The death of the 'Exclusive'

 

Somehow within the past few console generations, measurements of 'Exclusives' have become a litmus test for how that respective company is performing within this 'console war' that we all like to pretend isn't real because in such a world- wars have losers. Securing award winning games that push the needle forward really symbolise the fact that you (Nintendo, Playstation) are leaders of the industry securing all the best reasons to play and positively growing the industry that raised you. Whilst struggling to put out anything worth a damn in the AAA space (Xbox, Stadia) is seen as a emblematic of a collapsing model that is failing to keep up with the demands of an industry that pushes ever forward. Creating fear and uncertainty for those that lag behind. Is the biggest and most powerful company in the world really headed towards shutting their gaming arm? If they continue to flounder like this, possibly!

Thus games of such huge renown as 'The Last of Us' and 'Starfield' have become soldiers in a battle far beyond themselves, ranked up for their ability to drive entire console purchases and lambasted for every way they fail to rewrite what it even means to be a gamer. But in that same breath, they've also become symbols of the giant wall that 'marketing' and 'finance partners' have forcibly erected between gamers and games. So many titles are sequestered to forgettable parts of the ecosystem that are then retired, losing great experiences to the void of false 'progress'. I had to wait years before I could play the Persona games because of exclusivity. Fans of Samurai are just getting Ghost of Tsushima this month. And now, after so many years of suffering, the shoe is starting to drop at the one place producers fear most- their bottom line.

Xbox was the first to really give up when it came to trying to create a brand of exclusive titles to combat the Playstation supremacy. They purchased studio after studio, dropped a metric bomb worth of funding behind a nowhere project that we're still heard no update on, and they put actual billions into their buying spree stealing exclusivities off of Playstation. And it hasn't moved the needle Xbox's direction any significant manner. Maybe if Starfield was more of a world beater like it was originally proposed to be, but without any significant gains, Xbox is looking more and more like a financial burden. Now that Game Pass is starting to slow down, they've run out of ways to prove themselves equals in the playing field, and it's all falling apart.

We're already seen a slate of Xbox exclusives spit their way onto Playstation in a desperate bid to try and score some more players and buyers, with Sea of Thieves being the biggest to make the leap so far. Reports claim that Xbox are being pressured to port everything eventually, with absolutely nothing held back. Look out for the incoming Starfield port, Indiana Jones may just launch multi-platform, and then what? Gears of War? Halo? It's probably coming. All because the exclusivity model has proven to be unsustainable in the modern age. And, of course, we've had pointless layoffs thrown in the mix for good measure because this is the worst timeline, of course! 

And what of Final Fantasy? The biggest JRPG franchise in the world, and probably the biggest RPG franchise straight up- Final Fantasy has jumped back and forth between which studio it better favours over the year, being first a Nintendo exclusive before being pushed onto Playstation thanks to the lack of N64 innovation before fliting with Xbox for 13 and 15 and now sleeping with the ex over at Sony once more. Their games launch as exclusives so often it's a genuine mystery where one would even need to go to begin building something resembling an exhaustive collection of their games. (I think even Steams remaster collection misses out on a few choice titles over the years.) But maybe this has started to catch up with them.

Both Final Fantasy XVI and VII Rebirth have been reported to be underperforming compared to their previous counterparts, even when taking into account exclusivity hold-ups. These titles have already surrendered to timed exclusivity with the PC market, but even that doesn't appear to be cutting it when many players, such as myself, hold no interest in getting the game until it's made available on Steam leading to a lack of engagement. I don't even think the community has been as rampant about VII rebirth as they were for Remake, and the wave of excitement around XVI dissolved long before XV had done it's rounds. Something needs to be done!

During it's financial round up the last year, Square included a little note about their future strategies, revealing an intention to focus more on releasing games on multiple platforms going forward, perhaps even including the Xbox! This would be a drastic shift from the Final Fantasy strategy of the modern day, which has been so hardline that the director of XVI still refuse to acknowledge whether a PC port even exists as a possibility. But Rebirth was announced upfront with at least three months exclusivity. But from here we may just be getting full cross-console parity to feast on with our hungry-hungry eyes! (Goodness knows we thirst for it!) 

So does this finally mark a shift in the perception around the role of 'the exclusive' within the games marketing world? What once existed as a testament to the broadening of brand value is now considered a wayward relic of previous generations, a roadblock in profitability that benefits nothing. Perhaps the death of Xbox's competitiveness might just be push everyone needed, as now that there's no-one to compete against Sony as no reason to keep it's toys in it's own playpen anymore. Of course, that doesn't mean we should be crossing our fingers that big boy Nintendo starts sharing, that spoilt brat has been stuck on his lonesome for so long I doubt he even knows other consoles even exist in the modern day!

Xbox is over?

 

What makes a brand? What special piece of twisting logic defines the intangibility of recognisable icons across a commercial industry, that places steel wings on the lapels of the shoulders of the army of capitalism? What indeed! For me, I would say it is 'identity'. Identity is the means through which individuality is denote, under which worth and distinction is built, and without which purpose and belief is left to rot and fade. We build brands with powerful identities that can stand the test of competition, and the grand brands cement into household staples, irrevocable from the property itself, whilst the watery flitter and warp in flux, constantly vying for a glimpse of attention and notoriety with a new face or a twisted reimagination there. Lasting brands are strong, they are unbending, they have a will and spine of mountainous bedrock. And they, it is becoming clear, share little in common with modern Xbox.

Xbox has for a very long time been one of the fathers of the modern video game landscape, helping to shape the solid position within which console gaming still finds itself in the 2020's. With the 'Direct X' Box launch came a new era of casual games with accessible online features and co-op functionality that birthed the party game social aspect of gaming that we've all apparently decided to weed out over the decades since. In that time Xbox gathered quite a solid brand out of itself with monoliths like Master Chief from the Halo franchise wearing the consoles colours and defining multiplayer games all the way until COD 4 came out. Gears of War was quite a strong showing too, creating a standard for 3rd person shooters we're still trying to unilaterally evolve from. And Rare. They became an Xbox standard too after being unceremoniously brought off by the green X and raised by the proverbial wolves over there. These are the backbone of the house 'Xbox'.

Of course the very reason I bring them up is to contrast them with their blue-flavoured alters- Rachet and Clank, Uncharted, The Last of Us, God of War- franchises of unending appeal and acclaim that transcended the borders and became widely celebrated. What else are they all? Exclusive to the Sony console for as long as they can manage. Sony jealously squeeze the absolute life out of exclusivity to the point of actively sabotaging the potential success of some of their less than award winning titles like 'Days Gone'. But you know what? It works. People know you can't get Spider-Man anywhere else. Or Final Fantasy 16. So they flock to Playstation and associate those brilliant, industry-leading experiences to the Sony brand. Suddenly 'Sony Original' becomes synonymous with 'quality'- and where does that leave the perception of modern Xbox?

Well they try a lot, don't they? They tried to get their very own Bethesda smash-hit just like Skyrim and ended up with Starfield- a game that wasn't really what their fanbase wanted for all of it's quality achievements and failures. Halo Infinite managed to successfully translate the franchise to an open world format, but failed to push the story forward to any meaningful degree. (Also, it's going to fail to live up to it's Live-Service inspired naming convention as the team are already moving onto a sequel rather than building their sequel into the Halo Infinite template like they originally intended to.) The Initiative tried to rewrite the book on quality high-budget game development with their debut game 'Perfect Dark' (Remake) and that mess of a product hasn't be heard of since it's announcement- so a development hell-bound disaster no doubt. Xbox is the studio of attempts.

And nowhere is that more evident then with recent leaks about their upcoming attempt wherein Xbox are essentially throwing in the towel and killing the brand of Xbox after all these years. Which is not to say that they're retiring the X- at least not yet- but they are surrendering everything that makes the name 'Xbox' significant in the gaming space- they're handing out their exclusives to Sony. Yes, that means we're going to see Starfield, Sea of Thieves and probably Gears of War make their way over the fence to the otherside of the battlefield- pretty much white-flag in hand as Microsoft settles into selling their products to their direct competitor And after this- well, what's really the point of an Xbox anymore? Multimedia functionality? The console will just become a more expensive Blueray player- and the value of the brand will hit a zero.

Without any ounce of hyperbole- this is about the single most 'short term' move Xbox could make if they intend to grow the brand of Xbox. Because sure- they'll be able to reduce their costs and make passive money off of licencing their brand, but then guess-what: Xbox branded games will have nothing to compete with over Playstation games than their quality. Right now, Xbox Studio games have the lure of exclusivity to stick out to purchasers- Xbox owners buy these games knowing that they won't exist elsewhere. Once they do start hopping over the iron curtain, then what are gamers going to buy? 7/10 Starfield or 9/10 Spider-Man 2? Xbox games have yet to reach that level of quality to sell on their own merits- Xbox is about to devalue not only it's own brand but the products they intend to sell through their licensing!

