To think they would have been better off doing a Spider-Man 4 movie instead.
Multiplayer games are also very important for Nintendo.
They are releasing first party games next fiscal year, just not ones from major IP (Stellar Blade and Concord are coming for example).
Can you imagine if we had these kinds of apps in the 90s? ….. jeez…. Endless Mario and sonic killing each other in AI art.
If sales were not there I would be more concerned. The sales are there. Of course the drought in software has had an impact but I do not think it is a quality issue. What I was saying is that people calling for them to go third party are missing the point that their number one asset is the PlayStation brand and console. They will not jeopardize that by going multi-console or day and date PC for single player games. I do believe Helldivers II has expedited plans, if they were not already there, to bring more service games to PC day one. The writing is on the wall that it will be happening.
To think they would have been better off doing a Spider-Man 4 movie instead.
Spider-Man 2 - Wikipedia
en.m.wikipedia.org
Spider-Man 3 - Wikipedia
I’m not the one taking offense and writing book long responses to defend a company.
Problem is even back then when gaas was just a corpos wet dream those games bomb. Can you imagine now.
Have you seen my onlyfans account?!?
To be fair their OLED TVs are pretty sweet, their Xperia smartphones are absolutely the best in the market, They still make great audio gear, and their cameras are also still excellent. The real problem is that they seem to have lost their ability to innovate in any electronics categories. They make great high-end equipment which costs a premium, but they are no longer creating brand new markets through innovative gear like they did in the 80's and 90's. Of course Playstation has continued to be their main revenue leader, but it looks like some changes are going to be made as the entire gaming market is slumping at the moment.
That's mostly due to Kaz Hirai excellent leadership as Sony Group CEO. Someone more versed than me likeMibu no ookami or
thicc_girls_are_teh_best can probably provide way deeper insight into this topic.
David Ricardo
's post basically explains what ISN'T a long-term solution in far fewer words than I could. What I do know of that era where Sony recovered with PS3 (I'm not super versed in that myself TBH, but a lot of things can be deduced by just looking at it in hindsight), they did many smart things, namely:
its a combination of things (missing forecast, slim profit margins), but also includes this:
apnews.com
Well,
1: Cut the fat. VAIO computers weren't doing anything and costing a ton to make. Cutting VAIO to pour more focus on the console was the smart decision
2: Double down on console exclusives that appealed to core gamers at a time where PC gaming was still recovering, Nintendo was starting to lose players to mobile, and Xbox was neglecting core enthusiasts in their own console ecosystem with redundant 1P. The goodwill and improved market performance for PS3 in the last 3-4 years directly benefited the PS4, among other things.
Now look at the suggestions people are saying for Sony to do, to improve stocks and margins this gen:
1: Sell off the Financial unit. AFAIK, the Financial unit has been one of the most consistently profitable sections of the company, and probably has some of the lowest operating costs associated with it. Selling this unit off, IMO as an outsider with only cursory info, would seem like the complete OPPOSITE of what they did with the PC/VAIO unit. If anything, looking at the relative operating incomes, you'd think Sony would push for significant restructuring of the Sony Pictures unit well before selling off the Financial unit.
2: Do Day 1 on PC for all 1P releases. This is simply suicidal for the PlayStation brand. The exclusives act as distinguishing differentiators for the brand within the gaming market, and a gateway for hardcore & core enthusiasts, who are also early adopters (and have the highest ARPU on average), to jump in and set momentum in place that positively attracts mainstream and core gamers to buy in later on (as one of the big factors, but not the only one).
Exclusives have other benefits not tied to this, such as affording more targeted resource spending, better platform optimization, and fostering a sense of creative competition for devs (among the market, among each other, and among their own previous work). But there's also the fact that they help give platforms an identity and that identity helps with the branding, and getting the hardcore & core gamers, who become the early adopters, who set the momentum that helps influence mainstream & casuals to jump in later on. It's all connected, and getting rid of genuine exclusives for a Day 1 strategy on PC destroys the entire chain and sets in big platform decline.
PlayStation needs its exclusives, arguably now more than ever. Sony doesn't have vested interests in PC like Microsoft to where throwing away their console base for PC gaming becomes a write-off. So without the vested interests, it makes zero sense for them to pursue that type of strategy and allow their gaming business to be much more at the domain and control/influence of direct competitors. Nintendo gets it; Sony needs to get it.
If anything Sony should be looking at what things platforms like Steam do right, that PlayStation could implement on their platform to improve it, and make the console even more appealing in doing so. And with games, that means prioritizing big, medium, and small exclusives as much as possible. Even if they want to bring the games to other platforms, make the port windows make sense so PlayStation console owners aren't waiting longer to get 1P games, aren't getting more bugged 1P games at launch, and can always count on getting new 1P genuine exclusives within a reasonable window a game gets ported to other platforms like PC.
