We should NOT have had to wait for this game!

[Walrus Beard]

In 2016, Playstation headquarters was moved from Tokyo Japan to San Mateo California. For a few years things were fine. Then 2019 came around.

In 2019, the me too movement happened, and Playstation's response was to begin enforcing aggressive censorship on Japanese games. They killed the Senran Kagura franchise, and many Japanese developers were forced to censor as a condition for being published.

Playstation became the de facto gatekeepers of gaming deciding what was and was not okay according to their arbitrary and subjective standards never mind the fact that the ESRB was a thing.

Strangely enough, if sexuality in games catered to niche sexual preferences (you know what I mean) or in general was in non-Japanese games it was fine. Nice double standard there.

In addition to censorship double standards, Japanese developers were treated poorly in a variety of ways. Japanese and foreign consumers alike jumped ship as Playstation tried to remake the brand to cater to westerners who preferred safe, boring, cinematic, glorified walking simulators.

When Stellar Blade began to gain attention early on, it was supposed to be for all systems. That is until Playstation butted in and negotiated an exclusivity deal.

Here's what I'm getting at. Why did Playstation, a brand notorious for censorship negotiate a deal for this very lewd game and allow it to launch (mostly) untampered with? To me the reason is obvious. Their years of poor choices were coming back to bite them in the ass, and they desperately needed something to boost the platform. The rest of us were forced to wait a year for this game because Playstation would rather keep it from us for a year to benefit themselves than deal with the consequences of their bad choices.

Even when they were desperate they couldn't leave well enough alone. I am 100% convinced that the last minute censorship was done out of spite toward gamers because they were angry we weren't buying their safe and corporate approved games in droves and had to turn to Korea to help them. My hatred for this platform is boundless. They are a blight on gaming and need to go out of business.

[eXar]

Im still annoyed that SNOY pulled fast one on already announced simul release of project eve (og name for stellar blade when in development) and suddenly we are left with ps5 "exclusive" coming to pc year after release at inflated price

[Walrus Beard]

Originally posted by eXar:

Im still annoyed that SNOY pulled fast one on already announced simul release of project eve (og name for stellar blade when in development) and suddenly we are left with ps5 "exclusive" coming to pc year after release at inflated price

They did it because they needed to drum up attention for their failing platform. The rest of us had to pay for their mistakes.

[hellryser]

PlayStation was so good when it was under JP leadership. Everything turned into trash the moment they handed it over to the west.

[Pozhinateli]

PlayStation always caused problem with censorship. Not as much as right now but there was always something. For example Ikkitousen.

Still, HQ in California is responsible for death of entire Senran Kagura franche. And that is unforgivable.

Still best platform was and always will be PC.

[Walrus Beard]

Originally posted by Pozhinateli:

PlayStation always caused problem with censorship. Not as much as right now but there was always something. For example Ikkitousen.

Still, HQ in California is responsible for death of entire Senran Kagura franche. And that is unforgivable.

Still best platform was and always will be PC.

It got really bad after the headquarters was moved to America.

[SZ]

Don't forget that ShiftUp was 100% aware of all of this when they signed that exclusivity deal and still signed it. Their hand was NOT forced. They could have made that deal with Microsoft and it could have released on Game Pass with no DRM, accessible to the entire world. ShiftUp is 100% to blame.

[Walrus Beard]

Originally posted by SZ:

Don't forget that ShiftUp was 100% aware of all of this when they signed that exclusivity deal and still signed it. Their hand was NOT forced. They could have made that deal with Microsoft and it could have released on Game Pass with no DRM, accessible to the entire world. ShiftUp is 100% to blame.

It's hard to believe they were 100% aware of all the BS and chose to do it anyway. Some things I've heard make me believe they regret the decision. Hopefully they learned their lesson.