Support NeoGAF

[RetroGamingUK]

1) SIE was easily the best managed company in the entertainment industry until Totoki took over (Totoki is in charge) :


-Nintendo sales and profits are in free fall (and nobody gives a damn)

-PlayStation overtook Nintendo in Asia

-PS5 sold 2.5 million units in Japan in 2023, the highest ever for a PlayStation console since the PS2 in 2004 ·

-PS is outselling Xbox 2 to 1 in the US for the first time in 20 years

-SIE games are selling better than ever in the US

-The PS5 generation has been as profitable as all the four previous generations combined

-Microsoft games are coming to PS5



2) Jim Ryan set the stage to sell 140m and dominate gaming like never before, but Totoki only cares about margins.




High margins will boost short-term profits and kill PlayStation in Europe and Japan


High margin strategy requires assets. And PlayStation (G&NS) is starving because Music are Pictures are eating well (atrocious capital allocation by Totoki)

3) PlayStation (G&NS) is a wonderful business owned by Sony Group, a dysfunctional conglomerate run by accountants in their 60s (Yoshida and Totoki) willing to increase their own compensation by squeezing more profits out of PlayStation.

Yoshida (1959) and Totoki (1964) have no future. They're willing to run PlayStation into the ground in order to achieve their financial goals.

4) David Gibson (MST Financial) has been warning people:

I don’t think people on here quite realise just how well PlayStation is doing as a business, they’re still breaking records

2:1 against Xbox in the US is just ridiculous.

And it seems like their profit margins are so high on PS5 console that there’s room to lower prices if needed.

 

[mayham2199]

Let me expand your points a bit:

PC
+ Upgradability
+ Open system
+ Mods
+ Emulators
+ Work (Video edit, photoshop, etc.)
+ Guaranteed game compatibility in case of popular Nvidia cards
+ Performance above 60 fps and superior to PS5 even with mid-range PCs (4060/4070).
+ Low priced games at Steam, Gog, Epic
+ More variety of games
+ No fee for multiplayer; not geo-locked
+ Games can be shared with friends (Gog)

Console
+ Simplicity
+ Price
+ Ease of use
+ Guaranteed game compatibility and performance

Clearly, the pros of a PC are far more than consoles. But the main thing is majority of average middle class people all over the world can afford a PC. And they don't see much value in a console this gen due to meagre exclusives. Unless you are poor and can't afford a gaming PC, console gamine does not look like a good value proposition.

I think Last stand media said it best. You know what else is a horrible value proposition? Doordash. Food is way more expensive and isnt' even as good as goign to get it yourself. Yet it's still used by millions. Why? Becuase of convenience.

You PC gamers don't seem to understand people want convenience after work. They just want to turn on their console from their controller that's on the couch and start playing games. They don't want to get a PC and then learn how to set it up and get a console like experience which even then still wont be as convenient as a console.

People just want something that plays games and is easy to use and yes they will pay more to do get that experience.

 

[Sanepar]

This hasn’t affected their traditional studios though.

Most of GAAS is coming from newly acquired studios

Nope. Bend is on gaas. London studio was on gaas. Naughty dog was on gaas. Guerrilla on gaas. Maybe didn't affect santa monica and sucker punch. Maybe. Firesprite had 2 teams one was on gaas. Imagine all these teams focused only on sp aaa playstation quality games.

 

[jumpship]

There have been some very huge misses recently by PlayStation and it’s tarnishing the ps5 generation. Concord, TLOU live service experiment, Marathon, Destruction Allstars, the purchase of Bungie have all been giant failed experiments. All these failures are the result of trend chasing.

Concord, didn't work out. New team, leadership new to gaas. Shit happens.
Helldivers 2, no credit given to leadership here guess you wanna keep things negative.
Destruction Allstars, you said recent and mention an early 2021 game!?
Marathon, this game hasn't even released.
Bungie, Sony gave Bungie autonomy with a caveat of taking control if they mess things up. We now know they messed things up. The key reason for purchase was their experience in gaas.

Sony want a gaas hit for steady cash flow, and already said they don't expect them all to be huge hits.
Reality is, It's a really tough market with no guarantees.

Many have praised Insomniac for carrying Sony this gen. While I appreciate their efforts, I cannot say that their titles have been innovative. On the contrary, they’ve been safe. I don’t blame insomniac as they’ve had to carry all the others studios lack of output. Now we’re hearing news of a Horizon remaster which is safe. TLOU remaster, again safe. Until Dawn remake, again safe. Frankly, this is not what we’re looking for from PlayStation.

