The Wednesday letters page worries about the current state of the video games industry, as one reader recommends Cadillacs And Dinosaurs.
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Generational power
I’ve been a little jealous reading about the Switch 2 lately, as I love a new console and yet I can’t really justify that one. I will be getting a PlayStation 6 though and am already putting away a little bit of money every month for it.
I know this has not been a good generation for PlayStation, or a lot of other things really, but I am committed to thinking positive about the next one. The PlayStation 3 went badly as well, but Sony definitely learnt from that and made sure the PlayStation 4 didn’t make the same mistakes. And as a result it ended up being what I think is their best console.
The main problem with the PlayStation 5 has been the lack of first party exclusives, but I’m not expecting that to be a mistake they make a second time. A lot of it will be cross-gen, I realise but Sony’s own developers will know all about the new console long before us and I’m sure they’ll start to design with it mind. So I welcome the annoucement, when it comes, and hope it is sooner rather than later.
One of the big questions I have though is whether it will be more powerful than the next gen Xbox? Will it be the most powerful console ever or will Sony not push that aspect? It’s hard to tell as I feel graphics have not sold consoles for quite a while now. But the issue is still important to me.
Bowie
Forever games
Interesting to see that Monster Hunter Wilds and Marvel Rivals are having trouble hanging on to players, but I’m not surprised. What these companies, especially Sony, don’t seem to understand is that the biggest problem here is time.
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If you’re committed to playing Fortnite or Call Of Duty or one of the other established games, then you have literally no other time to play something else. You might give one a go for a bit, just as you might play a single-player game, but it won’t be long till you’re back.
That’s why Fortnite and co. have stayed so popular for so long, because people keep coming back to them, no matter what happens. It’s possible that another game could reach the same status, but when’s the last time that happened? Certainly never for a paid-for game, that’s for sure.
Whistler
It’s happening again
Horrible to hear more layoffs are coming to Microsoft. I bet most of it is because of AI and if their share price goes up, which it will, that’s going to lead to other publishers copying them. This strikes me that it will create another problem very similar to live service games.
With that everyone, especially Sony, went all in on them and now they’re realising that they’ve completely wasted their time, but are too proud to admit it. With AI, they’re going to layoff all their talented developers and when they realise no one wants to play AI slop they’ll try to rehire them… only to find out they’ve realised that working in gaming is a nightmare.
I mean, seriously, who’d be a video game developer right now? It seems like the least stable job imaginable.
Cranston
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Prehistoric gaming
Enjoyed reading your article on the 13 best dinosaur video games ever made. You know what’s coming next. There was one glaring omission from your list – Capcom arcade classic Cadillacs And Dinosaurs.
Post-apocalyptic punk gangs with rampaging dinos as pets, muscle cars, guns, and coffee. What’s not to like? This side-scrolling beat ‘em-up was some of the best multiplayer fun I had in the arcades.
It looks like there’s a mobile version of the game available for Android, but the best way to play it these days would probably be an emulator.
I look forward to your revised list.
Mark
GC: It was an omission, you’re right. We’ll make sure to include it next time there’s a big wave of new dinosaur games (like that’s ever going to happen).
Vertical slice
That’s actually really sweet, about the vertical mode for the Switch 2. I wonder if Nintendo ever did it on purpose or not? Maybe they’d been playing Donkey Kong 3, as research for Donkey Kong Bananza, and thought it would make a neat trick.
I really have been very impressed by the Switch 2. The build quality is excellent (the kickstand feels so nice to move) and I like the changes to the Joy-Cons. The graphics seem like they’re quite the step up too but it’s so hard to tell because nothing is pushing it yet.
I really hope we get another big game annoucement this year, just so we can get an idea of what it’s capable of. At this point it’s just a Mario Kart World machine.
Marley
The main game
I’ve just realised that we’ve got through the whole summer showcase season, and we still don’t know what FromSoftware is working on. We did find out about The Duskbloods, but that’s a Switch 2 exclusive and it’s multiplayer only, so that can’t be their main game.
They’ve really implied that they’re not making Elden Ring 2, and I don’t think they’d flat out lie about that, so I’m kind of out of ideas of what it’d be. Dark Souls 4 seems very unlikely, since it’d feel like going backwards, so I guess that means it has to be a new franchise and original IP?
But they’ve already done that with The Duskbloods. If From come up with something else that is brand new I would be very impressed, but that is a big financial risk, to not have any guaranteed sellers compensating for the more experimental stuff.
That makes me think that the only real options must be Bloodborne 2 or Sekiro 2. That makes logical sense to me, but I really don’t know which is more likely. People talk about Bloodborne a lot, but then Sekiro does come up a lot and its parry system has been quite influential.
Personally, I’d prefer Bloodborne but, like I said, I don’t think there’s really any way to guess. If I’m right though, and it is one of these two, just remember how good I am at predicting these things.
Maweo
Ultimate upset
So, I have wanted to write in about this for a while but didn’t want to tempt fate. For the past 2+ years I have been getting Xbox Ultimate for free. My dashboard would be full of adverts telling me to join Game Pass but whenever I’d go into it all the games were available to download and would even always work offline.
However, regrettably I have been cut off today. I was wondering has this ever happened to anyone else and any ideas why, after two years, has it suddenly stopped? Not going to lie, I’m absolutely gutted.
Phil
Industry turmoil
With the rumours of more layoffs at Microsoft I’m really beginning to worry about the state of the whole games industry. The number of independent publishers has more than halved since the start of the last gen and the number of games seems to have too.
Developers are not valued in their jobs – even Nintendo is dogpiling on them, by refusing to credit them properly – and while ordinary workers are culled by the hundreds, somehow people like Phil Spencer and whoever it is that’s in charge of PlayStation, still have their jobs.
And now we have AI coming up, that is not only going to put people out of work but is going to make sure all our games are made by robots copying robots copying the last human artist still being paid for their work.
I’m surprised any good games are still being made but I’m worried about how long that’s going to last. I don’t mean to be negative but that’s how things seem at the moment to me. Just sticking my head in the sand and playing my games, while pretending everything is fine, seems irresponsible to me.
Grando
Inbox also-rans
Just checked Death Stranding 2’s Metacritic score, Kojima is gonna be mad. 90 from 113 reviews, way too many people are loving it.
Simundo
I think all the Switch pinball games work in Tate mode, Pinball FX3 and Zaccaria Pinball certainly do. There are some classic Williams tables on Pinball FX3, such as Indiana Jones, Monster Bash, The Getaway, and Roadshow.
Tim Keeling
GC: Thanks, we added this to the story.
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