#i should be able to go out and get a ps5 and play a ps1 game on it

[battywitch]

Gonna have to pry my ps3 out of my cold, dead hands

[arkus-rhapsode]

So wasn't expecting to make this Gaming Hot Take of the day but after reading this from Sony CFO Hiroki Totoki I gotta be honest I had to write something

So look, I can kinda understand this stance in a very retrospective sense as he says "Fostered from the beginning." Playstation 1 in particular didn't really make a big distinction between its original IP and its Third Party IP. It's why you had Crash Bandicoot or Cloud Strife as basically the mascot of Playstation when both come from third parties. Compared to the likes of Mario and Sonic who were not only their console mascot, but company mascots respectively.

But by now, Playstation has an undeniable back catalogue of first and second IP that it can either revive or rerelease if need be. Like if we're looking at like multi entry series and not just one offs, by the PS2, Sony had:

Jak & Daxter

Twisted Metal

Ape Escape

Sly Cooper

MediEvil

Wild Arms

Dark Cloud

Everybody's Golf

God of War

Rachet and Clank

And by the PS3 we have

Infamous

Uncharted

Killzone

Resistance

Little Big Planet

Like Sony has their own catalogue that can stand on its own. Its not like they should be struggling now to play catch up.

Now if you read my recent Emio and Mages post, I am very well aware that in the age of modern gaming, a game doesn't get made without a team devoted to it. And with the rising production and time costs of making games, no company can release a hundred games and be profitable. So sadly some IP just do fall by the wayside in favor of others. Guerrilla Games isn't making Killzone anymore, because their efforts are spent on Horizon and Sucker Punch went from being the Sly Cooper guys to the Infamous guys, to now the Ghosts of Tsushima guys.

However, I feel like Sony has had some circumstances that compound this problem. Sony and Playstation are technically powerful machines-they want to fully utilize the hardware they're selling you for hundreds of dollars. It is their brand. However, the downside to this is because of this the rise in production costs, it's now taking much longer to make games that make use of the powerful hardware. We went from being able to release a full trilogy in a single generation to basically one. Its also made worse by the fact that Sony has been very active in shuttering studios and cutting costs. The biggest would be the loss of Sony Japan Studio, who were beloved for their more varied Japanese-y style games. It added flavor to the more Naughty Dog inspired games of the sixth and seventh generation. But now, Sony went all in on being that one big budget release that leaned more towards broader genres that could maximize the amount of sales like Uncharted, The Last of Us, Spider-Man, etc.

With this, a lot of mismanagement, its really made the PS5 era feel very sparse compared to the PS4. Now, I wanna stress this, I actually do not subscribe to the mentality "Playstation has no games." Playstation has tons of games beyond just their first party titles, some are exclusive like Final Fantasy 16, some are just way too powerful to be something that could be played on a switch like GTAV. Heck, I played Bomb Rush Cyberfunk on my PS5 and it's probably the game I've dumped the most time into this year. So yes, even if Playstation's first party offerings are few and far between, you're still capable of playing a lot of good games on this really expensive plastic box.

And maybe that's indicative of the fact that Playstation has always been about selling you the hardware on the basis of the hardware. Going back to the PS1, the main selling points was this was the haven for third parties after Nintendo really burned a lot of developers with the N64, and that this was a much more system than the N64. When you look at someone like Nintendo now, they're hardware is underpowered they live and die by the power of their software that only they can provide and no one else. But the playstation even if its not shooting out a new Jax & Daxter every year, they're still the place you can play something like Final Fantasy or Elden Ring at a really great clip. Perhaps Totoki was alluding to that reliance on hardware instead of software because in retrospect, they never really had that big homegrown system seller on playstation till the PS2 with things like God of War. And now fostering that, has made it hard to have that sort of Zelda or Halo that are so undeniably their companies IP and will move launch units.

