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[nial]

I can't even figure out what people are actually complaining about here, but it just looks like another case of:

I feel like people are always looking for excuses to dismiss Sony's output these days; God of War Ragnarok and Gran Turismo 7? "They're cross-gen!" Helldivers 2? "It's GAAS!" Rise of the Ronin and Stellar Blade? "They're not made by internal studios!". Astro Bot? "It's not a big game!". Spider-Man 2? "Fuck Insomniac!".

I'm yet to hear any rational criticism of Sony's first-party output this generation that doesn't use any of the aforementioned excuses.

 

[dead monkey uk]

Instead of Last of Us online they should have limited the scope of the game to be more like a Factions 2 type of game could have released it complete for $40 and then released paid cosmetics, would not have required as many developers after launch.

 

[SlimySnake]

Look at how big FY25 bar has gotten.

It implies that the overall budget has increased by a lot.

Despite Traditional investment dropping to 45%, the graph also depicts a bigger investment to Traditional in FY25 vs FY19.

Too little too late. The reduction from 19 to 23 is why AAA games from ps first party have been so rare since 2022. They saw how games were getting more and more expensive and decided to reduce the investment in the very games that won them the generation and saved the ps3 generation. Now we are all sitting here holding our dicks waiting for the investment in fy 25 to bear fruit. Which lets face it, won’t result in games in fy 25. We are looking at fy 26- 27 at best.

 

[nial]

Too little too late. The reduction from 19 to 23 is why AAA games from ps first party have been so rare since 2022. They saw how games were getting more and more expensive and decided to reduce the investment in the very games that won them the generation and saved the ps3 generation. Now we are all sitting here holding our dicks waiting for the investment in fy 25 to bear fruit. Which lets face it, won’t result in games in fy 25. We are looking at fy 26- 27 at best.

You do know that budget also accounts for external productions like Rise of the Ronin and Stellar Blade, right...?

 

[Bernardougf]

covid+games are taking longer to make + GaaS initiative fucked them up.

- What is your time table for the covid excuses dont apply anymore ?

- Greater Dev time is most of the time a choice, and its not the "games" fault, hiring practices, trend chasing, mismagement all of it is contributing to this crazy dev times Thst we are getting.. dont you agree ? When Square fcking Enix is beating you in production ... you know you fucked up.

Gaas fucked everything up.

Btw you are a great poster.. so Im not trying to antagonize.. just talk. Peace.

 

[Bernardougf]

Too little too late. The reduction from 19 to 23 is why AAA games from ps first party have been so rare since 2022. They saw how games were getting more and more expensive and decided to reduce the investment in the very games that won them the generation and saved the ps3 generation. Now we are all sitting here holding our dicks waiting for the investment in fy 25 to bear fruit. Which lets face it, won’t result in games in fy 25. We are looking at fy 26- 27 at best.

Yeah.. anyone hoping for a 25 boom.. is going in for a surprise... or reality check.. because surprise isnt the right word.The signs are all out there.

 

[Perrott]

Whose heads rolled, J.Cuckster?

Connie Booth, one of the most prominent producers of PlayStation in North America dating all the way back to the PS1 era, was fired and escorted out of the building late last year.

It seems clear that she - and her entire production crew, who were also let go - were made accountable for the mismanagement in allowing TLOU Online to become such an overly ambitious endeavor, way beyond Naughty Dog's ability to deliver on it as a side project to their singleplayer games.

 

[Perrott]

I'm yet to hear any rational criticism of Sony's first-party output this generation that doesn't use any of the aforementioned excuses.

Around two dozen first-party releases so far this generation...

... yet no Bloodborne remaster.

 

[DryvBy]

Naughty Dog is a 400 person studio.

Jason Schrier wants you to believe 200+ people were working on Factions 2 despite it never entering full production. He's full of ****.

That dude is a balding buttmunch. All of his doom and gloom journalism only promotes his idea of utopia for gamers.

 

[Woopah]

I can't even figure out what people are actually complaining about here, but it just looks like another case of:

I'm yet to hear any rational criticism of Sony's first-party output this generation that doesn't use any of the aforementioned excuses.

