The Friday Inbox wonders if the first person shooter will fade away in the next generation, as one reader ponders whether to buy Pulse 3D.
To join in with the discussions yourself email gamecentral@ukmetro.co.uk
Launch picks
So we’re getting close to the next gen launch and as others have pointed out Sony has a pretty good launch line-up, at least compared to previous PlayStations. Assuming they were aiming to have Ratchet & Clank as well, before coronavirus hit, I think it’s really good but even without it there’s four first party games – five if you count Astro’s Playroom. But my question is: which is best.
As everyone’s been saying, the games aren’t cheap so I don’t imagine anyone’s going to be getting them. But also can’t imagine anyone’s getting Destruction AllStars and Sackboy A Big Adventure. I can maybe see Sackboy as it’s a co-op family game and not as expensive as the others, but Destruction AllStars… what even is it and why is it £70?
That leaves us with Spider-Man: Miles Morales and Demon’s Souls, one a short spin-off and the other a remake of an ultra-hardcore FromSoftware game. I pit the poor casual gamer that picks up Demon’s Souls because it has the best graphics but I’ll be getting both of these: a fun bit of popcorn entertainment and a super deep Soulsborne game.
I’m also kind of tempted by Devil May Cry 5: Special Edition, as I didn’t play the original release but I think that will wait for next year when it’ll probably be on cheap. Overall though I think it’s pretty obvious that Spider-Man is going to be the biggest seller by a landslide, but curious to know what other people are planning to get/play first.
Coolridge
Ending on a high
I suspect this has been done countless times before but if not I’d be interested to know what people have found to be their most satisfying end sequence in a game. Having played games that just said ‘Thank you for your playing’ at the end (maybe with a static image of the hero if you were lucky).
The first ending that I really found to be an excellent conclusion was probably The Legend Of Zelda: A Link To The Past. It shows what all the peripheral characters were up to and I just thought it was amazing at the time.
John
GC: The problem with this discussion is spoilers, but we’ve got to say that A Link To The Past is a solid pick.
Big excitement
Dreamcast Mini? If M2 get involved and they can make the lightgun games work, then charge what you like and take my money!
Folks have been wanting Nintendo to make an N64 Mini and I’m not so sure about that one after the PlayStation Classic, due to the terrible graphical fidelity on modern TV sets. But Dreamcast always looked good and still does, especially via the VGA output.
Not only that, but it has an underrated back catalogue with some absolute corkers if they can get Capcom on board as well.
But, if Skies of Arcadia was on it, I’d be front of the queue.
Potential problems?
The memory card feature and the overall price. I know it’s probably pie in the sky, but we can but dream(cast!).
ZiPPi
E-mail your comments to: gamecentral@ukmetro.co.uk
Audio answer
I’m currently debating whether or not to get the Pulse 3D headset for the PlayStation 5 I’ve ordered. On the one hand I want the full 3D audio experience but on the other hand £90 is a lot of money and I’m sure I might be able to get better ones for less money. There’s just a few things I’m not clear on and wonder if anyone knows the answer.
My understanding is any 3.5mm jack wired headphones will support 3D audio but the PlayStation 5 official headphones will give the best performance, have I understood this correctly? My other question is whether the pulse 3D headphones can be used to connect via Bluetooth or otherwise to other devices, such as my mobile phone to listen to music or podcasts, etc.
mat7884
Lesson learnt
RE: Justin. To my knowledge there’s been nothing in regards to the Xbox Series X overheating internally, and it’s actually said to be remaining cool inside, but it’s apparently exhausting a lot of heat (that’s how it keeps cool).
I’d be shocked to see Microsoft make a Red Ring of Death mistake again, especially considering they did amazing jobs with cooling systems on Xbox One and Xbox One X.
Anon
Price changing times
This may not be particularly useful, but with the recent debate of a £70 price tag for new games, I have consistently seen two points completely ignored:
1) The audience for games has changed. I believe it has generally increased – for example, everyone who had a SNES had Super Mario World, which sold 20 million copies since 1990 (the majority would be around 1990, but that is still spread out a bit). FIFA 17 sold about 15 million in 2016 to 2017. Everyone who had a SNES had Mario, not everyone who plays games plays FIFA. Though production costs have increased, sales will have also increased.
