Game News Thread

Other Video Games
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I mean it was inevitable at some point. I am surprised the PS3 Shop is still running because I thought it had already been closed down along with the console’s online platforms.

Funnily enough and it might be because the article is just editorialised to fucking shit but it sounded like they might be looking at another handheld

Actually I would say it is the fact that, off the top of my head, nearly 80 percent of all video game purchases are digital ones. That is why GTAVI is digital only or at least one of the reasons.

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6128

PS Portal… 2!!!

image

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6129

I was thinking about a more legitimate console but at least PS Portal remembered it need all of the consoles buttons to work.

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I think they would’ve been concerned about losing a chunk of the other 20% though. GTA proved they didn’t need to worry as most would just convert to digital reluctantly.

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Oh GTAVI is more a proof of concept that digital only is more or less the future if not already the dominant market. I bet you Sony came around to digital only some time ago and have just been slowly testing the waters for it since then only to now go public with it.

Most people are or will be more than willing to convert to digital only, a lot of people have been digital only for some time now like I have been for around five years. Most people only care about content and not format.

How long can the 20 percent really hold out though? They will either convert to digital only because they want that one game they want then get sucked into a digital ecosystem or they will completely find a new hobby because the entire disk format is being phased out for now and maybe the next decade until a retro format market emerges and become profitable for Sony to exploit.

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Look, I’ll tell you my opinion on this whole situation.

First of all, I fully support game preservation. But today, let’s be honest: to preserve games, sometimes you have to rely on piracy (or on games released on GOG.com if you want to stay “legal”).

What really bothers me is seeing people complain about the lack of a disc, but not complain about games where the physical copy is incomplete. Games that you can’t properly access without downloading a update first. Just look at 007 First Light.

Personally, I find an incomplete disc more annoying than having no disc at all. Because if the disc doesn’t contain the full game, or you still need an internet connection to access everything, it makes you wonder: do we really own the game?

And this didn’t start today. It didn’t start with GTA VI. This has been happening for years. Gran Turismo 7 is a good example. I bought the steelbook edition, and I regret it. On day one, the game asked me to download a huge update, almost as big as the game itself (around 90GB). I couldn’t even play it that day because I didn’t have a fast enough connection yet.

And that’s when I thought: “Why am I buying the disc if it’s basically just a license? The game still needs to be downloaded again, and I need to be online to access everything anyway.”

That’s where I think we already lost. Because even something like the “Stop Killing Games” movement becomes difficult when the average player doesn’t really care anymore if a game is physical or digital.

Do I justify this? No.

Do I think making this a personal battle will change things? Not really. We haven’t managed to change much even by involving politics.

The only real power we have is simple: don’t buy.

But we all know that will probably never happen on a large scale and until we can all agree on this, we’re basically just talking about nothing.

Sony and Microsoft already showed all-digital versions of their consoles back in 2020. If that wasn’t a warning sign that physical media was slowly going away, then I honestly don’t know what else to say.

One last thing: many people complaining today about the lack of discs seem to forget that until around 2010, even PC games were sold complete on DVDs.

If the argument is “the game should be complete on the physical format”, then that should apply to PC too, not only consoles. But “Hey piracy saves us, so it’s all good” :confused:

Anyway, since this console generation came out, i almost lost interest in videogames. But this is another story.

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Piracy is a service issue as what Gabe Newell once said, and PC is a widely different landscape. There’s a reason why Steam is so successful even when Valve makes shit decisions recently.

PlayStation ridding physical media from their production is telling of what’s to come for the Brand and it’s nothing good especially given the bad publicity surrounding them recently with the most recent Studio Canal movie licenses fiasco.

This is a decision I hope is reconsidered simply because the cons far outweigh the pros as the nature of this industry points towards more expensive titles and this hobby becoming too expensive.

anywho i recommend people invest into an Xbox 360 in 2025.

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This is one of the reasons why i’m losing interest in videogames. Not only, we had only remasters and remakes than actually new games (or at least not like the ps3/ps4 era).

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Glad you brought this up, cause I’m of the same mind and I’ve been baffled for years why people don’t complain about this more. Every time there’s a new console release, people want a physical edition (which I completely understand), but if I were among them, I’d be livid that said “physical” edition is a disc with a download code on it. Which has been the case for years. It’s no different from a regular digital release. You get the nice box with it as a bonus, but what’s the point if you’re still dependent on the game and it’s updates being accessible online?

Indeed… Perhaps when the new consoles come around with the increased prices, the higher costs of games, the subscription models, etc., the combined costs will make people reconsider.

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Oh yeah, remembered this too. Aged wonderfully indeed.

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That’s actually pretty easy to answer.

Because most of the people who say they care so much about game preservation are also the same people who, two days later, will sell the game to buy the next one. I’m obviously exaggerating a bit to make the point, but I hope you understand what I mean.

