Ronnie

No one is playing Mario or Pokemon for the storyline. People ARE playing The Last of Us, Ghost, God of War, Horizon for it. And I didn't say story-based, like you said, I said story-driven. Third person adventure games were the story-line fundamentally drives the experience forward. No. Hence why I never included Bloodborne as belonging to the same formula of games. In the same way that you could fit Mario, Splatoon, Zelda, Animal Crossing, Smash, Xenoblade, Kart, Ring Fit and Mario Party into categories (platformer, shooter, adventure, life sim, fighter, RPG, racer, fitness, party), what genres would you put Horizon, Days Gone, Ghost of Tshushima, Spider-Man, God of War and Infamous in?

Sony released new IP last gen like Horizon and Days Gone primarily because they didn't have much that was recognisable and that would fit the mould for their blockbuster games going forward (PS All Stars Battle Royale might have been a clue there). Now that they do, expect sequels to Horizon, Ghost and Days Gone. Pokemon, Zelda and Odyssey can't be described as story-driven, a qualifier you conveniently left out. And anyway, one is an JRPG, and the latter a platformer. Horizon, God of War, Infamous, Ghost of Tsushima, Days Gone, The Last of Us, Spider-Man, Death Stranding all belong in the same category. Obviously those are the games that Sony's audience respond to, I haven't read Schreier's article, but I assume that's the point he's making. I didn't include The Last Guardian because that's actually a very different experience, kudos to them. Same with Ratchet. But Days Gone and Ghost in particular are prime examples of a formula growing stale, based on the reception to those games. Sony need to mix it up his gen.

Goal posts being shifted. Ok fine... Horizon is getting a sequel this year, The Last of Us just got a sequel and is/was being remade for some reason, God of War is a sequel, so is Uncharted 4, and the last Infamous, Spider-Man got a sequel last year and is getting another soon. Ditto Ratchet although to it's credit, that's a platformer/shooter. All publishers put out sequels, it's pretty much universal these days. I'm not even sure why we're talking about sequels anyway, nor what "they're still doing a much better job than everyone else" means, or adds to the discussion. The conversation was about Sony under Jim Ryan being risk averse. Big picture wise, there should be zero debate that Playstation have a very samey template when it comes to their blockbuster releases. Obviously the games mix things up. Obviously the nine biggest PS4 games don't play identically, that would be stupid, but there IS a template.

It is a vague description but it's also one that happens to fit with pretty much the entirety of the PS4's blockbuster tentpole releases: Horizon Zero Dawn, The Last of Us, God of War, Uncharted, Infamous, Ghost of Tsushima, Spider-Man, Days Gone, Death Stranding. To be fair, Detroit and Ratchet are two that don't fit the mould. Like I said, I love those kind of games so I'm not complaining, but I don't think there's any debate that the PS4's AAA exclusives are built to a formula. I agree with you actually, but there are exceptions. BOTW and Red Dead 2 at least added to the openworld conversation.

I don’t think anyone’s calling the TLOS remake surprising. Weird, stupid, a waste of time and effort, maybe but not surprising, especially in this day and age. But as the article suggests it’s a money driven business decision, nothing more. And really pointless given how often they’ve re-released the game. And re: that list of games, obviously there’s a handful of titles that aren’t story driven third person adventure games but that’s a relatively small list, especially if you only consider their big blockbuster releases. But hey they’ve found a formula that works for them and sells lots, so good for them. I’ve noticed more and more comments about their openworld games getting a bit repetitive and stale now though.

You see Sony's risk-averse strategy with their cookie-cutter exclusives in the PS4 era. The vast majority being story-based third person action/adventure games. Now personally that's one of my favourite genres so I'm fine with it, but there's so little variety in their output these days.

Great post in general but I especially agree with this. The internet seems to adore Schreier, so he'll continue to leak because it makes people notice him.

The Vita certainly was a fantastic way of playing old PS1 games.

Before the tweet loaded I knew what this was about yes please!!! Great artwork If only it was on par with the Vita's vast catalog of exclusives and first party support.

Really, really bizarre. Seems a total waste of time.

Phil Spencer deserves a ton of credit for turning the ship around in such a big way. Seems a great guy too.

Balloon Fight 99 would be interesting. And last about 7 seconds.

Nice to see E3 back, regardless of ESA being shit, and even better to see some big hitters involved. I do wonder if it'll just be a couple of trailers from the likes of Nintendo and Microsoft though for appearances sake, and then they do their own main thing separate.

Personally speaking I just don't think if someone were to ask me what's the best Metroidvania out there, I'd even think of answering God of War or Control, much as I adored those games. But thinking about it I can see your point, especially with Control. I was going to say those games are very level/area based, but then Super Metroid is made up of lots of different areas accessed by lifts ! I guess it's just easier to categorise the genre when it comes to 2D, given a lot of modern 3D games have large interconnected maps with backtracking and ability-gating these days. Does that mean Ocarina of Time is a Metroidvania?

Can't say I would ever consider Control or God of War (PS4) Metroidvanias, I think they would seem pretty out of place on that list IGN put up, even if 3D games were included. The rebooted Tomb Raider I could maybe see the argument for though. I think it's the same with a lot of games these days having RPG elements or crafting/survival. Just because they include bits of those genres doesn't mean the overall game itself belong to it. As for IGN's list, completely agree with their top 3, Guacamelee 2, Ori 2 and Hollow Knight. Easily my standouts, at least in the more traditional 2D space. Nice to see Yoku get some love too, what a clever original game that was.

Release dates are pretty much meaningless these days.

Nice rundown here

Payoffs/endings are often a bit of a let down, it seems a lot easier to set a world or storyline up than to conclude it, we've seen that a lot recently. The MCU is lauded as top quality, and so having only seen maybe 7 or 8 of the films I went in expecting a top quality production and excellent story-telling, so it surprised me by just how poor some of it was. I liked the show overall, it jus seems like a ton of wasted potential. Good on them for the bold premise though.

There was nothing antagonising about my post.

It's very true, thanks. There's a difference between talking about sales numbers and questioning the profit margin of corporations. You bring the latter up every time the Game Pass conversation comes up. A good month 'for Plus', but next to Game Pass it's pretty laughable, and will continue to be unless they up their game. But they don't need to, so probably won't. Personally speaking, I think Oddworld looks seriously boring, Days Gone bland af, and the other one seems to be a 7/10 at best game, similar to Maquette. Oh well

It's nice of you to concern yourself with Microsoft's bottom line but I don't really find myself thinking about that kind of thing. It's less about console sales v console sales for them anyway and more about Game Pass sales. If PS Now with it's 2 million subs as of last year is the competition to Game Pass, then that's even less of a favourable comparison for Sony. Dear oh dear. #DeliveringTheGoods

I guess I just find that Game Pass has completely demolished PS Plus’ appeal. And at a time when there isn’t really much to play on PS5 getting a game that most ofconsole owners have anyway isn’t great. But anyway, not a big deal, hoping the rumour is incorrect.

Yes, and? Putting up previously free games as permanently free at a future date is one thing. Using up one of three monthly free games as something that's already free to your biggest fans is different.

Well, it is. There's no way they'll put Days Gone on PS+ for that reason.