But a reliance on just being the place where you can play games at a high fidelity, means that its still got competition from Xbox and PC. So Sony would have to offer a service the others don't and that can be software you find nowhere else. True story, I was genuinely conflicted about getting a PS5 or and Xbox X/S for my birthday because I knew I needed to at least have a strong machine to play with my switch. And ultimately I took PS5 because that was the console that would have God of War Ragnarok and Spider-Man 2. So yes, IP absolutely factors into purchases in my experience. And the fact that this generation Sony has really struggled to put out first party games, really makes that purchase factor feel so much thinner and thinner. When you know-you know Sony has loads of IP (Some that haven't left their respective console) that even a simple remaster on the PS5 could at least hold people over in-between their AAA releases. So to hear their CFO say that they don't have enough IP, gets very disingenuous.

To close this out, I wanna stress something. I don't think wanting to make new IP is a bad thing. Im glad Sony is willing to invest 8 years and millions of dollars into something new. But eventually, we reach a point where this has to be better managed. We have to have some smaller titles that can be released between the bigger ones. We gotta have some variation in the types of games we're getting from the platform holder. And sometimes leaning in on those fan faves for smaller titles would help. Are they gonna sell 10 million units? More than likely not. But if you balance the budget, having something move between 1-2 million units would be acceptable. Perhaps maybe allow more second party developers a crack at using that IP so your internal teams can work on the bigger blockbuster titles?

The PS5 generation has been a pretty all over the map one for Sony, and the more we learn about the thoughts and management behind the scenes, the more aggravating it can become when this platform does something really cool, but then seems to take two steps back. I genuinely can't tell you if I'll get a PS6. But if I do, it will probably not be out of optimism for classic Playstation franchises to return.

[solidandsound]

annual video game retrospective time~!!

Following the trend of the last couple of years, I bought only a small amount of new games this year and instead focused on clearing out older games from my backlog. Specifically, I decided to beat every game in my backlog that was released pre-2000. Thanks to this self-imposed challenge, I got to experience some true classics like Kirby’s Adventure and the Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past for the first time.

I beat a total of 38 games in 2020! This is a smaller number than previous years, but I’m satisfied with it. There were a handful of time sink games I played that sucked up time I could have used for more, shorter titles, but these long games were soothing in this year of stress. (More on that later.) I’m also proud not to have added very many new games to my list this year, not counting things I got for free or as gifts.

Here’s what I spent money on this year:

the Atelier Arland trilogy and the Atelier Dusk trilogy (finished 4/6 of these so far). These games individually have their ups and downs but as a series I can’t get enough of them. They have such a solid, addicting core gameplay loop that I am happy to fall into every time, and their lighthearted tones were great for this hell year.

Pikuniku (actually, I was able to grab this one using gold points on the Switch, the equivalent of about a dollar). A cute game about kicking capitalists into orbit. What’s not to love?

SteamWorld Dig and SteamWorld Dig 2. It was about time I played more SteamWorld games after how much I loved Heist. This series just oozes charm.

That’s it!! A couple other games I played this year were new but either received as gifts or bought by my bf for both of us, but I refrained from immediately purchasing exciting new releases like The Last of Us Part II and 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim. Now, let’s talk about some more highlights from this year.

I got the Collection of Mana for Christmas 2019 and played through it in January. Final Fantasy Adventure was surprisingly solid for 1991, Secret of Mana was fun enough but by far the worst of the trilogy despite its popularity, and Trials of Mana was beautiful on every level. None of them are quite on par with Legend of Mana, but nothing is tbh, and it was a lot of fun to see more of the series finally.

Horizon Zero Dawn was great and surprisingly anti-capitalist. Prey: Mooncrash was a really inventive new take on a game I already loved. Chocobo’s Mystery Dungeon: Every Buddy was a good game to sink 100 hours into when the pandemic hit and I didn’t feel up to anything too deep. Pyre was an absolute masterpiece and my favourite of Supergiant’s games so far. Heaven Will Be Mine was a love letter to Gundam that felt made just for me.

