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State of Play Thursday, September 14 at 2pm PT / 5pm ET / 10pm GMT

I think Sony is in a lot more trouble than people realize when it comes to their first-party development.

As others have said we don't really have a single confirmed game for 2024, though I'm sure we can rely on another MLB The Show game. Though still stunning that they aren't releasing these on PC yet.

When in Sony's entire history have we not known a single game confirmed for an entire 12+ month period, especially after a pretty dry 2023...?

Day's Gone was released in early 2019, yet we don't even know what Sony Bend has? We're pushing nearly 5 years... So it sounds like a combination of covid and probably development issues. We know they were recruiting around Unreal Engine, which in itself is miraculous for a first-party studio.

Ghost of Tsushima was released in 2020 and we haven't seen anything from Sucker Punch since.
Dreams came out in early 2020 and Media Molecule is shedding employees and founders. Would not be surprised if MM closes down, yet it's hard to understand why Dreams wasn't ported to PC.

Naughty Dog's live service game was delayed because it didn't meet expectations. 3 years into the generation and we haven't seen anything from them other than a port and a remake.

Polyphony Digital still hasn't ported GT7 to PC.

Bluepoint released Demon's Souls in 2020 and again nothing to show since.

The Twisted Metal TV show came and went without ANY showing of the game.

London Studio has yet to put out a PS5 game and their last game came out in 2019...

The biggest games Sony has made over the last 3 years have been cross-gen games... Something very strange is going on that studios across the board are struggling. Maybe it's the new hybrid nature of work and more remote work, combined with significant delays via covid and probably a lack of infrastructure to really support remote game development.

I doubt Pixelopus will be the last studio closed for Sony this generation. Deviation Games while not owned by Sony, certainly is on the verge of closure as a result of things not going well. Haven Studio's game looks like complete trash, really begging the question as to why Sony bought them.

One could say that Sony really needs to look at their marketing and their lack of a roadmap, but at the same time the PS5 is selling like hotcakes. And there was once a time where Sony wasn't even a major publisher. Ultimately, I think we're seeing an impact across the industry with unfinished/rushed games, games that don't innovate. AAA is a really bad space to be in right now.


Great post and as you and someone else here said Sony (and lots of others) are stretching themselves too thin. Why does Spiderman 2 look so unimpressive graphically? They're stretched thin. Why was the Last of Us Remake so lame? Stretched too thin. Why has Naughty Dog been so behind this gen? Too many projects like the TV show and Factions. Etc etc. Now Sony has Guerilla doing a big Horizon gaas project ..

This is all the result of Jim Ryan and his greedy business moves. Sony now focused on PC, ps vr2, ps5, and gaas ans that's not what made them great last gen when they were focused on Ps4 amazing technical marvels single player exclusives.

Any longtime Sony customer who just has a PS5 should be pissed off at the way Sonys shifted towards PC and gaas.
 

Mibu no ookami

Demoted Member® Pro™
In 2022 Sony was advertising a role for Senior Director PC Planning and Strategy.

They filled the role internally promoting Dawn Jones who had just been promoted to Director of PC Planning and Strategy.

Before being the director of PC Planning and Strategy, she was a director of product marketing.

So did she get promoted to Senior Director because she was doing a great job at PC Planning and Strategy or because she had been a director at Sony for almost 3 years?

She's been in charge of PC Strategy for almost more than 12 months now. Maybe she's not getting enough funding/resources, but it seems like they're all over the place.
 

Heisenberg007

Gold Journalism
OLKL.gif
After the numerous positive impressions, I'm actually really looking forward to playing Foamstars 😄
 

Mibu no ookami

Demoted Member® Pro™
Great post and as you and someone else here said Sony (and lots of others) are stretching themselves too thin. Why does Spiderman 2 look so unimpressive graphically? They're stretched thin. Why was the Last of Us Remake so lame? Stretched too thin. Why has Naughty Dog been so behind this gen? Too many projects like the TV show and Factions. Etc etc. Now Sony has Guerilla doing a big Horizon gaas project ..