I do think 2023 wasn't a good year for Somy first party, but 2022 and 2024 are excellent.

 

[Hawking Radiation]

"if it dies, it dies" - Dolph Lundgren about online last of us.

Its better when you post the gif my man

 

[Hawking Radiation]

The dog made a mess.

Naughty dog!

Doggy made a mess you say?!

 

[nial]

I do think 2023 wasn't a good year for Somy first party, but 2022 and 2024 are excellent.

The post was about the generation output as a whole but yes, heck, I was saying the same thing last year. But I've realized that one major talking point of 2023 is that it was somehow the result of a supposed overfocus on Western AAA blockbusters, and then when we get nothing of that this year, the narrative suddenly pivoted to "we need more big games" and "those are second party games".

 

[nial]

Around two dozen first-party releases so far this generation...

... yet no Bloodborne remaster.

Can we get a Freedom Wars remaster first?

 

[S0ULZB0URNE]

GOOD LET EM ROLL!

 

[Perrott]

Can we get a Freedom Wars remaster first?

Only after the release of the Best of PlayStation Network Vol. 2 collection

 

[HeisenbergFX4]

Doggy made a mess you say?!

Likely very few will get this

Personal note as someone who has worked closely with Humane Society’s for over 30 years, fuck her she should have surrendered that thing

 

[Hawking Radiation]

Likely very few will get this

Personal note as someone who has worked closely with Humane Society’s for over 30 years, fuck her she should have surrendered that thing

She's a clown that met with many world leaders including the supreme leader of North Korea Kim Jong Un....

 

[MatrixReloaded101]

What I don’t get is why didn’t they just release a regular MP online mode like the first game. It didn’t need to be a GaaS game.

 

[ArtHands]

Interesting news

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

- What is your time table for the covid excuses dont apply anymore ?

- Greater Dev time is most of the time a choice, and its not the "games" fault, hiring practices, trend chasing, mismagement all of it is contributing to this crazy dev times Thst we are getting.. dont you agree ? When Square fcking Enix is beating you in production ... you know you fucked up.

What I meant is that the current situation is the result of all the above in a compounded effect.

for example:

Covid added like 2 years to everything
+
games are taking 4-7 years to develop already (especially new IPs)
+
GaaS fucked Sony´s pipeline and some of their single-player studios.
=
we know they (Sony) have been fucked because they haven't had a proper showcase in like 3 years now... crazy.


I dunno if some people here are defending Sony or minimizing this situation. But this has been catastrophic. The big difference (and I hate to do this but it is the best example) is how MS and PS have been reacting to the same issues.

I would say this: Theoretically, Sony has to be ready to start showing the big guns for 2026-2027 within the next 18 months. But let's remember that Hermen said something about a big game a year. and I think when we see these "Next-Gen Only" games we will understand why.

Btw you are a great poster.. so Im not trying to antagonize.. just talk. Peace.

cool. thanks no problemo.

 

[Stooky]

It was Jimbo and Herman's big push for GaaS that resulted in investments in Concord, Factions, FairGames, the cancelled ex-treyarch project and 7 other GaaS titles they had planned to released by 2025.

What we are seeing now is the direct result of them reducing the investment in single player games in 2022 from 2019 when they shouldve been increasing it instead in order to keep up with the gen on gen increase in development costs. But all that extra cash Sony was making from those single player games went into acquisitions for Live Service studios and games most of which will never see the light of day. By 2025, they were finally set to increase their SP spending but they are going all in on GaaS by next year which means a lot of extra dollars wasted on trash like concord that we havent seen yet. Marathon is focus testing really poorly so thats another failure and why we havent seen it since its announcement at last year's E3. You might have GG working on some GaaS trash as well. Horizon's MP pics were leaked of fat women on crutches with some of the ugliest graphics ever. It will also likely get cancelled. Bend is also working on a GaaS game. if you think Cocord and FairGames are bad, just wait, the worst is yet to come.

id like to see the receipts. I always see people question his reports when they come out and yet time proves him right. I still remember people clowning on him when he wrote in his book that amy henning was indeed forced out after clashes with neil and bruce, only for the Sully actor to confirm that a few years later. When he broke that news about ND remaking TLOU1, people on this very board refused to believe Sony would commission such a useless remake let alone waste ND's time with it, but he was right once again.

hmmm those receipts aren't as tasty as you think, most of it is people making news stories out of nothing. Jason gets half the story right. A lot of his story's favors who he talks to and doesn't really capture the full picture, it's more like a TMZ rumor report. It's why I've been saying for while gaming journalism needs to step it up.

