Sony is furious

Added: 2026-05-18

[00:00:00]How's it going everyone? As always, my name is Jimmy Champagne. This is PS Ready, my channel all about PlayStation.

[00:00:05]And in today's video, we've got three topics to cover. Starting out with the fact that Sony is warning you to upgrade to the PS5 for GTA 6. After that, let's talk about how Sony is furious about leaks. And finally, it seems like Sony has learned that buying Bungie was a mistake. So, what are they going to do about it? I hope you're having a great week so far playing a ton of video games. I played a lot of video games this weekend because I got my new Steam controller. So, I was testing my PC a lot. It's a great controller, but I got to say, DualSense reigns supreme in terms of haptics and adaptive triggers.

[00:00:35]It's just one of the coolest features in any controller. And if I had to pick one thing that I wish was in the Steam controller, it would be better haptics and adaptive triggers. It feels like the last two pieces of making the perfect controller. But like, for a PC controller, I think it's pretty dang good. I played some Diablo 4. I played Leon Must Die Forever, which is unfortunately very disappointing. I don't know what happened there. I'm almost done with Replaced. But yeah, as always, let me know what you're playing down in the comments below. Let's get into the first news story here and talk about GTA 6. So, like the will-they-won't-they situation with GTA 6 feels like it's finally coming to an end. I mean, they've delayed it a bunch of times at this point. And if there's any studio or any game that I feel like I can get away with as many delays as they really want or need to, it's obviously Rockstar with something like Red Dead or GTA. When it comes out, it's going to be the biggest game on Earth no matter what. And like, it's the same situation as people being upset about the PS6. Like once this stuff comes out, all that criticism seems to fade into the past. And I just assume that would happen with something like GTA 6 as well. But it looks like they are locking in on that November release date for this year, which means GTA 6 is only a few months away. I can't believe how fast this year is going. We're already almost halfway through the year. And then it's just a few short months until GTA 6. And it looks like Sony has the full marketing deal for this game. So, they're kind of running into an issue here, which is they've trained people for this entire generation so far not to upgrade to the PlayStation 5 by releasing games on the PlayStation 4 and not really strong-arming devs into releasing games on just the PS5. So, there's still a lot of people who are still on the PlayStation 4. And if you look at the most popular games on the PlayStation 4, if GTA 5 and GTA Online are not in the top spot, they're definitely in the top three most played games on the PlayStation 4. So, like these people have really no reason to upgrade until now because GTA 6, as we know, is only coming to the PlayStation 5. And obviously, Sony really wants to maximize the entire profit that they can get out of that game. So, what they're doing is honestly kind of smart and pretty interesting. They're giving email and console notifications to people who play GTA Online a lot saying, "Hey, you're one of the top players in GTA 5 right now. Like on the whole PS4 ecosystem, you are a dedicated GTA player. We just want to let you know real quick that the next GTA, which you're surely going to want to play, it's not going to be on this console.

[00:03:03]So, here's a handy QR code. It'll take you to the buying options for the PlayStation 5, and then you can just give us money to upgrade, and you can even still play GTA 5. There's a free upgrade to the PS5 version, and then when GTA 6 comes out, you'll be ready to go." I know it seems crazy that people might not know that GTA is a PS5 only game and they think that it's coming to the PS4, but that's one of those games that's like Madden, Call of Duty, you know, the annual releases where it totally breaks out into the mass market.

[00:03:33]People who don't watch YouTube, people who don't watch PS Ready, people who aren't on X or they're not on Instagram, like they think the PS4 is going to continue to be supported, and it makes sense to them because like there's so many players still on PS4, right? Like Call of Duty is bucking the PS4 this year. Thank God Modern Warfare 4 is going to be the first next-gen only game in the entire series, but like up until now, every single Call of Duty has been on PS4, every sports game still comes to PS4. So, like when you look at it like that, it's easy to see how people have been trained to just assume that the next GTA game from Rockstar will be on PS4. And you know, just being honest, I do feel for those people because I got to assume that one of the reasons they're not upgrading to the PS5 from the 4 has to do with cost. I mean, there's a convenience factor, right?

[00:04:21]Like where they're still getting the same experience that they've gotten for over 10 years at this point. So, there's not really an urgent need, but like if you could just go out and buy a PS5, I don't know why you wouldn't want to if it's something you're using a lot to the point where Sony's going to message you and say, "Hey, you're one of the top players of GTA 5 on the PS4." So, uh if you look at the price of the PS5 right now, it's not in a great spot.

[00:04:45]You're in the 600s, and if you look at a PS5 Pro, like if you upgraded right now, it might be smart to buy a PS5 Pro, but then you look at that price, and it's up to $900.

