Julius

Not a surprise to see it go through at all, as unfortunately this is just the state that entertainment industries - for any medium - are in at the moment. Just have a look at what's been going on with football over the last few years in particular (never mind the rest of the last three decades) - these companies are inevitably going to end up owned by a tech giant or some state with ass-backwards QoL and trigger (knife?) happy rulers. Anyways, what strikes me about this deal at the time of typing is simply that it doesn't feel nearly as big a purchase as it was when it first got announced back at the start of last year. Don't get me wrong, it's obviously still massive and a big blow to the idea of any fair competition in the industry that you can buy big names and make them exclusive - and that goes for anyone buying people up, not just MS - but while CoD is still huge, it hasn't actually grown its player base in any notable way in years, and things like Warzone seem to be only having a cannabilisation effect which we've also seen over with the Hoyoverse games, where they bring out a new game and their players/spenders don't double, they just move across to the hot new things. Overwatch 2 launched into a quiet state of virtual nothingness - I know people are playing the game, but it's not part of the conversation in the same way that the first game was at launch and thereafter. There's very little growth potential for the foreseeable future in these big AAA IP as they are now, and while the impacts of that might be minimised somewhat by trying to view it as a player count vs sales as part of Game Pass and most likely - eventually - platform exclusive, I'm curious to see how MS react when, inevitably, this purchase doesn't have the impact they forecasted, and doesn't bring people over. In a very strange way it actually provides impetus for PlayStation to get off their arse and create a competitor, potentially in the form of a new IP, with all but guaranteed growth in contrast (because, y'know, starting from nothing). I think my biggest (realistic - the actual hope is that this deal sets such a bad precedent that the buyouts stop, but that's pure fantasy at this point) hope for this purchase is that Xbox eventually realise this and that the actual growth potential in this purchase is in the smaller projects...but it's also been over half a decade now since they came out and announced a plethora of smaller studio pick-ups which we've still seen virtually nothing from. Their Game Pass curation and IP management so far has been simply embarrassing - the fact that we're halfway through the generation and after so many pick-ups that they're still struggling to get decent enough first party content speaks volumes. . Totally agree, but like @drahkon says, Microsoft are simply peerless when it comes to their spending power in the gaming space. If Apple, Google, or Amazon step up and actually pull their fingers out to get their own gaming platforms properly off the ground? Then yeah, we'll some competition; but the absolute worst kind. Like you say, it's going to be a bunch of consolidation plays to react to this almost out of necessity, and it could easily get ugly, and because of their relative buying power, Nintendo, PlayStation and others will likely need to play to their cards wirth teams that they're already buddy-buddy with. It blows my mind that I've seen people around the internet dare to compare Microsoft's level of acquisitions to what we've seen from PlayStation and Nintendo so far - at the end of the day, while these are corporations, good lord do some people need to learn to read the room. We're all losing and now everyone's playing catch-up to the big spenders. I genuinely hate it as someone who wants to play games...but it is super interesting to follow from a business case study POV. Either way, thank goodness I've got a backlog longer than the sun is blinding and that the indie space continues to produce bangers.

A meaty - nearly 10 minute! - video on the Access controller! More details in the PlayStation Blog: Good stuff

Confirmation of this month's games: Oh, and also, PS5 Cloud Streaming has (finally) arrived: Still struggle to imagine who this could be for and why you wouldn't just install natively, but it's cool nonetheless!

GameXplain with a big ass blunder in breaking embargo and getting their review discussion up...and then unlisting instead of setting to private. So it's still up (for now). Haha, whoops. Won't be watching that, so more importantly: only 8 days left to go!