 

[TheThreadsThatBindUs]

Hes been right about everything with ND. id say earned the right to be trustworthy.

According to whom?

There's been next to no way to validate any of his insider claims.

And the obvious stuff he reported on, e.g. TLOU2 Online being cancelled, we already knew from official statements.

Jason Schrier has in fact been challenged multiple times by devs themselves on the accuracy of his reporting, e.g. his reporting on the cancelled Days Gone 2 which was inconsistent with the account from the actual studio dev.

You folks give him way too much credence. It's not at all deserved.

 

[TheThreadsThatBindUs]

Connie Booth, one of the most prominent producers of PlayStation in North America dating all the way back to the PS1 era, was fired and escorted out of the building late last year.

It seems clear that she - and her entire production crew, who were also let go - were made accountable for the mismanagement in allowing TLOU Online to become such an overly ambitious endeavor, way beyond Naughty Dog's ability to deliver on it as a side project to their singleplayer games.

Can you provide any receipts at all to the notion that her departure was to do with ND and TLOU2?

 

[StereoVsn]

Who gives a fuck.

Little weenie has an axe to grind cause studios don't line up with his viewpoints. Whether Rockstar works alot or not doesn't affect me and I'm not gonna congratulate a weenie for being a weenie.

Dude needs to grow a pair.

He is a reporter. It’s his job to … report on various happenings in the industry. It doesn’t matter that you don’t care about it, but he does do a pretty decent job of still reporting.

Personally I am not a big fan of his standings on variety of topics outside his work, but he is very consistent and professional. Again, taking specifically of his work at Bloomberg.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

He is a reporter. It’s his job to … report on various happenings in the industry. It doesn’t matter that you don’t care about it, but he does do a pretty decent job of still reporting.

Personally I am not a big fan of his standings on variety of topics outside his work, but he is very consistent and professional. Again, taking specifically of his work at Bloomberg.

His reporting is atrocious.

All he does is find an unspecified number of malcontents from a big company, gets quotes from them, and then tries to paint his fabricated narrative using those quotes. Have any of you worked at a job with more than 5 employees? There's always one person who complains all the time and b****es about the boss. He never tries to give an accurate, well rounded perspective of anything he covers.

 

[Mobilemofo]

Its better when you post the gif my man

Appreciate the gif. I don't post shit on gaf. It's all text based for me. Keeping it simple. Twitter is my gif dessert

 

[Bartski]

Appreciate the gif. I don't post shit on gaf. It's all text based for me. Keeping it simple. Twitter is my gif dessert

howdareyou.gif

 

[nial]

Only after the release of the Best of PlayStation Network Vol. 2 collection

That being the only way to get Tokyo Jungle physically in North America was such a bullshit move from SCE, lol.

 

[TVexperto]

Jason Scheisser making up shit again? Yawn

If that owuld be true we would hear at least from a fraction of the 200 laid off that its true

At this point Jason is doing everything to stay relevant

 

[Pasta la Vista]

What drives me nuts about this whole situation is that this could have been amazing. The fundamentals are already there, add in the new combat mechanics and it could have been great.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

His reporting is atrocious.

All he does is find an unspecified number of malcontents from a big company, gets quotes from them, and then tries to paint his fabricated narrative using those quotes. Have any of you worked at a job with more than 5 employees? There's always one person who complains all the time and b****es about the boss. He never tries to give an accurate, well rounded perspective of anything he covers.

That's what media people do.