This is all the result of Jim Ryan and his greedy business moves. Sony now focused on PC, ps vr2, ps5, and gaas ans that's not what made them great last gen when they were focused on Ps4 amazing technical marvels single player exclusives.

Any longtime Sony customer who just has a PS5 should be pissed off at the way Sonys shifted towards PC and gaas.

+Spider-Man 2 looks to utilize the same engine from Spider-Man Remastered and Spider-Man Miles Morales. A new engine probably would have pushed out the release of the game further. Spider-Man itself looks to have been using the engine from Sunset Overdrive, but the desire for Insomniac and Sony was to get Ratchet and Clank and Miles Morales out as quickly as possible to have content for the PS5 near/at launch.

+Last of Us Remake was rushed out to release on time for the TV show's release. the PC port was such a mess that it gave Naughty Dog a major black eye. The remake was so rushed that they didn't redo the gameplay and design around the Last of Us 2 and instead decided to just pretty up the graphics while keeping the 2013 Gameplay intact...

+Naughty Dog, I think had significant issues with the performance of LOU2, but the critical acclaim for the game prevented layoffs. That being said, they needed to do some high profit margin efforts. So they focused on a LOUP1 remake and an Uncharted 4 port to PS5 and PC. Those endeavors are high margin, but have delayed them significantly in putting out the content we want to see from them. Their pursuit of a GaaS title something that isn't a strength of theirs at the moment has also delayed them. People talk about Playground Games not having the experience to do Fable, and this is similar. Naughty Dog has A LOT of experience, but anytime you're doing something new, it's going to be difficult and likely slow. But Naughty Dog doesn't want to be left behind when they see Bungie and Epic Games.

+The Last of Us TV show was wildly successful and helped the remake sell significantly better at a ridiculously high price. This will help fund Naughty Dog through the rest of the generation. Not the project we wanted, but it will make up for the lack of sales of TLOU2

+Sony is chasing the dragon on GaaS. They need a hit game or two. They need that continous revenue through out the year. Single player games are big for them, but they take too long to develop and like TLOUP2 if they underperform, they're devastating to the annual revenue. Jim Ryan understands that, so he's desperate for some GaaS revenue to bolster the books. It might seem greedy, but he's trying to keep the business growing and moving. You look at the layoffs Santa Monica had and it comes when you have a game underperform and another game gets canceled. Essentially you've not profited from a studio for 4+ years, it always comes at a cost, but if you have GaaS there is an argument that you can absorb some of these losses and take more risks.

+Jim Ryan is looking to diversify their portfolio to keep Sony in the black. Even in the PS4 generation, you'd see them slip into the red at times. Certainly during the PS3 generation. Sony isn't Nintendo in terms of software development and fanbase, so they can't at this time rely on a PlayStation store and trading cards e.t.c. That's why you see Sony buying Audeze to get into the headphone market. Sony has seen the market pass them by because they weren't actively involved. Sony could have made the Wii, they had the EyeToy first. Sony could have made Fortnite, but they were too focused on PlayStation as a box. Dreams could have been just as big as Roblox. I do agree with Sony that they need to diversify, but you can't dabble. You have to really invest and double down on your investments. It seems Jim doesn't know where to double down yet.
 

DrFigs

Member
They haven't had a ton of success when it comes to that. I'd say that Sackboy isn't really a great example either.

Patapon didn't really sell well and was mainly meant to be a driver of the portable systems that Sony no longer manufactures. Not surprising that they wouldn't support another Patapon.

I think Sony's answer to the long development times is to focus more on 3rd party games to fill the gap and that they'll come in towards the latter part of the generation with some bangers that are hopefully pretty polished. That and their GaaS games. I think GaaS is going to be rough out of th gate for Sony.