Resident Evil. Specifically, the 2015 remaster of the 2002 remake of Resident Evil. Oh boy, this game. What a masterclass of survival horror. The first playthrough as Jill was so tense and spooky, and the second playthrough as Chris was a completely different experience, despite being mostly the same game, simply because knowing more of the layout of the mansion changes so much. I was so thrilled with this game that I jumped right into Resident Evil 0... but didn’t get very far. RE0 is superficially similar to RE but fails to understand what makes the latter so great. It’s a shame the franchise is so messy because I truly have no idea whether or not I should be trying, say, the RE2 remake, even though RE was probably the best game I played this year.

Shout out also to the games I played a lot of but didn’t beat. This of course includes the endless Animal Crossing: New Horizons, which I used as creative fuel to write over 100 poems in-game! I also played a ton of SD Gundam G Generation Cross Rays. This is a huge game that will take me a while longer to finish, but I’m not in a rush. I’ve actually been using this game to exercise, doing jumping jacks and sit-ups during the game’s long attack animations.

As an added note, the PS5 came out this year and, shock! I did not get one. Yet. More and more I find frustration with our cultural obsession with newness, and not just in video games. It is good praxis, IMO, to insist that the newest thing is not the most valuable, and that something being new is not a good enough reason to acquire it. Sure enough, some of the best stuff I played this year was from over a decade ago. Good art does not expire, and the PS5′s best games will still be good when I get around to them, eventually.

And now I will go against everything I just said and beg you to please play my new game from this year. It’s free. Thank you.

PS. My plan for next year? Play every game in my backlog that released pre-2002! This should put me clear of the PS1 era. I may catch up to the present yet!

[aion-rsa]

Why PlayStation Store Closing on PS3 Should Matter to You

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

After weeks of rumors, Sony has confirmed that they’re closing the PlayStation Store on PlayStation 3, PS Vita, and PSP starting on July 2. 

While you will still be able to access your digital content on those platforms via certain methods after that day (and download previously purchased items of that date) you will no longer be able to download new digital content via the PlayStation Store on those devices past that point. I recommend that you check out Sony’s full list of rules and restrictions related to this decision for a clear understanding of what you will and will not be able to access on those devices after that day.

If that information doesn’t strike you as something worth dreading or even caring about, I can’t blame you. Most of us have moved on from PS3 to PS4 and PS5, and the numbers say that a lot of us never owned Sony’s handheld devices in the first place. Besides, if we’re being really honest, the PS3 wasn’t exactly a heavy hitter in terms of quality exclusives and many of its best games are available on modern consoles and devices in some form.

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However, the story here isn’t just what you will and will not be able to download on those devices after that day; it’s about what this policy tells us about Sony’s methods, mentality, and the potentially consumer unfriendly implications of their upcoming hardware generations.

Actually, the first thing you need to know about this decision is that it doesn’t just affect PS3, PS Vita, and PSP exclusives. This decision will also impact your ability to download certain classic titles that are currently only available (or most easily accessible) digitally on those devices. As some fans have already pointed out on Twitter, that means that a variety of beloved gaming experiences are either about to become inaccessible or much more difficult to legally access via a PlayStation console.

How poetic is it that Dino Crisis gets delisted from the PlayStation Store exactly 1 day after its 22nd anniversary. @Jawmuncher, hope you weren't planning to celebrate! 😜

— Alex Aniel (@cvxfreak) March 29, 2021

It's real. Sony is removing the stores from the PS3, PSP and PS Vita. YOU BETTER GET SOME OF THE GAMES THAT ARE HARD TO FIND BEFORE THEY ARE GONE. I highly recommend getting Klonoa for the PS1 on the PlayStation store. One of the best platformers out there. pic.twitter.com/adDYhty3UG

— Tommo's Cabbit Land #StopAsianHate (@TommoTheCabbit) March 29, 2021

Anyone looking to buy games on the old Japan Playstation store, I recommend Haunting Ground/Demento, Silent Hill 4, Clock Tower 2, Clock Tower Ghost Head, Clock Tower First Fear, Overblood, Shadow Tower, Echo Night 1 & 2, and Splatterhouse. All playable on PS3, PSP, & Vita.