And what happens then? Do the studios under Microsoft just sit back and watch as their games slowly become overshadowed on other competitors platforms? Maybe they will, or maybe they'll get a bit disquiet and end up seeking ways to break up their partnerships and go solo- reasoning a better chance on their own, funding themselves, than labelled with the stigma of the Xbox brand. Without the quality of being on the big three backing their brand, the Xbox label will come to mean nothing. Tell me, do you care about the new Crazy Taxi that Sega is making beyond a passing rush of nostalgia? No, because Sega is just another developer. They don't make consoles or unique ecosystems anymore- you can pick up their games for cheap on a third-party key sellers website if you really want to. That is the fate facing Xbox right now.

It is such a shame to see the dissolution of a brand of gaming royalty. Like watching a dynasty burn whilst everyone stands around the moat with their shoulders shrugged. And all of us with our Xbox's wondering what the future pertains to for us? Well, I think we should be justified in being a little worried. Perhaps not as worried as we would all have to be if Google owned the brand, (god forbid) but I can definitely see a lot of history on the line when this new era of the Xbox company is put into effect. I just hope the damage is seen before the act is irreversible, because god knows we don't need a games industry with a monopoly lead by the Live Service obsessed cretins who somehow convinced the world that games need to be $70 in order for developers to be paid a fair wage. (Newsflash: they're the multi million hoarding creeps who cut the damn cheques- they could charge $200 for every new game and developers would still be living off foodstamps- you're fighting the wrong battle!)

Is console gaming ever going to evolve?

 That's feeling like a solid- 'no', right now.

Console gaming is forever improving and reiterating upon itself thanks to the push to improve hardware that each manufacturer is drawn to by merit of their competition. Unless your name is Nintendo. They... they don't care about their hardware. The whole eight-year cycle that consoles go through is actually increadibly slow considering how often tech improves and changes, what with maximum processing power doubling every year, but that does mean every new iteration of a console has the potential to be a huge step forward in capability; which is typically why these huge companies end up selling at loss from cramming all the latest boards and cards in their power house machines and make up the change on the otherside through leeching customers for subscriptions or first-party high quality games. It's also why all those start-up companies that want to make their own competitive consoles really don't have a chance to compete before they've even started planning; what kind of start-up can eat those same sorts of production costs? Not one lacking a vast portfolio of investor's, that's for sure.

Yet some surprising how, despite this procession of new console iterations that are constantly being pushed out of the door, it always feels like console gaming is holding back the potential of the industry from where it could be. As if the hardware limitations are the shackles around the ankles of developers trying to redefine genre's but having to play by the rules of rendering available to them for fear of getting into another 'Cyberpunk 2077' situation where no one can play their damn game for half a year without a supercomputer attached to their rigs. Even this current generation of stupidly expensive glowing trite consoles somehow has it's teething problems when it comes to what should be the basic requirement of modern gaming- getting it's software to run at a consistent 60 frames per second. Not even 120- but just bog standard smooth 60. So what's going on?

Already we've had a plethora of miffed reactions to Arkane's vampire shooter game, but no so more when it was revealed that Redfall was going to be launching on Xbox without a 60fps mode at all. Two play modes, neither are smooth enough to match modern day gaming standards. And it's not as though the game is incapable of reaching 60 frames, considering Arkane have already promised a post-game patch adding in such a mode. Such really does demonstrate the order of prioritisation considered by modern day developers, who consider their games done and fully shippable before they can achieve a descent framerate for a console crowd. 60 frames, in their mind, is a bonus that such a crowd should be lucky and thankful to receive. A perception we should be very familiar with after the similar situation with Arkham Knights. 

Modern consoles seem to have standardised the concept of 'Performance modes' which are versions of the game where the higher graphics settings are automatically down-tweaked in order to reach the best possible performance. (A practice that just about any PC gamer out there is probably more than familiar with.) But this does betray the gulf of separation between getting the most visual appeal out of your games and making them play to the highest quality; such that previously unheard of graphic options are not available to console players! That's how impossible it is to combine these two extremes of performance with console technology! I'm not sure about you but personally I can't help but find that to be a depressing middle ground.

We're currently in an age of gaming dominated by computer component superiority, during a recession of said computer components. Of course it's nowhere near as bad as it was, thanks to the collapse of the crypto market killing off the desire for people to seize up graphics cards for mining purposes; but the greed-driven arm of industry has firmly stamped it's foot down on the basics of market negotiations. The last few years of gaming computer components have gotten prohibitively expensive for causal gamers and there's no possible chance of these components becoming more affordable with time, as was usually the case with literally everything else in the world. Meaning that at it's current trajectory, high level computer gaming is only going to become more and more elitist with less people being able to fully enjoy them without spending a ridiculous amount off the bat to get started. Which sucks.

Which kind of makes it seem like I'm praising the idea of throttling the development of software industry-wide to fit the confines of the console market's hardware... and yeah, I kind of am. Left to their own devices, the wild arms of development would probably see a wild variety in the styles of games developed; with some built to cater for the highest end computers of all and some, probably those made by big companies with an interest in actually making money, would try to match the general wave of tech. But there would be a distinction. We would have more games like Crisis, out there; optimised so badly that computers 10 years on from it's release couldn't run the thing in max settings. With the kiddie gloves of the console industry to base it's advancements around, software can be standardised to reach the most people, keeping the gaming community together and allowing it to grow as a unit. See- stronger isn't always better for everyone.

Of course, it's only ever comparative. Consoles will never be able to match what PC's can do at anypoint in their lifespan. The time it takes to design and mass-produce any sort of console to the market is enough time for a whole new series of graphics cards to be released, meaning that anyone looking for top-of-the-line in the console market is always, even on the launch day, going to be at least one generation behind. Every year that divide widens until the breaking point where games physically cannot improve anymore and a new generation has to begin. PC builds have that inherit upgradable superiority about them and there's no real way of matching that in a standardised level- unless we do something with consoles that no company has been able to manage before.

I've said it before but STADIA was it's own reaper, because the ground it walked on was solid enough in concept. A 'console' that really just connects to a top-of-the-line mega console that really runs the games is pretty much the only way that the console generation could ever reach the heights of PC- and that's evident in the way that Microsoft and Sony are both committing efforts to realising their own game streaming platforms. Honestly, the future of console gaming is probably going to be in the cloud, and when that happens it's going to be a total shift in fortunes as the market of computer upgrade parts will be the limiter of software development. Console gamers will surpass anything the PC market can feasibly reach- and the elitism will switch like a light switch because everyone has to be looking down on someone. Bliss.

Remastering the remaster

 Keep polishing and you'll burn a whole through the disc.

There are certain games throughout history that have a very important impact on the artistry of video game development for how innovative, polished, or creative that they are. Glittering jewels of their time that transcend the rough confines of week-one release metrics and review aggregates and go on to become legends in their own right, regardless to the opinion of the day. Critics were somewhat lukewarm on 'Fallout: New Vegas' back when it first released, calling it "More of the same" and punishing it severely for the many bugs that the base package launched with; only for New Vegas to go on and be regarded as the single best game in the franchise even now to this day. Why? Because that game nailed the concept of what Fallout was supposed to be in a way that resonated with an audience who understood Fallout better than the critics did. New Vegas remains in perpetuity within our hearts for that reason. Do you know what we don't need in order to continue loving that game? A bloody remaster!

Yet in the world we live in today, it seems that every single publisher is possessed by this errant fancy that the success stories of yesteryear just vanish into the ether unless they get touched up by some up-and-coming studio, slapped with a more expensive price tag than what they original launched with, and ported to modern day hardware. Now in one sense; yes, I think it's very cool that smaller studios have a new avenue to cut their teeth, more players in the big leagues is good for the overall health of the industry without doubt- but good lord is this remaster problem getting out of control. Are we going to remaster every single big release for the next generation because backward compatibility isn't exploitable enough? Is that what we're doing, Sony? Because let's be honest with on another; this here is mostly a problem with the way that Sony wants to do their business!

We've got the Sony Remake for The Last of Us Part 1 which is a remake only in the strictest technicality because they made it on a new engine, The Uncharted Remastered collection and now, to throw atop the dung heap, a remaster of 'Horizon: Zero Dawn'. Why? What even is a remaster? Well typical definition would be a sprucing up of visual fidelity through way of lighting improvements, texture resolution, maybe even rendering techniques, all to make the product look better. But with art there really isn't anything as simple and objective as looking better, now is there? The remaster of Final Fantasy X back in the day sparked up some conversation about the philosophy of remasterings as it bought textures into sharper focus, but robbed the intention out of some of the original art. A sprawling bazar of goods who's background shelves would melt into the haze of the middle-distance became a simple shop with products that stretched a bit back until it hit that clearly defined wall back there. THe Last of Us Part 1 Remake noticeably brings down the colour saturation of the original to the levels of the sequel, despite that colour palette better fitting a story like Part II, rather than the more deceptively hopeful narrative of Part I. It's not always quite so cut-and-dry.