Introducing the *new look* PS5, arriving in November – but not (yet..?) called the Slim? Detachable UHD disc drive confirmed, which can be purchased separately if you get the Digital Edition. From the PS Blog: Curious what this means for their future plans when it comes to plates? They have the previously announced Deep Earth Collection still to release, but are they going to double up on the number of plates for the slimmer models to be covered? Are only the slimmer models going to get them - despite them having a different system/size? Is it going to be only the older models that get them? Or will they drop the plates altogether? Pricing is...interesting, to say the least, either staying the same or even increasing in some territories, in the case of the Digital Edition. I guess it pushes an emphasis on the Disc Edition as it'll cost less than the Digital Edition + disc drive...but wasn't the point to push the Digital Edition at a reduced price to have a greater hold on game pricing and get a higher % of store profits? It'll sell regardless, but I guess the savings here are to be made on the hardware production side of things for them sure there's a bump in storage, but SSD prices are coming down on a pretty consistent basis, so it's an odd bump in price any way you try to put it. The detachable disc drive is a cool piece of tech, feels like something from a bygone era of gaming, but yeah, no reason to pick this up if you already have a PS5 (unless the change in dimensions is in your favour) – and if you don't, it seems like it'd be worth expediting a purchase of the current model? Now to wait and see if we get a Pro next year...but seeing as it feels like I can count the number of games on one hand actually pushing the current models, do we really need one just yet? Also makes me a bit nervous about the price of a potential Pro seeing as the slimmer-not-Slim PS5 hasn't seen a decrease in RRP, so it's probably going to be coming in at $549 or $599.

We now have explicit confirmation of this from Aonuma's full interview with The Telegraph. Here's the excerpt: Good stuff. DLC shouldn't be made just for the sake of it, and as I said before, the game is absolutely jam-packed with content as is, so it's really just not needed. I mean, so was BOTW, but TOTK feels like way, way more game in a weird way, and, for me, fully justifies the price hike seen in some territories. Still need to return to the game myself, but very curious to see where it lands in the GOTY conversation at the end of the year. While I think BOTW was pretty comfortably considered GOTY back in 2017, the promise of more DLC certainly kept it on people's radars, whereas 2023 has somehow turned out to be a more competitive year than 2017 in a lot of ways, and games like Baldur's Gate III have become surprise critical and commercial successes releasing much closer to the end of year gaming awards season. Not that I think too much stock should be put into GOTY awards (other than your own personal ones), but I'm just really curious to see how it lands. May feels like it was a year ago with how many [high quality] releases we've had since!

Looks like the TLOU Factions project is on ice. Per Kotaku: This one hurts. Having played the original Factions all the way through twice (well, essentially three times) just last year, which was a lot of fun, I had really high hopes for this turning out well. I guess it always had the potential to be tainted by GaaS crap, but I was really interested to see their plans for storytelling in that style of game – surely ND were building up to something fresh for the space. While I get Bungie coming in and giving their opinion that the game might not have the best systems in place to keep players coming back, no GaaS title is a guaranteed success. Zero of them. Risking it with something fresh just to have a moment in the spotlight is far more intriguing a proposition for me - and a more realistic expectation, I think, for these publisher's - because we're getting high quality games releasing at such a pace now that very, very few games have consistent staying power that brings players back (and potentially spending money) week in and week out. I'd argue the only people who have cracked it with multiple successes in a row are the Hoyoverse folks, and even then I have to imagine that there's an obscene level of cannabalisation amongst their own products when a new one is launched. Now I'm left just hoping that Naughty Dog get something out before this gen is done. Hopefully there's their new IP and TLOU Part III to look forward too, but we're rapidly nearing the halfway mark of this gen and they've released a pair of remasters and a remake, so it's hard to not be a bit concerned and let down

Some leaked details on the PS+ Extra games for October: Few of these definitely seem perfect for spooky season

I certainly think it can be enjoyed without having seen The Clone Wars and Rebels, but with zero knowledge of those series at all, I think it might take a minute to figure out what's going on with some of these characters – it was kind of marketed as being a sequel series to Rebels. For that reason, I'd recommend watching a couple of videos from Star Wars Explained intended to catch people up who haven't seen those shows. I recommended these videos to some of my friends who hadn't seen Rebels or The Clone Wars, and had only watched the live-action Star Wars shows, and I don't think I heard a question from them since, so I'll recommend the same to you: SWE also has some character videos released in the build-up to Ahsoka; if you plan to watch any of those, I'd recommend the ones for Thrawn, Ahsoka, Sabine, and Ezra (in order of how important I think knowing about them is to enjoying the show). I still think that even with watching those videos, some of the bigger fan service moments don't have the same amount of payoff if you haven't watched Rebels and The Clone Wars – but it should be more than enough to not feel totally lost while watching the show. For me, I think it's one of the best live-action shows they've released so far - probably behind Andor - and I think preferences will probably decide if you enjoy it more than Mando S1 and Mando S2; if you're one of those people who isn't a huge fan of the episodic adventures not really related to the main story in Mando and want one continuous story, then I think this will be right up your alley, as the show has a clear premise from beginning to end which every episode feeds into. Personally, if you've watched all the other live-action Star Wars show up to this point, I think you should watch it because it sets up a lot more of what's to come in future shows. Hope that helps, look forward to hearing some of your thoughts if you do get around to it!

