Sony is setting new records all the time, like the Q3 FY24 data, and you claim they are somehow out of touch with the gaming community?
The big thing to understand with PS5 is it's essentially cashing checks that the PS4 era team wrote when they were in charge, at least when it comes to the hardcore audience.There is a difference between being results and process-oriented.
The question isn't how good sony is doing but how good they could be doing.
The response to Ghost and Intergalactic was not what it should have been and much of that is due to the format they were shown in. One in a lowly state of play and the other at TGA where half the audience hates Sony with a passion.
This stuff matters and their lack of sales on titles that should be selling bigger is a result of that. The same was true of Astro Bot which they clearly didn't believe in or Helldivers 2.
You have to call balls and strikes as they are.
There is no guarantee that what you're suggesting would completely change everything. Assuming anything needs changing, that is.
Besides, when TLOU1 was announced, it was being bashed for being jsut another zombie corridor shooter that was going to be mediocre.
People also thought GamePass and cloud streaming was the future.
What some people think will be the case doesn't always happen.
And what lack of sales?
Astro Bot is an AA title and I'm pretty sure Sony didn't expect it to sell tens of millions of copies.
Helldivers 2, which was a sleeper-hit, sold well over 12M copies, despite people claiming live service is shit.
People (and maybe Sony themselves) are still stuck in the ps3 vs 360 era arms race that was going on. They had to invest heavily in first party back then.While you are right you do understand that the whole point of the Playstation is to make money off third party purchases correct? Playstation's priority isn't to create first party games and sell them to as many people as they possibly can. Their priority is to sell the console and then make easy money doing nothing but giving access to their userbase. This is why they are making record profits with shitty first party sales because they don't rely on that for profit.
This is like looking at Playstations profits and then saying "but their accessories are selling like shit". Sure they want their first party sales to be as high as possible of course but the primary driver of growth is their console and pulling in 30% from all purchases. Not trying to sell as many copies of Spiderman 2 as they can.
Which brings us back to what they've been saying for years: development cycles for AAA take longer and longer.The big thing to understand with PS5 is it's essentially cashing checks that the PS4 era team wrote when they were in charge, at least when it comes to the hardcore audience.
These results are largely a representation of what the Platform and publisher relations teams were able to achieve.
The PS studios part of the equation has not been living up to its potential though, neither from a cost control POV, nor from a games output POV either.
This is weird question. By that logic, pretty much every game isn't a success, as even 10M sales would be disappointing if it could have sold 20M.You’re not really listening.
If I make a game and expect to sell 2 million copies but it sells 4 million does that mean that I did the best job I could if there was an opportunity for the game to sell 8 million copies?
I'm always process oriented, that's why I keep saying that Sony is making logical decisions given how they are investing in live service, to expand their library and generate more revenue so they can fund AAA and AA singleplayer development as well.You’re an actively being results oriented instead of process oriented. You must realize that.
Not sure how to even respond to this as I'm not really sure what your point is.Was Concord successful? That’s actually not a useful question. That’s results oriented. The better question is why wasn’t it successful?
Why was Marvel Rivals successful while suicide squad kill the justice league wasn’t?
Know the answers to these questions allows you to replicate the success of marvel rivals while avoiding the failures of suicide squad and concord.
Lego Horizon got a bigger ad budget than Astro Bot. That’s alarming and disappointing. Maybe some of that was contractual with LEGO, there are generally reasons for things, but you have to be able to pick up on bad patterns.
Astro Bot was largely sold out at retail after winning game of the year. It’s only recently been back in stock as of mid to late January. That’s awful.
That's what they're doing, but due to many studio closures, a lot which happened pre-Ryan/Hulst, they don't really have the necessary studios anymore to give everyone what they want.Sony needs to learn how to be a better general publisher. They have a ton of unforced errors that mature publishers largely would never do.
Also not sure where you're going with this.If namco Bandai published bloodborne how much would it have sold across platforms and probably with a remaster? That’s why dark souls did better than demons souls and why Elden ring did better than bloodborne.
