PS6 is Sony’s chance to wipe the slate clean and forget the PS5 ever happened Reader’s Feature

I remember when the future of video games was just a question of how good the graphics were going to be. Nowadays, it’s worrying that developers die of old age before finishing their games (literally with Kojima) and hoping there’s still a market for the games you like and not just endless live service cash grabs.

PlayStation 5 has beaten the Xbox Series X/S so easily this generation that Microsoft has all but given up making consoles, but it doesn’t feel like a victory. Sony has spent the majority of the PlayStation 5’s life trying and failing to make live service games. The only hit they’ve had is the only one they didn’t make themselves and everything else has either been a flop, has been cancelled, or still isn’t out (and is probably about to get cancelled).

Now we hear the first rumours about the PlayStation 6 and a portable device, and I just hope that they’re going to use that as a way to draw a line under the PlayStation 5 and promise to never do anything like that again.

The latest rumour for the PlayStation 6 also suggested that a third Horizon Zero Dawn game might be a launch title for it. I’ve no strong feelings about that either way but I am at least relieved that they seem to be starting off with a proper game and not the multiplayer spin-off or Concord 2 or something.

But the problem is the PlayStation 5 started off fine, it had a good launch line-up and the first two years were exactly what you’d expect. It’s only after that, when game budgets rose and Sony realised it made more money from microtransactions than games, that that the problems came.

If you get a hit live service game then it’s a licence to print money, if people are also buying skins and cosmetics at the same time. But it’s like winning the lottery; you’ve got a very low chance of getting a hit and if you don’t win you lose the money you paid to play in the first place.

I find it interesting that Microsoft, who are super rich, have relatively little interest in live service games but Sony, who are a normal company, are obsessed with it. And are still obsessed with it, despite knowing their core fans hate it and that it’s not working, in the most public and embarrassing way possible.

But as has been pointed out recently they’re not doing it because of us, they’re doing it to impress investors, who care nothing about games, just the infinite profit dream that is a successful live service game (never mind that nothing lasts forever, as Apex Legends is proving at the moment).

What I hope, and perhaps I’m being naïve, but what I hope is that the PlayStation 6 will be the point at which everything changes again. Sony can switch tracks, back to how they used to be, and forget all the current mistakes.

I don’t know how likely that is but strangely the idea of a portable gives me hope. You can’t release that and hope for it to be a success just by playing live service games on it, it’s got to have proper games. That’s the way I see it anyway, and I hope Sony does too.

By reader Dashker