Vovander

If the numbers are as high as claimed, we should see a major hit to profitability of the gaming division in Q3 results when they are out in November.

@MrPeanutbutterz in that case, why have subscription services, and by the same token, discounts at all? Pony up for quality!

I don’t expect day one release, but almost 2 years later, it’s about time for “dvd stage” (to use movies as analogy), no?

For sub services, number of users is critical, and what better way to increase that than putting a tentpole 1st party title on.

So Ragnarok hits PC before it appears on PS Extra. Okay…

Thanks for the review, and congratz to the developers on their solid first shipped title!

Given that we’ve had a few day one PS Extra releases over the past year, what’s the consensus about it now? Is it still an exploitative practice robbing devs of potential full-priced sales, or an option to cover a larger audience and have a guaranteed revenue stream?

Typo - should be $779

Disappointing video, disappointing price (though I expected something around £650-700). Good news: we are now moving to PS6, which, having been just blindsided by Sony, I will not buy and will wait for inevitable PS6Pro.

Kind of amusing to watch this, and then recall CMA’s arguments to block ActiBlizz acquisition, to prevent MS doing something similar.

I think this confirms predictions that PS5 is past its peak sales, and Sony is trying to squeeze as much as it can from falling volumes. Still, sucks to see 60% inflation over 4 years.

Faces look very last gen up close, feels like below 30fps in many segments, and an armored mini-gun miniboss again… meh for me

At least it is not alone in the limbo, with KOTOR remake also hanging there…

How about “will try it when it’s on EA play one year later?”

First month when I regret cancelling Premium/Extra last October! Crisis Core, Pathfinder and maybe Remnant are highlights for me.

Congratz to Capcom! Very informative press release in terms of units sold - hope other publishers will be as transparent! (looking at you, Square Enix!)

Will play later on PC for the first time, after Fallout London mod is released.

Strictly one year after release - I wish Sony had such consistency with PS Plus.

Another proof for Rebirth’s sales underperformance (relative to its budget).

Looks plausible, given all other data points. If true, this is a fiasco, and another round of layoffs is imminent…

Wonder how it will affect FF7R3 development - I hope they will opt for a more compact game, rather than cut costs by reusing assets, AI generating content, and the like.

Objectively, not the worst month, but nothing that I was super eager to play. No regrets letting my subscription lapse, then.

Interesting. I think the title is a bit misleading, as I understood it as Gearbox being bought by the same party as Saber.
I checked the terms of the initial purchase -$360m initially and about $1bn deferred over 6 years. Wonder how much loss Embracer will post on both of these transactions?

Thanks for an informative review! Disappointed about the bloat - based on earlier coverage, I hoped for 50+hours story, plus 20-30hrs of optional content, so that the first “completionist” walkthrough would amount to around 80hrs. Looks like it’s gonna be much more than that - not sure I am going to plat this one then(

Charming stylisation, but I can sense why Sony got cold feet: fps is visibly below 30 in scenes with heavy weather effects, combat looks like your average indie Souls wannabe, and all internal deadlines must have been missed by a mile. Still, wish them luck to salvage what they can and ship it eventually, even if that means some downscaling.

Am I the only one hearing Kaziya?

@thefourfoldroot1
I was referring to their spelling of “yakuza” specifically - someone might lose a finger over that)

From the PS blog:

“ Lost Judgment once again puts players in the sneakers of lawyer turned street-fighting detective Takayuki Yagami. Joined by his partner, ex-yazuka 😂🤣Masaharu Kaito, the crime-fighting duo is called on to investigate a seemingly perfect crime whose lead suspect has an airtight alibi”

Will probably try Spellforce 3. Otherwise meh month for me.

Positively intrigued. Still surprised they are doing back-to-back entries in the same subseries - I guess it’s the first time since CoD 1/2?

Where did you get PSPlus subscriber numbers? In Supplemental Information, they disclosed them only for FY22.

Will probably play when it is available on EA Access one year later.

No mention of PSVR2 in the slides.
The relevant stream - Others - is almost 3x to Q4’22, but it includes revenues from other peripherals and sales on other platforms (PC, I guess).
This probably corroborates earlier reports about PSVR2 sales below expectations, otherwise Sony would likely brag about it.

I finished GoWR only recently, and wanted more, so started NG+ in GoW2018. It’s nice to breeze through some previously difficult encounters, but I am not sure I’ll see it to the end. Difficulty in optional activities (doing muspelheim trials now) indeed seems to be ramped by lenghtening health bars/increasing enemy counts/stricter time limits.
GoWR is too long, too recent, relies too much on “cinematic” storytelling, and has too many traumatising boss encounters for me to play again.
Re: ng+ modes in general, no big deal for me personally, but l would prefer them to be implemented more widely, instead of bloating games. Rather than having a 100+hrs game with same-y optional activities, I would prefer a 50hrs game, with hand-crafted content. NG+ is then for those hungry for more.

