I feel disillusioned as well, mainly as I was a massive Playstation fan and no longer care for the brand. I grew up with Playstation, got my my first PSX in 1995, after having saved up for it for almost two years. My mom pitched in the last amount of cash I needed and I got it for my 14th birthday. I was immediately in love. Before I was mainly a Sega fan, casually playing stuff like Sonic and EAs NHL-games with my friends. Along came Playstation and changed my entire world view of what games could be. The first game to really knock me out of my socks was Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain. It was a mature and epic vampire action-RPG with awesome voice acting, FMV graphics, story and and violence, unlike anything I've ever played in my entire life. And so it continued. Resident Evil. Final Fantasy 7, 8 and 9. Alundra. Suikoden. The hits just kept coming. Playstation was my main video game brand going forward. I bought PS2, PS3, PS4 and PS5, and kept adding games to my ever growing library. I had about 500 physical games across all systems. I supported Sony through the highs and lows, thinking they would always stand tall even when shit hits the fan.
Enter PS5 era. In the beginning it was awesome. That console reveal with Demon's Souls was fucking magical. I was so hyped. And it delivered. The console was a fantastic piece of hardware. No load times. Excellent backwards compatibility. The initial games with DS, Forbidden West, Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart and Returnal was awesome. Then I started to notice the shift happen. The messaging. The downplay of single player games and hyping up live service. First they shut down Japan Studio. No more cool games like Bloodborne, Puppeteer, Gravity Rush, Shadow of the Colossus or The Last Guardian. Everything had to be AAA blockbuster now. Que Concord, Fairgames and a slew of other shit games Sony bankrolled without question, leading to massive disappointment for me. And then you learned that Sony wasted their premiere studios on GaaS games, with the biggest disappointment being Bluepoint being wasted for nearly 5 years. I LOVED Demon´s Souls. Played it religiously the first year of PS5. I thought their next game would be remastering or remaking another PS classic, like Bloodborne. And then it turned out they were forced to do a live service God of War that was cancelled.
And then you have their studios engaging with activists, political drama, contempt for their fans, lukewarm sequels and just downright mediocrity and I feel like Playstation is not for me anymore. Add to that Sonys excessive price gouging on their PSN store, with price hikes on PS Plus and their hardware and controllers, fleecing their customers with every breath they take. For the past several years I´ve seen myself selling off my PS collection of games, turning my eye to Nintendo and Valve, investing in their ecosystems. The Switch 2 and Valves upcoming Steam Machine has got me hyped in ways PS5 has failed to generate beyond its first few years. And it honestly feels shit. I can´t believe Sony threw away this brand into the toilet like this. I don´t think I´ve ever been this disappointed with a video game company before. It was my first true love in video games and I saw myself supporting PS through thick and thin. Now it´s all gone. Wasted because Sony thought they were invincible and that their fans would lap up anything they threw at them.
Fuck everyone in charge of the Playstation brand this generation. You are complete and utter trash.