And then we have the real reason that remasters are even mounted, the politics and financial incentives bubbling behind the scenes driven by people who just want to make their extra buck off a game they don't have to make from scratch. I get it, creating something from nothing is very difficult and not even worth it when you can work off of what's there; but when you're already on your third rerelease after 10 years there really has to be a point at which someone stops you from making a fool of yourself. In a time where money is becoming tighter and games are, inexplicably, forcing themselves to be more expensive; it really is getting a little insulting to see our back catalogues exhumed from their gentle graves and shoved back onto our store shelves with a bit of lipstick slapped on top. The Switch release of Skyrim Anniversary Edition is shaping up as $70 for god's sake! That game came out 11 years ago! This kind of exploitation, at a painful financial time around the world, should be criminal! 

But I'm dancing around the stars to rant at the cosmos; let me bring this down to the catalyst of my little aneurysm; the recently announced, and thus lamentably upcoming, remaster of 'Horizon: Zero Dawn'. Guerrilla Games' epic game about a post-apocalyptic new age sci-fi fantasy story with robot dinosaurs. A triumph of overly-elaborate and complex visual design matched with spectacular animation and character models, in it's time Horizon was the belle of the visual ball. It was a must-have PlayStation exclusive game that Sony wanted people to know about in their lull between Uncharted releases, and it proved successful enough to warrant a sequel that would be released several years later. Oh, and the thing actually made it's way to PC a few years back. It's a game that lived it's life... and then faded from the pop culture sphere.

I'm not saying that people forgot about the game... actually, yes that is what I'm saying. Not long after Horizon got it's fame and appreciation people moved on entirely from the game for some reason and denied it a formative position in the pantheon of game development. Now why would that... oh right, it launched the same week as Breath of the Wild. So in that sense I can understand why the developers felt that they were robbed of the limelight; no one would allow them to push their release out of the way of a Zelda game, and they themselves could probably never have guessed just how much of a world changer that game would be. Zero Dawn would have certainly scored a more favourable spot in history had it just had a little room to release. But it's no big failure, afterall they got a sequel earlier this year that... launched the same week as Elden Ring? (I'm sorry, are these people trying to sabotage themselves?)

By definition of what's 'fair' and 'deserved'; it's probably right to say that the Horizon games got screwed by their releases and deserved better; but does that mean we need to literally rerelease the things? With a remaster that'll probably cost $70 for work that does not, in any way, justify that price tag? Uhh... no, that's pretty much where I draw the line. All the lost fame that Horizon missed out on has slowly been sucked up over the years of exposure to the Internet. Perhaps not as explosively as the team would have liked, but slow recognition is better than none. Not only did Horizon have it's time to shine, it also already lived it's life as the best looking game of it's time, just as it's sequel did and is still doing now. (I'm pretty sure no game currently is better looking than it.) Sprucing it up again just feels like a child star chasing their lost moment in the spotlight. It's all just a little sad.

The only element of this I'm not upset by is the idea of these games over-riding the number of new games that could be coming our way, because contrary to popular belief, most of these remasters aren't manned by the core team. Can you imagine how insulting they would find that? Being asked to remake their own game again? No, it's new development teams that handle this stuff and I say 'good for them.' I just think this is getting a bit behind 'celebrating' and falling into 'exploitative' territory. Who was asking for a Zero Dawn Remaster? No, really! Can the culprit please step forward? They cannot, because they do not exist. I think Remasters should belong to those special few games that deserve to immortalise their place in history by another go around in the spotlight. Zero Dawn in not such a game, and I don't think I'll ever be proved otherwise. (Heck, a rerelease is just going to make the already middling combat feel even more dated.)

Playstation being whiny again

 Sad days... sad days...

It is excessively difficult to feel bad for a company. You know, on account of them being a faceless monolith representative of hundreds to thousands of similarly faceless people in joyless identical suits that sit at desks and do slightly similar vectors of one overall job that they don't quite understand, because no one left in employment really does remember how it all fits together, but we do know that as long as everyone hits 'send' at the end of the day the company appears to stay solvent? (>phew< that was a mouthful!) But I find it even harder to feel bad for a company when the company in question just happens to be Sony, the makers of PlayStation, because how can you feel bad for people who vacuum up as much money money out of the backs of people as they do? Just recently I summarised that they are the secret architects of their own dwindling respect, and now I want to touch on the really elaborate play through which Sony are attempting to try and place themselves as the underdogs in a race they are winning.

First I was to elaborate; PlayStation is the best selling console... of this generation. Of course the Nintendo Switch has been around for much longer, is much cheaper and can actually be found in stores, so that console currently runs dusty rings around PlayStation and Xbox combined; but if we limit ourselves to the current generation then Sony is ahead of Microsoft by actual millions of consoles, it really is no competition. And that is because Sony have dedicated themselves to building a reputation of quality and exclusivity that has benefitted them extensively for years. A successful reputation, mind you. Not like when Ubisoft tries to convince us that they're a 'triple A' company by re-releasing that one game they made ten years ago with another paint job the team spent the past year making all shiny; PlayStation are the lions of the pride when it comes to console gaming. So when they try to play the scrappy small player in the big boy pool, it comes off a tad sanctimonious.

Which is kind of funny because, in a way, they actually are the small boys in this equation. Sony are one of the biggest companies in the world, no doubt; but Microsoft are titans. If Microsoft main ever cared enough to actually devote themselves to it, they could probably systematically destroy Sony simply through financial means. But then they'd up against anti-competition lawsuits and they'd have to pay those fines and that just about makes that unprofitable for the moment. That is literally all that is keeping the Microsoft dogs at bay, a line on a theoretical strategy spreadsheet that currently adds up in the red instead of the black. I figure if I was living under a sharp paw like that, maybe I'd get a little loopy from all the anxiety too. Who can say for sure what they'd say or do until they get trussed up like and presented to their predators like that?

I can tell you what Sony would do. They would whine. Incessantly. We've seen that first hand when it comes to Xbox's purchase of Activision which, whilst it's another big consolidation move in this wide industry of ours, when considering how evil the company of Activision regularly is, I think most normal people  are receptive to the idea of those executives getting some executive oversight of their own. But whereas everyone from the small consumers of the world, to the fellow companies who might be affected by this seismic shift to the landscape of gaming seem content with this movement, Sony are the sole dissenters who stand by their disdain. They complained about it before through the official channels when it came to ratifying the purchase for the various trade commissions of the world, and now they're whining about it in interviews.

Do you know how embarrassing that is? Filing an official complaint is it's own level of demeaning that can at least be justified by the fact that it's an official and painfully dry legal rebuttal document that they could have just safely assumed no one would ever read and a calculated business move when we really break it down. If they can help break up this deal, that'll be a solid win for Sony who can't possibly afford a purchase nearly as big to match the Activision buy out. What you can't beat in the light, can be undermined in the dark. But an interview is made with the expectation that this information is going to be spread, and you have to put out an actual human to pout and stamp their feet over the most inane and eye-rolling topics imaginable as though all their life revolves around maintaining the relationship that PlayStation has had with COD.

For those that don't know, Sony have been freaking out since the Activision purchase that Microsoft would take away COD from other consoles because, you know; that's exactly the kind of scummy move that Sony would have done in an instant if they were in this position. But COD is already licenced to offer PlayStation ports for the next few years, and after that Microsoft have revealed no exclusivity plans whatsoever. Not making COD exclusive would be very much in line with how Microsoft had handled these big genre defining games before, such as with Minecraft. Everybody can still play Minecraft; Microsoft would be the ones taking a financial hit if that were to ever change. But Sony are fearmongering for the worst possible ending because that gives them fuel to argue that this is all 'unconstitutional' or whatever their bloody problem is.

Playstation CEO Jim Ryan revealed that the company had actually conducted talks with Microsoft regarding the expanding future of COD and had actually received an offer, which Microsoft absolutely would not be required to do being the sole owners of Activision. Without going into specifics, Jim then went on to lambast Xbox calling the proposition "Inadequate on so many levels" like a literal entitled valley girl. So let's read between the lines a little here. 'A deal' implies that Microsoft are not, as we suspected, looking to cut off Sony completely from Call of Duty games in the future. And either they're blackmailing them for it's appearance, which sounds very unlikely given the heavy illegal ramifications that would incur if it were to ever come out into the light, or Microsoft are offering some sort of future where Xbox gets first dibs on maps, modes and maybe an exclusive feature here and there, but Playstation still gets its port. I think this is pretty likely, given how this is the exact relationship that Sony maintained with COD for the years before this deal!