Damn, what a finale for Ahsoka. Some scattered thoughts: Definitely my favourite season set in the New Republic/Mandoverse era, I agree with @FalcoLombardi that the first three episodes were a bit weaker than the others and a lot of (necessary) set-up, but every episode thereafter - from Parts 4 up to and including the finale in Part 8 - came with moment after moment of payoff, and even more so if you've watched Rebels before this...and even more so than that if you've watched The Clone Wars before this. And I don't think that's down to the show being a continuation of where Rebels left off, or having some great fan service moments, but genuinely because the show had moments they were constantly building towards. I love Mando having it's standalone episodes, but in an eight-episode season, having only half - at best - of those episodes actively move things along can definitely result in a weird pace to the season, ESPECIALLY with how short some episodes end up being; Boba Fett was an interesting origin story before it wasn't and turned into Mando S2.5; and Kenobi, well, weirdly lacked direction and just felt very bloated too. So, I think this is maybe my second favourite live-action Star Wars show overall, behind Andor, but that five-episode stretch from Part 4 - Part 8 is my favourite five-episode stretch in any of these shows so far. It's just beat after beat of payoff for someone like me, and I loved every bit of it. Shout out to: Baylan and Ray Stevenson's (RIP) performance, my favourite new character introduced in the show and it's not even close; the visual effects, this is BY FAR and no question the best visual effects we've seen in any of these shows, a couple of shots in The Volume which were obvious but otherwise it looked like a massive bump in budget; and, lastly, a special shout out to the Kiners for their music this season. Hope they get their chance to score a live-action film with Dave's movie – I say I hope, but I have no real doubts that they'll be along for that ride. Right then, now the long wait begins. It could definitely be a while before the events of this show are picked back up, so for now...maybe it's time for a Clone Wars or Rebels rewatch?

Final trailer for Pluto: Poster looks great too!

As is tradition, Monday Night Football coming through: the game's TV Spot looks lovely! The hype is real, 17 days to go! It's been a while but I still hate the "new" Peter face, even if at this point we've had it longer than we had the original. It just looks so Tom Holland-y, and it still takes me out of the unmasked Peter moments. Just tonight finished replaying (and getting the Plat in) the first game but in its Remastered form, and had a blast. Looks beautiful. Far from a flawless game (swear this version is riddled with more bugs than the PS4 version of the game), which I'll get into more at another point, but there are times where that game is untouchable as far as Spider-Man stories and sequences go. Really curious to see if I still prefer whizzing through it in NG+ when I give that a go, I remember the game felt so different as a story and with its pacing when just crit pathing it, and generally it just felt more fun that way. Miles fixed a good few of my issues with the game though, so if the promised 25-30 hours time to beat (in line with getting the Plat in the first game) is anything to go by, hopefully it's a leaner but more plentiful go-around. Anyways, in other news, the game is going to have 10 levels of web assist, with the default being maximum/Level 10: I'm honestly not sure how to feel about this. Options are good, but I don't think I saw a single soul complain about the level of assist in other games? I can see myself potentially toying with it in challenges (replaying some of the Drone Challenges in Spidey 1 definitely for me thinking about how it's just not tight or precise enough in that very specific scenario), but otherwise? Going to be leaving that on default. Again, potentially a good option to have: but I don't need the additional choice paralysis when the swinging around was the most fun and virtually flawless part of the game in 2018 and in Miles.