[00:04:55]So, I don't know. I've been saying it for years now. If you wanted a PS5, you should have got one when they were cheaper, when they were on sale, when the refurb models were cheaper. I've done my due diligence. I put out tons and tons of videos here on the channel saying, "Hey, I don't think these things are ever going to get any cheaper. You should buy it now." And honestly, I feel like if you're watching these videos, you probably have a PS5 because I don't really cover the PS4 unless it gets hacked or, you know, they start doing something to move on to the PS5 uh to make sure that, you know, the PS4 doesn't continue to get games. So, it's a weird situation, but I've been saying it for years. It is long past time to ditch the PS4. It was a great console, arguably the best one Sony ever made, but the PS5 is just better in every single way. Like the first-party support, not as good as PS4, but like from a console hardware perspective, you just get a much better experience. And now, if you waited, you're going to have a tough time. But, I feel like GTA is going to move consoles no matter what.

[00:05:53]And with Sony getting the marketing rights, I mean, they're going to sell a lot of PS5s and a lot of copies of GTA 6, especially because it's not coming to PC at launch. But, moving on to the second news story here, let's talk about why Sony is furious about leaks. So, leaks have gotten absolutely out of control with games. It's kind of a bummer for me because, you know, during the like Marvel and Star Wars era when we were still getting Star Wars movies and we didn't know they were all going to be bad and completely kill off that IP. And when Marvel was still good and not making mid movie after mid movie, other than Daredevil, which is a show. I like Daredevil, but like Marvel's been on a rocky path ever since Endgame.

[00:06:31]Leaks got really big, like plot points, characters, and costumes. And it really felt like the studios were kind of leaking that stuff on their own. So, it kind of turned into a little economy, right? Like, you could build up a Twitter account being a leaker, you can make some friends working at these companies and leak the info, and it as marketing for these companies. So, it was kind of like an unspoken agreement that the leaks weren't going to get taken down because of course they were building hype. And then it moved into games. And now it's like, there's not really any games that don't get leaked.

[00:06:57]I mean, the only one I can think of recently was the Star Fox remake.

[00:07:01]Somehow Nintendo managed to keep the lid on that. And that's where Sony comes into the picture because the latest game to leak from Sony is of course the next God of War. I'm not going to talk about too many details, but it's Cory Barlog's game. A lot of people thought it was going to be a space game, but if these leaks are real and going off this new story, it seems like they are. It looks like not necessarily a spin-off, but like a sub-franchise within God of War where you play as Faye, and it's going to have Devil May Cry inspired combat.

[00:07:25]You're going to go to different mythologies. It's going to be a prequel to God of War 2018. And this is all coming from Nate the Hate. He gave us tons of details about this game. And it turns out that Cory Barlog is not happy about this, which I completely understand. Like, I wouldn't be happy either if I'd been working on something since 2018 and I was this close to announcing it, and the entire thing leaked. But over on Blue Sky, someone from Giant Bomb tweeted, like, why would Nintendo shadow drop a direct, right, for the Starfox game? And then someone responded to get one over on Nate the Hate. And what did Barlog say? He said, he said, I totally support that. So, like, yeah, he's probably not happy that Nate the Hate leaked this game. And I don't want anything crazy to happen. I don't want this guy's career to be taken away. I've seen people calling for that.

[00:08:10]want anyone's career taken away. I feel like people get out of control with that stuff. But I feel like Sony needs to do something internally to disincentivize leaks. It's crazy how much info leaks.

[00:08:21]And honestly, if I was working at Sony Santa Monica for that long on a brand new game, I really have no incentive to leak it, especially that close to it being announced. Like, I get, you know, it's cool, right? Like, I get games early sometimes, and it's fun when I'm out at the bar with my buddies, you know, we're talking about games, and they're like, oh, you have this game early, and it's like so close to the embargo that I can just be like, yeah, it's pretty cool. Or man, this game is not really hitting with me. It feels cool to talk about that. But I feel like it's a little bit different if you're working on the games. Like, some guy I went to high school with came back to town, and we saw him at a bar around Christmas, and I was talking to him, and I was like, what are you doing? He ended up working for Rockstar, and I didn't ask, and he was like, just straight up, don't ask me about any leaks. And I didn't because I don't want to know what they're working on. I don't want to cuz like, I could talk about it on video by accident and totally screw myself in that regard. But I thought that was cool that, you know, he had a prime opportunity to come back here from wherever he was working for Rockstar to Michigan and talk to the normal people and be like, yeah, I'm working on GTA 6 or whatever, and here's exactly what's going on in the game. But he didn't, and I wish more developers had that like level of respect for the product that they're working on. I mean, like, leaks are cool, they're fun for some games.

