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[cormack12]

Source: https://metro.co.uk/2024/12/02/playstation-lost-edge-30-years-later-22100577/amp/
(More at link.....)


PlayStation’s 30th anniversary is a huge milestone for a game-changing brand, but reflecting on its history only accentuates what’s missing today.

Nostalgia is an exhausted tenet of modern culture, but any cynicism around Astro Bot can be easily diffused because PlayStation has otherwise been so ineffective at celebrating its own history.

PlayStation 3 stalwarts may recall defending PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale, Sony’s tepid answer to Super Smash Bros. which pitted Sly Cooper against that bloke from Dead Space. Sony tried to emulate Nintendo’s success at toasting the past again in 2018 with the PlayStation Classic console, but again the attempt was lacklustre.

After these ill-fated efforts, Astro Bot seems even better by comparison. A big, colourful splash of silliness at a time when many PlayStation exclusives border on pretentious. There’s a double-edged sword to Astro Bot’s reminiscences though, where nods to the likes of Parappa The Rapper and LocoRoco become a sad reminder of the fact that Sony just doesn’t make games like that anymore.

As someone who was below the age of 10 when the PlayStation hit its peak, the console was mainly a vessel for child-friendly platformers like Spyro The Dragon, Crash Bandicoot, and the regularly-rented Bugs Bunny: Lost In Time.

While all of these left an impression, my most formative memories of the console are all the games I watched the older kids play – spectating my brother’s journey through Metal Gear Solid, glimpsing at Silent Hill’s foggy horrors from behind the sofa, or watching my dad’s friend (cool because he had a lip-piercing) hold back the swear words as he missed another precisely calculated jump in Tomb Raider.

Looking back, the PlayStation was fascinating because of the sheer breadth of its library. The revolutionary compact disc format made games far cheaper to publish than on a cartridge, with less red tape in general and few rules over content. This led to such classics as Ridge Racer, Syphon Filter, Resident Evil, Driver, WipEout, Destruction Derby, Twisted Metal, Oddworld, Croc, Gran Turismo, MediEvil, and many others – most of which were exclusive to PlayStation.

To Sony’s credit, many studios under its ownership have created new franchises for each new console cycle. Naughty Dog has evolved from Crash Bandicoot to Uncharted, Media Molecule from LittleBigPlanet to Dreams, but the output across the majority of them has become more homogenised in recent years.

The original PlayStation changed the gaming landscape forever, whether through marketing or its democratisation of 3D graphics, but in the years since its lightning bolt debut, Sony has drifted into a pedestrian shadow of its former self.

Wider industry trends might be partly to blame, as well as the ever increasing cost of making games, but when PlayStation’s legacy is highlighted so clearly in Astro Bot, it’s hard not to feel like something has been lost along the way.

 

[Fake]

Is what they say, in a era of no imagination, no creativity the only thing that left is remake, remasters and doing nostalgia stuff.

Sony doesn't need to wait their anniversary to make a pro consumer decision. They can do whatever they want, just like Steam have being doing so far.


I guess this is a price of a bad competition around. I really miss the old days of pro consumer PS4 era.

 

[Insanemaelstrom]

The reason why those games are no longer being made is because they just don't sell as well. Astrobot is brilliant, yet only sold 1.5million units( which is good, but nowhere near to what games like god of war 2018 or Spiderman 2018 achieved). It's a shame that audience trends have resulted in Sony releasing very few smaller games. Ideally you would get a mix of the two but considering current market, it seems unlikely.

 

[Kerotan]

Did you not here it's not playstation anymore.

It's an Xbox.

 

[The Chairman]

It was a mistake moving playstation headquarters from Tokyo to California.

 

[kiphalfton]

Most series didn't survive past PS2 era let alone past PS3 era.

Not surprising there's not much variety.

 

[RagnarokIV]

They went soy with the PS4.

 

[LectureMaster]

No shit, they thought this would be an unprecedented success. Fuck Hulst.

