Games Inbox: Is PlayStation right to abandon the PC?

The Wednesday letters page is intrigued by Yoshi And The Mysterious Book, as a reader dreams of a big budget Transformers game from Hasbro.

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

Slow realisation
So it’s pretty hard not to take the news about Sony abandoning the PC as anything but good news. For starters it’s an acknowledgement that it was a dumb idea in the first place, to remove a big reason for buying a PlayStation 5. For second, it implies they’re also moving back from live service games and concentrating more on single-player.

I know they didn’t say that exactly (they’d see it as showing weakness, even if it is true) but if even Hasbro can realise that chasing live service games is a fool’s errand then it’s about time Sony woke up as well.

I’m going to be the millionth person to say it, but they’ve wasted this generation with their nonsense and it’s only because Xbox has failed harder that they haven’t been punished for it. Just go back to making games like you did on the PlayStation 4 and stop thinking you can make the next Fortnite. That’s not what fans want, they want the next The Last Of Us and God Of War – and I don’t mean actual sequels but games of equivalent quality.
Clem

Sloppy lies
Every time I hear Xbox running their mouth about big changes and amazing innovation all I can think of is AI. I can’t think of anything else they could possibly do that would change anything and considering it’s Microsoft… it’s definitely going to be AI. And it’ll be awful.

In short, I don’t believe a word they’re saying about anything. There is no way they’re going back to having exclusives, even though they keep pretending they will, and as much as they say they understand people not liking AI slop I don’t believe that either. Or they wouldn’t have employed all those people who were AI experts and know nothing about games.
Limpton

One good game
Having over 1,000 pokémon is crazy but I do kind of admire it as well. I don’t recognise any but a fraction of them nowadays but I find that kind of cool, because it means there’s so many that come as a surprise, even beyond the new ones they add with each new sequel.

After enjoying Pokopia, I’m feeling surprisingly enthusiastic about Winds and Waves, especially as the trailer looked good, with some nice graphics. Even if you don’t care anything about Pokémon, it’s useful proof that there’s nothing wrong with a struggling franchise that can’t be solved by a good game. Halo and co. should bear that in mind.
Tridangle

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

Time travel
The visuals, sound, and driving is pretty much faultless on Forza Horizon 6. Turning up the Japanese radio station and entering those over-the-top, crazy events is the closest feeling I’ve had to being in an arcade in the 90s since being in an arcade in the 90s.

I thought it’s going to be much of the same and it is in a way, but it doesn’t feel like it for some reason, absolutely more refined, no doubt.

The loading is notably quicker between driving and menus, having cars appear as roadside bargains always makes me stop what I’m doing to see what it is and how much.

Tokyo city itself, now I’ve gone round it a little bit more, seems like a mix of Metropolis Street Racer and Need for Speed Underground 2, they’re the vibes it’s giving me with how the road layouts are. It’s ticking all the boxes for me.

I’m not sure what they’d do to improve it apart from getting rid of all the Horizon festival nonsense. It’s the weakest part for me but I know it holds the whole game together. Been playing it since it’s early release last week and it’s very impressive.
Nick The Greek

Don’t miss Gaming news! Add us as a Preferred Source

As a loyal GameCentral reader, we want to make sure you never miss our articles when searching for gaming stories. We have all the latest video games news, reviews, previews, and interviews, with a vibrant community of highly engaged readers.

Click the button below and tick Metro.co.uk to ensure you see stories from us first in Google Search.

Advertisement

Add us as a Preferred Source

Roll out
I can only imagine how happy GC is about the idea of big budget Transformers. I’d say I don’t believe it, because it just seems too much money for what is not quite big enough a franchise, but $1 billion is a lot of money for Hasbro to be investing.

Actually, reading the guy with the unfortunate surname’s comments he sounds completely on the ball, especially in terms of saying no to live service games. It seems that lesson is finally being learnt, even though it should’ve just bene common sense. But better late than never, eh?

Let’s hope we get an annoucement of something cool this summer or at The Games Awards.
Gantz

Great shot kid, that’s one in 300 million!
One of my favourite arcade games ever was mentioned by Grackle on Tuesday, so I thought it was about time I showed off mine! I collect vintage arcade machines from the golden age of arcades. I have 12 in my flat, including Space Invaders, Pac-Man, Defender and Star Wars, which cost me a fortune and continues to do so!