But just really baffling moves that I'd love to sit down and interview someone on. I've said for a long time but the following games are dying to be on PC:

GT7
Dreams
MLB The Show
Bloodborne
Demon's Souls

I could see why Bloodborne might be difficult, but Demon's Souls should be relatively easy and it would probably sell more on PC than it did on PS5 with some moderate advertising.

Their PC strategy seems to be brain-dead.
i'm gonna have to disaagree. i think putting playstation games on pc is a terrible idea. and i couldn't imagine a bigger insult than sony consistently releasing more games on pc than on the ps5.
 
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Mibu no ookami

Demoted Member® Pro™
i'm gonna have to disaagree. i think putting playstation games on pc is a terrible idea. and i couldn't imagine a bigger insult than sony consistently putting more games on pc, than on the ps5.

How is it insulting? The games come out on PS5 first. By coming out on PC it means the studios can make significantly more money that they can reinvest into more games for PS5. It's a win-win for everyone.

I think Sony needs to improve community relations. Their blog site should have a feature request page that people can vote on as well as game requests. They need better direct engagement with the community.

Games today take forever to make, nearly what used to be a generation (5 years). It's hard not to release these games on other platforms with that much investment.
 

Mibu no ookami

Demoted Member® Pro™
You look at Insomniac and ask can they make a game as large as say Cyberpunk 2077?

Well, they're half the size of CDPR and Spider-Man 2 probably hasn't been in development for more than 4 years or so, while Cyberpunk was in development for 9 years.

So half the team size and even less than half the development time... it hurts when that small* team is also working on other games like Wolverine and Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart and Miles Morales...

It's obvious that Spider-Man 2 wasn't going to be a generation-defining open-world game. That's not to make excuses though. Elden Ring was probably in development about the same amount of time and FromSoftware is smaller than Spider-Man 2.
 

hlm666

Member
i'm gonna have to disaagree. i think putting playstation games on pc is a terrible idea. and i couldn't imagine a bigger insult than sony consistently releasing more games on pc than on the ps5.
Well the console market hasn't increase since the ps2 days, 120 million still seems to be about all they can hit so you have a couple of choices here because Sony like every other corp wants more revenue year on year. You can try hit the pc market to squeeze some more revenue out of your titles or you can have even more price increases on retail game prices and/or even more price increases on sub services.

If they also keep their upcoming gaas games exclusive to console the chances of them being a success diminishes aswell.
 

ProtoByte

Weeb Underling
In 2022 Sony was advertising a role for Senior Director PC Planning and Strategy.

They filled the role internally promoting Dawn Jones who had just been promoted to Director of PC Planning and Strategy.

Before being the director of PC Planning and Strategy, she was a director of product marketing.

So did she get promoted to Senior Director because she was doing a great job at PC Planning and Strategy or because she had been a director at Sony for almost 3 years?

She's been in charge of PC Strategy for almost more than 12 months now. Maybe she's not getting enough funding/resources, but it seems like they're all over the place.
The PC ports clearly haven't been making the money Sony thought they would. By the end of this gen, I predict they'll stop it entirely (especially with the presence of the Pro), and Nixxes will become a technical support/remaster studio similar to Valkyrie in terms of asset creation.
 

Mibu no ookami

Demoted Member® Pro™
The PC ports clearly haven't been making the money Sony thought they would. By the end of this gen, I predict they'll stop it entirely (especially with the presence of the Pro), and Nixxes will become a technical support/remaster studio similar to Valkyrie in terms of asset creation.

That's throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Some games have made a lot of money and some games have performed poorly.

What's the deciding factor? The quality of the port and the demand for the game.

There are games that Sony owns that would have demand on PC. If ported well, I think they would perform financially quite well.

Sackboy didn't do well on PS5, why would it do well on PC?
 

