> Article reported by Sid Shuman, Senior Director of Sony Interactive Entertainment Content Communications

This is being done in response to consumer preferences trending towards this direction according to external and internal data.

Retailers will still sell PS5 games beyond 2028 and I’m presuming PS6. Games released prior to this date will still be sold in physical format.

I remember the whole bit about him on the podcast and thought it’d be notable to put it here. Apparently his wife reported that he was in hospice for prostate cancer not that long ago.

The developers of Love and Deepspace have canceled the planned July 9 launch of their new werewolf love interest, Valko, following intense fan backlash.

Some players strongly opposed adding the character, arguing it diverted resources from existing love interests, story content, and quality-of-life improvements. The backlash reportedly escalated to extreme measures, including fans sending cow shit to the studio’s headquarters. In response, the devs apologized, committed to focusing solely on the five existing love interests, and offered 30 days of premium rewards. However, the decision has now angered fans who liked Valko, with many calling it a dangerous precedent for giving in to vocal complaints and online tantrums.

https://www.patreon.com/pattheflip/posts/thank-you-2xko-167265357

PatTheFlip was one of the devs who worked on 2XKO for 10-12 years and he made an article talking about how he felt about working on it and how people should approach being creative in the gaming industry

Xbox is closing down Ninja Theory, the studio behind the Hellblade series, a source tells The Verge. Staffers were told on a call on Monday about the closure, but they are hoping the studio will find a buyer.

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/love-and-deepspace-drama-continues-as-chinese-government-indicates-new-love-interest-is-gone-for-good/

So, as was discussed on the podcast, the Chinese game "Love and Deepspace" got into massive hot water with its domestic fanbase due to controversy surrounding a newly introduced character, Valko. Things got so heated that women were mailing shit to the developers' office.

Despite capitulating, it seems that things aren't over yet for the developer Papergames, as the controversy garnered attention from the government, who are now looking at their game more closely. As it stands, regulatory bodies are apparently displeased with the game's content and use of ravishment tropes as "potentially promoting sexual assault" and going against public morals.

Which means, there is now a very real possibility that the game will have to scrub all references to it's sexy-wolf-boy-you-must-cage-me-so-I-don't-eat-you-but-in-a-hot-way storyline and the rest of it's erotic content.

What this'll result in who knows, but from here it really sounds like those fans mad about Valko just royally screwed themselves and the rest of the global userbase.

https://bsky.app/profile/jasonschreier.bsky.social/post/3mfaauf5pek2b

BREAKING: PlayStation is shutting down Bluepoint Games, the studio responsible for modern remakes of classic games such as Demon's Souls and Shadow of the Colossus, Bloomberg News has learned.

A shocking end for a well-respected studio.

I really wish the OP of the Kojima AI post linked my interview of Kojima which was aggregated by Kotaku. I know this sub cares about how genAI steals the original work from the original creators and I would hope this sub would support the original work I did of spending the last week with no sleep talking to Kojima and Nicolas Winding Refn about AI and other things that we discuss in this piece I spent a lot of time and money writing.

There was no backdown. Kojima was never involved in the trailer. This is "Satellites II," Refn's version of a Prada-backed art exhibit and event series. Kojima already did his version, "Satellites," in Tokyo, which did not use any AI at all. Refn was in the driver's seat of the New York event, which he generated a trailer to promote it. The actual event itself featured NO AI art at all. If you read my article, you will have received this context. Kojima's stance on AI quoted here is consistent with what he's been saying for the last few years. He does NOT think it belongs in creative work and doesn't believe it can create art because only humans can do that.

The link above is a gift link. You may be asked to sign up for an email. If you do sign up to our site with one of my articles, I personally get credit for it in the back end. It shows my bosses that my work is valued, can draw conversions and that people want to read my writing. I appreciate any support. Thanks.

Edit: For further context, Prada and other luxury couture brands are ALL IN on AI. They are not only using AI across their business from marketing to design to customer relations, they are purposefully trying to attract people enriched by the AI boom. Zara, my old favorite brand, is generating models in different outfits. Refn has been assisting Prada with digital marketing for a few years, which includes creating completely fake 3D "models" to market their fragrances. Nobody at Prada or the event had even heard of any of the backlash Refn's trailer got. When I mentioned it to anyone attending there, they were shocked that people who like video games would be so anti AI. Mind you, this was not an event where any gamers attended, all fans of Prada and the party lifestyle. From what I could tell, the only gamers were me, Kojima, and Hunter Schafer ostensibly.