[00:09:36]But now it's like fans and leakers are announcing games for the developers and you're kind of doing their job for them and the whole narrative starts before the game even comes out. And the worst example of this was The Last of Us Part II. That game's entire story and a lot of cutscenes leaked right before it came out. And a lot of people attribute that to the game selling less, but like it wasn't taken out of context. It was full cutscenes, it was plot points from the game, and I still think Sony made a mistake marketing that game in the way they did making you think Joel was going to be around in the entire game. Like they literally him in cutscenes that were later in the game. So, like that was a weird trick to pull on people. So, it's not necessarily like where I'm coming down on the side of, you know, Sony saying that yeah, this game would have sold better and done better with fans if that stuff was hidden cuz I think people would have had a problem with the way the plot played out either way. But, ever since then it's been completely out of control. So, I am understanding of where Barlog is coming from. But, like I don't think anything's going to be done about it, right? Like the time to do something about it was when that had happened with The Last of Us Part II. And as we now know, nothing happened. So, yeah, I feel bad, but at least this game looks really cool. I think this is going to shake the slump off of Sony's first-party games. We'll talk about this in the next video, but Saurus is not selling all that well, which is kind of unfortunate and it's yet another first-party game that's not selling all that well after a string of them. But, God of War 2018 was amazing.

[00:10:56]Cory Barlog is awesome at making games.

[00:10:59]And like I feel like everyone liked God of War Ragnarok when it came out. And now every time I say I really like it, people are so mad that people like that game. And they say the story sucks. I completely disagree. I thought it was a great evolvement of everything from 2018. So, I have no reason to believe that this game won't be amazing. So, I guess that's a good consolation prize because it could have ended up like, I don't know, The Last of Us Part II or a myriad of these other games that get leaked and then people just decide that they hate them before even playing them.

[00:11:30]I'm not talking about mixtape, by the way. I'm not going to play that game, but I saw the whole discourse over the weekend, and it's like crazy that a 2-hour game can cause that level of just arguments on Twitter. So, yeah, people are heated. I understand why, but on the other hand, I understand why someone like Cory Barlog would want to get one over on Nate the Hate, because that's a big bummer. But, to round out the video, let's talk about Bungie. So, you guys know, I'm a massive Destiny 2 fan. I have like over 1,000 hours in Destiny 2.

[00:11:58]I was pretty deep in Destiny 1. I'm not the biggest Marathon fan. And I can say that as someone who's put around 50 or 60 hours into it. I play it every single week with my friend Dustin from the Sacred Symbols podcast, and it's a good game. It's a good game from top to bottom. It has that Bungie flavor of the shooting, which is great. The maps are cool. I like the lore. I like the extraction shooter loop. It just doesn't feel like they wanted to make it, which is a weird thing to say, because you can't really understand it unless you play the game. It just doesn't have energy to it, right? Like, it's very kind of monotone across the entire thing. So, that's why it's not really clicking with me, but it doesn't really matter, because a lot of people are not playing this game. They say that the people who play it and stick around are very hardcore and keep coming back, but it's doing a bad job of retaining players. And it's gotten to the point where Destiny 2, which hasn't gotten content updates in a long time, is eclipsing Marathon, which is a technically brand new game, Bungie's next-generation shooter, in players, which is not what you want to see. So, you look at the earnings call, and Sony's like, "Yeah, we overpaid for Bungie." Like, every time they do an earnings call, they say, "Yep, we paid 3.6 billion. We actually see them worth this much." And the number drops by billions or hundreds of millions of dollars every single time they do an update. And I don't think they're wrong for that. I think they are still too high, because Bungie simply isn't making money right now. Like, they didn't sell a lot of copies of Marathon. Destiny is on life support. And uh I fear for the future of this studio. I just don't know what to do about it because I don't want Bungie to go away. I want them to have the opportunity to make something new like Destiny 3, but if you ask me what they should do now, I'd put Marathon on like small seasonal update life support where you add in new weapons, maybe a new map a couple times a year, keep the servers up and running, do the same thing for Destiny 2, and give them one last chance with Destiny 3 to really right the ship because as fun as Marathon is sometimes, anyway you slice it, people are not resonating with it and I see why because, you know, like the progression from Halo to Destiny made a lot of sense. It felt like the next evolution of the Halo gameplay.

[00:14:06]Marathon is so out of left field and the biggest problem I have with it, if I'm being real, is that it does not feel like a game that needs the entire studio of Bungie working on it. It is small. It has five maps or so. It's an extraction shooter. There's not that many guns.

[00:14:22]There's only a few players on the map.

[00:14:24]Like it's a very small shooter. It doesn't have a campaign, but you look at Destiny and you can see why they need hundreds of, if not thousands of people working on that game because it's so absolutely massive. So, this seems like something that a small team within Bungie could have made and then supported as a smaller type game that didn't need hundreds of millions of dollars of dev time and money poured into it. So, I don't know what the solution is at this point, but it feels like a $30 game that's getting the support and manpower of a full-on $70 game and it's a $40 game. So, it's not even close to a full-price game. So, something's got to be done, but I I think this sucks. It seemed like a good call when Sony bought Bungie because Destiny was like at its absolute peak back then, but man, they really fleece Sony and uh yeah, this is not paying off in the way that they wanted it to or really any of us did. So, hopefully in the near future they can kind of right the ship, but at this point I feel like it's kind of curtains for Bungie, and that's a huge bummer. Anyway, guys, that's all I've got for you in today's video. As always, my name is Jimmy Champagne. I'll see you in the next one.

[00:15:30]Thanks for watching, and shape on.