While checking N4G forums I came upon a topic about "who is Sony's mascot?" Nintendo has Mario and Zelda while Xbox has Halo's Master Chief but what about Sony? While having a lot of great games and franchises, Playstation consoles usually lack a single big mascot but is it really a disadvantage? Or could this do more good to then than harm. While reading this great blog post ( http://www.n4g.com/up/13438/BlogPost-60462.aspx ) by Taker_129, it came to me that lack of a single mascot could be Playstation family's key to success. Relying on new IPs / mascots and franchises for each round of conso may be a true blessing.
Nintendo and Sega have always followed the sequel method with their new consoles and have mostly relied on their biggest franchises. With PS2, Sony could follow the Nintendo/Sega trend mentioned and make as many sequels to PSone classics like Medieval, Fear Effet, Crash, Spyro and others as possible BUT they chose to take PSone approach with new IPs and thus masterpieces like Ico, Jak & Daxter, Ratchet & Clank, Primal and God Of War were born and from 3rd party came superb new franchises like DMC and Onimusha.
Microsoft also followed Sony for it's first console the Xbox but they nothing from a previous gen and had to go for new IPs. They eventually established their own franchises and made an insanely popular series known as Halo.
Now with next-gen, Nintendo went straight for the old and known franchises, releasing new Zelda as their launch title for Wii while MS went with Perfect Dark's sequel, PGR4, DOA4 and Call of Duty 2, all which are sequels. Wii's game list is followed by Mario Party 8, Metroid Prime 3 and Mario Galaxy and so far it has had the least amount of good new IPs. Red Steel and few others were abysmal and Rayman Rabbids was good but went multi and is not from Nintendo itself; Microsoft followed the sequel/franchise trend after launch with Halo 3 and Fable 2 but at least they made Gears of War and got the chaotic but amazing Dead Rising from Capcom and Kameo + Viva Pinata from Rare.
Sony In the other hand followed its old approach and started with a big new IP: Resistance followed with MotorStorm. The biggest upcoming games from Sony are all new IPs: Heavenly Sword, Uncharted and Lair. Naughy Dog could have started next gen with a new Jak (& Daxter) game but they went the original way. Same goes for Insomniac and Ratchet & Clank franchise who chose it as their second next-gen title. Games like InFamous are also new and interesting.
There are also true innovative games like Little Big Planet, Echochrome, PAIN and more. Echochrome stunned everyone with its unique and special look & feel and combined with LBP's style and innovations, made Nintendo's WiiFit look more lame than it was. LBP won most of E3 awards along with COD4 and now is among most anticipaded next-gen titles for any system.
Remember the days of PSone? It was good but not that great until two little big games came and changed everything. PSone was selling alright but so was N64 thanks to Mario 64 and later The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time but then Final Fantasy VII and Metal Gear Solid entered the ring and face of gaming was changed forever and Playstation crushed the competition. Fast forward to PS2 and the battle with DreamCast. Things were ok with Sega having Sonic Adventure games until MGS2 and images FFX came. Release of MGS2 marked one of the biggest hardware sales jumps in PS2 history followed by other great PS2 games.
Now, Sony has started the next generation with all new titles and while it's not selling as hot as Wii these days, it's selling well enough solely based on new IPs. Nintendo already used the power of Zelda with Wii's launch title The Twilight Princess. MS will release Halo 3 soon and will get a huge momentum. In the mean while Sony uses all new franchises like Heavenly Sword, Lair and Uncharted against Halo 3, Metroid Prime 3 and Mario Galaxy plus two new IPs for 360: BioShock and Mass Effect. Both Wii and 360 are expected to do better than PS3 thanks to their old and known franchises but those new Sony games should sell well enought despite the great competition.
The huge war of 2007 will end with the clash of Halo, Mario, Samus and new characters of Sony like Nariko and Drake. 2008 begins and 360/Wii are out of their biggest hitters until Halo 4, Gears 2, Zelda Wii and new Mario are released and none of them can be released before 2010 (Thanks to long developement costs and times which we all saw with original Gears & Zelda TP). 360 and Wii have revealed all their cards and have used their special rage attacks.