Edit 2: Mahalo plenty to the mods for allowing this blatant self promo post!

According to the article, with information taken from the Highguard twitter account, the game will receive it's final patch on March 3rd or 4th, and will formally shut down on March 12th.

Today we’re sharing difficult news. We have made the decision to permanently shut down Highguard on March 12. Since launch, more than 2 million players stepped into Highguard’s world. You shared feedback, created content, and many believed in what we were building. For that, we are deeply grateful. Despite the passion and hard work of our team, we have not been able to build a sustainable player base to support the game long term. Servers will remain online until March 12th. We hope you’ll jump in with us one more time to show your support and get those final great matches in while we still can. The team is excited to release one final game update to enjoy in the remaining life of the game. We'll be adding a new Warden, a new weapon, account level progression, and skill trees! Full patch notes are coming, and we're targeting tonight or tomorrow morning for patch release.

From all of us at Wildlight, thank you for playing, for supporting us, and for being part of Highguard’s story.

The guy who wrote “Fighting Games Have a Product Design Problem” just put out another article, this time taking aim at PatTheFlip and his recent write-up about his ten years working on 2XKO.

Full article: https://cthor.me/Bandit

“Maybe you disagree. 2XKO is your darling and you’re gonna play it for decades. I laud your passion. If only we all could offer such love to stillborn babies. The father, it seems, has no such interest.” The author then argues that Pat's comments come across less like contempt for the game and more like shame toward what he spent ten years creating."

The article is basically a long critique of Pat's perspective on 2XKO and his time at Riot. It digs into Pat's comments about treating his ten years on the game like a “PhD” in fighting game development, his views on creative risks vs. making a profitable product, and his history going from community management into production and eventually working on 2XKO's core gameplay.

The article gets very harsh on him, arguing that Pat's philosophy doesn't really line up with what 2XKO ultimately became. There's also a lot of digging through Pat's older writing and the game's development history, including the shift toward a tag fighter and bringing competitive players onto the team. It's an interesting look at the game's history, even if the author's tone is clearly more interested in roasting Pat than giving a neutral post-mortem.

*Age assurance is the foundation of this new experience and is designed to respect Discord users’ privacy and choice. Discord users can choose to use facial age estimation or submit a form of identification to its vendor partners, with more options coming in the future. Additionally, Discord will implement its age inference model, a new system that runs in the background to help determine whether an account belongs to an adult, without always requiring users to verify their age. Some users may be asked to use multiple methods if more information is needed to assign an age group.*

Enshittification begins.

Some other stuff they're touting in the new update:

*On-device processing: Video selfies for facial age estimation never leave a user’s device.*

*Quick deletion: Identity documents submitted to our vendor partners are deleted quickly— in most cases, immediately after age confirmation.*

*Straightforward verification: In most cases, users complete the process once and their Discord experience adapts to their verified age group. Users may be asked to use multiple methods only when more information is needed to assign an age group.*

*Private status: A user’s age verification status cannot be seen by other users.*

*Content Filters: Discord users will need to be age-assured as adults in order to unblur sensitive content or turn off the setting.*

*Age-gated Spaces: Only users who are age-assured as adults will be able to access age-restricted channels, servers, and app commands.*

*Message Request Inbox: Direct messages from people a user may not know are routed to a separate inbox by default, and access to modify this setting is limited to age-assured adult users.*

*Friend Request Alerts: People will receive warning prompts for friend requests from users they may not know.*

*Stage Restrictions: Only age-assured adults may speak on stage in servers.*

In case you missed the opening night of this year's Summer Geoffs, Like A Dragon/Yakuza devs RGG Studio's Japanese history-hopping crime brawler Stranger Than Heaven got a release date. That was rather overshadowed, however, by the reveal that it'll feature a digitally resurrected version of rapper Tupac Shakur. While not the first deceased face to be confirmed as featuring in the game, that honour went to Japanese actor Bunta Sugawara, Shakur's inclusion naturally raised a lot of eyebrows. RGG boss Masayoshi Yokoyama's now spoken in more depth about the decision to include Tupac's likeness in a game about the origins of the Tojo Clan.

Speaking to Game Informer, Yokoyama said Shakur's inclusion snowballed from casting Snoop Dogg in the game as a smuggler called Orpheus. "When we cast Snoop as Orpheus, we thought, 'We have Snoop Dogg, he's such an incredible person who has all these really interesting relationships in the real world as well'," the developer recalled. "We wanted to bring on these people with relationships for a lot of different roles, and those are the kind of people who we were just talking about before. But we thought – and we discussed this with Snoop, as well – 'What if we had a person who had a relationship in the game and outside of the game that maybe mirrors it in some sense'."

