The gap will not be that big again. I think people lose sight of the fact that the gap was so big, because in 2013, PS4's only competition was:

• Wii U
• Don Matrick,TV,TV,Sports,$500 kinect, and $100 more expensive with weaker hardware

The weirdest thing about all of this.......

The same Cows that are putting on their business suits, larping as accountants, and twisting themselves into pretzels to tell you "well achshually.....MS has to recoup their investment" are the same Cows who just 2 months ago would have also twisted themselves into pretzels to tell you MS would never make an investment like this. They'd also have a long list imaginary handicaps they'd arbitrarily impose on MS to explain why (that read like the wishful thinking of a naysayer), such as "Xbox is only a small part of MS's income" or "MS doesnt care that much about gaming".

It has been made absolutely clear that Cows are not reliable at predictions like this. For entertainment, I read every page of the Resetera Playstation OT thread, just to take the temperature of what their opinion was. MF'ers are now floating that Sony buy Take Two, as if that were a remote possibility. And also, none of those aformentioned imaginary handicaps will apply to Sony, who is even less capable of doing something like that than MS is. Go figure.

Also, they want Sony to buy Konami and Square Enix, for some reason. So they can have a graveyard of past their prime IPs. Lots of general panic about "industry consolidation". Its a hilarious read, I recommend it.

Phil Spencer cannot say that Bethesda games will be exclusive, because MS does not yet own Bethesda, and he currently has no power to do so.

/stupidthreadtitle

This feels almost like a guilty pleasure at this point, but am I the only one not ashamed to say I liked all the Watch Dogs and Far Cry games? (since Far Cry 3, and excluding the "standalone" spinoffs)

Zero interest in Assassin's Creed, though. Its quite fitting that that series has "Ass" in the name twice.

Am I the only one who thinks its hilarious seeing cows pretend to be excited about Call of Duty? What year is this, 2012?

Cows hated (well, pretended to hate) Call of Duty during the height of its popularity during the 360 days. Now, you need at least 2 hands to count the number of just as popular games that occupy the cultural space Call of Duty did, during the MW2/3/Black Ops/2 days. Like R6 Siege, for example.

Im not convinced a single one of you Cows give a liquid shit about Call of Duty. You guys (in theory) despise this franchise. Its "dudebro dorrito garbage". Also "GAAS, Lootbox, Microtransactions, nickel and dimeing........."every other buzzword you guys attached to the game, when it was associated with Xbox. And you've done it since the franchise's peak, far before it was "cool" to hate Call of Duty.

You literally only care about this because Sony has a marketing deal with the game, and Sony told you to. This is what a cult looks like.

Its been almost 20 years since a Gran Turismo installment has been able to get at least 90 or above on Metacritic.

Forza has had, what.......like 6 or 7 games do that, since 2005? Is this even a question?

How long did Cows spend prior to yesterday, telling us how much they didnt care about Sony waiting so long to demonstrate PS5's UI because "its a UI, who cares" "you spend the least amount of time in there" "its all about the gamez mannnnn.......".

Now, a UI is so important to them, they would prefer an additional 1GB of ram be allocated to it instead of to games. Remember, just a week ago, Cows told you they didnt care about a UI. Life comes at you fast.

Moooooooooooo.

Thats not why Sony removed hardware BC in the PS3. Jack Trenton himself said it didnt even cost that much. They removed it so they could keep selling PS2s at an $80 profit margin (which were selling upwards of 7-9M a year well into last generation) vs everyone migrating to PS3 (which was sold at a massive loss) and losing that potential revenue stream.

On topic, BC absolutely has value, and anyone telling you otherwise has an agenda. Sony recognises that it has value. Thats why the biggest game for the PS5 is a remake of Demons Souls. Its also why they're repackaging 2 year old games with minor facelifts and packed-in season pass DLC for $70, and your save doesnt even work. Thats not a good look when Microsoft has 600 games from the 360+ era, many of which have had native 4k support patched in. Some of those games are even in Gamepass. Imagine someone who wants to play the first Red Dead Redemption (a game that was never ported to PC BTW). It sold roughly half of what the 2nd game sold, so I imagine there are quite a few people who wouldn't mind going back. The only way you can play that game is to dust off your 10+ year old console, hit up Ebay or Gamestop, or just play it on a modern Xbox system. In 4k. It will probably end up on Gamepass eventually if it hasnt already. If you only own Sony consoles, that game does not exist anymore, and Sony doesnt care about it. Its lost to time. But dont worry, they'll be right there to repackage its eventual "remaster" for you for $70.

The whole downplaying BC thing is a tactic Sony does every time its on the losing end of an issue.