Why was dreams received well publicly and critically but not a commercial success? Why weren’t they able to monetize it on PC and VR?
Another publisher would have made it their mission to make dreams the next Roblox.
Sony can and should dial things back now. Their budgets are out of control.
But this isn't something they are completely powerless over.Which brings us back to what they've been saying for years: development cycles for AAA take longer and longer.
So to mitigate that, they need releases and revenue in between major releases, which is at core of their gaas-strategy.
They also need to release more smaller titles, but a lot of studios have been shut down last-gen, before current management took over (incl Hulst).
They're restructuring, but the changes they are making now are necessary as the market has changed compared to PS3 and PS4 even.
As long as we don't have any details, there is no way we can say much about a GOW-like Gaas title.But this isn't something they are completely powerless over.
Proper project management and strong leadership that knows what it wants would have seen things ship much quicker and cut loser projects much earlier. How the fuck is a GOW-like GAAS game something that even gets to early development? That should have been a harpooned pitch.
Are there things like COVID that impacted them? Sure, but that impacted everyone else on the market too.
I will say that depending on Sony's future plans with the PS5, the length of lifetime sales, how deep sony goes with price cuts, maybe based around a ps5 super slim for example, and the exodus of Xbox users not only from Xbox One but potentially Xbox Series, and maybe some pushback on PC adoption due to the 50 series, sony COULD potentially push upwards of 150 or even 150+.
I think it would take a lot though.
I'm talking about a base price of the PS5 Digital at 250 dollars, discounted to like 200 during holidays. PS5 Pro down to 500 dollars and 450 during holidays.
If the Xbox One sold 58 million units and let's assume the Xbox Series caps at 35 million and that entire userbase moves to PS, that would be +23 million. Let's assume that everyone who gets a PS4 gets a Ps5, that's 117 million. That would put you at 140 million. Add some Xbox series users and net new users and yeah, you could get to 150 million.
But the truth is there is some churn between new users and old users, even with some overall growth. Not every Xbox One user will jump to PS5 and you're probably not going to see a huge number of Xbox Series users jumping to PS5.
I also think the dominance Sony is showing will have them keep prices up higher than we'd normally see.
I think 140 is a pretty safe ceiling.
To elaborate on this. I just spent time all morning in most of the games announced, individual threads.
Most of the responses are how incredible they look and how hyped people are. But overall the showcase is an "F" ???
Yeah, we're retarded. No other explanation.
Some things you should learn
Perception is reality
Know your audience
Set expectations
Wasn't it 2.9 million in the US? Outside of US markets have shrunk considerably versus xb1 and 360 days.Literally a perfect post here. Nobody seems to thinking about the bolded that @Ozriel said here. China and Chinese games will be KEY 2025 and beyond. Please believe!
WHAT?! The Xbox Series consoles sold 4 million in the calendar year of 2024?! No WAY! I thought it did close to 6 million.
What's even more baffling is that all of the games from the Direct, minus one, are all slated to be released on the PlayStation 5, too. The only real benefit nowadays for Xbox owners is Game Pass.GAF:
Microsoft Direct gets an A for Ninja Gaiden 4, Doom, South of Midnight, and Expedition 33
Also GAF:
Sony’s State of Play was awful, F-tier trash, ruining gaming, there’s no new IPs in gaming it’s all sequels and remasters and GaaS slop, fuck you Hermen where’s my PC port
Onimusha
Shinobi
Saros (Housemarque)
Metal Gear Solid 3
Tides of Annihilation
Hell is Us
MindsEye
Directive 8020
Lost Soul Aside
Sonic Racing
Lies of P expansion
The Midnight Walk
Darwin’s Paradox
Days Gone Remaster
Fuck outta here with this clown world doomer double standard bullshit.
damn those are some stumbling PS5 sales
Any news on Pro unit sales?
You know the same thing happened with series generation.Say what?
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Xbox as a console brand seems to be really dying lately can Scarlett change that or will it be a short lived project?
