Games Inbox: Was the following gen a mistake?

Force of habit
I found myself agreeing with a lot of what was said in the Reader’s Feature about Sony sticking with the PlayStation 4 instead of making the PlayStation 5. Microsoft had an excuse for making the Xbox Series X/S, because the Xbox One had done so bad, but looked at objectively I’m not sure there’s a good reason for Sony doing the PlayStation 5. It just seemed to happen because that’s what they usually do at that point in their previous console’s life.

Nobody seems to have explored trying to have longer generations, except, as usual, Nintendo. What a PS4 Pro Ultra have been a better idea than a PlayStation 5? I don’t know and Sony will never know either unless they actually give it a try. I guess they’re just being risk adverse but as usual that means you’re potentially ignoring the potential to do things better.

I think we could certainly have benefitted from keeping graphics where they were for a generation or two, until there was a cost effective way to take advantage of them. That opportunities has obviously been missed now but I suspect that there are more than a few people at PlayStation now, who are thinking the next gen was a bad idea.
Virgil

Unknown competitors
I agree that another Dead Rising remaster is the last thing I want Capcom to be wasting their time on. But if it is just a remaster than hopefully it’s a fairly small project in terms of using up their resources.

I’m actually reasonably hopeful that a new Marvel Vs. Capcom is coming, as even with Sony owning the X-Men licence I feel they would be quite happy to share a little of the profit if it means putting out a style of game that they obvious wouldn’t be able to do themselves.

What I love about the games is the more obscure characters that Capcom throws in for no reason. Like, what was Shuma-Gorath doing in Marvel Super Heroes?! That’s why I really love Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom, because I have no idea what even half the characters are, but I can just feel the love that’s been put into turning them into fighting game characters.

So yeah, it’d be fun to see Squirrel Girl or whoever from Marvel but I’m more interested in the Capcom side of things, to see who they’ll give the spotlight to unexpectedly.
Xane

Rise further
It is a shame that Dead Rising is only a remaster. I’d love a remake with more of the open world element of 3 and 4 but without the relentless Christmas-ness of 4. Also, lose the super-infected; they annoy the trap out of me.

Perhaps if the remaster does well, Capcom could make a new entry with actual intelligent AI. For me the best part of Dead Rising was having eight characters with AR-15s completely rinsing any boss you fought. Hopefully that stays in.
Bobwallett

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Horrible bosses
RE: Stellar Blade. I have been really enjoying it and it’s been my game of the year, but the boss battles are a nightmare. I am usually one to grind through them if needed but the Unidentified Naytiba just got the better of me and I switched to story mode. I feel unclean doing it, but I just got fed up of spending ages chipping away at its health just for it to throw instakill fireballs at me and me dying.

It’s why I’m not getting the Elden Ring DLC – I just can’t be bothered to die over and over on annoying bosses at the moment.
Simon

Ancient origins
You know how sometimes you just quote catchphrases and whatnot from whenever ago, well my wife and I still regularly say ‘OL Yade’ and ‘I keep for you’, usually when handing each other random stuff.

We’ve just realised, thanks to your review, that we’ve been saying this for over 20 years, as I bought the original Beyond Good & Evil on the strength of your original review!

I feel dead old now, but glad to hear the game still holds up.
Tincanmemory (gamertag/PSN ID)

Naming no names
It seems very genuine and real given what Shigeru Miyamoto said about the Nintendo ethos. Dealing with massively changing trends regarding audience spend on final product, it is not hard to see that even the corporate sheep might put the bullnose of hard work and dedication to the grind to achieve comparison and competition to other ‘faster and trendier’ company ethics, that try to work out the lightning in the bottle formula to keep up with others. When I’m talking of others, I’m talking about the faceless money people. We know the big brands.

I’m in no way able to guess what they are up to. I just hope they do Satoru Iwata’s memory a Mario triple jump into every success. I’d be a happy man if I’d have invested heavily in 2000.

It’s been a great time to be a gamer and I’m really excited for the future as long as the passion remains.
D Dubya

Mid-table mediocrity
I’d argue that Black Flag isn’t really close to being the best of the series, classic or otherwise. I’d say that Assassin’s Creed 2 was easily the best of the old school ones, with the best setting and characters, and streamlined but enjoyable stealth and action.

I actually have quite a soft spot for Unity but I think the more modern role-playing style games are the best and that all of them have been good so far. For me Mirage was quite a disappointing back step.

Black Flag is strictly middle table fodder as far as I’m concerned. The pirate angle is good in theory, but I found the story quite plodding and the ship combat is fun but kind of dumb in terms of any kind of realism.
Ishi

Dream scenario
I love the guy’s optimism about a Dreamcast 2 in the Reader’s Feature at the weekend. It’s obviously not going to happen, and I think he knows that, but it’s a cute idea. I do think in a few years, when streaming is more straightforward, that things like that could happen.

The idea of each publisher having their own subscription service like EA Play and Ubisoft+ seems to have cooled down in recent years, I assume because they realise everyone is sick of subscriptions at this point, but they’ve love nothing more than selling all their games straight fans, with nothing else getting in the way.

Selling digitally might cut out the money given to stores but you still have to pay Microsoft or Sony a percentage, on top of a licensing fee, so all that goes out the window if the Dreamcast 2, to use the example in question, came out and you were only paying for it and its games directly to Sega.

Now, no one wants a console – virtual or otherwise – for every publisher but there’s plenty of incentive there for the companies. They may be put off because that style of doing things hasn’t really worked out on TV, but it has for Disney+ and a few others.

Does that mean I think we could have an actual Dreamcast 2 in the near future? No. But in the far future? I could maybe see it, although at that point who could even guess what games it’d be running?
Lesker

Inbox also-rans
I love how nine Assassin’s Creed games in development sounds like a wild exaggeration at first and then you look into it and it turns out it could actually be an understatement.
Karl

If Bend are working on a live service game why couldn’t they have just made that a Days Gone game? It’s not like people don’t like zombies, even if they haven’t played the original game.
Cranston

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The small print
New Inbox updates appear every weekday morning, with special Hot Topic Inboxes at the weekend. Readers’ letters are used on merit and may be edited for length and content.

You can also submit your own 500 to 600-word Reader’s Feature at any time via email or our Submit Stuff page, which if used will be shown in the next available weekend slot.