How tempted are you?
The Tuesday letters page is unimpressed by Sony’s compensation for the PSN outage, as one reader thinks a new God Of War game set in Greece is a bad idea.
Risk takers
If there’s one thing that gives me confidence about the Nintendo Switch 2 launch it’s that they’re taking a ‘risk’. I know they only mean in terms of making lots of them, even though they don’t know if they’ll all sell, but as usual in the games industry, and I guess most everything else, it’s the smaller companies that take all the risks and the big ones that just pump out the same old slop all the time.
It’s not a good idea to idolise any company but I would certainly be more willing to take a risk on Nintendo, in terms of hardware and games, than I would anyone else. The only risk Sony seems willing to take at the moment is whether they can get away with no proper compensation for the PSN outage.
So I’m going to buy a Switch 2 at launch. Even though it’s not really a risk and I can just sell it on easily if there’s a problem. I feel the companies that actually make an effort and don’t take their customers for granted should be rewarded. That’s why I’m getting a Switch 2 and I’d be interested to know who else is too.
Ludo
War without end
The idea of sending Kratos back to Greece, whether it’s a prequel or whatever, seems completely pointless to me. The whole reason the new games are good is because they completely rethink the dumb edgelord attitude of the originals and make Kratos seem like a real character.
Even if they’re planning to remake and retcon the originals that seems pointless. The series is good because Kratos’ character shows growth and messing with that seems a very bad idea.
I can understand they might be worried that there’s nowhere to really go with the series though. I don’t think anyone’s all that interested in Atreus and I’m not sure what a game set in Egypt would be about. Is he just going to kill another set of gods for whatever reason?
In reality, you’d have say that the story for everyone had reached a natural end and there doesn’t need to be another game. Except there has to be because it sells and so, like everything else, it can never really end.
Tolly
Necessary evil
Not for the first time I find myself hoping that Monster Hunter is a big hit, while having absolutely no interest in playing it myself. I’ve never liked the games and no matter how well this one reviews I can’t imagine myself getting it. It’s the only major Capcom franchise I’ve never liked and yet somehow it’s their most successful.
There’s lots of reasons I don’t really like it but the main one is that the combat is so awkward and clunky. It’s the literal opposite of all of Capcom’s other action games and for a while I really resented it. Then I realised that the success of the games were helping to pay for the stuff I do like, like Resident Evil, the new Onimusha, and hopefully the rumoured new Devil May Cry.
So my attitude about the game kind of changed and now I consider myself to be technically a Monster Hunter fan. Not because I enjoying playing it but because I want it to succeed so it can fund the games I do like.
Prog9
Business as usual
I think it’s a lesson to all publishers that if even a giant company like Take-Two is leaving the PC version till after, when they can make a proper job of it, you probably should too. So many PC versions of console games are terrible at launch, just because they’re rushing them out to come out at the same time as the console versions. Although even separate releases, like for Sony games, are often bad too, even though they’ve had plenty of time to get them right.
Games not working at launch might still be a hot issue for consoles but it’s just par for the course on PC and I’m sick of it. I’d like to think Rockstar will do a decent job now but, to be honest, I think their beef is more that they hate mods, so they probably want to delay the release so they can concentrate on stopping them after the console versions are already out and sorted.
Colbat84.
Maximum anticipation
I’m still waiting for the first third party company to ‘accidentally’ reveal something about the Switch 2, and what Nintendo’s response to that will be. I think not having the Nintendo Direct until April is a great idea. The reveal showed so little that people are now busy imagining and speculating and generating more and more hype.
This is why I think the modern preference to not announce a game properly until very close to release is such a bad idea. The earlier you know the more anticipation there is. It’s only hearing about the game a hundred times, and getting sick of it before it’s out, that’s a problem and that definitely isn’t an issue at the moment!
The only real downside to Nintendo’s approach is that that people can begin to assume certain things and when that’s not what happens they get disappointed, but I don’t see much sign of that. We have so little idea of what’s going to be shown that as long as at least there’s some good stuff it doesn’t really matter what it ends up being.
Korbie
The best kind of correct
Sorry but just wanted to suggest a correction to Adam’s article on Xbox and PlayStation sales on Friday, as my OCD would like to see it corrected!
He wrote: ‘That means PlayStation 5 has roughly 70% of overall current generation sales, compared to 30% for Xbox Series X/S. For Microsoft, this ratio is worse than the previous generation. The Xbox One sold 58 million units against 117 million for PlayStation 4, so it had roughly 50% of sales, if you exclude the Switch.’
I think this should read “so it had roughly 33% of sales”, as 58 million is 33% of 175 million (the overall generation sales of both consoles, which is what he was comparing).
Stephen, Manchester
GC: He probably meant to write 50% of the PlayStation 4’s sales but you’re right, we’ll correct it.
Equal treatment
I’m not sure that South Of Midnight sounds like something I’d play even for ‘free’ on Game Pass. I really don’t think a slightly different setting (it’s still America, at the end of the day) is going to make all that much difference and the gameplay sounds super generic.
I really don’t know why Microsoft bought such a mediocre studio and yet then shut down Tango Gameworks. I’m willing to bet South Of Midnight gets considerably lower reviews than Hi-Fi Rush but if Compulsion Games somehow doesn’t get closed down that will be grossly unfair.
Not that I want anyone to lose their job you understand, but Microsoft are going to have a lot of explaining to do if they aren’t seen to be acting fairly.
Jhonnie
Customer tiers
Sony’s response to the PSN outage has been predictably awful. All they care about is PlayStation Plus subscribers and not only have they not done anything for anyone else but they’ve not even acknowledged it affected them either.
They haven’t explained why it happened either, which makes me think it was some kind of hack or attack, or otherwise they wouldn’t be embarrassed to say. That in turn means it’s likely to happen again and often, and I very much doubt their response is going to be any better the next time.
I would expect Nintendo’s response to be much the same, except I don’t really remember this ever happening to them. Although maybe that’s because nobody uses their online services enough for it ever to be an issue.
I only vaguely remember this happening to Xbox before and I think you can say that one advantage they do have over Sony is that their online is better and more reliable. Although not reason enough to choose Xbox over PlayStation. That might not always be the case though and as everything becomes digital only, all the time then Sony are going to be in a bad spot if they start to earn a reputation for being unreliable and ungenerous with compensation.
As usual though, I’m sure they’ll only react when absolutely forced to and by then it will be too late and the damage will be permanently done. These companies never learn.
Focus
Inbox also-rans
Count me as another person who feels that Resident Evil 5 is worth a remake. It wasn’t that bad a game and could be made into something truly great, I feel. It’s Resident Evil 6 that’s beyond saving and I see that’s not the one that’s rumoured to be getting a re-release.
Chancer
If Sony has a State of Play on Valentine’s Day wouldn’t that be in the evening, as usual? That’s early morning in the US but what does that say about where they think all their European fans are going to be at that time?
