They got some marketing geniuses over there I tell ya. Slap 'Pro' on it and you just feel inadequate using anything less. What does it do? Who cares, that's a question an amateur would ask.
80% of the time, it works every time.
Re: PlayStation Fans Torn on Prospect of PS5 Pro
@MikeOrator
I think the post will age okay. A lot of people, particularly in this community, view the GTA series as a soulless cash grab live service abomination that may or may not have caused irreparable damage to the gaming industry by very successfully filling the niche of a mass-appeal, casual game akin to Fortnight for adults.
Okay, I'm projecting a bit. I'm sure it will sell bucket loads. But yeah, there is some kind of anti-GTA bent around here. Loved the single player in 5.
Re: PlayStation Fans Torn on Prospect of PS5 Pro
I bet it sells okay in the end. I'm sure there will be some use case for it for the hardcore / early adopter crowd. Probably something like better framerate, which is negligible and unimpressive for a lot of people (me), but crucial and all-important to many others. Maybe some VR2 compatibility?
Re: Xbox Planning to Release the 'Majority' of Its Exclusives on PS5
I feel like Xbox had all the cards and everything was in place for them this gen. They had leading infrastructure and tech for their GamePass vision, they had the free cash for big acquisitions, they had a capable console with a cheaper alternative for more casual folks entering the gaming sphere, and they had a distinct goal of broadening console gaming to other devices they seem committed to.
There was just one crucial thing missing: the games. A console needs first party exclusive games - to distinguish its brand from the competition, to move consoles, to establish some sort of identity. This is as true today as it was in '95 when the PS1 carved it's way into the market from nothing, with good games and a distinct, edgier, more "adult" marketing approach to distinguish it from Nintendo. They had an angle they worked to get into the market and the good luck for Sega to make some huge business errors in the hardware space.
GamePass is not an identity. It's not enough by itself. GamePass + high-quality, plentiful first party games = Microsoft is the new king of console gaming. They tripped at the finish line. I don't know what omega-level mismanagement has occurred over the past three plus years to result in not a single standout flagship title being released across a multitude of studios, but it needs to get looked at with a critical eye.
No sane person wants Xbox to disappear from the hardware space, as they reign in Sony's less friendly business impulses.
Re: Devs Allegedly Pondering the Point of Sony's PS5 Pro Upgrade
@MomsSpaghetti
Oh yeah, a lot of people were happy with the performance boost, especially people who are keen on framerate. I've heard people sing it's praises and get the arguments for 4k and all that.
I owned one. Bought it due to my base PS4 being pretty aged and struggling at the point. I saw hardly any noticeable benefit at all. But that's me, I think it is a niche product marketed maybe more to technophiles, but to my untrained eye I got nothing out of it except jet fan noises that scared my dog haha. I'm not discounting the value of it, just saying it's meant for people who are not me, possibly more observant people than me.
Re: Devs Allegedly Pondering the Point of Sony's PS5 Pro Upgrade
@gameus_erectus
I think the general argument is those games run poorly because they are not optimized well for the system, not because the PS5 is maxed out. We see those games patched later to have better performance in those cases when they are a mess at launch or don't work well.
I personally can't say for sure because I'm not a game dev but I think the base PS5 has a lot more to give, especially by well optimized games released by first parties. Fingers crossed.
Re: Devs Allegedly Pondering the Point of Sony's PS5 Pro Upgrade
@MomsSpaghetti
That was pretty much THE reason for a Pro, and maybe framerate here and there. Anecdotally, the game specific tweaks I never was too blown away by. I remember Monster Hunter World had a fidelity mode that added more foliage, which was cool. But nothing truly game changing as far as anything I personally played, outside the 4k support (which is a pretty big jump admittedly). I think the benefits of the Pro were pretty overstated... but the triple decker design was neat. Too bad about the jet engine fan.
Some people mentioned it was a pretty big boost for VR games, which is significant if you played a lot of VR.
Re: Devs Allegedly Pondering the Point of Sony's PS5 Pro Upgrade
@RicksReflection
I kinda feel like I'm nuts but I still can't - really - tell the difference between 30 and 60 fps unless it's compared side by side. I guess I might be crazy and I suppose it is to my benefit I can't tell. I can tell when the frame rate dips but that's about it.
