There are many worlds out there brimming with wondrous creatures ready to help you on your adventure beyond Pokemon.
Pokecology is a real book based on the behavioral science and ecology of Pokemon, and it's coming (to Japan) in mid-June.
PlayStation Plus is getting a price rise in Australia and other global regions, with subscribers set to pay a few dollars more on each tier.
Sadly the price increases are expanding to Australia and likely other regions beyond.
Seems like it's best to stack now if you're in the position to do so
I try to stack every time they offer a psn sale that discounts the deluxe tier by 30 percent I find that's the best way to get past the multi year increases but yeah it's sucked feel like everything has increased so much lately across all subs I've cancelled gamepass and a few other streaming services going back to just psn, NSO and Netflix
Same here. I let my subscription lapse since it ran out last summer. If we do the math, is a console really cheaper than a PC? It sucks that I can no longer play Helldivers 2, but it is not worth spending so much on the subscription fee for a function that should be free.
PS plus essential is $80
PS5 is $500
The generation is expected to last 7-8 years, which means you would have spent at least $1060 just to access basic features along with the initial purchase. Not to mention some games being more expensive. There are also the additional controllers you may need to buy once your original ones start to drift. I have 3 DualSense controllers, and all of them drifted. I was able to fix 2 of the 3 by modding them with Hall effect sticks.
I love my Playstation, and I do not regret buying it at launch since I got to enjoy some great games like Ratchet and Clank, Horizon Forbidden West, Spiderman 2, Demon Souls, Astro Bot, and God of War Ragnarok.
The issue I have is that the Playstation that we know today is different from the Playstation we had in the PS4 era. Things are also getting progressively more expensive as time goes on.
Once the PC hardware situation improves, I will be looking to build my own one part at a time instead of getting a Pro console.
@ Divine
The PC situation won't get better. If you want to game, you will need to choose who you want to get screwed by.
Terrible idea to Stack now in my opinion. The raise is not that much for 12 months, so you might as well wait for the 30% sales at the end of year, because you will be saving more money. That's when I'm going to stack like a mofo. I'll buy like 5 years then
You gotta love the attitude people had before: "Price hike! NO, THIS IS TERRIBLE, I HATE—wait ... South America? lol ok."
It starts hitting closer to home and now we're worried. It was always a concern and people should have always treated it that way.
Funny enough, Sony is likely losing subscribers with every price hike, and all they're doing is offering the beefed up service to fewer people. Doubtful this offsets the lost subs.
Haven't had Plus in years, and I don't miss it. And frankly, with the way things are going, I just don't see myself getting into the next generation either. Increased reliance on AI, stagnant gaming experiences despite better tech, untenable budgets, increased cost to consumers, tendency to push GaaS, very long development cycles, weak/non-existent digital rights protections, poor global economy, tariff madness.
It's probably a better use of my time to double down on my other hobbies. Can't speak for others, but it wouldn't be surprising if the market crashes because enough people come to the same conclusion.
PlayStation has spent $4 billion over the past four years, acquiring nine studios, with the priciest acquisition being Bungie.
"Sony had a budget of $11.5 billion for future acquisitions in May of 2024. So, it remains to be seen how the company will use its budget to acquire more studios in the coming years."
I feel like they should expand their current studios strategically. Every studio working on multiple projects at different stages of development. But i suppose they already do this to an extent. But it would be cool for a studio to have output similar to Insomniac
Sony need to restructure their teams so we have an AAA team and an AA team which will give us games like Astro Bot
They already do this.
The issue is creativity in a full game…
Just because somebody sets up a structure does not mean fully fledged AAA games just exist.
It sucks this generation… but we are talking about a level they had set that everyone expects… can not be Microsoft and push out average games, stick a AAA price on it and buy content creators to sell their games.
Sony can not do it or the get massacred by the “gaming media”.
@Xx_Pistol_xX
Why? Seriously, Team Asobi is comprised of mostly the same people still located in Japan and they've already made a hit that is almost universally well received and probably their biggest international seller since Ape Escape. I can't really think of any Japan Studio games with greater comercial success than Ape Escape, Patapon, and Parrapa The Rapper. I loved a lot of their games I can't think of anything they made that I own that was mediocre or bad in design or execution, but nothing landed quite as well as Astro Bot did.
So, I'm not mad anymore. I hope the restructuring of Japan Studio into Team Asobi means we get more instant classic platforming loveletters to gaming like Astro Bot and more well-received creative titles long into their future.
Bungie, Firewalk and Haven…I’d rather have seen them snap up some Crystal Dynamics, Eidos-Montréal, Square Enix Montréal with their vast catalogue of IPs. Would have been way better and a lot cheaper.
Deus Ex, Thief, Legacy of Kain, Tomb Raider etc
What a waste
I honestly don't think any of those are system sellers. You see how Tomb Raider worked out for Xbox when the had the timed exclusivity. And I would personally want money put into another Uncharted over Tomb Raider. But that's just my opinon.
Tomb Raider, if done right, could fill the hole Uncharted has left behind while they worked out their next move for the franchise.
Tomb Raider was always more puzzle like and platforming while Uncharted was a full on story focused action adventure game.
Tomb Raider has a lot of history with PlayStation and with the install base I think it would have sold quite well on PS5 if done right.
They just need to go back to Classic Lara or reboot it again into something more Classic like over this “unifying the timeline” bulls**t they’ve got going on which is really just trying to make Survivor Lara a bigger thing.
CDPR would have been perfect because they don't have one western RPG developer. But then again that would have been really expensive acquiring them
I believe there is a legal hurdle too. Something about the Polish government wanting to protect CDPR.
No more large publisher acquisitions, please.
If Sega was an American company, I think I could get behind Sony acquiring them specifically because (a) the current US government administration would very likely impose no guardrails on Microsoft acquiring them, despite their current size, and (b) the odds of games staying multiplatform are much higher with PlayStation than Nintendo.
That's not the case however, so none of this, please
Monolith, Eidos, Ninja Theory, Crystal Dynamics just to name a few, were a total steal. How I wish some were still kicking.
I'm really not sure that simply pumping out more games from more studios is the way to go.
Just focus on quality, a polished product at launch, and solid support post launch.
Yesterday I spent several hours on LoU Part II No Return mode, which just got a content update. A quality game with great support.
Temtem is actually really good as a single player experience or as a co-op game. Played the shit out of it when it released