The Tuesday letters page thinks the PS6 needs a gimmick to be a major success, as a reader regrets buying Ghost Of Yōtei.
Games Inbox is a collection of our readers’ letters, comments, and opinions. To join in with the discussions yourself email gamecentral@metro.co.uk
Hard ceiling
I’m not too surprised to see Battlefield 6 doing well, as it is a good game and I’ve seen a number of my friends, who I wouldn’t normally expect to buy it, joining in. However, a lot of them don’t seem to enjoy it. Although EA has made mistakes before, I think the main reason Battlefield has never caught on before is because it’s just fundamentally a hardcore game.
It’s difficult, it’s not all-action, and there’s stuff that you learn that means you can absolutely dominate new players, just because they don’t know all the tricks yet. Call Of Duty’s not really like that. You can learn the maps but at the end of the day all that matters is your reflexes.
In Battlefield 6 you need a strategy too, and I think that’s not for everyone. So I think the game will do well, particularly on PC, but I do think it’s got a glass ceiling of popularity that it’s not going to be able to smash through.
Bluelite
Major differences
I’m not going to argue as to whether the PlayStation 6 is going to be too expensive or not. I’m sure it probably will but I’m not going to pretend I won’t try and get it anyway, unless it’s over a grand (surely it wouldn’t be that crazy?).
For me the biggest problem is what is it going to do to show that it is a new console. If it’s things like native 4K or 120fps that is just not acceptable. These things make no difference and nobody but tech experts are going to be able to tell the difference.
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I think it’s important for it to have a gimmick this time. That means something very specific that it wasn’t able to do before, ideally something hardware, but it could be the controller or a game as well. I’m sick of minor improvements to what we’ve already got, we need something that is new in all respects.
Slogger
Reasonable predictions
Referring to Campbell’s recent Reader’s Feature: I think Battlefield 6 will put a slight dent into Call Of Duty. I also think the Call Of Duty beta has put a dent into future sales, as they have gone full tilt arcade game.
Will Call Of Duty recover? Of course it will.
I’ll buy the next Modern Warfare, Infinity Ward are a cut above the other developers working on Call Of Duty.
Tommyfatfingers
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Drowning in value
Just to present another perspective, I completely disagree with the weekend feature that said that gaming now was only for the rich.
Even ignoring the obvious inflation comparisons, I have more than enough to play through affordable, high quality indie games, temporary rental services like PS Extra, freebies, opportunistic sales, and splashing out on the odd full price game (typically buying online credit at a discount).
I’d be willing to bet that most people have at least some kind of games backlog, showing that the constraint for most people is increasingly time rather than money. So, no – I think gaming is still very affordable for most people and compared to most almost any other hobby still offers remarkably good value for money.
Matt (he_who_runs_away – PSN ID)
Auto-battler
I knew I shouldn’t have picked up Ghost Of Yōtei. It was obvious it was just going to be more of the same, but I just couldn’t resist it, given my interest in samurai and ninja. But after 20 hours I have to admit, I’m not sure I want to play it anymore.
It’s fine, and the graphics are very good, but I’m not gripped. I feel like I’m going through the motions and just playing it on autopilot. At the very least I think I’ll put it down and try to come back to it later. I’ll try an indie game as a palette cleanser, I think, maybe that Blue Prince.
Crispo
Wild about it
So I have finally decided to get Outer Wilds off my backlog. I had heard a lot of praise for the game, but I have been putting it off as I normally dislike time loop mechanics.
I was expecting to have a lot of trouble with the spaceship controls, which a lot of people felt was the worst part of the game, but I found them quite intuitive and even fun. Pulling the perfect landing in a tight space feels great. Even if you crash, it does not really matter as you will not likely be going back on again before time runs out.
Strangely enough, the time loop did not bother me as much as I expected. However, I did not like how each location in a given planet is always difficult to reach, with additional time-wasting mechanics built-in, like falling ground, and rising sand levels, that force you to restart a run over and over again. Add that to the constantly depleting oxygen and the game can often feel unfriendly and unfair.
On the other hand, the mystery is definitely gripping, and you will want to learn as much as possible about what happened in this doomed solar system and how to make it stop. It is a joy to find a new location, explore it thoroughly with a minimum level of signposting, and be surprised by the amount of detail hidden away in such a small world.
All in all, it is quite a memorable game. Does the end result justify the amount of frustration? I believe it does, but this is one game that cannot be recommended without a lot of caveats.
Ali K
Failure to launch
So I got Battlefield 6 and I’ve spent more time being kicked off the game, with numerous error codes or unknown error or server full. Can’t do the campaign, as that’s online. I set up loadouts, only to be kicked out and forced to start again.
I’ve spent more time trying to get a game than playing. It’s not OK, I never have this problem when I try Call Of Duty at launch, yet here we are. Not biased to Call Of Duty, just saying that works day one, this doesn’t.
TWO MACKS
Whale of a time
When game of the year contenders Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 and Hollow Knight: Silksong release day one for £44.99 and £15.99, respectively, and I can sign up to a sub service for a month and play hundreds of pounds worth of games I find it hyperbolic to say gaming is only for the rich now.
There also seems to be a misconception that people playing free-to-play games do so because they have no money. These games make insane money in microtransactions. Fortnite, to be fair, had a rough year in 2019, where they hit rock bottom and only brought in $3.7 billion. But they bounced back and have brought in $40 billion since they started in 2018. One free-to-play game, sucked up 40 billion.
When that kind of money is spent on these free-to-play games it’s insulting to blame the cost of other games as the reason people play them.
The free-to-play aspect is to get you through the door, then entice you to spend and, boy, do people spend on this rubbish. I sometimes think free-to-play games are only for the rich when I see the billions they make. The problem is too much of the wealth is being funnelled into these games. It’s not just whales either, It’s kids who are into this stuff and spend their birthday and Christmas money on it or pester their parents.
Console prices going up instead of down in a gen I will grant is a point of concern. This gen you’re fine. An Xbox Series S costs £300 and the digital PlayStation 5 is regularly on sale for £330 and the physical £400. But I think most will be clenching tight for the PlayStation 6 price reveal. Pretty sure most agree Microsoft have gone mad with pricing and the Nextbox will be at least a deposit for a house or more maybe.
Simundo
Inbox also-rans
I think the problem with the helicopters in Battlefield is that they’re trying to do it realistically. Which I’m sure pleases the tiny number of players that know how a helicopter works, but it does seem a bit unnecessary.
Praetor
Not surprised to see Battlefield 6 beating Call Of Duty on Steam. It’s a very PC-centric franchise, whereas Call Of Duty has never felt at home on PC.
Tallahassee
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