Rain Birds

In terms of recent first party stuff, this has to be the worst one of these sales by some distance. A small selection of games that have already been available for less from various retailers and are still higher than last-gen prices. While still underwhelming, Smyths have them for a bit less so hopefully other retailers will go a step further - Tsushima is £24.99, Sackboy £44.99 (£41.99 PS4), Demon’s Souls £49.99 and Miles £37.99 / £49.99 Ultimate.

Spider-Man is the big one for me. Also, Ratchet & Clank - it’s preposterous that Nintendo Switch isn’t the lead platform for that series. It’s also absurd that they are spending money to keep Final Fantasy off of other formats: there’s clearly no need, because all they really need to do in order to get the same benefit is pay Square-Enix to release it on PS Plus for ‘free’ while Xbox and PC players have to pay full price.

Game Pass is never, ever going to be profitable if all the games are available everywhere else. Netflix could make more money in the short term by releasing Stranger Things day one on iTunes, Amazon and DVD, but it would mean millions of people would suddenly have less reason to stay with Netflix or check it out and end up being lured in long-term. Sony, from a business perspective, could be considered spectacularly idiotic by failing to release a game based on a non-Sony IP with universal appeal like Spider-Man on Nintendo Switch, Xbox and PC (tens of millions of sales left on the

Well that’s probably me waiting a bit longer to sell my PS5. A cast-iron classic of a game.

They could use their PS5 controller.

The lack of permanence (even though no-one wants to play the games in question years later) is usually used as a defence of Sony in this scenario, to be fair. I’d say that buying and subsequently investing in a company to make things for your platform is very different to writing cheques solely to keep games off of others (which everyone does in one way or another).

I wouldn’t be so sure, because people watch films on their fucking telephones and that didn’t really seem to be on the agenda until 15 years ago. The point is that it’s available. If you want to play Elder Scrolls VI but are allergic to Xbox / have pledged undying loyalty to Japanese mega-corp Sony, chances are you’ve got something in the house that will let you and that list is probably going to get significantly longer in time.

That’s a good tactic for third party stuff that is going elsewhere whether you like it or not, less so when you own the developer. It would have taken a fuck of a lot less than $7.5B to secure every Bethesda game for the next 25 years as day one, permanent Game Pass titles.

I can’t activate the punchcard for the extra 250 Mass Effect points. Been trying for days now. Conversely, the 6000 for buying it presented no such problem, even though I got it from CD Keys.

It would make great business sense for Netflix to release their original programming on iTunes, Amazon and disc upon release. Free with Netflix or paid for elsewhere!

Or phone, tablet, anything with a compatible browser or Microsoft eventually decide / are allowed to put an app on. Sony could easily spruce up the PS5 web browser to ensure easy access to Xbox Game Pass for their fans.

Yes. It’s a bit like a less restrictive Netflix, in that you can still buy everything on PC or Xbox, whereas one still can’t purchase Russian Doll on Blu-Ray (or even SD DVD outside of maybe Australia) and was only able to get The Irishman and Roma on 1080p Blu-Ray over a year after they released in 4K on Netflix. You certainly can’t buy any of them (or even something as seemingly ubiquitous as Stranger Things) on iTunes or Amazon Video.

All of those games will be available to a far bigger audience than any Sony exclusive, be it in-house or permanently paid for. There’s no Xbox required - If you have a PC you’ll be able to play those games, if you have a smart phone / tablet and a decent connection, you’ll be able to play them. The “loss” of a few million sales on PlayStation is a drop in the ocean compared to the long-term damage incurred by showing to the world that you don’t need anything to do with Microsoft or its subscription service in order to play its biggest games. Under a business-as-usual scenari

The latest system update (Series X) has really ruined Quick Resume for me. While it’s sometimes quicker now, it seems just as likely to take 20 seconds + and games are often either refusing to load or loading and then refusing to respond to controller input, making a quit the only option.

That comparison doesn’t really work when Switch is a console with hundreds of games available, and Nintendo-published software tends to be far less front-loaded than almost anything that isn’t GTAV and Minecraft. I could also point out that Splatoon, on a moribund console with a considerably greater selection of games yet a smaller install base than PS5, sold almost twice as many copies on release. Given how well the PS5 is selling, its second major exclusive should, if anything, be doing particularly well.