In this very year (2008) that these 2 consoles are out of new Halos and Marios, Sony unleashes the true monsters, two games that have seriously helped PS consoles before and have critically damaged rival its consoles: Metal Gear Solid 4 and Final Fantasy XIII. The bonus is that both of them have a nice spin-off for PS3: Metal Gear Online and Final Fantasy Versus XIII.
In the days of PSone, MGS and FF killed rival N64 and Saturn. Helping PS2, the deadly duo of MGS and FF killed DreamCast and made PS2 absolute winner of last gen. Now PS3 has two great rivals: Xbox 360 and Wii. Can MGS and FF save the day one more time for Sony and kill its competition? No one knows but this time, Sony has another big weapon: Killzone 2.
Final Verdict: The Next-Gen Wars haven't even started properly... yet.
Thanks for reading my blog, this is Red signing out.
A number of leaks have popped up that reference Pokemon Black and White remakes in some way. Are they all coincidences or real in 2024?
The Final Fantasy VII Rebirth combat director has expressed that he wants the final part in the trilogy to offer players "even more freedom".
Well its not an action game.
Even Elden Ring added jumping as an evolution of the combat system since Dark Souls did not feature jumping.
I want jumping as much as the next action game fan but this isnt that type of game.
I love the game so far but please don’t make the final part a mini game fest
Everytime I get to a new part in Rebirth it’s “mini game time”
Hope ya don't mind me asking since it seems like you've played it, did it feel like a decent step up from the last game or was it more like the best from the last but more polished?
It makes Remake feel like a demo.
9.5/10 imo. And I think the “mini games” did a great job of adding variety to the gameplay. Purely optional as well.
Here's my thoughts
I think it's a big step up from the first instalment, I'm enjoying it way more.
I thought keeping it just in Midgar was silly, it felt dragged out and it didn't have much variation in terms of the scenery.
However with Rebirth, as soon as you get out of Kalm you have a big world to explore and it's great to just wander round and explore.
Now that I'm half way in though, despite still liking what I'm playing, the gameplay loop is now starting to slow down on me. I've got to a new region and I'm like "Yaaay...need to go and find those towers again, oh look another special beast marker, is that a bird I see in the distance? Better follow it to another Mako Crystal"
It's like....you know how Peter Jackson was only supposed to have two Hobbit films then Warner Bros wanted a third film so he stretched the second film out as much as he could so he could keep stuff for the third film making a trilogy? Yeah it feels like that, so these mini games are a part of that overall gameplay loop to keep us going and stretch the game out overall so they have something for the third and final game.
I personally think you could have had the first instalment get you out of Midgar and through to Grasslands / Junon and the second game finishes things off.
I had a weird cycle of love/hate for all the mini games as I played through. At first I really hated the seeming need to check all these boxes while exploring the grasslands. I didn't enjoy the Gilgamesh quest initially, and thought Queen's blood was fine but didn't want to commit to it. The side quests didn't really grab me either.
Then for some reason everything in Junon region changed my mind and I did pretty much everything. I liked most of the side quests, I actually liked playing fort condor (didn't care for it in the intergrade dlc). And my interest for completing these quests stayed pretty much through to Cosmo Canyon.
Then they added that horrible Lifestream memory/battle mini game and I started getting so burnt out of it all. I just wanted to do the story. I didn't do any side quests in neibleheim and beyond except for the summon. I abandoned Gilgamesh.
So what I'm saying is I would like the third part to go back to the focused progression from remake. Keep the mini games to the gold saucer. Start the game snowboarding if you want, but from there keep the story rolling.
That's funny you say that because I did everything in the Grasslands but once in Junon I started to slow down a little until Corel where by the end I was burnt out. I'm still currently going but I'm just doing what I can while things keep getting thrown at me.
I would have preferred half of these mini game side fillers / collectibles for some really beefy side quests that really adds onto the world of FFVII.