Mr.Phoenix

Member
So you don't have any middle solution?
The middle solution is literally what Sony does.
Nintendo Direct doesn't exist, can't hurt you?
And there it is, I figured you wanted it to be like one of the other shows instead, and I basically gave you what MS and Nintendo do. And now we see where your preference is. And no, I personally prefer sonys approach, its not as obnoxious and MS says Game Pass and world premiere every 3 mins, and not as childish or hand-holding as Nintendo where they have a cartoon network host basically narrate the entirety of the show to you, even during the trailers.
Sony has yet to show us ONE single next gen looking game on the horizon.
Even after their last showcase left us high and dry with freakin Spiderman 2 of all games not even looking next gen! They are tone deaf to not be trying to show that they are in fact still the Sony we used to know. Sony get your shit together. They should be hyping Spidey 2 but you can't tell me they didn't phone it in graphics wise. I probably wouldn't want to show it much if i was in their shoes as they know it'll sell anyway.

I'm definitely worried about Sony in the next couple years. They have not showed up like they did last gen, where by now we were literally getting blown away by games like Uncharted 4.
What's your idea of a next-gen-looking game? And who would you say has made one or done one. And while you are at it, what would you say are the top three best-looking console games right now?

I must warn you, this is a trap.
 

mrmustard

Banned
The PC ports clearly haven't been making the money Sony thought they would. By the end of this gen, I predict they'll stop it entirely (especially with the presence of the Pro), and Nixxes will become a technical support/remaster studio similar to Valkyrie in terms of asset creation.
And i predict by the end of this gen the pc ports will be much closer to release (~3-6 months) and next gen day1.
 

ProtoByte

Weeb Underling
That's throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Some games have made a lot of money and some games have performed poorly.
None of them have appeared to make "a lot" of money at this stage. I mean, the highest they've gotten is to the very low 7 figures range - after multiple years and discounts. Bearing in mind that they only take 70% of the revenue.

What's the deciding factor? The quality of the port and the demand for the game.

There are games that Sony owns that would have demand on PC. If ported well, I think they would perform financially quite well.
Bloodborne and maybe Gran Turismo. That's practically it imo.
Even then, you have to understand that for all the hype, Bloodborne didn't sell amazingly on PS4. Dark Souls 3 sold 10 million across 3 platforms. Great number; but Elden Ring going open world is what boosted FS up a league.

Sackboy didn't do well on PS5, why would it do well on PC?
I think most of the single player stuff is guaranteed to be mediocre performance wise. These types of games aren't what people game on PC for. I think they knew they were going to invest in making sure their live service shit would be on PC, and thought they might as well port SP stuff too.

But I also think the live service chasing is dead after this gen.
 

Mr.Phoenix

Member
The majority of PlayStation Studios are making Live Service games. The only big one that hasn't hired for multiplayer is Santa Monica.
This is just not true, unless

  1. you don't know how many PS studios there are and/or
  2. you don't know the difference between multiplayer and live service.
 

Mibu no ookami

Demoted Member® Pro™
None of them have appeared to make "a lot" of money at this stage. I mean, the highest they've gotten is to the very low 7 figures range - after multiple years and discounts. Bearing in mind that they only take 70% of the revenue.


Bloodborne and maybe Gran Turismo. That's practically it imo.
Even then, you have to understand that for all the hype, Bloodborne didn't sell amazingly on PS4. Dark Souls 3 sold 10 million across 3 platforms. Great number; but Elden Ring going open world is what boosted FS up a league.


I think most of the single player stuff is guaranteed to be mediocre performance wise. These types of games aren't what people game on PC for. I think they knew they were going to invest in making sure their live service shit would be on PC, and thought they might as well port SP stuff too.

But I also think the live service chasing is dead after this gen.

I mean, maybe you don't know what a lot of money is, but God of War, Spider-Man Remastered, and Horizon have all performed really well. Not sure how many units you think it takes to make a port worthwhile. The game is already done.