— Droogie4Ever (@Droogie4E) March 22, 2021

That’s where we get into the heart of this issue. If the idea of these stores closing doesn’t immediately strike you as something worth caring about because you believe that you’ll still be able to play modern games you play most on modern PlayStation platforms, then consider that there are many games that you may have never got the chance to love on PS4/PS5 despite the fact they were playable on PS3.

For quite some time, one of the best ways to access those games was through these devices that will soon essentially be dropped by the PlayStation Store. To be clear, that was never an ideal situation. You shouldn’t have to keep old consoles around simply because you might want to play a handful of games that will otherwise not be easily available in the future, and you certainly shouldn’t have to be dependent on those old consoles’ ability to digitally download some of those games. Subsequent hardware should feature at least as much support as their predecessors, but that’s not what’s happening in the case of the PlayStation brand.

Sony deciding to close these stores on old platforms wouldn’t be a big deal were it not for the fact that the company hasn’t always been the biggest supporter of backward compatibility (to put it mildly). The PS5 offers it with the PS4, but because the PS4 wasn’t backward compatible with the PS3, there’s this strange gap in support that becomes much harder to ignore once the PS3’s ability to serve as one of the easiest gateways to older PlayStation titles will soon be severely limited. That’s why many are wondering what this decision tells us about where Sony’s head is at regarding accessibility, backward compatibility, and taking advantage of the digital age.

The Playstation Store is such a sad case too. It all use to be unified up until the PS5.

— VoksMoth @TO2S (@Voks_Sketches) March 22, 2021

Sony has CONFIRMED the closure of the PlayStation store on PS3, PSP and Vita later this year. NO MORE NEW PURCHASES. You will still be able to download purchases, but we’ll see for how long. Also remember, if there’s any dlc you’ve wanted, it’s now or never. Digital is awesome! pic.twitter.com/7FhpbY2dlc

— Johnny "ChiGuy" Zaccari (@JohnnyZaccari) March 29, 2021

So the PlayStation Store is officially closing for PS3, PSP, and Vita And Sony wonders why some people choose to pirate pic.twitter.com/6QVAX8gYKf

— TheNCSmaster (@TheNCSmaster) March 29, 2021

Those are all very good points. While you’re still able to purchase physical PS3 discs for your physical PS3 and do the same for older PlayStation consoles and the games they support, why is that still the safest way to play older games? One of the advantages of the digital age should be that we’re able to relatively easily download and access most of the games that have been available for a particular platform (or platforms associated with a brand). The PC has worked that way forever (with obvious exceptions typically related to licensing and tech issues), and Microsoft has done a fantastic job of ensuring that modern Xbox consoles let you easily play most games that have ever been released for an Xbox console.

What’s so frustrating is that Sony does clearly has the ability to allow you to access older games digitally because that’s the exact function that they’re choosing to shut down for reasons which currently don’t extend beyond “We don’t think people use these consoles anymore or care about these games.” If they announced they were discontinuing their support of the PlayStation store on those platforms because they were expanding that support to PS4 and PS5, then there wouldn’t really be a problem. Instead, we’re once again asked to accept that these are the consequences of the digital age even if it’s clear that companies have the ability to eliminate or mitigate those consequences if they choose to do so.

Sony has no shortage of avenues they could utilize to offer easy access to a large number of classic PlayStation titles (including their PlayStation Now service), but there are times when they seem more interested in seeing how little of an effort they can make without upsetting too many people.

I love PlayStation games, and I’m glad that Sony expanded the PS5’s backward compatibility abilities after they dropped the ball in that department with the PS4. However, as technology improves, revenue rises, and the cost of the average game looks to go up, we should be demanding more access from our favorite game companies and not simply accepting that the best path forward is to learn to make excuses for what they choose to give us.

