Yu can still write tragic villains without a personal connection every time with the exact same cliche story beats. Putting in the exact same gameplay bosses. Lizard replaced Rhino but it's the same chase sequence and boss fight.  Carnage is evil and just loves to cause chaos but it's not goofy but brutal. Instead, they made him a goofy cult leader. Writing in the game isn't the best. Said it before. Insomniac I do like them and I liked the game and I really liked Rift Apart. Their weakness is they make the same game over and over. Same thing with R&C. They don't deviate enough.

I agree with your point that you don't need the personal connection I'm just pointing that Insomniac is going from source material. I don't think the set pieces are the same, at most I would say they are similar or serve similar purpose. But yes your points are valid.

I wouldn't say that's good for PlayStation players or the brand. We essentially have to be prepared with losing even more third party games while Sony has to be prepared to be a publisher rather than a platform. I hope that's not the case. I can't find that reduction in any of the IR materials, but taking it as face value can mean many things, IMO:

a.) Sony doesn't think massive consolidation will impact their position in the market (worst case, very alarming) 

b.) Sony doesn't want to make a major M&A move until they spin off their financial division 

c.) Sony is planning to acquire a publisher by the end of this FY, and this reduction in M&A for the next FY is because of that 

I think B is the most likely scenario. 

A few probably are at this point, such as Deviation, or they might be repackaged in the case of Factions. But I always felt the goal of 10 - 12 live service games by FY25 is being way too ambitious. 

Yep, considering how many they had to release but not giving a reveal it was quite odd.

And maybe some of those games have a good core that could be revamped for a regular game even if as MP title only.

I wasn't able to find it. It's mentioned in this bloomberg article that I can't read.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-11-09/sony-raises-annual-outlook-as-mobile-arena-emerges-from-downturn

Google shows me that the article includes this line:

>It plans to reduce gaming M&A next year by roughly 20%, he said Thursday. Sony reported a less-than-projected ¥263.01 billion operating

I've had the thought that it could mean C, or maybe something will happen beyond 2025/B.  

A is kind of baffling, but I'm worried that SIE doesn't think they have to make any moves. I've generally been in favor of Sony buying up a number of solid developers.

The way you posted (and that may be their translation as well) seems more like it will be 20% lower than this year than a reduction on previously forecasted number. But perhaps that is due to cashflow impact (which had them making layoffs as well).

Delaying some live service games is probably smart in the long run. These games can be better spaced out rather than potentially cannibalising one another.

as for the reduction in M&A, sounds to me that we should not consider publishers as potential targets, which I think makes sense. I mean, I could be reading that info wrong.

It was cool to see AEW (All Elite Wrestling) have a cross-promotion with SEGA for Like a Dragon Gaiden. English dub is so fucking terrible esp for Kiryu tho. His singing is esp bad as it was autotuned. I always play these games in Japanese even tho I am normally a dub guy. Oh yeah Kiryu is Spider-Man now. He has an ability called Spider and he webs people. So Spider-Kiryu does whatever a Spider-Kiryu does.

As for newcomers to the series. No this is not the place to start. This entire game is a spoiler to a previous game. Start with Yakuza 0 and move forward in order. With mainline entries. Judgment and Ishin can be played whenever they are spinoffs.

For the first point I totally agree, and just want to see what they have planned as regular traditional titles for 2024. On the second I think it have to do with the free cashflow.

I would say Ishin should be played after the others as it have a lot of spoilerish content on the relationships