That's the bit which gets to me, and the others in the online peanut gallery; Sony would have been ruthless in Microsoft's place at every step of the way. They would have cut off every other console completely cold turkey were it their decision, and they would have squeezed every bit of life out of Microsoft in order to make any sort of crossplay deal, but then they want to turn around and act like the aggrieved party when it suits them? They held their console exclusives back from the PC for years! The aggressively pushed for a ten dollar mark up to current generation games, and they tried to grift a pretty remaster as a full-blown remake under that same scandalous price tag. Everything about the way Sony has gone about business in the past two years has been 'inadequate on so many levels' and they have gall the size of Galactus' testes to try and turn around and say that they're getting raw-dogged simply because Microsoft wants to exercise some mild benefits over a franchise developed by a company they currently own. Get over yourself, Sony. You're making yourself into a mockery.

I've got it: Playstation are sabotaging themselves!

 How honourable!

I just couldn't piece it together! For the longest time I was sitting around scratching my dome about how it could be that Sony couldn't read the room and see how all of their recent decisions were stacking them up as the big bad guys of this console generation. I mean there's making some necessary decisions that are hard on the ear, and then there's violently strong-arming the industry to try and force a new standard of premium pricing so that your own price tags don't feel so scandalous. A price tag that, thankfully, the others of the industry seem to be stepping back from. Oh, and doing all of this in the middle of a world wide cost of living crisis isn't exactly a great look either, it must be said. But I've talked about all this before, what could Sony possibly have done since then to solidify my conspiracy theory that Sony themselves are orchestrating their public relations assassination?

It's something that has been bubbling up for a while but is now coming to a starling head. Sony are on the verge of, having officially announced this to be definitely real, bumping up the price of their PS5 console completely arbitrarily. Without offering anything new, without promising any improvements down the line, Sony want to slap another £30 on the price tag worldwide in a bizarre display of equipment becoming more expensive with the years instead of less. This is on top of them making their first party games all £10 more expensive, their competition to the Xbox Game Pass being a lacklustre and incomparable challenger, and the general sense that Sony are alone in this coming push to try and squeeze blood out of their already hurting consumer base. Aside from Square Enix, but they need the money because they just made several increadibly bad major business decisions in recent memory.

The announcement had been speculated on for a while and dismissed as wild speculation probably drummed up by console warriors looking to extrapolate on a worrying trend for hope of discrediting the competitors; but with the recent confirmation of validity I think everyone has become a bit stunned. Not least of all Xbox and Nintendo, who fired up their Twitter accounts to score the easiest PR wins of the generation by simply declaring that their consoles are going to retail for the exact same plan that they were already selling for. If Sony were looking to start a earthquake and hide behind the landslide, they failed and ended up being the lone fool shouting out their sins on the mountainside to the horrified despair of everyone watching. Microsoft probably don't even need to sweat making a choice like that, they can eat any potential cost that Sony is folding on, but Nintendo are really going outside of their comfort zone not immediately jumping on an opportunity to make a quick buck. They've made some real personal growth in the recent years, I'm proud of them.

How many liberties are Sony going to take before someone tells them to stop? I mean, someone who actually matters to the Sony folk, us nobodies are simply leaves blowing in the hurricane to them. Are they going to turn around and up the price of their game subscription service, ensuring it becomes even harder to match Game Pass? Are they going to start upping the tax of games going through their service by another 20%, making it totally untenable for indie devs to release on Playstation at all? Are they going to go through your back catalogue, spot every first party game that they've subsequently raised the price of since you bought it, and send you an invoice to make up the change? Ridiculous suppositions all, but so was price hiking their console several years after its launch. There's no such thing as 'too far' for Sony in their bold, brave, new face for them.

So I got to thinking about why it could possibly be that the golden boys of the last generation are so eager to set themselves up as today's pariahs; and I think I may have landed on the golden ticket. You see, I think that Playstation is on it's villain arc; on purpose! No I don't consider this one of those yin and yang scenarios where peace must always be balanced with chaos, not for fear of some great calamity but just because the natural balance of the earth unconsciously shifts our reality into equilibrium like that. I think that Sony have made the conscious decision to position themselves as adversaries to the consumer and the hard won market lead they spent eight years securing. Because otherwise they would absolutely moronic for their recent conduct and I refuse to believe a company as successful as Playstation would abide stupidity. Heck, they're a Japanese company; those loathe indolence of all kind!

Mayhap it's a question of honourable rivalry between Sony and Microsoft; wherein Sony saw that Microsoft took so many missteps in the last generation and deeply feels for their plight to get back in the running. In such a supposition, I might conclude that Sony are giving up their lead so that Microsoft can maintain on equal footing to them; maybe in the knowledge that equal competition encourages the most tangible innovation. But nah, that's starting to sound like the moral of a Hallmark movie; surely there's a much more cynical heart beating at the centre of all this. And I suspect the name of that organ might be something along the line of 'exit strategy'; because anyway I look at it, that's what I think Sony is trying to pave the way towards.

As the world is slowly moving far away from physical content and ownership, despite the mad cawing off old fuddy-duddies like me, the question has come up again and again of what Microsoft and Sony are going to do. Plenty of times the title 'The last generation' has been waved; which is more than a little alarmist given that the prohibitive price of PC gaming necessitates the development of more affordable consumer consoles; but that a coming deadline might be approaching the home console market is a possibility. Perhaps Sony are more than susceptive of this eventuality, and has weighed up the value of their current market dominance with the potential of an early adoption to the next stage of home system gaming. No, I'm not talking about WEB3 crap; I mean the actual future of gaming.

I can't pretend to know what that is right now, but Google were certainly edging in the right direction for what Stadia was purporting to be, rather than for the disappointment it ended up being before it's 'back burner' status that it has suffered for the past year or so. Playstation, however, probably know very clearly what it is that they want to shift their business model towards, and maybe getting quick bucks off the current market whilst it's nearing it's zenith is the best move for the future. Maybe every penny of Sony's capital is going towards a brand new venture that is going to ape the next evolution of gaming before its clear to anyone else. What else would you expect from market leaders who have been ahead of the consumer demands for nearly a full decade until the PS5 launched? I'm not calling Sony's recent antics a death spiral, not yet. I want to wait and see the picture swim more into focus.

Why are playstation making themselves the villians now?

You either die the hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain

There's something brewing over in the offices of Sony Entertainment, and it doesn't sound all that appetising. Rather, it sounds like the bubbling and popping of a stirring witch's cauldron, prepping for dastardly profane magiks to rain upon the good people of the kingdom. Because recently, inexplicably, Playstation's top brass have donned the pointy hats and crooked noses of your typical fairy-tale bad guys in so many unnecessary instances that it's honestly starting to feel like their collective consciousness has been hijacked by some Microsoft fanboy illusionist who seeks to sully the hard won reputation of Playstation game studios one dumb controversy at a time. What a cad such a fellow would have to be to do so, and yet that's the only 'sensible' conclusion one can draw when Sony have invested themselves so fully in becoming the console market's 'bad guy' manufacturer. 

Now granted, in their shoes Microsoft was the exact same way back when the majority of gaming market share wore green. Who can forget the time when Microsoft tried to force all of it's next gen adopters to stay forever online with a little digital camera watching them everytime they logged in, pretty much the exact model the Chinese government would seek to adopt in the next decade? It's as though even the slightest whiff of supremacy immediately intoxicates the entire decision-making staff and forces them to lose all relatability and situational nuance. Can it be any coincidence that, since falling to second place in the console race, Microsoft have had their most consumer friendly years yet, building back up that reputation which one generation toppled for them. A better argument against narrow markets couldn't exist. If we had a whole bunch of competitors that kept their various shares of the market in flux, we wouldn't get these uppity world-burner types who think success equals a greenlight to gasoline dunking on your own customer base. (But let's not fall too deep into economic critique today, eh?)

I think that the path into this mess of self-defeating anti-consumerism started with a culture that wasn't just financially sensible and sound, but it was a response to a competitor's fumbling with the very same tactics, who had in turn inherited their tactics from the previous generation. So in a manner of ways you could say it isn't really Sony's fault, except in the way that they failed to better themselves from the mistakes of their ancestors, but who's counting that stuff, right? I'm talking about the culture of exclusivity that permeates PlayStation, where Sony have to secure their image of the erudite console for the supreme-ites out there by buying up all quality smaller studios and putting them to work as Sony delegates. It's a sound strategy, as I said, although one born in looking at the customers as commodities on a chess board to be forced over to your side rather than actual people. "Oh what's that? You love Final Fantasy? Well screw you, hope you can afford several hundred quid because the next game's coming out only on our console. Which obviously means you will too, because you have to love us now. It's in the rules."