That’s the real issue. The truth is uncomfortable, so people would rather not talk about it. And that’s where you really start to see the inconsistency.

If someone genuinely wants to preserve a game, then even if only half of it is on the disc, they can simply download the rest and keep it installed on their console for as long as it’s legally possible. And when the day comes that the “closed” console ecosystem no longer works as intended, people will do what they’ve always done: mod the console. Which, in the end, is basically the same thing that happens when PC games get cracked.

People keep looking at this in extremes, as if consoles have never been hacked or modded before. They have, and they always will be.

I also keep hearing people say, “I trust Valve. They would never do something like this.” But I think people have forgotten what happened around the same time Ubisoft made its “you don’t own your games” statement. Shortly afterwards, Valve added a notice to the Steam checkout page (should still there today, but if not just search on google) saying that you are not buying the game, you are only purchasing a license to access it.

So where are all the people complaining about that? Do we only remember these things when it’s convenient?

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6138

Maaaaan… :tired_face:

It’d be great if someone could do something about this, wouldn’t it?
Like maybe that big overarching video game industry trade body we’ve got in D.C.? Maybe it might have something to say here? You know, the folks whose job it is to go to the government and push for regulation and policies that could potentially make sure companies like Sony can’t just rip our bought and paid for video games out of our hands on a whim?

Well, I can tell you definitively that the Entertainment Software Association does not have anything to say. I asked, and it declined to comment on either Sony’s move, or the topic of “digital ownership” more broadly.

I’m not surprised by this. Look, I get it. The ESA is literally composed of the leadership of the biggest video game companies, Sony included. It’s not going to say anything as a body that would be detrimental to one (or, most likely, multiple) of its members. For all it says on its website about existing to, among other things, “protect consumers,” that’s never going to come at the expense of corporate profit. Because the ESA lives or dies regardless of whether you or I own our video games outright. But if the profit dries up, so too does the ESA.
…
You’d think that, even for purely selfish reasons, the ESA would have something to say about all this, even if it’s as simple as a “we’re working with our members to ensure…” type of thing.

Y’know, it’s one thing for Sony to pull out of making Playstation discs for their own franchises, but it’s recently dawned on me that they’re completely pulling out of the physical game, meaning no one not even third-parties will have a pipeline to immortalize their games on future consoles. That really really sucks!

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@Dribbleondo forwarded this to the HMF discord so just gonna post it here too

Xbox plans to cut 3,200 jobs as part of a major restructure, and will divest of five studios.

Double Fine Productions (Keeper) and Compulsion Games (South of Midnight) will return to independence. Both studios have been given runway funding by Microsoft to help begin their next projects while they seek additional financing. These studios will retain all their IP and their back catalogue.

Developers Ninja Theory (Hellblade) and Undead Labs (State of Decay) have higher financial requirements and have found new owners. However, the deals have not yet closed. The new owners will get the IP and the back catalogue. Both studios have games out next year (Senua and State of Decay 3).

Meanwhile, Arkane Lyon (Dishonored) will today enter the same process as the studios above. Microsoft hopes it can avoid closure for this team, too.

In terms of the 3,200 planned redundancies, these cuts will take place across the whole Xbox business, including other first-party developers. Some studios will barely see any cuts, while others will see much larger reductions. Microsoft didn’t detail which studios will be the worse affected.

One area that will be hit hard is the Xbox platform team, which covers hardware, software services, xCloud and Game Pass. Xbox hopes these cuts will simplify the business and allow it move faster.

The lay-offs will begin with around 1,600 cuts as of today, with an additional 1,600 expected by the end of Microsoft’s 2027 financial year (June 30, 2027). This number includes the divested studios.

On the studios front, Xbox will be shifting from its previous decentralized studio model to a more centralized approach focused around its big franchises. Mojang (Minecraft) and King (Candy Crush) will now report directly to Xbox CEO Asha Sharma.

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Jesus,

while I’m trying to view this as a necessary evil in an attempt to better the Xbox Brand this news is just depressing.

Them avoiding Arkane’s closure is good but jeez.

Xbox has an opportunity to do something great here with the recent Sony fiasco. Let’s just hope they play this correctly cause 3200 Jobs being lost is serious and if their future pipeline of releases flop it’s only gonna get worse.

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For an in depth article, with more context, history, and behaviour taken in consequences:

(btw under the circumstance: Aftermath is a worker owned oublication who does good coverage of the industry)

Jason Schreier:

And XBOX own official article:

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6142

seeing news on all this honestly really just shows how stupid the console wars really are and anyone who is a die hard game console corporation fan is a bozo

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So how many trumpets is this for Xbox? It has got be like three or four right? Just over half way to X-Aggedon?

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