If a company lays off 100 people and 90 dont really give a shit as they understand and just want their severance pay and move on. Writing an article based on indifferent people or ones who are happy to get canned so they can get one last payout because they are already 58 years old and will retire based on it is no fun nor clickbaity.

 

[FunkMiller]

You don't have to see it because you have no stake in the game. You're just a single customer with very little information surrounding the matter.

PlayStation sees it. They've built entire departments reading acute data on these trends. A lot is riding on how well they can read the market. They've been really good at doing that since the PS1. Nothing suggests that they all of a sudden got bad at it now.

Yes indeed. I just have the information of how many GaaS games have self destructed.

You've become obsessed with the idea that GaaS is this ever growing sector with no limits. It isn't. As is clearly demonstrated by the fates of so many GaaS games.

No one argues that GaaS games aren't successful and don't make money. There's just not really that many of them. Sony realised this. When will you?

 

[ArtHands]

Perfectly normal for Sony to roll some heads (of Playstation Studios) off over the cancellation.

 

[ComputerBlue]

I can't even figure out what people are actually complaining about here, but it just looks like another case of:

I'm yet to hear any rational criticism of Sony's first-party output this generation that doesn't use any of the aforementioned excuses.

PS2 and PS3 era, some single years had as many first party releases as we’ve had in the entirety of the PS5 life up until this point.

Does it take much longer to produce games? Absolutely. But is the output still abysmal? Absolutely.

 

[Woopah]

The post was about the generation output as a whole but yes, heck, I was saying the same thing last year. But I've realized that one major talking point of 2023 is that it was somehow the result of a supposed overfocus on Western AAA blockbusters, and then when we get nothing of that this year, the narrative suddenly pivoted to "we need more big games" and "those are second party games".

Agreed. Same with how people complained about Sony abandoning multiplayer and only doing "AAA walking simulators". And then when Sony does invest in multiplayer people complain about too much GAAS.

we know they (Sony) have been fucked because they haven't had a proper showcase in like 3 years now... crazy.

They had a proper showcase last year.

 

[BeforeU]

for 4 years of development, they must have working beta at least. Would love to see some leaks. But I always thought it was going to be generic TPS multiplayer, which most people will play for few hours until novelty wears off. So yeah, crazy wtf did they do for so many years working on it.

 

[Sybrix]

My zero knowledge of game development..................................................... can they just get it to a state where it plays and release it for free?

I know I'd wanna play a bare bones verison of this for free.

 

[Perrott]

Can you provide any receipts at all to the notion that her departure was to do with ND and TLOU2?

Super high profile producer and executive that has historically been attached to the success of Naughty Dog, Santa Monica, Insomniac and Sucker Punch properties is unceremoniously fired right at the time of the collapse of Naughty Dog's "most ambitious project ever" and flagship title of Sony's live-service initiative, The Last Of Us Online, which had to be shelved due to a severe scope mismanagement from the production-side of development.

You shouldn't need more than that to get a good picture of what went down.

 

[HeisenbergFX4]

His reporting is atrocious.

All he does is find an unspecified number of malcontents from a big company, gets quotes from them, and then tries to paint his fabricated narrative using those quotes. Have any of you worked at a job with more than 5 employees? There's always one person who complains all the time and b****es about the boss. He never tries to give an accurate, well rounded perspective of anything he covers.

And the malcontents are usually the reasons we find out about the missteps of any company

 

[adamsapple]

And the malcontents are usually the reasons we find out about the missteps of any company

If we left it to the CEO's, the only things we would find out are about their exotic car collections.

 

[TheThreadsThatBindUs]

Super high profile producer and executive that has historically been attached to the success of Naughty Dog, Santa Monica, Insomniac and Sucker Punch properties

Yes... multiple studios. Not just ND.

is unceremoniously fired

Receipts please?

There is no evidence she was fired. Even David Jaffe recanting his original statement and admitted she could have left on her own volition, e.g. disagreement with the new studio boss Herman Hulst.

right at the time of the collapse of Naughty Dog's "most ambitious project ever" and flagship title of Sony's live-service initiative, The Last Of Us Online,

Also, right at the time Herman Hulst came into the WWS boss role... and guess what... Hulst's second hand man from Guerilla stepped into her role after her departure. Sort of looks like Hulst drove her out to install his own people...

