Agreed. It really is crazy because I'm convinced at this point that MS and Sony have crunched the math and have decided that forgoing the bad internet customers is worth it to cater to the whales and persistent online players.
Sony seems determined to pump out live service game after live service game, and MS is all-in on Gamepass (and that unsustainable model - Sacred Symbols just did an excellent podcast breaking down the screwy economics of Phil's busted logic), so it's clear these guys don't much care whether millions don't have the internet to play them.
Nintendo is the last light in this growing dumpster fire, but even they seem to be falling into the digital only releases with Super Princess Peach and Mario vs. Dk ...
You and me both. The future of the gaming industry doesn't look great. There's a reckoning coming with MS and Sony going too all-in on trying to find the "next" Fortnite.
May be the industry is due for an Atari-like crash reset.
Nintendo is the last light in this growing dumpster fire, but even they seem to be falling into the digital only releases with Super Princess Peach and Mario vs. Dk ...
I never got a Switch. At this point, I'm waiting to learn more about Switch 2.
Persona 3 & 4 Portables is really the big deal that LRG has been hyping for months? I mean, I guess it's a win for them... After all, I was expecting something like a remaster of "Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch: Make My Video", given their love for bad Sega CD FMV games, so kudos for Persona instead. But still gets a meh from me. *Shrugs*
People have been decrying "the death of physical media / video games" for over a decade. It doesn't make you sound smart.
When there are no physical options available then people stop paying money for new games. Look right to PC. How many people spending $59.99, no $69.99 on any of those digital games? People will buy Baldur's Gate or a Spider-Man but almost nothing else outside of service games. They can hardly even sell Final Fantasy or any of the other B+ or "AA" games there. Customers hesitate to even buy things at -50% off because it could be greater. Or bundled.
If the console makers want to head that route then they are going to be sorely disappointed. People will stop buying all but their main games. Then sales suffer even more because you have no retail or real world marketing presence.
Nintendo isn't going that route and I don't think Sony is that dumb either, considering sales numbers on their first party games.
Comparing Final Fantasy is a bit of a non-starter, since Square did a bonehead and went to Epic first.
In reality, plenty of PC games still sell a ton day one, Starfield is a great example; how many paid to play it three days early?Around 200k roughly.And that's not including later sales.
Digital doesn't lower sales volume, that's quite obvious. It does lower distribution cost greatly, but line must go up, so prices don't go down.
Plus, we've known for ages that the predominance of game revenues come digitally, something like 70-90%+ now depending on platform. More so since that over half the industry will never have physical media, aka mobile titles. The lines are being blurred between what's a free to play and AAA titles with stuff like Genshin on the scene (and raking in the cash).
I think saying people only buy this or that using a CAG perspective is inaccurate. Subscription services are likely taking this biggest bite out of sales.
To see where we're heading, video raked in around $50B in subs, ad-supported and sales of digital media... physical was $2.1B.
And for games, it's going to be a bit worse since you need the dedicated device(s). Think about it, freemium games have shown you can have one account and play on any hardware, whereas if you buy COD for the PS5, you cannot then play it on your PC or Xbox. (I've always argued that games should be sold as one license and accessible on any hardware, but walled gardens gotta wall -- playing Honkai Star Rail on my PC and Phone seemlessly is legit AF)
People have been decrying "the death of physical media / video games" for over a decade. It doesn't make you sound smart.
When there are no physical options available then people stop paying money for new games. Look right to PC. How many people spending $59.99, no $69.99 on any of those digital games? People will buy Baldur's Gate or a Spider-Man but almost nothing else outside of service games. They can hardly even sell Final Fantasy or any of the other B+ or "AA" games there. Customers hesitate to even buy things at -50% off because it could be greater. Or bundled.
If the console makers want to head that route then they are going to be sorely disappointed. People will stop buying all but their main games. Then sales suffer even more because you have no retail or real world marketing presence.
Nintendo isn't going that route and I don't think Sony is that dumb either, considering sales numbers on their first party games.
I agree. There is no reason to buy Day 1 digital. I will be waiting till games go down to a few dollars or be part of a bundle. And even then, it will depend if those digital games will require online just to play them, or worse yet, its TOS is up to lets say 10yrs before you have to "renew" the game to keep it in your catalog
As for Xbox, Playstation and Nintendo, I think Xbox will go all digital first, then Playstation, and finally Nintendo by 2030 when the Switch 2 successor(Switch 3) is released
Also digital games on multiple PC stores is awesome. Big games get pre-order discounts and most games get launch discounts. So many stores have deals, so unless it's only on one store like Diablo or Steam you can shop around. Also the bundles are great and even newer games sometimes get bundled or discounted like in the Fanatical Platinum bundles.
I guess with LRG getting access from SEGA to Persona 3 and Persona 4. As well as with the 2 Jurassic Park games from the Genesis. Means they probably have access to all the SEGA legacy catalog.
My bad - I stand corrected. I thought I had heard Nintendo was doing digital only of those games from one of the podcasts I'd listened to, but glad to hear they're not Yay!