Guess you could say Insomniacs recent PS5 games were safe. Some really good technical acheivements shown already though and have high expectations for future releases. Great Studio.

Regarding Remasters, have you ever thought you're maybe not the target demographic for these releases? There are transmedia opportunities with upcoming TLOU season 2, Until Dawn Movie, Horizon TV series.

The Film/TV projects brings new customers and increased sales for those games. See TLOU, FALLOUT

People have harped on Jim Ryan as the cause of this but I find it surprising that no one is talking about Herman Hulst. In many ways, the stagnation of PlayStation software is a direct reflection of him. He lead GG and they made technically competent, safe, boring games. I’ll probably catch a lot of flack for this but Horizon is boring af, Shadow Fall was boring af. In fact, the last good game GG made was on the ps3. Their games have amazing visuals, passable gameplay and horrendous stories. PlayStation today is technically sound with technically competent games but no innovation. When we look at the type of games that came out in the ps3 and ps4 generation, it’s easy to see that there has been a regression in terms of innovation.

Agreed GG can make improvements to gameplay and storytelling. The rest i don't agree with but that's your opinion.
Hoping future full PS5 releases blow us away. Great Studio.

The most damning thing is the absence of mid tier games by PlayStation. Games made by smaller dev teams meant to fill the gap between big releases. Now they rely on indie developers to do so and frankly, it’s just not good enough. The structure of the software studios is just poor leading to very poor output. It’s so bad that we’ve seen a relative drought of releases for the platform. There have been good games like Astrobot, GT7, Returnal but it’s been very few. To truly understand how bad this gen would be, just imagine this gen without backwards compatibility. Can it stand on its own merit? Absolutely not.

First it's an absence of mid tier games, then you list some and say it's very few. You should bare in mind all projects got delayed due to covid, probably a year behind where we should be. The release window between announcement and release has also changed considerably. A short announce to release window like Astro Bot would be unheard of lastgen.

You seem to have collated this years internet dramas and made a thread.

Where's your mention of XDEV? they work with studios worldwide on many projects
Where's your mention of India hero project or MENA hero project?
Where's your examples of innovation in games to even compare too?

You're just going have to get used to the changes this gen. No more road maps years in advance. SIE will make games outside their comfort zone like gaas. No longer catering to just the hardcore gamer, they want/need to expand the business to new customers too.

Having said all that I get the fustration fingers crossed for the State of play.

 

[FalconPunch]

Concord, didn't work out. New team, leadership new to gaas. Shit happens.
Helldivers 2, no credit given to leadership here guess you wanna keep things negative.

Helldivers 2 is almost literally the same game as Helldivers 1 but in 3rd person. Why would I give new leadership any credit for that?

Destruction Allstars, you said recent and mention an early 2021 game!?
Marathon, this game hasn't even released.
Bungie, Sony gave Bungie autonomy with a caveat of taking control if they mess things up. We now know they messed things up. The key reason for purchase was their experience in gaas.

Yes Bungie messed it up and messed it up badly however the purchase of Bungie was reactionary. As we can see by Bungie's financials and output, it was a terrible buy.

Sony want a gaas hit for steady cash flow, and already said they don't expect them all to be huge hits.
Reality is, It's a really tough market with no guarantees.

The reality is that is not Sony's bread and butter. That's not why people come to playstation. So what sony did was sacrifice a large portion of their audience to trend chase for an audience they didn't have. So now, they neither have the games as a service audience nor do they have the single player audience. This gen by Sony barring a handful of releases has been utter trash. Insomniac has been carrying so hard that it's affecting the quality of their games. They're reusing so many systems, their games are starting to feel like Ubisoft games.

Regarding Remasters, have you ever thought you're maybe not the target demographic for these releases? There are transmedia opportunities with upcoming TLOU season 2, Until Dawn Movie, Horizon TV series.

The Film/TV projects brings new customers and increased sales for those games. See TLOU, FALLOUT

Who is the target demographic? Other than TLOU remaster, which other remaster has lit the charts alite? I'll wait.....

First it's an absence of mid tier games, then you list some and say it's very few. You should bare in mind all projects got delayed due to covid, probably a year behind where we should be. The release window between announcement and release has also changed considerably. A short announce to release window like Astro Bot would be unheard of lastgen.

Please don't talk about Covid in 2024. It's a lazy excuse.... We have 3rd party devs who went through covid and are still releasing games at steady cadences..

You seem to have collated this years internet dramas and made a thread.