2) Most of the time companies don’t care about lifetime sales and instead care about sales within a short window. As a side example, look at films. Even if a film ends up being popular and watched by many, the studios don’t tend to care unless that’s during the opening weekend (essentially a few days, rather than a few weeks)
I don’t have any citations for this, but I think I recall some games being labelled as flops because though they did sell the number of units predicted, they didn’t sell them fast enough.
This is also a bit why the ‘wait until the price drops’ argument doesn’t quite work. Though that would allow the customers to pick up the games cheaper, it would tell the publisher that the game isn’t worth the investment.
Not that I’m going to rush out and buy every new game I want for £70, mind you. My habits likely won’t change.
Joseph Dowland
Money saver
I’ve noticed very few people mention that you can use Xbox One controllers on the Xbox Series X/S. Is this correct or is it similar to where the PlayStation 5 can only use PlayStation 4 controllers to play PlayStation 4 games?
If true, this a huge hidden saving for me (and no doubt others) as I won’t have to buy new controllers for my kids. Think this may just be the final push to swing me to Xbox for my first next gen console purchase.
Suspect
GC: According to Microsoft it works for everything, in part because the new controllers don’t seem to be very different.
One year later
Had an email that Phoenix Point: Year One Edition would be coming out on Steam soon. Which as you’d expect from the name is basically the base game plus a year’s worth of patches and DLC.
I know you’re big XCOM fans, so I was wondering if you continued playing this after your review and if so, whether they ever fixed any of the flaws you mentioned in your review of the game last year?
Lord Darkstorm
GC: We haven’t had the chance to be honest, we were hoping the console versions would come out and provide an excuse to replay it. Hopefully they’ll still make their intended late 2020 release.
Catch up on every previous Games Inbox here
Shots not fired
Looking at the launch line-ups for Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 something struck me as interesting: neither of them have a first person shooter in their ranks. Destiny 2’s new expansion is out the same day as the Xbox and Fortnite is on PlayStation 5 day one, but that’s it. No new games at all and with the glaring absence of Halo Infinite no attempt to make any of the major launch games a shooter. So is this finally the death of the FPS?
Obviously there will be some sooner or later – Call Of Duty: Black Ops Cold War is out this month – but it seems to me that the Xbox 360 era where every second game was a first person shooter is well over. I thought I’d be pleased at this, as I was getting really sick of them by the end of that generation, but I do miss a good, well-crafted single-player shooter.
It seems to me that the only ones being made nowadays are multiplayer focused or simply multiplayer-only. Even the return of Half-Life was a VR tech demo that I couldn’t play. What goes around comes around, but I wonder if this is a sign that the next generation will have even less first person shooters than now?
And if that is true what will be the biggest genre instead? More Sony formula third person games? Ubisoft style open world games? Or, as I hope, something new? We’ll see but it’s kind of good to see things never stay the same for long.
Fenrick
GC: Bright Memory: Infinite on Xbox Series X/S is a first person shooter, but yes it’s interesting.
Inbox also-rans
RE: The possible Dreamcast Mini story, I’ve only got four words: Sega, take my money.
Charlie
Just as a follow-up to the reader asking if Marvel’s Avengers has been a flop, the number of players on Steam has sunk below 1,000 at times, making matchmaking difficult. I know it’s not really a PC game but that does not bode well.
Owlet
This week’s Hot Topic
The topic for this weekend’s Inbox was suggested by reader Xane, who asks how many video games do you currently own?
Both physical and digital copies count, although it’d be interesting if you were able to give separate figures for both. Digital games that you’ve paid for separately definitely count but games you have access to via a subscription like Game Pass do not.
How important do you think owning a game is compared to selling it on after a while or playing it as part of a subscription? Do you prefer owning physical or digital copies and is there anytime that you’ve owned more games than you do now?
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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.
You can also submit your own 500 to 600-word Reader’s Feature at any time, which if used will be shown in the next available weekend slot.
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