I guess with LRG getting access from SEGA to Persona 3 and Persona 4. As well as with the 2 Jurassic Park games from the Genesis. Means they probably have access to all the SEGA legacy catalog.
I guess with LRG getting access from SEGA to Persona 3 and Persona 4. As well as with the 2 Jurassic Park games from the Genesis. Means they probably have access to all the SEGA legacy catalog.
I think this was a big part of what happened with the Vita. Not enough retail space to build customer confidence as so much of the content was pushed digitally.
I think we are fine for at least one more generation of physical (at least for Nintendo). Probably after that I'm not going to care as much about physical games and will just retire to playing what I own and emulating older stuff that maybe I want to revisit.
Yeah, that's what I mean. Nintendo already did this with 3D All-Stars... just get them to use whatever they used to port Sunshine... and let it be switch exclusive.
I think I remember reading years back, when the NS was still new, that the Nvidia chips and whatever they use, was specifically designed to be easy to port things to because the chip was originally designed for Android devices... so that way, devs could take existing console or iOS games and have lots of tools to port games over to Android devices. Not sure if true or if I'm mis-remembering but might explain why the Switch has so many damn ports and how some of them are even possible (Doom, Witcher 3, etc.) when they seemingly should not be possible.
The Switch version of Symphonia runs way worst than the PS4 version. It's actually worst than the PS3 version with all the new glitches and technical problems.
The GameCube was actually more powerful than the PS2, if you're talking about the original release. But really, the main issue is that developers optimize a game for a primary platform, and then usually severely underestimate how much time and effort needs to go into porting it to a different platform, so then that platform gets screwed. Even games with a simultaneous multi-platform release are in fact developed heavily on a single platform, while the "B-Team" are put in charge of the other platforms and fixing the performance issues there.
So if anyone was afraid that they were about to run out of games to publish, fear no more! Good chance all of these are coming to LRG. Individually, of course. In case your wallet was getting too heavy.
The GameCube was actually more powerful than the PS2, if you're talking about the original release. But really, the main issue is that developers optimize a game for a primary platform, and then usually severely underestimate how much time and effort needs to go into porting it to a different platform, so then that platform gets screwed. Even games with a simultaneous multi-platform release are in fact developed heavily on a single platform, while the "B-Team" are put in charge of the other platforms and fixing the performance issues there.
So if anyone was afraid that they were about to run out of games to publish, fear no more! Good chance all of these are coming to LRG. Individually, of course. In case your wallet was getting too heavy.
For sure. Not disputing the originals. Just talking about ports for the last gen consoles. Just realistic expectations for a hypothetical Skies Arcadia "remaster."
Anyone remember how beautiful Soul Calibur 2 was on the Gamecube? That game still looks amazing today. Years later, after finally getting a PS2 and Xbox 360 (only had Nintendo systems growing up), I picked up those console's versions of SCII and couldn't believe how much worse it looked on PS2 compared to Gamecube. And the Xbox version had button lag. So when people used to say Gamecube had the best version of SCII, they weren't kidding.
The Switch version of Symphonia runs way worst than the PS4 version. It's actually worst than the PS3 version with all the new glitches and technical problems.
the switch version is the ps2 version ported to ps3 then pc and not the original Gamecube version. So of course it runs like crap. It's not the Nintendo Gamecube version but the crappy ps2 version no one asked for. but they keep porting since they supposedly lost the Gamecube source code.
Which is bull as how anyone would lose source code for one of their best selling games? Pretty sure it was one of the first to break a million in world wide sales with it selling more in na than Japan.
They did patch it since released for the switch version. Though I don't know if they fixed much.
Gamecube will always be one of my favorite consoles. When I was purging my video game collection, I only sold a handful of GC games and actually bought a few more with my profit lol so many classic games, and the graphics really hold up. I have a component cable for my Wii hooked into my 55 inch 4k TV and it's surprising how good GC games look with that setup. Oh, and the Gameboy Player! I played Dragon Warrior Monsters 2 recently with just the stock composite cable for the GC, with the same 4k TV, and it actually looked pretty darn good. That could also mean I have a good TV, but either way, the GC rocks.
the switch version is the ps2 version ported to ps3 then pc and not the original Gamecube version. So of course it runs like crap. It's not the Nintendo Gamecube version but the crappy ps2 version no one asked for. but they keep porting since they supposedly lost the Gamecube source code.
Which is bull as how anyone would lose source code for one of their best selling games? Pretty sure it was one of the first to break a million in world wide sales with it selling more in na than Japan.
Has that rumor of the GC source code being lost actually been proven? Neither Namco or Tales team stated that. I thought they ported the PS2 version because it was basically the complete version with the extra content.
I find it pretty funny how Gamecube is so beloved today. It fell like a thud during that generation and Nintendo couldn't give it away a few years after launching it. We were packing pretty much every game we could with it to sell it. I remember when the sales numbers were so bad compared to the GBA and DS that we basically had our brochures go from being 80/20 Gamecube/handheld to 20/80 with very little GCN promotion.
Yay!