I am about 1/3 into the game. Did not have any complaints at first, but when a new companion joined the team, they started to shout hints almost immediately. Also, it seems to be limited to puzzles in story and side missions. If there is an open-world puzzle (eg Nornir chest), I don’t remember when was the last time I was given a clue.

Big if true. EA puts their own releases on EA Access 1 year after the release day, good if Sony matches that. Hoping for TLoU Part 1 in September.

Trials should be available day 1 for all 1st party releases, IMO.

@stvevan One is a (almost) certainty, another one a possibility. MS does not necessarily have to withdraw COD - having it as part of GP will be sufficient draw for many.

Disappointing( It seems that CMA has made up their mind and just looking for supporting arguments.
“More expensive console and games” - happens regardless, as demonstrated by Sony in recent years.
“An important field of cloud gaming” - Sony started offering streaming capability on PSNow years before MS, could have been market leaders by now if they wanted.
“Access to content” - again speculative. Also ignores multiple (time-limited) Sony exclusives.

The way people here ignore tangible, imminent, highly probable benefits this acquisition (entire ABK catalogue on gamepass + day1 releases there) but drum up potential negative consequences at some indeterminate point in the future kinda reminds me of another important debate in the UK society;)

@Member_the_game Exactly! Happened to me, actually. My PSN from PS3 days was registered in an EU country. When I moved to another place with a different currency, there was no way to change my address and wallet currency, so I had to set up a new profile for PS5.

Posted this in the previous article: 112m MAU is just 1m higher than Q3’21 figure of 111m. Given 30m PS5s sold, I hoped their total customer base would increase, but it looks like Sony’s gamer base might have peaked. Would be interesting to revisit this prediction in 2024)

Gratz to Sony, very well done! Agree with some comments above: how can one reasonably say their competitive position is threatened by MS+ABK.

Some interesting other info: the number of PS+ subscribers increased by about 0.7mln to 46+, and the revenue from subscription services is more or less flat. This might indicate that they did not manage to move many people from “old” PS+ (now Essentials) to higher tiers.
The number of monthly players seems to be at all-time high - 112m. 1m higher than Q3’21, and much higher than Q1-Q2’22, which were slightly over 100m. Again, good news that Sony broke the trend of declining user numbers. But to me it seems that majority of all those PS5’s are people upgrading from PS4, not new gamers.
Some alternative takes, maybe?

Oh EA, why do you miss an opportunity to release it on May the 4th?)

Fine, fine. I hope events do not unfold in a way that’ll give me an opportunity to revisit this argument.

@Colour I agree with you that maybe they are due some benefit of the doubt. But maybe they should somehow dissociate themselves from the things they supposedly don’t support? They seem to try hard to conceal their Russian origins. In the “About Us” section, Mundfish is described as a studio HQ’ed in Cyprus with professionals from over 10 countries (RU of course is not mentioned). But a largely symbolic gesture of unambiguously condemning the war is somehow above them.

@dark_knightmare2 It’s not only because of them being from Russia - I gave the whole package of reasons.

@WCB nice try mate.

This game is developed by Russians, the studio has ties to the government (via funding, employees and publisher in RU), exploits Soviet aesthtetics, the main character is a member of RU’s security forces. The release day is also 3 days apart from the 1st anniversary of the full-scale war. The only anti-war message they posted was toothless “we condemn violence”. I hope this is at least considered in the review, so people can make an informed buying decision.

I checked the previous game from these developers - turns out it was Final Fantasy XV. 81 critics, 7.7 users. I don’t know how people could reasonably expect 9 or so game after that. For Hogwarts Legacy fan club - you might want to check MC scores for their oeuvre so far:)

“Do you watch wrestling?” 😂🤣

@themightyant good question! Judging by their share price, investors are starting to ask it too.
To me, their business model in the past couple of years looked like “buy all you can reach, milk IPs”.

Glad for their success, but was somewhat disappointed by the game itself. It’s fun, but does not move the series forward at all. Hope that happens it AC8.

@Tiael status of acquisition of these studios given as Pending in the latest statements of Embracer, and they are excluded from 23-24 forecasts - probably that’s why they are missing.

@Quintumply thanks! That’s a shame. I think this really limits the appeal to newcomers…

How is the tutorial here? I tried ‘20 and ‘21 and was disappointed that they don’t bother to properly introduce a newcomer to F1. All they have is text manuals (or at least I could not found anything else). ‘12 (my previous game) had an excellent intro, styled as a series of tasks to get f1 license. It explained how to do turns properly (finding apex, braking accelerating), drs, kers, other important concepts on track, not via text.