Remember how Sony said "Rumble is a last gen feature"............and now they think that rumble is such a next gen feature they're forcing you to rebuy all your controllers for $70 because they decided to arbitrarily gate off support for the Dualshock 4. Keep in mind, PS5 supports the DS4 natively on a software level. This is literally Sony purposefully unchecking a box, because they want to.

Red Dead Redemption 2 came out 8 years after the first game. It outsold the RDR1 in 2 weeks, and its total sales will likely triple the first game when its legs fall off.The next GTA game will likely come out 10 years after the last one. Do you believe when GTAVI is announced, people.......wont remember it because its been 10 years? Do you think it wont shatter the opening week sales record, that is currently STILL held by the previous game?

These franchises have enormous cultural capital, man. And I'm including both Elder Scrolls, Fallout, and even Halo in here (because I see people using this arguement about Halo frequently, as well). These franchises have all hit critical mass in the popular culture zeitgeist as far as clout is concerned. Same with Call of Duty. I dont buy the arguement that the general public will magically forget about these franchises after an arbitrary amount of time passes. And my post simply highlights the hypocrisy of people using this arguement to discredit franchises like Elder Scrolls and Fallout (both of their last mainline installments have likely outsold the combined sales of all previous games in their respective franchises) but then go on to hype Final Fantasy 16.

Also, reguarding Elder Scrolls Online, Fallout 76, and Wolfenstein: Youngblood........none of those games are full scale productions, and I believe you know that. Those games are all outsourced to secondary teams, and all are built off of the skeletons of the previous games, reusing engine builds and assets. ESO recycles Skyrim's engine and assets. F76 recycles F4's engine and assets. W:YB reuses Wolfenstein 2's engine build and assets. Its like implying that Batman: Arkham Origins (which was an outsourced spinoff that just recycled Arkham City assets) was indicative of what Batman: Arkham Knight was going to be like. Or similarly, Spiderman: Myles Morales.

The team that made Skyrim, Fallout 3, and Fallout 4, is hard at work making Starfield and ES6. And if Fallout 4 gives you pause, you're in luck. Whatever Fallout game you think the last good one was, whether Fallout: New Vegas, or the top down ones from the 90s, Microsoft also owns the 2 developers who made those games so noone can hide behind "shadow of their former selves" nonsense. Obsidian and InXile are both led by the original creators of the franchise (and Obsidian made New Vegas, the best modern one) and one of them will likely be the ones making the next game. So that franchise is absolutely in good hands, no matter how anyone wants to spin it.

Lets see........

A sequel to one of the most influential games of the past decade, that got 96 on metacritic, won GOTY on this very site, was the biggest game the year it came out, sold over 30 million, and even modern ports continue to sell millions, the title screen trailer shown in 2018 was enough to dominate social media engagements at the event it was shown at, second only to Cyberpunk, and will almost certainly win Game of the Show (or equivalent) at whatever E3 or other tradeshow the game is next showcased at.......

Or........

A sequel in a franchise who hasnt had a culturally relevant installment, or been a "marquee" franchise in the gaming zeitgeist (for Playstation, or otherwise), since WWE was still called WWF.

But Cows will still say Elder Scrolls is "a shadow of its former self" or "on the decline" but still hype this shit 🤣

The last several installments of Final Fantasy have all been lukewarm at best. The last great Final Fantasy was X and X-2. Just to give you a frame of reference for how long its been since this franchise has been good........im 28 years old, and I shoveled snow in the 5th grade to buy FFX.

All Final Fantasies from 12 and forward are where the series started to go downhill. Thats where they began straying away from the turn based battle system of X, and started progressively forcing the Kingdom Hearts battle system into everything, more and more with each installment, to the point where they dont even WANT to be a JRPG anymore. They want to be a generic western open world AAA blockbuster game. They want to be a Rockstar (RDR) or Ubisoft (AC) game, with a Final Fantasy veneer. And in the most recent trailer, there's even Dark Souls influence now.

The franchise has tried too hard to appeal to a western audience, and in turn, strayed away from what made Final Fantasy what it was. This was made evident to me playing Persona 5. A game that isnt afraid to be a JRPG, or think americans are too dumb or have too short of an attention span to have a traditional turn based combat system. Or think Americans will be too turned off by Japanese culture. I felt like I was in 5th grade playing FFX again playing Persona 5, and I realize I just havent really messed with JRPGs like that since FFX and X-2. Its because there just hasnt been a traditional JRPG franchise that been as good as those games, while ALSO being able to gain as much mainstream traction in the west, that was able to fill that void. Persona now occupies the lane Final Fantasy used to hold with me, and this new Final Fantasy looks like it doesn't know what the hell it wants its identity to be.