You think there is a market for Bloodborne but not Demon's Souls? They both sold about the same. MLB The Show would probably sell about as well proportionally as the other sports games that release on PC, if not better because there has never really been a baseball game on PC for such a long time.

Maybe Gran Turismo? LOL, okay...

You've also ignored Dreams which is better suited on PC than console. Ghost of Tsushima would also probably perform adequately on PC.

Live Service games aren't going anywhere anytime soon. That's like saying online gaming is a fad...

I remember when Genshin Impact was announced and people thought it was just a poor ripoff of Zelda and that it would fail... now it's one of the largest games on the market.
 

supernova8

Banned
Sony has yet to show us ONE single next gen looking game on the horizon.
Even after their last showcase left us high and dry with freakin Spiderman 2 of all games not even looking next gen! They are tone deaf to not be trying to show that they are in fact still the Sony we used to know. Sony get your shit together. They should be hyping Spidey 2 but you can't tell me they didn't phone it in graphics wise. I probably wouldn't want to show it much if i was in their shoes as they know it'll sell anyway.

I'm definitely worried about Sony in the next couple years. They have not showed up like they did last gen, where by now we were literally getting blown away by games like Uncharted 4.
I honestly don't think they will show us anything until PS5 sales trends start deteriorating (or Xbox sales pick up or both). Plus you said it yourself, people will buy Spiderman 2 regardless, even though it doesn't look like a big upgrade from last-gen.

Only worry is if the stuff they are holding back is just GAAS bullshit. If so, yeah we're fucked haha
 
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This is all the result of Jim Ryan and his greedy business moves. Sony now focused on PC, ps vr2, ps5, and gaas ans that's not what made them great last gen when they were focused on Ps4 amazing technical marvels single player exclusives.

Any longtime Sony customer who just has a PS5 should be pissed off at the way Sonys shifted towards PC and gaas.
Even though I am not a big fan of a gaas model, it makes sense to try. Very much like they tried some MP in the PS3 era, eg. MAG or Fat Princess. At least better than make really almost only over the shoulder games because those were the "amazing technical marvels sp excl" They missed the start imho already by a mile, so like all the GTA, Souls, BR clones they might come too late anyway. But 1 of 10 hitting might be a success, so who knows.
PC and even VR is not binding much ressources. Porting a game is not requiring a huge team or entire studios (beside the port studios, obviously). PC is just easy money. VR might require some thoughts in the very beginning of designing your visuals but should also not really require an insane effort like a brand new game, for a non exlusive at least, which should anyway be the prefered way since VR-exclusives, at least big ones, are a waste of everyone's time and money. And here comes the problem with the focus on over the shoulder cam. Some of these games could probably work quite as well with an optional first person mode and then could be much easier be ported to VR. But Sony failing to realise that is imho just insane. Sure I'd lose my character, in that optional mode I need as a stepping stone for VR, but no one forced VR on Sony and they seem to be commited to not give a damn about VR themselves even though Horizon, TLoU, Days Gone, Returnal, Helldivers 2 all could easily be VR games... with VR in mind from the get go. Spiderman might be the only one I struggle to see how the fighting could work in VR. Also Bethesda was quite into VR in the past, where is the Deathloop VR addon?
 

Sintoid

Member
The middle solution is literally what Sony does.

And there it is, I figured you wanted it to be like one of the other shows instead, and I basically gave you what MS and Nintendo do. And now we see where your preference is. And no, I personally prefer sonys approach, its not as obnoxious and MS says Game Pass and world premiere every 3 mins, and not as childish or hand-holding as Nintendo where they have a cartoon network host basically narrate the entirety of the show to you, even during the trailers.

