What did you think of Sony’s event? (Picture: Sony)

The Thursday letters page is unimpressed at the latest PS5 preview event, as one reader worries about Sony’s plans for its future games.

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Big surprise
What a complete non-event the PlayStation Showcase was! I’ve been watching this sort of preview showcase for years and I genuinely think that was the worst one I’ve ever seen Sony do. In fact, it’s the only one I’ve seen them do that’s actively bad. There were good games shown but most of them were multiformat or stuff we’ve known about for months (officially or otherwise).

I just don’t understand anything Sony has done in the last two years. With this, why did they start with two really unappealing looking multiplayer-only games? One a sequel to a game I’ve never heard of, that was blatantly ripping off Starship Troopers in the most cringey way possible.

And then instead of the big surprise ending we got the only thing we knew would definitely be there. And yet they still didn’t manage to announce the release date! I guess Spider-Man 2 looked good, but it seemed more like a semi-interactive QTE fest half the time and while that may look good in previews, I can just imagine how shallow it is to play.

So yeah, a bit of a flop all round as far as I’m concerned. And why did they put it on two weeks before Xbox? Microsoft must be rubbing their hands in glee at that showing. They’ve got an open goal in front of them now.
Royston

Empty cupboards
Let’s just say in terms of first party games the PlayStation Showcase was hugely disappointing, ending on what I can only describe as an uninteresting, incomprehensibly overblown interactive movie.

No Team Asobi, no Bluepoint, no The Last Of Us Factions, no Sucker Punch, nothing, nada. I sound like a grouchy old man, but I’ll say that whatever Sony are cooking up internally, it needs more ingredients.
Wonk

Speak up
Well that sure was disappointing. All I saw in the PlayStation Showcase was a bunch of indie and multiformat games? Was there even any first party games other than Spider-Man 2? This really was not the big ‘phase two’ milestone I was hoping for.

Why does Sony not just say all the games it’s working on and why won’t it show The Last Of Us multiplayer? I thought people were exaggerating how bad Sony was getting at communicating with its fans but this kind of put it into perspective for me: over an hour spent on vague CGI trailers that didn’t tell you anything useful and weren’t about the games you wanted to hear about anyway.
Paulie

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Price guess
Really good showcase from PlayStation. There is only one thing I might get, but then again might not, and that’s Project Q and the new headset. Just say for now the screen is out this world, it’s the price that’s the concern. This is Sony and you know you’re looking at over £400, then if you want the headset you’re talking another £200+. That’s really expensive just to play games on the go. I’m not a fan of the Switch but for the price you can’t really moan. Have to wait and see but I got a feeling to get the Project Q and headset I might have to mortgage my house.

On the games, I didn’t like the last Assassin’s Creed, it was a bit boring for me. Too big and a lot of running and riding but the new Assassin’s Creed took me back to the good old days. Might have a tickle on that.
David
PS: As for Spider-Man 2 that looks amazing. Only problem I could see, and it was a big one, no date. How dare they keep me waiting for a date?

GC: When you say headset, do you mean the new earbuds? We’re sure the Project Q will work with ordinary headphones.

Stick with what you know
A part of me thinks the idea of Sony expanding out into other genres is a good idea but on the other hand they’ve basically got no experience with most of these other types of games so we could be in for a rough ride while they build up their expertise.

This combined with the live service obsession has got me very worried about their future line-up. Third person story action games built their current legacy and if they’re going to abandon that in favour of chasing trends and just putting out random games I can see things going south very quickly.
Gallant

Glass half full
What can I say about the showcase? Well, the start was reasonable and Spider-Man looks good. Other than a few exceptions the rest didn’t exactly grab me.

I find a trailer either needs to show what a game actually is or a story to get behind, but quite a few did neither. At times it also felt like they were just trying to cram in as many trailers as possible, resulting in clips that were overly fast paced and didn’t really tell me anything.

Then, just when you think Square Enix’s decision making couldn’t get any worse, they produce a copy of Splatoon minus all the charm of Splatoon.

Am I right in thinking that handheld can’t stream games from PS Plus and is literally just PlayStation 5 remote play? If so that seems like a really odd decision when it surely wouldn’t have taken much to add.

Not all doom and gloom though. A decent ending with Marathon and Spidey. I also thought The Plucky Squire looked a fun and interesting game.
Tim

GC: The Plucky Squire may be our favourite game of the showcase.

Initial impression
OK, quick hot take before I go to bad: that PlayStation Showcase sucked. I kept waiting for some big reveal but all we got was indie games, multiformat games, and Spider-Man 2. And where was The Last Of Us multiplayer? They announced that game forever ago and all we’ve ever had Is a bit of concept art.

If Sony had nothing to say they should’ve just stayed quiet. This is starting to get embrassing.
Constantine

The mic remains undropped
The Sony show was very underwhelming. Most of the games were on everything, which isn’t something to complain about too much, but I thought this was the next phase for PlayStation 5? Where was The Last Of Us multiplayer game? I wrongly assumed Half-Life: Alyx would be announced for PlayStation VR2. Resident Evil 4 in VR is cool, but we knew that was coming. PlayStation VR 2 is a great product, but I can’t see its situation improving much based on that showing.

I was expecting a mic drop moment from Sony, but we didn’t get it. At all. Spider-Man 2 looks good, but other than a few new abilities and a flashy extended cut scene with minimal interaction, I wasn’t blown away.

Don’t get me started on the handheld device. I thought the design of the PlayStation 5 was bad, until I saw that DualSense split in two with a screen slapped in the middle. Talk about minimal effort. I have to imagine it functions a lot better than it looks, which is some consolation I suppose.

I was really hyped for Sony’s show, so it’s probably more down to my own expectations as to why I’m disappointed. It wasn’t a terrible show by any means, but compared to Sony’s high standards, it was below par. It was a 6/10 show for me.
Anon

Inbox also-rans
That article about Final Fantasy 16’s story being so complicated even the developers didn’t understand it has completely put me off the game, because I can imagine just what they mean. I don’t know if they thought that would make it sound cool and ‘deep’ but it just makes it sound like it’s boring and overcomplicated to me.
Watson

I think Rockstar are kidding themselves if they think GTA 6 is going to do as well as GTA 5. That game is a phenomenon that’s spanned three generations, I really don’t see anything else, including its sequel ever doing that.
Cuit

This week’s Hot Topic
The subject for this weekend’s Inbox was suggested by reader Lamont, who asks where do you usually play your video games?

Do you have a specific room set aside for them or is it just the living room or bedroom? Is your television set-up specially designed for games and what do you in terms of the sound system and storing the consoles and controllers?

If you do have a special room, does it have a lot of games related merchandise and decoration in it? If it doesn’t do you wish it did?

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The small print
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The Thursday letters page is unimpressed at the latest PS5 preview event, as one reader worries about Sony’s plans for its future games.