I'm just going to come right out and say this at the very beginning, The Last of Us Remastered is a clear cash grab and poor attempt at bolstering PS4 releases in the wake of the fact that true PS4 releases are slow going because Sony didn't skimp on support for the PS3 just to bring games to the PS4.
The Last of Us Remastered is just as bad as Tomb Raider: Fraud.. I mean Definitive Edition.
These moves are lazy and need to stop, we need to stop supporting them.
Now I know, some of you are going to come on here and say the following...
"The fans asked for it..."
"There are a lot of people who are migrating from the 360 and didn't get to play The Last of Us because they don't have a PS3..."
"You don't have to buy it..."
"The DLC, graphics upgrade, and use of the touch pad are worth asking for full retail price..."
Well, I have replies to all of those statements.
-Fans asked for it: Fans ask for A LOT of things and always have. MOST of what fans ask for isn't honored. Fans have asked for Last Guardian, and it's not here. It's fallen off the map with absolutely no new information about it.
Fans have asked for a Legend of Dragoon remaster, or sequel, and that has been completely ignored. Fans have asked for a lot of things, but they weren't given any consideration because of profit potentials. A TLOU remaster has greater profit potential than the requests I mentioned because it's still fresh and is an amazing game.
That is a HUGE problem. The game is not even a year old yet, is still currently selling for $50, and is getting an unnecessary remaster with minimal upgrades for full retail price. It is fact that it is a blatant cash grab by virtue of time alone.
-360 user migration: Irrelevant. Completely irrelevant to anyone but Sony. It's cheaper and easier to buy a PS3 to play The Last of Us right now than it is to play it on the PS4 and the differences will not be staggering. These 360 users who MIGHT migrate to the PS4 for this game WILL NOT help you out. They also will NOT guarantee anything that you consider positive happening in the PS4's future either. The only thing for certain is that they are represented as numbers in profit margins. That's the beginning and end of it.
-You don't have to buy it: Correct, and I'm not going to buy it. I will not support laziness, and I will not support blatant greed. But whether or not I buy it isn't the point. It's the number of people that buy it that matters.
Buying this shows a sign of approval that you'd easily accept remastered games as old as less than a year and older rather than demand new games, or information on games that should have already completed development and released by now. You're showing acceptance for slow releases and early announcements with the knowledge that the games being announced will not be out for ages.
Games like The Last of Us or Tomb Raider Fraud Editions are meant to appease you, to make you forget about the lack of information on anticipated games, to take your attention away from delays, to gull you into a false sense of feeling that your wants and needs are being acknowledged and addressed when they aren't.
-DLC, Graphics, and Touch Pad: LOL, no. No the DLC, graphics upgrades, and Touch pad are not worth a full retail price. The graphical upgrade will not be drastic, the DLC is out right now and (including the unlikely possibility of the original game's pre-order bonuses) include skins, a soundtrack (if included with the remaster, will likely be all digital, so not worth the same as an actual CD complete with jewelry case, art, etc), 4 multiplayer maps, masks, and probably the only worthy expansion in Left Behind; and touch pad use is currently unknown and could be either great or terrible. None of these things warrants a full retail price. Had they added on to the actual game with another expansion, then MAYBE it would be worth it, but it would still remain a cash grab.
The thing is, The Last of Us Remastered is conceptually the same as Capcom's Turbo/Ultimate/Arcade/Final editions on their fighting game franchises and those are ALWAYS blasted to high heaven.
Games like Tomb Raider Definitive Edition and The Last of Us Remastered represent double, or triple dipping using the exact same experiences with minor upgrades. These kinds of moves, in other forms, are always attacked by the gaming community as being corporate greed moves and yet here we are now, with Sony sticking their hat in with the other greed motivated companies, and it's suddenly a brilliant move that everyone wanted.
This is just the height of hypocrisy. I wish I had a recent 360 game I could use to make a comparison of how, if Microsoft pulled a stunt like this, they'd correctly be bashed for it. This is me saying this, and people call me a Sony fanboy.
I have to reiterate that The Last of Us isn't even a year old. You can actually buy a PS3 The Last of Us bundle for $270 right now. Factor in the cost of Left Behind and that's still under $300. Paying $400 plus $50 for PS+ (because you know that the multiplayer isn't going to be free on the PS4 version) when you can save that $150, not wait, and play it today is in my opinion ridiculously stupid.