Where's your mention of XDEV? they work with studios worldwide on many projects
Where's your mention of India hero project or MENA hero project?
Where's your examples of innovation in games to even compare too?

You're just going have to get used to the changes this gen. No more road maps years in advance. SIE will make games outside their comfort zone like gaas. No longer catering to just the hardcore gamer, they want/need to expand the business to new customers too.

If SIE stop making games I like, I'll stop giving them my money? It's really not a big deal... It will instead go to Nvidia and other developers I like. Ubisoft fucked around with it's core audience, now it's finding out. Microsoft did the same with their core audience and became completely irrelevant. They had to buy back relevance by spending $70 billion to buy activision. If Sony wants to also mess around, they'll find out... It's about time we get a huge industry crash anyway. It's long overdue.

 

[jumpship]

Helldivers 2 is almost literally the same game as Helldivers 1 but in 3rd person. Why would I give new leadership any credit for that?

Because if you're judging the recent performance of leadership surely you should include hits like Helldivers2 and AstroBot? You even padded out your list by including a game from early 2021 and an unreleased game due next year. Not to mention SIE's involvement with Stellar Blade and Rise of Ronin.

Yes Bungie messed it up and messed it up badly however the purchase of Bungie was reactionary. As we can see by Bungie's financials and output, it was a terrible buy.

Bungie got targeted for their live-service experience. Before that Sony considered the aquisition of Leyou Technologies the owner of Digital Extremes who developed Warframe. That deal didn't happen and they eventually turned to Bungie who agreed to join. Sony then created a "Live Service Center of Excellence" to provide live-service expertise to the rest of PlayStation studios.

Sony also agreed Bungie leadership could govern themselves until they had no choice but to step in. Is this the reason you say its a bad buy?

The reality is that is not Sony's bread and butter. That's not why people come to playstation. So what sony did was sacrifice a large portion of their audience to trend chase for an audience they didn't have. So now, they neither have the games as a service audience nor do they have the single player audience. This gen by Sony barring a handful of releases has been utter trash. Insomniac has been carrying so hard that it's affecting the quality of their games. They're reusing so many systems, their games are starting to feel like Ubisoft games.

Why do uou think Sony making multiplayer games is trend chasing and sacrificing their single player audience? We're still getting single player games from Sony too. And what made PS successful over the decades is the variety of games to the platform either from 3rd or 1st party studios. They've made multiplayer games in the past, now best associated with single player games. I personally commend Sony for not being complacent and venturing out to other genres in a hunt for success and new audiences.

And saying barring a few releases Sony released utter trash this gen just confirms the its trash take to be honest.

Who is the target demographic? Other than TLOU remaster, which other remaster has lit the charts alite? I'll wait.....

Short answer, it's not you obviously.
Longer answer, just off the top of my head: A new generation of gamers entirely new to the franchise. Fans of the original who prefer to play the game at todays standards. Audiences from other media (TV/FILM) who want to experience the game its based on.

If the TV/FILM is a hit, we've seen it can have a knock on effect on game sales. It's a good strategy to help expand the audience.

Please don't talk about Covid in 2024. It's a lazy excuse.... We have 3rd party devs who went through covid and are still releasing games at steady cadences..

Covid definately played a factor in the release schedule of games I brought it up as it delayed games in production. You also need to factor in that Sony are more secrective about future games and announce games closer to release.

If SIE stop making games I like, I'll stop giving them my money? It's really not a big deal... It will instead go to Nvidia and other developers I like. Ubisoft fucked around with it's core audience, now it's finding out. Microsoft did the same with their core audience and became completely irrelevant. They had to buy back relevance by spending $70 billion to buy activision. If Sony wants to also mess around, they'll find out... It's about time we get a huge industry crash anyway. It's long overdue.

If a company stops making games you like why give them money, no arguments there. Bare in mind there are many PS studios working on projects we still have no clue about.
I get the fustration as I also wait for more PS heavy hitters. Just felt your opinion focused on the online dramas surrounding PS that also lacks the facts rather than a more nuanced discussion point it probably should have been. Just speaking my mind, but I've seen your opinion said by even die-hard PS fans currently unsatisfied with the direction of Sony this gen. AKA show us all your upcoming big games Sony.

 

[SpokkX]

If Sony is the one missing creative leadership, what does that make Nintendo and MS?

Sony being the only one with diverse lineup covering most types of games!

Your basis is flawed and biased. Close this thread

Nintendo missing creative leadership are you kidding?

