Games Inbox: How powerful will the PlayStation 6 be?-GameCentral-Entertainment – Metro

Does Sony need a rethink? (YouTube)

The Monday letters page wonders if Square Enix regrets making the Final Fantasy 7 remake trilogy, as one reader tries to imagine Mario Kart 9.

To join in with the discussions yourself email gamecentral@metro.co.uk

Go back to go forward
As silly as it seems to seemingly everyone else, I think we just have to accept that Sony is going ahead with the PlayStation 6 sooner than we would’ve liked and we’re probably going to get an official announcement much sooner than we would have expected. That also means they’ve already decided what it’s going to be.

Given the outrageous price and tiny improvements of the PS5 Pro it’s not hard to guess what the PlayStation 6 might turn out to be, but I really hope it’s not just another big plastic box that costs another £600 and barely looks any different from last gen.

If I was in charge of Sony I’d go with a Switch style hybrid approach and, if necessarily, make the PlayStation 6 less powerful than 5. Most PlayStation 5 games don’t like any different from PlayStation 4 anyway and it seems to me there’s far more to gain from making a super powerful hybrid console, that is part of the PlayStation ecosystem, than another tiny upgrade.

The best thing is there is some hope that this will be their approach, with the talk of a handheld device but will Sony really be bold enough to say enough is enough and power down for the next generation? With the cost of both making and buying games it seems the only sensible approach to me.
Focus

Second reinvention
Great article on the problems Nintendo is facing with Mario Kart 9 on the Switch 2. Obviously, none of us know what they’re doing, or probably has the imagination to think up a gimmick that would sell it, but to me there really doesn’t seem like there’s anything obvious to do.

I guess going harder on online is the closest thing to an obvious route but that doesn’t seem like a very Nintendo thing to do. I will be fascinated to see their approach but also what they do with a lot of their other franchises in the new generation.

People rightly talk about most series having had their best entry on the Switch but where do you go from there? Most of them were good because they were a complete revamp of what had gone before but how often can you do that without either running out of ideas or coming up with a dud? I guess we’ll see.
Danson

Black Friday tip
It seems obvious to me that Square Enix regret making the Final Fantasy 7 Remake trilogy. Its sales clearly haven’t been great and they’re tied into PlayStation exclusivity, so there’s nothing they can do about it. Rebirth sold less than Remake and I imagine the third one will sell less again.

But it’s a crying shame because both games are far better than I would’ve ever imagined and Rebirth is, for my money, the best game of the year.

I’m curious as to what lessons they’ll take from the failure though. Not spending that money on remakes again, I guess, but also don’t start a trilogy until you know the first one has been a hit first. I would love to see a brand new game, doesn’t even have to be Final Fantasy related, in a similar style in the future but I don’t know how likely that is now.

If it’s cheap during Black Friday I recommend them both to anyone, they’re a hundred times better than Final Fantasy 16.
Austin

Email your comments to: gamecentral@metro.co.uk

Just make games
Whilst on YouTube yesterday a video of MotoGP 23 popped up, so I thought I’d have a look. Surely with graphics literally looking photorealistic like these (despite the gameplay experience appearing to be extremely dull and boring) we have absolutely no need for any new consoles to be released purely to deliver extra graphical/frame rate capabilities?!

We just need big companies/developers to focus on making great games.
Adams6legend

Not dead yet
Interesting review of a bunch of Irem games I had honestly never heard of before, but my first question was simply are Irem still going? They always seemed a weird little company, punching above their weight, back in the day and now it seems like you only ever hear about them briefly every five years or so.

Are they still going and do they still make games? I guess they must do if R-Type Final 2 came out a couple of years ago? I always dreamed of a big budget 3D version of R-Type, like Star Fox but more serious, but I think I have to accept that’s never happening now.

R-Type’s graphics looked so amazing at the time and they’re one of the few old games that still looks great now. I didn’t know about the connection to Metal Slug before but that makes sense, as that series’ always looked amazing too.
Gonch

GC: The company does still exist, but it only licences out its properties and doesn’t make the games itself. R-Type Final 2 was by Granzella, who employ a lot of ex-Irem developers and are supposed to be remastering the two R-Type Tactics games from the PSP next year.

