You see things like this piss me off. Just why the hell is Sony like this?
I could maybe understand GR2 shutting down after a decade. But a couple of years??? Shame on them.
No worries. A lot of people don't know about it.
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Sony silently shut down Killzone Mercenary's servers (UPDATE: False alarm. Unexpected outage. Service restored)
- Thread starter Vashetti
- Start date
I could maybe understand GR2 shutting down after a decade. But a couple of years??? Shame on them.
Not much.
I think your HBO example isn't a particular good one, because these streaming services pay a big fee to license the content or have to create them new. Your example is more equivalent to PS Now or Gamepass losing games or games getting delisted from the various online stores imo.
Putting up servers obviously cost money, but Sony earns a ton of money and other companies without PS+ money can keep servers alive. Blizzard for instance.
Then there is Microsoft, which has build a much better online service in Xbox Live, because their matchmaking servers take care of all the games and the backend uses VM. That's typical today and the scalability is awesome.
For example if someone doesn't play Shadowrun then it simply doesn't take up any resources on Azure. When people want to play a game, the services automatically scales up.
That's the reason they don't need to shut down servers and in 99% of the time they don't. I am not really frustrated by Killzone, but I think there are two valid demands as a consumer.
1. Announce the server shutdown or downtimes when they happen or beforehand.
2. For the love of gaming get PSN with the billions of PS+ money up to modern standards you see in different industries and then Sony wouldn't need to shut down servers.
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Still not up if anyone's wondering. If it does come back I might even be able to find a match lol
Yeah, I think this is what makes the issue so grating. No previous warning. Servers for older games are closed every day. Nobody is saying that Sony needs to keep games running forever, even if other companies do keep servers up for games that probably literally nobody is playing. But, really, who benefits from closing the servers for this game without giving any warning? It just erodes goodwill and sets bad precedents.
Also, please: stop trying to push the narrative that this is good for us players. That Sony is saving big bucks by closing Killzone's servers and that they will reinvest them into something bigger and better.
Great, great post đź‘Ť
I just want to get those two MP Trophies, honestly. I think I'll start going for those whenever I get a game, especially if it's old, before doing anything that can be done alone and offline.
All digital Wii Virtual Console, WiiWare and DSiWare purchases are still accessible. The Wii Shop and DSi Shop channels are still there and functional, you can redownload but not purchase. Nintendo's cautioned they won't maintain functionality indefinitely but also confirmed they'll give forewarning before taking the shops offline. For reference they gave 1 year (DSi) and 1.5 years (Wii) warning before ending purchases.
Online gaming service for DS and Wii ending is unfortunate but we're also talking about a partnership inked in the early 2000s (originally for Gamecube actually although Nintendo decided against it and to start fresh on DS instead). You're right that consumers could/should blame Nintendo for that but at least they (1) gave a reasonable rationale (aka: Gamespy closing) and (2) gave some warning ahead of time (4 months). And online services not reliant on Gamespy were maintained past that point (shops, browsers, some 3p games like DQX or Goldeneye, streaming apps like Youtube or Netflix, etc). Again, there's a world of difference here in how Nintendo and Sony are handling customer service.
According to the leaderboard on the website, 6 people played the game online during the last 7 days. I'm not quite sure how its being measured though. I mean, if you look at the leaderboard for the individual maps and modes, theres only two entries (two maps has 1 entry each), while the "overall" tab has 6 entries. And on one of the maps where theres just one guy registerd, it says that he got 6 kills. Unless the game has bots online, he/she must have played with someone else. Its safe to say that the game is pretty much dead online however, even if the servers were still online (and just to point out, i agree that Sony should have given a notice anyway, even just for the sake of it being more of a formality). Thats for the public matches at least. I have no idea if anyone still play this on private matches.
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I completely agree with it being bullshit as I stated that they didn't even mention it. Hell I'm not on their side about closing anything either. More looking at the fact that keeping servers open for eternity isn't an expectation we should have as gamers.
I believe I also acknowledged that it's not a good look if they are shittier than the completion in this regard. But we can't look at something that costs a company money and not expect them to weigh if the benefits outweigh the costs. It should absolutely be 100% standard practice for everyone to say when something is shutting down. But third parties shut down their support on things a lot.
when is the proper time to shutdown a server if it seems like few to no people are playing? 10 years? 50 years? It's never ok? Don't get me wrong despite me not having a vita or even ps plus at the moment I'm not happy to see any games servers ever shut down. It just seems like an unrealistic expectation for companies to continuously provide options for games that are very old.
Don't get me wrong I don't like Sony shutting down servers without some way to continue playing multiplayer, like a P2P system, but whenever a game gets so barren that it's impossible to find a full match or very rarely, I think the consternation from some comes across as very hollow.