... or it could have been for many other reasons.

Without receipts it's better not to speculate, because that's all you have... i.e. baseless speculation.

which had to be shelved due to a severe scope mismanagement from the production-side of development.

Categorically wrong. It was shelved due to the resourcing demands that would have required almost the entire ND studio to work on the game forever. There was no scope mismanagement. Rather, they started the project and ramped up to a standalone GaaS title without fully knowing the extent of the resourcing demands.

You shouldn't need more than that to get a good picture of what went down.

Lol... I'm asking for facts and you're provided nothing but baseless speculation. No, I will not blindly accept that just because you say so. If you make a claim, back it up with facts or GTFO.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

And the malcontents are usually the reasons we find out about the missteps of any company

I've never found his reporting to be convincing. Malcontents are annoying.

 

[yurinka]

What I meant is that the current situation is the result of all the above in a compounded effect.

for example:

Covid added like 2 years to everything
+
games are taking 4-7 years to develop already (especially new IPs)
+
GaaS fucked Sony´s pipeline and some of their single-player studios.
=
we know they (Sony) have been fucked because they haven't had a proper showcase in like 3 years now... crazy.

GaaS didn't fuck any pipeline or anything at Sony, SIE has more first party games under development than ever had before and for 2024 they released or have planned to release a dozen titles.

And didn't fuck any SP studio, there's only London Studio who was shut down after having several failures in a row and not being able to release a hit since the PS3 (which was a GaaS btw, PS Home).

ND cancelled TLOU Online but in addition to this they were working in two new single player games, plus also overviewing/supporting the remasters/remakes/collections/PC ports/non-gaming adaptations. For the first time ND was working on 3 new games at the same time. Maybe after canning TLOU Online they started TLOU3 going back to 3 games developed at the same time because Neil said in April 2023 (in the TLOU2 documentary) that they finally found a good concept/idea for TLOU3 they were happy enough with.

Regarding the covid delays, in the few cases I know of AAA developments (not Sony, other publishers) the covid related delays added normally around half a year or a year, with some rare case of a year and a half. In many cases wasn't only covid related delay, but also mixed with other many traditional delay reasons all games normally have.

But every generation AAA from all companies take longer to be made and require more people because they get bigger, more complex and detailed, specially in the art side. They not only have more enemies, NPCs, environment props, animations, etc. to be made, plus also feature more abilities or features: visually they are more detailed and realistic, so require more work.

 

[Perrott]

Lol... I'm asking for facts and you're provided nothing but baseless speculation. No, I will not blindly accept that just because you say so. If you make a claim, back it up with facts or GTFO.

What facts are you expecting to get on such a behind-the-scenes matter on a videogame forum? You think Sony dropped a press release detailing the entire situation? You actually expect anyone to upload internal documents and emails? What kind of facts do you want exactly?

Your whole conspiracy theorist angle around Hermen Hulst taking over PS Studios with his own Guerrilla people is a thousand times less rational than the explanation I've given you.

Categorically wrong. It was shelved due to the resourcing demands that would have required almost the entire ND studio to work on the game forever. There was no scope mismanagement. Rather, they started the project and ramped up to a standalone GaaS title without fully knowing the extent of the resourcing demands.

And yes, if your project grows way beyond your own ability to deliver on it, that's a production issue.

 

[Loxus]

I'm trying to figure out why their heads should be rolling.

Just resume development and release it to recuperate some of the expenses.

Did they delete all the files when it was canceled?

 

[VinnyMac]

If the game was shit it was shit. Don't knew that and pulled the plug. It's not like it was winning awards behind closed doors and then got canceled they gave them 4 years....

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

Schrier is the best insider in gaming when he gives specifics. IE: "They're going to show X game at the next event."

When he uses vagaries and muddy language, his reliability is less consistent.

No doubt, but his "less consistent" moments of reliability are still better than a lot of people's "most consistent" moments.