Call me the most unobservant person in the world haha, but I have never understood this whole frame rate obsession thing. I know I'm not in the majority on this but I'd like to see improvements in other areas besides just repeatedly focusing on this specific element. I feel like I missed a whole generation because I missed the memo that framerate is king. We used to talk about new gameplay mechanics and "better graphics" between generations as kids. Now we argue about 10 framerate dips in a 60fps game in hyper-technical Digital Foundry videos.
Wild stuff. I'm old.
Re: Devs Allegedly Pondering the Point of Sony's PS5 Pro Upgrade
@DennisReynolds
What the PS4 Pro offered in a nutshell was 4K compatibility. It was needed at the time, as 4K TVs were becoming the industry standard. Granted, the vast majority of games did not actually output true 4k, but it was needed regardless. The PS4 base model hardware was pretty dated the second it launched. By the time the Pro launched it was ancient.
But you are right - in the end, the value proposition for the Pro was 4K and... Pretty much jack all else. The "pro enhanced" modes some games offered were to me negligible and unimpressive.
Re: Devs Allegedly Pondering the Point of Sony's PS5 Pro Upgrade
@nhSnork
Yeah could not agree more. I would say the PS5 has room to grow beyond just upping the frame rate and resolution that so many seem to be obsessed with these days. These marginal, barely noticeable (to me anyways) changes that don't affect the end experience all that much.
What PS5 could do - and where I think PS4 held it back - is as you said the game design philosophy, not resolution or graphics. Namely, utilizing the SSD to create new experiences. We saw this in a limited way with Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart's seamless world transitions, although it was later discovered some trickery was involved there. Graphics are scalable, the core game design is not.
What made it apparent the PS4 parity is holding PS5 back for me was God of War: Ragnarok. The design limitations of the PS4 version (loading screens hidden by tedious segments of squeezing through wall openings, etc.) are naturally present in the PS5 version as well, even though they were not needed with the PS5's SSD. I firmly believe the level layouts would be rearranged for the better and "flow" better in a more seamless way, if the PS4 version did not exist. This is just one small example of many I'm sure. Sort of that old argument that the devs develop to the lowest common denominator and scale what is scalable to the more powerful consoles.
It's a shame that the most impressive games for me in the PS5's library are still the exclusives that came out during the launch window, like Ratchet and Demon's Souls and Astro Bot. Something happened about 6 months in where they just chose to make the PS5 like a PS4 Pro+. It never felt like a generational leap outside of the launch games because they ditched exclusivity pretty quickly. I think it was a practical business decision that hurt the PS5's long term prospects in the end.
Re: Xbox Planning to Release the 'Majority' of Its Exclusives on PS5
@colonelkilgore
Amen to that. I don't like the overall direction I'm seeing with the acquisitions, whether it was Tencent, Microsoft, or Sony. I'm glad it's slowing down now.
Re: Xbox Planning to Release the 'Majority' of Its Exclusives on PS5
@WolfyTn
Yeah opinions are like... Well, you know 😆
Fallout New Vegas was so good. The 4 came in and well... Yeah. Wasn't a fan compared to their previous stuff.
Re: Xbox Planning to Release the 'Majority' of Its Exclusives on PS5
@colonelkilgore
I like Xbox as a brand. Had a lot of good memories doing Halo LAN parties, playing Morrowind / Gears / etc. Good times.
Despite liking Xbox, I never stopped despising Microsoft as a company. For a whole host of reasons that has nothing to do with their games division. The whole Game pass thing to me is nasty, the buying up huge publishers thing is even worse. I get their overall plan, or vision, or whatever you want to call it... And I don't want it.
I want some competition to be around though. Letting Sony of the leash entirely is a future I do not want to see. Hope they can continue to coexist.
Re: Xbox Planning to Release the 'Majority' of Its Exclusives on PS5
I really miss the 360 era. Lot of good Xbox exclusives. I don't know what changed between them and now, but something has got to give.