They release banger after banger - several top titles every year with great variety

With regrads to the topic I agree - lately Sony feels a bit boring and safe. Even Ragnarok, while still good, felt to polished so the edges would not hurt anyone.

 

[EverydayBeast]

Creativity helps when you have things like virtual reality such a high level of gaming, when gaming is creative gaming sells well.

 

[chokotoureiki]

Nintendo Switch has put out the greatest hits from Gamecube, Wii and WiiU on the platform and you're talking about Sony? Who cares if they're putting out remasters and remakes? Don't buy them. Go buy all the other stuff that's out. We're in a point and time where we're getting more games than we can shake a stick at.

Pretty much. Nintendo, Square, Capcom, among many others do it all the time too. With Nintendo however, they released 3D All Stars as a limited time release and then removed the digital version which was pretty moronic bc it's essentially free money they couldve been making as their rabid fans will literally go broke over anything they churn out. Now scalpers are selling it on eBay for way more than the original price, and of course their fans are dumb enough to pay outrageous prices thus justifying scalping.

Remasters and remakes are fine given the uncertain state of the industry, and getting mad over it is pointless as it's long been an effective practice for generations. Just don't make it limited like Nintendo cuz that's dumb.

 

[nnytk]

I hope the Astro Bot team gets the recognition they deserve. As a new and happy PS5 pro owner, this game is rocking my world.

And it features so much of the creativity and fun in game design that I have not seen from Sony in a while.

I hope to see a return to form from Sony with new titles from their precious ip too, tbh.

 

[Zacfoldor]

*Cough* Bullshit

Nintendo plays it very safe. Then once every couple of generations they will try something different with a Pikmin or a Splatoon.

The real reason Nintendo are so good is not because they take risks but they have been subtly refining the same gameplay mechanics for 40 years.

Brah, not only did Nintendo invent BotW, they then invented physics with TotK and finally they invented the Steam Deck, the PS Portal, and whatever bullshit Microsoft is working on right now when they invented the Nintendo Switch.

What more do you want?

Nintendo only "plays it safe" in your eyes because they have created the infrastructure to innovate without taking risks. If something fails like Alarmo, like Labo, like Nintendo live action theme park, like Mario movie, it doesn't matter that much. That is just part of their plan.

Why do you think Sony or MS do that even put their boring politically correct Japanese divesting sorry asses in the same ballpark as Nintendo when it comes to innovation?

What game have THESE two companies made that isn't a redundant repetitive sack of copying shit? Astrobot? Gee, who invented that?

 

[fallingdove]

Brah, not only did Nintendo invent BotW, they then invented physics with TotK and finally they invented the Steam Deck, the PS Portal, and whatever bullshit Microsoft is working on right now when they invented the Nintendo Switch.

What more do you want?

Nintendo only "plays it safe" in your eyes because they have created the infrastructure to innovate without taking risks. If something fails like Alarmo, like Labo, like Nintendo live action theme park, like Mario movie, it doesn't matter that much. That is just part of their plan.

Why do you think Sony or MS do that even put their boring politically correct Japanese divesting sorry asses in the same ballpark as Nintendo when it comes to innovation?

What game have THESE two companies made that isn't a redundant repetitive sack of copying shit? Astrobot? Gee, who invented that?

I thought I had traveled back in time. A reply to a post from September 20th, sheesh — I was a younger man then.

After the failures that were the N64 and GameCube, Nintendo DID lean into more experimental hardware but most of this thread (and certainly my post) was based around creativity in games… no?

On the topic of games… I stand by my 2 month old post. They play it safe. The only reason Mario isn’t called Popeye the Sailor Man featuring Bluto and Olive Oil is because they could get the rights to the IP and Super Mario 2 is a rip off of Doki Doki Panic so pure originality didn’t exactly start off on solid ground.

There’s nothing original happening in BOTW or in TOTK but I am glad it’s new to you. The majority of Nintendo’s games are borrowing from popular trends at the time and polishing them to an insanely high shine. That’s it. And for most gamers that’s enough. However — holding them up as some creative oasis gives them too much credit. There are plenty of other developers delivering more than Nintendo are, they just don’t have nostalgia to get them the attention they deserve.

And if you are talking about Sony’s creativity, they made mature games mass market, gave us Gran Turismo, rhythm games, Loco Roco, Ico and Shadow of the Collossus, were first to believe in the Souls genre, gave us the Gravity Rush series, Puppeteer, LittleBigPlanet… And yes AstroBot, which had more innovation and creativity in Rescue Mission for the VR than the last 5 3D Mario titles.