The Friday letters page struggles to get excited about Obsidian’s new Fallout game, as a reader is unsurprised by EA’s latest microtransaction folly.
Games Inbox is a collection of our readers’ letters, comments, and opinions. To join in with the discussions yourself email gamecentral@metro.co.uk
Worst of the worst
So now that Microsoft and Sony have both proven themselves to be run by idiots, with nothing but contempt for their customers… which of them is worse? Xbox seems the obvious choice, given how long they’ve been messing up for and how the massive acquisitions have blown up in their face (and how their answer to every problem is to sack more people) but I think you can explain a lot by them being desperate.
PlayStation, however, is not desperate. The PlayStation 5 has had the generation to itself, basically, as far as competition from Xbox goes, and Sony has done absolutely nothing to take advantage of that. They’ve not used the massive profits this must’ve created to give fans what they want either, with a poor games line-up, and now they’ve spat in our collective faces with the end of physical media.
I’d say between them it’s surprisingly close, even if it is Xbox that’s worse overall – they’ve just had so much more practice at it!
Cranston
Dynamic duo
Ah, EA and microtransactions, what a timeless duo they are. I’ve no idea what College Football is but you can bet if they get away with this in its single-player mode it’ll find its way into EA Sports FC sooner or later. EA has always been the one to push microtransactions in single-player games and I’m not surprised to see them come back to it and give it another try.
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As with digital-only though, it can be stopped if people just say no and don’t buy the game. The problem is sports fans can’t stop themselves, and that tends to include a much large proportion of casual gamers, who don’t know or care about this kind of thing. So even though they might hate the microtransactions they won’t know other people are trying to boycott it. Which is exactly what EA is banking on.
Grant
Non-stop news
As much as I’m looking forward to GTA 6 I am not when it comes to the endless tabloid news stories there’s going to be about it. It’ll be all the usual violence and sex hand-wringing but things like this having to use your driving licence to play it is going to be used as proof of how depraved it is, rather than showing how kids can’t play it (even though they still will, but that’s a different issue).
I’m sure it’ll only help the game to sell even more than it would’ve anyway, but I hate listening to it and seeing all the pearl clutching from non-gamers. There are so many worse things going on in the world right now than GTA and yet it’s going to be non-stop once it’s out, just like it always is.
Grackle
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PlayStation exit
With all these people getting laid off at Xbox, including completely unbelievable ones like the guy behind backwards compatibly and seemingly all the tech people at id Software (which is basically only known for its tech), I completely believe the theory that they asked AI to pick people, with predictable results.
I also agree with GC’s suggestion that Nintendo are set to be the big winners out of all this, especially as the Switch 2 has turned out to be so good at PlayStation 5 ports. I know they’re struggling to keep the cost of hardware down too but keep a lid on things until the GTA 6 hype blows over and they’re really the only sensible console choice. Get GTA 6 on there and just fuhgeddaboudit.
That’s not very likely but when GTA 6 is on PC then I really see no reason to not just sell the PlayStation 5 and go with a Switch 2 plus PC future. I’m not ready to give up on consoles but I am ready to give up on PlayStation and Xbox.
Focus
Forever console
I don’t think I’ve ever seen such an unnecessary, unforced error as Sony’s decision to stop physical games. Why would they do it with the PlayStation 5 and not just wait for the PlayStation 6? By the time the stop comes into effect the PlayStation 6 will probably be less than 12 months away, so why not draw the line there and people would be much less upset.
I get that it seems to have been some kind of joint plan with Rockstar, for GTA 6, but it still makes no sense to me. The only thing I can think of is that they’re going to keep selling the PlayStation 5 as a cheaper console and that theories about all PlayStation 6 games being cross-gen are true. From that perspective I guess there’s a logic to it but the way it’s been handled still stinks.
Noman
Forward planning
I would get excited about the idea of Obsidian making a new Fallout game, at last, but when you know it’s going to take at least five years, what’s the point? This is why I don’t really understand Asha Sharma taking over at Xbox, because there’s nothing she can do that will have any impact until years from now. That’s why the thing she’s best know for at the moments is the all caps XBOX name change.
She decreased the price of Game Pass, back to what it was, but she can’t do that with the console because the components are too expensive now. Telling people to not worry because better games are going to be out in half a decade isn’t going to turn anything around. Saying they’re exclusive even less, because who know what the hardware situation is going to be like after all that time?
None of this is her fault because it doesn’t matter who’s in charge, because there’s nothing you can do. Xbox made its bed at the Xbox One launch and it’s never recovered since then and never will. It’s literally impossible given how things are now.
My best case scenario is that Microsoft does sell Xbox off to someone else and they do a better job of it but they’ll still face the same problem and, since they’ll be another American company, still be run by the same kind of execs that want results now and seem to be allergic to planning for the future.
Korbie
Forgotten ninja
It’s a real shame that Shinobi: Art Of Vengeance wasn’t a hit, as I’ve just finished it and it’s one of the best games I’ve played in a while. It doesn’t really matter whether you remember the old Mega Drive games or not as it’s quite similar to a Metroidvania but with more action and platforming.
It’s only £25 too and for that I think it’s excellent value. I don’t know why it wasn’t a hit. Probably because the Mega Drive is too long ago now but I also didn’t see a single ad for it anywhere, so it’s not like Sega tried very hard to push it.
Tups
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Digital rights
Digital has given me access to a vast amount of old games I wouldn’t legitimately have access to, due to the cost and sourcing of buying the original hardware and disc or cartridge.
PC stores Steam and especially GOG, and the backwards compatibility programmes of Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft mean I can access an increasingly large library of old games on my current hardware at an affordable price. When it comes to game perseveration digital is a significant force for good.
Of course, the rub is that these games I’m accessing aren’t digital-only and have physical copies out in the world that even though expensive to access cannot be removed from sale.
So, as a digital customer, I want that if a game is delisted then I can still access and download it. If it were ever the case it would become inaccessible for download, that I can then keep it on the family of consoles it runs on, i.e. PlayStation 4/5 or Switch 1/2, and be able to pay it offline on my primary/home designated machine.
The above two things are the current state of affairs but they are very much a courtesy and not a legal requirement and could be revoked as fast as over 500 StudioCanal movies on the Sony store.
Some legal assurances of being able to access long term, the products you buy and more convincing arguments for the loss of resale value on full triple-A priced games are the biggest areas the industry needs to address concerning digital.
But the frankly disgusting manner Sony announced the decision in a blog post that makes no mention of the gravity of it and handwaves it away as being a natural direction for them as the majority of their customers, who will be oblivious of these issues, prefer to buy games that way, tells me it’s up to us to force them to do digital right and not abuse it to the nth degree.
Simundo
Inbox also-rans
Just unlocked expert mode on Star Fox and I can’t believe how hard it is. More enemies around though, which is neat, and I don’t think that was part of the N64 version.
Burne
Curious to know if anyone reading this pre-ordered a Steam Machine? I haven’t spoken to anyone in real-life or online that has. Talk about niche.
Derdel
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