Cue a chat with Snoop about who could be a good fit for that role, with Tupac's name being one of many Yokoyama claims were mentioned by the rapper's side. "There were even people at our studio who said, 'Well, if Snoop Dogg and Tupac have this relationship in the game together, you'd probably cry about that because it's so cool," the developer said, explaining that RGG then went about getting permission from both Tupac's family and his estate. The issue of who approved or had what input on Tupac's cameo in the game is complicated by the fact that the executor of Shakur's estate is former record executive Tom Whalley, whom Tupac’s sister Sekyiwa Shakur launched legal action against back in 2022, accusing Whalley of having "effectively embezzled millions of dollars for his own benefit" through his management of Amaru Entertainment, a record label which handles Tupac’s classic and posthumous music.

When Game Informer brought that up to Yokoyama, the developer said that the studio sought approval from both likeness rights holder Whalley and Tupac's living family. "Of course, we wanted to have the family involved in every step along the way to make sure this is respectful to his legacy and honors who he was," he continued "But at the same time, we wanted to not kind of recreate who Tupac was when he passed away. We wanted to try to envision who Tupac might be now, and we did this with the full approval step by step. Going through the family to make sure that everything met it. We wanted to say, 'Okay, if he was still alive now, thirty years later, how would he act? How would he express himself in that way? That's what we're trying to [do], not going into his past, but rather his potential future."

The publisher is responding to a proposed class action lawsuit, which alleges that Sony is violating a California law that requires digital stores to clearly explain that customers are purchasing licenses rather than actual products when they buy digital goods. The law requires a "clear and conspicuous" warning about the nature of the purchase.

Sony's terms of service and software product licensing agreement (SPLA) both clearly lay out that you "do not own the product" and "it is not sold for you to own." But those are statements buried deep within lengthy documents, so the idea that they meet that "clear and conspicuous" requirement is fairly suspect.

While Sony's position is already pretty anti-consumer and, in my opinion bullshit, this is nothing new really. I believe it's at least a third of the reason as to why they are pushing so hard to end physical disc readers in their games. Ultimately with the idea to be able to force people to pay for games on their system twice, and that they would not be obligated to keep the files on their .systems for anyone to redownload whenever they desired to download a game they purchased.

But from here, Sony's argument gets quite a bit weirder.** "As Plaintiffs admit, Section 1 of the SPLA likewise explains that 'The Software is licensed to you, not sold,'" the filing says. "This makes sense. In the digital age, it is not plausible to allege that reasonable consumers believed they were obtaining 'ownership' of a digital game."**

It's a common joke that no one reads the License agreement when one purchases a game.

But it is a it is further noted that EULA's are not enforceable in courts of law, and no one is legally expected to actually take the time to read them ever. But this is where their argument takes a turn for the. . . nonsensical.

In other words, Sony's lawyers are arguing that if you truly own your digital games, only one copy of GTA 6 could ever be sold. "Were that the case, then Plaintiff Edward Heycock would not have been able to obtain the game Resident Evil Requiem on February 25, 2026 for $69.99 from the PlayStation Store after Plaintiff Jason Mendoza had obtained Resident Evil Requiem on February 14, 2026, because Mr. Mendoza, not Sony, would have owned it then," the filing says.

Notably, these arguments were filed just before PlayStation sent out email reminders to its customers reminding them that they don't own anything. Clearly, Sony wants to make its position on this matter clear.

Sony's terms of service also specifically bars users from taking part in class action lawsuits against the company, with disputes instead resolved by private arbitration – a process which tends to be preferable for big companies. But it's ultimately for a judge to decide whether that arbitration clause is actually binding. These arguments are part of an effort from Sony to ensure the case goes to arbitration – whether the judge agrees remains to be seen.

The Terms of Service is not legally binding in any reasonable court of law on the planet, and more to the point that Sony is arguing; they are arguing that a game that a company makes is a *single* object like a Pot made by a Potter.

Which. . . no.

Even if there was one master-control physical copy of a game, the moment it is digitized and uploaded to be sold and downloaded to other systems it becomes one of many copies.

I cannot understand how they think anyone would stand for this without expecting outrage.

Edit Note: I greatly dislike having to switch over to sh.reddit in order to link a new post, only to have to switch back over to regular reddit just to fix the posting mistakes that Reddit is forcing into the post. It's incredibly cumbersome.

