I always feel regretful that I missed this gen. I had a PS2, a dreamcast, and then at uni I stopped gaming totally for three or so years, then couldn’t afford to be a gamer for a long time after that so just played eg my old SNES and so on, then finally got back in with a PS4. So there’s this whole world of gaming on both PS and XBOX side that I missed the original games, and therefore never understood the point (see HALO for instance). Considering how hard im now back into it all it feels annoying to have a gap era.
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Re: 360/PS3. You didn’t miss much imo and most of the biggest hitters were ported to PS4 anyway. You can always pick up a 360 dirt cheap too.
Halo was OG Xbox, so PS2 era. A remake of the first game comes to PS5 this month. Weird times.
Feel grateful that all my uni housemates loved games too lol. Many drunken nights in the shared kitchen in first year playing n64 and gamecube.
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yeah I never had an xbox until the S series so I have a whole blindspot there too!
The ones that come straight to mind for me are Quantum Conundrum, Warp, Rain, and Siren Blood Curse. Each have special places in my memory, though I don’t really know if all of them are actually good!
Journey
Flower
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Xbox getting rid of 20% of staff and 5 studios.
Bringing King into Xbox.
Think they’re proper fucked
Oooh yeah, definitely these!
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Luckily none of these studios aee getting shut down.
Mad though that of the layoffs annoyed today, they bungie ones last week are 20% of the total. That shows how many bungie roles were removed.
Both on ps4 I think
Worth adding that if you have a PS4 or PS5, purchasing Flower on PS3 gave you the PS4 version too. It was effectively free at PS4 launch for those of us who were already “in”…
Edit: someone posted just as I did. Forgot Journey had the same perk.
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I personally feel like the real battle worth fighting consumer rights wise is cracking down on DRM, I feel like it probably is like being between a rock and a hard place justifying physical media production for games given that (a) it is a legit way of owning something you’ve paid for, but (b) surely fuck all people get physical games outside of collectors for the most part just for convenience’s sake
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It’s absolutely this. I’m not too moved by the loss of discs, as long as there’s a DRM guarantee enforceable by law.
Where I am annoyed about discs going out of fashion is DVDs/BluRays, because it has meant that extra features are being downgraded. Plus of course the susceptibility to DRM issues is still a thing, and Sony have recently proven that concern to be valid too.
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Taking a lot of self control not to bang on about all this. But it’s so much more than just collectors. Again, why the fuck would I spend 60 or 70 quid on a new game im looking forward to digitally when I can often get it 10 or even 15 quid cheaper on disc, and then lend it to pals (do this often) or resell it if it turns out a dud/not the sort of thing I’d replay?
I also love hunting for games in shops, the ritual of getting a new game, the fun evenings me and my best pal have fucking about with odd old stuff in our game collections. Although, much of that is retro which won’t change.
I know this is probably some weird autistic thing but I also find organising and looking at my game collection (same with records) quite calming and therapeutic. Thinking of the experiences and memories and what to play or replay next.
I must admit I do have an odd ritual where every time I go into town for a drink or whatever, I always have to have a browse in our local indie game shop. Will be gutted to lose that. Same with CEX when I go to Truro for work.
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I’ve never mentioned Glovefest on here have I? The Glover themed night that my pal hosts each year. Has nothing to do with Gloves. It’s that shite N64 game. Love the glove!
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Caravan Sandwitch is a lovely collectathon type game with a cool little dystopian open world and very sweet characters that are all a bit queer and actually want to get on with each other. Having a nice time with it, it’s cute.
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Agree with all of this. I see it a bit like shops refusing to take cash or banks closing branches to move everything online - the benefits of the ‘new’ option are irrelevant when it stops being an option and becomes something you’re forced into. Different people are going to have different needs and should be accommodated.
On games preservation: what about games that have changed drastically over time? I can put my Cyberpunk PS4 disc in and laugh at the complete mess of the launch 1.0 version. With my PC disc of GTA: San Andreas I can play with all the original songs, without needing to use mods to patch them in. With my 360 copy of Team Fortress 2 I can play the pure original game before the art style got ruined with hats and microtransactions. There are definitely loads of examples of this!
Fun little bit of maths for you: even assuming an average salary of 200k per employee the ms layoffs today are only equivalent to roughly 10% of what they spent on LLM infrastructure last year. 
Yakuza 0, one of my favourite games of all time, is now only available digitally in its dogshit director’s cut version which fucks some of the story up. Same with Yakuza 3. The originals are cheap physical but if they hadn’t been printed, they’d be only available through piracy now.
See also Afterburner Climax, P.T, Forza Horizon 1, 2, 3 and 4. It’s mad.
Noticed yesterday that a boxed copy of Forza Horizon 1 on 360 is now like £20 im CEX. Used to be a quid or something daft.
Actually, Yakuza 3 Remastered on PS4 isn’t cheap physical cos it was only ever printed as part of the remaster collection. So you can really only get the shit re-remaster (like, wtf) which I’m pretty sure includes some really dodgy shit.
Also this notion that nobody plays old games or replays games is bullshit. Otherwise these remasters and ports wouldn’t keep being made or there wouldn’t be countless people on social channels banging on about how they’ve played Baldur’s Gate 3 or Mario 64 or MGS or Resi 4 dozens upon dozens of times. Anxious folk like me also love the familiar lol. And I like going back to games from the past sometimes to see if I notice/enjoy different things about them as an adult.
Our relationships with art/entertainment can really change as we grow. I wouldn’t touch horror games as a teenager except for RE4 but now it’s probably my favourite genre and I’ve played all the classics as an adult.
You can pick up that collection for around £20 tbf, but yeah completly agree, I love collecting games/CDs etc and having them there on your shelf is such a different experience to browser a digital list.
Oh?
What’s the difference? I played this earlier this year completely unaware they’d reworked stuff.