Sony hate thread

[Titos]

My big question is what the fuck happened to the middle market, which was the best thing about the original PlayStation. Gaming became either AAA shit fests or Indie dick sucking sessions, pretty much exclusively. My only guess is that in the USA the gaming journos killed it by ignoring it completely, while Japan got addicted to soulless gacha for the waifus and can't be bothered to support actual good games.

Middle market died because of a number of factors. One of the main ones was that devs seemed to think of bigger games as the only way forward. Another one being that you can make AA games that look really good nowadays with rather small teams but it requires alot of the people in the team to wear multiple hats. That's kinda what Ninja Theory went for with Hellblade because they noticed pretty much every other studio around their size was closing down or being forced into contract work, so they intentionally made their studio a bunch of small teams either working on their own projects like Hellblade or doing contract work to keep them afloat. If you're interested in a decent talk on this subject I would recommend watching through this.

 

[augment]

But you're right that this isn't just a Sony thing but a Japanese thing in general, I definitely worry about Capcom going to shit again after they've been on a hot streak for a while, I hope RE8 isn't another peak before we have to deal with years of mostly garbage again.

I've abandoned all hope with capcom. I thought they'd learnt their lesson from the DmC/Dead Rising 4 debacles about letting US studios handle their IPs, but after the leaks and confirmation of them going full woke, well that's it for them.

 

[John Titor]

Yeah Japan doesn't really seem to care about the Soulsborne games. But you're going to have to look way way way back for a launch year for any system that wasn't like this. I mean the Switch's big launch game was a wii-u title that was in development for 5+ years, that's kinda the only way you get any type of somewhat solid game out for launch is stuff that's a holdover from a prior generation.

I mean it was better than what the PS4 had at launch but you're not hitting that sweet spot that was the Genesis, SNES, N64 launches that had brand new top quality games ready to go right from the get-go.

Alright, I forgot about Demon's Souls and don't know enough about the series or how they feel about rebuying a game they already played.

My big question is what the fuck happened to the middle market, which was the best thing about the original PlayStation. Gaming became either AAA shit fests or Indie dick sucking sessions, pretty much exclusively. My only guess is that in the USA the gaming journos killed it by ignoring it completely, while Japan got addicted to soulless gacha for the waifus and can't be bothered to support actual good games.

I think they still exist, I'm told that Atlus is technically not an AAA company.

 

[Agent Abe Caprine]

My big question is what the fuck happened to the middle market, which was the best thing about the original PlayStation. Gaming became either AAA shit fests or Indie dick sucking sessions, pretty much exclusively. My only guess is that in the USA the gaming journos killed it by ignoring it completely, while Japan got addicted to soulless gacha for the waifus and can't be bothered to support actual good games.

Rising development costs and publishers expecting everything to sell Call of Duty numbers. Some of that is due to the rising development costs. The 7th gen was a bloodbath for developers that made budget titles unless they made games for the Wii and DS.

 

[Toolbox]

I think the biggest shame about Sony now in the last while is how hard their vr system tanked. Even though sony has sucked as a company since the Vita at least, their hardware is usually excellent. They could've been major competition with PC vr especially since they kind of entered it in the early days before good motion controls were established. All they had to do was support their devs, and they just could not do it.

 

[Titos]

I think the biggest shame about Sony now in the last while is how hard their vr system tanked. Even though sony has sucked as a company since the Vita at least, their hardware is usually excellent. They could've been major competition with PC vr especially since they kind of entered it in the early days before good motion controls were established. All they had to do was support their devs, and they just could not do it.

Aren't they the number one VR headset? Not sure I'd say it tanked. VR will always be a niche product until it's made much more comfortable. I can barely wear headphones for 10 minutes before I get neckaches so I won't be checking out VR until they make it borderline sunglasses tier comfy.

 

[Toolbox]

Aren't they the number one VR headset? Not sure I'd say it tanked. VR will always be a niche product until it's made much more comfortable. I can barely wear headphones for 10 minutes before I get neckaches so I won't be checking out VR until they make it borderline sunglasses tier comfy.

What games are actually on the system that forces Valve and Facebook to actually compete? There is no competition. Even if they sold the most because the headset was cheaper than the major pc ones back in the day does not mean it retained that playerbase. If you compared it today it'd probably be like comparing the peak of the wii to what the xbox 360 retained during it's entire lifespan.

 

[Marissa Moira]

Middle market died because of a number of factors. One of the main ones was that devs seemed to think of bigger games as the only way forward. Another one being that you can make AA games that look really good nowadays with rather small teams but it requires alot of the people in the team to wear multiple hats. That's kinda what Ninja Theory went for with Hellblade because they noticed pretty much every other studio around their size was closing down or being forced into contract work, so they intentionally made their studio a bunch of small teams either working on their own projects like Hellblade or doing contract work to keep them afloat. If you're interested in a decent talk on this subject I would recommend watching through this.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=lL9X1Z0OAbs

Another thing that originally killed AA is that they went to mobile IOS games. For example the bread and butter of most AA devs was licensed games, everything that would be intended to be on a console then got turned into an app which made more money with on microtransactions and it had a wider install base. Some larger companies also put out smaller games like square enix did with the Trials of Mana of mana remake.