Also would say, a lot of the money spent on the PC ports could be better spent on doing more 1P AA titles, and getting a higher ROI on them. Insomniac suggested that themselves in the data from the ransomware hack.
What is also crazy, is that the people who keep saying Sony should do Day 1 for PC in particular, just conveniently pretend Microsoft didn't JUST buy two massive 3P publishers in large part to increase their own gaming revenue and profit margins. But now that people are asking what Sony can do, suddenly 3P publisher M&As just disappears as a topic? If M&As were supposedly so beneficial for Microsoft, why wouldn't they be for Sony? It's these people who expose themselves and their hypocrisy. They either have to admit they're complete hypocrites, or admit that 3P M&As aren't worth it (meaning Microsoft just wasted > $80 billion), or admit that the only way to make big 3P M&As work is to basically go multiplat (reaffirming the notion that Microsoft are doing exactly that and trying to ease their diehards into accepting it).
No matter what way they try to spin it, it will ALWAYS force them to reveal an uncomfortable truth about Xbox, and a lot of us don't want PlayStation to follow down that path. That's why we're so vocal in the first place, almost to the point of sounding jaded or very critical of certain things (some WAYYY more than others o.0). But I know from my POV, it's because I genuinely want to see PlayStation thrive; it's the brand that best represents gaming and has been around since my childhood. It's also the brand that has routinely shown it best understands the (non-mobile) gaming industry, and I say that even while having tons of appreciation & love for Nintendo, classic SEGA and (quite less so, but still there) Microsoft.
The production costs of some of these games are truly shocking. I don't see them as sustainable in any way because the consumers don't have the appetite for more expensive games.
Essentially doubled over the last 5 years…but I don’t expect some “gafers” to look at anything earlier than the last week because they want to make sneak disses toward other “gafers”
You're forgetting one thing about those people that suggest that.
Gaslighting 101
Not an easy company to make money off. Press the Max button on the stock chart. Depending where someone bought on the chart, they could be down. If someone bought stock 20 years at about $40 (after it cratered from the dot com boom), and held to now, you'd double your money in 20 years. Which is roughly a 4% compounded interest rate. Not really any different than someone putting in their money into a term deposit for 20 years. The company also pays a dividend which almost nothing.Essentially doubled over the last 5 years…but I don’t expect some “gafers” to look at anything earlier than the last week because they want to make sneak disses toward other “gafers”♂
And that drop off around September 2022 was for the same exact reason this drop happened. This is how the stock market works.
finance.yahoo.com
They make a lot more money from PSN sales.
I think some people are having some trouble processing that the push to 25 million PS5's this fiscal year has not worked out the way Sony planned because they view everything in terms of number of consoles sold and not in terms of actual financial impact.
Essentially doubled over the last 5 years…but I don’t expect some “gafers” to look at anything earlier than the last week because they want to make sneak disses toward other “gafers”
And that drop off around September 2022 was for the same exact reason this drop happened. This is how the stock market works.
I'm not taking anything personally. Its just a little disingenuous to act like they're in crisis when stock prices fluctuate all the time. This isn't the only video/article im referring to either. They're everywhere the last few days.
March 2020 was the recent low for the market in general, since then the Nasdaq, which is a good indicator for the overall market, is up ~130% .
Sony is up ~ 72% for the same time period
Most would say that the stock is underperforming considering the performance of the overall market. You can check the DOW and S&P as well.. the numbers are similar
IIRC in the Insomnia leaks was also a powerpoint (sorry, can not find it fast) in which the author pitched that Sony should instead of doing one 300mio game rather three 100Mio games. Such doing more games with less risk per game. And lets be honest, even 100mio is already a pretty high budget which should allow high quality games.
I get it…yes, under performing this moment. But all it takes is a game announcement or a pro official announcement to change that tune. People catastrophize literally everything these days. Shit fluctuates like any other stock. The fact that some are trying to paint a picture like “Sony is done”, or “PlayStation is dead” is insane to me. I’ve see uneducated people comment on things around here for a very long time…but when it comes to the stock market, whether it be Nintendo, Sony, or Microsoft, it’s wild to me how little people really know, and they are just talking to talk because their favorite company isn’t the one involvedMarch 2020 was the recent low for the market in general, since then the Nasdaq, which is a good indicator for the overall market, is up ~130% .
Sony is up ~ 72% for the same time period
Most would say that the stock is underperforming considering the performance of the overall market. You can check the DOW and S&P as well.. the numbers are similar