Yes, Xbox did the exact same thing during their tenure, securing the rights to Final Fantasy XIII (Although that was only temporarily) and Nintendo and Sega would base their entire business models around which exclusive games they could score. But that still doesn't make this practise magically not the scourge of the consumer who is constantly expected to just follow these companies around like loyal lost pups grateful for the table scraps shoved their way. It diminishes the customer, especially in the eyes of management, which I think is where the superiority complex starts to set-in and where Sony start getting to acting like total fools and cads, thinking that they're somehow untouchable in this new meta they've built for themselves,

A big point of contention in recent months has been the truly horrendous manner with which PlayStation brass have treated indie developers, to the point where this most important sector of the industry is often looked down upon and chided. Indie developers have spoken out about being twisted into following a ruleset that doesn't even allow them to control their own pricing models, having absolutely no effort be part into marketing on their behalf and struggling to match PlayStation sales with sales on Itch.Io. It's ludicrous to think Sony would turn their backs to hopeful developers so readily, given that these are the faces that will inherit their industry, but I suppose the big boys over in their high offices know better, because they've adopted an almost blanket disdain for the indie market. Mayhap this stems from a time where Sony went all-in on an indie game only for it to blow up in their face (No Man's Sky) but I'm just idly speculating; maybe Sony brass just likes to kick puppies too.

Oh, and Sony scorn has also flown towards their own fanbase too, lest you start thinking you and yours are safe! During the marketing periods for the current generation of consoles, Sony went above and beyond to let people know that this new generation would be a hard cut off point for new games. From the moment it came out, the PS5 would be hit by innumerable new games, some of which were sequels, that just couldn't feasibly come out on PS4, so best get to preordering the new hotness else you're destined to miss out! Except, that was a lie, one that was made with knowledge and intent, as many of the new games announced would end up having a PS4 version announced conveniently after the PS5 launched, save the truly experimental like Ratchet and Clank or Demon Souls. It was such a short sighted grift too, because the moment it was deduced, fans would know exactly who lied to them, what their end goal was and that trust would be frayed from there on. Does the limited profit of today truly justify screwing over the near to distant future of your company's reputation?

And we end on the big one, the most recent flip flop from Sony that has everyone scratching their scalps in exasperated bewilderment. Sony went back on the promise they made, likely just to mirror Xbox's similar promise, that end of gen PS4 games would get a next gen update for free. Specifically we're talking about 'Horizon: Forbidden West' which alongside unveiling it's special edition revealed to people that they would have to spend extra on the big edition if they wanted a PS4 copy that would transfer to PS5. Quite the bold swindling attempt considering the lengths fans have to go to in order to get a PS5 in the first place, Sony, you could at least cover the upgrade charge after yours and Microsoft's total stock negligence. This was only a short controversy, of course, with Sony turning heel on the topic in less than a week and offering upgrades to the rest of the class; but good god what where they thinking? White lies is one thing, black lies another, but a straight up betrayal? That's the sort of thing that many cannot recover from. Just look at Onlyfans, after their debacle with maybe banning adult content, despite reversing the hairbrained decision they ended up totally sacrificing their market dominance to their ravenous competitors who jumped on the moment of weakness. Is that what Sony are attempting to replicate?

'With great power comes great responsibility', is the oft regurgitated Spider-man quote I come back to most frequently when I think on this, because Sony are showing no responsibility with the backwards and destructive direction they've steered themselves towards of late. They are the current rulers of the console market, holding the reputation for exclusive quality that makes their console the hot-button must have of the industry, even with the Series X being arguably more powerful. They are bumbling, and it's costing them piece by piece the supremacy which carried them for an entire generation. Someone needs to slap these guys in the face before they end up whittling away all the goodwill which is on the way to making them billionaires, because it's the industry underneath them which is suffering from their flounders. (Also, for the love of god grown-up about this whole cross-play issue; you're embarrassing yourselves!)

Playstation versus the Indie scene

The Crimes of Platform X

As much as us enthusiast types like to watch from the side-lines, learn what we can and work to deduce the rest, there's a great deal of insider information in the video game industry that'll simply never become public knowledge for some reason or another. Maybe it's a situation of pride, where developers have a professional distance they like to maintain to the everyman because it makes their work feel all the more mysterious and beyond them, maybe it's a much more functional point of contract rules and not breaking NDA's; and every now and then it's because the topic at hand is just too risky to talk about for fear of tangible backlash. Whatever the excuse, the inevitable result is that the general public go unaware of the weird quirks of the industry that they love and sometimes, without that public scrutiny, some status quo scenarios that are less than stellar go unchallenged. Today isn't about one of those times.

For you see, not so recently there was a certain developer for a certain indie publisher who found themselves in such a conundrum as I described, where the consequence for speaking up could be dire, but they swallowed it up and spoke out anyway. Note that I'm being vague, and that is intentional, because in an almost facetious fashion I'm being just as vague as the Twitter user/ Developer who started this ball rolling, a fellow we'll refer to as Mr Garner. (he founded a publisher who have a lot of games under their belt, but the only one I recognised was the 'Simulacra' games, which are very well made) Mr Garner, in his introduction to this topic, stated that he knew some bridges were about to be burned before he even started, but he reasoned that with how little traffic made use of that bridge to begin with there would be no great loss to the wider economy. And thus he started a thread ripping onto the awfully archaic treatment of indies by one Platform X.

Yeah, we'll going all 'undercover conspiracy' with this one, digging into garbage bins and plotting red-string maps on the wall trying to figure out which of the major games distributors our makeshift whistleblower here is taking aim at under the guise of 'Platform X'. He specifically claimed that he wouldn't be defining them, afterall, despite the fact that they'd probably know he's talking about them and thus be just as eager to cut ties. Still, mystery abounds! Except the mystery isn't all that, considering Mr Garner was helpful enough to tell us that this Platform X is 'the operator of a very successful console and does not have game pass.' Wow. Way to be explicit there. I mean, technically he could be talking about Nintendo, but they've been leaning big on the indie titles this generation so I don't feel like they'd be the culprits. (Or >gasp< maybe he's talking about the Ouya!) No, this is Playstation, pretty clearly. Thus the following beef is aimed squarely, and yet indirectly, at Sony's front porch.

So what's the issue? Promotion primarily. Marketing is one of the most expensive ventures that any creative product can go down, and it's also the vector down which most funds are wantonly wasted under the vague assurance that 'meh, advertising isn't an exact science. Shotgun blast in the general direction of a target audience and you'll hit gold sooner or later.' (I'm being general of course, the advertising algorithm arms race is very real and very much dominated by Tiktok for the time being.) But indies don't have the funds to be throwing around thousands on fruitless ventures, so they have to rely on the mercy of grass routes marketing, striking it lucky through a third party, or getting appropriately marketed by the platform of choice. Apparently Platform X isn't holding up their end of solution C very much.

According to Mr Garner, Playstation offer absolutely no tools for managing one's game once they give it to Playstation, and they run people around in circles trying to get some form of promotion and/or feature, only to get the odd promise of a spot on the Playstation blog. (Apparently that's not the best spot for general visibility, can't imagine why...) He seems to also think there's a degree of personal bias in this system, as he feels that the evaluation which indie games have to undergo in order to be promoted are subject to the fussy whims of those that will just blanket refuse all marketing to a game they don't like the look of. To bring the public up to speed with the unique situation of peddling an indie game to Sony, Mr Garner even went to far as to list out the steps needed for a chance to be promoted. (A couple of points are, admittedly, beyond me. Don't know what a 'lotcheck' is.) There are trailers, blogs and multiple social media forms to deal with ontop of just developing the thing to begin with, which certainly seems like a lot of undue work to drop on the door of independent developers. (Most of whom can't afford to hire a fulltime employee just to parry corporate backstab moves like this)

Another big point of contention, and one which I think breaks through to all of us at home, regardless of any of our individual experience shaking hands with corporations rich enough to sear their name onto the moon with highpowered lasers, are 'Account Managers'. Enough said, you don't need to get into details. I can just hear the "Well, have you tried (explains the single most basic step possible that you'd have to have done anyway in order to make it to this point)?". I swear the entire point of 'Account Managers' is to keep you occupied so that you don't gum up the schedules of the actually important people, as they never seem to have the adequate amount of information and resources required to do their jobs. But I digress; the impression imparted it that the relationship between Indie Developers and Sony is very distant and impartial, which isn't really all that helpful on the side of the tiny indie devs who just want to get their game out there.