Classic arcade machines were not built to last. They were meant to make money for an arcade operator/chip shop owner/pub landlord, etc. for a year or four and then be skipped, burnt on a bonfire, or pushed off the end of a seaside pier into the sea! Yes, that did actually used to happen! So it takes a lot of skill and effort to keep these old machines working.

I can do the very basics, testing voltages with a multimeter, pushing down on chips that might have become unseated, cleaning the edge connectors, etc., but if anything else goes wrong you have to send your PCB, or monitor, or the whole machine off to an expert to repair them. When I bought Star Wars it was working, when it left the seller, but by the time it was delivered to me by a courier it had developed a fault. Every time I turned it on it tripped my fusebox.

After trying several things suggested by the seller, I eventually gave up and hired a courier to take it to a company to repair. They couldn’t sort it, so I had to get the courier to take it back to the seller who repaired it for me for nothing, which was fantastic, but it was costing me £90 each time I used the courier. I got it home and enjoyed playing it for a good few months until the PCB developed a fault. I sent it off for repair and got it back in working order again soon after. Last year it got another fault on the PCB and I have now had it repaired again.

So you see, owning these machines is a dream for some, myself included, but the initial cost isn’t the only cost. If you want to relive your youth and play Atari Star Wars again, they have the cockpit and upright versions at Arcade Club Bury, AC Leeds, and AC Blackpool. I loved the game so much that when I was a kid I would make a 16 mile round trip to an arcade in Tamworth on my bicycle to play the cockpit version.

My friend Robert Mruczek, who was in the film The King of Kong, is a world record holder on Star Wars. In 1984, he scored over 300 million points! It took 49 hours. Obviously, you can’t pause an arcade machine. He told me that he didn’t go to the toilet at all during those 49 hours!
Tim Keeling

Dark horse
Interesting review of Yoshi And The Mysterious Book. I had forgotten the game even existed but it’s got an 81 on Metacritic, which is really good. It seems that Nintendo is doing well with these less anticipated games, especially Pokémon Pokopia, but it’s the ones with all the expectation on them that they’ve struggled with.

I don’t know if that’s going to be a thing going forward but if there’s one thing Metroid Prime 4 and Mario Kart World proved, it’s that no matter how long a game has in development or how big the name is you can still get a disappointing game. Nobody was going to be disappointed by Yoshi, just surprised if it turned out good.
Zeiss

Endless Horizon
Forza Horizon 6 is here. It’s been a long wait. I pre-ordered. That’s something I very rarely do these days, but I couldn’t resist. Is it worth it, though ?

Where to start? Well, the game looks great, runs great on Xbox Series X. 60fps. I had a frame rate problem the one time I used quick resume, otherwise no issues; smooth. The car handling, excellent. The amount of stuff to do (race events, stunt events, collectibles, barn finds, and much more) is mind-boggling; a bit overwhelming if you’re a Forza Horizon newbie.

Over 500 cars at launch, expect this figure to rise up to 900 or more in the coming months. It doesn’t break the Forza Horizon mould; it’s evolution, with some new stuff added, rather than revolution. But, the real star of the show this time around is the map. It is huge! The design is absolutely incredible! Awesome!

A few new game modes will be added to the evolving world of Forza Horizon 6 in the future; the festival playlist starts on May 21st, offering the chance to win rare cars and provide more longevity. I’m expecting several hundred hours of playtime from this game.

So, the answer to the question ‘Is it worth it?’ is, of course it is. Definitely. But then, I never expected it not to be. Having played the previous five games and loved them all (1,105 hours, single-player, out of Forza Horizon 4) it was never in doubt.

9.5/10. Possibly a 10.
Paul C.
PS: Arcade racers are a bit of a dying breed these days. All the big name franchises seem to have fallen by the wayside. A shame, that is. Would love to see a new Project Gotham Racing and a new Burnout. There’s still a big market for this type of racer. The Horizon series is proof of that.

Inbox also-rans
If there is not a Nintendo Direct in June, in the usual slot or close to it, that will be absolutely crazy. When is Nintendo going to tell us about their big Christmas game? Christmas Eve?!
Jonno

Am I the only one that doesn’t like the Ghost Of Tsushima games? People talk about Assassin’s Creed being bland but I got bored of both these games in a couple of hours (I only borrowed the second one).
Qwent

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

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.

MORE: Games Inbox: When will GTA 6 pre-orders start?

MORE: Games Inbox: Will Nintendo make more cross-gen Switch games?

MORE: Games Inbox: Is Forza Horizon the best arcade racer franchise?