All you need? (pic: Nintendo)



The Tuesday letters page debates the risk factor of single-player and live service games, as one reader is confused as to how Gollum happened.



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Full Nintendo So I have always had the three consoles since 2009, with the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Wii, but I have recently sold my PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and am just sticking with my Nintendo Switch for now. for many reasons. One of the main reasons is the game release schedule and length of the games. I work full time and I’m also a father at home, so I don’t always have time and money to play game after game after game. And with PlayStation and Xbox there’s almost a new game every two weeks and these modern games now all seem to have to be 50-100+ hour games, so I was never really finishing the games before a new release.



A lot of new releases I wanted clashed with each other, so it was always a tough choice, especially October to December period whereas, yes, the Switch does have some very lengthy games (like Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom) but they don’t all release in the same few weeks, so you have time to actually play and enjoy the lengthy AAA game without feeling like you need to rush.



Another reason is how easy the Switch is to use around family times, there’s so many child-friendly games available my daughter can join in on the fun or when she’s asleep if my wife wants to watch the TV I can just play the game I want in handheld model. We can both enjoy our evening. I’m sure I’m not the only one who is thinking of just going full Nintendo.



Their first party games are great for all people and they have a good amount of third party games available, like FIFA 23 and The Witcher 3 Also, the price difference between the consoles is fairly big. To get a PlayStation 5 now is £480, an Xbox Series X is £450 unless you want the all-digital S at £250. But the Switch has a good amount of different models, all at available prices starting from £199 for a Switch :ite up to £310 for the Switch OLED.



Even with upgrading the storage, the Switch just requires a micro SD card, which vary in prices depending on size but, as an example, a 1TB card is around £45. Whereas to get a storage expansion for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, that allows you to play next gen games off it, can cost you up to £190 just for a 1TB. I hope you have found this helpful and interesting and help you make a decision if you’re thinking on starting gaming for the first time or upgrading an older console. Anon



Final decision Less than a month till Final Fantasy 16 comes out and I have mixed feelings. On one hand it looks beautiful, surely the story can’t be as bad as 15… it could be incredible.



However, on the other hand, they are charging extra to buy equipment that boosts experience, which leaves a sour taste in the mouth when the games are extremely highly priced these days.



Final Fantasy is the reason I invested in the PlayStation 5, so I will end up buying it no doubt, but GC’s review will determine, whether I buy it as soon as I’ve finished reading your review or six months later when it goes on sale.



No pressure! Michael



Sensible decision So it seems like the reason The Last Of Us multiplayer hasn’t been seen in public since it was first announced is because… it’s not very good . That is not an explanation I was expecting but I guess it makes sense. It really does seem like the wheels are coming off at PlayStation at the moment. And yet, if they have the sense to get Bungie to come in, as an impartial opinion, and say it needs works that is actually a really good use of Sony’s various assets.



A bad spin-off coming out on the heels of the PC version of The Last Of Us Part 1 would’ve been the last thing they needed. But it may be the wake up call that Naughty Dog need, to stop getting high on their own hype. If it is bad, I’d just forget it and quietly cancel it when people aren’t looking. Much better to get on with the next proper game than waste more time on something nobody wanted in the first place.



If The Last Of Us multiplayer was cancelled not only would I not care I’d actually be happy. Both because it’s something I’m personally not interested and because it shows Sony don’t believe in the sunk cost fallacy. Royston



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Out of control There’s two things I don’t get with the Gollum that I don’t get. Well, three, if you don’t count the obvious ‘Who’d want a game based on Gollum?’ The first is why anyone thought that ridiculous looking design would be a good idea, with the cross-eyes and bowl haircut. It’s just laughable.



The second is don’t the rights holders have any interest in how these things turn out? I know since Tolkien’s son died things have been more lax but this is the sort of thing that wouldn’t have flown even at the height of cash-in Star Wars movies during the early 2000s.



Likes someone else said, it’s funny because I don’t have any interest in it personally, but the whole thing is kind of ridiculous really and there’s no way things should’ve got this far. Entwined



Attention span Game and time, in a nutshell. I bought Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom on Monday, played for approximately three to four hours over the next few days, got stuck/lost/confused in the snowy area of the tutorial stages and it was up for sale and sold on Saturday afternoon. How I had the capacity to finish Breath Of The Wild beats me.



