How damaging are the hacks to the PS5? (Picture: Sony)
The Friday letters page is getting worried about the ramifications of the Insomniac hack, as a reader is curious about South Park: Snow Day.
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PLEASE NOTE: This will be the last Inbox of 2023, but please keep your letters coming in so that we can start back up on Thursday, January 4. In between we’ll have our usual selection of Christmas and New Year features, including our Top 20 of the year and a preview of the best games for 2024. In the meantime, we wish you all a merry Christmas and a happy new year!
The tipping point
The Insomniac hack just gets worse every day, I’ve never heard of anything like it. They’ve now got a fully working copy of the Wolverine game running? I can’t imagine how upsetting this is to the developers and how damaging it is to Sony. Imagine if a pirated copy of a movie came out two years before it was meant to be out; even with unfinished effects it would ruin the chance of the final thing being a hit.
All these secrets that are coming out too… even if they don’t mean much to us gamers, I bet Microsoft is going through it all with a microscope and it’s very helpful to them. Not their fault the hack happened, obviously, but still, it’s all really bad.
I worry that this may be a tipping point for PlayStation. Yes, the console sales are going great but everything else is terrible and I think we’re witnessing Sony beginning to lose their grip. A lot is going to depend on whoever takes over from Jim Ryan, but if they’re not up to the job I could see the PlayStation 5 begin to crash and burn. It won’t be Xbox that ruins the PlayStation 5, it’ll be some horrible little hackers.
Purple Ranger
Fiscal responsibility
I’m not sure how much I thought a game like Spider-Man 2 would cost to make but $300 million is crazy. Looking at Wikipedia there is only a handful of movies that have ever cost that much, and movies have a much wider reach than games. Everyone’s seen Star Wars, but consoles are barely even a thing outside of North America, Europe, and Japan. It’s just crazy how much it’s costing.
I can totally understand Sony wanting to cut costs, even if cutting jobs as well seems unfair, but what’s that going to do? Make sure their games don’t look as good and they’re no longer able to compete as they currently do?
Apart from a few special examples, like Take-two with GTA 6, the only company I can see that can spend that much money and not care is Microsoft, and yet ironically they do seem to be fairly conservative with their money. I think one of the main reasons Starfield didn’t turn out better is that they didn’t spend more money on it – it looked cheap.
And I’m not sure any of their other planned first party games are much better, except maybe Fable. But sounds like that that’s them being sensible. If Sony only owes its current to success due to unsustainable budgets then it’s going to be a harsh dose of reality when they have to change their approach.
Taylor Moon
Better than the real thing
Just completed the free Valhalla DLC for God Of War Ragnarök and I think it’s better than the base game. I still enjoyed Ragnarök but it essentially took God of War 2018, one of my favourites from the last five years, and added unnecessary bloat to the still fun gameplay and a lot of meandering to an otherwise good story.
Valhalla, on the other hand, takes the combat system and drops it into a brief but challenging roguelite heavily influenced by Hades, another personal favourite of mine. That it not only manages to serve as a fitting epilogue to Kratos’ story in Ragnarök, but also wrestles with who he used to be in the original trilogy, left me hugely impressed.
The Light Knight
PS Kudos to David Jenkins for the great RoboCop interview.
PPS Merry Christmas to all at GC Towers!
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Further proof
I’m starting to get cautiously optimistic about the Sega reboots and I know I probably shouldn’t. Jet Set Radio is looking really smart and Crazy Taxi seems like it’s got a good multiplayer hook, but they’re easy games to update, as at least they were 3D games. How they’re going to update the older 2D games is going to be a much bigger test.
Shinobi just looks like a cheap indie game; Streets Of Rage looks kind of muddy and indistinct so far, again like an indie game; and I can’t really make Golden Axe out yet. I do like the new artwork that was released but considering how the last attempt at a reboot went I’m not going to assume anything until I see a lot more evidence that they’ve worked things out.
I hope they have though because it’d be great to have Sega back for something other than Sonic, Yakuza, and PC games.
Skeelen
Different genre
Any idea if the new South Park is any good? I loved the Stick of truth but The Fractured But Hole was somehow lesser in terms of writing and combat.