Sounds like they hadn't really figured out what they wanted to do with Remake and this one is more of what they thought of doing which is probably why they're dragging it out to make a trilogy. Disappointed to hear it has towers cause man do i hate towers lol. It's been a while since I've played the first and it'll be a while longer to play the sequel, but it sounds like I'll enjoy it. 7 really impressed me especially after being disappointed with 15, felt like Square finally realized that FF was THEIR big franchise again.
How many hours are you into it at this point?
My friend got like 20-30 in and pretty much quit because of its mini game era. He loved and basically binged through Gran Blue compared to Rebirth
As long as it comes out on PS5 to have the entire series on one platform, do whatever you want
The combat is my favorite thing about Rebirth. Would be really cool if they can improve it even more.
I hope after FF7 Square will either give a new FF game the remake treatment. Or give some of their older titles a remake treatment like Chrono Trigger, Chrono Cross, even Xenogears.
Wccf tech writes: "Kingdom Come Deliverance 2's scope was impacted by the Xbox Series S hardware limitations, as developers could only make a game that was 25% bigger than its predecessor."
This is the issue with things like this
Xbox Series X is apparently to MS the worlds most powerful console
However the Series S is obviously a limitation because it’s underpowered and developers have to go for parity.
So what’s the point of the world’s most powerful console if you are holding third party developers back? They aren’t going to push themselves if they have to think about the weakest console.
The issue wouldn’t be as bad if it was just Xbox but you are also affecting the PS version aswell
I think developers need to start just taking advantage of a console and if one of them can’t do X Y and Z then f*** them…why should the others suffer. What’s MS going to do? The bigger the franchise the least chance MS are going to tell them to f*** off. Baulders Gate 3 seemed to have stood their ground and suddenly their “strict” parity rule didn’t really matter. We suddenly got super optimisation efforts for the Series S that got things sorted.
I agree, and the sad part is use normal folk saw it the second they announced their plans.
Agree 100% this is why I didn’t want the M$ Monopoly, now PS5 version will be held back too.
If PS5 Pro comes out and Series S is still a thing it’ll be interesting what differences and what devs choose to do. Really hoping Rockstar pushes the PS5 pro with GTA6 and we get the best version possible.
Good ole S indeed. Everyone knew this all along. S was holding games back...Now where the hell is Orchard i want a word with him.
I ****ing hate the S. The tragic thing is withour the S MS doesn't even threaten 10m units sold this gen 🤣
More info from the author of the article, I think: https://www.reddit.com/r/ki...
Quote:
"1) I was told this info from the producer of the game Martin Klíma.
2) He specifically said the game will have only one mode.
3) And this mode is 4K 30 on PS5/XSX and 1440p 30 on XSS.
4) He said that the game is already running north of the 30 FPS cap so the performance should be stable on launch, much better than KCD1.
5) The limitation was XSS because of the 10GB memory. He said that's why they wanted to make the game 25% larger.
6) Speculation on my part: the output resolution is probably upscaled and the reason why there won't be a 60 FPS mode is because it'll most likely be very CPU heavy, like Dragon's Dogma 2 for example."
Doesn't seem like they're adding a 40fps mode on PS5/Series X for launch even if they can handle it.
I'd much rather have 1440p/60fps or even 45fps. Having just one, even with the Series S in mind, is disappointing.
Remember when xbots were adamant that the series s won’t hold back the gen?
Microsoft just needs to let go of the mandatory parity. Who cares if your grandma doesn’t understand that a game cannot be played on the S. It’s not like it she can buy you a physical game for it anyway. Before buying the game put up a notice that it only works on series X. If you’re buying for a friend-allow for a refund.
Bam. Everyone is happy. Most series s owners are for casuals that want Game Pass anyway and most likely don’t purchase most games.
If the developers want it to run on S, let them figure it out.
If it were Series X only then they'd only be selling to 25% of the Xbox Series userbase, and that's certainly not worth the time and effort into doing a port. Could just do PS5 & PC instead. No compromises needed.
