Games Inbox: Is the PS5 good value for money?

The Monday letters page is surprised there are no different colours yet for the Switch 2, as a reader praises Insomniac Games for being one of the quickest game developers.

Games Inbox is a collection of our readers’ letters, comments, and opinions. To join in with the discussions yourself email gamecentral@metro.co.uk

Worth every penny
So, I see that the PlayStation 5 has had another temporary price cut and, I’m sorry, but £330 for the console is an amazing deal. That’s much cheaper than a Switch 2 and adjusting for inflation I’m pretty sure it’s at least as cheap as any PlayStation console has ever been.

I know people rag on this generation, and I’m not going to say Sony hasn’t made a lot of mistakes, with a lot of low energy moments, but there are fantastic games out all the time, especially in the last few months, and I really think we’re overemphasising the bad news. I’m not saying it’s unjustified, because a lot of it is companies being awful, but they’ve always been awful, and they always will be.

Personally, at the moment, I’m playing Silent Hill f and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 and they’re both amazing games that are as good as anything I’ve ever played. And I sure would prefer to play them on a relatively cheap console then put up with the pain and irritation of running a PC.

So, if you haven’t got a PlayStation 5 yet, I’d say ignore the negativity and take advantage of this great deal.
Mido

Monochrome gaming
I can understand where the Reader’s Feature is coming from in terms of the Switch 2’s hardware issues and I do agree that more options at launch, or at least by Christmas, would’ve been a good idea. I’m not too surprised, because that’s not what Nintendo usually does, but I am kind of shocked that they still haven’t released any different colours of console, or even of Joy-Con.

Unless you buy third parties ones, which no sensible person would, every Switch 2 currently looks exactly the same and that is definitely not how Nintendo usually does thing. For me it’s another piece of evidence that shows the Switch 2 was actually rushed. How and why I have no idea, and I doubt we’ll ever find out, but at this point I’d need a lot of convincing to think otherwise.
Jez

Secret power
The more it becomes clear that the Switch 2 is actually surprisingly powerful, the more it makes it look like Nintendo has done a terrible job advertising that fact. There has been nothing from them – either game or tech demo – that gives the impression of it being any more powerful than the Switch 1.

I know that technically Donkey Kong Bananza is difficult to pull off but it doesn’t look it at a glance, and you have to kind of think about it or have it explained. That’s not necessarily a bad thing but if Nintendo don’t have anything to show off themselves, they should have made an effort to showcase third party games.

But I’ve never seen any ads for Cyberpunk 2077 or Star Wars Outlaws. I’m not even sure they were in any Nintendo Directs. I also haven’t seen any footage for Final Fantasy 7 Remake or Resident Evil Requiem (unless that was it in the last Direct, but I assumed it was from another format) or Elden Ring, which I’m now confused as to whether it’s meant to be good or not.

If Nintendo is going to keep make publishers fend for themselves like this, they shouldn’t be surprised to see them getting fed up with supporting the console in the first place.
Focus

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New faces
I see a lot of fans getting themselves twisted up about whether Leon is going to be in Resident Evil Requiem or not, but personally I hope he’s not in it. Or at least only as a Chris-in-Resident-Evil-7 style cameo. I think the best thing Capcom can do is introduce new characters. When’s the last time they introduced a new one that everyone liked? It probably is Leon, and that was way back on the PS1.

Ethan was purposefully not a character and Rose was pretty uninteresting, so we’ve really had no one new in the modern era. I actually like Sheva but for whatever reason it seems Capcom isn’t ever bringing her back. But I’d be impressed if they made the effort to introduce someone new, with an actual personality. Because most of the original crew are beloved because of their cheesy dialogue. But is it possible to introduce someone that doesn’t have that going for them?
Grackle

Suffer like G did
RE: The House Of The Dead 2. I’m going through this for the 100th time and I absolutely love it. Isn’t there going to be a remake?

I play the original on the Wii U with the Wii backwards compatibility and the plastic gun controller, so it’s just like the Dreamcast.
Simon

GC: It was released last month. We haven’t played it but apparently it’s just as bad as the remake of the first game.

Review confidence
I’ve pre-ordered Ghost Of Yōtei. I’ve read GC’s review and it is a very fair score. But I knew it would score higher than the first game. I said 87 as my retracted score and it’s matched my prediction. So, I hope to have the same enjoyment as the first title. You know what’s funny, though? Whereas Ghost has succeeded as an exclusive, I can’t fathom how a title such as Lost Soul Aside, has failed on every account. Another Sony title with questionable hype, yet it is quintessentially a failure.

Truth be told, reviews weren’t published before the release date, and you could see it a mile away. It was Sony’s lack of confidence. Why did Sony raise the review embargo for Yōtei a week before release and yet for Lost Soul Aside it was barred from the same treatment? Because it was a failed experiment from the beginning. It’s unsettling to see the title has underperformed, but predictable after the demo gave me the expectation of what type of experience this would be.

I’ve rarely given it a second thought. I’d compare it unfavourably to Days Gone. Which was touted as the next Sony winner and it was a failure. So much so we will never see a sequel. I’m glad Yōtei has reviewed well and I pat myself on the back for choosing to invest in an exclusive that will respect my time. Because I have no time or respect for Lost Soul Aside. Oh, but there is one positive, however. It wasn’t a $500 million failure. What was that failure called again? Oh, that’s right. Concord.
Shahzaib Sadiq
PS: Concord is, and it always will be, the greatest failure of the decade for Sony. Why they would fund another failure, after Concord, is anyone’s guess. Just bizarrely strange.

GC: Sony only published Lost Soul Aside, it wasn’t developed by any of their internal studios.

Need for Shreds
Shameless plug warning! I know GC liked Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit. Well, so did I. So much so that I wrote a song about it and put it on my band’s (The Cowes Harpsy Boys) new album – Out of Control Rock And Roll.
Johnny Alpha SD, aka Yobby McRoth
Currently playing: Mad Max and Halo Infinite

Development extremes
Ironically, the weekend feature about Wolverine’s development time could of, used Insomniac as a beacon of light, as it’s probably one of the best triple-A devs to look at for getting quick turnaround times from a studio. They have been consistent for over a decade for a game every two to three years.

Sunset Overdrive in 2014, Ratchet & Clank in 2016, Spider-Man in 2018, Miles Morales in 2020, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart in 2021, Spider-Man 2 in 2023, and Wolverine in 2026.

Nintendo would be up there. Both, I guess, have a couple of big games on the go alongside smaller games.

Rather than reducing triple-A development times I think a multi-pronged approach to smoothing out the release schedule like the two above is more realistic.

Maybe the biggest franchises, like Fallout, The Elder Scrolls, and GTA should look at having multiple studios working on a game or chunky DLC at the same time too. Fallout: New Vegas turned out all right.
Simundo

GC: You’re right, but Bethesda, Rockstar Games, and Insomniac are all outliers, with the latter one of the quickest workers and the former some of the slowest. Although there is the question of whether Insomniac budgets are high because they’re forcing the pace of development. But we don’t enough about the cost of making their other games to tell.

Inbox also-rans
Played Rematch on Saturday and it was actually pretty good. There’s no way it’s every going to take over from EA Sports FC though, because it’s not realistic and there’s no proper teams. It’s just not the same thing.
Booker

I still can’t believe a handheld console exists that is £800. I don’t care how powerful it is, that is just a stupid amount of money to spend. It’s very obvious to me these Xbox portables are just prestige thing for existing fans and nothing more.
Otto

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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 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.

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