Dream adjacent
Interesting feature about Star Wars Outlaws and I can’t help but agree with the premise that the game wasn’t anything fans were particularly excited about and to non-fans it just seemed like yet another Ubisoft open world game. I’m not a Harry Potter fan but as far as I can see Hogwarts Legacy is exactly what they’ve always wanted, in terms of being a student and everything, but Outlaws is definitely not a dream game for anyone.

What I’d add though is that not only is Outlaws annoying because it misses the mark but it’s annoying because of how close it gets, as if they purposefully steered it way from being something more interesting. You’re stuck playing a named character, so you’re never ‘you’, and you can’t actually do any crimes yourself, only what the game lets you – so you can’t go out looting spaceships or anything.

So while the game is set in the seedy side of the Star Wars universe you don’t really do anything bad, which really seems to be missing the point. You have to learn all your skills from other people, which I think is a neat way of doing it, but for some reason you know how to lock on and shoot three enemies at a time right from the start of the game.

I get why they took the stealth out, because it was annoying if you failed, but it was really the only thing in the game that required any skill, so now… nothing does. I didn’t hate playing it but the whole time I was wishing it was something else and that makes you end up thinking it’s worse than it is. Just a big missed opportunity.
Clyde

Inevitable purchase
I can completely understand why the reader blamed Xbox for Sony making a bid for FromSoftware. As soon as Microsoft let the genie out of the bottle, and started buying up everyone that wasn’t nailed down, it was just a race to the bottom.

Owning From won’t give Sony any special stranglehold over the industry or anything but it will mean less people get to experience From’s games, and that’s a shame. But what’s the alternative, wait till Microsoft buy them instead? Or Tencent? Or Amazon? It has to be someone, that’s the ball Microsoft set in motion and now Sony becomes the least worst option for fans.
Gifford

Low priority
Hoping you could possibly bring to the forefront a couple of issues myself, and others, are having right now.

Microsoft: Xbox 360 cloud saves on Xbox Series X. Myself and loads of others have no access to our Xbox 360 profiles and saves, making our enjoyment of playing our Xbox 360 titles obsolete (yes, some of us still play these games on the new hardware).

There has never been an official announcement from Microsoft about the issue, I haven’t seen any articles on the issue, just forums full of people frustrated by not being able to play these titles anymore.

I myself had to buy a new Xbox Series X when the old one just refused to stay powered on. One Sunday morning I was playing Portal 2, that afternoon my console just switched off and refused to stay on for more than five seconds. I bought a new console and it will just not connect to the cloud to access my Xbox 360 information, my console is currently a brick in front of the TV.

PlayStation: I bought a DualSense Edge controller… love my back paddles, etc.

It is now over a year old, so I thought time to get some spare stick modules, just in case nobody sells them, but not even Sony so do! They haven’t had them in months apparently, what the flippin’ heck Tucker!

This was a ridiculously high-priced controller bought on the promise of being able to swap out the sticks should any drifting problems arise, and now you just cannot buy the accessories the manufacturer promised us.

Please ask these two multinational companies ‘What gives?’
RAMB0 1ST BL00D (PSN ID)

GC: We’ll ask someone if we get the chance, but we wish those were the worst problems Microsoft and Sony had to worry about at the moment.

Inbox also-rans
The thing that amazes me about November is that this Christmas was meant to be Xbox’s time to shine and what have we had? A flight sim that didn’t work, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 that is super niche, Avowed which was pushed back in to next year, and Indiana Jones which is on PlayStation 5 anyway. Nice going Phil!
Orion

Just finished the Silent Hil 2 remake and I am thoroughly impressed. I’ll be honest, I never thought Bloober Team had it in them but this is one of the best remakes I’ve ever played. I don’t know what they could’ve done better.
DaleL

Email your comments to: gamecentral@metro.co.uk

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.

You can also leave your comments below and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter.

ArrowMORE: Games Inbox: What are the best Black Friday video game deals?

ArrowMORE: Games Inbox: When will the PlayStation 6 be announced?

ArrowMORE: Games Inbox: What happens if Sony buys FromSoftware?

Entertainment – MetroRead More