Remember that game you fell in love with years ago? Horizon Zero Dawn? Well, it’s back with a remaster, During PlayStation’s State of Play this week, the
In order for Sony to sell the game again and a PS5 (or PS5 Pro) to you - or at least, in a couple of years, the remaster to those who bought the original PC port. There are still about twice as many PS4 than PS5 consoles due to a lack of both exclusives and actual reasons to switch over to the newer system. It doesn’t help that more and more people are realizing that one should replace any mention of “the economy” in the media with “rich people’s yacht money”, given how little average people are benefiting from it anymore, which means disposable income is down. The PS4, despite being almost 11 years old now and still relying on a mechanical HDD (unless you upgrade it), is simply “good enough” in the eyes of many. Microsoft has the same issue, of course, except from a much weaker position in the market. The law of diminishing returns makes newer consoles a hard sell.
At the same time, PC gaming is highly accessible, PC hardware is lasting longer for gaming than ever before (in large part due to the longevity of the previous console generation keeping hardware requirements of most multiplatform games in check) and now that former exclusives are finding their way over at a reliable pace, there are fewer reasons for those that are primarily playing on PC to get a console just for the exclusives. As fantastic as Astrobot looks and as much as I appreciate the return of the classic 3D platformer with physics and shiny new graphics, it won’t make me purchase a PS5 any time soon or ever.
Sony is still producing both PS4 and PS4 Pro (whereas Microsoft discontinued both Xbox One consoles four years ago; they are still supporting the previous gen though), games are still being developed for them, despite first party studios having switched over to PS5 by now. Third party developers who were once happy about the low number of hardware variations they had to deal with now have to handle up to nine different systems if they want to release a game on all currently supported games consoles (ten when Switch 2 comes out) - plus PC and Steam Deck, which might just as well be another console as far as developers are concerned. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen cross-gen games that aren’t just yearly sports titles being made for this long into a new generation at such a large scale. We certainly haven’t had such a wide variety of systems since the early home computer era, even if their architectures and capabilities are much more similar now than they were back then.
It looks fine, but why is this game being remastered?
In order for Sony to sell the game again and a PS5 (or PS5 Pro) to you - or at least, in a couple of years, the remaster to those who bought the original PC port. There are still about twice as many PS4 than PS5 consoles due to a lack of both exclusives and actual reasons to switch over to the newer system. It doesn’t help that more and more people are realizing that one should replace any mention of “the economy” in the media with “rich people’s yacht money”, given how little average people are benefiting from it anymore, which means disposable income is down. The PS4, despite being almost 11 years old now and still relying on a mechanical HDD (unless you upgrade it), is simply “good enough” in the eyes of many. Microsoft has the same issue, of course, except from a much weaker position in the market. The law of diminishing returns makes newer consoles a hard sell.
At the same time, PC gaming is highly accessible, PC hardware is lasting longer for gaming than ever before (in large part due to the longevity of the previous console generation keeping hardware requirements of most multiplatform games in check) and now that former exclusives are finding their way over at a reliable pace, there are fewer reasons for those that are primarily playing on PC to get a console just for the exclusives. As fantastic as Astrobot looks and as much as I appreciate the return of the classic 3D platformer with physics and shiny new graphics, it won’t make me purchase a PS5 any time soon or ever.
Sony is still producing both PS4 and PS4 Pro (whereas Microsoft discontinued both Xbox One consoles four years ago; they are still supporting the previous gen though), games are still being developed for them, despite first party studios having switched over to PS5 by now. Third party developers who were once happy about the low number of hardware variations they had to deal with now have to handle up to nine different systems if they want to release a game on all currently supported games consoles (ten when Switch 2 comes out) - plus PC and Steam Deck, which might just as well be another console as far as developers are concerned. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen cross-gen games that aren’t just yearly sports titles being made for this long into a new generation at such a large scale. We certainly haven’t had such a wide variety of systems since the early home computer era, even if their architectures and capabilities are much more similar now than they were back then.