Tho meanwhile there are people usually dismissed as being bad insiders yet they have pretty solid sources at least to things like hardware. MLID is one of them.

I'm trying to figure out why their heads should be rolling.

Just resume development and release it to recuperate some of the expenses.

Did they delete all the files when it was canceled?

I guess it's partly about opportunity cost. If they were to repackage the content and release it years later, say 2026/2027, what would the target platforms be? Where will the show be at in order to maximize cross-proliferation of marketing & hype beats?

In both cases you could say a window of opportunity has been lost when Factions 2 could've been releasing later this year just slightly ahead of TLOU Season 2, in the middle of the PS5 lifecycle right around the launch of the PS5 Pro (where it could've maybe been a showcase for that, considering it's ND). Something like 2027 gets you a game with some public baggage due to earlier news/rumors, that may not have a new season of the TV show to give it a boost, no new (sensible) remake for Part 1 or Part 2 to give it a boost, and TLOU3 not due until the PS6 (probably exclusive to that system console-wise).

It also gets you a game releasing at the tail end of the PS5's commercial run (as the primary console); do you really want to encourage that console base to extend usage with their PS5s on a GAAS that'll be supported for many years, versus use that game to shift them towards a PS6?

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

No doubt, but his "less consistent" moments of reliability are still better than a lot of people's "most consistent" moments.

Tho meanwhile there are people usually dismissed as being bad insiders yet they have pretty solid sources at least to things like hardware. MLID is one of them.

Schreier makes some REALLY dumb points in this podcast though.

1. He says Destiny 2 is not profitable. That doesn't check out unless he sneakily omits context...

The Destiny team is roughly 400 employees. There's a lot of studios in this industry around that size. Naughty Dog for example. Destiny 2 was one of the top 12 highest grossing games on PC in 2023, a year that was not viewed as a banner year. In early 2022, someone from Bungie said Destiny 2 is was the most profitable it had ever been at that point and they expected the remainder of 2022 to break records for the studio. This suggests to me that Destiny 2 is likely a top 20 grossing game on Steam every year.

Now look at the 400 person teams (Larian Studios, Naughty Dog) who go 5 or 6 straight years with almost no income. I'm sure Destiny 2 goes into the black during drought months but it clearly generates a ton of revenue every single year that most studios their size simply do not.

So Jason is probably telling the truth that Destiny 2 is not profitable at a specific point in time, especially when you take into account Marathons team size, but he's omitting context because he knows his audience won't think.

2. He says that Marathon is a bad bet because Destiny fans prefer PvE and he isn't sure if Extraction Shooters are still popular.

Again, this is really dumb thinking. Bungie wants to generate money from their PvE loving Destiny 2 audience...why would they create another PvE game to siphon players away from their golden goose? You create a PvP game to develop a new audience so you can have two golden gooses. Honda doesn't make a competitor to the Honda Accord...they make a Honda Pilot because no one in business is as stupid as Jason Schreier suggests. Again, he says something so ludicrously stupid, and the other 3 hosts nod with drool dripping from their mouths.

Also, Extraction Shooters are still popular judging by Tarkov and Hunt Showdown. It's a new genre that has had 0 AAA efforts in the arena. That's literally the definition of a good bet.

3. He suggests that there's no hype for Marathon. Again, he omits vital context because he's speaking to mouth breathers...

Online discourse generally does not hype multiplayer games. Online discourse hates GAAS. And they DEFINITELY don't hype multiplayer games that haven't gotten a gameplay trailer. Expecting hype for Marathon, an essentially unknown IP with no gameplay makes no sense. You can only suggest this to people who don't have their brains flipped to ON.

 

[Bernardougf]

PS2 and PS3 era, some single years had as many first party releases as we’ve had in the entirety of the PS5 life up until this point.

Does it take much longer to produce games? Absolutely. But is the output still abysmal? Absolutely.

Its amazing how people are coping with Sony first party handling.... from the grestness of the second half of ps3 all to the end of ps4 and now this shit ??? Copium and Hopium ... nothing more.