Sony Greed? - Horizon Forbidden West - Next Gen Upgrade Debate!
4https://mgn.gg/horizon-forbidden-west-the-next-gen-upgrade-debate
Sony recently announced that if you want to buy Horizon Forbidden West on PS4 and PS5 you will have to pay a £10 premium. I’ve seen many people complaining and the typical MSM (mainstream media) response, which consists simply of comments like THIS IS EVIL AND ANTI CONSUMER, THEY HAVE TO REVERSE. All quoting MS’ way of handling next gen. I find this extremely short sighted and see this situation from multiple sides. There is the consumer side, the business side, and then the actual end product delivered side.
Let me start of by saying though, and this is one of the angles, it is not always justified. Ghost of Tsushima on PS5 adds borderline nothing, no native 4k, just an upped checkerboard resolution, no graphics improvements outside of upped particle numbers, some 3d audio tweaks and haptics no actual major work done, and it is not worth the £10 premium. This is one of the arguments, is it justifiable, and I will touch and build on this point later.
The first side is the “pro consumer side”, why should the user have to pay that extra £10? Especially with game pass and free upgrades on Xbox? I see this as short sighted, on the surface sure this makes Sony look like the bad guy and anti-consumer, but the reality is much more nuanced. For starters, everyone complained that Horizon was cross gen, and how it will hold it back the game. While there will without a doubt be limitations due to PS4 being a dev target, we already have confirmed a unique underwater system on PS5 that is leagues beyond anything in any other open world game. So, what should Sony have done? Not bothered taking advantage of the PS5, just adding a 60FPS mode for back compat if using a PS5 and call it a day?
I can already hear people shouting “NO JUST GIVE IT AS A FREE UPGRADE” MS does, but here is the situation, and I am not for one minute saying Sony could not absorb the cost, they could. However, no MS game that is cross gen has any systems that are unique to next gen, it’s just resolution, some graphics upgrades and frame rate. While giving those is great, Horizon has an underwater system unique to PS5 that cost time and money to develop, much more than any resolution, fps and graphics upgrades would ever cost, as they are just upping the numbers until they fall below the performance target.
We don’t know what else they have in-store outside of haptics and 3d audio, but there’s a conscious effort to make the PS5 version more than just upping the numbers. Sony are making a game that needs to be optimised for PS4, PS4 PRO and PS5, and they are actively going out of their way to use the PS5 as much as possible out of a cross-gen title.
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