What's your idea of a next-gen-looking game? And who would you say has made one or done one. And while you are at it, what would you say are the top three best-looking console games right now?
Ok you prefer a thing
 

Heisenberg007

Gold Journalism

Mr.Phoenix

Member
+Spider-Man 2 looks to utilize the same engine from Spider-Man Remastered and Spider-Man Miles Morales. A new engine probably would have pushed out the release of the game further. Spider-Man itself looks to have been using the engine from Sunset Overdrive, but the desire for Insomniac and Sony was to get Ratchet and Clank and Miles Morales out as quickly as possible to have content for the PS5 near/at launch.
This is not a bad thing, especially considering how good Insomniac engine is. It's unfortunate people can't differentiate between technical prowess and art style. Thing of this though, Insomniacs engine doesn't just have all the features of a modern game engine(and they were doing these things in their engine before it became mainstream), they are currently one of the only two sony first-party studios that have an engine that does RT.
+Last of Us Remake was rushed out to release on time for the TV show's release. the PC port was such a mess that it gave Naughty Dog a major black eye. The remake was so rushed that they didn't redo the gameplay and design around the Last of Us 2 and instead decided to just pretty up the graphics while keeping the 2013 Gameplay intact...
I don't see the relevance of this.
+Naughty Dog, I think had significant issues with the performance of LOU2, but the critical acclaim for the game prevented layoffs. That being said, they needed to do some high profit margin efforts. So they focused on a LOUP1 remake and an Uncharted 4 port to PS5 and PC. Those endeavors are high margin, but have delayed them significantly in putting out the content we want to see from them. Their pursuit of a GaaS title something that isn't a strength of theirs at the moment has also delayed them. People talk about Playground Games not having the experience to do Fable, and this is similar. Naughty Dog has A LOT of experience, but anytime you're doing something new, it's going to be difficult and likely slow. But Naughty Dog doesn't want to be left behind when they see Bungie and Epic Games.
Where are you getting this entire narrative from?
+The Last of Us TV show was wildly successful and helped the remake sell significantly better at a ridiculously high price. This will help fund Naughty Dog through the rest of the generation. Not the project we wanted, but it will make up for the lack of sales of TLOU2
WTF? Seriously where are you getting this from? TlOU2 has sold over 10M as of June 2022. Sobasicay 10M after 2 years and thats considered bad/poor sales? In comparison to what? Part one that was bunded as a free title with the PS4? And I am sure of this for certain because that's how I got the game, bundled with my purchase of the PS4.

And you are talking about the game and show as if they are the same entity. They aren't. Its part of Sony's francization of their IPs, allowing for better cooperation between PlayStation, Sony Pictures and Sony music.
+Jim Ryan is looking to diversify their portfolio to keep Sony in the black. Even in the PS4 generation, you'd see them slip into the red at times. Certainly during the PS3 generation. Sony isn't Nintendo in terms of software development and fanbase, so they can't at this time rely on a PlayStation store and trading cards e.t.c. That's why you see Sony buying Audeze to get into the headphone market. Sony has seen the market pass them by because they weren't actively involved. Sony could have made the Wii, they had the EyeToy first. Sony could have made Fortnite, but they were too focused on PlayStation as a box. Dreams could have been just as big as Roblox. I do agree with Sony that they need to diversify, but you can't dabble. You have to really invest and double down on your investments. It seems Jim doesn't know where to double down yet.
I am lost... they bought Bungie.. doubling down doesn't get any more doubling than that. Gamers are just a petulant childish bunch. These things take time. Veery major shift or new initiative takes time. And a lot of people here simply can't see the forest from the trees.
 

Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
The reality is that with all the disruption caused by Covid, Sony lost 12months plus in terms of dev-time on most if not all of their internal projects. A delay we'll be feeling as end-users for the next few years because big projects literally take that long from greenlight to launch.
 

Sanepar

Member
i'm gonna have to disaagree. i think putting playstation games on pc is a terrible idea. and i couldn't imagine a bigger insult than sony consistently releasing more games on pc than on the ps5.
Insult for who? Fanboys?