Kara Comparetto over on YouTube has released a complete performance of the entire Chrono Trigger OST, on piano, harpsichord and organ: Simply wonderful

Looks like the project (at least as originally intended) is all but dead: the official trailer on the PlayStation channel has been delisted, and tweets by the main PlayStation account about the game have been removed (cached tweet here). Unfortunately, it's not at all surprising. Game seemed stuck in development hell at C-tier (at best) studios, and this all comes following the recent issues over at Embracer, which has seen the promise of more studio closures made following a ridiculous and - *shocker* - a completely unsustainable level of acquisition spending. Guess it's time for me to finally bite the bullet and play the Switch port which stupidly still hasn't made it to other platforms... Got to imagine the project moves elsewhere now, but I'm really curious how the fine print works considering all of the parties involved. If it's to remain a PlayStation exclusive, I think the absolute perfect scenario to wish for is that Bluepoint get a crack at modernising the game. It could be similar to what everyone wants/wanted them to do with Metal Gear Solid: same game, pretty much the same story (twisted to fit into Disney canon), new approach. Whatever they choose to do next with this project, and whatever form it takes, it'll surely print money. Larian would be an interesting pick after the success of BG3 if they actually wanted to go the CRPG route, but that seems unlikely.

New details on accessibility options for the game are shared in this week's PS Blog update: Some excellent stuff in there, really looking forward to seeing how certain communities respond to these additions, the Challenge Level Modifiers (basically more granular difficulty sliders) are welcome in every game I've come across them in, and super curious to see just how the slowed Game Speed options (70%/50%/30%) appear in action. Photo Mode returning as a programmable button on the D-Pad is something I've loved in the other games, and know I'll love here; love playing around with the photo modes in games like this! Other additions on the way in the free December update are Screen Reader, Audio Description, and Captions – all completely welcome additions too. PlayStation are still absolutely leading the way on accessibility in AAA titles as far as I'm concerned, such an excellent initiative they've got going on over there in their big games 22 days to go!

It's honestly a really interesting choice to announce an interim successor over 6 months out, because you'd be under the assumption that, like when Kodera briefly took the reins from Andy House back in 2017, that either the VP or someone else in a big role within SIE (for example, your Hermen Hulsts) would be ready to take the reins. It's not like Jim was President/CEO for a shorter period that his VP might not be in a position to step in, etc., because he's been in the role some 4 years or so now, and looking back at the list of SIE head honchos, that seems pretty typical. I don't think a power grab is the reason Jim Ryan is stepping down - he's launched what looks to potentially be the best-selling piece of PlayStation hardware to date, I'm not sure what else you'd want from a CEO - because he's mentioned in the past that he works weird hours (did so during COVID, too) to align with UK/US/JP meetings, and moving between countries on a very regular basis, so it's (unsurprisingly) a very demanding role and I can imagine that would take it's toll; fwiw, I think his GamesIndustry.biz interview is a decent watch where he goes over some of this stuff: But yeah, I do just find the move to announce the interim replacement 6+ months out and shift away from the west - the direction PlayStation has clearly gone over the last decade after its recovery late on with the PS3 and its continued success since - a really peculiar one. Is it a sly move by Sony JP to get a Japanese person at the top of PlayStation again and perhaps lead some reform? The PS5 is surging in sales over in Japan now, for what it's worth, and is doing so after the closure of Japan Studio, perhaps leaving a niche - I'd argue PlayStation's strongest niche - unfulfilled that they might want to, well, fill. The only other thing I can think of is that they want to do some talent poaching, because to me, this signals that they clearly don't feel like they've got the right person to step into the hot seat over at SIE within its current structure. Not sure if it'll lead to any major change - though I want it to; give me back Japan Studio, you cowards!! - but one to keep an eye on, for sure!

And it's official: Jim Ryan is retiring from SIE in March 2024. And, per the official Sony news channels and this update on the New Management Structure of Sony Interactive Entertainment, current Sony Group Corporation President, COO, and CFO Hiroko Totoki will be stepping in as Interim CEO of SIE. This honestly seems like a huge shift – by all accounts, PlayStation has decentralised from Japan, shutting up shop on Japan Studio, and what with its HQ now being in California for over half a decade, and they haven't had a Japanese CEO since Hirai, right? Who stepped out of the hot seat over a decade ago. It does seem like Jim's just retiring at the top, what with them taking six months to ease him out and have Totoki step into his interim role. This is all kind of nuts, but it's hard to parse what exactly it's going to mean, and I imagine that'll be the case for a little while. But it sure does get the mind racing with possibilities.