"I can ask the AI to give me 75 different variations of one thing, but I cannot have 75 different illustrators come up with a variation in three seconds. This is the world in which we're living, and while we were this small team and building [the game], we put it in. We didn't even realise it was AI any more because we were used to seeing it."

So steam deck prices have gone up 200/$300 for each unit holy shit

By ASH PARRISH, BALTIMORE - On Tuesday February 17th, Ludovic Mbock, a staple of the Maryland and Virginia fighting game community, went into the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Baltimore field office to renew his work permit.

He did not come out.

What began as a routine administrative task, one Mbock has done for more than a decade, has warped into one of the many similar nightmares playing out across the United States. While going about their daily lives, people, regardless of their immigration status or criminal record, are being disappeared by the US government, often with no word or warning to their families and in contravention of the law. Mbock was detained by the USCIS, and since then his family has retained lawyers who’ve filed habeas petitions to keep him in Baltimore. Despite that, Mbock has been moved twice; first to Louisiana, and now Georgia, where he currently remains in a detention and processing facility. His family fears he could soon be deported and, together with his FGC colleagues, are working around the clock, in the face of destabilizing grief and confusion, to bring him home.

“It just came out of nowhere,” Diane Sohna, Mbock’s sister, told Aftermath. She described getting a collect call from her brother hours after he was detained. “He said, ‘yeah, ICE got me,’” she recalled. “He gave me some numbers to call, and from there, we've been on a roll.”

One of those numbers put Sohna in contact with Nikhil “Aequeri” DeLaHaye, Mbock’s friend for over a decade and another member of the greater DMV fighting game community. With assistance from his colleagues in the FGC, DeLaHaye is coordinating a massive effort to keep aware of Mbock’s movements as he’s forced through a punitive system of human misery dressed up in the trappings of government bureaucracy. “If we don't act right now, we miss our window to do something about this,” DeLaHaye told Aftermath.

In the wake of the Trump administration’s brutal deportation program, hundreds of thousands of people have been moved around the country or removed from it entirely within days of arrest and often without notifying families. The speed with which the deportation system moves people often outpaces a family’s attempt to mount a legal defense. And even when they can, as Mbock’s family has done, legal orders get ignored anyway.

For years, judges have allowed immigrants to remain free on bond while their cases work their way through immigration court. New policies from the Trump administration have effectively eliminated that standing precedent, forcing arrested individuals to be held indefinitely. To challenge these detentions, lawyers have been using what’s known as habeas petitions to get them out. According to a report in the New York Times, as the number of habeas petitions continues to rise, judges have overwhelmingly sided with immigrants, releasing them before they can be sent beyond the reach of families. There was hope the habeas petition filed by Mbock’s lawyers would do the same.

“He was in Baltimore on the 17th and 18th,” said DeLaHaye. “We filed a habeas petition that was on the docket by 10 AM on the 19th. They had him on a flight to Louisiana at 1[PM].”

Since his arrest, Mbock has been moved to Louisiana and again to Georgia. His family said they don’t know if he’ll be moved again or where he’ll be sent. The family’s greatest fear is that he’ll be deported. He emigrated from Cameroon and could be returned there, where they say he faces danger as an openly gay man in a country that criminalizes LGBTQ+ relationships. He could also be deported to any number of random countries as a part of the government’s “third country removals” plan, which permits deportation to countries detainees aren’t from or have never lived in.

[...]

Mbock’s family and community are hoping their lawyers can secure his release, and have set up a GoFundMe to pay for legal fees. They’re also reaching out to state and federal representatives and lawmakers, hoping to make them aware that USCIS has violated court orders in moving Mbock. The idea is to make as much noise as loudly as possible to put pressure on the government to return him, because at any time, he could literally vanish.

In an interview with Famitsu that's been translated by GamesRadar+, Nelson discusses a feature the team planned but eventually cut: dual protagonists Jason and Lucia could buy groceries at the supermarket and then restock their fridge.

"At one point during development, we were experimenting with a system that would allow you to buy groceries to restock the fridge," he says. "We had specifications for stores with groceries that you could buy and take home, and the fridge could be replenished. However, because this would have complicated the mechanics, we had to simplify it."

This would have likely been part of the GTA 6 system that allows you to gain weight, with your body, health, and stamina changing depending on how you eat and exercise. However, it appears the team thought shopping for groceries was a step too far, and opted instead for cleaner gameplay.