The bullet point that really blew me away, however, and might just change the way I look at game retail stores forever, is the fact that Sony doesn't allow for launch discounts without tacit approval. You heard right, Sony are the one's who decide when a game goes on discount. How does that make any sense on god's green earth? First of all, indie titles needs to be able to discount themselves in order to shape themselves to the ever evolving perceived value of the audience, it's pretty much a necessity. But secondly, if they're getting the 30% or whatever cut that they are, who the heck are Sony to tell people when they can and cannot discount their own product on the store? Apparently you have to get an invitation from Sony to access this 'highest of privileges', making it impossible to sync discounts across all the platforms and ensuring that PlayStation customers will always be the odd ones out when it comes to prices. (This whole affair has probably led to a bunch of indie titles not even bothering with the Sony headache anyway)

Now this all sounds like the disgruntled ramblings of one developer with a bad experience, but of course corroborations have come out of the woodworks with their own stories and charts. One I heard a couple of times was that indie games (at least for these folks) made more money on Itch.io then on the Playstation Store. How can that be the case? At the end of the day, I suppose what we're learning here is that it's easy to find oneself at the top of the pack and become this unshifting rock that's too scared to adapt for fear of losing it's dominance, but Sony are shooting themselves in the foot everytime they fortify themselves against progress like this. First there was the outright refusal to consider anything like Gamepass, then the active hostility towards any form of crossplay and now the alienation of indie developers; how long can they get away with fighting windmills? Good on everyone who spoke up and those who are lighting the fire under Sony's toes, even knowing that it'll eventually amount to diddly squat. At the very least it serves as an active lesson to other Platform providers out there how not to act.

More Horizon! Whoop!

 Alexander best be weeping right now.

The Sony of today is a very different beast to the one that lumbered up to the Industry back in the days of the Nintendo 64, and indeed a very different beast to most other console manufactures in history. I say that not just because of their success in the face of all the competition of today, but because of their aura of exclusivity they've successfully managed to establish for themselves and their rule through the supremacy of the software on offer even when their hardware falls just that hair's breadth behind. They've proven that at the end of the day games make a platform, a lesson that has rubbed off poorly on pretenders like EA (who ended up having to sell their games on Steam after they realised no one wanted to use their god awful launcher) and Ubisoft (same deal). And though it's not entirely accurate if we start cutting precisely into dates and what launched when, in my mind the very first serious move in this direction of funding solid exclusive games starts with the title 'Horizon: Zero Dawn'.

In many ways Horizon sounds like the sort of game that would be summoned up for a tech demo; given enough of a life to justify the eye-popping visuals on screen, and then dumped into the forgotten pile despite how interesting it might have looked. Because I mean just think about it; a post human world ruled by robotic dinosaurs that you have to fight with a futuristic mechanised recurve bow and can ride!? That's some next level crazy stuff that feels like it was invented just to survive a pitch meeting rather than to make it all the way to retail and survive a ribbing from the public. And yet whoever came up with this idea was serious enough about it to get it realised into an actual game that, whilst looking very much like a tech demo, is an honest-to-goodness complete game! I know that sounds weird- gushing over the fact that Horizon Zero Dawn is actually playable- but it's just not how I've been programmed to expect new games to work. 

Typically you start off with an interesting sounding idea that gets delineated down into "what we can do", until the idea itself begins withering away and your left with a sanitised product. I have no doubt that Horizon went through that exact same process, but amazingly on the otherend I believe it must have kept it's wild soul. And it was more for the better the game remained as much of a spectacle as it did, because Zero Dawn ended up reinforcing the values that would go on to define Sony, or at least their game studio branch, for the better part of the next decade. Cinematic-level storytelling, top tier fidelity, fun gameplay loops and never going for the easy path. Although that last one is perhaps a little bit of lip-service because nearly all of Sony's first party extravaganza games have been third person action adventures. (Why not make a blockbuster rhythm action sidescroller Sony? What are ya- scared?) The only negative in my eyes regarding Horizon, beside the terrible human AI that always accompanies games in which humans are a 'side enemy', would be the fact that Sony really didn't do a good job keeping the spirit of this game alive when the developers had no more content to put out.

When Horizon was coming out you would see it advertised everywhere, Sony was singing it from the rooftops, but then it launched and Sony immediately moved onto promoting the next thing. Zero Dawn had a life in the hands of those that bought it, but you wouldn't know it if you weren't a playstation player. (Especially not since you'd have to wait until the new decade to play it on PC. Geez, Sony, we get your 5 year old games now? How gracious of you...) They did the same 'promote then dump' for Horizon's big story DLC, and if I wasn't sure that Sony was just incompetent with how to market back then I'd assume they were actively trying to sabotage the game's success. What's the harm of keeping the ad campaign's going just a little bit past launch for those who didn't rock up day 1? Or are week one sales literally all that Sony cares about? (I say that facetiously in knowledge of the 'Days Gone' exec's assertions to that very truth.)

I can only assume that all my complaints will get completely laid to rest in the wake of the brand new Horizon entry; Forbidden West, which recently got an extensive gameplay demo during a Playstation Now event that I defiantly knew was coming and didn't rock up to as it was ending. (How the hell do people keep up with all these events? Do I need to get on some sort of mailing list or something?) So how does the new title shape up to the picturesque original now that we're on the verge of a new console generation and are pushing the old consoles part their limits? Unreal. Simply unbelievable what the team have managed to bring to life here. I'm being honest when I say that from a purely graphical level, I'm not sure I expected graphics to get this stupidly realistic. LOOK AT THE WATER! I know, I'm sounding like a madman again but you don't understand, digital water is impossible to get right. Not just to make it move realistically but even to be stationary. (Which makes sense, water is by nature never still.) That's simply because our minds can instantly point out the fakeness from something we see so often- but this game has waves. Waves! Water physics that dynamically react to environmental input too. No one needed to do that (and I'll bet it's largely absent for the inexplicable last gen versions of the game) but they did it anyway. Because they could. Another reason why I'll always consider Horizon 'the little Tech Demo series could'.

Of course, this game isn't all about graphical fidelity, (I mean that's a lot of it though) there's actual gameplay here to. The demo acts as a handy tour through what you can expect out of the game and, providing the final product plays as this footage shows which we know is absolutely not a given, then we'll probably have another game-changer entering the Sony Game Studios Pantheon. One thing I've noticed, and I'm unsure how genuine this is, is that there's a lot of crossover between story and dynamic gameplay moments. For example, early on we see Aloy being chased by several robotic enemies whom she seems to react to even as she's escaping despite the fact that the player could feasibly stop and kill them. Is this going to be a scripted moment where you literally can't beat them and have to run, or is the game going to be littered with these little moments going above and beyond where the game, and specifically the voice acting, reacts to your actions? (I'm leaning towards the latter as The Last of Us Part 2 and the Spiderman games already established that design philosophy heavily.) There's also a moment later where the player tames a creature in gameplay and then rides it into a cutscene in which it is shown.

Then there's the bossfight to end the demo, because of course Sony and Guerrilla games wanted to end with the showstopper that would make my computer weep to even think about rendering. After losing points to some serviceable but ultimately mediocre cutscene cinematography which is, at this point, unworthy of the game around it; Horizon demonstrates how it looks and flows it's best in action: a stark contrast to the state of games when I was teenager, that's for sure... The fight against the tusked elephant beast is simply epic, like something out of a sci-fi retelling of Lord of the Rings. (Although these beasts are nowhere near as large as the Mûmakil, in fairness.) I adore the way that parts of the robot are stripped off in the ruckus, the way that Aloy fires a sticky arrow that genuinely appears to gum up the thing's mechanics dynamically and I even love the way the thing attacks. Shooting the ground in front of you with a sustained beam and then raking across the land at you- it's just that little bit individualistic and atypical, using lasers to simulate the actions of tasks scrapping the ground. And if this is just what they want to tease in the first gameplay showcase, I shudder to think what the full game might hold.

I speak so adoringly of Horizon despite the fact, as veterans might have picked up on my terminology faux pas' here and there, never having actually played the original. That's right, never owned a PS3 or 4 and thus didn't have the opportunity to enjoy this game to the fullest. (I've still played it, just briefly and not as much as I wished to) I celebrate anyway because, as the saying goes, a rising tide raises all ships; and a game willing to up-the-bar like this is going to touch the rest of the industry. It might not prostate itself all over the new technological horizons like some of the next-gen exclusives do, but it regardless teases a level of developing excellence in most areas that can be translated to all projects, big and small. Next gen blockbusters or small time indie projects. It's games like this that remind us how the details matter in making something truly, grossly, incandescent, and several years down the line I hope to finally get a chance to see what all the fuss is about first hand rather than just standing longingly at the gate.

PSV and PS3 Online saved!?

 You live to see another day

Not too long ago I came before you a beaten man. Bitter, broken, lost and despondent; because I had heard that most damnable of news, how the Playstation store was shutting down. Well, certain segments of it, to be clear. (It would be a little weird if they turned around and suddenly shut down the PS5 store.) This was a clear move to consolidate the online infrastructure of the PlayStation systems completely oblivious to the clear and lasting effect this would have on the wider library of available games in the world today. Because once that online store logged off for good, that would immediately make it so that only games bought in person could be played on the old Playstation 3 and PSV. Nevermind any patches those games might have had, online functionalities, always-online checks or heck, just any game that could only be bought online in the first place. All these games had been proclaimed the exact same execution date and it came to a shock across the PlayStation community. Not least of all because it was reported on as a exclusive leak before being officially confirmed by Playstation, kind of making it look like they weren't planning on telling people at all.

