Games Inbox: When did you last buy a video game from a physical store?

The Thursday letters page is upset at the cancellation of the Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time remake, as one reader is very excited by the prospect of new Virtual Boy games.

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

New reality
I’d say I’m sad to hear that GAME is in administration (again) but to be honest I haven’t thought about them in years and reading your story I realised I haven’t see one in just as long. If they’re inside Sports Direct stores I’d never know but they don’t seem to advertise that they are.

I don’t think anyone would admit to liking GAME, they were just the biggest chain for the longest time, buying up their competitors, and now they’ve come to the end of the rope, because their business no longer really exists.

I’m curious to know from other readers when you last bought a new (not second-hand) physical game from anywhere on the high street. I think it must be well over five years for me. I don’t even remember when I used CeX for anything, as you might as well just get the same things cheaper and cleaner off eBay.

I’m sure GAME made mistakes but at the end of the day people just don’t buy physical games anymore. I’m not sure why, considering it’s much more expensive digitally, for new releases, but that’s the reality we live in now.

There’s no way to turn the clock back for GAME and while they seemed to want to turn themselves into some kind of toy shop, I doubt that’s worked out either, because who’s going to go in a sports shop to buy board games and Funko Pops?
Focus

The truth will out
Considering how many people are being made redundant at Ubisoft, now and in the future (and the fact that a lot of them are going to be French) I’m sure we’ll learn exactly what was going on with Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time and the other games in quite a bit of detail.

Cancelling a game that is 99% finished seems madness so either it was embarrassingly bad or it was some kind of tax write off or something. I mean, how bad could it be that it wouldn’t be worth trying to recoup some of your money? Especially as this is the company that released Skull And Bones and is still making Beyond Good And Evil 2, so it’s not like they aren’t used to sticking with a lost cause.

I doubt Ubisoft are long for this world though. They’re still making terrible decisions, they still won’t give up on live service games, and now they’re talking about AI too. I really don’t see it ending well for them. I would’ve liked to see The Sands Of Time remake before they went though, because that one screenshot looked pretty good to me.
Tony T.

Red letter day
It’s been a long time since a game announcement has got me excited, after many years of letdown after letdown (looking at you Shenmue 3). But now I am genuinely excited about the two previously unreleased Virtual Boy games coming to Switch.

I’ve long been a fan of the quirky console, so this news is to me the equivalent of GTA 6 for most gamers.
Mark Matthews

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

Demonic return
I saw the trailer for the new Bubsy 4D game, which I thought is quite humorous and it makes a joke about a certain game with the number 6 in the title this year. I played one or two of the Bubsy games in the nineties, they were very average and I think I either rented them or borrowed them from a friend.

I am interested in the new game, as it is being made by the developer Fabraz, who has made the well-reviewed Demon Turf games.
Andrew J.

Hardware decisions
As an old school PlayStation 4 owner I can tell you now that bothering me with ads every time I turn the console on is not going to convince me to buy a PlayStation 5. I do want one in theory but the prices going up is a real turn-off, as you can imagine.

With the talk of the PlayStation 6 at the moment, I’m also wary of spending any money on a new console. If Sony want people to upgrade they should make it plain what kind of timeframe they’re thinking of with the PlayStation 6 and if these rumours of a new PlayStation Portable are true.

A new portable that is basically the PlayStation 5 equivalent of a Switch 2 would be interesting to me, although I’d dread to think how much it would cost. I don’t like wasting money on hardware when it’s the games I’m interested in, and I will not buy a new console until it’s either a bargain or I know I’ll get at least seven years of use out of it.
The Bishop

Everything is relative
I wonder what convinced your reader that Metroid Prime 4 is a flop commercially and critically? It’s currently sitting at 78 on Metacritic (and 80 audience score). It’s certainly not the 10/10 banger we would have hoped for but it’s not a critical flop by a long way.

And commercially we haven’t heard anything official from Nintendo regarding sales numbers, nor what their expectations were in order to class it as a commercial flop.

Anyway, I have been meaning to write in since just before Christmas to thank you for putting Maze Mice and Games Nest in your mobile reviews, both have been very entertaining to play; Maze Mice being a mad cross of Pac-Man and Snake, where you are constantly trying to kill your own tail, and Games Nest just being classic games ad free.

Please keep up the good work!
Solabound

GC: We’ll find out how much Metroid Prime 4 sold in Nintendo’s next financial report, but it certainly didn’t chart well and will have been expensive to make, given the extended development time.

The mighty has fallen
Can’t believe GAME is about to say bye bye too. Every game I bought for the PlayStation 4 I either got from Amazon or GAME and if digital is slowly taking over disc, then I’ve got a feeling soon CeX will be struggling with no games to sell on, due to digital being crowned king.

It’s a sad time really, another thing that will soon go the way of VHS. Shame people don’t realise disc is always cheaper at some point, after a game comes out.
David

GC: Digital overtook physical sales a long time ago.

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Enough is enough
The Gallery finally broke me! I’m giving up on Blue Prince after over 40 hours of play. It was a superb puzzle game, with unique mechanics that devolved into an absolute frustrating slog. Why on Earth is this game so long?! Apparently I wasn’t even halfway through!

I’m in the less than 14% of players on PlayStation 5 who have actually found Room 46, imagine how few have complete all the puzzles! When only a fraction of players see most of your game isn’t there something wrong there? If I could give developers one message it would be respect my time. No one has 100 hours to spare for every game they play. Less is more.

As for the picture puzzles in the Gallery room themselves, I’d be really interested if any readers solved them on their own. I got the first one myself but the other three were so annoyingly obtuse. Having now looked up the answers, they seem extremely unfair, especially as one solution had the American spelling! Definitely not my game of the year!
Ryan O’D

GC: We agree it’s definitely overrated. It’s a good game but the randomness and the slow pacing felt unnecessary to us.

Inbox also-rans
If Sony want me to ‘upgrade’ to a PlayStation 5 they can offer me a swap deal. Even then I’d like it designed to look like my little PS4 Slim. Oh, and it’s a straight swap, no money exchanged. I’m not getting one is probably my point.
Bobwallett

I don’t think you can get enough of Leon in Resident Evil Requiem and I love the idea that Capcom asked its female devs to make him as hot as possible. Although I would’ve never guessed he was meant to be 50.
Klump

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

The small print
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