When the scope and scale of the game became apparent (i.e. absolutely staggering in every respect) it was abundantly clear that I would never, ever have the time or sustained interest (or memory of what I needed to do) to complete it, or even get halfway to completing it. Life gets in the way and as I get older and take more on, something has to give. In this case, it’s time for gaming.



Back to 10 minute sessions of Tetris 99. Phil303



Risks and dead certs Money, that is why Sony is interested in live service game. Fortnite has made nearly $25 billion worth of revenue in six years. Put that into context, Elden Ring’s only made $804 million and that’s if everyone of the 13.4 million copies was sold for $60 (unlikely). FromSoftware can only produce one Elden Ring every four to seven years, so that’ at least four years with zero revenue.



Harry Potter is the biggest game of the year so far in sales and will break a billion in profit but they will probably take seven years to make the next one, same with Zelda. Of course, it’s very unlikely any of Sony’s live service games will reach those types of numbers. Even if just a couple if games manage to reach revenues into the hundred of millions it will greatly smooth out the up and down of their gaming division revenue.



Single person triple-A games are brilliant for us players but the time to produce such games, and with budgets now reaching hundreds of millions, they aren’t brilliant for the game companies and very, very high risk. I’m still 100% convinced that Sony has got another PlayStation Studios focused show this year, or at least a few trailers or a State of Play for single-player games coming up this year. Anon



GC: Single-player games aren’t high risk; live service games are. From can pretty much guarantee all their Souslike games will be a hit. The last few years are drowning in Fortnite wannabes that crashed and burned within just a few months.



Hella good I have been surprised to read the negativity in the Inbox over the last few days towards Helldivers 2. I thought the PlayStation Showcase was really poor but Helldivers 2 was one of two games that stood out for me. (The other being The Plucky Squire.)



For me it looks fun, vibrant and a great online game to play with mates. Pigfish2 (PSN ID)



No lessons learnt So Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom has now been in peoples’ hands for two weeks and there have already been a number of letters in the Inbox complaining about the graphics, and even a comment that the game would be ‘better on PS5’. I’m not sure how more polygons would improve the quest and level design, but maybe that’s just me.



I sent in a letter a while back about my incredulity that the graphics conversation is one we’re still apparently having and wishing that developers would spend resources on improving AI and physics systems instead of just prettier lighting, and Tears of the Kingdom proves that this is exactly what Nintendo have done. (Well, maybe not for AI…)



I’ve seen several instances recently of other game developers having their minds blown over what Nintendo have managed to actually do. The problem often being that a general audience often won’t even realise the complexity involved, they’ll just realise that something ‘looks right’.



These are a couple of the examples I came across, and when you have other game developers describing what’s being done as ‘black magic’, then clearly something is being done right. And yet we still get people moaning about the graphics… Despite it still being a very pretty game with a distinctive art style, just not a photorealistic one.



Sadly, the fact that the Switch is so underpowered when compared to the other consoles just proves that this is the sort of thing we could have been getting for at least the last two console generations, but getting there takes so much time, effort, and care that many publishers just aren’t willing to give development studios the resources to do it.



If the rumours are true that Tears Of The Kingdom was basically finished a year ago, and the last 12 months has been purely about polish, then that just shows how much time is needed to get a game to this level. So you can kind of see why so many publishers would rather get the game out the door and earning money.



I’m hoping that Zelda’s success might make publishers think twice about how they go about releasing games going forward, but I fear they’ll take away the wrong lessons, as usual. Sparky the Yak



GC: It wasn’t a rumour about the 12 months of polish, that was according to the producer.



Inbox also-rans I can’t believe that with all the things going wrong with Sony at the moment the one thing people are obsessed with is Days Gone 2. I can’t think of any sequel less likely to help their current predicament. Cable



I wish we’d heard something about Castlevania at Sony’s event. Surely that’s far better known than Silent Hill? I don’t understand why we’re getting 100 more games of them and none of a game everyone knows really well from Netflix, Metroidvanias, and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. Gosford



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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.



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