Of course this wasn't exactly anything new to the gaming community. Those who've spent any amount of time with Nintendo consoles will tell you how the big N drops the previous consoles as soon as humanely possible and tries their damndest to kill those old storefronts so that they can justify reselling those games with a minor touch-up down the line. (It's just the Nintendo way) But Sony fans couldn't help but feel a little run around in a tizzy thanks to the lack of forewarning about this store closure that was due in the summer. Developers who still made their games for the PSVita voiced their disdain for projects that they were working on which would either have to be cancelled or reworked onto other systems. In fact, the Vita crowd in general were inconsolable, because they've held for years that their console had been done a raw deal by Sony, never given the support it needed, and now it would die in a backroom deal alongside the PS3 and PSP. It just didn't seem right.

And what's more, there was the precedent that this set. The line in the sand which said "From this point forth, every new generation will kill another behind it." This hurt specifically for the Playstation 4 as recently there was a big reveal that I didn't get to cover because it happened after the original story. Quite simply, it was a design flaw for the PS4 whereupon the console needed to check itself against the sever in order to keep the console running in the instance of a clock battery death. This is something that is unavoidable, and in fact scheduled. And fans reported that should this clock battery die and there be no server to reconnect to, then the console would immediately become bricked, essentially. Downloaded games and disc games could not be played from that point onwards, rending the console unusable. (And apparently this was only designed this way to stop people from messing with the console clock to make it look like they earned trophies before they actually did. Doesn't really seem like a fix worth the cost, huh?)

But I'm using past tense both purposefully and cautiously, because the recent update on this story is that the good word has made it's way to higher ups and the impending death of the PlayStation's infrastructure has been... let's say postponed. This is definitely a 'stay of execution' over a complete pardon, because Sony have already made themselves abundantly clear with how they feel towards paying a pittance to keep servers running. That annual cost, which likely comes up to the change under management's couch-cushions, just disgusts these people to have to pay; and the concept of 'game preservation' clearly isn't something that occurs to these money men trying to turn a buck out of art. I know this because they made the darn decision completely quietly trample it and only responded when the internet shouted at them too. They don't care about preservation. So bet you bottom lip we'll be back here in a year in two.

However I'm being a downer, let's celebrate in what small victory this is, shall we? Playstation made an official comment admitting to getting things wrong and undoing their summer murder plans. This means that those online exclusive games aren't going to soon disappear forever, Playstation 3's aren't about to become the next scalped to death item and PS4 owners can breath a confused sigh of maybe relief as they ponder how this 'clock battery death' thing is going to work out even with servers there to pull from. Will the console suddenly become an online-only device from that point on? Can this be reversed remotely by the team at Sony? And how much will it cost to get my console jail-broken, because right now that seems like the smartest choice for any console owner not thrilled about watching their game console slowly become a paperweight.

At the very least, I think this is a victory of larger consequence than itself, because the effect this has on the wider market will be significant. I've noticed how the Xbox news has been favourable against comparison with Sony in regards to preservation, noting how well backwards compatibility works, but I know that Xbox would have been first in line to kill off their older markets if Sony had simply broken the seal first. It's an opportunity to save a percent of a percent worth of costs, any company is going to jump on that no matter the irrevocably horrendous damage it might have on art as we know it. Xbox may play goody two shoes, but they'll disappoint their fans just so long as Sony disappoints them more first. Right now we're in a holding position where both consoles are kept by the other's reticence to be the first loser, and in an ideal world this mutually assured destruction treatise would be enough. But ultimate deterrence has ever been a flawed theory.

Yet we celebrate anyway. Pointedly ignorant of future woes and the next fight. But hey, isn't that what life is all about? Enjoying the moment instead of splitting hairs about tomorrow? I mean afterall, all the Playstation stores are sav- wait a second, what about PSP? Yeah, all the news I've heard about the reversal have spoken about the PSV and PS3 stores, but nobodies said jack about the death of the PSP stores. Is this just the usual case of that platform being ignored because it's decidedly not worth caring about like the PSV store? Perhaps. I can't imagine what would be the point of shutting down PSP stores but keeping PSV open. Aren't their stores literally mirrors of one another? Unless actually nobody cares about preserving PSP games, which being a PSP owner myself I can sort of understand. (A lot of them are really bad) But that platform held the definitive, surprisingly, version of Marvel Ultimate Alliance, with several game modes that other versions still do not have, thus I say: "Save PSP too. Or at least save MUA on PSP. Let the rest burn"

I wonder, on the otherside of this, what it really was which stayed the executioners axe this time. Because as sure as I am that, when asked, Playstation management will parrot the talking points of the detractors for public recognition points, I think we all know the truth is far more cynical than that. Maybe at it's heart this really is just a question of public backlash that Sony wanted to get ahead of, even indie developers were getting upset at Sony over this choice, and Sony already has a strained relationship with the indie community compared to Microsoft. So perhaps this was in their sake, or simply just to keep fanboys happy. I ask this because I merely wonder if, just like EA and Activision have mastered, this is a capitulation for as long as the flames of outrage spark. For in such a scenario, once the fires die from peoples' heart, and it always does, we'll have lost. I certainly hope Sony management isn't that shallow, but I just don't know.

Preservation

 Say goodbye whilst it still matters

Moving on from yesterday's discussion regarding the future, what about we talk about the past and specifically the art of preserving it. (I absolutely did not plan this, these stories just lined up together.) For as I have mentioned before, when it comes to the constant growth of technology and the mechanical means at developer's disposal, there is a always a casualty somewhere down the line and it's not just our wallets. (Although I will say, these new consoles are stupidly expensive.) As anyone with a penchant for dabbling with older software will tell you, the more advanced modern hardware becomes the harder it gets to reach back. Typically this hasn't been a huge issue because most programs are always upgrading, but when we think about how an artform functions on this slide of depreciation, things might not be so straightforward. (No, not talking about NFTs. At least not today.) I think this is the sort of conversation that'll become ever more important in the near future, especially as recent events have panned out.

But first, I should start by saying that I totally understand why newer hardware tends to usher out older software, I do. It's not some nefarious plot to sell the newer gear (at least, not entirely) and nor is it really something that can be easily prevented without dedicated efforts towards preservation, so I can understand how those who don't keep it on the mind might loose track of where old systems end up. As technological understanding evolves, software developers simply find cleaner ways of working with data interpreters, or more effective programs or maybe even the OS evolves and improves. In such instances it's only natural that the ineffective or older programs get left behind, else what was the point of improving in the first place? However, this can sometimes lead to situations where programs that matter, old classic games for instance, are rendered incompatible for newer systems, and they have to rely on independent community members to stay alive.

Take the old-school Arkane RPG, Arx Fatalis, for instance. There's a game that boasted mechanics that I'm sure were rather cutting edge for the time, such as a first person interface which required the player to use the mouse in order to make fine motor movements. (Think Elder Scrolls Arena, but for everything) Nowadays, however, the simple refresh rate of bog standard monitors is enough to send that very system into haywire. (Making it virtually impossible to case any of the spells which require said fine movements) Of course, for this instance we have some fan patches to supplement the issue and change the core system so that the game is once again playable, but what happens when there is no one with the knowhow, or even the ability, to fix the problem? There was a period when Fallout 3 was unplayable because of certain OS updates, and that period was agonisingly long considering Fallout 3 is widely considered a masterpiece of the genre. Then there's all the really ancient DOSBOX games which require one to emulate the entire MS-DOS operating system just that they can function.

The examples I've provided so far have all been exclusively on the PC, because I think that's a perspective in which people would be most familiar with what I'm talking about when I mention hardware outpacing software. Additionally, this represents a platform for which any problems that do arise can feasible be fixed with adequate elbow grease and back door solutions. (Most of the time, anyway. Sometimes you just have to sit back and hope the developers still care for whatever reason.) But things become much murkier when we look at the consoles, your Xboxs and Playstations, for those are platforms entirely dependant on direct and constant support from the manufacturers. Should that ever falter for whatever reason, there's often no recourse. When we talk about the fears of game preservation falling to the wayside, I think of these platforms first and foremost. And such fears seem particularly apt recently, considering what's happened.

