The Friday letters page is angry that publishers are not making the games people want, as a reader is embarrassed by Stellar Blade.
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Dividing line
I’ve been having that age old argument with my friend again, about what counts as a retro video game and what doesn’t. I used your definition, that it was anything more than two generations old, but he insists the Xbox 360 is also retro.
I realise it’s been a long time now but that doesn’t feel right to me. A lot of games released in that generation would still be perfectly playable today, with no changes, and a lot of long-running series, like Call Of Duty and Assassin’s Creed, are basically still the same now as they always were.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the Xbox 360, but I don’t feel it’s retro. For me my favourite retro machine will always be the SNES. For me it is the perfect mix of retro, quality, and nostalgia. Although if I were to make a choice based purely on nostalgia it would be the Amiga 500, as that was the first format I owned.
Curious to know what others think in terms of what counts and what their favourites are.
Tim Rodgers
Uniting the fans
There might have been some argument over whether Starfield was good or not but it’s crazy to see such a big name game, from a major developer, get such a low Metacritic score – 54 as I type this. And it’d be much less if a couple of crazy Xbox websites hadn’t given it inflated scores.
I’ve rarely seen the critical consensus be so similar to fan reviews either, especially for a bad game, but on Metacritic the scores are almost the same. So… well done for uniting people, Bethesda?
I haven’t played it, for obvious reasons, and I really don’t intend to. Maybe the reason they haven’t brought it to PlayStation 5 yet is because they know nobody will buy it? It doesn’t matter whether Xbox goes multiformat or not, unless they have the games they need to get people’s attention nobody’s going to care either way. Bethesda has messed up with Starfield and it needs to be swept under the carpet as soon as possible.
Goofy
Publisher preferences
Really interesting article on which kind of games people like to play and it’s such a relief to find that it’s single-player. The last few years it’s seemed like publishers consider them old news and all anyone wants is multiplayer. Now we found out that actually it’s the opposite and it’s only publishers that want it to be nothing but multiplayer.
As you say, there’s lots of simple, logical solutions in the report, all of which I expect publishers to ignore for as long as possible. Maybe we can hope that Sony has already got the message but all we’re basing that on is that they announced one new single-player game that we knew was coming anyway.
Almost more interesting was the number of people who like couch co-op. No wonder those Lego games sell, because there’s almost nothing else I can think of to scratch that itch. Publishers aren’t making the games people want, they’re making the games that bring in the most profit, and those are two very different things.
Focus
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RPG salad
I’m genuinely sorry to read all the incoming reviews of the Starfield DLC and have yet to see one that I would class as positive. I’ve always been a Fallout man and still to this day love loading up one of the old games and letting it absorb me for weeks.
In your review you highlight what you believe is Bethesda’s inability to move past ideas of what a 13-year-old game should be is what holds it back, yet from my perspective that’s exactly what I’d have been happy with. I don’t particularly want them to reinvent the wheel, just give me an interesting world with some cool characters to go and explore with.
If I get that I can basically forgive anything else. Starfield was just such uninteresting mush. Far too big to care about and with nothing particularly interesting to find in it anyway. It feels much more like a Ubisoft game in that way, to me. I don’t know what key learnings they’ll take away from Starfield in general but I’m worried they won’t be the correct ones.
Chris in Belfast
Tempting providence
Excellent points from Ali K in relation to the Switch 2 maybe not selling as many units for various detailed reasons.
However, there was no mention of Mario Kart 9 when talking of a killer app. I honestly cannot see a scenario where the Switch 2 launches without Mario Kart 9 and I cannot see it being available on the original Switch and thus will entice people to upgrade. I always thought that the roadmap for the Booster Course Pass was structured in a way to that, with the final wave being in November 2023, there was a big enough gap before the next iteration of Mario Kart was released.
So, with that said, I’m looking forwards to 1-2-3-Switch being the sole launch title.
This email is written with the usual caveats of never predict Nintendo, etc. but it sure is fun to try.
NatorDom
GC: If 1-2-3-Switch is a launch title – and there’s a non-zero chance of that – we’re all blaming you.
Specialist knowledge
I think the thing people are forgetting with the PS5 Pro is that it’s ultimately not an important piece of hardware. It’s more important than PlayStation Portal but not by much, certainly not in terms of the number of people that are going to buy it.
It’s just a flex for a Sony, an excuse for developers to handwave away bad performance on the base mode, and a good way to make more money this Christmas. To the vast majority of PlayStation players it’ll be as if it never existed and many will never know it does.
I doubt Sony even mentions it much after this Christmas, beyond all future screenshots and videos being taken on PS5 Pro rather than the console that most people actually own.
I think there’s a tendency for hardcore gamers to think everyone else knows and cares about the same things they do. I doubt most PlayStation owners know what the PS5 Pro. I also doubt they’ve noticed that Sony has stopped making most of its single-player games. That’s only something we care about.
Allansson
Advance warning
Regarding your response to Cranston’s letter about the reveal of the Switch successor, I hope you don’t mind me reminding you that Nintendo did put out a tweet in the early hours of 20/10/2016, announcing that the reveal trailer would be published later that day.
So, not a lot of forewarning, but there was something. Eight years ago… Wow, what a beautiful eight years they’ve been as a Nintendo fan – Switch4Life!
gcunit
GC: We stand corrected.
Increased perviness
I am genuinely shocked looked at the new ‘sexy’ update for Stellar Blade. I’m not a prude but embarrassing is the word to use about it. This looks like the sort of cheesy shlock that would’ve been made in the 80s or 90s, when video games were only aimed at teenage boys and even then it would’ve been looked down upon.
How we’re still doing this sort of thing in 2024 I do not know, especially in a game that is otherwise very good. Like GC said, EVE has basically no personality in the game, so nobody even gets to make a joke about it or anything like that. It’s just a normal action game with this pervy action figure type character that you play as.
I’m really surprised that Sony didn’t tell the developer to buck their ideas up a bit, especially as they’re losing sales by being this weird and creepy. It’s also made me think less of NieR:Automata, if I’m honest. After Stellar Blade I was always handwaving reason why 2B looked silly but now I think it’s obvious she only looks that way because the director is constantly horny.
Vetterman
Inbox also-rans
I was talking to someone about gaming as they were not gamers and it came to me that whoever you are, with whatever disabilities – physical, mental health, whatever is going on in life – when you turn on your console you are all equal to each other. The world is left at the door for a few hours and friends are made which is pretty special thing.
TWO MACKS
Kudos to anyone that turns down making Baldur’s Gate 4, considering how much Larian would’ve been paid to do it. I don’t care how long it takes, looking forward to their next game!
Raste
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