The Horizon Forbidden West PS4 to PS5 upgrade debacle has been something else, and it hasn’t been the first time we’ve seen Sony fumble over its own feet to apologise to fans and foster some form of good will. It originally planned to shut down the PS3, PS Vita, and PSP stores indefinitely earlier this year, but a vocal outcry from fans about this neglect of digital preservation and its own history saw the decision hastily backpedaled. It will still be shut off eventually, but the company was able to stay in the fans’ good books once again by acting like it was all a complete accident. The thing is - it wasn’t.
Last week, it became clear that there wouldn’t be a free avenue to upgrade Horizon Forbidden West if you began your journey on PS4, with consumers being required to purchase a more expensive version of the game or simply go without. The messaging was mixed, hubristic, and failed to acknowledge the attitude around free upgrades that have emerged in recent months. Given the shortage of components and unprecedented demand, purchasing a PS5 right now is tremendously difficult, and thus a large number of people will likely pick up Forbidden West on older hardware. Knowing they’ll need to fork out an upgrade fee or pay full price for the privilege is a huge bummer, and while you could argue there’s an aura of entitlement here, I think Sony’s capitalist expectations far outweigh any concerns I have. Now the decision has been reversed, so free upgrades for everyone!
This isn’t the first time Sony has pulled such a trick, with Ghost of Tsushima also presenting a complicated upgrade path that made it impossible to score a free upgrade if you owned the game already. You had to pay for the director’s cut, as many of its visual and mechanical enhancements were directly baked into the new experience, with Iki Island being seemingly inextricable from the new version. Once again, it felt like thinly veiled excuses - even more so when you consider that save files could be carried over in a matter of seconds if you did pay for the upgrade. Death Stranding: Director’s Cut also isn’t offering a free solution for existing owners, instead expecting an upgrade fee much like Ghost of Tsushima before it. Sony wants some extra pennies for its efforts, and that’s understandable, but I’d rather it be completely honest with the state of things instead of hurling out mixed messaging each and every time it has a cross-generation title on its hands.
The future seems clearer at least, with the company stating it will be charging a $10 upgrade fee for Gran Turismo 7, God of War 2, and all other major exclusives going forward, making it clear that free upgrades as we know them will be a thing of the past after Forbidden West is out in the wild. That’s fine - be honest and transparent instead of trying to play the good guy until you inevitably have to admit you’re actually just a bit greedy.
Final Fantasy 7 Remake offered a free upgrade and charged for the PS5-exclusive expansion, which to me feels like the perfect compromise. I already own the base game, so I should be entitled to the same experience on a better console. Episode Intermission is all new, so paying £10-15 to gain access to it feels completely fair. That is, unless you renewed FF7 Remake through PS Plus, since Sony made sure this version of the game wasn’t valid for a digital upgrade. Once again, this needlessly muddies the waters on how upgrades work and what exactly we as consumers are entitled to. Microsoft has avoided this territory entirely thanks to Xbox Play Anywhere. If you buy a game once, you have access to it everywhere, no questions asked. It’s a one-time purchase, and you don’t need to worry about logistics when hopping between platforms. This is the perfect way forward, but given the ever changing ideologies of Sony and Microsoft, I doubt we’ll ever settle on a middle ground.
In recent years it feels like Sony is returning to the hubris that defined the early days of the PS3 era. This is a company that is fully aware it’s winning right now, and thus can charge whatever it likes and get by with excellent yet ultimately predictable exclusives without pushing the boat out to more ambitious territory. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it - but that’s a position that will undoubtedly lead to stagnation as its competitors continue to move forward and innovate in the gaming space. The Forbidden West upgrade debacle feels like the untimely end of Sony's "For The Players" mantra, with the company making it clear time and time again that it's willing to take advantage of users until it’s caught and needs to awkwardly apologise. If this attitude remains the same, the road forward is a worrisome one.