Why would you hope they refused something that was given to them for free? Im sure you would have taken it, who wouldn't? its free!

@IcarusOne

then you can blame your assumptions. i didn't say that i expect them to incorporate blu-ray (even in any of their future consoles). i simply said that they still have no answer. they're using last gen media, it would've answered a lot of their problems and propelled gaming forward if they had an answer to this problem.

(I'll put this up front: this is a long reply.)

Let's just consider Red Dead Redemption - a multiplat that does more for pushing gaming forward than any other game I can think of. While the PS3 crowd might care solely for graphics, I'm looking at the gameplay and design. Sure, KZ2 and UC2 and GOW3 are beautiful, but they're fairly standard when it comes to gameplay and actual innovation.

Look at RDR and how large the world is. Now look at the AI and the way pretty much everything, from strangers on the road to the animals you hunt, behaves in such a unique and believable way. Then factor in the day night cycle and the lighting engine. I've actually sat on my horse for ten minutes just watching the sun set and rise, it's that beautiful. Then consider the weather and how ferocious the lightening storms are and the wind ripping through the trees. This to me is the definition of a next-gen game - in its gameplay, it's visuals, it's sound, and ABOVE ALL ELSE, it's storytelling, characters, writing and acting.

If ever there was a studio that 100% disputed the supposed limitations of DVD9 it's Rockstar. Of course, you can argue that on blu-ray it would've been even more spectacular, and that's probably true, but it doesn't dispute my argument that you don't need blu-ray to create a totally immersive, mind-blowing gaming experience. Nor do you need it in order to tell a good story.

Time and time again, the games that have captured my imagination the most have been on "last gen hardware", and some of them multiplats, from Arkham Asylum to Assassin's Creed, from Mass Effect to Fable. PS3 exclusives sure do make my eyeballs bleed, but so does every Michael Bay movie.

Red Dead Redemption is like a movie written by the Coen brothers, directed by Clint Eastwood, and shot by Roger Deacons. The talent and craft of the narrative is rivaled only by the massive expanse of a truly cohesive world.

And they made it all happen on that oh-so-last-gen, oh-so-antiquated Digital Versatile Disc.

I go where the true artists go. And true artists don't give a shit about the format. So neither do I.

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...so don't give me this crap about how artists don't care about format. you made some really good points and i agree with some of them, however, ideas aren't the only things that propel games forward. if you have a truly epic vision and run into space problems (like several gaming companies are complaining about), then you obviously need more space.

It is an absolute bargain, but imo the original 360 was overpriced as it is...adding 2 USB ports ad wifi couldn't have costed much and when you compare it to the competion rather than to its predecessor it is not a good price at all. Also, aren't all 360 "kinect ready" (as in compatible with kinect?)
Again, this is just my opinion.

On another note. That was a good reply. How do the "bubbles" work. I'm new lol.

These declines are on the back of extra revenue received from releasing games like Forza horizon 5 on PlayStation. So I’m being sarcastic here when I said they should go back to exclusives. Killing off a revenue stream from Ps5 sales will only make things worse

Contractual agreements are not the same as “gentlemen” agreements. If you think that they work with their distributors a month before production then their entire business model is trash. They work with companies like nvidia constantly for building the graphics cards they need. They work with companies that build motherboards years in advance. This is what proper business planning does.

They are not buying components on a whim like a consumer. So again, considering the ram isn’t a singular module and is integrated into the motherboard I highly doubt they wouldn’t have a final schematic that they are supposed to be building around.

If they are delaying production another 3 years then it’s obvious again this is an after though project and is just trying to be responsive to their bad execution they had the last 14 years.

It also isn’t far fetched to use their failure to produce first party titles the last 7 years including the highly anticipated games I mentioned all being cancelled. That they would continue to you know… lie

Yeah with FSR 5 they should be able to offer a much cheaper version of Helix.

Series S is what has killed Xbox Series so... Will they dare?

The factors are largely external. Covid and Russia-Ukraine war causing inflation led to the first price increase in 2022.

Then we get Trump's tariffs increasing hardware prices, AI boom causing a RAM crisis, war on Iran causing a worldwide fuel crisis which impacts the cost of everything.

Gaming doesn't exist in a vacuum. The last few years have been a shitshow and lot of it was definitely avoidable.

LucasRuinedChildhood,

For sure. No disagreement on the external factors doing a lot of this. Where I have to gently push back however is on two fronts:

1. The pandemic definitely caused some issues: asynchronous development was a big issue and really complicated timelines and affected game quality. At the same time, when it comes to price hikes, it's really difficult to know what was genuine necessity and what was taking consumers for a ride. The pandemic brought about "stag-flation" which was increasing prices and stagnant wages, which was a problem caused by supply chain constraints. There was also "Greed-flation", where companies that were slightly affected or had no issues took advantage of the situation and squeezed everyone citing supply chain issues when there were none.

2. It's definitely true that the tariffs, AI boom, and RAM crisis were all things enabled by tech broligarchs throwing money at this caricature of a world leader, one of them being Satya Nadella. I don't think Sony and Nintendo have contributed much to this problem if at all, but Microsoft's Nadella I feel was instrumental in causing every one of those issues. Microsoft as a company contributed to both candidates (though they gave Harris 4x as much if I recall), but Nadella was all in on letting AI run wild. He paid for unregulated AI, and got a war that's not a war (even though Trump called it that at least five times on television) that screwed up helium access. So for me, I feel that one of the players in the gaming industry is a key architect of these issues, and for that reason I struggle a bit to think of it as "external".