I think it is more that controllers in general have a pretty high defect rate because they have a lot of moving parts that are stressed at a high rate.

It certainly hasn’t come down in price as quickly as they anticipated what with chip shortages and rampant inflation and all, but it’s not like they didn’t know this was the case when they decided to push forward with it. The flip side is it is entirely digital so they probably make more money per Series S user than…

Well yea, that’s exactly it - they forced the PS Now subscribers to become PS Plus subscribers by eliminating PS Now and folding it into one of the PS Plus tiers (the most expensive one). So in the initial month, PS Plus subscriber counts were basically “PS Plus + PS Now”, and if those PS Now subscribers don’t like…

Well, they merged in PS Now, so some of those customers may have decided that if they’re being made to pay for PS Plus too now, they might as well cancel the whole thing. I wouldn’t be surprised if that had a lot to do with it. Nothing changed for the regular PS Plus customer, but stuff changed a lot for the PS Now…

Considering that unlike Sony, Microsoft still loses money on every Series X|S they sell (just was reported on yesterday I think), you are probably exactly the kind of customer they want most.

I don’t own a PS5 and probably never will, but if there was a tier of PS Plus that included all the D2 expansions and seasons, and gave me cloud-based access to the game like Game Pass did a couple years ago, I’d probably end up a subscriber anyway.

the report reveals that PlayStation Plus subscription numbers actually fell following the much-touted relaunch, which saw the figures drop from 47.3 million to 45.4 million. Those are clearly still healthy numbers, almost double those Microsoft can boast for Game Pass, but certainly not what Sony would have been…

Not having SBMM ruined online shooters for me a long time ago. I’m finally interested in them again now that it’s starting to become popular. I’ve never understood who the hell these people are just continually feeding themselves to the streamers are. If a bunch of people getting constantly bodied by you over and over…

Damn, I got conned into paying up front for a good deal that I can quit at any time if it becomes a bad deal, what a sucker I am!

The quote from Microsoft doesn’t claim that at all. They were very, very un-specific. It could have meant Game Pass, it could have meant the console, it could have meant accessories. It could have meant in the US, it could have meant outside the US, it could have meant worldwide. Nothing other than the fact that some…

Everyone assumes this means Game Pass, or other price increases in the US market. But he didn’t expand upon what he was referencing, and the simplest answer is that he is alluding to “we’ll follow Sony in increasing prices in currencies other than USD”. It’s the most obvious place where they’re taking a hit - consoles…

In the right game, with the right framing, it’s possible that this kind of thing could be used as a poignant commentary on all sorts of different things - in general I don’t think video games should be exempt from doing that sort of thing just because they’re interactive.

Makes sense, honestly. Metacritic and such really kill the engagement for these kinds of pieces. A choice quote and your final score will be scraped out and aggregated into a score out of 10, and nobody will read your actual article. And when someone does click, they probably have adblock on.

Good point - it’s still $60 on PC in this case. Absolutely ridiculous IMO - but the $70 PC game is, I suspect, not far behind.

Inflation doesn’t come close to telling the whole story. The size of the market has grown astronomically over that time which is why game company profits continue to grow YoY instead of shrinking alongside inflation. They could continue growing at $60, they’ve just seen the blood in the water with everyone rolling…

There’s basically no evidence I’ve ever seen to suggest that raising prices on a product and making higher profits as a result, in turn leads to an increase in employee salary. An increase in employee salary due to market conditions changing can often result in an increase in price. So if this $70 price tag for games…

Growth in the size of the market has well outpaced inflation. All of the fancy new features that games have are there because they have to compete with other games. Why should I pay $70 for a game that can’t even be bothered to spend some time on optimization because they want to rush it out, when there are so many…

What is the extra $10 that games cost now buying? Because they sure as hell don’t seem to be spending it on optimization.

All they’re reconsidering is their naming convention. That card will probably come back rebranded as a 4070 Ti or something.

I’m guessing Microsoft and Xbox didn’t spend a penny to bring Ark to PS Plus. There’s also the typo that attributes free will to the PS5 that someone else already called out down below.