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Features Gaming

What Does Concord’s Failure Mean For PlayStation’s Live Service Future?

Last week was a bit rough for PlayStation. The same day they released Astro Bot to rave reviews across the industry, Sony shut down Concord, their latest attempt at breaking into the live-service space. A small community of fans might have enjoyed Concord during its two weeks on the market (myself included), however, with estimates of abysmal sales across PS5 and PC and an equally tragic amount of players, the game was dead on arrival. It’s left the future of Concord and its developer Firewalk Studios up in the air as they plan their next move. No matter how you look at the situation, this sort of failure is unprecedented in the games industry, especially for PlayStation which prides itself on releasing high-quality games. With more live-service games in development across their first-party teams, the question has to be asked: In a time where the live-service bubble is bursting, what chance of success do these other games have and what’s Sony’s strategy going forward?

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Revisiting Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep In 2024

Kingdom Hearts is a special series to me. Not only has it played a key role in molding me into the person I am today, but it’s also been a constant source of comfort for me throughout my life. With that in mind, I decided to go back to six key games from the franchise, some of which I haven’t played in a long time, in a series I call Revisiting Kingdom Hearts to see what I think of them in the year 2024. Have my feelings changed about each game over the years? Am I able to take away anything new from them that I didn’t before? How does any one game compare to the rest of the series? These are the kinds of questions I’ll be asking myself as I work my way through the franchise. In part four of this series, I’ll be talking about Birth By Sleep, and my complicated feelings on this pivotal game in the franchise.

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Revisiting Kingdom Hearts II In 2024

Kingdom Hearts is a special series to me. Not only has it played a key role in molding me into the person I am today, but it’s also been a constant source of comfort for me throughout my life. With that in mind, I decided to go back to six key games from the franchise, some of which I haven’t played in a long time, in a series I call Revisiting Kingdom Hearts to see what I think of them in the year 2024. Have my feelings changed about each game over the years? Am I able to take away anything new from them that I didn’t before? How does any one game compare to the rest of the series? These are the kinds of questions I’ll be asking myself as I work my way through the franchise. In part three of this series, I’ll be talking about the franchise’s golden child, Kingdom Hearts II, and how its exploration of identity makes it a defining moment in the series.

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What’s The Future Of PlayStation and Xbox Exclusives?

Microsoft’s first-party exclusive Hi-Fi Rush came to PlayStation earlier this year, along with three other first-party Xbox titles. Sony’s Horizon franchise is breaking out of PlayStation exclusivity and jumping to the Nintendo Switch later this year with Lego Horizon Adventures. These moves may not spell the immediate end of console exclusives for PlayStation and Xbox, but the fires have been lit and the future is clear: first-party exclusivity for them will eventually be no more.

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Summer Game Fest 2024 Predictions!

We’ve talked about my predictions for the rumored PlayStation Showcase and the upcoming Xbox Games Showcase. Summer Game Fest is a few weeks away and now I’m ready to share my predictions for the show! Will Borderlands 4 be announced? Is Kingdom Hearts: Missing Link going to get a new trailer and release date? A lot can happen at this event, so let’s talk about it!

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Features Gaming

Xbox Games Showcase 2024 Predictions!

We covered my predictions for the rumored PlayStation Showcase, so now it’s Xbox’s turn. The Xbox Games Showcase is just a few weeks away and there’s a lot that I’m hoping we see from Microsoft. Will Gears 6 finally be announced? Is there going to be a new Perfect Dark trailer? Will we finally get to see gameplay for Fable? I have predictions for all those games and so many others, so let’s talk about them!

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Features Gaming

PlayStation Showcase 2024 Predictions!

A PlayStation Showcase is seemingly on the horizon, so I’m sharing some of my predictions for what will be at the event. Will Ghost of Tsushima 2 be announced? Is Marvel’s Wolverine getting a gameplay trailer? Should we hope for a new Kingdom Hearts IV trailer and release date? Let’s talk about it all and get hyped!

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Features Gaming

Xbox Made Its Worst Decision Yet

At Xbox’s business update earlier this year, Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer tried to explain the company’s business rationale behind putting four of their first-party titles on other consoles. A key reason he gave for sharing these games with other platforms was that it would allow the company to “invest in maybe future iterations of those or sequels to those, or just other games like that in our portfolio.” One of those games was Hi-Fi Rush, the surprise 2023 hit from Japanese developer Tango Gameworks. Yesterday, the company announced internally that it would be shutting down multiple studios across Tango’s parent company Zenimax Media, and Tango is one of them.

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Revisiting Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories In 2024

Kingdom Hearts is a special series to me. Not only has it played a key role in molding me into the person I am today, but it’s also been a constant source of comfort for me throughout my life. With that in mind, I decided to go back to six key games from the franchise, some of which I haven’t played in a long time, in a series I call Revisiting Kingdom Hearts to see what I think of them in the year 2024. Have my feelings changed about each game over the years? Am I able to take away anything new from them that I didn’t before? How does any one game compare to the rest of the series? These are the kinds of questions I’ll be asking myself as I work my way through the franchise. In part two of this series, I’ll be focusing on arguably the most divisive game in the franchise, Chain of Memories, and the great amount of respect that I have for it.

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PlayStation Studios Needs New Franchises

PlayStation’s internal studios have felt fairly stagnant for a couple of years now. Don’t get me wrong, we’ve gotten some incredible games from them so far this generation. Guerrilla knocked it out of the park with Horizon Forbidden West and its Burning Shores expansion; Sony Santa Monica delivered an epic conclusion to Kratos’ Norse adventures in God of War Ragnarok and its Valhalla DLC; and what more needs to be said about Insomniac Games, a team that’s proven itself to be the PlayStation Studios MVP as they’ve released a steady cadence of amazing games with Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, and Spider-Man 2. But although these have each been top-tier games, it’s disappointing that we haven’t received too many fresh ideas in the form of new IP from PlayStation’s biggest internal teams.

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