Just the other day Sony announced that the online stores for the Playstation 3, PSP and Vita will be closing down in the summer, and that marks a very real moment of loss in the gaming ecosystem as a countless number of titles are about to be wiped away forever. And I'm not being hyperbolic, whilst many of these games have PC versions that provide their existence with just a smidge more permanence, exclusive Playstation 3 games are about to become existent for all those that don't have a physical copy. Some are going to be due rereleases, sure, (Like Infamous 2, no doubt) but what about the games that don't have a now-powerful benefactor as the licence holder? Due for the aether, I suppose, destined to be wiped. Like 'Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: All Star Battle', for instance. (Yeah, you knew I'd find the Jojo game there somewhere, didn't you?)

And to some degree it makes sense. I mean these Online store fronts all have to be maintained with server costs by the console manufacturers, and if no one's actually using them the question must be raised of why they're still open. Of course, we're not in a situation where literally no-one uses the online services of the PS3 (Which is something I'm not even saying to play devil's advocate, I literally know someone who plays Battlefield 1943 on the PS3 daily) but if numbers aren't enough to justify server costs, then what's the point? Of course, one could argue that the price of paying for servers (which is so easily swallowed up by Sony's profits that it doesn't even make a ripple) is worth it for preservation's sake; but that would imply business decisions should be made with artistic pursuits primarily in mind, and that's just not how the world works. 

It's in an inevitability to be sure, but that doesn't make it any easier a pill to swallow. We've known for years that the consoles stores would go dark someday, but we've never actually had to face this reality to any significant degree until now. (With obvious exception to Nintendo Stores) The PS2 generation and all beforehand didn't rely on online stores, and the PS3 generation just about grazes the period in which games were still playable out the box and didn't require online patches for the other half of the game. So if this the cut-off then? When the next generation of Playstation hits will the PS4 go dark? And so and so forth? Will Xbox follow suit? We've heard Microsoft's grand talks about backwards libraries that they're all good and proud of, but when the precedent has just been set by Playstation the burden of ultimate disappointment is no longer on them. If they can save a few bucks by cutting the old online services, I wouldn't put it past them.

So what could be the possible solution? Well, in my mind there only thing we could hope for is some sort of non-profit that steps in to take hosting these services off of Playstation's hands for the soul purpose of preservation; but that's a pipe dream with too many unanswerable questions to pick up any real traction. (Such as, why in their right mind would Sony agree to that?) Still, I think this summer a cold chill will shoot up the spines of every gamer, as they feel a disturbance so great it'll be a like million voices cried out and then were silenced. Is this the future of game preservation on consoles? Decided solely by the whim of cynical money men? I certainly hope not, but the die, it seems, has already been cast.

What exactly does 'the new age of gaming' mean?

Those old-time stars.

We are in the time of renewal across pop culture. So much is being reused and remade in the image of what we consider to be 'the future', that no one so much as bats an eye anymore when Disney announces another live-action remake, or Capcom revives the Resident Evil movie brand. Perhaps this is because stagnancy is a sign of death, so part of us is glad that things are forever shifting and renewing. And why do I talk about this today? Because I wish to discuss this topic's relation to the coming console generation and what that means for the future of gaming as a whole. Which does inherently mean that everything I discuss will be entirely opinion based; so take with with as many grains of salt you need to make a meal.

Now the gut reaction to such a query would likely be something of the lines of "Why do we have to discuss that, it's obvious what the next console generation means. It's kind of in the name." But that is exactly why I feel it's worth going over because this console generations seems poised to be fundamentally different from those before it. Firstly, in previous generational switches there was usually an inevitable point in which new games would cease coming out on the older gen console and would then be exclusive to the newer console. This would be justified, of course, by the way how all the newer gen titles would lavishly exploit the new graphical heights of the introduced consoles and thus mostly be glorified tech-demos. (Yeah, the game itself could 'feasibly' fit on some of the long-running consoles of the time, but would they be able to render that same number of hair follicles along Nick Ramos' jaw? Thought not.) The big companies would often support and encourage this trend as soon as possible by dropping previous gen support the second the next console came out, cold turkey, and developing all first party titles with the new hotness.

Now, this may still be the stratagem as far as Sony is concerned, they've been deathly quiet of a late, but Microsoft have come forth to assure everyone that this won't be the case for them. I did cover it a few weeks back, but just as a refresher: Microsoft have vowed to maintain first-party game support of the Xbox One for at least 2 years into the Xbox Series X's life cycle, proving that their old console won't immediately become a wasteland. (Of course, that doesn't change the fact that all the cool console exclusive titles are still on PlayStation, but 'baby steps' I guess.) What this does mean, however, is there will be a reduced draw to run to the new console in it's incubation period where it will most certainly be over-priced. Suddenly, such a prospect weakens the step from this generation to the next and makes it a question of whether or not there is need for a new generation right now at all. Sure, all the 'slick new graphics' can only be caught on the 'newest gen' but honestly most people know that graphical fidelity most often means diddly squat in the grand scheme of things. (I''m still unsure if this choice will hurt the Xbox SX's launch or help it.)

Another big change, and the inciting factor for writing this blog, would be the dissolution of the concept of 'exclusivity' regarding these upcoming consoles. (I know this is kind of an expansion upon the previous point but bear with me.) One the biggest reasons for spending the big bucks in order to hop to the next console is the big fear of missing out as well as to save oneself financially folly in the future. That initial FOMO will push people to drop their money on the next new game, which is great for third-party developers as they will usually do their best to support the last gen and current gen markets in the knowledge that those who purchase the weaker version of the game will eventually emigrate to the new console and, (if they liked the game enough) be forced to buy the game again on the fresh hardware. This has been the unspoken way that it has always been for years now for every single developer aside from those who work on the Just Dance games, because those fools haven't touched the base code in so long that the software still gets ported for Nintendo Wii. (Who still buys the bloody Wii version?)

If you spent anytime on gaming Twitter in the past couple of weeks you'll know that a big company recently challenged that practice in a big way. That's right, CD Projekt Red have come out and revealed that for Cyberpunk 2077 they'll be offering upgrades from the Xbox One version of the game to the Xbox Series X version free of charge. "No one should be forced to buy a game twice" they proudly said, (or something to that effect) and that is sure to send quite the message across the industry given the eminence of that company and that particular game. (Afterall, it is destined to be Game of The Year.) There are still some questions that come regarding this magnanimous offer; such as if this is a limited-time deal or if it will be reflected for Sony's consoles, but whatever is decided this does lessen the need to migrate to greener pastures and further blurs the line between this generation and the next.

Then there is the question of when this new Console generation will land, because even that is in flux right now. Yeah we all remember the grand promises that this December will be 'dawn of the new gaming age'. Even if some folk 'like moi' are left feeling a bit disquiet about it approaching so rapidly. (has it already been 8 years? I'm sure it only feels like 7.) Microsoft have been very open about their plans to come in the holiday, whilst Sony may have mentioned it once in the plethora of bite-sized interviews that they do instead of actually attending any events and advertising. (These guys must think they're Rockstar at this point.) But as with many annual staples this in now in flux due to the unexpected rise of relevant factor.

Now I usually like to keep things light and at least mostly planted in the realm of fiction in this blog, but there's no escaping the fact that there is a rather deadly situation bubbling around the world in the Coronavirus or, more specifically, Covid-19. This little virus is poised to jump across the world to America soon, as experts have stated, and that has meant a great stamping down of events that could serve as hubs for spreading such a virus. (Due to the way that they draw in thousands of folk across the room to one sweaty place.) On the global stage this means that things like the Olympics are currently in limbo. (It may even be cancelled this year.) And on the gaming stage this means that Sony have taken this opportunity to preemptively drop out of every gaming event for the next 6 months. (You get the feeling that they've been looking for an excuse for a while, huh?) However, this could have an even more drastic effect on the length of our current console generation.

It's no secret that the majority of cheap labour is done in Asia with a good portion of the tech world being manufactured in China. Well as a consequence of that, Covid-19's appearance has thrown that manufacturing process in jeopardy as no one want to import at the risk of contaminating themselves or their workers with a potentially deadly virus. (Except, I presume, Amazon: who likely care so little about their staff they're probably already advertising replacements for them as they conduct the imports.) This has meant that a lot of the key components that would go into making the new consoles have had to be delayed, and if this outbreak doesn't improve or (god forbid) get's worse, this will push back the next console generation out of 2020. I don't think anyone can really blame the companies if that happen, either. It's certainly better to be safe than sorry. (And now one wants to buy their brand new console only for it to give them the Corona. That beer sucks.)

So with all of these factors that threaten to change the definition of one of gaming's longest held traditions, I poise the question to you; what does 'the new age of gaming' mean? Is it an evolution in the way that we enjoy our favourite pastime, or merely a manufactured event to periodically shove technology forward at the expense of the consumer? And with all these new events and situations that threaten to blur the lines between the current gen and the next, is it even a construct that is worth keeping around in the current age? I know it's rather cheap to just leave you with questions and no answers, but that's all I'm here for, baby!