Re: Devs Allegedly Pondering the Point of Sony's PS5 Pro Upgrade
@gymratAmarillo
Yeah agree, I feel like this guy in the article is right on the money - the PS5 Pro will be extremely niche and lack the wider appeal of the PS4 Pro. They need more software that pushes the hardware further to make a refresh make sense.
The last three year period was a chance for Sony to make a strong case for a Pro model. In my opinion, they failed (so far). First party software that pushes the system just isn't getting out fast enough or in the quantity needed to sell me on why I need this.
Re: Devs Allegedly Pondering the Point of Sony's PS5 Pro Upgrade
My sentiments exactly. How are you going to sell me on a PS5 Pro when we just left the PS4 / PS5 cross platform era and it seems the base PS5 hasn't been fully tapped into yet.
If Sony had dumped PS4 for its new game releases three years ago I could see the argument. They chose not to abandon the PS4 install base which is fine but it hurt the value proposition of a pro model right now.
When the PS4 Pro came out, the base model's limits had been well and truly reached and a Pro made sense. Unfortunately, PS5 was held back by PS4 parity so Sony could tap into that extra install base, and it just hasn't had a chance to grow at the same rate as a result.
Re: Dragon's Dogma 2 (PS5) - The Apex of RPG Adventuring
Capcom cannot miss. Dominates every genre it releases games for. As far as I'm concerned there's Capcom, and everyone else. And yeah, I include Nintendo and Sony in the "everyone else" category. No other publisher comes close imo.
Shame about the micro transactions, though.
Hate micro transactions but... RE 2/3/4 remake had em. RE8 has em. Street Fighter has em. Monster Hunter has had em. Devil May Cry 5 too. Sorta weird that they even include them as they generally trend towards "time savers" and its usually stuff you can get pretty easily in the game too, outside of the outfits here and there. Not defending, but in the grand spectrum of micro transactions, it's the least offensive sort. It's nowhere near the egregious level of NetherRealm or EA or Activision games in general. Still not ideal though.
On the net, I've really appreciated their free content updates to their games more than I've been offended by their pretty innocuous microtransaction schemes.
Re: Rumour: Dragon Age: Dreadwolf Will Finally, Finally Release Later This Year
Love the Dragon Age series.
But Bioware is not Bioware anymore. Most of the people who released all those iconic games are long gone from the company.
They just laid off another round of 50 people, including some of their last veteran employees.
Re: Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth Now Has Its Own Official Sony TV
Oh yeah? I'll be playing while wearing my officially branded FF 7R underwear.
Checkmate.
Re: Call of Duty: Warzone's Latest Update Appears to Have Buckled the Game
@Pingusbumhole
Please accept my deepest apologies for this error.
Is that the one you hit a ball with a big mallet through the hoops?
Re: Call of Duty: Warzone's Latest Update Appears to Have Buckled the Game
@Mikey856
Hey, hey now! Don't be calling out the Madden / Call of Duty Bro Gamers like that. They are a proud people. Their K/D ratios are insane.
They are people too!
Re: You Should Get 'Comfortable' with Not Owning Your Games, Suggests Ubisoft Exec
Suddenly I'm supposed to alter my tastes to align better with Ubisoft's long-term business strategy? Nah, that doesn't work for me.
I'll just keep doing what I like to do if you don't mind, random exec of a disgraced publisher.
Re: Marvel's Spider-Man's Mary-Jane Face Model Calls for an End to Unacceptable Behaviour
@riceNpea
Thanks, I really appreciate it. I (naively) hope we can get back to some sense of normalcy someday, whatever normal was pre-COVID.
On a lighter note, here's also to hoping this young lady can go about her life in peace! Life's already stressful enough without strangers calling your workplace. The silver lining of this story to me is while everyone might argue as to the cause of this sort of behavior, every single one of us seems to agree it is unacceptable. There's still a lot of good people out there. We just hear about the troubled ones because good people aren't all that newsworthy.
Re: Marvel's Spider-Man's Mary-Jane Face Model Calls for an End to Unacceptable Behaviour
@riceNpea
I can't speak to everything you said, but mental health issues are definitely on the rise. I've worked as a police officer in the US for the last six years and in that short time it's become significantly, noticeably worse. This is just my experience, but I think most would agree. Worked more suicidal calls in the last 18 months then the rest of my time combined. Just in my limited experience, stalking behavior usually has some overt mental health component and is also on the rise. Working on a telephone stalking case right now.