 

[nial]

There’s a double-edged sword to Astro Bot’s reminiscences though, where nods to the likes of Parappa The Rapper and LocoRoco become a sad reminder of the fact that Sony just doesn’t make games like that anymore.

It's a sad reminder that Sony doesn't make games like that in a game that is exactly like that?

 

[cormack12]

It's a sad reminder that Sony doesn't make games like that in a game that is exactly like that?

Tbh I thought Parappa the Rapper was a little dickhead.

I sort of agree with Insanemaelstrom though. I loved the old God of War games and wasn't a fan of the new direction but dear lord at those sales

 

[TintoConCasera]

The reason why those games are no longer being made is because they just don't sell as well. Astrobot is brilliant, yet only sold 1.5million units( which is good, but nowhere near to what games like god of war 2018 or Spiderman 2018 achieved).

Isn't 1.5M units sold a very nice amount for a game like Astrobot?

Imo not every game needs to be a super blockbuster exoensive production like GOW. All they have to do is scale down a little here and there and we would be getting a lot of games like the one from the PS360 era.

Also, stop investments like the one made on Concord. The ammount of AA games that could have been made instead of just burning all that money... Man.

 

[Aces High]

With PlayStation devs I often get the feeling that they develop games for themselves and not for the public.

And when they get criticized, they get bitchy.

There's a lot of hubris involved.

Brilliant minds built the brand and winning team joiners tear it down.

 

[Insanemaelstrom]

Isn't 1.5M units sold a very nice amount for a game like Astrobot?

Imo not every game needs to be a super blockbuster exoensive production like GOW. All they have to do is scale down a little here and there and we would be getting a lot of games like the one from the PS360 era.

Also, stop investments like the one made on Concord. The ammount of AA games that could have been made instead of just burning all that money... Man.

It is good but nowhere near what it deserves. It should be matching or atleast near games like Spiderman 2018. Not to mention, the rest of their smaller games also don't do as well as they should. Lego horizon, while not great, is a decent game and according to current data, it seems to be a flop.

Yeah, as I said ideally we would have a mix of blockbusters and smaller more unique games.

Concord was honestly Sony attempting something different, it isn't anything like their usual game. I personally, don't mind Sony attempting multiplayer games. Their single player games rock, so I hope they are able to bring that excellence to multiplayer as well. Helldivers 2 and gt 7 are great examples of this.

 

[Saber]

Theres not much creativity in there and most of their releases are re-releases or safe moves. Also they assume every game has to be an ultra billion money making franchise, killing every other opportunity for new takes. And when theres a new take, is something like Fair Game or Concord, things totally disconnected to their buyers.

 

[Evolved1]

Any remaining hope I had in Sony basically died when they canceled factions. Unforgivable treatment of fans.

 

[Mr Moose]

No it hasn't, it's right here.

 

[Heimdall_Xtreme]

Hermen Hulst, is one of those deadly sins that damaged Playstaion.

 

[Killjoy-NL]

Since this is Playstation's most profitable gen in it's history, maybe the problem is with certain gamers being stuck in nostalgia.

 

[Horseganador]

What a stupid article, those games are not made because they don't sell...if they released an Ape Escape, a Ridge Racer, etc...they would sell 4 copies.

 

[Maddoxswe]

Yes, i agree. Once they did go woke they lost. Just like Microfock.

 

[Radical_3d]

I guess this is a price of a bad competition around.

This.

And as other said, Hulst is a big part to blame.

 

[Kenneth Haight]

Once Bloodborne remastered and the next Naughty Dog title is announced all will be forgiven. Patience Ponies, patience.

 

[ReBurn]

It's not just PlayStation. Gaming is much less edgy across the board. It grew up and became more refined during the PS360 days. Most recently it's been guided by focus groups and ideologues who are out of touch with what most people want. Hopefully the pushback we're seeing this year helps these companies course correct and actually make more AAA games people actually want to play.

 

[Bernardougf]

Dogshit Gen until now from Sony culminating with the pro pssr problems.. hope the second half is better.