We still get stuff like Maneater and some developers have started to get back into AA territory because they built up a reputation from indie games, so we're at a period of growth.

THQ Nordic actually has a lot of developers under their umbrella that do AA type games specifically. You start looking into European games and many Simulator games have higher production values than most and would be AA.

 

[BananaSplit]

That's at least half true. The thing about Japanese households is typically there's only one TV set so families are going to fight over the same TV. 3DS, Wii U, Switch, PSP and Vita held up well over there because it allowed them to play without a set and the remote play function of the PSP and Vita allowed them to play their PS3s/4s remotely (not sure how this works with PSP but apparently it's still a thing). It's also the reason why XBOX was never popular there. But I'm not disagreeing about them being fed up with Playstation since the PS5 isn't carrying anything they would care for at the moment.

Portability can play a influential role, but at the end of the day, it's the games themselves that will attract people. Handhelds also just happen to be the home of the japanese AA games and other small games that struggle to exist on home consoles since the 7th gen because of the pressure of the "next-gen" graphics and ever-increasing development costs.

Personally, I've played more handheld games than home console games (including their PC ports) in the past decade. Something about the game design makes them more straightforward and since handheld games can't rely on high fidelity graphics to wow the masses (though that doesn't stop some impressive tech feats), they have to polish the gameplay instead.

That's something I have unfortunately noticed is when Sony has a streak of success they get real fucking arrogant and need to be brought down a peg, they sure were arrogant in the lead up to the PS3, if you remember things like the Liksang controversy, "599 US dollars", "Riiiiiiiiiiidge Raaaaaaaaaaacer!", "get a second job", "All want for Christmas is mah PEE ESS PEE" and so on, making it to where everyone and their grandmother fucking hated Sony and wanted the PS3 to fail.

I was afraid history was going to repeat itself once the PS4 started to age and I knew we were getting closer to the PS5, I was like "watch them become arrogant assholes again" and sure enough I seem to be right, now it's Sony going Woke and thinking it's appropriate for Druckmann to put a flat out racist message in his game, "Riiiiiiiiiiidge Raaaaaaaaaaacer!" indeed.

Sucks that it seems like we're in a "every other generation" deal with Sony, how long till there's going to be a PS6 lol?

It's less arrogance, and more downright malice and incompetence from the higher-ups since the PS4 era. Old arrogant Sony had Ken Kutaragi and Kaz Hirai steering the ship, Jim Ryan is just a clueless moron.

 

[Dom Cruise]

I've abandoned all hope with capcom. I thought they'd learnt their lesson from the DmC/Dead Rising 4 debacles about letting US studios handle their IPs, but after the leaks and confirmation of them going full woke, well that's it for them.

Just because they considered it doesn't mean they'll do it, have you noticed Lady Dimitrescu?

I do worry about Japan going Woke with the upcoming Olympics though, the eyes of the world are going to be on Japan with that is going to come pressure for them to "catch up" with the rest of the world.

I don't really seem them going full Woke though.

Portability can play a influential role, but at the end of the day, it's the games themselves that will attract people. Handhelds also just happen to be the home of the japanese AA games and other small games that struggle to exist on home consoles since the 7th gen because of the pressure of the "next-gen" graphics and ever-increasing development costs.

Personally, I've played more handheld games than home console games (including their PC ports) in the past decade. Something about the game design makes them more straightforward and since handheld games can't rely on high fidelity graphics to wow the masses (though that doesn't stop some impressive tech feats), they have to polish the gameplay instead.

I'm disappointed to think of Japanese gaming focusing on mobile, but we're far enough in the future that "mobile" is only going to get more and more advanced, Monster Hunter Rise looks insane when compared to the PSP games from around a decade ago.

If that turns out to be the thing that saves Japanese games and even leads to another boom like the PS2 days then bring it on, but I hope it does also include PC ports like Rise is getting.

It's less arrogance, and more downright malice and incompetence from the higher-ups since the PS4 era. Old arrogant Sony had Ken Kutaragi and Kaz Hirai steering the ship, Jim Ryan is just a clueless moron.

Woke is definitely motivated by malice, that's different than the PS3 era, but it's still history repeating itself.

I still laugh though at what I mentioned earlier happened on another forum, when Sony first censored Senran Kagura or whatever it was, I correctly predicted it would be a slippery slope, I said "just because you think it's ok this one time doesn't mean it isn't going to get more and more unreasonable, it's not going to stop here" and the sheer butthurt I got when sure enough I was proven right that it wasn't going to stop at one thing, one SJW spazzed out at me so much he wound up deleting the account he had been posting with for over a decade because I (and one other guy) were there and he didn't want to be around "misogynists", I later fucked off from that place anyway making his little titty baby temper tantrum entirely pointless.

SJWs are such fucking spastics that sometimes it really is just funny as hell.