You hate to see it. Not sure what's going on with people...
Re: GTA 5's Michael Voice Actor a Big Fan of GTA 6 Protagonist: 'Lucia's Hard, Man'
@PixelDragon
I love the dirty VHS presentation of those games. I also love found footage horror movies, go figure, and it reminds me of that style.
Man I miss those games. You think if they released Manhunt in 2024 they would have to tone it down a bit? I remember Rockstar was courting the uber violence controversy pretty hard back when that released.
Re: GTA 5's Michael Voice Actor a Big Fan of GTA 6 Protagonist: 'Lucia's Hard, Man'
@Northern_munkey
Agreed! And I wish I could give you some upvotes for the Manhunt call out!
Re: Underrated PS5 Shooter RoboCop: Rogue City Teases New Game + Update
I saw some footage for this game and it actually looks pretty solid. I just really, really wish it wasn't published by Nacon. They are a pretty awful company to their devs.
Re: GTA 5's Michael Voice Actor a Big Fan of GTA 6 Protagonist: 'Lucia's Hard, Man'
@Northern_Munkey
Thank you, I think the comments on here have been pretty tame and reasonable compared to what I've seen in the past. Usually the only rational thing to do with emotionally charged topics is to not comment, but the PushSquare community has been a lot more tempered and sane than other game sites with stuff like this, so I thought I'd give it a shot. I'm actually pretty impressed with the civility so far, I guess a shout out to the commenters and the mods for keeping it somewhat reasonable is due.
It's a nuanced topic and people unfortunately don't have a lot of patience for discussing those nuances.
Re: GTA 5's Michael Voice Actor a Big Fan of GTA 6 Protagonist: 'Lucia's Hard, Man'
"Woke" in the pejorative, negative usage doesn't refer to female leads. It doesn't refer to having a diverse cast. Those things are cool and good if done well, which there are plenty of good examples of good games in that vein.
Whether you agree or disagree, there is a subset of people who believe modern media - sometimes - includes women and a diverse cast to check a box, or to push their own worldview and/or 'virtue signal' without really doing right or understanding the particular ethnicity they are portraying, or without any actual benefit to the story. It is a synonym for pandering. Inclusion for inclusion's sake I guess you could say. It's self-serving, superficial, and gross, whereas the ones done well have diverse characters that organically fit their settings.
Too bad the English language is so fluid and we keep moving the goalposts on that word. Diversity in games is awesome if done well and was around long before the extremist worldviews on both sides of the debate muddied the waters.
It's the asinine new wave feminist movement with its ridiculous excess crashing against people that legitimately hate or dislike women. And all of us in the middle are just standing on the sidelines as these two opposite but equally bonkers worldviews go at it like feral cats.
Remember the Sarkesian versus gamers saga? I thought she was a nutjob but then again so were the people that went after her. Nobody wins and everyone on both sides end up looking like idiots. Everyone's toxic worldviews get validated and the cycle continues because only the loudest, wackiest stuff gets news time. Meanwhile 95% plus of us are just trying to dodge the debate and just enjoy playing video games.
I will also say, I left Kotaku after years of reading because they were editorializing waaaay too much on social issues. There's a crowd and a target market for that type of news, apparently, but I appreciate keeping it straight news and dodging the rampant culture war stuff, which PushSquare wisely does 98% of the time. Game blogs aren't the platform for that type of discussion (trust me, or, if you want proof - look at the comment section of any Kotaku article over the past 15 years. The closest analogy I can think of to describe it is pigs wallowing in mud).
Re: Maybe Don't Expect an Elden Ring DLC Release Date at The Game Awards
Excited about this. Really dug the Dark Souls 3 expansion.
Re: Bloober Team Says Silent Hill 2 PS5 Is Progressing Smoothly, Working to Attain the Highest Quality
I'm content to wait. Might be a bit of a reach, but I'm fairly sure Bloober Team doesn't "get" Silent Hill. Based on their past games and the SH2 trailer they released. James Sunderland's iconic mirror scene was butchered. Looks like he is about to cry in that shot.