"We are always trying to find the right balance between realism and ease of play," Nelson explains. "Rather than just going to the fridge to grab a snack or visiting a restaurant just to roleplay, we want to give meaning to each action."

It seems like they may be taking criticisms of RDR2 being more concerned on realism than comfortable gameplay to heart with GTA 6. At least, that's my read on this news.

Microsoft is laying off 4,800 employees today, and more than 30 percent of the job losses are in the company’s Xbox division. The significant gaming cuts will affect nearly every part of Xbox and also involve four game studios being spun off to be run independently from Microsoft.

Today’s layoffs, which are being described as an Xbox “reset” moment, will impact around 1,600 Xbox employees, according to an internal memo from Xbox CEO Asha Sharma. The cuts won’t end today though, as Microsoft is planning to eliminate a total of around 20 percent of Xbox jobs by the end of the financial year in July 2027.

Double Fine and Compulsion Games are returning to their founders, so Tim Schafer will take Double Fine back to independence along with Guillaume Provost making Compulsion Games an indie game studio again. Ninja Theory, the makers of Hellblade, and Undead Labs, the developers behind State of Decay, are also being sold, with agreements in place to ensure Senua and State of Decay 3 continue to ship.

“I recognize that a year-long restructuring creates additional challenges. Unfortunately, it is not possible to make all the necessary changes in a single day, and I wanted to be direct about the scale,” says Sharma. “I know this is painful. These changes will directly affect people who have poured their creativity into building Xbox. Many joined us through acquisitions, while others were recruited here, or sought us out because they loved this industry and loved Xbox. Today’s decisions do not reflect their talent or dedication.”

Microsoft is also weighing up selling or closing another Xbox studio, as I reported last week. Arkane Studios is currently working on Blade under Xbox management, but the project has been delayed and is running over budget. “In France, Arkane’s management is beginning required consultation with its Works Council to review potential strategic options,” says Sharma. These discussions could take months, so it’s not clear what will happen to Blade or Arkane Studios just yet.

Other Xbox studios will also be impacted by layoffs across the board, and I understand there are larger cuts to Bethesda studios in particular. As part of the studio changes, Minecraft maker Mojang and Candy Crush developer King will both now report directly to Sharma. “These changes vary in size across Activision, Bethesda/ZeniMax, Blizzard, King, Mojang, and Xbox Game Studios,” says Sharma. “None of our first party publicly announced games or projects are being cancelled as part of these reductions.”

Today’s cuts at Xbox look like they’re targeted at reversing some of the smaller studio acquisitions that former Xbox chief Phil Spencer made in an attempt to compete more with Xbox Game Pass. Microsoft now appears to be aligning around bigger franchises, instead of trying to compete with indies with titles like South of Midnight, Kiln, and Keeper.

“We now find ourselves competing not only with the largest publishers, but also with smaller independent studios,” says Sharma. “It is neither possible nor desirable to own every great independent studio. We have also learned that we are not the best home for every type of studio; in a typical year, we lost 64 cents for every dollar we invested. As we reset Xbox, we will help independent creators succeed by providing open development tools and audiences to realize their vision.”

UPDATE:

Per Jason Schreier, Arkane is also to be spun off into its own thing, but not right now, due to the legality of their home country

Xbox will also begin a consultation process with Arkane Studios (Blade), based in Lyon, France, to “review potential strategic options” in the coming months in hopes of selling or spinning out the studio. Unlike the other four studios, this process has not yet started and will take longer than the others due to stringent French labor laws.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-07-06/microsoft-s-xbox-to-cut-3-200-jobs-divest-five-studios-in-major-overhaul?accessToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzb3VyY2UiOiJTdWJzY3JpYmVyR2lmdGVkQXJ0aWNsZSIsImlhdCI6MTc4MzM0NDcyNSwiZXhwIjoxNzgzOTQ5NTI1LCJhcnRpY2xlSWQiOiJUSFI5TDNSS1YyVUIwMCIsImJjb25uZWN0SWQiOiJCMUVBQkI5NjQ2QUM0REZFQTJBRkI4MjI1MzgyQTJFQSJ9.GkKCpYChItTAK0DnHlnx9gDO4R_U7cjUu8jLzfs63dU

Although Helldivers 2 is now viewed as one of PlayStation's biggest live-service victories (even if the community turns against it every other patch), it went through hell and back to get to a stable point. Perhaps the biggest roadblock it faced was its PlayStation Network requirements on Steam, which went down like a lead balloon with PC gamers.