 

[Marissa Moira]

Portability can play a influential role, but at the end of the day, it's the games themselves that will attract people. Handhelds also just happen to be the home of the japanese AA games and other small games that struggle to exist on home consoles since the 7th gen because of the pressure of the "next-gen" graphics and ever-increasing development costs.

You're still going to run into the same issue once the Switch reaches the end of it's life though. The vast majority of the Japanese AA games in he west are digital only, and the only physical versions can be imported and you're not guaranteed an English version either from the physical copies.

Not many people are willing to pay 80 bucks for a rhythm game.

 

[SolidZone 26]

Sony was shit for a long time. PS2 was the only good Sony system.

 

[Absolutetense]

Using the ps4 only for blu-ray or streaming movies. Smart TVs don't have the hardware to properly stream movies, at least mine doesn't.
And Sony... Fuck you for your shitty controllers. When I tried a game about 2 months ago, guess what happened? The left stick just wandered up up on its own in the game. It's a common issue which shows how fucking useless Sony is in terms of quality control.

 

[Notgoodwithusernames]

Spider-Man, Persona, TLOU2 (depending on who you are), Uncharted 4, Death Stranding, God of War, Journey (this one is short) and Shadow of the Colossus.

Arkham city is better, stands a good chance of coming to pc (and aless likely but still probable chance of coming to switch), fuck no, not as good as 2 and 3, on pc, on pc, on pc, you can get it on ps2 and ps3

 

[Dom Cruise]

Sony was shit for a long time. PS2 was the only good Sony system.

The PS1 was good and the PS4 had some good games too.

The PS2 was by far Sony's peak though and it's a real shame they were not able to carry that momentum on.

 

[The Last Stand]

The reason why PS4 succeeded the way it did was because of the Xbox One's DRM policy.

 

[Marissa Moira]

The reason why PS4 succeeded the way it did was because of the Xbox One's DRM policy.

And the wii-u being a pile of garbage

Everyone keeps forgetting the wii-u existed for 5-6 years and has more hardware vulnerabilities that any previous system.

 

[BananaSplit]

I'm disappointed to think of Japanese gaming focusing on mobile, but we're far enough in the future that "mobile" is only going to get more and more advanced, Monster Hunter Rise looks insane when compared to the PSP games from around a decade ago.

If that turns out to be the thing that saves Japanese games and even leads to another boom like the PS2 days then bring it on, but I hope it does also include PC ports like Rise is getting.

I sorta doubt we will get to see a full-blown japanese vidya boom like we could experience in the 90s/00s as many japanese studios from back then went either bankrupt (Human Interactive, Imagepooch, Irem, Cing, etc.), got merged (Spike with Chunsoft, Namco with Bandai) or were bought out by the bigger boys (Hudson by Konami, Artdink by Squeenix). But I do believe handhelds will remain a home for more small/medium JP game projects to take life, thanks to the form factor and the more limited hardware.

And Monster Hunter Rise is the proof that optimization isn't completely a lost art, and that a cohesive aesthetic direction is far superior and more important than overall asset quality.

Sony was shit for a long time. PS2 was the only good Sony system.

Both the PS1 and PSP were also great systems with an immense library of worthwhile games.
Again this makes even more upsetting how far the Playstation brand has fallen.

 

[Marissa Moira]

People are going to get over the playstation 3's store closing and then it's going to go back to being remembered as the NO GAEMs machine. It's sad but just like when the assorted Wii stores closed, the 3DS stores closed, as soon as a bigger release appeared on the horizon all was forgiven. The tactic to get people to switch over to a new machine has been used multiple times with things like this and it always works.

I'm just glad I acquired all the RPGs and weirder titles for the system before the price fucking skyrocketed holy fuck, some games are around 600-1,000 bucks like Afrika.

I just personally find it funny that they're blaming Jim Ryan, but it wasn't his call, it was Yoshida.

 

[Dom Cruise]

The reason why PS4 succeeded the way it did was because of the Xbox One's DRM policy.

Wasn't the vanilla PS4 also simply more powerful than the vanilla Xbox One?

I sorta doubt we will get to see a full-blown japanese vidya boom like we could experience in the 90s/00s as many japanese studios from back then went either bankrupt (Human Interactive, Imagepooch, Irem, Cing, etc.), got merged (Spike with Chunsoft, Namco with Bandai) or were bought out by the bigger boys (Hudson by Konami, Artdink by Squeenix). But I do believe handhelds will remain a home for more small/medium JP game projects to take life, thanks to the form factor and the more limited hardware.

And Monster Hunter Rise is the proof that optimization isn't completely a lost art, and that a cohesive aesthetic direction is far superior and more important than overall asset quality.

The companies may be gone, but assuming the men and women behind them are still alive, what's stopping them from founding new companies if there's another boom and more cash to go around? They can just say "Hey, I did such and such and I think there'd be a market for a spiritual successor" and they could probably get investors to sign on, again assuming there's a fair amount of money to go around and to be made.

And I think it can happen, I think we can see a return of the 90s/00s era and I think the success of Monster Hunter Rise is a good sign that it can happen.