Everything in that game was painstakingly intentional. James' disassociation and "absent" personality, the shot in the bathroom where he has a sort of sneaky smile on his face and secretly is looking at the player. It's treatment of the whole topic of mental health. Really a masterpiece by Team Silent. I guess despite the overtly horrifying monsters and whatnot, there was a lot of subtlety in those stories that puts a game like this far, far out of Bloober's league.
I've come to believe this series was just lightning in a bottle and can never be recreated properly. It was a product of it's time with the exact right people at the exact right time. Chasing the dream of returning to a game that rivals or exceeds the original three entries is sort of a Silent Hill purgatory in itself. Just as delusional and hopeless as James Sunderland's personal journey to find his dead wife. How's that for meta?
Re: Poll: Are You Happy with Your PS Plus Extra, Premium Games for November 2023?
Wait Klonoa 2? That's a PS2 game and it was never re-released, except in the Fantasy Reverie port, which is also releasing on Premium.
So... does that make Klonoa 2 the FIRST PS2 game they've added to the service since it launched?
Re: Talking Point: As PS5 Turns 3, How Are You Feeling About It?
@F1at8mot0
PS1 was a legendary system. '97-98 was madness. Things seemed more experimental back then. PS3 was pretty darn good too, but all things considered, I gotta give the crown to PS2.
Re: Talking Point: As PS5 Turns 3, How Are You Feeling About It?
@nomither6
So we agree on nearly all points then! Salud!
Seriously though, yeah, if you got a serviceable PC the value proposition is way down for sure. If you have an Xbox and PS5, a huge amount of library overlaps, of course. Those things go without saying! (Not many exclusives)
The single player stuff is not for everyone. I respect that too. If I were big into multiplayer (I'm absolutely not) PC would be my go-to for the reasons you mention.
I looked at the question in terms of, if you could only have one console is it doing alright in the library department? That's why I include the PS4 backwards compatibility. And I think PS5 is doing very well, so far, if you are into the specific thing they are offering. We are eating good here, I think.
I own 16 consoles and a PC I collect for, so I have to mentally frame it in terms of if I just had a PS5, would I be happy? I would! The overall end user experience and package (controller, UI, third party games, exclusives, etc.) has cumulatively amounted to the best time I've had in gaming since I started in 1994. Just edges out some of the amazing 6th Gen consoles for me, so far. Could change.
But of course, mileage varies.
Re: AI Could Make Grand Theft Auto NPCs 'Really Interesting and Fun', Says Take-Two CEO
Strauss Zelnick, Bobby Kotick, and Randy Pitchford should form like a power rangers super squad, except their super powers would include microtransactions and doing lines of coke.
Re: UK Sales Charts: Everyone Hates Modern Warfare 3, But It's Still Number One
I'm one of those weird people that played Call of Duty for the campaign. I stopped like 5 entries back but they were bombastic fun in a Michael Bay sort of way. Heard this campaign is pretty dismal.
Activision had a way of running its huge franchises into the ground back in the day by releasing too many games too quickly. Guitar Hero comes to mind. That game was a cultural phenomenon back in the day.
I think CoD has some gas in the tank but I'd guess in the next ten years it will be sitting next to Guitar Hero, unless it can reinvent itself somehow.
Re: Konami Is Creating a New Silent Hill Production Team
I'll never understand why Konami took a flag ship franchise (Silent Hill) and passed it around to every C-tier dev after Silent Hill 4. And now it's Bloober Team's turn to desecrate the corpse.
I know it's already been said but waiting on Bloober to make a good Silent Hill game is like trying to get 5 star cuisine at McDonald's.
The MGS compilation port was super lazy I heard, and they are not going to bother redoing any of the voicework for the MGS3 remake. Konami has got me very skeptical right now.
Townfall looks interesting though.
Re: Rumour: Dragon Age Dreadwolf Really Is Set to Release in 2024
BioWare has honestly got me worried, but Inquisition was really solid so we shall wait and see.
Re: All The Game Awards 2023 Nominees Announced, Baldur's Gate 3 and Alan Wake 2 Lead the Way
C'mon Geoff, we know it's Baldur's Gate versus Zelda this year.