Pc Market is huge and they will get a good balance of increased sales with PC. They just need to timeframe better their releases. 12 months of consoles exclusivity is more than enough and would improve a lot sales on PC.
 
Indies and third party ? Awesome! :D
Sony first party games sux, isn't for me...(Maybe 1 or 2 exceptions)
 
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Punished Miku

Human Rights Subscription Service
I'm sure there will be at least something interesting and cool. Monster Hunter would definitely be awesome to see.
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
They literally said when this was announced and in investor calls, that this was in "addition to" what is already there. They even increased their traditional games budget alongside adding a budget for gaas which included gaas studio purchases or contracts.

But there are those who want to ignore the context and nuance to push or indulge in doom & gloom. And there are others who don't know the meat and potatoes because the former drowns out the context.

Reminds me of the "Ratchet & Clank is only possible on the PS5" bullshit, or the "we believe in generations" crap. Both of which were purposely being pushed with intellectual dishonesty.
This keeps being repeated but Ive seen those slides. Their SP budget actually went down in 2022 from 2019 while the GaaS budgets ballooned. In 2025, the SP budget has ever so slightly increased from 2019 while their GaaS budget quadrupled.

FTsh8tFX0AAk2ST


Cost and budgets of games have gone up substantially since 2019, so that extra is basically accounting for inflation. Their GaaS push is real and is coming at the expense of the budget single player developers need in 2025 to ship out games on time.

Its not a coincidence that the drop in single player investment has coincided with spiderman 2 being the only first party single player title launching this year with ZERO single player games announced for 2024 so far. ZERO.
 

Woopah

Member
Has gaming investment declined, it been 2 years since Sony has shown anything of note. Same with Nintendo and Microsoft.
Even in the last 12 months, I'd say Pikmin 4, Rise of the Ronin, Death Stranding 2 and Mario Wonder are noteworthy.

In terms of investment, Sony's last Showcase featured announcements from three studios they have recently bought (Haven, Firewalk and Bungie).
EMy soft normie brain chocks this up to third parties being both close to Sony and Ninty like SE are kind of pushing them to have these shows around the same time, I wouldn't be too shocked if we see alot of SE and maybe even Capcom at both shows
Japanese third parties will be asking Sony and Nintendo for these shows, so they can announce things before TGS.
 
This keeps being repeated but Ive seen those slides. Their SP budget actually went down in 2022 from 2019 while the GaaS budgets ballooned. In 2025, the SP budget has ever so slightly increased from 2019 while their GaaS budget quadrupled.

FTsh8tFX0AAk2ST


Cost and budgets of games have gone up substantially since 2019, so that extra is basically accounting for inflation. Their GaaS push is real and is coming at the expense of the budget single player developers need in 2025 to ship out games on time.

Its not a coincidence that the drop in single player investment has coincided with spiderman 2 being the only first party single player title launching this year with ZERO single player games announced for 2024 so far. ZERO.
Wolverine is targeting a late 2024 release date, this has been known for a while by press. You are also forgetting about Death Stranding 2, not sure if that Targeting 2024 or not but it's possible.
 
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Punished Miku

Human Rights Subscription Service
Wolverine is targeting a late 2024 release date, this has been known for a while by press. You are also forgetting about Death Stranding 2, not sure if that Targeting 2024 or not but it's possible.
I always assumed Death Stranding 2 was 2024 honestly. The 1st was developed relatively quickly for being a new studio, and this one is clearly building off the last game and not starting from scratch.
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
I always assumed Death Stranding 2 was 2024 honestly. The 1st was developed relatively quickly for being a new studio, and this one is clearly building off the last game and not starting from scratch.
Jimbo fucked it up. Kojima makes his games fast but DS didnt get announced till like 2022 even though Kojima signed on to make 2 games back in 2015. Meanwhile kojima was going around begging Google and Microsoft to fund his next game after shipping DS1 in 2019 and having won the VGA best director award. If i had to guess, sony saw the 3ish million sales of DS and pulled the plug before greenlighting it in 2022 when they realized they had nothing set for 2024-2025. Days Gone sold way more and they didnt order a sequel so 3 million for DS was probably too little for Jimbo.