On another note, I bought RoboCop due to it being my favourite film with a cyborg cop and your glowing-ish review.
Bobwallett
GC: We haven’t seen anything beyond the trailers, but Snow Day is some kind of action co-op game, not a role-player – so nothing like the previous two South Park games.
A year of disappointments
I see IGN did an interesting biggest disappointments of 2023 article. Half of it is movies and TV shows I haven’t seen but it did include some games: Starfield, Redfall, Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, and Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Vol. 1.
I own Metal Gear and I was very happy with it, which makes me question the other suggestions. Was anyone actually expecting anything good from Redfall? I’d never heard of it until after it came out. Modern Warfare 3 sort of counts but everyone knew it was DLC long before it came out, so, again, I’m not sure disappointment is really the right word.
Starfield and the PlayStation VR2 were definitely a letdown, and yet more proof that both Xbox and PlayStation have been having a bad year. I still can’t believe Sony hasn’t so much as mentioned the PlayStation VR2 since it came out, so I’m very glad I was never tempted by that.
And whether you like it or not I don’t see how Starfield can be classified as anything other than a disappointment. To go from the super hyped summer showcase to what we actually got was a huge downgrade and I still don’t really understand what happened. I guess it’s the result of being better at marketing than you are at making games.
Starlee
Blooming good news
Wonder Flowers are appearing in the mobile game Super Mario Run. I have found two flowers so far, but they haven’t done anything radically different to the levels or the gameplay, unlike the excellent Super Mario Bros. Wonder game.
Andrew J.
PS: As an Underboxer stated yesterday, Epic Games Store has started giving away a free mystery game each day. There is another free game at 4pm today.
More: Trending
Free console with your sub
I’m started to become fascinated in the discrepancy between the online chatter around PlayStation in the hardcore gamer crowd (I’d include GC and us readers in that) and the gangbusters sales of the console, and wondering why? You can’t move on a gaming website without reading a comment about how they are on the rocks, yet the machine is on track to shift well over 100 million units and become one of the most popular ever.
Just yesterday I saw a reader on another video game website ask, ‘I’d like to know what those 50 million people are playing’. An utterly bizarre comment when you think about it. I guess they might be playing this year’s potential game of the year, Baldur’s Gate 3. Or last year’s game of the year Elden Ring. Or the year before’s game of the year Returnal? Or one of the dozens of other triple-A games released in the last three years. However, they’re likely playing Fortnite, Call Of Duty Warzone or GTA Online.
It seems that the truth here is that the ‘traditional gaming’ that we all talk about, of exclusives, console wars, single-player games, etc. has become more detached than ever from what is actually happening in the market. PlayStation has become like the iPhone, as in it’s the default option for that class of tech device. Nobody picks up the new iPhone because Instagram 2 is exclusive and in reality they use their iPhone 15 in the same way as their iPhone 11.
The home console market hasn’t increased in size in decades and like smartphones Xbox and PlayStation are mostly selling to upgraders, not new customers, thanks to the digital lock-in. That’s probably why Microsoft are still obsessed with Anglo-centric titles like Starfield, it has a better chance of persuading holdout Xbox One owners to upgrade that way. At this point, if they’re serious they should be giving away Xbox Series X’s for free with Game Pass subscriptions and just taking the tens of billions of dollars hit.
Marc
PS: I guess in my smartphone analogy the Switch is the iPad? Everyone’s second device for sitting on the sofa with or giving to the kids while on holiday…
GC: No one sensible is saying PlayStation is on the rocks, they’re saying that Sony is being weird and uncommunicative, and seems to be undergoing some sort of internal turmoil over live service games. That said, you do make some fair points about hardcore gamers often being in a bubble.
Inbox also-rans
So, is Jim Ryan’s replacement gonna be Bobby Kotick? Place your bets. I’m joking, but you never know. Merry Christmas.
Handsome Dan Wolfshead
GC: If that happens, we’re blaming you for dreaming it into existence.
I hope I never find out how much money Bobby Kotick earned from the Activision acquisition, because I know it’s going to make me very angry. It’s got to be nine figures though, right?
GC: Yes.
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The Friday letters page is getting worried about the ramifications of the Insomniac hack, as a reader is curious about South Park: Snow Day.