“During the event, the Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 producer also revealed that on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, the game will run at 4K resolution and 30 frames per second“
Another “creative decision” right? 🤦♂️
Since you're not an amateur and clearly know more than them, can you over there and help get the game running on the S without having to sacrifice their true vision. Us gamers would really appreciate you using your wisdom for good 🙏
Thousands of games run just fine on S.
But Kingdom Come is the game that can’t. Must be one hell of a game!
Thousands of games run on PS4 and on Switch. If developers want them to run on those systems. Fine. Those two platforms still get new games. Sony isn’t making studios also make a ps4 pro version, or Nintendo a wiiu version. Microsoft technically is.
If games like Alan Wake 2, GTA6, COD, hellblade all run on S, no excuse for this 100x smaller and 100x worse looking game to be held back.
"Thousands of games run just fine on S.
But Kingdom Come is the game that can’t. Must be one hell of a game!"
Kingdom come 2 runs just fine alright. Its the SCOPE that they want. They had to cut it because of the stupid S series. Hellblade2 ran just fine too..but im pretty confident if it was just the X in mind, the scope of the game would have been much bigger.
Hmmmm...
First of all, good article Red. However, I don't think the 360 is completely out of its' biggest hitters, as Fable 2 is being released next year. The first one was extremely popular on the first Xbox and with this one looking to fix the problems it had, it could be another big hit (wasn't the first Fable the second or third best selling game on Xbox next to Halo? no matter...).
Also, the Splinter Cell series is pretty popular and well known (but I will admit it is absolutely no where near the popularity of MGS4, which is popular worldwide) so I think that will be a pretty big game for 08, but for SC to accomplish that they really need to promote it to the public and get the word out about the new style of gameplay (or people may just think it's more of the same thing).
But while the two I listed above are popular, MGS and FF (Sony's big hitters) have appeal to many markets, not just the west (so they'll be more recognized and have more of an impact on the system).
Edit: I forgot about Halo Wars, which will no doubt be popular to both Halo fans and RTS fans alike. That is a pretty big hitter for the 360 on 08 as well.
Good points but as you said, MGS4 and FFXIII are the biggest hitters. MS has Alan Wake and Fable 2 but their are not Halo for MS. Halo Wars is also big but not Halo 3 big (Like MGOnline/FFXVersus being big but not as huge as MGS4/FFXIII).
360 and Wii have used their mascot games (MC, Zelda, Metroid and Mario) for 2007 and they are going to uese their lesser but still great games for 2008. Sony on the contrary, is using its new ips and great games for 2007 while holding its biggest games and semi mascot ones namely MGS4 and FFXIII for 2008.
This has happened before. N64 had Mario 64 as launch and later got Zelda OoT. Sega had Sonic Adventure for launch. MGS1 and FFVII exploded the market and helped PSone defeat N64 with all Star Fox 64, Mario Kart 64, Zelda and Mario 64.
Then PS2 got MGS2 and FFX and they helped defeat DC with its Sonic A1&2, Shenmue games, DOA, Soul Calibur and more. Sony always releases its biggest hitters after its rivals and so far it has payed.
Future is unknown but both Sony and Nintedo are using their old strategies.
+Thanks for reading my blog and your great comment. :)
good article, MGS4 and Final Fantasy XIII will make ps3 sales explode no doubt
that was a very good read.
MS has Halo 3 and with that 360 sales will also explode and the same time Wii sales will explode with Metorid 3 and Mario Galaxy but PS3's new games like Heavenly Sword and Uncharted will put up a good fight for 2007.
And then 2008 comes, both Wii and 360 have used their big guns at the same time/year (Halo 3, Zelda, Mario Galaxy, Metroid... all are out, SC:C, Halo Wars, WiiFit and others will help but they are not Halo 3 or Mario Galaxy) and while both Wii and 360 are wihout true blockbusters, PS3 will have not one but 2! blockbusters: MGS4 and FFXIII.