And let's not get into the "but you'll have a PS4 for the future games, and PS+ gives you access to a megaton of free games" argument because if people wanted that, then that's what they'd get the PS4 for instead of a remaster of a game that's not even a year old yet and will cost them more to play on the PS4 than to play right now on the PS3.
I know every argument that can be made in favour of this. Fans asking for it and all that jazz is all well and good, but it's still a blatantly greedy cash grab designed to draw focus away from slow releases and lack of information for upcoming games. Expect Microsoft to do something similar in the near future, probably with Halo, to take away from their own problems in these areas.
We should expect and demand more, not congratulate and reward laziness. On the one hand, Sony is listening to fan requests which is good. On the other hand, they haven't listened to some key fan requests for a long time so it makes this move an obvious distraction in my opinion.
Don't complain in the future when all you're playing is updated versions of games you've already played to death because you set the precedent of allowing these greedy moves by supporting the early games like Tomb Raider and TLOU Remastered that came first.
Nintendo Switch version 18.0.1 firmware update has been released and the full patch notes are now available.
. Fixed an issue where some wireless access points cannot be found when setting up a new wireless network
. General system stability improvements to enhance the user’s experience.
Pac-Pix launched in 2005 as a Nintendo DS exclusive, and deserves to make a comeback on modern touchscreen devices.
It's about time we talk about the flamethrower and how it should be made better in Helldivers 2, starting with the ability to destroy bug holes.
I agree that it's designed to fill a gap in what is currently a pretty empty release schedule but that doesn't mean it's without merit.
I sold my ps3 and all it's games to finance my ps4 and the one game I miss playing is the last of us, so for this is great news and I will be gladly buying it day one. Also this means I missed out on the dlc.
Personally I have zero issue with hd remasters. I had never played a god of war game until they were released as remasters on ps3, same with sly cooper. Now I consider myself a fan of both franchises so it was a win win - I got to play some games that were new to me and the studios got some sales. That sounds better to me than just having the work that had already gone into the games just sitting on a devs hard drive doing nothing. Also it's keeping TLOU momentum rolling for when they announce the inevitable sequel.
Yeah fans ask for a lot of things that aren't listened to but not on the scale of this. I would love a soul reaver remake/sequel but it's unlikely to happen as it's a fractured request in amongst the legend of dragoons and shenmues. TLOU is millions of people all asking for the same thing at a time when it makes sense to do it.
As far as I'm concerned this is a bonus. I wasn't expecting it when I bought my ps4 and I hadn't factored it into what I was going to be playing this year, so the fact it's there is all good to me.
I agree with basically all of this. If an excessive amount of people keep buying into this crap, it's going to become a huge problem.
I actually agree with RTU this time, on this one point at least. How much do you want to bet Gearbox is going to release Borderlands The Pre-Sequel and then a year afterwards, come out with a next gen 'definitive edition'?
It would've been fine if it was less than $30 or $20 if you had the game on PS3.
But the graphical upgrade isn't anything amazing (a remake would've been much, much better) and the rest of the incentives just don't do much to satisfy a full priced game.
Charging $60 I think was a huge mistake, and Sony has not yet offered a trade in deal for the original game. Honestly, I don't think this is as bad as Konami charging $30 (originally $40) for a glorified demo mission that lasts roughly an hour, but at the same time TLOU IS a great game and people DID want a PS4 version. I'm personally waiting for the remastered to drop in price before I even consider it. I already have the original, so I'm in no rush to buy the same game again.
I don't get why you seem to think buying a remaster and wanting new games are mutually exclusive choices.
ND is a big team, and I don't think that making a port is going to significantly affect their development schedule.
They've said that they have future announcements coming, so it doesn't seem like the remaster is affecting anything as far as their output is concerned.
Other games like The Last Guardian are irrelevant since they are handled by a different team with different issues.
I also don't get why it is a cash grab "by virtue of time alone". To me, that is actually a positive. Most games release a 'GOTY' edition at around the year mark, with all the DLC, and price it at $60.
Why is this long tradition suddenly now a cash grab if that 'GOTY' edition has a higher fidelity and is for a newer console?
At the end of the day, it's a simple case of people doing what they want with their money.
If the remaster is a success, then that means people saw value in it. You can't decide for yourself what is 'worth it' for other people.