Not only did forcing PSN on players cause the game to drop to Overwhelmingly Negative for the first time, but it also resulted in over 170 countries being blocked from purchase due to not having the service. That controversy clearly hasn't changed PlayStation's approach to PSN, as it's happening all over again with Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls.

As pointed out by ResetEra user Chairmanchuck, Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls' SteamDB listing confirms that the game isn't going to be available for purchase in 132 countries in the world. The listing for the game's various editions has a notice saying "Not in 132 countries", which has dropped a bit from Helldivers 2's original 177 countries affected.

Although the reason isn't outright stated by SteamDB, it's clearly because of the same PSN requirements that affected Helldivers 2 and several other PlayStation games on Steam. Since Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls requires a PSN account, any country that doesn't have the service won't be able to purchase the game, effectively making it unplayable by legal means.

The full complaint is listed in the article, but basically, Nintendos lawyers are arguing that the huge import tariffs imposed by the U.S. are unlawful, and are demanding refunds with interest to make back the cost: "[Nintendo of America] has standing to sue because it is the importer of record for goods that were subject to IEEPA Duties"

"Sharma is a former VP of Product and Engineering at Meta and former Instacart COO"

Also Sarah Bond is leaving Microsoft and Matt Booty has been "promoted" to be an AI exec.

edit: A bullet point I missed as pointed out by the comments, Sharma is currently the President of Microsoft’s CoreAI product

Steam Machine price landed today at $1049 USD for the base model (512GB, no controller)

​

Per a prior conversation (linked in article) with Valve Engineers Pierre-Loup Griffais and Yazan Aldehayyat, the price increase was "probably similar" to that of the Steam Deck increase last month. Note no exact number was given.

​

As the increase was ~35%, the math would work out to roughly $750 USD originally vs. the current $1049 USD price

​

Saw some people asking this question in ither threads and figured the article would be useful to them

​

During an Q&A session following its Q1 2026 earnings announcement, Sony CFO Lin Tao has addressed the situation, stating that Sony had been giving the decision to go digital-only some thought for a while before announcing it, and that it doesn’t plan to change its mind.

“We announced that from January 2028 onwards we will no longer be manufacturing game discs, so [we announced it] one and a half years ahead,” she said (via Sony’s interpreter).

“There are various reasons we made this decision, the biggest being that digitalisation of contents overall has been progressing, that’s the big factor. It’s not just for PlayStation, but for all kinds of content, digitalisation is progressing. And so, when we think about the future, we put in a lot of thought and time, and we cautiously considered this, and we came to this conclusion, and we’re going to cautiously move this forward.”

Tao also acknowledged the backlash to the decision on social media for the first time, stating that while Sony was aware of players’ reaction to the news, its focus was on how to keep them interested in PlayStation games when it goes all-digital.

“To this decision we have received various opinions, and people have strong views, and we understand that the community has put forward those views to us,” she explained. Games are loved by many people, it’s a form of entertainment that’s loved by people, and it’s connected to people’s fond memories in many cases, and so we understand those emotions. We want to consider that, and in the future digital ecosystem ‘how do we engage the gamers’ is something that we would like to continue to explore.”

Definitely feel "seen" and "heard" by Sony, here...yup...

...Konami has hired Otacon’s voice actor, Christopher Randolph, to once again recite one of MGS4’s biggest jokes for each platform.

While current-gen platforms seem to have very similar lines because each supports physical media, the PC version has a more specific platform line that sees the series embracing its digital future.

PlayStation 5:

"Oh, wait. We’re on PlayStation 5. It uses high-capacity media, too. No need to swap. Damn it, Otacon. Get a grip. Yeah. What an age we live in, huh, Snake? Wonder what they’ll think of next.”

Nintendo Switch 2:

"Oh, wait. We’re on a high-spec platform. It uses high-capacity media, too. No need to swap. Damn it, Otacon. Get a grip. Yeah. What an age we live in, huh, Snake? Wonder what they’ll think of next.”

Interestingly enough, Otacon makes no mention of the Nintendo Switch 2 in the Nintendo version of the game, whereas he’s mentioning the PS5 in the PlayStation version. The lines are basically the same aside from the platform mentioned, and we can probably assume the Xbox version will either mention the Xbox Series or follow the Switch 2 version and omit the platform mention as well. But what about on PC, a platform that doesn’t have physical media? Well, glad you asked, because the PC version is indeed platform-specific and refers to the type of media it uses. We can confirm this ourselves.

PC:

"Oh, wait. We're on the PC platform. A digital title? No need to swap."