The post Why PlayStation Store Closing on PS3 Should Matter to You appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[britesparc]

Weekend Top Ten #444

Top Ten PlayStation Games I Hope Get PC Releases

And once again I turn my steely eye to the world of gaming. This time though I’m pulling on my blue jumper and talking about PlayStation (because I guess Xbox would have a green one and Nintendo’s would be red? I dunno, I’m making this up as I go). I’ve said in the past that as much as I like Sony and would love a PlayStation, I’ve never actually owned one myself because I always tend to buy an Xbox first. As much as I love the gaming industry, gaming as a past-time, and games themselves as an art-form, I have a rapidly dwindling supply of free time and unfortunately once I factor in trying to see enough films to maintain polite conversation and staring at my phone for hours on end in order to maximise my ennui, I don’t have an awful lot of minutes left in the day to dive into a wide variety of triple-A titles. As such, because I’m used to the Xbox’s way of working, because I tend to prefer its controllers and its whole ecosystem, and because I love several of their franchises (Halo and Fable especially), it’s always Xbox I gravitate towards, and then I just don’t have enough gaming time left over to justify the expense of a second huge console. And let’s get it out of the way – the PlayStation 5 is huge.

As a result, as time has gone on, there is an ever-growing number of PlayStation exclusives that I’ve barely played. In The Olden Days this was less of a problem, as pre-kids (and, heck, pre-everything considering how old the original PlayStation is at this point) I was able to saunter over to a friend’s house and try out games on their console. In this fashion I sampled a good many PS1 and PS2 titles such as Metal Gear Solid, WipeOut, Resident Evil, Time Splitters, Ico, and my absolute favourite, the original PS2 Transformers game. By the time PS3 rolled around this happened more rarely, but I’d argue it was fairly late in the generation when they showed off any games that really interested me (specifically those from Naughty Dog); and with the PS4, I’ve barely played on one at all, more’s the pity. And I really do mean more’s the pity, because this time around there have been loads of games I wanted; they really have had a better generation than Xbox, even if I couldn’t give up my Halo or Gears, to say nothing of the huge collection of backwards compatible games that get played to death by my kids.

That’s why I’m overjoyed that Sony have finally taken a leaf out of Microsoft’s book and are starting to release some of their bigger games on PC. I’ve been largely laptop-only for about a decade now, but it is a very powerful laptop, even if it’s not dedicated gaming hardware, and I’ve been pleasantly surprised how well it manages to run even quite demanding 3D games such as Assassin’s Creed Odyssey or Gears Tactics (I really must try out Flight Simulator sometime soon). The first big Sony exclusives to drop on Steam are Death Stranding (which looks bonkers but not my cup of tea) and the intriguing Horizon: Zero Dawn, which I’d probably really like. But those were never the Sony games that totally floated my boat; no, there are others, and I would absolutely love it if Sony saw fit to unleash them on Steam in the near future. Hey, I’m not picky; you don’t need to day-and-date it. I don’t mind enjoying a “Part I” whilst PS5 gamers are playing the hot new “Part II”. But I increasingly think be-all-and-end-all exclusives are rather old-fashioned, and whilst I get that there should probably be games tied to specific boxes, the services those box-companies provide should be more universal. That’s why I like Microsoft’s Play Anywhere initiative and the mobile game streaming via xCloud. But this is a Sony list, and these are some very, very good Sony games. I assume. By and large, I haven’t played them.

Marvel’s Spider-Man (2018): I love Rocksteady’s Arkham series of Batman games, but I do find them a bit relentlessly dark and miserable with an oh-so-gritty art style. What could be better, then, than a game that seems to play broadly similar but is nice, bright, funny, and sunny? Spider-Man is the perfect hero for that sort of game, and this looks absolutely like everything I’d ever want from a superhero game. I really, really, hope it comes to PC at some point, but I’ll be honest, I doubt it.