It may have been a crappy comparison, but my point was that eventually experiences you have on old technology goes away. Your 7 years old iPhone eventually stops getting updates. It's a cost-benefit analysis. I think it would be good if the iPhone 4 was still getting updates for the latest iOS, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't. Apple certainly has the money.
I 100% feel the same way as you do about your demands. I think it's inexcusable to not announce a server shutdown even if they haven't seen a single person log on in three years. And clearly Sony is behind their competition on a lot of this and needs to do much better. But I still find it unreasonable to expect that every game that has a server should be maintained for eternity.
I'm really not trying to come off as defending giant corporations as much as saying the practice is pretty common across industries. I can't buy the latest Green Day album on my cassette player.
I think you still have access to the games you bought on Wii.
Neither the Vita or the game is receiving updates so breaking compatibility or upkeep on that end isn't even in the conversation. It's a clear trend on how Sony handles their products. When your direct competition is keeping their own services up for over a decade (and for the foreseeable future), I don't know why expecting the same from a different company is so bad.
Pretty sure Nintendo is clear on what's happening when you do that Wii-Wii U transfer. And you can still redownload your Wii games on Wii U via the Wii portion.
Oh I'm certainly not saying they shouldn't be better or more like their competition. I also don't know the cost of maintaining something like this. But lots of third party companies shut down servers. Again I think it becomes a cost benefit analysis. I'm not sure this would even qualify as much news if they said 6 months ago "we will be closing killzone mercenaries down in June."
Expecting Sony to be better and closer to Microsoft is reasonable to me. Expecting companies to keep servers open forever if the player base is next to zero doesn't seem to be. The only scenario that should be expected in is a scenario where maintaining the server is free.
SHOCKING UPDATE
Next time a PlayStation game becomes unplayable online and Sony hasn't made an announcement it would be better to wait until we have more information. Keep applying pressure to Sony for the way in which they shut down game servers, but there's no point in adding misinformation to the discussion.
This is what happens when people jump onto something without waiting for clarification.
I mean, surely some blame can be placed on Sony for being a bit notorious with the server shutdowns and not clarifying this sooner.
Don't they usually announce it though? They've even delayed shutting down servers for games after people made a stink. I'm sure I'm missing some more negative and sudden examples but I didn't realize they had a reputation for just shutting them off overnight with no warning.
They usually do, yes. I believe it's required by law in the EU to give warning when closing/shutting down something as well.
I don't think they've ever done it on a whim. They always seem to announce it in advance. I don't put any blame on Sony for this.
7 pages of absolute OUTRAGE for a server maintenance on a Vita game.
"Jumping into conclusions" is starting to fall short for gaming side these days.
"Jumping into conclusions" is starting to fall short for gaming side these days.
It's honestly a hell of a game. One of the best Vita games IMO and a damn beautiful game, too.
How many have they shut down without notice? Plus it was the weekend.
One of the best Vita games, and one of the best Killzone games as well. I find it worth it. This and Persona 4 never leave my Vita/PSTV.
so era wrote 7 pages about nothing
should have wrote 7 pages about playing Killzone Mercenary instead.
Priorities.
should have wrote 7 pages about playing Killzone Mercenary instead.
Priorities.
The shortest time I've found on Google is one day, for Starhawk. But that's a weird case, because all the rest of games have at least a couple of months of warning.
This thread wouldn't have reached 7 pages if it was only about Killzone Mercenary, sadly. And I think the game is great.
Why is it jumping to conclusions when the OP states that a rep said the servers were being shut down? The conclusion had been presented when people entered the thread. Feels strangely petty to be finger wagging over manufactured drama when there's a much more straightforward response of expressing happiness over a better outcome.
I don't think that's fair. They have always informed people of these things in advance and set a precedent for what to expect. They are to blame as much as they were to blame for the way people reacted to thinking just 100 PS4 games would be playable on PS5 at the launch when that is not what was said. People are just very eager to react to things without clarification.
It was all a plot to revive the multiplayer. Come play Guerrilla Warfare
It's my favorite Killzone game. Very replayable.
Just like how people complain about the Vita dying early but barely anyone supporting it seriously.
Vocal minority can only mean so much in a vacuum. This game will maybe finally have some people playing it for a few days before it back to being dead for months again like usual.
Tempted, never have and won't get them for the mainline games
Probably easier to download it than track down a physical copy
But if I did that I wouldn't get to be smug on the internet by dunking on these fools who care about a thing I don't care about.
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Well, there's multiple issues here:
1) Tier 1 CS reps rarely have all the info and straight up may have been wrong.
2) It being the weekend, the CS rep may not have had access to all the info.
3) Reddit is hardly a bastion of truth and accuracy.