 

[The Cockatrice]

Its not Sony who lost its edge, its the modern gamers who have the attention span of a dog. Kids these days have an IQ of a pea pod.

 

[YCoCg]

Closing Psygnosis and crippling the UK studios during the PS3 gen was always one of their biggest mistakes. Playstation Europe during the 90s and early 2000s was essential in making gaming cool.

 

[Represent.]

Blame the idiotic gamers who keep buying the same shit over and over and get mad when devs make nothing but that

Gta5 case in point
Gaas trash
Fortnite clones

 

[ShadyAcshuns]

For me, PlayStation lost its luster mid PS4 gen. Before that, they were the place to enjoy exclusive JRPGs, and their first party games were really good. Now I hardly recognize them for doing anything unique or exclusive.

 

[Aion002]

It was a mistake moving playstation headquarters from Tokyo to California.

Remember on the ps3 and vita gen when Sony released games like Folklore, White Knight, Siren, Tokyo Jungle, Demon's Souls, Soul Sacrifice, Gravity Rush, Freedom Wars, Oreshika and others and most gamers decided to ignore those and praise games like Uncharted, TLU, GoW3 and Infamous like there was not tomorrow?

 

[Trilobit]

To me they took the wrong path already with PS3. There was such a distinct difference in games compared to PS1 and PS2. Gone were the days of silly and fun platform-adventurers like Ape Escape and Sly Cooper. Replaced by humans shooting stuff or killing other humans. Or shooting aliens in brown and depressing environments. I don't even want to talk about SSX, which took the weirdest turn ever and seemed to have completely forgotten what the franchise was about. Hint, it has never been about wingsuits.

 

[AGRacing]

Absolutely agree. I’d dedicate 2 studios at a minimum to legacy cool IP.

The bottom line is as a Day 1 PlayStation owner in the 90s… I should be very easy to make happy and I’m not happy.

 

[Tiago Rodrigues]

The article is so stuck on nostalgia that it hurts my eyes.

Games have evolved. If Sony was doing only games like Astrobot, the brand wouldn't be anywhere near where it is today.

In 2024 alone Playstation had remasters (TLOU2 and Horizon), it had Helldivers 2 that basically became one of the year's biggest selling games, Astrobot (first full game from Astrobot non-VR), it had 3rd party console exclusives like FFVII Rebirth and Silent Hill 2 (the best way to celebrate your history is good remakes from your older games), they released 2 exclusive new IPs they financed from other studios, Stellar Blade and Rise of the Ronin. Its the only console where you can play Black Myth: Wukong, the biggest surprise of the year. Even the early 2024 viral hit Palmon is already on PS5 as we speak.

Yes they also released Concord, Lego Horizon and an Until Dawn remake no one asked for...but this just shows how they are anything but losing their edge. Making games, financing them and releasing them are still their priority.

And look...i just mentioned one GaaS title on my post.

 

[TGO]

Everyone pointing to Astrobot and saying they do make games like that and they don't sell aren't getting it.
They ain't talking about Astrobot, they talking about the things it celebrates.
All the games Sony is going "look remember this"
Is highlighting what they don't do anymore.

 

[kiphalfton]

Everyone pointing to Astrobot and saying they do make games like that and they don't sell aren't getting it.
They ain't talking about Astrobot, they talking about the things it celebrates.
All the games Sony is going "look remember this"
Is highlighting what they don't do anymore.

The Sony graveyard.

 

[Kataploom]

30 years later? Srsly? I was one of those guys that loved PS even tho I never had one, their Japanese focus with great Japanese content made a whole generation of anime fans happy, then something and all I saw for years around my circles was that they got very disappointed with PS for years already, they focused too much on western gaming to the point those PS actual fans had nowhere to go until PC and Nintendo took the spot (I mean, there was NDS and 3DS but that meant low quality graphics for years), it's only now that many old PS fans driven by PS1 and PS2 era titles finally found a place because what's PS these days is barely a shade of their former self, and that started on PS3 era.