The Last of Us (2013): I like a good third-person action-adventure, whether it’s Gears, Tomb Raider, or Jedi: Fallen Order. TLOU looks most up my street, however, for its story, and its seemingly moving depiction of a family unit forming amidst the end of the world. By all accounts it’s a tear-jerker; I’ve tried to steer clear of the plot. Porting it over to PC whilst the well-received sequel is getting an inevitable PS5 upgrade seems like a good idea.

Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection (2015): I’ve very briefly played one of the Uncharteds, but not really; I hear they’re like the Tomb Raider reboot, but better, which seems nice. A rollicking third-person action-adventure with an Indiana Jones spirit? Count me in. With the long-mooted film adaptation finally underway, COVID notwithstanding, it seems like a good time to let PC gamers have a go at the classic saga. I’d add part 4 to the existing trilogy collection before shunting it to Steam.

Shadow of the Colossus (2018): I’ve played Ico a bit so I’m broadly familiar with the tone of these games, but Colossus seems like an even cooler idea. Scaling moving monsters, killing them but feeling guilty, sounds like both a great gameplay mechanic and a moving and evocative theme for a game. Port the recent remake to PC please, Mr. Sony.

Ratchet and Clank (2016): full disclosure: the new PS5 Ratchet game is the only title I’ve seen demoed that really looks next-gen, with its fancy ray-tracing, excessive particle effects, and funky portal-based gameplay. How’s about, then, giving PC gamers a chance to enjoy the relatively-recent remake of the very first game? A bit of cross-promotion works wonders, Sony.

God of War (2018): the old PS3-era God of War games never really appealed, I guess because I’m not always a huge fan of hack-and-slash and they gave off a kind of crazy excessive, almost laddish vibe that I found off-putting (having not played them, I may be being incredibly unfair). The new one, though, sounds like it’s all about being a dad and being sad and remorseful, so count me in.

Wipeout Omega Collection (2017): I’ve always enjoyed arcade racers, but one sub-genre that I don’t think gets enough love is a futuristic racer, especially where you’ve got hover cars (they seemed to be quite popular twenty-odd years ago). I played the original Wipeout on my mate’s OG PlayStation, but I’d love it if us PC gamers could play the whole series. Could it possibly be even better than Star Wars Episode I Racer?

LittleBigPlanet 3 (2014): chances are, if I’d done this list back around the time the first two LittleBigPlanet games were released, they’d have topped the chart. They looked like cool, fun platform games, with a fantastic creative aspect; I bet my kids would love them. With that in mind, I’d be over the moon to see Sackboy take a bow on Steam. I’d have put Dreams on this list, incidentally, except I can’t see myself getting a VR set anytime soon.

The Last Guardian (2016): feels a bit of a cheat having both this and Colossus on the list, but I do want to see what the fuss is about. One of those games infamous for its time in development, it seems to be a love-it-or-hate-it affair, and I am intrigued. Plus I want to know who dies at the end, the boy or the monster.

Killzone Shadow Fall (2013): gaming cliché has it that Nintendo does cutesy platformers, Microsoft does shooters, and Sony does third-person action-adventures; so whilst I’m well-versed in Halo and Gears, I’ve never sampled PlayStation’s key FPS franchise. Famous for its genuinely wowing showcase when the PS4 was announced, I’m not sure how good Shadow Fall actually is (or any of its predecessors for that matter) but I’d be very interested in finding out. Alternatively, give us one of the Resistance games and let me tear around an alternative Manchester or something.

So, there we are; ten games that I think are probably quite good – or even, y’know, masterpieces – but I’ve not had the chance to really sample them yet. And short of me picking up a PlayStation on the cheap, I don’t know when I really can. I mean, I told myself I’d buy a second-hand PS3 and a copy of TLOU once this current generation was in full swing, but that never happened. So throw me a bone, Sony! I still want to buy your stuff! Just sell it somewhere else! Somewhere I already am! Like Steam! Please?!