Schreier / Bloomberg reporting that Jim Ryan is stepping down at PlayStation. Holy. Smokes. First and foremost: hope it's not for personal reasons, because this is seriously out of the blue and where my mind first goes. Could also be retirement? Assuming that it's not, though – very curious to hear the reasoning for such a decision, because PlayStation has seemingly had a clear plan laid out for all to see over the last 12 months or so which is a huge focus on multiplayer output up to 2025, seeing what sticks, and just keeping things ticking along with a much weaker first party presence for the PS5 compared with the PS4 after the closure of Japan Studio a few years ago. We haven't really had a chance to see any of that come to fruition, so I'm struggling to see what the play is here, if he is indeed stepping down. Curious to hear what it means for Hulst over at PS Studios, too, if anything, but with PlayStation it seems increasingly rare for just one big hat to step down and no-one else to follow suit. And, you know, we've also seen PlayStation absolutely wreck shop since he took over, so I'm struggling to see how it could be business related besides a potential change in long-term planning upstairs. Personally, I haven't been a fan of the direction PlayStation Studios have been going since the start of the gen, which seemingly lands squarely at the feet of Jim after the internal power struggle which saw him land the hot seat in 2019 - despite still getting great games, and sure with COVID being a factor, we're still just not getting the great mix of quality and quantity of titles we got with the PS4 - so if this move means that might change, then I'm all for it. If Shawn Layden pulls a Palpatine and somehow returns? I'll be hyped as hell. And if there's no plan for him to return? I'll eat my hat if it's Shuhei. Please let it be Shuhei Also Ben Starr weighing in...

Callisto Protocol, Farming Simulator 22 and Weird West are this month's PS+ Monthly Essentials games. Farming Simulator hype

Thought this was neat: Larian have shared stats for the most popular multi-class builds on PS5. In other news, looks like my co-op campaign is set to begin next weekend with my friends!

Complete Edition of the game launches October 6th for PS5, and early 2024 on PC, bundling the main game and Burning Shores DLC together: The PC version of the game is being developed in partnership with Nixxes, and is coming to Steam and the Epic Games Store.

So, this won't come as a shock to anyone, but Ever Crisis has just been announced to be coming to Steam, following a successful mobile launch - which I think now makes it worthy of a dedicated thread. For anyone who needs a reminder, Final Fantasy VII: Ever Crisis is a compilation of the original Final Fantasy VII and it's various spin-offs, whether it be Advent Children, Before Crisis, Crisis Core, or Dirge of Cerberus. The game also has an original storyline telling the history of Sephiroth, based on the previously released The First Soldier (also for mobile). These are planned to be served up in monthly instalments, but I imagine it's only a matter of time - once the project is completed - before it lands on console. Now, for a roundup of the game's various trailers: After this and XV Pocket Edition, I'm curious to see what other plans S-E has for adaptations/reimaginings of their own works - I think it's one of their smarter moves to be going this route. Personally, given the game's length and MMORPGness, I'd love to see a story-focused and mechanically leaner release of XIV, similar to Dragon Quest X Offline.

Yet another fantastic episode of Ahsoka. That's four in a row of Ahsoka (Parts 4 to 7) that have been top tier Star Wars, as far as I'm concerned! Loved every second of it. I can update this post with some thoughts on it now, though Just one episode left... Cannot wait for next week's episode! Crazy to think there's only one episode left...and then the long wait begins

Versions of the games bundled with the DLC are on their way: Man, Pokémon main series box art hasn't been the best box art in the series for a long time, but the way they make it look with the DLC packed in...gross

I'm not saying that they're planning on teaming up, but the fact that Kamiya announced he is leaving Platinum the same year that Mikami announced he is leaving Tango...definitely gets the mind racing a little at the possibilities. My gut instinct is that they might both go the Nagoshi route and set up shops for Net Ease/some other big Chinese gaming entity like Tencent. Unfollowed them on Twitter too, apparently? So it really doesn't have great optics. Could be a case that he feels like he sees where Platinum is going and isn't in a position to be as creative as he maybe wants to be, seems to be the way the majority of these go