I just rolled credits on The Plucky Squire.
Despite agreeing with the common criticisms of the game (uneven pacing, overly simple combat, hand-holding) I did enjoy my time with it. It’s gorgeous and charming, and often delightful, and that goes a long way with me.
If you’ve been playing it you may have felt that the game introduces a few gameplay itches that it ultimately doesn’t quite scratch. With in mind, here’s a list of four games you should absolutely look at playing next…
They are high on some crazy shit if they think I’m dropping 800 euros for a standless, digital console with a blink and you’ll miss it graphical boost during a console generation that’s been so stale in terms of first party exclusives that most of the games they used to promote this are on fucking PS4.
What the fuck, Sony?
– d0ntm1ndm32 (Reddit)
Sony finally presented their long-rumoured PS5 Pro, and the response from gamers seems to range from bemusement to outright astonishment.
Note: This post has added updates.
Reddit: eXtas1s: Forza Horizon 5 is the next Xbox game coming to PlayStation.
The rumour is that this will be announced next week, with a launch date to follow.
This rumour certainly tracks, imo. Like Sea of Thieves, FH5 is a years-old game, with a very active player base, it recently crossed 40M total players, and has no real competition (first or third party) on PlayStation.
This rumour has already kicked up all sorts of reactions about The Future of XboxTM, and in particular has re-stokesd a general ‘uncertainty’ around knowing what games will be Xbox exclusives or not, and for how long.
Xbox is still in the experimenting phase when it comes to porting games to ‘rival’ platforms. The console base is stagnant (like PlayStation), which means they’re looking for growth opportunities where they can.
Sea of Thieves was in the top sellers on PlayStation for 2 months, and no doubt FH5 would land near the top in sales charts on PS5 too.
But the strategy is a balancing act – Xbox want to leverage revenue growth opportunities, but if these moves come at the expense of engagement (monthly actives) or on-platform activity, they may well pull back or adjust.
In the meantime, Forza Horizon 5 is an absolute banger of a game; it’s great news if more gamers get to experience the festival!
Update 1: Jez Corden for Windows Central Gaming:
My sources indicate that Forza will not be announced for PlayStation next week. Although I can’t yet confirm what game, if any, will be announced as a port next week.
Update 2: eXtas1stv (translated):
On the one hand, calm for Starfield, there are no active plans for it yet.
However, for Forza Horizon 5 there are, and it will be released in the not too distant future. The announcement? It doesn’t matter if it happens this week, next week or the week after, but it is coming to PS5 in the next few months as I confirmed in my [post] and as many colleagues have already confirmed.
Some of our colleagues believe that the announcement will be imminent, others not so much, but it is coming.
Update 3: Next Xbox game on Playstation is going to be Flight Simulator
Via comments by a user from earlier this year, which have proven to be 100% accurate so far:
Flight Sim will be multiplatform, and a few other older 1st party IPs are also going to be multiplatform
(Of note from the leak, and that hasn’t been shown to be correct yet: Xbox have been in discussions to move to a ‘licensed device’ model, where 3rd party manufacturers can build consoles that will play Xbox games.)
Update 4: After all that, it was Indiana Jones.
On Monday PlayStation revealed a themed PS5 controller for their highly anticipated Astro Bot.
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In late February 2019 an anonymous game developer posted a leak on Pastebin. They claimed to be employed by a small studio contracting on a PS5 launch title.
Today Xbox announced a new suite of limited edition Design Lab controllers, made especially for Redfall.
Each controller comes with a custom design top plate, a fixed palette of colours to customise with, and four engraving options for the battery cover. They’re nice!
At the start of April a purported Starfield controller leaked on a resale app in China. After a day or so, someone figured out that the person who listed the controller was also a modding enthusiast, which caused most people to pass this off as a custom job.
I’m not so sure.
The New York Post is reporting that Microsoft intends to close it’s ABK acquisition, despite any ongoing roadblocks from the FTC in the United States. This report includes a spicy quote via a source that “they are going to cram this down the FTC’s throats”. 😳
It’s been widely reported that the CMA (UK) will approve the deal this week (Update: in a huge move this did not happen, the CMA blocked the deal!), and most observers anticipate the EU will follow in May.
Today’s reporting has been met with some optimism on Twitter that once that deal is “done” everyone will move on…
Whatever it takes so we can stop talking about it!!!
@NeoGameSpark
Ain’t no way.
Even if the close the deal in May/June, all of these topics will continue to play out loudly in social media spaces:
If you’re into the banter, you’re going to keep having a good time.
If you think it sucks, keep that block button ready.
Earlier today Night School Studio announced that Oxenfree II would also be coming to Netflix (mobile) when it launches on July 12th this year.
And for some reason a bunch of Xbox fans went crazy on Twitter.
“Am I tripping or does this say Netflix but not Xbox???” “No joke, we need answer why this keeps happening…” “wtf is going on 💀” “Ok this is starting to become a serious problem for Xbox”
Pals… Calm. down.
Here’s the situation with Oxenfree II:
Not only is this game not coming to Xbox, we’ve know it for months, if not years. Why is it a huge deal now, all of a sudden?
Gaming narratives are a funny old thing fucking stupid.
Would this be as big a deal if the Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster wasn’t skipping Xbox (for some apparently unknowable reason) and getting banger scores?
Minecraft Legends dropped yesterday and people are freaking about Oxenfree II? Xbox secured multiple Game-of-the-Year nominated indie games in 2021 and 2022 and people are freaking about Oxenfree II? Really?
A much bigger story here is that Netflix is the publisher. What will that mean in the competitive space moving forward? Will Netflix pal up with PlayStation on console to hedge against Microsoft’s buying power and Cloud position?
MS (Game Pass) and Netflix both see themselves as competitors. Don’t be surprised when the more tech-facing companies choose to isolate Microsoft.
HoegLaw