 

[SweetTooth]

Hahaha

Gamers love to extract negativity out of anything

PS is more successful than ever and just buried its closest competitor (Xbox)

metroUK: PlayStation lost its edge!! Because bla bla

Losers

 

[MagnesD3]

I agree this has been a horrible gen for them in terms of quality. I thought the Ps4 was weak but this has been far worse. The aquisition of From Software makes things feel hopeless as well. Theres a good chance I wont buy a ps6..

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

they have 29 days to prove it wrong.

 

[Humdinger]

"Edge" is the last thing anyone should expect of a megalith corporation. If you're lucky, you'll get some edge from a few brave developers. But "edge" from a massive corporation with game budgets in the hundreds of millions and stockholder expectations to match? Not likely. For the most part, you will get products geared toward a mainstream audience. If you want "edge," you'll have to look elsewhere.

But I do agree that PS has become less creative and fun over the past 7 or 8 years.

 

[Sephimoth]

Tale as old as time, when a console has no competition they get lazy. Shit gen

 

[ProtoByte]

Not hearing anymore oldhead whining when Astrobot can't even sell 2 million in 2 months. The franchises from the 90s and 2000s that are still viable are already getting a slew of remasters and sequels. We don't need to constantly slurp up the nostalgia trough.

Actually, what we need is actually new fucking games and IP. PS4 was a record breaking gen for PS and first party game sales because the ship was being steered correctly. Now, it isn't.

 

[Aces High]

Hahaha

Gamers love to extract negativity out of anything

PS is more successful than ever and just buried its closest competitor (Xbox)

metroUK: PlayStation lost its edge!! Because bla bla

Losers

There's always a delay between the reaction of the hardcore early adopter freaks and the mainstream audience.

Give it some time.

 

[Badlucktroll]

 

[SweetTooth]

There's always a delay between the reaction of the hardcore early adopter freaks and the mainstream audience.

Give it some time.

Reaction of what exactly? Games output? 2024 has been fantastic, Hardware? Hardware is stable and more reliable than ever!

Or its just we riot about anything?

 

[Euler007]

Negative journalist baits clicks, news at 11. People have been complaining since the PS3 launch and it's the best it's ever been.

 

[sloppyjoe_gamer]

More Sony in 2025, less Soy-ny

 

[SlimySnake]

It's funny how quickly Sony's goodwill among gamers has deteriorated. This kind of criticism used to be limited to forums and shut down immediately by fanboys as concern trolling but now it's effectively hit mainstream. I remember just a few years ago I was being called chicken little for literally pointing out where things were heading.

They are simply out of touch. Out of touch with their audience that they cultivated with IPs they no longer touch. Out of touch with the audience they cultivated by making amazing E3 shows they no longer do. Out of touch with the audience they cultivated making AAA single player games they have set aside in favor of GaaS trash they cant even seem to get out. out of touch with the audience they cultivated by releasing industry leading graphics and then launching the console with 2 years of cross gen games.

They just had a year where they launched Helldivers 2, Astro bot, FF7 Rebirth, Steller Blade, Concord, Rise of Ronin and Silent Hill 2 as exclusives and yet, their fans are still not happy. Clearly, it's not enough. Clearly they are clamoring for more. They want that KZSF style wow moment. They want an Uncharted 2 or Killzone 2 caliber game. They want an E3 like 2015. Not State of Plays.

Sony execs must ask themselves why this year of all years did not click with their fanbase. Why so many games failed to perform. But they will take the wrong lessons and simply make more helldivers 2.

What they should do:

- Restructure all studios and give them a 3 year mandate. Make games in 3 years or fuck off. If it turns out to be a 15 hour game instead of a 50 hour game then fine.
- No more safe/formulaic stuff like Ratchet, Spiderman 2, HFW and Ragnorak. You are first party. Innovate. No more copy pasta games.
- Cancel all remakes. They limit the creativity of your developers by forcing devs to stay true to the original vision and are low effort jobs that a first party should never touch.
- Cancel all GaaS games. Let good developers like ND, GGM, Insomniac make games with MP modes if they want. KZ2, Resistance, TLOU1 and Uncharted had great MP modes. No need for GaaS.