Remember Norman Reedus said that they are going to start doing mocap sometime in the middle of 2022. If Jimbo had greenlit the game immediately after the first one released, they wouldve started mocap as early as January 2020.

What we are seeing here are fuck ups by Jimbo dating back to 2019. Had DS2 and DG2 been greenlit immediately after shipping in 2019, 3-4 year dev cycles for sequels wouldve resulted in 2023 having SPiderman 2, Days Gone 2 and Death Stranding 2. A fantastic year. But we all know what happened with Sony Bend, and while we dont know why kojima has taken longer to do a sequel than he did making a new IP from scratch without and office or an engine, its obvious that the game didnt start development until mid 2022. 2.5 years after DS1 came out.

During 2020 and 2021, Sony went out and cut deals with GaaS studios like those ex-treyarch guys who are now in development hell, ex-bungie guys who took 3 years to make a CG trailer for their GaaS game, Nixxes who is a PC porting studios, Housemarque and BP. Not to mention having ND make factions, GG make Horizon online and insomniac a THIRD game which is supposedly GaaS. Then there was that all out bidding war for the eventual 2022 purchase of Bungie. All of which undoubtedly affect decisions to greenlight more single player games.
 
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Punished Miku

Human Rights Subscription Service
Jimbo fucked it up. Kojima makes his games fast but DS didnt get announced till like 2022 even though Kojima signed on to make 2 games back in 2015. Meanwhile kojima was going around begging Google and Microsoft to fund his next game. If i had to guess, sony saw the 3ish million sales of DS and pulled the plug before greenlighting it in 2022 when they realized they had nothing set for 2024-2025. Days Gone sold way more and they didnt order a sequel so 3 million for DS was probably too little for Jimbo.

Remember Norman Reedus said that they are going to start doing mocap sometime in the middle of 2022. If Jimbo had greenlit the game immediately after the first one released, they wouldve started mocap as early as January 2020.

What we are seeing here are fuck ups by Jimbo dating back to 2019. Had DS2 and DG2 been greenlit immediately after shipping in 2019, 3-4 year dev cycles for sequels wouldve resulted in 2023 having SPiderman 2, Days Gone 2 and Death Stranding 2. A fantastic year. But we all know what happened with Sony Bend, and while we dont know why kojima has taken longer to do a sequel than he did making a new IP from scratch without and office or an engine, its obvious that the game didnt start development until mid 2022. 2.5 years after DS1 came out.

During 2020 and 2021, Sony went out and cut deals with GaaS studios like those ex-treyarch guys who are now in development hell, ex-bungie guys who took 3 years to make a CG trailer for their GaaS game, Nixxes who is a PC porting studios, Housemarque and BP. Not to mention being in an all out bidding war for the eventual 2022 purchase of Bungie which undoubtedly affect decisions to greenlight more single player games.
Interesting theory. It could be true, for sure. Guess we'll see.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but in Jim Ryan's defense (HAHA), I probably wouldn't have greenlit a Death Stranding 2. But I get it has lots of fans. I am going to try to replay part 1 some day. Really didn't click with me the first time. I still respect the game though as its surely original.
 
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StueyDuck

Member
Japanese third parties will be asking Sony and Nintendo for these shows, so they can announce things before TGS.
yeah that would be my assumption, square can't afford to market the same nintendo and Sony can so they really need to maximize as much as they can with as little as they can. Makes sense for discussions to happen behind the scene as well as some deals to get the marketing working together
 

Magic Carpet

Gold Member
I am already complaining because they chose an awkward between work and quitting time. If they chose 2 hours before or after would have been preferred over 2PM PST.
 
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