There was more hype around Xbox Scorpio than there is around Scarlett , Xbox One X started off with a nice push from Microsoft but it seems like they quickly gave up on it you can get a Xbox One X for $402 right now but no one seems to care that it's $97 off . You can get the Xbox One S A.D for...www.neogaf.com
Yeah super hard and 99% chance of that NOT happening. I think the PS5 Pro would have to hit $400 during the holidays in 2028+. 140 is a VERY safe ceiling. Anything less than 130 million is a failure on Sony's part at this point to be honest.
Any news on Pro unit sales?
SERIOUSLY!
I think ps6 will be pushed back to 2029. Really no need for it with series no longer any kind of viable competition hardware wise. Devs are hitting their stride with ps5, still yet to hit mass market pricing and 75 million units already in the bank. Base PS5 spec is solid enough to target for many years to come.I don't think that is feasible. Some element of the PS4 userbase will skip ps5 and go straight to PS6.
I don't think we'll see the PS5 sold long enough and cheap enough to hit 150+ million.
I do think a large percentage of the PS4 active userbase buys PS5 when GTA6 hits though and that we'll see ultimately much larger sales than PS4, but that number is definitely closer to 130 million than 150.
I think ps6 will be pushed back to 2029. Really no need for it with series no longer any kind of viable competition hardware wise. Devs are hitting their stride with ps5, still yet to hit mass market pricing and 75 million units already in the bank. Base PS5 spec is solid enough to target for many years to come.
Oh I'm pretty certain talk of another Xbox console is pure FUD. If they sold just 4 million series units in 2024.....even less in 2025 seems certain as many previous xbox franchises release on ps5 as filler this year. Zero momentum to excite people on another gen of xbox hardware, when it won't have any exclusives as they'll all be day 1 on pc on gamepass for $12 a month.It's possible, but I don't think Sony will risk Microsoft beating them to market. I think if it were up to Sony, they'd wait til 2030 to launch the PS6.
Yep.The big thing to understand with PS5 is it's essentially cashing checks that the PS4 era team wrote when they were in charge, at least when it comes to the hardcore audience.
These results are largely a representation of what the Platform and publisher relations teams were able to achieve.
The PS studios part of the equation has not been living up to its potential though, neither from a cost control POV, nor from a games output POV either.
Those who do not learn from their history are doomed to repeat It.You know the same thing happened with series generation.
Series s was down to $150 for all Verizon customers and series x down to $350 wasnt it two years ago now and barely anybody cared.
Hate to ruin the party but he was talking about PS5 Pro selling 8 million & not PlayStation 5 selling 8 million in a quarter. He will still end up wrong though , put your pecker away lolGuys get ready. Banjo64 has to keep his promise
Oh I'm pretty certain talk of another Xbox console is pure FUD. If they sold just 4 million series units in 2024.....even less in 2025 seems certain as many previous xbox franchises release on ps5 as filler this year. Zero momentum to excite people on another gen of xbox hardware, when it won't have any exclusives as they'll all be day 1 on pc on gamepass for $12 a month.
The thing is, industry has been doing this as a whole for - decades. Especially GaaS which had precisely the same cycle we're seeing now, over a decade ago and that also killed multiple major studios and wasted hundreds of millions $. And it tanked the entire Xbox strategy long before Spencer was even accountable for any of it.Proper project management and strong leadership that knows what it wants would have seen things ship much quicker and cut loser projects much earlier.
It's just GaaS hype cycle rinse and repeat - this is the 3rd such wave I've seen in last 2 decades - and each time - it was littered with corpses of similarly nonsensical projects (most of which never saw the light of day, but certainly burned money). Besides even when they 'do' look sensible on paper they still more often fail than not, because the entire formula of "big IP + GaaS = Guaranteed BIG $$$$" never, ever actually held true. But that doesn't stop people with money from keep repeating the mistake.How the fuck is a GOW-like GAAS game something that even gets to early development? That should have been a harpooned pitch.