 

[Aces High]

Reaction of what exactly? Games output? 2024 has been fantastic, Hardware? Hardware is stable and more reliable than ever!

Or its just we riot about anything?

Where's games output great?

This entire gen is all about remastering this and cancelling that.

Aside from a few excemptions, new games are boring cookie cutter experiences with the usual pinch of PlayStation highbrow smug.

Woke games. Rising prices. More gate keeping.

 

[SweetTooth]

Where's games output great?

This entire gen is all about remastering this and cancelling that.

Aside from a few excemptions, new games are boring cookie cutter experiences with the usual pinch of PlayStation highbrow smug.

Woke games. Rising prices. More gate keeping.

Silent Hill 2
Stellar Blade
Astro
Wukong
Alan Wake

2024 had some great games I don't know why this negativity

 

[SHA]

Source: https://metro.co.uk/2024/12/02/playstation-lost-edge-30-years-later-22100577/amp/
(More at link.....)


PlayStation’s 30th anniversary is a huge milestone for a game-changing brand, but reflecting on its history only accentuates what’s missing today.

Nostalgia is an exhausted tenet of modern culture, but any cynicism around Astro Bot can be easily diffused because PlayStation has otherwise been so ineffective at celebrating its own history.

PlayStation 3 stalwarts may recall defending PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale, Sony’s tepid answer to Super Smash Bros. which pitted Sly Cooper against that bloke from Dead Space. Sony tried to emulate Nintendo’s success at toasting the past again in 2018 with the PlayStation Classic console, but again the attempt was lacklustre.

After these ill-fated efforts, Astro Bot seems even better by comparison. A big, colourful splash of silliness at a time when many PlayStation exclusives border on pretentious. There’s a double-edged sword to Astro Bot’s reminiscences though, where nods to the likes of Parappa The Rapper and LocoRoco become a sad reminder of the fact that Sony just doesn’t make games like that anymore.

As someone who was below the age of 10 when the PlayStation hit its peak, the console was mainly a vessel for child-friendly platformers like Spyro The Dragon, Crash Bandicoot, and the regularly-rented Bugs Bunny: Lost In Time.

While all of these left an impression, my most formative memories of the console are all the games I watched the older kids play – spectating my brother’s journey through Metal Gear Solid, glimpsing at Silent Hill’s foggy horrors from behind the sofa, or watching my dad’s friend (cool because he had a lip-piercing) hold back the swear words as he missed another precisely calculated jump in Tomb Raider.

Looking back, the PlayStation was fascinating because of the sheer breadth of its library. The revolutionary compact disc format made games far cheaper to publish than on a cartridge, with less red tape in general and few rules over content. This led to such classics as Ridge Racer, Syphon Filter, Resident Evil, Driver, WipEout, Destruction Derby, Twisted Metal, Oddworld, Croc, Gran Turismo, MediEvil, and many others – most of which were exclusive to PlayStation.

To Sony’s credit, many studios under its ownership have created new franchises for each new console cycle. Naughty Dog has evolved from Crash Bandicoot to Uncharted, Media Molecule from LittleBigPlanet to Dreams, but the output across the majority of them has become more homogenised in recent years.

The original PlayStation changed the gaming landscape forever, whether through marketing or its democratisation of 3D graphics, but in the years since its lightning bolt debut, Sony has drifted into a pedestrian shadow of its former self.

Wider industry trends might be partly to blame, as well as the ever increasing cost of making games, but when PlayStation’s legacy is highlighted so clearly in Astro Bot, it’s hard not to feel like something has been lost along the way.

Their business model is expensive, you can't ignore what's really happening at the moment, and most likely they got impostered by other performing platforms /studios /genres.