I do wonder about this one - while Sony has always done rather well driving prices of hw down, strategy seems to have moved away from race to the bottom from PS3 onwards. PS4 Slim for instance launched clearly built to scale in price - they had it down to 199 promotional pricing one month after it came out, evident it could have gone even lower.I think their priority should be getting out a cheaper BOM PS5 SuperSlim, so that they can afford as cheap a price as they possibly can with the expectation that the PS5 will continue to sell for the next 6 years.
What? This is not true, AT ALL.Lego Horizon got a bigger ad budget than Astro Bot. That’s alarming and disappointing.
What? This is not true, AT ALL.
If anything, Lego Horizon was a bit left behind outside of that one commercial they did.
Lego Horizon didn't have stuff like this.
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It wasn't even playable at ChinaJoy and Tokyo Game Show, while Astro Bot did and was pushed hard both times.
It was just one example, though.Stuff like this doesn't cost anything. This is probably less than 5k dollars worth of advertising material.
Lego Horizon had weeks of advertising on facebook and Instagram...
It was just one example, though.
Not only Astro Bot got all what you mentioned as well, but weeks for Lego Horizon? It was a single week at most when the commercial came out.
I don't get your obsession with pretending that Astro Bot was not well marketed.
The last time is basically never.When's the last time one of those shows had a good poll on here? I'm always left wondering what everyone is expecting.
Another self-entitlement bullshit "I'm audience"Perception is reality
Know your audience
Set expectations
The last time is basically never.
Sony's been on a different marketing and product path than what we enthusiasts want. For better or worse.
Plus this is a free forum so making socks and manipulating forum polls is super easy.
Another self-entitlement bullshit "I'm audience"
Same bullshit as pcmr or "Sony is d00med" - people thinks that besides their small comfy forum the whole other world simply does not exist.
Sony won console race for the time being. In late PS3/PS4 era Sony had to concentrate on core audience vastly reducing game genres diversity as they fight for survival and core audience is fundamentional. Now as competitor dropped out, Sony try to spread to wider market to get more people with niche interests to the platform.
Actually making show for core audience have much less sense, it's already locked-in, they will not switch to dying xbox because they were shown 3-4 games and not 10. Advertising to niches has much more sense as Sony can bring the, back to platform.
So yes, "know your audience", it's just you are not target audience.
Was Concord successful? That’s actually not a useful question. That’s results oriented. The better question is why wasn’t it successful?
Why was Marvel Rivals successful while suicide squad kill the justice league wasn’t?
Because I didn't. There were promotion posts for like, every single PlayStation game last year. It's like the most common use of digital marketing. Maybe you just didn't catch any or forgot them? That always happens.Not sure why you're making that up. I paid attention in real time. I didn't see a single ad for Astro Bot on either Instagram or Facebook. Not one.
I don't recall seeing a single commercial for Astro Bot either, though as you mentioned there were Lego Horizon commercials.
Can you link me to a commercial for Astro Bot? Not a trailer, a commercial.
Because I didn't. There were promotion posts for like, every single PlayStation game last year. It's like the most common use of digital marketing. Maybe you just didn't catch any or forgot them? That always happens.
BTW, not my experience, but I do remember someone saying that they got an ad for the game in their smart TV.
Astro Bot also had those playable demo spots for the entire month of September in Japan:
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Taiwan:
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Malaysia:
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Las Vegas:
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I don't think these are the biggest marketing efforts ever, but to say that one commercial and common digital promotion (which Astro Bot also had) beat them?
I think that I showed two examples that were not exactly that, but those are in addition to a digital ad campaign.That you think any cheap local advertising is more effective than a digital ad campaign, which I was specifically looking for for Astro Bot and didn't see is equivalent to what Lego Horizon got is amazing. Again, I saw ads for LH every single time I opened Instagram or Facebook. Every time. That's $$$$ advertising. Not playable demos or cardboard stands...
He'll drag the goalposts to the moon and back. How could you ever compare to his real time online ad presence metric? Its science!I think that I showed two examples that were not exactly that, but those are in addition to a digital ad campaign.
I mean, seriously, all the time? I don't remember seeing a single digital ad for Spider-Man 2 on IG, for example.